The Fairy King -4- Non-Emergency Planning

Printer-friendly version

Does medical science have a cure for a fairy curse?

Part 4 - Non-Emergency Planning

by Wanda Cunningham

Chapter 8

Mom Makes Plans

I got fidgety after a few minutes and went downstairs to see what Mom might be doing. I'd given up trying to think my way out of my predicament and I didn't really see a good opportunity for going out to find Queen Tintabelle any time soon. My wanting to leave the house right now would certainly provoke a maternal veto.

Mom was at her desk in the dining room and had just hung up the phone. "I talked to your father," she said. "I didn't tell him everything but he said we should meet him at the hospital in Riverside."

I had good reason for mixed feelings about hospitals; they were uncomfortable places to spend large amouts of one's childhood. On the other hand, I knew I would have died several times if it hadn't been for doctors and hospitals. I frowned. "Tonight?"

"Yes, tonight," she said.

I felt chilled. "Is this really an emergency?"

"I suppose not, but your father is going to call a friend of his at the hospital in Riverside, a doctor who has his office there in the medical building." She paused then noted, "You look devastated."

"I guess this is one way to avoid talking to Phillip tonight," I said. I hated thinking how pitiful I must have sounded, like a lovesick Phoebe.

Her eyebrows went up. "Is that it? Won't you feel more like talking to him when you have an idea about what's going on?"

"I guess so. Oh! I forgot to tell you that, well, I had an invitation to eat lunch tomorrow with the girls I met yesterday. Well, a late lunch, at four?"

She smiled and shook her head. "You made a date with two girls in the morning and with a boy in the afternoon?"

"It was--it was all in the afternoon."

"You were busy."

"Mom! It's not like a date with the girls! We're just friends!" We both blinked at that one.

"Tell me about them."

"Uh, they live in the trailer park at the bottom of the hill. Dolly is fifteen and Molly is four. Their mom works nights somewhere in Riverside."

"How did you meet them?"

I told her about the game I thought Molly and Dolly had been playing, I didn't mention my run down the hill or my accidental assasination of the unlucky King Fritharic. "So I went over to see them today, since they were the only kids I knew around here. But there's a boy my age that lives in the park too. His name is T.C. and he's kind of big and muscular, he's a football player and his uncle has the cutest pet monkey named Bowser. Oh crap!"

"Pardon?"

I blushed. "I'm sorry, I just realized that--that T.C. got my name wrong too. I thought he was saying 'Eaton' but--he probably heard 'Eden,' too?" I covered my face with my hands. "I think only Dolly and Molly know that I'm a boy!"

"Um. Go get your jacket, it might be cool when we come back. Besides...." She didn't say it would help hide my tits. "It's almost an hour's drive to Riverside, your father will likely get there before we do. We can talk more in the car."

Well, we didn't talk much going down the mountain; the road is only two-lane part of the way and pretty twisty all of the way. I didn't want to distract Mom so I just sat and thought.

I wondered what would happen to me if it proved to be impossible to undo the wishes. I'd already registered at school as Ethan, just last week. That complicated things but it meant that only a few people in the office, plus Molly and Dolly, really knew me as a boy. Could I change my registration and attend school as a girl?

Did I want to?

That had to be Plan B. It would certainly be better to get the curse taken off so I could be Ethan again. Wouldn't it? The novelty of not being threatened with a beating by boys larger and older than me had a certain appeal. And then, Phillip had wished that I would be his girlfriend. I squirmed in the seat and sighed.

Mom chuckled.

"What?"

"Eden. That's a cute name. I'll have to use it in a story sometime."

"You mean you haven't?" I said.

"No. But you and Phoebe are named after characters in books of mine. Phoebe is the heroine of 'Emerald Dawn' and Ethan was the hero in 'Gift of Magic'."

The hairs on my neck went up with that information.

She glanced sideways at me but put her attention back on the road quickly. Neither of us said anything more until we reached the freeway.

I'd been trying to think of strategies for dealing with Tintabelle but I kept thinking of other things. Of how Phillip had smiled at me and of how T.C.'s muscular arms looked in his t-shirt. Very disturbing thoughts when I realized something else. I'd never had many such fantasies about girls, why should I be doing so about boys, now, and so vividly? It had to be the magic.

"You can't seem to sit still," Mom commented just as the sound of the tires on the pavement of the interstate announced that we were now less than twenty minutes from Riverside. The sun was setting on the western group of mountains and the sky blazed with pinks and violets. Traffic buzzed around us, Mom always drove the speed limit, forcing drivers with more urgency to go around her.

"I'm nervous," I said. "What do you think is wrong with me?"

"I'm not a doctor, honey," she said, "but it seems pretty obvious that your hormones are out of balance somehow."

"What if they find out I really am a girl, inside, and I just looked like a boy on the outside--um--till now?" Why had I suggested that?

"Well, I guess we'll consider our options when we know more?"

"Is that a possibility?"

"I suppose it is. I think I've heard of such things happening..."

"Yeah, like in the Weekly World News." I rolled my eyes and made a gagging sound. "I don't want to be a freak, Mom."

"You're not a freak, honey. You're my kid, no matter what."

"Thanks, Mom. I knew that." It did help to hear her say it though. I smiled at her.

Mom laughed. "I'm glad.We'll deal with it, whatever happens. You, your dad and me."

"Would-would you want another daughter?" I squirmed. Why spend time talking about Plan B? Why did I find the thought of being stuck as a girl so fascinating?

"I've got four children," Mom said firmly. "But you almost sound as if you would prefer to be a girl?"

"Uh.... Well, I'd never even thought about it till this started happening."

"When did it start?"

"I'm not sure I know?" I said carefully. I didn't want her to catch me in another lie. "At first, I think I didn't notice, then I didn't want to believe it, then I didn't want to tell anyone. Not even you."

Mom nodded. "Well, I suppose it didn't all just happen in the last couple of days but I'm surprised I didn't notice earlier?"

"Maybe you know me too well? It took someone who'd never met me before to notice?"

"Mmm. Could be." She took an off ramp. Once off the freeway, I was pretty much lost. I'd never been in Riverside before; we'd always just driven through. We stopped at a light and Mom studied the street signs, making sure she'd taken the right exit.

"I don't think it shows that much. Yet?" I said.

She looked at me. "No, not really." She sighed and pulled on through the intersection when the light changed. "I don't know, but do you think you've changed the way you're acting?"

I squirmed. I was pretty sure that I had, or that the magic had caused me to change the way I acted--even the way I thought about things. "I guess so," I said softly.

"Were you trying to be more--feminine?"

"More like Phoebe, I think. It was something you said." I didn't mean to tell her that.

She frowned. "When? What did I say?"

"Uh, you said you wished I were more like Phoebe?"

She looked at me astonished. "That was today! This afternoon, I was talking about cleaning up the bathroom after you used it!"

I don't know why but I started to cry again. "I tried...." I had to gulp back sobs. "I was trying...."

"It's okay, honey," she said. "You had been trying to be a boy and, at least at that moment, I had wished you were a girl?"

"Uh huh. And then it just seemed easier. And I went outside and I met Phillip and he didn't have any doubt about me! He called me 'Eden' and asked me for a date! He thought I was a girl and I was--I'm still!--wearing boy clothes!" I wiped my eyes and reached for the tissues in the console. "He liked me! And it was fun! I didn't think it would be fun...." I blew my nose, I was sure going through a lot of tissues. "Most of the time, boys like Phillip and T.C., they hate me. They make fun of me, or beat me up or threaten me!"

"I know," Mom said. "I'd always assumed it was because you were small and sick a lot. Boys--children--can be so cruel to someone who is different."

I looked out into the twilight. "They called me names. Sometimes even the girls called me names?"

Mom sighed. "We're here, honey. This is the hospital and there's your dad's car."

Dad had waited for us in the lobby. He's a good-looking guy in his late fifties, more than ten years older than Mom. What's left of his hair is dark brown, shot with gray, and his eyes are sort of the same, brown with lighter streaks. He's not that tall, Adam is half-a-foot taller, but once upon a time Dad was the C.O. of a combat engineer battalion and he still carries around that kind of authority. I think Mom bases most of the heroes in her books on Dad; at least, she teases him that she does. "I've got a million women, all over the world, more than half in love with my husband," she says.

Mom is short and kind of plump, blonde and blue-eyed, and not one of us kids looks much like her. Adam and Sean look like Dad, though taller and not so dark. Phoebe looks like Dad's sister, Aunt Maggie. I guess I do too, even more now.

Mom and Dad hugged. I hung back a little, thinking how odd it was to watch your parents kissing in public. A handful of people sat in various chairs and couches scattered around, reading magazines or talking on cellphones or just staring into space. A white-haired lady sat at a desk at one end and another desk in the middle of the room was empty.

I'd spent some time on the trip down the mountain trying to figure out what Dad was going to say. I wondered how much he might notice. I guess I feared most being a disappointment to him but he must have already gotten used to the idea that I was never going to play football at USC like Adam had, nor would I be a near-Olympic quality marathoner like Sean. Heck, even Phoebe was more athletic than me, she'd competed in the state tournament for junior tennis.

But as long as I was in there trying, Dad congratulated me on completing a one mile walk as much as he did any of the others on their trophies and ribbons. And he'd stopped giving me a handicap in chess two years ago; he could beat me almost every time but if he gave me as much as a horse, I would win nearly as much. He never pulled any punches and I remembered how proud he had been of me when I first beat him without a handicap.

Still, I had no real idea how he might react. I really didn't know him as well as I did Mom. When I was small, we were a military family and Dad served tours in such places as Ethiopia, the Phillipines and Kuwait. We didn't travel with him overseas so sometimes we didn't see him for six months or a year at a time. After the Gulf War, he resigned his commission and became a civilian. And for the first few years, he still spent half his time out of the country.

Dad motioned me to come over and I got a one-armed hug, Mom still clung to the other. He ruffled up my hair, too. "How you feeling, Ethan?" he asked me.

"Weird, but I don't feel exactly sick," I told him.

He looked at me, glanced at my chest then back to my face. "You haven't been taking any unauthorized medications have you?"

"Huh? No!" I thought he meant street drugs but later the doctor asked me the same thing and explained that he meant things like birth control pills, women's hormones, and certain herbal concoctions that had something called phyto-estrogens in them. I'd never heard of the stuff but apparently my Dad knew something about it.

"Okay, then," Dad said. "I knew you weren't, but I had to ask."

I just nodded, still confused. One of the things confusing me was that Dad himself seemed different. Bigger or something. I noticed how he smelled, the dark hairs on the back of his hands, and the way his cheeks folded when he smiled. He absolutely radiated masculine confidence. My dad is a hunk, I realized.

"You do look different somehow," he commented. "Did you try to dye your hair or something?"

I shook my head.

"Ethan says the changes have been happening for some time; finally, they just got so obvious he had to tell someone," Mom said.

Dad nodded. "You've had a peck of medical problems, kid, but this is a new one." I heard his voice and then his arm was around me again before I even realized my eyes were stinging. "Hey," he said softly.

I blinked away the tears. "I'm sorry. I can't seem to help it."

"It's okay," Dad said. He guided us to an isolated couch and we all sat down with me between them. "I didn't mean to say something that hurt, so I'm sorry, too."

A painful bubble seemed to be pressing on my heart, I wanted to call him 'Daddy' and keep crying until he made everything all right. I didn't, though my eyes felt puffy and my mouth was dry. Mom produced tissue and I wiped my eyes and blew my noise for about the eighteenth time.

"Is the doctor here? Why are we waiting in the lobby?" Mom asked.

"Finding a doctor for a non-emergency on Saturday night wasn't easy," Dad said. "Dr. Estevez is the younger brother of a man I served with. He's chief of internal medicine here and agreed to talk to us without my telling him what this was about." Dad looked at me again and I smiled shakily.

"Will he be able to make an examination?" Mom wanted to know.

"It's a hospital, surely he can borrow an exam room if we can talk him into it."

They talked some more and they tried to keep me in the conversation but I found my mind drifting. I thought of Phillip and what the doe had said. The Queen had certainly tried to interfere between Phillip and I. She seemed to think I had planned this transformation as a way of avoiding her. Then why did she not offer to change me back?

Maybe she couldn't? In every fantasy, even on old Bewitched TV shows, there were rules about magic and sometimes spells could not be reversed. Or like in Lord of the Rings, it would turn into a huge problem to unmake a magical effect. I shivered a little thinking about that possibility. A week ago, I could never have imagined such a problem and now I might have to face the rest of my life as a girl. "Life is not fair," Dad has told me numerous times but this wasn't just unfair, it bordered on the criminally impossible.

That made me smile because I thought of a twist on a political saying, "If you make laws against impossible crimes, only criminals will be able to do the impossible."

I must have made a noise becaue Dad asked, "What hit your giggle button?" I told him the new saying I made up and he and mom both laughed. It really made me feel good when Dad pulled out his PDA and wrote it down so he could share it with his friends. "Even a liberal can laugh at that one," he remarked.

Mom sniffed but grinned. She's a liberal Democrat and Dad is an independent with conservative sympathies. Pretty soon they were talking politics and my mind wandered again.

I thought about Phillip. It had been nice being liked instead of treated like a mutant but how would he react if on Tuesday I went to school as a boy? That didn't sound like a good idea for a number of reasons but the thought of just switching my life to the other gender looked like a huge problem too. I'd already registered as Ethan, for one. Going to school as a girl remained Plan B and even conceiving it proved how nutty this whole business had made me. The thing I had to do was find the Queen and get her to reverse the curse.

I tried to avoid thinking about whether I wanted the change reversed. Then again, I hadn't turned completely into a girl. I squirmed a little, remembering that I still had a penis, no matter how small.

Of course, if that disappeared, I would have to tell someone about the magic and I would have proof. Everything else I might persuade them they had just overlooked things. Even such oddities as not having testicles, who but me could swear that I ever had them? I didn't recall any doctor ever examining me down there, for all my encounters with medical professionals.

I had had them, hadn't I?


Chapter 9

The Non-Emergency Room

Mom said, "Here's someone."

A very tall man wearing a lab coat approached. He had black hair and a long face but he smiled pleasantly and that turned what might have been a homely face into a handsome one. When he came closer, I saw he had blue eyes, very startling against his brown skin. "I'm Dr. Daniel Estevez," he said in a deep voice that did scary things to my insides. "Are you the Bartlett family?"

Dad took over and introduced us all. When he called me Ethan, the doctor looked at me again. Still trying to deal with the effects of his voice, I probably looked back with a stupid expression. Mom nudged me.

"Uh, hello, doctor," I managed.

We followed him down a hall and into an empty office. "All right," he said. "I'm not completely clear on what this is about. Are you the patient?" he asked, looking at me.

Mom nudged me again. "Yes! I guess so?"

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Uh," I know my face turned completely red.

Mom spoke up. "Ethan has a number of medical problems but what we're here looking for advice about is a very recent development."

"Um," said the doctor.

Mom blushed a little. Good to know I wasn't the only one embarrassed. Or maybe that basso voice was hitting her, too. "Well, Ethan is almost fourteen, he's been a little late in developing and...."

Dad looked at me curiously as if expecting me to help Mom out. I still wore my stupid look and kept quiet.

"Well, things don't seem to be going in the usual way?"

Dr. Estevez was quick, he picked up on it right away. "I see. What sort of drugs or medications has Ethan been on?"

Mom had a list in her purse, we were old hands at having this kind of thing ready for emergency room doctors. Dr. Estevez asked me to confirm that I had not been taking anything else. I didn't mention the thimbles of fairy liquor that I supposedly consumed at the betrothal party. "Nothing else," I said. He asked me again, later and explained why.

"So what are your symptoms?" he asked.

"Uh, well, my...chest itches."

"Is that all?"

"There...I mean...?" I glanced at Dad. It hadn't been easy telling Mom, this was lots harder. "There's growth that shouldn't be there? I'm supposed to be a boy?" I finished miserably, almost mumbling.

He looked up at my parents. "I could give you a referral to an endocrinologist?"

I'd never heard that word before but I assumed it must be a specialist that dealt with hormones or something.

"Is there anyone who could tell us something about Ethan's condition tonight, or at least this weekend?" Mom asked. "I'm afraid that if Ethan worries about it too much, it might trigger an asthmatic crisis."

"This sort of thing can have a number of causes and only a few would be life-threatening," said the doctor, trying to be reassuring. It stunned me to think that maybe other kids had to go through something like this without a malevolent fairy wish to explain things.

"Life threatening? Like what?" Dad asked.

"Tumors on the kidneys sometimes produce such anamolous development, but they are very rare. Well, all of these conditions are rare singly, but if you add them all together.... This isn't just a little lingering babyfat?"

"Uh, no." Mom said. "Ethan's nipples protrude about a half-inch with small breasts that he claims are very tender. His hips are also very wide for a boy."

I looked away, my face burning. I saw that my Dad also looked very uncomfortable.

"Perhaps I'd best do an exam?" the doctor suggested.

"Would you please?" Mom said.

So we followed Dr. Estevez into an adjoining examination room and he invited me to sit on the elevated table. Then he examined my eyes, ears, nose and throat, took my temperature with some high tech gadget, and measured my blood pressure with another that also took my pulse. My parents waited quietly by the door.

"Ethan, would you take off your jacket and shirt, please?" he asked.

I tried giving him another stupid look instead but Mom urged me, "Go ahead, Ethan."

I unbuttoned the oxford cloth shirt and took it off. I could already see Dad looking at my chest.

"The t-shirt also, Ethan, please," said the doctor.

I pulled it off over my head and sat there, trying to sit up straight and not cringe. The A/C in the room felt amazingly chilly and my little boobies crinkled up like two enormous goosebumps.

He examined my breasts. I winced a few times and he apologized for hurting me. "They are very sensitive?" he asked. I nodded.

Mom remarked, "I swear, Ethan, they look bigger than they did a few hours ago."

I glanced down and almost fell off the table. They were bigger, at least, I thought they were. "How fast...do..." I tried to ask. More magic, I felt certain. How big would they get?

"How long ago did you first notice this growth, Ethan?"

"Just today!" I blurted out. "I mean, today I decided it had gotten bad enough I needed to talk to someone! I'm not sure when it started." I could lie to the doctor a little, as long as I didn't look at Mom.

"Growth in this stage can be very rapid," he said. "But this much development would take months for the average girl--who would probably be a little younger than you are now."

"I'm a boy!"

"I'm interested to see that apparently your mother is correct, your waist is quite slender and your hips appear to be as wide or wider than your shoulders."

"They are?" I looked down, a bit confused. I knew it must be true but had my butt really gotten that wide?

"They seem to be. Would you mind putting on an examination gown and taking off the rest of your clothes?" He smiled at me.

That smile sandbagged me, Dr. Estevez was a very handsome man, but I felt grateful that he had asked me and not my parents. "I guess not, I mean, okay?" I worried a little at my reaction to his smile but tried to ignore that. But would he have smiled like that at an ordinary boy?

He found a gown and handed it to me. "Opening in the front, please, Ethan," he said. Then he turned his back on me and spoke to my father about my other medical problems. Mom held the gown up for me to put my arms through and I belted it in front with the little piece of stretchy plastic it came with. Then I kicked off my shoes and pulled my pants and undershorts down. Mom took those and put them with my shirts.

I sat down on the vinyl cover of the examination table. Before I said something to let the doctor know I was ready, I overheard him telling Dad, "Ethan has enough nipple development that we can probably rule out one possible cause for his anomalous condition."

"What's that?" Dad asked.

"It's called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Normal amounts of androgens are produced by the testicles but the body cannot react to them because of a lack of the proper protein receivers in the cells. It usually prevents normal nipple development, even in girls who can also have a form of the syndrome."

My head felt as big as a balloon and about as substantial but I muttered to Mom, "I don't have those."

Dr. Estevez turned around. "Those what?" he asked.

"Test--testicles. I don't seem to have any?"

Mom and Dad looked thunderstruck, but the doctor just asked me to open the robe and spread my legs so he could examine me. He did some very embarrassing things down there for a while that I don't even want to think about. While this was happening I noticed that Mom and Dad were not watching but were instead exchanging meaningful glances in their private language. And their expressions had changed. Now they looked guilty.

"We'll be right out here, Ethan," Dad said, stepping out of the exam room; Mom followed him with a murmur of encouragement directed at me. They left the door open and I could hear them talking in low voices.

I looked up at Dr. Estevez for a moment but quickly turned my face away again. The man had indecently long eyelashes.

He poked and prodded me, almost painfully sometimes but he didn't find any testicles. "You'll need an x-ray to be sure they aren't still inguinally retained," he told me and then explained that for normal boys, the testicles descend around age six or eight. He asked but I didn't remember that ever happening for me. Had the magic altered my memories?

He asked me a lot more of questions while he conducted a very thorough exam, including asking again about drugs or hormones. He felt of my ribs and the bones of my pelvis, right through my skin. He had me swallow while holding his hand on my throat. He made me work my elbows and knees and he looked at my hands closely.

"Have you had any unusual pains recently?" he asked.

"I don't think so? Like what?"

"Abdominal cramping, that sort of thing, perhaps?"

"Uh, well, during the move last week--I think I ate something that disagreed with me?"

"Um, hmm? How long did it last?"

"Off and on for a few days, it wasn't really that bad. Kinda sick feeling more than real cramps? Maybe I had a touch of the flu?"

"It's possible," he said. "Any diarrhea or vomiting?"

"N-no. Could that have something to do with this?"

"It might."

I decided that Dr. Estevez was too much like Dad. Ask Dad a yes or no question and nine times out of ten he would answer with 'maybe'. He claimed his early training, he'd originally planned on being an astronomer, had turned him into a skeptic. "Story of my life, from stargazer to shitshoveler," he said once. "It's enough to make a man doubt anything." Phoebe and I had giggled and then laughed out loud when Mom scolded him for saying shit.

"Something funny?" Dr. Estevez asked.

"Annoying and funny," I agreed. "You aren't going to tell me anything until you know something for sure, are you?"

He grinned. "Maybe."

I rolled my eyes.

"I want to ask your parents a few things before I tell anyone anything, okay?"

"Okay," I said. His deep voice, his face so near mine, his size, even his smell seemed overpowering. I felt impossibly shy, I mean, when you're mostly naked and somebody has a hand on your crotch, it's way too late to be shy.

He straightened up suddenly. "You can put your clothes back on, Ethan, while I go talk to your folks for a bit. Okay?"

I nodded.

"It won't be but a few minutes," he reassured me; he turned and went into his office, saying, "Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett..." just as he closed the door.

Now what? Had the magic of the fairy curse provided some sort of scientific explanation for what had happened? Had the past been altered as well as my body? Had I--now--always been a girl who looked like a boy? I mulled that over for a moment but decided to put it aside while I did my own examination.

I found a small magnifying mirror and took a good look down there. I'd always been smaller than other boys, I knew that, but the magic seemed to have shrunk my male parts until they weren't much bigger than a baby's. The hole in the end of my penis must have changed shape, too; it wasn't mostly round, but more of a slit, almost half an inch long. And it wasn't really in the end, but sort of on the underside of the end. From the lower point of the slit, an odd pale line, as if drawn by a pen loaded with white ink, extended down the tiny shaft and divided the folds of flesh underneath into two distinct--things.

Had it always been like that? Was it supposed to be like that? Or was the magic eventually going to open me up along that line in order to make me into a girl completely?

I scooted down off the examining table and got dressed, a little reluctantly for some reason. My clothes seemed to fit poorly and I felt more confused than ever.


continued in [Meeting the Elephant]

Read More [The Fairy King]

up
66 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