Chapter 4

Dinner at the Brandistock household was usually a semi-casual affair. Depending on the temperature, the family would either gather at the dining table, or near the fireplace. Heating in the old house was not exactly the most modern. The night was warm, however, and James joined the rest of her family downstairs at the table.

The main course of the meal was a salad consisting of cold pasta and chicken. It was definitely a light meal, even with the slices of sourdough bread and the light green salad that Anne had also prepared. James recalled that her mother often went through phases in her cooking. Sometimes it would be a particular ethnicity of food, other times a specific vegetable would draw her creative juices. Apparently, the current trend was toward salads.

James served herself, as her mother recapped the progress of the day to Randall in a civil tone. Randall, for his part, merely nodded, grunted, and took large bites of food, occasionally washing them down with a drink from the small glass next to him. Occasionally, Elaine would chime in with a description of something James had worn, bringing a blush to James' cheeks.

"So, it was a successful day." Randall said at the conclusion of Anne's narrative.

"Yes, it was a very successful day. How was yours?" Anne maintained the civil tone, looking at Randall with a challenging look in her eye.

"Just the usual. Had to check out a rig up at Old Man Lumberg's place." Randall shrugged, scooping an additional portion of the pasta onto his plate. "He wanted to see if I can get it fixed up well enough to sell it."

"And could you?" Anne asked, looking at him calmly.

"I guess."

"You guess? What, you didn't look at it today?" Anne asked the question with a slightly sharper tone, similar to the one she used when disciplining her students during the year.

"Anne, I need to look at it some more before I can give him a definite answer."

"So you're going out to the valley again tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." Anne made no further comment after that. Some of the enthusiasm that the day had given Anne seemed to have been leeched away by the conversation.

The family continued to eat their meal, but a chill seemed to have settled over the proceedings. James finished her meal, and placed her utensils on the plate.

"Thanks, mom. It was great. Can I be excused?" She asked, favoring her mother with a smile.

"Sure, honey. Could you get my plate while you're at it?"

James nodded, and picked up the items. She carried them to the kitchen, quickly rinsed them off, and placed them in the dishwasher. It was funny how Randall seemed to be getting the same treatment that she used to get when she was a male. Much as she disliked Randall, she knew that being on the receiving end of Anne's anger was no picnic.

James decided that she should probably just spend the rest of the day out of sight, and once again retreated to her room. She wasn't sure what she would do there, since she had already read most of her books and magazines half a dozen times over. She had no computer, and Anne hated television so much that she had actually banned it from the house. What James really wanted to do was to sit back, crack open a beer, and play a few Eric Johnson solos for fun.

"So much for that." James thought to herself. "I'm fricking sixteen. It'll be five years before I can drink again."

That wasn't the only problem with being this age. While it was true that she had very few responsibilities at this time, since it was summer vacation, she had very little freedom. Legally, she was under the care of her parents, which meant toeing the line. The twenty three year old man that she had been did not like this situation one bit. Going back had already changed far too many things. The ripple effect from that one little letter had made her entire life different, right down to the underwear she had to deal with.

Lost in her contemplation, James almost didn't notice the knock on the door. She leaned back in the chair where she had settled herself, and called out a casual, "come in."

Anne peeked her head around the door, taking in the room, before entering and closing the door behind herself. Her gaze drifted to the bags still piled in the corner of the room.

"You haven't put everything away yet?" She asked, looking at her daughter.

"Uh, well most of it's just going to be packed for Moscow, so I thought..." James didn't finish the sentence, instead ending it with a shrug.

"Maggie, you really need to start taking better care of your clothes." Anne said, picking up the top bag. She fished in it, pulled out a blouse, and carefully removed the tag that still was attached to the washing instructions tag.

"Sorry." James said, standing and moving towards the bags, ready to work.

"You don't have to do it now." Anne interrupted the move with an upraised hand. She placed the blouse in her hands back into the bag. "I just want you to get it done before you do anything tomorrow. By the way, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"I hadn't thought about it." James shrugged her shoulders again.

"I really don't want you heading down to hang out with those kids again." Anne's concern was obvious in her voice.

"I think I'm pretty much done hanging out on Alvarado Street, mom." That was definitely the truth. After her earlier encounter with the kid at theater fest, James had truly begun to wonder why she had ever hung out down there. Bored kids, being bored. There was so much more to do, but she had merely wasted her time.

"Good. That's... That's good." Anne seemed surprised by James' answer. Her eyes lost a bit of the concern, but gained a slight measure of puzzlement. "I mean, I know they're your friends down there, but I just think that it's not the right crowd for uhm... You know what I mean, Maggie."

"I know exactly what you mean, mom." James remembered the kind of girls that had hung out down there. The last thing she needed was a reputation as a part-time prostitute. As she thought about it, the very thought struck her as unfair. Why should the girls that hung out down there be considered near-criminals, but the boys were just considered losers? They were all trying to sleep together anyway. Shouldn't the boys share the same guilt as the girls?

James chuckled slightly. One day as a woman and she was already becoming a feminist.

"What's funny, honey?" Anne asked, hearing James' laugh.

"Nothing mom. Just thinking how crazy this whole thing is."

"It's not too crazy honey. It's just... amazing." The last word came out of Anne's mouth almost reverently. The tone made James ask a question that she had been meaning to ask her mother since the morning.

"Mom, are you happier that I'm a girl?"

"I... I don't know. " Anne answered the question hesitantly. "That's a question I really can't answer honey. I love you. Whether you're a boy or a girl, I love you."

"I love you too, mom. I just... I wish... " James couldn't finish the sentence, and just went to her mother. They hugged tenderly, Anne softly patting her hand on the back of her much taller daughter.

Anne left soon after their conversation, leaving James alone once again in her room. Lacking other activities, James began to calmly remove the tags from the clothing in the bags. As each item was finished, she folded it and placed it in a drawer. She momentarily reflected that this was not how she had dealt with clothes at any other time in her life. Normally clothes fell into two piles, clean and dirty. Dirty was a relative term, of course, since the definition of clean could be stretched to cover many different layers of dirty.

Now, as each item was folded and placed either in a drawer or on a hanger, James wondered if her attitude towards this would change as well. There were so many subtle things that she had to get used to. Like the bikini...

THE BIKINI! James stared at the bottom of the Macy's bag, at two pieces of cloth that could barely be considered a swimsuit. Her mother must have purchased it while she was trying something on. It had to be a joke, something that Elaine dreamed up. Why else would she have left it for James to discover when she put everything away? Well, her mother could just forget about that. If she ever went swimming again, which was doubtful, a full wetsuit seemed the most likely item of clothing. A vision of how women tended to look in wetsuits abbreviated that idea as well. James really just didn't feel like going swimming at all anymore...

Suspiciously, James finished digging through the bags. She found four more items that Anne had probably figured James would never have tried on. She was right of course, since there was no way in hell James would have tried on the high cut bikini panties, the little black dress, or the short skirt. There was also no way in hell that James would be wearing lipstick in Fuck-Me Pink anytime soon. The skirt was emerald GREEN, for crying out loud! James sighed, trying not to get angry. Just because her mother had bought the stuff didn't mean she had to wear it. Anne was probably trying to... actually, James had no idea what her mother was trying to do. The only purpose of these things was to turn on guys.

She thinks of you as a girl, James reminded herself. You are a girl. Anne doesn't see this stuff as a way to turn on men, she sees it as a way for you to look beautiful. She's trying to help you adjust. James figured her mother could really use a little pull back on the throttle. Getting the shopping done was one thing, going from zero to ubergirly in one day was a tad overdoing it.

James finished clearing the bags out by dumping the makeup his mother had purchased into one of the purses. The purse quickly disappeared into her desk. With that finished, James noted that the sun had gone down a long time before. She was tired, and for once, it was a natural exhaustion.

"Time to get some fricking sleep." James reached a hand up to rub at her face, before she realized that she was still wearing the makeup. She quickly went downstairs, grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom, and removed it. The slightly sweaty feeling that had been present all day disappeared with the water. With that finished, she returned to her room.

James turned off the light, and shucked the polo shirt. She sighed, and pulled off her t-shirt as well, followed by removing her bra. He breasts fell free again, and she immediately pulled the t-shirt back on. She finished by removing her sweatpants, and climbing into her bed, pulling the down comforter over her. It was a tad warm for such a blanket, but the feeling of being covered was nice. She breathed deeply, feeling all the stress of the day ooze out of her body.

James closed her eyes, and found herself thinking about that woman at the makeup counter: Joyce. Her mind drifted, thinking about those beautiful green eyes, and those exquisite lips. How she wished that she could have run her fingers through that silky black hair, and pulled her in for a long lingering kiss...

As she fantasized, James felt herself getting warm. The warmth was not from the comforter, but from somewhere inside. It seemed to start in the pit of her stomach, and ran through every nerve in her body. She rubbed her cheek against her pillow, feeling the softness. It felt good. Her legs came together tightly, while her hands curled in the blankets. The heat seemed to grow as she moved, every touch of fabric or her own skin seeming delicious.

In her mind, Joyce was returning the kiss, her tongue gently tracing along James' lips. James touched her own lips with her fingertips, feeling the warmth in them. It felt so nice. James slid her hand down to the waistband of her underwear, intending to grasp her cock and stroke it softly. When her hand slipped past the elastic, and found nothing to encircle, it brought her instantly back to her senses.

"SHIT." James murmured against the pillow. She had been getting into the sexual fantasy, but she had been seeing herself as a male in it. The whole mood had been ruined, and she dug her face into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut. James' hands came up to cross against her chest. She rocked herself gently, trying to calm down from the emotional shock that had just smashed into her mind.

"Just calm down, buddy." She whispered to herself. "Get some fricking sleep."

The damp feeling between her legs was not pleasurable while it lingered, since it was no longer combined with the lovely heat that had been building up. If anything, James felt slightly dirty, as she closed her eyes and attempted to sleep.

It took far too long for her to drift away, and when she did, her dreams were not pleasant. The dreams kept coming back to her last time around. All the mistakes she had ever regretted seemed to occur, one after the other. The replays continued, ex-girlfriends, that one boyfriend, a million and one minor errors of judgment, stupid things said. James' mind seemed to delight in repeating the most painful memories on this night. The sleep, although deep, was not restful.

James could deal with the long wait in the waiting room. She could deal with the back issues of Cosmo and Parents that seemed to be the only reading material in the place. She could even deal with the fact that the doctor's assistant had called her "Miss Fletcher" when announcing that the examination room was ready.

The robe, now that was a little more difficult to deal with. Immediately upon entering the examination room, the assistant had handed the thin cotton garment to James and instructed her to disrobe and change into it. The thing had no back, and looked to be about as warm as gossamer. To the rather conservatively dressed James, it looked like a fricking harem girl outfit.

The previous day had gone fairly smoothly since all James had done was to stay out of everyone in her household's way. She had amused herself by reading a bunch of old magazines that were fairly new now, but she hadn't read for at least five or six years. That had taken most of the day, and apart from a few trips downstairs for food or the restroom, she had deliberately stayed invisible.

Today, however, was a different story. Anne had delighted in waking James up early, since it was so important that she be ready for the doctor's appointment. James, for her part, was looking forward to it rather like one looks forward to being executed. All she wanted was to get it over with.

James still stared at the garment as the assistant left, closing the door behind herself. James took in the entire little room, noting the standard drawers, the lights, and the, ugh, examination table. Despite herself, she found her gaze drifting to the recesses where she knew the stirrups lay. That was really not something she was looking forward to. And now this thing she was expected to wear.

For an instant, James wondered if trips to the gynecologist were just a way to humiliate women. Dear lord, what sick perverted mind had come up with the positions that women were expected to get into merely to be examined? The whole thing just was plain embarrassing.

Resigning herself to her fate, James rapidly shucked her clothing, dropping her jeans and shirt in a pile on a nearby chair, before adding her under things. She pulled the light fabric of the small robe about herself, and noted that it did absolutely nothing to help shield her from the slight chill in the room. As her bare feet padded across the light colored tile, she thought about how she might as well be wearing nothing at all. Of course that was probably the point.

With nowhere else to comfortably sit, James slid her butt onto the paper covering the plastic of the examination table. It crinkled as she sat down, the robe not completely covering her nakedness. She sat there, staring at the door, and waiting for the inevitable.

What surprised her more than anything was the knock at the door. She stared at the closed fixture, before the knock came again, this time followed by a voice.

"Miss Fletcher? May I come in?"

That was unusual. In James' experience, doctors didn't knock. They came in at their discretion, checked you out, and left. It was rather nice actually, even though it didn't cover for the fact that she felt naked.

"Uh, yeah..." James called out, a bit unsteadily.

The door opened, to reveal the physician's assistant, once again. James noted that she didn't stare at her, merely moving quickly into the room and closing it behind herself. She smiled at James, looking directly into her face, and spoke calmly.

"Hi, Miss Fletcher, I'm Erica, and I'll be doing your vitals today." With that introduction out of the way, the woman busied herself with the drawers, setting up various medical apparatus on the countertop. After a few moments, she turned back and began taking various medical measurements. It was all routine, and James was amazed that she didn't feel as self conscious as she thought she would be. Erica clearly knew her job, and was being extremely professional. She even took the time to make sure that the stethoscope was warm before placing it on James' back. Blood pressure, temperature, pulse, all went by very rapidly under her expert care.

"Ok, I just need to get a blood sample here, and we're done." Erica said, tying a small elastic cord around James' left elbow.

"I, uh, hate needles." James grimaced, eyeing the hypodermic that looked a bit like a yellow cup with a needle sticking out of it.

"Join the club. Make a fist please." Erica smiled at James as she methodically selected a vein. "Little pinch now."

James winced as the needle struck home. The little pinch had always seemed much larger than it was, but no matter how many times she dealt with it, she always loathed the needle. Deftly, Erica filled a vial from the vein, before removing the purple capped tube and replacing it with another. That too was removed and a final one filled before she removed the needle from James' arm by covering it with a piece of gauze. The pain of the removal was slight, and the gauze was soon wrapped in place with a green piece of material that reminded James of fly paper.

"Thanks, Margaret." Erica smiled at James, placing the vials into a small wire basket nearby. "I'm pretty much done here, and Dr. Lindel will be in to see you shortly."

"Uh, thanks..." James said, watching as the young woman left. Young. It was such a relative term, since the girl couldn't have been much older than James was. Had been, she corrected herself. It was difficult to see people from the same perspective she had had at sixteen. She kept thinking of anybody under thirty as young.

Time passed a lot slower than James would have liked. The time sitting on that table seemed to drag on and on, and it was a welcome relief when the knock on the door finally came. James immediately called out a greeting, and Dr. Lindel walked into the room, shutting the door behind herself just as her assistant had done. Dr. Lindel wasn't very old at all. She seemed about mid-thirties, wearing her brown hair pulled back from her face. Her face, thus revealed, was broad, with an easy smile and bright eyes that helped to immediately put James at ease.

"Hi Margaret. Or do you still prefer James?" the woman asked, with no trace of sarcasm in her words.

"I uh, I'm still trying to get used to Maggie." James mumbled, a bit taken aback to being called by her male name. Over the past few days the only way he had heard it was in a few acerbic remarks made by Randall.

"All right, James then?" Dr. Lindel asked, to be answered by James' nod. "Great. I know this is pretty uncomfortable for you right now. I must admit that this is my first time doing this kind of examination on a boy, so I hope you'll bear with me."

James snickered at the thought, since Dr. Lindel could see for herself that James was obviously no longer a boy. However, the humor was not unwelcome, a nice change from the sarcasm she had been dealing with the past few days.

"I am a little nervous." James admitted, looking at the doctor with an embarrassed grimace.

"I understand. I've done lots of first exams, and trust me, you're a lot less frightened than some of them." Dr. Lindel moved closer to James, placing her hand on her shoulder. "I need you to lie back, alright?"

James nodded, hearing the crinkle of the paper as she leaned back against the table. Her head was supported, so she wasn't totally uncomfortable.

"Now, I'm going to start with something very simple, alright? I'm going to palpate your breasts."

Cautiously, James nodded as Dr. Lindel pulled the light fabric of the gown down. The cool air of the room was already felt on James' skin, but the feeling of the light fabric brushing downwards brought the unfortunate physical reaction of erect nipples. Dr. Lindel said nothing, merely brushing her fingers, encased in latex, against the flesh of James' breast.

It was the first time that anyone had ever touched James there, and though the examination was clinical, it was very hard for James to stay calm. The feelings of pressure, alternating with the slightly circular motion, brought the feeling of warmth to her body once again. James winced again, extremely nervous now, as she realized that once again, she was getting turned on by the attention.

"Are you all right?" Dr. Lindel stopped her motion and removed her hand from James. The lack of stimulation helped James' body to calm down slightly.

"Uhm... I'm fine; it's just that uh..." James tried to think up a way to put it diplomatically, but was failing rather miserably.

Dr. Lindel pulled the gown back up, covering James once more. She pulled up a small wheeled stool and sat down on it next to her.

"James, I'm your doctor now. There is nothing that you can tell me that I haven't heard before." Dr. Lindel looked directly into James' eyes with the comment.

"I think you're turning me on, doc..." James blurted, then immediately wished that she hadn't said it. Dear god, what a thing to say.

Dr. Lindel smirked at the comment, and then placed her palm flat against her own face.

"Well, jeez, I can't figure out why. Let's see, a woman is rubbing anatomy that you aren't used to yet, I'm not surprised that you might have a physical reaction. Look, James, I've had many women have the exact same reaction during an examination, it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"Really?" James asked, an unfortunately pornographic thought running through her mind.

"Yes, so can we stop worrying about what reactions your body might have and let us both get through this?" James nodded her acquiescence, and Dr. Lindel rapidly finished her exam of James' breasts.

"Looks fine. Nothing to worry about. I'd recommend that you do periodic self-exams, even though you're not a high risk for breast cancer. Get in the habit now, and you won't have to worry about it when it's really important." Dr. Lindel stated, moving her hands down to the stirrups attached to the table.

"Ok, now this is the part that most people find uncomfortable. Let me tell you exactly what's going to happen here." Dr. Lindel began, "What's going to happen is I'm going to ask you to put your legs in the stirrups. Then I'm going to need you to scoot as far down towards the edge of the table as you can. "At this point, she picked up a small item that looked like two sporks joined together. "This is called a speculum. I'm going to need to open you up a little with this so I can take a look. The whole process shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. If you'd like I can call your mom in here so she can help you through this."

"That's okay," James said as the last portion of the stirrups was snapped into place. "Can you just, uh, hurry?"

"I'll do my best."

Dr. Lindel was as good as her word as she helped James slide first her left, then her right foot into the small padded stirrups. James felt extremely exposed, and having to scoot down, opening her legs even further, didn't help much. Dr. Lindel moved the small chair between James' legs, and looked directly up the gown. Her hands moved forward, holding the plastic item.

The first touch of the plastic on her was frightening. James had consciously fought the urge to self-explore, since doing so had seemed first inappropriate, than unnecessary. Her few contacts with her new anatomy had been in the process of a daily shower and using the toilet. The contact was completely alien. As the two pieces of chill plastic slipped forward James could feel her body opening. The horrifying thought that went through James' mind was to wonder if this was what being stabbed felt like. James' eyes closed tightly as the speculum pushed her apart. It hurt. There was a pain, a dull ache as her body tried to adjust to the invading item. She wanted to scream.

"You're doing really well." Dr. Lindel's words were nothing to James. Her whole world had contracted to the plastic thing inside her. It pulled back slowly, and James felt herself closing, but the ache still remained inside her. She felt violated. James could feel tears in her eyes, as she thought about how she had to see this woman four more times before she went off to college. Inside, she could feel her muscles pulling themselves back into position. She breathed heavily, trying to fathom how women dealt with this.

"James, are you alright." The doctor's face had taken on one of concern, as she looked at the tears in the corners of James' eyes.

"It um, it just hurt... okay?" James said, trying not to let the pain that still drew her attention show.

"It won't hurt as much if you relax." Dr. Lindel stated flatly.

James did not reply, merely removing her legs from the foul braces. She contemplated hunting down the man who invented these things and sticking him in them for a while with a speculum shoved up his ass.

"I'm sorry about the discomfort. But the good news is that you won't have to come back for a year."

"I thought I had appointments every week." James said, not willing to hope that she might not have to deal with the plastic spork of doom again.

"Well, that was back when Dr. Hubbard and I thought we would be charting a process. May I be honest?" Dr Lindel asked the question with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"Shoot." James said, gesturing towards her clothes. The doctor nodded, and handed them to James, who began to slip them on, under the robe.

"If I hadn't seen the x-rays and your files, and I didn't trust Dr. Hubbard, I'd have sworn this whole thing was a big hoax."

James said nothing, being engrossed with the bra hooks.

"Right now, as far as I can see, there is absolutely nothing that shows that you were ever a male. You are one hundred percent female. There's no markers, no abnormal secondary characteristics, nothing. It's like you just one day said, I'm not being a boy anymore, and poof, there you are."

James smiled wryly, thinking that that was exactly what had happened. Only he wasn't the one who had made the decision.

"So, as far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to subject you to constant scrutiny unless something else unusual happens. Weekly pelvics aren't going to help either you or me."

"So, I can forget about this for a while?" James said, wincing slightly as she pulled on her jeans. Internal or not, the pressure on her crotch caused slight pain.

"Well no, there are some things I'd like to discuss with you."

"All right, like what?" James asked, pulling her shirt on and leaning back on the table.

"Well, James, have you thought about birth control?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well James, you are a woman, and from what I can tell you probably aren't going to be infertile."

"You mean I could get knocked up?" James hadn't even considered this. Up to that point his entire thought process had been to avoid sex and men in general at all costs. She hadn't even thought about the ramifications if she did end up fucking some guy.

"To put it bluntly, yes." Dr. Lindel smiled softly at James. "I think it would be a good idea for you to go on the pill."

"Whoa, doc. No way. First off, I don't think that's going to be a problem for a while." James hadn't liked it when a woman, the sex she was still attracted to, had pushed inside her. She couldn't even imagine how bad a cock would feel. There was no way in hell she was going to be letting some guy fuck her.

"Have you had your period yet?" Dr. Lindel ignored James' comments, instead focusing on something else.

"No. Oh, shit." James groaned. She had just been getting slightly accustomed to this body when she had been reminded of those lovely few days a month that she was going to get.

"Well, I can tell you for certain that being on the pill can help you with some of the worse side effects. Also, I think it would a good idea for you to take it."

"Doc, I don't think I'm going to be sleeping with any guys anytime soon. First off, I'm jailbait, and secondly I'm not interested." James boldly stated. At this point she truly didn't care if she offended the doctor.

"James, you're young. You're not used to your body. You're probably going to have feelings and desires that you aren't used too and..."