The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 3

The Twelve Days of Christmas By Tiffany B. Quinn Pulling on my normal nightwear of boxers and a t-shirt, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I am not sure that I am looking forward to it. Becoming paranoid, I close every door inside the house with tells in place before going to bed. After turning out the light, I notice a very faint glow from the topaz necklace laying on my nightstand.

Wednesday Dec 28, Day 3

My first task of the morning is to check the tells on my doors and windows. A quick circuit around the house confirms that they are all in place. I am not sure that I am happy about that when I find today’s note and gifts in my bathroom. I’d like to think that someone is actually playing a practical joke on me. It kind of creeps me out to think that I am being watched from the other side.

Good morning, Karl,

We see that you did not follow our advice about your hair. Please go see Caroline today. She will have an opening today at 11 AM and her shop is just down the street from your office. She does hair for both men and women. I think that you will be pleased with her services.

Don’t forget to floss your teeth this morning. You will also find that gargling with mouthwash will help keep your mouth feeling fresh all day. Girls like that.

With Love, Mom & Dad.

Looking in the mirror I see that my hair is even longer than it was yesterday morning. There has been at least four inches of new growth since my haircut. Apparently, my hair has an agenda of its own and just won’t stay short. I can't help notice that my mop is a little fuller this morning.

It looks like I’ll be seeing Caroline today.

By the sink I find a new bottle of mouthwash, a new toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. There is also a new tube of lip balm. I can’t help wonder what new feminization these products will bring to my life. Do the products cause change or are they just emblematic of the changes that I can expect to start today? There is a mystery that probably will never be solved.

Looking through the cabinets I can not find my old versions of these products. I sigh when it becomes clear to me that, since all my old versions of these products are gone, I am obliged to use these new gifts today.

With a sigh, I retrieve my phone from my room and take an image of the note with my new personal hygiene items. I text the image to Anita before going through my morning routine, with special attention to my oral hygiene. My lips are dry so I apply the lip balm as well.

As I am eating some cereal, I get a text back from Anita asking what new items showed up in the master bedroom.

I still have some time before I have to leave for work, so I head upstairs to search my parent’s room. The only new items I find are some tubes of lipstick, in various colors, and lip gloss (cherry and strawberry flavors) in a drawer of the vanity. I send Anita a photo of the stash of lip products. She texts back that my mother has good taste. The lipstick is apparently of good quality.

I am thinking that mom’s suggestion of daily selfies is a really good idea if I am undergoing transformational change, so I take a couple of shots before leaving for work. One is a whole body shot in front of a full-length mirror, then a standard front head shot followed by a poor attempt at a profile head shot in an attempt to show the length of my hair.

----<0>----

As I walk in the office, Celeste immediately notices my hair again and frowns at me.

“What has happened to your hair?” she asks with disapproval in her voice.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “It seems to have a life of its own. I think it has grown over four inches since yesterday.”

“And what’s happened to your voice?” she asked with concern. “Are you sick? Your voice sounds lighter today. It is almost girly.”

She’s right! I haven’t spoken out loud all morning, so I hadn’t noticed the change. I don’t think it is girly, but the tone is definitely up half an octave.

“Jim is just going to LOVE this. Not!” she says sarcastically.

----<0>----

A while later, Jim stops by my office to find out what is going on. Being partners, I figure that I better bring him into the loop as it looks like this may have an impact on the business. I ask him to close the door and we spend half an hour going over everything that has happened since Sunday. I think that he is taking the news rather calmly. Being analytically minded engineers, we study the data together and essentially arrived at the same conclusions that Anita and I had the night before. What we can’t figure out, however, was what to do about it. As far as work was concerned, if I keep producing as I always have then my personal changes shouldn’t be an issue. The main problem will be working with clients and possibly dealing with the staff. We decide to see how far this is going to go before doing anything specific. We agree that trying to hide any changes will only backfire on us when found out, so we agree to be open about what was happening to me if anyone asks. He highly recommends that I see my family doctor to see if these changes can be stopped reversed or, at least, document what is going on. I might need some creditable documentation if this change goes all the way.

After talking with Jim, I call Caroline’s salon and make an appointment as the note suggested. Of course, she has an opening as the note said she would.

My next call is to Dr. Lake’s office. Dr. Lake has been our family doctor for as long as I can remember. The receptionist says that his 1 PM appointment just canceled and that I can have that slot.

It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting a lot of billable hours in today.

----<0>----

“Sweetie, what have you not done with your hair?” Caroline looks at my hair disapprovingly when she first sees me.

Caroline is about my mother’s age and had been her hairdresser for many years . Mom used to have Caroline cut my hair when I was young.

“Your mother, bless her soul, would not be happy with your appearance,” She scolds me.

I proceed to fill her in on what has been happening with my hair the last few days.

“So,” she questions me, “you’re telling me that you had a conservative short business cut just yesterday? That’s hard to believe.”

“I get it,” I sigh. “I have no clue what is going on with this mop, but it has grown at least four inches since this time yesterday.”

I can tell that she doesn’t really believe me.

“Hypothetically,” I ask, “if this is to continue at this pace, what can you do to my hair so that it maintains some semblance of order as it grows out?”

“And, I suppose that you don’t want it to look girlie?” she clarifies my question.

I just nod.

She walks around me, feeling my hair as she contemplates the options.

“Have you ever heard of a folk singer named John Denver?” she asks.

“The name sounds familiar, I think mom listened to some of his songs,” I reply.

“Well, he had fairly straight hair like you and later in his career he wore it long.” She tells me. “It wasn’t so long at first, kind of like yours is now but with some shape. He grew it out later and he looked pretty good. You could go with a look like that. It might not fit into your engineering world too well, but it doesn’t look bad. Let me show you.”

She gets her iPad and finds some images of the folk singer with a quick web search. Some of the images are from earlier in his career when his hair wasn’t too long. Others showed him later on with near shoulder length hair and funky round glasses.

“Do you wear contacts?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Well,” she suggests, “you could ditch them and get some of those cool glasses. What do you think?”

“I think that I’ll stick with contacts,” I reply, not liking the spectacles idea, “but we could try the hair style.”

“That will work,” she admits. “Think about getting some of those outdoor clothes and ditch the tie and you would look a lot like him.”

With that, she shapes my hair so that it will grow out like John’s.

----<0>----

After a quick bite of lunch at a internationally franchised purveyor of fast junk food, I arrive at the doctor’s office. It is also within walking distance of the office.

Dr. Lake is a little late getting back from his lunch, but I am shown in to see him a few minutes after the appointed time.

“Well, Karl,” he asks with a smile, “What can we do for you today? It’s not time for your physical again, is it?”

“No,” I respond. “I had one of those a few months ago. I’ve got a new problem.”

“Okay,” he frowns, “tell me about it.”

It takes me about twenty minutes to fill him in on the odd affairs of the last few days. He raises his eyebrows when I tell him about the cure for shaving, my higher voice, the change in body hair, and the fast growing hair on my head. He asks lots of questions and I can tell that he doesn't really believe me.

“You’re not a transsexual, are you?” He asks. “I’ve worked with a few over the past few years. However, even after years of hormone treatment, they don’t report effects quite like this.”

“I am not a transsexual,” I confirm. “And I am not on any hormone treatment. It’s just happening. Each of the changes seems to come after I receive a communication from my mother.” I show him pictures of the notes from my mother, as well as my daily selfies, on my phone.

“I am finding this all hard to swallow,” he admits, “But I can’t deny that something very strange is happening to you. It is obvious that there have been minor changes to your body since we last met. Well, let’s go ahead with an exam. We’ll take some blood and urine samples for lab work. We might as well take a DNA swab too while we are at it.”

So that is what we do. I am weighed, measured, prodded and poked. He does the FULL exam.

“That is all the damage that I can do today,” he smiles as he takes off his exam gloves after checking my prostate. “You are ten pounds lighter than you were when we saw you six months ago, but that can be due to a lot of factors. Your skin is softer and clearer than last time I saw you. I can’t find any visual evidence that you ever had any facial hair. Your larynx is not as prominent as I would expect. I suspect that your vocal cords have tightened up some. I don’t know what to say about your hair. While I find this all very interesting, you are in good health. If, as you suggest, the changes are the result of some mystical event there is not much medical science can do to help you stop or reverse what is happening to you. The best I can do is document the changes. Sorry, Karl.”

“I was afraid of that,” I sigh. “Documentation will probably be useful if worse comes to worse and I need to change my identity.”

“I will let you know the lab results tomorrow. If the changes continue or you start feeling ill or in pain,” he instructs me, “come back. I am really curious to see how this progresses. I’ll tell the front desk to work you in as a priority if you call.”

As I walk back to the office, I ponder on the craziness of the last few days. Am I really morphing into a woman? Or am I just taking on some of the characteristics of one? Like most men, I don’t know the first thing about being a woman.

Is this really a supernatural event? If so is there any hope for stopping this train?

I agree with Dr. Lake. If all these changes are the result of the will of some mystical power, there is probably nothing that medical science can do to stop it. Any effort to stop the progress would be like trying to stop the tide.  I get that. I tried to resist my hair growth with a hair cut and look at where that got me!

So, I conclude, I will just have to ride it out to its conclusion whether I like it or not.

The best way to avoid worrying over just about anything is to immerse myself in work. I have plenty of that!

----<0>----

When my phone dings with a message notification, I rouse myself out of deep concentration on a particularly challenging work problem to notice that I am alone in the office. Looking at the clock, I realize that everyone else probably left an hour ago.

The text is from Anita asking if she can stop by my house for an update. She wants to see, with her own eyes, what happened today.

I ask her to give me an hour to wrap things up at the office.

----<0>----

On my way home, I manage a quick trip through Walmart to get new shampoo (one combined with conditioner), toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant made for a man, generic soap, shaving cream, etc… all those things that 'mom' left for me, but in a more masculine form. I want to make sure that I am not using altered products. I still don't know if the changes result from the gifted products or not and hope that using my own products will answer the question. I also grab a premade sandwich for dinner.

I manage to get home before Anita shows up so I have time to get out of my work clothes and into some comfortable jeans and a casual long sleeve flannel shirt. I am channeling my inner John Denver.

I also take time to check all my tells. They are all in place. No one has come through any of the doors while I was gone for the day.

I am about to head upstairs to check out the master bedroom when the doorbell rings. Opening the door, I am greeted by a smiling Anita and Joanna.

Oh great, Joanna, I immediately think to myself. I guess it shows on my face.

“Sorry Karl,” Anita looks apologetic when she sees my frown. “Joanna is one of my friends who is intrigued by supernatural phenomena. When I told her about what was going on, she wanted to come see for herself. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Hey, Karl.” Joanna gives me a small wave. “I love the necklace. Isn’t that the same one you wore to Christmas dinner?”

I forgot that I am still wearing the jewelry.

“Yes, it is. Come in out of the cold, ladies,” I open the door admitting them into the house.

“Oh Karl,” Anita asks with concern, “has your voice changed? I like the hair.”

It turns out that the two women are good friends. Something about being in their mid 20s and still single when most of their peers are now married and starting families. I guess that I fit that description now, with the difference being male to their femaleness.

Over the next hour we go over my story again and they get the tour of the master bedroom. Both women are very thorough in their inspection. They announce that my mother has excellent taste in jewelry and cosmetics, at least lipstick and lip gloss. They also approve of the shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and body wash that mom left me. With their help, we move all mom's personal hygiene gifts into the master bedroom’s en suite and put my new Walmart purchases in the bathroom that I generally use.

“Why aren’t you living in the master suite?” Joanna asks in curiosity.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “It still feels like their space. I’m not ready to make the move. Not only that, but it looks as if mom is moving back in.”

“Actually, we think that Karl’s mom might be feminizing him,” Anita informs Joanna.

“Damn,” Joanna mutters with a disappointed look on her face, “another one bites the dust.”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“We are getting to the age when decent single guys are like parking spaces,” Joanna says, unhappily.

My continued confusion is obvious to both women.

“Yes,” Anita explains, “The good ones are already taken.”

“Or they are clueless geeks,” Joanna grumbles. “Finding a good man is tough. Now we can add mystically transformed to the list.”

“Karl,” Anita explains, “ as we told you at lunch yesterday, all the girls in our class respected and liked you. You are the perfect gentleman, never going all macho on us. You are the kind of guy that every mother wants for their daughters. Unfortunately, puberty made us a little boy crazy and most of us were drawn to the manly macho types of guys during our teen years. They are fascinatingly different from us. It is a self-destructive behavior that most of us girls had to get past.”

“The only problem,” Joanna points out, “was that you were considered boring since you weren’t one of those excitingly different macho boys. Don’t get me wrong, there were girls who had crushes on you. You were nice and polite, but girls never seemed to be a priority with you. Technology and odd projects seemed to be more important in your world. You were an asexual geek. Still are, from what I hear.”

Joanna doesn’t seem to have many filters.

I look at her curiously, “And I heard that you don’t like men, Joanna. Did I hear wrong?”

“That’s just a nasty rumor spread by men that I have destroyed in court. I do like men,” she corrects me, “I just hate assholes. Unfortunately, most of the men I’ve run across are assholes. I would love to find a man who isn’t an asshole and who would be fun to be with.”

“So,” I ask her, “am I an asshole as well as boring?”

She blushes, “I didn’t mean to include you in my generalization.”

I just look hard at her waiting for an answer to my question.

Anita jumps in, “Karl, you have never been an asshole.”

“Not that we know of, anyway,” Joanna clarifies.

I sigh, “I guess that it is better to be boring than an asshole.”

“Well,” Joanna tries to soften the criticism, “maybe not exactly boring. Maybe clueless is a more appropriate term.”

Anita quickly interjects, “As Joanna said, there were quite a lot of girls in our class that had mild crushes on you at one time or another. I know that I did, but after a couple of dates, which I think your mother pushed you into, it seemed obvious that girls were not your top priority. It was deflating.”

“I was also one of those girls,” Joanna admitted, “but you never noticed me even when I tried to flirt with you. Eventually, I fell under the spell of that asshole star football player, Bob whatshisname, who was sexy and exciting. What a big mistake that turned out to be.”

Thinking back to high school, I don’t recall ever being pursued. Maybe I was, and maybe I still am, clueless.

“Sorry ladies, I never knew.” I apologize.

Joanna looks at Anita and sighs, “Definitely clueless.”

Anita also sighs and says, “Karl you the perfect prototype for the story of the engineering student who rides a new bicycle up to his friend’s place. His friend tells him that he thinks the new bike is cool and asked him where he got it. The engineering student tells his friend that a hot coed rode up to him on the bike, hopped off, then stripped off all her clothes and told him to take what he wanted. He decided that the clothes wouldn’t suit him, so he took the bike.”

“I don’t get it,” I say confused. “It sounds like he made the right decision.”

Looking at Anita, Joanna confirms, “Yes, he’s definitely clueless.”

“Don’t worry about it, Karl,” Anita assures me, patting me on the arm. “It will come to you.”

On that note, the girls make their excuses and head out the door.

I went over the story again as I made my rounds setting tells and making sure the house is secure before turning in for the night.

I still don’t get it.