

Kate Draffen By Swishy



Michael Taylor was a 17-year-old boy living in a town in Australia. Something happened and he found himself on a path to becoming a 17-year-old girl. This is a story about an ordinary teenager that had something extraordinary happen to him and how he tried to cope. These as the first 9 chapters of the story, the next 9 will be put up soon followed shortly by the remaining chapters.

This is set in Australia and thus a very small portion of the slang might be a shade confusing to a lot of you but I'm sure you non-Aussies will pick it up. Also, like a lot of Australians the characters have a relaxed relationship with swearing. So, it may seem a shade gratuitous but I assure you it's fairly realistic. If you have any questions or comments please send me an email at [email protected]

*****

KATE DRAFFEN

By Swishy

Everyone in Australia knows about Kate Draffen. Everybody had at least talked about Mrs. Draffen at least once: Did it hurt? What about her kids? What about her husband? I had asked those questions. Essentially, Kate Draffen wasn't special enough to warrant everyone talking about her, unless we all are. She was just a simple stay-at-home mum; 41, three kids, married, liked arts and crafts. But it wasn't her we were all talking about- it was what happened to her. Her photo was on the front pages of all the newspapers. For a while she was the most famous person in the country.

Who knew I would soon be as famous as Kate Draffen?

CHAPTER 1

I was unremarkable. If you asked me to describe myself in one word I would have said 'unremarkable'. My name, Michael Taylor, was an indication of how truly unremarkable I was. Such a boring name. Although, I always reassured myself that I had plenty of time to become remarkable. I was only 17, plenty of time to figure out how to change the world for the better. There are 21 million people in this country, and when it came to importance I would have probably ranked myself towards the bottom. I was just a young kid, average in all ways, living in a small town. It's not that I wasn't worth anything, it's just that there was nothing super interesting about me. And I was perfectly fine with that.

I didn't mean a lot to many people either. Sure, I had a mum who loved me and my own group of friends but outside of this little town no one knew me. I was just another blank faced teenager in a long line of teenagers. In fact this story begins in a line of teenagers.

We were having a yearly medical check at school. As far as everyone else was concerned it was a great excuse to lose two classes while we waited in line, for me it was a hellish torment, a terrifying wait to get a needle. To say I was scared of needles is like saying The Pacific Ocean is a puddle. Sure, I hated Rubella too, so I knew why I needed the needle but the reassurance of knowledge didn't make the needle any less sharp or painful. The injection wasn't the only part of today's yearly medical examination; they were going to check for head lice, give us the standard sight and hearing test and quick swab of saliva to see if there was anything massively wrong with us. All those other things were fine with me; anything that withheld the jabbing of the needle into my arm even for a second was great in my books.

Dot gave me a massage that made it apparent that she had never given a massage before or that she had no clue that pinching my shoulders hard would not have a calming effect. "It'll be OK," reasoned Dot cheerfully, "Immunisation is like losing your virginity, mate!"

"And how is that?" I bemoaned, not really wanting to listen but deciding to placate her so she didn't attempt another massage.

"Well, just one little prick and it's all gone!" She laughed at her own joke. I glared at her, unimpressed.

"That doesn't really work for us," Glen chimed in, "As we are the 'pricker' not the 'prickee'." Glen made a good but completely useless point.

"Just don't talk about it!" I grunted, as the line moved and I got a step closer. Dot peered at the line snaking its way into the Study Room, which for that day was a makeshift medical centre.

She did her best to hide from the burning sun, pressing up against a wall, "Michael, I don't know why you made us go last in the line. You should have gotten it out of the way ASAP, like ripping off a band-aid. I'm seriously melting out here!"

Dot's fear of burning was well placed. Dot was pale. She was also tiny like her name suggested. She was colourless, short and very slight with thick black hair and piercing eyes. Despite being quite a striking looking creature, the boys pretty much left her alone. Not that she cared, however, as her heart belonged to only one boy. She, like many teenage girls, was in love with the unobtainable. Not to say that he was out of her league, I'd like to think they would have gotten along famously. But he was married. And dead. For over one hundred years. Let's just say I never could foresee Dot becoming Mrs. Herman Melville anytime soon.

"You're the only one melting because you haven't seen the sun in 11 years, you hermit!" I told Dot. She stuck her tongue out at me and mimed poking me with a needle. The light bounced off my watch and I carefully aimed it at Dot's eyes. The line lurched a step forward, as some of the casualties leaked out of the building. They talked, giggled and planned their lunchtimes. They didn't seemed like victims of a horrible stabbing to me, that just meant that the statistics were stacked against me, if they hadn't made a mistake so far it meant they were more likely to screw up on me. One of the prettier wounded walked over to us, clutching a cotton wool ball to her arm.

"Hey spunk," she called to me.

"Did it hurt?" I skipped the small talk with Holly and went straight to the matter at hand.

"No, not really," Holly looked at me looking at the bloody cotton ball. "I'm a bit of a bleeder," she confessed, "Michael, you're not actually scared, are you?"

"Shitting himself," Glenn chimed in again to another conversation where his participation was not required. Glen was quite quiet, except when he knew it would annoy me. So basically, he's your average best friend.

"Just be glad you're not a girl, because we have to get two needles," Holly said.

"That's not fair," whined Glen, assuredly adding nothing to the conversation, "I don't want to get cervical cancer either!" I wonder if it was too late to change friends.

"Look, just make sure you don't faint. I don't think I could handle having a Deb partner who faints," Holly called over her shoulder as she left for the canteen, "See you in English later on, I want to talk about our Deb speech!"

Now, I'm sure some of you reading this might not know what the 'Deb' is. I'll tell you: 'Deb' is short Debutante and in Australia a lot of High Schools have these things called Debutante Balls. It's a way of introducing young women in Year 11 at school, to society. The girls get dressed up in white dresses, like wedding dresses, and dance with boys in tuxedos. We all learn how to do different ballroom dances, like waltzes and The Pride of Erin and perform them in front of local dignitaries and our family and friends. Then Debutantes dance with their fathers and the boys dance with their mothers. Some people cut a cake, two students (Holly and I) make a speech and then a band plays and we all dance. That's about it, I guess it's a little like a prom, but not really, it's a lot more formal, with protocol and all. There are more rules than just playing Stairway to Heaven at the end.

And Holly was my partner, which was great. I wasn't going to do it at all until Holly asked me. I couldn't turn her down because I had a huge thing for her. She was pretty and sweet and has a lovely singing voice. We were in the school play together a few times and once even played lovers, which was awesome. Unfortunately our school never does any of the kissing scenes so the closest I got to her was a tender hug. Her friend, Alison told me that Holly only chose me because I was a great dancer and looked good in a suit and that was good enough for me. Any chance I had to get close to Holly was good- performing in school plays, tutoring her in Japanese, being her Deb partner. Yes, I know she had a boyfriend who was at university and I know that she only liked me as a friend but there was no reason I couldn't enjoy holding her close and dancing.

My Deb partner was above me in rank. Although our school isn't like a school in teen movies with the jocks, nerds and cheerleader all in there defined cliques, there was a little bit of a class system. Basically there are three groups. Group A is the 'cool' group: Usually self defined, the prettiest and stylish girls belong to this group, as do the toughest and most obnoxious boys. This is the group that has parties where not everyone is invited, they only date within the group and they staked out and reserved all the best spots to hang out around school. Group C is the deviants, psychos, nut-jobs and misanthropes who shun company. They are weird and will probably grow up to be people you avoid on the street because of the religious ranting they are doing through a megaphone. Group B was everyone else. We were the drama nerds, the music lovers, the smart kids, the movie buffs, the math nerds, the wallflowers, the everything elses.

Holly could be a Group A if she was snobby enough. A lot of her friends were Group Aers. She had long blonde hair and large blue eyes. I have seen her in her underpants while she changed costumes and can attest to the fact she has a totally smoking body. But she is too sweet to belong to Group A all the time, quite content to be friends with whoever she likes. That's what attracted me to her in the first place, the ability to befriend everyone she meets. She was going to look amazing in a couple months time at the Deb Ball, and I was going to be dancing with her.

I was the only one in our little friendship circle who was doing the Deb. Dot opposed the whole thing as the pseudo-feminist she pretended to be. "I am not being put on display as a potential wife!" she would often preach, in the child-like voice she couldn't shake off because of her stature "Next after that is setting up a dowry for catching a worthy gentleman," she would scoff. The right girl had just simply not asked Glen. I think he was hoping for Alison or another one of the A Squad to come to their senses and ask him, but nothing materialized. So he would often jumped on the feminist bandwagon too.

"Hey mate, guess who got pulled for having lice?" asked an acquaintance, giving us no time to guess. "Candice Ellwood!" he named an unfortunate Group C girl, laughed and left, probably to spread the rumour further. Even though our school was big (about 1,000 students) you would be surprised how fast rumours would travel. Rumours would travel through the school faster than… well, head lice. But I guess that was the same in every school. I knew I had no lice, as I carefully washed my hair everyday, nothing would survive on my hair. My hair was my pride and joy, I even wore it unfashionably long, down to my shoulders. It wasn't very fashionable or masculine, bit I simply didn't care. As if the building was trying to inhale the students surrounding it the line moved on and I entered the belly of the beast.

The first thing I noticed was how disinterested the medical professionals appeared to be. It was Monday morning and these people looked like they had been working 12 years without a day off. Now I understand swabbing saliva and checking for lice aren't seat-of-your-pants exciting jobs but at least you could smile. I would be worried if the needle people had the same lackadaisical attitude, if they were so indifferent they might stab me accidentally in the wrong place or something. Unfortunately, the needlers were hiding behind a partition, so I couldn't appraise their job satisfaction levels.

"If you would come this way, miss, we'll start your hearing test," parroted the nurse as if she had said the same thing a thousand times a day for a thousand days.

"Eh? What?" asked Dot craning her ear forward in an attempt of vaudeville type humour. The nurse manufactured a smile as if she had heard that same joke five hundred times a day for the last thousand days. I was led to seeing test, which I past quite well. I liked being tested as it gave me a chance to show off. And if I had anything to show off it was that my eyes could see a lot rather well. Me and Dot swapped over and I showed off my impressive hearing too. I winked at Glen as he entered the tests after us, knowing that he was as blind as a bat and as deaf as a doorpost. My record was safe.

Dot and I went to the next pair of tests, head lice and saliva swabbing. A woman with rough hands, went through my hair searching for the tell tale signs on an infestation but to no avail. I tried to make some chit-chat, but she looked at me with confusion. Some adults seemed to forget that people aged 17 are quite able to carry out a conversation. Just because I was wearing a blue and white school uniform, doesn't mean I am unable to talk about the weather. I was pushed along to the saliva swab, but before I left I warned the lady about Dot's arrival and the rat's nest she called hair. Dot just glared at me, if had she an once of weight behind her she might have tried to punch me but she tended to avoid physical tussles.

I scurried to the saliva swab and promptly opened my mouth, "I'm the second last of the day. That must feel good," I gurgled as the man in the gloves took a scrapping off the inside of my cheek. He ignored me and handed the swab to another man to dropped in into some liquid.

"You can go," he mumbled. I didn't want to, that meant going to the last part. The jabby, stabby, needle part.

"So, what are you checking for?" I asked the man.

"Just predispositions to various diseases," he mumbled looking deeper at one of the solutions. His curtness was a sign that conversation would not be tolerated for any longer, I took that is an obvious clue to leave and left.

It would be quite accurate to point out that I was walking very slowly to the last section of the medical obstacle course. Words that would better describe the walk toward the needle: creeping, tiptoeing, meandering, ambling and strolling. These are all more precise words to use. Soon Dot left her head lice check and pushed me, "C'mon, loser! Get it done and we can enjoy the rest of our extended lunch break!" I huffed loudly, mostly in frustration. "Do you want me to hold your hand?" and I huffed again. As we walked past the final partition I caught sight of the needles. One of them was going into Will Hodson's arms AND he was wincing slightly in discomfort! I wasn't so sure I could do this. It could break off in my arm, and get infected. I grew greener thinking about it. The medical lady, now finished butchering poor Will beckoned me to her chair. I obeyed, only to get it done with. Dot went to another chair to be dealt with. I wanted her nurse, she looked so caring and a lot less threatening. Meanwhile I was stuck with Nurse Death over here. I closed my eyes and awaited the pain.

"Mister Taylor?" asked a voice, saving me from the sharp, painful inevitability.

Despite never being called Mister Taylor I dutifully answered, "Yes?" I opened my eyes, it was the saliva guy.

"Can you come with us?" he asked in a way that didn't sound like a question at all. It was then I realized that saliva guy wasn't alone, with him was another man, holding the handle of a stretcher.

"OK," I agreed to join saliva guy and medical stretcher guy. I would have followed Satan himself if it meant a reprieve from the needle lady.

They lifted me onto the stretcher and wheeled me out of the building. I playfully waved to Glen who grimaced back from his position underneath the rough hands of the head lice inspector. It was weird. I was so relieved about the no-needle situation that I didn't even contemplate something must be wrong with me until I was being slid into the ambulance. "Uh fellas?" I called out as the men began to drive, "I don't actually feel sick. What's wrong with me?"

"We're not sure. We're going to have another doctor have a look at you. What's your parents' phone number we'll make sure they can meet us down at the hospital." I told them nicely my mother's phone number as I read it off my phone. It was then I received a message myself.

It was from Dot, "WHERE R U?"

"Im going 2 da hospital 4 sum reason not sure y they wont tell me!!!!"

"SUM PPL WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET OUT OF A NEEDLE"

They didn't put on the sirens and they didn't race through town, which seemed like the perfect course of action for a patient who didn't feel ill in the slightest. They even allowed me to walk to the doctor, instead to wheeling on the bed, which was nice. I didn't want to offend the real sick people by being pushed around in a bed feeling fine while they lay motionless in their beds, actually sick. The men weren't very talkative, so I didn't push my luck. I followed them through the stark, barren halls of the hospital, winding through a veritable maze. It didn't feel like cancer, or a stroke, I told myself. Sure, I was a little unfit, but nothing that required a speedy trip to the hospital. The deeper we descended into the bowels of the hospital, the more worried I got. We passed the old people waiting for death or a visit from their grandchildren, passed the mothers and their babies, passed the eerily silent Critical Care ward and into the centre offices. I was placed into an examination room like any other and told to wait. There was no mobile phone reception in the hospital so I couldn't call Dot, Glen, Holly or anyone else. So I just sat.

I thought through a list of diseases that I didn't have to calm myself down. I was pretty sure I didn't have the Bubonic plague, Small pox, Monkey pox, Bird flu, SARS, Malaria, Mexican death breath, the dreaded Rusty eyeballs or Nun's armpit. I ran out of diseases after Malaria and made up some of my own. I wasn't very good at waiting, usually I had my Nintendo DS or iPod to play with until excitement broke out but I was forced to wait like they did in the olden days. That way to wait was almost unbearable, especially when you don't know what you are waiting for.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably closer to seconds, a man walked in. He had a beard, that's the first thing you can say about him because it was a very prominent beard. "Hello Michael," he said in a condescending tone that meant that he had no idea how to talk to me.

"Why am I here?" I asked, avoiding pleasantries.

"Well," he said about to unveil something, "Let's just find out." The Doctor then revealed what he was holding in his hand. It was long, and it was pointy and I supposed he wanted to jab me with it. Fuck! I can't escape needles today! Out of nowhere a nurse appeared and dabbed my arms with something. "You might feel a slight discomfort," The Doctor recited as he put a metal stick into my arm and drew blood. Slight discomfort? No, I didn't feel any of that. Maybe the slight discomfort was hiding underneath the blinding pain!

"Ow!" I hollered.

"Oh hush!" said the nurse, unaware of the immense amount of pain I was in. The Doctor or should I say my torturer handed the needle to the nurse and told her that he needed the results stat. She scurried away.

I was about to question the ethics of someone locking me up (sorta) and taking my blood without permission, when I said something a little more realistic, "When's my mum getting here?"

"I'm sure she's not far away," the Doctor said, dealing with my question as quickly as possible so he could get his own questions, "Michael, have you been overseas recently? Like to Japan or the U.S.A."

"No," I admitted, "Never left the country at all."

"Have you interacted with anyone suspicious in the last couple of months?"

"Umm… I don't think so."

"Received any strange packaging?"

"No." Where was this going? I couldn't figure it out. The questions weren't helping me narrow down the purpose of them. He mumbled some about staying put and left me alone again.

I looked at my phone and it told me it was almost 2 o'clock. I hoped all this cloak and dagger stuff would be finished soon, I really wanted to catch up with Holly in English class. She showed me a picture of the dress she wanted. Now, not every Deb dress was sexy, in fact a lot of girls end up looking more like decorated toilet seat covers than a burgeoning woman, but if Holly wore the dress in the picture a lot of people who were dragged to the event will sit up and pay attention. I think my uncles will all be very proud of me. Hurry up, Dr. Mysterious! I wanted to get back to school.

I waited another 45 minutes before I was escorted to, of all things, a waiting room. At least there were other things to do in this room other than make up fake diseases. I could read out-dated magazines or look out of any one of three windows, or I could talk to my mum. "Michael!" she said, with a mixture of concern and puzzlement.

"Hi," was my response and I did my duty as a son and lovingly hugged her.

"What's wrong with you? They haven't told me anything. I've been waiting here for ages. There better be something wrong with you, otherwise my boss is going to be pissed." Now I'm sure my own mother wasn't wishing I wasn't sick, but according to that sentence it sounded like she'd be mad if I wasn't dying.

"I don't know," I told my mum, "They've just taken my blood and left me in a room all alone. It's been lousy."

"Well, I'd like some answers." I liked Mum a whole lot. My Dad I didn't care about so much, but since I hadn't heard from him for like 11 years that was OK. Mum worked very hard to support me and my older sister, Nicole. She wasn't the type that took to motherhood well. She forgot things, she wasn't much of a cook or cleaner, she was spontaneous and didn't always think of her kids first. But she was honest and she loved us, and that is all you need for a good childhood.

Mum worked as a waitress at a pub, so sometimes she was away at nights and sometimes she did the lunch shift, today she must have been doing the lunch shift. She twirled her finger through her dyed blonde hair nervously while reading an old magazine. "Oh, that's sad," she mumbled, "Graham Kennedy died." That was typical of my mum, catching up with news through a waiting room magazine, Graham Kennedy died in 2005. I sat, spoilt by the many options to entertain myself and did nothing.

"If you would like to come this way," said the bearded Doctor who had stolen my blood. We followed him deep into the bowels of the hospital again into an office. I looked at the name on the door, according to the door he was Dr. Judy Zimmer and he was an OB/GYN. I think the door was lying, I think maybe he was just borrowing the office for the afternoon. "I'm Dr. Samuel Chisholm," he said shattering the door's lies, "Michael, Mrs. Taylor, please take a seat." We did so.

"What is this all about, Doctor?" asked my mother. Dr. Chisholm looked down at his papers and studied them for a moment, seemingly ignoring my mum's question. His eyes raced over the papers, scanning for something.

"Michael," he said, looking my deep in the eyes, "Have you by chance been eating any metals? Like tin foil or other things?"

"Certainly not," answered my Mum, "Are you insinuating that I don't feed my kids? He may be almost 18 but I still look after my little boy."

I sat still, embarrassed of my Mum and what I was about to say, "Yeah, for some reason I can't stop swallowing coins." The noise my mother was making dribbled to a halt as she listening to my odd confession.

"Coins? Why, that could work." Dr. Chisholm scribbled furiously on a piece of paper. Mum just looked at me strangely, "You eat coins?"

"I don't know why! The last couple of weeks I've just popped a 10-cent coin in my mouth every now and again. But I haven't done it for the last couple of days!"

"You don't know where those things have been! Especially 10-cent pieces!" Mum spouted the usual Mum rhetoric, although I don't think other mum's have an aversion to 10-cent pieces. I guess my Mum just hated Lyre Birds.

"You've stopped ingesting them?" asked the Doctor, more concerned about me ceasing my awful habit than starting it.

"Yeah," I said, "I just haven't felt the urge for awhile."

"We caught you just in time!" heralded the Doctor like a madman.

OK, this day was getting a little weird. But it was only the beginning. "I read that everyone eats spiders when they are asleep and it never does anyone any damage. Why is my son swallowing coins cause for so much alarm, Dr. Zimmer?" Mum asked Dr. Chisholm, reading the name off of the plaque on the desk. My Mum never did have a head for names.

"Well, it's not the coins I'm worrying about, Mrs. Taylor. I'm worried about the reason young Michael was eating those coins," said the Doctor leaning forward staring at my skin. It made me feel uneasy like he was mentally undressing me, for medical reasons!

"I was just eating them cause I guess I felt it. I sorta craved them," I said trying to disprove any ridiculous theories the mad Doctor might have.

"There was another person who ate a lot of metal," explained the Doctor, "Do you remember a person named Kate Draffen?"

Kate Draffen was all over the papers about a year ago. She was a simple housewife in Sydney who had three young children and a husband. Her life was fairly un-newsworthy, until one day when she went shopping with her kids. Not only was it the first case of it in Australia, it was the first time people had captured it on camera. The security camera caught the whole thing in blurry, grainy, history-making footage. Also some shopper had her camera-phone with her and took a picture that would stun a nation and the world.

Everyone saw the picture. Her two children stood, terrified watching their mother, another kid looking over his shoulder stuck in the toddler's seat on the trolley. They all looked like they were too scared to cry and had no one to comfort them. Kate had dropped a can of some sort and it lay beside her body. The photo was taken mid-scream her face contorted in fear, her arms out-stretched as if to plea to the gods for help. A harrowing picture made all the more harrowing because, despite the body and clothes being very feminine the screaming face was a man's. The subsequent photos showed the body also transforming, becoming that of a man's. The final photo is one of a new man, lying unconscious, in a summer dress in the toiletries aisle on a supermarket floor, the children scared.

Kate Draffen was the first and so far only Australian to go through a Spontaneous Gender Reconfiguration. The first reports of it happening came out of Asia. They were only reported in the tabloid newspapers and even they didn't take it very seriously. It wasn't until it started happening in Europe and North America that it received credible reporting here. It would happen the same way, a person of one gender would for no reason would, through no choice of their own, spontaneously change into the other gender. Men would become women and women would become men. It wouldn't happen very often though, maybe 1 or 2 a month for the last 2 and half years.

Scientists figured out it was the work of Nanobots. Nanobots are tiny, tiny robots that would get into your system and re-build you. It always terrified me that I could breath in and a swarm of minuscule robots could enter your mouth and transform you as they see fit. But I guess real viruses act the same way, so I didn't panic as much. No one knew who built them and why it made people change gender. Some people thought it was the work of terrorists, others thought it was a U.S Government secret plan gone haywire, others thought aliens were to blame. Despite knowing about the nanobots, no country admitted to knowing how to stop them. The technology was decades away what anyone professed to knowing.

Nothing could stop it. No one knew who it would strike or why them. It didn't seem to matter what age, gender, race or religion you are it could get you. I read it happened to a 3 month old boy in South Africa and a 78 year old grandmother in Poland. There was neither rhyme nor reason to figure out who was next. And since it had only affected about 80 or so people to date there was no international push to solve this problem. There was more likelihood of being struck by lighting three times and winning a Grammy Award for Best Rap album then being transformed. It just seemed to be a sensational distraction from the War in Iraq or Global Warming or whatever else was really important that day. It was a freak show. Mum would always look at the pictures and wonder out loud why the 'after' pictures were so much better looking than their 'before' pictures. "Perhaps," she would always muse, "They were always meant to be the other gender and this is God's way of fixing that." I would explain that God would probably use some sort of miracle to 'fix' them instead of sending swarms of tiny robots to do his bidding. She would each time reply that the Lord works in mysterious ways and go back to eating her Coco-Pops. She was never religious unless discussing those tiny robots.

Kate Draffen was Australia's only victim of P.E. Although the real term was Spontaneous Gender Reconfiguration, the tabloids called it P.E. A crude term meaning either 'Penis Envy' for a woman who became a man or 'Pussy Envy' for a man who became a woman. The term seemed unfair as it seemed nobody who went through the changes particularly wanted the change and all said it was tremendously painful. Some people had such a hard time adjusting that they would have severe mental problems or even kill themselves. So calling it P.E. seemed cruel. Kate Draffen, who called herself John Draffen after the change, was lucky, she had her loving family to look after her. Although I read John and her husband separated soon after.

"Yes, I remember of Kate Draffen," I replied, hoping Dr. Chisholm was going on a completely different tangent.

"You mean the mother who had P.E?" asked my Mum.

The Doctor cringed slightly at my Mum's uncouth use of the term P.E., "Well, we found out before her 'transformation' she ate a lot on tin foil." Hmmm.. I didn't like where this was going. I decided to stay silent. Maybe I could stop this conversation from going where I didn't want it to go if I kept quiet.

"So what does Kate Draffen have to do with my son eating coins?" Damn my Mum moving the conversation forward!

"Well, we believe that before the Spontaneous Gender Reconfiguration occurs the initial army of nanobots need to build many more robots to aid with the change. So in order to get the materials they need, the nanobots convince the victim to eat metal. Coins, tin foil, even spoons. That gives the robots enough material to create an army large enough to complete the transformation in a matter of minutes. Since you've stopped desiring metal it probably means they have amassed enough help to carry out the transformation. It's lucky we found you. You could have transformed any day now."

"Are you saying Michael has P.E.?" No I don't, Mum! I certainly liked pussies, at least I like looking at pictures of them. If I ever got close enough to one I'm sure I'd like feeling it, smelling it and tasting it but I would never be envious of it. I like being a guy a whole lot. Even though I sometime neglect my manhood- I have foppish hair, I like singing and dancing and I'm still a virgin- I still love the gender bestowed on me.

"Yes," said the bastard Doctor, "In a matter of words, Michael has contracted P.E. But…" Yes! There was a 'but…'! I dreamed about the things that would come after that 'but…'

"But there is a cure, Mrs. Taylor!"

"But there is a painless cure, Mrs. Taylor!"

"But there is a painless cure, not involving any needles whatsoever, Mrs. Taylor!" Any one of those would be good, especially the last one. But beggars cannot be choosers.

"But…" said Dr. Chisholm, "luckily there is something we can do to ease him into the transformation." This was not the 'good news' I was expecting and I wore an expression on my face that said exactly that.

There was no way my picture was going to be in the paper alongside a picture of a girl, with my Mum saying, "I guess you were meant to be a girl." This was not my future. My future involved Holly breaking up with her stupid boyfriend, me snapping her up and both of us becoming stars on 'Neighbours'! Maybe that was aiming a little high, but all of my potential futures did include me still having external genitals.

I sat in a stupor, letting Dr. Chisholm's words roll over the top of me, wafting though my ears and echoing into my brain, "A few months ago in Chicago they used electric pulses to set some of the nanobots off early. Not all of them you see, just a few of them. And through a period of one week they slowly activated more and more of the nanobots until the job was done. The man said he hardly felt any pain."

"Was he a man at the start or did he become a man?" was the pointless question my Mum asked.

Dr. Chisholm leafed through his notes, "Ah… he was a man, and became a woman."

I spoke up, "Are you sure there's nothing you can do to stop this? I don't want to be a girl." I hoped my voice conveyed how much I didn't want to become a girl. Maybe if the good Doctor realized how little I wanted a vagina he would double his efforts to find a cure.

"Whoever has done this to you is far more technologically advanced than we are, Michael. We are only just beginning to figure out what is happening, at the moment the best I can offer you is a smooth transition."

"You're talking like I'm going to a new school or something! I'm not! I'm going to grow a pussy! I don't want to be a girl!" Sure I was losing my cool, but I don't think anyone else could have been as cool for as long as me. I was proud of my efforts so far but now I was travelling to crazy town.

"Michael, there are a lot of things worse than being a woman," Mum said surprisingly sternly. I had inadvertently offended her, although I didn't really care. There were bigger things to worry about, such as my 'smooth transition' into a nice pair of tits! "I realize that, Mum,"

I said calmly, "But I'm quite happy being a guy."

"The truth of the matter is you are going to be a girl soon, like it or not. The Nanobots have been in your system and settled in. This will happen, Michael. Just be glad we found out because we can help. The way I'm proposing to do it will be relatively painless and slow. You'll have up to a week getting used to all the changes. We'll do this together." The Doctor leaned forward, studying my face.

I mulled over his offer. I would rather do anything without pain, the fool who said no pain, no gain was an idiot as far as I was concerned. If I had to do it, I'd rather do it with a bit of help on my side. And despite not knowing a thing about how to stop it, Dr. Chisholm certainly knew a lot of ways to make it easier for me. There was no way I was letting anyone call me Michelle though, I knew a girl called Michelle Taylor and she was an absolute slut. There was no way I was sharing a name with her. What were my friends going to say? Was I going to be a lesbian? The press is going to go crazy! How big are my boobs going to be? I'm going to be the next Kate Draffen. Oh no! I couldn't do the Deb with Holly! I slowly reeled in my thoughts and prepared my response to Dr. Chisholm.

"As long as you limit the needles to the absolute minium, Doc. Go ahead." I looked at Mum for comfort and she draped her arm around me in solidarity. She gently rubbed my back, the way only a Mum could.

"Good boy," she gently murmured, probably unaware of her use of the word 'boy'.

"Good to hear, Michael," smiled Dr. Chisholm, "If you want to follow me, we can get started."

"What? Now?"

"No time like the present!"

CHAPTER 2

I walked alongside the Doctor through the maze of identical hallways until we reached the examination room I was in before. At least I think it was the same room, it could have been any other room as far as I could tell. The doctor made me strip and took all sorts of measurements. Height, weight, hair colour, eye colour, even the length of my member, which I informed him was incorrect due to the coldness of the room. It was a base result, to measure my changes against.

Don't be under the misapprehension that I was looking forward to this. I wasn't one bit. I cried like, coincidently, a little girl when I had to say goodbye to Mum, even though it was only for an hour or so. She told me to buck up and smile. I couldn't do either. I spent the whole physical begging Dr. Chisholm not to do a thing to me. I told him that my body would fight the nanobots and win. I told him to 'shut the fuck up' when he told me that was impossible. I thought the typical teenager thought, 'Why is life so cruel to me and only me?' and for the first time in my life that was almost valid. I was honestly 1 in over 75,000,000. That was certainly life ganging up on me. I cried all through the measuring. Hard.

"Now, relax Michael. I was the former Kate Draffen's doctor and I looked after him after the transformation," said Dr. Chisholm as we walked down the hall towards another room.

"Really? What was she like?" I asked using the pro-noun I wanted to use.

"He," he said, stressing the word, "was very fragile. He isn't as strong as you are."

I actually chuckled at that, through my sobbing, "Yeah, because I'm a regular hero."

"No Michael, you are being very strong. We got there too late to ease John Draffen into his new gender, we didn't even know how to back then. But John kept working hard at it and he's a good father and healthy human now. He can live life now. But it took a lot of work."

"When was the last time you saw Kate…I mean John?"

"This morning," said Dr. Chisholm, "I see John few times a month. Then I got the call to come down and investigate you. So, I flew down here and here I am. I'm glad we got to you on time."

"Me too," I shrugged.

We arrived at the room and the Doctor warned me, "There's going to be my entire team in here, Michael. They are all here to see you, so please answer all their questions. After that I'll begin the process, OK?" I nodded and we entered the room.

Three people were awaiting my arrival with an almost kiddie sense of excitement, although they hid it well under their lab coats and glasses. But I knew they were all giddy at the chance to look at the boy with Pussy Envy. They all shook my hand and asked me questions. They asked about the number of coins I ingested, about my travel habits, my comfort levels, my medical history, my personal life, pretty much everything. All the while, Dr. Chisholm fiddled with some equipment in the corner. I caught glimpses of the mad scientist hiding inside him a few times while answering questions about my birth weight and study habits. "Thank you everyone, you will have a chance to know Michael a lot better as the weeks continue. If everyone could leave, except Anupam and you, Michael."

Everyone did as they were told, some people left and Dr. Anupam Nagra and I remained. I already like Dr. Nagra because he asked me the least amount of questions. He mainly helped Dr. Chisholm fiddle with the contraptions. "Now, what were going to do is awaken SOME of the nanobots. Not all of them, around 10% of them," Dr. Nagra said in his cold, somewhat peaceful voice.

"Not the ones in my penis, please," I asked, "I want to keep that as long as possible." The Indian Doctor sighed, trying to break to me the bad news,

"We can't do that, Michael. It's all over your body. You'll be 10% along the way of your transformation. So, I'm sure we wont see that much of a decrease in penis size." I gingerly looked down at my penis, even giving 10% of it up seemed like a massive sacrifice.

"While we are on the subject," chatted Dr. Chisholm stroking his beard, "I heard you tell Dr. Fischer that you are a virgin. Is that right?" Great, I didn't want to answer that damn question the first time, I certainly didn't want a reprise.

"Yes."

"Well now, this is only a suggestion and you don't have to follow through if you don't want to," for the first time since I met him, Dr. Chisholm was getting flustered, "Perhaps sometime soon before the changes are too great you should secure a girl and enjoy some physical activity with her."

"Huh?" I said, only to stir Dr. Chisholm up a little more.

"What Dr. Chisholm is trying to say," interrupted Dr. Nagra, "Is you should find some one who cares for you, probably tonight or tomorrow, and experience sexual intercourse with her before your transformation makes that an impossibility."

"Oh, OK."

Wow! I thought I was under pressure to get laid before, now I have a 2-day limit! I ran my mind over all the girls I know. But there was only one girl I really wanted to ask- Holly. I would always dream that she would be my first and now I had an excuse to ask her. She was caring and sweet enough to let us have one special night before Michael disappears and some girl replaces him. Depends really on how angry she will be about losing her Deb partner. I'd love one magical night with Holly. But it would mean cheating on her boyfriend and asking for a huge favour and potentially ruining a friendship. It was risky, but when is sex not risky?

Dr. Nagra handed me a small metal bar, about the size of a 30cm ruler. It was connected to a machine that looked like it controlled the amount of electricity. "Sorry we are taking so long but we have never tried this procedure before."

"Never?"

"Well, since you are second person in the country to have contracted these Nanobots and the first to be diagnosed before your transformation you are somewhat of a special case," said Dr. Nagra. Gee, I was a special case. Hear that? Me. I was special. I didn't hear that a lot. It was nice to hear, even if it involved me getting a strange virus.

"So, what's going to happen?" I queried the men.

"You are about to receive a small surge of electricity, not a lot. This will activate a small amount of the nanobots who will begin their jobs. These little guys do everything, right down to re-coding your DNA. As the little robots do their work we should see some very minor cosmetic changes. You might get taller or shorter, we might see some changes in the face, some shifting in weight. Very minor. You wont suddenly grow breasts or anything like that." I was relieved to hear that.

"How long will it take?"

"Oh, we should see the changes within a few seconds. If you take off your clothes we should be able to watch some of the changes," said Dr. Chisholm. I stripped down to my briefs, just as curious about the changes as the men of science. With my permission they turned on a camera, so future generations could watch this historic footage.

"Hold tight," instructed Dr. Nagra, and I did so. "Ready for charge in 3, 2, 1." He must have pushed a button and a shock rushed through my body, awakening the tiny little robots. It didn't hurt a lot, more of a shock than getting a shock from touching a car door and less of a shock than that time I grabbed the electric fence at my Uncle's farm. I did say 'ouch', but mainly to get sympathy. I felt the peculiar feeling of my skin crawling and looked at my body. The doctors were right I didn't grow huge breasts, however my nipples both grew puffy, like little soldiers ready at attention. I watched one of my hands slim down a little bit and the fingers grow a little bit more slender. By the time I had finished watching that, the tingling had finished. I was 10% more female than when I woke this morning.

I consulted the mirror, as the Doctors consulted me. They also took measurements. I had got shorter, a whole 2cm. I had lost a few centimetres from my waist and had gained a few in the length of my legs. You could see I looked different, I was more… girly, I guess. But not a lot. Most people wouldn't be able to pick what was wrong with me I'm sure. It would be one of those 'Have you had a haircut?' moments. No, in fact nothing at all had happened to my hair.

However, when Dr. Chisholm talked me into losing the briefs we discovered I had lost a fair bit of penis. I was flaccid (nothing exciting about two old men poking me around down there) and a sizeable chunk was missing. "But you said!" I whined.

"We only guessed. It's going to happen anyway!" Dr. Chisholm was a good doctor with a bad bedside manner. "If it's any consolation, you're still a lot bigger than me." OK, maybe his bedside manner isn't that bad. Every teenager boy is happys to hear that he is well endowed, even if it is by a man in his fifties who has a beard.

"So, if you want, you could do more than 10%?" I asked.

"Why? Would you like to go through this process faster?" asked Dr. Nagra as he took some blood from me.

I had asked the question in an attempt to ignore the needle, "Fuck no!" I shouldn't have swore in front of the doctors but they didn't seem to take offence, "I was just wondering."

"Well, I guess we could. I, myself, wouldn't do more than 40% at a time otherwise you might accidentally trigger a chain reaction. I mean we aimed for 10% today but I think it's closer to 15%. It's not an exact science," Dr. Nagra enjoyed talking about the science behind it all, and it seemed to calm me, "If you wanted we could knock you out and do 100% the transformation with you unconscious but Dr. Fischer thinks it's still too much of a shock for the mind."

"So, will any electric shock activate the Nanobots?"

"Pretty much, so unless you want an early birthday present stay away from any power points."

"What do you think being a girl is like?"

"You're asking the wrong man," Dr. Nagra joked, "But I think you'll be fine, Mike. Girls can wear the same clothes as guys. Do the same jobs as guys. Aside from the bra, you'll be exactly the same."

I'm not sure if Dr. Nagra has enough tact to be dishonest so it was nice hearing that. And he was right. In this day and age women can do anything a man can, except perhaps write her name in the snow. All this was, was a change in costume. I could still wear my jeans and shirts, I could still be an actor if I wanted to. Even my back-up job of Drama Teacher was safe. I wouldn't have to become a stripper and wear 'boob tubes' and sundresses and bikinis. I could still be who I wanted to be. And if Holly was willing to become a lesbian I could still keep that dream alive.

"So, we'll see you back here tomorrow for another dose," Dr. Chisholm told me as he escorted me towards the exit. Considering he was from Sydney, he certainly learnt his way around our hospital fast. I still didn't know where we were.

"How many more shocks do you think it will take?"

"Not sure, Michael. We'll give you another one tomorrow and the day after. That will probably bring you up to 30%-50% complete. From then on we might admit you to the hospital, just so we can keep an eye on you." It all got very real, in 2 days I could be half female. I'm not sure what some one who is half female looks like but probably nothing like I do now. By next week I would be a woman. That was a scary thought. I was not looking forward to this at all. But maybe Dr. Nagra was right, maybe being a girl wouldn't be all that different.

"Becoming a woman will be a very different experience for you," said Dr. Fischer, the team's psychologist. She was the only woman and was probably in her early thirties. She was slender and tall; 'willowy' is a good word for her. She wore a pair of frameless glasses very low on her nose and would peer down through them to look at me. Her and my mum had been discussing options for me. Maybe moving town to start school somewhere else. Maybe being home schooled for the rest of the year. I'm sure boarding school was probably on the table as well. I didn't want any of that I needed my friends to help me. Dot, Glen, Holly and everyone else would be good for me. I didn't want to make new friends, even in a body that was good for making friends in.

But they didn't talk about that with me, at least not much. Dr. Fischer or Annette as she wanted me to call her, was slowly and painfully explaining how the female body worked. On how I would grow a vagina and how to take care of that. She told me that I would grow breasts and looking at my mother's they probably would be large. I looked at my mum's tits with interest for the first time since I stopped breastfeeding. They were big, standing proud and high on her chest. Mum had Nicole when she was only 17, so Mum was only 35. Because of her young age and large breasts, my friends often called my Mum a MILF, a title I'm sure she would be proud of. Nicole also was stacked. Maybe I would inherit my chest from Dad's side, because people often thought I took after my Dad. I hoped the females on my Dad's side weren't as gifted when it came to their mammaries.

I knew I was going to grow breasts, but I didn't think they would be big. When Dr. Nagra was talking about wearing the same clothes, I pictured myself wearing the EXACT same clothes, only with a slight bump in the chest region. Who knows? I could end up with nothing more than a 'slight bump'. I had something to pray for tonight.

Annette was quite graphic in her descriptions. I think it was her way of making me realize how serious this was. She used words like 'vaginal openings' and 'ovum'. She told me that once it was finished trained doctors would not be able to tell the difference. I stood there, glum and amazed at the same time. I looked at my phone, I had service again and about 10 messages to wade through. It was already 6pm! I had spent all day in this hellish hospital. Deb practise started at 7.30 and I was definitely going. It may be my last chance to dance with a girl and I wasn't passing it up. After that, I'd invite my friends and tell them all the news. After that, I would beg the precious Holly to help me enjoy being male one last time and we would do it, in my room and hold each other. So, suffice to say, I didn't want to be here listening to Annette talk about birth control.

"Dr. Fischer," I butted in.

"Annette," she advised.

"…Annette. I want to tell some friends tonight what is happening. Is that ok?"

"Well, if you want to, Michael. That's a choice you have to make yourself. Friends and family are very important. They can help you through many situations. But you have to understand that you are very special. This has rarely happens to people and you are the first male in Australia to be 'changing'. Some people will not be able to understand. So, I think it's a good idea to tell some friends but choose your friends wisely."

It was a silent trip in the car on the way home. Well, as silent it could be with our old car rattling loudly, and the Beach Boys (Mum's 'happy' music) blaring through the one good speaker. Love for The Beach Boys must be hereditary because listening to them could often cheer me up too. Unfortunately, The Beach Boys were singing about what life would be like "When I grow up to be a man," which only helped me sink into a foul mood. Unlike the Beach Boys (except the one who drowned under his house boat) I wont find out what it will be like to be a man. "Cheer up, Mikey," attempted Mum.

"Don't start," I warned her.

"At least you're not dying," she said blowing her cigarette smoke out the window. She didn't smoke much around us kids, only when she was carefree or frustrated, I'd like to think she was frustrated but I wasn't sure.

"No, I'm not dying but my life is going to change completely."

"It doesn't have to."

"You heard 'Annette', Mum. I'm getting a 'vaginal opening'."

"Don't be gross, Mikey!" She is the only person I let call me 'Mikey,' I hated it. I never told her I hated though. I think she really enjoyed calling me 'Mikey' it was the same thing calling Nicole 'Nicky,' a name I know she hates.

"Look, I'm going to be here for you. Kate Draffen's mum was dead when it happened to her, so you're lucky. And you're getting girly slower, that's good!" I knew what she meant, but calling it 'getting girly' made me want to vomit. "And I bet you'll even be better looking than Nic. Since you've got your Dad's genes, you'll end up looking like your Aunt Sharon and she was a model!" That was true, Dad's sister was a Chiko Roll Chick in the 90's. I saw a poster of her when I was young, straddling a motorbike, wearing a leather jacket and bikini, holding a Chiko Roll. I was too young to take notice of how sexy she was. But I bet she was quite sexy. Damn it!

Mum's 'consoling' continued, "Mikey, I'm here for you. I'll be there for you every step of the way. I've had 35 years experience being a woman, so if there is anything I can answer just ask." I was often embarrassed by my Mum, most teenagers are. She was a bit of a dag but I guess she meant what she said. I looked at her, smoking the cigarette as close to the window as possible as not to infect me.

"Thanks Mum."

Nicole was at her boyfriend's house for the night so it was just Mum and me for tea. Nicole was a hairdresser, or at least learning to be one. She had a new boyfriend, so many nights a week were spent in his house. I gulped down tea, not bothering to savour it or even taste it. I wanted to hurry up and go to Deb Practice. I had organized my friends to come meet me back at the house at 9 o'clock, where I would reveal what was going on.

"You know, everyone knows Kate Draffen's name," said my Mum between spoonfuls of her ravioli.

"Huh?"

"I mean EVERYONE knows her name. I don't even know the state Premier's name and I know her name."

"So?"

"Even if you are half as famous as her, a lot of people are going to be interested in you." Mum was right. There were stories on Mrs. Draffen for weeks after her change. They would report on everything- her family life, how she was coping, where get bought her new man clothes. My story might not be as interesting, but a boy slowly turning into a girl would attract some people. Might there even be paparazzi on our front lawn?

"Mrs. Draffen never did an interview, did she Mum?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, if they ask me, I might do one."

"OK."

I enjoyed the walk to school for Deb Practice. I imagined there were photographers all along the way. I would sheepishly smile and keep my head down. I imagined having burly security guards who would ward off any member of the press who got a little close. "I'm just trying to live my life," I would mumble to the non-existent journalists, "You guys are vultures!" Oddly enough, this was not my first ever game of 'invisible paparazzi'. When the urge a struck me before I had run to my Mum's car, hood over my head, fending off the ghostly cameras. This time however, it felt less like pretending and more like practising.

Holly was waiting for me outside the school gym when I showed up. Well, she might have been talking to her friends too so don't get the impression that she was desperate to see me. In fact, I stood by her for a few minutes before she said anything more than 'hi' to me. This Debutante Ball meant a lot to the girls. Although there was only 4 months of actual rehearsals and preparation, most of the girls involved had been planning this since Year 7. Jessica had even asked Tall-Jason on the first week of high school. Getting a decent partner was half the challenge, Holly had asked me half way through last year, when we were rehearsing together for 'West Side Story' the school's musical that year. She was of course, Maria (Despite having blonde hair and blue eyes) and I was her brother Bernado (Despite looking very Angelo Saxon too). In regional Australia there aren't a lot of people who look Puerto Rican.

"Hello sicko!" she said after winding up her conversations with her friends, "I heard they took you to the hospital today. You going to die?"

"No, not quite." Man, I so didn't want to tell her.

"Tall-Jason said he heard that you fainted from getting your needle. Is that true?"

"No," I defended my honour, "I actually got two needles at the hospital and didn't flinch once!" OK, that may be stretching the truth wafer thin as I flinched during both of them, but I would do anything to sound like a man. Something that was going to be harder and harder to do as the days went by.

"Aren't you the big man?" she teased pulling me into the hall.

Now the dance teachers had their work cut out for them. The funniest about the Deb Ball was watching the farm boys try and dance. Boys who would mock me every other day of the year for dancing were now trying to unravel the waltz. There was always plenty of stomped toes and squeals of pain from their partners. Because of them dance lessons were a little slow moving for Holly and me. So, naturally like any fast learners we just spent our time talking. "Man, we're kicking arse tonight!" quietly cheered Holly as we performed a perfect waltz. I lead her around the circle his ease, I didn't let myself think about the next couple of days. It was time to enjoy Holly and nothing else mattered.

The song finished and I spun Holly around, adding a flourish to the end of the dance. I guess this would be one of my last times leading the dance so I wanted to enjoy it. We were the best dancers in the room. I wasn't cocky, I knew we wouldn't have stood a chance with against professional dancers but being the best in the Deb practise at Marrang College was good enough for me. "Well done everyone," said Mr. Coleman our school's woodcraft teacher who always doubled as the Debutante Ball dance teacher, alongside his wife.

"Remember to take your eyes off your feet. You can't build up confidence with your head down," said Mrs Coleman.

"Thanks Kristen. Also you need to get over this fear of boy/girl germs. Men, you need to hold your girls tighter. Really get chest-to-chest with each other. Holly and what's-your-name do a really good job. Maddi and Greg aren't too bad either. How about we do a Mars Bar challenge?"

The Mars Bar Challenge was an ill-conceived idea that Mr. Coleman believed to be genius. Each week, he would challenge two couples to go face-to-face in a competition. The couple that won would each get a Mars Bar. Although that seems like a fine premise, most of the Debutantes were acting like mini-brides, starving themselves to look perfect on their special day. So, an offer of a chocolate bar wasn't much encouragement. However, it didn't stop the naturally competitive Holly eyeing the aforementioned chocolate with determination. "Greg and Maddi don't stand a chance," she whispered in my ear. I wanted to win as well, not for the chocolate but to give Holly one last thrill before I disappoint her, genetically.

"OK challengers!" Mr. Coleman must have dreams that he is a boxing announcer, "Waltz positions!" He grandly whipped out two oranges, so grand was his gesture nobody would have been surprised if he started a magic trick right then and there. I held Holly's hand tightly assumed the waltz position. "I will place the oranges between each couple's bodies, the first one to let the fruit drop is the loser." He went to place an orange between Maddi and Greg's stomachs when Mr. Coleman realized this was the type of thing teachers shouldn't do. Instead he handed it a red-faced Maddi, "You can to it, sweetheart." He brought us our orange and Holly jammed it between our stomachs. The orange was just below her bust and it felt like a third, not-as-soft breast. She pressed up against me so hard that it was simultaneously exhilarating and painful.

Dear old Mrs. Coleman pressed play and the cassette began whirring away. For the 20 years the Colemans have organized the Deb Ball, the music stayed the same, in fact I think it was the exact same cassette. The stereo droned out the same crickety old tune it had played many times before and the two couples danced. I was very focussed on keeping in time, leading Holly and not letting the orange drop. My eyes closed deep in concentration. My feet annoyingly rattled around in my shoes, smaller than they were when I put them on this morning. All my clothes were looser than they this morning and it was going to get worse. While my shoes would always get looser, my T-shirts might start getting tight again, at least in certain areas. In fact, if I concentrated hard enough, I could feel my nipples reacting differently to all this rubbing. It was only a tiny feeling, but I knew what it meant. I read somewhere that some women can orgasm just by having their boobs rubbed alone, I hope that I wasn't going to be that type of women. Hell! I didn't want to be ANY type of woman. If ever caught the people responsible for those penis-stealing robots I'd make them regret it.

I heard an orange drop and laughed victoriously.

But it was short lived. I felt our orange roll past my leg. "Sorry Holly. I wasn't concentrating."

"That's OK." Mr. Coleman declared the other couple the winners and dismissed everyone. Mrs. Coleman reminded us that the boys were being measured for their suits next week. Everyone fell out into the warm late-Summer air, laughing, talking and making fun of the whole thing.

"Is it OK if you come around to my house for a little while now?" I wasn't able to summon the courage to ask her earlier, "I've got something important to tell you." The way I said it told her she knew this was something that needed to be said in the comfortable surrounds of my house and not the school car park.

"Let me go check with my Dad," she said scampering over to her Dad's car. While she talked Holly's Dad eyed me suspiciously, almost as if he knew I was going to ask her about having sex with her tonight. Maybe he could sense the box of condoms in my bag that I bought on the way to practice. He gave a tiny begrudging nod and asked Holly a question. "What time should Dad come and pick me up?" Holly shouted from over by the car.

"My Mum will give you a lift home."

The walk back to my house was uneasily quiet. "So… this has something to do with what happened at the Hospital, yeah?" I kicked a stone in front of my foot, not aggressively but very moodily,

"I'll tell you when we get there. A few people are going to be there, I want to do it all at once." She didn't ask any more questions but instead wrapped an arm around me and gave me a little 'buck-up' squeeze. My penis twitched a little bit but I informed it that it was a false alarm.

CHAPTER 3

Everyone was already there and waiting for me in the lounge room when Holly and I returned. The room fell silent as I walked through and for a second I thought my Mum had already told them. I felt like the corpse at a funeral, everyone was paying their respects to me and they didn't even known what, if anything, was wrong with me. I surveyed the room-

Dot had been chatting to Kev on the couch. Kevin Madsen was a year old than me and we hung out together a lot outside of school. Kev and his brother, Darcy (who was a year younger than me) lived around the corner from us and we'd always go swimming at the beach together. Both Kev and Darcy (Who everyone called 'Mads') were really good friends of mine and were usually the first I'd turn to for advice. I think Kev had a tiny bit of a crush on Dot but Dot thought he was far too arrogant for her. Glen was there, talking to Mads and I gestured for Holly to sit down.

It was only then, when I was surrounded by my best friends, on the cusp of revealing my secret did I realize I didn't have a clue how to tell them. "Umm… hi! Thanks for coming, everyone." That was all I could come up with. Usually Glen or Kev would have chipped in with a joke to embarrass me but they both knew what I was about to say was serious. I could really use a joke right about now. "I'm about to tell you something. But I only invited my best friends because it's a bit of a secret. So I'd really like it to be kept quiet. But you wont have to keep it quiet for too long I'm sure everyone will know soon."

"Is it good news?" foolishly asked Mads.

"No, not really. It's pretty horrible news," I swallowed hard and prepared to do it quick, like ripping off a band-aid. That was advice Dot had given me about the needle but it seemed appropriate to my situation now. "I'm… I was at the hospital today because…" Another pause, so much for doing it quick, "I'm lucky number two in Australia!" My brain was a bloody idiot, this was only going to confuse things.

"Number two? What you mean?" ask a confused and concerned Dot. A look of puzzlement was generally shared amongst the assembled.

"Well, Kate Draffen was number one and I'm number two," There was a silence I couldn't interpret, was it stunned realization or quiet bewilderment? I ploughed through the explanation: "They found Nanobots in my blood today. I have P.E."

"What?" laughed Glen, the only person to speak up, "You're not a girl." I nervously looked at my feet, not wanting to meet anyone's gaze.

"By next week I will be." I'm pretty sure there was no silence left in the world because it seemed like all of it was in my lounge room.

I slowly explained Dr. Chisholm and the small electric shocks that will make me girlier as each day passes. I told them swallowing coins and how from that the Nanobots amassed their armies. I cried as I told Holly I was sorry that I was unable to be her Deb partner. I showed them some of the small changes that had already begun to happen. For a good ten minutes there was no silence in the room whatsoever, I filled every nook and cranny with explanations and fears and pleas. The speech ended with me saying, "Look, if you don't want to be my mate anymore I'll understand it's a weird situation to be in but I'll need at least one friend to get me through this." With that said and finally no more words pouring of me, I sat down and promptly cried.

"Hey chin up, Michael," Mads was the first to approach me, "It's not like you're dying. We'll help you through it."

Dot cuddled me,"Yeah, it's OK," was all she said but it made things feel so much better.

"I'd hug you but I can't get to you," called Glen, joking about the line that had formed.

"C'mon stand up! Group hug," instructed Dot. Someone grabbed my arm and stood me up, from everywhere people hugged me. Some were crying, some were laughing because the group hug is the messiest of hugs.

"Thanks guys!" I said quietly, as the hug disbanded, like all hugs do.

"So what are you going to call yourself?" asked Kev.

"Not Michelle," I quickly answered.

Mads laughed, "Because of Michelle Taylor in Year 10?" I nodded.

"I guess I'll wait to see what type of girl I become before I choose a name." I was happy to have such friends, friends who would look after me through this whole ordeal.

They always say, "A friend in need is a friend indeed." That never made sense to me, of course they are going to be your friend they need something from you. The friends indeed are the ones that help you when you need something. My friends indeed began to leave, because it was quite late on a school night and despite their good friend becoming a girl, life had to continue as normal. That's the thing about lives, they keep going.

The Madsen Brothers were the first to leave, they walked home. Dot's Mum knocked on the front door to take Glen and Dot home. They both hugged me and told me they would see me at school. It was just me and Holly left. She looked uncomfortable, as if she was the one who was sick. I sensed she wanted to go home and almost gave up the plan. But this was my last chance, I was about to forfeit my gender. My penis may be nothing more than a nub tomorrow so I wanted to use it for its purpose, if only once.

"It's not contagious, is it?" she asked me warily. That wasn't a great prelude to sex and I knew it. If I was more observant I would have noticed that Holly had been a little stand-offish since the announcement. She didn't openly comfort me, content to simply echo what had already been said. I didn't notice that.

"No, you can't catch it. There's usually only one or two cases a month and usually in completely different spots on the globe. Nobody knows how you catch it." Again, not the right kind of talk to be seductive.

"Do you want a drink, you two?" asked my Mum, standing in the doorway, "A juice, coffee, even a beer or wine?" My Mum liked to think she was a 'Cool Mum' by offering us alcohol. Maybe that was cool at 15 and 16, but we were both 17 and quite able to find booze on our own.

"Mum, me and Holly were both about to go to my room for a talk," I said, however no plans had been made. Holly cautiously followed me to my room.

At least I could tick one thing off my list. I had Holly Morissey in my bedroom! I was dreaming about this kind of miracle happening as recently as 2 days ago. Although she was wearing some sexy lingerie and not a T-shirt of the Rock-to-Reef trip she did last year and blue shorts. But I had to admit she did look sexy in them, especially the view of the curvature of her taut buttocks inside her shorts. She looked around my room, at all the pictures stuck to the wall. I had a lot of photos: photos of Dot and me in Melbourne- our big trip to the city, photos of Glen and me at the beach mucking around, photos from Christmas parties and birthday parties, photos of the musicals and plays I've done. Holly was in a few of them. She was always smiling or pulling a face, posing in costumes, a stark contrast to how sullen she looked now.

I sat down on the bed and tried to summon my nerves to say something romantic. But romance was not the mood of the day and it would be impossible to use it in the situation. Genetic modifying robots weren't sexy, knowing that her seductor was doomed to have the same sexual organs as her wasn't sexy. If this was going to work I had to use pity.

Pity is never a good reason to do something, but at least I was pitiful in spades. "I'm so sorry I can't do the Deb with you!" I apologized, it was something I had already said a few times but this time was meant more of a 'pity comment' than a real apology.

"That's OK," she said, her soft voice barely above a whisper, "It's not your fault. We're only two weeks in, I can get a new partner." What? How dare she? She is supposed to be feeling bad for me, not already making new plans for the Deb! I bet she already has a shortlist of whom to ask.

Time to up the sympathy, "I'm just so scared. This is all so weird," Nice Michael, keep going, "Holly, thanks so much for being my friend, it means so much to me." Good, good!

She sat down on my bed to comfort me. My nose twitched at the gorgeous scent she always wore. My penis, slightly wary this time, began to rise. "C'mon Michael. I know it's weird but I'm sure you're going to make a wonderful girl. I mean all the girls at school already think you're sweet, so you're going to have lots of friends." This was not heading in the right direction.

"But I like being a guy, Hol. There's so many things I haven't tried," I steered the conversation in the right direction.

"There's nothing a girl can't do that a guy can do," she joke-protested, looking me in the eye.

"Well, there is one thing," she slowly cottoned on as I began my proposition, "Look Holly, I've always had a crush on you. Big time. Ever since we did our first musical and we were both in the chorus, back in Year 7. I know this is a lot to unload on you at the moment."

"Michael, you know that I have a boyfriend." I knew that little problem would come up.

"I know that and Jake's a real nice guy. It's just that my time is short and I want to experience this one last thing before…" I didn't want to say 'I turn into a girl,' I almost wished I could say 'before I die,' mainly because that would be so much harder to turn down.

Holly took a laboured breath and craned her head up, as if she had a stiff neck. I loved the way she nibbled her bottom lip when she was frustrated, but I didn't like it then, it wasn't a good sign. "Michael, you know I love you," I knew how this sentence would end, and she finished it, "as a friend." She kept talking but it didn't matter, I had blown it. Not only would I 'die' a virgin, I might have wrecked a good friendship at the same time, a friendship I could have really used when I joined the bra and panty set. For a longer moment than I should have thought it, I wished I were dying at least then if I didn't get the sex the ruined friendship wouldn't have mattered much.

She gave me hug. Not a hug the hinted that sex would follow, but a 'this is as close as we are going to get' hug. I desperately tried to not smell her. "Thanks so much for asking me," said Holly, crying a little, "I know this must have been so hard for you!"

"Yeah," I admitted, "I almost didn't do it."

"Well, I'm glad you did. It makes a girl feel wanted. It's just I'm a virgin too and I really want to save it for some one I really love. Shit! I sound so selfish!"

"No, no, no. Don't beat yourself up about it. You're not selfish. I understand," and you know what, I did.

"If you want I can call Alison, she gives it up pretty easy," the mischievous glint in Holly's eye returned.

"As desperate as I am, I'm not THAT desperate," and I laughed. And she laughed. We both laughed, probably too hard at a joke of that calibre. But we needed it. She leaned forward and I caught a glimpse of what she was saving for her boyfriend. Lucky bugger!

"So, does your Mum think we're doing it now?" Holly asked.

"Probably," for all I knew she could be listening at the door.

"You don't want to be a girl, do you?"

"Not really." She gave me a look that told me she was a little disappointed in me. As if becoming female was almost a gift being bestowed on me. Holly seemed to enjoy being a girl. She wasn't all lace and petticoats either, she played sports and surfed and did anything a boy could do. But it wasn't the girl part that bothered me, if I had been born a girl I wouldn't have anything against it. The problem lay in the fact that I was turning into one. I was changing teams mid-play and that doesn't work. I didn't know how they played the game or even the simplest rules. I told Holly about that and she removed the look of disappointment.

"I can teach you to be a girl," she smiled.

"Thanks, but there isn't much I want to learn."

"What? I can teach you about clothes and make-up and stuff like that. You're probably going to be pretty hot." Was I? Whenever I thought about being a girl I only saw the parts: the boobs, the pussy, the skinny arms, the round arse. I never thought about the sum of the parts. If I was attractive to guys there was going to be a whole new set of problems.

"Holly, the only difference between me and me two weeks from now is going to be my gender. I'm not about to start wearing dresses and make-up. It's going to be Michael with boobs. That's it."

"Well, that's seems healthy," Holly said in a way that I couldn't tell whether she was sarcastic or not.

"I'm still going to be me. If I could dance with you at the Deb I would, but I don't think the Deb committee would allow it. They didn't let Tracy and Donna do it together." Tracy and Donna were two lesbians in our year level.

"OK, just remember if you want help, I'm here for you." We pretty much tied up the conversation after that.

Mum drove her home. I stayed in my bedroom, citing that I had a big day tomorrow. Instead of resting up for it I wept. Wept for myself, really. I didn't want to have this happen to me. I didn't deserve this. I'm not religious but I did swear at whatever god might be up there. I looked at how feminine my hands had become and begged to anyone to stop it. Sure, I was selfish but as I was attached to my body it was a lot easier to think about it than worry about the trouble in Sudan or the homelessness problem. I'm not sure how I picture the events with Holly would go, but that wasn't it. I was so stupid to think that she would fuck me just because my penis was disappearing.

I ran outside. There weren't many good things about our house. Even with only three of us in there it still seemed cramped. The house sat one notch above in disrepair and we worked hard to keep it there. The plumbing was skittish and the paint was peeling almost everywhere. What our house lacked in presentation it made up for in location. Mum had bought it as a single girl when she first moved to town. Marrang wasn't very big back then, so she picked it up for less than a song. However, less than a song was still expensive for my Mum and she worked tirelessly to own her little heaven. The reason she wanted to live in her little house; the location. It was right on the beach.

And I mean right on the beach. We had about 5 metres of grass out the backdoor and from then on it was the beach. No fence or anything. Houses either side of Mum's cost over a million dollars and Mum could have easily moved us out of the little sea side shack and gotten something a lot nicer once the property boom happened but she didn't. We all loved the beach too much that even moving a few kilometres out would hurt us.

I learnt to swim right away, so did Nicole and from that day there were only a handful of days when I didn't swim. Those days I was usually sick and it was raining, it had to take both of them to stop me diving in. If someone asked me to picture home, I would conjure up the image of the frothy waves crashing against the shore rather than the ramshackle house that I slept in.

So, that was where I ran. Feeling the cold sand give way under my feet was the feeling of home for me. I did a lot of my late night thinking on the beach, often I dreamt about bedding Holly but now it had to remain as a dream. I continued my crying. Here, even the crying seemed at home. When I cried in my room it felt like I was being weak. But here on the beach, waves flinging themselves onto the shore, it felt natural. I closed my eyes and let the horrible thoughts inside.

"I thought I'd fine you here," said a voice. The body accompanying the voice snuggled in beside me, shielding herself from the cold night wind.

"Dot? How did you get here?"

"I rode my bike. No-one was answering at your house, so I thought you might be out here." Dot shivered despite it only being mildly cool. Dot was one of those girls who was always cold. I think it was because she was so slight that the wind literally chills her bones. I pulled off my jumper and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said through clenched teeth, "So, you have Pussy Envy, do you?" Sometimes I found Dot's frankness endearing but not today.

"I don't have Pussy Envy. I have Spontaneous Gender Reconfiguration," I snarled at her.

"I was kidding. Michael, I think you're being really brave. Despite crying on the beach you're taking it well." Dot was an only child and probably had never comforted anyone before. She wasn't doing well but at least how bad she was doing was cheering me up.

"Thanks."

"Life is going to get a little weird," she said watching the waves.

"Just a little, yeah," I said watching her watching the waves.

"I don't how you put up with being a guy, walking around with your dick flopping around. It's all so messy, being a girl is much more neat."

"Well, girls have boobs bouncing all around the place."

"Umm… I don't really have that problem," she said like she said many things, bluntly. I felt foolish, Dot was pretty much flat in that area. Was she acting blunt because that throwaway comment hurt, I hoped not and asked if she was upset.

"No, not at all. Like I said, I'm neat. No extra surface area on me. Ha," she laughed, "You're probably going to have bigger tits than me!" I groaned, I didn't want to think things like that.

"I just want to enjoy being a guy while I can," I stated, more as a mission statement to myself than a comment to the shivering girl beside me.

"And what does that entail? Pissing standing up and earning more money for the same job?" Dot asked, poking me with her slender finger to provoke a laugh. I did laugh and then the silence kicked in.

I don't what came over me but I said something that I didn't expect to, "I asked Holly to have sex with me."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want miss my chance having sex as a guy."

"So, I presume she said no?"

"Oh yeah!" I was almost proud of my spectacular failure. It was at least, spectacular. Dot stood up and thoroughly wiped her jeans, flinging sand everywhere.

"Come on then," she said heading for the house.

"Where are we going?" I said and stood up as well.

"Well, if precious little Miss Holly wont, I will."

I darted across the beach to catch up with Dot, "What?" I incredulously asked her. Was she being serious? Had my luck changed? Was I now getting sex without even looking for it? That only happens to the best looking of male movie stars and almost all women. I had never really thought of Dot as a sexual object, she had been too good a friend for too long a time. I nudged her image from the friend file in my brain over to the sexual partner file to explore my feelings. Immediately I could see she had a very nice arse to compensate for her lack of tits. I was surprised how fast I could turn her into a sex object.

While my brain ticked over with possibilities, Dot started talking, "Michael, you're my best friend and you know what best friends do? They help each other. So, I'm going to let you fuck me. Don't think that I wont get enjoyment too, I probably will. But my pleasure is not the matter at hand, it's yours. Saying that, we are only going to have straight, up-and-down, vanilla sex. No anal sex, no head jobs, in fact no 'jobs' of any kind, no weird positions, no tying me up. Just no crazy stuff, OK? And please don't send me flowers afterwards. I know how your mind works, you'll think it will be a nice way to say thank you. Just a simple thank you will do, thank you very much! Also don't misconstrue this as love. It's not love, we're just friends, OK? I may be desperate but there's no way that I'm going to start dating a guy who has one week left being a guy." She finally took a breath.

That speech was said at such a rapid speed that I was finally catching up with her when we reached the house. "Are you sure you want to do this?" I sincerely asked her. She stared at me, her piercing eyes telling me the answer. She grew taller, all of a sudden as she got up on tippee-toes. She inclined her head at the right angle in preparation to kiss me. Suddenly, the fog of 12 years of friendship cleared and I saw how sexy she could be. She wasn't some sexless, feminist bookworm, she was a sensual woman looking for a little tenderness. I leaned down to join her in a kiss. Slowly, my head reached her and I tilted it as not to bang noses. I was going to kiss my best friend. Then I heard it. A giggle, a stifled giggle, but a giggle none the less.

"Sorry," she laughed, "Please continue." I hit her.

"I'm sorry, it's just we've been friends for years. It's a little weird!" she laughed quietly as we walked into my room, "It's like kissing my brother, if I had one."

I sighed frustrated, "Well, if we don't do it tonight it will be like kissing your sister."

"If I had one," she added, "Look, it's going to be hard to make this romantic sex so let's just treat this as it is."

"And what is it?" I asked. She closed the bedroom door behind her and sidled up to me. A wandering little hand fumbled to get under my t-shirt and into my jeans.

"A going away party for your penis," she purred as she gave it a polite tug. My best friend had just touched my penis. To almost anybody that is a strange thing to happen, best friends don't touch each other genitals. Dot must have noticed it too, she gasped when she grabbed it again, "Bye bye Michael's penis."

I had a pressing question to ask Dot, "You're not giving up your virginity for me, are you?" We always talked about everything and I never heard about any sex. But that was probably a thing only girls talk about with other girls. Either way I knew she hadn't slept with anyone at school. It seemed a sad way to give up your virginity.

"No Michael, I am not. When I went to Perth for the Christmas Holidays with my folks, I kinda hung out with a guy," her squeaky voice lost its bravado, and she sounded shy, "He was nice. We hung out a lot. His name was Michael too." Dot sounded like a regular teenage girl, something that hardly ever happened. "We had sex a few times. I got pretty good at it, I think. We still e-mail."

"Aww… that's sweet," I joked, "He wont mind that you've got your hands down my pants?"

"Nah, he had a girlfriend. We were just playing around."

Dot was tired of the limited amount of space inside my jeans and begun undoing the button. I watched her, strangely detached from the whole state of affairs. If doing Holly was a dream come true than I don't know where having Dot undo my pants comes from. My jeans collapsed to the floor. Dot grunted, "I know that you haven't done this before, so here's a hint: It takes two of us!" I awoke from my daze and kicked off my jeans, hitting a stack of CDs and sending them plummeting to the ground. Ignoring them, I pulled of my T-shirt and looked for something else to do. Since all I had left was my briefs and Dot was fully clothed (including my jumper!), I decided to even the score. I yanked the jumper off of her and then her shirt. I didn't know she wasn't wearing a bra, so she was a lot more naked than I thought she would be.

Dot's breasts were small, even though she was quite small herself. If it wasn't for the pinkish, erect nipples her chest could be mistaken for a young boy's. "Hey look," she bubbly squealed, "We're chest twins!" I looked down and saw that I was sporting two plump, erect nipples myself. I couldn't control the frown that grabbed a hold of my lips and forced them to purse up angrily. "Cheer up, you sook!" Dot teased as she turned around, "At least you don't have something as girly as this!" She threw her head back and her dark, black hair flew majestically through the air. She wiggled out of her jeans, exposing a perfectly round, definitely feminine bum. It was like all the femininity in her body was redirected into her back. From the back there was no mistaking her for a boy. She had a tiny waist and a round, firm and inviting pair of buttocks. Even if I was a little girly in the back area there was no way I'd come close to that.

We both stood there in only our underwear. It was a stand off, as tense as any stand off in any Western film. I eyed her mound and she eyed my erect penis, fighting to be free. "You first," I said.

"No, you," she replied, teasing me by running her thumbs under the elastic band of her yellow cotton pair of panties. The wind rustled in through my open window.

"How about we got together?" I suggested.

"Good idea," Dot agreed and added, "Just a warning- I know you are probably used to porn but I haven't shaved down there."

It was my time for a confession too, "Just a warning for you- The Nanobots have already gone to town down there. I've lost about a quarter of length and some girth. Also my balls are smaller but I don't know why you would care about that."

"I don't."

"That's cool. OK, on the count of three… 1, 2, 3!"

I stripped off and Dot became naked as well. We sighed a sigh of relief. "OK, our friendship is never going to be the same," Dot smiled, completely naked. I nodded, also naked. There was a pause as I examined my partner's body. So what it wasn't the heavenly body that Holly wore? It was a woman and she was willing to have sex with me. Dot eyed me as well, "That's 3/4 of what you were packing? Michael, you must have been huge! I mean, you are still quite big now!" I felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Here I was being praised for my penis size and I only had a few days with it, and only one more with it being larger than average.

"Bloody hell! I could have been a porn star!" I complained.

"You could still be!" Dot winked at me. I pictured myself, bouncing up and down on a man's penis, my humongous tits flying everywhere, threatening to knock me out. I moaned like all the girls in every porno I had ever seen.

"Don't even joke about that," I growled.

"Oh, I didn't mean when you are a girl… I meant that tonight… you could pretend… forget about it!" Dot said, climbing on the bed.

I went for my bag and grabbed the box of condoms. I ripped open the box. It seemed a shame the store only sold them in packs in twelve, I wouldn't really need twelve. As far as I could see the next time I had sex it would be completely free of penises. I fumbled with a packet and heard Dot instruct, "Come and get me ready first, then put on the franger!" I was nervous, naturally. Not only was this my first time, this was my only chance be a man inside a woman (as opposed to my transformation which will make me a man inside a woman's body). If I screwed this up, I could only dream about it.

I lay on the bed beside her, befuddled. "What am I supposed to do? How do I turn you on?" I asked. The female body needs a manual. I had no idea what to do. I gingerly played with her nipples, and she seemed to like that. I even licked them, which made her moan once. But there was no real breasts mass to caress and every time I went to kiss her on the lips she couldn't stop laughing. I took a journey southward. Amongst the soft pubic hair was the jewel of the crown, a place where every teenage boy would love to spend time. I rubbed it, more scared of it than it was of me. I pushed the thought that I would soon have one of these out of my head. Dot did nothing more to help me than moan when something felt good. I tickled what I thought to be her clitoris and she rewarded me with a deep, pleasurable moan. I continued to work on that while her vagina prepared itself for my entry.

"You can put the franger on now," she moaned, alerting me it was time. I sat on the bed and ever so carefully rolled the condom down my rod. I had followed the instructions properly and was sure that I think was on properly. Just to make sure I asked Dot to come over and inspect my work. "Looks good to me," she said, lightly caressing it in her hands. It soon gained back its stiffness that it lost by the emasculating experience of putting a condom on. Dot looked more pretty than I had ever seen her- porcelain white with jet-black hair and eyes. How somebody living in a beach town could never get a tan amazed me.

The atmosphere was electric, the feeling most teenagers get when they have sex. But in the mix was the fact this was so special. Most of the people with P.E don't know they have it, so they can never savour their last time, like I could. One minute they are one gender, the next they are the other. Only a slither of me was female, while the throbbing coming from my penis reminded me I was still very much male. I took my penis in my hand and nudged the welcoming lips of her sweet pussy. Dot breathed heavily as I slowly eased my way inside of her. "Now you're a man," she said sweetly.

"Sadly, for the first and last time," I said, drawing my penis back so that I could push forward again.

Sex, I found out, is not always like the movies. Sometimes what you are doing hurts the girl, some things she does hurts you. I accidentally pinned her hair to the bed with my palm and when she moved her head she yelped in pain. I also pushed too deep and she screamed. I wasn't sure of the nature of the screaming, so I went deeper. It wasn't until she swore quite threateningly at me, did I know I was doing wrong. We changed the positions around, probably too much, to find something we both liked. Dot took charge, choreographing the whole event like the boss she liked to be. Doggy style was what seemed to work best, which I was happy with because it gave me a great view of her impressive arse, which in turn spurned me on.

The problem with doing anything in real life that you dream about is that it has to be done in real life. The dream world is full of possibilities, where every single thing is exactly as you want it to be. Real life was a lot of variables- things that are tricky to control and other things you have no control over at all. Young men, untrained, often have problem satisfying a woman. Therefore I wasn't surprised when I had finished, before I could please Dot. Was I ashamed? Totally. Was it to be expected? Probably. I offered to finish her using my hands or mouth or something. "I'm happy if you are happy," she smiled, pulling her panties back on. I was happy, as time ticked mercilessly away I had been able to tick something off my list, with the help from my best friend. I told her I was happy and she hugged me. I hugged her back, careful not to touch her with the used condom I was holding in one hand.

"I feel sweaty and gross," Dot said as she continued to dress.

"Are you going?" I asked her glumly. She pointed at my clock radio, which indicated it was far too late to be up for anybody with business in the morning. "Fair enough," I relented.

"You were pretty good," Dot said, "With a bit more practice you could have been great," Dot finally noticed how comments like those upset me, "Sorry Michael. I'm sure you're going to make a great girl too."

"I don't want to be a girl!"

"If there was something I could do to stop it I would."

"I know."

"So, I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"Probably."

CHAPTER 4

Sleep came surprisingly easy to me. I had always have been able to sleep no matter the situation. I slept a long, dreamless sleep. Maybe because my dreams had just been lived out I didn't need to dream them. I'm not sure what kept away the nightmares of me wearing petticoats, sucking cocks or having my period, but I was happy for my uneventful sleep. The next thing I remembered was my Mum's voice calling for me to get out of bed.

Since Mum did a lot of night work at the pub, she wasn't usually awake when I went to school. I made my own lunch and walked myself to school therefore it was weird having Mum drive me the miniscule distance to school. We were meeting with the Principal and Dr. Annette Fischer to discuss 'options'. I wondered how many people knew in total about my predicament. There were the medical men at the School Medical Check, Dr. Chisholm and his gang, Mum, my friends, maybe a nurse or two, probably the government and now the Principal. I wondered who those people had told, and how long it would be before the press got wind.

It was nice to wake up and notice my body hadn't become more female during my sleep. I was scared that, somehow an electric volt would fly in from somewhere and convert me in my sleep. That wasn't the case and I was as male as when I went to sleep. I inspected my body in the shower and noticed that I had some way to go before anyone would call me 'Miss'.

Mrs. Higgins was our school's Principal and had been since time begun. She was a stern taskmaster bordering on doddering old grandmother. She had a lot of students to take care of, but she already knew me. She loved the school musicals and plays and would always compliment me on my performance. "Please sit down," she crowed like a magpie when all entered. Since I was groomed to be a gentleman, I pulled out chairs for both Mum and Annette before sitting down myself. There seemed to be too much oestrogen in this room and it appeared to be contagious.

Annette proceeded to get down to brass tacks. She talked about my problem in full, how they were 'easing' me into my new gender, how I was healthy enough to come to school and that soon I would be a fully functioning female. Her considerably long life experience had not prepared Mrs. Higgins for Nanobots and spontaneous gender changes. She eyed me with an odd mix of fear and contempt and you know what? I don't blame her. I was a freak. Only one of two in Australia, there are more albino dwarves in this country than P.E. sufferers. I would be scared of me if I wasn't me!

But to her credit, Mrs. Higgins was calm and thoughtful. They were discussing whether or not I could attend school over the next couple of days. Frankly, that didn't seem to be much of an issue. In two days or so I had to go and stay in the hospital, until it was complete anyway. Mrs. Higgins said, "I don't want my school to turn into a media circus, you understand? The safety of my students is always my number one concern."

"But it is important that Michael continues life as normal so that it isn't completely turned upside down, when the transformation happens." I'm not sure how me going to Maths class today was going to stop my life being a little weird when I grew a pussy but I left all that thinking stuff to Annette. It was finally agreed that I could go to school today, and if the press were around tomorrow I would remain at home. That simple compromise seemed to please both of them.

I wanted to stay here in Marrang College, sure it wasn't the best school in the state but like Annette said I needed things to remain familiar. I did not want to be shipped out to a Boarding School or (perish the thought) an All Girls School. So I watched Mrs. Higgins like a hawk, ready to fight for my right to stay in a middling government school. Ever since the car trip this morning I knew exactly what I was going say to her. I had practiced my speech in my head, numerous times and would cry if it were required. With the small battle of whether I could stay at school for the next two days over I was ready for the big one: Whether or not to kick Michael Taylor out on his girly butt.

"Mrs. Taylor," I almost swore at Mrs. Higgins until I realised she was not talking to me, but my mother, "You'll be happy to know that the Parents Association has kindly donated a new summer and winter uniform for Michael to wear." Mum nodded warmly and I sat there stunned. Uniforms? I guess I was staying. Mrs. Higgins must have figured out that keeping me at the school would be an easier choice than making me find a new school. The press for kicking a brand new girl, scared and confused, out of school would have been horrible and she knew that. I was more than a little disappointed that I wasn't able to use my prepared speech.

'Mum would have loved it, maybe I might recite it for her tonight,' I thought.

Mrs. Higgins said that there was to be a special Year 11 assembly to explain what was happening to me on Thursday. I was happy that I wouldn't be there. Knowing how fast gossip travels in this school I wouldn't be surprised if everyone knew already. She would remind them that I should be treated like any other student on my return. I'm not sure if that was at all possible

Annette nutted out some other details, such as special consideration for future exams (Yay! Despite being a slight to feminism, I could now blame bad grades on my gender!), counselling services at the school, changing of school records to my upcoming gender and other various and boring things. Throughout the hour long meeting the only thing I said was "Good morning" and that was right at the start. My Mum was also remarkably silent. After all the business was completed, Mrs. Higgins slightly cautiously leaned over to me and asked, "So what will be your name, Mr. Taylor?"

"I'm not sure," I mumbled.

"Well, when you chose one can you inform me so we know what to call you when you return," a smile that was tricky to decipher crept along her face. Was it genuine or was it there only to placate me?

"Yes Mrs. Higgins," I said shyly, now unsure if I could have done my impassioned speech at all.

"Is there any other problems you need sorted?" the wrinkly old principal asked my Mum and I. I looked at Mum and she, like the fla