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The Great Shift: Healing Hands By Johnny Girl ([email protected]) I stared down at my hands. My hands. I still had trouble believing they were really mine. They were long and slender and delicate and feminine, wearing rings and bracelets, the fingers tipped with sparkly purple fingernail polish. These weren't the hands I was familiar with. They weren't the rough and strong and calloused hands I'd been so dependent on; they were weak and soft and smooth and small and useless to me. They were a girl's hands. But they were mine. And I was a girl now. I wrapped my arms around me, carefully avoiding my breasts (they seemed incredibly sensitive, but maybe that was because I'd never had them before), and stepped quickly but carefully down the sidewalk across campus, hurrying as much as my new legs would allow. They were shorter than they had been... I was shorter than I had been, by more than half a foot, and that combined with my awkward control over my new body made my progress slow. It still felt strange to feel my new breasts bouncing while I walked, and to feel my wider hips and ass swaying with each step I took. They made me feel heavier, somehow, even though I knew for a fact that I was much lighter. I absently brushed a few strands of long blonde hair from my face with my delicate, useless hands. The switch... it had screwed everything up, hadn't it? There I was, in a girl's body, crossing campus to go to the meeting that I thought would almost certainly bring my life to a screaming halt. Everything felt uncomfortable, strange. Even the campus was unfamiliar now... New England College had been transformed in a single stroke from a peaceful institution of higher education to something not unlike a war zone. I tried to imagine myself as I walked, to imagine what I looked like to everyone else. I no longer looked like a laid-back, confident 6'1" black-haired punk musician, but a nervous little 5'5" blonde-haired preppie girl. I laughed a soft, feminine laugh mixed with its fair share of masculine bitterness. I was a girl. I was a fucking girl. No matter how many times I repeated it to myself it felt strange. How could I be a girl? I was Steve Mason, very much a guy! I wasn't this Kristy Smith! I wasn't a girl, damn it! I wasn't, however things appeared to the rest of the world. But I was. I was, and there was no changing that. I felt helpless, unable to do anything about my situation. At least I wasn't alone; ninety percent of the world was suffering the same problem. They hadn't all swapped genders, but most of the rest of the world had swapped bodies. No one knew why yet, but it was a worldwide problem. In a single moment every human being in the world had blacked out, and almost all of them had woken up in different bodies. The effects seemed to be completely random, but most people switched with people near them, and many people switched one-on-one with people they were in physical contact with. My friend Jake and his girlfriend Sara had switched with each other. They refused to say what they'd been doing at the time, but knowing the two of them it was pretty easy to guess. Almost all of my friends had switched with someone. Since New England College was a pretty self-contained community, most students had either switched with other students or with professors. I'd switched with Kristy Smith, a junior biology student, two years older than me, who was in my psychology class. Gender changes like mine were actually pretty common. I'd met at least twenty girls who had previously been guys in the two days since the switch, and just as many guys who had previously been girls. My roommate was among them, in fact. At least I had it easier than him. He'd been exercising at the gym during the switch, and he'd switched into the body of someone sunbathing at the pool... a female sunbather, and a very well-endowed one. When I'd discovered that the blonde chick with the big tits in the skimpy bikini who'd shown up outside our room last night was Jeff, I'd had a hard time not laughing. Even when Jeff had found some street clothes from the wardrobe of Lisa, the girl whose body he'd taken, he was forced to dress in a provocative manner... the most modest outfit Lisa owned was a babydoll Y-shirt that fit tightly over his ample breasts and tight jeans that showed off his shapely legs and ass. It seemed that Lisa had a reputation, and it was a reputation that she was proud to uphold. Jeff was a pretty conservative guy; he had some slightly sexist opinions of women and some pretty closed-minded views on sexuality, which had led to some political debates between us. That fact made Jeff's situation all the more amusing to me. I'd been luckier. Even though Kristy's body was attractive, she didn't seem to feel the need to flaunt it. I'd met with her after the switch, and she'd given me all of her clothes... and, to my relief, while there were some shorts and short skirts and some tank tops and halter tops, there were also plenty of less revealing shirts and longer skirts and comfy jeans and pants and sweatshirts and sweaters. The sweater I was wearing as I walked across campus was comfortable. It was a light blue long-sleeved turtleneck, and even though it fit rather tightly across my boobs, it hid my body well from lecherous eyes (not that I suspected anyone was looking too closely at the moment; half the world's pervs had their own feminine bodies to play with, and the rest had some other problem of their own that they were dealing with). I didn't like the sweater as much as the band T-shirts I usually wore, but it was good enough. My jeans were comfortable, too, and the tennis shoes were a welcome relief after the flip-flops I'd been wearing after the switch. My new hair wasn't a problem, really; even though it was much longer than the hair I'd had as a guy, reaching to the middle of my back, it had been easy to put it into a ponytail. My hair as a guy had been shoulder- length, so I'd worn ponytails before. The panties still felt weird, and the bra was uncomfortable, but I could deal. But I couldn't deal with my hands. No way. I may have had it easier than some people in some ways, like Jeff in his knockout body, or like my friend Matt who had become seventy-two-year old Professor Johnson... but at least none of their lives had been ruined. Mine had, not because I'd lost my manhood (even though that was most definitely an inconvenience) but because I'd lost my beautiful hands. These hands, these soft, small, girly hands, decorated with rings and prettied up with purple polish, were perfectly functional. They could open doors and dial phones, they could write and they could reach out, but they couldn't play a guitar, damn it! I knew; I'd tried. Five times since the switch I'd picked up my old electric guitar and tried to play it, but each time I'd failed. My new hands weren't large enough to reach very far across the fretboard. When I could find a chord my small hands were large enough to play, I found that it hurt to play it. These hands didn't have five years of calluses protecting them from the sting of the strings. Kristy wasn't a music student like me; she was a biology student. She wasn't a guitarist; she was a fucking scientist. I doubted she'd ever lifted an instrument in her life. My singing voice was pretty well shot, too. As Steve I was a baritone, and while I wasn't the lead vocalist of my band, the Screaming Chickens, my backup lyrics were important to the band. Kristy was... I didn't know what register she sang, really, but she was no baritone. She was probably a soprano, if I could guess anything from the voice I'd spoken with for the past couple of days. Whatever it was, it hadn't sounded like a good singing voice when I'd tried it out. It was weak and nasally. That in addition to the fact that I was totally unfamiliar with my new voice made it almost impossible for me to sing. It was permanent, as far as I knew. Permanent. I didn't want to consider that option. I hurried along the sidewalk toward my room, moving my short legs as quickly as they could move. --- I walked inside the practice room, unsure what I was going to see. I saw some unfamiliar faces inside, and one that I recognized. Three people were gathered in the room. One of them was an older man who appeared to be in his fifties or sixties, dressed in casual clothes like the ones I'd worn before I'd become Kristy and been forced to stuff myself into tight jeans and skirts. He was holding a pair of drumsticks and staring at his hands when I came in, much like I'd been staring at mine all day. There was a hulking behemoth of a student standing in the middle of the room, close to seven feet tall and with bulging muscles. He was an imposing figure, but he had a fairly casual look to his expression that didn't quite match his body. The third figure was familiar to me... it was my bandmate Mick, or at least it looked like Mick. These were the members of the Screaming Chicken, post-switch; Mick had called us all and asked us to meet here to discuss our situation. This was going to be awkward. My bandmates were my best friends, and at least before the switch I'd been able to talk to them about anything... but how would that change now that I was a girl? I could see that none of them had switched genders. I was the odd man out. Odd woman out. Would they accept me like this? We'd talked about women, sung about women, joked about women, ogled women together. Now I was a woman. The three of them looked up as I entered the room, and they all looked shocked when they saw me. The behemoth spoke. "Steve? Is that you?" "Yeah," I said, blushing. The gawked at me for a minute, then the behemoth and the geezer started cracking up. Mick's body just said, "Shiiiiit..." in a low voice. "Shut up, you guys, it's not funny," I said, sulking. "Uh oh, look who's got PMS!" the behemoth said. That made him and the geezer laugh even harder. I sat angrily on a chair in the corner. "Can we just get to the point?" They kept laughing. I glared at them. Then I noticed Mick's body was leering at me, his eyes focused on my tits. I crossed my arms. "All right, all right, let's get to business," the behemoth said, still chuckling and wiping tears from his eyes. "Steve, I'm Mick, and this is Derek..." he pointed to Mick's... his... body. "And that's Alex." He pointed at the old man. I was especially surprised by Alex... our drummer had lost forty years in the switch. His new body was very frail; he looked feeble now. I'd only heard from Mick, and only from an answering machine message; I didn't know who anyone else had become. None of them had previously known that I'd become a girl, either, so I felt amazingly awkward. "All right, guys," said Mick, our lead vocalist, "we've come here to talk about how this body switching thing has affected our band. Obviously it's changed things. We all have new bodies, now, and some of us have very different ones." He looked at me and Alex. "We all have different abilities now. I've found out I can't sing with this voice the way I used to. It's a hell of a lot deeper now than it used to be. I can probably work with it, but we may have to rewrite all our songs. Alex over there is in bad shape, too. His new body has arthritis. He says he doesn't think he can play the drums anymore. It hurts too much." I looked at Alex in sympathy. We had the same problem... only his sounded even worse than mine. I could at least play a little guitar. My own problems seemed minor compared to his. "I can't play the guitar anymore, either," I said. "My hands are too small. I can't reach as far across the fretboard as I used to, and the strings hurt my fingers. I can't sing anymore either... my voice is even more off than yours, Mick." Alex gave me a "What are you complaining about" kind of look. I blushed. "What about you, Derek?" Derek shrugged. "I'm fine. I can still play my bass as good as I ever could. Although I don't know if I'll be able to control myself with Steve... excuse me, Stephanie in the band." He shot me an evil grin. "Shut up, you moron," I said. "Oh, playing hard to get, huh, Stephanie?" Derek said. "Lay off her," Alex said in a tired voice. I felt uncomfortable. "Stephanie?" "Her?" The guys weren't being as supportive as I'd hoped... or at least Derek wasn't. Bastard. "All right, calm down, guys," Mick said. "We're here for a reason." He sighed. "Obviously we have some serious problems. Between the four of us Derek's the only one who can still do his thing. I don't think we can continue this. We have to make a decision. So what do you say, guys? Do we break up the band, or do we stay together and do our best?" I looked around at my bandmates with a sinking feeling. Mick called for a vote, and we decided it would be best for all of us if we split up. I despaired. The switch hadn't just ruined my hands; it was breaking up my band. --- I sat back in bed and sighed. Channel after channel flicked past me as I pushed the remote control button, showing scene after scene of the Great Shift's impact. The Great Shift... what was what the media had dubbed it. Reporters always seem to coin buzz words for great crises, and this one was no exception. I'd tried to avoid the media for the most part since the Shift. I had enough to deal with without worrying how this was affecting the rest of the world. The entire world was focused on the Shift now. Half the world's television stations and newspapers were shut down, and the other half had almost exclusively covered the Shift and its effects. Who wanted to think of anything else? As I flipped through the channels, I began to realize that my problems were small compared to those of the rest of the world. Hundreds of plane crashes, thousands of car crashes, rioting, looting, murder... the world was falling apart. The stock market had crashed, the U.S. government was in shambles. The United States had tried to call a joint session of Congress, but no one was quite sure who the real Congressmen and Congresswomen were. Millions of people needed medical attention, but there was a sudden shortage of doctors... many of them had switched into their sick patients and become unable to operate. I looked down at my hands. Suddenly they didn't seem like such a big deal. "Can you turn that down, St... Kristy?" I heard a feminine voice say. I looked over at Lisa, dressed in a sweatsuit she'd had as a guy (it was huge on her now) and talking on the phone to her girlfriend, one of the few people in the world who hadn't switched. They were trying to figure out where they stood now. Would they stay together? Would they break up? Would they be friends? Lovers? Were they straight? Lesbians? Could Lisa morally accept a lesbian relationship? I was single, so at least I didn't have that problem. I turned the TV down. No need to trouble her. I was kind of annoyed with her. She'd been on the phone for hours. I couldn't criticize her, though... I'd been on the phone for a long time the day after the switch, talking to my family. They had all switched... and, as it turned out, we had all switched into bodies of the opposite sex. My father and mother had switched places with each other, my sixteen-year-old sister had become a guy named Phil (apparently she'd had a crush on him before the Shift), and my little brother was now my older sister... he'd gone from his ten-year-old body into the body of his twenty-seven- year-old female teacher. Apparently he liked being older. At least he was happy. I threw another glance at my roommate. My God, she was hot, even in that sweatsuit. Things had been a bit awkward between the two of us since the Shift because we were both attracted to each other. It was strange to think of her as Lisa, or as a "her" at all, and it was even stranger to hear her call me Kristy, but it was a plan we'd agreed on. It was Lisa's idea; he thought it would help us come to terms with our situation. It was awkward, especially because it was a policy I hadn't asked anyone else to follow, so I was now answering to both Steve and Kristy, it seemed to be helping Lisa, so I went along with it. What was I? Was I a "he" or a "she?" Was I male or female? Was I a guy or a girl? Or was I something else entirely? What did gender really mean now that a good portion of the world had swapped genders? I looked down at my body, clad in a long white nightgown from Kristy's wardrobe (silky and surprisingly comfortable... and almost arousing as the smooth material rubbed against my skin). I was wearing feminine clothing, and I looked for all the world like a woman, but I still thought of myself as a guy, and I still thought and felt like a guy. I was floating somewhere between the traditional gender roles. I was neither male nor female, neither Steve nor Kristy. I was me, and that was all I was certain of anymore. I was already beginning to get used to it, though. It was no longer a shock to see Kristy's face when I looked into the mirror, or to hear her voice when I spoke, or to feel her breasts bounce when I walked. It was no longer strange... or at least as strange as it had been the day before, and even less than it had been the day of the switch, when I'd first woken up after the Shift. What a moment that had been! I still remembered it clearly... I'd been in class, one of those huge 300-person classes, when it had hit. One minute I was listening to my professor, and the next minute the ground began to shake and I felt a wave of pain hit me and I fainted. When I woke up I was slumped against the seat in front of me and I heard people screaming around me. At first I thought it had been an earthquake (even though I'd never heard of an earthquake in New England), and my instinct was to jump up and run outside... but as I stood up I felt the skirt and the hair and the boobs and the flip-flops all at once, and I stopped in my tracks. I looked down at myself and saw my boobs through the white tank top was wearing, and I saw my thin belly where the short tank top showed it off, and I saw the long flowered skirt, and I saw my purple-polished toes in my sandals, and I almost fainted again. Instead I kept conscious and ran out of the room. My next instinct was to get somewhere more private, and the first place that crossed my mind was the bathroom. I was dazed, but fortunately my head was clear enough for me to know to use the women's restroom instead of the men's, whatever my instincts told me. I ducked quickly inside and found the room packed full of people, male and female, some looking at themselves in the mirror, some feeling themselves up, some stripping themselves naked, some masturbating, some talking, some screaming, but all clearly agitated. I shoved my way past the other people in the room so I could get a look at my reflection. When I saw myself in the mirror I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming... even though the sight wasn't completely a surprise after seeing my body. The face I saw wasn't my own face. Long blonde hair; bright green eyes; smooth clear skin; a narrow chinline. Breasts and a slender body. A spaghetti strap tank top and a long flowered skirt. A girl's face. Kristy's face. The face I'd been familiar with over the last couple of days. Kristy had switched into the body of her best friend Marie; she'd found me a few minutes after the switch, when she'd run into the same bathroom I'd run into. She was a nice girl. Maybe a little too much of a preppie for me, and way too much of a fucking scientist, but she was cool anyway. She'd helped me get used to my new body, and she's introduced me to her friends and let me use her old clothes (Marie was a little shorter and a lot heavier than Kristy, so her old clothes no longer fit her). I'd met up with most of my friends in the next couple of days, but I still hadn't found my old body. I had lost it in the chaos that had followed the switch. I was beginning to worry. I shut off the TV. I was getting restless, and a little upset between the chaos of the news and the fact that the Screaming Chickens had just broken up that afternoon. I needed to take a walk. I stood up and told Lisa I was leaving. She barely noticed me. I looked down at my body, still dressed in Kristy's nightgown. I wasn't quite dressed to go outside; it was cold out there, and the nightgown left my arms and a good deal of my chest and back bare. I didn't want to go to the trouble of changing, though, so I just threw on the sweatshirt I'd worn earlier and put on Kristy's tennis shoes and stepped out the door. I walked through the halls, down the stairs, out the front door of my dorms, and onto the sidewalk. At first I wandered without purpose, enjoying the night and searching my soul. A thought crossed my mind soon, and I walked purposefully across campus to the Maher Building. There was a ladder in the alley between the Maher Building (the arts building) and the Concert Hall that led to the roof of the Maher Building. Few people knew about it, but I knew and I loved it. I went to the roof of Maher to be alone and to think. No place on campus had a better view of the entire campus. I found the ladder more difficult to climb in the nightgown. The long skirt constricted my leg movements, and a couple of times it snagged on the ladder. I was just glad I'd decided to wear tennis shoes instead of flip-flops; climbing probably would have been impossible had I chosen otherwise. Finally I topped the ladder and stepped carefully onto the roof, the skirt swinging loosely around my legs... an odd feeling still. I looked around, then noticed a dark shape against the sky. It looked like... a person? It looked like someone else standing on the roof. That surprised me; I'd never seen anyone else on the roof unless I'd brought them there. I walked quietly toward the figure. It was small. Small and feminine. In the moonlight I could see that the person was a girl... or at least she looked like a girl, even though I knew from experience that looks didn't mean anything anymore. The girl was dressed rather provocatively in a tube top and a very short pair of shorts and a pair of platform sandals. She looked even worse than Lisa. She was standing on the ledge of the roof. Not the roof itself... she was standing on the ledge and staring at the sidewalk beneath her. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I realized that this wasn't what it had appeared at first. The girl wasn't up here for the view... she was going to jump. My voice was paralyzed. My body was stiff. I was afraid. I couldn't let her jump... but what could I do to stop her? I took a deep breath and decided to go for it. "Get down," I said. "You're blocking my view." The girl turned around (fortunately the ledge was wide enough to allow that) and looked at me. She seemed as startled to see me as I had been to see her. I saw her face for the first time. My stomach swam again; this was one of the prettiest fucking girls I'd ever seen. Her big blue eyes were rich, if startled and sad, and her face was framed by a short brown haircut. Her figure was awesome, but her face was even better. I might have fallen in love under other circumstances. "Come on," I said, my voice thin and even higher-pitched than usual because of my nerves. "Get down. It's bad enough you've stolen my roof; now you're standing in my way." She looked back over the ledge behind her, then back at me. "Who are you?" she asked. "I'm Kristy," I said. I decided it was better to hide my real identity until I better understood who I was dealing with. "Who are you?" She blushed. "I'm Rick Erskine." "Rick Erskine? The quarterback?" I asked in genuine shock. I recognized the name, though he probably wouldn't know mine. We had completely different social cliques, but Rick was practically a celebrity around campus. The girls loved him. He was a football master... or so I understood, because I knew nothing about football myself. "None other," the girl said. "Well, you certainly don't look like him!" I said. Rick smiled a little. "What, haven't you heard of the Great Shift?" "I think I've heard of it. I doubt it's as interesting as the view out there, though... come on, step down, will you?" Rick hesitated, then stepped down. Now that she was standing level with me I realized how tiny she really was... she was a few inches shorter than my 5'5" frame. This was Rick Erskine, the 6'5", 280-pound quarterback? She sat down on the ledge, and I sat down next to her. "I though you wanted to see the view," she said. "It's interesting," I said. "But you're more interesting to me now, Miss Rick Erskine. So tell me... what were you doing up on that ledge?" "I was gong to jump," she said. "I could see that," I said. "Why were you going to jump? She shook her head in shame. "Look at me! I'm a fucking chick!" She grabbed her breasts. "I'm not supposed to have these! I'm a man, damn it! I... I don't know how to be a girl! It's terrible!" I saw tears start to run down her face. "And look at this. Men don't cry. Chicks cry." I looked down at my own body and took in my own breasts, and I said something that I'd been beginning to realize over the last few days. "I don't think it's so bad being a girl." "Of course not," Rick said, smiling beneath her tears. "You've always been a girl. You're used to it. You're supposed to be a girl. But I'm supposed to be a guy." "What if I told you I'm supposed to be a guy, too?" I said. She looked up me in disbelief. She obviously hadn't considered that. "You? Really? But you seem so comfortable being a girl." "I've come to terms with it," I said, realizing that I really had. "And you should too. It's not so bad. The plumbing is different, the clothes are different, but it's essentially the same thing. I'm still me, and you're still you. I mean... look at me! I have long hair, I'm wearing a nightgown and pink tennis shoes, I have sparkly purple fingernail polish, and I look for all the world like a girl, but I still came up here to think, just like I did as a guy. Nothing's changed, really." "Maybe you're right..." she said. She looked back over the ledge, then slipped down off it onto the rood and hugged her legs. I followed suit. "So what's your real name?" she asked. "I'm Steve Mason," I said. "Steve Mason? From the Screaming Chickens?" She practically squealed it... it was definitely hard to believe this was manly Rick Erskine. But even though the voice was feminine, I realized, she still talked like a man. "Yeah," I said, a little amazed Rick had heard of me. "I love your music!" she said. I was shocked. Knowing Rick had heard my music was amazing enough; knowing she liked it was astonishing. "Th... thanks," I stammered. "Not that it matters much... we broke up." "You broke up? Why?" "Look at these hands." I waved them in front of her face. "I can't play a guitar with them. I can barely even lift a guitar. And I can't sing backup vocals with this voice. And Mick can't sing lead vocals with his voice. And Alex can't play the drums with his sixty-year-old arthritic fingers. The Great Shift ruined most of our musical careers. Derek was the only one who could keep going, so we decided to break up." I sighed. "I've lost my music, and it was all that really mattered to me." "Man, that sucks. I think I know how you feel, though," Rick said. "I mean, look at me! I'm a foot and a half shorter than I used to be, and I'm a fucking third of my old weight. I can't play football anymore, and football used to be my life! I had plans to play pro... where do I go now? That was the real reason I was up on that ledge... not just because I'm a girl, but because I don't want to imagine a life without sports." "That sounds familiar," I said. I looked down at my hands. Small, soft, slender, unmistakably girly in purple nail polish and bracelets and rings... but they were my hands. They couldn't play a decent guitar riff, but they could do anything else I wanted them to. Maybe I couldn't play the guitar with these hands yet, but I could learn. Maybe I was a girl, but that meant nothing. I was just as strong as I'd been before. Suddenly I felt much less helpless. "You know, Rick," I said, "I don't think all is lost. Maybe you can't play football anymore, but there are other sports open to you. Basketball, softball, soccer, track... or maybe you can start a girls' team for all the other people in your predicament. Your body may not be as strong as it used to be, but you still have all your skills, right?" "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, maybe you're right. There's no point in letting that defeat me. Inside I'm still the same person I always was, and I've never been a quitter. Thank you, Steve." "No problem," I said. I shivered. "Look Rick, I'm getting cold. Can we get off this roof and go somewhere warm?" "Sure," she said. "I'm pretty cold too." She waved her hands to indicate her shorts and tube top. I stood up, then reached my hand down to hers. She took it and stood up, and together we went across the roof, down the ladder, and back to the dormitories together. --- If this were a movie, this is where I would tell you what happens to everyone after the story's over. Well, who am I to argue with a great tradition? It's been two years since the Great Shift. The world is beginning to heal from the scars the Shift left. Most of the world's governments have been built back up again, and many of them drastically reorganized. Most of the world's doctors have healed pretty well, and many more have been trained. There are still a handful of people traumatized from finding themselves in different bodies, but most of us have come to terms with their new lives. The world is at peace. Many, many bad things came from the Great Shift, but so did many, many good things. In the long run I think it's been good for humanity. I eventually found my body... but unfortunately I didn't find it alive. A week after the Shift it was recovered in an alley off campus somewhere. The person who had inherited it had committed suicide. I never found out who it was... in the weeks following the Shift the college worked to take account of its students, and it turned out that about a couple dozen had just... vanished. The same had happened around the world. Between crashes and illnesses and heart attacks and shock and rioting and murder and suicide, the world had lost a staggering eighth of its population in the time following the Shift. It was a sobering reminder of the negative effects of the Shift... and to me it was a reminder of just what I had done for Rick. Kristy had been depressed at first; her former body had been beautiful, I have to admit (and I know better than anyone else), so she had been mortified to find herself in Marie's pudgy body. I hadn't noticed it at first... she'd hidden it pretty well... but it became evident with time. She got over it with time, too, though. Like everyone else, she got used to her new body. In fact, she began to enjoy not worrying constantly about her weight. Before the Shift she was a neurotic dieter; now she exercises enough to keep herself at a healthy weight, but she doesn't care if she's not as thin as she used to be, or as I still am in her body. She's happy with herself. She's continuing with her bio studies, and she's decided to become a doctor in memory of the many who were lost after the Shift. Lisa and her girlfriend decided to continue dating, and now, two years later, they're still together. At first it was awkward for them, but now they seem almost more comfortable than they were before the Shift, and they're blissful together. They're calling themselves lesbian lovers. Lisa's changed a lot; she's dropped the conservative shtick now that she's had a taste of being a part of two oppressed minorities. In fact, she's even changed her studies... she's a poli-sci student now, not a history student, and she's become an active feminist and queer rights activist in the local community... two movements that had been affected oddly by the Shift. There were many people who had become more open-minded about these issues... many formerly sexist men who switched into women's bodies were supportive of the idea of equality for women, and many people who switched involuntarily into a same-sex relationship were more tolerant of homosexuality. There are many people who have ironically become less tolerant, though... some former women like to express the newfound physical and social strength they've found in their male bodies by being... well... sexist bastards, and there are a few men who switched into women's bodies who seem to delight in playing up old stereotypes of femininity, or who insist that anyone in a woman's body should "act like a woman." As for sexuality... it's still as controversial as ever. Even though some people have become more tolerant, there are still many, many people who claim homosexuality is wrong (although there are many others who counter that homosexuality is impossible to define in a world where many people aren't even sure what gender they really are anymore). Pat Robertson, who found himself in the body of a pregnant teenage girl, went so far as to say that the Great Shift was God's punishment for the prevalence of homosexuality around the world. He promptly sought out his unborn child's father's body and married the man who had switched into it so that the child would be born into a good into a good Christian family. Rick recovered from her depression, and she recovered beautifully. She couldn't play football anymore, but she found an alternative in soccer. She's now the captain of New England College's women's soccer team, and its star player. While the skills for soccer and football aren't quite identical, they're close enough that she was able to pick soccer up almost immediately. She also joined a group of students dedicated to counseling those who had been traumatized by the Shift... after what I'd done for her she wanted to help others like her. She's actually found that she really enjoys it, and she's considering becoming a psychologist. She adapted to being a girl pretty quickly; she's a bit of a tomboy, of course, but she's happy with her new gender. Like many people, she even changed her name to one more suitable for her new body. She calls herself Rachel now. Rachel and I became fast friends after the Shift. We're more than friends, actually. Rachel's my girlfriend now, and we're very happy together. I guess I learned something from Lisa. And me? --- I zip up my high-heeled boots, and I stand up. I look in the mirror and check my makeup. I run a hand through my hair (cut very short, spiked out, and dyed black again, much to Kristy's consternation). I smooth my short skirt and I adjust the straps of my tank top. I look perfect. I look beautiful. I look powerful and proud. I look like a comfortable, secure woman... and, frankly, I look fucking hot. I pick up my guitar and make sure it's in tune. This is the biggest concert I've ever performed in; I'm opening a weeklong music festival... the Shiftfest, to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Shift. I'm going to perform in front of thousands of people. I'm a little nervous, but I'm still excited. I'm still thrilled to be able to play again, months after I made my comeback. The Screaming Chickens are in the distant past. Derek and I are the only ones from the group who still perform; Derek went off to join another punk band, and I went solo. That's okay... I love performing alone. It's a real rush to know everyone's eyes are on me. It took me a while to get back onto the music scene... I had to buy a new guitar, a smaller one, more manageable by my smaller hands, and I had to redevelop my calluses and my finger strength and speed, and I had to take singing lessons again to get used to my new voice... but it was worth it. I was performing again, despite the odds, and I was fucking phenomenal. I was a better musician as Kristy than I'd ever been as Steve. I just produced my first album, under the name "Kristy Mason"... a compromise between my old and new lives. I'm on the verge of a professional career. I've already gotten some buzz in Rolling Stone. Good things are coming up for me. My voice isn't up to the loud punk music I made with the Screaming Chickens, but that's okay. The Shift and its effects softened my tastes a little anyway. I still rock, of course, just not as hard as I used to. Now I'm more of a folk rocker. I have a great music career, I have a wonderful girlfriend, I have a beautiful body. I have more wisdom than I had two years ago... all in all the Shift has treated me pretty well. I used to fight being a girl, but I've come to love it. I like the clothes, I like the body, I like the relationships I have with other women now... I even like flirting with the guys a little, although I'm not at all attracted to them. It's fun to tease them. And besides, I'm much happier now than I was before the Shift. I indulge myself in my femininity now. I'm a confident, sexy woman, and I doubt anyone who knew me before the Shift would recognize me now... and I doubt anyone who didn't know me before the switch would ever suspect I was once a man. If offered the chance, I don't think I would go back to being Steve. I love being Kristy. My hands. I look down at my hands, my small girly hands, with shiny silver nail polish and adorned with about a dozen bracelets and half a dozen rings, in wonder. Everything I have today I owe to these hands. I giggled a girlish little giggle. To think I once hated them... I heard the announcer through the backstage doors. "Now, to start off the second annual Switchfest, I introduce the freshest new face in folk rock... let's hear it for Kristy Mason!" I check my reflection once more as I hear the crowds cheer wildly, then I head out with my guitar. I prepare myself to wow my fans. Excuse me, dear readers. I'm going to go sing my heart out.