One Day At A Time (Part Three) free porn video

One Day at a Time (Part 3) By Lost Mark woke with a weak groan. His whole body ached and he realized that he couldn't remember where he was. As he brushed the long red hair out of his face he noticed the IV embedded in his arm. A glance around the sterile white room confirmed that he was in a hospital. Suddenly, his memories flooded back to him. Just as he'd made up his mind to escape, Patty had drugged him. What had she said as he'd slipped into unconsciousness... oh no. Just then, he noticed the man sitting in a chair next to the bed. He'd noticed Mark was awake but had so far refrained from speaking up. Mark took a second glance at the man, scrutinizing him for information. He was young with dark hair, being in his late twenties or early thirties, and he was wearing the blue uniform of some sort of law enforcement official. The man smiled and stood up, and Mark caught a glimpse of the badge, revealing oddly enough that the man was a member of the American Police Force rather than the Canadians. "Nice to see you with us again, Mark," stated the officer in a friendly tone. The man knew his name, though Mark didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one. At least Patty wasn't here, which was a start. Still, Mark was hesitant to trust the man, at least until he knew what was going on. More than anything, he wanted to check to see if Patty had carried out her threat of removing his "deformity", but that would have to wait until he had some privacy. Mark remained silent and the man awkwardly continued. "Uh, I'm Sergeant Brad Wilkins. I gather you've been through a rough time; we had a hell of a lot of trouble finding you. How are you feeling?" "I've been better," he surrendered. That was an understatement. He couldn't even start to deal with the feelings of betrayal he had for Patty and his stepmother, or the rising fear he felt, despite the sergeant's presence. His last memory was of complete despair and helplessness, and it wouldn't be shaken so easily. The officer looked down as if searching for words. "Yeah, I know what you mean." Then he glanced back at Mark, as if finally realizing what the boy had been through. "Damn, kid. I've been wanting to hear your side of the story so bad for the past weeks that I forgot how much in the dark you must be!" He pulled the chair he'd been sitting in and positioned it so that it was facing Mark before sitting down. "I'm the man in charge of investigating the kidnapping." That got Mark's attention. Maybe he really was a legitimate police officer after all. "What took you so long?" he asked, giving a weak smile. "And why isn't Dad here?" The other man frowned. "It was a difficult job, Mark. As for your father, well..." He frowned as his sentence trailed off, and Mark realized there was something he wasn't telling him. "You want me to start at the beginning?" Mark nodded, and with some help he slowly sat up in the bed to face the sergeant. "Alright. Well, the night you were kidnapped by your stepmother, your father had called the department, worried that something had happened to the two of you. While she wasn't supposed to pick you up, he didn't even start to think it might have been a kidnapping until the next day, when he called a second time. Neither you nor your stepmother had turned up, so he was pretty worried. "Unfortunately, we didn't have a single lead, despite our efforts, until later when we received the first ransom letter. Apparently Diane was convinced that your father had some sort of hidden fortune and was holding you ransom for a hundred million." "A hundred million!?" asked Mark. "That's insane! Dad's business isn't worth anything near that much!" Wilkins nodded. "We don't know why she thought your father had had this money, but we were concerned, especially as she'd had a history of mental illness. So your father got together as much money as he could and we followed the instructions on the ransom note. We attempted to trace it, but it lead only to a bunch of dummy accounts and then the paper trail vanished. At this time, we realized that she wasn't working alone since that was too complicated for her to have pulled off. "The next major clue came when we received a phone call from Diane. She'd threatened to kill you if your father didn't pretend to go along with things; she was going to have you call him. So of course, we had to do what she said." He paused. "This proved very difficult on your father." "I thought he seemed distressed." Mark winced. "I'm too trusting and naive. This is all my fault." Wilkins shook his head. "People should be able to trust their family members. No, you did what was best and safest, even if it did have... negative consequences." Mark absently twirled a strand of hair with his fingers. Wilkins continued. "Anyways, after that incident, we had somewhere to start from, after tracing the call. We interviewed some people in the area, and the local police were already investigating some reported gunshots. This was one of the biggest breakthroughs in the investigation as we turned up one Greg Warner. Warner was something of an assassin for hire, but in interrogation he revealed that he'd been hired to stage a false kidnapping." Mark nodded, thinking back. "Diane had said he was trying to kidnap me, but he seemed to have a terrible, and we lost him a little too easily. Still, like an idiot I trusted her!" The officer frowned. "Mark, you need to stop being so hard on yourself. You did the best you could, given your situation. Cooperating was your best chance of survival at that time." He glanced at his watch and then resumed the story. "Warner's interrogation led us to a few contact points, and eventually we found the cabin that your stepmother had taken you to. It was here that we found a car with your backpack in it, and we knew we were looking in the right direction. We traced the owner of the cottage back to an alias of one Patty Dobrogski, and found that she'd met your stepmother at a clinic near your old home. "A little investigation revealed a lot of information. It seems Miss Dobrogski had been arrested as an accomplice to a group of Black Marketeers. She'd been given a light sentence due to her degree of participation in the crime and had been turned over for psychological evaluation while she served a six month sentence. She'd also had a string of minor crimes to her name, though most were committed while she was a minor, and in one we hadn't had enough evidence to try her in court." Sergeant Wilkins scratched his jaw absently, and Mark noticed that the man's face was covered in stumble and his eyes were bloodshot. He must not have gotten much sleep in the past few days. "Well, we saw that your stepmother and Dobrogski had become friends in the clinic. The doctors and nurses there had written numerous times that she was a very bad influence on her, sometimes inciting her to the point of extended delirium. After separating her, she'd seemed to have gotten better, but apparently they'd managed to keep in touch." At this point, he paused, clearing his throat a little. "While we now knew a lot more about the how and why of this case, we suddenly found the trail dry again. She'd covered her tracks very well, and we'd had reason to believe that Patty Dobrogski was the mastermind to this plan; your stepmother just wasn't stable or intelligent enough to pull this off alone. We also knew Patty had contacts with people in the Black Market, though at that point we didn't know how far in it she was. We've since found that she's a major player in a human trafficking organization, usually selling young girls into slavery to wealthy clients." Mark shuddered, having just missed the same fate himself. "Shortly afterwards we received a note from Diane mailed from Sarasota, Florida. In the note, it said that if your father didn't start paying the ransom in higher payments that she was going to make you into a replacement for the daughters she'd lost. We didn't think she would actually go through with the insane threat, but your father did his best to raise the money, and well, it wasn't nearly enough given that she was expecting a hundred million." He gestured at Mark. "Erm, I guess you know how that turned out." Mark glanced down but remained silent. When Mark declined to comment, the man continued. "Well, we did a thorough search in Florida for you, but we came up empty and we didn't have much to go on for some time. It was almost as if you'd completely disappeared." The officer broke eye contact with Mark. "Well, until we received a bloody package in the mail, revealing that you'd been castrated and that she was going through on her threats. "Afterwards, the investigation became much more frantic, but we just didn't have anything to go on. We traced the package back to northern Ohio, but again, the trail disappeared, and we were forced to admit that she probably had someone flying around the country while mailing these. We checked the airlines records of passengers, but we never came up with anything that matched any of your descriptions. So we?" He was cut off as a young nurse walked into the room. "Sergeant, can you wrap up the story telling? He really needs his rest," she said. Smiling, she turned back towards Mark. "How are you feeling?" "It hurts all over, but it's not too bad." He gave a weak smile. "Can you please let him finish, though? I need to know what happened." She laughed. "All right, but you'd better hurry it up, okay?" Wilkins nodded. "As for the pain, you're on some strong meds for now, though you'll be coming off them tomorrow. Just stay strong for me, okay?" Once she'd left, Wilkins continued. "I guess I'd better wrap this up. Well, we didn't hear anything else from the kidnappers, aside from a few photographs of you designed to speed your father's payments. It was really hard on the man... but anyhow, we finally got our big break, thanks to you." He smiled. "We received an alert from the Allensoft e-mail server two Fridays ago. The account had been closed but we'd still had the system flag any e-mails coming to it. We traced your e-mail and the Canadians took over from there. Thanks to the photographs your stepmother had sent out, we had your description and a concerned student had reported seeing a girl matching your description being dragged into a car that day. She'd written down most of the license plate of the vehicle, and we tracked you down to this very hospital a few days later. Your stepmother we'd arrested the night of the second abduction, and she'd been surprisingly cooperative. She was extremely agitated when you'd not shown up after school and she'd even placed a call into the local police department just as we'd arrived, which leads us to conclude that she had no part in this part of the scheme." Mark took this time to speak up. "Did you catch Patty too?" "No, she'd already left by the time we arrived, but we got her doctor friend, Alexander Sharpe. He'll be facing a long string of charges, but hopefully photographs will suffice and we won't need to put you through testifying against him. We're also hoping that interrogating him will lead to the woman." Finally, Mark asked the question that had been on his mind the whole time. "He didn't..." his voice trailed off as he glanced towards his groin. "I'm sorry, Mark. We got here too late, and the operation had already taken place." In disbelief, Mark tore the sheets away and pushed aside his hospital gown, revealing an ugly mess of stitches and fresh bandages. Refusing to believe his eyes, he probed with a finger before the man could stop him. He immediately let out a wail of despair, which immediately summoned the nurse. "Now look what you've done!" she admonished Wilkins. "Out, out! Let the patient get some rest!" She moved over to comfort the boy, who took the offered shoulder. He cried a bit and then the nurse offered him a sedative, which he accepted. This time he welcomed the fade to black. When Mark awoke twelve hours later, he promptly swore as the sterile room came into focus. His groin hurt more than it had the day before, and he remembered the nurse telling him that he'd be taken off his meds. His entire pelvis throbbed with a dull pain, but he forced himself to ignore it; it was a reminder of something he desperately needed to forget. He knew he wasn't being realistic, but he had too many issues to deal with already. Sergeant Wilkins wasn't there when he woke, though a nurse had apparently been keeping an eye on him as she entered the room the moment he woke. He had nothing to say and she respected this, as she gave up trying to converse with him after a few minutes of silence on his part. Half an hour flew by and the nurse remained in the room, though she attempted to look busy. Her presence bothered him. Didn't she have something better to do? As he watched her performing menial tasks, sometimes redoing a job she'd just finished, it dawned on him. He was on a suicide watch. That puzzled him. Sure, he'd just had his life pretty well ruined, but it wasn't anything he'd kill himself over. After all, he'd had a fake vagina for several weeks now, so nothing had really changed. Half the people on the planet had vaginas, he rationalized. He wasn't suicidal. Was he? Realizing that someone must have felt he was at a risk, curiosity began to overwhelm him to know their rationale. He forced himself to look at the negatives, the things he didn't want to think about. I'll never be able to have my own children, he thought for the first time since his castration. Deep down, he'd known that when he'd left the hospital months ago, but it had been so much easier to deal with the change by simply ignoring that rotten fact. Technically, that wasn't new, so it wasn't any reason that he'd want to kill himself since he would have already done that if he was so inclined. He winced. Things were a bit different now. Not only would he be unable to have children, he couldn't have sex. Well, not with women, anyhow, and men were straight out. That might be a reason to kill himself, he acknowledged. Still, he'd never had sex before, so he rationalized that he'd be okay so long as he didn't know what he was missing. So what if he had a vagina, he thought bravely, though deep down he knew that he was nowhere near as accepting of the change as he might want himself to believe. But he did concede that losing his penis was a terrible loss, one that he'd deal with for the rest of his life, but he couldn't imagine killing himself over it. Did they think he'd kill himself over his stepmother's betrayal? Sure, it felt awful to have been abused like he had been, and he felt awful that he'd actually trusted her, but that too wasn't anything to sacrifice his life over. After all, he could still count on his dad to be there for him, even if Mark looked a little different. Something about that last thought echoed in his mind uneasily. A sense of panic began to rise in his throat. "Nurse," he began, "why isn't my dad here?" Mark fought tears as he glanced down at the marker. "Mark Jacob Allen. Loving husband and father. 1970 - 2006." After being released from the hospital, he'd been allowed to fly home with Sergeant Wilkins as his bodyguard. With Patty still walking free, the police had decided it'd be best if he had protection, though they'd still agreed that Patty was unlikely to risk being caught just to go after Mark. Mark looked down at the gravesite. Even covered in snow it was still apparent that the grave was fresh. "Why did you have to kill yourself, Dad?" Mark said aloud as tears began to fall. The strain of having the woman he loved holding his own son ransom had been excruciating on the man, but receiving his son's bloody flesh in the mail had been the worse torture he'd ever imagined. After weeks without word from the kidnappers, he'd opened the mail one day to find a note written in blood stating plainly, "HE PAYS BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T. YOUR SON IS DEAD!" Mark Sr. had been found three hours later, having put a bullet through his head. He fell down on his knees, ignoring the cold wetness that soaked through his pant legs. "I'm sorry, Dad!" he said between sobs. "I'm so sorry!" Given the situation, he couldn't help but feel responsible for the events that had transpired, despite everyone's assurances that he did everything right. If only he'd thought to e-mail his father earlier... He moved over slightly, brushing the snow from the headstone to his right, the stone marking the final resting place of Sandra Michelle Allen. "At least ... at least you're with mom, now!" he cried out, a strong wave of sorrow washing over him. He remained at his parents' graves until his cheeks stung beyond tolerability from the wind and frozen tears, and then stood up. Sergeant Wilkins, who'd been standing in respectful silence fifty feet away, opened the door on the police car and with a heavy heart, Mark stepped inside. ***** The days went by slowly for Mark. He'd been admitted to a psychiatric ward so he could be monitored. He remained in a state nearly comatose for the majority of his waking hours, barely even acknowledging the passing of time but for the cycle of light and darkness. He refused to respond to but the most simple of queries, barely eating and only leaving his bed to use the bathroom. His nights were spent restless and he woke frequently from nightmares. Dr. Mary Bergmann's heart went out to the boy, but she was frustrated at her inability to reach him. "Mark, I can't help you if you won't talk to me. Just open up, you'll feel so much better!" As usual, there was no response. The boy continued lying in his bed, starring at the ceiling, just as he had through her other meetings with him. They'd met five times a week for an hour, but he never said more than a handful of words. She decided to try another tactic. "Mark, you know, if you'll just talk with me, we can talk to Dr. Shapiro about what surgical options we can take to bring your body back to normal." Aside from cutting the boy's hair, nothing had been done about his appearance. At the very least, he'd need a mastectomy, and possibly plastic surgery to undo the devastation wrought on his body by the female hormones. "Don't care. Dad's dead." Well, it was a response, at least. She continued trying to get the boy to talk, but he clammed up, having said his allotment of vocabulary for the day. Frustrated, she walked out of the door after the session. If only there was something she could do, she thought. Back in her office, she glanced at her files. She read over some teacher's reports he'd gotten over the years. "Intelligent boy. Extremely easy going, kind to others." "Mark is a delight to have in class. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is very outspoken." She read through many similar comments, made by different teachers during different years. Then, she glanced at the letter she'd gotten from the principal of Riverside Junior High. "We were extremely surprised to hear what you've told us and what we've learned from the police department about Mark Allen. No one here had any idea that Allison was anything other than an average girl. She made friends extremely fast and had fit in quickly with the student body. It's unfortunate what's happened to this young man. If there's anything we can do to help Mark, please let us know." Sighing, she filed the letter with the other files she had on "Allison Collins" and then stood up from her desk. Then, an idea entered her head, and she reached for the phone. ***** "Right this way." The receptionist pointed down the hall. "Room 106, third door on the left. Dr. Bergmann is with him right now, so go on in." "Thanks!" Nervously, she followed the woman's instructions and walked down the hallway. She found room 106 and saw that the door was already open. A woman in her early 40s smiled at her, and she gave a weak smile back. She turned toward the figure lying on the bed. Shock raced through her body. Though she'd been told the whole story, a part of her had been unable to believe it. But now, there was proof lying in front of her. While the figure had short blonde hair and the eyes were blue rather than green, the face was without a doubt that of her friend. She let out a gasp. Hearing this, the figure rolled over to face her. "Kellie?" responded the boy. "Hi, Allison. Er, Mark, I mean." Kellie glanced at the ground, silently cursing herself. She'd been preparing for this moment since her mom had told her the real story of what happened to her friend, and yet she'd already messed up. Then again, nothing could prepare someone for the sight of her best girlfriend peering out at them from the body of a boy in a hospital bed. Allison... Mark, hesitated before responding. "You know then. I?" he trailed off, not sure what to say. "It's okay, Mark! How are you doing?" she asked. It was extremely difficult for Kellie to use the name. Despite the boy presented in front of her, all she could see was her friend Allison. "I'm okay," he said. He fidgeted with the sleeves on his hospital gown. "You don't hate me, do you?" Kellie shook her head. "Of course not! Why would I hate you?" Despite her words, she'd been expecting him to say something of the sort, though it still surprised her a little. "I wouldn't have flown all this way if I hated you!" The boy frowned. "Well, I... I lied to you. I pretended to be a girl and stuff. And I'm a freak, and I killed my dad. You should hate me." "Don't lie to me, Allison! We're friends and we'll always be friends! I don't care if now you're a purple people eater; you're my friend, and you always will be! And you didn't kill your dad, and you're NOT a freak!" She said forcefully, meaning every word that left her mouth. He nodded. "Maybe." He rolled over on his side, facing away from her. "I'm feeling kinda tired. Thanks for coming by, I really appreciate it, Kellie. Are you going home soon?" Kellie shook her head, despite the fact that Mark couldn't see her. "No, I'll be here for a few more days." Dr. Bergmann had asked if she'd stay a week, in case the first meeting hadn't gone well. That way, she could try again a few days later. "Could you please come back some time before you go?" asked Mark. She said she would. "See you then, Kellie. And thanks." ***** Dr. Bergmann walked the girl out of Mark's room and led her to her office. She offered her a chair, and she accepted. "Thank you for coming, Miss Mukash. You really got through to him when I couldn't do a thing." She frowned. "What do you mean, you couldn't do a thing?" "He wouldn't talk, wouldn't move; barely even ate." Dr. Bergmann smiled at the black-haired girl. "Were you and Allison close?" She smiled. "Yeah, we quickly became best friends. I was devastated when I'd learned what happened, and really surprised when I found out that she was a boy." The doctor nodded. "What kind of girl was Allison?" she asked. Kellie shrugged. "Well, she was quiet, very shy. She was extremely self- conscious, and she was a more than a bit of a tomboy, despite how she dressed sometimes. She also didn't really seem aware of how she was acting at times; she was unable to hide that she was really lonely inside and I know she cried a lot. I tried my best to help her. She seemed to appreciate it." She wrote a few things down in her notebook before asking the next question. "How happy do you think Allison was in Canada?" "I don't know." The girl rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Aside from what I just said, I think she was at least partially happy most of the time, but she was so scared. Knowing what I know now, I don't blame her--him. It must have been hard living like that, especially pretending to be a girl day in, day out." Out of questions, Dr. Bergmann decided to dismiss the girl. "Well, thanks for coming, Kellie. I know this meant a lot of Mark. Would you be willing to come in again on Wednesday?" "Of course! Same time okay with you?" Dr. Bergmann nodded, and Kellie stood up. "Uh, can I ask you something before I go?" "Of course." "What's going to happen to him now?" Dr. Bergmann paused. It might not be a good idea to be telling the girl anything, but she decided to tell her anyway. "Well, hopefully he'll start talking and we can work on resolving his issues. That could take anywhere between weeks and years to get through. Then, we'll discharge him and he'll go to a foster home, since he's technically an orphan now." "Oh." She glanced down. "We'll probably never see him again either, right? And his life will never really get back to normal again, will it?" Dr. Bergmann didn't reply. She didn't know the answer. There was an immediate change in Mark after Kellie's visit. He got out of bed, asked to go on walks, and started to socialize with the other patients in the ward. At first, Dr. Bergmann had been completely confused until he'd revealed in a session that he'd felt better once he'd realized that he hadn't betrayed the trust of his friends and that Kellie had understood. Now that the boy had opened up, she was finally able to help him. She helped him to ease away some of his guilt, and got him to realize that he was the victim and that he had no part in the events that had occurred. She managed to get him to accept that Patty was to blame for his father's death, and that she was responsible for what had been done to his body. His body was a tough subject. Mark loathed it, but had come to a forced acceptance of it; he could hardly complain about his body when his father was dead. Despite this, she did urge him to explore his feelings rather than keeping them locked away. To this he would simply reply that he'd take one day at a time, and she relented as she saw that that was simply his way of dealing with things. Mark had been extremely sad to see Kellie go. She noted with interest that he'd asked her not to talk about what had happened with anyone but her mother. Giving how accepting the girl had been, Dr. Bergmann had figured he'd be glad to let the rest of his friends know that he was okay. Respecting his privacy, she hadn't pressed into the matter. The weeks flew by and soon it was the end of January. The boy had made a remarkable recovery, and soon it would be time for him to leave. From here on out, his future is up in the air, she thought as she called him into her office. ***** "So you're saying that I'm ready to leave the hospital?" Mark said, excitement creeping into his voice. He hadn't hated staying there, but it was still a hospital. "Yes, Mark. You'll still have to meet with me, but I think we can manage once a week now. You're doing really well and I think it'd be good if you were back in school again." Mark frowned. School was not something he had been looking forward to. He'd missed over half a year as he'd been repeating a year in Canada, so he was terribly behind. He also wasn't looking forward to seeing his old friends; sure he'd had a lot, but they weren't nearly as close as Michelle or Kellie. Or even James. It didn't seem that anyone had any idea what had really happened to him, other than the kidnapping, yet no one stateside seemed to care. Come to think of it, not a single one of his friends in the States had bothered to visit or send a card, while he'd received numerous "Get Well Soon, Allison!" cards from Canada. Dr. Bergman noticed his frown. "Something wrong?" she asked. Mark hesitated. "Well, I just... I'm really going to miss my friends in Canada. And I'm not really comfortable with moving in with a family of people I don't even know." They'd discussed the foster home earlier. One had already been lined up for him. "I see." Something in her tone made him wonder if she wasn't mentioning something, and he questioned her about it. "Well, there is another option, but I'm not sure it's a good idea." She took a sip of her soda. "A few days ago, I got a letter saying that Mrs. Mukash had offered to take you. I guess she's done this before and wouldn't mind having you stay with them." She glanced at the expression on Mark's face. "Now, before you get excited, please realize that I think that aside from your friends, going back there could be really problematic for you. You'll be constantly reminded of your ordeal there and I don't imagine it'll take long before the kids there figure out that you're the girl they used to know as Allison Collins. While I'd imagine that your friends will be able to accept you, kids can be very cruel." Mark nodded. "Still, what would I do if I go back home or at a strange school? You have to admit that I hardly look masculine anymore. People are going to be awful no matter what I do. At least in Canada I already have good friends." Dr. Bergmann surrendered the point. "That's true, but you'd be surprised what people can do to restore your body; they might not even notice anything different about you. How about we wait until we've talked with a specialist before we make a decision?" Mark agreed, so the doctor made him an appointment. The next day, Mark was surprised when Sergeant Wilkins arrived to drive Mark to his meeting with Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams was a counselor that specialized in transgendered issues. "Hello, Sergeant!" said Mark as he climbed into the police car. "I'm surprised to see you here, but it's good to see you again." Wilkins returned his smile. "I'm glad you're doing better. I'd just called to see if it'd be okay if I checked in on you, and the doc had asked if I wanted to give you a ride, so of course I agreed." Mark sensed an over- protectiveness in the man and suddenly realized that he wasn't the only one with guilt over his father's death. "What've you been up to?" asked Mark. Aside from trying to force an accounting of his story out of Mark, Mark hadn't bothered to talk at all with the officer, and now Mark regretted this and the difficulty he'd given him. "Not much," he answered. "I've been too busy lately at work to do much on my time off. I've been overwhelmed with paperwork back at the office, and we're still trying to find Patty Dobrogski. We found a warehouse in northern Canada that we think might be related to her, so we've got our fingers crossed." "Ah. Well, when you find her, maybe you can get a little carried away with the police brutality for me, huh?" he joked. Wilkins smiled. They made small talk for the remainder of the drive until they pulled into the parking lot. Surprisingly fast, Mark was admitted to talk with the doctor shortly after registering with the receptionist. Some office they run here, I got in right away, too! he thought, though he wondered in Dr. Bergmann had anything to do with it. "I'll wait here for you, Mark," said the sergeant as he picked up a Field and Stream magazine. Dr. Williams was an older man, in his late fifties with white hair and a bushy mustache. He smiled broadly and offered Mark his hand, which he shook. "Have a seat, it's nice to meet you, Mark. I'm Dr. Williams, and you can call me Hank if you'd like." Mark smiled as he took a seat in front of the doctor's desk as and the man followed his lead on the other side. Dr. Williams was friendly enough, though he knew he could never bring himself to call the man by his first name. "So, what can I do for you, Mark? I understand that you've been through a rough time, to say the least." He scowled harshly. "It's such a shame that some doctors have no ethics at all. You shouldn't be here at all, am I right?" Mark nodded. "What can you do to make me... normal again?" he asked. "Please don't use terminology like that here. Normal is a word that's extremely relative, and what's normal for one person is a nightmare for another." Dr. Williams picked up a binder and placed it in front of Mark. "Because of what's happened to you, you're basically in the same situation as a female to male transsexual. While not genetically female, you've got a mostly female looking body with the mind of a male." Mark nodded, and the doctor opened the binder to the first page. "The first thing we can offer you is a mastectomy, where a surgeon would remove your breasts. This is a common procedure for breast cancer treatment and would have a low chance of complications." At that, Mark jumped. "Complications?" he asked. "All operations have a risk of complications, especially of infection, though occurrences are rare." He pointed at the pictures. "Here are some shots of the procedure. Scarring is usually minimal and it tends to become less noticeable after a certain period of time. We can also reduce the size of the nipples and areola to standard male size." Mark frowned. He hadn't realized that so much of his body had changed already. Dr. Williams flipped the page a few times. "Another thing we can do is hormone replacement therapy. This will be more effective because you haven't been on the female hormones very long, but it won't be as effective as normal male puberty. Here we've got an individual at six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four months on the therapy, with a before picture here." So far, the hormones looked very promising to Mark. "And then finally, there's the phalloplasty. We can attempt to construct a penis, though this is generally expensive, ineffective, and overall very unsatisfying. It's generally cheaper and easier to just use a prosthesis." "You mean I'll never have anything even close to a penis again?" asked Mark. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Female to male transition is generally much more difficult than the other way around. We could fashion a crude penis and scrotum for you, but it probably wouldn't stand up to even distant inspection." In a way, it felt like a door had slammed shut for Mark. "There's also some other options you can take, Mark," began the doctor. "The first thing you could do would be to bind your breasts using a tight bandage, and then dress yourself in loosely fitting clothes. If you practice, you could get your voice back to the male range as well, and you might pass convincingly." Mark hadn't even realized that speaking in a feminine register had been happening automatically for the past several months. So much had changed, was there even anything masculine inside anymore? "And then there's another option you could take; you could remain as you are, at least for now. While unfortunate, you've been given a rare chance to see how it is for both genders. Even if you resumed taking estrogen, you'd still be in the same place that you're in now if you eventually decided to have corrective surgery performed a few years down the road. I'd recommend taking this last option, Mark, though the choice is up to you. I know how difficult it can be when your body and self-identity don't match, but this is really a decision you should probably make when you're older and at least more familiar with the body that'd been thrust upon you. And if you wait long enough, there may be surgical techniques that involve less scarring." Mark thanked Dr. Williams for his time and advice. The ride back to the hospital was silent, as he was lost in thought and the officer left him to his thoughts. Things were going to be changing soon, so he'd just have to take them one day at a time.