This Dylan guy seemed weirder and weirder by the minute, a harmless kind of weird, but definitely still weird. He was just sitting there grumbling to himself? Then, with a final resigned sigh, he just kind of lightly slapped his cheeks on either side with both hands, shook his head, rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and turned to me with what I could only describe as a game face. “Alright, let’s hear it,” he said with this odd stoic acceptance, as if he knew exactly what was coming.
For my part, I had no idea what this guy’s deal was or what the hell he wanted from me. “Hear what?”
“Your whole everything.” He limply gestured up and down at me. “Fuck, I wish I’d brought my notes. Just, in order to properly do this I need to know what kind of Olympic gold medal mental gymnastics routine you’ve put yourself through. So let’s take it from the top, how did you end up here?”
Oh, that one was easy. I could answer that no problem. “I took the bus.”
Faintly, just barely at a whisper, I thought I may have heard a choked “Oh no,” but it was too quiet for me to be certain. “Okay, listen, I don’t mean how did you get to this specific park bench I mean how did all this,” he indicated toward my body just all over, “happen? How and why did you change your body? Why are you currently having some kind of breakdown over it?”
“Oh, okay. Well, y’see, it started with my friend Penny and I. About a week ago she proposed we do this prank where we trick our roommates into thinking we’re trans by turning ourselves into girls. Oh, also in case you’re kinda confused about Penny, she used to be a guy like me, but she just came out to me as trans like, an hour ago.” Why was he looking at me like I’d just told him that clouds were made of meat filled with helium? “Basically what happened was, Penny told this wizard guy that she and her friend were trans, but couldn’t access magical treatment any time soon ‘cause of medical gatekeeping, so he gave us an injectable transformation serum, we took it, and from there just acted as girly as possible to keep our roommates fooled.”
“Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait just one goddamn second.” He tilted his head skyward, as though asking God herself why? then slumped back down to fix me with lidded, exhausted eyes. “That name. Penny. I knew it sounded familiar.”
“It does? Do you know Penny? Wait, no that’s not possible unless you met her like this week. Cause before she went by, well, something else.” I definitely wasn’t going to say Penny’s old name; even starting to form the word felt bad in my mouth, kind of like with my guy name, actually.
“Your friend Penny didn’t just contact any wizard, she contacted me. I’m the wizard who made those transition serums for you.” Now, let me just start by saying stereotyping is bad. But, seriously, this guy? A wizard? Maybe some kind of muscle wizard, but a magic one? “Yes, I see the look on your face, I get it all the time. Just ‘cause I’m kind of a jock, and maybe also maybe not the brightest bulb myself when it comes to things other than magic, doesn’t mean I can’t be a talented wizard.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”
“Yeah, but you were thinking it.”
“Fair,” I admitted.
“Okay then, back to the other thing—”
“So wait, you actually made the serum?” I blurted, the realization finally properly sinking in.
“Yes! I did.” As though to demonstrate he opened his hand, a little puff of smoke erupted from thin air. “See? Magic.”
“Oh, Kind of a wild coincidence running into you here, huh? But, um, thanks? Also I guess sorry that Penny kind of pulled one over on you? She did turn out to be a girl, though, so it’s probably fine.” Really it was quite a happy coincidence for her, that in proposing being a girl as a prank she actually managed to find out something about herself in the process.
Dylan smiled a little, and waved his hand in a sort of ‘its nothing’ gesture. “Right, yeah, pretty weird coincidence. But you’re welcome. Now keep going, please.”
“Okay, well from there Penny and I—actually sorry, I never told you my name. I’m Heather.” Should I have given him my old name? Nah, probably not, I didn’t really want him to call me that.
Screwing up his eyes, Dylan recoiled just a little, as though struck by my very words. “Wait, you already have a new name picked out? One that you’re literally introducing yourself as?” What a strange response.
“Of course.” Duh, come on dude. “It would be weird for me to go by a man’s name.” I rolled my eyes; honestly, he didn't actually think I’d be going by anything other than a woman’s name in a woman’s body, did he?
“But—” As quickly as his objection arose, it seemed to fade into pacified resignation. “—nevermind. Continue.” Huh, maybe he decided whatever he was gonna say wasn’t worth it? Oh well.
“Right, so we spent the last week or so just kind of living our lives pretending to actually be trans. Both of us were having a lot of fun with it, and it was really funny. Like, we were pretending to be girls and kissed a bunch, y’know? Prank stuff.” This guy must not have been very fun at parties, because he wasn’t laughing at all at my description of our hilarious prank.
“I’ve never, ever done anything like that, for a prank or otherwise.” Yup, there it is, see? Classic stick in the mud.
“Sure, but Penny is like a next level prankster. Anyway things were going great, but then last night I slept with my roommate, which kind of shook me up a lot ‘cause she’s a lesbian and doesn’t know that this is all for a prank. Then things got even more complicated when Penny came out because I was about to propose we do the prank over after April First, but this time keep it going indefinitely.” Was there like a car crash going on behind me? The whole time I was speaking Dylan had this look of helpless dismay on his face. I glanced behind me, but no, nothing weird going on back there. Huh.
When I turned back around his lips were moving, but no sound was coming out, and they were more twitching and contorting than forming any shape that conveyed speech. He seemed to get himself back under control quick enough, though. “Heather, I’m gonna repeat that back to you. Your friend, who turned out to be trans, suggested you both become girls ‘as a prank.’ Then, when you realized you really liked being a girl, you proposed that ‘as a prank’ you stay in a woman’s body for the rest of your life?” At least he seemed to finally get it, honestly that took way too long.
“Exactly.” I nodded confidently.
“Right, and you don’t think it's a little strange for a guy to want to spend the rest of his life living and being seen as a woman?” Why was he asking such weird questions? I mean, obviously guys want to do that sort of thing? The proof was in the pudding. I wanted to do it, and since I was a guy, that meant it was normal for guys to do so.
“Not when it’s for a prank. Besides, all guys want to be girls. Penny did too.” Ah beans, hang on, that didn’t track.
“And then she turned out to actually be a girl.” Yeah, fine, he did have a point there. Penny did turn out to be a girl. But that didn’t prove anything, because we were talking about me here, not Penny.
“Yeah, but we have a sample size of two. One who turned out to be trans, one who didn’t.” I crossed my arms, admittedly kind of smugly, but this was a pretty easy argument to win.
Meanwhile, Dylan was rubbing his temples in frustration, not that I could blame him. He was kind of losing this, um, argument? None of his points were that strong. Not that I was mad at him for calling me a girl. I was flattered to be honest. It would be cool if he were right, but obviously he wasn’t. “Okay, if all guys want to be girls, why aren’t they? We live in a world with literal magic.”
Admittedly, he did have another point there. Sure there would at least be more guys like me if this were the case. “Well, some probably just don’t want to be girls as bad as I do.” That made sense, gender was a spectrum, after all. So there were some guys who wanted to be girls a little, some guys like me who wanted to be girls a lot, but not enough to actually be girls, and some actual trans girls.
“Yeah, like, for example, some guys don’t want to be girls at all. Actually, better question, why do trans men exist if all men want to be women?” Dylan answered, sighing in annoyance. God why was he so invested in this? Wait, what if he was actually trans? Eh, nah, probably not.
“Alright, fine, sure, that’s a good point and I can’t really answer that question. But what exactly are you trying to get at, here?” I asked.
“Is it not clear? What I am trying to tell you, Heather, is that you are, almost certainly, a transgender woman.” Okay, hang on, That was just ridiculous. I mean just because I wished I were a girl didn’t mean I actually was one.
“That can’t be right.” I shook my head. As nice of an idea as it was, not everyone was lucky enough to be a woman. Some of us just had to bear the burden of being guys, it's how the world worked. Yep.
Dylan, however, was not having any of that. Instead, he asked me the worst possible thing he ever could. “Why not?”
I reeled. Why not? Well, it was obvious duh. There were tons of reasons like, for example, “Um, well.” Shit, shit, okay just say something. “I would have known by now if I were.” Nice, totally, that made sense. How could I keep such a big secret from myself for years and years?
Dissatisfied, Dylan shook his head. “Not quite, Heather.” God could he stop saying my name? I mean, it felt really good whenever anyone called me that, but it made it really hard to focus on proving my point when I kept feeling euphoric about being treated like a girl. “It sounds to me like Penny didn’t know until pretty recently. So are you saying the cutoff for figuring this out about yourself was what? a day ago? two days ago?” He raised an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for my rebuttal. And of course I had a rebuttal, duh. And it was a good one.
I opened my mouth to reply, hoping whatever came out would make sense. “Well it's different with Penny, she likes guys. And I can’t be a girl because I only like girls.” Um, yeah, sure? That worked.
Across from me, Dylan’s entire face was obscured by a massive, meaty hand pressed firmly into his forehead. “Oh my god, you’re like her but opposite,” he choked.
“What? Who?”
Not bothering to remove his hand from his face, Dylan flicked the wrist of his free hand dismissively. “Nevermind. Really though, did you just actually say that? With your mouth? Literally just moments ago you told me you that you had sex with a woman who likes women? Let’s set aside the absurd notion that a person in current year could not know that gay women exist, you literally called her a lesbian, so I know you know lesbians are a thing.”
Just what was he implying, then? That I was a lesbian? That would be great! But also, it couldn’t be true because, um, reasons. “Well, yeah, I did, but like, I’m not actually a girl so it didn’t count. Besides, it’s gotta count for something that I don’t like guys. Most women do, so statistically it just makes it less likely right? I mean, not everyone can be like Rachel.” Oh right, he didn’t know who Rachel was.
“Rachel?” Yep, saw that coming.
“She’s my trans roommate. The one I slept with,” I explained helpfully.
Have you ever seen someone start to actually, really choke? Not cough up something that went down the wrong windpipe, but get something properly lodged in there, leaving them red in the face, helplessly twitching as they try and fail to gasp for air. That’s kind of what Dylan looked like. “Whu—? Wait, the girl you slept with was also trans?” he asked incredulously.
And fine, maybe I kind of got it, this did all seem pretty convenient, but he just wasn’t seeing the whole picture. “Yeah, but she’s an actual trans girl and I’m just doing this as a prank. Plus, Rachel kept her penis so—”
“No, no, nope. Uh-uh. Negative. That has nothing to do with it. You need to quit it with the excuses and just—” His face fell a little as he bowed his head and he just kind of did a full body shudder. “Oh my god, why does keep happening to me?””
“You alright there, bro?” I asked, half reaching out to place a comforting hand on his arm, then feeling awkward and not doing it, leaving it just hanging in mid air. The fact that I didn’t really want to touch his sweat-soaked skin was maybe also a factor.
With a dramatic slap to the tops of his thighs, his head snapped up, and he fixed me with a determined gaze. “Okay. I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. Now please, tell me what the exact criteria is, in your mind, that a person needs to meet for them to be an actual trans person? And then explain to me why you don’t meet that criteria.”
Oh come on, that was easy. I could knock that out in like, what one, two sentences tops? “Well, you see…” I launched into my explanation, starting with all the different ways one would want to be a girl, but also how you could totally do that and still want to be a guy. Then I went ahead and talked at length about sexuality, and attitudes toward the body, and genitals and names and pronouns and how it totally made sense for guys to want the feminine versions of all of those things. And, alright yeah, admittedly this was taking more sentences than I initially thought, but well, there were just so many caveats and exceptions to each little thing I had to make. Still, I was really making a lot of good points. Unfortunately, just as I was about to really drive my thesis home, Dylan cut me off.
“Heather, you’ve been restating the same three or four things with slightly different wording for the past like, five full minutes. And none of what you just said was different than anything we’ve already been over. Why are you so focused on the reasons you can’t be trans instead of the reasons you can be? Because it seems like the scales are pretty imbalanced if you ask me.” That wasn’t fair of Dylan to say at all. I mean, yeah, just cause there were probably more reasons that I was trans than reasons that there weren’t didn’t mean those reasons didn’t exist. I mean, honestly, there was no way I could say that, beyond a shadow of a doubt I was trans. Though, could I say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t?
Um, shit. There was a pretty big pile of evidence I’d just kind of swept aside because I wasn’t even willing to consider it, huh. But if I were trans, wouldn’t that mean I’d have to, you know, actually confront my feelings and stuff? What if that was too hard? God damn, this was getting way too out of hand, I needed something to distract myself before these thoughts got too overwhelming. But as I scanned the park around me I couldn’t see anything worth holding my attention. There were just trees and joggers and like, a bunch of crows. And how was I supposed to occupy my thoughts with any of that? What kind of an idiot would think about crows at a time like this? No, I had no choice, I needed to face this myself.
“I don’t know, okay! I’m just—I’m scared,” I admitted.
For the first time since the beginning of this conversation, Dylan’s expression really softened. “Alright, yeah. I get that.”
“I mean, this whole time I’ve been a girl I’ve been really enjoying it, but like, this is all inevitably gonna come to an end right? And I’m gonna have to be a guy again after I turn back and if I’m actually a trans girl then how can I possibly take that kind of thing happening to me?” Tears had started to well up in my eyes at some point during all that. I couldn’t turn back. That sounded like the worst thing in the world. And then what if I couldn’t find a way to become a girl again afterward?
Despite his clear sympathy, Dylan was looking quite perplexed again. “Wait, turn back, what do you mean?”
“At the end of the prank.‘Cause the plan was to tell them we were pranking them on April Fools Day and then… well… we didn’t really talk about after, but obviously the plan was to turn back at the end, originally, right?” That last question was more directed internally than anything.
“Turn back how, exactly?” he asked in a suspicious tone. But not sinister suspicious, like the ‘you don’t really mean what I think you mean’ kind of suspicious.
“I dunno, won’t the spell run out or something?” I asked meekly, realizing for the first time that I had never bothered to ask what the logistics for ending our prank were. In hindsight, Penny probably hadn’t given that much thought at all.
Chuckling, Dylan shook his head. “Why would I engineer a spell for a trans person that wasn’t permanent?”
“Because Penny thought she was just a guy so y—”
“Yeah, and I didn’t know that, your friend told me she was trans. So I made a body changing serum for trans people. A permanent body change, which, by the way, literally changes your body to reflect your internal self.” Hang on, Rachel was talking about that sort of thing last night, wasn’t she? And wouldn’t that mean?
“Wait, really?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“So my body is going to stay this way?”
“Yes.”
But wouldn’t that mean? “So I can just be a girl?”
“Oh my fucking god, YES! You can just be a girl, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to change you back because your body would naturally fight it. Trust me, I have a lot of experience with this.” To be honest, I’d kind of stopped listening to him after the first part. Was it really that simple? Unless Dylan was lying, which, he didn’t seem like a liar, it was pretty impossible to ignore the spell’s effects. Plus, they would never dispel on their own. Which actually made me really happy and, oh, dang.
“Shit, dude. That’s dope as hell.” I grinned broadly and pumped my fist in the air victoriously.
There was silence for a while as Dylan stared at me with absolutely exhausted eyes. “Wait, that’s it?”
I smiled and nodded. “Yep. Totally. If I can just be a girl then of course I’m gonna do it, duh.” I rolled my eyes a little, come on, he almost seemed surprised.
Staring down at his hands, Dylan sat there with this frozen, shell-shocked gape. After what must have been a lot of soul searching and self reflection, he exhaled, and shook his head. “What the fuck is my life?”
I shrugged innocently. “Hey, don’t look at me, man, I didn’t ask you to sit down.”
He sort of bobbed his head in a way that seemed to say ‘Yeah, fair enough,’ then sighed again. “God damn, here I thought Abbi was dense.”
“Huh?” Who was Abbi? For that matter, who was he calling dense? Himself?
Chuckling to himself, Dylan shook his head, and grinned at me. “Nothing, don’t worry about it. So is that it, are we done? You’re okay with being trans now?”
“Uh-huh. I um, I’m a woman.” A wide smile crossed my face. “Holy shit, that felt really good to say.”
Seeing me like that, or maybe just seeing me finally admit it for real had him smiling wide too. And you know what? Sure, he might have had a kind of weak argument for why I was actually a girl. And yeah, I had to do most of the heavy lifting when it came to actually convincing myself of my status as a girl, but he helped in the end. “Alright, good. I’m glad,” he said.
“Hey, Dylan? Uh, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He gave me a big thumbs up. At least, I think those were supposed to be thumbs, they were like, as thick as sausages though, holy shit. How did this man ever text anyone on his phone? Maybe they made giant phones for giant people? “Heather? You still with me?” he asked.
I snapped myself back to reality. What did he just say? “Uh, sorry I was thinking about sausage.”
“Wha—? Alright. You know what? You do you. Have a nice day, Heather. Take care.” He gently patted me on the arm, and unceremoniously stood from the bench, then jogged off. In the distance, I heard his booming voice. “Yo, Abbi! Dude, you’re never gonna guess what just happened to me. I met this girl who was like, probably even worse than you were.”
Patreon
can't wait for Dylan's spinoff reality TV show where every week he encounters a new egg in denial and has to guide them through the realization
Honestly? I have a ton of dumb one shot ideas that are just "ridiculous situation with egg that Dylan happens to stumble into" and might at some point do like an anthology.
Please please do this - Dylan suffering at the hands of dummy eggs is so much fun
That is a male protag I’d read
@SapphicSounds i would pay in gold to read it
The one man so cis he drains the cis right out of you
@CelesteSD A cis man so cis he makes you realise oh shit, im not cis bevause you cannot deny that he is cis and happy because if he wasnt hed actually change that