The first time I ever transformed, I was a pretty vain, underdeveloped 14-year-old girl who woke up in the body of a nearly full-grown woman. There are a lot of physical and mental changes that you're supposed to go through in the years between 14 and 19, and I skipped them all. At 14, you wear a bra and you get a period, and you think you're a real woman, but you're still a kid. Once I got over the shock, I treated my body like an anatomically-correct Barbie doll, making myself look hot and reveling in male attention. It wasn't what you'd call... healthy behavior, and it attracted a lot of negative energy into my life.
It was almost a relief, the second time around, to find myself as a guy. I thought it would be "easier," and in a way it was, possibly because it was my second turn and I was mature and capable. Then I found out that as a guy, I could still get hurt, still feel lonely, still get taken advantage of... and suddenly standing to pee didn't seem as glorious.
And then this summer I went back to the inn with my girlfriend, and we both woke up as girls, teenage girls again. Ellie and Emily. As a former guy I feel so strange leering at my own body in the mirror, trying to remember that this used to be normal. I feel cut off from something -- my dick, for one. My girlfriend, for another.
Since this was her first go-around, it was hard to explain to her what had happened and why I wasn't freaking out too much about suddenly being a girl. I didn't come all out with it right away. I told her to read the letter and I acted like I was scared too, which was easy because I kinda was. Feeling so small, so girly, made me think "Oh God, this is really happening to me again." and this time, I didn't want to play dress-up, I didn't want anybody looking at me.
"So what are you telling me?" She said between hyperventilation, "We have to pretend to be these people? That... that you turned into a girl?"
I wanted to lie. I wanted to say "Yeah, this is terrible, I can't believe it." It would've been easy. But instead, I bit my lip and winced as I said "The truth is... I've been here before. I used to be someone else. Emily," I didn't call her Emily then but she's Emily now, "I was a woman before. It was an accident that I ever ended up in that body. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for lying."
This was followed by an even more exaggerated version of your average post-transformation freak-out. Screaming and cursing. "How dare you lie to me, how dare you say I wouldn't believe you," crying. She was mad, and she needed someone to be mad at. "I look at you," she said "And I don't know who I'm talking to."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't even know who I am."
She asked me to leave her a while, before we drove back to Connecticut. I caught up with Melanie... now my dad. I asked how she, he was holding up.
"This is blowing my mind," he said, "I did not think this was gonna happen. I guess I should've thought it was possible, but... wow." Like me, she's pretty jaded by the whole experience by now.
It was a long, long, long awkward car ride back to Connecticut. Her anger did fade, she wasn't giving me the silent treatment, she just needed to think it all over. Yes, she was mad at me for bringing her to the Inn, but she felt worse when she remembered I was reluctant to let her come, that she insisted. I didn't want her to feel guilty, but she felt it herself.
Before school started, I asked her where we stood. She almost laughed as she said "I don't know. I look at you and I don't really see you, the guy I loved."
That brought a weird smile to my face. "You loved me?"
"I thought I did," she smiled back, "I don't know. I was definitely falling for you. But I see you, you're not fighting the change, you're not trying to act like a guy, like the guy I knew, you're just... this girl sitting next to me. And I know you're still in there, but I don't know if I can feel anything toward you this way."
"I understand," I told her. But inside, I was going cold, and when I got home that night I cried. I let myself cry, the way I never wanted to when I was a guy, because it wasn't fair. This body is no more of a lie than the one she loved, and even if the man she loved was fake, it was still really me, and I don't feel different. I don't. I get that I have to be "this person," and in the past I was always for it, but this time I'm not sure how I feel.
After a couple of really lonely weeks at high school, she broke the ice. "This is so weird, isn't it? Being in high school again? Ugh, I hate it."
"I never went to high school," I admitted, "Guess I never mentioned that... I'm sorry."
"Listen, I know things can never go back to the way they were, but... I was hoping we could be friends again. Or... really, for the first time. I mean, I was maybe overreacting when I said you weren't the person I thought you were. I know you were only trying to be... yourself, I guess."
She went on, "All this month, people have been making my schedule for me and telling me to pay attention in class and do my homework, and I always want to tell them, Why should I, I'm not really Emily... but I can't, can I? They won't believe me."
"Nope," I said.
"And I realized that must have been how you felt the whole time you were with me. I feel stupid now, knowing what I know, but... there was no way you could have told me, and I couldn't have ever guessed."
It probably felt to her like a huge gesture, to forgive me or get over it or whatever she was doing... and I accepted it, but that didn't mean there were no hard feelings. We're okay now... we're friends, but... it really isn't like it was before.
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