Rosalind

I had been talking to Javi about the virtues of the new city builder game I purchased on sale over the weekend when suddenly I wasn’t. Javi and Vera were asking me if I was alright and I was lying on my side along the bench seat of the gazebo. I felt normal but I definitely hadn’t been sideways in my most recent memory.

“What just happened?” I asked, perplexed.

“Dude, I think Vera possessed you.”

“I’m so sorry Teddy, I didn’t know that it would do that. The shadow thing I mentioned; it kinda clipped you while I was playing with it. Well, not clipped so much as slammed into you. And I was you, sort of... for about a minute.”

“What do you mean, you were me?”

“I could see out of your eyes in addition to my own and move your arms and legs. I was a little dizzy at first and I sort of slumped down onto the bench and panicked a little. I explained to Javi that I was stuck inside you. And he said to get out, so I did. I just made the shadow leave and she did and now you’re okay, right?”

I took a quick inventory of my body and everything seemed to be the more or less boy-shaped mass I was used to, if not particularly fond of. To my mind, no time had passed at all. I noticed then that Vera was looking at me worried and had asked after me. “Yeah, I guess so. Just, could you not do that again?”

“Of course, oh my god, I’m so sorry. I had no idea it could do that. I guess it’s not nearly as lame as I thought it was.”

By that time, we had to go back to class. I told Vera not to worry and once she seemed satisfied that I was okay, she looked at me with a head-tilted curious gaze. She seemed about to say more but the final bell rang and we had to get moving.

The rest of the day went without issue and after dinner, I got a text from Vera asking if I’d be okay to talk. I was happy to, really happy to have someone else to talk about all this. When my phone rang, I clicked answer and she looked to be in her room with blinds and curtains drawn as usual. She started in before I even got out a “Hello”.

“Te… umm, buddy?” Vera began and faltered, and I don’t think the word ’buddy’ had ever made its way out of her mouth before in her entire life. “Look, that possession thing that happened earlier, that wasn’t all it did. I wasn’t there for very long so I didn’t see a lot, but there is some, umm… I guess telepathy that happens when I possess someone.”

I felt my stomach drop when she said that. I didn’t need to even say anything apparently because she continued “And I don’t want to hide things from you, it was invasive enough to begin with, you should at least know what I know.”

“What do you know, Vera?” I asked, deadpan.

“You’re a girl.” She stopped there for a moment and I was too floored to say anything to that so she went on “Mentally and even physically to some extent. I mean, I was in you... that sounds horrible… I was in control of you for a good minute there, and well, I could tell there wasn’t anything I wasn’t accustomed to in those pants. And like, I’m not saying this to be mean or call you out, it’s just that I would feel weirder if I tried to hide that I knew. I’ll understand if you never trust me again. You can talk to me about it if you want, or I can never mention it ever again too, if you’d prefer that?” And she trailed off, leaving me to fill in the space.

I’d had every intention of telling her about my transformations but I had no idea how to approach this. She thought I was mentally a girl too. And how could I explain that I hadn’t had a dick for a couple weeks now?

“Yeah, I’m a girl.” Throughout this whole thing, I had sort of been refusing to engage with the ramifications of the changes and my feelings with them. So, when I said that for the first time, I felt a sense of relief so strong that I felt tears streak down my cheeks. I wasn’t sad though, but I wasn’t happy either. I was just so relieved to be able to say it to Vera, to anyone, to myself.

She seemed to be waiting for me to say more. I went to my door to lock it so that I could show her the real me, but it suddenly dawned on me. Talking about this stuff on the phone was so profoundly, stupidly dangerous. Shit, what had we said so far? Fuck. I couldn’t even talk about this with her now. I had to think of a way to play it off. What if we’d said something already that would trigger active surveillance?

“Ha! Vera, yes, you figured it out. In our D&D game, my character is a girl. Lawl” Why did I say ‘lol’ out loud? “Your psychic wizard figured it out, guess we shouldn’t talk any more about it until game time, right?”

She looked at me like I had started talking in tongues. Her mouth hanging open in utter confusion and her expression was completely at a loss. “You know, we can’t let the DM know that we’ve been sharing sensitive out of character info like this?” I continued, my eyes imploring her.

I finally saw it click in her head. “Oh, yeah. The DM wouldn’t like that. You’re right. Well, maybe we can talk about it in session then?”

“Yeah definitely, I think that would be best.” We awkwardly ended the call there and I laid back in my bed let the male facade I was wearing drop. It was so nice to be myself again. And I decided then to go ahead and finish that cry I had started before. When I was done, I glued a little piece of paper to my phone camera. How had I been so stupid as to not have done that before now? If there had been surveillance, they definitely could’ve seen me change. I hadn’t been thinking about where I’d sat my phone or in what direction it was pointed.

The next day at lunch I spoke with Javi and Vera about taking similar precautions and tried to devise code words for anything we might need to talk about on the phone or text. I could tell that Vera wanted to talk, but she didn’t know how much Javi knew about my big gender reveal, so she kept quiet on the subject. I did notice that when we spoke, she took pains to avoid my given name and pronouns. I liked that about her. She was extremely considerate underneath all the black makeup and loud music, not that I particularly disliked those things either.

The three of us made plans to go on another camping trip in a couple weeks and I made plans to hang out with Vera after school that day.

It seems hypocritical to suddenly find myself freaking out about our security while planning to fully shapeshift without leaving town. After I dropped Javi off at home, I grabbed a change of clothes from my room and headed out to pick up Vera.

She hopped up into my truck right after I put it in park. She had obviously been waiting for me. “So, what should I call you?” She said, without even looking at me and situating her purse in the middle seat.

“I think I decided on Rosa, short for Rosalind”

“Is Rosalind okay too? My grandma is Rosa and that would be weird.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” I said, I kinda liked the full name more anyway, I just felt like it’d be too much to ask people to say the extra syllable.

“You’ve been using your power to be… shit” And she reached into her bag and turned her phone off. I had been trying to get in the habit of doing that whenever I knew I would be in the presence of one of my friends and had turned mine off when Javi and I left school. “Sorry about that, using your power to turn into a particular shape?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t really need to. This shape” and I gestured at my current male body “is the one I have to turn into. The power has changed my default state. The girl shape is the one I wake up in every day” She looked confused for a moment and then she just nodded.

“So, it sensed who you really are and made changes accordingly?” She asked.

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I guess it had. That was as good an explanation as any. But that did create a lot more questions about the shards and their ‘intent’. “I guess so. I mean, I sort of took it as a fluke but I guess it’s awfully coincidental to just be a fluke.”

“Are you like really hot then?” She looked over at me with a smirk. I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely curious or just fucking with me.

“I guess you’re about to find out.” I said with more confidence than I usually had. But being someone primarily interested in women, I was relatively sure that my female form was in fact; really hot. I pulled into the parking lot next to the river walk. There’s river that’s mostly just an empty bed of sand eighty percent of the year and it wasn’t a big draw for local high schoolers, so I figured this place would be as safe as any.

When we got out, I grabbed by backpack and made for the public restrooms. When we got there, I checked all around the building for any cameras and didn’t see any. Then I asked Vera to go in and make sure that the stalls and everything were empty. Once she did that, she stood guard outside while I went in to change.

I shut myself into a stall and let my body return to its natural state. Then I took off the ill-fitting clothes off and changed into something more appropriate. In this case, some running shorts, sneakers and a long-sleeved running top. I wanted to make us look like normal girls just out exercising along the river path. Though I failed to take into account Vera’s wardrobe and realized that we would look more like the meme of the goth girl and her jock gf. That thought caused some interesting sensations in my stomach and I made a note to shelve that idea for later.

I took a moment to check my hair in the mirror before I left the bathroom. I looked like a cheerleader. Why did I pick out so much pink? I must have been over-compensating.

When I left the bathroom, Vera glanced back at me and her eyes got very big and I swear that I could see her pupils dilating. “Fuck. Wow, that’s a lot.”

“Do I look okay?” I asked. I had a pretty good idea of her answer from her reaction but I wanted to hear it.

“Yeah, girl. That’s a good...” and she trailed off, gave me a thumbs up and started off for the path. There were a couple joggers, but the river walk was mostly elderly types walking their dogs.

I caught Vera sneaking occasional glances over at me as we walked. She had told Javi and I a couple years ago that the she thought that she only fancied other girls and of course we had taken it stride; just another thing we all had in common. I wish I could say that I always maintained a friendly distance to Vera, but she was very attractive and I harbored a quiet crush on her.

“You’ve been doing this a lot then?” She finally asked, gesturing at me.

“As much as I can, which isn’t nearly enough. The old ‘Teddy’ form is getting more annoying to keep presenting to the world all the time.” I felt like there was ash in my mouth from uttering the deadname.

“I can imagine. If I looked like that, I wouldn’t want to settle for less either.” Vera said and I could see a little blush come through her pale foundation. “Do your moms know? I mean, not about the powers obviously, but that you’re trans?”

I’d never really thought about being trans until she said that. I’d just thought 'well I’m a girl now', without placing it into the context of my life in general. Shit, I’m a trans girl. “I didn’t really know myself until I started changing and really liking it and I hadn’t even conceived of myself as trans either until just now. And no, only you and Javi know.”

“Well, there’s lots of resources online. I mean, I guess you don’t need to get on HRT or anything but it might be nice to meet others like yourself.”

I frowned a little. Something about that statement didn’t set well with me. That’s what I was doing now; hanging out with others like myself: other girls. I didn’t like to think that there was a barrier between Vera and I where she was one type of girl and I was another type and never would the two overlap.

“Okay, what’s that look about?” She asked me.

“Why do I need to talk to a bunch of strangers on the internet? You know about girl stuff.”

Vera gave me that incredulous expression that I always find so funny. “I mean, to a point, I guess. I still think it’d be helpful. I can help some, but I don’t know what a lot of that experience is like. I have a cousin; I don’t see her very much but she’s trans and I know that it helped her out to talk to people in trans discords or whatever about stuff.”

I had looked around on the internet before about this subject, idly telling myself that I was going down an informational rabbit hole just as I would for any random topic one finds a sudden fleeting interest in. Was I really like the trans girls I’d seen online though? I didn’t want to think so, but when I tried to examine why I didn’t want to associate with them; I didn’t like what I saw. I thought I was different because I didn’t need to really transition through the medical system. And I didn’t have to hold on to the scars of a testosterone fueled puberty. My natural state was unequivocally feminine.

Vera was quiet, leaving me some time with my thoughts, and I appreciated it. Part of me really wanted to distance myself from those who have to struggle to transition. I wanted to tell myself that I was special, that the shard chose me and that I wasn’t like them. But maybe that was because it was easier to tell myself that than to admit that I didn’t deserve it at all. This power should have gone to someone who knew they were trans before the fact at the very least, not someone who had to be dunked up to their eyeballs in the truth before seeing it.

Eventually, I said “What happened with your cousin? You’ve never mentioned them… her before.”

“I haven’t seen her since my mom and dad split up and she’d only just come out. But she lives with the rest of that side of the family in Denver so I don’t see them anymore. My dad still has a facebook and was telling me about some argument he got into with my aunt about it. I guess it’s not going well.”

Thinking about family, I couldn’t help but wonder how mine would take it. “Should I even tell my moms? I mean, I can’t feasibly transition to this state.” I gestured at my current body. “I look only just barely like I could even be related to myself.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to deal with this long term, Rosalind. Weren’t you going to go to UofA? Maybe you should go to college somewhere else so you can spend more time like this. It must suck to have to take that boy shape all day long.”

“Yeah, it does. I really don’t know what to do. You know, if I so much as think of being in the form; it just happens? It takes all my willpower not to shapeshift in school or at dinner with my parents.”

“That blows. I’m glad my power is nice and subtle. And no one can see the little shadow-me running around them.” Vera seemed to be changing the subject and I couldn’t blame her. My problems had no easy solutions.

“Think you’ll try possessing anyone else?” I asked, curious about the ins and outs of what she could do as well.

“I still don’t really get how it works. When I… when I did that to you, did you notice it?”

“Only in so much as I wasn’t in the same position physically as I had been before. I think if you did that to someone and returned them to nearly the same position they were in before; they might not be the wiser outside of the passage of time.”

“I have an idea. For how you could help me test it? It could be a win-win.” She offered in a sing-song.

“Oh, what did you have in mind?” The wind was picking up now and running fast along the dry river bed and I had to shout to make myself heard.

“You know that chem test you were whining about earlier?” She asked and fished a hair tie out of her pocket to tame her wild black tresses from whipping around her face. I should probably get some of those too.

“I don’t recall whining but yeah, I do have a big test coming up on Friday.”

“I took chem last year, aced it. And, I have a free period for that time slot. I could take it for you?” She looked unsure even as she said it, but she still had a glint of mischief in her eye.

I looked askance at her. This was kind of a stupid idea but a free A in a class that I was not doing well in could really help me out. “So, you possess me, and take the test for me while in my body? That sounds kinda dangerous. What if you can’t hold it that long?”

“Then you’ll just be you taking the test, no one would even notice. Except your moms when you fail it.” She laughed.

“Alright then, I’m down. But don’t mess anything up and don’t fuck around in my head. I’d better get an A.”