Baby Grows Up
Sure enough Janet found the little store again. The gypsy woman was
seated behind her counter like last time, watching over the shelves and
tables of antiques. She nodded to Janet as she came through the door
pushing the stroller. Baby Sarah's awareness of her surroundings was
haphazard these days. Most of the time, her thoughts concerned only
with a dry nappy, warmth, food, and Mommy.
Janet was in good spirits. She practically bounced through the store.
Her body was lean and tight and her breasts firm and proud, nothing
like they would have looked if she had actually been pregnant and given
birth to her daughter. Her wavy blonde hair extended halfway down her
back, in sharp contrast to the baby's jet black.
"Hello again," Janet said as she wheeled up to the counter with a big
smile on her face. "I wanted to thank you so much for the help you
gave me and to show off my new daughter."
The old woman returned her smile, knowing that the infant before her
had been Janet's husband only a few months ago. Her smile conveyed the
satisfaction she felt at transforming another uncaring male into a
child who would grow up to be a compassionate person.
"I see everything worked out well then," she said to Janet. "For
tricking you into becoming pregnant, your husband gets to grow up as
your daughter."
"Yes and she's such a cute little thing," Janet cooed as she lifted
Sarah out of the stroller to allow the old woman to hold her. "This
way, I get to be Mommy without having to be pregnant. "He is the one
that wanted the baby experience, now he gets to experience it from the
inside out. I doubt he is enjoying it as much as I am though," she
said with a smirk.
As she cradled Sarah in her arms, the gypsy's expression changed.
"You told me that your husband tricked you into becoming pregnant!"
she said in a sharp tone.
"Yes, I did," Janet answered, looking down at Mrs. Ramirez; the old
woman was at least a head shorter. Her whole manner was as if to say,
'So What?'
"I was very particular when I asked you what happened that day you came
in here. I saw that you were upset and you told me that you were
pregnant. You said that your husband had gotten you drunk. That he
knew when you were most likely to get pregnant and that he practically
raped you!"
"Well...It wasn't quite as bad as that," Janet said, back-pedaling, "but
he was so self-satisfied about me being pregnant! He knew that I
didn't want to have children and lose my figure."
The old woman sniffed at Janet's whined explanation and said, "If he
had been completely blameless, you would not have been able to
transform him at all. But I can see that this baby who was once your
husband was not the evil person you made him out to be! He truly loved
you and you destroyed him because you were more concerned about ruining
your figure!" Mrs. Ramirez was starting to work up a full head of
steam in her tirade at Janet.
"Your husband is still buried within the child."
"You mean he is aware that he was once a full grown a man? Now that is
amusing."
"It is impossible to tell how much of his past life he has retained.
If he had deserved this fate he would be gone and only the young child
you carried would be there. There is a price to be paid!"
As far as Janet was concerned, the gypsy might as well have been going,
"Blah...Blah...Blah...Blah...Blah." She had tuned her out after the first few
words. This sounded like more of the creepy voodoo she had spouted
when she had been here last time and bought the things she had used to
change David into her precious baby Sarah. While she was zoned out,
thinking of David made her think of how Sarah used her tongue when she
was nursing that reminded her of what he used to do during foreplay.
It was probably just a coincidence though.
When it appeared that Mrs. Ramirez had finally run down, she just
smiled and said, "Yes...Yes. I'm sure that things will work out.
Look...I'm enjoying having her as the sweet little baby girl that she is.
Don't you have a potion or something that will keep her this way?"
The gypsy physically recoiled from Janet. What had she connected
herself with here? She was perfectly happy to trick and transform the
men who came into the shop, but she made the decision as to who she
changed. She had felt sorry for the sad woman who had come into her
store those months ago, crying about being with child. Her story had
painted a picture of an uncaring husband who had willfully impregnated
his wife in total disregard for her desires. Now it turned out that
her customer was not entirely stable. She really did not want to
subject the former man to any further torture, but he was not aware of
much now anyway. Perhaps she could do something to help him to adapt
to his new situation.
Besides, she was in business to sell things. She opened a drawer and
took out a small vial that contained a glowing white liquid. Janet
took it from her, looking closely at the small bottle as she held it up
to the light. She shook it slightly to make it slosh back and forth.
"Be careful of that!" Mrs. Ramirez snapped. "I don't have any more yet
and it takes five years to make more."
"What?" the gypsy said in response to Janet's surprised look. "Do you
think that magic is just squeezing berries to make a potion and a few
incantations? Creating something powerful like this takes time."
"Will this really keep her a baby?" Janet asked a bit skeptically.
Mrs. Ramirez shrugged and shook her head in denial.
"No, nothing can do that. This will only slow down her growth. If you
feed this to your daughter, she will grow only half as fast as normal.
But it will only work for five years. She will develop rapidly after
that."
Janet nodded her head in glee. She wished that David could appreciate
his predicament, but Sarah had not shown any signs of understanding the
world around her for weeks now. Oh well, her husband did make for a
cute baby. She was going to have so much fun dressing her and showing
her off. And there was that thing that Sarah did with her tongue when
she was nursing that reminded of what her husband used to do during
foreplay...It was probably just a coincidence she thought.
Totally ignoring Mrs. Ramirez's explanations and warnings as so much
blather, she willingly paid the rather steep sum the gypsy demanded and
slipped the little bottle into Sarah's diaper bag. She left the store
humming happily, thinking about how much fun it would be to have her
baby around for years to come. Maybe she would come back later to get
some of the potion for herself. Then she would be able to be a young
mother forever.
When they were home, Janet carefully poured the contents of the vial
into one of Sarah's bottles and then topped it off with milk.
Interestingly enough, all of the potion oozed into the milk bottle,
leaving no residue at all behind.
Janet waited until Sarah was ready for another bottle and the baby
seemed to drink the spiked bottle of milk in just moments. Janet
watched expectantly, apparently thinking that the baby would start
glowing or something. But nothing spectacular happened and Sarah
seemed to just snuggle a bit deeper into her blanket before falling
asleep.
* * * * *
As the days and weeks passed, Janet could see that the potion had
worked after all. Sarah remained the same child she loved to dress up
and show off, but appeared to have stopped growing. In addition to not
growing, Sarah's physical development appeared to have been put on hold
as well. Despite her age, child never learned to roll over or sit up.
She continued to eat normally, but she continued to need to be bottle
fed. She seemed unable to learn how to even swallow baby food.
Because she just did not grow, the same clothes continued to fit her,
with no problems of suddenly being outgrown.
Janet was slightly annoyed that her new daughter required a bottle
every night and sometimes in the middle of the night, but she had to
accept it as part of having a baby. She was able to use her infant
like honey draws flies. There were plenty of good looking guys to
choose from; especially when they knew that they were not being
considered as 'daddy material'.
Janet took great pleasure in dressing her daughter in the most frilly,
girly clothes. At first, David, as Sarah, had kicked and cried at
being dressed as a baby and being only able watch his wife enjoy the
company of other men. When Sarah would begin to fuss, Janet would just
shove the special pacifier into her mouth. The moment the pacifier was
in, it was like a gauze curtain was drawn between David's thoughts and
Sarah's baby brain.
From the time Janet had brought Sarah home from the gypsy's store,
David had had a vague awareness that something was not quite right. He
already knew that he was much smaller and weaker than Janet and he was
unable to even form words to speak. When he tried to communicate with
Janet to ask her what had happened to him, nothing intelligible came
out. In his frustration, cried like an infant and became the baby girl
Janet wanted and she would plug his mouth with the damned pacifier and
he would seem to go away somewhere. He hated feeling like an observer
in his own body. As time went on, David came to learn that acting like
a baby girl meant that he could remain lucid for a period of time.
Over time, David's resistance to being treated like a baby girl faded.
It was not so much that his spirit had been broken, but that he
realized that he had no power over what his, now her, life had become.
Instead of fighting his transformation and trying to continue to be
David, who had been transformed into a baby girl, he allowed himself to
relax and become Sarah, the baby girl who had been David.
Once Sarah stopped fighting Janet's treatment, the fun went out of it
for her. She still dressed Sarah in soft, pink dresses and tied
ribbons into her curly hair to make her look cute for church services
and parties, but she started spending less time with Sarah. The live-
in nanny she hired took more responsibility and control in the nursery
as Janet's presence faded.
Because she always seemed to have meetings at work, Janet would never
take Sarah to her pediatrician appointments, so she had the nanny take
her instead. The doctors were always concerned with Sarah's apparent
lack of growth but were satisfied with her overall health. What
concerned Janet was that the doctors wanted to do some tests to find
out why the child was not developing normally. Finally, she would just
cancel appointments or decline to make them when the office called. It
cut down on the hassle.
The potion had worked as Janet wanted, to a greater extent than she had
expected. She just had not anticipated that it would take much longer
to toilet train her daughter. At three, Sarah was still crawling and
had shown no signs of learning to walk and her mental development was
as slow as the rest of her body. Janet thought nothing of it; she let
the nanny deal with it. Sarah didn't notice anything anyway. His
entire universe had shrunk to be the nursery.
Nanny was around all of the time, but Sarah was always happy to see
Mommy when she came home from work and played for an hour or two.
Eventually though, the novelty of having a cute baby girl wore off. If
Janet had thought about it, it was rather similar to having a pet.
They both needed to be fed and cleaned on a regular basis. Janet's
visits to the nursery became less frequent and shorter in duration.
Sarah became ever more attached to her nanny.
Janet enjoyed having her transformed husband as her daughter. At one
time, she had felt some guilt about turning him into a baby girl, but
that faded over time. Her sense of righteousness solidified such that
she actually believed that he had tried to trap her into motherhood and
he deserved what she had done to him. She took great pride in showing
off her daughter to her dates and dressing her in most girly clothes
she could find. It was just too bad that David couldn't comprehend his
situation like she wanted him to.
Being an attractive woman, she was often out to dinner or drinks.
Quite often, she would bring one of those dates back to her bedroom.
Because the nursery was next to the master bedroom, Sarah often heard
the noise of their lovemaking. At first it upset her, she wasn't sure
why her mother making those noises made her tummy hurt, and it just
felt wrong.
Over time it no longer meant anything to Sarah or distressed her and
Janet just started leaving the nursery door closed. There was no
longer any fun in making it clear to her husband that he was being
cuckolded when it made no impression upon him. David hadn't manifested
in Sarah's behavior in a very long time. He appeared to be gone. Even
when Janet would hold up pictures of David to remind him of his lost
life in an attempt to get a reaction, Sarah failed to react.
* * * * *
By the time Sarah reached school age, calendar-wise, her development
barely matched that of a four year-old. Janet was more than a little
annoyed that the public school system would not take her daughter
because they felt that she was developmentally disabled. The effects
of the age potion had finally run out though.
This was something that Janet had not anticipated as well as the fact
that she had aged five years while Sarah did not appear to have done
so. She was approaching forty years of age and she had a baby that she
would have to put into pre-school until the child had caught up a
little. Once more, Janet's self-centered personality came into play as
she somehow felt that it was Sarah's fault that she could not attend
school with children her own age. Janet now had to bear the stigma of
being the mother of a mentally handicapped child.
To add to her annoyance, the lines and bags on her face were becoming
more pronounced, which was a byproduct of her partying, smoking, and
drinking. It had not escaped her notice that she was no longer one of
the first fillies cut out of herd at dinner parties and the invitations
to dinner and drinks were becoming less frequent. The fact that she
was now a vice-president in the marketing department helped to gloss
over the facts though.
Janet's visits to the nursery had already tapered to a couple of times
a week, but now they became a once-in-a-while occasion. Sarah was
thrilled to see her mother each time and never really noticed how
seldom she actually was seeing her mother. It did hurt Sarah to have
Janet speak to her like she was an idiot, even though she wanted her
mother's attention so desperately. What hurt her feelings was what
Janet would say to the nanny right in front of her.
"Is she still stupid?" I'm glad that she's finally toilet-trained
though. Buying those disposable diapers was killing the budget." Her
voice conveyed the sneer of disdain that her expression did not.
Sarah understood everything, even though she was unable to communicate
clearly with the adults around her. It was almost as if her ability to
control her body had been scrambled in some way. Even though her
mother didn't talk nice about her, she was sure that her mommy still
loved her. The nanny told her so.
Something strange happened to Sarah one night sometime after Janet's
visit. Her mother had brought another boyfriend home and had gone into
the master bedroom.
Sarah's control over her body had progressed rapidly to the point where
she was able to get out of bed to go potty in the middle of the night.
This had been heralded by nanny as a major milestone because it meant
that Sarah could finally where panties to bed instead of a pull-up.
When Sarah heard grunts and moans coming from her mother's room, she
had slipped out of bed and gone into the hall. Her mother's door was
open and she went to look in to make sure that the man she had seen
come in was not hurting her mother.
What she saw shook her. Janet was kneeling over a man in bed. Janet's
back was to her, but it was obvious that she and the man in bed with
her were completely unclothed. From where she stood, she could not see
what was happening.
She felt something welling up inside her, whether it was from her belly
or somewhere in her head, it felt like pushing and squeezing at the
same time. Just as it seemed that the feeling would turn into pain, it
stopped.
At that moment, David found himself standing at the hallway door of his
wife's bedroom and she performed oral sex on a stranger. Everything
that had happened to him from the time he had been magically
transformed into a baby girl until this moment came crashing into his
baby-sized mind.
The claims made by experts that infants see and remember everything are
true. But Sarah's mind was not equipped to have David's mind and
memories suddenly sharing the same space. The result was a little girl
suddenly crying out at seeing her mother doing something strange in bed
with someone else. Sarah's crying interrupted Janet's animal pleasure
and made her turn around to see her daughter in the door.
Janet took her time turning around and going to the door. Her
boyfriend of the week covered himself with a sheet as he claimed that
it creeped him out to have a little girl seeing his junk. Janet did
not bother covering herself as she silently picked her daughter up and
carried her back to the nursery. Putting Sarah back to bed and
covering her, she leaned over and said, "Did you enjoy that? I know
that it was good for me."
She smiled with pleasure at knowing that David might not be completely
gone and she closed the door firmly behind her. She made a mental note
to have some pointed words with the nanny. As much as she had taken
pleasure in cuckolding her former husband, she didn't like being
interrupted while she was doing it. The nanny would make sure that it
did not happen again or else.
Janet stopped into the nursery the next day and spoke to the nanny.
Sarah acted no differently than she had been before last night. It was
like the child had suffered a flashback and then forgotten that it ever
happened. Still, Janet gave instructions that her daughter was to be
dressed in her girliest outfits and only allowed to play with her
dolls. The nanny was horrified that the little girl would line her
dolls up in their frilly dresses and pretend that they were soldiers.
Thankfully, she only played that way for a few days and she stopped
playing with her dolls altogether after that.
School officials had suggested that Janet enroll her daughter in a pre-
school program for the disabled to see if it might help her
development. It was completely a coincidence that Sarah was in pre-
school for an extra year while the effects of the potion wore off
completely.
As Mrs. Ramirez had warned, Sarah began to develop rapidly and caught
up with her age group in both size and intellectual ability. Her
progress was astounding in comparison with her classmates. As she
gained more control over her body, Sarah was able think and communicate
more clearly. When she started reading a child's picture book without
difficulty, everyone began to suspect that she did not belong in the
program and the school agreed to put her into the final half-year of
kindergarten.
Janet attended a few of the school functions that a parent is invited
to, just to show that she was an attentive mother, but she felt that
this was an intrusion upon her life. More than once, she regretted her
transformation of her husband. If she were still married to David, she
could have left him with their daughter and she could have had a life.
But she had saddled herself with a child, even if it used to be her
husband. Her position with the company prevented her from abandoning
Sarah at an orphanage, she was stuck being a mother.
One of things that continued to annoy Janet over the years was Sarah's
occasional questions about her father. All of her friends had a father
of some form in their lives; she was one of the few who did not. All
Janet would tell her is that she did not know who Sarah's father was.
She had been adopted when she was just an infant, she shouldn't worry
about it. She just had a mother now.
* * * * *
The girl grew so rapidly that she was as big as her fellow students
when she finally started first grade. Her early years were a grind;
everything seemed to be so easy. She was a beautiful child. Where
Janet was blond and freckled from too much sun, Sarah was in direct
contrast with jet black hair and porcelain white skin. It never seemed
to matter how much time she spent in the sun though, she never burned
or even tanned. She went through the chubby period all children seem
to experience, but she finally came out of it looking tall and somewhat
willowy. Of course, the boys would catch up to her in height within a
year or two.
But the boys noticed her and more than one tried to chat her up and be
more than friends. When Sarah related how nice the boys were to her
and how much fun they were was to talk with to Janet, a couple of phone
calls to the boys' parents after Sarah was in bed scotched that. The
rumors got around to the other boys that it wasn't worth the trouble to
try to be friends with Sarah.
She barely noticed that the boys were giving her a wide berth. Janet
had decided that her daughter would do all of the things that she
herself had wanted to do when she was growing up. Sarah found herself
signed up for music and ballet lessons. She did everything she could
to win her mother's approval and worked hard at her lessons.
That is not to say that Sarah disliked the piano or ballet, it was just
that between them and school, she barely had time to do anything for
herself. Sarah really had no personal time to be social with friends
anyway. Her days were taken up with school, school work, or her
various lessons. But Janet still expected her daughter to attend the
house parties that she still hosted, to help with the guests or to
entertain them. Janet had no concerns about whether Sarah could sleep
with the noise of those parties.
Of course, Janet did not take her to lessons or attend recitals, this
all fell to the nanny. The nannies had started to be replaced each
year, but Sarah never knew why. The result was that Sarah had no one
to become close to. This was actually intentional on Janet's part.
Someone at work had pointed out to her that by not spending time with
Sarah, she was forcing her daughter to look for affection and
friendship from the nanny. Janet started replacing the nanny each year
so that this did not happen. The nanny just became another fleeting
person in Sarah's life.
Sarah was never allowed to play at someone else's house and her friends
were never allowed into her house. The only time saw her friends at
school. She was also never allowed to sleepover at a friend's house.
Janet was very paranoid about allowing her daughter much freedom.
Visiting with friends was only one example of this. Things got worse
as Janet's social activities waned and she would read Sarah's mail and
email.
When Sarah discovered that her mother was reading the things she was
writing in her diary, she stopped using the diary. After all, she
didn't want her mother reading some of her private thoughts and
desires. Instead, she fooled her mother by keeping a fake diary where
she entered banal entries. It was harder to be able to hide her
emails. She resorted to using a new email address that she only used
at school. It wasn't the best arrangement, but it was less
embarrassing.
Janet was an indifferent mother at best and a cruel one at the worst.
Sarah would bring home a picture she had worked hard on or an art
project made especially for her mother. Janet's only response was to
point out what was wrong with it and tell her how it could have been
done better. There was seldom a 'Thank You' and never a compliment.
* * * * *
It had been years since Janet's transformation of David and the curse
upon David finally came to end. Sarah had completed the development
her early years had only hinted at. She was as tall as her mother now
and her girlish appearance had filled out to reveal a pretty young
woman in her early teens. The boys had started hanging around her
again, but they were always put off by her telling them that her mother
would not let her date, so they moved on to the next girl.
The years of growing up with Janet had not affected her disposition in
the slightest. She almost always had a friendly look on her face and
laughed easily. The one thing that had come of her early years was
that she never met a person who did not start out as a friend. She had
endured so much rejection that she could not show that behavior in
herself. That isn't to say that she actually recognized any kind of
rejection from her mother. Sarah knew her mother loved her, she just
did not show it very well. Why else would she have provided her with
the nannies that stood in for her? Sure, she wasn't always polite and
she didn't always show a lot of appreciation sometimes, but that was
just how her mother was.
She was sitting in her bedroom window seat watching it rain on another
lonely weekend afternoon. She'd just been informed that she would be
attending an all-girls boarding school two states away at the start of
her seventh school year. She would be living at school for the next 4
to 5 years, except for visits home on holidays.
What had resulted was the first major conflict between mother and
daughter. In the past, Sarah had quietly and happily done whatever her
mother demanded of her. This time however, Sarah had rebelled. She
did not want to go off to some boarding school and leave what friends
she had made at school. She had actually been hoping for more freedom
now that she was starting high school. Boarding school threatened to
take any freedom at all away.
Janet didn't care that Sarah would be leaving friends and everything
that was familiar to her. She wasn't even trying to be cruel. Sarah
was just in the way around the house and sending her off to a school
would allow her to get an education without having her underfoot at
home. Sarah had no say in the matter and Janet threatened to put her
in juvie if she couldn't control her daughter.
Sarah's will to fight had collapsed at that threat. There were rumors
around school about kids who had been sent to Juvie School for a year
or more. The boy or girl that came out was not the same person who
went in. It was like they were always afraid after that. They didn't
laugh and they didn't try to make friends with people. No one she knew
had ever seen one of those kids though.
After the argument was over, she had sent Sarah to her room and said
that she had some paperwork to finish. Sarah curled her knees under
her and leaned back, feeling very lonely. Even though she was
accustomed to her mother's distant behavior, she still continued to
hope that things would change.
She wasn't like this when Sarah had been David.
That thought brought Sarah up short. What did that mean? Where had
that weird thought come from? She frowned as she considered it. As
she thought more about it, more memories started floating up, some of
them incomprehensible at the start. It was difficult for a thirteen
year-old girl to understand much of memories that suddenly were
flooding into her mind. It was like watching a movie stuck in fast-
forward.
Being a boy and growing up with a mother and a father. Going to school
and college. Playing on the basketball team. Kissing a girl. Having
sex with a girl. Marrying Janet. Having sex with Janet. Being
changed into a baby girl by Janet.
At first, it seemed like some kind of dream. Maybe it was because she
was growing up; after all she had her first period just last week. The
nanny had to show her what to do, even though Sarah had been through
the health classes at least twice at school. Her mother hadn't
expressed any interest in the event, even though it was a major rite of
passage for a girl.
The memories were almost overwhelming as they washed over her. A
lifetime of memories, some of them not suited for a girl her age had to
be absorbed in mere moments. The more she reviewed them, the more real
they were to her. There was a name that stood out?David Prince. That
name felt so familiar and right. Something that said?Me.
When it was over, Sarah felt both warm and happy and also cold and
alone. David had had a happy life and he had loved his wife very much.
But the love of his life had turned out to be anything but that. The
woman who claimed to be her mother was, in fact, the wife. The wife
who had claimed to love David had tried to destroy him instead. Sarah
hopped off the window seat and went over to her computer desk. She
decided to see what the internet would tell her about men with that
name.
It only took a few minutes to begin read through the search results.
It was a shock to Sarah to find a picture of David Prince that looked
exactly like the man in her memory. The images she had of this man
were not pictures though; they were more like what you would see in a
mirror. Maybe while shaving or brushing your teeth. She found a brief
description of David Prince along with the image. The narrative said
that he had been married to Janet years ago. Apparently, he had
experienced gender confusion and had transitioned into becoming a
woman. He had disappeared years ago.
Shutting down her computer, Sarah reflected that David had become a
woman, at least not in the way the article said he had. All she could
really grasp was that David had become the victim of a witch's curse
and had been changed into Sarah.
She spent the rest of that afternoon sitting in the window, with her
chin on her knees and looking out at the fields. She had cried for
hours when she had accepted the truth. When the tears ran out and
despair set in, she had actually considered ending it all. But the
thought of throwing herself out the window or using a piece of broken
glass to slash her wrists was something she could not get her thoughts
to approach. Even options of a less grisly death did not appeal to
her.
Eventually, anger replaced sorrow and grief. Various plans for revenge
of one form or another went through her mind. Attacking and hurting
Janet would only end up hurting her as well, even if she succeeded.
The other thing that Sarah realized was that hurting or killing herself
would only benefit Janet. It had been obvious for years that Janet had
come to regard Sarah as a bother. Janet was similar to a boy who
pestered his parents for a dog and then became tired of the pet once he
had it. Killing herself would give Janet back her freedom that having
a child took away. Even just hurting herself would let Janet play upon
the sympathy of well-wishers as the mother of an emotionally troubled
daughter.
She finally arrived at the conclusion that the best revenge was to do
well for herself in life. That didn't mean the Janet had to be a part
of that life or that Sarah could not get a modicum of emotional revenge
out of things. Armed with her new knowledge, admittedly knowledge that
was almost a decade and a half old, Sarah smiled as she returned to her
computer and started planning out the course of her new life.
Yes, she had been David Prince. But she was Sarah Prince now, she
didn't know why Janet had not divorced David and taken her own name
back. Sarah's life had been changed by some sort of magic and David
was gone, but it was not like he had never lived. He was her and she
was him.
This was a unique situation where her psyche was a blend of male and
female. With some thought, she would have an insight that no one else
possessed, the possibilities were almost endless. Rather than regret
what had been done to David, Sarah planned to celebrate it. She had a
chance at a new life and was determined to take advantage of it and not
make the same mistakes David made the first time around.
She found it relatively easy to change her viewpoint and see things as
David. He knew that things should be distressing. Here he was, in the
body of a thirteen year-old girl, but he couldn't find it within
himself / herself to be freaked out about this. The more he
contemplated his life as Sarah, the more he realized that he had been
with Sarah all of the time. The years together had allowed them to
meld into a single person. The absence of David's memories had
prevented him from overpowering the person that Sarah had become.
It was more comfortable to be Sarah than to hold on to the David that
was gone. She found that she actually liked being a girl. From the
things that Janet had said to Sarah as an infant, this was not the
intended result. Janet had wanted David to be aware of what she had
done to him because she wanted him to suffer and force him to deal with
being a woman. The reason escaped her though. Perhaps she just found
it amusing to make him into the baby so that she would not have to deal
with the pregnancy. Or perhaps she wanted him to understand the loss
of her looks and figure in the same way that Janet was now.
Whatever the reason, Janet had no concern about how David would have
felt about the transformation or if his psyche / personality remained.
Then she realized that Janet had come to the conclusion that David had
faded away within Sarah and that was why she had given up trying to
torment him. Janet just had not realized that the second spell she had
purchased from the witch had just made it difficult for David to
express himself. As a result, David had relaxed and gone with the flow
while he had grown up and become Sarah. David had been protected all
this while. He had been aware of things as they happened and allowed
himself to meld into the mind that he was already a part of.
Allowing Janet to know that she remembered her old life and what she
had done would probably be very unwise. While she now possessed the
memories and skills of someone twice her age, she was still a thirteen
year-old girl and subject to the control of her mother. Even though
she had been adopted by Janet, she could do nothing. Barring proof of
some kind of abuse, Sarah was bound to Janet until she was an adult.
Once past that hurdle, she would be free and Janet would have no
authority over her.
In his former life, David had been an accountant, but she decided that
she did not want to walk the same path this time around. Perhaps it
had been the treatment she had undergone as David and then growing up
as Sarah that made her see things differently but she had found herself
with a deep empathy for people. As a result, she wanted to make life
better for people and decided to look into a medical career, perhaps a
surgeon.
There were government programs that would actually subsidize her
education if she elected to pursue a medical profession. This fit in
with her overall plan as she did not expect much assistance from Janet.
She had put her plot for retribution into motion that night of David's
return.
* * * * *
The boarding school and finishing school Janet had shipped her off to
had actually been good for Sarah, especially as it had been an all-girl
school. Her experience with boys had been limited to seeing them in
school before she had come here. She had been very fortunate that the
ladies in charge had made sure that that part of their education had
been addressed as if it were another part of the curriculum. The girls
who graduated from this institution would be well equipped to deal with
the male of the species when they got out in the world. Alumni were
taught how to be well-behaved ladies and were comfortable in any social
situation.
Most of the regular coursework was the information that every school
threw at their students and expected them to memorize. Sarah could
still remember it all from David's life and she excelled on every quiz
and exam. While this could have made her the unpopular, brainy girl
for blowing the grading curve, her friendly personality and willingness
to help others learn the material served to make her far more friends
than enemies.
Being a girl with the memories of a man in his late twenties was a bit
strange at times. She had been a bit uncomfortable the first couple of
times she had to shower with twenty-five other girls, some of whom were
pretty good looking. When she realized that she was being checked out
by a couple of the other girls, she realized how she was coming across
to some of them and she relaxed.
She had long ago come to terms with her new sexuality and found that
being a girl was okay. She was just a girl with something extra...an
alternate mind that remembered what it was like to have been a guy. It
came in handy as well.
One of her friends spent the evening crying her eyes out on the couch
in the common room. Her boyfriend at home had sent her a Dear Jane
letter and she was very upset. Sarah had spent that evening passing
her tissues and listening. The advice she had the girl helped as well.
She explained that boys at that age are just looking for someone to be
with and they are not mature enough to handle having their girl away at
school.
Sarah quickly gained a reputation for being able to give advice on all
manner of subjects. Things like how to handle a boy when all they seem
to want is sex or how to get along with someone they didn't really
like. David's experiences were not always the best to draw, but they
did give Sarah perspective.
Having friends was another wonderful thing about boarding school and
Sarah suspected that Janet hadn't realized that Sarah would be able to
make friends. Prior to shipping her off to school, Janet had kept
Sarah practically insulated from the company of her peers outside of
attending school. The result was that she had no true friends at home
at all, but she had loads of friends and acquaintances at school. Life
here at school had started out as good from the get-go and had gotten
better from there.
Sarah's visits home on holidays and long breaks became interesting.
She kept her contacts with Janet to a minimum, while it seemed that
Janet wanted her around more. Sarah even spent one Thanksgiving alone
at school rather than go home for the holiday. It seemed that after
Sarah had left for school, Janet had found herself in the unenviable
position of becoming a cougar in order to get some companionship. When
she found a candidate who was young enough and had enough stamina to
keep up with her, her boy toy became part of the household.
One of Janet's conquests was a stud named Rick who stuck around longer
than most and was around for the first couple of summers Sarah had come
home from school, but she never really had contact with him. His whole
attention was focused on Janet, which was where the money was. And
then Rick was just gone when she had come home for the Christmas break.
Janet never spoke of him and Sarah did not ask. It took her a while to
figure it, but when she did it was a surprise.
Janet was lonely.
The letters from Janet had been infrequent for the first couple of
years and never shared any of Janet's plans or activities.
Interestingly enough, letters started coming every other week or so
about the same time Sarah figured out Janet's situation. The tone of
the letters changed somewhat as well, as if Janet was reaching out to
Sarah for something.
Since her revelation or awakening of having been David, Sarah no longer
connected the concept of motherhood with Janet, rather, Mother was
merely Janet's honorary title and Sarah thought of her with either that
label or her name. Sarah's mother had been a series of nannies, some
of whom she remembered fondly, who educated her about growing up.
Sarah still sent cards to them on Mother's day. Everything else Sarah
had learned at school. It gave her a little satisfaction to know that
Janet was in her current situation.
Janet probably thought that Sarah's polite distance was due to the
emotional upset of being sent away to school. Sarah still gave Janet a
hug when she came home and when she left for school again. Sarah
always addressed her as Ma'am or Mother (with a capital M), which Janet
loved because it sounded so refined. Being called Mom or Mommy was
immature and low-brow. She didn't connect the formal address and just
more distance between them.
Janet's letters seemed to communicate a whining tone as she complained
about a maid or handyman she had hired for the house. She complained
about being lonely and not having anything to do socially. She was
still a vice-president in the company, but financial cutbacks had seen
her opportunities to date and party drop off. There was only a single
line in a letter that expressed any interest in Sarah. There were no
questions about how classes were going, if she liked them, what
activities she was involved in, did she have any boys she was
interested in. Just a lone question: How are you? Even that was
unusual as Janet had never even asked that before in a letter.
With the start of her final year in school, she decided to put her plan
for revenge into motion. The additional years between David's
awakening and this point in time had allowed her to think through her
plot and to refine it. She sat down to compose a letter to her mother
telling her about a project that she would be working on that term.
The letter, in and of itself, was not unusual. Sarah had dutifully
written a letter each week to her mother.
Even though her feelings for Janet as both a daughter and as a husband
were numbed, Janet still represented some continuity in her life.
Until such time that she found someone special that she wanted in her
life, Janet would suffice as someone to communicate with. But never to
confide in, Janet had forfeited any right to that.
In her letter, Sarah described what her project involved. As a
presentation intended to help her to compete for a medical school
scholarship, she intended to trace her genealogy and medical history.
She closed out her letter by asking Janet for any information regarding
her adoption, and her biological parents and their medical history.
She smiled as she wrote those lines, knowing that there was no
paperwork about Janet becoming her mother. Sarah assured Janet that it
didn't matter if she could not find the adoption papers as she had
already requested the same information from the state and county.
This was intended to essentially frighten Janet with the possibility
that she might have to explain to Sarah and the authorities as to how
Sarah had come into her custody. When it became apparent that there
was no documentation about an adoption and Sarah's DNA profile had
nothing in common with Janet, the next step would be to accuse her of
kidnapping.
What made it feel especially gratifying was that Janet would have to
essentially stew in her own juices because she would be unable to pick
up a phone and call Sarah. While some students smuggled phones in,
standard policy was to funnel phone contact through the administration.
Of course, the age of computers made phones obsolete for those who knew
how to use Skype. Janet had never bothered to communicate with Sarah
by anything other than mail, so that would be the only way she would be
able to express herself.
Of course, she could always place an emergency call to Sarah. Which is
what she did. The postal service took the average amount of time to
deliver her letter to Janet. Sarah knew that the letter had arrived
because she was called to the administration office one morning where
she waited for Janet to phone.
Janet never wasted time on pleasantries when speaking to Sarah and the
phone call began the same way.
"Sarah, I'm concerned about this research project that you wrote me
about." She wasn't shouting, but Sarah could feel the tenseness in how
Janet spoke.
"Hello Mother," Sarah said. She was getting pretty much the reaction
she had been hoping for and intended to enjoy it. After all, it was
almost twenty years since David had been transformed and Janet had
taken a perverse pleasure in trying to torture the girl he had become.
"Is there some problem with my project?"
"You say that you are going to trace your genealogy and find your birth
parents," Janet said carefully. "All the paperwork from your adoption
has been long since filed away. It would take a long time to find it.
"Mother, the days of never knowing who an adopted child's parents are
long gone. I have the legal right to know where I came from. All I
need to know is what agency you used and when I was adopted." It gave
Sarah some pleasure knowing that using words like 'my parents' would be
painful to Janet. Janet still thought of herself as Sarah's mother,
even though she had never tried to act the part.
"I just don't like the idea that you might put all your time and
efforts into trying to find your parents only to be disappointed. I
want you to find a different project."
This was typical behavior for Janet to try to dictate to her, even when
she had little control over her now. Sarah let the air out of Janet's
bluster when she said, "I can't Mother. I have already submitted my
project proposal and it has been accepted. I can't change it now
without being disqualified."
She was rewarded with silence on Janet's end. "Chew on that, bitch!"
were the thoughts that went through mind as she waited for Janet to say
something. If Janet tried to force her to give up the project, she
would be faced with the fact that Sarah might not earn a scholarship at
all. She could then find herself somehow forced to help Sarah with her
advanced education.
If Sarah continued with her project, the truth that Sarah had not
actually been adopted and Sarah's very beginnings would be
investigated. The transformation of a man was into a baby girl is
impossible, so there would be the suspicion of kidnapping and possible
murder. Because no one had reported a kidnapping, it was possible that
Janet had attacked a pregnant woman to steal her baby. There had been
cases like that in the news recently and Sarah was sure that Janet was
astute enough to realize the possibilities.
Sarah let the silence go on for a few more moments before she said,
"I'm sorry Mother, I have to get back to class. Don't worry; it will
be a great project. You'll see." The delivery of those final two
words had an ominous tone to them, like they were some kind of threat.
She hung up the receiver and pushed the phone back to the secretary.
She thanked her with a smile and left the office.
She headed off to her next class humming with happiness. She had never
enjoyed a conversation with Janet more. The letter she composed to
Janet a day or two later contained even more material to bother Janet.
Sarah explained all about how her project would work. She knew that
most of what she talked about would make Janet's eyes glaze over with
the details that she put in. She did make it clear that she planned on
doing comparisons of various DNA samples and writing about her
findings. She dropped a bit of a bomb on Janet when she said that, in
addition to her own and Janet's samples, she planned on getting samples
from various strangers. The goal of her project was to show the
similarities between strangers.
Before this letter could reach Janet, Sarah left school for the weekend
on a field trip. As a senior and because of her age, she was able to
leave the campus for the weekend by just signing out. She gave her
destination as New York for the purposes of shopping.
David's parents actually lived in a suburb of New York and she had
already verified that his parents were still alive. She had funds
saved from over the years and she was able to afford a train ticket to
close to where William and Estelle Prince lived.
While Sarah had looked her former parents up on the computer several
times and knew exactly where they lived, she had never tried to contact
them. What could she possibly say to them? She couldn't tell them
that she was actually their son. That truth would be just too
incredible to expect anyone to believe. To them, David had disappeared
years before and was assumed to be dead. The stories Janet had told
about him had been hurtful to say the least. Sarah did not want to
cause them any more pain than they had already endured.
Now that she stood on the street she had grown up on so many years ago,
she felt nostalgia more than she did any kind of fear or uncertainty.
William and Estelle were past being middle-aged and approaching being
considered elderly, so she was sure that they were at home. Her
anonymity as Sarah gave her confidence as she walked up to the door
carrying her purse and a sample case.
The door was answered after a minute or two by a white-haired woman who
looked remarkably healthy for the age that Sarah knew that she was.
Estelle could only stare at Sarah for almost half a minute before she
blinked and spoke.
"I'm sorry young lady," she said. "You bear a striking resemblance to
my son. He disappeared so many years ago. Who was your father?"
Sarah smiled a bit uncertainly. She hadn't really considered this kind
of conversation. She knew that she bore more than a passing
resemblance to David Prince, but she had not considered how that might
affect her contact with David's parents. All she could do was try to
keep from hurting them any more than Janet had hurt them so many years
ago.
"I don't know ma'am," she answered. "My mother has told me repeatedly
that I'm adopted. I saw an article about my adopted mother's husband
and I thought that I saw a resemblance. I'm doing a research project
at school on genetics and I had the idea of testing my DNA and yours to
see what the results might be."
Sarah actually wasn't sure what the results of the tests would be. She
was sure that she still had David's DNA, at least to a certain degree,
but didn't know what it would show. Would it show that she was
completely William and Estelle's child or would it show her to be David
and Janet's child? She dearly wanted to embrace the woman in front of
her and comfort her. Sarah hadn't realized until this moment how much
she had missed her parents for all of these years. The grief she felt
at that loss was a sick knot in her stomach and she fought back the
surge of sadness that swept through her.
"Of course, dear," Estelle said as she ushered Sarah into the parlor.
"I would love to find out that I had a long-lost grand-daughter. Did
you say that you do not know who your parents are?"
"Yes ma'am," Sarah replied. "My mother has told me several times that
I am adopted and one of the things that my project will do is to
attempt to determine who might my birth parents might have been."
"What do you need to do then?" Estelle asked. The thought of possibly
finding her son or his children gave her hope that had died years ago.
Sarah quickly described the procedure that she needed to go through to
gather her samples and proceeded to collect Estelle's contribution to
her project. The two of them sat together in the family room that
Sarah remembered from his youth and just chatted. It had been decades
since David had been in this room, talking to his mother. Sarah heard
stories about David that she had never known, as David.
The love Estelle had for her son was in every word she spoke about him
and the longing to know what had happened to him was there too. Sarah
wanted so much to tell Estelle that her son was sitting right in front
of her, just changed into a school girl, but she couldn't possibly tell
that story without sounding like some kind of gold digger.
A couple of hours later, there were sounds in the back of the house and
David's father appeared at the kitchen door. He still had the look of
a hale and hearty man, even at his age, and his brown hair had turned
completely gray. When William came into the family room where the
girls were his eyes widened in shock and his mouth dropped open as he
saw Sarah.
As his eyes went between Estelle and Sarah, his wife stood and went to
pull him into the room. After she settled him onto a couch, she
explained the purpose of Sarah's visit. Sarah had to explain to her
father that she had been adopted by Janet and that she was not
presenting herself as their relation at all. She did not know who her
parents were, but that she hoped to find out who they were.
When they heard who Sarah's adopted mother was, Sarah's former parents
reacted with anger. It turned out that Janet had been less than
friendly with them when they had tried to find out where their son had
disappeared to and she had been offensive when she spoke of David.
Their distrust of Sarah declined greatly when she described her
childhood years and her mother's behavior. William was happy to add
his tissue sample to his wife's, after getting Sarah's promise to share
the results of her science project with them.
Sarah had to decline their invitation to stay for dinner as she had to
return to school. They did exact her promise to stay in contact and to
visit for dinner soon.
Only when she was in her seat for the trip back to school did she give
into her tears. They had been building all day in her belly like some
sort of stomach cramp that grew tighter as her time with her former
parents had gone on. It hurt to see how they had aged, because they
had still looked young when she had seen them last. Now they looked
ten years older than they really were, almost certainly because of
David's absence from their lives.
She cried for the loss of her parents, the loss of David, and her own
loss of the love of Janet. Even though her memories as David had come
back to her years before, this was the first time she had actually felt
the pain of it. She wished that she could give them some kind of
closure, even a decades-old skeleton would help.
Her anger and hate at Janet for her selfish actions flared again. She
wished that she could hurt her as much as she had hurt the people
around her. But the more she thought about her plan for revenge, the
more it came home to her that she was making herself into the woman who
had been his wife and was now her mother.
Yes, she could go through with the whole scheme to frame Janet for
kidnapping a baby and raising it as her own daughter and, maybe, frame
her for David's murder. Her transformation of David into Sarah was
exactly like murder, the only difference was that David as a person
died in order for Sarah to come to life. But she didn't want turn
herself into a version of Janet though. It was quite apparent that the
woman had never loved David and considered Sarah to be a burden.
After a couple of hours of crying and mopping up tears, Sarah's new
course of action became clear to her. She would complete her senior
project and earn the scholarship she wanted. But she would not use it
to attack Janet. If the woman was upset about what she was doing, it
was too bad as she could not do anything to stop her. She would at
least enjoy that amount of discomfort.
Her project called for several different donors of DNA and then an
analysis of the results. She had long ago secured a sample from Janet,
so she had what she needed from everyone involved in this particular
tragedy. She planned on gathering many more as she didn't think that
using her own parents was necessarily wise.
Sarah had no idea what a comparison of her own DNA with David's parents
would show. Would they show that she was actually their daughter
instead of their son? Or would she be David and Janet's daughter? Or
would she be unrelated to them all?
There were two things that she was absolutely sure of: she had no
intention of telling William and Estelle that she was somehow related
to them and she also had no intention of maintaining a relationship
with Janet after she completed this final year of schooling.
If she told William and Estelle that she was their granddaughter, she
didn't want people accusing her of playing on an old couple's hope. It
didn't help her decision that Sarah had recently read 'Anastasia'. She
would have to give her decision more thought. She knew that they would
be thrilled if she could prove that she was related to them and she
really would like her parents back in her life as well.
* * * * *
Janet's letters had been coming every week now. Their tone had shifted
a bit as she was now concerned about Sarah's project. She still wanted
her to drop it, but could not do much as Sarah essentially ignored the
subject in the letters that she sent back. That annoyed Janet in each
of her letters. There were other complaints in Janet's letters though,
illustrating that the woman was feeling lonely and alone. The only way
she could express that was by complaining about the staff around the
house or about her work.
Sarah had long ago dropped the plan of proving that adoption papers
were a fiction and forcing Janet to explain how she had become Sarah's
guardian / parent. That hadn't kept Sarah from taking a shot every
once in a while by stating that she was still waiting for the state or
county to respond to her request for information about her adoption.
The results of her research project were almost anti-climactic. Using
a collection of samples, Sarah was able to hide the results for
herself, Janet, and her former parents. Those tests were not part of
the report she submitted. There were projects that were just as
impressive as hers was, but Sarah was awarded the scholarship on the
merits of the analysis of her samples.
Janet made an appearance at the awards banquet, being her typical
narcissistic self. When it had become apparent to her that nothing was
going to come from Sarah's requests for documentation of her adoption,
she had relaxed again.
She had been seated at the table with Sarah and two others students
with their families. Conversation between Sarah and Janet was polite,
but limited. Janet had always managed to turn Sarah's victories into a
triumph of her own, almost as if to say that she was directly
responsible for Sarah's success. Sarah had experienced Janet's
behavior for years and allowed Janet to have her day in the sun as she
intended for it to be the last time.
After the presentations and dinner was over, Sarah bid her mother a
polite and brief good night before leaving the hall. She would be
graduating in a few more days and leaving the school after that and she
did not plan on returning to the house she had grown up in. Typically,
Janet could not let her go without acting like the proud stage mother.
"Well! Sending you to this school was a good decision. You've won a
full scholarship to start you on your medical education," Janet said as
Sarah turned to go. The tone of her voice conveyed her satisfaction
that she was happy that she would not have to fight about paying for
Sarah's college education.
"Yes, it was," Sarah as she turned to face her mother. The corridor
was empty, so she was not concerned about anything she might say. "You
won't have to pay for a thing."
"I've noticed that you don't call me Mom or Mother any more Sarah. Why
is that?" Janet's tone seemed to be an attempt at being friendly.
Sarah was immediately on guard as she had seen this behavior before.
It meant that Janet wanted something from her. As much as she did not
want to deal with Janet, she really did not want to fight this evening.
"We've never been that close, especially since I've been here at
school. It's always been obvious that you considered me to be some
kind of burden."
"Well, we can fix that when you come home after your graduation," Janet
said. "I'll be staying in town until you graduate and we can go home
together."
Sarah could see that she was not going to be able to avoid a
confrontation. She'd been imagining what this would be like for a long
time, but she found that actually having a fight with Janet was
something that she wanted to run away from.
"I won't be going with you after graduation. I have an apartment and a
job waiting for me near the college in New York," Sarah said. As much
as she hated the woman, she didn't want to fight with her.
"But I thought that we could get to know each other again," Janet's
voice had a bit of a plaintive tone to it. "I know that you have been
stuck here at school for the past four years and I've missed having you
at home."
Sarah heard the tone in Janet's voice, almost a whine, but there was
something else there as well.
"You haven't had any use for me for years. Are you telling me that I'm
worth being around now because I'm an adult?"
"Of course not Sarah," Janet said, sounding hurt. "I love you and I
always have."
That statement was the final straw and Sarah pulled herself up and back
to look at Janet fully. She just as tall as the older woman was and
she found herself almost nose-to-nose with her.
"Excuse me?" The outrage she felt had her almost rigid with anger.
"You shipped me off to boarding school because I was in the way around
the house. You're crazy if I couldn't see that you wanted me out of
the way while you played with your various boy toys!"
"What's the matter? Haven't you been able to find another teenager to
take to bed?"
"How dare you?" Janet snapped. For a moment, Sarah thought that Janet
wanted to slap her in outrage. "I'm your mother and I expect you to
show me some respect!"
"No Janet," Sarah responded. "You love me just as much as you loved
your husband."
"David?" Janet asked in a surprised voice. "That little faggot!" That
was all she had to say about her former husband. It was as if she had
totally forgotten about what she had done to her own husband.
Sarah finally reached the point where she had to fight back.
"No Janet, David was never gay. He loved you very much, but he didn't
have much in the way of self-confidence."
It was becoming obvious that Janet had come to believe the stories that
she had invented about her husband's disappearance. Maybe it was a
combination of guilt, grief, and alcohol over the years that made her
want to forget the truth. Or maybe repeating the story enough times
made it true to her.
"He left me at the same time that I adopted you. He couldn't handle
the responsibility and he must have decided to go off with his gay
friends."
That was the final straw for Sarah.
"I know exactly what happened to David," Sarah snapped, looking Janet
in the eye. "All of my memories came back a few years ago." She
paused to see Janet's reaction and was rewarded to see that Janet's
eyes widened with a look of fear as she gasped slightly.
"I remember that you were pregnant and I thought that we were both
happy about it. You can't believe how sad it was to find out that you
didn't want to be pregnant and that you actually hated our baby. Did
you know that the spell you got from that gypsy didn't transfer David
into the baby? What happened is that I was made to be the same sex as
our baby would have been and turned into a newborn.
"It's like our daughter never existed. I try to tell myself that her
soul just moved on to another child," Sarah said quietly. She had
grieved for the daughter that never existed several times, but it was
obvious that Janet had never considered just what the magic she had
purchased from the gypsy had actually done.
"I really did wonder if I was the daughter of you and David or just a
feminine version of David," Sarah said. "I compared my DNA with yours
and with David's parents. I don't know how I can tell them that my DNA
says that I'm their daughter and not yours! I have none of your DNA,
which means that the law would assume that I was adopted somehow or
stolen from my birth mother."
Janet had been listening to Sarah's story with her eyes wide and her
mouth open in shock. If she had seen herself in a mirror, the paleness
and lines in her reflection would have made her think of a ghost. She
had never expected to be confronted with the evil that she had
perpetrated on David and appeared to be trying to come up with some
sort of ex