Chapter 2
He checked my chart and signed it before he left, leaving me to ponder my fate. Well, someone had been through my knapsack! As I continued to think, I realised that I was unlikely to be in a prison hospital because this countries’ police would have just finished me off with a brick to the head before announcing that I had been dead on arrival; and then splitting my haul and my savings between them. This made it more curious but left the question of why was I here?
There wasn’t much that I could do about things so just accepted the intravenous goodies, the morphine and the indignity of any waste I produced being removed through tubes. I spent a long while wondering about his statement about my penis being repaired or removed. If I was castrated but kept it I would be a total nothing. However, if I lost both my nuts and my cock, what would I be then? It never crossed my mind that I could live as a girl; that would be too much to expect. I did not have the body or the mind for that and, anyway, to go along that path was so expensive I realised that my final path may just be as a nothing but also as an exposed thief.
On the fourth day of my being back in the world I was starting to get visits from a physio who got me to move my limbs around and work on my breathing. I was sat up a bit more in bed when the door opened and a man came in. I had never seen him before and I would have remembered him if I had. He was tall, elegantly dressed and had an air of wealth and responsibility that you could never miss. He told me not to speak until he was finished with what he wanted to say and then began with his speech, that’s what it sounded like.
“Aiden Gomez, you sir, are a vagabond, thief and hero. Someone filmed your actions in saving my grandson from being trampled to death by the riot police and it has gone viral. Your actions have shown them up to be the bullies they are and the protest has gained ground because of it. At the moment, all details about you are being kept quiet despite the clamour to show you to your adoring followers. All that has been released has been that you were severely injured and now recovering in a private clinic. That part is true. My name is Edmondo Gabriel Clavijo and I am a very wealthy man. A wealthy man who is very grateful to you for saving my grandson.”
“Luckily, it was one of my men who was with my son who claimed you and your belongings after the police had moved on. Otherwise, you may have been already buried in a paupers’ grave, you were so close to death from a punctured lung. He made arrangements to bring you here and contacted me. I went through your knapsack and came to the understanding that you are one of the dregs of society who live by your wits in this city. I do not consider that a bad thing as a man has to live by any means he can.”
“Your gun has been disposed of. It would not have done you any good if you had resorted to it. I can tell that you have never used it because it has never been properly cleaned and the action had frozen solid. Your takings from that day have been returned to their rightful owners, less any cash, as being found in the street. Now, I can make sure that you can move again, as expected of a grateful man; but the doctor tells me that the testicular cancer will kill you inside a year.” I absorbed all this information with terror.
“I can, however, offer you another way out, one which will ensure that you live but it will not be as you expected to live. My youngest daughter was kidnapped a couple of years ago and I refused to pay the exorbitant ransom they wanted. I made a lower offer which they accepted but only returned her head. This was quietly buried in the garden and my wife has never forgiven me. By an odd co-incidence, you look a little like her as she was not what you would call exceedingly beautiful. We never declared her missing so all her paperwork is current. She was born just a month after you, here in the city, just as you were.”
“My offer to you, Aiden, is to pay all the costs in doing the operations that would allow you to live. Of course, they would also turn you into a reasonable facsimile of my daughter and you would be expected to come and live in my house, as Julieta Elena Clavijo. I can assure you that your previous life as a thief will come in handy, considering my own business. Don’t say anything now, I will be back in a couple of days and I will need an answer. The doctor tells me that we only have another week before he needs to operate.”
I just nodded and he left the room. Later in the day the doctor was back. He said “Aiden, I know that Edmondo will be back for your answer but I would like some idea of what you will do. There are preparations to be made because if you accept his offer, we need to bring in surgeons that are more expert. Now, I know you have questions so ask away.”
My first question was if he was certain that I would die soon and he told me that a year might be optimistic. “In any case” he said “once you fall ill down under the railway bridges, there is a very short lifespan before your compatriots see an opportunity and take everything before they drop you into the harbour.” My next question was if the transformation would be successful and if I could really pass as the daughter.
“That one is an easy question to answer. With the people we can bring in, not even a doctor could tell you are not the daughter without taking a DNA test. The bloods I took show that you share the same blood group and, more importantly, showed that you have not taken drugs. That is important as it was drugs that caused Julieta to be the way she was. She was not the one to take them; it was her mother who tried them while she was expecting and poor Julieta was born a little simple. Edmondo has put out the story that she has been sent to a special school overseas to get her to act more like her age. If you can’t answer any questions it will just be taken that you simply cannot remember.”
I wanted to see a photo so he pulled one up on his phone, taken not long before she was taken. It looked like one of my sisters and I could see why the idea was hatched. He then went on to say that once I had all the operations I would be several months getting better, as well as getting intensive training in acting the part. I then asked about the family business.
“Ah!” he said. “That one is difficult. I think the only one who really knows is Edmondo. He was doing a little drug running at the time that Julieta was born but stopped when he saw the effects it had on her. I know that he is heavily into smuggling and a bit of gun running. He has a pretty big organisation; the guy who got you here is a bodyguard for his son and family. The daughter-in-law is a very pretty girl but a little vapid. Her best part is being from one of the other big families in the city.”
My last question was whether the kidnap gang would know about the dramatic return from the dead and come back for another try. “If they could know that” he said “they would have tried it themselves. I don’t think that anyone has seen them appearing out of the bridge pylons they are probably encased in. They were part of Los Rastrojos and Edmondo helped the authorities clean up the last of the gang. No, you’re safe from them.”
I absorbed this information and thought about what I would do. Stay as me and die or become Julieta and live, no doubt in some luxury. Of course, it was a no brainer so I told him that I would accept and to start making his arrangements.
When Edmondo came to see me he told me just to nod if I agreed as he only wanted me to speak to him if I was his daughter. I nodded and he said “Good” before leaving again. Next time I saw the doctor was when I was transferred to another clinic, in the dead of night. He told me that he had acquired a suitable body from out of the harbour who would be cremated in my place and that Aiden Gomez was no longer in the land of the living. I asked if my parents could be told and he wrote down the address, saying that they would get a message, as well as some clippings about my bravery and a video of my last actions.
Before I was put under again I asked what he would be doing and he said that I would come out of it with a working vagina and that, while they were working in the groin area, he would split my pelvis and extend it with a spacer. He then told me about my new breasts-to-be and my new voice. He was getting on to the cosmetic surgery on my face when I said ‘Enough!!”
They must have kept me under for another extended period because, when I did wake up again, I no longer had the casts on my arm and leg. I still was in a hospital bed connected to machines and drips and the waste disposal system so that was almost a comfort. As I moved I saw a new nurse beside me who mopped my brow and gave me some water to sip. When I asked if everything went well it was in a girls voice which shocked me at first.
She assured me that I was well on the way to recovery and that the team had done wonders on my little problems. After a few days of bed physio and some solids, they took me off the life-support systems and I was allowed to sit up. I was given a mirror and when I looked it was either the girl in the photo or one of my sisters looking back at me. I also had the odd feeling of extra weight on my chest but was happy that I could now breathe easily.
A few days after that they were helping me out of bed and giving me a wonderful shower, before taking away the hospital gown and giving me a nightdress to put on. When I was able to walk around on my own I was given an intensive course in what I needed to know. There were days of how to sit, how to walk, how to eat, how to talk and express myself with my hands. Then there was the personal grooming – hair, make-up, creams, scents and lotions. And all the while there were the lessons in wearing female attire, knowing what every bit was called, why you wore it and when you wore it.
All the time I was called Julieta or Miss Clavijo and all the time I was on an intensive hormone treatment and the dilation was starting to become a little like sex. Eventually, my trainers considered that I could go anywhere and get away with being a natural born woman and the odd thing was that I now felt as if I was. To support my new identity I had a full set of sessions on my growing up. I found out who I had gone to school with, any pets I had owned, saw videos of my mother Juliana and family films with me in them where I looked a bit like the village idiot. There was a boy who I hung on to in the final video and I found out his name and that he had been the contact with the gang. I gathered that he was now doing his patriotic duty somewhere, helping to support a railway line.
Marianne G © 2021
