Be careful what you wish for -- a contemporary
Twilight Zone.
A well-dressed middle aged man is seen entering a suburban hospital. In one hand he holds flowers, in the other there's a box of candy. After going to the main desk for directions he takes the elevator to the sixth floor.
"Take the hallway and turn right, second door on your right," the on-duty nurse says.
In the elevator he notices a sign about psychiatric medicine on the sixth floor. He unbuttons the top button of his dress-shirt, stretching his neck in the freedom it provides. Walking down the hallway on the sixth floor he notices an alcove to his right; a place where visitors and patients sit and chat. There's a three-seated white leather sofa under the windows with vertical blinds. To his right there's a matching loveseat, to his left a single matching chair. Sitting on the sofa is an attractive woman wearing a white fleece robe. She looks remarkably like Carter from the hit show Stargate. When he sees her, she smiles, standing to greet him.
After hugging they sit on the sofa. Amanda sits with her right leg on the cushion, holding her robe purposely together at mid-thigh. She smiles at Charles when he says,
"I haven't seen you in awhile. You look fine but I'm sure there's a reason you're here."
"I'm afraid I've been on a real emotional roller coaster. You remember me telling you I wanted to lose weight? My personal trainer came across a new diet pill, produced and manufactured in Japan. He suggested I take one a day, combined with my normal workout routine. They're effective in turning fat into muscle and are laced with testosterone. They worked great and I could see the difference in no time. They also made me feel more energetic. But when their effect grew thin, I decided to increase the dosage. I've been on them for almost three months now and the last time I ... had sex, it felt painful. I didn't know what caused it and feared the worse, ignoring it in denial.
"My dreams have changed too -- dreams about sex. One recent one was of me going to a whorehouse, selecting a woman I wanted to be with, as a man. Sometimes I'd wake up feeling aroused when I'd reach between my legs, finding the area swollen and sensitive. And then a few weeks ago when I was in the shower, I looked down, seeing something. After feeling around and inserting a finger inside, I felt something strange.
"'Oh this can't be good -- this can't be right,' I said feeling sick to my stomach."
Charles concern showed, fearing the worse -- advanced cervical cancer. He swallowed hard, not believing his eyes when his wife of thirteen years opened her robe, enough for him to see it. It looked alien in its presence, emanating and protruding from inside of what was once there.
"There are specialists from all over the world coming here to examine me. The initial prognosis is that I was born with a small penis inside me, undetected all these years. When I started to take the male hormones, it triggered the growth of the dormant penis. I know this is crazy and of course you know how much of a woman I am. And yet here it is," she says fondling it ludicrously like its detached and not a part of her. Somehow seeing her hand on it, manipulating it looks sexy to him.
Though Charles and Amanda are separated, they spend their nights together when he's in town. At least they did so in the past.
"Being married to an absentee husband was very hard on us. It's ultimately why we separated, coming to an understanding. We both have friends of the opposite sex, preferring not to talk about what we do," Amanda says firmly before we're allowed to pass judgment.
"Amanda's a great lover. And as you can see, she's all female. Well at least she once was," Charles adds swallowing hard.
"I wanted to learn more about this stuff, so I went online and looked at countless videos and pictures of transsexual women. Apparently they all have gender identity issues, unlike me. I noticed there was always some trait or visage making most of them look male, also unlike me. So I looked at hermaphrodites and they looked more like me, with regards to being a female. The only thing is; they have ugly penises and no testicles. Apparently their penis grows out of their clitoris and their testicles (ovaries) remain inside them. So I'm the real oddball it would seem, the exception. I've been grappling with the mental and emotional impact this has had on me, thinking and hoping its best I come here until they can figure out what happened and if they can fix it," Amanda says.
Charles remains unspeaking, not wanting to be insensitive in saying something stupid. He fights the urge to smile, remaining straight-faced and caring. Amanda waits for some response and in imagining what he's thinking. Then quite unexpectedly she begins to laugh aloud, like a lunatic.
"Oh shit Charlie, why me? The doctor told me I should contact you; to see if I can get some sort of acceptance from you. You'll probably not want to have anything to do with me anymore," she says studying his face, already looking for some sign of approval. After some thought on his part his face lightens when he says,
"Hey, I brought you some nice chocolates. Why don't we open them?"
"Dammit Charlie, put the candy down. I'm the same person I was before. Only my equipment is changing. It shouldn't be like 'pin-the-tail on-the-donkey', when you can't be a woman if something like this happens to you. I can't feel like a man -- think or behave like one."
"Well, why don't we wait and see what the doctors have to say. There's a lot to digest, to come to terms with," he offers, unable from watching her hand as it continues to excite the new addition to their would-be family.
"There is something we could do now, something that would lift my spirits," she says playfully.
