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Anne looked up and brushed a stray bit of hair out of her eyes, a little surprised at the sight that confronted her. Two dapper gentlemen, one quite elderly, but both a bit long in the tooth, stood there proffering completed applications. It was obvious they were both nervous and equally obvious that they were a couple from the way the younger both clung to the older and supported him.
Chapter 1
I have not asked the author of the care Giver's stories to publish this, and I know it is an unfinished piece of work. If E.E. Nalley objects, I will of course withdraw this. It is meant in the way of flattery, and because I wished to write a love story based on my own and my husband's lives which gave the opportunity to live long lives in love. Please be kind with your comments, as I know I am just an amateur. Thank you.
February 24, 2032
Anne looked up and brushed a stray bit of hair out of her eyes, a little surprised at the sight that confronted her. Two dapper gentlemen, one quite elderly, but both a bit long in the tooth, stood there proffering completed applications. It was obvious they were both nervous and equally obvious that they were a couple from the way the younger both clung to the older and supported him.
“How may I help you gentlemen?”
The younger of the two spoke. “Maam, here are our applications, we wish to join your excellent organization, to become Care Givers.”
He brushed a shockingly white stray lock of hair behind his ear as she looked over the applications.
“You do realize this means you both will undergo the DeCorvin process?”
“Yes maam, that was in fact the determining factor for us. You see, we have been married for 43 years now, and it’s not long enough. We have spent our lives caring for others and the opportunity to spend more time together and to care for others is just the right thing for us, we believe we would be a perfect team. In fact we do have just one preference, and that is that we will always be assigned to the same vessel or posting, as we cannot bear to be separated.”
Anne knew that this was a special pair and immediately decided to kick this one upstairs.
“Please have a seat, someone will be with you shortly.”
They shuffled off to sit on one of the sofas decorating the lobby, the older of the two in some rather obvious pain. She could see from the way they sat together that they cared deeply for each other. The younger man was limping, but he still was careful to guide the older and make sure he found a comfortable position before he sat. It was plain that both were nervous from the way they held themselves.
Anne was on the phone as they arranged themselves. “Yes maam, you have to see it to believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more natural pair. It’s like they were born to be Care Givers. You just have to see them together to get it.” She listened for a moment. “Yes maam, five minutes, I don’t think they are going anywhere.” She gently put the headset into its cradle.
Slightly more than five minutes later, Dr. Ivanova stood inspecting the two sleeping men. The background check she had run said they were both from Charleston, and given the way air traffic ran, she knew they had been going for at least 15 hours, so she was reluctant to wake them. They just looked so precious, the younger resting his head on the chest of the older, but the snoring was getting to be more than a little irritating, so she reached out and shook them both gently.
The response she got was, to put it mildly, alarming.
The younger man rolled off the couch, springing to his feet and drawing a very large handgun from a concealed holster, leveling it at her head in one continuous motion. As his eyes came fully open, he lowered the gun, then tried to pretend that he had never drawn it, putting it back into its hiding place and showing her empty hands. The look on his face spoke volumes. It was plain that he was mightily embarrassed from the flush that stole over his face.
“I’m sorry about that, maam, please understand that I am used to being attacked or threatened in public. We come from South Carolina, and things are very bad there for people like us. I’m so sorry, please forgive me!”
She gently reached out and held him as he collapsed into a torrent of tears and incoherent noises between sobs and hiccups. The older man took him from her embrace, soothing him with his words and stroking his back, smoothing his hair away from his face.
She noted the way the younger man clung to the older and the obvious care he showed for his lover. They were so obviously a couple, and the younger one had been badly hurt at some time in the past. It was then she decided that whatever the obstacles, they would get what they so clearly wanted. Love like that was not to be wasted, and these two were clearly in love.
As the tears subsided, she began the standard introductory lecture, she couldn’t help but smile at the expression on the younger one’s face.
“You do understand that you will both undergo the DeCorvin process?”
They spoke in unison, “Yes maam.”
“You know this means that you will both be female?”
“Yes maam, and younger, and we will both live for centuries. That is what I have wanted forever, and he is willing to take this journey with me. I only ask that we be able to stay together, to be a team. I couldn’t bear to be without my love.” The younger man straightened his tunic with a determined yank at the hem.
“I can handle it if you refuse us, but please take into account that we have spent our lives caring for others. He is a therapist and I am a geek, and we could not have children of our own, but we have raised the children of others who were thrown away, and I think we have done a pretty good job of it. I beg you, please take us!”
The younger man was close to tears again and she could no longer maintain a professional demeanor.
“Of course you will be accepted. How could I refuse?”
At this point the older man spoke, his baritone a surprisingly smooth counterpoint to the younger man’s relieved tenor. “Please accept this one thing. Do his transformation in one week, so that he may have his birthday on his birthday. He will be 60 on that day, and I want it to be a special day for him.”
“Done, and well done. Will you want to undergo the process on the same day?”
“Yes, this is a journey we will take together, and thank you doctor.”
Dr. Ivanova sat in front of her monitor, absorbing what the database had told her of the two newest recruits. “How horrible for them both” she thought to herself. “For him to be assaulted so brutally and for her to be raped and beaten by those animals, I can’t even imagine!!!” I t took a moment for her to realize that she was thinking of the younger man as a female, even though he retained the appearance of a male.
“I would kill them myself, if I had the chance!!!” Right then she swore to herself that no matter what, these two would have another chance. She knew the DeCorvin process would put them through yet another series of hardships, but they deserved it.
A week later, they lay side by side on identical couches, holding each other’s hands tightly as they chugged the really quite nasty drink that contained the nanites which would initiate the transformation.
Chapter 2
Sean awoke feeling a slight woman hugging him tightly. She was uncomfortably aware of a need to go to the bathroom and squirmed her way out of the covers. She was desperate, but just as she made her way to the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of the other woman in the bed. There lay a slight blonde, maybe all of five feet 2 inches, champagne blonde hair, sleeping peacefully. Physical needs took over for the moment, but as soon as she was able to concentrate on something other than the intense needs of her body she was able to focus on what she could only assume was her lover.
“Charlie?”
The diminutive blonde stirred, brushing a lock of hair from her face and yawning widely.
“Sean?” She sat up in the bed, an incredulous expression on her elfin features. “Gawd you’re hot!” Her Southern drawl just oozed sex
“Charlie, is that you?”
Their voices ran over each other in an excited muddle of Soprano and a smoky Alto. “You look so young!” they both exclaimed, then broke off into giggling like some sort of madwomen.
“oh mmy gawd! The petite blonde was checking herself over, feeling every inch of her new self with astonishment. “I’m whole! I mean I don’t have a colostomy anymore!”
They shrieked and hugged as they danced, the taller woman practically lifting the shorter blonde off her feet with joy.
“We’re young!” they danced and capered for a few minutes longer.
Sean broke down crying at this point. “I can’t believe I am finally the woman I always wanted to be!”
“And you, you look like a young version of your mother! I mean the whole 5 foot 2, blond with eyes of blue and everything. You’re stunning, you just have to see yourself!” She sniffled as they stood together, searching in the mirror for themselves.
What they saw was a petite blonde and a taller, willowy woman with auburn hair almost down to her ass.
The shorter blonde was almost frail looking and her eyes sparkled blue, an incredibly tiny waist opening out into skinny hips, just right for her size.
Sean almost fainted when she saw herself. A muscular woman standing about 5 foot 8, an impossibly tiny waist and broad hips, but the face was the most stunning thing. There in the mirror was a woman who looked like a sort of cross between Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Audrey Hepburn, with a little bit of Brooke Shields thrown in.
“I’m so happy for you, baby, you wound up looking just like your mother as a young woman!”
Sean could only stare in disbelief. She was shocked at the way her husband of 43 years had turned out, but to see herself as she had wanted to be her entire life was just too much for her to handle. Blackness closed in as she swooned, her lover frantically trying to catch her and ease her to a soft landing. They both wound up in a tangle on the floor, the tiny blonde desperately trying to soothe the larger woman, not realizing what was wrong with her, terribly afraid that something had gone wrong with the process and crying, deep heart wrenching sobs.
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Comments
Care Givers
This is a good start, Now you've got to weave in the rest of the universe. "I.E. the laws about women in space etc...
I give this story a 7 on the 1-10 scale but it'll change when you add more to it!
I don't think (Really I don't, more of a knee jerk reaction) that E.E. Nalley will have any complaints, because others written in this universe too...
So in short, Yah done good kid! :)
HUGGELS
ChrisW
Copyright and permissions and some pointers
It is always wise (and polite) to get permission before posting. It's also the only option that is not legally a violation of copyright law. By the time an author has found out that you've used their work without permission and either approves your use or denies it, the 'damage' is already done; especially when the publishing medium is a public access web site with this much traffic. Please don't just wait for them to find out about... make an active effort to get permission, especially if you intend to continue this story.
As far as the contribution on the part of a new author goes, it has a few things going for it and a few things that you can work on to improve it:
1. Dialogue from your two characters doesn't fit the narrative, in personality or style. This is not an uncommon problem really but there is one really easy way to identify it until you get experience in working with dialogue. Just read the words of your character aloud. It's all too common in the theatre/film world to get scripts that read wonderfully... but don't work once an actor voices the part. Take some time and find a place that is filled with people talking... the food court at a mall is good for this... and listen to conversations (ya, I know; eavesdropping isn't really polite but it's for a good cause and I don't know a good writer, actor, or psychologist that doesn't do it on a regular basis). The meat of the discussion isn't really critical, it's how people phrase things and what you get about their personalities that is important. Few people speak in complete sentences, especially ones that are grammatically correct. When they do, it says something about the kind of person they are... and the mood they're in.
In this particular case, your characters read much younger than you describe them. Especially since you describe them and put them in a scenario where age is such a critical part of the problem and solution. Who are they and how do they speak? Are they southern gentlemen, speaking slowly and melodically; neatly dressed, reserved despite their unconventional sexuality (for their home region)? Are they a flamboyant couple, emotionally free and open with endearments and exclamations? Do their sentences trail off in that way that long-time couples have of understanding what is being said out of familiarity with each other? Do their speech patterns match the male/female phrasings that match the 'personality types' observed by the Caregiver personnel? And so on... when you find the right voices for your characters, what they say will fit what you show much better.
2. Describing a scene / setting / action... is in itself, not enough to be a story. You've given us a character to serve as a protagonist and its a bit unusual in the sense that 'the couple' is your character rather than one or the other of the two. But that's not really a problem by itself. However, the lack of conflict is... they're facing a difficulty in age... but that's not an immediate conflict except in the case where someone is so old that they could day any day. There's a vague possibility that they face danger at home from bigots. The biggest dangers of the story are the chance that they will be turned down (an event that might actually give this story a more solid plot line than it has right now because it would be something they would have to overcome) and the misunderstood fainting spell that occurs right at the end. The lack of conflict means there is no real build to the piece, even when process gives them exactly what they wanted all along... its difficult to be happy for them, because they didn't have to do anything to get it. Just apply and show up.
3. Naming it. If there's more of it, the name might mean something more than it does now... but as it is, it leaves a lot to be desired. Less is more when it comes to naming stories. There shouldn't be even a single letter in the title that isn't absolutely critical.
4. Some questions you should know answers to, even if they don't appear in the story itself:
- Are these two men, after being in a relationship for 40+ years, going to find it 'normal' to be sexually attracted to a woman, even knowing the person inside the skin?
- Why apply to be Caregivers at this point in their lives (instead of earlier)?
- Where in the Caregiver time line does this occur and how do the evolution of politics seen in those stories affect your characters?
- Why the weapon, really? And where did it come from if they weren't local?
5. Why did you choose to set this in the Caregiver Universe? While it did give you a means for transformation that meshed with giving longer life to a caring, loving couple; there's a lot more to that story universe that you don't even come close to touching on in this short segment. There's also a lot to being a Caregiver that isn't necessarily the same as being someone who is a care giver, so what is it that made you decide that this story belongs in that setting (if you can really pin down this answer, you'll probably have everything you need to make this story a whole lot more interesting)?
Soooo... that's a lot of stuff to work on, isn't it? :) To be fair, I want to point out a couple things that I thought you did well. For one, it is clear that you connect with your characters; especially in your narration of them. You 'get' their emotional states, its in your descriptions of them (and in their dialogue, just not properly filtered by their voice).
And, of course, you took the big step of getting something out here for people to read and comment on. Lots of people are 'working on a story/book/script' without ever getting someone else to look at it. Getting feedback (even from pesky peoples telling you that there are lots of things you can do to make it better), is absolutely required for becoming a better writer. The more you do, the better you'll get.
Good luck! :)
Kristin Darken
aka Chaosdancer
Thanks
Thanks for your thoughts there. I have already reworked a few things that weren't quite right and will probably redo most of what is already posted.
As to the timing, if I remember correctly, the process has only been available for 4 years at this point.
Thanks again.
Very Good Start
On this story. Hope you complete it.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Sean & Charlie
I looked at the date 2035 and then went back to the first chapter and the date 2032. I wondered if you had jumped ahead of E.E.'s time frame. Bud no you did your research. Sean and Charlie are among the first to undergo the DeCorvin process. Dr.Decorvin dosed himself in 2028. This is almost 90 years before spacer independence. They certainly pre-date Persey and even Naomi. It's pretty much a blank slate.
A blank slate I am looking forward to having filled in. Please a longer chapter next time.
I am enjoying Sean's and Charlie's approach to their new life.
As always,
Dru
As always,
Dru