An Original Transformation

End

The ebb of the fear wave drew my hands to my bare flesh. I worked from my neck downwards. I learned my shape. I kept my hands from trembling across my breasts. I forged new pathways of excitement. By my feet, I looked upon my body with renewed ownership.

The me who had woken up in the morning was still the me who was heading to sleep. The details were different but that was all. I used the toilet before I left, wrapped in the towel once again.

I returned to Fleur with stories swirled in contemplation and curiosity. She dressed me in some of her silken clothes. They were loose on me, but I knew they would be tense and tight before long. At least I had this moment.

We hung out together on Fleur’s bed, talking about nothing in particular beyond Transformers and transformations. I tried not to watch the ticking clock on her wall and think of the meager minutes left with this body.

Fleur was right, I didn’t want forever like this. But I didn’t mind just a little bit longer. I had enough to drift off to sleep with Fleur on the other side of the bed.

When I woke up, it was over. I was bursting out of Fleur’s loaner clothes with my curly hair dipping around my eyes and my boyish features restored. Even the yin necklace around my neck had timed-out and given me back my normal voice.

It was late. I expected Fleur to be as asleep as I’d been, but she was watching me. She didn’t tell me when I changed. I stiffly fussed with the clothes in apology. Fleur fanned a hand as she told me, “No worries. I can make you fit them again easily, because we’ve still got root beer.”

It didn’t take long before I was downing my bottle and checking my reflection. In a way, there were no surprises. In another, it was a shocker because what I’d gotten before in little bits and pieces assaulted me all across my body. Fortunately, I wound up small enough that Fleur’s clothes were loose on me again. My breasts seemed a little bigger but not significantly so.

The biggest difference was seeing my curly brown hair cascade over my neck. Although the change immediately left me wired, I regretted that I soon got drowsy again. So did Fleur, despite her best efforts to make this an all-night celebration. We shared the bed like sisters, which meant a lot of turning, bumping, and tussling for sheets. I nodded off with Fleur beside me.

I might’ve considered the root beer change to be a waste but sleeping as a girl was an experience which washed deep into my thoughts. Every natural motion was still familiar but changed. I didn’t remember my dreams but felt there were more naughty details in one stretch than in a dozen I’d had before.

Morning meant experimenting with what we had left before Fleur put me in the hoodie. The end result was a girl-version of me which definitely looked like she could be Fleur’s sister, minus a dye job. This immediately gave her ideas to order hair dye for me in all colors of the rainbow. But those plans would have a wait. We’d depleted our savings from the night before and it would be some weeks before we could have the same sort of fun.

I felt loss, but Fleur made up for it. She tantalized me with the possibilities and I had plenty of enjoyment with the hoodie, which I kept at Fleur’s place after my parents tried to throw it out with the trash.

We made a regular thing of buying good, discount transformation products. Not all of them were as special as that first night but they were always a joy to share with Fleur. I thought those times would stay forever.

For several weeks, I noticed Fleur with random frowns when she figured I wasn’t looking. I asked her about it sometimes, but she brushed it off as nothing, saying, “I just have a lot on my mind…”

Her grades were excellent, as were her test scores. Not that I did poorly, especially with Fleur as my study buddy. The last I heard of her plans was to finish up her prerequisites at the local community college for a fraction of the cost of out-of-state tuition.

But, on a quiet evening at the edge of summer, Fleur bowed her head and released her full plans.

“I got an amazing offer from a Seattle university with a fantastic writing program. They’ll cover everything.”

I was happy for her. I cheered. My stomach gurgled in private. She’d known about the offer since before our special night out. I wanted to show only happiness but broke down in trembling tears as Fleur hugged me.

She told me that, despite everything, our summer and senior year would be special. Along with her college prep, it would be everything we ever dreamed of doing with transformation.

But, especially that summer, we both worked. Our jobs weren’t far from one another but less than my ideal of being like Dee and Korri Wright at Newid’s. We stopped by to visit them (and Malina) from time to time. Fleur even babysat for their daughter, Abigail.

What time we promised each other slipped away in tiredness and distraction. There were so many moments, as rare and beautiful as twinkling snowflakes, but never enough. Time passed so quickly. One day leading into the next and one week passing the one after that with inexorable gravity.

Fleur barely missed out on giving our graduation speech, but she had more fun sitting beside me as we huddled against the intense winds which blew through every graduation in the area.

I clung to every moment before Fleur moved out. We made sure every online contact we could establish was there. We made calling over the phone a habit. Still, the last day felt like the deep stitching of my heart had been torn and clawed open

I helped her pack up several classic Transformers figures, some to go with her, some to sit in her parents’ closet, and a few to be left in my care. I clutched them tightly and tried to breathe.

Fleur looked calm as she packed, but she had her fingerless gloves on. Her pink hair had dwindled to streaks ever since she started working and she sometimes left her piercings out. I wanted to say something especially cool or profound to her, but we just talked about random things.

I wore the yin necklace from that first time more often. I didn’t mind the girly voice it gave me for a few hours every day. Fleur bought a normal one not too long after, with pink in place of white and blue in place of black. I liked it better than mine. We almost got another yin/yang necklace which was all white with female symbols hanging from a nylon string. It split into two for sharing. But the ones we had worked better.

I touched mine as we shared a laugh on the couch. I wanted to be happy. I tried to show my best to Fleur and, in turn, she kept a smile on whenever I looked at her. But I noticed it slipping every so often. I asked her about it.

“I’m gonna miss you. I mean…I know internet and phones and breaks and all that. But, if I had a choice, I’d stay here or take you with me.”

I held her hand and she clutched mine. I wanted to tell her so much, even though she’d heard it all before from me. Instead, we lingered in the quiet with little chuckles as leftovers from long-ago jokes.

I remembered the “zappy gun” we nearly bought by pooling our money one particular evening. Not the sort of evening like that first one but still memorable in its own right. We discovered a limited-edition Katsumi-brand transformation blaster which looked like it fell out of a science fiction movie. I knew vaguely that it appeared in some niche Japanese anime with Katsumi. We wound up just admiring it a bit before buying something far cheaper.

We also nearly joined a water fight team. It was a bit like a live-action roleplay of a war, only with nanite-infused water pistols and fluid loyalties. Fleur declined due to how deathly seriously some took it, like the fate of gender itself hung in the balance. I declined because I knew I’d only give up my side as soon as play started. Still, it was nice to spectate a few games.

So many opportunities. I lamented the days I idled through the online forums for transformations I could’ve lived instead. My parents had long since given up on dealing with me, but I paid my way to keep them quiet. The plan after Fleur left was to find my own place. Fleur’s parents offered to put me up for a while if I needed it.

I caressed Fleur’s fingertips, avoiding spots which the scouring winds had made rough. We chuckled together and relaxed into each other.

When the time came, we treated it like any other parting but the motions were slower, stretching and waving as though we were underwater.

And then she was gone, bound for her flight.

I stayed with her parents as they worried as much as I did, but with their tears showing and flowing with smiles and frowns. I held on with calls as long as I could, lingering in the background. I stayed with them a while. I even played surrogate daughter with a few transformative items.

More than once, her mom asked me, in a way far kinder and with more curiosity than my mother, why we didn’t date or get married. I shrugged.

Time spiraled out with days flowing into weeks that flowed ever onward. I couldn’t imagine how quickly time traveled, the more there was of it. Moments felt less special and paler from Fleur’s absence.

I curled in bed a few times with transformative agents and wistful dreams. I imagined the ways things could’ve gone. I fumed, I romanticized, and I dreamed. Each contact with Fleur was a salve, but I had to wean myself from it as new names around her entered our discussions and our time dwindled piece by piece.

I harvested patience and tried to look beyond Fleur. Church actually helped me find some people more cordial to transformations than most. But each connection felt like a shadow and each moment had to be tempered. The friendships came and went.

Years slid over my eyes. I treasured every meeting, even though there were weeks I didn’t think of Fleur. I dated a bit, some wildly excited about transformations, others turning up their noses to it. I experimented but it mostly became stuff to mention to Fleur when I saw her next.

My happiest day was being a flower girl at her wedding. I barely knew the part-time man she married, but we get along well. He even kinda has my eyes when a girl. How they met sounded not too different from how we met, but with relaxed confidence and other turns of luck.

We have our days, even in the lulls between Fleur’s editorial work and occasional novels. She still wears her blue and pink yin and yang as I still wear my voice-changing yin.

For me, I know I’ll never forget our night together.