Epilogue

I woke up with drool. Despite the fact it was Sunday night, I had trouble getting to sleep with a myriad of texts from everyone and a million Internet distractions popping up.

Something like my blanket sprawled across my chest and, with the morning heat, left me sweaty. Groggily brushing the drool away, familiarity and alarm soon crossed my thoughts. My cheek was scruffy.

My hair was shorter too.

…oh…

So, that was it. A trial run. Back to my face, back to my body, back to base camp after making progress halfway up. Damn… Dammit… if I had a sinus headache right then, the whole shit show would be complete. God…

So many little, nagging uncertainties about what all this meant plagued me, but the overriding sense was to just slide back into sleep. Maybe I could get a dream where things felt like yesterday again, where I could build on the last week. Didn’t I at least earn dreams?

Shifting against my pillow, that blanket weight felt far more intimate and connected than it reasonably should’ve. It took propping a leg up and glancing down to realize what was going on. There was no blanket.

It was like when I pulled the front of my shirt up as an illusion, a vague tent struggling to stay up. Only this laid across a set of rounded pinnacles that dipped slightly in the middle and fully blocked my view of the dresser. I could feel them as a part of myself, but also strange. Shifting my other leg, a sensation of flesh between them made me jerk and jiggle in place.

The stump…

This had to be a dream. This had to be. But, whether it was or it wasn’t, no way I was missing out on at least experiencing this.

Shifting delicately, as though the whole structure of the illusion might slide off like tucked fruit under my shirt, I sat up along the edge of the bed. It all remained.

Drawing in the slowest breath, I raised myself to my feet. Nothing shifted between my thighs or settled like a satchel. There was flesh and it felt strange yet comprehensible.

It was like the stump had been dug up and planted deeper, its bulbous roots hidden far below and only the barest, sensitive sprout remaining beside the new furrow. Every new configuration of sensations felt like a match strike inside my brain as I tried to process it in ways I knew. It wasn’t beyond my ken, but it was so different. And it was fucking hot.

The morning weather and the fresh sensations wracked my body. The breasts yielded to gravity and forced me to grip the nearby shelf for psychological stability. They tugged on my pits, back, shoulders, and neck with three-dimensional contortions of my flesh. I could see the nipples the whole time.

Working my legs gingerly from one footfall to the next as the space between my legs served up a bonfire for my senses, it took quite a trek to get to the bathroom.

My first sight launched a harsh pinprick of disappointment. My face, my old face, was there. Stubble across my chin, slight dirty stash, and the gifted, blazing fires atop my head burnt to brown ash. The length of my hair barely challenged mom when she had it permed. But my bust…

It pressed and distorted my purple top. Tugging the collar down presented shadow-streaked cleavage. It felt unreal yet intimate. While pretty-faced Maggie gave me allusions of Narcissus, this single feature nearly drowned me. And it was interactive!

Lift them up, shift them over, settle across them, and peek underneath. Removing my shirt lanced several sensations through me. First, it was slightly chill compared to being covered but at least the morning made up for it. Second, I felt so naughty. And finally, holy shit, do I challenge Calliope…?

No no way maybe no possibly no no no… Fiddling with the…girls?… gave me some sense of dimensions and I gingerly turned a few ways while cupping them. Actually touching that flesh, that part of my body, that sudden protrusion, sent my hands dashing away as a reflex. So many times dealing with female classmates and coworkers at random. Too close.

It was unusual but not bad. And it was easy to bump an arm or an elbow into them when you’re just going about. The nipples seemed like an immense, pink bruise with an obvious exclamation. Manipulating the pliable flesh around it reminded me this wasn’t the only change.

I probably had to pee. At least, it would be safest to grab the toilet before it became an imminent problem. The rust-tinted pubic hair that once matched my head, once again matched my original color. It didn’t look quite as dense as before, but I couldn’t tell.

No freeing anything from getting stuck against itself, although the skin and junior high sex-ed technical name bits had oddly familiar interactions. Peeing triggered a vague sense of horror. It was so far down and immediately dribbling out as well as stopping so fast when I was done. It felt like a mess but, thank you again to that junior school crap and a bit of independent research, I dealt with it.

It would take getting used to even more patches of sensitive skin with special instructions. The whole thing felt like it needed a manual. Like waking up on Christmas morning, with once again half of the presents you really wanted, but the ones you were most excited for. Then, once all the wrapping came off and, conclusively, you were the owner of this brand new thing… the dawning sense of “what now?”

I was technically, and with special emphasis, a girl. A woman. Female in the ways that often seemed to count. But a look at the mirror showed me what I had traded for it. The red hair was gone. My shoulders didn’t have a slim, soft shape. My waist and hips were essentially flat. Beyond the immense addition, my chest had a long way to go. My legs and arms with their restored brush of body hair and masculinity. And no more girlish height.

My gaze settled on the good places and slipped past the rest. Clearing my throat, I paused and found the texture of the sound was different. The few words I tried seemed strikingly bland but higher in their natural pitch without any effort put into them. Testing a few things soon brought out a girlish timber that sunk deep into my loins and brain with delight.

So, half last week and the other half this week? I hadn’t been taken back to the start, but I’d been shifted around to the other end of the mountain with utterly unfamiliar territory. Was this punishment? Did that mysterious lady decide to curl the monkey’s paw for me? No...

What was I even doing thinking this was a punishment? I had been gifted the entire scope of my fondest dream. Sure, it didn’t happen all together… but was that any reason to get angry, upset, and mope? Maybe this was just a new challenge?

I did have nagging concerns though, like clinging mental cobwebs that got closer the more I tried to brush them away. What about the others? What about Camille? What about Calliope? What about my parents? What about Ariadne and her little girl? What about the smiles on the faces of Siana and her cousin, Mona? What about those inscrutable twins? What about the hopes and dreams and possibilities of a beautiful new bookstore? What about Elizabeth and the life and trials she overcame? What about all the dresses that Natalie intended to make? What about those two who I didn’t like and especially that bitch Amber? No matter what, no matter what I’d done, they didn’t deserve to be tossed about by me getting my stump pushed down and a pair of boobs.

Fumbling quickly, I searched my contacts in my phone. I used my chest like a natural prop and checked everything I could. Slowly and with the air finally settling through me, I saw the world of today.

Text messages from Calliope in a panic for her swimsuit and messages of gratitude left last night. Playful Camille in another thread. Mom checking in on me. Ariadne following up on my change. Relief was soon replaced by quizzical curiosity about how the hell I was going to explain things. God, my students would be having a time of this. Or maybe now this was normal for everyone else. Just Maggie, a lady with kind of a different look.

Returning to the mirror though, I refused to wallow in just that. My face could and would be shaved. There were lasers out there for everything else. My hair could be dyed and grown out. And the submerged stump was now spewing forth an entirely different form of liquid encouragement. God, I hoped that didn’t mean it would attempt to push the Tetons even higher. Now that felt like revenge.

I was still halfway there, but now I felt like the summit was clear. It was still a journey to go the rest of the way, but I could take myself with hard work, determination, and devotion to my dreams.

Looking in the mirror, despite seeing a face that brought me sadness, I could feel the shape of who I wanted to be tomorrow… and it and I…were beautiful.