“It’s experimental, so the Medical Bureau won’t pay for it; I’d have to save up for it, probably put it off till I finish college and I’ve been working full-time for years. And there’s no guarantee it’d work; I might have a womb and ovaries but still not be able to have babies...”

Twisted Throwback

part 25 of 25

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Twisted universe. It's set about a generation later than "Twisted", "Twisted Pink", etc. A somewhat different version was serialized on the morpheuscabinet2 mailing list in January-April 2014.

Thanks to Morpheus, Maggie Finson, D.A.W., Johanna, and JM for beta-reading earlier drafts. Thanks to Grover, Paps Paw, and others who commented on the earlier serial.

Epilogue

“Victor Alan Gordon...” the principal called out. I gave a cheer, from where I was standing in line a few steps down from the stage, as Vic walked over, shook Mr. Bao’s hand, and took his pseudo-diploma.

Just a few seconds later, “Carlos Cruz Guzman... Leonora Harmon... Emily Ursula Harper...” I glanced out into the stands as I crossed the stage, looking for my family and friends — the friends who weren’t in line ahead of or behind me, that is. Mildred was easy to spot, and next to her I saw Mom, Dad and Renee, who was jumping up and down and waving. I didn’t have time to look harder than that, as I was busy shaking Mr. Bao’s hand and taking the roll of blank parchment that I’d later exchange for my real diploma, and then I was descending the stairs on the other side. I sat down again, two people away from Vic, and smiled across them at him; he grinned back.

Half an hour later, having thrown our hats in the air and made a desultory attempt to retrieve them, we met up, breathless, as the people sitting between us cleared out looking for their friends and relations. I looked at him. “Looks like we did it,” I said.

“We sure did.”

“So, I’ve got this family thing I told you about, for me and Todd’s graduation, but after two or three hours I should be able to get away, and come to Karl and Olive’s party... you still going to be there?”

“Yeah, I probably won’t be there much sooner. I’ll be going to dinner with my parents and aunt and uncle at Hanging Gardens first.”

“Nice! See you then.”

I made my way through the crowd toward the area where I’d seen Mildred and the others. On the way there I met up with Todd, who was going in the same direction; with his height and bulk we got through the crowd a lot faster. Soon we met up with the ones I’d spotted from the stage plus Aunt Rhoda, Uncle Leland, Grandma and Grandpa, Kerry (but not Jeff, he’d had to work this weekend), Faith, Ben, and Uncle Greg.

Uncle Greg was hosting the graduation party at his house, and after standing around congratulating and being congratulated, and waiting for the traffic in the parking lot to clear, we all carpooled over there.

I asked Mildred: “You’ve got the stuff I asked you about, right?”

“Right here,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“What is this, Emily?” Dad asked.

“Graduation present for Todd,” I said, “and some stuff to freshen up before the party.”

When we got to Uncle Greg’s house, Mildred and I took our bags and commandeered one of the larger bathrooms. I stripped off my graduation gown and the halter top I’d worn under it, and my bra, and then Mildred and I started applying the adhesive remover around the edges of my prosthetic breasts. A few minutes later we had them off, and cleaned them thoroughly before putting them away in their case — maybe for the last time, but waste not, want not.

“You look really nice,” Mildred said. “How much of it is real?”

“All of it, I think... Look in the mirror and let me concentrate.”

We looked in the mirror and I focused on turning off my trick. Mildred nodded. “There’s your jaw, and your Adam’s apple... but your breasts are still the same! Cool!”

“And my hips are starting to show too,” I said, “but they look better with my trick on.” I turned it on again, and got dressed, putting on the smaller bra and top I’d picked out for this, and then changing from the shorts I’d worn under the gown for coolness' sake into a blue pleated knee-length skirt. The sandals I was already wearing went with the skirt and top.

Mildred also took the opportunity to freshen up a bit, burnishing her scales. We made an impression when we came out.

“Is that all you?” Renee asked, bouncing excitedly. She was a lot more excitable since going through her Twist a couple of months ago; sometimes it was exhausting to keep up with her.

“All me,” I said. We’d been living in the same house for six months, growing a little more like sisters than cousins, but because I took the prostheses off only about once a week, and usually on evenings when Renee was out on a date (so I could have our bathroom all to myself for a few hours), she’d rarely seen me in just my hormone-built breasts. She hugged me tight, then held me at arm’s length and squealed again over how I looked.

“Oh, Emily!” Mom said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“That’s it for the fakes. These may not be super-impressive, but they’re mine, and they’ll probably get a little better. I didn’t want to suddenly stop using the prostheses during the school year, but they were getting more and more uncomfortable, fitting over the real ones, and there’s no sense in keeping up with them any more.”

Everyone noticed, though not everyone commented. Todd and I exchanged our graduation presents, and then everyone else gave us theirs, and we ate. It was the first time Mom, Dad and Mildred had come back to visit since they’d moved to Spiral, and everyone wanted to hear more from them about how Mom and Dad’s new jobs were working out and how Mildred was doing in school. I’d talked on the phone with them two or three times a week, so not much of what they said was news to me, but I was happy to yield the spotlight to Mildred, both figuratively and literally — the skylight and picture windows in Uncle Greg’s dining room were showing off her scales to great effect.

“I’ve made several new friends,” Mildred was saying; “there’s one girl, Janice, who’s like me or Kerry, she has these natural tattoos that keep appearing and disappearing and migrating across her skin... But most of my friends haven’t Twisted yet. Most of the normal kids, even, treat me like a regular person, and the few that don’t, the teachers come down on them hard.”

Janice had gotten Mildred involved in the photography club at school, so after a while Mildred and Faith started talking technical details of lenses, filters and photo-manipulation software. About then, I got up and told Mom and Dad, “I’m fixing to go over to Olive Sanchez’s house, remember?”

“For the other graduation party, yes. Do be careful, and be back by eleven.”

“Okay, thanks... Um, keys?”

“Surely,” Dad said, “your Uncle Leland is accustomed to loaning you his keys after so many months?” There was the faintest hint of a smile. I just stood there with my hand out and a few moments later Dad handed me the keys to their rental car, his faint smile growing every so slightly less faint. I kissed him on the cheek and went out.

When I got to Olive’s house, there were already six or eight cars in her driveway and on the street; I recognized Morgan’s and Vic’s.

“Hi, Emily!” Olive greeted me as I came in, and we hugged. “You’re right on time. I think we’ve got as many more people coming as are already here.”

“Sounds fun,” I said, but I was looking around for the friends I particularly wanted to talk to. I spotted Vic and Lionel talking to Sarah and Morgan, over by the snacks and drinks table, and headed that way.

“Hey!” Sarah hugged me. “We did it!”

“We did indeed do that thing.”

I saw that Vic was staring at my chest, and Lionel and Morgan had both definitely noticed it. Morgan was the first to comment.

“Trying out a new look?” she asked.

“Yeah, school’s over, so I figure now is a good time. You know I’ve been wearing prosthetic breast forms most of the time since I Twisted...?”

“Yeah.” Morgan nodded, and Vic and Lionel glanced uncomfortably away before looking at me again a second or two later.

“Well... not anymore.”

Lionel’s eyes got wide. “So if you can use your trick to make us see them, without anything physical there at all... why not, um...”

“Why not make them bigger, you mean?” Morgan asked, rolling her eyes.

“Um, maybe, or at least the same as the artificial ones.”

Before I could explain, Vic figured it out. “They’re real, aren’t they?”

“Yep! They’re made out of me. One hundred percent Emily. And that’s not the only effect the hormone therapy has had — just the most obvious. It wasn’t all that obvious while I was wearing the prostheses over them, but I’m done with that now.”

“Great!”

A few more people arrived just then, and we circulated, greeting them, exchanging congratulations, talking with them. Olive turned up the music, then she and Karl started dancing, and several others joined in.

“Do you want to dance?” Vic asked, raising his voice so I could hear him over the music.

“Yes!” I half-shouted. We danced, a couple of feet apart at first during a few loud vigorous songs. And then Olive put on a slow song; I hesitated, waiting for Vic to make the first move, and he didn’t. Not right away. In the relative quiet we moved aside and let the dancers have the floor; Vic asked: “Can I get you something?”

“Another Sprite would be nice.”

He was back in a minute, and we sat on the sofa, sipping our drinks and not saying anything. Then Vic asked: “So what are your plans in the next few days?”

“Mom and Dad and Mildred are going to be here for a week,” I said. “We’re going to Athens for a couple of days, and they’re going to show me around... Probably some things have changed since they went to school but there’s a lot that hasn’t.” They’d both gone to UGA in Athens, which was one of three schools I’d been accepted at, and the one I’d decided on when the scholarship for Emory I was hoping for fell through. “And they’re going to help me shop for a car. I’ll need one in Athens, and for going back and forth from Athens to Trittsville... and Rome.” Vic was going to Berry College in Rome.

“Yeah, and Athens isn’t any further from Rome than Rome is from Athens. I’ll come see you once I get settled in and have a weekend when I don’t have too much studying to do.” And then, abruptly: “What about your surgery? Have you found out any more about it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Just yesterday Dr. Underwood messaged me... He’s found a surgeon who’s willing to try one of the experimental techniques they were working on in the last few years before they stopped doing sex reassignment surgery on adults. She might be able to give me a cloned womb and ovaries — I could have babies, if it works right.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Wow is right. But there are disadvantages. It’s experimental, so the Medical Bureau won’t pay for it; I’d have to save up for it, probably put it off till I finish college and I’ve been working full-time for years. And it’s more invasive, so the recovery time would be longer. And there’s no guarantee it’d work; I might have a womb and ovaries but still not be able to have babies... I need to think about it. I was resigned to being mostly female, in every other way, and probably adopting children some day when my partner and I are ready... and looking forward to getting it over with this summer. But now... I don’t know. It would be awesome if it worked, but I don’t know if I can stand waiting however many years it takes to earn the money for it.”

We were silent for a while, listening to the music and watching the slow-dancers. Then just as Vic started to say something, Olive put on another loud, fast song. He made a face, and said loudly: “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

I followed him out onto the porch. We smiled at Morgan and Lionel, who were making out on the porch swing, and oblivious to us; Vic and I sat in rocking chairs at the other end of the porch, and he said:

“You should think about it carefully, and make up your own mind. I mean, you’ll have to live with what you decide for the rest of your life... But lots of genetic women can’t have babies for one reason or another. That doesn’t define who you are.”

“Yeah. It would be great... but I’m not sure it would be worth the wait, and the cost.”

“So, yeah. Think of it as a really expensive fertility treatment. Is it worth that much to you to be give birth to your own babies, instead of adopting? I mean...” He floundered for a moment before saying: “I mean, if I found out my wife couldn’t have babies, I’d be cool with adopting kids. There are plenty of them who need families, that’s for sure.”

I smiled hesitantly. Was he saying...? I’d thought it might be possible, several times over the last few months, but I’d never been quite sure. I’d tried to put all thoughts of romance out of my head until after the surgery. Time enough then to see if Vic felt differently, or if by then I’d met someone else that I clicked better with. But I kept finding myself thinking about Vic.

“Yeah. Adopting kids would be good, especially if my partner was really enthusiastic about it... not just settling for second best after he found out I couldn’t have babies.”

“Well, if you get your surgery done the old-fashioned way, you’d know what you had to do in advance. You wouldn’t be trying to have babies, getting your hopes up, and then finding out you couldn’t and had to adopt.”

“Yeah.”

There was another factor, one I hadn’t talked with Vic or anyone else about, only Dr. Underwood. Ever since my talk with Ryan, I’d had occasional thoughts of cutting off those extraneous parts. I’d managed to ignore or resist them so far; they weren’t anything like a Twist-obsession, not really... But should I subject myself to eight or ten more years of that kind of temptation, however easy to resist it was so far? Probably not.

And one thing I hadn’t told Vic yet — but should probably tell him eventually — was that the cloned-organ implants could still be done later, after I’d had old-fashioned SRS. But I wanted to make really sure he was cool with adopting kids before I told him that.

“I’ve made up my mind,” I said, after thinking for a while. “I’ll call Dr. Underwood on Monday and ask him to set up an appointment with the other surgeon we’ve been talking to. I’ll get it done this summer, before college — maybe within the next couple of weeks if I’m lucky.”

His face lit up, and I knew I’d made the right decision. But then he looked contrite, and said: “Are you sure? It’s a huge decision — maybe you’d better think about it for a few days.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” I said, “since I studied up on the various standard and experimental techniques they used to use, and wondered which of them I might could get some surgeon to actually do. I’d like to be able to have babies... but really, if my Twist-obsession keeps me in school indefinitely, I’m not going to be able to afford that surgery while I’m a grad student, and it will take years of a junior professor’s salary to pay for it. By then I might be too old to have babies even if my cloned womb is thirty years younger than me. I don’t want to have to wait that long just to be anatomically correct.”

“I understand... I think. Sort of. I’m pretty sure you’re doing the right thing — I just wanted to make sure you were sure, that you wouldn’t regret making the decision too fast.”

“Thanks. You’ve been a big help. I’m a lot more sure of what I want to do than I was an hour ago.”

About then the loud music ceased, and there was a few moments of silence before Olive put on another slow song. “Do you want to dance some more?” Vic asked after a moment.

“I’d love to.”

We went back inside and slow-danced, his arms around me for the first time since I’d impulsively hugged him that day I got my trick to work on my reflection. It felt good.

Thanks so much for reading, especially to those who have commented. If you're reading this a considerable time after the serial is finished, note that I do read new comments on old stories.

I have several stories in the works, some finished in first draft that I'm working on revising, and some unfinished; but I'm not sure when any of them will be ready for publication. Probably one or two will be out by the middle of next year, if not sooner. And I have a short-short that should appear in Hutcho's next TG mixtape anthology in January.

If you want to beta-read one of those stories, send me a private message with your email address, and I'll send them to you when I finish the second drafts. And I am still open to suggestions about what to write next.

If you've enjoyed this and the other free stories I've posted here, you may also enjoy these novels and short fiction collection -- available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format.