Mike scuffed his shoe uneasily for a moment, bit his lip, and took a deep breath. "I'll...I'll do it," he said, trying to clamp down on the confusing jumble of emotions that was coursing through him. "I-I mean," he said, glancing over at Joe, "we can deal with...being women...for a year, right...?"
Joe cocked an eyebrow in surprise, then grinned. "Hell yes we can!" he laughed. "Alright, where do we sign?"
As it turned out, there was considerably more than one place for them to sign, and it took a few minutes to go through all the requisite paperwork. Mike worked his way through it in a daze, a little surprised at himself. He'd thought briefly about doing the half-and-half thing, on the theory that he could keep it to himself, get through this, and then not have to think about it anymore - but he didn't like his odds, there. He could trust Joe, he was sure, but if anybody else in the dorm got wind of it...well, best case, he'd never hear the end of it. Maintaining a cover identity for a year would be its own challenge, but at least if they were physically normal young women in a dorm full of same, nobody'd give them a second look, right...?
He clutched his pen tightly, hoping he was correct about that.
When they were finished, Dr. Kelly directed them to a pair of exam rooms down the hall, where a nurse was waiting for each of them. He felt a knot in his stomach as they walked; was he really doing this...!? But he'd already signed the agreement, and...and...it was for the money, he told himself, just for the money. That was a valid reason, wasn't it? It was only temporary, after all...
His nurse was a warm, motherly type, an African-American woman in her late forties. "You look a bit nervous," she said gently. "Of course, we do everything we can to ensure the safety of our treatments before we move on to human testing, but that's still pretty normal, if it makes you feel better. Do you need a minute, before we begin?"
Mike hesitated for a moment, but he worried that the longer they dragged this out, the more likely it was he'd chicken out. Think of the payout, he told himself. "...No, let's just...get it over with," he replied.
She smiled. "Brave boy. Or...well, however you want to look at it, I suppose," she said, a twinkle in her eye. "Just a moment."
She fetched a box from the cupboard above the little sink, and took out a syringe. She looked it over briefly, paused to examine it, and double-checked the label against his paperwork. After a moment, she shook her head and gave it a little squirt to empty the air out. "Now, I'll have you sit on the table there during the transformation process," she said. "Your proportions will be changing at least a bit, and we don't want you losing your balance. You can undress or leave your clothes on, it's up to you."
Mike felt all weird at the thought of watching himself change, and opted to stay dressed. He wasn't ready for that, he felt certain. He wondered if he'd ever be; could he somehow, he didn't know, get through the year without having to confront the sight of his altered body...? Well, no, that was ridiculous; he'd have to shower sometime. But for right now, at least...
While he pondered that, the nurse rubbed down his shoulder with an alcohol swab and did the injection as quickly and professionally as he could've expected. "And you're officially started," she said with a curious combination of finality and expectancy, checking her watch. "Of course, it'll be a little bit yet, while it works its way through your system."
He found himself feeling strangely jumbled at that thought. I'm going to be a woman, he thought, but it hasn't happened yet. It's started, but it hasn't actually started. What am I in the meantime, then...? He felt a little twinge at the base of his neck, and rubbed it absent-mindedly. Was that just a muscular reaction to the injection? It was the same side as the shoulder she'd jabbed...
She smiled nostalgically. "You know, you remind me of my daughter," she said. "She was all nervous about her change, too, right up 'til it actually started."
Mike blinked. "I-I do...?" he said, confused. "Er, wait, you...you experimented on your own...!?"
"Well, we aren't such sticklers about that kind thing as most of the medical community, here," she chuckled, "but I only administered the treatment, and that was at her request. I kept my nose out of the decision-making process; she's my kid, of course, but you have to let 'em grow up sometime."
He stared, confused. "Wait, so is she, uh...?"
"She's part-cheetah, now," she laughed. "Tail, ears, fur and claws from the elbow and knee down." She got a conflicted little half-smile on her face. "And, well, truth be told I was relieved that she kept her face, but she does have a kitty nose and whiskers. That part wasn't even planned, it just...happened."
Mike tried to figure out how he was even supposed to respond to that; meanwhile, the nurse shook her head slowly. "You know, she'd thought about it for years, and I never guessed 'til she told me...? It's amazing, the things you don't realize about people. My own daughter...!" She grinned fondly. "But when I saw she was serious...I couldn't not support her, you know? And the look on her face when she saw her own paws for the first time... 'Species euphoria,' they call it, our therianthrope patients. I'll never forget it; twenty years of raising her, and it was the first time I'd ever seen her smile like that."
"...Wait," he said, feeling all weird at her description and trying to puzzle something out in his head, "she's, like, part-animal? And, um, out in public?"
"It's more common than you'd think, actually," she chuckled. "We haven't started drawing public attention to it, yet - we want to give society a chance to normalize these things on its own - but we have a number of visibly nonhuman patients out 'in the field.'" She shrugged. "I worried about her, myself - I'm her mother, after all - but you'd be surprised what people can adjust to. I can't remember if there are any currently, but we've actually had a few at your school, I believe."
He was about to say something when he felt a sudden twinge deep in his abdomen, accompanied by another one in his neck. The nurse took notice, and made a note on a pad she'd picked up. "That'd be the start of it," she said. "The process involves the re-development of the proto-sex organs that normally atrophy during fetal development, as well as the alteration of the common structures from their male or female expression into the opposite variant. Your Müllerian ducts are coming back in right now; they'll develop into your uterus, Fallopian tubes, and upper vaginal canal."
Mike wasn't sure how to react to the sudden clinical turn the conversation was taking, but he was more distracted by the popping and cracking in his hips as they broadened out. "Gah, that feels weird..." he muttered.
She nodded. "It's one of the major skeletal adjustments. The pelvis has to adapt in order for safe childbirth to be possible in the event of a pregnancy."
He felt his stomach churn, only partly due to the new space opening up inside him. "P-p-pregnancy!?" he sputtered, hearing his voice crack slightly.
"Mm-hmm," she said, giving him a funny sort of smile that he couldn't quite read. "As the doctor must've told you, this is a complete and total sex change, as if you were born that way. You're becoming a completely functional female, and as such it should be possible for you to conceive and bear children, if you so desire." Her demeanor changed to a more business-like one. "Please understand, though - you're not required or encouraged to get pregnant, and your compensation will not change if you do. Legally, we don't want to do anything that could be construed as paying for sex work."
Then it was back to the warm and friendly tone from before. "Of course, if you do, we are fully equipped to offer obstetric care to our patients, at no charge, as part of the study. But it's entirely up to you, and the treatment has been designed to be fully compatible with available birth-control solutions. We just want you to be aware of the risk, or possibility, however you choose to see it."
Mike just sat there for a moment, shifting his legs uncomfortably as he tried to process how to feel about that, and noticing that their proportions were already changing. He thought he felt his shoulders narrowing, too, and he definitely felt some changes in his face. He put a hand to it, feeling out the way it was becoming softer, his features less angular. Was his hair actually getting longer, or was he imagining it? He thought he could feel it tickling at his jawline, but he'd been kinda shaggy to begin with. Maybe it was just that his face wasn't as long, now...
He felt a tickling sensation in his chest, and prodded at it with his longer, slenderer fingers, only to wince. The nurse chuckled. "That'd be the start of breast development," she said. "The tenderness is natural; you'll want to leave them alone, for now." She checked her notes. "You'll probably feel your testes drawing back up into the body cavity shortly..."
He did, and cringed, hissing softly at the discomfort.
"...which are already in the process of developing into your new ovaries," she said, making some notes. "Not that we can see it from here, but your penis should be reducing in size as it develops into your clitoris. The scrotal sac should split apart before too long..."
He winced, and nodded weakly, his neck twinging again as he did.
"...which will become your labia majora." She checked her watch, and made another note. "Ahead of schedule, Mr. Larue - or Ms., if you prefer. You're taking to the treatment marvelously."
"Oh great, good for me," he said dryly, feeling a bit irritable at the increasing crick in his neck - and gasped at how much his voice had changed already. He squirmed, feeling his somewhat curvier tush beneath him, and noticed his increasingly puffy nipples dragging against the inside of his shirt a little. How was he meant to take that...? Was he supposed to see it as a good thing, that his body was, what, embracing this!?
The nurse gave him a supportive smile. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about," she said. "Every patient is different, and observing the variations in receptivity and reaction tells us a lot about how the treatment operates in the real world, beyond our theoretical models. Besides," she chuckled, "it's a lot better than having your system fight the changes. We put quite an effort into avoiding any kind of immune response to our treatments, believe me."
She put a hand on his shoulder, and he felt another twinge in his neck. She frowned, glancing back to the box on the counter. "Er, Ms. Larue," she said, taking her hand back off, "does...does your neck hurt...?"
Setting aside the weird feeling he got at being addressed as "Miss," Mike nodded as gently as he could. "It's been twitchy the whole time," he said, his voice completely feminine by now, "but all of a sudden it's-gah!" He cringed; the twinges were setting in on the other side, now...
She nodded. "...Hmm."
"Th-that's a bad 'hmm,' isn't it...?" he said nervously.
"Not bad," she replied, "but...unplanned, let's say. You'll be alright, but let me warn you, this is going to feel a little weird."
"'Weird' how!?" he hissed, feeling like his whole neck was on fire. "Weirder than-!!!"
Ever since he was a kid, Mike had had what he'd come to think of as "moments of strangeness," an occasional sense of dissociation from his body. He never had understood it, but now and again - particularly in liminal spaces, pausing on the threshold of a doorway, that kind of thing - he'd feel like he was actually an outside observer, watching himself do things from a distance. He could kind of see it in his mind's eye, and at times it'd almost seemed like his consciousness was tethered to his body by an infinitesimally thin strand, and if it broke, he might just...float away...
What happened next reminded him of that, in a way. The feeling in his neck reached a crescendo, and then - suddenly - it was gone. The feeling, and his neck with it. And this time, he wasn't floating.
He felt himself falling...and at the same time, felt himself sitting in place, lurching to intercept...he wasn't sure what. He could see the world reeling around him as he tumbled...but in the space of a moment, his fall was interrupted by a soft, strong pair of hands, even as he felt his own flailing around in front of him, behind him...!?
He looked up - no, he was tilted up - to see the nurse, who was looking a little bit shocked. He could see her arms extended toward him, and realized it was her hands he was feeling wrapped around the back and sides of his head, her palms pressing against his cheeks. "Damn, I'm glad you told me that," she said, with a heavy sigh. "I'm not sure how this happened, but if you hadn't made it clear, I might not've caught you." She shook her head. "Well, you reacted on instinct, yourself, but normally we'dve explained this part ahead of time." She frowned, then chuckled. "Pun not intended, I promise."
"Made WHAT clear!?" he yelped. "What's going on!?" He squirmed uneasily, still fumbling around in front of himself, and felt his swelling breasts shift around underneath his shirt even as he wondered why he couldn't see his hands right now.
"It's another treatment we've been working on," she answered. "God knows how it got into the one you're supposed to be on, but...well, it's probably easiest if I let you discover for yourself." She stepped forward, and he felt himself being carried with her, even as he felt himself still sitting on the table, feeling blindly in front of himself for...for...
Mike's brain went into light BSOD as he felt the nurse hand him to himself, and felt himself take him from her and hold him tightly to himself. He hunched over, feeling his smaller, slenderer hands spreading gently around and underneath his softer, rounder face, his chin resting gently in his own lap, his narrower jawline pressing against the softness of his thighs, the underside of his breasts resting gently against the top of his head, and began to put the pieces together into a picture even more impossible than the reality of what was already happening to him...
He felt the beginnings of a nervous panic creeping up his spine, and he was just beginning to hyperventilate when, inexplicably, he felt himself begin to softly stroke his own hair, running his fingers through it, scratching gently at his scalp. To his amazement, he found himself being soothed by this. It was ridiculous to think that a little light personal attention could make up for...for becoming a disembodied head out of the blue, and he was plenty weirded out at the realization that he hadn't consciously intended to do this, and the questions that raised, but...it was comforting...
When he'd had a minute to calm himself, the nurse checked her notes. "Well, that went a little off-script," she said, "but...you're probably about done now. If you don't mind, I'd like to check and confirm...?"
Too dazed to work out whether he should object, Mike nodded - which, to his surprise, worked out to him tilting his hands back and forth so as to make a nodding motion with himself, without even thinking about it. Was...was it his body doing this?
The nurse moved in, and he held himself up out of her way. It was just as well, he told himself, as she unbuttoned his fly; he wasn't really prepared to see this, anyway. But no sooner had he thought this than he found himself shifting his hands around, turning himself, tilting downwards... He tried to make himself stop, telling himself that there was no need, but to his astonishment, he couldn't. It was like...like his body somehow wanted to be seen...
He almost shut his eyes, but before he thought to do it he was already looking down at himself - down at the body of a young woman, one with no neck and a strange, shimmering mirage-like haze where it should've been, one with a fairly modest pair of breasts tenting out a shirt that wasn't tailored to fit them, one with a soft and not entirely flat tummy just visible under its baggy confines, one that was sitting cross-legged atop what were probably reasonably nice legs underneath the ill-fitting jeans...
...jeans that were unbuttoned and pulled open by the nurse's hands, to reveal a plump mound, covered in a messy thatch of dark hair, with the beginning of a cleft just visible at the bottom. She gasped softly, trying to sort out the jumble of emotions in her stomach, trying to process the fact that said stomach was in her own line of sight right now, trying to even begin to work out how she was supposed to feel about all this...
The nurse did everything back up neatly and professionally, and turned to her with a gentle smile. "Well," she said, "I'm happy to say that everything looks to be in order, aside from our little surprise - and even that seems to have gone smoothly. You did very well, and to be honest I think you turned out nicely. Now, I can leave you to yourself for a bit, if you'd like to get acquainted...?"
Mike cringed and shook her head - again, by hand. "L-look," she said, "how do, uh...how do we fix...this?"
"I'm not sure, myself," the nurse shrugged. "I'm going to have to notify the doctor, and we'll have to determine how this happened and what course of action we have for addressing it. In the meantime, I think she'll want to meet with you for the post-change check-in, as planned, so once you're ready you can head on back to her office."
Cautiously, Mike drew herself back down to her chest, clutching herself tightly, and got to her feet. It took her a minute to find her balance, between her altered leg proportions and the drastic change to her center of gravity that came with no longer having her head on her shoulders, but before too long she was able to walk stably over toward the door...
...next to which was set a full-length mirror. In spite of herself, she spent a long moment staring into it, at the strange spectacle of a woman's body clutching its own head to its chest. Her new face was softer, no longer gaunt, the cheekbones less pronounced...and yet, in spite of that, she recognized herself in it...
- - - - -
"Well, it seems to have been a foul-up in the chem department," Dr. Kelly said, setting down the phone. "A mis-filled order. On the bright side, that means the treatments were properly combined, and there should be no unanticipated side effects; but it's going to take us some time to determine how to reverse the one without reversing the other."
"You mean...for now, we're stuck like this?" Joe asked, shifting herself around under her arm. She frowned as her left breast obstructed her right eye. "Geez, I still can't get used to these things."
Mike bit her lip, waiting for the answer, but couldn't help getting distracted at the sight of her roommate. Girl-Joe had the body of a classic pin-up model, and her auburn hair had grown out a fair bit; if it was still on the short side for a woman, it was at least enough to where she could see it'd acquired a natural waviness. To be honest, she felt a bit outclassed...and plenty awkward over the question of why she'd feel that way, looking at another girl...
"For the moment, yes," the doctor said. "I do apologize for the mix-up, and for what it's worth we'll be adding the compensation for this to what you were already getting, even though the initial trials for it are over. But we probably won't have a corrective treatment option available 'til your first monthly check-up, if that. In the meantime, at least, I can assure you that this has been demonstrated to be perfectly safe."
"But...I mean, what do we do now!?" Mike said. "I mean, we can't go back to school like this...!"
Dr. Kelly chuckled softly. "You might be surprised," she said. "We've had a number of non-human students at your institution, the last few years. It's amazing what people can adjust to, when you present them with something extraordinary and treat it as normal."
Joe cocked an eyebrow. "You seriously mean that?"
The doctor smiled. "Of course. Now, let's discuss the particulars of your return to the college..."