Joe shrugged. "What the hell, I'll do it," he said. "Might as well go for it, if we're gonna do this at all."
Dr. Kelly grinned coolly and nodded. "That's certainly a valid perspective," she said, and turned her attention to Mike. "And you, Mr. Larue?"
Mike stared into space, scuffed his shoe nervously, and thought about it. Were they really doing this!? He thought briefly about going half-and-half like she'd discussed, but ultimately discarded the idea; he'd thought it might let him get through the year without anyone finding out, but if his roommate turned into a woman, it'd make it a whole lot easier for the other guys in the dorm to suss out that something was different about him, too. If they were both girls, maybe they could get admitted to the women's dorm and finish out their degrees under cover identities. It'd be awkward trying to fit in with...with the real women, he thought...but surely less so than the alternative. But thoughts of gross, awkward biological reality still nagged at him...
He bit his lip. "Do, uh...do we really...have to have periods...?" he asked uneasily, his voice diminishing almost to a whisper.
The doctor cocked an eyebrow. "I did say it - total biological sex reversal, as if you'd been born that way. Billions of women around the globe deal with menstruation on a regular basis, you know." She frowned and thought for a moment, tapping her pen on the blotter that topped her desk. "But since you ask, we have been working on an alternative as one of our other projects, and we haven't yet had a chance to test it in combination with the sex-change treatment. If you'd prefer, I can certainly sign you on as test subjects for that program, too."
Joe laughed and nodded vigorously. "I think that's a hell yes there, ma'am." He glanced over at Mike who nodded weakly, still visibly uncomfortable.
"Excellent!" she said, a glint in her eyes, and took a moment to pull a folder from a file cabinet behind her desk, adding another little stack of paperwork to the pile that each of them was expected to sign. Joe took his and powered through it with abandon; Mike hesitated for a minute, wondering again if they were really doing this, and ultimately rushed through signing off as quick as he could so he wouldn't have time to stop and think about it.
When they were finally done slogging through the disclaimers and waivers and California-mandated warnings, Dr. Kelly tore off a couple sections from their respective forms and directed them down the hall. "There are exam rooms at the end," she said. "A staff nurse is waiting for each of you; give them these, and they'll start you on the treatments. I'm quite intrigued to see how the two of you turn out."
Joe felt a little dazed as he moseyed down the hall, wondering at how much of a turn life had taken in the last half-hour. Well, it'd be a hell of an adventure, wouldn't it? If he looked at it that way, maybe this wouldn't be so bad; and they were getting out of the worst part, anyway...
The nurse who greeted him as he entered the exam room was a chipper South Asian woman, but her accent was pure New York. "I'm Lindsay, and I'll be working with you today," she said. "I'll have you sit on the table during the transformation, but it's up to you whether you want to undress or not."
He thought for a moment, glancing awkwardly over at her. "You, uh, you're not gonna be uncomfortable...?" he asked.
She laughed. "I'm a happily married woman, Mr. Brooker, and a medical professional. I've seen it all before."
After another moment's consideration, Joe shucked off his clothes and clambered onto the table. If he had to go through something as way outside the norm as this, he figured, he might as well take in the show. "Something to tell the grandkids about," his uncle used to say...well, maybe not, at least 'til they were older, assuming he ever had any.
She fetched a syringe from a cupboard, and then another, double-checking them against the papers. "Chem department says these should be directly compatible," she said, swabbing down his shoulder with an alcohol wipe, "so we'll do 'em both at the same time. No sense dragging things out, right?" She gave the first a little squirt to get the air out. "Here, hold still for me..."
Both injections were over so quick he hardly thought about it, and she checked her watch. "Now we wait," she said. "You know, I think you're the first to do these treatments together..."
"That's what the doctor said," Joe replied. Hoo boy, he thought, this is really happening, isn't it...?
The nurse grinned. "Exciting! I've done a coupla male-to-female conversions already, now that we're starting human testing, but it's a rarer pleasure to add a new hen to the flock." She shifted her hips from side to side, looking almost a little bashful. "Well, it's not like we're advertising it yet; we're still waiting on final approval. I think it's really gonna take off, myself."
Joe blinked in confusion. "Uh, 'hen...?'"
She nodded. "I guess you wouldn't have any basis for comparison, would you? Well, I'll take laying over days of bloating, cramps, and flow anytime. You made the smart choice, trust me."
"LAYING!?" He gaped. "Y-you mean, like...?"
She blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry, were you not aware? Dr. Kelly signed off on these, I thought she'd have..."
Joe stared off into space. "We, uh, kinda...powered through everything..."
"I see," the nurse laughed. "Lemme guess, you were nervous about having a menstrual cycle?"
He nodded meekly; she gave him an understanding smile. "If it's any consolation, I made the same choice, and I grew up with that." She shrugged, giving her arms a languid stretch. "Every month, my body would get prepped to have a kid, even though I had no plans to get pregnant. Energy and effort wasted, and my only reward was a half-week of misery and inconvenience. And now?" She chuckled. "Well, it still takes energy, but at least the end result is something useful - decorative, even! And no cramps, no bleeding, no pads or tampons...no, I don't miss it at all."
He bit his lip. "But, like, you're seriously talking about laying eggs? Like-ahh!" He winced at a sudden twinge, deep in his abdomen.
"Like a bird, yeah," she said, checking her watch. "And that'd be the start of your oviduct. Quicker'n expected! I guess the treatments are kickstarting each other; Dr. Kelly'll be interested to hear about that."
"But...d-doesn't that hurt!?" He shifted his hips uneasily as the bones in his pelvis began to crack and pop.
She gave a so-so wave of her hand. "Oh, don't get me wrong - of course it's uncomfortable. But it's over quick, and then you're done. Sore for a bit, but no lasting pain. As you're probably feeling right now, your new body will be 'built to take it.'" She chuckled. "And as some of our other test subjects have confirmed, it's got nothing on childbirth; you won't have a cervix to dilate."
He shook his head slowly, feeling at his face; the stubble was gone, and the structure was already a little softer and finer. "This's...this is so, so weird to think ab-out...?" He cringed slightly as his voice cracked; his shoulders felt a bit narrower already.
"Of course," she said, putting a supportive hand on his shoulder. "It's definitely not normal; it'll be a long time 'til it's normalized even once we've got approval for general release. But that doesn't have to mean it's a bad thing." She glanced down at his pelvic region, and made another note. "Ah, you're starting to shrink."
Joe glanced down to see that she was right; his member was dwindling, and he could feel his family jewels getting drawn back into the body cavity. "Oh," he murmured dazedly, "oh man."
"'Woman,' you mean," she joked. "That'll be your clitoris before too long, and the scrotum will form your labia majora. One of your testes will atrophy, while the other's gonna become the ovary at the head of the oviduct. Once a month it'll release a couple ova, which will develop into complete eggs as they pass through the reproductive tract. Clutch size varies; we've seen up to four, but the average is closer to one or two."
"Gah, I don't even know how to process this," he said, scratching at a tickling sensation in his chest. He winced as his fingernails scraped across the tender, puffy flesh that was swelling under his nipples. "Ah...!"
"Yep, your breasts have started to bud," the nurse said. "I'd leave 'em alone; they're gonna be tender for a bit. And you'll be fine, trust me; instinct takes care of most of it. Just remember, when the time comes, don't try to fight it; find a safe place and let it happen naturally. You'll get the hang of tracking it; once you do, you can arrange to take a morning or two off when you know you're due." She smiled warmly. "Gives you a chance to brood for a bit, too. Doesn't do anything if they're not fertilized, of course, but it satisfies the nesting instincts."
"'Nesting instincts...?'" Joe repeated, cringing as the empty remains of his scrotum split apart; his voice was still changing. "Wait, fertilized!?"
"Well, yeah," she replied. "This is meant to be a completely viable replacement for the female reproductive system; if you let your eggs be fertilized, they should be perfectly capable of nurturing an embryo as it develops into an infant." She shrugged. "Well, I say that, but we've yet to test the theory. My husband and I have talked about it, but...I do want to hatch a kid of my own, but I'm not sure I want to be the first. Too much attention, too many tests." She smiled and gave a happy sigh. "I'd rather keep it intimate, just me, baby, and Dad...well, and maybe an egg-sitter from time to time."
Joe glanced down at his swelling breasts and dwindling penis, and noted that his legs had already changed substantially in proportion and shape; it seemed that most of his fat was being redistributed in what looked to be a very eye-catching way. He found himself regarding Lindsay for the first time as a woman - no, more than that, as a fellow woman. It was bizarre to hear her talk about wanting to be a mom, but he could conceptualize it in his head in a way he couldn't before. Was this what it was like to have your brain re-wired in real-time? He felt a weird emotion in the pit of his stomach; a year from now, he wondered, would that be him...?
"Of course, you're certainly under no obligation," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "Legally, we can neither demand you to engage in sexual activity, nor alter your compensation accordingly. And when your ova are something you can see, and feel develop inside you, it makes the 'rhythm method' real simple. So there's no reason they have to be anything more than unfertilized eggs to you, unless you want them to be."
"W-wait," he said, blinking, "what do you do with...?"
"Oh, anything you like," she said. "Well, you probably can't sell 'em openly without the FDA asking awkward questions, but we're always happy to take any castoffs here at the lab. On an unrelated note," she said, grinning slyly, "try the omelettes in our commissary sometime - they're amazing."
Joe couldn't begin thinking of how to respond to that; instead, he turned his attention back to his bust. "Geez, they just won't stop." He gingerly put a hand to one breast; his fingers were noticeably slenderer, and the hand itself smaller.
"That's not on us," Lindsay laughed. "Blame your genes."
"I can believe that," he replied, shifting around atop his increasingly curvy derriere; his voice was completely feminine by this point. "I've seen my grandmother's old photos." As he squirmed around, he noticed something that he wasn't feeling anymore, and glanced down to his crotch. "...Wow," she said, after a long moment.
"Yeah, looks like the external genitalia are complete," Lindsay said, making another note. "I'll have you stay where you are for a little longer; it may be a bit before the upper and lower ends of the tract join up inside of you, and some of your secondary sex characteristics are still in progress."
They sat there for a little longer, as Joe quietly marvelled at it. She hadn't expected to find it so easy to make the switch, but she had no real trouble thinking of herself as a woman. Was it something the treatment did, or was it just that it felt silly to look down at this body from a first-person perspective and think of it as anything else? She wondered how Mike was taking it.
Eventually, Lindsay pronounced her done, and she slid off the table and tottered to her feet. She didn't seem to have lost anything in height, but her legs were much leggier and her waist was further off the ground than it had been. The other woman helped her walk over to the mirror, gradually getting the hang of her new proportions, and it was there that Joe got her first good look at herself.
It wasn't just the legs; between the broad hips, curvy tush, and ripe, heavy breasts, she cut a fairly stunning figure. Her not-conspicuously-narrow waist was about the only thing keeping it from being the archetypal "hourglass" shape - but considering what'd be happening in her lower abdomen every month, that was probably for the best. Her skin was smooth and tan across her whole body, with just a fine dusting of downy hairs, and a dense auburn muff down below. Her face was round and her features fine; her short-cropped hair had grown out considerably, and if it was still short for a woman, it wasn't enough to keep her from thinking: God damn, I'm a knockout...!
She carefully put a hand to her crotch, feeling the touch from both ends; Lindsay handed her a smaller mirror, and she carefully parted the lips and got a look at her own inside. She gasped softly; it wasn't as though Joe had never seen this before, but not on her. It didn't feel strange or alien, but rather like a natural part of her body - and she noted with curiosity that she felt no hint of titillation at the sight. Was that just because it was hers, or...?
While she was marvelling over that, Lindsay took a box from the cupboard and rummaged around in it. "Here," she said, pulling out a basic, no-frills white brassiere, "I think this'll be about right."
Joe gaped. "Wait, that's a...?" She had a bit of a brain-freeze moment; she was going to argue that it was something for women, but then she was a woman now, wasn't she.
"Sure is," the other woman replied, "and believe me, you're gonna need it. You'll want to get a proper fitting and pick up a few of your own, but this'll do for a start." She got a weird little expression of pride on her face. "Between working at a boutique back in college and my first couple guy-to-girl conversions, I'm pretty good at guesstimating, if I do say so myself."
Once Lindsay had walked her through the process of putting it on, Joe got dressed and walked back down the hall, quietly taking in the experience. It was one thing for all the weirdness to happen in the exam room, but now she was really doing it - going back out into the world as a woman, to live as a woman, for a whole year. What would things be like for her at the end of it, she wondered...?
She returned to Dr. Kelly's office to find another young woman standing there with a haunted expression on her face. Girl-Mike was a mousy little thing, no more than 5'4", with the same straight black hair and pale skin she'd sported as a man. Her face was softer, no longer gaunt, her cheekbones less pronounced; her figure could be diplomatically summarized as understated. She wasn't flat-chested, just fairly modest in the bust, and Joe had a suspicion that her legs might be nice enough if they weren't hidden under her now very baggy jeans, but her butt wasn't notably curvy.
Mike turned to face her, and immediately did a double-take. "God DAMN," she sputtered. Her voice had landed at a fairly mid-range pitch for a woman, much like Joe's had.
Joe nodded. "Tell me about it."
When the shock had passed, Mike's haunted expression reasserted itself. "Did...did they tell you...?" she asked.
"Yeah." Joe shook her head slowly, still trying to wrap her brain around it. "My nurse was, like, a total convert. Nice enough, though."
Dr. Kelly laughed. "Yes, more than a few of our staff have volunteered as test subjects for some of our treatments. We're all very excited about the potential of transhuman genetic research, suffice to say." She looked over yet more stacks of paper on her desk. "And now, about your school...have you decided how you'd prefer to re-integrate there?"