Chapter Two:  Terror in the Club

I became very self-conscious of how short I was and kept imagining everyone looming over me like fairy tale giants. And my clothes were loose and obviously not fitting me. They must've been at least two sizes too large. I felt jumpy and out of sorts, with my sleeves flapping over my little hands and the way I started constantly stepping on my pants cuffs.

As if I wasn't paranoid enough, at work, the other guys started to crack jokes about me behind my back, racist jokes about my having caught some sort of Asian STD they called "Yellow Fever." Some of the customers started asking me where that nice Martin was who always recommended such good movies to rent. After a couple of days of that, I quit. I didn't bother to write a letter of resignation or phone or email, I just didn't show up anymore.

I called my parents and told them I got fired and after a long lecture, they sent me some money to live on while I looked for another job. They also wanted me to get serious about school and had been after me about it for some time, so I agreed to that to buy some time to sort out what was happening to me.

Emily and I went out with her friends, Darla would barely speak, which was great because I knew she hated me, and usually the things she said would be breathless and stupid.  But I could tell she was studying me.  I would glance in her direction and she’d look away, which meant she’d been watching.  Of course, that made me suspicious.

One night after I'd been feeling particularly uncomfortable and embarrassed at the coffee house (one of Emily's friends wanted us to all dress up in freaky dresses and go to this party at a friend's house-- all of us in dresses, which I might have done under any other circumstances), I had another talk with Emily about the whole thing. I knew Darla was into Wicca and paganism, and had a lot of books on magic, all of which both Emily and I thought was complete bullshit. But as long as it made her happy. Now, however, I had this silly suspicion.  It first crossed my mind when my hair changed... but I made myself forget it. Lately, though, it was increasingly starting to nag me.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but you don't think Darla might've slipped something into my drink sometime, do you?" I asked. I was standing in the bedroom in my underwear, which I now had to roll down a couple of times, or else they'd fit like a big, white diaper. I was about to slip on a T-shirt when Emily stormed into the room.

"What are you saying?" she demanded.

"Well, I know she hates me," I said. "She's got all those fucked up books."

"Oh, fuck, Martin, you're talking about magic," Emily protested.  “Darla reads that stuff but I don’t think she really believes in it.  That’s stupid.”

"Yeah, well, I was just asking," I said hotly, my face flushed.  "This shit that's happening to me is real, anyways."

Suddenly, Emily grinned devilishly and she pushed me down onto the bed and started kissing my face all over. Then she stopped. "You are a girl!" she exclaimed.

Well, I could feel my penis making a statement to the contrary, but I knew what she was getting at. My face was completely smooth, and my body was mostly the same way. I still had some dark arm hair, but it had become very fine, almost invisible.

Emily ran her palms down my chest. "God, your skin is so soft."

"This is most definitely some weird, fucked up… weirdness," I said in a little voice that barely sounded like me at all.

I watched her hands move all over my chest and torso and it was like watching her touching someone else, like some kind of fucked up first person porno with nothing of myself in it except the tactile sensations she was giving me.  It felt different from all the other times, like my nerve endings were so much more delicate and the surface of my skin gave her hand so much less resistance.  Smooth on smooth, so very little friction.  Our bodies gleamed the same way in the light from the hallway.

People like to think girls are hairless, but they're not; they have very fine body hair all over, and in the sunlight sometimes it glints like silver.  Emily had the same kind of dark hair on her arms that I had now. But we definitely looked like two girls in the half-light and the thought suddenly got me very excited. Not my being a girl, but the whole two girls thing. Emily settled back onto my thighs and gave lie to the illusion by revealing my penis, completely erect and pointing straight at my face.

"You can do anything you want with it," I told her.

"Can I have it in me?"

I smiled in reply. She lifted up and lowered herself down onto my dick and we moved together. I certainly didn't feel girlish anymore, but as our hands worked all over each other it was hard to tell where she ended and I began, and vice versa. It was like we were one and the same in a way mere physical contact couldn’t account for.  Her tremors and feelings communicated blended with mine as if our nervous systems were inexplicably linked and I felt her come at least twice, and then she pulled off as I pumped hot semen all over my belly and thigh.

Emily settled down on top of me, gluing us together with my come, which I ran in warm streams down my stomach and thighs towards the bed. I felt drowsy and peaceful-- if I woke up tomorrow with a vagina, I'd deal with it then.

I still had my penis the next day, but another factor came into play. We could no longer deny that I looked Asian. Like a very skinny, extremely androgynous Japanese kid of about 15 or so. My skin tone had gone from pale pink to pale tan, and my eyes were dark brown and almond-shaped, and I could see I'd soon have the epicanthic fold that gives some Asian eyes their distinct appearance.  Actually, I looked more part-Asian or even Hispanic, but given the way things had been going, full Asianhood no doubt awaited.

"We have got to get you to a doctor," Emily said.

"With what money?" I asked.

"Call your parents."

"And tell them what- that I'm turning Japanese so I need to see a doctor? Yeah, they'll love that, right after I told them I quit my job."

"Don’t tell them that.  Just tell them you're sick."

Emily was right. I did think for a moment it would even be a relief to turn over my existence to some scientifically-interested third party to maybe find out why this was happening to my body, but another part of me, the willful part, wanted me to just deny the whole thing.  After all, there was always a chance it was just a dream. A very detailed and exacting dream that seemed to be lasting a whole month, but a dream nevertheless.

But as scared as I was of this transformation, I was absolutely petrified of prying eyes and poking needles. And what if the doctor confirmed I was turning into an Asian girl?  My mind conjured up images of myself imprisoned behind Plexiglas, costumed as Patient Zero in a white dressing gown, the body-changing process continuing but with a whole new layer of torture on top of that.  Wires up my asshole, little doors cut in my skull and all kinds of metal probes and monitors shoved into my brain, EKGs, body scans, blood tests, interviews, therapies, experimentation. 

And after that phantasmagorical stint as Alice at the mad surgery party in Medical Wonderland, maybe some kind of “Oprah Winfrey Show” infamy, with doctors getting rich off books all about the dumb guy who changed race and sex like some kind of human chameleon.  I’d become less than a person.  I’d become some kind of cultural metaphor.

“No,” I said, making my choice.  “I do not want to go to a doctor over this.  What if it’s like testicular cancer?  I’m so different now it’d probably be in the terminal stage-“

“And you’ll die if you don’t see someone about it!”

“I’ll die anyways!  But before dying, I’d get the joy of spending my last months getting cut into little pieces or puking my guts out on chemo.  Right now, I feel pretty damned good, so no thanks.”

“But you’ll die, Martin.”

Yeah, all those things and even Emily’s insistent words were screaming at me inside, scaring the shit out of me, to be honest.  But there was no way I was going to spend my remaining time like a lab monkey or a victim in a torture flick-slash-snuff film.  Because despite the fear-rush and frequent panic attacks, despite the fact I might be dying, what I’d said about feeling pretty damned good was only half the truth.  Actually, I felt incredible.  Energetic, feisty, giddy.  My metabolism was sped up like a hummingbird’s heart.

Finally, something happened that sent me over the edge. Emily and I went to a show with her friends (by now, I had stopped even talking to my friends on the phone because my voice was so different and embarrassingly high, and I wasn't about to let them see me in my new altered state). A local alternative band called the Enemies was opening for a some up-and-coming-group called Seven Brothers that actually had a recording contract. The show was at the world-famous Lava Lamp club downtown, and as much as I wanted to see the bands, I really did not want to go and make my public debut as a teenage Japanese girly-boy.  I’d thought it over for approximately ten seconds, then opted out, but Emily talked me into it by making some outrageous promise or other about some insanely desired physical activity we'd do when we got back. I still had sex going for me, even if it was becoming more problematic too.

Emily drove that night, because I'd sworn off now that I no longer matched my driver's license in any way. She had a battered Ford Bronco II with plastic Mardi Gras beads hanging from the rearview mirror. I slumped as low as I could in my seat, hardly talked. Emily played her Pixies tapes and sang along, occasionally giving me these funny, soulful looks as she wailed her favorite parts. Once she even punched me on the arm and asked me to sing with her instead of moping. I gave her a nasty look that shut her down until we got to Darla's house, and then the Bronco was full of giggling girls breathlessly talking a mile a minute about nothing in particular.

So there we were, outside the club, everyone pretending I was still my old self. Emily got in with no problem; she didn't have to even show her fake ID and got stamped as if she were legal. I was concerned about getting turned down, but they did the same for me-- passed me by and stamped my hand. Through the doors we went, and the whole smoky place opened up before us. The Enemies still hadn't taken the stage, so we mingled with the sparse pre-show crowd.

And then it happened.

Some guy, some tiny little guy with wire-rimmed glasses and the start of a goatee came up to me. At first he just stood near us, listening to the conversation, to which I certainly wasn't adding much.

Then, he said something to me.

"What?" I asked, from surprise and because I could barely hear him over the loud music blaring on the club's PA.

"I said, `How are you?'" he said, smiling and nodding his head. I immediately recognized the look on his face, because it'd been on mine plenty of times. The "I'm trying to pick you up" face. From his twiggy looks I couldn't be sure he wasn't just gay, but for some reason, the vibe I got from him was hetero.

"I'm... um... I'm okay," I stammered, then I grabbed Emily's arm and walked her to a secluded corner of the club.

"Did you see that?" I said, fighting the noise so she could hear me, but no one else could.

I glanced over at the guy, and sure enough, he had his eyes on me. He saw us no doubt talking about him, smiled and held up big Grolsch in salute, just as I'm sure I'd done to girls dozens of times before I met Emily.  I thought, Shit, he thinks we’re talking over my attraction to him, or the possibility of me catching a ride with him after the show.

"What, that guy?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, that guy," I said.

"What about him?"

"He hit on me."

"He didn't."

"He did."

"He did?"

"Yeah," I said. I was mortified. I was probably blushing like crazy.

Emily told me not to worry about it. I told her I couldn't help but worry about it. I mean, I was a skinny Asian boy-type kid and some guy was trying to get with me and I was pretty sure it was because he thought I was a skinny Asian girl-type kid and that’s what had me freaking out.  If I thought in any way he was gay, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least.  But there was a distinct guy-meets-girl going on, and the boy clothes I wore wouldn't have put anyone off; we lived in a pretty liberal college town where people tended to dress eccentrically to make a name for themselves.  I told myself Emily was right, to forget it and that maybe if my hair had been shorter he would have realized that I was male.

But even that fact was increasingly coming into doubt.

The rest of the night, I avoided twig boy. Thankfully, he got the message I wasn't interested and found someone else to mack on. I couldn't help but think he'd found some "other girl." But as the Enemies began their set, there was blood in the water now, and the sharks started circling. A guy with a shaved head asked me if I skated. A hippie-type stoner dude wanted to know if I got high. Of course, guys were also hitting on Emily at the same time. Then, this guy I knew from work, Bob (who I always thought was a dork) asked me point blank what I was doing the next weekend. I definitely knew Bob wasn't gay, because I'd met his girlfriend.

"Bob," I said, then stopped.  What next?  Would he even believe me?  "It's me, Martin."

"Martin?" Bob asked, a weird look on his face, half-grin, half-shock. He looked me over and I guess he believed me due to the fact I had been so visibly different the last few days I worked at the video store, because he asked me what I was doing and what had happened to me.

"I wish I knew," I said, truthfully.

So Bob started apologizing profusely (and sweating that way, too), and I decided to get the hell out of there.  He didn’t even stay for the show, just bolted out the front door and into the night.  I told Emily I was ready to go, too, but Darla protested.

"I wanna see Seven Brothers," she whined. She was quite the whiner.

"Can you get a ride?" Emily asked her. Darla pouted, but said it was possible. There were a few guys from some of her classes there. Emily and I left, along with one of Emily's more wallflower-type friends, Beth.

We drove in silence, with the light in the cab shifting constantly from the streetlamps as we passed. I kept my eyes on the reflected dash lights on the windshield.

"Well, that was fun," Beth said from the backseat.

"Uh huh," Emily and I replied, simultaneously, obviously not believing it. But the atmosphere in the Bronco was deadly. I was grateful when we dropped Beth off and got back to my apartment.  Emily was in a foul mood now, and when I tried to get her to make good on her promise, she shook her head and we just lay there, side by side in bed, but feeling a million miles apart.