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A Modern Metamorphosis Stephen sipped his morning's second cup of coffee--he was on his coffee break, after all--and scrolled down, reading of Pyramus and Thisbe, a tale he'd begun yesterday, but hadn't finished before it had been time to resume work. He was writing an instruction manual for a bidet, one of his more unusual and, in an odd way, sexier recent assignments as a technical writer. It wasn't every day that someone in his line of work was given the opportunity to write about a lady's unmentionables hovering over a porcelain instrument designed for the express purpose of allowing her to cleanse her nether regions. Still, as always, he was glad to take a break. Instead of joining his coworkers at the water cooler or in the break room, listening to them gossip about anyone else who was absent--quite often, of late, Stephen himself--he preferred to remain at his desk and read. He didn't know why he'd chosen Ovid's poems, other than he'd enjoyed reading them as a college student. The basis, in part, of Shakespeare's tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, the plot was simple and straightforward, but intriguing: Babylonian lovers, beautiful young Thisbe longs to wed handsome Pyramus, but their parents object. The heroine's portrait, by John William Waterhouse, accompanied the text, depicting her as a ravishing, barefoot brunette who, clad in a gown of crimson and gold, presses her ear pressed to the common wall that both separates and joins her parents' house with the abode of her lover's family. The object of her love, whose own portrait, painted by Gregorio Pagani, also appears in the volume, is shown with curly brown locks. Clad in a scarlet cape and a leopard-skin robe, he seems a bit too effeminate for Stephen's taste, but the technical writer attributes his appearance to Pagani's, rather than Ovid's, representation of the character. Having confessed their love to one another, by whispering through a crack in the common wall of their homes, the couple agree to run away together, meeting beneath a mulberry tree near the tomb of Nineveh's founder, the conqueror Ninus. Thisbe reaches their rendezvous point before her lover, where she spies a lion, its mouth bloody from a recent kill. She flees, leaving behind her veil, which the lion, slaking its thirst at the fountain beside the tomb, chances to tear. It was at this point in the story that Stephen had had to quit reading yesterday, and it was at this point that he'd resumed the tale at this morning's coffee break. It had been years since he'd read the story, and he'd forgotten most of its details, although they came flooding back to him as he read--or re-read--the tragic poem, so, on some level, it seemed he hadn't really forgotten the story at all. In any case, it was just as beautiful and wonderful as ever, a true classic of a tale. No wonder Shakespeare had been moved by the catastrophic narrative. Pyramus arrived, late, saw his beloved's veil, and drew the same unfortunate conclusion that Thisbe had reached: the lion had killed and devoured Thisbe! Horrified, he fell upon his sword, his blood splattering the white leaves of the mulberry tree and staining their fruits. Stephanie shook his head. The pathos of the tale was considerable, and he was surprised to find his cheeks damp; he'd actually shed a tear. Through blurred vision, Stephen read on. Returning to the scene, Thisbe discovered Pyramus' body, mourned his death, and then stabbed herself with her fallen lover's sword. Having heard her laments for her dead lover, the gods took pity upon the young woman, commanding that, henceforth, mulberries should forever retain their purple color, mementoes mori honoring the youth's demise. Stephen sniffled, wiping away another tear. A click of his mouse button closed the window, and the document he'd been working on before his break reappeared upon the monitor. He went from looking at the portraits of Pyramus and Thisbe and reading of their sad love affair to gazing, once more, upon the scallop shell-shaped porcelain plumbing fixture, festooned with knobs and hoses, about which he was writing, at present explaining the unlikely, if not altogether unseemly, posture its users were required to adopt in using the convenience. Indeed, the word "bidet" was derived from the Old French "bider," meaning "to trot"; the fixture had originally been thought to resemble a pony, due to its user's need to hover, jockey-like, above the bowl, as if she were Lady Godiva, protesting taxes. As he tried to concentrate upon his work, Stephen was surprised at how strongly the story of Pyramus and Thisbe had affected him. It was an unlikely tale, a melodramatic story, a romance such as might, modernized, appear on the Lifetime Movie Network. Yet, despite its almost embarrassing banality, it had reduced him to tears, just as it had fired the imagination of no less a playwright and poet than Shakespeare himself. He sniffled again, wiping away more tears from his wet cheeks. He glanced from left to right and was glad to see that no one appeared to be hovering about his cubicle. His coworkers seemed either occupied with their own work, inside their own cubicles, or were, perhaps, as he had been doing only moments ago, taking a break. In any case, his sentimental moment seemed to have escaped his colleagues' notice. Except that, curiously, enough, his reaction to the Pyramus and Thisbe story hadn't been a mere "moment." Instead, his grief for the ill-fated lovers remained with him all day, and, when he turned in that night, after picking at the frozen dinner he'd heated in his bachelor's pad, the lovers' tragic fate was still very much on his mind. In fact, he'd cried himself to sleep. He'd never been such a sentimental fool before. It was almost as if there were something magical in Ovid's poetry, he thought. That night, he dreamed of Pyramus and Thisbe. He woke, fleeing the gravesite of the conqueror Ninus, his veil caught and left behind, terrified of the great beast he'd seen there, its mouth bloody with his lover's vital fluid. It wasn't until a few minutes later, heart pounding and pulse racing, that Stephen realized that, in his nightmare, he'd assumed the identity not of the youth, Pyramus, but of the lovely lady, Thisbe! How odd! Why should he have identified with the female, rather than then male, character? It wasn't the effeminate looks of Pagani's Pyramus, obviously, because the beauteous Thisbe was far more feminine than even the girlish Pyramus. Perhaps it was because Pyramus had fallen upon his sword? But, then, Thisbe had also come to a violent death, by her own hand, using the same instrument. There was some other reason, perhaps in the text of the famous poem, perhaps in himself, perhaps in both, that must account for the metamorphosis he'd undergone as he'd reenacted the lovers' fate in his sleep. He was both disturbed by his momentary transformation into a woman, even if only a fictitious one, and captivated by it. The memory of himself as a beautiful young woman, lithe and graceful, clad in a gown of crimson and gold, keeping a secret lovers' rendezvous with the man she loved, repulsed Stephan, just as it, also, on a deeper and more profound level, fascinated him. As he plumped his pillow, and pulled his blankets over him, he looked forward to reading the next story in Book IV of Ovid's astonishing stories of metamorphoses. Meanwhile, tonight, he hoped that he might become, once again, the gorgeous Thisbe, even if doing so should mean that he--or she-- must, by story's end, die, a victim of her own impetuosity and, perhaps, the god's love of ironic catastrophes. * * * The next day, as was his custom, Stephen again took his coffee break at his desk and read the next story in Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses: How Salmacis, with weak enfeebling streams Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs, And what the secret cause, shall here be shown; The cause is secret, but th' effect is known. So began the next of Ovid's marvelous tales, that of the story of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis. It was one that Stephen remembered much more vividly than he'd recalled the poem concerning Pyramus and Thisbe, for it was a striking narrative, indeed, and its bizarre theme had enchanted him enough, when he'd read it for the first time, as a college student majoring in liberal arts. He'd written a term paper concerning it, during the research for which, he'd learned that the story suggested, to some critics, the idea that men and women were psychologically bisexual, having the personality traits and emotional dispositions that were often designated as either masculine or feminine, but seldom, if ever, as simply human. During his study in relation to the poem, Stephen had learned a good many other interesting tidbits, too. The oldest version of the story originated in Cyprus, where, as Macrobius alleged, there stood a bearded statue of Aphrodite. In Atthis, Aristophanes referred to the figure as Aphroditus. The union of the sexes in such figures as Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus also signified both human perfection and fertility. Indeed, according to Greek myth, Hermaphroditus was born of the union of his father Hermes and his mother Aphrodite. Hermaphroditus may have been based upon actual, albeit rare, babies who were born with ambiguous reproductive organs or with the genitals of both sexes. All these memories flashed back into Stephen's mind as he read Ovid's account of the transformation of the male Hermaphroditus into a creature possessed of both male and female attributes. In art, the hermaphroditic creature was often depicted much as modern-day preoperative male-to-female transsexuals look, equipped with long hair, beautiful facial features, graceful and delicate limbs, sleek skin, rounded buttocks, womanly breasts-- and incongruous male sexual organs. However, some portrayals showed Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus to have retained the sexual organs of both the masculine youth and the feminine nymph, with the female sex located either between the testicles or within the perineum. No matter the artist's conception, one point was certain: the hermaphroditic creature was a bizarre, if fascinating, seductress. In Ovid's poem, the fifteen-year-old boy, who had just resisted the naiad Salmacis' charms--and her entreaty that they make love--supposed her to have abandoned the pool in which he'd been about to bathe; now, he removed his clothing and entered the water, naked. However, the nymph had concealed herself nearby: The boy now fancies all the danger o'er, And innocently sports about the shore, Playful and wanton to the stream he trips, And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips. The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager haste His airy garments on the banks he cast; His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue, And all his beauties were expos'd to view. His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies, While hotter passions in her bosom rise, Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes. She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms, And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms. . . . . . . He's mine, he's all my own, the Naiad cries, And flings off all, and after him she flies. And now she fastens on him as he swims, And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs. The more the boy resisted, and was coy, The more she clipped, and kissed the struggling boy. So when the wriggling snake is snatched on high In Eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky, Around the foe his twirling tail he flings, And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings. The restless boy still obstinately strove To free himself, and still refused her love. As he continued to read the poem, Stephen felt an overpowering sense that the poem's text was somehow enchanted and was working a spell upon him. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe had made him grieve for the ill-fated lovers all day yesterday, as if they were real and bosom companions, rather than fictional characters and, during his troubled dreams last night, he'd imagined himself to have become Thisbe, rather than Pyramus and that, as such, he'd fallen in love with another man! The imagined experience had both disgusted and excited him. Now, as he read of Salmacis' rape of the youth Hermaphroditus, Stephen found himself identifying with the boy. It seemed to him that, as the nymph pressed herself upon the poem's protagonist, she was likewise pressing herself upon Stephen himself; he could, in fact, feel her arms about him, holding him close, her body hot against his own, as she forced her kisses upon him. He felt, also, the youth's frantic fear, and he shivered, as if struggling to break her grasp. His cheeks burned with the boy's shame. His reluctance only enflamed the nymph, and she prayed to the gods that she and the youth might be forever joined as one, whereupon the deities honored her request: Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs entwined, "And why, coy youth," she cries, "why thus unkind! Oh may the Gods thus keep us ever joined! Oh may we never, never part again!" So prayed the nymph, nor did she pray in vain: For now she finds him, as his limbs she pressed, Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast; 'Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run Together, and incorporate in one: Last in one face are both their faces joined, As when the stock and grafted twig combined Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind: Both bodies in a single body mix, A single body with a double sex. Stephen frowned. Something was amiss. His frame felt smaller, as if he'd shrunk in stature, and his limbs seemed slenderer, his skin sleeker, his hips fuller, his buttocks more nearly round, and his nipples ached and throbbed, standing erect. His hands, he noticed, seemed delicate, and, if his eyes were not deceiving him, his fingernails seemed to have grown half an inch, their ends tapering to slight, rounded points. His hair, too, seemed fuller, almost luxuriant, and longer. It was impossible, of course, and, yet, the feelings persisted, as did the overpowering conviction that he had begun to undergo the very same transformation as the poem's protagonist had undergone, that he, like Hermaphroditus, was becoming neither man nor maid, but both. He clicked the button on his mouse, and the window bearing the text of Ovid's poem vanished, replaced by an image of the bidet about which he had been writing the instructions for its operation prior to taking his usual morning's coffee break and perusing more of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Hastily, he typed a succinct email to his manager: "Dave, not feeling well. Gone home. Stephen." Then, shutting down his computer, he hastened from his cubicle, hurried into the corridor outside the office, and took the elevator down to the parking garage, reclaimed his car, and drove to his bachelor pad, his mind racing all the way home. As soon as he was inside his apartment, he darted into his bathroom and stripped off his clothes. Naked, he studied his image in the full-length mirror, astonished, horrified, and excited, all at the same time, at the sight of the beautiful young woman he'd become--or, rather, was becoming, for his metamorphosis was not yet complete. His hair had grown impossibly quickly; it cascaded over his delicate shoulders, flowing down his back to his slender waist. His wide blue eyes were framed by thick lashes. His nose was slender; his lips luscious, sensuous, and lustrous; his heart-shaped face ended in a well-delineated, triangular chin; his high cheekbones were rosy with youth and excellent health. His tummy was concave, his hips flared, and his creamy thighs and calves were as shapely as if they had been turned upon a lathe. He turned slightly, admiring his tight, firm, but rounded, feminine fanny. His breasts, high, round, and firm, had also attained womanly fullness. He was altogether a beautiful young woman, except for the dainty cock and balls that hung between his thighs, seemingly more decorations than reproductive organs. Although they'd seemed the very essence of delusion, his suspicions had been correct: there was something magical about the online text of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Reading of Pyramus and Thisbe, he had grieved for the star- crossed lovers, identifying with Thisbe rather than Pyramus; in reading about Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, the handsome youth and the lovely nymph whose bodies were fused so that they shared the characteristics of both sexes in one body, Stephen had himself become a creature in whom these characteristics were likewise manifest. He looked every inch a beautiful male-to-female, preoperative transsexual. There was only one--no, two-- differences between him and such a hybrid creature. His metamorphosis had occurred instantly, apparently as the result of enchantment, whereas the preoperative male-to-female transsexual's transformation was effected through hormone therapy and surgery and took years to accomplish; moreover, he had was equipped with both sets of genitals--there was a vagina between his testicles! Stephen was glad that he must remain as the gods' enchantments had made him, as a result of his having read Ovid's magical text. He wouldn't have wanted his metamorphosis to end in any other way. He was perfect, complete, beautiful, and sexy as hell--or as Hades, he corrected himself--and that was sexy, indeed! Of course, he would have to quit his job. There was no way he could explain his transformation. A man didn't become a woman overnight, as he had-- although, actually, he wasn't a woman: he was a man-woman or a woman-man, a hermaphrodite. In any case, he'd have to acquire a new job, just as he'd have to acquire a new place to live and new clothes to wear. Indeed, he'd need an entirely new identity. He couldn't think about all the ramifications of his metamorphosis just now. He'd already undergone a more complete and extreme change than any other man or woman would or could, unless he or she also perused the same online version of Ovid's poem that he himself had read. Besides, there would be time enough tomorrow to sort such matters out and to begin his life anew. For the moment, the adoption of a new name, he thought, would suffice. Stephanie would make sense for a first name: Stephanie Naso. He smiled. The name had a ring to it, all right. * * * The first order of business, Stephanie thought, was purchasing herself a new wardrobe. Now that she was both a man and a woman, male clothing, as her only possible attire, was ludicrous, especially when, penis and testicles aside, she had a much more feminine than masculine appearance. Were one ignorant of her double sex, he or she could not possibly guess Stephanie's secret, for, to all outward appearances otherwise, she was most definitely not merely a woman, but a gorgeous one, at that. She had only one problem, and, with a sudden stab of panic, she hoped it wouldn't prove an insurmountable difficulty: she had to withdraw funds from the private safety deposit box in which, at last count, she kept over $100,000 in cash, her life savings. As a bachelor, Stephen hadn't dated much, and, now, Stephanie supposed that she knew why. He'd been not merely shy around women, as he'd told himself had been the case; he'd been secretly terrified of them--or not of them themselves per se as much as he'd been of the possibility that they might reject him. As a woman herself--or mostly a woman--Stephanie understood intuitively the intimidating power that beautiful women held over admiring men. However, she felt equally certain that Stephen had had other problems when it came to interacting with the opposite sex. There was a reason, she thought, that he'd been virtually terrified, as a boy, of girls and of young women, as a young man: sure, he'd feared their rejection, but, she suspected, he'd also feared that intimacy--or attempted intimacy--with them would disclose a painful, shameful truth about himself as well. In Stephanie's opinion, Stephen had been a latent homosexual. A relationship with a woman would, sooner or later, lead to sex, and Stephen, she believed, had been terrified that he might not be able to perform with a woman. He'd been insecure in his sexuality--or, at least, in his heterosexuality, and he'd avoided dating in order to avoid this dreaded truth about himself, Without a woman in his life, he could pretend to be a man, even a ladies' man, if he wished. Perhaps that was why he'd referred to his apartment as his "bachelor's pad." Well, if that had been a problem for Stephen, it wouldn't be one any longer, now that he'd become Stephanie. She'd teach him how to love herself--and men. But, first, she had some shopping to do. She searched the apartment and found both the keys to Stephen's car, on a hook on the foyer wall, and a shopping bag, in his bedroom's walk-in closet. * * * Six hours later, her feet killing her, Stephanie had returned to Stephen's apartment, having put together a basic wardrobe: a black dress, a black tank top, a short-sleeved black T-shirt, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, a black turtleneck sweater, two white button-down shirts (one in cotton, the other in silk), a crisp white blouse, a crewneck sweater, a cardigan, a pencil skirt, skinny jeans, khaki pants, a denim jacket, a cropped jacket, a black cashmere wrap, ballet flats, a basic black purse, and a dozen shoes of various styles. She could add seasonal basics in the months ahead, filling in her wardrobe with additional outfits, pieces, and accessories as opportunities arose. Luckily for her, access to the private safety deposit box that Stephen had rented was predicated upon the passing of a retinal scan; equally fortunately for her, her transformation from Stephen to Stephanie, although extreme, hadn't included her retinas, and she'd passed the screening and had been admitted to the stash of cash he'd kept in the box. She'd removed all of it, tucking it into the shopping bag she'd found in his bedroom closet. Her clothes had set her back five grand, leaving her with $95,000. It would tide her over until she found a new job. First, though, she'd have to get herself a new, female identity. Maybe she could walk into a branch of the DMV and get a driver's license, using Stephen's license and telling the clerk she'd had a sex-change operation. It didn't seem too likely, but she'd seen more improbable incidents occur at the DMV on not one, but a couple of true-crime television episodes. Criminals on the lam had simply walked into a local DMV office, requesting a new driver's license, and walked out with a new identity. If she were lucky (and the gods were with her), maybe the DMV clerk wouldn't insist upon seeing some paperwork. Given the incompetence that was typical of bureaucrats, it was worth a try, she thought, especially since she was pretty sure that her fingerprints, like her retinas, would match Stephen's. Whatever enchantment had transformed her into a modern-day version of Hermaphroditus was powerful mojo, no doubt about that, but even it had its limits, it seemed. At the DMV, men checked her out, just as they had at the mall, and Stephanie sympathized with women. Effeminate men like Stephen might not give glamorous women like Stephanie a second look, but real, red-blooded men sure did! In fact, their openly lascivious stares, lewd grins, wolf-whistles, and half- whispered come-ons were more than a little disconcerting. They made Stephanie feel as if she were naked and on display. The men's behavior was disgusting, she thought--but it was also sexy and exciting. She found that she rather liked being the focus of their attention; she liked the effect that her mere presence had on her admirers' cocks, too; her tits and ass set the men's male appendages erect, and their blossoming cocks stretched the fabric of their jeans or slacks, as if bursting to be free of the confining cloth. She had no doubt whatsoever as to what the men would like to have done to her with their erections! It was pretty damned heady, she realized, just to be a woman. With just a wiggle in her walk, she could make a man want her; a toss of her hair could ignite lust in their loins; a licking of her lips could drive them wild! Thankfully, Stephen hadn't been like the men who ogled her. If he had been, he might not have been interested in literature, especially poetry. (Most of the male liberal arts professors at his college were gay, she was sure.) Real men didn't read poems about men turning into hermaphrodites. In fact, they seldom read any kind of poetry at all. Therefore, had Stephen been like most other (real) men, Stephanie probably wouldn't exist, for it was Stephen's latent homosexuality, she was convinced, that had drawn him to the study of literature in general and to the reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses in particular. Stephen had been intrigued about what it would feel like to be both a man and a woman at the same time and yet, simultaneously and paradoxically, neither one nor the other, at least not completely. As a hermaphrodite, Stephanie could have answered his question, for she occupied a sort of Twilight Zone between maleness and femaleness, between masculinity and femininity, between virility and maidenhood. She was, in other words, like modern-day preoperative male-to-female transsexuals, or "shemales," a living embodiment of the best that both sexes offered: feminine breasts and buttocks and masculine cock and balls, all appended to a basically feminine, if not exactly female, form with a beautiful face, luxuriant hair, soft, sleek skin, and a melodious voice to sweeten the package. In her particular case, however, she offered something that preoperative male-to-female transsexuals didn't--and couldn't--offer: both a cock (and balls) and a cunt! It was the middle of the morning, and there weren't as many citizens in the vast waiting room as there would usually be later in the day, so Stephanie had to wait for only a bit more than an hour to see a DMV clerk. Hers was a heavy, beefy young woman who wore a white, collarless shirt decorated with big black splotches that made her appear even more bovine than she might have had she worn any other top in her closet (provided she had any other top in her closet). According to the plate on her desktop, her name was Bertha. "What can I do for you?" Bertha demanded. She was none too friendly, Stephanie thought. Maybe coming here had been a bad idea. She leaned toward the clerk. After glancing around, as if to ensure that no one else was near enough to overhear her, she whispered, "I've had a sex-change operation, and I'm here to get a new driver's license." Bertha's mouth fell open and she stared at Stephanie as if she were some sort of freak. "You what?" Stephanie repeated her cover story, which, she realized, wasn't all that far from the truth. Bertha frowned. It wasn't likely that the clerk came across such situations very often, if ever before. It was clear that she was uncertain as to how to handle this particular state of affairs. "I'll be right back," she announced. Stephanie almost panicked. She might be arrested for fraud. But her fingerprints--they would match Stephen's--or so she hoped! What if Bertha demanded paperwork from a doctor or a judge? This was a bad idea, Stephanie decided. Maybe she should leave. "Fill out this form," Bertha said. The bovine counter clerk had returned, after a brief consultation with her supervisor. With a slightly trembling hand, Stephanie accepted the document. "Then what?" "Take it to the processing window." She smiled. "They'll take care of the rest." Half an hour later, Stephanie Naso had a valid driver's license. She shook her head, smiling. Although the "F" next to the word "Sex" legitimized her as female--or as mostly female, at any rate--it was amazing to see, for the first time, on a legal document, proof of her womanhood. It was even more amazing that Bertha had allowed her, without muss or fuss, to complete the form necessary to be processed through the system in order to receive her driver's license. Maybe Bertha--or her supervisor--had acted more out of compassion than policy in her case. If so, bureaucrats weren't so bad, after all, or some of them weren't, anyway. In any case, Stephanie Naso had a valid driver's license, and, with this document in hand, she could secure others that would lend even greater credibility to her new identity. She'd open a bank account, maybe get a credit card or two. Then a job. Indeed, armed with her new driver's license, she could use the same story on Stephen's landlord, explaining that Stephen had undergone sex-reassignment surgery and was living now as a woman, and she could change his--or her-- name on the lease. Most likely, she wouldn't have to move at all. Becoming Stephanie wasn't proving as difficult as she'd feared. Perhaps Bertha's or Bertha's supervisor's unexpected courtesy to her hadn't been due to their own magnanimous nature, after all, she thought, or at least not entirely. Maybe the ancient gods had interceded upon her behalf, working a spell upon the officials, just as they'd apparently earlier worked a spell upon Stephen, as, reading the online version of Ovid's enchanting sex-change story, he'd been transformed into Stephanie. If so, Stephanie was grateful; she was also glad that the ancient deities had chosen, in this instance, to act kindly rather than capriciously, for many myths gave accounts of the gods' unpredictable, sometimes gracious, sometimes cruel and wanton, treatment of mortal men and women. Indeed, she supposed, some people, such as Stephen himself, might regard the fusion of opposite sexes into one body a hideous and malicious act, rather than one of sympathy and compassion. Stephanie herself, however, considered the gods' sport to have been as delightful an act this day as it had been when they'd honored Salmacis' heartfelt prayer centuries ago in far-flung Halikarnossos. Thanks to the gods, she now had, or would soon have, a new identity, a home, a car, a driver's license, and a new wardrobe. Besides a job, what she most desired next was a man. She wanted to be held and kissed. She wanted to be hear soft words as she looked deep into her lover's eyes. She wanted to feel a thick, hard cock part the portal to her bowels and a pair of balls crushed between her perineum and her man's groin as he lunged and plunged his manhood through her impaled anus until, at length, having ravished her, he spurted his seed deep, deep inside her, and she, losing her virginity, became, truly and finally, the woman whom, in his latent homoerotic dreams, Stephan had longed to be. It would be fun to have a man fuck her in the pussy, too, of course. In her search for a man, she prayed that the gods might be with her once again. * * * The nightclub, Just Us Girls, was darker and louder than Stephanie had imagined. It was also a lot more elegant--and expensive--but, she'd found that, unlike the penny pincher Stephen, she liked expensive, elegant things, and, for her first-time encounter with a man, she wanted him to be Mr. Perfect. Of course, she knew that there was no Mr. Perfect, but, if she had to settle for Mr. Right, instead, he could at least be a wealthy Mr. Right. If he could afford to buy her drinks in this posh club, he'd have to have money, she reasoned. Of course, he'd have to have a lot of other assets, too, some moral, some social, many personal, and a few sexual. For instance, she wanted a man with a sizeable cock, even if some women claimed that size didn't matter. She'd chosen Just Us Girls because it was elegant, but she'd also selected it because it was one of the few transgender bars in the state--or the country, for that matter--that was elegant; most transgender clubs were really little more than bars with maybe a multi-faceted, whirling silver globe hanging from the ceiling with a strobe light shining upon it, throwing off fantastic patterns of wavering, colored lights. The men who frequented such dives were the types who thought a shirt, open at the top to display chest hair and a gold chain or two, and a cheap blazer, worn with a pair of jeans and tennis shoes, represented the height of fashion. Many of them, she had no doubt, owned used car lots and thought that they were the beginning and the end of the world. In a place like Just Us Girls, on the other hand, she might meet anyone--a writer, a producer, a fashion designer, a chef, a financier, anyone at all. As it turned out, she met Miles. He asked her if he might buy her a drink. Not an original line, true, but he'd said it with a French accent and a bright-white smile that showed deep dimples, and he had beautiful eyes, like topazes. He wore a silk jacket, a satin shirt and matching slacks, and classic patent-leather wingtip shoes. There was no gaudy gold chains or crass display of chest hair. He was gorgeous, too, just the suave, tall, dark, handsome devil to whom she might be persuaded to surrender her virginity. She named her drink, and he joined her at her table. Bathed in flashes of throbbing lavender and pink from the banks of spotlights that shone high overhead, among the massive oak beams that supported the cavernous club's high, domed ceiling, they conversed--or tried to do so--over the volume of noise that resulted from the crowd and the blaring music, Boy George's "The Crying Game." It was all but impossible, and Miles suggested they go somewhere quieter. "Where did you have in mind?" Stephanie shouted across the pink, heart- shaped table at him. "My place?" She chuckled at his brazenness, not sure whether she should feel complimented or insulted. The girl thing was all as new to her, she realized, as if she'd gone to bed male and had awakened, just this morning, as female, which, she supposed, she had, in a way. She was catching on quickly, though, she thought; it all came naturally to her, it seemed, maybe because the gods of Ovid's day continued to have a hand--and a much bigger hand than she'd realized--in her ongoing metamorphosis. Becoming a woman was more than just acquiring tits and ass, after all, as surely deities knew. Maybe the ancient gods were here, now, looking after her. According to The Odyssey, gods and goddesses could take on human form whenever it suited them. "You're going to show me your etchings?" she asked, smiling. "My sculptures," he said, "if you'd like to see them." "Are they any good?" she asked, a twinkle in her eye. "Some people like them." 'Where's your apartment?" "The Dakota," he replied. "You mean as in the Upper West Side, Manhattan?" "Seventy-second Street and Central Park West," to be precise. "Isn't that the place where John Lenn--" "We were neighbors," Miles said. "He purchased several of my pieces, too. His death was such a sad, sad affair." If Miles were living off the sales of his sculptures, and on such a level as he claimed, quite a few people, indeed, must "like" his work--and each piece must have an exorbitant price tag associated with it. "You've convinced me," Stephanie said. She saw Miles make an almost imperceptible nod, and, a moment later, a hulking guy in dress clothes appeared a their table. "John, bring the car around, please. Ms.--" he looked at Stephanie. She blushed, realizing she hadn't even told him her name. "Naso," she said. "Stephanie Naso." She blushed again. "Ms. Naso and I are repairing to my place." "The Dakota, or--" "Yes, John, The Dakota." The huge hunk of man--what was he, Stephanie wondered, a chauffeur, a bodyguard, both?--executed a crisp, military-like turn and strode through the crowded discoth?que. Stephanie had caught the implication of John's truncated question. "You have more than one home?" He smiled. "Several, I'm afraid." And he wanted to take her home, to show her his sculptures! Stephanie was beginning to think she really did have Ovid's gods as her own, personal guardian angels. * * * Miles' twenty-room, three-story apartment was unbelievable, Stephanie thought. Located on the top floors, the corner residence was half a block long, situated under an enormous gable. Several windows looked out, from dormers, among terracotta spandrels and ornate niches. A balcony, protected by a wrought-iron rail, was located on two sides of the apartment. The main rooms, including the master bedroom and parlors, offered a view of the street, while the interior windows of such chambers as the dining room, the kitchen, and auxiliary rooms looked down upon the courtyard. The rooms were spacious; the drawing room was forty-nine feet long, in fact, Miles told his guest, and the ceilings were fourteen feet high. The floors were inlaid with mahogany, oak, cherry, and, in the drawing room, sterling silver! "This is some place you have here!" Stephanie gushed. The sculptor gave her a wry smile. "Thank you." "It's quite exclusive, from what I've heard," Stephanie said, feeling awkwardly girlish amid the fabulous elegance of the furnishings and d?cor. She told herself she was babbling, but she didn't seem able to help herself. Where were the gods when a girl needed them? she asked herself. "Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas tried to purchase the suite owned by Albert Maysleys, the documentary filmmaker, but the building's cooperative board of directors, who must approve all such transactions, refused them; the same happened to Gene Simmons, Billy Joel, and Carly Simon. Here, money is not the be-all and the end-all of life." "But you qualified." Again, the wry smile. "Yes, I'm afraid so." "Oh, my God!" Stephanie's hand flew to her lips. Concerned, his brow crinkling, Miles asked, "Are you all right?" She chuckled. "I'm sorry. I just realized who you are." He smiled, arching an eyebrow. "And who might that be?" "Miles Matthews!" she exclaimed, detesting her groupie-like zeal. "The Miles Matthews. The famous Miles Matthews!" "Guilty as charged." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I did." "You didn't." "I told you my name is Miles. I told you I sculpt." Yes, she admitted, he had, just as he'd also told her that he lived in The Dakota. He also had a chauffeur. She should have put two and two together. "I guess you think I'm a dolt," she told him. "I think you're delightful," he declared, 'as delightful as you are beautiful." Things were moving faster than she'd anticipated, Stephanie thought. She needed t slow the pace. "Weren't you going to show me your work?" she asked. "I am," he said, "if you still care to see--" "Of course I 'care to see,'" she blurted, blushing again. "Perhaps you'd care for a drink first?" "Trying to get me drunk?" she teased. "Do I have to?" She blushed again, furiously. "No," she admitted. "Well, then?" "I've had my limit," she said. "In that case, I won't have one, either." He offered her his arm. She accepted it, and he led her from the drawing room, past priceless oils, a white baby grand piano, beautiful urns and vases, and down a hallway to one of the auxiliary chambers that overlooked the courtyard. As they stepped through the arched doorway, they tripped an electric eye, and Mozart filled the room with his Cos? fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti. Nice touch, Stephanie thought. Stationed around the walls were some of his statues, all life-size or larger. "These are my pride and joy, or, rather, they were--until I met you." Stephanie couldn't help it: she blushed again. She'd never blushed so much in her life! They walked, paused, studied, and walked again, strolling about the room while Mozart's opera played. An hour later, they were back where they'd started, having circled the room. "So?" Miles asked. "What do you think?" "Fabulous," Stephanie declared. "You're quite the eclectic sculptor." "It would seem so," he agreed, "but, in truth, I am not. The collection here shows selections of my work, from my earliest to my current years. As I progressed, I tried first one, then another style, everything from classical to Gothic, from Renaissance to Mannerist, from Baroque and Rococo to Realistic, from Surrealistic to Modernist, before finding my own style and deciding upon my own vision--but I bore you." "Not at all. I can see why you are famous in the art world, as famous as Shakespeare in literature or Beethoven in music or Rembrandt in painting. But tell me, what inspired your Male and Female sculptures?" "In them, I tried to strip sex and gender to their core, to define and demonstrate and celebrate the magnificence and glory of each while also showcasing the differences, not just in genitals and secondary sexual characteristics, but in the heart and mind and soul, to create anew the wonder and the mystery of the first man and the first woman." "Adam and Eve?" "By whatever name they might be called." "I'd say you succeeded," Stephanie said. "The man is so masculine and virile that any woman would want him, but, at the same time, he is regal, even angelic, of form, a spirit clothed in the flesh of masculinity." "And the woman?" "A celebration of femininity, both in the spirit and in the flesh." "And that, my dear, is precisely what I set out to shape and carve." he smiled. "But there is something missing, yet." Stephanie stepped closer to him, holding his gaze as she took his hand. "What is that, Maestro Miles?" He told her his theory of the sexes. Between male and female, between masculine and feminine, between virility and maidenhood, he believed, there was a oneness. "Plato said that the sexes were once one, as does the Bible: 'male and female created he them,' as bisexual creatures." Stephanie's heart skipped a beat. "As hermaphrodites?" "Perhaps," the sculptor said. "Ovid's poem may have created, in verse, what has not been captured in ivory, bronze, or marble, although the Louvre's Borghese Hermaphoditus may come close." "The Borghese Hermaphoditus?" she repeated. "A life-size, reclining figure, in marble, of the mythical character, its form derived, in part, from ancient carvings of the goddess Venus and, in part, from feminized versions of Dionysus. From the back, it is the body of a woman lovelier than any other even carved--" "--except for your own Female," Stephanie objected. "--but, from the front, the same figure discloses male sex organs which leave no doubt of its masculinity. Therefore, it is a perfect fusion of both sexes, without being either." "And you find that sexy?" Stephanie asked, squeezing the artist's powerful, but graceful, hands. "I find it glorious beyond words, beyond conception!" Stephanie had been afraid that Miles might reject her, for she was not a woman, any more than she was a man. She was, rather, herself the very embodiment of the dual-sexed creature that Hermaphroditus and Salmacis had become, when the gods had transformed both into a third sex. However, from what Miles had shared with her, she now hoped that there was a chance, however slight, that he would not reject her once he'd learned the truth about her sex and gender. Indeed, it seemed he might well adore her for the very ambiguity of such qualities that her being represented. "Could I but find the inspiration for such a statue, I would carve a figure transitional to my Male and Female, calling him-and-her Shemale, I think, for it is out of such a creature that the sexes themselves should have emerged." "Couldn't you hire a preoperative male-to-female transsexual as your model?" Stephanie suggested, watching Mile's face closely. "Would that so easy a solution were possible," he lamented. "But why wouldn't it be?" "Transsexuals are not offspring of the divine, but man-made creatures, lovely in their own way, but mortals rather than demigods, mere flesh rather than spirits, men-become-women rather than a merger of youth with nymph. I must have nothing less than Hermaphroditus herself--or, at the very least, a living embodiment of her--and that, among transsexuals, as beautiful as many are, in their own way, cannot be found. Such an essence of bisexuality could appear only in a creature fashioned by the gods themselves. No, I'm afraid the missing link between my Male and my Female statues must forever remain nothing more than a passionate longing unfulfilled." "Maybe not, Miles," she said. She had nothing to lose, except her apartment. The lease would expire soon. It was possible that she could renew it, under her new identity, but she might not need to do so, she thought, for it seemed clear to her that Miles was as attracted to her as she was to him. If he'd have her, she'd be glad to move into his luxurious abode. "I could model for you." "Oh, how I wish you could have done so when I was carving Female; the work would have been more a masterpiece than, according to critics, it is judged, already, to be, but, dearest Stephanie, even you, as splendid in your beauty as you are, lack the requisite equipment for such a role." She smiled. "Do I?" He shrugged. "Of course. You are Perfect Woman personified." "That's quite a compliment." "Au contraire; it is but a statement of fact." "But there may be more to me than meets the eye," she said. Knowing the nature of the nightclub he frequented, Miles should have realized, even from the beginning, when he'd first met Stephanie, the truth of her sexuality. After all, he'd gone to a transgender club. Although genetic women also occasionally visited the discoth?que, the chances of encountering a transsexual--or a transvestite--were far greater. He supposed that it was Stephanie's incredible femininity that had blocked his realization that she must be a member of the third sex. However, comprehension dawned upon the sculptor now, if belatedly, and he said, "Sacre bleu! You are telling me that you--" She nodded. Unable to believe it, he finished the thought: "You are a transsexual?" She laughed. "No," she said, "not quite." "A transvestite, then?" "Not that, either." He frowned. "What, then?" "Let me show you." * * * Once Miles had seen, with his own eyes, the incredible nature of Stephanie's double sex, he wept. Not with horror or despair, as she had, at first, feared, but with joy inexpressible, in tears and groans and more akin to grief than bliss. It was, he confessed, as if he had, in her, found the philosopher's stone, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail, all in one. "Do you think you could carve Shemale now, to stand between Male and Female?" "With you as my model and my inspiration, ineffable creature, I need only carve what I see, and the enchanted figure, the crown of my career, will stand before the world!" "First, though, let me be your muse," Stephanie suggested. "Mon Dieu! Do you mean--?" Stephanie smiled at him. "Of course, I mean," she replied. His hand tightened upon hers, and with a gentle insistence, he led her from his gallery to the spacious master bedroom and the canopied king-size bed that occupied its center. They lost no time with preliminaries, other than to lubricate Mile's member and the tight, virginal portal to Stephanie's innermost depths. Naked, Miles lay upon his back, his head upon a heap of pillows and his legs spread wide to grant access to his muse. His cock stood upright, stiff and swollen, looking both comical and absurd. Stephanie, also nude, knelt beside the bed, bowed before the phallic idol, and, bending forward at the waist, let her open mouth descend around his erect penis. Her lips closed upon the sculptor's stiff-standing member, and her head bobbed up and down, in a slow, steady rhythm, as if in time to some soft, slow piano melody that only she could hear. Perhaps, Miles thought, it was Mozart's Cos? fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti. Her hair spilled over his groin, a shower of blonde fire, obscuring the sight of her face--of her furrowed brow, her intense gaze, her flaring nostrils, her rounded lips--but only for a moment. She brushed her tresses aside, knowing, intuitively, that a man likes to watch a woman as she performs this intimate act, accepting his manhood as completely as she would nectar and ambrosia offered to her by a divinity of Mount Olympus. Her frown of concentration; her concave cheeks; her sliding lips; her bobbing head; the slurping sounds and grunts she made; the drool of her saliva down the column of his cock; the brush of her velvet-soft lips around the shaft of his penis; the occasional nudge of her chin against his groin or thigh; her ardent dedication to the task at hand; the floral aroma of her perfume; the swarm of sensations in his loins, his, cock, and his balls; the increase of blood flow to his genitals; the gasps of her breath and his; the pounding of his heart--these and a host of other observations, emotions, and sensations conspired to catapult the artist into a state of bliss that would seize him as resolutely and as finally as the grip of death or the rapture of a saint, and Miles felt his thighs quake as something--perhaps his very soul--seemed to pull itself out, through his prick. He gasped, holding his breath and closing his eyes tightly as his spirit seemed to uncoil within him. Abruptly, realizing that orgasm was imminent for him, Stephanie stopped, her mouth closed around the maestro's cock, holding his prick within her motionless, warm, wet embrace until the paroxysms subsided and his prick no longer lurched and trembled between her lips. When she withdrew, her rose-pink lips glistened with the dew of her saliva and, perhaps, a drop or two of Miles' Cowper's fluid, or pre-cum. She smiled at him. "Whew! That was close!" "If you hadn't stopped, I'd have come for sure," he told her. "But, mon Dieu, why did you quit?" Her smile broadened. "I want you to shoot your load up my ass," she said, her dignified, ladylike tone contrasting sharply with the vulgarity of her expression. He smiled back at her as he rose, letting her into the bed. "It will be my pleasure, mon amour." "Oooh!" Stephnie gushed, "does that mean what I think it means?" "My love," he translated. "Do you mean it, or is it just an expression?" "Of course I mean it; that is an artist's blessing--and curse: he believes all that he says; the expression and the significance are one and the same." She smiled as, positioning herself upon her elbows and knees, legs spread wide, to provide easy access to the tiny, puckered anus between her satin- smooth buttocks, he took his place, on his knees, behind her, the jostling mattress dipping and rolling beneath them. Although smaller than a woman's ass, Stephanie's bottom was fuller than a man's backside and every bit as smooth, soft, and inviting as any female's derriere. Just the sight of the round, sleek orbs and the small, tight opening that led into her innermost depths brought the sculptor's cock fully erect again and made his balls ache. There was nothing more tempting, he thought, than a pair of lovely buttocks; although mere muscle and fat overlaid with skin, they seemed not only to invite, but also to demand, to be both penetrated and fucked. He had every intention of obeying their silent command. It would be a true joy to shove his cock through his lovely muse's tight anal opening and deep into her bowels. Taking his cock in hand, he guided the massive organ between the silk-smooth cheeks of Stephanie's magnificent derriere. It was heavenly to feel the smooth, cushioned flesh slide past both sides of his prick as he introduced he mighty organ into her cleavage, the already parted globes spreading further to admit his hard, swollen manhood. His penis met the stout resistance of her anal sphincter. Gripping his member more firmly, Miles pointed the tip of his prick into the dimple between Stephanie's ass cheeks and pressed forward, resolutely, with his hips. His glans pushed through the opening, followed by an inch of his rigid cock. He continued to push, forcing another inch of his stiff prick through her asshole, and another, and another, until he'd buried his erection inside her impaled buttocks to the very root, and his balls were crushed between his pubes and her perineum, wherein lay the tiny, tight vagina that had so amazed his eyes when she'd first revealed her hermaphroditic state to him, demonstrating the truth of her words, that she was both other and more than either a transvestite or a preoperative male-to-female transsexual. It felt wonderful to have conquered her ass, to have invaded the sanctuary of her rectum, and to have usurped from her the last vestiges of her own autonomy, making her fully and completely his. Her head hanging, Stephanie moaned as, reaching forward and below her, Miles cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing them hard, as if they were melons, while he ground his pubes against her bare, cock-skewered ass. Then, as he withdrew, drawing his erection back through her speared anus until only the glans remained within the tight ring of muscle, he released one of her tits and gripped her genitals, repeatedly squeezing the diminutive cock and balls above her pouting, drooling labia. Stephanie squirmed, and he slapped her ass. Immediately, she stilled herself. It was obvious that she was enjoying herself; it was evident that she liked to have a cock in her mouth or up her ass, to be used and dominated. Her persona was no doubt that of an independent, self-assured woman, but, in private, behind closed doors, where a person's true character was most evident, she was glad enough to be on the receiving end of a man's cock. He had no intention of disappointing her. The sculptor slammed his hard cock full force into her bouncing buns, shoving the thick column all the way inside her rectum until his groin collided with her buttocks, flattening them beneath him, and his balls ground hard against her perineum, labia, and scrotum. Again, Stephanie moaned. Her whimper excited him, and Miles pulled out, all the way out, this time, his cock sliding free of her gaping asshole. The sight of her round anus, stretched to many times its normal size, and the knowledge that it was he--and his thick, hard cock--that was responsible for this transformation of her asshole into a second cunt--was erotic in the extreme. No female, not even a genetic female, is truly a woman until she's been fucked by a man, and hermaphroditic Stephanie was no exception. In fucking her in her beautiful ass, he would be making of her a true and complete woman. His prick slipped easily back through her wide-stretched, circular opening and plunged deep into her bowels. After ramming it home, he withdrew, again letting his bloated cock slide all the way out of her tunnel of love. It was fun to see his prick slide effortlessly all the way into her ass or to pull all the way out, and, several times, he repeated this action, watching his gargantuan organ vanish and reappear as he worked it in and out and back and forth within her entrails, his toil punctuated by her moans and groans, whimpers, gasps, and cries. Reaching beneath her, he found her genitals again, and was surprised to find her pussy not only drenched, but her clitoris and cock both fully erect as well. In fact, her small cock had stiffened so that it ran parallel to her lower belly, pointing upward, and her balls, small in the contracted pouch of her silk-smooth scrotum, had risen to rest below the base of her blood- engorged cock. He chuckled at the thought that, ready as she might be to play the man and to penetrate a cunt or an asshole, there was no partner for her by which she might accomplish such a feat, and her cock, erect or not, must, like her wet-and-ready pussy, remain idle and redundant while his own prick filled her again and again. Nevertheless, now that she was hard, there was no sense, Miles told himself, in letting a perfectly good, if smallish, erection go to waste, and seizing her little penis between his thumb, on one side, and his index and middle fingers, on the other side, he pumped the flesh of her cock back and forth upon the slender, straining shaft, while letting the side of his hand ride the hard bump of her clitoris, eliciting more moans and gasps from the beautiful hermaphrodite whose ass he was riding, fast and hard. He slammed his meat home again, crushing her sleek, soft-firm buttocks before his driving pubes, feeling the circle of her anus all along his plummeting member. His hips buffeted her bottom, and he ground his groin hard against her impaled buttocks before wrenching his cock back through her asshole, the sphincter of her ass dragging against his retreating prick, as if seeking to resist its departure, just as, following his initial penetration of her ass, the sphincter had seemed to resist his organ's invasion. Back and forth, with greater and greater passion, force, and speed, Miles worked his cock inside Stephanie's anal opening, ramming and jamming, lunging and plunging, stabbing and jabbing her buttocks, her asshole, and her rectum with his thick, hard manhood while, her frame shaking, her breasts bouncing, her buttocks flattening and recoiling, and her cock and balls joggling, the mattress beneath their bucking bodies dipping and rocking, he fucked Stephanie with all the strength, energy, stamina, and brutality that his lust-enflamed soul could muster--which was considerable. The more she bounced and flounced, the harder the sculptor thrust and lunged, and the more Stephanie moaned and groaned. She began to toss her impaled buttocks back, to meet his assault, and, her ass and his groin, her perineum, labia, and scrotum, and his balls, colliding again and again, made the loud slapping sounds of flesh smacking flesh. In Miles' mind, he compared--or, rather, contrasted--her asshole as it had looked prior to his assault, tiny and tight, with how it looked now that he'd ravished it, gaping wide open, and the mental images of her anus relit the artist's dying lust, renewed his will, and gave him the strength to prolong his attack. He rammed his cock into her impaled bottom with as much savage fury as he'd used in the delivery of any previous stroke, and his effort was rewarded with a cry from Stephanie, followed by a tremulous whimper. He rammed his cock through her anus, into her bowels, withdrew the rigid fleshly pole; and drove it home again, with greater force, as if, with his penis, he meant to disembowel the ass it fucked. Of course, Stephanie was up to the challenge of having him jam his cock into her ass and wrench it free so that he might plunge into her bowels again-- and again---and again--and, although it seemed impossible that her little anus, even stretched to many times it normal size, could tolerate his continued assault, she weathered the attack until the moment that orgasm seized him, his belly heaved, his legs quaked and shuddered, his cock convulsed, lurching frantically within the depths of her bowels, and, his breath coming in quick, hot gasps, his heart pounding like machine-gun fire, his thick, viscid semen spewed into the chamber of her lower intestine, spraying the walls of her rectum with repeated volleys and jets until, the reservoir of his seed spent at last, his penis softened, dwindling, and withdrew from his muse's round, wide-stretched anus, trailing white fluid down the cleavage between her buttocks, over her perineum, along her drenched labia, and down the back side of her scrotum. As they lay together, side by side, recovering, Stephanie told Miles that she would soon be moving and that she was seeking a new apartment. "Move in here, with me," he offered. She smiled. "Are you sure?" "Any artist would be incredibly fortunate to have a live-in muse," he replied, "especially when she is also his lover." "Or bride," she countered. She moved fast, he thought, maybe too fast, but he liked a woman--or a hermaphrodite--who knew her mind. "Or bride," he agreed. "But we have things backward." "We do?" "It's customary to have the wedding before the honeymoon." He kissed her. "Every day with you will be a honeymoon. We shall live in paradise." His hand found the nipple of her left breast, bringing it erect, and they made love again, this time the way that only a man and a woman could enjoy such intimacy, Miles showering her liquid cunt with his warm, thick semen the same way he'd earlier sown his seed inside her bowels. She was, he thought, just as tender and wonderful in front as she'd been from behind. A truly marvelous creature, she could offer him the best of both worlds, that of the masculine and the feminine, of the male and the female. Perhaps, he might even enjoy playing Female to her Male some night. But, first, she must model for his masterpiece, the crown of his career, the statue that he would call Shemale. * * * Day after day, Stephanie, nude, modeled for Miles. Hours stretched away, shadows lengthening in the studio as the sun traversed the sky. All the while, she would hear the strike of his hammer upon a chisel, as stroke by patient stroke, he chipped away at the life-size block of marble from which his talent would deliver, as if it were a midwife, the form of his latest-- and greatest--work of art, his masterpiece, Shemale, which would take its place of honor between Male and Female, as if her hermaphroditic shape were the transitional link between the opposite sexes. For weeks, Miles labored as Stephanie posed. At length, Shemale emerged from the stone, the image and likeness of Stephanie herself, the exquisitely lovely hermaphrodite upon whom it was modeled, except that the figure had, as yet, neither head nor limbs, as these parts of its anatomy would be added last, and, now, Miles spent yet more days, smoothing the rough surfaces with an emery stone before polishing it with an even softer stone to impart to its shining exterior a patina, and then sealing the figure with a compound that gave to the stone its characteristic soft glow. With the attachment of the statue's head, arms, and legs to pegs which, embedded in the stone torso, would impart strength to the marble, the masterpiece was, at last, finished. "Shemale is complete!" Miles announced, and, at last, Stephanie, who had been denied even a glimpse of the work before now, was permitted to gaze upon the masterpiece, the beauty of which defied words. "It's stupendous," she said. "It's beyond stupendous! It's magnificent! No, it's beyond magnificent. It's--" He laughed. "Thank you, my muse. I could not have accomplished the work, had it not been for you; you are truly an inspiration. Your enchanted and enchanting loveliness allowed me to see into the heart and soul of your being and, I hope, to capture the glory and the majesty, as well as the mystery, of your essence, here, in this marble, for all the world to see, that mere mortal men and women may marvel at a goddess captured forever in stone." "You've succeeded, maestro, down to the sexes themselves, labia, penis, and scrotum, which, as you have carved them, transcend mere body parts to become symbols of the very mysteries themselves of sex and being, of male and female, of masculinity and femininity." "Thank you, my love." "Do you ever think, Miles, that sometimes a power greater than yourself may guide your hand, as it shapes your thought and sentiment, as if, perhaps, the gods themselves were carving the stone along with you?" "If anything shapes me, besides my love for you and my appreciation of your beauty, it is my belief, I think, that all men are women too, as are all women men. We are not only one sex, but both--and neither--our genitals mere accidents of genetics and of birth. This belief is not merely a proposition or a premise with me, you see, but a heartfelt and passionate conviction. Perhaps this fervent belief is what imparts to my work a quality otherwise indefinable and ineffable, beyond the power of either imagination, the techniques born of talent, or even the zeal derived from inspiration." He paused, then chuckled. "Mon Dieu! How pompous I sound! I can only hope that the art community shares our enthusiasm for Shemale. We'll know soon enough, for, within a week, my agent, Charles, shall have arranged a half dozen showings of Shemale, I wager." * * * It was a wager that the sculptor wo