CHAPTER FIVE: WHAT'S MY FLAVOR?

"We're short two. Who are they?" Dr. Turcott said. She glanced at her tablet. "Malcolm and Lucas..."

"I'm here!" Lucas said. He wobbled into the room on 2-inch heels. Maybe 'he' wasn't the right word anymore, because Lucas had blown past neutral androgyny and appeared to be embracing the opposite side of the spectrum. He wore tight, stone-washed skinny jeans and a gauzy white sequined sweater. "I'm here," he said again, sitting carefully upon one of their floor cushions.

"Lucas, are you..."

"I'm going by Luci," she said happily. "It's ok!"

"We're missing that asshole Malcolm," Diego said. He was less changed than Luci, though his cheekbones were higher and his lips a bit fuller. "Good riddance."

"Judgment-free!" Dr. Turcott said pointedly. "Okay, so let's get started! First off, I've got all of your flavors here. Well... all of them except for Ash's, which is..."

Ash rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I've got 'basic dude' flavor. I get it."

"That's not quite true," the doctor said. "They're just more subtle."

"Thus: irrelevant. Next."

"This is a constructive environment, please. You can vent your feelings, but please let's not be dismissive of others."

"That's... that's not what I meant," Ash said, blushing. "I'm sorry. I must be coming across as different." She definitely looked and sounded more boy than girl now, in a smooth-jawed K-pop kind of way. "Sorry."

"It's fine! That's why we have our group sessions, isn't it? So... now I'm going to hand these out, but you don't have to open them now if you don't want to. We don't have to talk about them at all. We have a dozen other things we can discuss today."

Despite her pronouncement, the three of them opened their envelopes immediately. Elias opened his own with a mixture of dread and anticipation, frowning over the complex readout and medical jargon. Most of the terms he only vaguely recognized, but he found what he was looking for soon enough: the code designation of his flavor. His heart sank a bit when he saw the code: HF-05. He knew well enough what HF meant. The first two letters were a designation for the most prominent effects of the AHS transformation. For instance, Melanie's 'Sporty' flavor was HT-02, which meant it involved hypertrophy (muscle growth) and was the second most common flavor of hypertrophic AHS. Of course, Sporty girls were arguably just as HF (hyperfeminized) as they were athletic, but this was the current naming convention. Most of the codes went up to 6 or 7, but those were vanishingly rare. HF-05, whatever that was, was still pretty uncommon, so Elias hadn't memorized it like he had the top ten or so. The readout said 'Hyperfeminine Hypoplasic', whatever that meant. He reached for the CDC booklet... the other two were doing so, as well. More than a few unusual codes going around, it would seem.

HF-05 Hyperfeminine flavor hypoplasic type. This flavor of AHS is often colloquially called 'Doll', as it involves a significant overemphasis of 'delicate' typically feminine features and a significant reduction in stature and body mass while retaining overall proportionality. Carriers of the HF-05 flavor often have hypersexual effects and may also express increased agreeableness, cheerfulness, and/or anxiety. Average final body mass and height of HF-05 patients is typically 4'5" and 70 pounds.

The book fell from Elias's hands, which were suddenly shaking. He struggled to breathe. He tried to stand and slipped back into his chair. Under four and a half feet tall and seventy pounds was tiny! Absurdly tiny! He'd already lost a lot of size and weight, and the average weight was only half of what he weighed now!

"Somebody doesn't like her prognosis," Diego laughed.

"That's not kind," Dr. Turcott snapped. "Elias... if you need a minute, you can take a time-out. I can explain your diagnosis afterward..."

"No... no." Elias took a deep breath. "It's fine. I just wasn't expecting it."

"The diagnoses are only ninety-five percent accurate," the doctor said. She didn't sound very hopeful, though. "I think it's closer to ninety-seven percent, actually..."

"Fuck."

"My diagnosis sure as shit explains a lot," Diego said. "HT-05 pseudohermaphrodite. That's why my little girl down there ain't so little. At least not when she comes out to play. What did you get?"

"I'm not sure I..." Elias said.

Luci furrowed her brow and squinted at the page. "PH-05, I think? The book says that means 'Helper'. What does that mean?"

"Ohh..." Ash said, covering her mouth. "I read about that one. When I found out I had AHS, I hyped myself almost to panic reading about all of the really weird rare ones."

Luci bit her lip. "Weird? Rare?" It was almost unbelievable how quickly her mannerisms had taken a feminine slant. As far as he was aware, Elias was the same old El, albeit in a horny and changing body.

"It's not the worst one. But only a few people have it. It's super rare. And like half of the people with it get turned into sex slaves because they're really suggestible. It's pretty much you say 'jump' and they say 'how high'."

"That's fucked up," Diego said. "So... if I said give me a beej, you'd just do it?"

"What's a beej?" Luci asked, seemingly earnestly.

"Diego!" Dr. Turcott said. "You're making Luci uncomfortable, and you are not to take advantage of her condition."

The doctor stood from her cushion and crossed her arms defiantly. Her pretty, slightly feline face was drawn into a scowl and she had the stance of somebody who was about two bad words from Diego away from launching into some serious Muay Thai action. He raised his hands in apology.

"Sure, yeah. I'm sorry, Luci. That was shitty of me." He sighed. "Sorry, Dr. Turcott. Look, y'all, I'm just as freaked out as you are. I'm glad I've got a weird but pretty bitchin' flavor, right? Pseudohermaphrodite means I can still lay pipe if I want to, and I can take it in three holes. So that's like a win-win-win-win, right? But I'm nervous, and sometimes when I joke I joke mean, and sometimes when I'm nervous I ramble... yeah..."

"I'm glad we can understand one another. No judgments, but absolutely no harassing or taking advantage of one another, either. This is a constructive environment! Now... Luci... thoughts? Feelings?"

"Um... I think I feel confused."

Dr. Turcott frowned and tapped at her tablet. "Have you been doing your brain exercises, Luci?"

"Um..."

"Tell the truth."

Elias wondered whether that was a breach of medical ethics. After all, they'd all just discovered that Luci was super suggestible and now Frances Turcott was ordering her around. Even if it was for her own good, that seemed like questionable protocol.

"I was doing them. But now I'm not allowed to. Ben says I can't..."

"Ben is... your brother?" Dr. Turcott asked after a glance to her notes.

"Yeah. He's my younger brother. He has AHS also, though."

"Okay, I see. Well, you have to tell Ben that he's not allowed to order you around. You have to do your exercises. Do you understand?"

Luci suddenly looked very meek. She shrank back from the circle as far as she could. "Um. Yes. I understand."

"Good. Now, who has an experience from their day they want to share?"

Elias breathed a sigh of relief. He'd dodged the bullet on the flavor reveal. They'd find out soon enough, he supposed, as his body got smaller but curvier over the course of their thrice-weekly meetings. But he was still processing it himself and wasn't ready to announce it to a bunch of almost-strangers. Especially not Diego if he was going to be an asshole about it. After the meeting, as he headed out to his car, Ash jogged out to intercept

"Hey, El, wait up," he said.

"What is it?"

"You seemed pretty freaked out back there for a minute. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I don't," Elias said, thinking back to their flavor reveal at the beginning of the meeting. The envelope was sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. He blew a lock of golden blonde hair away from his face. "Huh!"

"What?"

"I just realized that all three of the boys... former-ish? boys... got rare flavors of AHS. The chances of that are like... what's eight percent to the third power?"

"What? How would I know?"

"Half of a tenth. Almost two thousand to one," Elias said after some quick mental arithmetic. "Doesn't that seem weird to you?"

Ash put her hands on her hips and huffed. "You just don't want to talk about your flavor."

Elias shrugged. What business was it of hers? He held out his phone. "Tell you what, give me your number and I'll tell you as soon as I feel comfortable telling you."

Ash smiled. It was the cocky, winning smile of a boy who'd just got a pretty girl's number. That the thought had even crossed Elias's mind made him blush. Then Ash jogged back into the community center, her old army jacket pulled taut across her broadening shoulders. Elias suspected that before too long Ash was going to make some lucky girl or guy very happy.

- - - - - 

"Don't you have school today?" El's mother said.

He rolled his eyes. She just wanted him out of the house. Again. "Mom, I already told you I withdrew for the semester. This is too much for me to deal with right now, and if I have to add my classes on top of it, I can't even..."

"Oh, right! I forgot all about that," she hummed happily, swiping away at her phone.

"Are you doing your mental exercises, mom?"

She smiled prettily - her face was always made up lately, like she was anticipating that Ward Cleaver would walk through the door at any moment expecting his slippers, a plate of steaming casserole, and a first-rate hummer. On cue, she ran a perfectly pink tongue along the fire engine red of her lips. Then she plucked a tube of lipstick from her considerable cleavage and touched her lips up before offering the tube to El. He pushed it away.

"What? No! Are you even listening?"

"Of course I'm doing my exercises," she said primly. "See?"

She turned her phone toward him and, sure enough, she had a mental exercise for AHS app open and half-way through a series of logic games. But that hardly made sense - her behavior was so different now. She didn't always seem vapid, but when she did it was pretty obvious. She ran a manicured finger along El's jawline before giving his chin a playful pinch.

"What the hell, mom?"

"You're getting so pretty. You really should try some product. I've got a whole vanity I'm not going to use anymore if you're interested..."

El stood up to leave. He was wearing some of Nolan's old clothes from a decade ago, and even those didn't particularly fit well. He was still shrinking, of course, but he was also starting to grow in parts. At this point, none of his mother's old clothes were of any help, either. They were all too big. Before long, he'd have to ask for money for new clothes, or else dip into his own extremely limited savings.

"Jesus Christ! Why are you being like this, mom?" He sounded even younger than he looked.

"Me? Oh, it's just that... well, when I've been more than a few hours without a little 'me time' or, preferably, a little 'D time'..." she giggled. "I get a little scatterbrained. It's hard to concentrate on anything beyond my hungry little... my unmentionables." She spread her legs slightly and flapped at the fabric of her periwinkle-blue dress, wafting the unmistakable odor of female uber-arousal into the room.

"Fine. I'm going to Melanie's. Enjoy Mr. Buzzy."

"Oh!" She giggled. "That's not what I call him! Have fun, dear!"

It was a sunny day on Lagunas Boulevard where he and his parents lived. Neon yellow CDC contact signs were posted around the neighborhood, but otherwise he'd have never guessed that the whole town had been under quarantine a few days ago. El wished he had shorts to ward against the heat but wasn't quite ready to reveal his slim, hairless legs to the world.

El climbed into his Accord and took a moment to adjust his seat. Again. In his pre-AHS body, his knees would have been mashed up against the console, but now he had a lot less limb to stretch. Before too long, he'd likely dip below the minimum expected size for an adult driver and need a booster seat. He grimaced. And whatever little people used to reach the pedals. They were getting to be a stretch. He found one of Melanie's old hair bands in the center console, using it to pull his thicker, lighter hair back into a high, four-inch pony tail. His hair was all blonde now, a luxurious honey blonde color with lighter golden streaks, all of it glossy and healthy. It was almost disgusting how professionally-treated it looked. There was no way he was going to dip into his mother's cosmetics. He hadn't even decided if he wanted to embrace any tidbit of femininity or if he'd just do the whole unapologetic tomboy thing once AHS ran its course. He certainly wasn't going to go into girl-land whole hog. He was startled from his reverie by a rapping on his car window.

"What's got you so flustered?" Mrs. Pinella said.

She didn't look a day over forty and was on the verge of scandal, clad in nothing but a sports bra and lavender running shorts so form-fitting it was pretty obvious she didn't have anything else on underneath them. And she sure as shit noticed him looking. Without saying anything, El started the car and drove off toward Melanie's. He did not want to deal with Mrs. Pinella's bratty self right now.

+++++

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