That Which We Call A Rose -- Complete free porn video

Notes: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters in this story and any actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This story is copyright 2012 by Brett Hainley. Permission is hereby given to share this story on the World Wide Web, provided that (a) no charge of any kind, including, but not limited to, subscription fees, is made in connection with access to the story, (b) the story is reprinted in its entirety, including this notice, and (c) proper credit is given to the author at the time of posting. All other rights, including, but not limited to, those of adaptation to other media and formats, reserved to the author. Contact: [email protected] That Which We Call a Rose Kyrie Hobson 1 It happened the summer I turned seventeen. My junior year in high school had just ended, and I was about to begin my senior year. So far, I had good enough grades to get me into the state university, and my parents had been saving up for me in one of those government-sponsored education funds that freezes your tuition rates at the time when you started the fund. I was neither a trust fund baby, nor an intellectual giant nor an athletic superstar. I was just a kid. I was in fair shape, but not particularly athletic. I was smart enough to get by, but not without studying. I was invisible--one of the great mass of students at any high school. Had my life been a movie, I wouldn't even be the star; I'd be an extra--crowded courtyard scene, near the corner, blue t-shirt. I had friends. Josh, who lived next door, had been my bud forever. His mom was my mom's best friend, and the coincidence of having sons only three months apart had drawn them even closer. Of course Josh was a talented athlete with a guaranteed future. His performance on the baseball and football fields left him with the difficult choice of accepting a full ride to one of a number of colleges, or accepting an invitation to try out for a major league team. We were still friendly, but the pressures and demands of his success meant that he had a lot less time to hang out. I was closer to Scotty. He lived at the edge of our neighborhood, next to his dad's gas station and garage. Like me, Scotty was a mediocre student, and only passably athletic. Sophomore year, we'd both warmed the bench on the Junior Varsity basketball team. Scotty didn't care much, though. He was happy to be going into the family business. Scotty liked cars and had an amazing talent for fixing them. His dad had been logging Scotty's work hours since he was fourteen , and he'd have enough apprentice hours to take the mechanics' certification exam by the time we graduated. My road to the future wasn't as well-paved as theirs. As I said before, only my parents' forethought in creating a college fund had given me even a whiff of higher education opportunities, and I was dangerously close to losing even that: a single D my senior year and I would sink below the admissions standards of even the state universities, left to the tender mercies of the community college system, if even that. I didn't even know what I wanted to do in college. I'd shown no specific aptitude for anything except hanging out. I could cook and had worked part-time at the hamburger shop by the school since I turned 16, but pursuing it as a career left me cold. I'd considered going into the Army, but the idea of taking a chance that I'd be shot-at just because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life seemed somehow wrong. I couldn't look to my parents for examples like Scotty did. My dad was an agent for the county agricultural extension, and my mom was a nurse; neither career really led itself to a dynasty. We had a little land on the Marlowe River that we leased to a Pecan plantation, but we weren't the sort of family that had heritage. I'm saying all this because I think I finally know why it happened. Gordion said there were rules, and until recently, I didn't know how those rules applied to what happened to me, but now I think I do. I was a nobody, but not enough of one. I still had things to lose and things to gain. If I'd been smarter, or dumber, or more popular, or something, it never would have happened. But I was in the middle, and that made all the difference. Well, that and my name. It started with a dream. I was dancing with geek heartthrob, Zoe Cappelletto. Okay, it had started out dancing, but pretty early on, she'd tripped on something and we were making out; the floor of the school's gym had, of course immediately turned into a bed of daisies on a grassy hill. We rolled around and things got hotter and hotter. The hill was now my bed at home and we were only separated by my covers. She smiled at me and pulled them back, and I awoke. A man was kneeling on my bed with my covers pulled back. Our eyes met. "What the hell?" we said at the same time. "Who are you?" we both followed. He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "I apologize. It is the guest's responsibility to introduce himself. I am Gordion. Now I must ask, 'Who are you, and why is there no girl in this bed?" "I'm calling the police," I said. "I don't think you are." Suddenly, I couldn't move my arms to get the phone. "Your parents won't hear you," he said, grasping my next thought. "Please answer my question." "Your question didn't make any sense." "It made perfect sense. I am an incubus, here to fulfill my long purpose of bedding and impregnating a virgin. In this case, the girl who is supposed to be here: Erin Rose Gonn." "Ross," I corrected. "What?" "My middle name is Ross, not Rose. I'm Erin Ross Gonn, and I'm not a girl." "Ross is just Gaelic for Rose. Why did your parent's give you a girl's name?" "It's not a girl's name! Erin is gender neutral." "No. 'Aaron' is male. 'Erin' is female. They mean different things and come from different languages." He sat back and churched his fingers, tapping the index fingers against each other in front of his nose. "This creates a problem." "Yeah," I agreed. "There's no virgin here. So you can go do your crazy demon thing somewhere else." "Oh, there's a virgin here," he said, eyeing me, "and for the record, I'm no demon." "I thought you said--" "I know what I said; it's you who is incorrect...in your assumptions, anyway. Incubi are no more necessarily demons than books are necessarily dictionaries. Priapus was honored as a god of fertility by the Romans, and his incubi blessed barren households with children for a thousand years. Anyway, I am here, and you are a virgin, so..." "But I'm a guy." "That's not really a problem for me." "It is for me!" He seemed to be balked. I had an epiphany. "You can't do anything to me unless I let you, can you?" "That, I have to admit, is the problem I mentioned earlier. Oh well." He faded away, and I was left alone in my dark bedroom. Moments later, Zoey reappeared in his place. "Where were we?" she said, stroking me through my underwear. I moaned a little bit, then watched in fascination as she slid my shorts down off my legs. She tickled my toes and said, "Don't you like it when I touch you like this? Don't you want me to continue?" I nodded agreement, and she began stroking my feet, slowly moving up my legs. Each place she stroked felt cool and foggy, like dewy grass on a spring morning. Slowly she stroked my calves and my thighs, spreading my legs and sliding between them. When she reached my crotch, I thought I would die. She looked me in the eyes. "You want me to fuck you, don't you?" I nodded. "You want to make a baby with me, don't you?' She blew lightly on my upper thighs as her hands continued their work higher, past my hips and along my waist. I closed my eyes in ecstasy. "Oh, god, yes..." I breathed. She entered me, her firmness sliding effortlessly past my welcoming lips and deep into a yawning need to be filled I'd never known. My eyes shot open in alarm, and I found myself looking at Gordion. He was a handsome man, I had to admit; his olive skin and rugged Greek features could turn any girl's legs to water. I wanted to say no, to make him stop, but each movement, each thrust emptied my mind, filling it with the pleasure of his love. He seemed to hover above me, his hands still stroking ever higher. "Our baby can't starve, can he?" I shook my head. "We need to fix this flat boy chest, don't we?" I nodded, and felt the foggy sensation. I felt him kiss and lick my new breast, and it drove my passion even higher. I was nearly out of my mind with want, desire, and unrelenting pleasure. He lightly kissed my neck and whispered, "Drab brown is so wrong for a girl named "Rose of Ireland". Shouldn't your hair be vibrant red, instead?" He nibbled my ear, and I screamed out, "Yes! Yes! Oh god yes!" as wave after wave of orgasms washed over me, completing me in a way no man can understand. I felt him finish, his seed rushing rapidly inside me to find the egg I knew to be waiting there. I shuddered with the aftershocks for what seemed like a lifetime. Finally, he kissed me lightly on the lips. "Good night, Irish Rose," he said. "My lady Eris will enjoy the show." I fell into a deep slumber. I was awakened by my mother's voice through the door. "Erin. Breakfast." The dream was, for the moment, forgotten, but it was still summer, and I didn't want to get up, so I burrowed more deeply into my covers. I heard the door open slightly. "Erin, get up." I made petulant noises and pulled the covers over my head. "No son of mine is going to sleep his life away," she said, crossing to my bed. She grabbed the covers and yanked them out of my hands and down my body. "Erin, get--" "Mo-om!" I whined, hugging myself for warmth and encountering something wholly unfamiliar on my chest. My eyes opened wide, and my hands did a quick inspection, confirming my suspicions. "Erin?" she asked incredulously. I nodded mutely. Letting go of the sheet, she half-turned to the door, and called to my father. "Clement Gonn! Come in here and see what your son has done to himself!" She turned back to me. "Take off that wig!' she said, reaching for my head. Before I could react, she had grasped the large mop of curly red hair that now hung past my shoulders and pulled. "Ow! Jesus, Mom! Stop pulling my hair!" She released me and looked me hard in the eye. "Don't take the Lord's name in vain." She paused for a breath and to collect herself. "What did you do?" "Nothing!" I heard my dad approaching my room from the hall. As he entered, he asked, "What's this all about, Alice?" "Just you look," she told him then turned to me. "Get up and show your father what you did." I pulled the covers tighter, teenage modesty adding to my shame at what had occurred. "Do it!" she said, taking a step toward me. I knew if I didn't act, she would drag me out of the bed herself. My mother was a wiry woman, tall and strong, with ropy muscles that lay unnoticed beneath her smooth, tan skin. She was beautiful in a hard way, and decisive, in the way of working class southern women; once she made up her mind, only a fool would try to oppose her. I scrambled out of bed, stumbling a little as my feet dropped farther than expected, and stood naked before them, trying vainly to cover myself up with just two small hands. In the back of my mind, some cooler part of me noted that I had lost a couple of inches--not much, but enough--I had been approaching my dad's height of six feet and change, but now I had to look up to be eye to eye with my mom. My dad studied me for a moment, trying to take it all in. "Erin?" he asked with the same incredulous inflection my mom had used, earlier. "Yes, sir." The concern and incomprehension in his face made me feel suddenly guilty, like I was being called down for doing something stupid and dangerous, like the time Josh and I had nearly burned the house down playing with matches when I was seven. I looked down at the floor and counted my toes. "How did this happen, boy?" My father never reacted until he was sure he understood a situation. In that, he served as a perfect counterpoint to Mom's snap decision-making. When I got in trouble as a kid, he would make me stand before him, just like this, and ask probing questions, trying to find my motives, forcing me to think about my actions and their possible consequences. Sometimes, he'd punish me on the spot, but, more often, he'd send me to bed while he thought it over or discussed it with Mom, calling me back eternal hours later to mete out my just desserts. He was a big man with broad shoulders and a natural strength that could be frightening in action; maybe that was why he always tried to be sure he was reacting properly--he knew the damage he could do. "I don't know, sir," I answered, still looking at the floor. Then I remembered Gordion. "I had a dream," I mumbled. "You had a dream?" he asked in exactly the way anyone would. "Yes, sir." He sighed heavily and rubbed his temples. He exchanged a look with Mom, and they both stepped out of my room, closing the door behind them. Rooted to the spot, standing naked by my bed, I heard their whispered conversation, but couldn't make out the words. Finally, I heard my mother shout, "Fine!" She popped my door open and stuck her head inside. "Get dressed. You're going to work with me." I realized, to my chagrin, that I'd been standing there naked, frozen by parental fear and respect, the whole time they'd been outside my door. It's weird to be a teenager: You think of yourself as an adult, then you react like that, standing in one place in shame and contrition, awaiting your parents' judgment. I guessed my underwear were still pushed down at the foot of my bed, where Gordion had left them, and, reaching under the bundled covers, found them. I tossed them into the hamper in the corner and opened my dresser for a clean pair. The elastic waistband and stretch cotton conformed to my new shape, but the front pooched out like the heel of an upside-down sock. From another drawer, I grabbed a t-shirt at random and pulled it over my head. The shoulders bagged, the chest was tight, and the tail hung well below my hips, confirming my suspicion that I'd lost a few inches of height. I wanted to cry, but my dad had taught me different. It was a family thing, he'd tell me when I hurt myself or got frustrated, nothing to do with gender. "We Gonns don't have time for crying," he'd explain. "We just get on with it, and do what we have to." I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and got on with it. My jeans were in the closet, hanging upside-down by their cuffs. I pulled them on and was relieved to find that, while they were a little long, it was not as bad as I'd feared. Once I'd got them buttoned and zipped, however, it seemed they sat on me oddly. The hips felt tight and the belt seam hung open above, like the top of a too-full laundry bag. I returned to the dresser for my socks and pulled them on, the necks sat bunched just below my knee. Mom had been buying me tube socks since my first growth spurt at thirteen, saying that I'd nickel and dime the family to death if she tried to keep up with me in fitted socks. I dragged my shoes out from under the bed. Like my socks, they were inexpensive. We were by no means poor, but we weren't rich either, and teenage boys go through some sizes like a fire in a dry field. Last night, they'd been a little tight on me, and one of my last thoughts before bed had been that I'd need to ask Mom to get me new ones of a larger size before school started again in a few weeks. Now, they were boats. Even with the Velcro pulled so tight that the tongue disappeared, my feet flopped around in them; I felt like a kid wearing his daddy's boots. I had to take another moment, but it was just a moment, because there were things I had to do. I opened the Velcro fasteners and let the shoes drop off, then went down to the table to ask my folks what to do. Walking was weird. I'd heard, or read, that men's hips are slimmer than women's, but that wasn't it. I think my legs somehow automatically accustomed themselves to their new positions during my movements around my room to get dressed. The problem was my chest. My boobs bounced and jiggled when I walked, causing odd shifts in my balance and center of gravity. I suppose if I'd ignored the sensation, they'd have fallen into some sort of synchronized rhythm, but the feeling was so alien that I kept stopping, and they just kept jostling each other like boy scouts forced to share a pup tent. I found that if I slumped a little and hung my shoulders forward, that it minimized the effect, although it never went away. I arrived at the table where Mom and Dad were just finishing breakfast, and told them about the shoes. Mom inspected me candidly before dropping her fork. "Shoes aren't your only problem," she responded frankly. "Come with me," she commanded, taking my upper arm in her hand. At the kitchen door, she paused and turned back. "You get on to work, Clement. There's no need for both of us to be late. I'll handle this." That was when I noticed that Dad had just been staring numbly at me since I'd entered the kitchen. He stood up, and he and Mom had one of those mute exchanges that married people have. He shrugged then took his dishes to the sideboard of the sink. Mom turned back and continued dragging me off. Her grip was hard and her fingers were sinking into my arm painfully. As we climbed the stairs, we heard the back door shut, and Mom took that as some kind of cue. "You're killing your father," she chided me, squeezing tighter on my arm. "How could you do something so stupid?" She shook me by the arm as she dragged me past my bedroom down the long hallway to hers. "Have you always been like this? Have you been doing queer things behind my back, in my house?" As we entered her room, I twisted free of her grip. "You're hurting me!" I complained. She glared at me a moment, then I went on. "Do you think I wanted this? Why would I ever want this?" "For all I know, you're one of those closet sissies like they have on talk shows sometimes! That's what this is, isn't it! You just show up looking like a hoochie dancer and we're supposed to just understand! You don't think about us at all! How are we supposed to deal? What are people going to think?!" "That's right, it's all about what people think!" I shouted back at her, tears streaming down her face. "I suddenly have your ass and grandma's tits, and I'm scared as hell because I never asked for this, but it's all about what Alyson Cranston has to say during one of her fucking Sunday Teas!" She slapped me so hard that I fell to the floor. As she stood over me, it all finally burst out, all the fear and frustration, the crushing grief for all I'd lost. I burst into tears. "I was going to ask Mena Weist to the prom," I sobbed. Mom did an about-face, then. "Oh, my poor baby," she cried, kneeling on the floor and pulling me into a long comforting hug. "We'll fix this," she said, stroking my hair, "we'll make it right." I sobbed into her shoulder for what seemed like hours, but was probably just a few minutes. Mom leaned back, away from me, and took my face in her hands. "It'll be all right," she said, looking me in the eye. "But first, we gotta get you dressed." She stood up and helped me up after. She looked critically at my chest. "You're right about one thing, I didn't give you those. They must have come from your Daddy's mother." She bit her cheek in concentration. "Take off your shirt." I obeyed. She cupped my breasts, one in each hand, weighing them and gauging their size. "I think you're probably a C-cup," she commented, then crossed her arms across her own chest. "I was never any bigger than a B, and that's being generous, so I don't think any of my bras will fit you at all." She sank into thought once more. "Hold on." She turned to her dresser. "I think I may still have one of my old maternity bras. That might fit you." She searched in her underwear draw for a few minutes and pulled it out. "Women get bigger when they start producing milk," she explained, "but I never got that much bigger. Your Gramma Gonn liked to say that I was starving you." She helped me pull it on, then turned me around and fastened the clasps behind my back. "The pads come out if it's still too tight. They're mostly for absorbing leakage so you don't ruin your dress." She caught my quizzical look. "Feeding women sometimes leak," she explained. "The baby doesn't drink all the time, and sometimes the milk leaks out." Her almost clinical comments reminded me of something Gordion had said last night that I'd forgotten, or maybe repressed. He'd talked about fertility, and about making a baby. I gasped. "You all right?" Mom asked. "Yeah," I said. "It's just--yeah, I'm fine." Mom's shoes were just a bit too small, not by much, maybe half a size. She found some backless deck shoes that I could wear without hurting myself. Downstairs, I gulped down a glass of orange juice and grabbed a muffin to eat in the car. We drove to the hospital in silence. There really wasn't much to say. As we pulled into the parking lot, Mom said, "I'm going to get Dr Costas to examine you. I don't want you to give him any crazy talk about dreams. Just answer his questions and do as he says." She pulled into a parking spot. "You wait here while I talk to him. I'll come get you." I sat in the car for ever. It seemed like the whole town was going to the hospital that day, and every one of them looked at me as they passed. It was mostly people I didn't know, or only vaguely recognized, and the couple of times kids from school were brought by their parents, I managed to see them early and ducked down. Still, I felt like a goldfish in a bowl, just stuck there with no way to escape their eyes. I was sure everyone recognized me and knew what had happened. I was just as sure that they'd come to the same conclusion my parents had, that I'd somehow done this to myself, on purpose. I was near tears when Mom finally appeared. "Sorry it took so long," she said, opening the door. "I had to relieve Maizey Parker and there was an unexpected drug reaction on the second floor, then Dr. Costas was busy, and--well, I'm back, now, and Dr. Costas is ready to see you." As we walked to the door, Mom glanced from side to side and rushed me forward, as if she were a spy or a bank robber. "When we get in there," she instructed me in a harsh whisper, "you just go on through to exam room five. That's down the first hall on the right. You change into a hospital gown and sit on the exam table. I'll be right there." I did as instructed. The gown covered less of me than my shirt and was open in the back, and I felt more naked than I had that morning when I'd actually been naked. I had just jumped up onto the surprisingly cold examination table when Mom entered with a young and embarrassingly handsome doctor in scrubs and a lab coat. He looked surprised as he entered. "Is this your daughter, Alice?" he said. "I thought you wanted me to look at your son." "This is my son, Erin," Mom said with a small amount of ire. "Erin, this is Dr. Costas. He's going to tell us what happened and how we can fix it." "I don't want to make any promises I'm not sure I can keep," he amended. "Let's just take a look-see, here, and find out what we're dealing with." He had dark hair framing an honest, square face, and kind brown eyes. He was trim but not skinny and cut but not hard; he was about mom's height, so, yesterday, I'd have been taller than he was, but now, he was just exactly the right height to kiss without too much stretching or bending. I made a little yip as that last thought popped into my head and surprised me. Mom glared at me. "Found a cold spot," I excused, shrugging. Dr. Costas laughed. "We have a whole staff dedicated to keeping the tables, stethoscopes and specula just above freezing." Mom rolled her eyes as he shared a secret smile with me, then he turned to business. "I'll need a blood workup and a urinalysis. While you're getting that I'll look into he--is files and see if anything jumps out. George is your family doctor?" Mom nodded, visibly uncomfortable referring to Dr Orloff by his given name. He left. Mom looked around the drawers of the exam room until she found what she needed, then she injected a needle into my arm and drew out two test tubes of blood. She had me hold a cotton swab to the puncture while she labeled the vials. When she was done, she bandaged me, then handed me a small plastic cup with a detached lid. "There's a bathroom behind that door", she said, pointing. I looked at the cup, then at the bathroom. She gave me one of her exasperated looks. "I don't have to tell you what to do with that." "I know what it's for," I answered sheepishly. "I just don't...I mean...how?" "You sit down and you hold the cup where you expect the stream to flow." "Oh. Um. Okay." I went into the little bathroom and sat down. It took a few seconds to get the cup into position--sitting down for this at all was weird, and I had to sit back on the seat with my legs spread to fit my arm in. I missed the stream at first, and got some on my hand, but I managed not to freak out and filled the cup. I screwed the top on, trying to ignore the sensation of my own body heat exuding from the sterile cup. Finally, I washed my hands off and allowed myself a long shudder at how truly gross what I had just done was. It had seemed much cleaner and easier...before. When I got out, Mom stuck a disposable thermometer in my mouth and made me sit down so she could take my pulse and blood pressure. At some point she must've taken the cup from me, too, because before I knew it, she was gliding out the door with a tray in one hand and the clipboard on which she'd written the vitals in another. "I'll be back in a minute," she said as the door closed. I heard her put the clipboard into the bin on the door outside, and then I was alone again. I have to admit, I'm easily bored. That's usually okay because I'm also easily amused, but there in the exam room the minutes passed like hours. Not only was I afraid to touch anything (Mom had given me a deep reverence for the inviolability of medical supplies when I was younger) but, once I'd gotten the hospital shift to the point that I no longer felt entirely naked, I was afraid to move for fear of upsetting the delicate arrangement. In my head, I rehearsed the dream I'd had the night before, forcing every detail from memory, just on the off-chance that someone would ask me about it, and might know what it meant. My ruminations were interrupted when Mom and Doctor Costas entered together. Doctor Costas was talking, "...sort of thing shouldn't happen in a human and certainly not over night." He turned to me. "Okay, Erin, I'm going to do a full physical examination, now, and between that and the lab work, hopefully we'll figure out what happened and how to reverse it. I'm not going to guarantee anything, but...well, we'll just see." He glanced down at the chart. "Alice, there's no height and weight, here." Mom was aghast. She'd never miss something as basic as that normally. It was the first sign I'd had that she was concerned, or anything other than angry with me. "Sorry, Doctor," she said, "I ...err..." "No matter, we'll just get that right now. Erin, if you could..." he indicated the scale and measuring rod against the wall. I stood on it, and was reminded of the weirdness of the new weight pulling me forward. "Don't slouch," Mom corrected me. "Stand up straight." I pulled my shoulders back and up, gaining another inch or so in height as I did. I could feel my breasts sticking out under the shift. It felt like everyone in the world was looking at them and me. Doctor Costas carefully slid the mast down to the top of my head. "One hundred sixty-eight, no, make it nine, centimeters," he read off the rod. Mom dutifully wrote it down on the chart as he fiddled with the weights on the scale. "Fifty-three point nine-eight kilograms." He took the chart from mom when she'd written the number down. "That puts you at about five-foot-six and maybe a hundred and nineteen pounds." He looked at me. "That's quite a loss of mass, since your last checkup shows you pushing six-two and one hundred seventy." I sighed, a million sarcastic responses struggling to escape my mind through my mouth. Only the fact that Mom would smack me for being lippy prevented any of them from reaching freedom. They sat me on the exam table again. Doctor Costas examined my eyes, ears, nose and throat, then felt along my neck to see if any glands were hard or swollen. He tapped my knee to check my autonomous reflexes. He listened to my heart, my lungs and my stomach. Finally, he looked me in the eye. "You're not going to like this next part." "No one does," Mom added. He glanced at her quickly. "But it's necessary. A variety of conditions can trigger a transmorphic response, and some of them can be quite nasty if not caught in time." "Conditions?" I was suddenly more frightened than I'd been even that morning. "Probably nothing," he responded. "Gynecomastia is usually caused by dietary hormones, but there are a couple of other, less common causes, including a couple cancers." He asked me to lower my top. I looked at Mom, and she nodded. With a deep sigh, I reached up and untied the knot at my neck, then lowered the upper part of the shift, my shoulders arching forward in an attempt to cover myself. "Male breast cancer is often a culprit," he continued, palpating my breasts, "but you can't rule out testicular cancer or abnormalities. Have you suffered any recent injuries to your groin area?" Mom whispered something in his ear before I could respond. "Seriously?" Mom nodded. He finished examining my breasts and turned to face her. "I'm going to need a speculum, then. You know what? I'm going to look something else up. Why don't you wheel the sonogram in here while I'm doing that?" Mom nodded, and he left. "Let me help you get the top back up," she said pulling the shoulders of my shift into place and tying the knot behind my neck. She gave my shoulder a squeeze. "It's going to be uncomfortable. Don't be afraid. I'm here with you." She gave me one of her rare supportive smiles. "It'll be all right, I'm sure of it." She searched the cabinets for a few seconds until she found an oddly-shaped bag that she placed on an equipment tray with a squeeze tube. She gave me another supportive squeeze, then stepped out. Another eternity passed as I sat in the exam room waiting for Mom and Doctor Costas to finish their errands. Examination rooms are horrible places to be alone. It takes no time at all to glance through the prevention and advertising posters on the walls, so, soon, you're left with nothing but your own thoughts, and they always lead down a quickly spiraling stairway of fear and apprehension. Doctor Costas had said a lot of things, but the ones I remembered most were the times he said "cancer". There's a treatment or a cure for almost every cancer known, but the word itself still sounds like a death sentence. I was almost crying when mom came back with a technician wheeling a big machine. It was Vale Janssen. He'd been a red shirt senior when I was a sophomore, and we sort of knew each other through Josh. A blown knee at the regional semis had ended his hopes for college, so I guess he'd opted for a tech school associates degree. He glanced at me as he passed on his way to plugging the machine in. "Oh, hey, Erin," he said, casually. "Hey, Vale." He finished setting the machine up then stood and studied me for a moment. "Thank you, Mr. Janssen," Mom finally said, with a tone that meant, "Get the hell out." Vale nodded and left with a confused look on his face. I'd been covering my breasts, but any idiot could see that I'd changed in indescribable ways. "Well, so much for keeping this all quiet until we know what we're facing," Mom said as she pulled a large metal accessory out of the side of the table. She locked it in place, then went to the other side and pulled out another one. "What's done is done, I guess," she sighed, directing me to take my underwear off. She had me scooch back a little, and laid me down. "These are stirrups," she said, helping me get my legs into them then spreading them a little. I'd heard of stirrups, of course. My mom was a nurse, and it wasn't like we lived in a cave, anyway, but the reality of them had never occurred to me. I can't imagine a more vulnerable or humiliating position: lying on your back with your legs held spread, your business out in the open for anyone to see. Luckily, it wasn't long before Doctor Costas reappeared. "All right, let's see what we've got down there," he said, tearing open the package Mom had removed from the cabinet. I already knew it was some kind of instrument; Mom sometimes brought the little packages home with her and left them on the table in the foyer to remind herself to return them. Hospitals don't do their own sterilizing, any more; almost everything that goes inside someone's body is sent out to a service and returned in those plastic sterile bags. What he drew out looked like a pair of shoe horns welded to a squeeze clamp. "That's a speculum," Mom informed me. "It allows the doctor to see what he needs to." Doctor Costas gave me an apologetic look. "This will be a little cold," then he dipped down out of my sight. It was cold, cold and weird. He didn't tell me how weird it would feel to have shoe horns jammed into my--down there--and then spread apart like he was opening a crate. Muscles I didn't know I had tried to squeeze shut, but found themselves impotent against the firm steel. "Cervix appears normal," he said, adding, "Nurse, hand me a Pap brush." A moment later, I felt the most bizarre pain I'd ever felt. I was like scraping my knee, only on the inside, where that sort of thing should never happen. He stood up and walked over to the counter. He did something I couldn't quite see, then said, "Let me run this down to the lab. You can let her out of the stirrups, now." "Him," Mom corrected. "What?" Dr. Costas stopped a moment. "Oh, yes, him. Anyway, let him down and prep him for an abdominal ultrasound." "Yes, Doctor." Mom helped me out and I put my underwear back on, then she had me lie back again and pulled the hospital gown up just below my breasts. "Just relax," she said, "the hard part is over." She squirted some gel out of a tube onto my stomach then spread it around. Dr. Costas returned and went to the machine Vale had wheeled in. He turned it so he could see the screen as he ran the mouse-like remote over my belly. I couldn't see the screen, and all he said were things like, "hmm," and "There's one, let's find the other." So I had no idea what was going on. Mom, who could see the screen looked more and more confused and concerned. A few times, Dr. Costas held the mouse in one place, and I assumed he was taking a picture. Finally, he stopped and set the mouse in its cradle. He studied the chart and jotted notes while Mom cleaned me up and straightened out the ultrasound machine. "I don't know what to tell you, Alice," he finally said. "I appears that your son--" he put odd emphasis on the word "--is a perfectly healthy, perfectly normal seventeen-year-old girl." "How?" Mom asked. "Damned if I know," he shrugged. "The human body is a miraculous and mysterious thing. I did read one article about spontaneous human sexual transmorphism, by a Doctor Miller, but that case transpired over a period of months. If this occurred over night, as you say..." He trailed off. "I'm just not sure that's even possible." He studied me for a moment. I was now sitting and had pulled the shift down to where it almost covered me. "Okay, clearly it's possible, but..." he ran out of words, again. "Can you fix it?" Mom, ever the pragmatist, asked. "I don't think there's anything to fix," he responded. "There's no cancer, no apparent injury. I mean, there are still some lab tests outstanding, but I don't think they'll come out any more abnormal than the ones we have." He paused long enough to catch Mom's eye. "You're just going to have to resign yourself to the fact that your son is now your daughter." The room was silent while we all thought about the implications of what he had said. "You're going to have to have her--his--no, her identifying documents altered. I can help with that. I'll fill out the paperwork stating that Erin was misidentified at birth. That happens sometimes, and as long as no one files suit, there won't be any trouble for anyone. I think that may work better than trying to explain what really happened." He made a note in a pad he took from his pocket. "Other than that, bring her back in a month, or after her first period, whichever happens first, and we'll see where we are, then." Mother nodded, and he stepped to the door, saying, "I'll fill out those forms, right now, and you can take them with you when you leave work, Alice. If you need a lawyer..." "Clement knows a few that will help, I'm sure." Dr. Costas nodded and left. Mom stared after him for a moment, then turned and stared at me. "My poor baby," she sighed and pulled me into a hug. Between the stress and the news and Mom's comforting embrace, I just let go and sobbed quietly into her shoulder. I don't know how long. When she finally pulled back, I could see that Mom had been crying, too. "Get your clothes back on," she directed, wiping her eyes. "When you're ready, meet me at the nurses' station." She left. I dressed quickly and followed her. When I found her, she handed me her keys. "Why don't you go on home. I'll call your daddy and tell him what happened. Pick me up at three- thirty." I glanced at the clock above the station; it was almost eleven. "Yes, ma'am," I responded, turning to leave. "Go straight home," she called after me. I turned around and opened my arms, showing her my body. She made a silent moue. Where else was I going to go looking like I did? * * * By the time I got home, it was almost noon, and I was starving. All I'd eaten for breakfast that morning was a muffin. I nuked a frozen pizza and wolfed it down in minutes, scraping the cheese and toppings off first then rolling the crust into a pizza burrito. Once my plate and fork were in the dishwasher, I leaned against the counter and looked out across the kitchen, at a loss for what to do. I sighed heavily and, moving into the living room, slouched on the sofa to watch TV. Daytime television sucks, even with cable. In rapid succession I clicked across seven soaps (five in Spanish), three game shows, six different reruns of the same series, eight "reality" series about people who think ordering coffee and whining about how pretty they are is hard work, two shows that proved conclusively that ghosts and UFOs were the god's truth, two more shows that proved that they were complete fabrications and a marathon of a movie series that everyone had already seen either in the theatre or on DVD. I was trying to decide between two reruns that I'd seen but liked when the phone rang. It was Scotty. "Is Erin there?" he asked. There was confusion in his voice. "This is Erin," I responded. "Sure," he said, cautiously. "I need to talk to him because he said he'd help me get the engine out of an oh-two Escort, and he hasn't showed up." "Oh, crap," I exclaimed. "I totally forgot. Sorry, Scott." "Umm." He was still dubious. "That's okay, just ask him to come down to my dad's shop as soon as he can." He hung up. I was torn. There was no way I wanted anyone to see me like this, and Mom had made it pretty clear that she didn't either. Still, I had promised to help him, and all my life, both my parents had gone to great lengths to impress on me the sanctity of a promise. In the end, that training won out, and I found myself driving my mother's car to Darcy's Auto Repair. I pulled into my usual spot and walked across the tarmac to the bays. Steve and Jose noticed me and poked each other; I tried not to think whether they recognized me or were just sizing up a random new girl. As I got to the bay where Scotty was working, he looked up. "Can I help you, Miss?" "Scotty, it's me." He looked at me quizzically, wondering why this girl he'd never met would expect him to know her. Then he looked hard into my face. "Erin?" he asked, still incredulous. "What..?" I shrugged. "I woke up like this. Mom had me at the hospital all morning with a doctor trying to figure it out." I let that sink in. "Sorry, I'm late." He raised an eyebrow. "It's okay, I guess." He cocked his head, which seemed cute and endearing for some reason, instead of just weird. "This is for real? You're not just buggin'?" "It's for real." He shrugged. "Okay. Get on the chainfall controls, would you? You remember how to work them?" "I lost my dick, not my brain." "Yeeeaaahhh...so many ways I didn't need to know that." I punched him in the arm, and picked up the controller box. It felt heavier than it should have, but not by much. We got into our usual routine. Different parts of the engine needed to be lifted and let down at different times so Scotty could get to the bolts and connections he needed to deal with, all without stressing the engine, or the transmission it was still loosely attached to. About an hour in, Steve decided to have some fun. "Hey, sweet thing," he said, sauntering over. "When you're done with the kid, I've got a real heavy weight for you to lift." He grabbed his crotch so nothing was left to the imagination. The easy way Scotty had just accepted me, and the hour of good work had helped me regain some of my old confidence and aplomb. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Really Steve?" I replied. "You sure your wife won't mind you hitting on her boss's son?" He saw me for the first time. "Erin?" He stared at me as if trying to pierce a disguise. "You a fag?" I rolled my eyes. Was everyone going to make that dubious leap? "Yeah, Steve. I'm a fag. I grew tits and got eight inches shorter because I'm a fag." "I knew it!" He said, not recognizing sarcasm when it bit him in the ass. "I always knew you were a fag. I bet you spent all that time hanging around here just hoping to get a suck of Junior's dick." No teenage boy likes to be called a fag, whether he's gay or not, and this was worse because I was looking at Scotty differently, and starting to wonder about myself, if only subconsciously. I was close to tears, but I refused to let Steve see it. "Sure, fine. If that's the image that helps you get it up for Eileen, you go ahead and keep it." Steve turned red, and started in toward me. "You listen, fag..." Just then, Scotty appeared between us. "Don't you have work to do?" "I'm on lunch. And you ain't my boss." "Fair enough. I'm not your boss. Just remember that if five o'clock rolls around and Mr. Henreid's Cutlass is still turning off every time his CD player switches tracks, I'm also not going to be the one looking for work." Steve stalked off across the garage. Scotty turned to me. "You shouldn't have said that shit about Steve's wife." "Why not?" "Didn't your dad tell you? Eileen's pregnant again." "So?" "So Steve had a vasectomy after their last boy." "No shit, really?" Scotty nodded. "Oh, crap." He shrugged. We went back to work on the engine. A couple of times I had to crawl down into the pit to help Scotty with something, and I got a little dirty. By the time we'd finished and the engine was hanging from the chainfall, it was a little after three. I wiped my hands clean and rushed out to pick Mom up from work. I pulled into the hospital parking lot at the stroke of three-thirty. Mom was just stepping out of the door. I pulled up to the curb and put the car in park, knowing she would want to drive. She noticed how dirty I was. "What happened to you?" "I promised Scotty I'd help him pull an engine." "So, even though I told you to go straight home, you went to Darcy's shop?" "I went home, but Scotty called, and I did promise." She rubbed her temples. "I suppose I can't fault you for keeping a promise. How did people take the new you?" I sighed. "About how you would expect. Steve called me a fag, and I almost got in a fight." "With Steve Bushnell? Why would you do that? He'd tear you apart, especially with your...condition." "It's not like I was looking for a fight. Besides, I didn't know Eileen was pregnant again." "Your father told me last week. I don't know why that should matter." "Steve had himself snipped after Coby was born." "Now that you mention it, I do remember your father saying something about it being a scandal of some kind." We drove in silence for a while. Mom pulled into the bank and around to the drive-up ATM. "You're lucky I had a little money saved up already for school clothes," she commented, tapping on the screen. "Why?" I asked, but she ignored me, and finished her transaction. She pulled forward enough to give the car behind us access to the machine, and put her stuff away. She gave me a long measuring look. "I was going to take you up to the outlet mall in Cousland, but I think first we'll stop at home and get you showered." "The outlet mall? Why?" "Sweetie," she said, pulling out, "you heard the doctor. You're going to be this way for a while. We need to get you some clothes that fit." "My clothes fit fine!" "You know that just ain't true." She turned the corner into our neighborhood. "At the very least we need to get you a couple of bras that fit. For heaven's sake, boy," she stole a quick glance at me, "girl, you're wearing one of my old maternity bras!" She waited for an argument; receiving none, she went on. "And those pants can't be comfortable at all." "They're okay." "Don't lie to me. You had to have noticed they don't fit right." She pulled into our driveway and parked. She turned and addressed me directly. "Even if you're still something like the same size, which I doubt, girls are cut different than boys. Boys have a straight waist, and they don't have to account for these--" she reached over and lifted one of my breasts, "when they buy a shirt." "But Mo-om!" "Don't 'But Mom' me. You get in there and get a shower and some clean clothes. I don't like this any more than you do, but there's no sense in whining about what's already done." We went in. I took me forever to get the bra off. In the end, I cheated. Since I couldn't figure out how girls reach the clasp from the back, I slid my arms out of the straps, slipped the cups off my breasts, and turned it around so the clasp was in front where I could see it. I showered, which was a new experience in a lot of ways; Girls have a bunch of nooks and crannies that boys never have to think about. When I'd done and dried off, I dressed in a new shirt and underwear (but the same bra and pants) and tried to comb my hair. I'd always worn my hair short--never more than a few inches long--and my little pocket comb kept catching in the multiple tangles. After an epic battle that I was clearly losing, I heard Mom call through the door. "What's taking you so long in there?" "I'm trying to comb my hair." The door opened and Mom stepped in. "You can't comb hair like that with a pocket comb," she said. "You need a brush. For now, you can borrow mine. It's in my bathroom on the counter." I did as told, and soon had my hair lying along my back in wavy ribbons. I glanced in the mirror and saw Mom standing behind me struggling to not laugh. "You look like a sheepdog," she chortled. "Don't you know anything about drying hair?" I tried to think of a way to remind her that I never used to have a lot of hair to dry, but the look I gave her sent the message. She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around the sheet of hair in the back and dried it through a combination of pats and wringing pulls. Then she took the brush and brushed it out. She looked at it critically. "This'll get in your eyes." "I had to keep pulling it back today." "Let me tie it into a pony tail. I have some elastics." She opened a drawer and, pulling an elastic out, pulled my hair into a single mass and tied it off. She looked at the two of us in the mirror. "Don't suppose you'd let me do your face?" she asked, half-joking. I stared back at her without saying a word. "No, I guess not." A stray thought crossed my mind. "You aren't going to try to make me wear a dress, are you?" Mom regarded me frankly. "Do you want to wear a dress?" "No!." "Then, no, I won't." I breathed a little easier as we headed down to the car. It was half an hour up state road 656 to the outlet mall in Cousland, and we drove without talking. We listened to the radio and sometimes sang along (I quit early, finding my voice sounded odd belting out the Keith Urban and Daughtry songs I was used to, but unwilling to lend my support to Taylor Swift or Faith Hill), but we didn't have a lot to discuss. Neither of us was really sure where things stood. I didn't know if Mom still blamed me for what had happened, and she wasn't sure how to relate to me (Was I still her boy? Was I now the daughter that bad plumbing had denied her in her youth?). When we got to the mall, Mom took me first to one of the few actual outlets there. This shop sold factory overruns and seconds from a high- quality lingerie house, and, even though it offered a large discount from the company's retail store prices, the sales staff was as knowledgeable and helpful as the staff at the Galleria in Houston. Mom took me straight to one of the older salesladies. "This is my s--daughter, Erin. Ssshee needs to be fitted for a new bra." The woman looked at me, then looked quizzically at my mother. Mom rolled her eyes. "Teenagers. Just when you think they've finished growing, they manage to pull one last growth spurt out of thin air." The saleswoman (her tag said, "Marva") nodded agreement. "My boy, Charlie blew through two shoe sizes before Christmas his first year of college." She took a tape and measured me around my chest just under my breasts, then again across my nipples. Catching my quizzical look, she asked. "Haven't you ever been sized for a bra before?" "No, ma'am," I said. Sensing that the answer needed expansion, I added, "Mom always just guesstimated." "I'm a nurse," Mom continued for me. "I'm used to eyeballing measurements, and there was never any sense wasting money on something that's just going to charity in five months." "Don't I know it," Marva agreed. "Even getting them at ShopMart, my Charlie almost drove us to the poor house from his shoes." She did some quick math. "It's fairly easy. The first measurement was for your band size. I measured your band at thirty inches and we add four because thirty's an even number. Then I measured your cup at thirty-seven inches. Now we subtract your band from your cup, and that lets us know you need a 34-C." Armed with this new information, we found several bras in a couple of styles. Marva, committed to her role as saleswoman and bra teacher, eagerly explained that different styles served different purposes, not just in fashion but in suiting support needs. We also got some panties there. Luckily, boy-shorts, which look like regular Y-fronts but are cut for a girl's anatomy, were in fashion. We went from there to a young women's clothing shop, where Mom took me into the dressing room and showed me the difference between the cut of men's clothing and that of women's. She also explained the need to try everything on, since different sizes mean different things depending on the manufacturer and the item in question. Mom helped me find everything I needed, and the most feminine clothes I had to buy were a pair of loose-leg slacks and some nice blouses. "I won't make you wear a dress," Mom explained, "but no child of mine is wearing dungarees and t-shirts to Mass." Then it was off to the shoe store, where I learned that women's shoe sizes are the same as men's shoe sizes plus two (so a men's seven is the same as a women's nine) except the European sizes from New York designers which are apparently random. I got new sneakers, some slip-on flats that were nice enough for church and a pair of short wedges that I protested getting, but mom said they'd be good for practice if my condition turned out to be permanent. By the time we left, it was a little after eight. We'd been shopping for three hours, and I had the feeling I'd gotten off easy. Mom took me to a McBurger to grab a bite. Sensing my thought, she said, "Your father is smart enough to fix his own leftovers. I called and told him what we were doing tonight." I wolfed down my Double-Meat Cheesewad, aware the whole time of Mom's measuring gaze. As we turned back on to 656, Mom turned off the radio and said, "Now tell me about this dream." I bumbled out some syllables in surprise. "You seemed to think it was important this morning," she explained. "The doctor was no help, but I've been a nurse far too long to think that everything in the world boils down to chemicals and genetics." I told her the whole sordid dream, every detail I'd memorized, from Zoe to Gordion to the strange feeling I had while I changed. I did not tell her how much I had enjoyed the sex, but I did tell her everything Gordion had said about fertility and making a baby. When I had finished, she drove on without speaking. We were almost home by this time, and I was worried that she might be angry with me, again. In the retelling, I realized how much of what happened had happened with my consent. We pulled into the driveway, and she looked at me kindly. "I guess you aren't the first boy who's been tricked into doing something stupid for the sake of a pretty girl." She sighed. "We'll just keep that bit about babies to ourselves," she added. "No sense worrying your father unless it becomes necessary." Dad greeted us as we entered, but then his gaze fell on me, and he went silent and cold. I had the feeling he felt betrayed somehow. Mom told me to go upstairs and put my clothes away while she and Dad talked. * * * The next thirty days passed slowly, even though I had plenty to do. Dad imposed on a friend who had been a prosecuting lawyer for the IRS to help us with the details of changing my identity. The affidavit that Dr. Costas filed helped, but some of the documentation resisted any sort of amendment simply because it was designed to be the last word. My birth certificate was especially hard to change. In the end, we had to arrange a hearing with a Federal Judge to have the records altered to correct my sex. Until then, everything else was provisional. Meanwhile, I had to settle into the realities of my new life. My showers took twice as long. Mom decided I had to learn to shave at least my armpits. When I protested, she said, "I won't have you wandering around town like some kind of godless Frenchwoman." Still, she didn't push me into dresses or force me to wear makeup, so I think I got off lucky. Dad didn't know how to deal with me. Had I been born a girl, he probably would have accepted it and loved me in the way fathers do with daughters, but he was old fashioned at heart, and it may have seemed like some sort of punishment for his failings as a man and a father to have his son suddenly taken away and replaced with this mockery of a girl. He tried his best; he knew about the dream and about Dr, Costas's diagnosis, so he never made me feel as if I was to blame for anything. But we'd been close, and now he was distant at a time when I needed the closeness we used to enjoy. The town rumor mill was running full bore, and it wasn't long before everyone knew about the girl who used to be a boy. I drew stares everywhere I went, even if it was just to the gas station to fill up my mother's car. Some were angry and filled with judgment, people who'd heard half the story and a bunch of supposition and made up their minds without even questioning what they'd heard. To them, I was an abomination, no better than Judy Lester's boy who went fruity and took up with a poetry professor in Austin. The ones who bothered me, however, were the ones who looked on me with pity. Some of them had heard enough of the story to know that it wasn't my doing, but most knew no more than the snap-judgment folks. These people were the flip side of the small-town punishment for difference. They thought no better of me than the ones who judged without knowing, but they chose instead to hate the sin and pity the sinner. It was still my fault and a crime before God and everything, but he who is without sin may throw the first stone, and if my weakness led me to this, then there but by the grace of God... Hypocrisy is a fat woman in a couch-print sundress and gardenia perfume enumerating the faults of others while she professes to forgive those sins she unerringly accounts. Mass was a nightmare. Early on, Mom told Father Mike what happened (without discussing dreams and pregnancy demons), even giving him a copy of Dr. Costas's affidavit. He apparently told the deacons (Dad was one, but he'd just endured the whispers and looks rather than make a fuss) who responded by entering into a debate whether or not the Catechism classes I'd finished two years earlier were now invalid because slightly different concepts were taught in girls' classes. There was a "Pray for" notice in the program that made it clear that I had a "condition" and was not doing anything voluntarily. Still, Mass was two hours of surreptitious looks of pity and hostility. Add in Fellowship, which was a solid hour of a room full of people discussing and debating every possible aspect of my change and moral character with everyone except the three people most involved (and best informed) and I came to dread Sunday Mornings. I spent a lot of time at home. I watched a lot of TV and played my fair share of video games, but there are a lot of hours to fill in a day, and occasionally I'd find myself looking at the red-haired girl in the mirror. One time, it occurred to me to wonder how she'd look in a dress, and it wasn't until I was staring at her in the full-length mirror in my mother's room, wearing one of Mom's skirts that I realized what I was doing. She was a very pretty girl, and the skirt showed off her long, delicate legs to advantage. The only problem was that she was me. It felt weird to look at myself in the mirror and see this pretty girl with her thin waist and dancer's legs. It felt even weirder to wonder what I'd look like in the short heels Mom had bought at the outlet mall. The heel was only an inch high, and they had camel tops, but the difference from my normal shoes was striking. The angle pushed my center of gravity forward, forcing me to lean back slightly to compensate, I walked back to Mom's mirror to see how it looked, gaining confidence, since the full-width heel didn't add a reduced contact surface to the new sensation of walking almost on my toes. I had to admit, I was pretty hot. They were fairly sensible shoes, and the skirt was a muddy-brown straight-line thing, but they still managed to accent and enhance natural curves that were just beginning to blossom. Scotty would certainly get a spark in his plug if I went down to the garage in this. That stray thought brought my experimentation to a crashing halt. I kicked the shoes off and undid Mom's skirt, quickly replacing them with my jeans and sneakers. I caught my reflection in the mirror and saw a cute little tomboy who was every bit as desirable as the pretty girl in the skirt but much more accessible. I sat down on the floor, put my head in my hands, and tried not to cry. Until that time, I'd been going down to the garage a couple of times a week. I'd helped Scotty the same ways I always did, holding lights, lending a third hand to hold things up while he screwed them in (or out), not minding or even noticing the random touches or long moments we were pressed together in the close quarters under a car's hood. But after the skirt, it was all I could think about. Innocent brushes seemed electric; I could feel the heat of him--not just when we touched, but any time we were close. His smell was intoxicating, and it frightened me. By the end of the first month, visiting Scotty at the garage was like a little war in my head: I didn't want to go, but I couldn't stay away. The days passed slowly, the way they do when you're waiting for something. Three weeks after my change, Mom taught me how to wear a mini-pad, and instructed me to check it every time I went to the bathroom, so we'd know when my first period hit. When that produced nothing, the night before my second appointment with Dr. Costas, she brought home a home pregnancy kit. I think we both knew how it was going to come out, but we still held our breath as we waited for the little window on the device to give us the distressing news. When the damning verdict came up, Mom pulled me into an embrace and let me sob against her shoulder. "Hush, child," she said. "This is nothing we can't handle. It may not even be right. These things are notoriously inaccurate if you use them around your time." It didn't seem to occur to her that I'd be just a distressed to remember that I now had a "time." Only a month before, the only monthly worry I'd had was how close the end of the month brought me to the new school year. Now, the prospect of bleeding from my crotch was the best case I could hope for. Mom held me through the renewed rack of tears until she decided I'd had enough time to cry it out. She pushed me back, and wiped my cheeks with her thumbs. "Don't forget where you come from, little Miss," she said. "Boy or girl, you're still a Gonn. You've had your cry, and now it's time to deal with the hand you got dealt. Dr. Costas may have something else to say in the morning." She patted my hair. "And as far as other things are concerned, it isn't so bad being a woman. I like to think I've done pretty well of it." I stammered obsequious words; I hadn't realized my Mom might be offended by my continued reaction. She mussed my hair. "Don't apologize, I understand. This is a big change for you; your whole world is different. I just want you to remember it's not a fate worse than death." There was a soft knock at the door and my dad's voice, "Is everything all right in there?" "We're fine," Mom answered. Addressing me, she said, "Why don't you go on to bed? We'll see what the doctor has to say in the morning." I nodded, and went to my bedroom, passing my confused-looking father on the way. The next morning, Mom woke me by rapping smartly on the door. I wasn't going in with her this time, but I'd need to take her to work, so I could make my appointment at ten o'clock. It annoyed me that dressing wasn't as easy as it had once been. The days when I could just throw on a shirt and some pants were gone, swept away by the demand for support my ponderous chest now registered. I headed downstairs as quickly as dressing allowed me, sat down at the table and wolfed down a big helping of biscuits and gravy. I felt my dad's eyes on me, and looked up, holding my next bite on my fork. "What?" Dad examined me a moment, then said, "Your mother never wolfs her food down like that. It seems...strange." "I like biscuits and gravy," I responded by way of a