Trans Universe

FEMALE TROUBLE

       “I don’t care if you’re having problems at home!  I want you to make it to work on time, or you’re out of here!” hollered Alvin.  The woman sitting across from him shuttered.  “Now, send in Robert and get back to work!”
       Jumping to her feet, the woman rushed out of the cubicle.  A minute later, a man stepped in.
       “Sit, Bob.  So, you were a little late today, weren’t you?”  Alvin sounded less angry with Bob.
       “Yes, I’m sorry.  My alarm didn’t go off, so I over slept.  It won’t happen again.  Believe me.”
       “That’s okay.  It happens occasionally.  Just be a little more careful next time, all right?”
       “I will.  You can be sure of that.”
       “Okay, go back to work.”
       Robert stood up and walked out.
       Alvin Price worked as a supervisor for a major long distance phone company, located in Phoenix, Arizona.  He did little to hide his chauvinistic attitude toward women.  To prevent himself from getting in trouble at work, he attempted to keep his harangue of women in check . . . sometimes.  “Men are superior to women in every way,” he would always say.  “They can do a better job at anything, including the traditionally-female job of working as telephone operators.”
       As Alvin cruised the work area, he watched for agents not doing their job properly.  Whenever he saw a woman with reading material at her terminal, he would confiscate it, regardless of whether she had it opened or not.  The men, on the other hand, could get away with murder while he worked.  That behavior continued for several months.
       When Alvin took a day off from work, he enjoyed riding his dirt bike in the rugged Arizona desert.  The beautiful scenery and clear blue skies made him forget the “incompetent women” he dealt with at work.  He enjoyed the roar of the engine and the feel of the wind on his face, as he jumped hills.  Zigzagging his way through dry river beds and dodging the painful needles of the cholla cactus gave him a thrill.  To him, the desert represented the ultimate in tranquility.
       During one of those pleasurable rides through the mesquite trees, Alvin discovered a plant he had never seen before.  As an Arizona native, I can name every piece of fauna that grows here, but this is something new.
       This large and unusual growth stood nearly five-feet tall, with a perfectly cone-shaped stem of blue-green color.  But, the huge bright magenta and yellow flower at the tip of the cone really caught Alvin’s eye.  It must have measured two-feet in diameter.
       Alvin stopped his bike next to the colorful growth and jumped off.  I have to take a closer look at this strange thing.  After extending the kickstand, he took off his helmet and gloves, then cautiously walked toward the plant.
       He reached out touch the plant’s stem.  It feels more like human skin than plant fibers.  I can feel the pulsation of fluids moving inside.
       The unusual size of the flower intrigued him.  Tiny hair-like petals surrounded a large center, filled with magenta and yellow pollen.  The colors remind me of a radiation warning sign, telling me to “stay away.”  Instead, of heeding his internal warning, he moved closer to get a feel of the petals.
       Just as Alvin’s fingers caressed the delicate hairs, the flower burst forth with a massive explosion of pollen, straight into his face.
       “Yeck!”  Alvin spat and gasped, wiping the clinging mess from his eyes and mouth.  The pollen coated his entire head.  It took him fifteen minutes to clean the thick muck off, cursing the plant the entire time.  When he finished, he climbed back on his bike and angrily drove away.
       Next day at work, Alvin felt his old self again.  He hassled a couple of women for arriving from lunch a minute late, then fired a young girl for passing notes to a man, not saying a word to the man.  It was a great day.
       As the end approached, his stomach began hurting and his head throbbed.  Hopefully, he would feel better after taking a couple of aspirins and getting good night’s sleep.
       During the entire night, Alvin tossed and turned in bed.  He couldn’t get to sleep because his body ached all over, as if his insides were moving around.  No position on his bed felt comfortable.  Finally, at two o’clock in the morning, he stood and staggered into the bathroom to splash water on his face.  His disheveled reflection in the mirror almost frightened him.
       Cold water did little to relieve Alvin’s agony.  Turning off the tap, he felt a sharp twinge in his stomach, then in his face.  He glanced in the mirror just in time to see his face bulging in several places.
       “What?”  Alvin hands ballooned to twice their size then shrank, while his entire body shook and changed under his night clothes.  The pain became intolerable.
       “What’s happening to me?”
       A burst of pain shot along his spine, knocking Alvin to his knees.  He slowly stood, staggered to bed and collapsed into unconsciousness.
       The next morning, Alvin awoke feeling no pain in his body.  It must have been a bad dream.  I never felt better in my life.
       Climbing out of bed, he marched into the bathroom and straight to the toilet.  While lifting the lid, he felt off-balance, as if his center of gravity had somehow shifted.  He pulled off his pajamas’ bottoms, and as he reached down to take a hold of his “manhood,” he found nothing there.
       “What?  Where is it?”  He then noticed that to see past his chest, he had to bend over much further.  “What’s in my way?”  In a panic, Alvin stripped off his top then rushed to the full length mirror.  What he saw made his jaw drop.  The reflection looked nothing like the one he came to know over the past thirty-nine years.  During the night, his body mysteriously transformed into a woman, and, a beautiful one at that.
       “Shit!”  Alvin felt ill.  His knees buckled.
       Alvin stood up again and stared into the mirror.  Long brown hair, styled in layers of thick waves, flowed twelve inches below hiss shoulders.  Shapely breasts and hips looked like those of a model, with no unsightly lines to mar his golden tan.  Stepping closer to the mirror, he carefully studied the changes in his face–one he would have considered attractive under different circumstances.  I need to call my close friend, Dr. Max.  Maybe he can figure this damn thing out.
       Alvin hurried to the phone.  Max’s secretary, Lisa, answered.  “Doctor Thomas’s office, can I help you?”
       “Yes, Lisa, this is Al.  I need an appointment to see Max later this morning?”
       “Al?  Al who?” 
       “It’s Al!  You know, Alvin Price!”  Alvin hadn’t noticed the difference in his voice.
       “Oh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t recognize you at first.  You must really be sick.”  Lisa paused to look at the doctor’s appointment book.  “Would ten-thirty be okay?”
       “That’s fine.  I’ll see you then.”
       As he hung up the phone, Alvin wondered if he had anything to wear that would fit.  He quickly discovered that his male clothes looked too big and baggy for his new female body.  Only a pair of tight bike pants and an extra-large Phoenix Suns T-shirt fit.  He could finally fit into his jogging shoes after slipping on three pairs of thick woolen socks.  Damn, that’ll have to do for now.
       When ten-thirty arrived, Alvin quietly stepped into the doctor’s office and up to the secretary.  “Hello Lisa.  I’m here for my ten-thirty with Max.”
       Lisa stared at the “new” Alvin with a questioning gaze.  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t believe I know you.”
       “Yes, you do, Lisa.  It’s me, Alvin Price.”
       “No!  Come on, ma’am, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
       “What I expect you to do is to tell Max I’m here, or I’ll tell him I saw you shopping on that day you called in sick.”
       Lisa’s jaw dropped open.  Only Alvin knew she had played hooky that day.
       “I’ll . . . I’ll tell him you’re here,” stuttered Lisa.
       A few seconds later, Max walked out of his office and when he spotted Alvin’s new shape, he stopped dead in his tracks.  “Would you step into my office, ma’am?”
       “Stop calling me ‘ma’am’!  I’m Al, damn it!”
       Max turned to Lisa and whispered, “Well, she sure yells like Al.”  He turned back to Alvin.  “Just follow me.”
       They stepped into the office.  As Max shut the door, Alvin yelled, “Max, you gotta help me!  Last night I changed into a woman!  I want to be a man again!  Give me something to change me back!”
       “Look, whoever you are, if this is some kind of joke, I don’t find it very funny at all.  You come in here and pretend to be a good friend of mine and I’m supposed to help you?  Did Al put you up to this, or what?”
       Al began to get angry with his friend, but soon realized Max’s dilemma.  How does this look to him?  A strange woman claims she’s his best friend?  If the situation was reversed, I would have a hard time believing it myself?
       “Okay,” Alvin conceded, “there has to be a way of proving it to you.  Ask me any questions that only Al would know.  A stranger wouldn’t know everything that has happened between us.”
       Max thought for a moment, then asked, “What was the name of the girl that Al and I almost fought over in high school?”
       “Susan Mason,” Alvin quickly answered.
       Max looked surprised, but not convinced.
       “Where did Winfield, you and I go in the summer of 1973?  Describe it in detail.”
       “Oh, you mean the ‘Voyage of the Three Weary Travelers’.  Well, first we drove Winfield’s van from Phoenix to Flagstaff.  From there we . . .” Alvin went on to describe the entire trip in great detail.
       Before Alvin finished the story, Max stopped him.  He stared at the strange woman in his office, then hollered, “You ARE Alvin Price!  Only Al would have known about that trip in such detail as you just described it.  No one could have possibly memorized that much and tell it the same way Al would have.  If it’s really you, then how did you get this way?”
       “You’re asking me?  Aren’t you the one who spent ten years becoming a doctor?  How the hell am I supposed to know?”
       “People don’t just change their sex overnight.  It takes a long time and a lot of work to have it done.  I can tell you that this hasn’t happened to anyone else before now.  I’m sure there isn’t a cure, but let me examine you to see if I can find out anything.”
       After an hour of testing and probing, Max brought Alvin back into the office.  “I’ve tested you for everything I could with my limited resources.  You can go for more tests later.  However, you appear to be a healthy, normal female with everything a female has.”
       “Everything?” Alvin asked.
       “Everything.  In fact, you should have your first period in about a week.”
       “Shit!”
       “I’m afraid, my old friend, you’ll have to live with the fact that you’re now a real woman.”
       Faced with that realization, Alvin put his face in his hands and cried, something that he as a man would have never done.  Max tried to comfort “her.”
       After a couple of minutes, Alvin stopped to wipe away her tears.  “How am I ever going to face them at work?” she asked.
“I’m only your medical doctor.  You’ll need another kind of help.”

———-

       Unknown to the people of Earth, an unusually shaped spaceship – designed to remain totally invisible to any form of detection – orbited nearby the Hubble telescope.  Sent from a distant solar system, the occupants observed the human race to report to their superiors when the Earthlings began living together in harmony.  Their job looked like it would take centuries, something the extraterrestrials did not find very appealing.
       “The plant you sent down seems to have done its job well,” remarked one alien to another.
       “I had to try something in order to speed up the process.  The humans are not going to give up their prejudices so easily.  If we wait for them to live in peace, our offsprings would have to take over our job.  I want to get back to our planet before I am too old to enjoy it.”
       “My feelings are the same, but you know we are not supposed to interfere with the natural process.  The Council will be upset with us.”
       “Who will tell them?  If Earth is ever to join the League of Planets, then all of their inhabitants must learn to get along with each other.  If they cannot do that, then how are they ever going to get along with us?  I am just helping to accelerate their advancement.  The plant’s pollen is formulated to genetically reshape any human to look and feel like the people they hate.”  The alien scratched his scaly head with one hand while adjusting the ship’s controls with his other three.
       “If a human approaches the plant harboring no prejudices toward any other of his kind, the pollen will not affect them.  It will only change those who need it the most.  I call my creation the ‘Equal Justice’ plant.  There are still a few more tests I need to complete before spreading them throughout the planet.  In ten years there should be no prejudices left.”
       “None whatsoever?  Will this include all those people who hate ‘gay’ people, whatever that is?”
       “Yes.  I plan on placing some in the middle of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University campus in Lynchburg, Virginia.  That should take care of hundreds of people with just a couple of plants.  Strategic planting is important.”
       “Hopefully, your plan will work.  I want to be home before this century’s mating season begins.  One-hundred years is a long time to wait.”
       “I also want to get back.”
       “Let us see how your next test works.”
       The other alien made further adjustments to his controls.

———-

       In the thick woods of Alabama, a determined hunter carefully stalked a deer.  He slowly followed his prey, raised his rifle, then fired.  The untouched deer rushed deeper into the woods, while the hunter followed.
       After a few minutes, the man stopped, spotting an unusual plant growing in a small clearing.  Standing about five feet tall, the plant had a huge magenta and yellow flower on the top.  The hunter had never seen one like it before.  He just had to take a closer look.  Approaching cautiously, Marvin McCalister, the head of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, reached out to touch the petals of the beautiful massive flower.

— THE END —