Chapter 1

Someone once said, "The only thing constant is change."

Hello, and welcome to my topsy-turvy world. My name is Jeanette Kay McCarthy now, but a few months ago it was Charles Allan McCarthy. Are you confused yet? I was very confused and upset at first, but I think I'm starting to get a handle on the situation. Let me go back a little ways and see if I can explain it better.

On June 6th of 2008, I was 2 days past the celebration of my thirty-sixth birthday. My name was Charles Allan McCarthy, the divorced father of a daughter, Amber, and I was a service driver for the construction company that was rebuilding Interstate 57 near Champaign, Illinois. I drove the rig that fueled and greased the bulldozers and graders that were being used on the highway reconstruction project.

By July 15th 2008, I had become Jeanette Kay McCarthy, and was just getting used to my new body. Now you're probably thinking I'm a nut case, but I assure you, what I have to tell you is really true. The Institute — more on them later — changed me from a male to a female. They call it "crossing over". It didn't happen overnight and it was not without a glitch or two, but the transition was eventually successful.

If I can take you back to April of 2008 when I was a service driver, I was suffering a lot of stress. Long hours and not enough sleep, hard physical labor in the sun and hoisting a few more than were good for me in the evenings all took their toll. Also, I was from the Seattle area and had never worked this far east before, and I didn't know how long the season would last. Ever since my divorce, I'd managed to spend the off-season around Seattle to be with Amber, and it was unclear whether I'd be able to do that this year.

I'd rented a medium-sized house located one exit north of the work zone that February, and my motor home, a 2001 38' Pace Arrow, was parked next to the garage. The house had two bedrooms and one-and-a half baths, a mud room and a large kitchen, and was ideally suited to a working man. My work truck, an older Ford Ranger pickup, usually sat in the driveway.

Sometime in March I began getting free samples in my mailbox. I got detergent, toothpaste, perfume, a box or two of cereal and quite a few candy bars. I also received gift certificates for a dozen or more local businesses and several hundred coupons for discounts on various things, and about every two weeks or so, a few more of something would show up. Some candy bars were the chocolate type which I ate immediately, and the others were put in my lunchbox for a sugar boost in the late afternoon. I should tell you that my job wasn't from 9 to 5; it was more like 5 to 9, and later if the light was holding on. Summers we often worked until 10:30 pm.

By May we were working twelve-hour days, and I'd come home, take a shower and maybe watch a little TV, then it was off to the bed. Four-thirty am comes awfully early. Anyway, I normally went to bed on Sunday nights alone and sober, because dealing with hangovers and working around heavy equipment doesn't mix too well. The idiots who drive by at reckless speeds are enough danger for most of us.

One evening around the end of May a guy in a white van marked 'Spee-Dee Courier' stopped by just as I got home and said he had a package for me. He mumbled when he asked me if I was C. A. Mac-something, and I said yes and signed for it, thinking he had said 'McCarthy'. It had to be McCarthy; I was the only one living here, right? Inside the box, I found four individual shrink-wrapped packets with a note. The note said, "Please consume in numerical order", and sure enough, each one was numbered. I threw number one in my lunch bucket for the following day and left the rest on the counter. I should tell you that the contents were all healthy food: nuts, raisins, dates, dried apricots, sunflower seeds and things like that. All of it had a delicious taste, too. Little did I know...

Now on the afore-mentioned evening, June 6th — it was Friday — I came home from doing the laundry and watched a little TV, and about eleven I went to bed. I had a slight headache and took a couple of Tylenol, thinking it would be better by morning. Everything was fine when I drifted into slumber.

The next morning I was groggy and unable to think clearly, and my face felt funny. I sported a handlebar mustache in those days, as part of my construction worker image. Evidence on the pillow and in the mirror of the bathroom a few seconds later confirmed what I'd originally thought: my mustache had thinned considerably overnight, and looked downright scraggly.

I made coffee and burned some toast, and then sat at the table to think things over. I couldn't go to work with my face in that condition, 'cause guys like to laugh at other guys' misfortune. Reluctantly, I shaved my face totally clean for the first time in a dozen years and got dressed for work. I noticed I had to use a different notch in my belt and my work boots had to be cinched a little tighter that morning, but I didn't think anything was wrong.

Monday and Tuesday went by fairly quickly, but Wednesday morning I found a little more hair in the bed sheets. Most of the hair on the back of my hands, my forearms and my chest was gone; the hair on my head seemed to be a little longer, but I couldn't be sure. I had a one-track mind at the time, and the loss of hair was much more important than getting a bit more. I called off work and started searching the Internet for symptoms of a disease that matched mine.

By three that afternoon I'd worn out two pencils and a whole lot of my patience, and kicked back with a cold beer. The beer didn't help anything but my thirst, and I was no closer to finding out what was wrong. There was a condition that caused all of a person's hair to fall out, but I still had more than enough on my scalp, so I didn't think that was it. I had no clue what to search for, so I made supper. The steak and corn on the cob went down very nicely, and I opened another beer. Before bed that evening, I noticed that my beard hadn't grown back like it usually did and my face felt really smooth, almost like it was before I'd started shaving.

Thursday I went to work as usual and suffered the jibes of my friends and co-workers; comments such as "baby face" and "lightweight drinker" followed me most of the day. I tried to appear unconcerned, but I didn't know how far this was going to go and I was worried. I hadn't changed my diet, my drinking or smoking habits, my detergent or my bath soap, so I assumed it wasn't an allergy. I thought maybe someone had slipped something into my lunch bucket or the water barrel, but I hadn't eaten anything I hadn't packed, and everyone drank from the barrel.

Thursday night I went out with a few of my friends and partied a little bit, so I didn't get home until about two in the morning. Friday dawned bright and clear, and I felt like death warmed over. My head hurt, my back ached, my hip joints were tender, my knees were wobbly and my eyes were bloodshot. I thought I'd have to swear off booze for a week or so, but then I realized I had had only three beers all night, not nearly enough to cause all the physical damage I was feeling. I called off work again and opened a beer.

I assessed the damage after my shower, and found my body — except for my scalp and pubes — to be nearly hairless. Then, to my horror, I realized my penis had shrunk. Not much, but enough to notice, and I remembered when I'd taken a leak that morning he had seemed a tiny bit strange in my hand, like he didn't fit the right way. I massaged him a little bit and he swelled back to normal, but when I left him alone he resumed his former flaccid state. I'm just average at a hair over six inches long, so any loss was painful for me.

So, here I was in my house on Saturday morning, nearly hairless, with a shrinking cock and a really bad headache, and the doorbell rang. Thinking it might be the paperboy or the manager, I shuffled to the door and opened it a crack. I had a robe on, but I was nude under it; I'd been staring at my dick, trying to catch it in the act of shrinking. I saw a man and a woman outside my door and I didn't know either of them. Whatever they were selling, I wasn't buying.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

The woman, a redhead, said, "We're here to help you."

I'm not really that obtuse, but I had a headache and a bad attitude, so I said, "With what?"

The woman tried to peek over my shoulder and I eased the door to a little bit. She asked, "Is anyone with you?"

If she was acting, she was doing a good job looking concerned. "No," I said. "I'm alone."