Stephen looked directly at the interviewer as though he had said this so many times he could now do so without self pity, although the mourning was still there. “My parents died together in a car crash when I was sixteen. At least they never had to live without each other. They loved each other very much.”
“What about romance, Stephen?” said the interviewer to pass by an embarrassing subject as soon as possible.
“I'm gay,” said Stephen, “but I've never had a lover. I only had one sexual experience and it wasn't very happy. The other guy clearly didn't really care for me. I was so desperate to be screwed, but when it happened, it was a great disappointment.”
“Will you still be gay after the change?”
“No.”
“So you want to become straight?”
Stephen showed more passion than at any time in the interview. “If I had someone I loved, I would die rather than stop being gay. I asked if I could still be gay after the change, and I was told it was possible – a real man can be gay as well as straight – but for the first experiment it was necessary to take the conventional change.”
“So why did you agree to it?”
“I thought about why I don't feel comfortable in gay bars. It's not just the sense of rejection, but I realized it was being in all male company. I get on well with women, I like them. And if I was straight, I could get close to them, without feeling they pitied me.”
“So how were you chosen for this experiment?”
“I took some tests in connection with my depression and they found I had an exceptionally low level of testosterone. That explains in part my lack of energy. I was interested to overcome that.”
“So you don't accept yourself?”
Stephen smiled widely. “I accept myself all right. I accept I'm depressed and not doing anything worthwhile. Funnily enough, when they were doing the tests they told me something that really pleased me.”
“What was that?”
“Well although I have such low testosterone and hardly any stereotypical male interests, I have some of the really important qualities of a strong man. I was really amused.”
“What were they?”
“Integrity, then honesty, tenaciousness, and a strength of character: they said most men, most humans, with my depression would try anything to avoid facing it and I hadn't.”
“So how do you feel about your forthcoming transformation?”
“Calm that the depression is going to go. I'm a bit apprehensive about a full anesthetic. Maybe that's something a real man wouldn't feel.”
“Stephen Armstrong, thank you for talking to us.”
The screen faded and the lights went up.
“Well now,” said the presenter at the podium,” we'll see what happened to Stephen Armstrong after his operation to modify him as a real man and the subsequent six weeks of re-orientation. He has been living his new life for a few months now, and I'm sure you would like to meet him. So here he is.”
The lights faded. A double door at the back of the stage opened tantalizingly slowly, and a large male figure came striding out of the dark to the podium. He was not smiling, but had a very confident look.
He grasped both edges of the podium, then raised both his hands to shoulder height, extended outwards.
“Hello,” he said,”my name's Steve Strong.”
The audience gasped at what he now was.