Outside the window the light is flat and grey, the kind of March morning
that hasn't decided what it wants to do yet. I kick the sheets off. The
air in the bedroom is cool but my thighs feel damp, sticky almost, the
boxers bunching up between my legs like they're caught on something. I
press my palms into the mattress and push myself up, legs swinging over
the edge - except my balance is wrong. Not dizzy. Just off, like my
center of gravity shifted an inch or two south while I was sleeping.
There's a faint, slick pressure between my thighs, the boxer fabric
riding up in a way that makes no sense. Cool air brushes skin that
shouldn't be exposed.

Standing sends a jolt through me. My hips tilt forward instinctively,
weighted differently. I take a step and nearly stumble - my stride is
shorter, my knees brushing together in a gait that isn't mine. The
bathroom door feels miles away. One hand catches the dresser, fingers
digging into the wood, and I glance back at Emily. Still asleep. Good.

I get to the bathroom and flick the light on with a shaking hand. The
mirror shows my face - same stubble, same tired eyes - but something
about the hang of the boxers is wrong. I yank them down.

The pubic hair is softer, curlier, sitting higher and stopping sooner
than it should. Below it, flatness. A mound. I look up at the mirror to
check what I'm seeing and the reflection confirms it - the outline of the
lips just visible through the hair, the whole area unmistakably wrong. I
stand there looking. My palm presses against it instinctively, the way
you'd test a wound. The tissue yields under my palm, every nerve ending
close to the surface. My hand jerks back.

I know it won't work. I stand over the toilet anyway, reach down out of
habit - and my hand finds nothing. For a second my hand hangs in the air.
Then I tilt my hips forward to aim anyway, and the second I relax, warmth
goes in completely the wrong directions - spreading through unfamiliar
folds, trickling down the inside of my thighs. I hiss and grab a wad of
toilet paper, swiping at my legs. The paper comes away damp. My hands are
shaking. I drop it in the toilet and flush, then turn back to the mirror,
gripping the sink.

My hips are wider, the pelvis broader and rounder than it was yesterday.
My ass has filled out. I run my hands over my legs slowly - they taper
differently now, a softness to the thighs I've never had. The skin
unmarked by the hair that used to be there.

I have to look away for a second. I stare at the faucet. Then I look
back.

From the waist up it's still my body - same chest, same shoulders, same
forearms, the same hair on them. Same crow's feet. Same salt-and-pepper
stubble. But when I lift my shirt, my stomach looks softer, the skin
smoother, body hair stopping a few inches above my belly button where it
used to run all the way down. I press my fingers into my abdomen, half-
expecting to feel something alien beneath the surface. Nothing. Just
flesh. My fingers drift lower, brushing the waistband of my boxers. I cup
a hand over the outside, trace the external contours with trembling
fingertips. The sensation is too much. I pull my hand away.

Emily's voice from the bedroom, sleepy and muffled. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah." Too loud. "Just taking a leak."

She murmurs something unintelligible, rolls over. I pull the boxers back
up, the fabric catching against the new anatomy, the elastic waistband
digging into the hips. I flex my toes against the cold tile. My feet seem
smaller, the arches higher. My sneakers won't fit like this.

I walk over to the closet and my hip catches the doorframe hard. I rub
the bone, waiting for the throb to pass, then dig through the dresser for
PJ bottoms. I pull them on over my boxers and glance over my shoulder at
the mirror. Baggy. Not noticeably feminine. Fine.

The hardwood floor creaks as I step into the hallway. The PJs brush
against sensitive skin. My hips shift to compensate for a center of
gravity that isn't where I left it. I take the stairs carefully, my
pelvis dropping slightly with each step in a tilt I'm not directing, the
movement coming from somewhere below conscious control. I grip the
banister too tight. The smell of coffee and bacon drifts up from the
kitchen. Emily's humming something off-key. I focus on that.

---

Emily's standing at the counter when I walk in, nursing her coffee. She
glances up, and for a wild second I think she knows. But she just smiles,
still half-asleep. "You're walking funny. Pull something at the gym
yesterday?"

My face burns. "Yeah, hurts."

She hums, taking a sip. "Want ibuprofen?"

"I'm good." I grab a coffee mug, my hands steadier now. Pour, stir, sip.
I stand next to her and drink, still the same height. She leans over and
puts her head on my shoulder, then pulls back slightly and sniffs at my
collar, crinkles her nose.

I step away and sit down, and the chair reminds me immediately - hard
wood against soft flesh, direct and unmediated, nothing between me and
the seat like there used to be. I shift forward onto my thighs. Better.
Marginally.

Emily's watching me over the rim of her mug. "You're being weird."

"Just tired."

She sets her cup down. Her eyes drop to my PJs, then come back up. "Did
you - " A pause. "Did you lose weight?"

I nearly choke on my coffee. "What?"

"Your clothes look different on you."

"Haven't worn this pair in a while."

She shrugs, but her gaze lingers.

---

Back in the bathroom with the door locked this time. I exhale through my
nose and lean against the sink. My reflection stares back, unchanged from
the chin up.

I grab my toothbrush, squeeze paste onto the bristles. The mint is sharp
and familiar. I spit into the sink and watch the foam swirl down the
drain, reach for a floss pick out of habit.

Sitting on the toilet is different. Not just the absence of what was
there before, but the way my hips settle as I sit down, the curve of my
ass pressing into the seat. Fuller. Wider. I work the floss pick between
my teeth. The sounds are wrong - softer, closer, a quiet trickle instead
of a direct stream, warmth spreading in the wrong directions. The coffee
stirs in my gut and I bear down and do my business, which at least works
the same way it always has.

I toss the floss pick in the trash, then grab a wad of toilet paper.
Muscle memory takes over - leg hiked up, hand reaching back behind me -
but the geometry is wrong from the start. No coarse hair, no familiar
contours. Just smooth skin and a cleft I don't know. I wipe back toward
myself the way I always have and the paper drags through soft folds I
didn't ask for and a jolt goes up my spine. I yank my hand away and drop
the toilet paper in the bowl and sit there a moment. Then I get in the
shower.

I turn the water as hot as it'll go. Steam fills the shower fast and
something comes with it - faint, slightly sour, organic - and it takes me
a moment to realize it's coming from me. Not unpleasant. Just not mine.

The water hits my shoulders and runs down my back. I soap up - arms
first, then chest - and work my way down. I go for my legs next, skipping
the middle without deciding to. My hand moves between my legs for basic
purposes when I finally get there, no more than that, and the moment my
fingers make contact something fires straight up through me and I pull my
hand back and stand there for a second. I try again, efficiently, and the
same thing happens, less sharp but still present. I do what I need to do
and move on. I scrub harder at my thighs, like the soap might take
something with it.

I crank the water cold. Something contracts - not just skin tightening
but a drawing inward, a closing that I feel before I can name where. It
releases slowly. I stand in it, breathing.

I step out and run the towel over my hair, my face, my shoulders. The
same sequence, the same motions. Arms, chest - still mine. My legs feel
different under the cloth, the skin registering the towel's texture in a
way it used to take for granted, but I keep moving. When I get to my
crotch I do what I always do, passing the towel close and roughly with
one hand, and the fabric catches on soft folds and friction flares where
there shouldn't be any. I yank the towel back. Try again, gentler. Still
wrong. I end up patting, clumsily, like I'm drying something that might
break.

I ball up the towel and drop it in the hamper, then yank open the drawer
for clean boxers. I step into them, tugging the waistband up over wider
hips. The fabric sags, bunching between my legs in a way that makes my
skin crawl. My jeans are worse - the zipper closes fine but the button
won't follow, and when I force it the denim strains across my hips and
the seams ride up with every shift of my weight, chafing where nothing
used to chafe.

My sneakers won't hold my feet. I tighten the laces until the eyelets
nearly touch but my feet - smaller now, narrower - still slide around
inside. The socks bunch at the toes. I pull on an extra pair and it
barely helps.

I button my dress shirt and tuck it in by muscle memory. Then I look at
the mirror.

The shirt follows the waist, which follows the hips, which are wider than
they have any right to be under a dress shirt. The taper is wrong -
fabric pulling across the seat, the whole silhouette below the waist
announcing something I can't afford to announce at the office. I pull the
shirt out and let it hang. The hem falls over the hips and the problem
mostly disappears. Not perfectly. Enough.

Untucked, then. That's today's solution.

---

The coffee turns in my gut on the drive to work. The mirrors are slightly
off - I don't touch them. Every pothole drives the seat seam upward into
soft tissue through my boxers, the road delivering small concentrated
reminders with every bad patch of asphalt. At a red light I press my
thighs together out of reflex and immediately there's a pulse, a warmth,
a dampness I have no category for. I release them and fix my eyes on the
road.

I run through the Aldermere deck in my head. The eleven o'clock. The two-
thirty with Dave. Normal things that need doing, learned habits after
five years at Harmon & Associates. I think about those.

Parking's worse. Same spot I always take, same gap between the same two
SUVs. I open the door, swing my legs out, push myself up and through -
and my ass doesn't clear. The door frame catches me solid, stops me mid-
exit. I have to turn, compress, work myself through. I stand on the
asphalt for a second. "Fuck," I mutter, and go inside.

---

The Premium version of this section includes images of Mike in the bathroom following the change. Subscribers get access to chapters weeks ahead and to exclusive stories and other content, as well as the ability to vote on future stories.