You Could Go Home Again, part 06 of 16

Printer-friendly version

“It’s okay if you call me a boy and ‘he’,” I said. “Or girl and ‘she’, either way. I’m wearing skirts for now but I think I’ll go back to pants when I stop growing and can buy stuff that will fit me long-term.”


You Could Go Home Again

part 6 of 16

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is in my "Valentine Divergence" setting, like my earlier stories "Butterflies are the Gentlest", A House Divided, and "Nora and the Nomads". I've tried to write it as a stand-alone, but if you find it confusing, reading those earlier stories first, or at least "Butterflies are the Gentlest", might help.

Thanks to Unicornzvi, epain, and Scott Jamison for their comments on the first draft.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. So are my last several stories posted here, although I forgot to put the CC license notice in some of them.



Rob or Sarah would probably know some useful things, I figured, but I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to talk about it with them. And I wasn’t sure I ought to do it in any case — Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler raised me to think it was wrong. But if it was the only way I could avoid jumping in bed with some guy... maybe it would be okay.

I held out for another week. The last morning of the semester, I walked into the bathroom and met a guy coming out of the shower wearing a towel and nothing else. When I got into the shower, I found I was already wet before I turned on the water, and tentatively put a finger where nothing but Dr. Mathers' speculum had been before. It was pleasant, and definitely helped “relieve the pressure” as Terry had put it, but it wasn’t as spectacular as I’d heard it could be. A few days later, after looking up stuff on the Internet and not finding much Raleigh rabbit-specific stuff, I worked up the nerve to ask Rob or Sarah about it; I climbed the stairs to their floor, rested a minute on the landing, then walked down the hall to their room and knocked.

I heard low voices from inside, a bump like someone had run into some furniture, and a slightly louder exclamation that I couldn’t quite make out but sounded like a curse, then laughter from someone else. Then Rob opened the door just a crack; she was wearing a bathrobe.

“Hi, we’re kind of busy.” From somewhere behind her I heard Rico’s voice, and Sarah’s, speaking in low tones.

“Oh,” I said, my ears twitching. “I’ll come back later.”

But I didn’t. Not for quite a while.


The following day, I boarded the train to Atlanta on the first stage of my trip home. Or was it home anymore? I was pretty sure I’d want to settle in Raleigh after I graduated, and I might get an apartment there even before I graduated, in the last two or even three years of school. But Nebraska was where all my surviving family lived; it was where my parents were buried. I’d wait until I got there, I decided, and see if it still felt like home.

Amy and I took the shuttle to the train together and found seats next to each other. There were just a handful of Raleigh rabbits in our car, including the boy and girl who’d been on the train with me on the way to Raleigh in the fall, who hadn’t wanted to talk with me then. I’d seen them around campus a couple of times but hadn’t shared any classes with them or learned their names. They were friendlier this time, introducing themselves as Tracy and Yolanda; apparently they lived in Lithonia, near Atlanta, and had been the only Raleigh rabbits in their high school, except for their own younger siblings.

“Man,” I said, “my own high school experience would have been totally different if there’d been even one other Raleigh rabbit in my school. Or even in the next town over, going to a rival school.”

“Where do you live?” Tracy asked, and I told them.

“Oh, wow! Is the rest of your family telepaths?” Yolanda asked excitedly.

“Uh, no. My aunt and uncle and my grandparents are Lincoln bison. I guess you’re thinking about the North Platte dreamers?”

“Yeah, I think so. I just remembered that one of the only telepathic neospecies in North America live in Nebraska or Kansas somewhere.”

“Both, I think; their change-region sprawls across the state line and into a little corner of Colorado, but most of it’s in Nebraska.”

“Do you know a lot of them?”

“No, none. Hebron’s fifty miles east of the change-region border, but there’s nothing to see in that change-region except cornfields, and we’ve got all the cornfields we want around Hebron. If we want a little excitement we go east, to Lincoln or Omaha, and if we want a lot of excitement we have to leave Nebraska entirely.”

“Huh. Wouldn’t it be exciting to hang out with telepaths? They must be interesting people.”

“Probably to each other, I guess. I worked in a convenience store last summer, and we had two or three North Platte dreamer families come through at one time or another, but my job didn’t exactly have a lot of scope for extended conversation with the customers.”

“Too bad,” Yolanda said. “I want to be an anthropologist — I’m planning to go to grad school at Duke after I finish at NC State — and I want to do my thesis on one of the telepathic neospecies. Probably the North Platte dreamers, since they’re a lot less studied than the Brooklyn or Huntsville telepaths. Or the Kelowna nomads, from western Canada.”

Meanwhile Amy and Tracy had been talking about other stuff — from the little I overheard, Tracy said there were several Athens magnolias in their high school back home, and he was friends with one of them. Yolanda volunteered the fact that her younger sister Oliver was also Tracy’s girlfriend, but they hadn’t slept together since Tracy turned eighteen. “Oliver’s going to turn eighteen during the Christmas break, so we’ve got a big surprise planned for her birthday,” she confided in a low voice.

“TMI!” I replied, and changed the subject.


I traveled alone from Atlanta to New Orleans and New Orleans to Lincoln; there weren’t any Raleigh rabbits in the car, or anybody of any neospecies I knew well, until we got to Topeka and some Lincoln bison got on. When we got to Lincoln, I got down from the train and looked around; I didn’t see Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler, so I dialed Aunt Ellen’s cellphone and told her where I was.

“We’re almost there,” she said. “Give us a few minutes.”

I got a porter to help me with my suitcases and met Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler at the circular driveway. I realized I was now a little taller than Aunt Ellen, and almost as tall as Uncle Tyler. (Lincoln bison are generally shorter and stockier than Raleigh rabbits.)

“Why’d you bring so much stuff?” Uncle Tyler asked as he hefted the suitcases into the trunk.

“I’m afraid I’ll outgrow a lot of these clothes by the time I go back to school, and I want to get some use out of them while I still can.” And one of the suitcases was mostly Christmas presents.

“Makes sense.”

He and Aunt Ellen didn’t make any comment on my being female, or wearing a skirt, for the first few miles of the way to Hebron. They asked me how my trip went, and what my grades for the semester were, and so forth, and told me some of the news and gossip around Hebron while I’d been gone. Then we fell silent for a few minutes, until Aunt Ellen said: “Pull over, honey. I just thought of something we might need to go back to Lincoln for... Joel, do you have any nice dresses to wear to church?”

“Um, no, ma’am. I’m still growing so fast, I didn’t want to buy anything too expensive until I quit growing. I’ve generally worn one of my nicer skirts and tops to chapel, or that Sunday when I went to church with Radhika’s family.”

“The boy’s got sense,” Uncle Tyler said, and then hastily: “Girl. Sorry.”

“It’s okay if you call me a boy and ‘he’,” I said. “Or girl and ‘she’, either way. I’m wearing skirts for now but I think I’ll go back to pants when I stop growing and can buy stuff that will fit me long-term.”

“That does make sense,” Aunt Ellen said, “but let’s take a look around and see if we can find a nice dress that doesn’t cost too much.”

“All right,” Uncle Tyler said, and told the car to drive to a mall on the west side of Lincoln. “I hear and obey.”

Aunt Ellen swatted him gently.


A few hours later, when we were on the road to Hebron again, I called my friend Carl to see if he was home from school yet.

“Yeah, I got home last night. And Ron was supposed to get home sometime today, but I haven’t talked to him since yesterday. You want to get together?”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe tomorrow after church; I’m too wiped out from traveling to meet up tonight.”

Carl was going to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Ron was at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. I was closer friends with Carl than Ron, but had been pretty close to both of them throughout middle school and high school. These last few months, though... I’d exchanged emails or social media messages with them several times near the beginning of the semester, but the more I developed as a girl and the more friends I made at NC State, the less reason I found to talk with them; I didn’t feel comfortable talking to them about the messy details of female puberty. I didn’t want to lose touch entirely, though, so I was hoping to meet up with them several times during the break.


The next morning after my shower, I tried an experiment. I took a package of Ace bandages I’d bought at a drugstore near the train station in New Orleans and bound my breasts, then put on my loosest shirt. I’d outgrown all the shirts and blouses I bought in September and October and the ones I’d bought loose just after Thanksgiving were starting to get a little snug, but I hadn’t bought any the previous evening, thinking I could get another week or two of wear out of the ones I had. The bandages couldn’t hide my breasts completely, not without a looser shirt, though they did look less conspicuous. In the end I decided it was too uncomfortable to be worth it, with no other Raleigh rabbits around, and I switched to the pair of bras I’d bought in Lincoln the evening before. They weren’t designed for Raleigh rabbits, so I had to do some cutting and gluing on the shoulder straps of the bra for my lower breasts. I was also afraid that Aunt Ellen would be upset if I didn’t wear the dress she’d bought for me, so I put it on though I didn’t quite feel comfortable wearing it, or letting her spend her money on it — it was only a little loose, and I’d probably outgrow it within a month.

I’d gotten up early to allow time for all that, so we were still in time for Sunday school. Ron walked in to the Sunday school classroom just a few minutes after me. He’s an Omaha sheepdog, several inches taller than me or our friend Carl, and heavier-set than the average sheepdog.

“Joel?” he asked, as though there might be another Raleigh rabbit in town.

“This is me,” I said, and made a strong effort to maintain eye contact, though I wanted to look away.

“You look... huh. You’re pretty different from that photo you sent me.”

Back when I’d told Ron and Carl by email that I was starting to develop as a girl — no messy details, just the basic fact — Ron had asked me for an updated photo for his phone contacts, and I’d had Amy take one of me. That was probably before I started wearing a bra, though. The ones I’d bought yesterday evening in Lincoln were B cups.

“Yeah, the doctor says I’m growing a lot faster than normal. Normal for a thirteen to fifteen year old, that is; she’s not sure what’s normal for someone who didn’t start puberty until they’re eighteen. She’s never seen anybody like me before.”

“Huh. I mean, you told me, and you even sent that photo, but... seeing you with, um, and in a dress...”

“It’s still me,” I said with a sigh. “And the dress is because of Aunt Ellen; she wanted to buy me at least one nice dress for church, and I let her... I usually wear more casual stuff.”

He nodded. “Jeans and T-shirts, I guess?”

“I wish,” and I explained about how I was growing too fast to wear jeans.

“Man, that sucks.”

Mrs. McLeod, the Sunday school teacher, called us to order then, and we didn’t talk any more until after class. Then Ron said, as we walked from the classroom to the sanctuary, “Carl texted me about getting together this afternoon at Mary’s Cafe. You coming?”

“Yeah, we talked last night. I’d like to go home and change into something more comfortable first, though.”

“Yeah, I imagine so. How’s life at NC State?”

I told him a little of what had been going on with me, mainly classes and clubs, and a little about the friends I’d made there. “How are you liking MU?”

His face lit up. “It’s a great school. Really diverse; Missouri’s got more neospecies than most states with a similar population — twenty-two change-regions and only a bit more than six million people. And all of them are represented at Mizzou, plus a lot of people like me from other states.” (Nebraska has only six, and that’s if you count two change-regions that lie mostly in South Dakota and Wyoming, plus the little sliver of the Mississippi-Missouri change region along the banks of the Missouri.)

“Are there a lot of Omaha sheepdogs? Have you met any girls?”

“Yes and yes,” he said briefly. He’d never had as many dates in high school as Carl, and only one steady girlfriend, who lasted all of six months before breaking up with him several weeks before prom. Of course the local dating pool for Omaha sheepdogs was pretty small. After an awkward silence, he said: “I’ve been on three dates. Two of them with the same girl, even. I hope she’ll want to go out again when I get back.”

“That’s awesome. What’s her name?”

“Lindsey.”

“Do you have a photo of her?”

“...No. Um, what about you...? Have you been on any dates yet?”

“No... I’m definitely attracted to guys, I’ve figured that out by now, but I don’t think I’m ready to date yet. Probably not until my body’s finished changing, or almost finished.”

“Ah, I see. You’re not quite all there yet?”

“No, all the parts are in place, I’m just not full-grown.” I debated mentioning that I’d started my second period on the train from Atlanta to New Orleans, but decided that would probably squick him out.

The organist started playing the entrance hymn about then, and we shut up until after the service. Afterward, he said he’d pick me up in half an hour, after I had a chance to change clothes. I went home with Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler and changed into a more comfortable skirt and loose T-shirt, and my tennis shoes. (Aunt Ellen had also insisted on buying a pair of dressy shoes — and I’d insisted on flats instead of heels, after I warned her repeatedly that they would probably only last me a few weeks. We’d gotten them one size too big, and I’d worn two layers of socks with them.)

“Have fun and don’t stay out too late,” Uncle Tyler said when Ron pulled up in front, and Aunt Ellen added: “Call us if you’re going to be out past ten.”

“Sure,” I said, and went out to meet Ron and Carl.

“Wow,” was all Carl was coherent enough to say at first.

“You should have seen him earlier, dressed up for church,” Ron said, and then, to the car’s console: “Destination: Mary’s Cafe. Go.” It started moving.

“Man, I mean you told me you were turning into a girl, but it didn’t really connect until I saw you just now,” Carl babbled on.

“Stare all you want and get it over with,” I said with a slight smile and a decided twitch of the ears. “Where’s Julia? Is she going to join us at the cafe?”

“She’ll be around later on. Her little sister’s birthday is Tuesday, and they’re having the party today, but she said she’d be free by two or three.” Carl’s girlfriend Julia had gone to UNL with him; they’d been together since junior year.

We got a table at Mary’s Cafe, one of the very few restaurants in town, and ordered drinks and appetizers. I had a very un-girlish appetite with my freakishly rapid puberty, and I devoured a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, a large order of French fries, a club sandwich and some jalopeño poppers. This excited comment from Carl and Ron, to which I replied simply, “I’m a growing girl.”

“Are you all girl, then?” Ron asked. “Inside, I mean — in your head? Earlier you said you weren’t comfortable wearing a dress, you did just it to please your aunt.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t changed inside as much as I’ve changed outside, I’m pretty sure of that, but I have changed some... how much I don’t know.”

Once we’d blunted the edge of our appetites and slowed down eating, we talked about other things, our experiences of school, new people we’d met there, new movies and vid serials we’d seen, new books we’d read. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t found time to play any new games what with being busy with school and meeting new people. (Except Fluxx and Blokus; I guess those count as games. But most of my new friends weren’t gamers, except George, and he played only the audio games that were coming out of the new Nashville game studios. I’d tried to play one of them with him; Raleigh rabbits have better hearing than most neospecies, but I don’t have a Nashville bat’s instinctive ability to interpret echoes into information about my surroundings.)

Julia came by later on, after we’d finished off our entrees and were snacking on a second round of appetizers. Ron got up and came around to my side of the table (we were in a booth by the window), while Julia sat down beside Carl and they nuzzled. Julia is a Lincoln bison, a couple of inches shorter than Carl, with black hair and beard. She was wearing red polish on her horns, which contrasted nicely with her hair, and a little red ribbon in her beard.

It was a little after that that I noticed something odd. When Carl and Ron had been sitting across from me, they’d naturally both been looking at me. Carl had been pretty frankly staring at me, on the drive over there and when we first sat down, but he got over being gobsmacked eventually and starting looking at other things and people; looking out the window, glancing at the people at other tables and the waitress bustling from one table to another. But Ron kept looking mostly at me — which seemed natural enough while he was sitting across from me, but started to seem odd when he was sitting right next to me.

I thought it was probably my imagination, or if not, he was just still having trouble getting used to how much I’d changed. I was having trouble, and I’d had more than three months to gradually get used to it; here I was dumping it on him all at once.

Julia was surprised to see how I’d changed, too, and asked me a few questions about how it felt to be growing up as a girl, and so fast. Her questions and my answers were pretty vague at first, but after my second Cherry Coke and her first Diet Coke, we made the obligatory group trip to the restroom, and she asked me some more pointed questions. I had some for her, too.

“How are you and Carl doing?” I asked. “It looks like you’re still pretty tight.”

“Yeah,” she said happily. “I was a little worried when we went off to college, but we’re definitely still together. He’s got a wandering eye, but as long as that’s the only part of him that wanders I’m okay with it.”

“You were gone a long time,” Carl remarked when we returned to the booth.

“We were talking about you,” I said truthfully. Julia glared at me, which suggested I shouldn’t have been so honest.

After Julia had eaten, we all went over to Ron’s house to watch a couple of movies and play some games on his big screen. The first movie was a parallel world adventure from Sundberg Studio, an Omaha-based studio that had made several of our favorite movies growing up. The cast was mostly Omaha sheepdogs with several Lincoln bison, a Mississippi mudcat, and two North Platte dreamers — it represented their telepathy with italics subtitles. The second movie was one of the increasingly rare Hollywood movies that got exposure nationwide; it had come out back in September but I’d been too busy studying to go see it. (Nearly all the pre-Divergence classics we still watch were produced if not filmed in Hollywood, but nowadays, who wants to watch a steady diet of stories about Hollywood capybaras and other southern California neospecies? Their casting is more diverse than it was right after the Divergence, and they’ve got more money to spend on special effects than most of the local studios that have sprung up around the country, but they still have a higher bar to clear to get people of other neospecies to watch their movies.) This one was a tragedy based on a true story, about a professor from Pakistan who was visiting Western Kentucky University on Valentine’s Day. He formed family bonds with the other people of his new species, but the State Department kept trying to deport him and finally succeeded. He pined away and starved almost to death before a big petition campaign got the government to let him back in to the U.S., but by then he was too sick to travel, and died soon afterward.

We ate supper with Ron’s parents, and then Julia took Carl home, and Ron took me home.



I'm not getting a lot of comments on this story so far. If I get at least three comments on this chapter, I'll try to post the next chapter a few days early.


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. Smashwords pays its authors higher royalties than Amazon.

The Bailiff and the Mermaid Smashwords Amazon
Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes Smashwords Amazon
When Wasps Make Honey Smashwords Amazon
A Notional Treason Smashwords Amazon
The Weight of Silence and Other Stories Smashwords Amazon
up
92 users have voted.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos! Click the "Thumbs Up!" button above to leave a Kudos

Comments

i do not like commenting too much on works in progress.

MadTech01's picture

The story is interesting and very enjoyable, I never make an opinion on a story till I read it all, you never know what the author is building to until they do. As the saying goes I do not like back seat driving. You are in the drivers seat and I am along for the ride and enjoying it very much, keep on going.

"Cortana is watching you!"

seeing old friends

that has to be hard with how much she's changed. But still nice!

DogSig.png

My favorite line...

"We were talking about you" ... LOL omg I have wanted to say that sooooo many times but never was brave enough =]

snerk. heheheh

Sara