An old story of mine. I wonder if I should have entitled it "Dashed" instead. A good friend of mine read it and said it read like a Twilight Zone story or an Outer Limits tale. I don't know but I kind of like the dystopic feel.

Dash
by Cleo Kraft
-------------
"Hi."

Crackle-crack-crackle.

"Hello there."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hello."

Crackle.

"Hold on a sec. Warming up."

Crackle-Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

"Come closer. Yes, that's it, my friend. I am truly glad you have taken the
time to visit me today . . ."

"Greetings! Hey there! Well, look at me now, will you? Ha! What more can
I say? Just look at me now . . ."

"Hi mom!"

"Hello again. Flowers? For me? How sweet my dear."

There I stood, all alone and beside a row of statues in the Old Blue River
Graveyard and the memory boxes were running off their little gedsols at
me quite bedaggledly.

"Lo there visitor! Stand forward and speak."

"Hello from the great beyond. How are you?"

"Hello there stranger."

"Howdy pawwwwwwwwrd-ner. Stay awhile, wone-shuh?"

I stood there in the graveyard like I always did every night at just before
midnight. My friends - well, they're blingoed, you know, expired, only
it's not like you'd think. They'd already blingoed before I even met a
single one of them.

You see, I'm an old sentimental. A lonefre kadigor, you know, a loner,
and Sedge is the name I go by. I pay visits to the little memory boxes
each night in my favorite graveyard, the Blue River. I'm sort of like
their protector now. I try and keep the Grims and yonlemen from harming
my friends but sometimes I'm not much of a protector and my enemies gang
up on me and in comes the painful and familiar beatings.

"Good evening Sedge," Dolly, one of the smart-graves, said.

"Good evening Dolly. Circuits keeping you warm enough tonight?"

"Yes, thank you. I was wondering, Sedge, if you might free me tonight."

"I'm sorry, Dolly, but I still don't have enough on me to buy you out
of there."

She cried a bit but there really wasn't a thing I could do to help her
right now. I wanted to help her real bad because I knew how much it meant
for her to be a lonefre like myself. Bodies aren't exactly cheap though,
and I doubt if I'd ever be able to help the poor girl out on the little
money I manage to scrape up to keep me going from day to day.

"Tomorrow? Will you free me tomorrow, Sedge?"

"Perhaps, Dolly. Yes, perhaps tomorrow."

I wanted her to keep positive about things and always keep hope alive but
the reality of the situation is that I simply won't ever be able to afford
to free poor old Dolly.

"I hope it's tomorrow. I really do, Sedge. Please help me, Sedge. I'll do
anything to be free again. To see the sky with real eyes, to smell the
flowers, to dance and sing and live and love. I'd do anything to be free,
Sedge. Please help me, won't you?"

"I'll do my best, Dolly. You know it won't be easy to come up with the
money, but I'll do my best, my friend. For now, I can only promise to
come here every night and do my best to protect you from the Grims and
yonlemen."

"You look different tonight, Sedge. Did you do something with your hair?"

"It's the hormones," I replied. "I've been taking female hormones again
recently. The govdocs are giving them away for free again because crime
went up again in the male population, and you know how it pays to be a
woman these days, so I'm decided to give it a try. Maybe once I'm a woman,
I'll be able to keep a steady job. Who knows."

"I like you the way you are, Sedge."

"Thank you, Dolly, but this is something I feel I need to do."

"Will you have babies, Sedge?"

"No, Dolly. The govdocs won't pay for artiwomb implants, so I'm afraid
I won't be able to have any children."

"That's really sad, Sedge. I want you to be able to have children."

"Me too, Dolly. Me too."

Just then someone hit me in the back with a small rock. I turned around
and there was Lee. He was a mean old Grim who usually brought his whole
gang with him, but tonight he came alone and surprisingly he wasn't
carrying his baseball bat with him.

"I told you before - those boxes belong to the Zells," he said clenching
his fists as he approached me.

"I won't let you take them," I said standing my ground.

It was nearly midnight now. If he took the boxes at midnight, it was
bad news for the blingoed.

"How many times do I got to teach you a lesson, Sedge? Now if you don't
vammyscray out of here right now, I'm gonna beat the kunk out of you
with my bare hands."

"Run, Sedge!" Dolly cried. "I can't bear to watch you get hurt again.
Run!"

"Not tonight, Dolly," I said. "Not tonight or any night - ever. I'm not
going to let a stupid Grim tell me what to do."

Lee ran at me and I expected him to punch me but instead he ran right
past me and up to Dolly's box and yanked it from the base of her statue
and all the wires came dangling out.

"Sedge? I don't want it to end like this . . . Sedge? Can you hear me?"

I grabbed Lee's arm and tried to pull him away but he slugged me one
in the side and I fell down on Dolly's grave.

"Sedge? Good-bye Sedge . . . Good-bye . . ."

Lee finally ripped the wires all apart and tossed the box aside and looked
at his watch.

"Just midnight," he said with a satisfied grin. "Perfect. How's your little
friend now, huh? Gone and gone forever, that's how. Gone at the stroke of
the haunting hour. Perfect. Now get the kunk off my turf."

Grims loved to cheat those that in some little way cheated death, and
to cheat them at midnight was especially their favorite time to do their
cheating.

He wouldn't harm the other memory boxes tonight. No, he'd be back tomorrow
night to try and pull the plug on one of my other friends and I'd be right
here to try and stop him.

I got up off the ground and dusted myself off with my hands, then I turned
and walked down the little cobblestone path.

I really will miss poor old Dolly I think the most. She was like the
closest thing I ever had to a girlfriend.

I wandered off the graveyard and down a lonely street that took me
down to the docks where I lived with some other lonefre kadigors.

It wasn't really living in the true sense of the word, but at least it
couldn't get much worse. It was just a bunch of tents and cardboard boxes
in a back alley between two warehouses. The lonefres I hung out with there
were all men like myself but in various stages of feminization from the
free hormones the govdocs have been passing out. We referred to each other
as girls would refer to other girls for that's what we each would become
when the hormones were through with us.

Charlie was the most feminine one of us all. She had even gotten a steady
job recently at the fish market and was in the process of moving out of
our little alley and into her new boyfriend's house deep in North City
where all the great transgendered clubs are, like Dixy's and Smokin'
Sally's and The Girl Zone (which was the best or so I heard).

Charlie was brown eyed and dark skinned and she had long, straight, black
hair. If I didn't know she was a man I'd swear she was all woman. She
was twenty-three, but looked like an eighteen year old girl.

Nan was a grave saver like myself until last week when the grims broke
both her arms and she decided to retire. She was probably forty-something,
but with all the knife scars on her face, and the worry lines on her
forehead, and her gray old frazzled hair, she looked more like she was
in her sixties. The hormones gave her breasts and softer skin, but that
was about it. She still sadly looked like an old man for the most part.

Ogo was a young eighteener like myself. She exercises quite a bit and
her big, muscular body has been quite handy in keeping the grims from
bothering us in our little alley. She has blue eyes and dirty-blond hair,
like myself, and had only recently started on female hormones. She's going
to turn out to be one mean looking amazon lady, that's for sure.

I climbed in Nan's tent and saw her sitting there with her two broken
arms in frecasts and she and Ogo were staring at Charlie who was sitting
on the floor with her red dress pulled up and both legs spread wide so
everyone could see her new simvag.

"Hey Sedge, looks real, don't it?" Ogo asked me.

"It feels real too," Nan added. "Go on. Touch it. Charlie let us see how
good a job the docs did on her."

Ogo pushed me a few steps forward and I got down on my knee and
Charlie took my right hand and brought it up and between her legs.

"No stitches or nothin," Charlie bragged. "Got it a few hours ago. Got an
artiwomb too."

"How did you ever get the money?" I asked as she guided my hand along
the surface of her smooth simvag.

She guided two of my fingers in through the slit and into warm wetness
and said,"Boyfriend's a mugger and bank robber by trade, so he had
plenty of money and just gave it to me but he still doesn't know I
started out as a man, and now he'll never know."

"He just . . . gave you the money?" I asked as she pulled my hand deeper
into her simvag and let go, letting her simvag muscles push my hand back
out again.

"Yeah," Charlie said shrugging. "I guess he really loves me. I lied and
told him I needed the money for my sick and dying mother. Isn't that
naughty of me?"

She laughed.

"How come there's no stitches?" I asked.

"Seamless lasers," she said. "Seamless lasers cut out all the boy-stuff
and they put in the artiwomb and simvag and made sure to connect my
pee-hole and then they just sealed it all up. Took less than ten minutes
too."

"Charlie let us screw her," Nan bragged.

Charlie looked up at me and shrugged and said,"Had to test it out to
see if it works."

She laughed.

"Charlie, why don't you let Sedge help you test it out some more?" Ogo
suggested.

"No thanks," I said. "I'm not in the mood. I lost Dolly tonight to
the grims."

"That's awful, Sedge," Ogo said patting me on the back. "You'll get over
it though. She was already blingoed anyway. You did your best, I'm sure."

"Hey, Charlie," Nan said. "Tell Sedge what you're going to do for us.
That'll cheer her up."

"Artiwombs and simvags," Charlie said. "Artiwombs and simvags for all of
you. You won't need any more female hormone pills that way. You'll have
all the natural female hormones built right in, and I hear it speeds up
the feminization of the rest of your body pretty fast too. Also girlvocs
for each of you so you'll sound like real girls without having to worry
about retraining your voices."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "First thing in the morning if you'd like."

___-----___

I woke up later that morning and Charlie led us all to the govdocs
office just up the street from us.

They could only work on one of us at a time and we decided to let Nan
go first. When she came back to the waiting room, she was just stunned
at how fast and easy it was, and her voice was all high pitched like
a teenage girl's. The docs also did something to her face to get rid
of her scars and make her nose smaller and her chin more like a girl.

"It was easy," Nan said sitting down on the chair beside me. "In fact
it was kind of fun. Go on, Sedge. Your turn. You go next."

"Next lady please," a nurse said from the doorway.

I stood up and followed the nurse down the hall and into the operating
room.

"Undress," she said and I undressed as she got all the surgical equipment
ready for me.

"Are you comfortable with that height?" the nurse asked as she strapped
me down to a table. "We can make you shorter you know. Your friend said
you could have anything done that you want. She's paying."

"A foot shorter would be nice," I said. That would make me five feet
tall.

"Okay, I'll begin on that now then," she said taking a laser of some
sort and quickly swiping it across my shins, cutting my legs all the
way through.

She cut again a few inches lower and quickly removed the unwanted bit
of material and reattached my legs with another type of laser that
amazingly reattached and healed muscle fiber, veins, arteries and
nerves as it sealed up the cut seamlessly.

She repeated this process with my thighs, then my upper and lower arms.

She also worked on my hands, making my fingers slightly smaller as
well as the rest of the bones in my hands. Then she repeated the process
on my feet.

All this took less than two minutes to complete.

"There you go," she said. "Five feet tall now."

Then the govdoc came in and quickly cut me open in between my legs
and removed what needed removing and placed in an artiwomb and simvag
and sealed it all up real quick.

"Nose and chin?" the govdoc asked.

"Yes please," I said.

"Want to see the options?" the nurse asked.

"No," I said. "Anything that looks pretty is fine."

"Okay," the govdoc said and began work on my face.

A few minutes later they were done changing my nose and rounding my
chin and were working on my girlvoc.

"Do you know `Mary had a little lamb'?" the nurse asked me and I
nodded. "Then go ahead and sing it for us."

"M-Marrrrrrry," I started, unsure of my voice which sounded really weird
now. "M-Mary haaaaaad a-"

"Adjust it up a bit more, would you nurse?"

"Yes doctor."

"....little lamb.... little la-"

"More please, that's it."

"....little lamb..... Mary had a-"

"Hold it right there. I think we've got it."

"....little lamb her fleece was white-"

"Perfect. All done. Send in the next one, nurse. I'll be in my office."

"....as snow."

"Good. Good girl," the nurse said patting me on the shoulder as the
doctor left the room. She then unstrapped me. "Now sit up, my dear. Good.
Now wasn't this easy? Now go over there and look in the mirror and get
yourself dressed. If your clothes won't fit, we can provide you with
a robe if you'd like."

I got up off the table and walked over to the mirror. There looking
back at me was someone not quite a man, but not entirely a woman either,
but I had a simvag and I girlvoc and I was shorter now, so I was well
on my way to becoming a real woman.

Certainly I was a woman where it counted now, but I still had a kind of
mannish body, which was oddly disturbing considering the changes that
had taken place a few moments ago.

"I think I need a robe," I said and the nurse handed me a white bathrobe.

"Now why don't you go back to the waiting room, now, okay?"

"Okay."

I walked down the hall, feeling weird being shorter now and with a simvag
between my legs.

"Look what they did to Sedge!" Nan exclaimed as I entered the waiting room.

"Sedge, you look pretty," Ogo said as I sat down beside her.

"Yes, Sedge," Charlie agreed. "You really got the works, didn't you? Well
I'm happy for you. Now you'll be able to get out of that alley. We'll get
you a boyfriend tonight at one of the clubs and you'll see. He'll take
care of you. You'll see. That's how it works now. You'll see. We'll go
dancing at The Girl Zone tonight. I'll see about setting you and Ogo and
Nan up with some blind dates. My boyfriend's got lots of buddies that need
girlfriends. I'll fix you up with them."

___-----___

That morning we all went out to get some clothes. It was the most fun I
think I'd ever had in my life.

I tried on dress after dress after dress and Charlie saw I couldn't make
up my mind, so she bought them all for me. Ten dresses in all, and lots
of panties, slips, stockings, shoes, make-up and other girl things.

"Why are you doing this for us, Charlie?" I asked.

"Because, you're my friends," she replied. "I can't go live the high life
with my boyfriend and leave my friends back in the gutter. It wouldn't be
right, so I'm helping all of you out of the gutter and into better lives."

"Thank you Charlie," Ogo said.

"Yeah, thanks Charlie," I added.

"You're a real friend Charlie," Nan said.

"It's nothing, really," Charlie said. "Now why don't you all try out some
wigs. Okay?"

I picked out a blonde wig. It was shoulder length wavy hair and it looked
pretty good on me so Charlie bought it for me.

Nan got a curly red wig and Ogo a long haired black one that hung down to
the middle of her back.

We went out into the mall all dressed up in some of our new clothes
and carried around huge bags full of the rest.

Ogo, Nan and myself sat down in a little coffee shop while Charlie made
a few phonecalls to arrange for our dates tonight.

"I can't wait to go dancing," Ogo said. "I mean, to go dancing as a real
live girl. I hope I get lucky tonight."

"I hope I don't break my neck," Nan said nodding to indicate the casts
on her arms. "These things are awkward enough, but with high heels, I'm
going to tip right over, I'm sure of it."

Charlie came back and sat down beside me. "I've got dates for everyone.
We'll all meet there at eight, okay?"

"Ogo and I are leaving at six, to get there early," Nan said.

"I'm not going that early," I said.

"Then you can go at seven, with me," said Charlie. "We'll walk. It's a
nice little walk."

___-----___

Five o'clock came and all of us were in Ogo's tent getting ready for
the big night out.

Charlie was helping me with my make-up and Nan helped Ogo with hers.

"I can't believe we're all really girls now," I said.

"Neither can I," Ogo said. "Isn't it great? I never thought it would feel
so nice."

"Yes," Nan said. "Thanks again Charlie. This was really nice of you."

"Don't mention it, Nan."

___-----___

Six o'clock came and Ogo and Nan headed on foot towards The Girl Zone
nightclub, leaving me alone with Charlie.

"You going back to the graveyard tonight?" Charlie asked.

"It's my duty as a lonefre kadigor. Besides, maybe this time the grims
will listen to me because I'm so pretty now."

"You be careful, Sedge. You know the grims can rape you now that you're
a girl. Just be careful whatever you do."

___-----___

Seven o'clock came and Charlie in her red dress, and me in mine, walked
out of the little alley and up the street.

We passed by the Blue River graveyard and I shuddered at the memory of
losing Dolly last night.

We walked up past the factories and into Old Town where some guys whistled
at us from their cars as they drove by.

"This is going to be fun, Sedge," Charlie said. "You'll have a blast tonight,
I just know it."

"I know. I can't wait to see who my date is."

"You'll like him, I'm sure. My boyfriend's buddies are all really nice guys,
aside from the dirty work they do to make a living."

It was dark now as we entered North City and passed by Dixy's club.

The thump-thumping of the music could be felt under our feet as we walked
by on the sidewalk.

We rounded a corner and passed by Smokin' Sally's club and turned left,
crossing the street now and walking down a small alleyway past rows and
rows of garbadge cans and old rusty junk.

"Ow!" I said tripping over something and falling to my hands and knees,
skinning my hands up a bit and bruising my knees and tearing my stockings.

My wig fell in a puddle of oil and my dress was now spotted with dirt
and grease.

"Are you okay Sedge?"

"Darn it," I said as Charlie helped me up to my feet. "I can't go in there
like this now, and my wig is totally ruined."

"Too bad you can't use that iron to get those wrinkles out of your dress
now," Charlie said and I looked at what I tripped over.

It was a rusty old iron.

"Yeah. Ironic isn't it?"

We headed out of the alley and turned right, walking under a small
building that hung over between two buildings like a bridge.

We continued down the sidewalk and Charlie and I both paused as the
whole street up ahead was darkened and littered with broken glass from
all the street lights and storefront windows that had been smashed.

There were a few burglar alarms ringing but apparently no police had
arrived yet.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"I don't know. This is awful."

We cautiously walked into the darkened street which was lit now only
by a sliver of moon that hung in the sky above.

I could just make out the shadowy forms of two bodies lying silently
in the street, and as we approached I could just make out the faces
on those bodies to be none other than Ogo and Nan.

At this point I really didn't know what to think about what happened
to them or what I was going to do. I think I was mostly filled with
fear and terror and my heart beat faster and faster as I turned and
looked around to see if anyone was near.

Then a pink neon sign flickered on and off and on like it couldn't
decide if it was really broken or not and what letters there were
read "he IR Zo e."

I walked up to the door and heard music coming from within, only it
sounded like music coming from a crackly old radio rather than from
any fancy nightclub sound system.

I peeked in the door and saw five guys sitting at a table playing
cards and listening to some grim-like music on the radio.

Most of the lights in the room were busted up and nearly all the
other tables and chairs were toppled over and body after body after
body lay there on the floor, either unconscious or dead and who knows
for how long either.

The five guys were smoking cigarettes and drinking hard liquer and
they all turned to face me as I stood there in the doorway.

One of them stood up and he walked a few paces towards me and I saw
him under the crackle and glow of one of the pink ceiling lights
that still worked. His face was shrouded with pink light and I couldn't
believe who it was.

"How many times do I got to teach you a lesson, Sedge? Now if you don't
vammyscray out of here right now, I'm gonna beat the kunk out of you
with my bare hands."

It was Lee!

I was completely speechless and terrified with shock now.

"Have you gone fag on us, Sedge? And here I thought you were pretty
tough, standing up to me and my gang night after night. Well, looks
like I get to beat the kunk out of you after all."

He ran for me with fists flying and before I knew it he punched me a
dozen times or more and knocked me clean out of my high heels and onto
the sidewalk.

"If there's one thing I don't like, it's faggies like you, Sedge," he
said kicking me in the side again and again. "Get up and fight like a
man if you've still got any balls."

He stood back for a moment and let me get up to my feet, but then he
socked me real hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me for
a moment.

"Won't it be nice," Lee said kicking me in the shin and punching
me in the side. "To have the whole graveyard all to myself from
now on."

I'd taken beatings from him before, but none like this, and none with
such hate. All because I wanted to be a girl, he put extra effort into
his punches and kicks. This was the worst beating I'd ever gotten in
my life and I was too struck with fear, pain, and terror to do anything
about it.

I stumbled back and fell over Ogo's body in the street.

"Get up and fight," Lee said kicking me in the leg. "Get up and fight."

I got up and he paused, waiting for me to swing a punch at him.

"Come on, faggie, punch me. Go on. Here's your chance. Punch me good," he
said.

Instead I was filled with adrenaline suddenly and it gave me the needed
energy to attempt and run away.

I ran, ripping up my stockings and cutting up my feet on broken glass
as I headed for the ally.

"You won't get off that easily," he said walking casually towards me
while slowly clasping his right fist into his left hand over and over
again.

I stumbled in the alley, tripping again over that same damned iron
and landing in a puddle of oil.

I saw Charlie on the other side of the alley looking back at me with
a puzzled look on her face as Lee came walking into the alley kicking
over garbage cans to his left and right as he approached me.

"Get up, Sedge," he said. "Get up or I'll finish you where you are."

I got up and he started punching me again and again in the ribs and I
heard some of them snap.

He socked me once more real hard in the side of my jaw, breaking it and
sending me spinning about and falling down to my hands and knees.

There before me lay the rusty old iron and without thinking I knew just
what to do.

"Get up faggie," he said kicking me in the butt as I had my back to him.

I picked up the iron and from this angle he couldn't see what I had now
in my hands.

I trembled with fear, closed my eyes, got up and swung my arms about
blindly at the spot where I thought his head should have been.

Klunk! Thud!

I opened my eyes and looked and there he was sprawled out over a pile
of garbage with blood oozing out from the side of his head.

I almost dropped the iron I was so shook up, but I didn't. Instead I
thought about what Lee had done to me and my friends and all the poor
other girls back at the club and I thought about all the hate he had
displayed towards me just because I wanted to be a girl . . .

. . . and I hit him, and I hit him, and I hit him again and again and
again with that rusty old iron until it was soaked with blood and then
I dropped the iron right there beside him in a puddle of oil and heard
the splash echo in the otherwise quiet alleyway.

"You killed him," a woman said. "You killed my boyfriend."

I turned and saw who it was speaking to me now.

It was Charlie.

"You killed him," she said and screamed for the police.

I didn't try to run or hide. I just stayed there and stared at Charlie
and trembled in shock at what had happened this evening. I couldn't
believe that Charlie's boyfriend who unwittingly paid for my sex change
was in fact Lee.

Lee didn't know Charlie was a man before, and that's what really got me
because he knew I had been a man before and look how he treated me.

. . . And now the police arrive at long last, but too late for Ogo and Nan
and too late now for Lee.

They took me away and I was accused of outright murder. Though my lawyer
did his best to get me a lesser sentence, the jury convicted me of first
degree murder and I was given lethal injection ten years later.

Dashed off into oblivion.

___-----___

"Hi."

Crackle-crack-crackle.

"Hello there."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hello."

Crackle.

"Hold on a sec. Warming up."

Crackle-Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

"Come closer. Yes, that's it, my friend. I am truly glad you have taken the
time to visit me today . . ."

THE END