1.

There was a knock on my bedroom door. I opened it to see Steve standing there, which surprised me. “Didn’t I scare you off yesterday?”

He shrugged. “You’re my friend, why wouldn’t I come back?”

“Because I was rude to you?”

“So what? You’re my friend, remember?”

“You mean you’re not mad at me?”

He took me by the hand and pulled me a little closer. “Of course not. You’re just… Going through a rough time. Nobody can blame you for how you’re feeling.”

I blushed. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “You’re wearing that lipstick again.”

I nodded. “Turns out I like it. Do you?”

He patted me on the shoulder. “On you, I like anything.”

I giggled. “Really?” He was buttering me up, clearly, but I was enjoying it.

“Yeah.” He brushed his hand against my cheek. “You look pretty no matter what.”

I was turning so red, it was embarrassing. “So… You ready for school?”

He shook his head. “Not just yet.”

“Steve?”

“I just… Please, just this once?”

“Just this once what?”

He shook his head. “Fuck it.” He leaned down and put his lips right to mine, and his arms around me. I rested my hands on his chest and I could feel his heartbeat. The world faded around us, and I just let him kiss me. It felt so wonderful, and I didn’t want it to end.

His hand slipped from my hip to my chest, and I felt him squeezing my breast through my shirt. I moved one of my hands to cover his, to make him squeeze harder. It felt so wonderful.

“Adam? Adam! Wake up!” someone said from somewhere, and I felt Steve fading away from me…

2.

Mom was gently shaking me awake. I groaned and turned over onto my side. “I don’t wanna get up…” I said. Wait, when did Mom get here? I didn’t care, I just wanted to sleep.

She smacked me on the butt. “I said get up, young lady.”

“Ugh…” I groaned. I turned back onto my back. “Did you just call me young lady?”

“You look more like a young lady.”

I turned back onto my side. “What time is it?”

“It’s seven forty-five, you’ve got about an hour before school.”

“Why’d you wake me up?”

She walked around to sit down on the side of the bed I was facing. “Because you were moaning, and rubbing your chest.”

Now I was awake. “Um… I was?”

She smiled. “I was a fifteen year old girl once, and you’ve got an older sister. If you think I don’t know what a wet dream is, you’re very wrong about that.”

I sat up and scratched at my left breast. Must have been the one I was rubbing, because it felt kinda weird now. “Do most girls have wet dreams that just involve kissing?”

“Is that all your’s was?”

“Uh-huh.”

“All it was?”

“Well, and Steve was… um... “

She ruffled my hair a little. “Dreaming about a boy counts.”

I hugged my knees to my chest, and I could already tell my breasts were a little bigger. “When did you and Dad get home?”

“Early this morning. Your dad came in here to see you and nearly blew his top when he saw you wearing one of your sister’s nighties.” She tugged at the shoulder strap of the nightie I was wearing. “He’s a little worried about you.”

“You mean because I’m not really Adam anymore?”

She smirked. “No, he’s worried because you didn’t take self-defense classes like your sister did.” She hugged me closer. “He’s actually happier that you’re a girl now than I am.”

“How come?”

“He wanted only daughters. When your dad and I got married, he told me his dream was to be the kind of dad who scares his daughter’s boyfriend into submission by showing off his gun collection.”

I giggled. “That’s funny.”

“I wanted all boys, so that I wouldn’t have to help anybody out with feminine needs. My mother was horrible at teaching me, I was worried I’d be just as bad.”

I smiled at that, then my smiled dropped. I wondered how long it was going to be before I had my first period.

“What?” Mom asked.

“Just thinking about periods.”

“They’re nothing to worry about, sweetie, just a part of life.”

“That’s what Melanie said, too.”

“And we’re here to help. Just don’t ask your dad, because he’s clueless.”

3.

I stood in the shower and enjoyed the feeling of the water hitting my breasts. I was right, they were bigger than they had been when I went to sleep. It amazed me just how different a shower could feel when you had breasts for the water to drip off of.

I rubbed shampoo in my hair and sighed in frustration. I had way too much hair! How did girls deal with this? Rinsing it was a nightmare. I grabbed the body wash that Dad and I used, then set it back down. It just didn’t smell right, now. Instead, I grabbed the stuff that Mom and Melanie used and decided to use that. It smelled a lot better. I guess my tastes were becoming more feminine, too. Great. Stupid sorceress. Couldn’t I just be a tomboy?

There was a knock on the door, then the door opened, somebody walked in, and then Melanie pulled the shower curtain open. “Hey!” I shouted, then hurried to cover my breasts and what was left of my privates.

She smirked. “Calm down, okay? It’s not like I haven’t seen a pair of boobs, or something that looks somewhat similar to a penis.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’ve seen mine!”

“Like I said, calm down. I’m here to teach you how to shave.” She held up shaving cream and a pack of pink ladies’ razors. “It’s about time you learn how hard it is to stay pretty for boys.”

I blushed. “I’m not trying to look pretty!”

“You smell like you’re trying to be pretty.”

“It’s just body wash!”

“Hey, take it easy. I’m only teasing a little bit.” She sprayed some shaving cream onto one palm. “You can’t expect me not to tease my little sister a little.”

“What are you doing now?”

She started rubbing the cream onto my legs. “Putting shaving cream on your legs, obviously.”

“Do we need to do this now?”

“We do if you’re gonna wear those shorts I picked out for you.”

“Why can’t I wear pants?”

“Because all my pants are in the laundry that you forgot to do last night.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was a little busy almost flirting with Steve, it was a busy night!”

She smiled. “It’s okay. You didn’t have a problem wearing shorts last night.”

“Well, no, but that was just practice.”

She opened up the package of razors and handed me one. “Okay, we’re gonna start with the right leg first, understand? If you knick yourself, don’t worry, nobody gets it right the first time.”

I nodded, then took a deep breath. I knelt down and started down by my ankle, then brought the razor up. I was about to pull the razor away quickly, but Melanie put her hand on mine and made me pull away slowly. I nodded, then began back down by my ankle again. I finished that straight line, then continued on right beside it. Shaving your legs wasn’t too difficult, just tedious. I knicked myself once on my right leg, right on the area right where my sock would end. After that, we moved onto my left leg, and I made a couple more cuts. None too big that a band-aid wouldn’t cover them up, though.

Next we moved onto my armpits. I didn’t really understand why, considering I wasn’t going to be wearing a tank top this time, but Melanie said I needed the experience. I didn’t cut myself there at all. I toweled off, and then wrapped the towel around my chest, the way Mel taught me, then she blow dried and showed me how to style my hair into something that stopped my bangs from blocking my view.

“There, look? You look a lot better now, huh?” she asked, pointing out my reflection. I wasn’t really looking at my hair, though, I was looking at Amanda. This was her first public outing, her first time going to school. The one and only thing I found lucky was that this was the last four days of the school year. By next school year, everybody will likely have forgotten Adam. “Hey, didn’t you get the band-aids on good enough?” she asked, drawing my attention back to the real world.

“Huh?”

“Fresh blood, on the floor there,” she said, pointing to the floor. I checked out my band-aids, but they were on well.

“Um… It’s not from my legs.”

I saw a look of confusion on her face, then a look of recognition. “Uh… Time for you to be introduced to Ms. Playtex.”

I felt my eyes widen. “Huh?”

She straightened up a little, put a hand on my shoulder, then put on this goofy voice. “Amanda Richards, you have now become a woman.”

I gulped. “No…”

“Yep.”

“Un-uh.”

“Yeah.”

“But, I’m not done changing!”

She shrugged. “So? Maybe your periods aren’t connected to your physical progress, but your mental acceptance? You did kinda accept being Amanda last night, y’know.”

“I don’t even know what bathroom to use at school!”

She put on an annoyed look. “You’re a girl, you use the girl’s restroom, it’s that simple. Everybody who looks at you is gonna see a girl, so don’t worry about it.” She patted me on the back. Either way, time to show you where Mom keeps the pads.”

“You mean you and Mom don’t use tampons?”

“No, we do, but you can’t exactly use one. And Mom keeps pads in reserve in case we run out of tampons.”

“Oh.”

“It’s nothing to worry about. It means you’re a healthy young woman, remember?”

I sighed.

4.

The girl in Melanie’s mirror was me. No doubt about it, no way I was hiding it, I didn’t even want to hide it. I was Amanda now, and Amanda didn’t have any clothes of her own, so she was borrowing her sister’s.

Except that wasn’t really true. Melanie gave me that bra and panties I’d worn last night, and the shorts and tank top, but only because she was going to throw those out at some point in the near future. Now she had a little sister to pass stuff down onto. Yay.

I was still wearing shorts, but these were a little longer than the ones I wore the night before, they came to almost my knees. One of the band-aids on my left leg was covered up. The shirt I was wearing was a very plain shirt, even if it was almost skin-tight. Boys were definitely going to be staring at a certain place on me with this shirt.

Melanie grabbed me by the arm and practically tossed me into her vanity chair. “Hey!” I shouted.

She held up her index finger. “No ‘heys’, young lady. Today, you’re introduced to nail polish.”

“Why?”

“Why not? You were wearing lipstick last night.”

“Lipstick is easier to put on.”

“And you did a very good job, considering it was your first time. But that doesn’t matter. We’ve got twenty minutes before Mom takes us to school, and I’m painting your fingernails, got it?”

“You’re sure we have time?”

“Yeah, the stuff I’m putting on you dries pretty quick.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“How’s that same purple as the lipstick work for you?”

I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Good, because that’s what I’m using, since you’re also gonna wear lipstick.”

“This is the first time I’m going to school as a girl! Why are you trying to make me uber-girly on my first day?”

She shook her head. “I’m not trying to make you ‘uber-girly’, even though you should really understand that saying ‘uber-girly’ makes you seem a bit more girly than you probably think you are, I’m trying to make you fit in.”

Dammit, she was making sense. Dammit, dammit, dammit. “Fine. Just hurry up with the nail polish.”

She smirked. “It’s not that simple. I’ve gotta shape your nails, too. They look too much like boy’s nails right now.”

I sighed. “Okay. Do it.”

“You’ve gotta pay attention to what I do, because I don’t wanna have to give you a manicure every time you wanna change your nail polish.”

Dammit!

5.

Dad was laughing at me from behind his newspaper. “Stop!” I implored.

“You’re fitting into your new role pretty well, Amy.”

Amy actually sounded pretty good as a shortened form of Amanda. Huh. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, wait, because I’d only decided to accept the name ‘Amanda’ last night. Silly me. “But that doesn’t mean you have to laugh at me!”

He put the paper down, reached over to me and squeezed my shoulder. “Somebody has to tease you, kiddo, and since it hasn’t been your mother or your sister, I’ll do it for them.”

“I thought you were the one who wanted only daughters.”

Mom walked into the room, phone to her ear. “No, I told you, we’re changing Adam to Amanda, and gender from male to female. How can this be this difficult? What? It was a sudden and surprising life decision, but we’ve decided to accept it, okay?” She hung up the phone and nearly slammed it down on the kitchen table. “God! Why is it so hard to help someone along after a ‘sudden and surprising life decision’?” She pointed at me. “This wouldn’t be so difficult if you hadn’t gotten yourself cursed.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” I knew she was joking, why did I screech like that? Actually, my voice seemed a little higher. Not a noticeable degree, but it seemed higher than it was yesterday. Then again, I wasn’t screeching yesterday, I was mostly yelling at Steve.

“Sweetie, your mother’s not blaming you,” Dad said.

Mom sighed. “No, I’m not blaming you. But you do have to be ready for school.”

“I am. And I know you weren’t blaming me, I don’t know why I said that.”

“Still, it’s gonna take me all day trying to get this straightened out. It’s amazing how difficult it is to get someone’s social security information changed. When you go and get a job, it’ll be a damn nightmare for you.” She picked up her car keys from the small basket they were kept in on the center of the table. “Okay, girls, let’s get going.”

6.

It was time to do this. To talk to the principal and get this dealt with. I took a deep breath, and tried my damndest to keep my butt bolted to the seat of the car while Melanie pulled me out. “It’s gonna be okay, Amy, don’t worry.”

I shook my head. “That’s what you think. We’re gonna walk in there, tell him some bullshit story about me getting a sex change, or something, and he’s gonna laugh at me.”

“No he won’t! Mr. Malski’s a cool guy. Remember when you egged that restroom last year and all he did was make you clean it up without putting it on your record?”

“And do you really think he’s going to believe that the boy who did that had some deep desire to be a girl?”

She shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

I sighed. Game time, day-of-reckoning time. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

We walked into the building, and nobody seemed to notice me. Nobody pointed at me and laughed, or whispered to themselves some weird gossip that they thought up in twenty seconds, they just kept on doing what they were doing before I walked into the building. It was like I was invisible. That was a good thing.

We got to the principal’s office, the door was open, we walked inside and sat down at the chairs across the desk from his chair, which was turned to face away from us. Was he sitting in it? I doubted it, Mr. Malski was a big guy, we’d likely be able to see his shoulders at least.

The chair swiveled around and my heart felt like it was falling through a black hole.

It was her! It was the sorceress!

“Nice to meet you again, Amanda,” she said, a wicked smile on her face.