Butterfly
Synopsis
John was changing physically and mentally and was doing so within hours
of that moment in the forest. It takes twelve hours for the common cold
to take hold and give us a hint that we have it. It took about that
same amount of time for all of the signals that flow through us
naturally to change as well, and John woke to a new world. John woke to
the same sun, room and bed, but clearly it didn't feel the same, and it
would only get worse...
Players
John, Ms. Helen Everett, John's teacher; Dr. Patter, Helen's advisor;
Dr. Prox, Center For Disease Control
Story
There were a lot of good reasons to be out this early, but none as
wonderful as seeing this first Giant Swallowtail awakening, and John
smiled as it moved. Magnificent, he whispered, in awe of this giant as
it slowly unfurled its Forewings against the sun's morning warmth. It
was, as they always were at this time of day, lethargic and calm.
"'Papilio Cresphontes Cramer' by it's scientific name," John whispered,
but only to himself as the relative giant of insects ignored him.
Swallowtail butterflies were large to begin with. Very large when
compared to most butterflies, but this one was exceptional, John noted.
More than exceptional as he held the ruler up long ways to record the
initial span of its wings.
Male Swallowtails normally had a wing span of 4 - 6 inches, but this
giant at least 10 inches, perhaps more as it extended itself that full
span against the tree to warm itself. John smiled at his find, focusing
his camera a second before taking several rapid shots. It was, without
a doubt, the largest butterfly he'd ever seen in the four years he'd
been admiring these beauties.
How strange it was suddenly, that sense of wonder he had. It wasn't for
its size, which was huge, but because it appeared to be looking back
from its wings. More so given the grandeur of its size.
"So beautiful," John whispered to himself over that design inspired by
nature herself.
Those colors brilliant, while beautiful, were not just for the sake of
beauty. Those colors and designs had evolved to give the impression of
an owl's head. Owls scare off most birds that like butterflies, and for
a butterfly that was a good thing.
The ones that looked more like an owl didn't get eaten, and those that
didn't get eaten fostered the next generation. Evolution, in this case,
enhanced by selection, or better said that lack of selection from birds,
and as this particular butterfly evolved so did that look.
This one, because of its size, even more wondrous and intense in those
colors. That intensity heightened as the sun glistened off that blend
of tiny colorful scales. Colors shimmering in their diagonal bangs of
yellow, on the darkest black, trailing to more yellow. He was as pretty
as anything John had seen.
So pretty that John's concentration was intensely focused on nothing
else. So focused in those moments that he failed to see the second,
even larger Swallowtail, fluttering almost in a hover behind him. It
fluttered silently just above and behind only to light on the very edge
of John's collar, unnoticed.
That receptive female scent that it had caught on the breeze, the
reason, and only reason, it did so.
That Swallowtail on John's collar didn't find the female it was looking
for, nor her eggs, but that didn't matter as nature's imperative and a
chemical compulsion was answered.
That Swallowtail also didn't know that the scent was artificial as it
made an attempt to fertilize an egg that wasn't there. There was only
the lightest touch at the back of John's neck as the males "claspers" at
the end of his abdomen clamped lightly on what he thought was the
females own abdomen. John felt a light tickle just at his threshold of
awareness.
John swept his hand behind himself thinking, subconsciously, of
mosquitos, then stood in awe over an even larger Swallowtail now
fluttering off to his left, its work done. That second butterfly easily
as big as the one he was taking pictures of and the odds of that were
astronomical given natures rules.
There was another Swallowtail fluttering nearby but that first had,
along with its sperm package, left a methyl salicylic which is a kind of
anti-aphrodisiac killing the scent for any other interested of his kind.
Within seconds that tiny drop of sperm that was deposited on John's neck
cancelled out the Pheromones John had applied earlier.
It had been John's use of that scent that had attracted that butterfly
and John smiled as he realized why that male had dared come so close.
It was the scent of a female Swallowtail. Pheromones John had applied
with a small swab at the base of his neck.
A dab really, just a few particles of it, but enough to bring those
males within touching distance. A very cleaver idea, given the growing
number of butterflies now within his reach, as he continued taking
pictures. He would thank Ms. Everett her suggestion when he'd see her
again that day.
He had thanked her on several occasions for a number of reasons, not the
least of which her influence which drove him into the forest these days.
Her influence and encouragement to forego those other boy's taunts and
teases that he was a sissy for doing what he did.
Watching and cataloging butterflies were not exactly a masculine past
time for a boy, and John paid dearly for that when he first mentioned it
in passing to his friend. "You're doing what?" was the last thing one
of his friends had said to him.
John would someday be an Lepidopterists like Ms. Everett. An
entomologist with a specialty. A person who studies insects, but who
specializes in the collection and study of butterflies, and moths, or,
as that friend confirmed in a slightly disgusted tone that day, "You're
actually collecting butterflies!"
Meanwhile that small dot of liquid that the male Swallowtail had left
for the sake of his species, as it might on a female's egg, slowly
infused itself into John's skin. It was as easily absorbed into John's
upper epidermal, or top layer of skin as it might that egg if there had
been an egg.
What was different were those chemicals that John's body began
assimilating almost instantly. Those chemicals and a half dozen
powerful proteins were very new to this world and John might have had
cause for concern had John known that, but he didn't.
Fortunately what John didn't know wouldn't kill him, but it most
definitely was going to change him. There were going to be changes and
not too unlike the changes that had caused that Swallowtail to grow as
big as it had. It would be a remarkable event given that John's DNA was
involved or soon would be.
DNA, the instructions behind that book of life, had changed just before
that butterfly had hatched. It nearly killed those first few
butterflies within their cocoon, because two more inches of growth was
almost too much, and that wasn't too long ago. Actually this change was
born of a chain of events beginning only a few months ago.
It started with several tenacious plants growing near the waste center
of a nuclear storage facility. A facility just one hundred miles to the
North of where John stood. A facility for the Department of energy and
quietly built fifteen years ago over the protest of locals and the homes
that were razed because of it. Few people, at least nowadays, even knew
it was there still, or why if they did. Although nature didn't care and
plants still grew.
Those odd plants, as it happens, were native and near the staging area
to the underground facility that housed a million pounds of radioactive
chemicals already. Radiation, only slight, had been taken in by those
plants and, as part of the food chain, so too the caterpillar. A very
particular caterpillar that favored those native plants while it fed
itself for the incredible metamorphosis it was soon going to commit
itself to.
Radiation, but well within government standards, and ignored because of
those standards, was still too high for something so delicate as a
butterfly. Of course the government's standards might be a point to
argue, because it was the government that set those standards. Although
that was neither here nor there as those caterpillars ate ravenously.
As always, it would be their last meal.
As it also happens those same plants are the plants that Swallowtails
like as caterpillars. Those plants are called the Hop tree or Ptelea
Trifoliata, to those in the know. One of those food sources for the
Papilio Creshontes Cramer or Swallowtail, but only when it is a
caterpillar host and then only until creating its chrysalis.
That radiation was high, but not high enough to alarm anyone at the
site. At least not until the Geiger counter's clicks increased one day.
A seam, unknown but nearly 400 meters long, allowed a small amount of
radiated gas to seep upward and finally outward.
Fortunately, even if it was harmful, that plant was already sealed in a
thick yellow plastic bag marked both nuclear and hazardous before it
could harm anyone. That plant, in its bag, was also now heading into a
vast chamber dug out of the limestone and seven hundred feet below
ground.
Unfortunately that chrysalis, or several actually, had already hatched,
and just as unfortunate it wasn't an "anyone" that received those high
doses that didn't alarm anyone. That Swallowtail, as large as it was,
wasn't large relative to us, but that radiation taken through the food
chain did cause harm of a sort.
A mutation had occurred and rapidly within those caterpillars within
their chrysalis. A mutation carried off easily because of that
Swallowtail's own remarkable metamorphosis. Seven of them changed and
seven emerged. Seven adult butterflies joined together for the long
trip South. Resting, as it happens, in the forest where John was now
standing.
A Lepidopterists, or that entomologist like Ms. Everett, might have
understood what was happening to those Swallowtails. She understood
butterflies in many ways since she specialized in the collection and
study of those and other insects. She understood it would be an
anomaly.
With a scientific background and a questioning mind, Ms. Everett would
have desperately wanted to know what was happening to these few
monsters, but she wasn't there. No one was around that morning as
John's body, within minutes, began mounting a silent defense against
another microscopic unknown.
John's white blood cells found the first few invading cells of that
Swallowtail and a chemical alert within his body was issued immediately.
Something foreign had registered and was now under attack. Each cell of
that butterfly was identified as alien and the battle began.
Those first few fights, carried on silently by John's own defenses, won
easily. For an analogy that battle took the same course as the
beginnings of a cold or flu virus. It was and wasn't a virus because
nothing on Earth evolved the way these mutated genes did. It just acted
like a virus. Something almost like a cold for want of a better
analogy.
Unfortunately, like a cold, it was the speed of their alien divisions
and that infection which began turning the tide against John's defenses.
At first John's body won those fights handily. Within the first hour
that changed and by the time John had ended his morning in the forest
that battle would have been called a draw.
By the time John reached home to get ready for school that battle had
shifted decidedly in favor of the virus and was well established as John
went about the rest of his day unaware. Those radiated nuclei from that
butterfly were now passing John's defenses in easy victories. There
were millions now and they were already infusing themselves within
John's own DNA as he made lunch.
That necessity to live and, more importantly, to replicate themselves
forced this process. A demand throughout nature and nature, above all
else, is very demanding. Nature is also adaptive, and this above all
else is nature's highest calling next to propagation.
Natures adaptive imperative was answered in a number of ways as those
changing cells within John's body began changing John. Alien cells now
mimicking John's cells, for protection, were ultimately being accepted
within John's own DNA structure and his own design was changing. What
nature also decided to do, what she's done so often, and within those
hours, was find a way to make that unworkable design workable.
What was different, besides the two species once genetically miles
apart, was that John wasn't a butterfly nor female. He was a male and
human, or rather he had been. He was still human, but that male part,
or those male hormones constantly battling against those female hormones
that men and women share at birth, were shifting slightly in their
delicate balance.
The fight, the same as before, went on, but the outcome was now
definitely changing. That butterfly, in his attempt to infuse a
female's eggs, did so with a genetically defined male - John and John
wasn't a butterfly. Under any other circumstances it wouldn't work. Of
course all that was really wrong was John being male. Although, one
could argue, John hadn't been fully male right after conception and
there were still some things nature could do to leverage off that
original intent.
That other side, that side hidden when John's testis formed in those
first twelve weeks as a fetus, were suddenly aroused. John didn't feel
that either as he slipped into bed that night. And that night John
began a subtle but definite metamorphosis. He did scratch some as
things changed slightly, and he tossed around a bit over some minor
discomforts, but, for the most part, he slept through those changes.
Some of those changes, natural changes even without this new process,
would someday be seen when John grew older. Older men lose
testosterone, and their masculinity that comes with it, as do women
their estrogen during menopause. It's why men, later in life, grow
breasts of a sort, and woman on occasion, a mustache. Those natural
hormones, had he been born a girl and still carried, were now under new
instructions and this time with a new power behind them.
John's sleep was surrounded by dreams of butterflies fluttering about,
and those boys taunting him as a sissy for fluttering about with them.
His mind also accepting a portion of a new potion his own body was now
making. A potion that science would someday know about when the
discussions of what makes males male and females, female. John, like
the caterpillar, was changing and it would be striking those changes.
There was a metamorphose underway and like a caterpillar changing into a
butterfly it's an incredible change. A change so complete and so
striking as to alter fully the nature or appearance of that caterpillar
turned butterfly, and now it was John's turn.
John too was turning into something not completely John. Remarkably
John's first changes were for the new chemicals his body would need.
John's circulatory system began accepting a new fluid similar to
hemolymph (also spelled haemolymph). Hemolymph - made up of mostly
water, inorganic salts and organic compounds (close to sea water) now
carried a lot of newer salts and compounds John's new body needed.
John was changing physically and mentally and was doing so within hours
of that moment in the forest. It takes twelve hours for the common cold
to take hold and give us a hint that we have it. It took about that
same amount of time for all of the signals that flow through us
naturally to change as well, and John woke to a new world. John woke to
the same sun, room and bed, but clearly it didn't feel the same.
In this case it was that dream remembered on his way to his shower and
that notice of his skin when he woke. He had moved to scratch and in
doing so stopped to notice the texture of his skin. There was an odd
texture to his skin that left him slightly aware of it and slightly
curious over it. A rough texture just a tad more dry than normal.
Perhaps a rash, John mused, perhaps not - hopefully not.
John thought immediately of those few poisonous plants he was aware of
when he was out in that part of the forest. He hadn't seen any of them,
and he looked, carefully, but that didn't mean they were not there. He
used his scrub brush and his medicated soap for just this sort of thing
as he showered. It didn't hurt to be cautious, he mused.
John scrubbed hard. That scrubbing had worked, but oddly so, as he
dried himself. It was that sense of touch through his fingertips and a
smoothness to his skin he'd never noticed before. Like moist silk if
you are looking for a vision of what it might feel like then. It wasn't
fully an unpleasant feel. Odd that feeling perhaps, but definitely not
unpleasant.
John would have to remember that particular brand of soap for the
future, he mused casually as he dressed, believing still it was the
soap. There were other things he mused over that morning and some of it
in how delighted he felt during his walk to Dr. Everett's office. His
pictures, those wonderful pictures, were in hand as he knocked on her
door. He was light headed as his endorphins danced within and around
his thoughts.
"Where in heaven's name did you take these," Helen asked instantly,
standing up in utter surprise.
Ms. Everett, Helen to those who knew her well enough, had been studying
the Swallowtails, and other local species of butterflies in that area,
for nearly two decades now. Her doctorate came from that study and this
particular species, now in John's photo, but never anything like these.
This wonder, shown sitting above the ruler John had held, was beyond
anything she had seen and John smiled. Of course he knew it was Helen's
favorite and some of that was the reason for his smile, and his delight
that previous morning taking those pictures. Other thoughts made him
smile more as she insisted they go back and find them, together.
Together, John mused happily.
They searched for hours that day and again that following day before she
found one of them laying haphazardly on the ground, dead. This one
measured a full eleven inches beyond the seven inch monster she had
displayed in it's own case at her lab. Her own sense of excitement
equal only to John's in those moments as she slipped the butterfly
carefully into a large plastic bag.
Helen would mount it, describe it's size and share credit with him.
Credit on both his find, and efforts on the new paper she planned. John
felt giddy as he made his way to his dorm that evening. That love
affair between them, but only known to John, flared as well as he
showered again. He had felt so gritty again and wanted to bring back
that silkiness he'd had from his previous shower.
John not only felt gritty but his joints ached. His joints ached and
his testicles felt warm to the touch and he smiled a little over that.
He smiled because he was thinking of Helen Everett as he touched them.
Definitely catching something, he mused, as he stepped back out of the
shower again. He didn't notice those hairs swirling within the soap and
water draining away before he dried. His scrubbing had taken them away
easily.
He met Helen early that following morning. They had made love again
that night or rather John dreamed of making love with her that night,
and he savored that dream as they entered the forest once again. It was
a fairy tale morning in more ways than one. A small thin layer of fog
hugged the ground forming delicate slow moving tendrils easing,
independently, through the trees making the forest appear even more
magical.
"Dr. Patter is almost positive it's a genetic anomaly, and most likely
even environmental!" Helen said to John when they met that morning.
Their field trip, while shorter this time because of their schedules was
still exciting for John. That amount of time they had didn't matter,
because John took any amount of time, given his feelings for this woman,
as time well spent.
Ironically those same feelings was growing in an odd way for Helen, as
well. That notice came about on that second day causing Helen to wonder
over it. Helen was behind John following him. John was, and this she
kept to herself, actually pretty looking in a girlish sort of way.
Why Helen hadn't noticed that before was not clear to her as they drove
back to school, but she did now. She also didn't consciously notice
that subtle change in John's own pheromones or scent, but her
subconscious did and those new signals were suddenly growing very strong
within her.
John's skin glistened and looked so smooth to the touch, and would have
been, were Helen bold enough to do so. She would die for that sort of
skin, she mused. She would have loved to touch it, as well, but she
didn't dare. John was, after all, a male and a student. For Helen
those were two very large taboos. Taboo first because of their
individual status, the other because of Helen's gender preferences in
partners.
John had his own thoughts in that same distance and time. More between
the forest and school and some of it over those panties he wore. Of
course they were not really panties if you ignored his father's opinions
on such things. They were Hannes "His Way" and while they might look
like panties, and were silky nylon, the company clearly said they were
for men.
Which, according to his father, didn't make it so. Besides, his father
had said in that knowing tone, Hannes only made panties for women as far
as he was concerned. Which all came out one morning when John walked
from the shower back to his room during a visit. His mother understood
what they were, but his father - never! Men's underpants do not glisten
nor shine, nor shimmer, he said flatly.
That had been his old girlfriend's comments the day she bought those
panties for him. Girls nowadays were wearing cotton underwear and boys,
some boys, nylon. She smiled over that and before long, thanks to that
girl's gift and a light touch of encouragement, John was also smiling
over that.
He had only worn those panties dating her before then, and only then
because when he did so she rewarded him in such glorious and sensuous
ways. She loved the feel of nylon on him, and because he was wearing
them when she noted that, so did he. Hannes, he had joked, was "Her
Way" and when she had "Her Way" those panties had easily become "His
Way".
His father, on the other hand, made it clear that anything that didn't
have ugly slits in the front were panties. Slits were there for a guy
to reach into before doing his duty. If you had to pull your pants down
to do that duty then they were panties. "Guys only pull their
underpants down to sit and do their other duty!" his father had said.
Although, in an odd irony, John's father had made it very clear that it
might be ok for John to wear such things. Even OK to sit for all of his
duties, since he was skipping about catching butterflies. Guys that
catch butterflies are most often those same guys that don't mind pulling
their pants down to do their duty. Or so his father also said.
John remembered those comments as he searched his underwear drawer. His
own shorts, those cotton ones, were suddenly feeling far too harsh that
morning when he set them in place. He bought cheap soap for his laundry
and blamed that harshness on the soap. He also blamed the pain in his
joints on the flu. He wore the white silky nylon Hannes "His Way" when
he slipped into his jeans.
By that afternoon John felt lousy, and headed for the school's nursing
office.
A fever of 101 was high but not extreme, the nurse said, as she too
wrote down the flu on John's chart. She also confirmed his age again
wondering over his nearly pre-pubescence body from his neck down. She
too thought he was slightly too pretty for a boy, and most likely a late
bloomer besides, as she handed John a "what to do when you've got the
flu" sheet of paper fresh off the printer.
John was already doing what was written, he decided, as he paid his five
dollars co-pay, and tossed the instruction sheet into the trash outside.
That morning was the worst of it anyway as he woke to a damp bed sheet.
A very gross very damp bed sheet, he thought to himself. He noted, only
casually, what looked like fine grained sand and those few remaining
hairs he'd shed during the night.
What was forming, in a biological sense, was a type of chrysalis, or at
least, as close as a human might come to making a chrysalis. John's
body, in fact, was attempting to emulate a butterfly each night and each
morning, since John was human, was shedding that covering off.
John was actually losing skin cells bathed in a kind of salt that was
being fluffed off from John's own epidermal. Those upper epidermal
cells were being joined by way of a silky like mucus before hardening
and once John's body was protected it began altering itself or trying
to.
John was also attempting to do what was only done in the first twelve
weeks of gestation for a human fetus. He was doing what babies do in a
mother's womb, as his body attempted to answer a signal it wasn't
supposed to be getting any longer or ever for that matter. A
metamorphosis of a sort and most of the reasons his body ached in places
that had hinted at the flu.
We are conceived without a sex or, put another way, with all of the
material for both sexes or either sex if you prefer. We evolve first
with all of the material to make us female or male, and without that
signal from our chromosomes or, more specifically, that "Y" that gets
attached to the male's, we will simply continue on as females.
Before that signal the genital systems are identical or defined another
way - neutral. With that chemical signal given changes begin and
testicles form. From those testicles comes the stuff that men are truly
made of. The rest is simply our bodies answering all of those
instructions that make us into what we will ultimately become.
Occasionally those signals get mixed and, in this case, John's were
mixing again under a new design driven by a new mandate.
If John was still that early fetus there would still be gonads which can
become ovaries, cervix and fallopian tubes or, as in his case,
testicles. Were he still a fetus that phallus could become either a
clitoris or penis and those genital folds either a labia or scrotum.
Since John had that "Y" chromosome he'd made the transition to male by
his third month in his mother's womb. When his testicles formed they in
turn completed that masculine process.
Since John was to be born male those gonads developed into testicles and
those testicles began producing the male hormone testosterone. That
testosterone led to the development of his penis, scrotum and the
internal tubular system that would later carry his sperm.
Another hormone, also produced by the testicles acted as an inhabiter
and called the anti-mullerian hormone or AMH. AMH inhibits the
development of a uterus and vagina. That inhabiter had all but
disappeared by now with John's body under new instructions.
What was happening now, and because John's body was trying to
metamorphose his body from male to female he was going to be something
for science to consider. John's body was attempting to reverse most
everything that John had been through as a fetus and nearly over that
same 'relatively short' amount of time. A nearly impossible task given
the circumstances, but it didn't lesson the effort his body gave. Mass
was moving, shifting, changing and that redistribution of fatty tissue
and muscle cells was rapid and constant.
It was constant and becoming relentless, in those first few days. So
too even John's hair. His hair, the hair on his head, once growing at
one sixteenth of an inch per day, was now nearly a half inch in twenty
four hours, and he only noticed that because his hand went further along
the pony tail he wore before the rubber band was added on to hold it
together.
His body hair had also changed as well. He thought it was growing
lighter as it did in the Summer which was coming closer. John noticed
that on the forth day. Although, as he thought more about it, he
remembered it wasn't quite Summer yet.
An alarm went off then and what to do about it was on his mind as he
walked to class. You simply don't lose that much body hair unless
something is wrong, although it didn't seem like that much hair when he
finally did notice.
Which wasn't all of what was causing his alarm. His pants hanging
slightly more lose at the waist and his belt at its first hole as well
but now more snug at his hips. Not much more snug, but noticeable given
it was his own body in his own favorite jeans that no longer felt like
his favorite.
He forced himself to eat a bit more and was drinking constantly given
what he perceived as his "illness". Thinking he had the flu was the
only reason he didn't run back to the nurse in a full panic.
He also noticed, but only in passing and just for a second, that his
elbows now struck his sides more as he walked. That was odd since they
hadn't before. In John's case it was those tendons and muscles causing
that. It wasn't simply fatty or muscle tissue changing, but tendons as
well, and from behind more than a few guys at school noticed.
Some muscles were tightening, some growing more loose. Just a slight
tightening of his tendons on one side and a bit loser on the other was
all that it took to draw his elbows in. A purposeful design in women so
that arms hanging at the sides did so properly. Properly over jutting
hips if you were a girl that is. In this case his hips began to enlarge
and for the same reason as a girl's in spite of John's gender.
It would have also seemed odd for the two young men walking behind John
who admired the girl they thought they were admiring as they did so.
They looked, but with that casualness almost all males share in
recognizing someone of the opposite sex. Their thoughts would have been
far different had they known who they were watching walking before them.
More fatty tissue had formed around John's thighs, both inside and out,
and his bottom was shifting slightly from his waist at the back. Fatty
tissue, designed to cushion a woman's bottom for birthing someday, was
now being added to cushion John's bottom as well.
That was what the guys had noticed first. Not much as it happens, but
his pants fit slightly differently as did those so called men's panties
he now wore again. They had gathered on those thighs sooner than before
or so it seemed.
John's lips, as well, had also gathered a few more fatty cells and
puckered a tiny bit more that day. All of this relatively small as
changes go. Nothing dramatic and not noticed when John faced the
mirror, but, again, it was constant. Slowly, and unfortunately
ceaseless. Ceaseless but slowing.
So slowly that those individual changes didn't show individually, but
taken together as a whole, there were enough changes to show overall.
Finally John's pores had tightened, smoothing his body and face and to a
casual observer it was decidedly becoming a girl's face.
That was what Helen noted as she greeted him and the rest of his class
in Biology that morning. John was looking very female or so she mused,
and why that was so wasn't clear, but she liked that look. She liked
those lips as well and wished, to herself, that he wore something
kissable. Something with a bit more shimmer and perhaps a little color
in it. Helen shook her head to clear it because she wanted desperately
to kiss those lips as she began her days lesson.
There were those, according to a dear friend of Helen's, who found being
bi-sexual an advantage. Until that morning Helen hadn't. Although that
thought stayed with Helen for most of that morning. She had never
thought of being with a male till now, although not fully male, she
mused.
John would look so lovely in something Summery, silky and flowing, she
also mused, as she sat behind her desk. She fought to concentrate on
her lesson while she in turn moved her knees together slowly.
It hadn't gone well, that class, because Helen wasn't thinking of that
class as she sat in her office correcting papers before calling it a day
and that was when her day changed. Helen got the call from her own
mentor, Dr. Patter, that evening. An emergency he'd said and it related
to that butterfly she had given him to study. Helen was alarmed when he
told her why, and John too, soon after that call from Helen.
John was greeted by two men in white environmental suits after he
realized he wasn't dreaming over that banging on his door. That
butterfly Helen had mounted was now in a container marked "nuclear
material" as was that small oak case she used. At John's room they
carried yellow suitcases in, and there were clicks from the Geiger
counter as they began their work. Helen stood there with an
understanding look at John's confusion.
"John, what were you wearing on the day you found those butterflies?"
Helen asked from the door and from behind a paper mask behind the two
men in those suits.
John told her, then the men in the white suits, before actually showing
them. Fortunately and with the exception of one minor spike from the
collar of his shirt, everything was within "high" norms. His shirt went
with those two men in a thick plastic bag marked with the nuclear
hazards logo and the panic ended as quickly as it began.
John's panic ended, but his fear was still there. Although his fear
changed from shock to surprise after finding out that the butterfly
they'd found, and the one he most likely touched, was radioactive. It
wasn't much, but enough to alert the authorities who took an interest in
such things. Wind patterns were discussed out of ear shot, and checked,
and a source for that radiation guessed at within hours.
John was requested, at CDC's expense and the schools permission, to
undergo test. As a routine, they had taken a blood test. Nothing serious
or heavy duty, and simply a precaution to which John quickly agreed. If
John had taken on some of that radiation it was more than likely equal
to a normal X-Ray, nothing more, they said. There was no reason to be
alarmed they also said.
As it happens it wasn't even that much of a level, radiation wise, and
John, after being poked, prodded and scanned, was released. John was
released after those few tests, and the butterfly in question was now
seven hundred feet below the desert. As were those others those Geiger
counters found within minutes after Helen showed them where the first
had been laying.
John also met Dr. Prox as he was dressing at the end of his test. She
was with the Center For Disease Control or CDC and an expert in
radiation poisoning and while everything appeared normal, Dr. Prox
wanted to be absolutely sure. She hadn't liked the notion of John's so
called "flu".
Dr. Prox wanted to do a full and more complete physical that following
day. John agreed again, and instantly, since his flu like symptoms
hinted at something other than the flu. Radiation, John knew, caused
the body to shed hair.
Why Dr. Prox wanted to know if he was on any sort of hormone treatment
wasn't clear. That came when she read his new blood test, but it was
suggestive, and he worried over that for most of his dreams that night.
John had left, albeit with some difficulty, a sperm sample. Only it
wasn't sperm in his dreams because he was a girl this time. He was a
girl, he dreamed, and rather than chasing butterflies he was simply
running in a field full of them.
John was in a yellow Summer dress of see through chiffon over a light
nylon lining of white and his father was hollering, off in the distance,
that those panties he was wearing were really girl's panties. Helen was
running alongside telling him to ignore his father and that he looked
good in her clothes. All that he needed, Helen said between breaths in
that dream, was a bra if he was going to run around in something so
pretty.
John woke with mixed emotions that morning and concern as he padded his
way to his shower. His breast did hurt slightly he noted stepping under
the warm water which, he mused, was the cause of such an odd dream. His
shower hinted at why he'd dreamed of a bra, as he ran his soapy hands
down his chest. He slowed at the nipples and stopped when the little
mounds ended.
Aside from the fact his chest was smooth and hairless there were now two
nearly perfect little breasts. Not breasts per se but buds that hinted
at breast, not too unlike a little girl's. Dr. Prox's comments about
hormones came back to him as he stood sideways in front of his mirror.
That question of hers suggested that Dr. Prox also knew something. He
was now guessing at that same thing.
His breasts, and they were breasts, were perhaps half a "B" cup if that,
but still more than you'd see on a guy or him just a week ago, and that
brought focus to his hips and thighs. His shape reminded him of a girl
not far from puberty and that unnerved him. Not fully a girl's shape
yet, but definitely not that of a boy's either.
Oddly enough it didn't scare him as much as he'd thought it might, and
wondered over that as he thought it. He only dressed then because he
was running out of time and again wore the panties and this time for the
sake of wearing panties. He wore his tee-shirt and jeans again, but
they were decidedly more feminine than before, as his jeans flowed
outward below a narrow waist to fill over his hips. There was a hint of
breast that were now just pushing at the cotton of his tee.
Some guys like girls that don't look all that much like girls, or put
another way, some guys like guys that don't look much like guys either.
The guy in the guard's uniform, that guard that held the CDC door open
for John, smiled as he did so. He smiled then and continued smiling all
the while watching that young thing moving across the floor. For this
man it wouldn't have mattered either way which gender John was.
The test took eleven hours and the questions were endless as John
wondered through the mysteries of medical science and his history.
Oddly enough the technician, in the far reaches of that same building,
reading the results of his second blood test with the doctor, could find
nothing out of the ordinary and she noted that right off.
That last comment, the one right after that, was what made the doctor
laugh so hard.
That technician, by the way, hadn't met nor seen John as she stood with
the doctor. She had simply run some normal test on some normal blood.
John, she said, and that was an odd name for a girl, was extremely
healthy for a young female. She also guessed, based on her readings,
that the girl, given the level and mix of hormones, was near the age of
ten or so.
That comment, for obvious reason, made Dr. Prox frown and smile, then
laugh within seconds of that remark. It was those chemical traces, as
spikes on his blood gases, that interested her.
More so when she got a call from one of CDC's entomologist who was doing
skin sample studies of John. They'd been taking skin samples,
scrapings, every hour on the hour on John and there was an anomaly with
those earlier samples.
"It appears to be human skin but it's formed a kind of linked structure
not too unlike a chrysalis," that technician noted. It was the
combinations of comments that caused Dr. Prox to call her boss and it
was her boss that brought up the file under John's name.
That man, a long time employee of the CDC, read John's file. Alarms, in
his own brain, were going off as he did so. There was too many little
things that all led to something bigger, he mused before typing again. A
series of passwords were entered and a code was given. That code
changed things instantly. It changed things throughout all of the CDC
computer systems, and John's file became "Classified, Secret, Level 1,
Eyes Only".
Questions arose for that entire day. It would be the same following
that battery of psychological test. Those test were conducted by three
different doctors. One at first, who then called in the other two. The
second two had not met nor seen John either which was also on purpose.
However, according to all three, John's thought processes were
definitely female and, in fact, more so even than most females.
It wasn't simply his thoughts that were changing as the small biopsy
needle was pulled carefully from a stainless steel casing that was used
to tap into John's spine. John's brain chemistry, they discovered, was
not male even slightly. Scans also confirmed that.
In John's case, as in most females, there was decidedly more neurons and
dendrites when the first electronic slices started to form to show
John's brain. Not too unusual for some men, but decidedly more than
unusual in this case because of everything else.
It was the scans that shook everyone sitting in front of those CRT
images that evening. John's Cerebral hemisphere or more importantly
that corpus callosum was showing new growth. The corpus callosum is the
fibrous tract connecting the left and right sides of the brain. It
doesn't show growth at John's age.
That tract was inherently larger in females. John's 200 million or so
axons appeared to a number of surprised faces to have nearly doubled and
in just a few days. An MRI was ordered and those magnetic resonance
imaging results only confirmed the original diagnosis.
Another MRI was ordered on John's hypothalamus. Focus on this scan was
those two areas decidedly different in males and females. Remarkably
John's preoptic area as well as his suprachiasmatic nucleus were again
and definitely judged female.
That would explain the headaches John was having one of the doctors
noted. There was one other voice, coming from the back. A voice that
caught everybody's attention then. That voice was from a noted
Neuroscientist who read the shape of John's suprachiasmatic nucleus.
"That elongation is definitely a female's shape! A male's is shaped
more like a sphere," she said with enough conviction to leave everyone
without any doubt as she added, "My guess is your patient's cramps and
his hormone level changes are most likely a result of this young man
trying to have a period and since he is a young man, therein lies the
difficulty."
There was a snicker from someone.
"You're not serious," another voice said with another snicker. It was a
man's voice and that snicker wasn't humorous. He sounded nervous.
"Obviously it's not a true menstruation but as you can see, both his
estrogen and progesterone levels have peaked during the luteal phase.
That's clearly in support of his pituitary hormones," that voice said as
the others looked at the chart she was now pointing to.
"Could be an anomaly," another doctor argued, another male.
"It could be, but I'm guessing it's not based on all the other evidence.
If it is his body trying to menstruate, his corpus luteum will produce
progesterone in addition to estrogens for approximately the next 2
weeks. If it doesn't then I'll agree it's an anomaly," the first doctor
argued and added, "Although I'm willing to bet it does."
"That might explain the discharge we're seeing," another voice spoke up.
"Discharge?" the woman asked.
"Not urine nor semen but something decidedly liquid," that voice noted.
"It could. Have you seen any changes in his brain waves since this all
started?" the woman asked.
"Discharge?" a male doctor asked before an answer came.
"Not menstrual, but clearly there is fluidity and again, it's not
urinary," the doctor making the original comment added.
"On those brain waves? Actually yes. His neural firing during his last
MRI showed a frenzy of brain activity in both sides of his amygdalae
suggesting a strong emotional reaction. Almost a constant so far," a
voice in the dark said.
"How interesting this is going to be?" that woman's voice said.
"How so?" a male voice asked.
"No erection, due to the high levels of estrogen, while he experiences
an almost constant, albeit a slow but constant ejaculation," the woman
answered.
"Ejaculation," the man said in shock trying to understand what the woman
had just said.
"Ejaculation! It's the only thing his body can use to emulate his
period," the doctor noted smiling as she added, "Think of it as a sort
of on-going wet dream."
"Orgasms?" someone asked.
"For seven days?" another added with a touch of envy.
"Seven days of orgasms," another male said slightly in awe.
"He's going to be very sensitive," the female doctor noted and added,
"And if this is his pattern it's going to be monthly."
Someone else asked her if she was serious, and she went on, "The
suprachiasmatic nucleus is that portion of the brain that defines our
circadian rhythms as well as our reproductive cycles. All you've got to
do is look at the spikes - it's all there."
She smiled at the mystery she faced simply because this really was a
mystery. She also kept a couple of other thoughts to herself. John,
she mused, would be the first male that could fully and quite literally,
understand what a female goes through month to month but for John it
would be far more pleasurable than for a woman.
John was still under the effects of a light anesthesia when they tapped
him into a disposable diaper and began monitoring his new "period". It
was for his sake when the nurse did so although he wasn't fully aware of
it till later.
John wasn't discharging anything like a female, but he was discharging
uncontrollably and the problem was, the doctor noted to a CDC nurse when
the diaper was ordered, "It's got to be a diaper because they just don't
make a Kotex designed for males trying to be female."
John, the doctors also noted when they finally convened again, was
decidedly more girl than boy. According to his latest scans and hormone
levels, a girly girl as one of the doctors, a medical psychologist, put
it.
If she was looking at a patient, she said, without knowing that patient
was male and with those results, she'd expect to see mostly pinks,
ribbons and bows with a strong above average taste for Barbie. It was
clear, by the tone of her voice she didn't much care for girly girls the
other two doctors decided as she talked of her results.
When those who didn't know that it was a male were told John was male
they all agreed that he was definitely not 100% male. Perhaps, at best,
half that. A hermaphrodite, someone suggested, most likely misdiagnosed
at birth, given his newly forming attributes and those chemical
structures.
Perhaps even something of a evolving hermaphrodite although that wasn't
clear either because it wasn't clear where John was headed. In any
event with his test concluded, it was noted that John, at the very
least, could easily set the standards for a classic and budding young
transsexual on a very aggressive hormone treatment. A transsexual on
some very heavy doses of hormones besides.
One of the nurses, the one that tapped John into his first disposable,
could have told them that, she mused, as she rolled John's ample hips
towards her for a fresh diaper. There are some boys, she noted as she
tapped John's second diaper closed, simply destined to become girls...
She paused, taped the diaper closed and smiled.
...if they were smart that is, she also mused as she patted the front of
his diaper before lifting the sheet to cover him.
That was also the thoughts from the doctor brought in to consult on such
things. She mentioned in her brief that she or one of her colleagues
would most likely be performing a feminizing genitoplasty on this young
man one day. As that doctor also noted, when she was told that the
young woman she'd tested without knowing he was a young man.
"This young man could easily go either way although, if I were asked to
make a recommendation, I'd suggest doing so in a dress. A dress only
because it would be less stressful and more easily adaptive for him,"
the doctor noted.
Fortunately that wasn't said directly to John.
CDC contacted two leading hospitals for consultation and John again
agreed to further test. The fact that his body was changing was most of
the reason and, why that was so, was still unknown.
Although that doctor working for CDC and now in charge of this case
believed it was somehow connected to that butterfly. She was looking at
a fluff of skin taken from under John's arm at that moment.
"It doesn't look like skin or skin cells. Too dense and to hard!" she
said to a colleague who was sharing that image.
That colleague agreed and yet it was skin, human and that too was
noticed as he adjusted the electron microscope feeding that image.
There were five other doctors hovering near that image within half an
hour of that comment and again Helen got a call from her old advisor.
Dr. Patter, Helen's advisor, was an expert on butterflies, but he
deferred to Helen's knowledge on the Swallowtail and he, along with
Helen, met those other doctors in a conference room at CDC.
Helen referred back to her class notes as well as her field study notes
to detail as much as was possible on what she knew about John's
discovery.
A forensic pathologist and an expert on insect bites, was brought in to
help identify, if possible, a physical contact with that Swallowtail.
Helen helped when she noted a single minor passage that she had jotted
down in her field book.
That was the notation she made when telling John to use a touch of an
artificial female Swallowtail Pheromone. That pathologist, within ten
minutes found a small almost invisible minor bump at the base of John's
neck. A bump that hinted at something out of the ordinary and a biopsy
was taken.
The pathologist found a sperm packet, called a spermatorphore, within
John with remnants of Swallowtail sperm. Now that they knew what to
look for, that Swallowtail had clearly passed on part of his altered
genetic material, including a small amount of residual radiation.
John's DNA was again being intensely viewed.
No one really knew what the evidence suggested but the "hints" of it
were clear enough. A mutated Swallowtail had an encounter with John
that day and somehow John, with new DNA coding, as impossible as that
sounded, was now mutating in similar ways as a butterfly might.
When that mutation was firmly established John was classified "risk
unknown" which is actually the highest risk classification for the
government. That risk classification triggered other actions
immediately. John's medical files at school were instantly taken under
a secret judicial writ and that information was merged with the material
already on file at CDC.
A chronology of symptoms and changes were roughed out in that conference
room and John's metamorphism outlined. There was very little scientific
information on John's transition, but there were enough doctors with
enough disciplines to provide the path John was on from what was already
known.
With the exception of how John might feel about such things he was,
without anyone doubting it, becoming more girl than boy. It was also
clear that trying to counter what was happening might not be medically
sound or even feasible since it wasn't clear yet how those chemical
mechanisms were actually working.
Problem was, as one doctor noted, changes were happening at the cellular
level and everything that was happening was under instructions from
John's own body. The consensus was leave John to become whatever it was
he was becoming and in the meantime, keep that information and him
quiet.
Ironically that meeting was in parallel to another just a few miles away
in another building. That second meeting was being held at and by the
Atomic Energy Regulatory Commission and while John's condition was of
equal concern, almost, that wasn't their focus.
John was, at the very least, a publicity risk and very negative at best,
and the issues were obvious if John-Q-Public came to believe that
exposure to nuclear material might somehow turn men into women. There
was no doubt that even a rumor of such a thing would put most men into a
panic and kill whatever hope they had for atomic energy in the future.
Might not scare women all that much, someone noted with a chuckle, but
the men in that room shuddered at the prospects, however ridiculous that
might seem. What to do with John and the information surrounding him
kept that meeting going till well into the next day.
The National Securities Act was finally cited, after an attorney for the
justice department was called in. That attorney cited half a dozen
passages within that Act that could be useful to their cause before the
meeting broke up.
There was precedence for what was about to happen to John and what was
about to happen was that John was going to be sequestered under legal
authority as a potential national securities risk. Under that
definition, they didn't need a writ of habeas corpus.
What kept those men in black suits at bay was simply John's good fortune
that Dr. Prox and Helen were with John when they stepped into John's
hospital room. The risk of public disclosure or exposure to what had
happened to John was the only reason John was now under guard just hours
after his warrant was issued and in protective custody.
There was another meeting held at the AERC with NSC attending.
Under the United States Secrecy Act, information pretraining to this
case and disclosure of any information, now sequestered, once it was
classified and it was now, would make it a federal offense were it
disclosed. That meant that anyone doing so, did so at risk of federal
indictment and prosecution.
That was at least one side of the conversation and while potentially
threatening to most average people, Helen wasn't average. Helen cited
her own notice of "intervention" as her own lawyer called it. She too
had talked to an attorney with the ACLU.
Helen was a woman with balls one of the NSC agents noted with a snicker.
This came after Helen gave them her own warning. There were forty seven
packages of information on John, and what he was going through, sitting
at forty seven separate locations. Most of those locations news
agencies with "all" of the information.
Information, Helen noted, pulled together before it was or had been
classified. Helen also noted that she had not been bound by that United
States Secrecy Act when she mailed those out. Five of which, she also
noted, were now outside of the U.S. and even it's formidable control.
There were also twelve people that Helen knew, she noted as well, who
would call for the release of that information. That is if she or John
did not physically appear to those same people within twenty four hours
of this meeting. John was not about to be taken away to simply
disappear, Helen warned.
It could be said within a few minutes of that conversation, that there
was an impasse formed as both sides finished their posturing.
Remarkably, it was Helen again that proposed a shift of balance, and to
the surprise of those in the dark suits, that shift would be in the
governments favor.
A slow calming fell over the room as Helen paused before talking again.
"Why not allow him simply to become the girl that he is becoming," she
said in a matter of fact tone as she added, "That is clearly where this
is heading."
It wasn't clear who spoke first urging her on, but it was clear that
Helen now had their attention and enough time from that statement to
note the rest. Helen had thought long and hard on this as she formed the
words in her head first.
A transistioning transsexual, Helen noted, has a process clearly defined
for how he or rather she, John, will ultimately emerge. That process
covers both the physical, mental as well as the legal aspects of a
transition and Helen noted that she would help handle John's awareness
of this.
Moreover, once the government was satisfied, they could, under the
United States Marshall's Service, provide both her and John the
necessary identification changes to allow them out of this known and
possibly hostile environment. Perhaps into another less known and
obviously less hostile.
Helen was, of course, talking about the witness protection program or at
least part of it. There were murmurs, nods and finally a consensus. A
representative of the U.S. Marshall's Office was brought in and another
meeting was held.
John, fortunately was recovering from his bout with an unknown flu type
or so he was told by the CDC doctor. The guard, she noted, was simply
to ensure there was no physical contact with anyone else till they were
sure he was past infecting anyone else. They feared, she said, a
possible pandemic.
Meanwhile, that Marshall they called in was both giving and taking
information. The Witness Security Program was created by the Organized
Crime Control Act of 1970. It's original purpose meant for the
protection of witnesses by way of relocation and new identification.
Fortunately, from the legal aspects it was already being administered by
the United States Marshals Service as a division of the U.S. Department
of Justice. It would be up to the United States Attorney General to
make that final determination on behalf of John, but that was simply a
technicality since it was the NSA that would be asking.
The real problem wasn't so much placing John and Helen under that
protection act, but what to do with John when he was entered. He was
male, going on female so the obvious choice would be to change his
identity to female. Helen, of course, pushed for that as well.
Helen, as she sat there talking and listening, also realized with a
startled awareness that she was in love. No one noticed that smile or
if they did it's connection, but Helen felt the warmth spreading from
inside as John's case and a solution was being mapped out.
Under the Marshals Service, John and his intended legal guardian, now
Helen, would be relocated to a new city in a new state. The Marshal
promised to bring back a list of those cities for Helen to review. It
would be a small list because she wanted a college that included
Lepidopterists in it's curriculum.
It was fortuitous as well that John's metamorphism would assist in this
deception and, ironically, Helen's background would only add to it.
Helen was orphaned at the age of seventeen when her parents were killed.
There was no other family. Changing her history, slightly, and adding a
sister would be easy.
The Marshal, attending, suggested she have a step sister ten years her
junior and that would require changing only several databases. That
would also put John, as Helen's step sister, at the tender age of seven
when their parents died.
That would make John legally fourteen now to Helen's twenty five.
Helen, would have a sister, but Helen wasn't thinking sister as she
imagined John laying next to her in a new bed somewhere happily in a new
home.
John would get a new name, identity and a solid history with enough
authentic documentation to include a new Social Security card. Helen's
identity would not need to change and her academic credentials would
remain intact.
Housing and medical care, job training and employment would also be
included if needed. There would be two levels or phases of funding with
the first supporting John's transition and the second in support of
their relocation till he and she were once again self-sufficient.
Unlike a true witness under the protection program, John would not have
to break contact with his mother. His father, Helen mused, might be a
different story. Helen knew that John's father was homophobic to a
fault and already believed John gay. John's mother simply didn't care
one way or the other.
Helen was wondering, to herself, what might happen were John simply to
confirm his father's suspicions. It wasn't without a precedence she
mused, since John was, in fact, more like a transsexual now. That would
definitely have to be part of the discussions with John, she decided.
John was reaching the third day and his forth diaper of that day when
Helen joined him wearing a surgical mask. John was still led to believe
he was contagious, and while being diapered unnerved him, the fact that
they were soiled at each change made it clear they were a necessary
evil.
Helen also now knew John was wearing diapers and why, having calculated,
with the CDC doctor's help, that John would have his 'period' for
another two days at least.
"You don't need that mask," John said smiling. A mischievous smile
Helen realized and with that realization she took a second to remove it.
"How did you know that?" Helen asked.
"My changes are genetic and not disease related," John said.
"And you know that because?" Helen asked.
"Another guess," John said and added, "The breasts mostly, but other
things as well. You know, hips and the like."
"They've gotten bigger. Your breasts that is," Helen said in a voice as
casual as John's was but there was a trace of a smile.
"Yes, but they've stopped growing," John said.
"You know that?" Helen asked.
"It's more like I can feel it," John said and added between snickers,
"And it's nothing like a cold or the flu."
"No, I suppose it's not. Not by a long shot I suspect," Helen said with
her own snicker.
"So, what have the doctors said? Am I more girl than boy now?" John
asked.
It was an odd question, but given the circumstances not as odd as it
might have been. Five weeks has passed and with it, according to the
last scans and blood test, most of what everyone believed was John's
metamorphosis.
John had stabilized, if that was reasonable as a prognosis. Although
Helen wasn't sure a prognosis, any prognosis would be accurate. They
really knew very little about what John had gone through or why.
The doctor was sure his changes had slowed, perhaps stopped, suspecting
John had reached some sort of balance. That was another of nature's
great constructs - balance however one sided it might be.
"I suspect you can answer that better than they can," Helen said as she
added, "They honestly don't know much. I mean they know a lot, but it's
your mind I'd like to understand."
"Feels different! Everything feels different," John said as his face
changed.
He was considering his answer, internalizing it. He knew the changes,
while subtle, were dramatic if seen without the context of those five
weeks in-between. He also knew he was viewing things differently.
"A good difference or bad?" Helen asked cautiously.
"Mostly good! Not sure why that is, but it's mostly good," John said.
He paused long enough for Helen to speak and she was about to, but the
changes in his face made her hesitate. John was considering something
else and a resolution had been reached if Helen was reading his face
accurately.
"What?" Helen asked softly as she fidgeted with the mask in her hand.
She was now holding it, but nervously.
"My dad... I was thinking of my dad and how shocked he was when I said
I was helping you collect butterflies. I didn't mention this to you but
when I'd gone home for last break... Well, he thought I was becoming a
sissy," John said and laughed, "He had no idea how right he was."
"Not sissy! Feminine," Helen said.
"Effeminate, to my dad, is sissy," John said.
"Feminine, in your case, is female," Helen countered.
"But I'm not," John said.
"As close perhaps as any man has ever been," Helen said and added,
"Right down to what is happening to you 'down there' at this moment."
"My period? Now isn't that funny coming from a guy," John said as he
lifted his nightgown up to show Helen the diaper he wore.
"Did they tell you that?" Helen asked.
"Didn't have to Helen. Although I asked a nurse when the symptoms
started. Cramps, irritable, uncomfortable at first, and then this
incontinence or whatever it is," John said pointing to his diaper.
"Not incontinence as much as a kind of menstrual flow, so it's not as if
I can't relate," Helen said laughing.
"But that's not all," John said laughing.
"What?" Helen asked.
"It's like living in the middle of a constant wet dream for want of a
better description. I can't think, move nor imagin