Perspective

I can’t believe that guy just grabbed my ass! I mean, two months ago I probably would have tried a stunt like the pale, lanky little shit who just grabbed my ass in the break room at work. But since it happened, I’ve started to see how mostly fucked up it is to do that kind of shit to women.
I was I guess what you would call a “manly man”. I played sports all through high school and college, I’ve been going backpacking since I was seven, I like a good, bloody steak, I have a long list of ex girlfriends, I like porn and movies with tons of blood and explosions, sometimes movies with both; typical “man” stuff. Women, to me, always seemed to have it so easy. They could get days off claiming that their cramps were too bad, or if they didn’t like how much they were getting paid they could fuck the higher-ups and get a promotion. Most of the time, I didn’t even consider their existence on an intellectual level. They always kind of played a secondary role in my life. The only thing I can think of that I had involved myself in with regard to women was nailing the hell out of them during college and voting “pro-choice” during elections.
I worked at a major real estate firm in Modesto with two or three other guys and four women. We were all kind of like glorified secretaries for the four agents that own the place. The guy I got along with best was called Greg, who worked across and diagonally from my desk. We usually got together outside of work and have a couple beers or went out to the strip clubs when we got paid. We also joked around a lot at work, light roughhousing here and there, the occasional changing of each other’s computer backgrounds from the standard Dell startup screen to hardcore pornography. Then the change started and I don’t really speak to him anymore.
I had noticed the change one morning in the bathroom. It was hot and sticky the night before so I had decided to sleep in the buff. In the morning I staggered over to the toilet and stood directly over it, not even bothering to look down or aim properly to take a piss. I felt hot urine rush down my legs and onto the white and blue tiled floor. I cursed and looked down and found my penis missing. Now I love my penis. Its always been good to me and finding it suddenly missing that morning, needless to say, freaked me out. I panicked and stumbled backwards into the wall behind me stammering “What the fuck” over and over. The thought occurred to me to grab the hand mirror on the sink after a good five minutes of me screaming and clawing at the wall behind me. Taking the mirror and walking back into the bedroom, I angled the mirror under my crotch and I couldn’t believe that I actually saw a set of lips staring back at me. My penis had been somehow replaced by a vagina. The thought ran in a loop as I collapsed backwards on my bed. How could this happen? Was I the victim of some kind of mad, sick serial plastic surgeon? I ruled out the latter and tried to compose myself enough to go to work. Two hours later after a very long shower, I was sitting at my desk an hour late.
I thought everyone had X-ray vision that day, like they knew I was some kind of dickless freak. I kept to myself that entire day, pretending that I had a massive deal to work out the logistics on or a bunch of new property owners to contact. I spent a good deal of time in the bathroom checking if the lips were still there. I was so afraid to touch them at first. I didn’t know or want to know how they felt, I didn’t want to become accustomed to it because I held out some insane hope that my dick would grow back somehow. Everyone kind of left me alone, which was much to my relief, but Greg sent me a couple of emails. The first two were BDSM photos of a man bound and blindfolded with a candy-apple-red gag ball in his mouth, he’d inserted some text that read “Thinking of you”. After I didn’t reply to the first two, he sent me another that read “Hey, man. What’s wrong? You not feeling good?” I responded to that one telling him that I was just busy as hell and felt a little sick. After that, he gave me an “OK” hand signal from across the room. I ducked out the back ten minutes early so I wouldn’t have to talk to him, but he also must have had the idea and cornered me at my car.
“So, dude, what’s going on? Usually if I send you that type of shit you out-gross me with something more extreme.”
“I don’t know, man. I just woke up and didn’t feel good and I got a ton of bank info to deal with that Candice sent me. I’m gonna go home and lie down.”
My voice cracked towards the end, going up at least three pitches.
“Yee, dude. It sounds like you’re getting laryngitis. Go take care of that.”
I just nodded and got in my car and sped out of the parking lot. I cried the entire trip back until I put the car in park in the garage of the apartment complex. Back in my apartment, I sat down on the couch in the front room and stared at the white rings ruining my coffee table. I didn’t know what to do. I immediately thought of the full bottle of rum in the top shelf next to the fridge. I figured I could drink away the memories of the day and drink my penis back into existence. I only succeeded in pissing myself for the second time that day, stinking my bathroom up with cheap rum and urine. I’d brought the bottle with me into the bathroom and threw it at the shower, watching it shatter all over the tiles and crying. I peeled off my pants and underwear and fell into my bed shaking and with the room spinning.
I woke up and groaned. But I didn’t recognize the voice and I looked to either side of me, thinking that I’d brought someone home and I didn’t remember. I cursed when I realized I was alone and the woman’s groaning voice was coming from my throat. I rolled on my side and shut my eyes. The room was still spinning and I was trying to convince myself that it was all a hallucination and that I needed to just sleep it off. I was awakened by the phone ringing, which at the time sounded more like the screech of the Harpies; it had to be work calling for me. I picked it up out of habit and groaned a hello into the mouthpiece. “Oh. Ummm.. I hope I have the right one. Is this Gary Wells’ number?” My eyes shot open and I realized that I didn’t sound like me. I tried to make my voice deeper and hoarser, telling the voice on the other end, which was no doubt Hillary (the agent Mary’s assistant), that I had come down with laryngitis and couldn’t make it. Hillary told me she was sorry for me and hoped that I would get better soon. I thanked her for her concern and hung up. I rolled on my back and clutched at my lonely crotch and cried, but soon clasped a hand over my mouth out of fear of my own voice. I lied in bed for a while like that: belly up staring at the slowly oscillating fan with a hand over my stomach and my other over my mouth.
After a while, I had noticed the acrid and violating reek of urine and alcohol tainting the air. I became violently nauseous and rushed for the toilet, hugging it as brown and yellow streams were jettisoned from my stomach. I sat back against the adjacent wall and just spaced out. I was thinking about how to deal with these changes. All logic was dictating to me that I was changing sexes without me knowing why. I tried to think of things I might have eaten that past week, bad deeds I could have done – for all I knew at the time some god could have been punishing me for not treating people better. I thought of suicide. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this to happen. Not to me. I remember slapping myself to dismiss all of those thoughts and I frowned at myself for thinking such ridiculous things. I resolved to do what I did best when I was younger and out on trail with only a light pack and some matches; make the best of it. I picked my self up carefully onto my teetering legs and looked at the mess of glass and rum in the shower. After cleaning up the glass and washing the rum from the floor of the shower, I got in, turned the hot water on high, and stuck my head under the water to try to scald out the bitter and depressing thoughts out of my head. I set to cleaning the urine off of the tiles after I got out of the shower and began to put together a plan for how to deal with becoming a woman.
I set out all my clothes on my bed and picked and chose which ones I thought would fit and which ones would actually be appropriate. Those which stood up to my standards at the time were put in my bottom dresser drawer, the rest I threw in the corner of my closet. I set about cleaning my apartment and fixing a good dinner, hoping the order and good food would give me some semblance of sanity. I felt completely drained by the day’s events and stripped down to a pair of boxers and a white shirt, not feeling completely secure with being nude despite the oppressive heat that day and night.
In the morning I sat up and looked at the time: 8:20. “I’m going to be late. I’m not going.” I was surprised at my voice, still, but I was beginning to like not having such a deep and gravely voice. It soothed me somehow. I walked to the toilet and actually sat down instead of pissing myself for the third time. Sitting down, I noticed that I felt drawn forward for some reason. I cocked my eyebrow and lifted my shirt. There they were, just like I’d suspected they would be. Back then, there was still enough man in me to be surprised and disturbed yet excited by them. They weren’t by any means huge, but I definitely felt a weight that was pulling on my back. I didn’t know how big they were. I finished pissing and stood up and decided to swallow my pride and look at myself nude in the mirror. I was so scared then. Now I rather enjoy it. I pulled my boxers down and consciously averted my eyes from my crotch as I came up to take my white shirt off. It was a cold morning but my palms were sweating and I couldn’t stop chewing my bottom lip.
I pulled my shirt off in one motion. I couldn’t believe myself as my body came into view. I had hips. My legs looked as though someone had put them through a taffy puller they were so thin. But I noticed that I’d lost a few inches as my torso was more compacted, I guessed so to compensate for my new hips. I lingered over my breasts, the nipples puckering erect in the morning cool, and I lifted an arm to cup one. I noticed how sensitive it was and took my hand away quickly. I stared down at my arms and hands; they too had become much thinner, not much less muscular, but much thinner. I felt lighter and imagined that the fat in my legs and arms must have been relocated so to construct my breasts. I stood there for some indeterminable time mesmerized by my new body. My face had changed considerably and I was almost disgusted at the amount of facial hair I had. I wasn’t expecting for my facial hair to still be there, but what caught me off guard the most was the shape of it. My face had rounded considerably in the jaw area and around my eyes. I reached up to touch my cheek and it felt almost the same, maybe a little softer, but still oily and with generally the same surface tension. I ran a hand through my short brown hair and decided that it was time to quit staring at myself and find a razor.
The clothes I’d picked out the previous day didn’t fit whatsoever. I was so annoyed because the three shirts I’d saved were all expensive ones, and the pants were some of those ones with that stain defender fabric. I managed to squeeze into a pair of jeans I’ve had since I was twenty one, ones that were well worn and had a little give in them from my fluctuating weight during my collegiate football days. I threw on a black shirt and went on the internet to check my savings account balance to see if I could afford a whole new wardrobe. I only had a couple thousand, leftovers from repairing my Accord, but it was enough. Five hours later, I had picked out a respectable set of outfits with the constant help of two very pretty women’s department attendants and figured out how to properly fasten and unfasten a brassiere. They also helped me with my self confidence, telling me over and over that I had a figure that they would die for. I made my way from Lord and Taylor back to my apartment. I couldn’t stay at home all week. I also felt like I should have told someone what was going on. I called Greg. “Hey, Fucker! What’s up? You got that laryngitis didn’t you. I told you to take care of it.”
“Hello, Greg.” I didn’t try to disguise my voice
“Hello? Who is this?”
“It’s me, Gary.”
“Hey, yeah right. Quit screwin’ around. Who is this?”
I could tell he was going to take some persuasion
“In high school, you fucked the fat D&D nerd behind the bleachers after prom. You said you pretended you were a pillaging Orc and she was pretending she was a level six Mage who was overpowered by your Orc powers.”
There was the sound of horns and screeching tires then silence and rushing air on the other end for almost a minute. He was in his car.
“Who the hell is this? I haven’t told anyone that. Who is this?”
“Come to Gary Wells’ house.” I hung up.
He must have gone through a couple red lights and been speeding, because he was outside my place in less than ten minutes. I watched him pull up, and I left the window. Almost an instant later, I heard him run up the stairs and knock on the door. I opened the door and he looked scared and confused. I told him to come in and sit down at the table while I got some beers from the fridge. I popped the top off both bottles with my teeth and set them down at both ends of the table. I was still dressed in my old jeans but I’d put on a new black spaghetti-string top over my black bra. I sat down opposite him, setting my elbows on the table and picking up the beer to swig.
“What’s going on.”
That was a demand, not a question. I set my beer back down.
“It’s nice to see you again, too, Shitferbrains.”
“Who the hell are you, lady? And where the hell’s Gary?”
“You’re lookin’ at Gary, Jackass.”
I didn’t think he could look any more confused, but he had always managed to surprise me.
“I don’t get it much either. But this is the reason I haven’t been at work all week. I’ve been turning into a woman. I’ve just been kind of trying to deal with it.”
“W-what?”
I picked up my beer again and took a big gulp.
“I had to tell someone. You’re just the person I thought of.”
“W-what? I don’t understand.”
“Jesus, man. What the fuck. Here, I’ll spell it out for you: I am Gary Wells. I went to Arizona U and played running back. I’ve been working with you for god knows how long at that goddamn Baker, Boyle, Dublin, and Ford. We drove to Havasu and we both struck out. It’s me, Gary.”
“What. The. Fuck.”
He got up and left. I ran after him and tried to explain, but he clapped his hands over his ears to drown me out. I stood barefoot in the driveway as he backed out and then sped down the street, away from his freak friend. I looked down at my hand and I’d brought the beer out with me. I finished it right there.
I showed up to work the next day, Greg wasn’t there. I’d thought to myself snidely “He must have laryngitis.” I went into a meeting with the agents and tried to explain my situation. They threw me out, calling me a nut and asserting that Gary would be in next week after he’d recovered. Hillary had overheard the meeting, I saw her slink by through the blinds of the conference room, and she approached me outside as I puffed on a cigarette in consternation. She asked if it really was me. I exhaled a long trail of smoke and coughed a bit and told her that it was all true. She told me that she was sorry that they didn’t believe me and that if I needed or wanted to go out some time to talk that she would be more than happy to. I smiled a bit as I tapped the ash onto the ground and said thank you. I was happy that one person didn’t think I was crazy or disgusted with me. I asked her if she’d like to meet at a bar later that night and she accepted. She really helped me out with the personal issues I was having and we’re closer now than we ever were.
I had to find a new job before the end of the month and I applied everywhere. For the first time, I found out what kind of fucked up stuff women have to deal with on a daily personal and professional basis. Nearly every interviewer would talk more to my chest than my face, and when I left I could feel their gaze on my behind. I also found out how hard it was for a woman to actually find a job that paid well enough for her to live comfortably. I had to essentially start over with trying to build a resume and with changing my name on my driver’s license and registration and insurance. Everyone at the DMV and at my insurance agency must have thought I had a sex change, and gave me horrible stares.
I didn’t let it affect me, though, and I finally found a job at an insurance claims agency with relatively lax hiring policies. The work isn’t hard, just adjusting to the newness of my body and the social trappings that go along with it make everything else harder than it should be. Even going out to a bar, now, is more of a headache than its worth. I get hit on and stared at like I’ve got a sign on my head and ass that says “Stare at me” in flashing green neon. I’ve adjusted, though sometimes I catch myself thinking I want to fight a couple of people from time to time for being creepy. I also have become more active in women’s rights, attending Thursday meetings of “Women Together” at a local school. I’ve also come to understand feminism and that it’s not an outlet for angry dykes to harangue the other sex, that it is in fact at its core arguing and advocating for equality of the sexes and not just the fairer.
I haven’t lost myself in my new femininity, though. I still like a bloody steak, I catch as many Wildcats games as I can, and pornography is more exciting than ever – except now I watch it with Hillary, and touch her lips instead of my own.