Evolution / 3

The apartment they had been in turned out to be inside a 10-story, fairly old building downtown, which placed them close to most of the places they’d visit that day.   Stepping outside was refreshing, particularly to George, who hadn’t seen real daylight since Marcy closed the van door behind him at the beginning of this adventure.   The day was cool, but not so cold that jackets were needed.

 

“It would be best,” Marcy said, “to save questions and such until we get back.   Certain things might be hard to explain to others.   We’ll cover for you in the meantime.”   George nodded, and the three of them went out to a restaurant for lunch.   This was uneventful; by the end of the meal, George was actually in good spirits, and the weight of his current situation no longer seemed such a burden.   He was becoming amazed at the two women he was with; they were more knowledgeable, more cultured, and more understanding than he had previously thought.   Dara, with her slim body and beautiful features, seemed fascinating, and at times ethereal. This hadn’t spoiled her a bit; she was up-front, honest, and very open about herself.   Marcy, who held a different, yet equally strong kind of appeal, was very down-to-earth, the kind of person one would want as a best friend.   Both had Master’s degrees; Dara in business, which she conceded hadn’t been of much use to her, and Marcy’s in psychology, which made sense.   George felt very fortunate; the time that they had invested in him, and the things they were sharing with him were nothing that he’d ever really had before.   The closest he’d ever been to anyone was with Karen, who he still considered his best friend, though at times she seemed to have this inexplicable desire to keep her distance from him.   But, either of Marcy and Dara were the kind of people, that, if he had been a man...

 

George tried to cut off that thought abruptly, feeling that the conclusion would undoubtedly depress him.   He couldn’t suppress the irony, but managed to get back into conversation quickly.   At this he even impressed himself.   He had always prized himself for his adaptability; this time would be no different.

 

The second stop proved a little more stressful.   This was a unisex hair salon, where George soon discovered that he was intended to be the customer.   Dara talked to him as they approached.   “Let’s get you a little style...   Your hair is still a little too short for the style I think you’d look perfect in, but we positively have to do something with it.”

 

George didn’t protest.   It didn’t sound like they planned on a purely girlish haircut, and one of the things he had planned to do the weekend of his capture was a haircut.

 

“Our friend here needs a haircut...”, Dara told the person at the front desk.

 

“Dara!   Marcy!   Always such a pleasure...” the woman replied, then turned to her book.   “What’s the name?”

 

A second passed before George realized they were talking to him.

He startled.   Could he still pass for...

 

“Come on, Susan,” Marcy said.  

 

George startled again, when the person behind the desk seemed suddenly satisfied, and he realized that Marcy was referring to him, not the woman behind the desk.   He looked up; sure enough, her name tag read “Jane”, and she had scribbled “Susan” down in the book.

 

“I think we can take you right now.”

 

“Susan” didn’t have her mind on the styling job at all.   Dara made suggestions, Susan nodded back, meanwhile wondering...   What gave Marcy the right to suddenly choose a name?   What name would “George” have picked?

 

Shampooing finished, Susan was moved to a chair, and the cutting began. Suddenly something new was bothering her.   Karen, quite a while ago, had suddenly pestered George about what his “favorite girl’s name” was.   She remembered the conversation clearly–it seemed like a strange thing to ask out of the blue, but Karen was fairly insistent, and when asked why she was so interested, said “Just curious, that’s all.”   George had pondered whether it was a good idea to imply that “Karen”, in fact, wasn’t his number-one choice, name-wise, but decided that honesty was best.   The name he had chosen, of course, was “Susan.”

 

Clipping done, the stylist had moved to small touch-up snips interspersed with blow-drying.   “You have such pretty blue eyes,” the stylist commented.   Susan smiled politely.

 

So, this meant–or at least strongly suggested, that Karen was in on this somehow.   How else could Marcy have known this “favorite name”? Perhaps just coincidence, but too many things seemed to fall into place–raising more questions than he could even rationalize answers to.   This kept Susan quiet through the remainder of the haircut.

 

The stylist interrupted Susan’s thoughts.   “Well?   What do you think?”

 

Susan looked in the mirror.   It was a “boyish” cut, but the kind of boyish cut that only women wore.

 

“Nice job, Jennifer,” Marcy offered.

 

Susan nodded.   “Quite!”, she added, and attempted a smile out of politeness.   The image in the mirror was attractive, but she still couldn’t believe that this was her.

 

Dara paid and tipped the stylist, and the three of them left.   “I need to make one stop at the drugstore,” she said.   So they all went inside, and Dara offered to run down and grab what she needed.

 

“Sure... Get two.   We’ll wait here,” Marcy said.   She and Susan waited up front.   Dara appeared in the checkout line with two boxes of tampons; Susan couldn’t suppress the worried look.

 

Marcy turned a bit and whispered to Susan.   “Relax... They’re for us. Mine will probably start tonight,   and Dara and I always have it at the same time.”   This didn’t calm Susan much.   She remained quiet.

 

They returned to the apartment, where Susan immediately sat on the bed in front of the mirror.

 

“My god...   I’m a girl!”, she said to her reflection, with a very long look on her face.

 

Marcy sat next to her.   “Isn’t it terrific?”

 

Susan was distracted again, and stood up to the mirror, getting a close look at her face.   “My eyes,” she said.   “The stylist said so, and I didn’t even think about it.   My eyes are blue!”

 

“So?” Marcy queried.

 

Dara, having put away her packages, stopped in to investigate.   “They used to be brown, Marcy,” she said.     Susan nodded, still fixed in the mirror.

 

“Oh.   Right.   I didn’t really look,” Marcy confessed.

 

“Okay.   You’ve explained, sort of, why I’m becoming female.   But my eye color is different.   Where did THIS come from?”

 

“Well, Dara?” Marcy hinted.

 

Marcy and Dara stood next to Susan in the mirror, and fluttered their eyelids.   All six of the reflected irises were blue.

 

“From you two?   But how could your pee... How could...”

 

“I take it, Susan, that one of your parents had blue eyes...”

Dara asked.

 

“Yes.. My mother.”

 

“Remember how I said that your Y chromosome was being replaced with an X?”

 

“Uh-huh...”

 

“The new genetic material came from us, with a few modifications thrown in.   It’s mostly Dara’s characteristics that you’re getting.   Brown eyes are a dominant gene; you probably had one brown, and one blue.   The brown got replaced, and the rebuilding process you’ve been going through allowed the recessive blue-eyes coding to express itself.”

 

Susan looked at Dara, at the woman who’s characteristics she stood to inherit. She suddenly felt very fortunate again. “You’re so beautiful...”

 

Marcy interrupted.   “Hey!   Some characteristics are mine–reproductive system, we think.   And a few other things.   A little less than half of your genes are still yours, of course, which means that we can’t really predict exactly what will happen.   Changing your sex will allow different traits to express than you’ve had before, though I’d have to say that your eye color came from one of us.”

 

“Amazing what a little pussy can do, isn’t it, Dara?” Marcy asked. “Look at her... she’s becoming part of us.   I feel so proud.”   Dara nodded agreement.

 

Susan took a step away.   “Proud??   Sure, you might have done THIS to me, but how can you be...”

 

“Careful,” warned Dara.   “I think we deserve a little credit, don’t you? This is the first time in history that any woman, or pair of women, have been able to accomplish anything like this.”

 

Susan thought about this for a moment.   “I’m sorry,” she said.   “I should show a little more respect for people who are making history.”

 

“Not just us,” Marcy offered.   “We couldn’t be doing this without you, you know.   Someday you’ll be famous.”

 

“But why...”

 

Marcy shushed Susan.   “Later.   We’ll tell you everything very soon.”

 

Susan turned back to the mirror, looking at herself.   She turned sideways to look at her profile, which was quite female except for the lack of breasts.   She looked down at her crotch again.

 

“Go ahead... Take ‘em off.   Let’s see what’s happening,” Marcy suggested.

 

Susan undressed, finding herself much less upset than before when she again saw the panties she had been wearing.   She was almost excited as she lay back on the bed to remove them.   She turned so that she could see herself in the mirror.   Dara and Marcy leaned in to get a good look.

 

The small bump that was once George’s penis was now entirely gone, engulfed by the puffiness between Susan’s legs.   Even the urethral opening had vanished between the folds of skin that were forming; a clear, deep dividing cleft had formed through the middle of the puffy area.   Susan pulled the skin apart a bit, to where her urethral opening was hiding. She saw a tiny slit recessed into the space the folds of skin, approximately where it had been before.

 

As she held herself this way, however, the slit began to open further. Susan sat there, nearly in shock, as the folds of skin at the bottom of the cleft began to separate; the 1/8” slit that she had mistaken for her pee-hole lengthened to a half-inch, and she pulled open a bit more to find that her actual urethral opening had been hidden behind that 1/8” slit. As she stared, though, the slit continued to lengthen and open, in both directions, as she held it apart.   Soon it was an inch long.   Places that Susan had never seen before were being exposed to air for the first time. At about an inch-and-a-quarter, the the newly separated skin started to become red and painful, and Susan winced.   There were no other openings visible.

 

Dara grabbed Susan’s arms and gently pulled her hands away.

“Careful,” she warned.   “Those parts aren’t very developed yet.

Be gentle and patient.”

 

Susan pulled her knees together.   “You’re right.   I’m a bit sore.”   She sat for a moment.   “I can’t believe it; what I saw was part of my own body.   Did you two go through this?”

 

“Not really,” Marcy said. “Much of the genital development you’re going through now happened while we were still in the womb. Your parts are developing without that extra protection, so no wonder they’re sore. Your labia are separating, but it will take a few more hours.”

 

“Okay, okay.   I have one question I have to ask.   How come you two seem to know everything that’s going to happen to me, if I’m the only one who’s gone through it?”

 

Marcy answered. “Simulations, of course.   We’ve run biological simulations on you, through a computer.   So we’ve already seen, approximately, what’s supposed to happen and when.   God, if we hadn’t simulated this over and over, tuning the DNA each time, chances are that the changes would have killed you. Or turned you into a frog or something.”

 

“We went over the old simulation again last week so we’d know what you’d go through,” Dara added.   “But it’s nothing like seeing the real thing!”

 

“Simulations,” Susan mused.   “So that means you’ve seen... and know when...”

 

“Well, you’ve been a bit ahead of schedule, probably because your old body was very healthy, and possibly because we gave you an excellent dose of... well...”

 

“Egads...” Susan smiled.   “You can’t even say it?”

 

“Okay! Okay!   Pee.   We had to get at least sixty percent of your skin surface coated with our urine to ensure a positive trigger.   That’s what we were told.   But not only did we soak every square inch of you, but...”

 

“I swallowed some as well,” Susan offered.

 

“Ummm... Yes.   That just reduced the activation time, so, you’re ahead of schedule by a little bit.”

 

“But you still know when...” Susan asked.

 

Marcy nodded.   “Well, if my guesses are right, we’ll be able to see the outside of your vagina tonight; and the inside by tomorrow morning. Your labia are separating now, whether you’re pulling at them or not.”

 

“And that happened to you before you were born?” Susan asked the other two.

 

Marcy answered.   “Yes, sort of.   You see, Susan, at some stage we’re ALL female, sort of.”   Marcy sat on the bed, facing Susan, and spread her legs.   “When you were still in the womb, about maybe eight weeks old, your ‘female’ parts were fairly developed.   You had labia, but no penis, and a urogenital opening, sort of like you have right now.   A week or so later, your male programming kicked in and began to differentiate you. Your genital slit–the opening that would have become your pussy–began to close and seal up.   Your labia closed over it and became your scrotum. What would have been your clitoris extended outwards with the sealed urethral passage, and became your penis.   And then you were male. And ordinarily would have been, forever.

 

“Now, of course, you’re getting a second chance.   What you’re going through isn’t quite the reverse of the above–first, because you’re 24 years old, not 8 weeks, and second, because you don’t have the protection of a womb around you.   But your testicles are gone, your penis has disappeared back where it came from, and your labia are visible; and the opening between them is reappearing.   I must say it’s quite a privilege to watch!”

 

Susan, meanwhile, had pulled off her top, and was looking down at her chest, which was still, for the most part, featureless.   “What about...”

 

“Your tits?   We didn’t simulate that completely.”

 

That surprised Susan.

 

“There was no need to.   All we had to know was that your body would survive, and ultimately fit the female genetic model that we planned. We know your ovaries are developing–and will be producing female hormones soon.   That’s what kicks off your secondary sex characteristics–like your breasts, widens your hips, and will give you pubic hair.   As long as your ovaries are working, you’ll get your bosom...   even though we may not know exactly when.”

 

Susan looked at Dara again.   Being Marcy and Dara’s daughter, at least partially, she wondered how much like them she’d look.   George, long ago in school, had peeked at the part of the sex education curriculum reserved only for girls, when one of the girls failed to sign off from one of the library-access terminals.   Some conservative parents had demanded the “gender-specific access” feature in return for allowing enhanced sex education at all.   He just wanted to know what a girl’s body looked like–under those clothes–but in the process of finding his way to the pictures, became fascinated with the development process that the material described.   It seemed that girls went through so many changes, and had so many special events throughout their lives, compared to boys.   He had never thought about these things before.   The program discussed emotional issues, puberty, and adolescence in much more detail than the corresponding program for boys did.   The boys’ version of this program had the same female author, but only covered the physical aspects of sexual development, in a dry, factual tone usually reserved for news reports, as if the authors were themselves embarrassed.   This version, though, was like an experienced best friend explaining not only the physical changes, but emotional issues, and seemed much more complete.   The text he read referred to the reader in the second person: “When your first menstrual period begins...”, but the “you” the author referred to was not him.   It made the adventure seem all the more illicit.   He forgot all about the pictures for the moment; back at the program’s table of contents, he noticed the titles of the next three sections:   “Your sexuality–your choices”, “Fertilization and pregnancy”, and “Childbirth”.   He was getting aroused just knowing it was there.   The titles were all he ever saw, however, because at this point the librarian walked up behind him, curious as to what might be so interesting as to keep a young boy in the library well after school hours.   Although he signed off immediately, though not without some regret–it was too late.   The librarian picked him up by the ear. “It’s not nice to use other people’s accounts,” she told him.

 

George had pleaded and apologized, and, strangely, the librarian let him go without further punishment.   George stopped just outside the library door, and listened carefully as the librarian talked to her assistant. “Strange, they usually try to look at the pictures,” the librarian had said.   “Not that I blame them...   it seems so unfair.   Well, what can you do...”

 

Susan related this story to Marcy and Dara, who sympathized with him. “I’m glad they did away with that gender-specific stuff years ago,” Marcy said.   “It’s so stupid to keep the sexes–separate like that.” Dara looked away, as if Marcy was touching on something sensitive, then looked quickly back.

 

Susan interrupted a yawn, and asked Dara if something was wrong.   “No... Nothing.   Never mind.   I hope you did go back, once you were old enough, and read up about us.   Everyone should know about both sexes.   And for you... it’s particularly important.”

 

Susan yawned again, and settled down for a nap.   “I think so...” Moments later, she nodded off to sleep.   Marcy gave Susan a kiss on the cheeks; Dara kissed her on the lips.   “Happy dreams”.