“It’s what they call a mental Twist. Most of my body didn’t really change at all, but my brain... there are a lot of little changes there, because I have a kind of new personality. Basically, I have a girl brain.”

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Twisted Throwback

part 7 of 25

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Twisted universe. It's set about a generation later than "Twisted", "Twisted Pink", etc. A somewhat different version was serialized on the morpheuscabinet2 mailing list in January-April 2014.

Thanks to Morpheus, Maggie Finson, D.A.W., Johanna, and JM for beta-reading earlier drafts. Thanks to Grover, Paps Paw, and others who commented on the earlier serial.

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Renee asked me to fill her in on more details about my Twist and my trick, and I told her a little bit on the way over to Delhi Deli. I’d barely gotten as far as the brain scan and how I realized I was a girl when we arrived. Morgan and Sarah were sitting in a booth near the front, and Sarah waved at me; I went and sat down across from her and Renee slid in beside me.

“Hi, Sarah. This is my cousin Renee. Renee, this is Sarah Kendall, and Morgan — sorry, I can’t remember your family name, if you told me.”

“Don’t think so,” Morgan said. “I’m Morgan Stern. My dad named me for the author of a silly book he used to read to me when I was little. Are you a Harper, too?” she asked Renee.

“On my mom’s side,” she said. “My mom is Emily’s dad’s sister. I’m a Wilson.”

“Is it okay to ask if, um —”

“If I’m Twisted too? Not yet, but I will be. Both my parents are Twisted but I haven’t gone through mine yet.”

“You’re lucky,” Morgan said, “knowing what’s coming, or at least that there’s a good chance of it. Imagine how much worse it’d be if it hit you out of the blue.”

“How could it?” Renee said. “If at least one of your parents is Twisted, you might be; if they aren’t, you won’t be. No surprise... oh, I see. Unless you were adopted and didn’t know who your biological parents were, or something.”

“Or something,” Morgan agreed. She had a grim expression, and I wondered what it was about, but I had a feeling I ought not to ask. I tried to change the subject:

“So, Sarah... I kind of need to know some things about being a girl. I could ask my mom or my sister some of this stuff, but —”

“But it would be less embarrassing to ask a comparative stranger?” Sarah asked, smiling.

“When you put it that way, it seems weird. I was thinking more about asking a girl who’s closer to my age. But yeah.”

“Sure, I can answer questions. But I want some answers too. You didn’t really tell us much at lunch about how you turned into a girl, when you didn’t look any different right after your Twist.”

“She —” Renee began, and I put a hand on her arm.

“Let me tell it, okay?”

“Right,” she said, abashed.

“That’s kind of the problem. I only partly turned into a girl.”

“Oh...” Sarah looked curious and Morgan a little disgusted. I hurriedly went on:

“It’s what they call a mental Twist. Most of my body didn’t really change at all, but my brain... there are a lot of little changes there, because I have a kind of new personality. Basically, I have a girl brain. And it made me miserable at first, and it’s still not that great, because I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, I just felt like my body was wrong and I was wearing the wrong clothes and people were talking about me wrong. When figured out what was wrong — the psychologist and neurologist at the Twist clinic figured out most of it, really — I started dressing as a girl, and figured out what my girl name should be, and —”

“Hang on,” Morgan said. “How could you not be changed physically? I mean, I didn’t know you before, so I’m not sure you didn’t already have kind of a girly face —”

“He didn’t,” Sarah said.

“And you could make it look like you’ve got breasts and hips with falsies and a corset. But you don’t have an Adam’s apple. Guys who dress up as girls usually wear a scarf or a high-necked dress to cover their Adam’s apple, but you...”

“Let me finish, okay? Right when I started wearing girl clothes, my trick kicked in. And it makes me look like a girl.”

“It’s like my mom’s trick,” Renee put in, “only Mom can make herself look like anybody for a few hours, and Emily can look like a girl all day long, but — you can’t look like anything else, can you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So... you’re really a guy under that?” Sarah asked. She and Morgan both looked horrified. I cringed and said:

“Physically, yeah, pretty much. But I’m really a girl inside, in my head. I don’t want to have this body any longer than I can help it — the doctors are trying to figure out what they can do. You’re not mad at me, are you? I wasn’t trying to lie to you — only it’s so complicated, it’s so hard to explain...”

“I’m not mad,” Sarah said. “I’ll be honest, I’m a little squicked, but... I can see you need a friend, and I’ll try to be one.”

“Thanks,” I said, my eyes brimming with tears. Renee put a hand on my left arm, and a moment later Sarah put a hand on my right. Morgan didn’t move to touch me, but I thought her disgust was edging toward pity, which was progress of a sort.

“So,” Renee said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go order stuff.”

A few minutes later, we were back at the booth sipping lassi and eating samosas and naan. Sarah finished a bite and said: “So, Emily... you said you had a bunch of questions about being a girl. Ask away.”

“So... what’s the deal with having lots of shoes? I can’t afford many until my Twist stipend comes in, but if it’s a girl thing I want to do it...”

Sarah laughed, and started to explain. It was a long explanation with frequent interruptions from Renee, and led to a lot of other helpful advice on random topics. Even Morgan opened up a little and pitched in here and there. When Sarah said she needed to go to the ladies' room, I said I’d go with her — that’s what girls do, right? — even though I could have held it for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Morgan gave us a dark look I couldn’t interpret, and came along, and then of course Renee didn’t want to be left by herself.

The Delhi Deli has a small ladies' room, only two stalls. Sarah went straight into one of them, and since I didn’t need to go so urgently, I paused a moment to see if Morgan or Renee needed to go more than I did. Renee looked at me for a moment and went into the other stall.

Morgan and I looked at each other; it was a tense moment. I still had a feeling she didn’t like or trust me. I tried to break the tension by asking: “So... what do girls talk about when they’re waiting around in a restroom like this?”

She smiled a little. “Various things. In a situation like this, I guess, pretty much the same things we were talking about at the table — it might be different if we were with some guys, we might use this as a chance to talk about them, or about something else we don’t want them to hear us talking about.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say next, and we were silent. Her back was to the mirror, so she hadn’t seen my too-masculine reflection; I tried not to look at myself, but it was like not thinking of an elephant. I forced myself to look over Morgan’s shoulder toward the corner of the ceiling.

One of the toilets flushed, and Sarah came out. “Next,” she called, going to the sink to wash her hands. Then — she noticed my reflection, and gasped. “Cyrus?” I winced, and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I — Emily — I just saw —”

Morgan had turned to look, and now she saw too. I did a cowardly thing then; I said, “Gotta go,” ran into the stall, and closed the door.

I could hear Morgan and Sarah talking, though not every word they said, as I fumbled with my belt and pulled down my skirt and panties, my eyes tearing up. Then the noise of my pee splashing in the bowl drowned out the rest of what they said; but before that I heard Morgan saying something like “He’s still a guy, you saw him!”

I sat there crying for a couple of minutes after my bladder was empty, hearing the other girls talking in lower voices, not quite able to understand most of what they said. Then there was a hesitant knock on the stall door. Renee’s voice: “Are you okay, Emily?”

“I’ll be out in a second,” I said. I got dressed and opened the door.

“What’s wrong?” Renee said. Sarah put in:

“I’m sorry I reacted like that, Emily — it was just startling.”

“I know,” I said. I sidled around to where my back was to the mirror and I was facing the others. “Think how bad it is for me, though. You only have to look at that face when we’re both near the same mirror — I have to see it several times a day. And the rest of me — my trick doesn’t work on me, I see what I’m really like, how the skirt and blouse don’t really fit as well as they look like to you, and my hands are too big, and...” I gave a rasping sob, and Renee hugged me.

“Let’s get back to our booth before they throw our food away,” Morgan said.

“Y’all go on,” I said. “I’ll wash my hands and be out in a second.”

I washed not only my hands but my face as well. I wondered if the trick that made me look feminine had also concealed my tears; I didn’t think so, though nobody had commented on them directly. Could I use it to hide my emotions better if I got conscious control over it? Did I really want to?

I rejoined the others in the booth; they stopped talking when I arrived, and after a short awkward silence Sarah said: “So... I guess if that was awkward with us, when you’d already told us you were physically, um, still the same... then you’re going to have real problems when girls at school see you in the mirror.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I don’t know a lot about how tricks work, but — maybe you could try not relying on it so much?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, if you styled your hair for real the same way your trick is making it look, and used different makeup, and fixed the padding in your bra so it matches, most people might not notice the difference at a glance. They’d see your Adam’s apple and the difference in your nose and chin if they looked hard, but unless you give them a reason, they won’t look hard.”

“Thanks. I’ll work on that. It’ll be hard to make it match — I’ll need Mom or somebody to help me, looking at my reflection and at me and telling me when we match. I can’t see how my trick makes me look to other people, and the image I’m projecting is all subconscious. And I don’t know how I can get a stylist to fix my hair right when she can’t see the real hair through my trick.”

“I bet Mom can help you get better control of your trick,” Renee said. “We’ll work it out somehow.”

They suggested some more ways I could make myself look more convincing in the mirror, and in photos, and then I noticed the time. “I need to get Renee home,” I said.

“See you soon,” Sarah said. “Do you want to get together maybe Sunday afternoon?”

“We’re going to my grandparents' house Sunday,” I said. “And I think we’ve got errands to run tomorrow. But I’ll see you in school, and we can probably get together after school some afternoon or other.”

“Come over to my house and study with us Monday,” she suggested.

“Thanks, I probably will.”

I was going to let Renee out at her house and drive straight home, but Renee said: “I think Mom really wanted to talk to you about your trick. And I think she can probably help you with it, too. It’s not that late.”

“Okay, but I’d better call Mom and Dad and tell them I’m here.”

We went in, and after saying hi to Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Leland, who were watching TV, I called Mom and told her I was at Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Leland’s house. “I think Aunt Rhoda wants to talk,” I said. Aunt Rhoda had gotten up from the sofa and approached me; she nodded.

“Tell her not to keep you up too late,” Mom said. “We’ll see them Sunday at your grandparents' house, remember.”

“I heard that,” Aunt Rhoda said and, leaning closer to my phone, “I’ll send her home in half an hour or so.”

When I’d said goodbye and hung up, Aunt Rhoda said: “So, tell us what you found out at the clinic. What did they say about your trick?”

“Nothing, except they were sure I had one. I didn’t figure out my trick until later that afternoon, when we were shopping for clothes.”

“Hmm. — Leland, do you want to turn that off and join us?”

“Sure,” he said, and turned the TV off. “Have a seat, ah... Emily, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting on the sofa next to Renee. Aunt Rhoda sat down next to me.

“So... while you were shopping?”

“Yeah. My Mom and I were in the dressing room, and I thought I looked awful in this blouse and skirt I was trying on and Mom said I looked good, and then she noticed that in the mirror I looked about as bad as I said...” I told her everything we’d figured out about it so far.

“I think your Uncle Jack is right; it’s affecting our minds, not our eyes. You probably won’t ever be able to fool cameras, but if you get more conscious control of it you should be able to fool mirrors — or rather, fool people who are looking at you in a mirror.”

“That would be cool,” I said. “But... I’m a little worried. I mean, it’s working fine unconsciously, as it is, all the time — if I get conscious control over it, will I have to start thinking about it constantly to keep it from turning off?”

“That might be a problem at first, but I don’t think it will last for very long. Once I set up an illusion, I don’t have to think about it every moment, I can keep it going unconsciously until I get too tired and have to drop it. Other people I’ve talked to with similar tricks say the same thing.”

“I knew a guy in college with a trick more like yours than Rhoda’s,” Uncle Leland put in. “He could make people hear things — almost anything, once he learned how to control it. But sound recordings didn’t pick up the sounds he made, so they figured he was working on people’s minds directly. That also showed up in his limitation: he could only make about twenty or thirty people at once hear something, and only if they were within about a hundred yards of him.”

“Uncle Jack thinks I’m doing that with my voice,” I said. “And — oh. I wonder if I have that kind of limitation too? I think I must have projected the illusion to everybody in class at once, maybe as many as thirty-five people in some classes, and I might have projected it to everybody in the hallway between classes or everybody in the cafeteria. But I’m not sure, maybe I wasn’t working it on people way across the room who weren’t paying me any attention.”

“I noticed you sounded like a boy when we talked on the phone earlier,” Renee said. “I can help you test your range Monday; I’ll look at you from across the length of the cafeteria and see if the illusion breaks down. Or — we could do it in Grandpa and Grandma’s back yard Sunday.”

“Let’s go to the mirror,” Aunt Rhoda said, “and let you start practicing making me see your — your girl self, in the mirror as well.”

“Just for a few minutes,” I said, looking at the clock. I followed her to her bedroom, where there was a full-length mirror built into her closet door. Renee tagged along. When we stood in front of the mirror, Aunt Rhoda suddenly shimmered and appeared as an Asian girl about mine and Renee’s age; her white T-shirt and sweat pants became a white knee-length sundress. Her reflection in the mirror changed to match, of course.

“Now you try it,” Aunt Rhoda said. “Imagine yourself looking like this — or any other way you care to imagine yourself. Just imagine how you want to look, in as much detail as you can, and hold that image steady in your mind.”

I hesitated before complying. I wasn’t sure I wanted to mess with the subconscious way my trick was working — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I certainly didn’t want to make myself look Asian or African or something and be unable to switch back without special effort, or at all... But I thought of something I did want, and tried that. I imagined myself as a girl, with a rounder chin and slightly thicker lips and smaller hands, and — this was the part Aunt Rhoda and Renee weren’t already seeing — my hair down to my shoulders, and styled in waves. I kept the same clothes I was wearing in my mental image, and I concentrated on the image, especially the hair, for I’m not sure how long; several minutes at least. Aunt Rhoda looked at me patiently; Renee watched me for a little while and then wandered over to her mom’s dresser and started fiddling with the jewelry, trying on necklaces and bracelets and looking at herself in the smaller mirror there. I tried not to let her distract me, and concentrated on my reflection in the mirror, mentally superimposing on it the image I wanted Aunt Rhoda to see.

“Well,” Aunt Rhoda said finally, “I didn’t expect immediate results. Don’t be discouraged; keep practicing at home. But I suppose your mother will want you home soon.”

“Yeah, I’d better go. Thanks, Aunt Rhoda.” We hugged, and I went out to the car and drove home.

Mom, Dad, and Uncle Jack were sitting around the living room when I came in; their conversation ceased as I opened the door. “How was your evening?” Mom asked.

“It was fun. How’s Mildred?”

Mom sighed. “She’s very upset about school. She wanted to drop out and home-school, and I finally talked her into trying it for a few more days. I’m going to talk to the principal Monday morning about the bullying and the teacher she said was winking at the bullies, and if I don’t get some action, I’m taking her home before classes even start for the day.”

“Please tell us something about the girls you had supper with,” Dad said. “I do not think I have met this Sarah Kendall you mentioned, though I went to school with some Kendalls, and I know Isidore Kendall, who runs Kendall’s Hardware.”

“I think that might be her dad or her uncle,” I said. “Her family’s been in Trittsville for a while, but I don’t know her parents' names. And Olive Sanchez, I think her family’s been around a while too; at least I’ve been vaguely aware of her since elementary school. The other girl, her friend Morgan Stern — I have the impression her family moved to Trittsville just a few years ago, I’m not sure when.”

I told them something about our evening, though not nearly everything, and quickly changed the subject by telling them what Aunt Rhoda had suggested about getting control of my trick. Dad and Uncle Jack approved. “Perhaps you could take lessons from her regularly,” Dad suggested. “She is the only Twisted we know with a trick similar to yours — except for Mildred, I suppose.”

“It’s not all that similar,” Uncle Jack said. “Your tricks function in completely different ways. But that doesn’t mean she can’t help you — more than your dad or me, anyway; we’ve never gotten conscious control of our tricks, they’re always on. Yours might turn out to be the same way, but it’s worth a try to see if you can control it.”

After I went upstairs and changed into my nightgown, I lay in bed reading ahead in my Physics textbook until I fell asleep.

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If you've enjoyed this and the other free stories I've posted here, you may also enjoy these novels and short fiction collection -- available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format.

Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes	Smashwords	Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey	Smashwords	Amazon
A Notional Treason	Smashwords	Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories	Smashwords	Amazon