Sebastian's body is starting to change, and he doesn't like it. But Daddy says there are other kinds of bodies he could grow up with. All he has to do is pick one... out of the thousands of options.
“Zoe, bring up some pictures of me from about ten to fourteen years ago,” Daddy says to the household AI. Zoe complies, projecting an array of four pictures on the opposite wall. Three of the four show Daddy holding a baby, either Sebastian or his big sister Stella, who lives with Mommy now. In one of them, he’s nursing the baby. “Sebastian, do you see what’s different about me back then?”
Sebastian says goodbye to the casual friends he sits with on the bus, gets off, and walks up to his apartment. It’s hot today, one of the first few hot days of the year, and he hopes that if he gets his homework done quickly (he doesn’t have much today), he can swim in the apartment complex swimming pool, which just reopened for the year.
“Hey, Daddy,” he calls out as he lets himself in. Daddy works from home, so he’s usually around when Sebastian comes home.
“Hey, Sebastian,” Daddy calls back from his bedroom/office. “Good day at school?”
“Pretty okay.” Sebastian walks into Daddy’s bedroom/office and gives Daddy a hug. “Is it okay if we go swimming? I’ve only got one piece of homework, just ten long division problems.”
“That sounds doable. Let me finish up this bit while you do your homework and change into your swimsuit, okay?”
“Yay!” Sebastian practically runs to his bedroom and starts digging through his backpack.
Forty-five minutes later, Sebastian knocks on Daddy’s door, which is closed now. He’s finished with his homework and wearing his swimsuit and flip-flops. “Just a second,” Daddy calls back, and then opens the door a few moments later. He’s also in his swimsuit and flip-flops. “Ready to go, squirt...?” He trails off, staring at Sebastian’s chest in a way that makes him uncomfortable. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to delay going swimming a little bit. Hopefully not too long. Come on, let’s sit down.”
Sebastian feels his heart pounding as he follows Daddy to the living room and they sit down on the sofa together. He has a pretty good idea what this is about, sort of. He knows he should have said something to Daddy after he noticed the weird stuff his chest was doing, when he was taking his bath a few nights ago. But some deep nameless dread held him back.
“Do you know what this means?” Daddy asked gently, pointing to Sebastian’s chest. At the slight bumps under his nipples.
Sebastian shakes his head. He thinks he knows, but he doesn’t know what words to use. The words the boys at school use to talk about older girls' chests sound gross and rude; he doesn’t want to be like them.
“Zoe, bring up some pictures of me from about ten to fourteen years ago,” Daddy says to the household AI. Zoe complies, projecting an array of four pictures on the opposite wall. Three of the four show Daddy holding a baby, either Sebastian or his big sister Stella, who lives with Mommy now. In one of them, he’s nursing the baby. “Sebastian, do you see what’s different about me back then?”
“You were more muscular...” Sebastian says, “and you... uh... you could nurse babies.”
“Right. When your mother was pregnant with Stella, we talked it over and decided I’d change to a parr body type, with breasts that I could nurse the baby with. It took about a month to grow the breasts and have them start producing milk, just in time for Stella to be born. And then I kept them for several years, until after you were eating solid food. That was when I changed to the inframale type body I have now.
“And because I was a parr type when your mother and I had you, you’re also a parr type. You’re going to grow breasts like the girls or the heikki types, but you’ll also keep developing like the boys in other areas. Do you remember when we talked about this before?”
Sebastian shakes his head.
“You were probably too young to take it in,” Daddy says with a sigh. “And I should have brought it up again sooner than this. Well, better late than never.” And he goes on to describe how Sebastian will grow body hair in various places, how his penis and testicles will get bigger proportionally to the rest of his body, how he’ll put on muscle more easily if he keeps being active. Sebastian feels his skin crawling as Daddy foretells his doom, and starts trembling. He feels disconnected, and can’t focus on everything Daddy is saying for a while.
“So, uh... do you want to go buy a new swimsuit that covers up your little breast buds, so we can go swimming before supper, or just sit here and talk it over some more?”
Sebastian is breathing hard. His vision is closing in. He can’t answer.
“Are you okay? Do you need a minute?”
He’s known this was coming, or something like it, but it’s too soon, he’s not ready. He hiccups a couple of times, and the hard breathing gives way to sobs. His daddy’s arms encompass him in a gentle hug, but it only helps a little.
“Shhh, it’s okay. If you don’t like being a parr type, we can go to the clinic and have them undo the little bit of breast growth, and change you to a boy type. Or an inframale type like me, or whatever other type you want,” he adds, sounding desperate as his offers of help don’t seem to do any good in stemming Sebastian’s sobs. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
Sebastian clings hard to his daddy while he sobs and sobs. Finally, he seems to run out of tears, and he’s able to talk again. “I don’t want,” he starts, and falters, unsure how to complete the sentence.
“You don’t want to be a parr type?”
Sebastian shakes his head. “Not just that. I don’t know if I want to be a boy or an inframale, either. It was okay until it started changing.”
“Would you like to be a girl, instead? Or something like a heikki or merck type?”
“I don’t know... I don’t think so?” Sebastian isn’t sure what a heikki or merck type is. There’s one girl at school who people say is a heikki like one of her moms, but Sebastian doesn’t know her well, and she looks like any other girl. At least so far. Sebastian meets his father’s eyes for a moment. He looks desperate and unsettled, unsure how to help. “I just don’t want to change.”
“Growing up means change, Sebastian. Even if we keep your body exactly like it is, which we can do for a while although it wouldn’t be a good idea long-term, you’ll be learning new things in school, and then going to middle school and high school and getting a job, and maybe a partner and maybe having kids.”
“Can we do that, though? Keep my body the same for a while? So I can learn all the different types and decide...”
“Sure. I’ll make an appointment at the clinic and ask them to turn off your puberty. We can have them undo your breast buds or leave them alone, whichever you prefer.”
Sebastian sniffles and says, “That sounds nice.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. But for now, do you want to go get a swimsuit piece for your chest?”
The panic threatens to come back. But it doesn’t, not quite. “Are you sure? I’d probably just wear it once or twice before we go to the clinic.”
“It might be several weeks before we can get an appointment. We can afford a swimsuit.”
“Okay.”
They don’t make parr type swimsuits for kids Sebastian’s age, or at least they don’t stock them in this neighborhood store. Even twenty years after a lot of adults started switching to new gender types, most people seem to want their kids to grow up as baseline boys or girls. Daddy says that if Sebastian decides to keep the breast buds as they are or let them keep developing, one way or another, they can special order a swimsuit online with matching top and bottom pieces, or a one-piece that has room in the crotch for Sebastian’s penis. For now, though, they’re left trying to find a two-piece girl’s swimsuit where the top makes a decent match for Sebastian’s red swim trunks. They manage to find an okay one, though the shade of red isn’t quite the same. Daddy pays for it and they go home.
A few minutes later, they meet up in the living room again, having changed into their swimsuits again. Sebastian feels shy, somehow more so than when his daddy was seeing his bare chest a couple of hours ago. “Does it look okay?”
“It looks fine, Sebastian. Ready to go swimming?”
Sebastian is a little nervous about other kids in the apartment complex seeing him like this, but he hasn’t gone swimming since last Fall and he can hardly wait. He nods enthusiastically and they head out the door.
Sebastian has a huge decision ahead of him, but for now, going swimming with Daddy is enough to take his mind off it.
When Sebastian comes home from school the next day, his daddy has some kind-of bad news.
“The first appointment we could get at the gender clinic isn’t until two weeks from now,” he says apologetically. “But I don’t think your breasts, or anything else, will change much in two weeks. It will be fine.”
The panic threatens to come back, but Sebastian pushes it down. He nods with a lump in his throat and says, “Okay, cool.”
“Do you want to talk some more about your options now? I’ve been looking up some sites that explain the different types. And, uh, some other stuff.”
Sebastian considers for a moment. He ought to do that sometime in the next two weeks, but that seems like forever. And just thinking about all the options feels overwhelming. “Maybe after I do my homework?” he says. He can hardly believe he’s offering to do homework to procrastinate doing something even scarier.
“Sure. Let me know if you need any help, okay?”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
But the homework doesn’t take all that long, even though he double-checks his work twice to put off thinking about the different types. Can he just not be any of the types? He’s pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.
His daddy pokes his head in Sebastian’s room. “Hey, how’s the homework coming?”
“I’m pretty much done,” he says.
“All right, cool. Do you want to hang out in the kitchen with me while I fix supper? I can tell you about what I’ve learned, and Zoe can show you pictures.”
“Okay.” Sebastian gets up and follows his daddy into the kitchen, where they get ingredients out of the pantry and line them up on the counter beside the stove.
“Okay, first,” his daddy says, starting to wash the potatoes, “you’re sure you don’t want to be a parr, like you are now, or an inframale like me? If so, we can skip those.”
“Definitely not a parr. I’m not sure about inframale, but maybe? I want to see the other choices first.”
“How about a boy?”
Sebastian thinks about the other boys at school. The boys, not the other boys, because he’s a parr, which didn’t matter until now but is about to matter a lot if he doesn’t get a doctor to stop it. They’re gross and brash and boastful and he doesn’t like most of them. “No, not that either.”
“Okay... well, let’s start with the basic girl type.” He starts peeling potatoes. “Zoe, could you bring up an anatomical diagram of a girl at different ages? One of the ones from the kids' gender site I was looking at earlier.”
Zoe projects four pictures on the wall, naked girls of different ages with their body parts labeled, including some of the inside parts. The youngest one looks pretty much like a little boy, except she doesn’t have a penis, but something called a vulva, which is connected to a bunch of inside parts that he’s never heard of.
“Okay, you see there how she starts growing little breasts, and then they get bigger, and then when she gets old they start sagging some? That’s pretty much the same for girls, parr, heikki, and merck — they all have breasts and they all grow at about the same pace.”
Daddy explains how those inside parts let girls, and some other types like the merck, grow babies inside them. When the baby is ready to be born, the vulva gets pretty wide to let the baby squeeze through.
Heikki and merck, it turns out, look pretty similar to girls, except that heikki have a penis instead of a vulva, and merck have both. Merck have the same inside parts as girls, it looks like. Sebastian hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet, though.
“What about types that don’t have breasts?”
“Well, inframale, of course, and boy type, but you said you weren’t interested in that... and then there’s, hmm. Zoe, what were the other ones that don’t have breasts?”
“There are one thousand, eight hundred and seven registered types, although most can be considered variations of basic types. Of those, 41% do not have breasts of any kind. Of those, boy, elzinga, inframale, lopez, and beringer and their subtypes are the most popular.”
“Okay, let’s see what they look like. Start with elzinga, I guess?”
The elzinga pictures make Sebastian’s skin crawl. The little one about Sebastian’s age isn’t too bad, though he’s bigger and stronger than Sebastian or most of the boys in fifth grade, but it looks like he shoots up tall and super muscular in the second picture, and then even more in the next one. And he grows hair all over his body, and his penis looks really big and gross. “Not that,” Sebastian says, making a face, and Zoe clears away the pictures, replacing them a moment later with pictures of a lopez type.
This one looks a lot like Daddy, wide-shouldered and soft, without much body hair, but with wider hips, and they’ve got a vulva behind their penis, which isn’t anywhere near as big as the elzinga’s.
“That might be okay? What was the other one?”
The beringer is kind of like Daddy or the lopez pictures, but not as soft, and doesn’t have a penis. Their shoulders and hips are both narrower than the lopez.
“That one looks nice. I guess I want to find out more about the, uh, the lopez and the beringer?”
“Looks like we’ve made some progress,” Daddy says happily. “No hurry about making up your mind. If you can’t decide by the time we see the doctor, he can just stop your puberty for a while and give you more time to decide.”
“Thanks, Daddy. Thanks, Zoe.”
“Oh, there was another thing I wanted to ask you. If you’re interested in one of the types like lopez and beringer, would you like me to use a different name or pronouns for you?”
“Like what?”
Zoe speaks up. “People with lopez type bodies most commonly use they/them or sie/hir pronouns. People with beringer type bodies most commonly use fae/faer pronouns. Some of the most common names of lopez types include —”
“Let’s stop there, okay, Zoe?” Daddy says. “Maybe bring up a list Sebastian can read later.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian says gratefully. “I’ve got a lot to learn before I see the doctor.”
“Remember, anybody of any type can use any name,” Daddy says. “You can still keep going by Sebastian if you change into a beringer or lopez or anything else; I kept going by Alonzo after I changed to parr and then inframale. But you’re getting old enough to think about what you want your name to be, and not just keep going by Sebastian because Mommy and I picked it out for you.”
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“Are you like that because your mommy or daddy was a beringer, or did you decide to be a beringer after you grew up?”
Mx. Herschel laughs. “I’m glad you think I look that young! No, when I was born I had a girl type body — almost everyone had a girl or boy type body back then. I was several years older than you when I told my parents I didn’t want to be a girl, but they didn’t like that, so I didn’t get to change into a beringer body until I was eighteen.”
It’s raining the next day, so after he finishes his homework, Sebastian plays Evacuation! for a while. He’s been playing for about an hour and has his island nearly evacuated, with twenty hours until the volcano erupts, when Zoe reminds him he hasn’t looked at the list of names and pronouns she sent to his tablet.
“Oh, yeah. I guess I’ll do that now.” He pauses the game and flips over to the document list, where Zoe has added a report.
First there’s a list of the pronouns that people with lopez type bodies go by, with the percentage for each. They/them is most popular with 47%, followed by sie/hir at 39% and a bunch of less popular ones. Then a list of the most common names used by people with lopez bodies. Several of them are names used by kids at school, or characters in books he’s read, but there are a few he’s never heard of, or knows only as common nouns, and he thinks some of them are pretty neat, like “Ocean” and “Surimond.”
Then the beringer. 86% of them use fae/faer pronouns, with none of the other options used by more than 3% of beringer, and their favorite names are a similar mix of popular girl and boy names and weird, cool names Sebastian hasn’t heard of. He thinks one of Daddy’s friends might be called “Taysan,” but Sebastian is supposed to call faer “Mx. Rollinson,” so he’s not sure. He’s pretty sure Mx. Rollinson isn’t a beringer, though, because fae has breasts.
Sebastian’s head is reeling by the time he gets to the last bit, where Zoe wrote that those are just the most popular names and pronouns, but most lopez and beringer have names that aren’t on the most popular list, and he can pick whatever names — or pronouns — he likes best. He decides to ignore that part, because what good is the list if it doesn’t help him narrow down his choices? And a lot of the names on the lists sound cool.
“Can you show me the pictures of lopez and beringer types again?” he asks. Zoe projects them on his bedroom wall, and he thinks about them some more. He likes the way the the beringer looks, without any sticking-out bits, but something occurs to him. “How do they pee? Does the pee just come out of the vulva? It looks like it would be messy.”
“Most types with both a penis and a vulva urinate through the penis, and can stand up to urinate like parr. Types with no penis such as girls or beringer typically sit down to urinate,” Zoe says. “They need to wipe their vulva or urinary opening with toilet paper, front to back, to clean up afterward.”
“Oh.” Sebastian feels kind of dumb now, like that should have been obvious. His head is getting tired. “I’m going to play Evacuation! again now.”
“Very well. I will inform you when your father is finished making supper.”
After studying those anatomical diagrams, Sebastian is noticing little differences between the adults at school that he never paid attention to before. His fifth grade teacher, Ms. Griffin, wears pants that are loose in the crotch, unlike the other two teachers whose classes have recess at the same time. All three of them have breasts, so he guesses that Ms. Griffin is probably a heikki or merck, and the other two are girls? Or one of the thousand-plus other types that Zoe didn’t have time to list. When the fifth-graders are going back to their classes from recess, they pass a janitor in the second- and third-grade hall, cleaning up some vomit. The janitor looks kind of like Daddy, except they have wide hips like the fifth grade teachers. So maybe lopez? The bus driver, who Sebastian has always been a little scared of, is taller than most people and has a big beard and thick hair all down his arms. Maybe an elzinga? Sebastian was reluctant to ask Ms. Griffin or the janitor what type they are, but he’s absolutely terrified to ask the bus driver.
He still doesn’t say anything about what he’s thinking to his friends at school. He’s glad to hang out with them at recess and lunch and talk about TV and games and comics and get his mind off the big decision Daddy needs him to make.
A couple of days later, on Friday, Daddy invites a beringer he knows from work to come over for supper. Mx. Herschel is pretty, with long black hair on the left and short white hair on the right. Fae’s wearing tight white pants and a loose black shirt. Fae kind of has a theme going there.
“Hey, Sebastian, this is Mx. Herschel,” Sebastian’s daddy says. “Fae’s here to answer your questions about being beringer. And eat supper, of course. Speaking of which, I’d better get back to cooking!” And he goes back in the kitchen, leaving Sebastian alone with faer.
“Hi,” Sebastian says shyly. “Um, is it okay if I ask what your first name is?”
“I’m Monroe,” fae says. “Your daddy said you’re thinking about changing to a beringer or lopez type?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure. I might decide to be an inframale like Daddy, but I’m leaning toward beringer, only there’s a lot I don’t understand yet. Um, are you like that because your mommy or daddy was a beringer, or did you decide to be a beringer after you grew up?”
Mx. Herschel laughs. “I’m glad you think I look that young! No, when I was born I had a girl type body — almost everyone had a girl or boy type body back then. I was several years older than you when I told my parents I didn’t want to be a girl, but they didn’t like that, so I didn’t get to change into a beringer body until I was eighteen. I got my friends to call me Monroe and use fae/faer pronouns for me from the time I was fifteen, though.”
“Oh.” Sebastian thinks hard. It seems like all his questions have gone right out of his head. Finally, he catches one before it flits away: “Why did you pick beringer? Out of all the other choices?”
“Well, I didn’t like my breasts, and I didn’t want a penis. I thought they were gross.”
Sebastian doesn’t mind his penis, it’s fine, though he agrees that the big hairy penises on some of the types do look really gross.
“And I didn’t want to be a mother, though I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t want to be a co-parent for a child someone else birthed, and I liked the fact that beringer don’t have periods.”
“Periods? Like at the end of a sentence?”
“Oy!” Mx. Herschel calls out toward the kitchen. “What have you been not telling this kid?”
“It’s your job now,” Daddy calls back. It sounds sort of like he’s joking, though Sebastian can’t always tell. “Or Zoe. You can get Zoe to tell him anything you’re not comfortable talking about. ”
Mx. Herschel heaves a big, dramatic sigh. “Well. Girls and lopez and merck all have the internal organs for having babies, right? And once a month — at least for girls, although I think some types do it every six or eight weeks — those organs sort of get ready to have a baby, and then usually they don’t end up having one, of course. And when they’re cleaning up afterward from their dry run preparations, blood comes out of your vulva. People of those types usually wear something absorbent and disposable to soak up the blood on those days of the month. There are several options, but basically, the point is that beringer don’t have that. Our vulva isn’t connected to organs for having a baby, so we don’t bleed and we don’t get the other period issues some girls and lopez and merck have, like cramps and headaches.”
Sebastian made a face. “That sounds gross. I don’t want to be a lopez.”
“Well, there are girl variants that look the same outside, but don’t have baby-making organs inside. I’m pretty sure it’s the same with lopez and merck variants. And even if you having baby-making organs, you can have them turned off when you’re not trying to have a baby.”
Sebastian considers. “I guess. But I think I’d rather be an inframale or beringer.”
“Supper’s ready,” Daddy calls out. Perfect timing.
They talk a little more about gender types during supper, but after about twenty minutes, Daddy and Mx. Herschel start talking about work, and Sebastian loses interest. He quietly asks Zoe to send some information about inframale types to his tablet, and reads and studies the anatomical diagrams for a while. The penis on the grown-up inframale doesn’t look as gross as the one on the elzinga; it’s smaller and doesn’t have all that hair around it, but it still doesn’t feel quite right. On the other hand, he likes that they don’t even have nipples, and he likes the overall shape.
After supper, they play Miracle Racetrack in four-player mode for a while. Zoe handicaps her reflexes so she can play fair. When the second game is over, Mx. Herschel asks Sebastian if he has any more questions.
“You said your parents didn’t want you to stop being a girl,” he asks after a few moments' thought. “Did they get mad when you changed as soon as you were grown up?”
“Yeah,” Mx. Herschel says, looking serious. “I’m glad you’ve got a good daddy who’ll support you whatever type you pick. My parents came around eventually, but it was tense between us for a few years.”
Sebastian nods. “Thank you for answering my questions.”
“No problem! If you think of any more, just have your daddy call me, okay?”
“Okay.”
When Mx. Herschel has gone out to the bus stop, Daddy asks, “Have you decided yet?”
“I think I’m going to be a beringer. But I want to think about it some more.”
“Okay. I know you’ll make the right decision. And if you change your mind later, well, the Department of Medicine will pay for one type change per year. So if you decide you don’t like being a beringer, you can change to inframale or lopez or whatever else you want in January.”
The next day, Saturday, Sebastian and Daddy get up early and eat breakfast, then take the bus and subway over to Mommy’s townhouse. One weekend a month, Sebastian spends a couple of days with Mommy and Stella, and two weeks later, Stella spends a couple of days with Daddy and Sebastian. Daddy says goodbye to Sebastian when they get to Mommy’s townhouse, and Sebastian goes up to her door by himself.
“Hey, Sebastian, give Mommy a hug!” Mommy says as she opens the door. Sebastian hugs her, and they go inside. “Stella, Sebastian’s here,” she calls out, and Sebastian’s big sister comes out of her room to say hi.
“Hey, Sebastian. You ready to go to the water park?”
“Oh,” Sebastian says. The water park would be great, except he’s not sure he wants to go out in a big crowd wearing his makeshift parr swimsuit. “Yeah, that sounds fun.” He doesn’t want to spoil Stella’s fun by sounding reluctant.
“We’re leaving as soon as Hadley gets here,” Mommy says. “She texted a few minutes ago and said she’s on her way.” Hadley is Mommy’s new girlfriend; they’ve been dating a few months.
“Come on,” Stella says. “Let’s put your suitcase away and we can play a game until Hadley gets here. How about Miracle Racetrack?”
“Yeah, that’s cool.” Sebastian wheels his little suitcase into the room he stays in when he visits, which has some of his clothes already in the drawers and closet, and then joins Stella in her bedroom where she has a couple of game consoles. They’ve played two rounds of Miracle Racetrack when Mommy calls out, “Hadley’s here, kids!”
“We’re almost done with this round,” Stella calls back.
“Five minutes,” Mommy calls out.
A bit less than five minutes later, they finish the round (Stella wins again) and go out to say hi to Hadley. Sebastian realizes for the first time that Hadley is probably a heikki or merck — she’s wearing pants that are tight down her legs but loose in her crotch, and there’s a slight bulge where a penis would be. So why is she Mommy’s “girlfriend” instead of her “heikkifriend” or “merckfriend”? Sebastian isn’t sure if it would be polite to ask. “Good morning, Hadley,” is all he says for now.
“You kids about ready?” Mommy asks.
“I’ve got my bag packed,” Stella says. “Sebastian, you ready?”
“Yeah, my swimsuit and flip-flops and towel are in a bag inside my suitcase. Hang on a second.” He goes to his room and grabs his swimming bag, then returns to the living room, where Hadley and Mommy are talking.
Mommy wants to check Sebastian’s bag to see if he remembered everything. “Sunblock, check; towel, check, flip-flops, check; swimsuit... oh, sweetie, you’re growing up!” She’s holding up the girl’s swimsuit top.
Sebastian blushes hard. “Don’t want to,” he mumbles quietly.
“It’s perfectly normal, sweetie,” she says, hugging him. “Nobody’s going to make fun of you for it.”
“I don’t like it,” he says. “I think I want to be a beringer or maybe an inframale like Daddy.”
“Beringer... which one is that, Peri?” Peri is her household AI.
“A type with no reproductive organs, semi-masculine build, no body hair. Further details you asked me not to speak of in front of children have been sent to your tablet.”
“Sweetie, are you sure you want that? Being inframale would be much nicer. If you were a beringer, you wouldn’t be able to have children.”
“It’s too soon to ask him to start thinking about having children,” Hadley says before Sebastian can think of what to say. “He has years and years to think about it and maybe change his mind. Or should I say faer mind?” she adds, turning to Sebastian.
“Dunno yet,” Sebastian says, not meeting her eyes. He wishes they would stop talking about it.
“Well, we have plenty of time to talk about it later this weekend. For now, let’s get going!” Mommy says. A few minutes later, they’re on their way to the water park.
On the subway, Mommy reads something from her tablet, her face twisting into a frown. Probably whatever Peri wanted to tell her that she wasn’t supposed to talk about in front of kids. Sebastian wonders if there’s something bad about the beringer body that’s going to surprise him because nobody wants to talk to a kid about it? Of course, it could be something Daddy or Zoe or Mx. Herschel already told him, and Mommy and Peri are just being squeamish. What was that Mx. Herschel said? Some of the types have... something named for a punctuation mark... a comma? Whatever it was, it sounded gross. But beringer don’t have that, so why is Mommy frowning?
He chats with Stella and Hadley until they get to the end of the subway line and get on a bus to go the rest of the way to the water park. It’s not much farther, and Sebastian mostly looks out the window on the way from the subway station to the park. When they get there, they go in the changing room. It’s a big U-shape, with rows of lockers on the outer sides and rows of private changing booths in the middle. Most of the changing booths are occupied; Mommy tells Sebastian and Stella to take the two empty ones first.
Sebastian doesn’t take long to change into his slightly mismatched swimsuit. He’s nervous about going out in it, though. The last couple of times he went swimming at the apartment complex with Daddy, there was either nobody else there, or just a mommy with her little toddler, too mature and too young to comment on Sebastian’s weird makeshift parr swimsuit. Now, though?
After a minute, he works up the courage to open the booth door. Stella is standing there in her one-piece swimsuit with Mommy, Hadley having presumably gone into one of the other booths.
“You look really nice in that,” Mommy says. Her praise makes him feel funny.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“Y’all stay put,” she says, going into the booth that Sebastian just vacated.
Sebastian is alone with Stella for the first time in over an hour — since Mommy pulled out the swimsuit top and embarrassed him. Stella asks, “Do you want a hug?”
Sebastian nods mutely. He hugs Stella back, ignoring the boy, or maybe an elzinga, stepping out of one of the booths and heading out the exit.
“So I don’t really get what’s going on,” Stella says. “I got the impression it was a bad time to ask questions when Mommy was talking earlier. Is it okay if I ask now?”
“I’m a parr, 'cause Daddy was a parr when he and Mommy had me, but I don’t like growing breasts so the doctors are going to make them go away. Only I don’t know if I want to be a beringer or an inframale or just stop like this for a while until I make up my mind.”
“That’s cool. Whatever type you want is fine with me. I’m staying a girl for now, but I think I might want to try being a heikki like Hadley when I’m older.”
“Oh. That’s cool too.”
“My friend Selicia at school, one of her parents is a beringer, I think. The other ones are a girl and a heikki.”
“Cool. I met a beringer that works at Daddy’s company. Fae was nice.”
Hadley comes out of her booth then, wearing a two-piece with a skirted bottom. “You kids excited for the water slides?”
“Yeah!” Stella enthuses. Sebastian forces a smile. He’ll probably enjoy it once he gets over the nervousness about crowds of people seeing him.
Another door opens and a Hispanic merck or heikki comes out. They aren’t wearing a skirted bottom like Hadley, but a loose bottom similar to Sebastian’s, only fitted for their wide hips and big butt. They’re accompanied by a small child, maybe three or four, who’s bouncing up and down excitedly. They say something affectionate in Spanish to the little tot. Sebastian’s Spanish isn’t good enough to be sure, but he thinks they’re telling the little one to be patient.
Sebastian’s mommy comes out of her booth then, followed a moment later by the merck or heikki’s partner, a boy, accompanied by another small child. They take their kids' hands to lead them out into the park.
“Okay,” Mommy says, “let’s get everything stashed in a locker or two and we can go have fun getting soaked.”
So they do. Stella is out the door first, followed quickly by Hadley and Mommy. Sebastian hesitates on the threshold for a moment, then reminds himself that the other people using the changing booths didn’t stare at him or anything, and most of the people in the park won’t either. He pushes himself and steps out into the sunlit park.
No one turns to stare at him, except Stella, who’s looking impatient. “C’mon!” she calls out.
Time to ride some water-slides.
My new short fiction collection, Gender Panic and Other Stories, contains 253,948 words of transgender fiction: seven short stories, seven novelettes, one novella, and two short novels. Six of the stories (including both novels), 163,318 words, have never appeared online before. It can be found at:
You can find my other ebook novels and short fiction collections here:
His mommy doesn’t mess up very often, so her apologizing is pretty rare and makes him feel funny when it happens.
A few hours later, when everyone is tired and Sebastian, at least, is sleepy, they head back to the changing room. Mommy opens the locker and gets out everyone’s towels and street clothes, and Sebastian and Stella take the next couple of available booths.
Sebastian feels better after he gets back into his regular clothes, even though he’s had fun on the slides and in the wave-pool and the river-pool. He wants to take a nap when they get back to Mommy and Stella’s house.
The bus and train rides feel longer than they did this morning. Sebastian is tired enough to fall asleep, but can’t because there aren’t any seats available at this time of day, so he just leans against Mommy while they both hold onto a support pole. As soon as they get back to the house, he crawls into bed and sleeps for a couple of hours.
When he gets up, Hadley is cooking supper while Mommy and Stella are watching something on TV. Sebastian wordlessly sits down next to Mommy and cuddles up to her, and she wordlessly smiles and tousles his hair. Whatever program they were watching is over a few minutes later, before Hadley is finished with supper, and Sebastian’s comfortable snuggle comes to an end.
“Sebastian, sweetie,” Mommy says, turning off the TV, “you’ve been talking with Daddy about changing to inframale or beringer?”
“Yeah, and Zoe too. They told me a lot of stuff about the different types. And Daddy made an appointment with the doctor, and he said if I can’t make up my mind by then they can just stop me from changing any more until I decide. And Mx. Herschel came to supper, fae’s a beringer that works with Daddy.”
“That’s good. I’m sorry for how I reacted this morning. You can be whatever type makes you most comfortable. You don’t need to think about whether you want to have children for years to come, and then you’ll be talking about it with your partner or partners, not with your mom and dad.”
“It’s okay,” Sebastian says, not sure what to say. His mommy doesn’t mess up very often, so her apologizing is pretty rare and makes him feel funny when it happens.
“What is it about inframale and beringer that makes you think you might want to be one of those types?”
“Well, Daddy’s nice. And he’s soft and huggable, and doesn’t have hair all over like boys and elzinga.”
“Girls can be soft too,” Stella pipes up.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to have breasts,” Sebastian replies. “And beringer, well, I kind of like the way they look, without the penis and — and — and the testicles dangling and getting in the way.”
“Does your penis get in the way of stuff often?” Stella asks.
“Not much, but Daddy and Zoe said it’ll get bigger and bigger if I stay a parr. Or change to inframale, though probably not as much. And it seems like that would get in the way a lot.”
“It does get in the way sometimes,” Hadley says, coming into the room and hugging Mommy from behind, “but I think it’s worth it. But if you want to have a vulva instead, that’s cool. It took me a while to make up my mind whether I wanted to be a girl or a heikki or maybe a merck, and maybe someday I might change again.”
“What were you before?” Sebastian asks.
“A boy until I was fifteen, and then an inframale for a few years.”
“Have you thought about maybe being a girl with very small breasts?” Mommy asks. “Breasts can come in any size, you know.”
“No, but I guess I’ll think about it. But, uh, don’t girls have commas?”
Everyone is silent for a moment, looking puzzled, and then Hadley bursts into giggles. Mommy glares at her and says, “Do you mean periods?”
“Oh, yeah, that.”
“Well, yes, unmodified girls and merck have periods. Most of us have our periods turned off when we’re not trying to have babies, though.”
“Oh, yeah, Mx. Herschel said something about that.”
“Well, that’s something else to think about.”
“Oh, and by the way, supper is ready,” Hadley says, finally getting her giggles under control.
After supper, Sebastian and Stella go to Stella’s bedroom to play some more Miracle Racetrack for an hour or two before bed. When they’re between games, setting up for the next one, Stella asks, “What did you think about Mom’s suggestion? Being a girl with small breasts, I mean.”
Sebastian shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t know you could be a girl and not have your breasts get big after a while. But I still think I’ll be a beringer. They don’t have nipples and don’t have to wear shirts in hot weather.”
“Huh.” The game starts, and they concentrate on driving and dodging the obstacles and other cars for a while. After about ten minutes, Stella says, “There’s places where girls and other types with breasts don’t have to wear shirts in hot weather, either. Mostly out west, like California and Nevada.”
“But you and Mommy and Daddy and my friends all live here,” Sebastian points out, swerving to dodge a boulder that’s fallen in the road.
“Yeah. Just saying. I was doing a report on California for social studies and when I said that, everybody in class giggled, and Ms. Ruskin said I should talk more about what they manufacture and grow instead.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
Mommy comes in a little while later and tells them it’s time for bed. She hugs Sebastian good night, and he goes to his room to change into his pajamas. But he tosses and turns and can’t sleep, so he asks Peri to tell him a bedtime story.
“A story about a girl,” he adds. He’s still thinking about maybe being a girl instead of a beringer. There are a lot more girls than beringers, and maybe he wouldn’t have to explain as much if he were a girl?
Peri starts telling him a story. “Once upon a time there were two farmers, a boy and a girl, and they had three daughters. Their oldest daughter said, ‘I want to go out and see the world,’ so they gave her their blessing and a bag of food and money and off she went...”
Of course the oldest and the middle girl get in trouble, and the youngest has to get them out of it, and comes home to shower her parents with money and gems and seeds of nifty foreign plants. But by then, Sebastian is asleep.
Sunday is pretty uneventful. Sebastian plays Evacuation! with Stella in the morning, and later in the day they play board games with Mommy and Hadley. Daddy comes over for supper in the evening.
“Did Sebastian tell you he’s thinking about changing his type?” Daddy asks during supper.
“Yes, he told us he’s thinking about being inframale or beringer,” Mommy says. “I suggested if he doesn’t want noticeable breasts or a penis, he could also be a variant girl type with small or no breasts.” That’s not exactly what she said on Saturday, but Sebastian doesn’t speak up and correct her.
“What do you think, Sebastian?” Daddy asks.
Sebastian shrugs. “I still think I want to be a beringer, but I’ll read more about girl types and see.”
Daddy and Sebastian go home after supper. When they get home, Sebastian thinks about looking up girl types, but he’s pretty tired, so instead he asks Zoe to remind him about it after he finishes his homework tomorrow, and goes to bed.
At school the next day, Sebastian finally tells his lunch friends what he’s been thinking about.
“I don’t want to be a parr anymore,” he says. “My daddy made a doctor’s appointment for me next week and I’m trying to decide if I want to be a beringer or an inframale or a girl or what.”
“You’re a parr?” Julius asks, looking surprised.
“What’s a parr?” Vincent asks.
“My daddy was a parr when I was born,” Sebastian explains to Vincent. “So if I don’t get the doctor to stop it, I’m going to grow breasts like a girl or heikki or merck.”
“If you don’t want to be a parr anymore, why not just be a boy?” Julius asks. “Why a girl or — what were the other types you said?”
“Beringer or inframale. I’m pretty sure I’ll pick beringer, but I promised Mommy I’d read about girl bodies before I decide. She said I didn’t have to have breasts to be a girl.”
Vincent makes a disgusted face. Sebastian feels his insides twist up and he doesn’t feel like eating anymore.
“So what are inframale and beringer like?” Julius asks.
Sebastian starts to explain, but Vincent starts laughing and Sebastian blushes, stammering for a few moments and then shutting up. Julius glares at Vincent.
“Be nice,” he says. “Or go sit somewhere else.” Sebastian feels grateful and almost wants to hug Julius, but isn’t sure he’d like it.
“Oh, okay. I still think it’s stupid,” Vincent says.
“Saying that isn’t being nice,” Julius says sternly.
“Whatever. So you want to be a girl without tits? What’s the point?”
“I don’t want breasts, though,” Sebastian says, his eyes on the tray of food he’s not eating. “I don’t know if I want to keep my penis, either. I guess it’s okay right now, but if it gets bigger and hairy like in the diagrams, that would be gross.”
“If you got rid of it, you’d have to pee sitting down,” Julius points out. “But that doesn’t seem to bother girls too much.” Julius has two sisters.
“Yeah, that would be fine. But inframale types aren’t hairy, so that might be okay. And they’re soft and nice to hug.”
“That sounds comfy,” Julius says, but Sebastian meets his eyes for a moment and it feels like Julius is just trying to find something nice to say. He doesn’t get it any more than Vincent, he’s just being polite.
“I need to go to the restroom,” Sebastian says. He buses his tray and then goes to ask one of the lunchroom monitors if he can go down the hall to the restroom. All he really wants to do is get away from Vincent’s amused disgust and Julius’s puzzled politeness.
After school, Sebastian plays Evacuation! for a while before settling to his homework. He’s having trouble with stubborn people who don’t want to leave their homes and don’t believe the volcano is really going to erupt. There are always several of those when you play on the harder settings. After the game is over with 99.7% of the island evacuated, he pulls out his homework and looks at it. Several fraction problems for math, and a vocabulary worksheet for English.
He doesn’t want to do it. But he knows he’d feel guilty if he just keeps playing games until Daddy asks him if he’s done his homework. So he asks Zoe to tell him about girls without breasts.
“Girl variants without breasts, or with very small breasts as your mother suggested, include abaroa, nikolov and jiang.” She displays a few anatomical diagrams and Sebastian studies them.
It looks like abaroa not only have flat chests, but no nipples like beringer. The other two have big nipples like the older girls, but no breasts to speak of. The abaroa and nikolov look hard and muscular, and the jiang is soft and cuddly like Daddy, but otherwise they all look like girls, with narrow waist, wide hips, and a vulva. And they all have the inside parts that let them make babies.
“Is there one that doesn’t have any breasts or the inside parts like the beringer, but it’s soft and cuddly like inframale or jiang?”
“The lefevre type matches your criteria. It is classified as a beringer variant.”
The lefevre looks like the beringer pictures, but softer, with a little bit of widening at the hips, though not as much as the girls and heikki have.
“I like that one.”
“Have you decided?”
“...Yeah, I think so... that one fixes the only thing I didn’t quite like about the beringer type. Thanks!”
“Do you want me to inform your father, or would you rather tell him yourself?”
“I’ll go tell him.” No, wait. Daddy might be proud of him for making up his mind, but that won’t stop him from asking if he’s done his homework. He starts working on the vocabulary sheet.
When Daddy calls him to supper, Sebastian tells him, “I’ve made up my mind. I want to be a lefevre.”
“Oh? That seems out of the blue. What about the types you were thinking about before?”
“Lefevre is kind of like beringer, except you’re softer and more huggable,” Sebastian tries to explain. “Zoe, you can explain it better.”
“Lefevre is a beringer subtype with slightly wider hips and a tendency to subcutaneous fat similar to inframale or girl.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense. If you’re sure you’ve made up your mind, I’ll call the doctor’s office and let them know, so when we come in for your appointment next week they’ll be ready with the medicine that will change your body to a lefevre type.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I couldn’t make up my mind between the inframale and the beringer, but the lefevre has the things I liked about both of them.”
“Well, I’m proud of you for deciding. Remember, you can still change your mind any time before next Tuesday, but after that, you’ll have to stick with the lefevre body until January.”
Sebastian nods. “I don’t think I’m gonna change my mind.”
“Zoe, what pronouns do lefevre usually use?”
“88% use fae/faer, similar to baseline beringer and other beringer subtypes.”
“Do you want me to start using fae/faer pronouns for you?” Daddy asks Sebastian. “And do you think you’ll want to change your name?”
“I looked at the list of beringer names Zoe gave me, and a lot of them are pretty cool, but I don’t know if I like them for me, you know? And yeah, I might as well start getting used to fae/faer.”
“All right. How’s this... ‘Sebastian is a clever and hard-working lefevre and faer daddy loves faer very much.’”
Sebastian feels warm and fuzzy, and it takes faer a moment to say, “Yeah, that feels nice.”
My new short fiction collection, Gender Panic and Other Stories, contains 253,948 words of transgender fiction: seven short stories, seven novelettes, one novella, and two short novels. Six of the stories (including both novels), 163,318 words, have never appeared online before. It can be found at:
You can find my other ebook novels and short fiction collections here:
“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:
By the time Stella comes to visit again, the changes are pretty much complete. Daddy, Stella and Quindy go out shopping, and Daddy buys Stella a couple of things too, although the trip is mostly to get new underwear and a new swimsuit for Quindy, and some new pants, too.
Quindy starts sitting down to pee right away, as Dr. Kerr said. Fae also starts anxiously examining faerself every time fae takes a bath, to see how the changes are progressing. Thursday, Vincent tells them that he’s decided he likes Jack better than his old name or any of the other ones his parents or Skynet suggested, so he’s going by that now.
Not much has changed yet with Quindy’s body when Stella comes over to visit the following weekend. She’s full of questions that Quindy doesn’t feel like answering.
“Yeah, I’m going by Quindy now,” fae says, taking the easiest question and hoping Stella will forget about the hard, embarrassing questions. “I asked Zoe for a big list of all the names beringer go by and I liked that one best.”
“Quindy is a pretty name,” Stella says, and Quindy feels warm and fuzzy. “And you started your body changing at the doctor’s office a few days ago?”
“Yeah, not much is happening yet. The doctor said it would take a few weeks to finish.”
“Do you want to start wearing different clothes?”
“I haven’t really thought about it?” Quindy remembers the tight white pants and a loose black shirt that Mx. Herschel wore when fae came to visit. “I figure I can keep wearing whatever I want. But maybe I’ll wear tighter pants sometimes when I don’t have anything for them to pinch.”
“You’ll probably want different underwear and a new swimsuit to fit your new shape.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. I guess Daddy will buy me some when I’ve finished changing?”
“Sure thing, Quindy,” Daddy says. “A month from now should be about right. You’ll be more or less finished changing, and Stella will be visiting again and can help us shop for things.”
That sounds like a boring way to spend a day when Stella is visiting, but Quindy supposes it’s necessary.
After a few more prying questions from Stella that Quindy deflects, they play Evacuation! until Daddy has finished his overflow of work and says he’s ready to go. They go uptown to the science museum, which Quindy hasn’t been to in a couple of years. They’ve got an arthropod zoo now, with lots of cool little critters in little terrariums, and a new mosasaur skull, and lots of other neat stuff.
After they eat lunch and go home, and play Against the Darkness for an hour to let their food settle, they go swimming in the apartment complex pool. There’s more kids and grown-ups swimming today, but after the crowds at the water park, Quindy doesn’t mind. And fae happily thinks that in a few weeks, fae won’t need the swimsuit top. Maybe fae will be wearing a skintight swimsuit bottom like Stella, too. That would be nice. Although maybe Daddy will want faer to keep wearing this swimsuit until fae grows out of it.
Daddy and Quindy’s apartment isn’t as big as Mommy and Stella’s townhouse, so when Stella comes to visit she sleeps in Quindy’s bed, which is big enough for both of them. Daddy was talking about buying a sofa bed for her to sleep on when they’re older; they’ll soon be too old to sleep together like they are already too old to bathe together, but he doesn’t say anything about it tonight. Quindy and Stella take turns changing into their pajamas in the bathroom and lie down. They talk about the neat stuff they saw at the science museum until they get sleepy and first Stella, then Quindy drop off to sleep.
Sunday morning, they all go for a walk to a small park a few blocks from Daddy and Quindy’s apartment. They they play games for a few hours until it’s time to fix supper. Daddy lets Stella and Quindy help get stuff ready for cooking, like washing the vegetables, though he doesn’t let them chop stuff or work on the stove just yet. Mommy arrives when the soup is almost done.
“Hey, Quindy,” she says. “I hear you’ve got a new name and pronouns.”
“Yeah,” fae says shyly. “I hope you like them.”
“I love you, so of course I’ll love your name. It’s sweet and lovable like you.”
They hug, and then Daddy and Stella are bringing the bowls of soup to the table, and they all sit down and eat.
“So you got the shot to start changing your body on Tuesday?” Mommy asks.
“Yeah. Nothing’s really changed yet, though.”
“It won’t take long. I bet you were really brave when they gave you the shot.”
Quindy nods uncertainly, and Daddy confirms Mommy’s supposition.
“Want to know a secret?” Mommy says, theatrically whispering toward Quindy and Stella with her hand between her mouth and Daddy. Daddy rolls his eyes.
“What?” Quindy asks.
“When your daddy got the shot to make him into a parr, he yelped like a teacup terrier.”
Quindy and Stella giggle.
A couple of days later, peeing gets messy enough to justify sitting down. And over the next few days, Quindy notices faer nipples and aureoles fading away into faer background skin color. The little puffy mounds behind the fading nipples gradually shrink until they’re level with the rest of faer chest, which is putting on a thin but noticeable layer of subcutaneous fat, but it takes longer for faer vulva to fully form and kind of swallow up faer shrinking penis. But the more the changes progress, the better fae feels about it. This was the right choice.
By the time Stella comes to visit again, the changes are pretty much complete. Daddy, Stella and Quindy go out shopping, and Daddy buys Stella a couple of things too, although the trip is mostly to get new underwear and a new swimsuit for Quindy, and some new pants, too. Some but not all of Quindy’s pants and shorts have been getting a little tight in the hips.
Daddy gets one of the store employees to measure Quindy around the hips and and down the leg, and then they find a couple of packages of girl/beringer type panties of the right size. The swimsuit takes a little longer to find. Quindy wants a plain red one like the red boy swimsuit fae’s been wearing, but they don’t seem to have any in stock; the only solid colors they have are green and yellow, and the only red ones are kind of a rusty color or a light red that’s almost pink, with different patterns on them. Quindy finally decides on the solid green one.
Pants take the longest time of all. Quindy tries on a bunch of pants and shorts that look nice and are supposedly the right size but are too tight, too loose, too long or too short before finding a week’s worth that fit right. Then when fae thinks they’re about ready to go, Stella asks, “Do you want to try on some skirts or dresses too?”
Quindy is about to say no, but fae thinks about it for a minute instead. Then she says, “I don’t think I want to wear any, but I’ll try one on and see how I feel in it.”
“Good lefevre!” Stella says, and Daddy smiles. “All right, the skirts are over there...”
Daddy mostly just hangs out and watches while Stella and Quindy go through a rack of child-size skirts. After a few minutes they find a neat one with cartoon lizards, snakes, turtles and alligators printed on a white background. “I like this one,” Quindy announces. “At least to look at,” fae amends. “I’ll see in a minute if I like wearing it.”
“All right, let’s head back to the changing rooms,” Daddy says.
Quindy goes in the little room with the skirt, takes off faer pants, steps into the skirt and pulls it up to faer waist. It comes down to about mid-calf. Fae looks at faerself in the mirror. Fae likes the way it looks, but does it feel right? Fae isn’t sure. There’s a cute little turtle just below fae’s waist on the left that seems to be looking faer in the eyes through the mirror, saying, “Give it a try.”
Fae steps out of the waiting room. “Just one skirt,” fae says. “I’ll wear it a couple of times at home and make sure I like wearing it for hours before I wear it to school, and if I still like it after that I guess we can buy some more.”
“Yay!” Stella cheers.
“Well, if that’s the only skirt you want, I think we’re done here for now,” Daddy says. “Let’s get something to eat and go home.”
After Daddy pays for all the clothes, they go by a diner on the way home and eat burgers and fries and milkshakes. After they get home, Stella encourages Quindy to change into faer new reptile skirt, and fae agrees, also changing into a new pair of panties at the same time. Fae wears the skirt until bedtime. The longer fae wears it, the more comfortable fae gets in it.
When Mommy comes over to pick up Stella on Sunday evening, Stella tells her about the skirt, and she asks Quindy to show her, so Quindy gets it out of the dirty clothes hamper and changes into it again. “Oh, that’s really cute!” she says. “I like the little turtles especially.”
“I like the turtles best too,” Quindy says.
After supper, Mommy and Stella go home, and Quindy changes into faer pajamas. Fae is feeling good about faer new body and faer new clothes and faer new name. Maybe fae will want a different body eventually, like Daddy or Hadley, but fae feels like this will be good for a long time.
My other free stories can be found at:
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