“Oh, there’s a lot of things we could do,” Joyce answered me. “We could teach you almost girls how to shave your legs properly.” I gave her a bit of a disinterested look. I figured that would be something better to do once all clothing had been discarded. “We could teach you how to apply makeup,” Joyce suggested as an alternative.
Carl burst out laughing. Everyone just looked at him. Once he noticed he said, “Oh, you were serious? Well…I guess that could be fun.” His face betrayed his words. While I thought his recent interaction with Pam showed that perhaps his attitude had changed, this told me it hadn’t fully changed. I found myself liking the thought of wearing makeup. It seemed completely natural. Yet I thought that was too drastic as of right now.
I looked at my hands. They looked mostly unfamiliar to me. Several things about them were different. They were smaller in overall size. My fingers looked smaller and thinner. Lastly my fingernails were definitely longer. In fact it seemed like they had already grown longer in the short time I had been awake.
Before I could say anything, Joyce said, “Oh, I know what Joe wants.”
“What?” all the rest of us asked simultaneously.
“Joe wants his fingernails done,” Joyce answered with a knowing smile.
I had to admit that she was right. I wanted to see what my nails would look like with color on them. “She’s right,” I said. “Let’s do my nails!”
“Do mine, too!” said Scott. It might have been my hearing, but I swore that his voice sounded a little higher.
“Carl?” asked Joyce.
“No, I’m good,” he replied.
Joyce said, “OK, I’ll work with Scott and Rachel, you can do Joe’s.”
“Sure,” said Rachel.
As I waited for Joyce to gather all of her tools, I decided to turn on the TV. I was curious if there was any other interesting news, such as whether or not someone had solved the problem of procreation in an all-female world. I turned on one of the cable news channels. There was nothing particularly interesting about the news itself. The newscaster, however, was interesting. She was sitting behind a desk so only her upper body was visible. She was only wearing a bra. I switched to another channel. There were two newscasters, one male and one female, standing in front of a screen. The female newscaster only had a bra and panties on. The male newscaster wore only a pair of pants and a tie. “This is getting fun,” I said. I turned to the weather channel. There was a female weatherperson giving a forecast against one of the full map backgrounds. She wore a very nice skirt. However, she was completely topless.
“Glad to see I’m not the only one,” remarked Pam.
“I just want to be certain,” said Carl. “No one is finding it strange that people are half-naked on TV? Or that we are?”
The rest of us responded with various takes on “No” and “Uh-uh.”
“But…why not?” Carl asked again.
“I don’t know,” said Scott. “My clothes were bothering me, so I took them off.”
“Me too,” agreed Pam.
Joyce was just about ready to begin painting Scott’s nails. She said, “What’s the point of clothes if everyone is female anyway?”
Carl answered, “That’s fine if it’s warm. What about when it’s cold?”
Joyce shrugged. “I guess we’ll just put them on then,” she said.
Carl still appeared disturbed by the possibility of no one wearing clothes. Just then a breaking news story appeared on TV. It seemed that an emergency session of Congress had been called and in it they unanimously passed a law overturning all bans on public nudity. They had shots of video from inside Congress. It was quite odd, to say the least. All members were in various states of undress. The female members were clearly growing younger in appearance while the males were all clearly transitioning to be females.
“Does that help calm your fears?” I asked Carl.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I mean…I guess?” He still didn’t sound convinced. I really hoped he’d just stop worrying about things.
“OK, attention over here now,” said Rachel. “What color do you two gals want your nails to be?” I let out a giggle that sounded very girlish in tone, if not in pitch. Rachel cast an odd look my way. “What’s so funny?”
“You called us ‘gals,’” answered Scott before I could.
Rachel said, “You will be soon enough.”
“I know,” I said. “It was just sorta funny to hear it for the first time. Wasn’t it?” I asked my brother.
“Sure was,” he agreed. “But…it sounded…normal. Like it fit. I wonder why?”
Despite knowing the answer, I just shrugged my shoulders. “Does it matter in the end?” I asked. “It is what it will be.”
Scott nodded. “Yea, I guess that’s true.” He turned his attention back to Rachel. “What color do you think would be good for me?”
Joyce answered, “I’d love to see you in this purple,” she said as she held up a small bottle. “What do you think?”
“I think you know better than me, so let’s do it,” he answered.
“I’d like a nice, deep red,” I told Rachel.
She grinned. “I had a feeling you would,” she said. Then she immediately held up a bottle that contained the exact color I’d imagined. “That’s why I grabbed only this one.”
It was kind of scary that Rachel could know something like that. But I really didn’t care why that was the case. I just wanted her to paint my fingernails. Rachel and Joyce applied the nail polish to our increasingly delicate and ladylike fingernails with the skill of an expert. They explained that they’d learned enough from their modeling careers that they could easily earn a living working in nail salons if they had to.
The process took some time. I wasn’t surprised by this considering they worked on fingernails that had never been touched like this previously. They also made sure that they took their time and didn’t make any mistakes. Scott and I enjoyed all the attention.
When they were about halfway done, Carl stood up and said, “I need to run back to my place to get something.”
“Oh, you’re just bored,” Rachel countered.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But I do want to get something.”
Pam stood up and said, “Mind if I tag along? I need to stretch my legs a little.”
I expected Carl to react with annoyance. He answered, “Yea, OK. Just I want to warn you about the way my apartment looks.”
“Why, is it a mess?” asked Pam.
“You’ll see,” was all Carl could say. Pam looked confused. Carl walked toward the door and called out, “Back in a few.” Pam followed him out the door.
About a minute after they left, I turned to Scott and said, “Do you think?”
“That…would be weird. I mean, really weird,” he said with emphasis on the word “really.” He cocked his head from side to side and added, “If it happens, it happens.”
Rachel offered an opinion. “Carl’s attitude is going to have to really change for that to work,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t known Pam long but I think it’s fairly obvious she’s trying to antagonize Carl and he’s having a hard time just letting it slide.”
“Of course she is,” I said. “She’s just always had this attitude about men. And since I know for sure she’s been a lesbian, I’m guessing she’s just loving the fact that a gay man is turning into a woman.”
“And I’ll bet that’s going to make him a really attractive target for her,” said Scott. “She’ll go to work on him until he finally caves in.”
Joyce grinned a sly grin. “Let’s have some fun,” she said. “Everyone bet how long it will be until they actually come back.”
“I say no more than five minutes,” said Scott.
“Uh uh,” said Joyce. “Pick an exact amount.”
“OK, then, five minutes,” Scott confirmed.
I shook my head. “Not even that long. He’s not ready to let her do anything. I say two more minutes,” I said.
“I think your sister is more cunning than you think,” said Rachel. “And I think I know Carl better than you. He’ll let his guard down when not in front of others. I say they’re gone for 20 minutes.”
Joyce said, “I say 30. It’s 10:30 now, so someone remember that.”
Joyce and Rachel continued painting our nails and we waited to see who would win the bet.