“Hey,” Julius says to him, “you should apologize to Sebastian. About what you said yesterday.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Vincent says, not quite meeting Sebastian’s eyes. “I’m sorry I said stupid stuff when you told us about changing your type. Um, I heard somebody saying you were using new pronouns already?”
The next day at school, Sebastian is nervous about talking to Julius and Vincent at recess and lunch. (Julius is in Ms. Griffin’s class with Sebastian, but doesn’t sit near faer. Vincent is in Ms. Ulrich’s class, so they only see him at lunch and recess.) Should fae tell them fae is using fae/faer now or wait until faer body changes? Should fae stop hanging out with Vincent, if not Julius, and try to make some new friends? Fae doesn’t know if there are any beringer or beringer subtypes in fifth grade at faer school. The only one fae knows isn’t a girl or boy is Aliisa, a heikki who is in Ms. Rousseau’s class. Maybe fae should try to talk to her at lunch or recess?
Fae’s thoughts are interrupted when the bell rings and their teacher, Ms. Griffin, says, “Just a a couple of announcements before class starts. First, the regional science fair is going to be at Rosa Parks Elementary on April tenth. If you want to go see the science projects and support the finalists from our school, let your parents know. Second, Sebastian is now going by fae/faer pronouns. Please respect faer pronouns. Using faer old pronouns is bullying and will not be tolerated.”
Sebastian’s face is burning up. How did she know? Daddy or Zoe must have told the school, but Sebastian doesn’t think they would ask Ms. Griffin to announce it in front of the whole class. Fae can’t meet anyone’s eyes for a couple of minutes, and the opening of Ms. Griffin’s lesson on conjunctions goes right past faer. When fae finally looks up from faer desk, fae sees Julius looking at faer curiously. Other kids, too, but Julius is the one fae cares about.
The English and Math lessons drag out until recess. Then Ms. Griffin, Ms. Ulrich and Ms. Rousseau all lead their fifth-grade classes down the hall, down the stairs, out onto the playground. By habit, Sebastian wanders over toward the area near the monkey bars where fae and Julius and Vincent usually hang out, while keeping an eye on Aliisa, who’s hanging out with two girls and a boy, talking animatedly. Breaking into that conversation would be rude, right?
Julius says, “Did you already go to the doctor’s office and get changed?”
Sebastian is startled. Fae was paying so much attention to Aliisa fae didn’t notice Julius following faer. “Um, no, that’s next week. But after I made up my mind about what type I want to be, Daddy asked me if I wanted to go ahead and start using new pronouns, and I said I guess so.”
“Are you gonna change your name too?”
“I dunno. I haven’t found a name I like better than Sebastian yet.”
Julius nods. Sebastian sees Vincent approaching them and faer muscles tense.
“Hey,” Julius says to him, “you should apologize to Sebastian. About what you said yesterday.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Vincent says, not quite meeting Sebastian’s eyes. “I’m sorry I said stupid stuff when you told us about changing your type. Um, I heard somebody saying you were using new pronouns already?”
“Yeah, fae/faer. I talked about it with Daddy and Zoe last night.”
“So that means you’ve made up your mind what type you want to be?” Julius asks.
“Yeah, I’m going to be a lefevre. It’s like a beringer, but softer.”
“Um, okay, but I don’t think you ever finished telling us what a beringer is, 'cause Vincent interrupted you.”
Vincent looks away. Sebastian starts explaining again. Julius nods along, and when Sebastian stops talking, Vincent says, “I don’t get it, but you’re cool, so I guess it’s okay.”
Sebastian smiles. Maybe things will be okay after all. “You guys want to play Submarine?”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Julius enthuses.
When fae goes to bed that night, Sebastian has a hard time getting to sleep for some reason. After tossing and turning for a while, fae asks Zoe, “Could you read to me until I fall asleep?”
“Of course. What would you like me to read to you?”
“What about a list of all the names beringer or lefevre have? That’ll probably be boring enough to put me to sleep. And maybe I can find a name I like.”
“Very well. Shall I order them alphabetically, by popularity, or randomly?”
“Um, random is fine.” Sebastian has already studied the top fifty by popularity till faer eyes hurt and none of them feel quite right.
“Antoine. Lucinda. Undine. Martin. Peridot. Kyla. Lori. Chrysolyn. Floy...”
Sebastian still hasn’t found a name that fits right by the time fae falls asleep. But fae asks Zoe to read more names to faer the next night at bedtime, and the next, and , on Friday night, Sebastian hears something that clicks.
“Wait. Back up and say that again,” fae says, suddenly wide awake.
“Aaliyah. Dennis. Quindy.”
“Quindy. I like that one.”
“Do you wish me to address you as Quindy from now on?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure. Remind me about it in the morning, okay?”
This Saturday is one of Daddy and Sebastian’s weekends to themselves, with Sebastian not going to visit Mommy and Stella, and Stella not visiting them. Fae wakes up and goes to the toilet, thinking about what all they’re going to do today. Maybe they can go to the comic shop? Then while fae is washing faer hands, Zoe says, “You asked me to remind you again this morning of a name you liked: ‘Quindy.’”
“Oh, yeah,” Sebastian says, remembering. Fae tries it on. “Hello, my name is Quindy.” Fae still isn’t quite sure. “Zoe, can you call me Quindy a few times this morning and see if I like it?”
“Of course, Quindy.”
That feels nice.
Quindy goes into the kitchen and finds Daddy getting out the ingredients for breakfast. “Morning,” he says through a yawn.
“Hey,” Quindy says. “I found a name I liked last night. I’m not sure yet, but I think I might start using it?”
“What’s the name?”
“Quindy.”
“That’s a neat name. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Quindy, so you’ll be pretty unique.”
“Less than one in 800,000 people in the United States are named Quindy,” Zoe volunteers. “Of those, 42% are beringer, 28% are merck, 19% are lopez, with smaller numbers of other types.”
“So around six hundred people,” Daddy says. Daddy is really smart. “Out of over five hundred million, so you’re not likely to meet anyone else named Quindy. That’s one of the reasons your mother and I named you Sebastian in the first place, you know, it wasn’t one of the big popular names so you’d have your teacher call ‘Noah’ and four kids raise their hands.”
Quindy giggles. “There’s only like three Noahs in fifth grade, and they aren’t in the same class,” fae says.
“Well, but you know what I mean. Congratulations on finding a good name, Quindy.”
They eat breakfast and talk about what they’re going to do with the day. Daddy likes the idea of going to the comic shop, and after they wash up and get dressed, they’re on their way.
By the time they come home with a haul of comics and toys, Quindy has decided fae likes the name and wants to keep it.
Monday at school, Ms. Griffin tells the class about Quindy’s new name. Most people don’t have anything to say about it, but at recess Julius tells Quindy faer new name sounds nice.
“Did you change it because you’re going to be a le-lefevre?” he asks, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
“Yeah. Daddy said I didn’t have to change it, and lefevre can have whatever name they want, but I’m old enough to decide my name for myself and not just keep using the name Daddy and Mommy gave me because I’m used to it. Then Zoe gave me a big list of names so I could see if I found one I liked better than Sebastian. And a lot of them sounded cool but didn’t sound like me, but then Quindy sounded just right, so I picked that one.”
Vincent muses on that a minute while Julius nods and proposes a game of pirates. After they’ve captured a Spanish galleon and taken it back to their secret island, Vincent says, “I think I might change my name too. What do you think about Jack?”
“It’s kind of old-fashioned, but I think it suits you,” Julius says.
“Do you want us to start calling you Jack now or think about it some more?” Quindy asks.
“I’ll think about it for a couple of days. And maybe ask Skynet for a list of names like you did.” Skynet is his family’s AI. It’s supposed to be a reference to an old movie.
At last the day of Quindy’s doctor’s appointment arrives. Fae doesn’t go to school in the morning, because faer appointment is just a couple of hours after school starts. Fae and Daddy hang around the apartment for an hour or so after breakfast.
“Are you excited?” Daddy asks with a smile.
“Yeah,” Quindy says. “They’re gonna make me a lefevre today. That’s really neat.”
“Well, they’ll start the process today. It’ll take a month or so for your body to finish changing. The doctor will tell you the details, but I remember it was about a month when I changed from boy to parr, and about six weeks when I changed from parr to inframale.”
“Oh. Am I going to look funny when I’m in-between?”
“No, you’ll be fine. You might look a little odd when you’re naked, but no one but you should see that, I don’t expect. Um, I’ve never changed to a form with a vulva, so I don’t know exactly how that part is going to go. Zoe?”
“The penis and testicles will gradually transform over the course of a few weeks. Fae will need to start sitting down to pee well before the penis is entirely transformed, as the urethral opening will shift fairly early in the process.”
“Okay,” Quindy says.
“Well, let’s get going.”
They take a different bus route than the one Quindy takes to school or the one they take to Mommy and Stella’s house. They’re going to the same big clinic where Quindy goes for checkups, but Daddy says they’re seeing a different doctor today, not Dr. Darrow. They go in and go up the elevator to a different floor than usual and Daddy fills in some information on a tablet while Quindy looks at the magazines on the tables. This waiting room doesn’t have any kids' magazines or comics like Dr. Darrow’s office, and everybody else in the waiting room is an adult with no kids, except for one older teen waiting with their mom. Fae picks up a car magazine and finds the articles are over faer head, with a lot of technical jargon, so fae looks at the pictures of racecars.
After just a few minutes, a nurse calls Quindy and Daddy to come to an exam room. Daddy lifts Quindy up onto the exam table, and the nurse checks faer blood pressure, temperature and so forth. Then she sits down at the terminal and asks Quindy and Daddy a bunch of questions. What medicines is fae taking (none), what allergies does fae have (bee stings), has fae traveled to any of these countries in the last three months, and so on. At first Quindy lets Daddy answer some of the questions, but after a while the nurse says she needs Quindy to answer the questions if fae can.
“Do you know why you’re here today?”
“So the doctor can give me a lefevre type body. I know it’s not gonna be all at once, Daddy said it would probably take about a month.”
“Do you know what a lefevre type body means? I mean, how it’s different from your parr type body?”
“It has a vulva instead of a penis and it doesn’t have breasts. And it’s kind of soft, cause it has — um — subterranean fat?”
“Subcutaneous,” the nurse says with a smile. “Do you understand that after you change, you won’t be able to get another change paid for by the government until next year? That is, in January, eight months from now.”
“Yeah, Daddy told me.”
“All right, I think we’re done with this part. Someone will come to draw a couple of vials of blood in a few minutes. That will hurt, but only for a few moments. Then after we get the blood test results, the doctor will come see you, and ask you some questions, and examine you. Then I’ll come back and give you the shot that will start changing your body into a lefevre type. That will hurt worse than the blood draw, probably, but only for about thirty seconds. Then your butt will be sore for a while where I gave you the shot. Do you have any more questions?”
Quindy thinks for a few moments. “Zoe said I’d have to start sitting down to pee before my penis changes all the way into a vulva. Do I need to start doing that today or will it be in a few days or what?”
“There’s no way to tell precisely how long that will take, but it will certainly be at least two or three days, and maybe more like a week. You’d probably better be on the safe side and start now, though. Get in the habit right away.”
“Okay.”
The nurse gives Daddy a tablet with some documents to sign, and goes out. Daddy gets busy reading and signing them, and Quindy starts getting nervous about the blood stick. But when the person comes to draw blood, Daddy holds faer hand, and though tears start into faer eyes, fae doesn’t sob like fae did last time fae got blood drawn.
Then there’s another long wait. Quindy and Daddy play I Spy until they run out of stuff to guess about in the sparse exam room, and then Twenty Questions. Quindy thinks he’s pretty close to guessing what animal Daddy is thinking of when the doctor comes in.
The doctor looks like a heikki or merck. “Hello, I’m Dr. Kerr, sie/hir. And you are Alonzo and Quindy di Pietro?”
“Yes, he/him,” Daddy says, and looks at Quindy.
“Yeah, I’m Quindy,” and Quindy belatedly remembers fae’s supposed to tell faer pronouns. “Um, fae/faer?”
“I just need to ask you a few questions, and tell you some things that your daddy might have already told you. I need to make sure everyone who gets a change knows what they’re getting into, you know?”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
So Dr. Kerr asks Quindy some of the same questions the nurse asked, but digs into more detail. “So tell me, would you be able to have babies with a lefevre body?”
“No,” Quindy says.
“Why did you pick lefevre, out of all the body types you could choose from?”
“Well, I want to be soft and feel nice to hug, like it feels nice when I hug Mommy or Daddy. And I like the way the lefevre looks, without dangling bits or body hair. But I didn’t want breasts or periods.”
After a few more questions, Dr. Kerr says, “It sounds like you’ve done your research, Quindy.”
“Daddy and Zoe helped a lot.”
“Zoe is our AI,” Daddy explains.
“Well, there’s just a couple of things I need to talk to you about. Lefevre bodies aren’t as complicated to take care of as girl or merck bodies, for instance, but there are a few things to be aware of — mostly when you’re older, it won’t matter as much just now but you need to get in the right habits early.” Sie tells Quindy how to keep faer new vulva clean, and then starts talking about travel.
“There are some places that have gendered changing rooms and public restrooms,” sie says. “If you travel to one of those places, you’ll need to use the ones marked with ‘Women’ or with a stick figure sitting on a toilet.”
Daddy makes a face. Quindy asks, “But I’m not gonna be a woman, right?” Quindy is pretty sure ‘woman’ is an old-fashioned word for grown-up girls. He’s run into it older books and they had it for a vocabulary word a few months ago in English.
“Around here, no, lefevre is a subtype of beringer, which is its own main type. And there’s too many main types to have separate restrooms for all of them. But some places lump all the types into subtypes of boy and girl, and most of them require people who sit down to pee to use one restroom and those who can stand up to pee to use another one. Though there are some places that base it on overall body shape, instead — in those places you’d be considered a subtype of boy, and I’d be considered a subtype of girl even though I can stand up to pee. Your daddy will need to check the local laws for where you’re traveling so you don’t get in trouble. Although, to be honest, they don’t often enforce those laws unless the police already have a reason to dislike you.”
“Oh.” Quindy asks Daddy, “Are we going to go any of those places on vacation?”
“Not any time soon,” Daddy says, looking a little angry. Quindy is worried for a moment before fae realizes Daddy isn’t angry at faer. “Not while you’re my responsibility to protect.”
“Okay,” Quindy says. “There’s lots of safe places to go that don’t have stupid laws like that, right?”
“Yes, about half of the U.S., most of Canada, Japan, the EU... I don’t know about the rest of the world, but you can find out easily enough. Let’s see... you’re already going by fae/faer pronouns. You don’t have to, you know, any type can go by any pronouns, though there are some types that usually go by one set of pronouns and some that don’t have a consensus like that. You can change your name to something more common for lefevre, though you don’t have to. Since you won’t have nipples or breasts, you won’t need to wear a top when you go swimming, here or most other places, although again, check the local laws if you’re traveling... I think that’s everything. Do either of you have any questions?”
Quindy ponders for a minute, but can’t think of anything else. Daddy shakes his head.
“Well, Eileen will be back in a few minutes with your shot. Enjoy your new body, Quindy, and if you or your daddy have any questions later, just send a message to my office, okay?”
“Okay,” Quindy says. Dr. Kerr shakes faer hand and leaves.
“You’re almost there,” Daddy says. Quindy climbs off the table and goes to hug Daddy. Fae needs a hug to fortify faer against the big shot that’s coming.
The needle Eileen comes back with is big, bigger than the needles for the vaccine shots Quindy’s had before.
“Let’s get back on the exam table,” she asks. “I’ll need you to pull your pants down a little way, so I can get to your butt. Your daddy can stand next to the table and hold your hand.”
So Quindy climbs back up on the table, and pulls faer pants down, and Daddy holds faer hands. The needle hurts going in, and Quindy grimaces but doesn’t make a noise. It’s not any worse than the blood draw. Then Eileen starts squeezing the medicine in and it hurts a lot worse. “Ooowwwww,” Quindy moans, and squirms a little.
“It’s almost over, just hold still,” Eileen says. “...There, all done! Let me put a Band-Aid on the site and you’ll be good to go.”
Quindy’s butt is still sore, but the pain is bearable now. Fae holds Daddy’s hands while Eileen puts a Band-Aid on faer butt, and then Eileen gives them a bundle of papers and a couple of pamphlets, and they go.
“Do you want to go somewhere to celebrate?” Daddy asks. “Like an ice cream place?”
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
Quindy stays standing up on the subway ride, even though there are free seats. But by the time they get to the ice cream place, fae feels okay sitting down.
My short story, “The Accidental Detective,” is part of the Secret Trans Writing Lair One Prompt, Many Paths Bundle, with ten highly divergent stories by trans authors based on the same simple prompt. (Full disclosure: “The Accidental Detective” is also in Gender Panic and Other Stories, published a few weeks ago.)
My 335,000-word short fiction collection, Unforgotten and Other Stories, is available from Smashwords in epub format, itch.io in epub, mobi, and pdf formats, and Amazon in Kindle format. (Smashwords pays its authors better royalties than Amazon.)
You can find my other ebook novels and short fiction collections here:
Comments
Ouch!
Poor Quindy. Gettin' blood drawn on top of gettin' a shot in the butt sounds awful! I'm def not a fan of needles. On the other hand, if it meant I could really have a body that felt right, I'd cope with it. Havin' somebody like Quindy's daddy holding my hand and helpin' me feel safe would prolly help a lot.