Darren Lawrence had what most would consider an idyllic life- a beautiful family, a house, a close circle of trustworthy friends and his music. However, all of this changed the day he lost his job. This disappointing yet seemingly innocuous occurrence sets off a series events that threaten to strip Darren of his identity and turn him into everything that he hates.

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:
This story is my thank you to a community that has provided me free fiction for years. It is also my first story (and probably my last), and I will warn you- it is long. My intrepid editor, Robyn Hoode, slaved through the drafts of the story, providing insightful and helpful commentary. His enthusiasm for the subject material kept me motivated. Honestly, without him and his constant feedback, this story wouldn’t exist. So, if you enjoy this story, you have him to thank, as much as me.This story is very much a slow-burn, character-driven transformation. As I said, it is lengthy, but I hope you will stay for the entire ride.

Please feel free to leave a comment or to send feedback to the following e-mail: [email protected]

DISCLAIMER:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

PART 1

Chapter 1

“This is the story of my life. You work hard, harder than anyone expects you to. You never complain, and then you are just pushed out because they can’t keep you. Downsizing, deficit reduction plans whatever the new corporate buzzword is. In the end, it just means that the people who haven’t been there long enough are out.”

I was understandably angry, having just lost my job. I raised my voice to wife, and while I wasn’t speaking to her, my one and a half year old daughter stared up at me with big eyes, likely thinking she had done something wrong. My wife comforted her with a gentle tousle of her hair. “Daddy’s not mad at you, Chloe.”

I wasn’t mad, just disappointed. I was passionate about my work. This had happened before, and it was the same story. The boss says “We appreciate all the work you did, you have been an asset, but there is no work for you here.”

Thinking back, we should have just moved away while I was teaching a few years before, moved somewhere where there were actually jobs to establish at least some stability, but I wanted to buy a house, raise a family and set down roots. Also, my family was in town, and being a momma’s boy of sorts, I could not see myself leaving.

However, once I had all those things - a house, a beautiful wife and daughter, I still wasn’t happy. As a child, I had been obsessed with play. I wanted nothing to do with activities I didn’t enjoy, so you can imagine that until I matured, school was a chore. This mindset had developed into an adult desire to find a job I could enjoy, leaving me miserable in positions that did not push the correct buttons.

My wife replied, “Darren, you will find something else. It isn’t always going to be this way; you know that things will start picking up once the economy improves. Just find whatever you can for now. Maybe something in private practice? I’m sure there are firms out there that could use your skills.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to be even more underemployed or work in a job that meant I would never see my family. I knew she didn’t mean that she expected me to work at McDonalds, but anything meant data entry or even a call centre. In my previous job, I had worked as a paralegal for the government, which is essentially a lawyer without all the fancy credentials. They do all the same work, but they get paid less. I wanted to be a lawyer, but the six years of part-time schooling I would have to do to continue working made it seem like an impossible goal.

A shiver ran up my spine as I considered her words, “Amélie, didn’t you sometimes work twelve hour days in private practice? I want to be home for Chloe, you know I want us to eat dinner together. I want us to be a family. Isn’t that why you left and became a public servant?”

Amélie answered, “Yes, but we need the money. But you can’t really have it both ways. You can do what you want now and spend less time at home, or you can work in something you’ll potentially dislike and be home for dinner every night. What about applying for some jobs below your position?”

As supportive and understanding as Amélie could be, she could also be very blunt. I replied with my head lowered as I moved toward the sink and pulled on a pair of pink rubber gloves. “I have too much pride. I need challenge in my life. I had it when I was doing all that legal research. You know sometimes I wish I could go back.”

Amélie looked at me with an incredulous expression, although a little smile crept onto her face as she asked, “Go back?” We had had this conversation before. I started to fill the sink with hot water and two quick squirts from the dish soap dispenser turned the hot water into a mass of bubbles. Chloe watched us with a curious expression, and then got bored and pulled on my wife’s pant leg.

As Chloe was begging Amélie for milk, I quickly filled the sink with dirty dishes. “Well…back to university, I would change my major. I would go pre-law probably. As rewarding and challenging as teaching was, I just couldn’t take the lack of stability.”

Amélie laughed lightly and gently blew a stray bubble in my direction, “Well you know what your dad would say. You want everything too quickly, it can’t happen overnight.”

I quickly retorted, “I just feel like I go from one profession to another without any direction. And each one - it just feels like one mistake after another. Don’t you wish you could go back and fix some of the mistakes you’ve made?”

Amélie had finished getting Chloe her milk and gave it to her. The little girl quickly chugged it down from her Cinderella sippy cup. She shook her head, “It is all an experience. I mean if you hadn’t worked as a law clerk first, you never would have found out you liked the law so much. Or that you were so good at legal work. Nothing you have done is a wasted experience.”

I piled the dishes carefully in the dish drainer as Chloe tried to reach up and see into the sink. She was clearly mesmerized by the bubbles. I winced at a particularly ripe Tupperware container. Amélie had left her vegetable dip to rot overnight. I left it for last and moved onto the plates, while replying, “Fine okay. But I feel like life could be better if I had made some better choices. Here is a perfect one. I only really started seriously singing and playing guitar in my twenties. Imagine if I had started when I was fifteen? I would be a much better musician. I probably would have been able to talk to girls in high school too.”

Amélie grinned, “I had a crush on a guy in a band in high school, so you are probably right, but what’s the point in dwelling on this? You are in a band now, and you have a girl.”

Since my mid-twenties, I had been in bands with varying degrees of success. And by success I mean, actually leaving the basement where we jammed. I had the drive, and people said that I had the talent to move beyond my band’s dank headquarters, but I look back and think that I squandered this gift, playing video games through high school and part of university. Now that I actually wanted to play and had the drive to succeed, I didn’t have the time to devote to it because of my responsibilities as a father, husband and general working stiff.

Amélie could tell that I was formulating my response. My eyes tended to shift back and forth. She laughed and said, “Okay, you are overanalyzing this. There is no point in wishing that the past could be different. You’ve got a family that loves you and a wealth of skills, why waste your time on what could have been?”

I begrudgingly accepted her words of wisdom, even though the thoughts never really left my head. Forget the work world- I could have been a rock star. Even though there was only a minuscule tiny atom splitting chance that it could have happened, the thought still stayed with me. I noticed that such thoughts had not been as prevalent in my mind when I was younger, but as I got older, I realized that if given the chance, I would go back and shake my younger self by the shoulders until he had the same drive I had now.

Amélie gently pushed my arm, “Oh my god, you are still thinking about it. Give it up.”

I nodded slowly, knowing I couldn’t win. She looked down at my pink rubber gloves and laughed, “You are such a princess.”

I quipped, “Maybe, but at least I don’t have red, raw hands like you when you do the dishes.”

I removed the gloves and gently pulled Amélie towards me, “Thanks for the advice. I guess I will just start looking, I know that any break in pay will be a problem. I’ll just take what I can find.”

She pulled me close and we kissed- nothing with burning passion, but a kiss of trust and of security. “That’s all I ask.”

Chapter 2

Despite the apparent sorry state of the economy, I managed to find another job quickly. I was lucky, in that, my soon-to-be former boss gave me a sparkling recommendation to her manager. In turn, this manager spoke to a colleague who desperately needed a secretary. I was originally not thrilled at the prospect of being a 32 year old secretary, even though the title is now the politically correct- executive assistant. Still, I knew that we needed the money, so I readily accepted the position after a brief interview.

The position actually paid better than my previous job, but it had all the challenge of tracking tasks on calendars and playing phone and e-mail tag with people on a regular basis. Still, it was money and experience, plus there was a greater chance for a permanent place in the organization than my previous job.

I told myself that I would go into this job with a positive outlook, and that I would do what I always do, work hard and hope to whatever all-knowing entity above that they would be able to keep me long enough for me to gain some seniority and scale the ranks. To be honest, I was still enamoured with law, but I told myself that I would just keep applying and hope for the best. If this job turned out to be permanent, then so be it.

Amélie seemed happy with my attitude, and the weeks that followed were pleasant. Our home life was generally happy. The trials of being new parents certainly tested our relationship, but we soldiered through. The late night crying fits, diaper changing, and the near constant sickness among all family members, still it was worth it.

Amélie was also more willing to enter the bedroom with me, likely because I was no longer depressed and mopey. I had staved off unemployment, which is what she wanted, so she was happy to reciprocate in other ways. My band was moving forward and writing new songs became easier because of my restored focus. My daughter was finishing teething, and winter, the longest in recent memory, was finally ending. It had held its place in the seasonal hierarchy with a death grip that brought unusually cold temperatures in March. With the melting snow, the first sign of spring, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Living in Canada and near the coldest capital in the world (on average), winter can be an unpleasant affair. As a kid, I remember liking it a whole lot more, but then I didn’t have to shovel, salt and sand the driveway, stress about driving in snowy and icy conditions, and I swear the cold didn’t bother me as much then as it did now. I basically lived on our backyard hockey rink, so I was ignorant to all that winter had to offer, short of the annoyance of having to shovel the rink.

Nevertheless, winter was ending and Amélie and I had decided to have another baby. Something about spring and the end to snow and ice, plus the overall good luck we had recently- it seemed like the right time. We had talked about it before, but I didn’t feel that I was ready yet due to my lack of stability, but two weeks into my new job I was offered a permanent position with benefits, sick leave and vacation, as long as I passed the brief probationary period. When I brought this news home to Amélie, she was overjoyed. Yet something in the back of my mind, a child-like voice lilted, you are unhappy. I realized that I was.

At work, I was terribly bored. My boss was an understanding and caring woman. She understood, as a parent herself, the need to take time off to care for sick children. Unfortunately, the job had none of the challenge of teaching, where each and every day was a different adventure. It lacked the academic stimulation of analyzing legal texts and forming coherent arguments with that research. I was basically a secretary, and I saw myself that way. Better than the job.

Four weeks into the new job, I was thinking about leaving it on a daily basis. My boss was so impressed with my work that she reduced my probationary period to two months; however, all I could think of is that my mind needed to be challenged. I asked for more work, but my boss said that I wasn’t ready. She was going to bring me in slowly. The organization was growing, and she explained that by being her executive assistant, I would learn the business. All I knew so far was that the company did audits of other businesses to determine how best to improve based on set criteria. I wanted part of the higher level work, but I was given minimal tasks, and I completed them usually by 10 AM.

The only thing that made me stay was Amélie and Chloe. I knew that I needed to continue working until I found something else, so I spent the rest of the time searching for other jobs and daydreaming about my band actually leaving the basement.

The other two members were fathers also, and while it was difficult, we managed a weekly practice. We understood when one of us had to cancel because of an illness in the family, so it actually worked out nicely. We were a hard rock/progressive band. I was the lead singer and guitar player. The music was very bass and drums heavy, my guitar simply adding depth and flavour to pounding rhythms. My vocal went from soft almost spoken word to outrageous and pained screams to drive a chorus. Being in a band was another thing that made me happy; it was a pleasant escape from the drudgery of my desk job. I still had dreams that one day I would make it, but that dream was fading as I got older.

On Friday night, Amélie and I planned a special evening. Chloe thankfully went to sleep around 7 PM, so we uncorked a bottle of wine and celebrated my recent success. We finished in the bedroom and with two and half glasses of wine in my system; I was thinking less about having another baby and more about slapping Amélie on her ass while I took her doggy style.

Amélie, in my eyes, was perfection. She was a classical beauty who needed very little makeup. I had been with girls who literally had to put their face on, Amélie was not like them. She wore makeup only to accentuate her eyes and cover the odd blemish. She wore her light brown hair a little longer than shoulder length. It curled lightly at the ends, making it look as if she had little ringlets in her hair.

As I kissed her body, I relished in its softness. I will admit that I enjoy curvier women, some would call them fat, but only the most ignorant heroin chic obsessed person would say that my Amélie was fat. Truth be told, she was what I would term voluptuous, with full round breasts, a round globular ass that shifted up and down in even the loosest of pants. She had small love handles that I enjoyed squeezing.

There were times that I felt freakish for enjoying forms that were not the norm. But really, Amélie is average, as her size 10 jeans can attest. However, Amélie and I had fought about her weight before. I thought that she was dieting in an unhealthy way. She told me, especially after Chloe was born, that she felt fat and unattractive. Still, I could not keep my hands off of her. We came to a compromise when she accepted that it was possible for a man to like curvier women, and for me to understand that her desire to go to the gym daily was not an unhealthy obsession to lose weight, it was an attempt to stay active. She felt working out made her feel better about herself, and I accepted that.

We continued foreplay. I moved to her clit, and she let out a soft gasp. I always tried to have her climax first, knowing that it was inevitable for me to reach mine. She ran her hand along my hard abs, slightly softened by a sedentary desk job, but still visible and firm to the touch. As I deftly brought Amélie to orgasm, my thoughts went to another place entirely. Amélie was straddling my cock a little too much, so instinctively, I tried to think about something else to avoid early release. I had pretty good control, but the wine had caused her to be more involved than usual.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I thought about my job and how bored I was in it, even as I entered Amélie. It allowed me to maintain my control. Ten minutes later as I was climaxing, our bodies entwined and such thoughts were ripped from my mind. The bliss of the moment and the soft afterglow as I held Amélie banished my unhappiness. Shortly after, both of us were sleeping, the wine and sex bringing us to such a state much easier than usual.

That is when I had the absolute strangest dream in my life.

Chapter 3

I was stepping out on stage, but instead of the tens of people that I had played for in previous bands, there were thousands. I could hear and see in the background the bustling of the inner workings of a rock show.

“Camera two ready. Adjust tilt on centre-left spotlight.” Another voice, this one asking in a worried tone, “Have we got the right mix for the vocals tonight? There were complaints last night. People said they sounded thin.”

I had never been backstage at a concert of this magnitude before. I had played some tiny clubs with at most a hundred people, so to step out on stage in front of thousands would be a thrill, even if it was only in a dream. I knew that I would wake up feeling that I had just been teased with what I truly wanted, but for now, I would bask in the spotlight. It was the sort of dream where I lacked any sort of control. I knew that my body was there, but I lacked the means to manipulate it. I could still feel the energy coursing through my veins, the elation at having reached this point, and my nerves were on a knife edge. The dream itself was incredibly vivid. I could feel my emotions as if I were awake. Dreams are usually detached and random pieces of thoughts and desires, but this felt real, even though I couldn’t move.

With my vantage point amounting to tunnel vision, I could only see what was directly in front of me, but what I saw was nearly forty people moving in unison, completing tasks they had done hundreds of times before. From what little I could see, I was impressed- they moved almost as one entity. I saw two roadies pushing out a whole rack of guitars. I caught a glimpse of one of them. A sunburst Fender Stratocaster. I usually used something with a little more meat, but it was still a beautiful guitar. As the roadies pushed the rack passed me, I noticed another guitar. This one looking like it belonged in Prince’s collection. The guitar was much smaller than I was used to as well, like something a child would use. It was acoustic, although I could see it had pick-ups, so it was meant to be plugged into an amp. The strangest part in all of this- it was hot pink with a black and white tiger-striped glitter-laden strap. I guess one of my guitar players was a woman, and a tiny one at that.

If this was supposed to be a rock show, and I was supposed to be the lead singer, why would I allow something so sugar-coated poppy? The guitar lacked any rock credibility at all. I was about to say something along the lines of “I hope that guitar is only here to be smashed”, but I was interrupted. Plus, when I tried to move my mouth, I couldn’t. It was as if it was sewn shut. In fact, beyond the emotions and the energy, I could not feel my muscles at all.

Then, I heard something that you do not hear at rock concerts usually, unless it is a glam rock show, or perhaps KISS is taking the stage. “Wardrobe!”

I blinked my eyes slowly, realizing that I was gaining control of my body.

A male voice spoke, but I couldn’t crane my head to see what he looked like, “We have 34 costume changes tonight. Where’s the list? Now look, this isn’t going to work. I know that she wanted us to change the order tonight, but we just can’t. There isn’t enough time for that costume change and the set will have to be redone for it. The lights won’t reflect properly anyway because there wasn’t time to reprogram them.”

Another voice spoke, this time female, “Just do it! We have a 10 minute intermission for that set change. Just do it.”

I shook my head, or at least I tried to. It felt like I was trying to move while buried up to my chin in quick-hardening cement. It budged an inch and then another inch.

Was it always this chaotic backstage, or were these people just incompetent? I was beginning to think that something was wrong because the dream felt so real. Usually when I dreamed or had a nightmare, there wasn’t time to react to the wrongness of a situation because you just float from scene to scene. Dreams are usually like watching only parts of a movie, except for this one, which felt like watching the whole movie but being strapped to the chair at the same time.

“We have two minutes to show time people.”

I blinked again, nerves now beginning to make me feel sick to my stomach. I looked down, and I saw that I was dressed exactly as I expected for a rock show. In fact, this is what I wore during band practice usually. I had on a pair of grungy looking Converse shoes. My light blue jeans were ripped. I also wore a light green hoodie with a simple white t-shirt underneath. Now I began to feel that I was in the wrong building, and the others were beginning to notice just how out of place I looked. Between the pink guitar, the backing dancers wearing red and green candy cane coloured skirts, and the piano player wearing a blue wig, it was clear that I was at the wrong venue.

I could hear the crowd, unlike any crowd I had heard before. The screaming was ear-piercing. Someone, noticing my discomfort quickly gave me a set of industrial strength ear plugs. It sounded like screaming teenage girls. There were boys as well, but they were not nearly as loud. This simply did not happen at rock concerts. I doubt anyone ever fainted during the solo of “Enter Sandman” like they have at Justin Bieber concerts. I wanted out of here.

Young women with makeup brushes approached me, and I tried to move my arm to shoo them away. I managed to move it, but it only brushed against one of them.

The girl I brushed against shook her head and turned to me, “If you don’t look right, they will make you into what they want. Crowds always do that.”

It was the first time anyone in this psychedelic acid trip had actually spoken to me. I moved my mouth, but the left side was still paralyzed, and I only managed a slight gurgle. How did they expect me to sing if my vocal chords didn’t work? Another young woman, this one far more annoyed than the other actually poked me in the chest.

“You starlets are all the same. Well don’t blame us if those people out there devour you. Out you go.”

I don’t know how this simple rock concert had suddenly turned into an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I didn’t have time to ponder that question. The girls pushed me onto the stage. The band started playing, but I didn’t recognize them or the song. One of the roadies handed me the sunburst strat, and I slung it over my shoulder expertly. I checked the cable making sure it was looped. This would keep it from being unplugged suddenly, however, I quickly realized it was wireless. In fact, the whole band was wireless.

I looked at my bandmates, who in turn looked at me, but it wasn’t really me they were looking at. It was the crowd.

I didn’t know where my cues were, so I kept the music playing. The backing dancers in the tiny red and green candy cane patterned skirts moved to the rhythm, their bodies gyrating in rehearsed movement. I sighed inwardly, this was a pop show, and one so pop that I wouldn’t have been surprised if the dancers bled bubble gum. The set piece was from some sexed up Hansel and Gretel with a buxom witch adding the odd harmony part over the instrumental. It was actually well done, but I was too caught up with the fact that every last person in the arena was booing.

I made my way to centre stage with a little smirk. They came here and obviously paid to see some pop starlet, but I was going to give them a rock show, whether they liked it or not. I sneered at the crowd. I located my amp, a nice Marshall full stack and turned it up.

Amazingly, there was an option to turn the volume up to eleven, which I quickly did. This had a two pronged effect: one, my stage volume was now eclipsing the drums and everything else, and two, it absolutely ruined the sound mix. The audio engineers would have to manually turn down my amp, instead of just at the sound board. They would have to turn everything else up at the board just to match the volume of my guitar.

I motioned to the drummer, a clean cut young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty, and I started into the opening riff to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It was a little thing Kurt Cobain used to do when he was seriously pissed at his audience. He would play the first two bars and then switch to some innocuous pop song, usually sung out of key. The drummer didn’t play along. The audience booing penetrated through the sound waves of my grunge anthem, beating it back to the point where only booing could be heard.

The guitar player, another clean cut and very boyish looking young man wearing white cut off shorts and a sequined vest, whispered in my ear. “You better get centre stage and start playing the right song or they will tear us apart.”

This was my dream and with the level of control I had been given, I was not about to let some hormonal girls ruin my fun. So I kept taunting them, singing bum notes and even starting to play one of my band’s songs. I wanted to hear what those huge power chords would sound like in a stadium like this with a tube amp cranked to 11. The fans wanted what they had paid for, and they continued to boo raucously.

As I stepped up to the microphone, centre stage, the spotlight struck me. I was bathed in a bluish glow. The band restarted the song with the guitar player shouting into his mic, “Hey sorry about that! Technical difficulties. I am sure if we picture who we want, she’ll come out.”

At this point, I was just about ready to wake up. I had had my fun. I finally recognized the song that was playing and my brow furrowed as I laughed into the microphone in front of me. I shouted, “You start the show with a cover? How original.”

The backing vocalists sung: “Don’t need your sad face baby
But I made up my mind
I made up my mind

Don’t need a re-run baby
You’re so back in time
Get back in time”

Great, now I had to listen to this inane pop song. I moved to the microphone and started shouting into it again, trying to drown out the music. I noticed that I had a guitar pedal in front of me, and I quickly tuned in a tone to give my guitar an extremely screechy sound. It literally made it sound like my guitar was wailing like a banshee. I hit pinch harmonics, incredibly high-pitched notes. It sounded like two devil cats having a spat over living space. As I moved to the microphone, to scream into it again, I noticed that I had to angle it downward slightly. I made the adjustment, and then I made it again. I looked down and, I couldn’t see my shoes anymore. The cuff of my pant legs completely covered them.

The backing vocalists sung: “Don't need a rescue
It's all good baby
I been hittin' my stride
Hittin' my stride”

I had to admit, the backing vocals were good. It didn’t sound like they were using auto tune or any studio magic. I glimpsed into the monitor in front of me to determine what was happening. At first, I thought I had lost my belt, but I felt it cinched around my waist. The stage itself had a number of different cameras built into it, and in the monitor, I could see my image. The same that was plastered on the big screen. The same one that was causing such vitriol from teenage girls who had minutes before been screaming in anticipation for their wonderful bubble gum princess hour to start.

My eyes widened as I saw what appeared to be snakes roosting in my hair. My hair was cut quite short since I had started my new job. Image of professionalism after all. The dark brown roots seemed to have been infested with a number of long blond snakes. To any casual observer, I had a blond mop on my head, but the snakes (or were they tendrils?), were actually attacking my dark roots. As I created a cacophony of sound on my guitar, I could actually feel the tendrils entering my skull, and like a reverse chia pet, the blonde tendrils actually pushed out my dark roots. I was bald, save for what looked like a very lively mop on my head. I remember my sister having a doll whose hair you could style at differing length. You only had to pull a string at the back to release the hair and then pull it to full extension and the long flowing locks would retreat. I felt exactly like that doll because soon enough, my scalp burst with long strands of blonde hair, and gradually, it went from a pixie cut, to shoulder length, and finally to full ringlets, dancing and waving, hanging just to the small of my back.

As I thrashed about on the guitar, my newly grown blond locks obscured my vision. I thrust my head to the side, which caused the dangling ringlets to sweep across my back. My bangs still obscured my vision, so I stopped playing for a moment and quickly pushed them out of my way. I must have looked very odd with my dark brown sideburns, but I was more curious about whether the hair on my head was actually a wig. I tugged roughly on the hair, managing to pull a few strands loose, but it was certain that this was no wig. Still, this was a dream. So, as odd as it was, I doubted that I would remember any of it when I woke up.

I noticed that my playing was getting worse. I had started to solo over top of the music, but it was a messy screechy attack on the pop music before me. My nails kept getting caught on the strings, which caused me to hit a lot of unintended notes. I stared down at my hands. It was getting harder and harder to hold the pick properly. My nails kept jabbing the fleshy part of my palm on my right hand, while the nails on my left made it nearly impossible to form full chords. I tried a simple C5 power chord, and while I managed to get it to sound properly, the long nails clipped the strings above and below. It was at this point that I noticed the colour on them. Invisible brushes drew hot pink lines down each grown nail. I had previously kept my nails in bad shape, as I tended to bite them causing them to be uneven. Now, each nail was immaculately shaped and coloured. They had grown from uneven nubs to elegantly crafted professional-looking tips. Over top the pink polish, the invisible brushes drew white stars on each nail.

I was having trouble reaching frets, not only because of my nails but because my hands were clearly shrinking. Previously, I could go from the first to the fourth fret with my pinky with little difficulty. Now, I was having trouble going from first to second. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one of the roadies. He was holding that pink acoustic guitar with the very girly strap. My fingers were slender and long, perfect for playing piano or for reaching far along the fret board. I looked down and my fingers were shrinking, but they were also losing their slenderness. As they shrunk, they became chubbier, until I was left with stubby digits that could barely reach around the neck of the strat.

The roadie, without any warning, brought the pink acoustic toward me and I quickly slipped off the strat and handed it to him. Now I could not make nearly as much noise as my clamour would be relegated to the tone of the steel stringed acoustic. I wouldn’t be able to squeal or screech at all. The crowd roared their approval, but half of them were still booing.

I noticed before that that same roadie was only a few inches taller than me, but as I tried to move back into position at centre stage, I tripped on my pant legs and nearly fell off the stage. I could feel my belt was still cinched around my waist, keeping my pants up, but with less leg to fill them, they had pooled at my feet. As I got back to the microphone, it was a good five inches too high.

I stood up and gripped the pink acoustic; it fit my new hands perfectly. The frets were tiny. Suddenly, the chords appeared in my head and my hands, these alien appendages, started to play the correct song, which elicited another round of applause from the crowd. I realized that I was still controlling my hands, but I was falling into what is known as muscle memory. I did not even need the chords because apparently, I had played this song enough times that my muscles knew where to go in each part.

I stared up at the jumbo screen that was displaying all of my changes to the raucous crowd and noticed that my face looked softer. I considered myself to be a pretty good looking guy. My wife certainly thought so. I did not have rugged looks, but I was not boyish either. I had near constant stubble above my upper lip and on my chin. This was a result of me using my razor blades too long before chucking them. My chin was well-defined with a slight cleft. My jaw line was angular. I had slight pock marks on my cheek as a result of bad teen acne, but it was not very noticeable.

My jaw line was the first to change, starting to round out gently as weight was added to my face, giving it a more feminine and definitely younger look. I looked like I was in my early twenties with that simple change. The dark circles underneath my eyes, a result of insomnia, quickly disappeared. My face was not exactly worn, but it was clearly a man’s face with rough skin and uneven bumps along my cheekbones. My pores shrunk and my skin bore a fresh look, as if I had just left a spa. My facial hair also disappeared, actually retreating into my face as the pores shrunk.

I looked even younger than twenty now. I would have had a very hard time buying alcohol without being carded. My jaw line rounded out entirely as my cheekbones rose to prominence, gaining a sudden rosy glow. My lips formerly thin and pale, reddened and plumped. The bottom lip plumped the most, placing the mouth in a near constant pout. Phantom brushes painted my lips ruby red.

The backing vocalists sang: “Got my red lipstick on
Engine's revving
You're so far behind
And I'm taking mine.”

My eyes widened considerably as my thin eyelashes gained volume and curled outward. My dark brown brows had the colour drained from them, now matching the colour of my hair. The bushy blond brows thinned to the point where they were just expressive lines dotting a face that could not have been more than eighteen. My nose thinned and turned upwards slightly, it maintained the small point, but it shrunk in width as the nostrils flared only to become smaller. My face rounded out more, gaining baby fat around the cheeks and chin. The bluish spotlight that still bathed me in light actually entered my eyes, blinding me momentarily. My orbs filled with blue light, the hazel and the offending colour dancing as if paired in a washing machine, until the blue was victorious. If you looked hard enough, you could actually see tiny flecks of hazel amongst the sky blue of my new eyes.

I let out a startled gasp as the face displayed on the massive screen couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen. My eyes widened as I realized that it was the face of a teenage girl. She had wide expressive sky blue eyes, a soft and rounded jaw and high cheekbones. The baby fat on her face made her look younger, so even when she wore makeup to try and look older, say eighteen, her face would betray her. I would be lying if I said she was pretty, she was beautiful, but since she was me, I wasn’t going to admit that.

I had heard that there were ways to end dreams. I remember one dream where I fell off a chair and then woke immediately. I didn’t want to let this bizarre dream reach its conclusion, so if I could induce the feeling of falling in my dream, maybe I would wake up.

I had difficulty moving quickly because of my pant legs. I had to waddle because, while I could lift the pant legs, they would just return to their pooled state when I moved an inch. As I started to tuck them into my socks, I felt a compression in my chest. My ribcage was shrinking, and the sudden decrease caused me to momentarily lose my breath. I gasped for air, and as I did, my tight white t-shirt started to move forward. I stared down and the sparse chest hair that I had was gone. As if someone had attached a bicycle pump to my chest, my pectorals started expanding. I didn’t have an overly muscular chest, but it was noticeable enough when I felt my pecs suddenly dropped as they began to gain heft to them. It started with little nubs where my nipples were seemingly trying to pierce the material of my t-shirt, but they grew to the point where I could feel them dangling. It was a bizarre feeling, but I put it out of my head and finished putting my pant legs into my socks. As I stood, my new breasts wobbled. They pressed up against my t-shirt obscenely. A young man in the front row gawked at my chest as I continued my trek toward the front of the stage.

It was impossible to think that moving a few feet would be so difficult, but it was. It seemed as if the closer I got, the farther away I was. Maybe I could just throw myself backward? This is exactly what I did, but it was clear the guitar player knew my intentions and he quickly caught me. He whispered in my ear, “This will be a lot easier on you if you stop fighting.”

I shook my head furiously and pushed him away, yelling, “What the hell are you talking about?! This is just a crazy dream. You aren’t even real. I just want to wake up!” I still had my male voice, but I knew that wouldn’t last. I continued toward the front of the stage, however; as I did, I suddenly stepped out of my shoes. My socks looked ridiculous. At the end, where the toes would usually go, the sock was completely empty. Like my hands, it was clear that my feet were tiny as well. I removed the socks altogether, but as I did, I noticed that the pink acoustic was hanging lower than before. The sleeves of my hoodie had engulfed my hands, making it impossible to even fret the guitar. I waved the long sleeves about, trying to free my hands. This elicited laughter from the audience.

My shoulders slimmed and the hoodie sagged down further. Now I looked like I was playing dress up in my older brother’s clothes. Nothing fit. My breasts still pressed against my t-shirt, but the bottom of the shirt moved lower to a point where it looked like I was wearing one of those shirt dresses that were so popular in recent years. The shirt, which previously hung just above my crotch, now reached just above my knees.

While it seemed like ten minutes had past, it was actually only one or two. I could tell by the swell of the music that the song was reaching the chorus for the first time.

The backing vocalists sung: “Oh, oh,
Been feeling so fly
Since you been gone
My face to the sky,
Sunglasses on
Turning up the beats so sick,
I'm like a brand new chick”

I remember how much I hated this song. The lyrics were so inane. It was clearly about a girl who broke up with someone and then just dances her problems away. Still, it was catchy, and I could actually feel my hips swaying to the music. With an uncomfortable crack, my pelvis widened and fat accumulated on my hips. I felt my angular hips filling out, pushing against the confines of my ripped jeans. My ass, which Amélie believed at times was non-existent, received much of the same treatment, expanded against the pockets until a pert bubble butt had formed. I had an hourglass figure, although my hips were just a hair wider than my chest.

I began to feel a draft on my legs. I peered down at my pants and saw that the rips and tears were actually widening. The stitches holding the jeans together tore, and the fabric split into short thin strands. At this point, I was in my boxer briefs with what appeared to be a skirt made from the split fabric of my jeans inching its way up my thighs. It had difficulty navigating over my hips, but eventually it pulled itself up.

The verse restarted and then the chorus began again, but everything was a blur now. The sleeves of my green hoodie began to melt away. My arms previously untouched, and rather silly looking attached to such tiny hands, softened as all of my arm hair disappeared in the same way as the hair on my head. In its place, grew sparse and very fine blond hair. My biceps softened and were quickly covered by a thin layer of fat. I never had arms like a bodybuilder, but now, they fit the rest of me perfectly, soft and silky looking, with just a hint of a wiggle as I tried to shake myself out of my quickly dissolving hoodie.

My belly, which really had no trace of fat on it before, softened and grew outward. The supple flesh invaded my abs, filling in each little crevice between them with fat. A little hint of love handle peeked against my t-shirt on each side, which was also dissolving. Apparently, this girl had been enjoying the craft services table. She wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t skinny either. My t-shirt was actually morphing into a skimpy sailor outfit. My breasts now supported with a red sequined bra created significant cleavage as the top two buttons of the ridiculous sailor outfit remained open.

The socks that I had pulled up to just below my knee unraveled and then reformed into a pair of sheer stockings. The stockings traveled up my legs, the muscle I had built from so many hockey games melting away. My thighs expanded, the skin becoming silky, my leg hair having long since retreated. My former jeans had been dyed pink, the strands now forming a bizarre skirt that looked like someone had just sewn the slat of a Venetian blind on the ratty remains of a jean skirt and decided to make it a piece of clothing. The slats shook and jostled with each other as I shook my hips, beginning to feel the music.

The swell of the music brought the end of the chorus and the beginning of the bridge. It was the same lyrics and beat. They didn’t even bother to change the key. I hated this song, but I wanted to sing it. I blinked slowly and walked over to the microphone, now a good eight inches taller than me. As I walked, I noticed a pair of pink Converse hi-tops appear on my feet, the laces tying themselves.

The backing dancers sung: “I'm like a, I'm like a, I'm like a brand new
I'm like a, I'm like a, I'm like a brand, brand
Turning up the, turning up the, turning up…

I felt a sudden emptiness in my boxer briefs, and within seconds, the only thing I was wearing was a thong. Nothing was pushing out against it.

One of the roadies adjusted the microphone for me. I took the pink guitar off and gave it to the roadie. I could feel my heart beating in my chest as the lyrics poured into my head.

I sang in my male voice: “Turning up the beat so sick.” The crowd had stopped booing. Some were actually cheering.

My Adam’s apple retreated into my throat as my neck gained the same smoothness as the rest of my body. I felt a slight tickle in my throat and along my vocal chords. I coughed slightly as the music swelled again.

I sang in a voice that was very clearly a soprano female with more power than my male voice ever had, “I’m like a BRAND NEW CHICK.”

The audience roared, but all I could hear was my wife’s voice. She sounded concerned. “Darren! Darren…-wake up!” She was shaking me.

Chapter 4

Amélie had never had to shake me awake, and considering it was Saturday, dread began to fill my mind. Was there something wrong with the baby? Did we need to call an ambulance? My heart raced, the dread causing my stomach to cramp. I am the paranoid type, and with an active imagination, my mind began to formulate all sorts of possibilities. Was Chloe having trouble breathing? In the instant that it took to imagine the worst possible scenario regarding my daughter, the next moment, I began to notice that something was off. My eyes shot open, and I saw that Amélie was staring at me. I had only seen her like this one other time. About a month ago, I was hospitalized with severe stomach flu. I was unable to ingest anything, even water, and I quickly dehydrated. As she watched me in the hospital, she cast a similar look, however; this one was one of horror and disbelief. The look of disbelief was absent at the hospital.

I had stupidly taken sleeping pills last night after the wine. I was just so used to taking them, I didn’t even think about the side effects of mixing them with alcohol. Had I stopped breathing momentarily?

Amélie and I slept with separate comforters. She said it was because I always stole the covers from her, but I think we were equally guilty from the times we shared hotel beds together. I was surprised to see my comforter completely off my body. I was still groggy from the sleeping pills, and I could see that it was just light outside. The room was dark, except for a little sliver of light where the two curtains met.

Amélie muttered, “I don’t even know how this happened…you hit me in your sleep. I turned over and you started thrashing. I thought you were going to hurt me.”

Clearly there was more, but Amélie was not forthcoming. She just stared down at me, seemingly unable to compute what had occurred. I felt extremely lethargic, my limbs seeming to weigh the same as patio stones. I had mixed the pills with alcohol before. I did it rarely, but still, I had never felt this hung over. My head ached, and even worse, I felt a wave of nausea. This was not a wonderful way to start the weekend. Odd though, I had never been sick from wine.

Any light is an anathema to one nursing a hangover, but I would have to get out of my bed to banish that sliver, and my headache was just too debilitating. I noticed that my pajama pants were pooled strangely at my feet. I remember putting them on after sex last night, but as I tried to kick them on, I had a lot of difficulty. The closer that my feet got to the ends, the higher I had to pull the waist. When I finally managed to pull them up, the waistband of the pants was sitting right below my chest. My mind said that this was impossible.

“I saw them grow out of your chest Darren. I saw the whole thing. I can’t even begin to comprehend it, but I saw it.” Amélie muttered to me, a look in her eyes that made me believe she thought this was inconceivable despite having witnessed it.

While my hangover was still making coherent thought difficult, the look in Amélie’s eyes sent a burst of adrenaline through my system. I became aware that my clothes didn’t fit, beyond my pants, my shirt was hanging down to just below my knees. And what I thought in the darkened room was my blanket obscuring my vision was clearly a pair of breasts. My mind immediately shot toward the bizarre dream I had.

I read fantasy novels, enjoyed Lord of the Rings in theatres, and I had seen the Harry Potter movies, but none of this was possible. We live in a world devoid of magic. The only way to change genders was through hormones and expensive surgery, and that did not allow the newly made women to have children, nor the newly made men to impregnate them. My mind registered the fact that I was clearly in another body, but the logical part of my brain suggested that this was still a dream.

I told Amélie matter-of-factly, “I am still dreaming. This is just the continuation of the insane dream I had before.” My voice was sweet sounding, even hung over and groggy from lack of sleep, it was soft, dulcet.

Amélie’s eyes widened again, “Oh my god, you even sound different Darren.” Her eyes closed as she listened to my words, obviously trying to get past how different I sounded. I didn’t have a gruff overly manly voice, but I didn’t exactly sound like a teeny bopper either. Her eyes filled with hope, “This is a dream- wait, mine or yours?”

I answered her, while propping myself up, using my pillow as a head rest. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. Here, try this. Stand up out of bed and then fall back. The jolt should wake you up. I’ve had dreams where I was falling and it wakes you up almost immediately.” I could tell she was still freaked that her husband sounded like some sophomore’s teenage dream, but she did as I asked.

Amélie frowned, “Then it must be your dream. Still, how can we have these thoughts in a dream? It seems very complex. I have dreamt of you before lots of times, but you- well I can’t really describe it. You just really didn’t seem to be there, but even though you look like that, well you act the same way. You talk the same way.”

I shook my head, my long hair swishing back and forth. “This is impossible. It just can’t happen, if magic was real, don’t you think we would have heard about it? The internet captures the most embarrassing, ridiculous and horrible moments. There would be something on there about this. Plus, why would people pay for surgery if they could just use magic to get a pair of these?” I motioned to my boobs. It was so unbelievable, and because it had just happened to me in a dream, my mind, which needed evidence to fully believe this was real, would not accept it as anything but an extremely vivid dream.

I slowly lifted myself over the side of the bed, nearly falling out as I realized that my feet took forever to touch. My hand snaked out and caught the headboard. Amélie helped me toward her side of the bed. Even if this was a dream, my nose wrinkled at the very prospect that Amélie could be taller than me, but she was. At 5’4, Amélie is not a tall woman, and while I had only been 5’10 before, I was even shorter than her. Standing next to her, I had to look up. Even in this dream world, I was annoyed that Amélie was a good four or five inches taller than me! I always felt short, since many of my friends were taller than me growing up, so being shorter than Amélie was just the perfect addition to this nightmare. I was eager to have it end.

The evidence that I spoke of earlier, I received in spades. First, as I fell backwards on the bed, I didn’t wake up. Almost immediately after, the head rush was accompanied by another wave of nausea, but this time, I knew I would soon have to grip cold porcelain.

I absolutely hate throwing up. I know that no one likes it, but before the stomach flu struck earlier in the winter, I had not been sick in eight years. I had an iron stomach. Amélie would tell me that one day I would be sorry and that I would eat the wrong thing. As a bachelor, I once ate blackened eggs because it meant I didn’t have to cook again. I would eat leftover meatloaf without a thought of what it would do to my digestive system or drink milk that was a few days past the best before date. Now, however, I was crouched over the toilet bowl about to have a very unpleasant start to my Saturday.

My mind was slowly settling into the fact that this was not a dream. That what was happening was in fact very real. Every inch of this body, these sensations, thoughts and feelings that I could feel swirling about in my brain, it was all real.

Amélie rushed in behind me. I turned to look at her, my eyes narrowing and teeth clenched. “Get out- you- you know I don’t like you in here when I am sick.”

Amélie who was clearly still in disbelief that this had happened quickly stationed herself behind me and didn’t say a word. Seconds later, I knew why. As my stomach convulsed, my tiny hands gripping the sides of the toilet bowl, I could feel Amélie pulling the long strands of hair away from the red zone. She gathered up my mane and held it while I was sick, making sure that none of my hair caught any debris.

I slowly pulled myself away from the toilet bowl, and Amélie handed me a paper towel. She was so good at this. My daughter was the one who sought her out when she was ill, or cranky. Mommy could make it feel better, and here I was a grown man, at least in mind, and she could make me feel the same way, warm and safe. I muttered, “Thanks…” I felt weak, but I also felt infinitely better having removed the offending substance from my body. The wine, made by Amélie’s father, was usually not a problem. It usually went down like juice, and a little water would stave off a hangover.

I leaned against the wall in the bathroom. I sat with my legs together and shook my head repeatedly. My pajama pants, which I had kicked off during the mad dash to the bathroom, had hidden the fact that there was nothing in my boxer briefs, that I was no longer a man. The front of the briefs hung loosely, while the back contained my new fleshy ass and stretched the elastic to create an unmanly silhouette when coupled with my now wider hips and prominent chest. Still, I could not hide my silky thighs and hairless legs now, nor the pink toenails attached to such tiny feet. Amélie was staring at me, trying to comprehend the impossible.

Amélie broke the silence. She looked at me fearfully, “Is that you Darren?” Amélie rarely cried, but she was on the verge of tears.

I lifted my hand and saw the wedding ring displayed on my left hand. It would be nearly impossible to remove now with my chubbier digits. Thankfully, the ring setting had been slightly loose before, so I was not left with a throbbing pain in my finger. I frowned; I had promised Amélie I would get it resized after I thought I had lost it. I never did, but ironically, it fit far better than before.

I responded. I had wanted it to sound firmer, assertive, but I just sounded scared. “Yes- I- I can’t explain it. All I know is that I had a crazy dream, where I was on stage, but I was me. Well how I looked before I meant.”

I tried to gauge Amélie for a response that she believed me, but her lips were tight and her eyes stared through me. She let me continue my explanation about the dream.

“The problem was that the people who were there, well they didn’t want to see me.” I stood slowly and looked at myself in the mirror. It was the same girl from the dream, minus the skimpy outfit and with her hair in disarray, the ringlets having come out and then tangling in places. “They wanted her.”

Amélie nodded slowly, listening to me speak as if this was a test to prove who I was. I guess it was. She said softly, “I- believe you Darren. Even though you look like that, you have the same mannerisms. The way you sit, the way you speak.” She looked into my eyes and then turned away, “Wow your eyes…they are so blue. You don’t look like I would expect you to look, you know if you had changed genders. You.-“

I finished the sentence for her. “I don’t look like anyone from my side of the family.”

Amélie feigned a smile, “Yeah.” She laughed, and if it had been anyone else, I would have been furious with them, but I knew her. She laughed when she was nervous. We once got into a car accident, not serious, but enough that it required a police report. Amélie was driving and hit some ice that was hidden under freshly fallen snow. She laughed when the cars struck each other, and the driver of the other car tried to argue that she was reckless, that she meant to crash my leased car into an old sedan, but I knew better. It was how she handled stressful situations.

Amélie continued, “I have never heard of anyone changing genders like that overnight, but I saw it happen. Everything Darren. I wish I could unsee it, that it was just a nightmare. That this wasn’t real because I don’t know what to do. You know, if this was Buffy, we would just meet the gang down at the Magic Box for some research, but I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

We had fallen in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix, watching nearly the entire series, so I understood Amélie’s reference.

I couldn’t imagine what was going through Amélie’s head, but my paranoia filled in the blanks. I thought that she wouldn’t love me anymore, if this was permanent. I thought that she would throw me out, and I would be forced into a halfway home for wayward girls and never see my daughter again. Then I remembered that she just held my hair as I puked, and that she believed that this was me.

“Well the obvious place to look is the internet. If there is a record of this happening, it would be there.” I pulled my pajama pants back on and rolled up the legs. “Maybe now that I have been exposed to magic, we will be able to find a magical solution. I mean, we didn’t think that magic existed before this right?”

So, we got onto our phones and scoured the web for anything related to magical gender change. Amélie asked me matter-of-factly, “Did you anger any gypsies or witches? Enter into any strange hall of mirrors?” I shook my head. She continued, “Are you wearing a cheap looking medallion, or did you visit any beaches recently?”

I shook my head and added that it was still freezing outside. Each time Amélie suggested another cause I shook my head. We looked for an hour and then returned to the bedroom. From what I could see, nothing had changed beyond my body. All my male clothes were still in my closet, and my phone didn’t suddenly have a pink case with sparkles or anything. I looked out in the driveway, and I could see that both cars were still there, my sport wagon and Amélie’s SUV. I pulled my wallet out of my dress pants, and it showed all my identification, credit card, debit card and social insurance number.

Amélie was still looking down at her phone as I finished looking around the bedroom, “Wait- what about a wizard in a bathrobe?”

I laughed, “Wait, you made that one up right?”

I appreciated the levity she was trying to bring, but to be honest, I was scared. We had no idea beyond the internet where to look. We couldn’t exactly go to a doctor. They would think we were both hallucinating from a drug trip or mentally ill. I knew I needed to be strong. I was a father, and I had responsibilities. I had to care for Chloe, pay my bills and contribute to the mortgage payments. I couldn’t break down and simply say “poor me”. It isn’t what an adult would do.

My thoughts were interrupted by Chloe who was calling for Amélie. “Mama, mama!”

Chapter 5

If we were lucky, Chloe wouldn’t wake us up before 6 AM, even on a weekend. Chloe had no concept of time, or how tired mommy and daddy were. There is no such thing as sleeping in when you have a young child. When Amélie and I were dating, we would often stay out until 3 AM, get home and sleep until noon. That was the life of someone whose only responsibility was to show up to class on time, and even then, it didn’t always happen. Our lives changed irrevocably when Chloe was born. I had battled insomnia all my life, but having a new born baby exacerbated this, causing me to seek medicinal measures to resolve my inability to sleep.

Considering I had just thrown up, and my head was still pounding from the severe hangover, I honestly just wanted to go back to sleep. However, Amélie looked equally tired, and Chloe would not relent, so I figured we would start the routine. Plus, falling into the routine would allow me to ignore the bouncing of my chest and the way that my ass moved when I walked. It was all very disorienting. Not only was I lower to the ground, my centre of gravity was altered, plus it felt like I had ten pounds of hair attached to my scalp. I couldn’t imagine even trying to lift my head when I got that mane soaked from a shower.

I noticed that I didn’t smell the same way either. My arm pits, smooth and hairless, still smelled of my deodorant, but the scent was superseded by the flower blossom smell coming from my hair. The hair, which had bangs that tended to dangle in front of my eyes, smelled like strawberries. It was so- girly. I suppose I would have to ask Amélie for help with it because I had no idea. I had previously lived in a world where it took five minutes to style my hair. I never used a blow dryer. I had a sudden urge to cut it all off when I thought about how long it took Amélie to dry her hair, and hers was only shoulder length, while mine tickled my ass.

I walked into the kitchen. Amélie had put Chloe in her high chair and was preparing to give her breakfast and despite my recent queasiness, I actually felt hungry. I walked over to the cupboard and reached up for a bowl without thinking. I did this every morning, taking a bowl out and putting cereal into it, add milk and presto- my morning routine. This time however, I couldn’t reach the shelf. This was embarrassing because Amélie could reach the second shelf, and previously, I only needed a chair to reach what was on the third shelf. I sighed and then dragged a chair from the dining room table. I retrieved my bowl and proceeded to shovel cereal into my mouth as quickly as possible while sitting hunched over in my chair. Amélie said nothing. I was having trouble reading her. I wondered if she was still having trouble processing what had happened. I know I was.

It was an uncomfortable silence because I really wanted to know that Amélie still believed me, that she wasn’t going to call the police and report her husband missing. Chloe broke the silence, but it did not help the tension. She was at a stage where everything she did was adorable. From the way she would comically wave her hands when saying “no”, to the way she would tell us whenever she sat down, it was all ridiculously cute. A few months ago, Chloe and Amélie stayed over at her sister’s place, and according to Amélie, she asked for me constantly. This was such a time.

Her eyes opened wide as she scanned the room for me. She turned to me, sitting a mere three feet away, and said, “Daddy?” I knew that she wasn’t calling me daddy. She was wondering where I was. Chloe then turned to Amélie and asked her the same question, her eyes still adorably wide, her voice lilting and expecting an instant response, “Daddy?” I frowned as I felt a tiny pang in my heart.

The worst part came when I moved toward her. Still expecting her daddy, I stepped in front of her and proceeded to make faces at her, she quickly dismissed me with a wave of her hand and a quick “no”. Undeterred by her rejection, I moved to gently tousle her hair. This elicited another request for daddy and another painful tug on my heart strings.

I looked at Amélie who was on the verge of tears. Her eyes were closed, but I could see tension in her face. I was the one in our relationship who usually showed my emotions.. I was the type who got immersed in movies, fell in love with characters and hated when they died, who cheered when the villain got his or her comeuppance. I had never attributed this to a female versus male dynamic in our relationship, but Amélie often joked that I was more of a woman than her when it came to certain movies because they really got to me. I gave Amélie the playful nickname of ‘Robot’, which she disliked immensely. As we matured in our relationship, we stopped using such nicknames to belittle each other.

Now, however, Amélie was the one showing more emotion than I was. I don’t know if I was just burying my feelings, or if I was still groggy from the sleeping pills, but I was just numb. I felt like I was going from one extreme to another. I could have cried when Chloe rejected me, but now, I felt nothing.

I broke the silence, “I am sure she will get used to it. I will treat her the same way until we find a way to change me back. I want her in my life.” I said the last words firmly.

Amélie shook her head and then looked at me angrily, “You think I would take her away from you because of something like this? Why would you think that?” She looked hurt.

I was flabbergasted by her reply and quickly back-pedaled, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I want to be the same person that I was, even if I look different, you know? I didn’t mean that you would take her away from me. I know you wouldn’t do that.”

Amélie’s face softened, but her lips remained tight. “I don’t want to hear you talk like that. I would never stop you from seeing her.”

Before I had a chance to respond, Amélie continued, “We need to think of the worst case scenarios here though.” Amélie tended toward the pessimistic side while I was more optimistic.

“If this is permanent, Darren, things might change. Do you really want people thinking you are her daddy?”

I narrowed my eyes and barked at Amélie, “I have that right. I am her daddy. No one can take that away from me.” The emotions were boiling in me.

It was Amélie’s turn to play damage control; she said softly, “I know they can’t. Not mentally, but we need to think of what is best for Chloe. It’s not all about us anymore; that changed when she was born. I mean how do you think it will look when we walk into her parent teacher interviews and you announce yourself as her dad?”

I scowled, stomping from the table before depositing my bowl in the sink. “So what, am I supposed to be a different person, to forget everyone I know, to just pretend that I died or something? What about my parents? How do you think they would react to that?” I was upset now, tears brimming in my eyes. It felt like I was on a roller-coaster that climbed vertically and then seconds later dropped on a steep curve only to climb again. I didn’t like it.

Amélie looked me in the eyes and realized her mistake. Perhaps she didn’t realize how fragile I was because I hadn’t been near tears yet. “I- I am sorry Darren, it’s just that- I love you, I don’t want to see you hurt, but I love Chloe too. We need to think of her. You are her daddy in my eyes, and no matter what happens, you always will be. I didn’t mean to say you wouldn’t be her dad- just that we need to think that if this is permanent. I mean- what are we going to tell people?”

I gently tousled Chloe’s hair again and brushed the tears away from my eyes. She tilted her head. My long nails skimmed her scalp, and I quickly took my hand away. She looked me square in the eyes and said, “Bobo!”

I knew Amélie had a hard time believing that we would find a cure. She did not believe in witchcraft or magic. We had discussed it on occasion, but with my sudden and complete transformation in front of her, how could she not? Despite our earlier failure, I knew that the answer was somewhere. I remembered from science class, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. It had to be true about magic, if it could do this to me, it could turn me back. I wasn’t a science major by any means, but it seemed to make sense. It gave me hope.

I turned to Amélie, “We will just keep looking. Right?”

Amélie nodded her head slowly. “Of course.”

Chapter 6

I sent a quick text to my band mates telling them I had to cancel practice tomorrow. I hated canceling practice. At work, I would feel the excitement build as the weekend approached, knowing that I was closer to being able to step into the practice space and let loose. Music was therapy for me. It was the way that I expressed myself and my creative outlet. When I was singing and playing, I was ten feet tall, nearly invincible, and I did not mind when all eyes are on me. Outside of music, I was shy unless brought into active and often controversial topics- politics usually. I was uncomfortable in crowds of strangers. When I was on stage, I felt an energy brimming in me, not unlike the feeling from my dream oddly. So when I had to cancel or when one of the other guys canceled, I felt immediately depressed because it was another week of drudgery to wait for that satisfaction.

Certainly I got fulfilment from writing lyrics, coming up with a new vocal melody or guitar riff, but there was nothing like playing with others. When we were tight, everything felt seamless, the transitions and timing- perfect. I lied in the text, implying that I was sick again. We had just gone through one of the worst winters in recent history for illness. For my family, it was worse, because it was Chloe’s first year in daycare; she brought home all manner of nasty viruses. To me it seemed like whoever was sending these bugs down was preparing our immune system for some super bug, and without the constant sniffles, sore throat and aches, we would be wiped out as a species.

The bass player, Andrew, wrote back and said he understood. He had a newborn baby at home, so he had had to cancel a few times since the birth. Amazingly both he and the drummer, Steven only missed a week of practice after their children were born. Steven wrote back, asking if we could practice during the week. The answer to that question depended on if Amélie and I could find a cure for my condition. I wasn’t ready for the world to see me, and especially not my friends and family.

I felt a pressure on my bladder. Having just finished breakfast, I was surprised, but I ignored it. Certainly I had drunk a large glass of water to replace the fluids I lost after puking, but I was used to waiting a few hours before peeing. In fact, under certain circumstances, I held it for an entire day.

I had what Amélie termed a ‘disorder’, in that, I never used public washrooms, unless they were pristine. Porta-potties were out of the question. I actually held it for a full 12 hours during a day-long concert because the only options were movable washrooms. In previous jobs, I used to hold off going to the washroom if I knew it was not cleaned regularly. Even when I was in school, I used to hold it until I got home. I think my fear of public washrooms stemmed from being peeked at when I was in grade school. One of my 3rd grade classmates pushed the door in while I was trying to go to the washroom. These events certainly contributed to my ‘disorder’.

Five minutes later, I found that I could not ignore it. Amélie looked at me quizzically while Chloe watched television, thoroughly transfixed by the Muppets. I was shifting back and forth.

Amélie motioned to the bathroom, “It isn’t going to get any better. You better go. You remember the times where I told you that I felt like I was going to pee my pants? You know when we get home and I practically knock you over to get to the bathroom? That is how it is. If you hold it, you could get a bladder infection. Or literally pee your pants.”

I wrinkled my nose. While I enjoyed Amélie’s body, I had no interest in learning how her body functioned internally. The mystery behind the monthly visitor remained so, as I insisted Amélie do such business behind closed doors. She did not push the issue, telling me that it was the part she disliked most about being a woman, happy to keep it a secret. I shuddered at the thought of her having to show me anything about the inner workings of this body.

So, I retired to the washroom, annoyed and embarrassed. Imagine that all your life you have done something one way, only to wake up the next day and realize that it has changed. I was not the type of guy who considered being able to stand up to pee a great advantage and due to my anxiety over public washrooms, I never used urinals. What bothered me was that I no longer had the choice. I pulled down my pyjama pants and slowly lowered myself onto the toilet.

I heard Amélie approaching the door. She asked, “Darren, I know this might be embarrassing for you, but do you…need any help?”

I shouted through the door, “Why would I need help with this? I am not an invalid!”

I could hear Amélie storm off, but I didn’t care. I pulled up my pants, noting that the legs had unrolled, leaving them to pool at my feet again. I sighed. I would have to wear Amélie’s clothes if I didn’t want to worry about tripping on the legs, or I could cinch a belt around my waist. Either way, I felt that I would look foolish. Plus, the thought of wearing Amélie’s clothes- well it was cross-dressing or close to it and the legs would still be too long. Almost everything she owned was pink. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but honestly, I felt that way after doing the laundry. I couldn’t see myself wearing anything but my clothes at this point, even if they were ill-fitting.

The day passed quickly as weekend days often do. Amélie had intended to go out for supper with her friends from law school, but my transformation had changed those plans. I wasn’t sure if she blamed me for what happened, as if I had asked for this, but we did not talk much after my outburst in the bathroom. We were both very headstrong people, and when we felt slighted we could move into a severe passive aggressive mode. I could see that she was still conducting research, so I went downstairs to my computer to conduct my own.

I knew that we would talk about our fight tomorrow, but for now, we were both too angry. I was upset because I resented Amélie treating me like I was a child, and Amélie was likely angry because she had tried to help and was rebuked for her attempt, plus she had missed dinner with her friends.

We ended up discussing the result of our research in bed- neither of us had been successful. We went to sleep without saying another word.

Sunday morning came and nothing had changed, I was still trapped within this body. Amélie woke up wanting to talk, and for the second time in two days, she roused me, but this morning, it was a gentle nudge, rather than the forceful shaking from yesterday. “Darren, we need to talk about yesterday. If we are going to stay sane through this, we have to avoid fighting. It is just going to make things worse.”

I grumbled, groggy from my sleeping pills likely due to the increased dose I had taken. I had had a lot of difficulty falling asleep the previous night, my mind drifting between accepting the reality of this situation and passing it off as a dream. Living within the dream world would have allowed me certain serenity, but it would not have been the practical way to handle this. I turned over, my hair in my face as Amélie gently brushed my bangs from my eyes. “We will still look for a cure,” she said, “but I want to help you. I know you aren’t a child, but this can be easier for you.” She leaned over to the side of the bed and picked up her hairbrush. She gently brushed my hair, untangling my mane and pushing the bangs from my eyes again. She handed me one of her headbands. “This will keep it out of your eyes, Darren. I know you want to be strong, but you are allowed to accept my help. You don’t have to do this alone.” I pulled the headband over my head and, Amélie adjusted it.

I smiled gently at her and opened my arms, inviting her toward me for a hug. We embraced, our boobs pressing together, with my hand then lightly tracing her thigh through her silk pajama pants. She rolled over and we spooned. That sliver of light invaded the darkness of the room again, this time illuminating a grimace on Amélie’s face, reflected in the closet mirror, as my now softer body pressed into hers.

Chapter 7

Sunday morning Amélie left to buy some clothes and shoes for me. Earlier that morning when I went to take the garbage out, I tried my boots. My now tiny feet swam within them, and even tied, I could not keep them on. They had not only shrunk but had also narrowed. If not for what I deemed a prominent chest, I could have sworn that my body was only eleven or twelve years old. Not even Amélie’s boots or shoes fit me. They were better, but her feet were wider than mine, so the sides rubbed uncomfortably enough to eventually cause blisters.

While Amélie was gone, I took my first shower as a girl. Chloe was napping peacefully, so it was a good time to do so, knowing that it would also take forever to dry my hair. I entered the bathroom and stripped off my still ill-fitting pyjama pants, boxer briefs and t-shirt. I liked to enter the shower with the water already at the perfect temperature, so I turned on the water and set my hand underneath the spray. I also liked my showers hot, so hot that my body was often reddened in places. I felt the optimal temperature and quickly ducked under the water. I immediately let out a high-pitched shriek as the stream touched my skin. It was unbearable. I quickly exited the shower, my back sore where the scalding water had struck.

I was glad that Amélie had not seen this. It was embarrassing, and I should have known better because she always said that she could not stand the temperature of my showers. When we enjoyed a playful shower together, the temperature was always much lower than I was used to. My stubbornness to follow my usual routine had left me with a painful burn. I tried to peer at it in the mirror, the girl looking back at me grimacing in pain. Eventually, the pain subsided, going from red-hot needles to a gentle throbbing. It still hurt, but not nearly as much.

I reached my hand into the shower, trying my best to avoid the scalding stream, and turned up the cold considerably. I was able to enter the water without discomfort. The water cascaded over my body, thoroughly soaking my hair. It felt like I had a damp mop attached to my head that gradually got heavier as it soaked up more and more liquid. I had hoped the shower would calm my nerves, but it was more disconcerting than anything due to the range of sensations brought on by the shower head.

It was nothing sexual. I had no interest in exploring this body, and while a part of me thought that it might give me a unique vantage point when I did return to my original body, it just felt wrong. I did not think of it as my body. It was shell holding my mind and nothing more than that. Also, the girl whose body I inhabited was likely barely sixteen years old. I felt it disrespectful and frankly perverted. I soaped each breast, washing underneath as I had seen Amélie do and then quickly allowed the stream to remove the soap.

Still, once the water was at the right temperature, it was actually pleasant. I tried not to think about the body I was in, as everything felt out of place. The heaving mounds on my chest, while not stripper-size, were still too large because of their very existence. They were smaller than Amélie’s, but I still felt them constantly. Every time I shifted to allow the water to remove soap from a different part of my body, they shifted as well. While I hated to admit it, a bra would likely be needed for both comfort and control.

As I looked down at myself, I noted the padding I had. The extra layer of fat that seemed to coat my body gave me a soft, huggable shape. The girl’s body was not overweight by any means, but she had wide hips and soft pliable thighs, and along with her chest, it was a figure that would no doubt catch many eyes. I ran my hands over my stomach, scrubbing vigorously with the soap. While my sedentary office jobs had softened my belly before my change, I still had discernible abs. Now, my slightly rounded belly dipped as I leaned down. If I tightened my stomach, I could feel the muscles underneath, but as soon as I released them, my belly returned to its gentle curve.

I exited the shower and towelled off, but my hair was still soaked, quickly forming a puddle on the bathroom floor with the constant dripping. I wrapped my hair in the towel as I had seen Amélie do and tried to soak up as much liquid as possible. I went into the bedroom and plugged in Amélie’s hairdryer and turned it on full blast. Why did the hairdryer have to be pink all-over with black leopard spots? Considering no men I knew actually used a blow dryer, it seemed that the device could be white or just black and still serve the same function. Still, the colour was not surprising considering Amélie absolutely loved pink. I was glad that she was out buying me clothes because I had no interest in wearing hers. I just hoped she'd resist the temptation to buy pink for me!

I continued browsing on my phone while I mindlessly moved the hairdryer to different parts of my head. Last night, I had found a public chatroom for practising Wicca. I had not been in a chat room in years, but apparently, it was still one of the best ways to communicate with people who had similar interests. I suppose I could have looked on Facebook, but the chatroom was in no way linked to my friends. I was just a random IP address among the millions on the internet this way. I signed in as a guest and just listened as I had done last night. For the most part, it was women discussing Wicca as an empowering quasi-religion, but someone under the incredibly lame nickname WizardCAN87 was sparking debate. He, the user had a profile that showed his gender, claimed to be a real wizard. The Wicca in the chatroom stated that while real magic could exist, manipulating the magic would only be allowed if the natural order allowed it.

While I found the discussion interesting, I was not any closer to a cure. The Wicca explained that this natural order would never allow someone to come forward and brag about their abilities. Magic involved circumstance, they explained, such as the ability for a mother to protect her child, gifting her with incredible strength to fight off a threat; however, she would have no idea that it was magic that gave her that strength. I thought that the ‘wizard’ was just trying to stir up debate, but I decided to add his nickname to my chat list and send him an invitation for a private chat.

I filled out a profile for myself, and figuring that I was more likely to get a response from this supposed wizard, I entered my gender as female. I put my age as eighteen, and while I knew this not to be the case, I worried WizardCAN87 would not answer my invitation if he thought I was too young. I heard Chloe crying, so my private chat would have to wait. I could log back on later to see if WizardCAN87 had accepted my request and initiate the chat if he was online.

Before getting Chloe, I had to get dressed. My options with respect to clothing were limited if I did not want to be tripping over my pants. I slipped on a pair of Amélie’s sweatpants over my boxer briefs, amazed that even a simple pair of sweats could place such emphasis on my butt and the exaggerated curve of my hips. Thankfully, they were Capri style, so they weren't too long for my short legs. I would never have worn clothing like this as a man. They clung to my skin, the silky fabric smooth on my legs. I pulled on one of my t-shirts, which stretched across my chest and hung down to my knees. Chloe was getting more upset by the second, so I halted my fashion show and hurried to her room.

She was calling for Amélie again. I lifted Chloe from her crib and into my arms. She looked at me inquisitively. She was usually not afraid of strangers, but she was hesitant to allow me to pick her up. I brought her into the living room while she did her best impression of a human arm bar. She was tense in my arms, until I lifted her shirt with my nose and gently nibbled at her side. This caused her to giggle and then laugh with a high-pitched squeak. It would have worked better if I had a scruffy face, but Chloe still enjoyed it. Eventually, she was laughing uncontrollably, and this was the sound that greeted Amélie as she returned from shopping.

She beckoned me into the bedroom, “Someone is in a good mood.” I nodded and put Chloe down.

Chloe followed us into the bedroom, obviously curious about the contents of the bag. Amélie looked at how I was dressed. “Those fit you better than they fit me.”

This was not what I wanted to hear for two reasons. The first being that it meant Amélie was still concerned about her weight. I thought she looked amazing in anything, even sweatpants. The second reason was that it made me feel strange. I did not want to be told I looked good in girl’s clothes.

I started going through the bags, pulling the pants and shirts out. Amélie was watching me with trepidation.

I pulled out a pair of jeans from the bag and furrowed my brow. The jeans were feminine in style, with a flare at the leg and pink stitching. On the back pocket, emblazoned in pink script, the word ‘sassy’ could clearly be read. I shook my head angrily, pulling out more pairs and tossing them on the floor. I saw only one pair that looked remotely masculine.

Before I could ask Amélie why she expected me to dress like such a teeny bopper, she said, “Try those on first. But I will tell you now. They will not fit.”

Amélie explained the issue, “That was the biggest pair of men’s pants I could find that would actually be the right length.” She motioned to the masculine style jeans, “The problem is this, you are short, but you aren’t exactly petite. I have the same problem with jeans, but yours is worse because you are shorter than me. So you don’t have a lot of choice.”

I snatched the men’s jeans from her, a nondescript pair of blue jeans with wide legs. I figured that they would be far too big for me when I held them up to my body. They looked like the kind of pants a teenage boy who liked rap music would wear. I remembered them from high school; they wore their pants so low you could see their underwear. Thankfully, I never succumbed to that bit of fashion nightmare history.

I had little difficulty getting my legs into the pants, but once the jeans reached my hips the problems started. I grunted while twisting my body, trying to wiggle into the pants. Amélie motioned for me to lie down on the bed and then pull them up. I had seen her do this with pants that needed an extra effort to put on. As much as I huffed and grunted, and as red as my face got from the exertion, I just could not pull the pants over my hips comfortably. I managed to get them over eventually, but they pinched my new hips. I knew that I would get angry red marks if I wore them.

Amélie sat next to me on the bed, “Now you know why I hate shopping for jeans.”

I sighed, slowly inching my way out of the pants. Amélie was right. I had worn her clothing before, but it was for past Halloween costumes. I had had little difficulty getting my bony hips into the pants then. Now, I was annoyed that I could not wear clothing of my choosing.

I felt that Amélie had not done enough to find pants that fit, but I did not want to start an argument. I appreciated that Amélie had tried, and honestly, since she was the only one who had seen my transformation I did not want to alienate her. I needed her to trust me, or I'd be left in a very vulnerable position with no identification that matched my current appearance.

She had bought me a pair of white running shoes that seemed to be the right size, so I was pleased about that at least. I suppose a part of me worried that I would come to enjoy wearing such clothes, that it would become second nature to slip on a bra, panties and then a pair of form-fitting jeans. I slipped on the Capri sweat pants from earlier. I had been avoiding it all weekend, but I realized that I would soon have to come to grips with that fact that I could not go to work on Monday morning. This was a far more pressing issue than a pair of jeans.

Chapter 8

Monday morning came like a flash. Amélie and I spent Sunday evening engrossed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, choosing to have a mini-marathon, which avoided having a difficult conversation about what we were going to do Monday morning. We were usually irritable on Monday mornings, but when Chloe had a poor night and Monday struck, the tension in the house was palpable. I will admit that I have not been the best partner with respect to taking care of Chloe at night. With my sleep anxiety, I feared that I would not be able to maintain a proper sleep schedule, and this would cause insomnia. Another part of me just allowed Amélie to care for Chloe at night because I did not want to get up. I knew this was selfish behaviour.

After a few weeks of Chloe's not sleeping well, Amélie was fed up with us both, but she took out her anger on me. I apologized and told her that she could wake up me up if my sleeping pills were keeping me from hearing Chloe’s cries. I wanted to help, but I wanted to be asked. She was skeptical, but I told her that this is how I was wired. She accepted it but with the assurance that I would help and that she could wake me. A week ago, I got up for the first time with Chloe, staying up with her while she teethed, watching Sesame Street and rocking her gently. I was proud of myself. We had an understanding from this point on that Amélie could wake me when it was my turn.

Amélie glared at me as I stumbled into the kitchen, still very groggy from my sleeping pills. She was feeding Chloe in her high chair, “I wish you wouldn’t take those pills. I couldn’t wake you. I have been up with her since 2.” There was venom on her lips; I could tell she was not happy that I was still in this body, and coupled with it being Monday and Chloe not sleeping, it was a recipe for a serious tongue lashing.

She continued, “I know this has been hard on you, and it’s been incredibly hard for me to see my husband walking around in the body of a teenaged girl, but I still need help. I know you have been taking more of those pills. You are in a different body; you don’t know what they will do to you.”

I had not been expecting such an outburst from Amélie, but considering she had been up with Chloe all night and it was my turn to get up, maybe it was not so surprising.

I shot back, “Those pills are the only thing letting me sleep right now. I know you don’t like me taking them, and I am sorry you weren’t able to wake me up, but would you rather I not sleep?”

Amélie shook her head angrily, “Darren, you are walking around drugged. I don’t trust you to take care of Chloe at night, so I will do it myself. Just forget it.”

I knew this to mean that she did not accept my behaviour, and that she wanted me to handle this. Soon after, Amélie left to take Chloe to daycare. Normally, I would have gone with her, dropping Chloe off and then riding the bus with her to work, but it was clear I could not show up to work looking like this.

I knew that the medication I was taking was not addictive. My doctor had said so, and Amélie trusted him, since he chose not to medicate immediately, unlike some doctors. I considered lowering the dosage I was taking. I texted Amélie, knowing she would be riding the bus. The text explained that I knew that I was wrong, and that I was sorry I had scared her. I would lower the dosage so she could wake me up.

Amélie texted back, “I couldn’t wake you up Darren. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is? I know you have problems sleeping and this hasn’t helped, but promise me you won’t do that again.”

I wrote back quickly, “I promise. I’m sorry. I love you.”

My phone vibrated with a new message from Amélie, “Love you too. Are you going to be OK at home alone?”

I answered that I would be fine, but in the words on the screen, Amélie could not see the worry. I knew that I would have to inform my boss that I wouldn’t be in today. I had only started two weeks ago, and while I had shown that I was highly competent, I had not yet shown I was sufficiently reliable and trustworthy to justify unscheduled time-off.

I could not call in. My voice sounded too young to be taken for my wife, so my only option was e-mail. I wrote my boss, saying that I had bronchitis and that I was highly contagious until Thursday. I described my symptoms and explained that I had been coughing all night. My boss, an understanding woman with children of her own, bought my story. She had no reason not to, but she asked me to call her when I was feeling better. She wanted to discuss bringing me into the business side beyond just being her assistant. She was so pleased with my work that she wanted to send me for professional training. It would mean an eventual promotion if I was successful.

I read the words displayed on my phone with my mouth agape. I swore and then proceeded to punch the wall, regretting it immediately and thankful I had not struck a stud. My hand stung and my nails dug into the soft flesh of my palm. Why had I been cursed with this body? I would lose an excellent opportunity to advance my career if I could not change back soon.

I quickly logged into the Wicca chatroom. WizardCAN87 had accepted my invitation, but he wasn’t online. I checked back every five minutes. Finally, by eleven, he had signed on. To pass the time, I conducted further research. If the Wicca in the chatroom were correct, my issue would solve itself, and the natural order would not allow me to realize that anything had changed. I had a hard time believing this because I would not soon forget what had happened to me.

My nails clacked on the keyboard. They were causing me to make typing mistakes. The nails seemingly gained from my dream, still adorned with the white star over top the pink polish, were even longer than Amélie’s. I wanted to be rid of them. I knew also that long nails would make playing guitar difficult. Before beginning my chat with WizardCAN87, I decided to take a pair of nail clippers and remove the hindrance. With a few quick clips, my nails were shortened considerably, the white stars obliterated. The nails were uneven, but I didn’t care.

WizardCAN87 had taken the initiative and sent a message. I was worried he might have signed off, before I could answer, but I saw he was still online. I had chosen the nickname ‘MusicLover’ for obvious reasons.

WizardCAN87: Hi MusicLover
WizardCAN87: You there?
MusicLover: Yeah sorry. How are you?
WizardCAN87: Good good. So do you go to school?
MusicLover: Yeah, I go to university here in town.
WizardCAN87: So why are on Wicca chat? Do you practice?
MusicLover: No, but I’d like to.

I figured I should just ask him a straight question, since he had been so upfront regarding the use of his supposed powers. It was impossible to read his legitimacy at this point and because I didn’t even know what signs to look for, I would just have to keep asking him questions.

MusicLover: So, your school of thought concerning Wicca differs greatly from the others on the chat room, how do you explain this? The others were adamant that magic could not be used unless the natural order allowed it.
WizardCAN87: You sound like the Wicca. Look, magic is the same as religion. You have to believe. The only difference is that magic is tangible, if you can feel it.
MusicLover: And how can you feel it? What makes you special that way?
WizardCAN87: You are born with it. So you have to believe, but you also have to have the capacity for it.
MusicLover: OK, so why are you hanging out on a Wicca chatroom bragging about your powers and not ruling the world? With the power you were talking about, you could influence decisions on a worldwide scale.
WizardCAN87: Yeah there is that, but there are others like me. I just like to stir up those do-nothing Wicca. Some of them have the ability and some of them don’t. What is the point in just letting nature control when magic is used? They have the ability, but their precious natural order keeps them from experimenting.
MusicLover: You sound bitter, why?
WizardCAN87: Nah, just trying to get them to take the broomsticks out of their collective ass. You know? Shake things up.
MusicLover: You still haven’t answered my question. Why aren’t you prime minister?
WizardCAN87: Well I hate politics first of all. I just choose not to use my power that way.
WizardCAN87: Look, I can tell you are smart, you are interested, and you are asking the right questions. I could see if you have this ability inside. We’d have to meet though. And I know this sounds creepy, but we can talk more before if you like, even over the phone. So we get to trust each other. When we meet, it can be a public place. That is how I always do it.

I was extremely conflicted, but I also had no other options for a cure at this point. I had used online dating sites before. If you were someone who could really compose their thoughts well, you could be very successful. I met all kinds of women and even dated a few of them. I even met a girl after one week of speaking to her a few times over chat and once over the phone, but this was different. I knew I was more vulnerable as a girl, still- if he intended to meet me in public, at least I could leave if he was a freak, right? Maybe he could shed some light on my theory about being exposed to magic for the first time allowing one to see and experience the arcane on a more routine basis. I answered him after a few minutes of deliberation.

MusicLover: You’ve done this before?
WizardCAN87: Sure. I am always interested in bringing out the talents in others.
MusicLover: OK, we can talk again. I’m interested.
WizardCAN87: Good to hear. So what type of music are you into?

It continued this way for another hour. It was a casual discussion that never returned to the topic of magic. He had managed to get me to practically bare my soul regarding my taste in music, my hate for anything that was not genuine song writing and, we even discussed hockey. He was a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, but if he could help me, then he could be forgiven. Plus, he seemed like a nice guy. I have had issues with male friends due to a history of bullying through high school, but this guy seemed to be a decent guy, just one who claimed to be a wizard.

I decided not to tell Amélie about WizardCAN87. I wanted to meet him before I brought her into this. Even though she had seen me change, I knew that unless I could get her proof, she would not believe that wizards could exist. If I could return to her with evidence that magic existed outside of our bedroom, then maybe her pessimism could be replaced with cautious optimism. I knew I was grasping at straws, but I was desperate to have my life back.

I went back upstairs to prepare lunch, feeling optimistic that at least I had tried, and that I was simply not accepting this fate. The research aspect was not new to me, but here I was not searching for an argument to strengthen a case; I was searching for the means to return to my body. Research requires a great deal of patience because often you can input a search that will not yield results. I looked at my search for a cure very much the same way.

As I was spreading butter over a slice of bread, I noticed that my nails were poking into my skin again. I knew that I had cut them unevenly, but still, the nails had been trimmed to look as masculine as possible, minus the remnants of the pink polish. It was then that I realized the nails were growing before my eyes. Within a few minutes, they had returned to their former length, even the white stars had returned.

I stared dumbfounded at my nails. This had to be a record for the fastest growing nails in history. I knew I had changed physically in a very drastic way, but to see this magic in front of my very eyes, it was eye opening. While I was stunned to see my nails grow as I watched, it seemed to confirm my theory that once exposed to magic, the doors to a formerly secret arcane world would open.

Despite having to deal with the bothersome nails again, the fact that I had seen magic again reaffirmed my belief that there were those who could wield magic. After all, something had done this to me, right?

The rest of the day and evening was uneventful. Amélie and I fell into our routines, and while I could tell that Amélie wanted to discuss the next step with regard to my predicament, I managed to coax her into watching more Buffy.

Chloe woke at a quarter to three and as part of our agreement and my reduced sleeping pill dosage, I woke to calm her cries. I found it odd that I could hear the cries more clearly, even though I was wearing my ear plugs. Usually, the cries were muffled, but the shrieking was crystal clear. Apparently, women hear higher frequencies than men and Chloe’s howling was definitely in the upper range.

There were small perks to occupying this body, millimeter sized perks compared to the obvious disadvantages, but perks nonetheless. I no longer needed my glasses or contact lenses. From what I could tell, my vision was perfect. I could see objects in the distance clearly. So while I would save a few hundred dollars a year not having to upgrade glasses or contacts, I could not go to the job that was paying me thousands of dollars per year.

Being half asleep, I reached over to put my glasses on, but once I put them on, I noticed that my vision was worse. It took a moment for my brain to process the fact that I no longer needed them. I left the bed, being careful to ease down slowly to avoid falling. I was annoyed at my short legs because formerly I had just swung my legs out and they would hit the floor. Now, I had to take an extra step and carefully scoot off the bed until my feet touched.

I was not a midget, but our bed, a more recent style queen, was high off the ground, so my losing nearly a foot was significant given its height. My hair danced in my eyes as I stumbled through the darkness. I grabbed one of Amélie’s headbands, pulled back my bangs and set it in place as she had showed me.

I spoke in hushed tones as I entered the baby’s room, the sweetness of my voice not matching my words, “Shh Chloe, Daddy’s here.” I wasn’t sure if this would confuse her. Amélie and I hadn’t talked about what Chloe should call me since our previous argument. I picked up Chloe, and in the darkness, she must have mistaken me for Amélie because she said, “Mama?” Either that or she wanted Amélie.

I brought Chloe into the rocking chair beside the bed, letting her gently rest on my chest. Before, Chloe did not enjoy my firm chest, preferring the pillow-like consistency of Amélie’s. Now, however, the girl laid her head on my breast, allowing me to rock her slowly. She usually did not allow herself to be rocked, but because of her teething, she permitted the rocking that had so often soothed her as an infant.

I smiled at her in the darkness, pleased that I could take away the pain so easily with such a simple gesture. I guess to her I was a lot more comfortable now. Instead of sharp angles, I had curves that gently nestled. It took only a few minutes before she was fast asleep. I crept back into bed, feeling proud that not only had I helped Chloe fall back asleep, but also allowed Amélie to get some much needed sleep.

Chapter 9

A week passed like this, me rising to take care of Chloe, and her getting used to me. When I didn’t return to work on Thursday, I e-mailed my boss again, telling her I was still ill. As for Chloe, she did not call me Daddy, but she accepted my presence at least. She often called for her daddy causing me to nearly burst into tears on occasion. I knew that it was hard on Amélie, but her telling me that Chloe often asked for me when she was picked up from daycare was beyond painful for me. The daycare workers told Amélie that one day, every time someone came into the classroom Chloe asked simply, “Daddy?” This was the proverbial dagger in my heart. After hearing that, I went downstairs, closed the door and cried. I hid my feelings from Amélie, thinking she would want me to be strong, but I had seen her nearly tearing up during the past week too.

I was not only thinking of myself when I thought about the grave necessity to find a cure. I wanted Chloe to have a daddy, and I wanted Amélie to have her husband back, the man she had pledged a lifetime to. I thought also about my family, my mother and father, and my younger sister. My parents were on vacation down south. Like many Canadians, who could afford it, they spent much of their winter away from the bitter cold and the subsequent viruses that come with such weather.

During the weekend, exactly one week after my change, I received an e-mail from my parents, indicating that they were coming home early. My mother missed the baby terribly and that was reason enough to cut the trip short. How was I going to explain this to them?

I had a brief reprieve before my parents arrived, their three week trip trimmed to two weeks; in the meantime, however, another issue surfaced. The day before, my boss had called my cell phone. I let it go to voicemail:

“Darren, I hope you are feeling better. You are missed in the office, but do please take the time to get better. I wanted to remind you about the sick leave policy. Because you are on probation, you will need to get a doctor’s note. I hope to see you on Monday. Take care.”

I looked at Amélie my face distraught, “How am I supposed to go and see a doctor like this?” I picked up my wallet and removed my health card. The picture showed a tired looking young man, while the name inscribed in hard plastic clearly said, “Darren Lawrence”. I had done it for effect more than anything to show my frustration. I knew that the girl in the mirror did not match the man on the card. As I slipped the card back into my wallet, I noticed my driver’s licence, realizing that like my health card, it too was invalid until I could return to my body.

Amélie shook her head, “I don’t know. If you can turn back soon then it won’t be an issue. Just go see Dr. Fitzgerald, and he will give you a note. You and I are practically always sick anyway, he will believe you.”

I nodded, considering the winter we had, Dr. Fitzgerald would write the doctor’s note without much of an examination- if I could return to my body. I didn’t know how patient my boss would be with my absence, especially considering I had only been there two weeks.

Amélie sighed, “It doesn’t feel like anything is going right lately.”

I thought to tell her about the Internet wizard I had spoken to, but I realized how preposterous it sounded. I replied to Amélie softly, trying to be optimistic, “Well Chloe is sleeping much better. That’s something.”

Amélie nodded slowly, “And you’ve been getting up-“

I added quickly, “Well I promised, plus it isn’t as if I can go to work. I know how hard this has been on all of us; I want to help where I can.”

We moved closer together and hugged, our soft bodies pressing together. I was feeling a little adventurous, and while Chloe was in the living room watching television, I lowered my hand and gently grasped Amélie’s soft ass. Amélie did the same, but when her hand reached my bubble butt, she quickly brought it back up to my waist.

Amélie said, “Sorry, I need to get ready to take Chloe to dance. Can you watch her?”

I nodded softly. I didn’t expect us to have sex or anything, but the contact was comforting. It added a sense of normalcy to the bedlam caused by my change. What intimacy Amélie and I had shared since my transformation had been infrequent, uncomfortable and awkward. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I was probably fifteen years younger than her in this body and female to boot.

A part of me wanted to see Chloe at dance. It was her first class, and I wanted to see her reaction. I wanted to see her gleefully bounce to the music, jumping mostly, as one and half year olds have no concept of rhythm usually. Another part was terrified at the thought of others seeing me in this body. I knew that they wouldn't know me, and to them I'd be just another teenaged girl, but I wasn’t ready to be seen that way ... not yet and perhaps never.

Amélie left with Chloe, and I decided to call WizardCAN87. He had given me his number and his real name after our last private message chat on Thursday. It was getting to a point where I was beginning to trust him. It was gradual, but I realized that I had to trust him because he was my only lead. I wasn’t ready to meet him face-to-face, but I wanted to see if he was normal enough- for someone who claimed to be a wizard. I picked up my cell phone, my hand shaking and my heart thumping in my chest.

I was nervous. I felt like I did when I called a girl for the first time, a girl I had chatted online with multiple times before. You just never knew if the chemistry you had over text would transfer to a phone conversation.

It rang three times before I heard a voice on the other end, “Hello?”

I stuttered, “Uh. Hi, it’s Brad right?”

The voice on the other end was confident as it spoke, “Abigail? Good to hear from you. I am glad you called.” I had spoken words like that to girls before, and they always seemed desperate; however, from him, they were strong, deliberate.

I had chosen Abigail because it was one of the names we considered for Chloe. We chose Chloe because it was more bilingual, being less of an issue with regard to being butchered in English and/or French.

After hearing his voice, I wasn’t sure I liked him anymore. He sounded like a meathead, the type of guy who only spoke to a girl if it meant they had a better chance of getting in their pants. I was willing to give him a chance, especially since I knew he was confident, after all, he sounded like that in his chatroom words. Maybe, I just disliked the fact that I thought he was flirting with me from the first words out of his mouth.

Still, Brad was perhaps the only means for me to regain my manhood, “Yeah I was hoping we could talk. And maybe, meet- eventually.” The last words had slipped out. I was apparently more desperate than I thought.

Brad said, “Cool. Yeah. We can do that.” He acted so smooth. I wondered if girls actually fell for this. He was clearly trying to impress me with a nonchalant attitude. It was the type of thing you would read in a men’s magazine. Act aloof and she will beg you to come take her to bed. While I didn’t have a very good first impression of him on the phone, I also needed him, so I had to play along.

I said sweetly, eagerness in my voice, “Well where do you want to meet?”

Brad replied, “Well there’s a bar near my place we could go to, the Ivory Tower. It’s near the university downtown.”

I was supposed to go to that university as Abigail, and I had actually attended it before as Darren, so I knew where the bar was. It was where pretentious academics tried to impress each other with how much they had learned from Psych 101. I avoided it, but I was dragged there once for karaoke night. Perhaps the seven minute tone deaf rendition of “American Pie” had left a bad taste in my mouth.

Drinking age for the bar was 19, but since it was so near the university, many students frequented the place. Despite how young I looked, I knew that I would have no trouble getting in. I had seen so many girls who looked underage get into bars simply because of how they looked.

I said, “Yeah I know the place. Listen, can we meet during the day, it’s easier for me.”

I shifted the phone nervously; worried that he would try and coax me into meeting him at night, when it would undoubtedly be busier. He replied, “Whatever’s easier for you. Listen, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on this weekend, but I could meet you say…Thursday next week.”

We agreed to meet an hour before lunch. It meant that the Ivory Tower would be mostly empty, which suited me considering I didn’t need people thinking we were on a date. Not that anyone would recognize me. The very prospect of it made me sick. I thought about what Brad might look like - a muscular no-neck Neanderthal with bulging biceps, perhaps? I was thankful when I didn’t feel any attraction toward the image I created. I still found girls in general, and Amélie especially, sexy. I tried not to look at myself too much in the mirror, especially naked. It would be far too awkward to be turned on by my own body. Still, I was pleased that nothing had changed in that respect, girls sexy, boys icky.

We chatted for another twenty minutes. I created a persona for Abigail, fleshing her out, giving her substance. She was an only child. She was taking music in university, hoping that the theory she learned would help her as a musician. She mostly just wanted to be in a band and hang out with people like her. I was making her out to be a real rock chick. I didn’t see myself as some shallow princess, and because of that I wouldn’t be expected to show up dressed like I was trying to knock Brad’s eyeballs out of the sockets with a skimpy thong and a pair of tight jeans.

Amélie opened the door just as I was about to hang up. I quickly said, “Uh sorry Brad, my roommate is home, she needs help with the groceries, see you Thursday!” I clicked to end the call, hoping that Amélie had heard none of my conversation.

I got a text from Brad a few seconds later. “Didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Guess we’ll c what’s inside you on Thurs.”

I grimaced at Brad’s tactless innuendo, but five seconds later, he texted me back saying, “Didn’t realize how creepy that sounded when I wrote it. Really sorry about that. I meant the magic of course.”

I texted him back a simple, “LOL Don’t worry about it. I know what you meant.” I smirked, thinking that Brad wasn’t as smooth as I thought. I put my phone down and went to help Amélie with the groceries.

Chapter 10

I considered many times texting Brad to tell him that I couldn’t meet him. I thought of a multitude of excuses. I had not left the house in nearly two weeks, except to take out the garbage when I went swimming in my boots. I had again cancelled band practice. My band mates called my phone, but I didn’t answer. I sent them text messages saying that I was still very ill.

The issue with this is that people began to talk. Laura, Andrew’s wife, also best friends with Amélie, asked her what was wrong with me. She expressed her concern over my well-being, asking Amélie if she needed to talk. Amélie and I were receiving texts on a daily basis from people asking how I was doing. My sister asked me why I wasn’t answering my phone.

Allison, my younger sister, seven years younger in fact, showed up at our door on Tuesday night. I could hear the conversation from my hiding place in the basement. I never answered the door anymore; for fear that it would be someone I knew. Thankfully, I was in the basement chatting with Brad, so I just stayed downstairs when I realized it was her.

I could hear Allison in the upstairs hallway, “What’s wrong with Darren? He won’t return my calls. Is he really sick Amélie? Laura is really concerned too.”

Amélie replied, “Well you remember when I had to bring Darren to the hospital when he had the stomach flu, well it’s back. We are going for more tests tomorrow. I am sorry we didn’t tell you.”

I could hear Allison’s feet shifting from my basement hide-away. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She sounded hurt. “Do you know how it feels to hear from someone else that your brother is really sick?” Feeling out of the loop, Allison must have contacted Laura, who told her that I was still very ill. We hadn't told her, thinking it was for a very good reason. I wasn’t incredibly close to my sister, but we weren’t strangers either. When she texted me, she knew that she would get a call back eventually, but this time, the call never came, so it was understandable why she was so worried.

Amélie replied, “We just didn’t want to worry you or anyone else. We don’t know what it is, the doctors don’t either. We didn’t want to scare anyone.”

Allison said, “I guess it’s a hard time for you guys. Please just let me and everybody else know when you do. Even if it’s bad news.” She lowered her voice, and I couldn’t hear what was said.

I heard the door close, and Amélie shouted for me to come up. She was not happy. “How long are we going to have to lie to people about this, Darren? Your sister thinks you have cancer or something equally horrible. Laura has been trying to call me to talk about this for three days now. Are you just planning to hide in the basement until people forget you exist? Because these people care about you. They deserve to know what happened.”

I knew she was right, and with my parents coming home in less than a week, they would want to see me as well. My mother would not let Amélie keep me from her. She would have barreled her way into the house and forced open the door, even if I had the stomach flu or cancer, or some life-threatening infectious disease.

I said in a tiny voice, “I know we will have to tell them. I just don’t know if I am ready. Can’t we just ask people to leave us alone until we figure this out?”

Amélie made me look her in the eyes as she spoke. I tried to turn away, but she put her face in mine, “I am sick of lying to people about this. People thinking you are dying or something- it’s bad karma. You aren’t dying, Darren. And I think you are going to have to come to accept this as a one-time thing. I don’t like it any more than you.”

She continued, “I can’t think of a reason why you might have left and why there is a teenaged girl staying at the house. We could make up a story that you are a runaway, but that wouldn’t be right. You want to see your parents don’t you? Imagine how they would feel if I told them you left and didn’t tell anyone. Would that be better?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I was angry at Amélie for confronting me this way, but upset with myself for forcing her to lie to our friends and family. It was not a very mature thing to do, but I desperately wanted to hide until this was over.

I looked at Amélie with hurt in my eyes. “No of course that wouldn’t be better, but I don’t really know how to tell my parents that they don’t have a son anymore. Plus, you were the only who saw me change. What makes you think that they will believe this is me?”

Amélie’s face had softened since my outburst, “Because you are the same person. You may be in this body, but you act just like the Darren I love. You speak, sit and walk the same way. If anyone will recognize this, it is your parents and your closest friends.”

I nodded slowly, actually pleased by Amélie’s words. If I was acting the same way, then the change had only altered my body. Of course, Amélie knew nothing of my ‘date’ with Brad, and I wanted it to remain a secret until I knew if he could help me.

I replied, “Well that’s good at least. At least I am not suddenly in love with the latest fabricated teen idol.”

I begrudgingly added, “Alright, we will have people over and tell them the truth. My parents, my sister and Steven, Andrew and Laura. No one else.”

Amélie smiled and put her arms around me, my head reached her nose as she brought me close and kissed my cheek. “It’ll be OK Darren, they will believe you.” I pressed up closely against Amélie, my hand lifting up her t-shirt and then gently tracing the outline of her stomach then squeezing her soft love handles.

Amélie grinned, “Definitely the same person.”

That night, as we were watching television, Amélie moved over to the middle of the couch. She leaned up against me the same way she used to, her head resting gently on my chest. It was awkward because as Amélie was now taller than me, my arm had to stretch uncomfortably to hold her. We adjusted our positions, me moving to the centre of the couch and resting my head on Amélie’s breasts as she reclined.

I was surprised when Amélie gently rubbed my shoulders and then moved to my stomach, she then rubbed along soft thighs, as I had done hundreds of times to her. I had to admit- it felt weird. As a man, Amélie stayed away from my legs. I had been ticklish there, but not anymore. Amélie usually liked to rub along my chest, but I doubted she would move there considering the breasts I now possessed.

I enjoyed the contact, pleased that we could maintain some intimacy in our marriage, even though it wasn’t exactly the same. I wondered if there was a chance that Amélie might develop some attraction to this body. If this was permanent, then it would certainly make things easier. I knew that the age gap would be an issue, but I was content to have the contact, even if it was strictly PG.

Chapter 11

I knew that I had little choice now - I would have to meet with Brad. While I had agreed to meet with my family and closest friends, I did so knowing that I would be meeting with Brad. The last thing I wanted was for others to know about my condition. I found it embarrassing to explain, and I feared a lack of acceptance. Would my band mates still want to jam with someone who looked like they should be in high school? I worried most about my parents, and my mother especially, we had a special bond. I couldn’t even fathom her reaction. My decision to meet Brad was further strengthened by another voicemail I received from my boss. The message was not nearly as understanding or amicable as her first:

“Darren, I still haven’t heard from you. I don’t know why you haven’t called me. If you are really sick, please have your wife or a family member call so we can certify your absence. Listen, we have had trouble with people abusing our sick leave system, and while I was very impressed by your work, I will have to let you go by the end of the week if we can’t certify your absence. We are just too busy here.”

She also sent me an e-mail, obviously beginning the paper trail toward my dismissal. I considered asking Amélie to call, but she had had her fill of lying, so I knew that I absolutely had to meet with Brad. When he sent me a text Wednesday night, asking if I was still OK for Thursday, I replied with quick yes. He also sent me another one:

“Sorry again about that message I sent. I want you to trust me; it’s a really important part of the process.”

I texted him back to tell him not to worry about it, honestly, I was surprised that he was so concerned. He had been aloof at points during our conversations, especially the way he scheduled our ‘date’ almost a week later. I stopped myself immediately, realizing that I was overanalyzing the situation. I was a little worried that I was thinking so much about our meeting, but again, I was desperate. It wasn’t as if I was pining for him like some love-struck school girl. I just needed to know if he could help me.

Thursday morning finally arrived, and I was thankful that Chloe had slept the night. I wanted to be alert since it would be my first time in public as a girl. I considered taking the bus to the Ivory Tower, but opted for the car instead. I wasn’t ready for the stares on the bus - eyes boring into me, seeing me as I did not see myself.

I dressed the part of Abigail, choosing from one of my numerous band shirts and a pair of jeans that Amélie had bought. To be fair, Amélie was right; it felt much better to wear clothes that fit. I could have worn a pair of my own jeans, but they would be nearly a foot too long. That is a lot of excess material to stumble over. While I was playing the part of a rock chick, I did not want to be tripping over my pant legs. That is if I could even get them over my hips.

That didn't mean I had accepted my change by any means, nor the feminine finery that went with it. It was simply a matter of comfort and practicality. I was still wearing my own socks and underwear. I wasn’t about to wear Amélie’s unmentionables, and I certainly wasn’t going to go shopping for underwear. Amélie had not bought me any bras or panties, perhaps figuring I wouldn’t wear them anyway.

My t-shirt hung across my braless chest, pushing out my breasts across the logo, but not obscenely. I knew that Amélie and I would likely have the bra talk at some point, but I wasn’t ready for it.

If this was a real date, I would definitely have done more to prepare. As it was, I simply pushed back my hair and used one of Amélie’s headbands to move the bangs out of my eyes. I wondered if the same magic that was keeping my nails at a constant length would do the same for my hair.

I didn’t even consider any makeup. I knew I looked young, but I didn’t even know where to begin. I remember girls from high school who wore too much makeup. It didn’t make them look any older, no, just the opposite. The garish streaks made them look like junior prostitutes. Plus, I did not want to lead Brad into thinking this was anything but a meeting about magic. So, while I wasn’t dressed like a bum, I wasn’t exactly dressed to impress either.

I put my familiar green hoodie on, annoyed that, just like my dream, my hands struggled to free themselves from the confines of the sleeves. I rolled them up, but it wasn’t much better. I shrugged, deciding to keep it on, hoping that Brad would think it was my boyfriend’s or something.

I slipped on the white tennis shoes and put on one Amélie’s jackets. The weather had warmed considerably, but it was still cold enough for a jacket. My jacket, a military style waistcoat, would have dragged on the ground if I wore it in this body. I unlocked my car and slid in, noticing immediately that everything looked bigger, from the dashboard to the steering wheel.

I reached my hand down and adjusted the seat to accommodate my new height. It would have been better to drive the SUV, but it was parked near Chloe’s daycare. I couldn’t risk taking it and then have the daycare phone for Amélie to come get Chloe. So, I was stuck with my sports wagon. It was a higher-end model, metallic blue paint job, 17 inch wheels and a sun roof. The only issue was that it was much lower to the ground than the SUV, so I had a harder time seeing in front of me. I remember my grandmother on my mom’s side, who was about my current height, saying that she had a hard time driving because she often couldn’t see enough over the hood. I recall her using a small booster seat or even a telephone book in one of her old Cadillac cars. Once she got a mini-van, with its higher vantage point, she found it easier. I refused to even consider using anything so humiliating to boost my height.

The car was also a manual transmission, so it required a little more thought than putting it into drive and backing out. My hand gripped the stick shift, pulling it into reverse and then I turned my head to back out. I frowned, realizing that if any children were running behind the car, I would not see them. I backed out at a snail’s pace, nearly stalling the car multiple times, and trying to inch up off my seat to see properly out the back. The car rolled down the driveway with me applying the brake often. I took a deep breath and then proceeded to pull out completely.

I realized how foolishly I was acting. Just because I refused to prop myself up, it had taken twice as long to back out. It was dangerous not being able to see properly while driving, so I quickly returned to the house to fetch a phonebook. The thick document boosted me two or three inches, but now I knew why Amélie felt safer driving her SUV.

On my way to the university, while stopped at a traffic light, a young man with obnoxious rap music attempted to get my attention. He had one of those pathetic teenage boy moustaches. I hadn’t started seriously growing facial hair until I was in my twenties, so I avoided the wispy semi-transparent moustache that this boy wore with apparent pride. Apparently revving his engine and turning up the bass to the point where the car shook was supposed to impress me. He put his window down in an attempt to speak with me, and I did the same. He grinned, probably thinking his technique had sufficiently wooed me. I shouted, “Your music sucks,” and then pulled out a second later as the light turned green.

I reached the university with no more problems. I drove exactly on the speed limit, did complete two second stops and did not follow too closely. It probably looked as if I was about to take my driver’s test, however; the last thing I needed was to be pulled over and then be unable to produce a valid licence. It would be difficult to explain why I had Darren Lawrence’s car as well. There were only two insured drivers on the car: myself and Amélie.

It took me ten minutes to find a parking spot, even though I opted for the student parking lot. The parking situation hadn’t really improved since I was a student there. The attendant didn’t say anything, but he looked at me oddly. Considering that there were seventeen year olds attending the university, I suppose I could have passed for a college girl, but the second look I got from the attendant told me probably not.

After the attendant’s reaction, I was worried that Brad would bail as soon as he saw me. I wondered if, on seeing see how young I looked, fifteen or sixteen at the most, he’d leave, realizing I had lied to him. Still, I didn’t speak like any high school girl I remembered, and having taught and attended high school I had a unique vantage point, so perhaps I could convince him if he stayed long enough to talk.

The Ivory Tower was a dive even as far as student bars go, and it was exactly how I remembered it. It had a reputation for serving booze to underage kids, and, thankfully, because it was primarily a night spot with a very limited lunch menu, it wasn’t busy and wouldn’t be busy until around 9 PM. The patio had plastic chairs strewn about, still frozen to the ground and tables covered with a few inches of snow. The front door was thick, but it had a number of kick marks at the bottom, likely a remnant from a recent raid on the place or overzealous drunks unhappy at their removal. The outside showed no windows. The grey walls were covered in graffiti and posters announcing various upcoming and past shows.

I didn’t know why Brad wanted to meet here, other than that we likely would not be disturbed. Discussing the finer points of magic in a crowded place might elicit strange looks. I suppose we could have been discussing a video game. In high school, I still recall speaking to a friend of mine on the way home from school about a guy I “killed” in a game. An elderly woman looked at us, shocked that we would be so brazen to discuss murder in front of her. We laughed at her, thinking how out of touch she was. I couldn’t imagine someone these days threatening to burn us as witches for a simple discussion about magic, though.

Either way, this was the place Brad had chosen. Inside was not much better. The tables showed the wear of a student bar, legs showing glue marks where they had initially been severed. The booths had sunken and stained cushions. The floor was sticky, my steps making soft ripping noises as if stepping on and off fly paper. I had played in some dives before, but this place made some of the clubs downtown look like five-star resorts.

As I was taking in the scenery, one of the servers walked up to me. She was tired looking, either from partying or late-night studying, but attractive, with long auburn hair and a slender figure. Not exactly my type, but she was attractive. Her eyes narrowed as she saw me scoping out the place. “Listen, we can’t afford to lose our liquor licence again, so if you are here to check out the place for your underage friends, then you should just leave. You won’t be getting in tonight. The bouncers will be checking IDs. All IDs. Pretty ones like you won’t be getting in, even if your tits are popping out. You hear me?”

My eyes widened, and I shook my head vigorously, “I’m just here to meet someone that’s all. You don’t need to worry about me.”

It was true for two reasons, first I had no interest coming back here to be crammed into a room with a hundred sweaty bodies dancing to bad music and the second being that after throwing up the wine, I had no intention of drinking alcohol anytime soon.

The server looked at me closely and nodded her head, “Yeah well you don’t look like the ones who usually come in here to see who is working and if it means they can get in. Just spread the word OK? No more underagers in here.”

I nodded again and then went to sit at the cleanest looking table I could find. I figured a booth would give us some privacy, so I chose a table with one. It was a few minutes after eleven. I pulled my phone out, answering a text from Amélie and then checking my e-mail. I was getting the hang of typing with long nails, knowing that I had to avoid stabbing at the touch screen. Instead, I had to press down with the underside of my fingers.

As I was typing a reply to an e-mail, I heard Brad’s voice. “Abigail? Is that you?” A tall young man approached my table. I couldn’t tell his exact age, but he looked to be in his early to mid-twenties. He was slimmer than I imagined, I had imagined him as a muscular behemoth, and while he was muscular, he was not the type who lived and breathed the air in a gym.

I don’t know why I imagined him in that way originally, but the fact that I did was more than a little disconcerting. He had blue eyes like my own, but his hair was more ash coloured to my golden locks. His face was smiling, his eyes expressive and his mouth showing gleaming white teeth. He was dressed like most Canadians at this time of year, a winter jacket, boots and a toque (beanie in other places, but not hipster fashion, more of a necessity).

I had to admit that he was handsome. I compared myself to other men in that regard, as I knew girls did from conversations I had had with Amélie. Brad’s face had a strong defined jaw line, laughing eyes that had energy to them and an unassuming confidence. He probably could have modeled for a department store catalogue, if he were so inclined. His smile seemed genuine as did his offered hand, which I took and shook.

Brad settled down at the table, removing his hat, coat and gloves. It was at this point that I noticed, he wasn’t really that tall, I was just that much shorter than everyone. It was infuriating, and it was playing havoc with my self-confidence. Imagine being shorter than most of your friends your whole life. After seeing a video of my best friend and myself on our first day of high school, Amélie thought I was going to junior high, while my friend was off to halls of the nearby high school. Imagine then shooting up ten inches over high school and still feeling short. I felt like a midget now, literally looking up at everyone.

“You look exactly as I pictured you Abigail. And no, I didn’t use any magic to figure that out.” Brad added, “So I guess you are wondering why I wanted to meet here?”

I nodded my head, putting my phone away in my pocket, but finding it nearly impossible with the thin pockets of the girl’s jeans seemingly for show instead of utility. I slipped the phone in my jacket pocket.

“Well I knew we wouldn’t be disturbed. Plus like I said, it’s near my place. So, you ever been here before?”

I replied, “Yeah I have, a few times. Just with friends. Place plays awful music usually and the karaoke is painful.”

Brad laughed, “Sure, but that’s the point. Why do you think drunken Japanese businessmen love karaoke? It’s just fun. You aren’t one of those moody rock chicks that writes depressing break up songs and describes their exes as poison or toxins running through the body - are you?

I raised a quizzical brow at Brad, “What makes you think that?”

Brad smirked, “Every rock chick I’ve ever known says she hates pop music. Professes to loath anything that isn’t genuine, but then somehow has a Britney Spears song as their ringtone. You know?”

I nodded, “Sure, they are called frauds. I admit that I like certain pop music. The Beatles and Katy Perry or Lady Gaga. Not that they are the same caliber. Anyway, I don’t only listen to rock and I admit that I like anything with a strong melody.”

Brad replied, “See that’s why I like you Abigail. You seem like the real deal, and you aren’t close minded. People who are close minded, they usually don’t have the gift that I have.”

I accepted Brad’s compliment, even though I was lying about almost everything, including my name, age, and current occupation. He continued:

“Even if you have it, it takes a long time to fully realize any innate abilities you might have. So you need to have a lot of patience to stick with it.”

I was more interested in what he could do, although having the ability myself would be useful. I asked, “I hope you don’t consider this prying, but what sort of spells have you done before?”

Brad appeared deep in thought for a moment, as if carefully choosing which secrets he wanted to divulge. “Well I guess I’ve done the obvious one, lead into gold. It takes a lot of lead to make a little bit of gold. It’s legit though, I’ve taken it to pawn shops and they buy.”

I furrowed a brow at this, “That seems dishonest.”

Brad raised his hands, “Sure and so is paying practically nothing for someone’s family heirloom diamond engagement ring just because they desperately need the money to avoid losing their house or their thumbs. It’s cheating crooks.”

I pondered this and then replied, “Fair enough.” Something in his words got my instant attention as it registered in my brain. Brad had performed a transformation spell by turning lead into gold. I added, “Have you ever changed anything bigger?”

Brad nodded, “Sure, I changed a snake into a rabbit and then back once. The process is actually quite interesting. I had to study the anatomy of both the rabbit and the snake, knowing every minute detail down to where the heart is located to how the eye sockets were arranged. Magic isn’t a snap of your fingers and then you have it. It is painstaking at times, and a lot like school unfortunately.”

I smiled, letting my guard down at the same time. Brad was making me feel relatively easy. He did not talk down to me like a child. He thought I was intelligent and authentic. Now I had to convince him to turn a pretty girl into a man. I replied to him, “I admire that in a person, it’s impressive when you can really focus on something and be successful. I am sure there were times you failed?”

He smiled. It wasn’t that his boyish charm was working on me. No, it was the fact that he could help me that enthralled me. He replied, “Of course. That same spell, I tried a fish and frog. I ended up merging them into this fish frog creature. It died almost instantly. That’s the issue with these spells you know. You need to know exactly what you are doing. See I could turn you into a beautiful fawn, but you’d die if I mistakenly put your lungs in a place that could puncture them.”

I was hooked. “So it is almost a science then?” I leaned forward; he had my full attention. As I leaned forward, my braless breasts jostled in the tight confines of the t-shirt. I thought it caught Brad’s attention, but I didn’t catch him looking.

His eyes were locked onto mine, “Sort of. I guess I was always good at biology, so that part is easier for me. You still need to be able to manipulate the magic. It is something you can feel in the air, you can pull at it.”

Our conversation drifted to other topics, as it had during our online chats. We discussed the hockey playoffs, and I provided a passionate argument why his team was going to be swept in the first round. He laughed at this, and then we moved back to music. As we talked, he looked at me, not in a creepy stalker way, but in a way that showed he was interested in what I had to say. I wasn’t thinking like a girl would, that he was checking me out or anything. I thought of us as two guys having a conversation, save the discussion about magic, the same way I did with my band mates.

Even though, I was supposed to be Abigail, I could be myself around him. I guess that Abigail was me in most respects, save what was supposed to be between our legs.

We talked about my schooling, and I started to open up to him, Abigail’s life actually mirrored my own in places. She was bullied for not fitting into the cliques in school, preferring to hang around the musicians rather than the Barbie dolls, while I was bullied because I was small. I knew the bit about the Barbie dolls was cliché but Brad didn’t seem to care. He asked me so many questions that I had difficulty coming up with suitable lies at times, but he let me craft Abigail into a living breathing person. I had to admit, she would be a pretty cool girl to hang out with.

About half an hour after we had sat down, he asked me, “If you could be in any band in the world right now which would you be in? Like a famous band.”

I answered with a smile, “My own. I don’t want to play someone else’s mus-“

Brad spoke again before I could continue, cutting me off with a smile, “So, are you ready to see if you have the talent?” Apparently, I had passed his test with my last words, or he was just bored of me talking about myself for 30 minutes.

I nodded, although I thought that it might be embarrassing for us to test my affinity in a restaurant that would soon have tens of people in it enjoying terrible food. So, I wasn’t surprised when Brad asked me to go back to his place, saying that he needed to complete the test in a place that was more familiar to him. I didn’t even think twice when I said yes.

I wasn’t thinking like a fifteen year old girl as Brad walked me toward his apartment. I was thinking like a grown man who had a chance at regaining his life.

Chapter 12

We approached a four storey brownstone apartment building. I had lived in such a building with Amélie when I was in teacher’s college. The memory of that time is bittersweet. It was the first year that Amélie and I lived together, and it was a time of aspirations and of dreams. Amélie was starting law school, and I completed my year of training only to be thrust into the world of education with a piece of paper and very little experience. A part of me regretted ever becoming a teacher, believing that it was time wasted. Friends of mine who got stable government jobs right after graduating were nearly ten years into their career. I had come to the party late.

Brad’s voice broke me from my reflection, “Abigail, did you forget your purse?”

I blinked, realizing that Brad was speaking to me. “I- uh, left it in the car.” I figured it would be odd if I didn’t have one, considering every woman I knew carried one.

Brad used a digital key to unlock the door to the lobby, ushering me inside first. “Oh, I thought you may have left it at the restaurant.” I was surprised how well Brad and I got along. It looked as if our online chat had transferred seamlessly to face-to-face.

The lobby was well kept for a building mostly occupied by university students. It was similar to many other apartment lobbies, carpeted with ancient newspapers strewn over a worn coffee table. We entered the elevator and stopped off at the 4th floor. The smells reminded me of my first apartment, curry and fast food mixed with a mouldy odour of the carpet that should have been replaced years ago. It created a nostalgic spice in my nostrils.

Brad unlocked his front door, “Ladies first.” The young man was a thorough gentleman. As I stepped over the threshold and into the apartment, I considered my actions. I was not thinking like a teenage girl should. This young man was likely ten years my senior and here I was entering his apartment without a care.

To be fair, I was often careless growing up. I walked through bad neighbourhoods late at night confidently. If I heard footsteps behind me, I knew I could run and never be caught. If I had wanted to and had the focus, I probably could have been a world-class sprinter. I still had this mindset, even though my untested legs were far shorter and probably lacked the musculature to carry a body my size with any speed.

Plus, Brad had earned my trust. He had done nothing to make me think that he was anything but a perfect gentleman. I had known men that could put on a façade, but the truth always surfaced. I considered myself an excellent judge of character. I had met plenty of men I disliked immediately because of their behaviour, and Brad wasn’t one of them.

His apartment was clean, but it was not what I expected either. I suppose I didn’t expect to see pentagrams lining the walls or a basket labeled ‘spell components’. It was the apartment of a twenty-something man. There were framed posters on the wall displaying what I assumed were his favourite hockey players. There was an Xbox 360 and a huge collection of DVDs. It looked a lot like my computer room at home, a room that held my CDs, old video game systems, comic books, and a collection of music memorabilia.

Brad removed his boots, and I removed my tennis shoes. He took my coat and hung it up, and invited me to sit on the couch. Before sitting down, I checked out his DVD collection. I noticed a rare bootleg disc from a concert I had never seen. I pulled it out and asked, “Is this legit?”

Brad grinned and nodded, “Yes, from the infamous Halloween show. It was taken on a Handycam. The guy who took it actually got hit by Kurt’s guitar. At one point, he moves the camera down and you can see his hand is all covered in blood.” This had my full attention. I popped it open and beamed, “We have to watch this.” I knew why I was there, and I still hoped that Brad had a use, but for now- I had to see it.

Amélie wouldn’t be home for hours still, and I was starting to really like Brad, so if we hung out a bit before he did his test, it was fine. It was better than sitting at home wallowing in self-pity.

So we watched the DVD. Brad took out snacks and I lounged on the couch. I took my hoodie off, exposing my soft arms and through the gray band t-shirt that clung tightly to my chest, it was clear I wasn’t wearing a bra. Brad stayed on his side of the couch, although it was more of a loveseat, since there was little space between us. I noticed that he had a co-op game for the 360 that I hadn’t played, and Brad was happy to oblige.

I actually lost track of time. We played for several hours before I noticed that it was getting near the time Amélie was expected home, and now, I would have to fight rush hour traffic to get there. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to know right away if Brad could help me. Why had I stayed this long? Brad was a cool guy, but it still didn’t explain why I was stalling. Was I worried that he wouldn’t be able to help me? Was I procrastinating because beyond a few silly stories I had found, he was my only real hope at returning to a normal life?

There were only four inches between us on the love seat, and as we played, Brad grew closer. Eventually, I could feel him on my hip. Our bodies bumped at times, but I thought nothing of it, since I was engrossed in the game. I was having a little difficulty holding the 360 controller due to my smaller hands, but it had not impacted my abilities noticeably.

We reached a new game level, but I simply had to know. I had wasted enough time. I had to get home and help Amélie with the baby. Staying here all afternoon just to satisfy my pleasure centres was immature. I put the controller down, and then looked over at Brad. “I’ll need to go soon. Can you see if I have the ability? Does it take long?”

Brad looked wounded by my words, obviously unhappy that I would have to go soon. He wore puppy dog eyes but they didn’t faze me. My slight grimace showed my insistence. He nodded, “It won’t take long. You trust me right?”

I nodded slowly and Brad continued, “Because it might make you feel a little uncomfortable, but it is part of the process. Some girls like it, but some are little freaked out. Just trust me and close your eyes.”

I wasn’t stupid. “I’m not closing my eyes Brad.”

Brad had positioned himself behind me on the loveseat. He gently turned my body so that I was facing the entrance. I could see my coat hanging on the rack behind the door. Brad put his hands on my shoulders and started to gently massage them. It was unlike any massage I had ever received. It felt purposeful, more so than removing kinks or knots in the muscles. He moved in a pattern as if tracing symbols along my back.

The touching made me feel uncomfortable, not because I was disgusted at being massaged by a man. No, the issue was that my body was enjoying the contact. My mind was aghast, but my body melted at his expert touch. I felt myself sighing gently and arching my back a little causing my breasts to push out.

I muttered, “So do I have the same gift you have?” Brad shushed me, and I could feel his fingers inching toward my front. My eyes widened in alarm as I felt something hard pushing against my ass.

He whispered in my ear, “You like this don’t you, Abigail?”

A moment later, Brad’s fingers touched my breast flesh, causing them to jiggle in my shirt, and then his entire hand was over my breasts, groping them.

In an instant, I had torn myself away from him, but the action ripped my shirt where he had been firmly clutching my breasts. He reached out to grab me, and caught my hand. He proceeded to drag me toward him, and then force me back onto the couch. I was amazed at how easily he held me down. My eyes showed pure terror. It was not until that point that I realized how much had changed. I was being manhandled. I had no upper body strength to lift him off me. He could have done anything to me.

He looked at me fiercely as I yelled at him, “You lying asshole, you realize that this is sexual assault right? Let me up!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Help me! He won’t let me go!”

Brad shook his head, “Okay, okay, just don’t yell again. Sorry I lost my head. What’s up with you though? You've been sending me signals all day. I thought you wanted this. ” He let me up, and I quickly grabbed my jacket and slipped on my shoes. I wanted to leave immediately, but I had to know the truth from his lips.

As I threw my jacket on and stared, narrowed dagger eyes at Brad, “You are full of shit aren’t you? You just hang out on that chat room to screw around. You aren’t a wizard or anything like that.”

Brad wore a lopsided grin as he walked up to me, standing a good foot over my head. “Of course not. Magic doesn’t exist. You’d be stupid to believe it does. Most of the girls on that chat don’t believe it either. I thought you got off on it, like they do. That was the whole point of today.”

He pointed an accusatory finger at me, “I’m not the only one here who is liar though. You can’t even be 18. What are you 16? You were lying to me the whole time, how is it any different?”

My eyes grew wide with fury instead of fear now. “Are you brain damaged? Do you have any idea how idiotic you sound? You threw yourself on a minor. Then you tried to hold me down. How is lying about my age the same as that?”

I was seething, not just because my only lead had turned out to be a bust, but because of my own stupidity. My decisions were not those that a mature adult would make. My anger manifested into an even more foolish decision. I grabbed Brad’s 360, which was sitting on the coffee table and proceeded to smash it through his plasma television. The screen shattered instantly, a massive Xbox-sized hole actually punctured straight through the back of the television. The Xbox tumbled from its precarious position, teetering on the edge of the carcass of the ruined plasma for a second and then it fell and cracked open.

As Brad watched his precious television get destroyed and the 360 fall to the ground, I grabbed my prized green hoodie from the loveseat and sprinted out of there. I threw my shoulder into the stairwell exit and nearly fell down the stairs. My lungs screamed, but I knew I had to get out of there. My mind was a flurry. I could hear footsteps thundering behind me. I jumped down the stairs three steps at a time, until I could see the fire exit door. I had gone too far and bypassed the lobby. I was entering the basement. I threw the door open, which immediately set the alarm off. I then ran into the parking garage, which obviously required the elevator to gain proper access to avoid setting off the fire alarm, and started looking for a side door. All the while, I was both terrified at the prospect of Brad finding me and utterly shocked at my behaviour.

Chapter 13

The fire alarm blared in my ears. My jacket was still half open and my torn t-shirt and braless chest exposed my left breast. The nipple was hidden by the remains of the shirt, but the flesh itself was visible. The garage was not large, but even so I couldn't spot the door. One of the lights flickered, as if desperately holding onto life. It flickered again in rapid succession and went out. There was a very horror-movie quality to it, and I half expected Brad to launch himself through the door wielding a chainsaw or machete. My paranoia was playing tricks and casting shadows with teeth.

Still, there was enough light for me to find the door. I did not hear any footsteps, nor did the elevator door open but as soon as I stepped outside, a hand grabbed me and I was thrown roughly against the brick wall of the brownstone.

Brad screamed at me, “You bitch! I can’t believe you did that!” He pushed me hard against the wall and my head flew back and struck the brick. Grey spots danced in front of my eyes as I slumped. The slushy snow underneath me seeped into my pants, soaking them. I closed my eyes for a moment and then got up to run. Brad gave chase, but I had a secret weapon.

While the power of my voice was impressive as a man, it was far more powerful in this body, and most importantly, it was louder. I had not attempted to sing, outside of the dreamscape, but when I screamed in Brad’s apartment, I thought that I was going to shatter glass. So, as I ran, I screamed at the top of my lungs, full diaphragm and as loudly as I could. It was the most high-pitched sound I had ever made. It sounded like a teenage girl scared for her life. This had a two pronged effect: one, Brad quickened his pace and managed to tackle me as I slipped on a patch of ice, and two, it brought help.

The fire alarm had caused the cautious to vacate their apartments. Some students remained, thinking that it was a hoax, but those who feared there might be a fire left with coats and boots, a small conglomeration of bodies in front of the brownstone. A young woman with fiery red hair and another with pink streaks through blonde came to my rescue. There was nothing physical needed. As soon as he saw the two girls, Brad ran. I don’t know in what direction because I was too busy picking myself off the ground. My head had hit the pavement, and I saw the grey spots again.

The girls saw my state of dress and rushed to help me up. The blonde looked at me fearfully, “Oh my god…-did he?” The red head quickly zipped up my jacket, removing the peep show that was my exposed breast. She said, “We should take her to the clinic.” They supported me under my arms, easily lifting me to my feet.

I shook my head, muttering, “No…I need to get home to my wife- she’ll worry.”

I started to dip in and out of consciousness. I heard the girls say something about a concussion, blood and a clinic. I think the blonde, or it might have been the red head, said, “She’s losing it. We better take her. Try to keep her talking. It’s dangerous if she loses consciousness.”

I blinked my eyes, desperately trying to focus on what was ahead of me. I heard more voices, but I couldn’t tell who was speaking. “Poor kid. We should get her phone and call her parents.” I felt one of the girls reach into my pocket and pull out my phone.

“I tried calling her mom and dad. They weren’t home. Says it is the Lawrence residence though. So we have a name. She doesn’t have a purse, so thank goodness she didn’t lose her phone.”

“There’s another number on here too that she’s called a lot. Amélie. Maybe it’s a good friend of hers?”

“It’s ringing. Yes, hello my name is Rachel, we found your friend. Oh, she’s your sister.
She’s hurt. Looks like she hit her head. Can you meet us at the campus clinic downtown? I don’t know. Her shirt is torn. Oh I’m sorry, this must be so hard for you, she is conscious yes.”

“She’s leaving now. I heard a baby crying in the background too.” I think the blonde woman said, “This Amélie, she sounded frantic. Probably her older sister. I didn’t want to tell her too much, like…”

“That she might have been raped. Yeah no kidding. No one wants to hear that about their kid sister.”

The red haired woman looked at me and noticing that I was paying attention to their conversation and seemingly coherent she asked, “What’s your name sweetie?”

My head swam and that annoyingly familiar feeling of nausea struck again. I replied, half dazed, “Darren…” I lost consciousness seconds later.

I had no idea how long I was out, but when I opened my eyes, I was inside the campus clinic. The red head smiled at me, “Hey look who’s up! Listen, we called Amélie, and she’s on her way. She’s your older sister right?”

I thought about my response for a moment, wondering how Amélie would want to be seen in our web of lies. I doubt she would like to portray my mother. The very thought of Amélie having a child as a teenager was laughable. She was not a wallflower, but she was not hugely popular with boys at her school. She said that it was something about living in a small town and the secrets that she knew about her potential suitors. Because of this, she did not start dating seriously until she was in college. Her having a teenage daughter was impossible, and I doubted very much she would wish to play the part now.

I nodded my head slowly, “Yeah, older sister.” It hurt to think, my head throbbed from the small amount of brain power it took to speak and move my head.

I was uncomfortable in the waiting room. It was not only because of the pain in my head, but my pants were cold and thoroughly soaked through with slush. I looked down, and I could see that my knee was scraped. The cut had stopped bleeding, but it still stung in the open air. I pictured Brad’s face with Darren’s fist impacting his jaw, shattering it as if it were made of glass. The motion caused his entire face to cave in, as if the jaw were the load bearer for his entire skull. I was broken from my reverie by the blonde girl speaking to her friend.

“So, they’ll take her soon. Probably in a few minutes. The nurse said to just keep asking her questions and maybe she will remember who she is. Because she certainly isn’t a Darren.”

The blonde added, “Maybe Darren is the guy who was on top of her.” The red head interjected, a frown lining her face, “It really isn’t any of our business, Sam. If she wants to tell us, she will.” Rachel, I remembered her name, added, “Right sweetie?” She looked at me with a smile.

I did not reciprocate; I was annoyed, not only because of the pain, but because of the way the two girls had been speaking as if I was not right next to them. I shook my head angrily. “You know I can hear everything you are saying. I’m not a child.”

Sam raised a brow at me and then looked to her friend and then back to me, she grinned. “She’s got attitude. I like her. She dresses like me when I was that age.” She added with a smile, “Okay, so how about telling us your name, we need to fill out some paperwork before you see the doctor.”

Sam fetched a clipboard from the nurse and turned in my direction. “Name?”

I thought about telling her Darren Lawrence, but that would only raise more questions and potentially be a cause for concern when I saw the doctor. It made little sense to attempt to reassert my identity in front of these college girls. I would fight that battle with my friends and family in a few days. I said, “Abigail Lawrence.”

Rachel smiled and rubbed my shoulder reassuringly, “Well you said Darren before, so that’s an improvement. Was that the pervert who was on top of you? And listen, I know we should have done this before, but do you want us to call the police? I don’t know what he did to you exactly, but with the way you were screaming, it sounded like he was hurting you.”

I shook my head fiercely. I did not want my name associated with such a brazen and unseemly crime, nor did I want to tell them the truth. If the police got involved, I would have a lot of explaining to do. First and foremost, why there was no record of my birth nor my schooling- they would search for a paper trail that did not exist. I did not want them involved, and as much as I despised Brad for what he did, it was too dangerous. I answered, “No, it’s Jason. And no, it’s not necessary to call the police. It’s complicated because Jason and I..." I hesitated, "I just don’t want to involve them.”

Rachel looked at Sam, sharing a sad grimace and then they turned their eyes back to me. Sam looked at me sadly. “Look Abby, you don’t mind if I call you Abby right?” I shook my head and she continued, “We know that what he was doing wasn’t consensual?

Rachel interjected “But we are going to respect your privacy, Abby. If you want to tell us, or the doctor, or the police you can. Here.” She took my phone and put both hers and Sam’s number in my phone. “Call us any time.”

Sam shrugged her shoulders and cast a dirty look at Rachel. Sam then continued with the questions, “Okay Abby, age?”

I replied, “Uh, sixteen.” I decided to accept that no one was going to take me for an adult in this body. It made little sense to lie to these girls about my body’s age. I told myself that it was a body- a mere shell, and I was just a participant in this mad dance of moving parts, muscles and organs. Not a willing participant either.

I refused to say fifteen, but considering how I looked I wouldn’t have been surprised. The issue was the fresh-faced look I had and the slight chubbiness of my cheeks. I even had very light freckles below my eyes. These characteristics told anyone looking at me that I was not an adult. The two girls had slightly more angular faces, still feminine, but their baby fat had long since melted away.

The questions continued. I gave a fake address, (my old apartment building near here). I replied that I had no known medical conditions and that I took sleeping pills. Rachel looked at me oddly for a moment, but she stayed quiet. I suppose a sixteen year old girl taking sleeping pills was considered odd, but I didn’t want the doctor to give me something that would either counteract or increase their efficacy. After today, I knew that I would need to take an increased dose to fall asleep. A few minutes later, the nurse said that the doctor would see me.

Chapter 14

The campus clinic had a bad reputation. The clinic was clean, and it was efficient. The nurses were professional, courteous and sympathetic to the plight of students even those few who were less than respectful. Unfortunately, the issue lay with some of the doctors who could be rude and pushy in an effort to see as many patients as possible. While we do enjoy the benefits of universally free health care in Canada, the system also allows for doctors to get big payouts the more patients they see. This means, they want you in and out like a drive-through restaurant, the result- a fast prescription which may or may not work.

I figured that given the clinic’s reputation, the doctor would coldly poke and prod me, ask a few questions, and then send me on my way, but as I opened the door, I was greeted by a bespectacled woman who looked to be in her early sixties. She smiled at me kindly, “Hello Abigail. Please have a seat.” I did as she asked.

She continued, “I’m Doctor Alberts. Now dear, I am not here to get you to tell me anything that will make you feel scared but I do want to help you feel better. OK? If there is anything you need to tell me about what happened to you, please feel free.”

I couldn’t tell if this is how she spoke to everyone, but it was reassuring, even though I felt she was treating me like a child. She was a refreshing surprise based on the reputation of the clinic. I nodded my head slowly. I suppose to her, I must have looked like a frightened teenaged girl who had likely suffered an assault. However, I wasn’t thinking about what Brad did, that still hadn't properly registered. It was Brad’s words that burned themselves in my mind, a white-hot branding that screamed of my failure. It was difficult to swallow because both Amélie and I knew that magic did exist. Brad, however, seemed to think that it was a simple fetish, nothing of substance, just words for play and then sex. I knew that I would not give up trying to find a cure and perhaps the Wicca on the chatroom could help, but I was extremely hesitant to open myself to anyone like that again.

Dr. Alberts tightened her lips, her brow furrowing, “Abigail, I asked you if anyone called your parents.”

I blinked, realizing that I must have been staring off into deep space. I replied, “I think so, but they are out of the country. They will be back on Saturday.” As the words left my mouth, my shoulders slumped, and I felt my entire body sinking. I would have to follow through on my promise to Amélie to meet my closest friends and family, explaining my situation.

Dr. Alberts continued, “Okay. Please stand on the scale.” For all of the devices that had gone digital, doctors still used the old weight and balance scales. It reminded me of visits to the pediatrician.

I thought that the doctor was tall for a woman, but I kept forgetting just how short I was. This was confirmed by Doctor Alberts, “Okay. 152 cm. Or 5’ feet even.” Having the actual numbers confirmed soured my mood. I knew I was short, but now I knew how short.

Dr. Alberts noticed my expression and smiled gently, “You could still grow more Abigail. It’s true that most girls have their growth spurts in junior high, but you could be a late bloomer.” She added, “Okay all done. Weight: 126 lbs. You can step off.” This body was lighter, but it didn’t feel that way. Not with the way my ass bounced or the way my breasts jiggled with no effort on my part.

The doctor continued the examination, asking me to remove my soaked pants. She cleaned the area where I had scraped my knee, applied antiseptic and then bandaged it. She said nothing about the fact that I was wearing ill-fitting men’s boxer briefs or my lack of a bra. The doctor then asked me a series of questions. I recognized them. She was testing to see if I had a concussion. The last time I had been asked similar questions was after being thrown forcefully into the boards during a hockey game, my head impacted with the boards slightly, but my hands had snaked out to stop my momentum, saving me from a broken neck.

The questions were simple, but because I had to lie for nearly each one, it took a moment to process the question and then to try and fit the response into Abigail’s world.

“So, it appears that you have a mild concussion Abigail. I know that you are embarrassed and scared about what happened but I need to inform your parents. They will need to take you to see a doctor again, and there are certain signs they need to look for to make sure you aren’t getting worse.”

She continued, looking embarrassed momentarily, “Oh actually I see that you have your older sister listed as your emergency contact. Do you not live with your parents?” I shook my head.

Dr. Alberts said with a smile, “You don’t need to tell me any more. I just need to make sure that your sister understands what she needs to do to make sure you get better. Do you know if she is your legal guardian? She will need to sign some forms before I can release you.”

I was becoming visibly upset as the kindly doctor explained what would be a relatively simple process for an actual girl my age. Before I could break into a tirade about how I didn’t appreciate being talked down to, Amélie entered the room with Chloe in her arms. “Abigail! Are you OK? What happened?” I was pleased that she hadn’t called me Darren as that would have been both embarrassing and nearly impossible to explain. I nodded slowly, preferring to stay quiet for now.

Dr. Alberts offered Amélie a seat, and she sat down quickly. Chloe was restless, trying to break from her mommy’s grip. She arched her back and threw her head backwards; she wriggled and squirmed until, finally, Amélie set her down.

Dr. Alberts smiled at Amélie, obviously trying to reassure her. Chloe made her way over to me. I took her and set her on my knee, gripping her by the arms and then bouncing her. Chloe still didn’t call me daddy, but she had accepted me as someone who wasn’t leaving. She knew she could come to me and be amused, so at least that hadn’t changed. She was soon giggling madly, her face beaming. I was surprised by how easily I fell into parent mode despite the trauma. I understood the need for Dr. Alberts to speak to Amélie without interruption.

Dr. Alberts said, “Ms. Grenier thank you for coming. Unfortunately, Abigail is slightly concussed. I am also very concerned about how she received this injury. The girls who brought her in say they saw a young man on top of her. She won’t tell me, but I am hoping with you here, she will open up. It’s very important for reasons that I am sure you understand.”

Dr. Alberts moved over to me and smiled, then gently patted me on the shoulder, “I want you to trust me Abigail, anything you tell me here doesn’t need to leave this room.” She then looked at me seriously, “But I can’t help you if you don’t tell us.”

I was mortified. The doctor wanted me to spill everything in front of Amélie. It was beyond humiliating. My stomach felt uneasy. I frowned and then spoke up firmly, “Listen, all I will tell you is that I met a guy I’ve been talking to online. We went back to his place, and he wanted something I didn’t want to provide. That’s it. When I was leaving, I tripped in the parking lot and hit my head.” I knew that there were holes a mile wide in the story, like my torn shirt, which spoke of a struggle, but I hoped that the doctor would drop it.

Dr. Alberts took the clipboard with my information on it and started writing. She exchanged sad looks with Amélie, almost mirroring the ones Rachel and Sam had shared earlier when I refused to tell them everything.

Amélie looked at me, and she could see the resolve in my face. She did not push the issue further in the doctor’s office, knowing me too well, and understanding that I would say nothing more.

Before the meeting with the doctor concluded, I was put through a series of questions that left my head spinning.

Dr. Alberts removed her glasses and proceeded to gently wipe them with a cloth she removed from her pocket. “Abigail, I am sorry to have to ask you these questions. They might be embarrassing, but it is policy. Your sister can leave if you’d like. You know what that means right?”

I nodded my head and said through clenched teeth, “It means that this clinic has an established list of policies that must be followed, and in my case, a potential rape or sexual assault, you are obligated by your employer to ask these questions, to avoid liability,” trying to avoid an outburst that Amélie would later chastise me for.

Dr. Alberts looked at Amélie and then back at me with a look of wonder, she beamed, “Well, I bet you get all straight As in school don’t you?”

I shrugged my shoulders as Amélie came to take Chloe from me. She understood that I wanted her to leave simply by the look on my face. Dr. Alberts spoke to the retreating Amélie, “Please come back in when we are finished. I still need you to sign the guardian leave forms. And we will have to talk about keeping Abigail home from school for a few days. With this sort of head trauma, we really need to be careful.”

The sound of the door closing behind Amélie heralded the first question from Dr. Alberts, “Abigail, when was the last time you had your period?” I looked at the doctor as if she had two heads. Not two normal looking heads, no - perched next to the doctor’s human head was a nightmarish head with a grotesque bulbous nose covered in warts, a jagged mouth that breathed fire and smoke as dark as night and that spoke only in startled gasps of air. It was an abomination.

I replied with wide eyes, “Uh. Last month I guess?”

The doctor frowned, “I see. And are you sexually active?”

I scrunched up my face, wrinkling my nose in an almost porcine snout as I fought the urge to say “Gross!” I said, “No, no absolutely not. That’s not even on my mind.”

Dr. Alberts quirked a brow, a look of surprise lining her face. “You know it’s okay to have thoughts like that Abigail, you just have to be cautious about acting on them.”

I added quickly, trying desperately to end this humiliating exercise as soon as possible, “Yes, yes I know. Abstinence is the best policy, safe sex is good sex. I have heard it all. Believe me.”

Dr. Alberts smiled. “I believe you, Abigail. But you have to know that you put yourself in a vulnerable position when you meet someone you only spoke to on the internet. Well it’s very dangerous. Did you tell your sister where you were going?”

I shook my head, and the doctor continued. “Almost done. One last question, why won’t you tell me or your sister what happened?”

I looked at Dr. Alberts considering my response. I thought about the phrases that used to drive my parents insane when I had done something wrong. The first place winner was always “I don’t know.” At the time, I probably didn’t know, or I was lying to cover up the fact that I had done it. So I figured this was a very typical response.

As part of my teacher training, I had taken a course on adolescent development, with a particular focus on the brain and reasoning skills. When an adolescent does something illegal, they may actually not know why they committed the act. Being an adult, I had superior reasoning and decision-making skills, despite what happened with Brad. I knew why I made the decision after all - because I was desperate.

I replied, “I don’t know.”

The doctor sighed and shook her head. She removed a card from her coat pocket, “Abigail, when you are ready I want you to come and see me. I don’t take new patients at my practice, but I am going to make a special exception in your case. You are a very beautiful and bright girl, and I would hate to see you hurt yourself, just to protect someone who has hurt you.”

I took the card, never intending to use it.

Chapter 15

Amélie re-entered the examination room as I exited. She handed me Chloe, who started kicking her legs furiously, ready to enter full tantrum mode. Clearly, she wanted Amélie, but we were stuck with each other. I put Chloe down and that seemed to appease her. I knew her teeth were bothering her, so she was ultra-sensitive.

Rachel went up to Chloe and smiled, “Hey you. What’s the matter?” She made a silly face, extending her eyebrows upward and turning her mouth into a wide grin. Chloe thought it was hilarious and tried to emulate the expression. Rachel stopped when Chloe stopped fuming; however, this caused Chloe to start pointing at the palm of her hand.

Sam, who was lounging with her legs set across two of the waiting room chairs, said, “Oh. She knows sign language.”

I nodded and added, “She wants you to do it again.”

Rachel made a similar face, but this time, her jaw stuck out farther. Chloe didn’t seem to notice the difference and giggled.

A few minutes later, Amélie emerged, Chloe ran to her immediately as if the others in the room never existed. Amélie scooped her up. She turned to Sam and Rachel, “Thank you so much for bringing Abigail to the clinic. You have no idea how much it means to me, that you would do that. Someone else may have just left her there.”

Sam smiled, adding a simple, “No problem. We were just there at the right time.”

Rachel actually blushed and said, “It was our pleasure. You seem like such a nice family.”

Sam asked, “It must be hard taking care of a baby and a teenager at the same time. How do you do it?”

Amélie replied, “Oh Abigail is no trouble. She helps with Chloe all the time. Even gets up with her at night sometimes.”

Sam took Amélie aside, speaking at a volume that made it impossible to hear. I was annoyed at what was becoming a common occurrence- I was being left out of conversations that no doubt involved me. The adult world that I had been a part of for so many years was slowly being blocked off.

Moments later, we said our goodbyes to Rachel and Sam. I thanked them subtly. I had never been a person to heap praise and adulation on others, even though I enjoyed it myself. Amélie looked at me with narrowed eyes, but she said nothing. Obviously she expected me to be more gracious, but I was content with offering them a simple thank you. Did I need to grovel at their feet to show my gratitude?

Ironically, I now had the medical certificate that I needed to stave off my imminent firing. Unfortunately, it stated that my name was Abigail Lawrence and that I should miss at least one day of school so my condition could be monitored. Dr. Alberts had also provided me with a temporary pass that allowed me to keep my car in the campus parking lot for a full week free of charge. It was given to those who could not legally drive due to injuries. I wanted to drive home immediately, but the look on Amélie’s face when I suggested it told me that it was not a battle I could win.

So, I would be trapped in the car with Amélie. My wife’s face was a strange mixture of sadness and fury. She rarely showed her emotions, but they were plainly written on her face. I had only seen this face a handful of times or variations of it.

“So when exactly are you going to tell me what happened? Or are you just going to let me wonder if you’d been raped?” Amélie said her words through clenched teeth. Even Chloe, who had been difficult at the doctor’s office, remained quiet, perhaps sensing that now wasn’t the time to make trouble.

Before I could answer, Amélie continued her tirade, “Do you have any idea how stupid you were to meet that guy and then go into his apartment?” Fury blanketed Amélie’s pretty features, “Should I even ask why you were meeting a guy ‘Abigail’ or are you going to keep that from me too?”

Amélie was driving erratically. Her driving made me anxious as it was verging on road rage. When she blew through a red light, I knew that I needed to try and calm her down.

“I was meeting him because he said he was a wizard. That he knew magic. I thought that he could help me- you know- with my condition. I wasn’t meeting him for any other reason. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you in front of the doctor. She would have thought I was crazy.”

My words had the desired calming effect, Amélie’s face softened, but it remained tight- it just wasn’t a mask of fury any longer. She said, “Darren, you scared the hell out of me. You know how we’ve had those conversations about Chloe when she gets older. How we are going to worry when she is out. Imagine you got a call like I got today, except it was about Chloe. How would you feel?”

I replied, “Like you. Out of my mind with worry, worried that I am never going to see her alive.” I looked over at Amélie, “Look, I am sorry, but I was desperate, and I really thought this guy could help.”

Amélie shook her head, “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going? Why wasn’t I there with you?”

It bothered me to think that I needed Amélie’s protection, but in hindsight, Brad would have reacted much differently had I brought Amélie along. Amélie would have been no nonsense. I realized that the decision I had made was very foolish. It was what a kid would have done. I had hidden this from Amélie the same way a girl my body’s age would have hidden an older boyfriend she thought couldn’t bring home to meet the family.

“Because I didn’t think you would accept that a wizard could exist, and I thought you would try and convince me not to go. You don’t understand what I am going through, and you cannot possibly understand how much I don’t want to face my parents this way.” We were halfway home at this point, but it felt like an eternity. Amélie was still driving at the brink of road rage, at least twenty kilometers above the speed limit, but the argument dragged on as if we were crawling along the road.

Amélie kept turning her head toward me, which made me nervous, because she really should have been watching the road, especially because we were on the highway. She raised her voice at me, “Do you want me to treat you like a child, Darren? Because you are certainly acting like that. What happened to the openness we were going to have about this? I know that you are terrified to meet your parents, but you have to. It’s the adult thing to do. They need to know what happened to their son.”

She twisted her head back to the road at my urging, but she continued to speak, however; it was in a softer tone, “Darren, think of it this way. Wizard or not. I would have gone and should have gone with you. You still act like you are invincible. You act like a man. Here’s a wake-up call for you. You are vulnerable. As much as you don’t want to admit it, people are going to see your outside and think that’s what you are.”

I shot back, “So you want me to act all defenseless like I need saving? You want me to act like a girl, is that it? Is that your plan, to just accept that this is how it will be?”

Amélie changed lanes rapidly, cutting off a transport truck in the process. She replied, “Stop thinking of it that way. I know who you are, but no one else does. This guy you met certainly didn’t know who you really are. I don’t want you to act like a girl, but I want you to be more careful.”

She added, “I am honestly shocked that you would do that. It was so foolish. I am scared that this change has done something to your brain.”

I shook my head, “No it hasn’t. I told you that I was desperate for a cure. That’s why I went. That’s the only reason.”

Amélie frowned and then took the highway exit, now reaching the homestretch of this tortuous ride. She looked exhausted. I saw worry lines etched in her face. She looked older than her actual age of thirty. “Please just tell me he didn’t do what the doctor was suggesting he did.”

I said, “He didn’t do anything like that.” I felt sick to my stomach telling my wife this, but she had asked, and she was not the type to let it go. “He was rubbing my shoulders saying it was part of a ritual- and…well he started moving forward. As soon as I felt him touch my chest, I bolted out of there. Well he chased me down and threw me against a wall. I screamed for help and that’s when Rachel and Sam came. Not before he threw himself into me and knocked me down. I hit my head there. Before too I think- he pushed me into the wall and I hit my head.”

Amélie listened to me speak. I could see her anger growing as I continued. It melted away momentarily as I told her of my escape, but her lips pursed and her jaw clenched. Red-hot rage erupted from her lips, “That asshole! He assaulted you! We have to go to the police now. Right now.” It looked like I had no choice. The police station was not far from our home.

I began to shake with fear at the prospect of police officers getting involved. I shook my head repeatedly, “I didn’t tell you the whole story. I smashed his TV and his Xbox before I left. That’s why he chased me and threw me into the wall…I was angry because he was a fraud. And his pawing me didn’t help.” I added, “Also, look at it this way, we can’t go to the police. They will realize I don’t actually exist. And when they start sniffing around, well who knows what will happen. No, we can’t go to the police. They will wonder where Darren Lawrence is, and that will just get even messier. You know I am right.”

Amélie turned back toward home without saying a word. Her expression had softened, but she was still clearly upset. As we pulled into the driveway, she said, “Dr. Alberts wants you to stop taking your sleeping pills. They aren’t meant to be taken by teenagers. She said that there can be side effects due to your- uh their developing brain. She said that the anti-depressive effect for adults can actually work the opposite way for teens.”

As I listened to Amélie’s words, I started to playback the results of today’s failed expedition in my head. Perhaps Amélie was right and my brain had changed. Paranoia set in, and I feared what other ways my mind could change. I had to get out of this body.

Chapter 16

Friday came and with it the inevitable phone call from my boss. I didn’t even bother asking Amélie to manufacture a story because I still had no proper medical certificate. If I had tried to use my real name in the doctor’s office, I would have likely ended up in the hospital under mental observation. Even if I avoided going to the hospital, I still wouldn't have got a certificate in my own name. My probation stated that I absolutely needed a medical certificate for an extended absence. I did not bother listening to the voicemail on my phone. I knew what it was going to say because I saw the e-mail also.

The paper trail for my termination was complete. It was infuriating because I was not playing the system; I was in an impossible situation with no clear solution. Those who played the system found crooked doctors, or they acted the master thespian, putting a show on for their doctor to get a certificate. I suppose I could have visited a less than reputable doctor, but even then, I would have had to show my health card, which had Darren’s picture on it. Dr. Alberts had only agreed to take me because I was a potential rape victim, and I had likely suffered head trauma. She told Amélie that I would need to bring my health card to any subsequent appointments because it ensured the doctors were paid. Dr. Alberts waived the fee given my circumstances.

Without a health card, I couldn’t use the free system. I would have to pay out of pocket, and, considering our financial situation without my job, I hoped that I would recover without any need for follow up medical appointments. I was still dizzy at times, but the nausea had left, thankfully. Amélie took the day off on Friday to monitor my symptoms. I spent a lot of the day sleeping, again hoping that my body would recover on its own.

I was secretly taking my sleeping pills. Thursday evening, I took a double dose, as the seriousness of the situation in Brad’s apartment dawned on me. It wasn’t the pawing or even his rough treatment outside the apartment. I think if I was a real girl, I would have felt more violated because I would have considered this my body, and while I certainly did not want anyone except Amélie touching me, it didn’t bother me near as much as finding out that Brad was a fraud.

I knew that it was only one incident and one failure, but I was beginning to doubt that there was anyone that could help me. A part of me thought that I was insane, that I was, in fact, locked away in an institution, and that this life was only a schizophrenic episode. It seemed impossible for someone to change like I had. I remember from my psych classes, hearing stories of people who were lost to their illness. Homeless people, for instance, can suffer from simple schizophrenia, making them accept the rigours of life on the street. The illness that allows them to throw off consumerism’s shackles also robs them of any drive to succeed. Was I lost within such an episode?

I realized that as the seconds ticked by on every clock in the house, on my phone and my computer, it was one second closer to the time I would have to face my parents. I didn’t want to talk to Amélie about tomorrow because I was still upset with her for forcing me to meet the people who had known me for 32 years as Darren Lawrence. I was conflicted because, although I did not want them to worry, and I wanted them in my life, I simply had no idea how they would react.

I opened the laptop and saw that Amélie was already logged onto Facebook. I wasn’t supposed to look at anything with bright light, but I figured again that I didn’t really have a concussion and that the way I had answered the questions made Dr. Alberts think that I did. I saw a discussion she had with Laura, and with other friends as well. Most of them seemed to suspect that I had cancer and offered their well wishes to us both. In fact, even Amélie’s parents, who were concerned when I was admitted to the hospital before, were asking Amélie if I had something more serious because word had reached them that no one had seen me in two weeks.

I shook my head, realizing that once this got out, it would be impossible to contain. I almost wished that it was cancer. It would have been easier to explain. A lump started in my stomach and formed into a tight knot. My anxiety over the possible humiliation I would suffer over my transformation gripped my stomach in a vice and twisted it slowly.

Amélie came into the room carrying a tray with soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. She frowned as she saw me looking at the laptop.

“Didn’t Dr. Alberts say that you aren’t supposed to be looking at anything with bright lights?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t like how you are talking about me on Facebook. And to your parents too. Can’t we just keep this secret until we find a cure? Why does anyone need to know? I just know that once our small group of friends knows, that the whole world will know. You know how things spread. I don’t want to be some kind of medical experiment freak show.” I shook as tears began to run down my cheeks. My emotions were overwhelming, and while I was not exactly stone-faced before, I never cry so easily.

Amélie set the tray down on my lap. I was wearing a pair of my pj pants, and while they were too long, I found them comforting, just like the soup she had brought.

Amélie’s face remained calm. She sat down next to me on the couch, held my hand and said firmly, “Because every night when your mom and dad go to bed, they will wonder what happened to their son. And every morning, they will wake up and wonder the same thing. And so will your sister.”

She continued, “You could hide this, but by doing that, you will be hurting the people who love you.”

I looked at Amélie with eyes blurred with tears, “I can’t…I just can’t face them like this Amélie. I have never felt so ashamed. I don’t want to hurt them, but I don’t want them to see me like this either. I am worried they won’t accept me.”

Amélie remained calm. “Just show them you are the same person underneath. Be yourself, and they will accept you. Have an argument with your dad about politics, make weird trumpet noises and sing random nonsensical songs. Do all the things you have always done and everyone will accept you. Because they will know it is you.”

She added, “And as for Facebook, since when has everything you read on the net been absolute truth? Also, what scientist in their right mind would theorize that magic could exist?”

I had to admit, Amélie was making me feel better about the situation, although the soup and grilled cheese with ketchup was helping too. If I simply acted like myself, acceptance would come. If I could do that, I would feel that maybe, my brain wasn’t changing, and that despite this form, I could still be myself.

I leaned over and squeezed Amélie’s butt cheek playfully, “So how long were you practicing that speech?”

Amélie half smiled and replied, “In my head for the last week at work pretty much.”

I was feeling better about tomorrow because it would also give me an opportunity to show that despite a different skin, I was still me.

Chapter 17

I used to revel in Saturday mornings, certainly I could not wake up any later than Chloe allowed, but it also meant I did not have the trudge to work. It meant Amélie’s waffles topped with real maple syrup and strawberries. Now, Saturday morning would forever be tainted. That was the day my life had changed irrevocably.

Still considering what happened on Thursday, I was feeling much better, but I was shocked when I managed to fall asleep at 9 PM on a Friday night. Usually, Amélie and I had sex or at least enjoyed each other’s company. It was rare that I fell asleep before her, but considering my possible concussion, it was hardly surprising.

Amélie and I had not had sex since my change. I had hoped that she would come around to the idea that I was only occupying a different skin and that I was the same person inside, but she had blocked most of my attempts at amorous behaviour, and other than the one night where she rubbed my legs, she was not exactly reciprocating. I understood to a certain degree. If Amélie turned into a man overnight, I would have trouble touching her. All the taut muscle in a powerfully built, hairy body with thick pipes for arms would be hard for me to deal with. I figured it would be easier for Amélie to like girls because well, girls were softer, prettier and I understood liking girls ... that way. Still, Amélie had never shown any interest in women before, so I had a long road ahead of me.

I checked on-line for the actual arrival of my parents’ flight, and it was on time. I dug into Amélie’s special waffles, drenched in syrup. Chloe, who was busy colouring at her kid-sized table, asked me to sit with her. She smiled and held up a fistful of crayons. At her age, she mostly coloured on the table, and if it actually got in the book, it was usually just a random selection of lines and scribbles.

“Daddy needs to finish his breakfast, then I can colour with you Chloe.” I continued to call myself daddy in front of her, and Amélie did the same when we were at home. I had hardly left the house in the last two weeks, so other than the clinic, we hadn’t had many opportunities in public to deal with my condition.

Chloe scrunched up her face and said, “No Daddy! Alee. Alee. Alee. Sit, sit, sit!”

I frowned, but did as Chloe asked, my padded butt filling out more of the seat than it used to. It was a child-sized seat, but I had very little ass before. In fact, I used to have to put a cushion under my butt for long car trips because it would actually get sore. Amélie never had to do this, and I guessed that I wouldn’t need the cushion in future. I didn’t consider this an advantage because my current ass actually jiggled when I moved. I disliked the feeling immensely, knowing that it only brought attention to the area. Male attention.

I looked at Amélie with concern, “Why is she calling me that? She has been doing that for the past few days.”

Amélie replied, “I’ve noticed that too. Kids Chloe’s age are very visual, so because she doesn’t see ‘daddy’ then she can’t respond to you that way. Even if we call you daddy or Darren in front of her, she can’t reason like we do, so she makes up something to call you.”

I finished chewing a particularly large mouthful of waffle and replied, “But if we keep calling me daddy in front of her, she should start calling me daddy eventually, right?”

Amélie turned her back to me and busied herself with clearing the dishes from the drainer. “I don’t know, Darren. I think she is confused. She still calls for you, especially at bedtime. She wants to say goodnight to daddy. I do think she will probably get used to it though.”

I could tell that Amélie didn’t exactly believe her own words, and to be honest, neither did I. I wondered if Chloe would always remember my image before my change and consider that person her daddy. She often pointed at pictures of me and would say “Daddy?” clearly wondering where I was. I stopped thinking and just coloured with Chloe, enjoying our time together. So what if she didn’t call me daddy?

My parents’ plane had touched down as we finished breakfast. Chloe pointed at a picture in her book that she wanted me to colour. It was a picture of a princess in a tower with long hair. I recognized it from the story ‘Rapunzel’. She pointed at the picture and then at me, saying “Alee! Alee!” While my hair was not as long as Rapunzel’s, it certainly felt that way, especially when Chloe tugged on it. I took a yellow crayon and started colouring the girl’s long golden hair. I would have done this before mind you. I was not the type of guy who thought that colouring a girly picture with my daughter was somehow emasculating. It was just odd to have her point at a picture of a princess and then point at me.

I turned to Amélie, “How should I dress? I mean I was thinking that I could wear a pair of those pants you got me. Maybe even the ones that got ripped and my green hoodie.”

Amélie nodded her head, “Yeah, well the hoodie will do it for most people. You did ask to be buried in that before.”

I laughed, “I still want to be buried in it.” I was happy that Amélie had not suggested anything remotely girly nor had she suggested I wear a bra. She was taking it slowly with me, and I appreciated that. Thursday’s episode had told her to what lengths I was willing to go to find a cure. I turned back around and coloured the girl’s dress green.

I showered and then Amélie met me in the bedroom. I pulled on a pair of my boxer briefs and a white t-shirt, which was too long but stretched tightly across my chest. Amélie wrinkled her nose at my selection. You could see my nipples pushing against the fabric.

“Darren, if you are going to wear that. You should really do this.” She moved in front of me and proceeded to zip up the hoodie. “If you aren’t going to wear a bra- well you should just do that. You don’t want to be all busting out in front of your parents, right?”

I nodded my head in quick agreement. Amélie took me in front of the mirror and held a brush in her hands. She then proceeded to brush my bangs back and then tuck them over my ears. I didn’t exactly want my parents, kid sister and closest friends to see me wearing a pink headband, so I appreciated her gesture. “It will be OK Darren, they will believe you.”

I nodded again, although the girl’s image, the blue eyes staring at me and the soft feminine features, they screamed at the obvious disparity, causing a sudden pang in my stomach when the doorbell rang.

I hurried downstairs into the basement. I hid underneath the stairs in our storage area. It was the perfect place because I could hear everything that went on upstairs yet not be seen. Our home was a raised ranch style, meaning that unlike a bungalow, the basement acted more like a second floor with two bedrooms and the music room. The second bedroom was my man cave, and ironically, also where the previous owners had placed their teenage daughter.

I could hear that Laura and Andrew had arrived with their two month old baby. Andrew was my best friend and the bassist. He often wore a baseball cap to hide his thinning hair, and was slightly overweight. Laura was childhood friends with Amélie. A tall Italian beauty with flowing dark hair, she was someone you could trust. She could empathize with nearly any problem. I still remember when she consoled me when I thought I was going to lose Amélie to another. They were our best friends, and along with my family, they were the most worried. I had received many messages from Laura and Andrew over the past two weeks. I just told them that I would tell everyone when we had the test results back, as I had agreed with Amélie.

I could hear Andrew’s voice upstairs, “Hey, so where’s Darren, is he feeling better? I brought my bass. I was hoping he was feeling up to jamming again.”

Laura’s voice added, “I know he probably doesn’t want to see anyone. It means a lot that you would have us here along with Darren’s family.”

Amélie replied, “Well you are like family, Darren and Andrew are like brothers, and we’ve known each other since we were kids. We wanted you guys to be here.”

Amélie replied to Andrew, “You will see Darren, but he’s only going to come out when he’s ready.”

I imagined what Laura and Andrew were thinking. I figured that they, like everyone else, thought I had cancer, so I would come out completely bald and sickly.

Andrew replied, “Yeah we can wait.”

Our entryway was not wide enough to allow more than one person to enter at once, so as Laura and Andrew were removing their boots, Steven pushed open the door and nearly hit someone. I knew this because I heard Andrew say, “Hey Steven, watch out, you almost hit Laura with the door.”

I heard Steven’s voice, “Sorry man, you know how it is here. I never knock because Darren usually picks me up. When Amélie sent me that text, I figured we were jamming and that Darren was better.” Steven was built like a basketball player. He was well over six feet tall, but not gangly. He had very well-defined arms from years of drumming.

Andrew replied, “Yeah I brought my bass. I am hoping that we can play. It’s been two weeks. How’d you get here anyway?

Steven’s voice boomed, “No kidding. When Darren had the stomach flu we missed two weeks too. It’s like an eternity to wait that long. Pete drove me over. He was coming this way anyway.”

I could hear the footsteps upstairs, so I knew that almost everyone was here. I smiled, realizing that my band mates were as committed as I was, despite work and family obligations; they still had music on the brain- like me.

The conversation continued. Andrew added, “We’ll probably be a bit rusty.”

The doorbell rang again and I knew my parents and sister had arrived. I heard their voices. Everyone was here, but I knew that it wasn’t time to reveal myself yet. My stomach churned. I was nervous, but it was not good nerves, the type that keep you energetic before you start a set. It was the type that made me want to stay in the closet until everyone left.

I heard Laura’s voice, “Hey guys, I wouldn’t be expecting to jam.”

Steven replied, “Well it’s really unlike Darren to wait three weeks between playing. Usually, he is rescheduling trying to get in a practice a week. So-“

Andrew added, “Something must be wrong.” I could hear Amélie greeting my parents and sister and then I heard footsteps above me. Everyone was here and in position.

I heard my mom’s voice, “Allison, what are you talking about? We were going to come here to see the baby anyway, but why do you look that way? You hardly said a word the whole ride back from airport. What’s going on?” To say my mother sounded worried would be an understatement.

My sister, Allison replied, “Mom, Amélie wouldn’t let me see Darren the last time I came. He’s really sick, and she’s been hiding it from us. We have a right to know.”

Amélie replied, “You do Allison, but it was Darren himself who chose not to see you that night. I’m not keeping him from anyone. He’ll tell you that himself.”

I quietly opened the door to the closet and crept into the nearby band room, locking the door behind me. My father said, “I hear someone downstairs.”

I could hear footsteps coming toward me, and then I heard Amélie’s voice, “You will all know today what has happened to Darren. We just ask that you be patient. First thing, Darren isn’t dying. He doesn’t have cancer. But he’s changed.”

I wasn’t in the room, but I knew that the absence of the shuffling worried footsteps was a good sign.

I heard my mother’s voice, still stricken with worry, “Changed how Amélie?”

I picked up my guitar and slung it over my shoulder. I was forced to shorten the strap because before, it hung past my knees, making it nearly impossible to play anything but D drop riffs. I took my pick into my right hand, and my left hand now devoid of pink nail polish was cut nearly to the nub prepared to form a chord. I knew the nails would grow back, but I couldn’t play with them as they were. I began to pick one of our songs. It was one my band mates would know instantly. Laura would have heard it countless times because Andrew was our resident mix artist. He would take our recorded tracks home and mix them, often playing the mixes for Laura who had an excellent ear.

My parents and sister would recognize the song because I had played it at a family gathering at my aunt’s over Christmas. They said they really enjoyed it, especially since I wasn’t screaming. Being from a generation which saw the Beatles come to prominence, their ears weren’t exactly attuned to caterwauling. My mother used to call the music I listened to in high school ‘killing yourself music’.

I had not practiced the song the day before because I was still feeling too tired, but while my fingers were smaller than before, I could still fret with relative ease. It hurt to push down on the strings because I didn’t have the calluses from years of playing. I also lacked some of the strength and dexterity, but I knew how to form the chords. As I picked the strings up and down, I noticed how much harder it was to move around on the fret board because these hands had never done that. Thankfully, the song only had a few chords.

My Marshall amp hummed, blaring sweet chorus affected notes. The chorus effect is like putting a shiny coating over each note. It can hide a bum note, which is good because I was having some difficulty with my chord changes. The neck of my guitar, a knock-off Gibson with beefy pickups, was thinner than the Fender I had played in my dream, but my hands were tiny. I was loathe to admit it, but I would need a smaller guitar. I frowned as I stepped up to the microphone because I loved my guitar.

My first words were timid as I struggled to find the right octave. I had been a tenor, but now, I was a soprano, so my lowest notes were among the higher range of my male voice. Still, I had a good ear, and I knew how to hit the notes, so it would not sound bad, just hesitant in places.

The song I chose was about Amélie and her body issues, but also the body issues that women have in general. It used very deliberate imagery such as a hammer striking a nose, and even with apparent perfection, the recipient called for the hammer again. I sung of the enemy inside, the voice in a woman’s head, telling her she is imperfect. The small pause from the first soft chorus was longer than usual, because I wanted to hear if anyone was outside the door, or if the footsteps were stirring. Because everything was amplified, those upstairs could easily hear me.

The band room had curtains across the door, so I could not see if anyone was lurking outside, but I could hear people talking. There was a knock at the door, but I ignored it and moved into the third verse. The knocking became more frantic, but still I played on and continued into the third verse. This one about the Hollywood ideal and the ridicule faced by those who do not conform.

It moved through the soft bridge, pleading for the woman in the song to stop denying her beauty, and then I stomped my guitar pedal, distorting the guitar as I started to hit heavy power chords. I gained confidence as I heard my voice more and more. It was so powerful that I actually backed off the microphone far more than I usually did for the crescendo of the song. My voice was sweet, but tinged with the sadness of my tone, it was an intoxicating mix. It was hard to describe what I felt in that moment, a mix of elation that something coming out of me could produce such a beautiful sound, as I sung of wanting the woman to see herself as I saw her, and fear. Fear because I had actually enjoyed a moment in this body. I worried that should more moments like this happen, I might stop looking for a cure.

I threw the thought from my mind, realising that I was actually playing the wrong chord, but I was still singing in key. I ended the song as I always did, singing of the fact that nothing would change, that from the moment of birth, women would always allow themselves to be judged.

I had hit notes I had only previously dreamed of hitting. The fourth octave A that I had struggled with was effortless.

I set the guitar down on the stand, unplugged it and then clicked off amp. My fingers were killing me, the metallic strings almost like barbed wire across my soft finger tips. I was shaking. The endorphins released from my performance had made me giddy, but it soon wore off. I realized that I was going to have to leave the band room. The knocking was frantic again, and I could hear the disbelief in people’s voices.

I slowly unlocked the door and stepped out to my fate.

Chapter 18

The disbelief in the voices transferred to faces as I stepped out. The hallway outside the band room was only wide enough to fit two people comfortably, but as I stepped out, I noticed that everyone with the exception of Amélie was waiting for my grand entrance. I had sung a song that existed only in Darren Lawrence’s mind and on his personal notepad. We had not released any of our music and only the small group of friends who heard our basement show before Christmas would know what I had sung. Unless one of those people stole my lyric book and memorized the words, it had to be me. I was positive they would believe me.

I said, “Sorry for not telling all of you sooner. I hope you understand now why we waited so long.”

My sister blinked, looking down at the teenaged girl before her and then replying, “How- how is this even possible?”

The disbelief on everyone’s face was different from the one on Amélie’s after she saw me change. It was more confusion than horror.

Amélie stayed at the top of the stairs, while the others were only inches away. I felt trapped, enclosed by those I loved and trusted the most, staring at me with bewilderment.

Amélie interjected, “I saw Darren change. It was early Saturday morning two weeks ago. I can assure you that the person you see before is Darren Lawrence.”

We had no reason to lie about it. I had no gambling debts, neither was I the star witness in a mob trial, so I figured that they would believe me. Before allowing my appearance to sink in any further, I added quickly, “I want all of you to treat me the same. We have been trying to act as normally as possible, while searching for a cure.”

I turned to Andrew and Steven, “I want to keep doing the band thing with you guys. You’ve heard that I can still sing.” I said the last words with sudden pride. “And my playing will get better. I will probably need a smaller guitar though.” I frowned, recalling the glittery acoustic from my dream. I added, “Something smaller, but with flames.” I hid my left hand behind my back, as I could feel the nails re-growing.

Steven and Andrew looked at me and then at each other. I was growing concerned because other than my sister’s initial question, people were just staring and saying nothing.

Steven broke the silence, “Sure man, yeah we can jam.” I wasn’t sure if he actually believed me, or if he was just trying to sever the awkward moment.

Still, I broke into a smile, “It means a lot to me that you can all accept me like this. Listen, we are still looking for a cure, but no luck yet.” I noticed my parents were oddly quiet. I had expected my mother to burst forward from the small throng and embrace me, glad that I did not have a deadly disease.

My sister, who was now taller than me, approached and scrutinized me, “I still don’t understand how this can happen. Amélie, there must be a better explanation than this. Magic isn’t real. We would have seen it before.”

I felt that Amélie had been interrogated enough, so I jumped in. “Listen, why don’t we just go upstairs and talk about it. You guys are really in my bubble here.”

Andrew piped up, “That certainly sounds like something Darren would say.”

Steven asked, “When is everybody going to dance?”

I smirked and replied, “Right before the last song.” From that, it seemed that I had convinced my band mates. Steven’s question referred to the silly banter we did before the last song of the set. Only the real Darren Lawrence would know the answer. My choice of dress also likely helped them to make a decision. I wore practically the same outfit every time we played, including my green hoodie which was practically glued to my body. Unfortunately, that nagging sensation remained in the back of my mind as long as my parents said nothing. My mother looked a little like Amélie did when I first changed. She had wide eyes, and her mouth, usually smiling, was tight. There was scepticism in her eyes. My father peered at me; his gaze was steely. He said woodenly, “Give us a moment.”

Everyone returned upstairs. Amélie and I brought chairs from the kitchen to give everyone a seat.

My sister looked annoyed still. Her question hadn’t been answered. Again, the cancer explanation would have been easier, but with a different set of consequences. I didn’t want people thinking I was dying. My father helped my mother sit on the couch. She looked like she was in shock. I tried to avoid her gaze, but her troubled eyes found mine with pin-point precision.

Chloe was napping, but I felt a strong urge to wake her up, knowing it would please my mother to see her. If anything could snap her out of this state, it was Chloe’s beaming face and her infectious laugh.

Amélie laughed nervously as she handed out drinks to people. Again, the room had fallen silent.

Laura rocked her son gently. I knew she could feel the tension in the room, the great confusion. “Your voice is amazing, Darren. I had chills when you sang that last chorus.”

I smiled at the compliment, “Yeah, it is the only real advantage to this believe me. This body is just built to sing.”

My sister burst out, “How can you be so calm, Darren? What are you going to do? You sound like you are happy to be like that. Did you ask for it?”

I shook my head repeatedly, “No! No, absolutely not, Allison. How do you want me to act though? I am happy I can at least continue playing music.”

Allison pointed a finger at me, “Well music isn’t the only thing. What about your daughter and your wife? And what are you? Like fourteen? How are you going to keep your job like this? Why aren’t we all looking for a cure right now instead of talking about how great your voice is?”

I narrowed my eyes at my sister, “Look I am putting a brave face on here. I’ve been to some dark places literally and figuratively these past two weeks. Don’t you think I know what the consequences of this change are? I already lost my job.”

I added petulantly, “And I am probably sixteen.”

Allison shook her head, “It still doesn’t explain how it can happen. We’ve never seen magic. Are you trying to tell me now that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny exist, what about the tooth fairy? Are they coming here tomorrow to hear you sing?” I frowned, unsure of how to react to my sister’s sarcasm.

I lowered my head. Was my sister right? Was I acting normally considering the situation? I had been attempting to find a cure, but like any research, when you reach stumbling blocks, it pays to take some time off to rethink the parameters of your search.

I grimaced and Allison added, “Sorry Darren, if that's who you really are, it’s just how are we supposed to believe this? It seems impossible.”

I stood quickly saying nothing and went into the kitchen to fetch a pair of scissors. I then stood in the middle of the living room where everyone could see me. I took the scissors and began cutting my long, luxurious golden locks. I cut rapidly without any thought as to style or length, and when I was finished, a mass of hair lay at my feet. I then snipped off the tips of my finger nails. There were gasps at my behaviour, but no one moved to stop me.

I was taking a chance with my hair, but I figured that it was likely part of the package. And if I was wrong, well I could get my mother to even it out. She cut mine and my father’s hair. It wasn’t that I was cheap, no, it was a bonding moment for us when she played hairdresser. I enjoyed the time we spent together, and people generally thought her haircuts looked good. Not that many people would tell you that you had a bad haircut, but still the compliments seemed genuine.

If I was wrong, then I would have a much easier time drying my hair, but I had a feeling that I wasn’t. Whatever had made me into this girl seemed to dislike my ruining the finished product. At least, it wasn’t forcing me to wear what I had worn in my dream.

I said, “Watch closely.”

Within a few minutes, I could feel my hair tickling my neck again. The stray strands that I had missed in my assault soon had sister strands. The expressions in the room ranged from wonderment to shock. My mother opened her mouth in surprise, but closed it soon enough, returning to a tight-lipped state.

I held up my hands with fingers outstretched, palms towards me. My nails were almost as long as they were before I cut them just minutes before. The stars were back, standing out against the pink background.

I spoke evenly, “There is no other explanation for this but magic.”

Laura spoke up, “Is this a curse? Why did this happen to you?”

I sat down at the edge of the couch next to Amélie. I was tired of everyone staring at me, so I shifted from the centre of the room. “We aren’t sure. It all started with a dream I had.” I proceeded to describe the dream in great detail, my audience was spellbound again, seemingly in an in-between state where they believed everything they were seeing but lacked the means to process it. Amélie and I had gone through a similar progression when I had first changed.

I finished, “And when I woke up, I was like this. Minus the outfit. Thankfully.”

I could see in my sister’s eyes that the scepticism had diminished, but she still seemed unwilling to believe my story in its entirety. She spoke up, “Sorry Darren, it’s just really hard to believe. My brother is now my sister, and-“. I interrupted her:

“Brother. I am still your brother. Like I said, I want you to treat me the same as before, at least as much as possible.” My eyes met my mother’s again, and I quickly turned away. “It’s better for me that way.”

Andrew, who was in the process of burping his son, said, “We’ll do our best, Darren. I admit this is weird, but we’ll try. But what about our other friends? They are still going to ask what happened to you. The rumour was that you had cancer.”

I replied, “I don’t want people thinking I have cancer, but I also don’t want anyone outside this room knowing what happened to me either. Amélie and I talked about it, and we thought about some possible reasons why I would leave.”

My sister interjected, “You want us to lie to people, like you’ve been lying to us? I don’t like that.”

I frowned, “So what are you going to do, tell our extended family that you suddenly have a younger sister who thinks she is Darren? Neither option is preferable.” I addressed everyone, meeting their gaze one after the other as I spoke, “I just don’t need the whole world finding out about what happened. I don’t want the National Enquirer going through my trash or reporters knocking on our door to speak to the freak.”

Any feelings that my sister had previously regarding my enjoyment of my condition vanished. She nodded slowly, “I could see that being a problem, especially if you show them what you did us just now.”

I nodded, pleased that my sister, who had been the hardest to convince, was on my side now, “I’d appreciate if everyone could just keep this to themselves for now. If anyone outside this room asks you how I am, I’d like you to tell them-“

I was interrupted by Amélie, “Darren, I know we talked about this, and I agreed, after some convincing, but I don’t think this is right. If you want to be treated the same way, you can’t expect your friends to lie for you. We will find a way to turn you back, but for now, I think you should accept this.”

She continued, “It’s not like you are a social butterfly, so people aren’t going to be expecting you to be at every birthday party and barbecue. We can leave it to you to tell your other friends and family, but we shouldn’t be forced to lie to people. You know how I felt when I had to lie to everyone here. Don’t put them through that as well.”

I looked around the room, and there seemed to be a consensus among my friends and sister. I narrowed my eyes and lowered my head. When I raised it again, I felt Laura’s hand on my shoulder. “We won’t tell people what happened, but Amélie is right.”

I assumed that Laura and Amélie had spoken because their reaction seemed rehearsed. They had planned to have the mini-intervention, even though Amélie and I had spoken on Friday night about concocting a lie. I felt that the trust between Amélie and me had been broken. I played the scene with fury in my eyes but acceptance on my lips, “Fine.”

As this was going on, I could see that my parents were no longer in the room. They must have left when I lowered my head. I found them in the kitchen speaking quietly. Conversations going on behind my back infuriated me because they would not have done it if I was not occupying this body. Again, I felt as if I was not being involved in the conversations around me- adult conversations. It was embarrassing and maddening at the same time. Were my friends and family going to be making decisions about me without my consent eventually?

I approached my parents and asked my dad, “Dad, what do you think we should do?” I often asked my father for advice, but this was different than the employment or financial questions I usually asked.

My father and mother rose from the kitchen table, my mother barely meeting my gaze. My father said, “Sorry Darren, we have to go, it’s been a long day with the travel and everything. We’ll call you later.”

I knew that something was wrong when my mother was leaving without seeing her granddaughter. Even though she was sleeping, my mother would usually have waited for her to wake up. Instead, they said quick goodbyes and that was it. My heart sunk, feeling like it had struck the bottom of my stomach and then bounced back up. I had gained a measure of acceptance from my friends and my sister, but my mother hardly said a word. I worried that she thought I was a freak, or that she believed this to be a massive conspiracy, the former seeming more likely.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room after my parents left, but it was thankfully broken by my sister, “So what are you going to do for a job, Darren?”

Steven said, “You could come work at the store. Uh I guess you’d have to wear the clothes though.”

Steven was the assistant manager of a downtown high-end clothing store. The hipster crowd frequented the place, and it was the last place I expected Steven to work, but he dealt with it, like I did when I actually had a job.

I shook my head, “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve done retail already. I am going to try and get something law related. Legal assistant probably.” I looked at the surrounding expressions wearing various levels of incredulity.

I put my hands up, my voice rising an octave, as it did when I was exasperated, except instead of sounding like a falsetto man, I sounded like a child desperately trying to get her way. “I have a plan. Unless that changed too?” I shot a look at Amélie who wore a sullen expression. She knew what she had done.

The conversation eventually lightened, turning to upcoming social events and Amélie, my sister and Laura retreated to the kitchen.

Steven said, “So are we going to jam today or what?” I smiled and then followed Steven and Andrew down into the band room. I am sure that the conversation upstairs involved me, but to be honest, I just wanted to play music and forget this ever happened.

As I played, I could not ignore the nagging feeling that my parents did not accept me. They had known me longer than anyone else in the room, so I knew it might take time, but their silence terrified me. If anything, I was more into the music than usual, channelling these feelings into my singing. After today, I definitely had more song writing fodder.

I was thankful that despite my lousy playing, Andrew and Steven did not mind. They were mesmerized by my voice, giving me multiple compliments. Despite butchering the solo in the second song of the set, they were highly impressed by the way I finished the song with one last desperate scream. I had to admit, I liked my new voice. Where singing certain parts of the songs had been a chore or a real struggle, the power and control came easily. It felt like I could hold a note forever.

I accepted the compliments, but stated firmly, “Don’t get used to this guys. I’m not planning on staying this way.”

Andrew nodded and then looked to Steven for agreement, “Yeah, it’s just ... I mean I really liked your voice before, but Laura is right, it is amazing now. And I know you won’t be like this forever. It would be weird growing up all over again anyway.”

Steven asked, “Yeah, will you have to go to school again?”

I sighed deeply, “Can we just keep playing and quit with the drama? If I wanted that, I would have stayed upstairs.”

I could tell that they wanted to ask me more questions, but I started the next song, and they fell into place. I wanted band time to be an escape from this situation, not an opportunity to play twenty questions about what it is like to be a teenaged girl that grew up a man.

Still, I was glad that Andrew and Steven were not like some of the guys I went to high school with. Those guys would probably have hit on me. Also, I knew certain musicians that didn't respect girl guitar players, let alone a teenaged one. I had known girls in other bands that said they were treated very poorly, disrespected and told they couldn’t play, almost always by another guitar player. I was told this was the reason why so many of them started all-girl bands. I could relate.

In a previous band when I was the lead singer and rhythm guitar player, the lead guitar player tried to replace me, saying I wasn’t a good enough player if we wanted to be a serious band. After that band, I didn’t play guitar for a full year, focusing instead on my voice. I was damaged goods as far as guitar players went- I had lost my confidence. It was only at the urging of Andrew and Steven that I picked up the guitar again. So like those girls I had spoken to, I knew what it felt like to have deal with something as monstrous as the overgrown ego of a self-styled guitar hero.

Practice finished and talk turned to booking shows. The practice had gone as well as expected considering the amount of mistakes I had made. We never stopped a song- that was the number one rule even if it was laden with mistakes.

I said, “Well I will have a lot of time at home until I find another job. I can call around, meet some promoters.”

I could tell that the Andrew and Steven were hesitant, but with full-time jobs and children, I was the best bet to meet promoters and booking agents. The summer shows would be filling spots soon, plus we really had to get our feet wet.

Andrew said, “Are you really sure you want to do this, Darren? Are you ready?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “Look, I will just give them the tracks we recorded today. The ones that I didn’t butcher. A show is a show. We need to book something to start to get out there. We can’t stay in the basement forever. I know how to talk to these people, you’ve got to commit at least fifteen people turning out to listen and they’ll book you. We can easily get that many just from the people we know.”

Andrew replied, “It’s not that we aren’t ready. We are. But are you going to be able to do a show like that? Do you even want to? If our friends come out to see us, well they will want to know who our new lead singer is. You know?”

I furrowed my brow and shot back, “Yes. Remember what I said about treating me the same way? If that’s how I have to tell them, then whatever. I need to keep playing, or I will go crazy. I need something else to think about, or I just start to feel bad for myself. And while it would give me some good song writing material, well we aren’t an emo band. You wouldn’t want me to sing about some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about.”

I added, looking both men firmly in the eyes, “Can you just trust me on this?”

Again, Andrew and Steven looked at each other, nodding slowly. Steven said, “No worries man.”

Andrew added, “With how you sound now, Darren, I have a feeling we’ll have no trouble getting booked.

I shrugged my shoulders but said nothing. I was grateful that my band mates were willing to continue, but their constant praise of my voice was filling me with unwanted pride. While practice had gone well and I had Andrew and Steven’s acceptance, I was anxious about my parents’ reaction. I called them that night.

“Uh hi Dad.” It was still weird to hear my voice over the phone. How could I expect people to treat me the same way when I sounded like that? I knew my parents had caller ID, so they would see my cell phone number on the display.

“Darren, is that you? Sorry this isn’t really a good time. We’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

My heart dropped into my stomach again as if I was travelling down a massive hill and then shot back up rapidly. “Sure Dad, no problem. Is Mom okay?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” His words dismissed any thought that I had been accepted by my parents. I said a quick goodbye and then set my phone down. A surge of emotions struck, washing over me and filling my mind with paranoid fear. What if they never accepted me? I needed them now more than ever.

I had made the call from the master bedroom. Amélie walked in on me, and I rapidly dried my eyes. The emotions overwhelmed me and I sought out Amélie, quickly embracing her. “I can’t- believe- they wouldn’t- even talk to me.” My words were stilted because of my crying. Amélie did not immediately take me in her arms, and her embrace was awkward and forced when she actually did. I noticed this and Amélie’s eyes were conflicted, clouded with concern and perhaps a measure of disgust? She had seen me cry before, but not so easily or with such an overflow of emotion. I broke the embrace rapidly and then retreated to my man cave in the basement. I refused to open the door for her when she called me. I stayed the night down there, sleeping on the futon. It took forever to fall asleep, sobs wracking my small body, crying both from the lack of acceptance and my complete inability to control my emotions.

Chapter 19

Amélie and I fought rarely before my change. Now, we were fighting on a daily basis, or so it seemed. I realized that the shock of having her husband reduced to a simpering girl in her arms did nothing for her state of mind, but I was having more and more difficulty controlling my emotions. One of the reasons I liked Amélie’s personality so much was because she did not cry at the drop of a hat. I never felt that I had to avoid her when she had her period.

I never liked girls whose moods varied wildly, or that were emotional, simply because they felt that way, at that time, on a specific day. I understood that men and women are wired differently, but Amélie to me, was perfect. She had the right mix of femininity and strength. She was not emotionally high maintenance, and I loved her for it.

I woke in the man cave to the smell of Amélie’s waffles. I stared angrily at my tear-stained pillow and threw it across the room, then I walked slowly upstairs. I could hear Chloe’s voice. “Alee, Alee!” The kid was obsessed with colouring, but she was also possessive. She would not let you colour certain pictures, and if you used a wrong colour, she quickly provided you with the right one. She was also demanding, but because she was so cute, it was hard to resist the urge to laugh. She came up to me with the colouring book and continued pointing at the table for me to sit down.

“Daddy doesn’t feel like colouring, Chloe. Maybe after breakfast.”

Amélie deposited syrup-drenched waffles in front of me, “I am sorry for last night, it just ... it caught me off guard. Sure I have seen you cry before, but never like that. It was scary. You seemed like a different person while I held you.”

Were my sleeping pills affecting my mood? Dr. Alberts specifically warned Amélie about the effects of the pills on teenagers. I was worried that if I stopped taking them, I would fall back into my insomniac stupor, where I feared every night I would stare at the clock until it was time to get up. Apparently, they could cause depression as a possible side effect. I frowned, thinking that I might have to return to Dr. Alberts if I wanted a prescription for something else to help me sleep. There were over the counter medications, but they were glorified antihistamines and wouldn’t knock me out. My pills were given in large doses to mental patients in order to control them. They had been on the market for many years, and I had done research on them before taking them. I suppose I just never figured I would be occupying a body like this.

I dug into the waffles and looked at Amélie sternly, “My parents either don’t believe me or don’t accept me. How was I supposed to react? You’ve said before that it is bad to swallow your emotions. You have wanted me to be more up front with you when things bother me.”

The curious thing about our relationship is that while I could be more emotional than Amélie, I also buried my feelings better than her. That was before my transformation, however. Now, I was a veritable powder keg where the tinniest spark could set me off, either with white-hot rage or uncontrollable sobbing, like last night.

Amélie replied, “I’m sure they will come around. I mean they are your parents. Look at me, I didn’t believe it at first. We both thought it was a dream. It takes time to process this. They’ve known you your whole life. Your mother gave birth to you but not to this.” Amélie pointed at my body.

She added, “So just give it some time. I know them and your mother especially, when she’s ready, she will want to speak to you. She’ll want to help.”

I nodded my head sullenly, but when no call came on Sunday morning or afternoon. I decided to take the initiative, but my parents didn’t answer. I left a message.

“Hey guys, it’s Darren. I need to talk to you guys. I know this is a lot to take, but I need you two on my side in this. I didn’t ask for this happen, and I know it is really weird, but you’ve got to accept that it happened. It isn’t a dream or-“

I swore, annoyed that the voicemail service had cut me off. I did tend to leave long messages, but that seemed short to me. Had they picked up?

“Hello? Mom, are you there?”

My phone beeped and showed that the call had ended. I decided to leave other messages, but this time, to show that I was Darren. If the song didn’t work, then perhaps memories of my childhood would. Amélie watched me as I called again.

“Are you sure you aren’t overdoing it, Darren?”

“They know how resilient and how stubborn I am Amélie. They raised me. If I show them these characteristics, maybe they will believe me.”

Amélie sighed as I made another call. “Listen, it’s Darren again. I thought you might need some proof, so here goes. Remember when I was five and Dad brought home that Canadiens jersey for me, and it had my first name on it? I was so upset because I knew that real NHL players had their last names on their jerseys. You told me there was a player whose last name was Darren who played for the Islanders. You had that very jersey the night I got married, and told that same story.”

A half hour later, I left another message. “You remember when I used to wake up and watch cartoons on Saturday mornings? I’d get Allison up too so you guys could sleep in. I gave Allison anything she wanted. You have to remember the time you came downstairs, and Allison was sleeping on a marshmallow bag pillow with a bag of caramels beside her, while I was eating my second bowl of cereal heaped with brown sugar. I still remember the look on your faces. You were desperately trying not to laugh.”

Two hours later after no response, I left another message, “Dad, when I got married. You gave me some advice that had seen you through all your years of marriage. You told me to never fight about money. You told me to love Amélie, but not to put her on a pedestal. Women are human, they are not works of art to be admired. And finally, you told me how proud you were of me, and how much you thought that my choice of bride was a good one.”

I felt like crying after leaving the last message. My voice was choking up as I finished it, but I held back the tears and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I had to get these emotions under control. I took deep breaths and that seemed to help.
.
Sunday evening I had still not received a response from my parents. I decided to throw myself into my work- which at this point was looking for a job. I searched the classified ads and noticed that there was a law office nearby that was looking for a legal assistant. I had done paralegal work before, so I could certainly bind documents and prepare papers for court submission. If the lawyers asked me to complete research for them, I could do that easily as well. Two issues remained to stymie my attempts. I could not use my current resume, and I looked too young to have any legal experience. I looked like I should be behind the cash machine at a McDonalds or helping some vapid teenage girl find the right pair of jeans. I was beyond those positions. I had done all of that when I was younger. I would go mad working with teenagers. As a teacher, I had met some very enlightened and intelligent teens, but I had also met ones that made want to slap them and their parents for raising such malcontents. Plus, they would treat me like one of them, and I wanted to avoid that, like I wanted to avoid a lecture from Amélie about my bra size.

I was eager to prove that I could succeed in the adult world despite my change, and I enlisted Amélie’s help. I made a fake resume for Abigail Lawrence and put Amélie as a reference. Amélie was actually a lawyer for the government, so I said that I worked in her office for a year. It was also helpful that we had different last names as it was never professional to use a family member as a reference. Frankly, I was convinced that once they met me, they would hire me on the spot. I knew how the law worked, and I could do the job of an assistant and more. If I succeeded, it would bring in much needed money, and I would still be able to work in my chosen field.

I was called for an interview on Tuesday morning at 8 AM. Thankfully, the office was close enough to our house that I could walk.

Amélie said the night before the interview, “You’ll need to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning if you want to be on time and use my help.”

I stared at her dumbfounded, lying in bed with my head propped up by a pillow. “It doesn’t even take you that long to get ready, and the place is walking distance.”

Amélie replied, “This isn’t like showering, shaving and then putting on a suit and you are ready to go, Darren. For a woman, it is much more involved. You’ll need pantyhose and a bra for starters.”.

I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, “Why pantyhose?”

“Because you’ll have to wear a skirt. None of my pants will fit you. Pantyhose are more professional looking than bare legs, especially for a job interview, and especially if you want someone to believe you aren’t in high school.”

“Plus, you’ll have to use makeup. With the right application, we could make you look older.”

I groaned and hid under the covers, “Maybe I will just apply at McDonalds.”

Amélie smirked and then pulled the covers off me, “It is hard work being a girl, Darren. You are going to know why I have to wake up so much earlier than you. With your hair, you might even have to even wake up earlier than I do if you don’t want it to look like a rat’s nest.”

I narrowed my eyes at Amélie, “You are enjoying this aren’t you?”

Amélie shook her head, “You think I enjoy having to dress my husband for a job interview in my clothes? No, not at all. I do think, however, that once this is over, you might have a better appreciation for what I have to go through and I am pretty low maintenance compared to some girls.”

“I appreciate that you are doing this, Darren, but you don’t have to. Why not just go on employment insurance until we find out how to change you back?”

I looked at Amélie and explained, “Because while I would qualify for it, I wouldn’t be able to stay on it. There’s a process. You have to prove you’ve been looking for work, you have to provide the names of employers you have spoken to. And under this government”, I said the last word as if trying to remove the bitter taste of battery acid from my mouth, “they are actually sending civil servants to conduct interviews in homes. It is red meat to sate the appetite of their voter base.”

Amélie rolled her eyes, “Maybe you should be a politician.”

I shook my head, “They wouldn’t want me. I’d expose them all for the frauds they are.”

I could get rather heated in my discussions concerning the current government. I had lost my original job because it was restructuring or adjusting the workforce- which basically meant firing a whole lot of people.

Amélie said, “On that note, we need to figure out your bra size. You'll need to wear one tomorrow.”

I groaned again. I knew that this process was going to be humiliating. It was like cross dressing in my eyes, even if I had the body for it. Ironically, the world would likely judge me less if I dressed in age and gender appropriate clothing than if I continued to wear my old male clothes.

Amélie approached me with a frilly pink bra that I immediately recognized. It was part of a bra and panty set that I had bought for Amélie one Valentine’s Day. She said, “You are lucky that I still have these old bras. I was a C cup when we first met, and I have a feeling that’s what you are.”

Amélie’s weight yo-yoed over the years. When we first moved in together, she started an exercise regime that saw her lose nearly fifteen pounds. She had also gained weight during her pregnancy, so she had a range of bras. She filled a D cup when she was breastfeeding, and while other parts of her shrunk after she stopped, she remained a D.

She added, “You are bigger than I was at that age.”

The process Amélie conducted to find the right bra could not have been more crushing to my male ego. I wanted to return to my hiding place in the basement, and I began to have serious second thoughts about my interview the next day. Would I have to dress like this every day? The thought was mortifying.

Amélie pulled off my white t-shirt and then proceeded to push my upper body forward until my breasts were resting in the cups. She then pulled the straps taut against my back and attached them. It was a bizarre feeling. My boobs were pushed higher, and because they were also pushed together, it created significant cleavage, although any amount was uncomfortable. I had to admit that it felt better to have them supported. I could have gone braless if I had been smaller, but with each movement they jostled in even the tightest shirt. It dawned on me that if I was going to spend any amount of time in public as a girl, I would have to wear one. I didn’t want guys staring at me and a braless chest would garner far more attention than one that was supported.

I frowned, “Can you at least choose a bra that I didn’t buy for you?”

I remembered buying that bra and panty set. The store was bathed in a sea of pink. It took me three trips around the mall to muster the courage to actually enter and buy it. I was thankful, extremely thankful actually, that I could fit into Amélie’s undergarments and that I would not need to go bra shopping.

Amélie replied, “Oh right, sorry about that. Here this black one would be better for your interview anyway.” She unhooked the lacy pink bra and repeated the procedure to get my breasts into the cups of the black one. The black bra was smoother on my skin. It looked like crushed velvet, but felt like silk.

Amélie said, “Okay, so you are definitely a C cup. All my old bras should fit you.” She said it as if I should have been pleased, but I suppose it meant I would not have to endure a tortuous trip to the mall. We went to sleep soon after.

That night I had a bizarre dream, not as strange or as vivid as the one that changed me but outlandish nonetheless.

I was in the same mall where I had purchased Amélie’s Valentine’s Day gift. I was dressed in my band clothes, which meant green hoodie, white t-shirt and ripped jeans, but I was still a teenaged girl, so the clothing fit poorly. I had no desire to actually enter the store this time, but as I passed the store, something grabbed me and tried to pull me inside.

As I was struggling, I noticed that the mall was in the process of closing. I could see the metal security gates closing access to the stores across the way. I looked down at my arm to see what was actually pulling me, and gasped - my potential captor was a string of bras. They were linked together, tied with a series of knots that I had no idea how to undo. The undergarments pulled me into the store, but I managed to snake my arms out and grab hold of the metal security gate, but it was slowly being pulled across, so eventually, my handhold would be lost.

If I thought that the madness that encompassed this dream had reached its peak, I was wrong. I saw next a number of thongs, slithering like snakes towards me. They inched their way closer, and as they did, they tied themselves together, until they were three inches wide. The collection of multi-coloured undergarments squirmed toward me and wrapped around my legs forcing me to my knees, but I still had a grip on the gate. The security gate was still open enough for me to pull myself through and escape, but without my legs to push, it was quickly becoming impossible.

I noticed that there were still people closing across from me, so I screamed for help but as soon as I did, my cries were strangled by another multi-coloured thong snake, which wrapped itself around my mouth, causing my screams to become muffled gasps. Still, I could see that my initial scream had had the desired effect. It brought help. A young man from the Gap came to my aid, but as he did, another thong snake actually cracked like a whip in his direction, causing him to bleed from the welts he received. This did not deter him as my steadfast would-be rescuer managed to catch the whip. He reached out to my bound hands and tried to pull me out, but by this point, the space made was too narrow. If only I had screamed earlier.

As the security gates closed, I could hear banging on the other side. The young man was still trying to get to me. I knew there would be a switch to open the gate from inside the store, but it was too dark to see, and I was still bound. I inched my way, forced to crawl along the ground to the far side of the store, where I thought I might find the gate release. As I reached my goal, the lights flicked on, bathing the store in white fluorescent light. Standing by the switch was a transparent sales girl with a beaming smile.

“It’s not time to leave yet, Abby. We are just getting started.” Her voice was soft, but it had a steely quality that terrified me, like sweet honey being poured over a bed of nails.

Three more ghostly sales girls descended on me and proceeded to strip off my clothes. One of them chided me as it saw my boxer briefs, “Gross. Why are you wearing boys’ underwear, Abby?” Another one said, “No bra either. You are such a slut Abby!” The ghost giggled and then pulled my briefs off.

“Try these!” A pair of skimpy thong underwear slid up my legs. The string nestled in my ass, making it feel like I had a constant wedgie. The girl to my left grinned, “Now it doesn’t look like you are wearing a diaper.”

The original girl that appeared brought a bra toward me. It looked normal enough, despite being pink with white polka dots over it, but as it attached itself to my body, I knew the difference immediately. It felt like my boobs were in my face. It was a push-up bra. With the size of my chest, I hardly needed such a garment because it put my boobs on display even more. The girl who brought the bra said, “There Abby, now you’ll really be able to show them off.”

A pink halter top slipped over my head, momentarily blinding me, but then settling down and lowering so that my bra and prominent cleavage were actually visible. The halter top had a stylized ‘SJ’ on the front. I then felt something moving up my legs, it stopped at my hips, and then cinched itself around my waist. Looking down, I saw that I was wearing a barely there black micro miniskirt. I was sure that any movement, even walking, would show the thong panties.

The girls said in unison, “Looking good, Abby!’

The ghosts then attacked me with makeup brushes, eyeliner pencils and lipstick tubes. They made me sit at a vanity, which was odd to see in a lingerie store, but this not exactly a normal store. My eyelids were painted with electric blue eye shadow, while my eyes were emboldened by dark eyeliner. Ruby red lipstick was applied to my lips, which caused my lower lip to become fuller. Even a grimace would give my lips a cute school girl pout, the type countless girls have used on their fathers to achieve their objective, usually the keys to the car.

The girls then teased my hair with brushes, they used a curling iron, which wasn’t plugged in, to carefully curl my golden locks at the ends. When they were finished, I looked in the mirror. With my breasts bulging from the push-up bra, my tiny skirt, and my makeup, I looked like a teenage prostitute, but the girls disagreed.

They said in unison, “You look so hot, Abby!”

Just before I woke up, I heard one of the girls whisper in my ear, “Now you are ready for him.”

TO BE CONTINUED