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The Boob Chapter One: I Wake Up "Can you hear me?" Who is that? "Matthew, can you hear me?" It's a woman's voice, but it wasn't anyone I knew. How the hell could there be a woman in McNaughton Hall trying to wake me up anyway? They don't allow women in here. "Can you hear me?" Why can't I open my eyes? For that matter, why the hell can't I feel my arms? Or my legs? "What the hell happened to me!!" I yelled that, and I could hear it, but my voice didn't sound right. "What the hell's going on?" I yelled again. "Oh!" The woman sounded shocked. "Where I am? Who are you?" I asked. "Matthew, you need to calm down. Everything is fine." "If it's fine, why can't I see anything?" "Matthew, it will be best if you let me walk you through this, okay?" I can feel something touch me. A hand. A woman's hand. Her hand, I guess. But what part of me was she touching? It didn't feel like she was touching any part of me that I'd ever felt before, but I could definitely tell she's got her hand on my body. It sort of felt like her hand was on my butt, but it didn't feel like my butt should be up there where she was touching me. Her hand felt good, though. It felt good where she touched me. I think I can trust her. But then, do I have a choice? After all, I can't see, and I can't feel my arms or legs. I have to trust her. "Okay," I said. "I trust you." "Good," she said. "Very good. Let me ask you some questions." "I've got plenty of questions too," I said. "I understand that. I'll do my best to answer them." I didn't like the sound of her voice when she said that. She didn't sound like she was saying: "I'll try to put it in terms stupid enough for a dimwit like you to understand." That would have been annoying, but, at the same time, that tone would have been reassuring in a way, because that would mean she had confidence that she understood what happened to me. Instead her voice sounded more like she was saying: "I don't really know the answers to what happened to you." And when the doctor doesn't know what happened to you, that's scary. Wait, did she say something just now? "What?" I ask. "Your name is Matthew Sanders?" she asked. "Yes." "I'm Dr. Karen Morgan," she said. I relaxed a little. Dr. Morgan. That's something to hold on to. "And you were a junior at Hall J. Kelley University?" she asked. "Yes." HJKU. Oh, my God, that reminded me of something. Dr. Grinblatt! "Was there a dorm fire? Did I get burned? Did my manuscript burn up?" "What?" Dr. Morgan asked. "My manuscript. I was writing a special project for Dr. Grinblatt. 'Tales of Metamorphosis.' I only have the one copy. Did it burn up?" "Oh, no, no," Dr. Morgan said. "There was no fire. Your manuscript was in the room, and it's safe with us." I could hear papers being flipped, like she was looking at a clipboard. "Yes," she said. "We have your manuscript. I haven't read it yet." "Where is here?" I asked. Dr. Morgan sighed. "Central Reserve University's Medical Center." "Oh," I said. Central Reserve University was the big cheese among the colleges in Taylorville. A real snooty place if you ask me. I didn't really like the idea of being here. "Can I be moved someplace else? Other than Central Reserve, I mean." "You're here at Central Reserve because we have the resources for dealing with your special circumstances." Special circumstances. I shivered. I didn't like those words. What did they mean? Is 'special circumstances' the reason why I can't really move? A chill ran through me. It happened, I told myself. It finally happened. I did something wrong, and now I'm blind and paralyzed. Oh, God, maybe I masturbated too much. "What happened to me?" I asked. Dr. Morgan sucked in her breath before answering. "Right now, we're leaning toward calling it a catastrophic hormonal imbalance. That's the consensus." I had no idea what to say. What the hell did those words mean? Catastrophic hormonal imbalance. And consensus of whom? It also would have been nice, real goddam nice, if she spoke those words with some conviction. It almost sounded like this Dr. Morgan didn't really agree with those words she just told me. Finally, she tried again. "Can you still hear me, Matthew? Are you awake?" "I'm awake," I said. "And call me Matt, please." "Matt, you experienced a catastrophic hormonal imbalance." There was that term again. If I had eyes, I would be blinking them like mad right now. "What does that mean, exactly?" I ask. "I don't think I've ever heard that term before." Again, she made that brief sucking noise. Then I heard a noise I didn't understand. Mays she smacked her thigh with the clipboard, I think. "Frankly, it means that we just don't know. We have to say that something happened, rather than simply marking 'unknown' on every chart. What happened to you...." Her voice died away. I wait for an answer. Any answer. "Well, what happened to you was unprecedented in human history." Another deep sigh. "Is the..." I tried to get my head around the word, "the imbalance why I can't see?" "There is very little of your body that is unaffected by the imbalance," Dr. Morgan said. "Can I be cured?" I asked. She rubbed me, but, like before, I couldn't tell what part of me she was rubbing. My body just felt so goddam different. Anyway, I could tell she was going to give me bad news. "I really don't know," she said. "No one does. This is just... so unprecedented." This is it? This is what my life's going to be, just lying here, blind, unable to feel my hands and feet? How long is this going to go on? I had to ask. "How many years do I have?" I asked. Dr. Morgan sighs. "Again, I have to say, we don't know. This is... Nothing like this has happened before." "Am I going to die soon?" "Oh... Your vital signs are, apart from the hormonal imbalance, quite normal for a 20-year-old. In fact, you're pretty healthy for a 20-year- old. So, there's nothing that would lead us to expect less than a normal lifespan." I'm barely twenty. And I'm going to spend fifty years like a nothing, unable to see, to move? I tried to cry, but I couldn't. All I could do was make these stupid moaning sounds that sounded helpless and made me want to kill myself. But I can't kill myself. I can't even feel my arms. Finally, I pulled myself together. I didn't want to look like a total doofus in front of Dr. Morgan. Something suddenly swam to the top of my attention and seemed important, if I was going to spend the rest of my life like this. "Get my manuscript," I say. "Make sure it's safe. I want Dr. Grinblatt to read it. Goddamn it, she has to read it. If I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life, that manuscript's the only legacy I'll ever leave." "We'll take care of it," Dr. Morgan said. Again, she put her hand on me. "We'll take care of you, Matt." Dr. Morgan sounded like she actually cared. And for the first time since waking up, I felt a little hopeful. "Thanks." Chapter Two - My Doom Is Set "You were a student at Hall J. Kelley University?" Dr. Morgan asked, like she was reading questions from a list. "I went to Hall J. Kelley University, a small Catholic college that I could afford thanks to Pell grants and scholarships. It was close to home, and I commuted the first two years." "Why did you pick a Catholic institution?" Dr. Morgan asked. "Because I went to a public high school, and it sucked. I figured anything private would have to be better, and maybe I was so used to being surrounded by, and shunned by, Catholics that I convinced myself that that's what life would be like." If I could shrug, I would shrug. "It started out as more of the same. Good Catholic girls froze me out of any serious relationships, and bad Catholic girls didn't go to HJKU. It was like I walked around in a bubble that everyone else but me could see, and that bubble kept me apart from any romantic involvements." Judy Mitchell sure as hell kept me frozen out of anything interesting, I thought. "Did moving on campus change anything?" Dr. Morgan asked. "Well, all the guys on the floor had been together for two years by the time I moved in. They had picked who they would be friends with, and I was too late to the party." "That doesn't sound good," Dr. Morgan said. "Didn't you get anything out of living on campus?" She flipped through some papers. "You lived in McNaughton Hall? Wasn't there anything good about living there?" I thought about that for a moment, then chuckled. "McNaughton looks like it was designed to be a Gothic monastery. That must be what gave me that idea." "What idea?" "For a story for my metamorphosis book. The first idea I had for the book was about a metamorphosis happening in a Medieval monastery." I sighed. I had started plotting out the whole thing out before my imbalance. Now how the hell could I write those stories if my hands didn't work? Once more, I could feel myself facing down panic. There had to be a way to write those stories. There had to be. I didn't want my stories locked in my head with no way out. They needed to be out there in the world. "Maybe I could dictate that story sometime?" I asked. "Like into a tape recorder?" "That's a possibility," Dr. Morgan said. "But did living on campus change anything?" "No. I was the new guy, and I got frozen out of much of McNaughton's social life. I was pretty much ignored." "Even by your roommate?" "I didn't have a roommate. They remodeled McNaughton a couple years ago. Each guy has his own tiny bedroom, and there's one bathroom for every four bedrooms." "Modern," Dr. Morgan said. "So leaving home meant nothing changed?" "It meant I was out from under mom's thumb and could buy Playboy and other magazines without having to hide them or worry about her catching me. That was good." "So Junior year was a good time for you?" "Almost." I sighed. "What spoiled Junior year was Dr. Grinblatt." "Who's Dr. Grinblatt?" I laughed. It was the biggest laugh I've had since my "incident." "She's a legend at HJKU. She's the only female member of the English Department, and does she stand out in the crowd. She looks like a walking thunderstorm when she crosses the campus; she's dressed in black, her dark hair is streaked with gray, and there's always a cigarette going in the corner of her mouth. She doesn't pal around her with colleagues in the Department much. "The rumor is that she hates male students, but I've never seen any sign she especially likes female students either. Maybe she likes Mrs. Rosen, who's middle-aged and lives two blocks from HJKU. I've seen her talk to Mrs. Rosen once outside the classroom. But I just think Dr. Grinblatt thinks younger people, male or female, are too ignorant to deal with outside a classroom." "Why did she matter to you?" I sighed again. "When I declared English as my major in Freshman year, the computer assigned her to be my advisor." Dr. Morgan made some noise I couldn't decipher. "I hated sitting in her smoke-filled office. She always smoked, even when I was there to do my schedule. I always carefully arranged my schedule to avoid taking her classes. She would take that puke-green piece of paper from my hand, examine it through those thick-lensed glasses she wore at the end of her nose, then look at me, and I knew she saw through me." I rocked from side to side. "She knew I was afraid to take her." I swung from side to side. "The thing was I did want to take a class from her. I knew she had to have a different perspective on things. I mean the books in her office looked really interesting, and I thought that even though I was a guy, maybe I could get her to like me a bit. Maybe I could be the only guy to get an A from Dr. Grinblatt. "But each time I seriously thought about taking a class from her, I'd get scared. I mean really scared, like she would find something in me that would hurt me, or she'd bring something to light in me that I didn't really want to know about. So I would always come up with a schedule that avoided her classes." I sighed. "Then she offered a brand-new class: The Fantastic in Literature. I signed up for it at once." "Why?" "I love fantasy and science fiction, to say nothing of horror, and I fully expected a syllabus filled with Poe, Dunsany, and Tolkien, with Stoker, Lovecraft, and Le Guin tossed in on the side. It would be great, I told myself." I laughed. "But no. Dr. Grinblatt had me in her clutches at last, and, boy, would she make me pay. We read excerpts from The Canterbury Tales, some poets of the Italian Renaissance, a host of Hindu myths, and Gulliver's Travels." "Not what you expected?" "Not in the least. I felt cheated, never more so than when Dr. Grinblatt gave us a list of 20th Century novels for a book report. I looked for the names I knew and loved, and they weren't there. In fact, the only title that leaped out at me was a book I had heard about but never dared read. The Breast by Philip Roth." Dr. Morgan scribbled something. "I don't think I know that one. I didn't know Roth wrote fantasy." "Well, it's a real stinker," I said. "It's about a man who turns into a breast." Dr. Morgan stopped writing. "The local library had a copy, but I never dared check it out. The librarians all knew me, and I was afraid they'd tell my mom. I peeked at it sometimes, however, and I didn't think I was missing much by not reading it." Still no reply from Dr. Morgan. "Okay, I have to be honest, the first chapter is pretty good. This professor, who has no trouble getting women to sleep with him, becomes unusually horny for three weeks, and then he transforms into a breast." Dr. Morgan wrote something. "But the rest of the novel stinks. The guy, the breast, is confined to this hospital bed, since breasts can't move, of course. He has a lot of boring visitors, and he complains about his life. Then the novel ends." I tried to blow a raspberry, but I couldn't. "In my review, I tore that mercifully short novel to shreds. I pointed out how I could have come up with a more interesting plot and dismissed The Breast as a reason to avoid fantasy literature written by mainstream writers." "How did Dr. Grinblatt respond?" Dr. Morgan asked. I laughed. "I'll never forget that day." The memories came flooding back. XXX Grinblatt had gone out of town for a conference. She said that our papers would be available Friday afternoon in an envelope on her office door. So first thing Friday morning, I went down into the English Department in the basement of the Ad Building. I guess I didn't want to see her if she gave me a bad grade on the paper, but at the same time, I didn't really believe she could give me a bad grade on the paper. Finally, I stood in front of her door. There were three manila envelopes taped to her door. Mine, Judy Mitchell's and one for Mrs. Rosen. I pulled mine off and decided I wasn't going to open it there. My emotions were all keyed up, and I knew I would shout as soon as I saw the grade. I didn't want any of the other profs to see what was going on. I hurried out of the English Department, over to the steps leading out of the Ad Building. I made it halfway up, to the landing, when I realized I had to know. I turned the envelope over, fiddled with that red string, and put my hand inside. I took a breath, pulled my hand out and saw the back of the paper. I could see that she had written a lot on the last page of my paper, so I flipped it over to see the front. C- My stomach turned over. I blinked and I tried to catch my breath. I couldn't even read what Grinblatt had written. "That bitch," I said. The term paper shook in my hands as I rushed up to the main floor. I slammed into the door that led out onto the "breezeway." "That bitch!" I said. I gripped that paper like it was Grinblatt's neck. "I can't believe Grinblatt is such a bitch," I said. Just then a cloud of cigarette smoke swept over me, and I nearly had a heart attack. Was that Dr. Grinblatt up here smoking? Had she heard me? I looked over at the bench in the breezeway, where a heavy-set blonde sat and smoked. I looked at her chest. She had big breasts, and a look at her face told me that I had seen her before. In my Into to American Lit class. I remembered she was a new English major. I looked at her big chest again. The blonde took a drag on her cigarette. "I've heard Grinblatt's tough," she finally said. The smoke spilled from her mouth, and I frowned. How could she poison her body like that? If she hadn't been a smoker, I'd be attracted to her. She had big breasts. "Grinblatt's a real bitch," I said. "Avoid her like the plague." A harsh October wind cut through the breezeway, making the smoker shudder. She stood up and nodded at me. "Thanks," she said, then hurried off. I sat down on the bench and tried to look at Grinblatt's comments on my paper. XXX "Matt, what grade did she give you?" Dr. Morgan asked. Had she been sitting silently there all this time? I felt embarrassed. "I remember it like it was yesterday," I said. "Dr. Grinblatt wrote 'Your imagination is too lurid to appreciate what Roth is doing.' She gave me a C-. The only C- I've ever gotten." If I could move my arms, I'd punch something now. "I didn't take it lying down," I said. "Monday, when Dr. Grinblatt was back, I went to her office. I entered that smoky den of my own free will, and I argued my case. I told her I had engaged with the book; I had come up with an alternate plot, I had expressed my thinking process in writing." "It did no good?" "Grinblatt smoked cigarette after cigarette and looked at me through those damn glasses on the end of her nose. It was the same when I went back Wednesday and Thursday. Finally, she crushed out her damn cigarette. 'This is getting tiresome, Mr. Sanders,' Dr. Grinblatt said. 'If you believe you can write a better book on the same theme as Roth, then do so. But until you do so, your grade stands.' she said, and lit another cigarette. "And that is how your book of metamorphosis stories began?" Dr. Morgan asked. "Yes," I said. "Believe it or not, I'm taking Dr. Grinblatt this semester, Spring Semester, for an independent study. It's all about writing my metamorphosis book. If I get a good grade, she'll change my grade for the Fantastic in Literature too." I sighed. "At least she was, until this hormonal catastrophe." "Catastrophic hormonal imbalance," Dr. Morgan said. "Until this 'event' happened, that C- from Grinblatt was the biggest problem I ever had in college," I said. "I need to finish that Metamorphosis book. I just have to." "I see," Dr. Morgan said, scribbling her pen across the paper. Chapter Three - I Get Honest with Dr. Morgan "If you were to describe the perfect girlfriend for Matt Sanders, what would she be?" If I had eyes, I'd blink them. This was interesting. This was a challenge. And then I thought of her, my ideal, as in not-real, girlfriend. Judy Mitchell. She was that big-chested blonde who had been smoking in the breezeway when I got my C- from Grinblatt. We had been in a couple of classes since then. Judy was smart. "She'd be tall," I said to Dr. Morgan, as I began to picture Judy. "Maybe five-eight. She'd have a cute face, sort of round, not angular. Blonde hair. Blonde hair down to her shoulders, with a curl at the end of it." "Sounds like this is someone you've seen a lot of," Dr. Morgan said. Her pen scribbled across the paper. "And she'd have big breasts." The scribbling stopped. "I'm sorry," I said. "But I want to be honest, and I like women to have big breasts. I probably stare at Judy's." "Judy?" "Judy Mitchell," I said. "She's been in some English classes with me." I think of Young Frankenstein. "She's got big knockers." "Have you ever asked her out?" "No." I pause and then decide I might as well be honest. "The problem with Judy is that she smokes. That's just trouble. I mean. My mom won't be happy. She'll get cancer. Maybe I'll get cancer. It'll just be trouble." Dr. Morgan wrote it all down, or at least she wrote something down. "You seem to have given the matter some thought," she said at last. "The breasts, or the smoking?" "Both, it seems." "Do you think I'm a jerk?" I ask Dr. Morgan. "I mean, I guess I sound pretty much like a jerk. I should say I'm attracted to Judy because she's smart, or she has a good personality, or something like that. If I say I want to go out with her because she has big boobs, I guess I sound like a jerk." "Well." "I mean," I said, interrupting her. "I feel I might as well be honest, lying here. I can't see. I can't move. I don't know if I'll ever do any of that stuff again, so I might as well be honest." Part of me wanted to stop talking there, but I couldn't. "So I'm a guy who's attracted to big-breasted women, only I'm too damn shy to do anything about it. And I probably never will do anything about it now, so if you don't like it, you can just blow it out your ass!" Silence. Dr. Morgan didn't say anything or write anything. Finally, I heard the scribble, scribble, scribble of her pen. "I can see it's something you feel strongly about, Matt," she said. "Thank you for being so honest." "I'm not mad at you," I said. "If I sounded like I was mad at you, I wasn't." "Don't worry. This is uncharted territory for all of us," she said. Chapter Four -- Dr. Morgan Digs for the Truth "What do you remember about Friday, April 24th?" Dr. Morgan asked. "Are you a policeman?" I asked. "Or is this a Perry Mason question?" "April 24th was the night of your catastrophic hormonal imbalance," Dr. Morgan said. "Yes, what exactly does catastrophic hormonal imbalance mean?" I asked. "I?m an English major, not a biology major, or, God forbid, a pre-Med." "Don?t you like pre-Meds?" she asked. "They are all stuck on themselves and all they can talk about is their G.P.A." "I used to be a pre-Med," she said. I wanted to kick myself. Of course that?s what she was. Boy I just walked into that one. There?s a reason I never had a girlfriend. "Sorry," I said. "It?s just that... I find them hard to take sometimes." "Well," Dr. Morgan says, "you?re under a lot of stress." She took a breath and put her hand on my body again. "We all have hormones in our bodies, and typically, they are in balance when the body is healthy." "Okay." I say as I again try to figure out where she?s touching me. Whenever she touches me, or when the nurses wash me, I can?t figure out what part of my body is being touched. I would swear it was my belly, but I get that "belly" feeling each time they touch me, every place they touch me. My whole body can?t be a belly. "Sometimes people?s hormones go out of balance, and they have problems. Some people may grow too tall. Others might take on the wrong characteristics. But these are usually long-term problems that take years to become apparent." "Okay." She sighed. "In your case, the problem showed up in one day, April 24th. You were last seen around 3:30 that afternoon. You did not go to the dining hall for supper. At 12:08 AM on the 25th, the RA had to force the door of your dorm because he had heard you screaming." She didn?t say anything for a while. "Yes?" Dr. Morgan was silent, almost like she had to figure out how to tell me what happened. "Well?" I asked. "Your hormones had gone wildly out of balance," she said. "And that?s why my nerves have shut down?" I asked. "Excuse me?" "My nerves have shut down. That?s why I can?t feel my arms and legs anymore, right?" She didn?t say anything. I heard her lay the clipboard on the table. "Matt, you no longer have any arms or legs. Or face either, for that matter." "What?" "Do you remember why you were screaming? Do you remember anything at all about that night?" "I don?t have any arms and legs. Is that why it always feels like you?re touching my belly?" I heard her pen scribbling. "How does it feel like your belly?" she asked. "It?s just your hand, or the nurse?s hand, on soft skin," I said. "But that can?t be right, because the nurse cleans me all over, and I can?t be all belly." The scribbling stopped. "You aren?t all belly," she said. "What am I then?" I shook. "Tell me. I can?t see for myself." "Do you remember our conversation yesterday? When you talked about your breast fixation?" "Of course, I remember it. I?m not an old fart," I said. "Don?t be angry," Dr. Morgan said. "If you get angry, I?ll leave." I counted to ten. "I won?t get angry," I said. "I promise. It?s..." "Yes?" "It?s just that I want to know what the hell happened to me? I mean, I?ve been like this for months. I can?t see myself. When people touch me, I don?t know which part of my body they?re touching, because it feels so damn weird." Dr. Morgan sighed. "There?s no easy way to say this," she finally said. I bit back a comment. "Maybe treatment will go better if you know what happened," she said. I could hear her shoes clicking as she walked across the floor. "You really have no idea what happened to you? No idea what happened to you the night of April 24th?" "None," I said. Another deep sigh. "Matthew, as far as well can tell, on the night of April 24th, your body went out of control. The production of certain hormones, estrogen in particular, vastly outstripped the production of any other hormone." Estrogen. That sounded familiar, but I couldn?t place it. "I think I heard of it, but what does estrogen do?" She sighed again. "Typically, it ensures femininity." Girl stuff. Girly stuff. "Why would that make me go blind?" I ask. She put her hand on me. Again, I couldn?t figure out where the hell she was touching me, my chest or my back, it just felt so strange, but I strained to listen for her voice, because I thought this was when she was finally going to tell me. "On the night of April 24th, you experienced a catastrophic hormonal imbalance. Your body suddenly produced a vast amount of estrogen, an overwhelming amount, and your body reacted to this imbalance by... readjusting." Readjusting? Dr. Morgan let the empty moments go by. "If we lived before the Enlightenment, Matthew, I would simply say you had experienced a metamorphosis. But we don?t, so I can?t." Metamorphosis? Like in my stories? More discreet silence. Maybe even suffocating silence. "I turned into something?" I asked. "What did I turn into?" Dr. Morgan sat for a while. She finally cleared her throat. "A breast," she said. "You turned into a breast." Like that goddamned novel by Roth? I tried to move, to jerk my bulk back and forth. But the contraption I?m in held me in place. Dr. Morgan patted me a little. "It?s unprecedented," she said. Not in literature, I think. This is what I get for taking Grinblatt?s class. First a C- and then a metamorphosis! And now I?m a breast. A goddam useless breast! What the hell can a breast ever do? I?ll never go anyplace. I?ll just hang here like a dumb slab of meat. Make that a dumb slab of female meat. Men don?t have breasts. Oh, God. "I?m not a man anymore," I said. "I mean, how can I be a man if I?m a breast?" My logic must have been impeccable. Dr. Morgan couldn?t say anything. "Why did I take Grinblatt?s class and read that damn book?" I could see Grinblatt in her office, with the damn cigarette in her mouth as she listened to me plead for a better grade on my Breast paper. I talk and talk, and the cigarette in her mouth gets smaller and smaller, and until finally she tells me she still giving me a C- and then crushes it out in her ashtray. I can see her cigarette lying in her ashtray like a ruined dick. My ruined dick. The dick that got ruined when I turned into a breast. "I gave my dick up when I took Grinblatt?s class!" "We?ll do what we can," Dr. Morgan said, patting me some more. "This is all so unprecedented. We might be able to restore you." "I?m a freak! I?m a fucking, goddam freak. You can put up a sign. Come see the guy who turned into a breast. Five cents a peek." "I?ll get you a sedative," she said. "I don't want a sedative! I don't want..." I now have another vision of Dr. Grinblatt in her office, lighting another cigarette. This time, after she takes a puff, she hands it over to me with what passes for a smile from her. And I take the cigarette from her. I can't speak as I try to process what I've just "seen." "Matthew?" Dr. Morgan sounds worried. "Matt? Are you all right?" Suddenly, I can remember seeing myself in my dorm mirror, only it?s not me, but a freak funhouse image of myself staring back at me. What the hell? "What?s happening? Talk to me, Matt!" "I think I?m starting to remember what happened." "Great!" Dr. Morgan sounded excited. "That's a breakthrough! That's wonderful!" "Oh, shit," I said, as all the memories came flooding back. Chapter Five -- What Happened to Me This is what I remember about April 24th. The names have not been changed to protect anybody. Only I have been changed. That morning I woke up still in the grip of a strange sexual fog that I had been going around in for about a week. And when I say, ?in the grip,? I?m not just making a smartass remark about masturbation. Although that was getting to be all I thought about. I masturbated before going to breakfast. I had sex fantasies about the heavy-set black ladies who worked in the cafeteria, so I went back to my room after I ate and masturbated again. I think I went to my Melville class that morning, but that didn?t stop my sexual explosion. I sat there and while Dr. Coulter droned on and on and read part of Moby Dick, I wrote part of a metamorphosis story, about a monastery in the Middle Ages. I went to lunch. Back to the dorm room, where I tore up my monastery story. I didn?t really want anyone to read it, I decided. Certainly not Dr. Grinblatt. I don?t think I talked to anyone that day. It was like I was both there and not there. I think I left my dorm room around 1:30 PM to go to my Restoration Drama class. But I never went to class that afternoon. I remembered that Judy Mitchell would be in Restoration Drama, and given the mood I was in, I knew that seeing her blonde hair spilling down to her big boobs as they pressed against her sweater would have been too much for me. I would have committed some public indecency there in Room 224, and I?d be arrested. So I spent the next hour or so sitting on the lawn outside the library, sketching out ideas for the monastery story. I remember I was really excited by where I was going with that story, like I had finally broken through some barrier that my previous stories had avoided approaching. Around 3 PM, I went back to the dorm room. If anything, working on the monastery story increased my sexual tension. I just wanted to masturbate. So I did. Once I got back to my room, I lay face down on the bed and went for the world?s record as I thought of Judy?s bare, white torso. After a while, I fell asleep. I didn?t usually dream, but this dream I remember. I was on a beach with Misty Mounds. It was that same beach she had been on by herself in those photos in Jumbos. I recognized it. Like in those photos, she was naked, lying there in the sun, and I walked over to her. My shadow fell across her huge breasts, and I stood there. They looked so big. I had never seen breasts bigger than that before. Then I realized. Her breasts were growing bigger. Even as I looked at them, they were growing bigger and bigger. I stepped back from Misty Mounds, my eyes still fixed on her boobs. She was growing bigger too, but I didn?t really pay attention to that. Suddenly, Misty Mounds stood up, and she was now a giant. Like that famous Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman poster. Her hand swung down and grabbed me. I didn?t run away. I kept looking at her boobs. She brought me up to the inside of her left boob and pressed me against her sun-warmed skin. I grabbed and held on, thinking that this would be the greatest day of my life, when Misty suddenly smacked her two breasts together. I screamed as they pulverized me. My back broke between her thunderous tits. My head cracked as those mammoth mammaries pounded me. Punished me. I woke up smiling. Crushed to death by Misty Mounds? tits, I thought. What a great way to die. Still warmed by that dream, I beat off. It was supper time, but I didn?t feel any need to go to the dining hall. I felt stupidly sleepy, and I dozed off again. This time, I dreamed I was walking across the quad. Judy Mitchell was walking toward me. She was wearing a brown tweed jacket and looked very collegiate. She motioned for me to come over. Not believing my luck, I stood in front of her. "Hi, Judy," I said to her. She just smiled at me, then reached up and unbuttoned her jacket. She wasn?t wearing anything under it, and I stared at her breasts, firm and young. I just wanted to put my mouth on her nipples and suck until Judy moaned for me to stop. Then I woke up, cursed because it had only been a dream, grabbed my cock and put it through its paces once more. After I came, a wave of tiredness hit me, and I dozed off again. I dreamed I was walking around campus again, but this time I was naked. And erect. With a determination that surprised me, I walked across the quad into the Ad Building. With my cock sticking straight out in front of me, I hurried downstairs to the English Department and marched right up to Dr. Grinblatt?s door and knocked. "Matthew Sanders," she said, without opening the door. "Know that this is the road you have chosen for yourself." Now, if Grinblatt had ever said that to me in real life, I would have hurried back to McNaughton, even if I were fully dressed. This was just a dream, though, so I boldly turned the doorknob and entered her office. The office looked just like it did in real life, with books stacked all over the shelves and piled on the floor, while stale cigarette smoke floated through the sunlight that slipped through the high window. A cigarette smoldered in the corner of Dr. Grinblatt?s mouth, and her glasses perched just before the edge of her nose. The only thing that reminded me this was a dream and not real life was that Dr. Grinblatt was as naked as me. Hers were probably the only breasts on campus I hadn't fantasized about. I looked straight at them and saw that they were wrinkled and saggy. but it made no difference to my erection. I was still turned on as I looked at her. Smoke streaming from her nostrils, Dr. Grinblatt put her cigarette in the nearly full ashtray and held up a copy of the book that had ruined my college career, Roth?s The Breast. "Matthew Sanders," she said, looking me in the eye as she gripped the book, "know that this is the road you have chosen." I just grinned at her and looked past the book at her sagging, wrinkled breasts, and said with utter confidence even though I had no idea what she was talking about: "Yes, this is the road I have chosen." I nodded and tried to look confident. "I choose it. Definitely." Dr. Grinblatt sighed heavily, making me feel like I was doing the exact same stupid thing she had expected I would do all along, like the time I had opted for Poli Sci instead of Intro to Econ against her advice. She leaned over and picked up a box from the floor. With an "oomph," she set it on the empty part of desk in front of her and hefted out a thick manuscript. Then she raised her cigarette to her lips and took three quick puffs while she looked at me, filling the air between us with smoke. Even so, her dark eyes seemed to burn through the haze into my very core. She shook her head like she couldn't believe I was dumb enough to say what I had said. "Matthew Sanders," she said, "know then that this is the road that you have chosen." I don't know why, but her attitude made me so angry I nearly stamped my foot. I had said I made my decision, and she wasn't taking me seriously. "This is the road I have chosen," I said. Dr. Grinblatt's face became unreadable as she regarded me. Without an expression, she set her cigarette in the ash tray. Then she turned the manuscript over, turned the last page face up and stared at me, as if challenging me to run screaming from her office. I squared my shoulders and stared at the wall behind her. "This is the road I have chosen," I said. With a sigh, Dr. Grinblatt picked up a pen and scribbled something at the bottom of the text. She capped her pen and set it down, then raised her cigarette to her lips, inhaled and then blew a stream of smoke over the words she had written, as if somehow sealing the words, her judgment on me, to the page and thus cementing my destiny. She then met my gaze. "So you have chosen, Matthew Sanders," she said and drew on her cigarette. She shook her head and expelled the smoke. "So you have chosen." I stood still and felt proud for a moment, like I had really shown Dr. Grinblatt something, walking into her office naked and telling her... ... telling her what exactly? Before I could ask her anything about what the hell was going on, Dr. Grinblatt stood up and stepped around the desk to me. Before I knew what was happening, she put her hand on my upper arm and was giving me a look like she pitied me or something. My mouth opened in surprise because this was not like Dr. Grinblatt. At all. Then, as if that weren?t enough, she favored me with the barest hint of a smile. I blinked in amazement, and Dr. Grinblatt took the cigarette from her mouth and put it between my lips. I couldn?t believe what was happening, but I drew on the cigarette anyway. It was good. I took the cigarette in my fingers from her and inhaled again. Dr. Grinblatt nodded as I puffed, and I felt I had actually achieved a kind of kinship with her. "This is the road that you have chosen," she said, patting me on the back. I pulled at the cigarette between my lips, let the smoke escape from my mouth, and suddenly I wasn't in Grinblatt's office anymore. I wasn't anywhere anymore. I just was. I stood/floated/existed in some place that wasn't the world I knew. Somebody watched me, but I couldn't see who it was. My heart pounded. I could tell this place and what would happen here was important. I had to do something. That's why I was here. I puffed on the cigarette until I felt confident. "This is the road I have chosen," I said at last. My voice sounded strong. "This is what I've chosen!" The silence enfolded me, and I wondered what the hell I had chosen. My knees trembled. I hated myself for my uncertainty, so I took another puff on the cigarette. "This is what I have chosen, damn it!" Smoke exploded from my mouth as I yelled, and someone laughed. My confidence crumbled. Suddenly, I had an impression of being watched by a vast, implacable, marble face, a face that had seen mountains endure wind, fire and the tread of armies. I felt I stood in the presence of a power that could pick me up and shatter me in mere playfulness, the kind of playfulness that could make me gasp with its cruelty, yet I knew it wasn't cruel by its lights. Whatever this power was, at this moment, I had its full attention. I had to speak. "I have chosen this... whatever it is I?ve chosen." The words squeaked as they came out of me, and again I heard laughter. It was different this time, though, and I hoped I had said the right thing. Suddenly, an overwhelming sensation of pinkness surrounded me. Warm and sticky, it clung to my arms and legs. I thought of an explosion in a Pepto-Bismol factory, as I twisted and kicked, trying to fight free from this goo, but the more I struggled, the more tightly the pinkness held me fast. The pinkness pressed over me, probing around my mouth and even reaching into my nose. I began to choke, and my heart pounded. I wanted to scream that I hadn't really chosen anything, that I took back whatever the hell I had said. I would just take my C- and go back to my dorm room and never bother Grinblatt or Judy or even think about the damn monastery story ever again. But I couldn't. My cock had gotten as hard as a poker when that pink sticky stuff wrapped itself around me down there. I tried to back away and pull free from it, but the more I moved around, the more the pinkness gripped me and pulled tight. It really hurt down there, as I struggled to get free of the pink goo. But the more I tried to turn and pull back, the harder the pinkness pressed against and squeezed my cock. Tears came to my eyes. "This is what I have chosen." Somehow, I forced those words out of my mouth, and, as soon as I did, the pain down there went away. I felt a sense of calmness, satisfaction even, radiating out from my center. A tremor passed through my body, and I had to open my mouth again, but before I could say anything, the pink ooze, that warm and candy-like sweetness, just flowed into my mouth and didn't stop, even as I coughed and tried to spit it out. That was when I woke up. I had started coming in my sleep. I wasn't even holding my cock, but it felt like an invisible hand kept stroking and pulling at me down there, and I came again and again. My cock started to hurt, and I almost yelled. My heart pounded like a damn kettle drum, and I felt like I couldn't get enough air. I didn?t want to die like this. I don?t know why I thought of death right then, but I knew I was going to die. That this would be the end of Matthew Sanders. And I couldn?t do a damn thing about it. Finally, I couldn?t come any more. I just lay there shivering under the wet sheet and tried to catch my breath. At long last, my heart rate went down. A chill, a deep one, gripped me, and I just shook as I looked up at the bare ceiling over my head. The pale blankness up there made me think of emptiness and waste, and I wanted to cry. I felt like I had lost something valuable, blown an opportunity that would never come again. It really felt like somebody had died. I blinked furiously, determined not to cry. It seemed important that I shouldn?t. Dr. Grinblatt had said this was the road I had chosen, and I even said to her that I chose it. I had even told that damn pinkness I had chosen it, so, dammit, I shouldn?t cry about it. The thought of Dr. Grinblatt made the urge to cry pass. I couldn't imagine her crying about anything, especially a stupid dream, so I wouldn't cry either. I looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and shook my head as I thought of how ridiculous my dream about being naked in Dr. Grinblatt's office had been. Really, it was crazy, just crazy, absolutely crazy that Dr. Grinblatt and I would be naked in her office. And the idea that Grinblatt would actually give me a cigarette? That went beyond crazy to truly preposterous. Although now as I thought about my dream, I realized that a cigarette would be really good right now. I folded the wet sheets back and marveled at the way I had carried on about that dumb paper on that stupid novel. Did I really let myself get so bent out of shape over a C-? It was just a grade, and Grinblatt had given me a second chance. I'd complete my independent study project, I told myself, and things would be fine. As I thought about it, looking up at the ceiling, I realized that I wasn?t scared of Grinblatt anymore. Instead, I actually wanted to tell her about my dream. After all, we had shared a cigarette and a smile in it. Maybe that dream meant something, foretold something, like my relationship with her would be less antagonistic from now on. I smiled and thought about writing up my dream and including it with my metamorphosis stories, so she could see that her class had gotten to me in some big way. Grinblatt might find it amusing, or she might get mad and have me expelled from the college, but right then I didn?t really give a damn which one it was. At that point, my stomach gave a huge growl, and I laughed at the sound of it. I blinked and realized that this was the first time I had laughed since I started feeling super horny days before. I laughed again because it felt good, and then my stomach rumbled some more. I glanced at the clock on my dresser. 11:59 "Shit," I said. The dining hall was closed, and I couldn?t get a pizza delivered to the campus. Not that I really wanted to eat so late anyway. A cigarette would be better, I thought. I blinked. What the hell was that idea about? I hated smoking. Smoking was bad. It was self-destructive. People who smoked were stooges of the tobacco companies. I knew all that, but dammit, at the same time I wanted a cigarette. I just wanted to light up and inhale deeply and expel a stream of smoke. The campus bell-tower began chiming midnight as I tried to think of where I could buy cigarettes on campus this time of night. Why the hell was I thinking of smoking? I slammed my fists against the bed. That damn dream must really have gotten to me. It had a meaning, I thought. A dream that screwy had to mean something. The last stroke of midnight chimed and faded away, and just then something between my legs began feeling funny. I looked down at myself. My heart stopped beating for a moment. From its tip down into the area covered by public hair, my cock and the surrounding flesh didn't look normal anymore. It had turned a deep rosy shade of pink. I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could manage was a stupid strangling sound in my throat that I would have laughed at had I seen a guy make that noise in a movie. This was it, I thought as I looked at my discolored penis. I knew that at once. All my masturbating had finally caught up with me. I was being punished for having too much fun with my cock. "Matt Sanders," I croaked. "This is the road you have chosen." I stood up and walked unsteadily over to the mirror. The light was better over there, and for a moment I hoped that this discoloration would just prove to be a shadow and life would return to normal, although I didn't really believe it. And standing under the light didn?t make the color dissipate. If anything, it looked like with each heartbeat my cock turned a darker shade of rose. Not able to think of anything else to do, I took my cock in my right hand and ran my thumb over it to see if the color rubbed off. The wave of pleasure that radiated out from under my fingers and spread over my whole body nearly knocked me to my knees. I looked at myself in the mirror and grinned from ear to ear. With my cock like this, I realized, masturbation would be one hundred times better than before. So what if I had a penis that had turned the wrong color? It wasn?t as if I had a girlfriend who would see it now and scream. My cock stiffened, and I started rubbing it. My heart started pounding as the pleasure ratcheted up with each stroke. I moaned, staggered backwards and caught myself on the dresser with my left hand so I wouldn?t fall over. "Oh, God," I said. "Oh, God." Masturbation had never been this good before. I gripped my cock and pulled at it. It was erect, but it didn't seem as hard as it looked. I mean, it actually stretched as I pulled at it, an extra inch or two beyond its normal length, all the while flooding me with pleasure that made my head want to explode. "Oh, God," I said. "Oh, God." Maybe my penis is getting bigger, I told myself as I squeezed and pulled it. This night was just getting better and better. After a while, I stopped to catch my breath. I looked at the mirror and grinned in stupid satisfaction. This was the best night of my life, and it wasn't even over. I looked down at my deep rose-colored cock, sighed, and wanted to see what else it could do. I pulled and I pulled it out longer than I had ever seen it go before. Tears of joy began pooling in my eyes, then streamed down my cheeks as a wave of pleasure, deeper than anything I had ever felt, shook me from head to foot. The world went white around me, and I let go of my cock and bit my lip, so I didn't scream from pleasure. Thank you, I thought. Thank you, God, for this blessing. The whiteness faded, and I could see myself in the mirror again, right before my body really started to change. The pale flesh of my abdomen, the flesh right behind my sensitive rosy cock, suddenly ballooned out, pushing my cock forward maybe three or four inches while I felt myself pressed down, squashed together, pulled forward, and yanked backwards all at once. It didn't hurt. In fact, every nerve in my body screamed with pleasure as my flesh changed and twisted. I gasped for breath and didn?t want the moment to stop. Gradually, however, the ecstasy began to subside. Thinking started to come back, and I blinked and blinked and wondered what that dwarfish creature with a blimplike torso was doing in my mirror. Its grotesquely short arms waved uselessly on either side of its football-like torso, but my attention quickly focused on the head of that freakish creature. It was mine. My mouth opened wide in horror as those stubby arms flapped in the air. My rosy cock stuck way out at the front of the fleshy football, and all I could think as I looked at that monstrosity in the mirror was that I had ruined myself. I gasped for breath and didn't know whether to scream or cry. My cock now started to sink back into this blob of flesh, spreading its deep rose-colored flesh across my front, to make a wide, rosy circle. I whimpered as I felt things move around inside this grotesque sausage I was becoming. The expanding mass of my torso began pulling my nubby, worthless arms into itself. My fingers vanished, and when I gasped for breath, my oval torso began descending to the floor, absorbing my shortened legs. Finally, the fleshy football that was my body rested on the chilly, dusty dorm floor. What had been my penis was now nearly all flat and round, making me think of a big nipple stretched across the front of this thing I was becoming. Disgust filled me as I looked at my changed body. I recognized its shape at once ? how could I not recognize a breast after all the time I had spent lusting after them? "Matthew Sanders, know that this is the road that you have chosen," Dr. Grinblatt's voice from my dream echoed in my head. I opened my mouth to shriek my denial that I had ever chosen this even as my neck began sinking down into that dumb blob of flesh. Before I could say anything, my mouth followed my neck into that quivering meaty football and I couldn?t say anything. At that point, with my nose barely above the smooth tender flesh of the giant boob, my descent stopped. I stared at the grotesquerie in the mirror and felt nothing but disgust for myself. A heartbeat later, something from below gave a hard tug, and with a big sucking sound, my world went black. Chapter Six ? Dr. Grinblatt Advises My name is Matthew Sanders, and I am a breast. I know remember that on the night of April 24th, I underwent a metamorphosis, a catastrophic hormonal imbalance, and became a breast. What the hell do I do? What the hell can I do? XXX "I?ve been thinking about something," I said to Dr. Morgan. "What?" "I told you I didn?t want my mom to visit, and I still don't. I didn?t have any girlfriends or even friends who I wanted to come see me. But now that I know what happened to me, I know who I do want to come see me," I said. "Who?s that?" she asked. "Dr. Grinblatt," I said. I can hear the uncertainty in my voice. Do I really want to go through with this? Expose myself to Grinblatt like this? Dr. Morgan put her hand on me. "Are you sure you're up for a visitor?" I didn't really want to have anyone see me like this, but at the same time I couldn?t think of anyone else whose knowledge matters to me now. "Dr. Grinblatt," I said, with a hair more confidence. "Let her know that I want to see her. Tell her... that I?ve had a catastrophic hormonal event. No, wait." I thought for a moment. "Tell her I?ve had an accident, and I would like to see her. If she says yes, then you can tell her... that I?ve had a catastrophic hormonal event. But if she doesn?t want to come when you say I had an accident, then don?t tell her what happened to me. Okay?" Dr. Morgan gave me a gentle pat, and I relaxed. "That?s a good idea, Matt. I?ll start the process." "Keep me informed," I asked. God, I hope Dr. Grinblatt comes to see me. I mean, I think I hope that she comes to see me. I have no clue what she might say. XXX "Matt?s in here, Dr. Grinblatt," I heard Dr. Morgan say out in the hallway. "He?s behind a screen. I have to warn you that his appearance is... rather alarming since the incident. While I can assure you that he?s not in pain, I think you should only see him after you?ve been prepared." "I am hardly a swooning bobbysoxer," Dr. Grinblatt said. "I did not come here to talk to a shower curtain." "Hello, Dr. Grinblatt," I said after I heard her walk into the room. "Mr. Sanders?" For the first time in my life, Grinblatt sounded less than utterly certain about something. "Is that your voice?" "Yes," I said. "Well, now it is. It?s one of the consequences of my condition. My voice sounds odd to me as well." "I am sorry to hear of your... incident," Dr. Grinblatt said. "If you want the screen removed, buzz for the nurse," Dr. Morgan said. Then she left us. "Thank you for coming to talk to me," I told Dr. Grinblatt, once I was sure we were alone. "I?m still hoping to finish my metamorphosis book. When I came to, that was the first thing I asked Dr. Morgan about. You can ask her if that isn't true." "I believe she told me," Dr. Grinblatt said. "A very intelligent woman." "She is," I said. So what do I say next? I wonder. Should I try the direct route? Funny thing, Dr. Grinblatt, I turned into a breast just like the guy in Roth?s book. Wanna see? Maybe not. How do I bring up the subject? "I?ve been thinking about that paper I wrote for you a lot," I said. "I know I really took the grade badly, and I probably bothered you a lot." "Very few students come to see me, Mr. Sanders, let alone to complain about a grade." That?s because they all think you?re a bitch and you hate them, I thought, but that?s probably something I should keep to myself. "You were a very good sport about my visits. I probably made a pest out of myself." And now I?ve made a breast out of myself. "It is a professor?s unfortunate lot in this day and age to deal with the unrealistic expectations of students," Dr. Grinblatt said. Wow, she is not making it easy to open up to her. I tried another approach. "I?ve been thinking about Roth?s novel a lot since I?ve been here," I said, trying to work up to the subject. "I know you didn?t like what I thought about the book, but what do you think The Breast is about?" Dr. Grinblatt gave a small laugh. "Is it about anything other than a man who turns into a breast?" Dr. Grinblatt asked. "You read the novel. You know that Roth?s hero frustrates the characters who insist there must be a meaning to his fate." "What do you think it means that the hero turns into a breast?" I asked. "Beyond Roth?s desire to shock and annoy the critics?" The disdain was practically dripping from her voice. "I really don?t think it?s about anything much." "That?s it?" Is that all that she thinks The Breast is about? How the hell can she help me if that's what she thinks? "Of course, it deals with the absurdity of our modern life, as well," Dr. Grinblatt said. "Modern life is absurd. How did I end up on the faculty of a Catholic university? To my former classmates, who now teach in the Ivy League, that is as absurd a fate for me as a man turning into a breast." "Uh," I said. "But who would want to read about a frustrated academic trapped by life unless the author found a way to be pornographic about it?" Dr. Grinblatt asked, her voice slipping into full professorial mode. "Of course, Roth must be artistic about it and have his little joke by putting the erotic climax of the novel in the first ten pages and then deny the reader any further salacious pleasure for the next one hundred- fifty." Okay, I decided, the only way to do this is to do it. "Pull back the curtain," I said. "Pull back the curtain, Dr. Grinblatt." "It is not a profound novel at all, despite his appeals to Gogol, Kafka or Goriod." "Pull back the curtain!" Did I just shout at Dr. Grinblatt? The room is silent. "Did you shout at me, Mr. Sanders?" "I did, dammit!" I try to hold onto my emotions. "Pull back the curtain, Dr. Grinblatt. Please pull it back." "Dr. Morgan told me to ring for the nurse." "Please pull it back yourself." After a moment, I heard the scrape of the curtain rings being pulled back. I could hear her sharp intake of breath. She was speechless. For once I had rendered Dr. Grinblatt speechless. If I still had a face, I would have smiled. But I didn?t, so I didn?t. After a while, I got worried. "Are you okay, Dr. Grinblatt?" I asked. "Oh, dear God!" She sounded... she sounded like she was looking at a six-foot long breast that used to be a man. "Is that you, Mr. Sanders?" she asked, her voice far, far less certain that I had ever heard it before. "Are... are you inside that... monstrosity?" "Dr. Grinblatt," I said. "I am that monstrosity." XXX "Dear God," Dr. Grinblatt said, for maybe the tenth time in the last five minutes. "What do you think about The Breast now?" I asked her. "How can you care about that half-baked novel at a time like this?" she asked me. I could hear her pacing. "Dear God, I need a cigarette." "That novel is the only thing I have to guide me," I said. "I hated it. I hated your class. I hated sitting in your office while you smoked. I just wanted to get an A from you, and now, because I took your class and read that stupid book, I turned into a breast." "Dear God, I need a cigarette," Dr. Grinblatt said. I could hear her walking with more determination now. Maybe she was heading for the door. I had to stop her. "If this were a story you were reading," I asked. "How do you think it would work out?" "If this were The Breast?" she said. "No!" I shook in my harness. "If this were The Breast, I would just receive an annoying stream of visitors and never change," I said. "Let?s assume that Philip Roth isn?t the author of my story. You?ve read Goriod. You know the classic myths. What if I were a character in a Goriod story instead?" "Interesting." I could almost imagine Dr. Grinblatt smiling at the challenge. Of course, I could only "remember" her smiling from my dream the night I transformed. "Usually, for Goriod, metamorphosis reveals character," she finally said. "Zhoredol becomes the predatory beast she always was. Lyganthis and Velarada turn into dragons to become the lovers that they could not be as human beings. Of course, sometimes metamorphosis is punishment. Gelon is arrogant because of his logic, and so he becomes a senseless ape." "Is transformation ever a reward?" I asked. "Pertulian and Sadrila are rewarded by becoming dolphins," Dr. Grinblatt said. "Perhaps the most intriguing case is Vartantius." "The centaur," I said. "He is transformed into a centaur physically, but then grows into being a centaur spiritually." Dr. Grinblatt paused. "It is as if metamorphosis were an opportunity for him." I thought about that. How was being turned into a six-foot long breast an opportunity for becoming anything other than a freak show attraction? "Of course, Goriod did not believe in the gods or metamorphosis," Dr. Grinblatt said. "Isn?t there some controversy about that?" I asked. "They?re wrong," she said sharply. "Goriod did not believe in the gods." She took a deep breath. "Of course, before today, I would not have believed in any gods, Classical or otherwise. Yet, having seen you, I have had to say ?dear God? over and over again." "Dr. Morgan keeps talking about how my condition would be viewed differently before the Enlightenment." There was silence. I assume Dr. Grinblatt was thinking that over. "Mr. Sanders," she said at last, "you have my sympathy. You are on a road that no one else, to my knowledge has walked before. That is, no one outside literature." My mind went back to my dream the night of my transformation. "Know that this is the road you have chosen." Isn?t that what Dr. Grinblatt had said to me in my dream? "Why you?" Dr. Grinblatt asked. "If I were you, the question I would ask myself would be what have I done? I would ask who I have offended, that I must walk such a road?" I could hear her pacing, and I stayed silent, to let her form her thoughts. "We disagree about many things, Mr. Sanders, but we agree that The Breast is a dissatisfying novel," she said. "Perhaps that is because the premise is a flawed one." "Flawed?" "In the classic myths, men turned into beasts." "And?" "A breast is not a beast," Dr. Grinblatt said. She made a frustrated noise. "I must explain this better." She paced. "Take the example of Gelon. Gelon the philosopher became an ape. Both man and ape are beings that can walk and eat and live in and of themselves." "Okay." "A breast by itself, however, is incomplete. Breasts do not exist on their own. I have two breasts, and they do not exist apart from me. A man turning into a breast, therefore, is not a complete transformation. As I said, breasts do not exist on their own. They must be attached to a woman in order to live. Therefore, the story of a man turning into a breast is not and can never be a complete story. To be complete, there must be something more that happens to the man than becoming a breast." "Another transformation?" I asked and immediately felt nauseated. The last transformation had nearly killed me. "Another transformation," Dr. Grinblatt said. She thought for a moment. "Or, rather, perhaps, the completion of this one." Things became so quiet then that after a while I wondered if she had left the room. "You have time on your hands," she finally said. "I don?t have hands anymore." "You have time, lying here." Her voice was angry, and she fell silent. When she spoke again, I could tell she was trying to control her temper. "Time is all you have now," she said. "I say to you, Mr. Sanders, use this time. Use it wisely. Think about why this happened to you. You have taken my class. You have heard me lecture on Goriod and metamorphosis." She began to pace. "Now you should think about what this metamorphosis, your metamorphosis, means. Is this a punishment? If so, then for what sin? Is this a reward? Then for what good deed? Is this a revelation of your character? What then is revealed about you by your new condition? Is this an opportunity? Then an opportunity to do what?" She paused. "Use your time to understand your metamorphosis." "And then what?" I asked. "You will arrive at the truth." Chapter Seven ? I Remember Something Important My life now revolves around two doctors. Dr. Morgan and Dr. Grinblatt. Dr. Morgan talks about catastrophic hormonal imbalances. She tells me that what happened to me is a catastrophic hormonal imbalance. This, she explains, is a natural phenomenon that happens to people all the time. Usually, it happens to people gradually over many years, but to me, it happened all at once. The important thing, in this view, is it could happen to anyone but just happened to happen to me all in the same night. From that perspective, I?m actually not that important, unless they prove that I ate too much breast meat or something else that could cause this. All they need to do is run the right test, once they figure out what that is, on my blood samples, and they?ll come up with the answer. If Dr. Morgan is right, all I have to do is lie here in this hammock- like contraption they built for me and wait for the right test to come in, because the answer is locked in my blood and the computers will have to take my blood apart and analyze it before they have an answer. All I have to do is lie here like a stupid breast. Then there?s Dr. Grinblatt, my old nemesis from that Literature of the Fantastic class who gave me a C- on my paper. Dr. Grinblatt might be a sour old bitch, but she knows the old myths backward and forward, how the Greek versions differ from the Roman ones, and she even knows Hindu myths. When she looked at me in this contraption, she asked if I knew what I had done to cause this. Like I did something that brought the wrath of the gods down on me, such as walk in on the goddess Vantha while she was taking a bath. I was pretty sore about that, but the more I think about it, the more I see that I have to approach my peculiar situation Dr. Grinblatt?s way. If Dr. Grinblatt is right, the answer is locked in my thoughts and memories, and if I make the effort, I can sort through them and find the cause myself. Like I can do anything else suspended here other than think about my past. At least if I think about my past and try to find the cause for my transformation in my memories, I?ll be doing something. I?ll still be a person. As much as I like her, if I go Dr. Morgan?s way, I?ll just hang here like a dumb slab of meat. So what do I remember about my past that could be a clue to why I became a breast? Sadly, I don?t remember coming across the goddess Vantha in her bath and seeing the divine nakedness. Nothing that dramatic. Anyway, Mirthax, the king who saw Vantha naked got turned into a snake for looking at her divine bare skin had been a real asshole toward women anyway, practically a rapist. But in real life, I never did anything like that a woman. Hell, I never even got close enough to one to begin to do something bad. I never even disliked any women. Well, maybe except for Dr. Grinblatt, and that only after she gave me a C- on that paper. But I never did anything bad to Dr. Grinblatt. I?ve strictly been "hands off" where women are concerned. But I?ve been "hands on" with myself since I discovered masturbation. Yes, I?d heard the stories, old jokes by now, that it would make you go blind. ("That?s okay. I?ll just do it until I need glasses.") And I was pretty certain it wouldn?t make hair grow on my palms either. As the high school health textbook pointed out, masturbation didn?t make you go insane, but it "could lead to psychological problems," which I thought was just a nicer way of saying the same thing. Masturbation could give me all the pleasures of sex without the complication of dealing with the girls I knew, who didn?t want to go out with me anyway. And then I discovered Misty Mounds. I hate country music. If I never heard another country record with twanging guitars and laments about truck stops and runaway wives, I would be happy. The only reason for country music to exist, in my mind, is for Misty Mounds albums. There is no other way to say this ? Misty Mounds has big breasts. They seemed to swell forth from her chest like the Colorado mountains from which Misty herself emerged. Those breasts were always covered, by a mightily-strained simple homespun shirt or a rhinestone-studded jacket, but they still seemed mammoth and hypnotized me from the first moment I saw them in the Peaches record store. Ultimately, I bought five of Misty Mounds? albums, and I did play them, so my mom wouldn?t get suspicious about what I was really doing. I can still quote the lyrics from "Willow Mountain Sunrise" or "Breaking My True Heart," which probably offers definitive proof of the mind?s ability to do one thing while the body is doing another, because I did most of my listening to Misty Mounds with my hand on my cock as I looked at the album cover. Did my masturbating hurt Misty Mounds? I bought her damn albums and never had any dealings with her in real life, so she made plenty of money off me. "Why the hell should I be turned into a breast?" My words bounce off the wall, back to me. Why should I be punished like this? Why? I?m not like that creep who walked in on Vantha in the bath. I?ve never seen the sacred nakedness. There?s no reason for the gods to punish me beyond my going blind or growing hair on my palms. Sacred nakedness. Something about those words cuts through my self-pity. Maybe I did see some sacred nakedness after all. I didn't think it was sacred nakedness at the time, but, hell, you've got to admit that life has gotten more complicated since the ancient Greeks first told their myths. It was after Spring Break. I had come across a newsstand downtown that sold a magazine called Jumbos. The current issue promised a look at Misty Mounds on the cover, and, boy, did the inside pages deliver on that promise. Misty, it seemed, had gone to enjoy a nude beach. Fortunately, some guy with a telephoto lens snapped some unposed shots of her and sold them to Jumbos. I lay on my bed and looked at the photos of Misty on the beach with her breasts hanging out. I enjoyed myself, and after, as I lay there in my wet underwear, I realized that just on the chance that Misty Mounds would be on that beach and take off her top, some guy had spent the whole day lying in wait behind a sand dune with a special camera. Somebody had then paid him thousands of dollars for his trouble. Other people then printed the photos, so that more people, myself included, would plop down the money for an issue of Jumbos and then beat off while looking at Misty Mounds? breasts. There was only one conclusion for me to draw from that chain of events. Breasts were powerful things. I picked up the magazine again, looked at the photo of Misty with her feet in the sand, and for a second wished that I were the one with the big breasts and the power they possessed, instead of being the guy masturbating alone in his dorm room while looking at a photo of a woman with big breasts whom he would never talk to in his life. There was no peal of thunder at that moment, nor did the campus clock strike twelve. A chorus of banshees somehow failed to start to wail, and no comet lit the night sky with an eerie green glow. My wish simply passed along with the train of thought that inspired it, and I got aroused by Misty Mounds? huge chest once more and masturbated again. But, looking back on that night and that wish right now, hanging here in this contraption, I know that somehow my wish changed something somewhere, whether in the universe or in heaven or in the body and psyche of Matt Sanders. Dr. Grinblatt was right. I had brought this on myself. I had offended against the sacred nakedness. The judgment of the goddess was passed through the lens of the photographer's camera, through the printing process, through the distribution process, to lie waiting on the page for some fool to look at that sacred nakedness, foul it, and then wish for breasts. That?s what had got me. If I still had hands and a head and could travel back in time to that night, I would break into my head and pull that thought, that stupid, goddam stupid wish for breasts out of my head and stamp it to bits on the floor. If I still had feet. But I don?t have feet anymore. Or a head. Or hands. Instead, I?m just a breast. A huge, stupid breast. What happened to me wasn?t a "catastrophic hormonal imbalance." Or, rather, it was more than just that. What happened to me was a metamorphosis. Worse, it was a metamorphosis that I chose with every stroke of my penis and every glance at a woman?s breasts. My life, my whole life, with my desire and fear of rejection and reliance on masturbation led me to this secret room in Central Reserve University?s medical center. It was no accident that led me here. The road that I had chosen brought me here. I can only ask myself now what? Does this road I chose take me out from this room, or does it end here forty or fifty years from now? Chapter Eight I Make Progress "Good morning, Matt," Dr. Morgan said. I didn't say anything. "Good morning, Matt," she said again. "Did you have a good night?" I didn't say anything for maybe a minute, but then I spoke. "I didn't," I said. "I've been worried about something." "Worried about what?" I pause to collect my thoughts. "You know," I finally say, "I've been working on my book for Dr. Grinblatt. The one I started before my catastrophe." "Your book of metamorphosis stories," Dr. Morgan said, and I could hear her pen scratching on paper. "Yes." I paused. "I tried to take a break from it. Work on something else." Scribble, scribble. "Yes?" she asked. "I tried to write a science fiction story. Students on another world. On Mars." "Really?" "I didn't want there to be a metamorphosis in it. I wanted it to be a normal sci-fi story about a brainy kid who gets the girl." "Okay." I heard her write all this down. "Well, there ended up being a metamorphosis in it anyway," I said. "I suppose that's perfectly understandable." "The hero died," I said. "It was supposed to be his story, but he died. He just went away, without a word of goodbye, and I realized the story was really about his girlfriend. Like she was the real hero." Dr. Morgan didn't say anything for a bit. "Okay," she finally said, and I could pick up a puzzled note in her voice. "I don't know much about plot construction, but ..." "Skip it," I said, but a moment later words came blurting out. "I want to know why that story bothers me so. Is it that the hero transformed and then died? Is my imagination telling me that I?m going to die? That I?ll just be a breast for the rest of my life, hanging here in this contraption until I die?" "Matt, you?re young and very healthy. I won?t promise you anything, because, obviously, no one knows how long a breast can live, but..." "Realistically, this is it," I said. "I?m just going to hang around here as a big dumb piece of meat until I die." "That?s not a helpful attitude." I didn?t say anything for a moment. "Could you kiss me?" I asked. The words escaped before I knew what I was saying. And now I couldn?t call those words back, so I decided to go forward. "Please?" "What?" "I would like you to kiss me. On my nipple. Please?" "Why, Matt!" "Don?t call me that! I?m not Matt. I don?t look like Matt or feel like him." My voice had gotten agitated, and I tried to calm down. "I?m just a breast. It?s like I?m not even complete. Breasts aren?t supposed to live on their own, hanging in a kind of hammock. Breasts get kissed. They get caressed. They feed babies. They just don?t hang around forever untouched." "Well, I..." "I?m naked here," I said. "You can see me naked. I?ve told you my story. I can?t go anyplace. I think I could go crazy if this dumb piece of meat existence goes on, and I can?t see any way out of being a breast until I die." I made the contraption shake. "I?m not even human. I?m just a freak. A big, dumb piece of meat." "No, Matt," Dr. Morgan said. She put her hand on me, at the edge of my nipple. "You?re not a freak." Her voice was calm and low. I strained to hear her. "You are not a freak. You will never be a freak. You?ve always been too hard on yourself. You?re just the first person to experience this... kind of catastrophe. What happened to you isn?t a moral judgment." She sounded like a scientist again. I felt blue. I tried to imagine what I must look like to her. Some whale-like thing in a sling. What was I thinking, asking her to kiss me. I probably looked like a gigantic slug. How would any woman want to put her lips... She rubbed her hand in a small circle around the edge of my nipple. If I had been a Victorian maiden, I think I would have swooned. She removed her hand from me, and I panicked. This is it, I thought. This is when she runs away from my room and never comes back. They?ll assign another doctor to me, a man, and he?ll despise me as nothing but a weakling who turned into a breast. At that moment, Dr. Morgan?s lips touched my nipple. It was if lightning struck and a dam inside me broke. (I know that?s a mixed metaphor, but, dammit, that?s what it felt like to me.) She kissed me. As grotesque, as whale-like as I was, Dr. Morgan cared about me enough to kiss me. This was the first romantic kiss I had ever gotten in my life. I couldn?t kiss her back. I could just hang there, like the big dumb object I was, and let her kiss the most sensitive part of my body. I wished I could take her in my arms, like all the couples in all the movies I had ever seen, or like the people who had walked past me hand- in-hand at the mall. That wish, and the anger because I couldn?t, vanished in a heartbeat. Instead, I was just glad that she kissed me. I was even glad it happened like this, that the metamorphosis/catastrophic hormonal imbalance had turned me into a breast, so I didn?t have a penis that would get hard and make me want to make love to her. If I had a penis now, it would only ruin things for Dr. Morgan and Andrew. They?d be hurt. If it had taken a metamorphosis for me to be found and kissed by Dr. Morgan, then thank God for my metamorphosis. "Thank you, Dr. Morgan," I told her. "Thank you very much." She rubbed the edge of my nipple and then hurried out of the room. I couldn?t help it now. I just hung in the contraption and shook, trying to cry the tears I couldn?t possibly cry. XXX "I had the greatest dream last night," I told Dr. Morgan the next day. "Really?" "I was human again." I chuckled. "I dreamed I was lying in bed. And it was a real bed, not this thing! I was lying in bed, thinking how I needed to get up and go to the toilet or else I?d wet myself. And that feeling just got worse and worse, and finally I got up out of bed." She said nothing. I could hear her pen scribble. "I stood up! Do you get that? I stood up! I haven?t dreamed of standing or walking in all the time I?ve been here, but last night I dreamed I stood up!" I realized I was shouting. Dr. Morgan put her arm on my side, to calm me down. "I walked to the bathroom," I said. "I mean I dreamed I walked to the bathroom. I almost fell, my legs were so shaky and sore, but I got there, sat down on the toilet, and I peed. It made me so happy to pee." "Wonderful, Matt! That?s just wonderful!" More scribbling followed. "Do you remember anything else?" "No. I remember I didn?t turn the light on in the bathroom. I gripped the sink and found my way to the toilet." I tried to think of anything else. "The seat was cold." I laughed. When I stopped laughing, I realized that Dr. Morgan had been quiet. "Dammit, it felt so good to walk!" "I?m sure it did," she said. Her voice sounded distracted. "Is there something wrong?" I asked. "I?m so happy, and you?re...not." "Why did you sit to pee?" Dr. Morgan asked. "I mean, I?m sure that before your ?event? you stood to pee, as most college-age males do." "Hey, I just felt lucky that I didn?t fall down on the floor and wet myself," I said. "In my dream I could hardly remember what it felt like to walk." "Of course," Dr. Morgan said. "Of course." Scribble, scribble went her pen. XXX "I had another dream I was human again," I said to Dr. Morgan as I bounced with excitement in my contraption. "Tell me about it." "I dreamed I got up out of bed and dressed myself. Then I walked down the hall to the inner courtyard and smoked a cigarette while I waited for you." Dr. Morgan made thoughtful noises as she wrote something down. I had something I wanted to tell her. "I think I?m going to be human again, and soon," I said. "I think that?s why I?m having all these dreams now. To let me know what?s going to happen." "I wouldn?t count on dreams," she said. "And when I?m human again," I said, pushing on like I hadn?t heard her, "I?m going to be a smoker." Dr. Morgan sighed. "Matt, you know that smoking is hazardous..." "Don?t go all Surgeon General on me," I said. "I know smoking can give me cancer. Well, I never smoked before, and I got turned into a breast. So maybe not smoking can cause catastrophic hormonal imbalances." "I wish I?d never used that term," Dr. Morgan said. She cleared her throat. "Why do you want to smoke?" "Because Matt didn?t like smoking," I said. The answer came out before I could really think about what I was saying, but once I heard myself say it, I knew it was the truth. Matt had hated smoking. If I smoked, I would be different from Matt. "Aren?t you Matt Sanders?" "I used to be," I said. "Right now, I?m a breast. Breasts don?t have names or social security numbers or drivers licenses." "Now you?re being silly," Dr. Morgan said. "I?m being serious," I said. "I?m going to be human again. I feel it." I paused and thought about what I wanted to say. What I needed to say. "But I don?t want to be Matt Sanders again." "Why?" "Too many catastrophic hormones under the bridge," I said. Dr. Morgan laughed, and while she laughed, I pressed on. "Look, I?ve thought about it. I mean, God knows there?s nothing else to do but think about it, and I realize that Matt Sanders was a creep." I paused for a second, but I realized I couldn?t stop. "He wacked off all the time, he lusted after women he would never talk to, and he was just angry and judgmental about everything. I want to be human again and walk around and see things and sit and feel and touch, but I don?t want to be that asshole again." I almost wanted to cry. "I don?t want to be that warped collection of nastiness that was Matt Sanders. If being him is the only way I can be human again, I?d rather be a breast for the next fifty years. Hell, the next sixty years." The contraption shook. I realized that Dr. Morgan wasn?t writing this down. "Matt hated smoking," I said, after I pulled myself together. "So if I smoke when I?m human again, I won?t be the old Matt." Dr. Morgan cleared her throat. "Matt, it?s touching that you think we can reverse this process, this..." she paused. "This metamorphosis of yours and make you human again." She put her hand on my side. "But the truth is we can?t figure out what caused your hormones to go wild. We can?t even begin to figure out what caused it. And that means I can?t see any realistic way..." "I am going to be human again, Doctor Morgan," I said. "I feel it." She sighed. "If that day comes, and I really hope it does come, I don?t recommend that you start smoking." She put her cheek against my flesh. "It does cause health problems." "I will be a human being again," I said. "And I will be a smoker." I suddenly thought of Dr. Grinblatt and what she said in the dream the night of my metamorphosis. "That is the road I have chosen," I said. Chapter Nine I Receive a Blessing I guess I must have been dreaming, although I thought I was awake at first. Awake and in my room in McNaughton. I dreamed I was Matt Sanders again, with arms and legs that worked. I was laying on my bed, masturbating, when I suddenly knew that I wasn't alone. I stood up, naked, to confront whoever was there. It was a statue, carved from the whitest marble. It even glowed, if that makes any sense. I knew I had never seen this statue before, nor could I tell what goddess it was a statue of, but it also felt like I already knew, in that goofy way that things make sense in a dream, but then when you think about them later when you're awake, they don?t make sense. This was a powerful goddess. Her face was sharp, with harsh eyebrows and an upturned nose. That face showed no mercy, only a look that demanded to be obeyed, yet as I looked into her eyes, I picked up a decided hint of amusement, as if someone had told a great joke that was worthy of being carved in stone. I suddenly felt vulnerable, and I lowered my eyes and covered my penis as if she were somehow looking at me, weighing me, measuring me, testing me. I feared what might happen if I failed. Finally, my fear subsided, and I looked up into her stone features again. "You shall be blessed," a voice said. "You most certainly shall be blessed." I blushed and lowered my head again. I felt blessed and tried to think of something to say, but when I raised my eyes, the statue wasn?t there anymore. It was Misty Mounds who stood before me. Naked, with her glories shining forth. I squirmed with embarrassment. I looked in Misty Mounds? eyes and knew she knew everything, every single goddam time, I had masturbated to her album covers or that photo. I tried to look away from her, but I couldn't move. Thankfully, I could tell from her face that she didn?t hate me. Instead, something like acceptance glowed there. "I am you, and you are me," she said with that twang in her voice. I nodded, and Misty vanished, replaced by Dr. Grinblatt. She was as naked as Misty Mounds, but what really surprised me was her expression. For the first time, Dr. Grinblatt actually seemed friendly to me, almost, dare I say it, maternal, as she looked at my nakedness. "I am you, and you are me," she said. I smiled at her. She didn?t vanish. "I am you," I said, "and you are me." Dr. Grinblatt nodded and gave me as close a thing to a smile as that furrowed face of hers would permit. I realized I had been holding my breath all this while, standing at attention, and now, only now, did I begin to relax. I could feel my heart beating normally. Judy Mitchell now stood before me. She smiled at me, and for the first time, I felt we were truly classmates. "I am you, and you are me," she said. "I am you, and you are me." She laughed, a warm laugh that made me feel included for once, and I could feel the tears start to build up in my eyes. She reached over and patted me on the shoulder. The tears overcame my vision for a moment, and when they cleared, I could see a redheaded woman in her thirties standing in front of me. I realized I had never seen Dr. Morgan, but this woman so matched my sense of what Dr. Morgan just had to look like that I knew this had to be her. "I am you, and you are me," I said, before she could say anything. Her smile could have melted stone. She nodded at me. "I am you, and you are me." she said. Suddenly, all of them stood around me now, from Misty Mounds to Dr. Morgan. They chanted words I didn't know, and they stepped closer and put their hands on me. Tears just streamed from my eyes, and I let go of myself and started embracing them as I wept. "I am you, and you are me," I said over and over and over. They kept chanting, and I kept saying I was them, and all our words echoed and re-echoed as I felt them hug me and pull me to them. It felt warm and good, like love, and I thought that I?d never be alone ever again. I had come home at last. XXX "Dr. Morgan!" I stood up and tried to hug her as she entered the room. My legs were weak, and I almost fell down, but she ran over to me and grabbed me in an embrace that steadied me until she got me back over to the bed before I fell. I couldn?t stop smiling. "It?s so good to see you at last," I said. She was a redhead, just like in the dream. Her hair was cut short, as if she were going to play Peter Pan. Her nose seemed surprisingly sharp to me, and her lips were thin, but her green eyes were warm and friendly. I sniffed and smelled the odor of cigarettes on her. "Could you take me to the outside garden and smoke with me?" I asked, raising myself on my right elbow. "It would be my first cigarette." I pulled my hair away from my face, so Dr. Morgan could see me better. "I think I want to be known as Shari from now on," I said. "The nurses didn?t know what to call me. Clearly, I?m not a Matthew anymore." "You?re..." "A woman," I said. I looked down at my chest. "These aren?t in the Misty Mounds range, thank God, but they?re there, and they?re mine." Dr. Morgan blinked. "And everything down below is female too," I said. I laughed. "No more penis. I think I broke it with all my masturbating." Dr. Morgan shut her eyes, then shook her head and composed herself. "Well, I guess that?ll be the basis for a new urban legend about excessive masturbation," she said. I sat up. "I think my whole breast experience was a cocoon-like phase..." "A chrysalis," Dr. Morgan said. "It was a phase I went into when my body started rearranging itself," I said. "You don?t seem to miss your..." "My penis?" I shook my head. "No, I don?t miss it at all." I raised my arms over my head and wiggled my fingers. "I can move again, and soon I?ll be able to walk, I?m sure. You don?t know what being able to move means after being trapped in that big dumb thing so long." "But..." Dr. Morgan stared at me. "I?m talking about the rest of your life. Emotionally. Sexually." "I said I don?t mind." I took a breath and organized my thoughts. "I can?t hurt anybody this way. I mean, if I were still Matt, and I met someone I really liked, and she was married, well, assuming I didn?t go back to my old ways of masturbating all the time and actually made a pass at her, well..." I didn?t want to say anymore. I opened my arms instead, and Dr. Morgan leaned down, and we hugged. Tears started to well up in my eyes. "I need you, Dr. Morgan," I said. "I need you as a big sister. I really do. I have so much to learn, and I think you?d be a great guide." She blinked and then gave out with a sniff. A sob followed almost at once. Then the waterworks turned on. "It will be okay, Shari," she said. Shari. My name. She called me Shari. That was the cue for me to start to snuffle. Something warm trickled down my cheek. I looked into her eyes. "It will be okay," Dr. Morgan said, putting her hand on my shoulder. My tears really let go then. "Thank you, Dr. Morgan. I know I?ll be fine." She smiled. "Call me Karen," she said. Chapter Ten I Learn Some Things Don?t Change "I?ll be back in an hour, Shari," Dr. Morgan said as I opened the car door and put my foot on the pavement. "Great," I told her as I got out. I closed the door and waved goodbye as she drove off. I turned around, took a deep breath, and started walking across the HJKU campus. I had only been back to the college once before today as Shari Morgan, my new name, and that was when I left "The Apples of Eve and Other Tales of Metamorphosis" in the English Department for Dr. Grinblatt. Dr. Morgan had arranged things. It turned out that Dr. Grinblatt had been rather dubious about meeting Shari. That surprised me, but truth be told, now that I was no longer a breast, I wasn?t all that eager to see Dr. Grinblatt either. I remembered how Grinblatt treated young women, which was basically as badly as she treated young men except maybe with some jealousy added, and I wanted to be more sure of myself before I confronted that old dragon in her smoke-filled lair. Although, I thought, if I did have to spend a lot of time in Grinblatt?s office arguing my grade, I could now blow smoke pretty good right back at her. So I had finished my manuscript, and I put a note in the box with it, thanking Dr. Grinblatt both for the chance to do this project and also for helping me uncover what had become Shari Morgan in the old Matt Sanders. Dr. Morgan had dropped me off at HJKU on a Thursday afternoon, and I left the box in the English Department. Mrs. Sherman, the secretary, didn?t recognize me at all, not that I expected anything different. Dr. Grinblatt had called Dr. Morgan?s answering service yesterday and left a message that I could pick up my manuscript. There was no way I could get a sense from the message of whether she liked it or not. Still, I knew she had to like it. These weren?t just some fantasy stories pulled out of my imagination. This was metamorphosis as written about by someone who had gone through it. I couldn?t think of another mix of fantasy and reality like this. As I passed McNaughton Hall, my old dorm, I looked up to see where my old room had been. The room where I stopped being Matt Sanders. Hardly anyone had cared. Matt had had no friends there. Nobody from McNaughton had ever tried to contact me during my time of crisis as far as I knew. Still, the old building had inspired "The Apples of Eve," so I guess I got something out of living in McNaughton after all. I walked on to the Ad Building. There were a few people around, and they glanced at me. Perhaps stupidly, I wondered if some of them might think I looked vaguely familiar and try to talk to me. My body certainly wasn?t familiar, though, and nobody tried to talk to me. As I walked downstairs to the English Department, butterflies woke up and began flying around in my stomach. I took a deep breath and ignored them, telling myself that I would be foolish to worry. Grinblatt had to like my manuscript. I pushed open the doors to the Department. Mrs. Sherman sat at a desk to the right of the doors and smiled at me. "You?re the young lady who left that manuscript for Dr. Grinblatt, aren?t you?" she asked. She gave me a smile. "I never forget a face." I almost wanted to blurt out that she certainly didn't recognize me as Matt Sanders, but I caught myself in time. I had no issue with Mrs. Sherman. "I really hope Dr. Grinblatt liked my project," I said, as she stood up and walked into the little room where the professors? mail was sorted. "This is for you," Mrs. Sherman said, as she walked out with the box. She gave me a big smile as she handed it over. "It must be special. I?ve never known Dr. Grinblatt to read a manuscript from someone who wasn?t a student of hers." I almost opened my mouth to say that I was Grinblatt's student, but, again, I stopped myself in the nick of time. "We're close," I said. "I sort of think of her as my aunt." Mrs. Sherman?s eyes widened when she heard that, and I knew she wanted me to say more, but I just wanted to open the damn box and see what Grinblatt had written. That was between me and Grinblatt, and I didn't want Mrs. Sherman to see it. "Thank you," I said and hurried out into the hallway. There was a bench just outside the ladies? room. I sat on it and took a deep breath. And then another deep breath and another. I would never find out what Grinblatt had written by just sitting here. I just had to read what she wrote. I licked my lips and folded the flaps of the box back. Nothing was written on the title sheet. At least Grinblatt had taken the note I?d handwritten to her. That made me feel good. I flipped past the title sheet and the first couple pages of "Behind the Illusion." Grinblatt had left no comments. This would take forever, I thought, so I shoved my fingers down into the box and pulled the whole manuscript out. Grinblatt had to have written something on the last page, and, really, what I wanted was to see what she thought of "The Apples of Eve." I smiled when I saw she had written something on the last page. I flipped the page over and read her judgment. "You are, as is to be expected, immature as a writer. You need more life experiences to write at a level commensurate with your ambitions. The essential flaw in your writing is that your imagination is both too trite and too lurid. This is worth a C-. Consequently, your grade for the Fantastic in Literature class remains unchanged." My mouth hung open. I had poured myself into this project. I was especially proud of what I had said in "The Apples of Eve." Had Grinblatt bothered to write anything about that story at all? I thumbed back to where "Apples of Eve" started. There was no comment on that page, nor on the one after that, or the one after that. Finally, I came back to the last sheet and Grinblatt?s comment. I pulled it away from my manuscript and zeroed in on that line in the top paragraph. "The essential flaw in your writing is that your imagination is both too trite and too lurid." That bitch, I thought as my hands slowly placed Grinblatt?s comment sheet on top of the manuscript, which I then carefully lowered into the box. I then folded the flaps down so I couldn?t see her words anymore. And then I growled. The temptation to leave the box there or dump it in the trash in the ladies? room flashed through my mind, but I refused. Instead, I gripped the box to my chest and walked out into the hallway and up the Ad Building steps. That bitch. Trite and lurid. That bitch. Those two thoughts blazed through my mind as I pounded up the stairs, and I realized I needed a cigarette. When I got to the main floor, I slammed my butt against the door that opened out on to the breezeway and stepped out into the sunshine. I carried the box over to a vacant stone bench and sat down. I can?t believe what a bitch that Grinblatt is, I thought. as I sat down and lit a cigarette. I puffed away, burning the cigarette down and pulling the smoke into my lungs and pushing it out my nose until the anger in my guts finally unknotted. "Are you a new student?" I looked up at a tall, well-built guy. I had seen him around when I lived in McNaughton. I wanted to say his name was Ken McGillicuddy and that he was a business major, but, of course, as Shari Morgan, I had to play dumb. Whatever his name, the guy was looking at my chest. I took a deep Bette Davis drag on my cigarette and exhaled. "Why yes," I said. "I just transferred in from Wyandot State." "Wow," he said. "Wyandot State. Is it as boring out there as everyone says?" I shrugged, and he suddenly realized that he was looking at my chest, blushed, and now focused on my face. "I?m Ken McGillicuddy," he said. "I?m a Junior. Business Major." I smiled, pleased with myself that I had remembered his name correctly, and took another puff on my cigarette. "Shari Morgan," I told him. That was the name I had decided on after discharge. I had wanted an M- name for metamorphosis, and I chose one in honor of Dr. Morgan. M-name could also, I now realized as I looked at Ken, stand for maiden name as well. "Well, I know all the ins and outs of HJKU," Ken said. "If you need help finding your feet around here, that is." I found myself imagining what Ken looked like without any clothes on. I also imagined exploring some ins and outs with him. I liked what I imagined and felt my cheeks getting red. I took a quick puff on my cigarette. "Sounds like you?ll be a good person to know," I said. He smiled at me. "I hope I see you around, Shari." As he walked away, I admired his ass, took one last puff on my cigarette, then dropped it to the pavement and crushed it out. A breeze came through, caught one of the flaps of the box and slapped it against my arm. Sighing, I looked into the box and saw Grinblatt?s comment sheet again. Dr. Grinblatt, you are the bane of my existence, I thought. First you didn't like my paper, and now you don't like my stories. I looked up at the breezeway arches and realized that I had been in this very same spot before. I was sitting where I had sat after Grinblatt gave me a C- for my paper on The Breast. Of course, back then I had been male and a non-smoker. My head spun as I thought of the old me, Matt Sanders, that screwed-up creep who had no idea of what life had in store for him. I was so glad I wasn't him anymore. The clouds must have shifted, because sunlight now fell across my shoulders and cast a shadow on the brick wall. I stood up and stepped closer to my shadow, and then turned from side to side, still amazed at how its chest pushed out and how wide its hips were. It was my shadow, but it was the shadow of a woman. It certainly wasn't the shadow of Matt Sanders. Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and I sat down. As if on autopilot, my fingers dug another cigarette out of my pack. I put it between my lips and lit up. As I smoked, the wind kicked up, and caught the smoke as it escaped my mouth, and carried it upward. Like a prayer ascending from my heart to the gods. I puffed some more, and as the smoke rose, a prayer came to me. Thank you, great goddess for taking pity on a creep like me and making me a woman and a smoker. Thanks for the second chance at being a normal human being. I?ll try not to screw things up again. I looked down at how I filled out my blouse. Breasts are powerful things, I thought. Even Matt Sanders had sensed that fact before the goddess wrote that lesson into his flesh. I shivered, took another puff, and realized that I was just so glad that Matt was gone. He really seemed like someone else other than me, a different person entirely, someone who had just left the room before I walked in. Gusts of wind carried my smoke away, along with memories of being Matt. Breasts are powerful things, I told myself, and now I have a pair. I smoked, and some words from my dream came back to me. This is the path you have chosen. I furrowed my brow. Had I really known what I was choosing? I asked myself. Would I have chosen this if I had known what was being asked? I drew on my cigarette and looked at my shadow again. It was still a woman?s shadow. I remembered how Ken McGillicuddy had looked at me, and I imagined what he looked like naked, and I found myself smiling. Once more my smoke rose into the air, to be carried off to the gods. Maybe I did know what I was choosing. Maybe Matthew knew what he wanted and where he was going when he took that class, read that book, and dreamed that dream. Maybe that was his way of signaling to the gods that he was at the end of one road and ready to walk down another. I thought about that and smoked. I have been touched by a goddess, and I think I should just accept that she knew what she was doing. The next gust of wind made the box's flap slap against my side again. I looked down, saw the page with Grinblatt?s comment, and my temper flared as I thought about everything that I had put into my stories only to get that same dismissive answer from her. "The essential flaw in your writing is that your imagination is both too trite and too lurid." I puffed on my cigarette until I calmed down. As smoke escaped from my nostrils, I looked down at the cigarette between my slender fingers and realized something important. I might be a woman and a smoker now, but Grinblatt was still a bitch. I laughed as I realized something important. Some things just don?t change. (If you liked "The Boob," you will enjoy my Tales of Metamorphosis trilogy Goriod ? tales set in the world of mythology Lorinocco ? tales set in the 18th Century Patient M ? tales set in the 20th Century, including "The Boob." Happy reading ? Bette Sinclair)