Chapter 2

( Making a new friend. )

Everything seemed to feel normal lately. I didn’t find myself comparing things to my old life as much and discovered that I could still enjoy stuff even though I was a girl now. It had been almost a week since I slept over at Andy’s and it was turning out to be another dull day at work. About halfway through my shift, the supervisor came over and told me to take my break. After finishing with my last customer, I headed for the break room so that I could rest my head in silence until it was time to go back. I put my head down on the table and closed my heads as I did on most breaks. Not too long after, I heard another person come in, but didn’t bother to see who it was.

“You’re Jenny right?” I heard her ask and raised my head.

“Yeah, I am,” I answered.

“Hey, my name is Leslie,” she smiled. “I always see you, but you don’t really talk to anyone here.”

“You’re right again. I guess I just don’t speak much.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that!” She said with an even bigger smile. “We only just moved here a few months ago, and I don’t really know anyone yet. And! I don’t know of any good places to hang out either.”

“Oh, well, I don’t really do too much hanging out,” I made a soft laugh. “I walk around the mall sometimes, maybe catch a movie, but not much else.”

“How about any good nail salons? I really need to get mine done.” She said, looking at her nails.

“Sorry, I don’t know that either. I never had my nails done.”

“Really!?” She asked in disbelief.

I shook my head to confirm that I hadn’t. I looked at my own nails and wondered what that was like. It was something that never even crossed my mind in my previous life, but it was typical for girls. With that thought, I wondered if I should tell her about my past. Telling anyone about it was a lot of information to give a person and I always figured that no one would believe me anyway. After a little mental bout in my head, I decided that there wasn’t a need to tell her.

“You know what then? We should get them done together!” She suggested excitedly.

My initial thought was to say, why would I get my nails done? It was a ‘Durr’ moment for me and a realization that I was having girl talk. I looked at my nails again. They were getting a bit long now and even about as long as I used to like them on girls. Leslie got up from her seat and came over to sit next to me and joined me in looking at my nails.

“You have beautiful nails too. You should definitely get them done.” She smiled.

“Well, I never thought about it before,” I said, actually contemplating it.

“Really?” She replied as I continued to surprise her.

“I guess there is always a first time,” I said.

By the end of our conversation, I agreed to go with her to get our nails done. Like other things in my new life, I wasn’t sure why I agreed. Maybe it was because she was pretty cool or maybe I thought getting my nails done would give me an exciting inside look at the life of a girl. Even after I went back to work after my break, I continued to think about going to the salon with Leslie. My excitement was confusing, but unlike in the past, the thought of doing something girly didn’t make me feel bad. I made a mental note to mark in my journal that my general dislike of living as a girl had shifted more into being confused as to why I didn’t hate it anymore.

I met up with Leslie right after work, and she had looked up a salon on her phone already. The place was within walking distance, so we decided to go straight there. If felt good to talk to someone that just took me for me. She didn’t know about my past and only saw me as a girl. I couldn’t help but think I was somehow dishonest by not sharing my past. My mentality of being a male was still there, and it was almost like I was taking advantage of a girl. Would she even believe me if I told her? I know I would have thought a person was crazy if they told me this story.

My thoughts on everything were soon brought to a halt as we started talking and looking at how to get our nails done. Leslie wanted to get something fancy with decorations and everything. I told the lady helping us that it was my first time doing it, and she explained that French tips were very popular and it wasn’t very fancy or expensive. I had seen other girls with them before but never knew the name.

“Okay, yeah, I think I can do that,” I said.

A broad mix of emotions gathered inside me. I was excited, worried and even mad at myself for thinking this might be fun. Eventually, we were led back, and the process started. My nails were trimmed, filed and prepped. I’m not sure exactly how long the whole thing took, but it was done faster than I thought. My hands didn’t even look like mine anymore. There was a glossy shine to my nails, and they seemed more perfect than they ever had. After Leslie finished up, we started a to walk back to the job.

“Your nails look so good! Aren’t you glad you went with me?” Leslie asked.

“Yours look good too. And yeah, thanks for inviting me.” I smiled.

“Let me put your number in my phone, so we can hang out more sometime.” She said.

“Sure,” I said, giving her the number, then saving hers after she called my phone.

( Checkup )

With everything feeling like it was getting back to normal, I had forgotten all about visiting my doctors. I was going to have to visit them regularly for at least a year. Luckily, I didn’t have to report to work until the afternoon, and the appointment was early. I took a shower and got dressed. My mom took me to the office which was almost an hour away.

“I think I would like to go in myself,” I told my mom.

“Are you sure honey?” She asked with concern.

“I’m sure,” I assured her.

I knew the doctors were going to want to talk about personal stuff in detail and I didn’t want my mom to hear some of it. I signed in at the front and only had to wait a few minutes before they called me to the back. The nurse that brought me in was part of the team that did my extensive procedure. There were two doctors in the exam room, one male, and one female. They were also part of the team. I was relatively comfortable with them after spending so much time together during my transition process. Even through my complaining about having to become a girl they were always professional and helpful.

Before the exam, I changed from my clothes into a patient gown. I looked around while they seemed to be preparing. It wasn’t a typical exam room. All around, there was sophisticated equipment, which made it look more like a laboratory than anything. They rolled a computer over to me which was on a cart with other devices. First, they went down my general information to make sure it was correct. Afterward, they did all of the standard check-ups, such as weight and height, my temperature and blood pressure. My bust, hips, waist, and feet were all measured as well.

All of the information was put into the computer before we had to move on to the next tests. They led me to the x-ray room and had me remove my gown. I stood in the middle of the machine and had to take on a few different positions as the pictures were taken. When they finally finished, we went back to the main exam room. I was told that it was going to take most of the day, but I didn’t really believe it at first and when we got back to the exam room, a couple of hours had already passed.

The next part of the exam seemed to be just a standard checkup. They checked my reflexes, eyes, ears and listened to my heart. Right after, we were off again to another part of the building. I had to lay down and was placed in a large circular machine so that they could scan my body. It felt like I was in there forever. I could hear some creaking and buzzing and didn’t have much to look at. When the scanning finally came to an end, I was presented with some good news; lunch.

I was able to take an hour for lunch so that I could eat and have enough time to digest my food before starting the part of the testing. The food wasn’t that bad, and since I was pretty hungry, it probably tasted better than it actually was.

The next and last part of the test was all about my new lady parts. I had to lay down, and they put my legs into stirrups. I was asked if I preferred the lady or the guy to do the test and I told them that it didn’t matter. The lead doctor took on the test which was the guy. I didn’t know whether to feel more comfortable having a woman do it since I was going to have what was now my vagina examined, or have a guy do it since I had been a male all of my life. The doctor started while I dealt with the turmoil in my head. There was a lubricant applied to me before the speculum was inserted. It felt weird to have it pushed in me like that and even more so as he opened it up, making my insides stretch. I could feel his fingers touching and prodding. There was a bit of relief once he finished and removed the tool from me.

“Have you been sexually active at all?” He asked.

“Um. I haven’t had sex.” I thought for a moment before answering.

“And, have you engaged in any other sexual activity?”

“Well, I have masturbated,” I answered quickly, trying to get the awkwardness over. The doctor looked intrigued.

“Did everything seem to be in order? As in the stimulation and ending?” I could tell he was trying to find words to be polite as possible.

“It felt good, and I had an orgasm.” I could feel my face wanting to blush at giving out such personal information.

“That is fantastic. It seems your body is developing well then. We will have to wait for the other test results to make sure there are no underlying issues.”

It was mid-afternoon when I finally went out to meet my mom for a pickup. I stuck to the ‘it went fine and okay’ as my default answer, not wanting to get into too many details. I told her that the doctor was going to call when they had the other results back.

( Test results and further adapting. )

It had been just over a week since I visited the doctor and waiting for the results had slipped my mind. Work and other things were keeping me occupied. My nails were starting to chip and look pretty bad now, and that had me feeling a little self-conscious. I was still embarrassed to buy something like that in the store, so I ordered some stuff online. The pack contained some nail polish remover and a few different colors of polish. When it came it a couple days later, I took it right to my room to experiment with.

I started with the polish remover and scrubbed away the remaining of what was left on my nails. When I finished that, I jumped right into picking a color. It was weird to sit there and make such a decision, but I did kind of like having my nails done. When I finally decided on a light purple, I started to apply it and not very well either. I removed the first coat and began to look at videos online to see how to do it. In the midst of doing that, I ended up watching other makeup tutorials as well. It took half a day, but I managed to put the polish on halfway decent.

Just as I wrapped up the polish, my mom called me to come down because the doctor was on the phone with the results.

“Hi, Jenny. I was just speaking with your mom briefly, but now that you’re here, I’d like to go over the results.”

“Okay,” I answered. I felt a little relieved that it didn’t sound like anything bad from the tone of his voice.

“We will start at the top then,” the doctor spoke. “ As we confirmed in the office, your blood pressure is healthy as well as your weight. We compared the measurements we took to the original right after the final check was done following the transition procedures. We found that your hips have widened some and suspect that they may widen more to support what appears to be a very healthy reproductive system still developing. Your breasts have also gained size, and like your hips, they will most likely continue to grow. To put it simply, you’re undergoing a new puberty cycle. The scans show that the area of the brain responsible for that is very active.”

“What does that mean? How much are they going to grow?” I ask nervously.

“There is no way to tell, unfortunately. Everyone is unique in that.” He answered. “The scans and x-rays also show that your bones have softened some. Nothing to worry about though. We believe your body is adapting to your new growth, allowing your bones to account for it as well, especially in your hips. That leads us to your last exam, which was the pelvic area. All of your physical traits and organs appear to be healthy, and you mentioned yourself that you’re responding to stimulation normally.”

I could feel my face turn red when he said that and for a moment I felt like I would pass out. It felt like he just told my mom that I had masturbated outright. My mom didn’t seem to react to it though. Maybe for my sake or just because she didn’t catch the meaning.

“One last thing.” The doctor chimed in again. “You may experience conflicting thoughts as your puberty progresses. Your natural instincts and thoughts will become and want to be more feminine. Since you have memories and a pattern of doing things as a male, you may find it hard to accept the new feelings. This can be a very stressful process, and we will recommend a therapist for you. You can decide if you want to use the service or not, but it may prove to be helpful.”

“I can handle it.” I had to debate with my mom after the call. I was already going through it, and I managed to get this far. At the first opportunity, I retreated to my room. There was no way I wanted to talk about this stuff with a therapist. I could feel the emotions about it bubbling up, so I went back to my nail polish to take my mind off of it. I looked at my fingernails again and confirmed to myself that I did a pretty good job, but I wanted to practice more still. My mind went back and forth on if I should remove the polish and do it again. As I sat on the bed, my socked feet caught my eye, and that gave me an idea.

I slipped my socks off and sat on the edge of the bed, starting on my left foot first, carefully applying the polish to each toe. My toes being so close together posed a problem almost right away, and once again, I looked up a video online. The very first video showed a girl using cotton between her toes which triggered a memory of seeing that before. I retrieved some cotton balls and used them in between before starting again. This time I was able to apply the polish pretty well. I looked at my matching fingers and toes, satisfied.

( Friends with benefits. Pt .2 )

Almost two months after I had last seen Andy, we were finally planning to hang out again. During that time we talked on and off, but never set up a time to meet. I didn’t bring up or try to plan anything and waited for him to make the offer. Even though I knew it was stupid, I still felt weird about what happened last time and wasn’t sure what he thought about it. Like last time, we planned for me to stay at his place since I would be off from work the next day.

I showered and dressed before heading over to his place, packing a bag with some extra clothes and toiletries. With my hair getting long, I needed to have brush and comb to keep it under control. When I arrived at his place, I knocked on the door and waited for him to answer. As he opened the door, I was ready and expecting some sarcastic remark.