Material may not be reused without author's explicit permission.
The Butterfly Tattoo
by Edith Bennett Bellamy
CHAPTER 1
t had to be pointed out to him in the surgeon's locker room while he was changing into scrubs for his morning cases.
Jack Tarkington, one of the orthopods, saw it and asked, in his usual coarse manner, "Hey, Dick, where d'ya get that far-out tattoo? Got drunk last night and ended up on Van Buren Street, or what?"
"Tattoo? Where?" replied the object of his question, an athletic, well-tanned man of about forty-five, who appeared genuinely bewildered as he looked himself up and down, hastily inspecting his body, unclad except for briefs and socks. He didn't have any tattoos, never would! He was not that sort of chap. Van Buren Street, indeed! He wouldn’t be caught dead within ten blocks of that district!
"What tattoo?" he demanded again.
"The one on your butt. The purple butterfly," Tarkington snorted, "At least you could have gotten a dragon or a skull, for Chrissakes, but a butterfly? Your work's getting to you, Dick; you need to take some time off."
Dr. Richard Gardiner twisted his neck and looked down, first over one shoulder, then over the other. Something was there, all right: he glimpsed a bright purple blotch, as broad as a silver dollar perhaps, high on his right buttock -- actually low on his hip -- just above the waistband of his briefs. Gardiner had never seen anything like it before. Doing his best to maintain his aplomb, he strode to the mirror mounted on the end of the locker bank and regarded himself over a shoulder. Sure enough, now that he could see it more clearly, the blotch was, in fact, a purple butterfly in wings-up position, tattooed in exquisite detail, as sharp and clear as a photograph.
As nonplussed as he was by the mysterious appearance of the tattoo, Gardiner was not about to let Tarkington know it. "Oh, that, " he glibly confabulated, "It's just a decal, one of Stacey's pranks. I'll wash it off after my cases." Stacey Higden, one of the circulating nurses, was Gardiner's latest acquisition; it was common knowledge they were having an affair, and the two had, in fact, spent the previous night together. They had taken no pains to conceal the relationship, as both were unmarried, a deviation from the norm when it came to operating room liaisons. Stacey was known for her oddball sense of humor, so Gardiner's explanation carried the force of plausibility.
Tarkington appeared satisfied, and changed the subject to lowbrow surgical lounge chat. "Whatcha doing today?" he asked with a leer, "de-balling some more mental cases and transforming them into beauty queens?"
It was well-known that Gardiner, the region's busiest "gender reassignment surgeon" (as he referred to himself), scorned his patients almost as much as he relished getting wealthy from transforming them into transsexual women, or "T-Girls," as they preferred to be called. He often derided them to his colleagues, laughing at their aspirations and mocking their dependence on hormones and stents. Dr. Gardiner, however, was highly conscious of appearances: to his patients, he was the apotheosis of solicitous care. His transmutes adored him, and hadn’t an inkling what he really thought of them. And, to his credit, his surgical technique, like his bedside manner, was impeccable.
Gardiner's skill was such, that every now and again he would let loose one of his best "jobs" on his GYN buddies for an exam, without forewarning. Almost invariably, the next time his GYN buddies met up with him in the surgeons' lounge, they would shake their heads in disbelief and recount how they had been fooled, up to the point where they had tried to take a Pap smear and had found no cervix. That's how good a surgical artist Richard Gardiner was, not just in terms of appearance, either: Gardiner's surgical dissections were so minutely precise that critical nerves were never transected, nor even bruised. As a result, almost all his patients turned out fully orgasmic. Being operated on by Dr. Richard Gardiner was the next best thing to being born female, so his services were always in high demand: "gender dysphoria" was spreading like an epidemic, and now, thanks to surgeons like Richard Gardiner, one could actually do something about it.
Tarkington repeated his question: "So, watcha got going today, Dick?"
Gardiner, pleased that the matter of the butterfly tattoo had been dropped, replied, "Nothing big, Jack, no vaginoplasties today. Just a bunch of labiaplasties."
Gardiner did not care for labiaplasties, as they were, in a sense, an admission of failure to hit the mark the first time around, and, moreover, they were usually done under local anesthesia, precluding any spicy operating room chat -- usually at the expense of his patients -- during the cases. But at $2500 a crack (so to speak), Gardiner put up with them every third Thursday of the month. Tuesday was his day for vaginoplasties -- his bread-and-butter procedure -- which had made him a wealthy man. But today was a third Thursday.
Their banter was interrupted by a knock on the locker room door, which slowly opened a crack. "Dr. Gardiner in there?" inquired one of the circulators. Not waiting for a response, she continued, "If he is, tell him we're ready in room seven."
* * * * *
Dr. Richard Gardiner spent this third Thursday morning revising five pairs of labia minora -- Dee Dee's, Satin's, Sarah Anne's, Daphne's and Wendi's -- all T-girls whose vaginoplasties he had performed perhaps six months earlier. Now these "girls" could return to their "men," he scornfully reflected, to enjoy a more refined illusion of femininity, an illusion appealing only to freakishly warped minds; Gardiner really did think of his patients -- and their perverted consorts -- strictly as side-show material.
But reflection did not come easily to Gardiner today, for he was preoccupied with the butterfly tattoo. If it had been a prank decal that Stacy had somehow managed to transfer onto him while he was sleeping, (which he seriously doubted), surely it would have washed off -- or at least have become smudged -- with his morning shower. The butterfly's presence was so unnerving that Gardiner fancied he could almost feel it burning into his haunch. He could hardly wait for the last case to be over so that he could jump into the locker room shower and scrub the thing off.
* * * * *
After five minutes of assiduous scrubbing the tattoo remained unchanged, or, if anything, was now even more brilliantly etched on his skin.
Making sure the coast was clear, Gardiner jumped out of the shower and quickly dried himself off. Going once more to the mirror, his blood froze to see that not only was the butterfly still there, but it was now an iridescent green. And worse, its wings, having been almost vertical earlier, were now splayed out flat, as if in an exhibit case. But wait! Its wings began to flutter: the butterfly took flight and began to move in the plane of his skin -- slowly, jerkily, as if projected onto him in slow motion.
Gardiner watched, horror-stricken, as the butterfly, like an animated hologram, eratically progressed down along one buttock, dipped into his crease and vanished from sight, only to reappear on the inside of his thigh, its wings now a shimmering silver. He stared in mesmerized fascination as the tattoo changed color with each beat of its wings: burgundy, amethyst, ruby, aquamarine.... all stunningly iridescent. At last the butterfly (now shocking pink) ascended his abdomen, with no further changes of hue, and alighted just above his navel, folded its wings back into their former "V," and became immobile once more. The pink faded into a pastel lavender and so remained for the time being.
Gardiner rushed to his locker and frantically worked the dial of the combination lock. So flustered was he that it took him six attempts to open the door. Praying that no one would enter the locker room before he was clothed, he dressed quickly. As he buttoned his shirt cuffs, he saw a flash of something lemon yellow fluttering on the back of his left wrist. He tried to ignore it, but he could not fight down the wave of nauseous apprehension that now possessed him.
He drove to his office in a cold panic, certain he could feel the tattoo moving hither and yon, all over his body. He wished he had no patients to see, but he was, alas, fully booked: Thursday afternoons were when Gardiner saw new patients, all of them pre-operative transsexuals already living full-time as women or teen-aged girls, all of them with breasts pumped up and skin smoothed by hormones, hips padded with extra fat (never quite enough), all of them in various stages of total-body depilation and feminine voice-training, (some had already had their Adam's apples shaved), and all of them just a bit sluttishly dressed. None of them appeared softly feminine: one would not have been surprised to see any one of them trawling for johns down on Van Buren Street.
He could put up with them well-enough fully-clothed -- and a few, it could not be denied, looked and moved like the loveliest of women -- but when it came to the crux of the examination, when they had disrobed and he had to gauge how much raw material he would have to work with in fashioning their neovaginas (sometimes the poor things were so small that he could promise them only minimal depth, for there was, after all, just so much even he could do with limited mucosa at his disposal) -- his gorge always rose slightly. But business was business, so Gardiner would swallow hard, smile and smile and reassure his patients that they would be ecstatic with the results. And, as a rule, they were.
Gardiner sought refuge from the pressures of his work by having as active a sex life as he could manage, with real women, to be sure. He always juggled several affairs at once, terminating them, as necessary, just as soon as the slightest intimation of matrimony or other permanency of relationship loomed on the horizon. At the moment, he was juggling Stacey, (the circulating nurse), Annette (an aerobics instructor), Janine (a stockbroker) and Constance (a veterinarian). Though attentive enough to them in bed, at all other times he maintained towards them a front of distant hauteur. Richard Gardiner had scant regard for women besides seeking them out for the frequent satisfaction of his overweening sexual needs, needs so all-consuming that women, despite their myriad deficiencies outside the bedroom, were as indispensable to him as the air he breathed. Richard Gardiner was, it must be confessed, addicted to women.
At any event, none of these women were on his mind as he hurriedly parked his car and strode quickly into his medical building, making eye contact with no one and running up three flights of stairs taking two steps at a time: he cared to meet no one in the elevator. The corridor was thankfully empty, so he was able to slip into his office unseen.
What luck! His staff were still out to lunch and thus did not see him rush in frenetically, and hastily closet himself in his inner consultation room. Gardiner quickly stripped off his jacket, tie, shirt and undershirt. He had no mirror in this room, but he could see that the tattoo was now imprinted on his chest, above his left nipple. At this particular moment, it was a vivid shade of tangerine.
Distraught, but seeing no point in further inspection, Gardiner dressed again, then booted up his computer and within a very short time had identified the mysterious butterfly as v. semperjuvena. In fact, the very same entry that appears at the head of this story was soon on his monitor, and he read it in total amazement. Gardiner, a hard-headed realist, spurned legend and folklore, but, all the same, his hand shot down inside the front of his trousers to seek reassurance. He was reassured: nothing down there seemed amiss......
Gardiner tried -- and succeeded -- in regaining his composure sufficiently so that by the time Ruth, his receptionist, and Candace, his nurse, returned from lunch, they could detect nothing amiss in his appearance or demeanor. Without a second glance at Gardiner, they went about setting up the business of the afternoon: the interviewing, examination and formal counseling for vaginoplasties of five pre-op transsexual women on the following Tuesday: Danielle, Krystal, Jade, Cathy Ellen and Lavinia.
CHAPTER 2.
For the second time that day, Dr. Richard Gardiner, gender reassignment surgeon extraordinaire, could scarcely keep his mind on his work, but fortunately the first four "girls" were boringly routine. Danielle, Krystal, Jade and Cathy Ellen were pretty much run-of-the-mill pre-ops: a little too long in the face, too lanky and angular despite many months of intensive hormone therapy, small-breasted, narrow-hipped, and with the faintest remnants of five o'clock shadows. They all wore too-tight sheath dresses and tastelessly risqué undergarments -- in black, like the majority of pre-ops (with red as a close second) -- virtually de rigeur . "Freaks all," he mused, while at the same time wondering just where his peregrinating tattoo was perched at the moment. Candace, his nurse, handed each T-girl a pre-surgery packet, detailing what to expect -- and what to bring in the way of cotton panties, pads, belts, douching solutions and other essential over-the-counter feminine paraphernalia a fresh post-op T-girl would need properly to care for a spanking new vagina. All strictly routine....
He finished with Cathy Ellen at four-thirty, and released his staff early, as he knew his receptionist had a dental appointment, and Candace had had to stay late the two previous afternoons. As all his Thursday patients were technically male, he did not need to be chaperoned during exams.
|
* * * * *
He went out into his reception room to call the last patient, whose freshly-made chart awaited him in the chart rack. The label read "Abernathy, Lavinia." He flicked the chart open: the face sheet showed a birthdate of August 19, 1974, making Abernathy, Lavinia 26 years old. He peered into the waiting room to see an attractive, conservatively-dressed young woman sitting patiently, her small brown leather purse on the floor next to her chair and an expensive-looking alligator leather zippered portfolio lying squared in her lap. On the floor to the other side of her chair was a small satchel or gym bag.
Now "Abernathy" was a certainly not a typical T-girl surname: T-girl surnames, usually assumed, were either blandly ordinary, like Mitchell or Johnson, or else somewhat trollopy, like, say, La Rue. Moreover, quite unlike her predecessors that afternoon, this Lavinia Abernathy was tastefully dressed in a smart summer-weight gray worsted wool suit, a demure, pleated blouse of ivory silk, with a flounced bow at the base of her lovely white neck. She wore seamed retro stockings and dark blue pumps with moderate heels. Even more unusual, a pair of wrist-length lavender kid gloves lay neatly folded on her alligator portfolio.
He called her name. Lavinia Abernathy smiled in acknowledgment, gathered up her purse, gym bag, gloves and portfolio, and allowed him to usher her back to his consulting room, walking a few paces before him. Gardiner was immediately struck by her naturally undulant gait, a gait that could not have been learned, dependent, as it was, on the natural set of her hips, unusually broad for a T-girl. Lavinia Abernathy carried herself with unselfconscious feminine negligence and radiated the sophisticated sensuousness of a Hedy Lamar or a Norma Shearer: distant, aloof, but at the same time somehow readily accessible, if only one had the right key.
As Lavinia Abernathy seated herself in the chair opposite Gardiner's massive oak desk, she crossed her shapely legs with an audible whiz of nylon-on-nylon; her skirt rode up just enough to allow a millisecond flash of a shiny, sky-blue "V" at the confluence of her thighs, thighs lambently ivory above the dark beige welts of her stockings. She quickly smoothed down her skirt with a practiced sweep of her hand, precluding further display of parts ordinarily concealed from masculine view. Her eyes betrayed no hint of embarrassment for having allowed Gardiner a glimpse of her intimate treasure, nor did they reflect the slightest consiousness of having quite deliberately done so. Cooly unperturbed, Lavinia Abernathy folded her hands in her lap, looked up at Gardiner and smiled with unfeigned expectation.
Regarding her now from across his desk, Gardiner could see that Lavinia Abernathy had the facial bone structure of a natal woman: her young features were small, fine and well-proportioned; she wore no make up, as her own high coloring precluded the need. But it was her hands that were so astonishing: unlike those of other preop transsexuals, Lavinia's were tiny, with delicate, tapered fingers and no prominent veins. Her nails, neither claw-like nor Frenched, were short, carefully manicured and lacquered a discreet shade of plum.
Lavinia Aberathy was, in short, extremely attractive in person, carriage and dress; despite himself, Gardiner felt a familiar stirring in his trousers, but, with long-practiced ease, he maintained his polished veneer without cracking.
"What can I do for you, Miss Abernathy?" he crooned in his most soothing professional tone, smiling indulgently, as he smiled at all his patients.
Lavinia Abernathy shifted her legs again with another faint whiz of stocking-on-stocking, affording the good doctor a second, though still tantalizingly brief, glimpse of her satiny triangle. She engaged his eyes, but paused several moments before replying. Lowering her thick-lashed lids to half-mast, Lavinia Abernathy purred, "Dr. Gardiner, I have been on hormones for years, (you can see how well they have done their job), but I remain unfulfilled. I would like you to examine me and recommend an appropriate treatment. As you will see, surgery may not be necessary."
And, so saying, Lavinia Abernathy stood and proceeded to remove her clothing, right there in Gardiner's consulting room! Within moments she was standing before him in bra and panties, having deftly removed her slip, peeled off her stockings and plucked off her garter belt in three or four sinuous motions. These were not the motions of a woman about to undergo a medical examination by a disinterested physician, but those of an accomplished seductress, motions to which no red-blooded, heterosexual man could possibly be immune.
Lavinia Abernathy was ravishingly beautiful, her figure slimly voluptuous, her skin like polished marble, her body soft and rounded, with perfect curves and delectable hollows in all the right places. She struck an alluring pose, neck extended, eyes closed in rapture, face turned towards the ceiling, and began to run the fingers of one hand through her thick chestnut hair, while with her other hand she began lightly caressing the front of one thigh using just the tips of her delicate fingers. As she did so, she shifted her weight, brought the leg slightly upwards and uttered a soft moan of arousal.
Gardiner was certainly not immune to such an unprecedented display of calculated female exhibitionism, having never been vaccinated against seduction. He arose from behind his desk -- despite (or because of) the burgeoning tent in his trousers -- and hastened around to the front of his desk to regard Livinia Abernathy at close quarters -- and to induce her to get dressed immediately, as he had no conscious desire to have sexual contact, on any level, with a "chick with a dick," no matter how lovely "she" seemed.
But no sooner was Gardiner within range than Lavinia Abernathy attached herself to him like a vine, adhering closely from face to toe, and began to slide herself rhythmically up and down against him, cooing and making other soft sounds. She sought his mouth with hers, stroked the back of his neck with one hand, and, with the other, unerringly and without hesitation, grasped his tumescent shaft. She then moved her hand from his neck, along his arm to his hand, and conducted it first to her breast, then pushed it down along her silky-smooth belly, inside the scalloped waistband of her panties, over her mound..... And at this point Lavinia Abernathy parted her thighs just enough to permit digital access.
Gardiner froze, for his fingers detected a warm and wet -- and convincingly feminine -- slit, surprisingly real, even to his highly expert touch. He jerked his hand up and away and brought his fingers to his nostrils. He instantly knew from the unmistakeable attar of womanly musk that Lavinia Abernathy was no transsexual, but a GG, or "genetic girl," as their half-sisters, the T-girls, enviously called them. One part of him bristled at the deception, but another part, more ascendant, was eager to succumb to it.
"O, don't worry, Doctor," murmured Lavinia Abernathy, sensing his hesitation, "it's real enough, all right. Here, you can see for yourself." And so saying, she detached herself from Gardiner, unhooked her bra, stepped out of her panties and stood revealed before him nude and resplendent.
All Gardiner's concerns about the mysterious butterfly tattoo had by now been displaced by a white-hot desire to have this magical woman, in his consulting room, in the stairwell, in the street, anywhere -- on his desk, on the carpet, on the sofa or standing.
Wordlessly, he stripped, not even glancing at himself to ascertain the position of the wandering tattoo (it was now on his left shoulder and its wings were golden-colored). Lavinia Abernathy, wasting no time to locate a convenient horizontal surface for mere display of her wares, sprung into his arms, embraced him around his neck, wrapped her legs about his torso, and lowered herself until she was impaled by his expectant shaft and had ensheathed it completely within her -- no easy trick, as the doctor was unusually well-endowed. Thus they remained for several minutes, motionless but for the slowly rippling pulsations of her vaginal musculature, winching Gardiner ever more deeply into her warm and welcoming depths.
Gardiner turned them both around, so that Lavinia Abernathy had her back to his executive desk, and toppled her onto it without withdrawing himself. The inflamed and palpitant girl, now supine and spread as wide as woman can be, with feet propped over the desk's edge, begged, in a small and velvety voice, "I want you to fuck me, Doctor. Please fuck me." A rather odd request, considering he was already deep inside her. Her eyes, nearly closed and rolled upwards, showed only the whites; her upper lip, slightly curled, was bedewed with a delicate moustache of fine perspiration.
Gardiner willingly obliged, of course, and soon brought her to a shattering climax, pacing himself carefully that that he would not yet be spent. Then he had her on the sofa, but from behind, and brought her to climax again. So transported was he by the passion of the moment that he neglected to notice one crucial detail: a perfectly tattooed vanessa semperjuvena butterfly on Lavinia Abernathy's right buttock, low and to the outside, its wings, in exhibit position, a very pale pink. It was, admittedly, rather hard to distinguish against the girl's hot, flushed skin. In fact, its detection would have been nearly impossible to the most discerning gaze, under the circumstances. And even had Gardiner seen it, he probably wouldn't have interrupted his lovemaking anyway, for he had crossed his Rubicon and there was no turning back.
* * * * *
For his own climax, Gardiner took Lavinia Abernathy, finally, on her back, there on the thick wool carpet of his consultation room; he hammered the girl mercilessly until she climaxed a third time. And now he came too in an agonizing series of powerful spurts, filling Lavinia Arbernathy's intimate recesses with gobs of hot, sticky semen and causing her to moan with delight.
CHAPTER 3.
Gardiner, sated and spent, lay still on top of the girl, savoring such meager afterglow as is granted to men. But surely something was not right.... He felt himself go too soft, too fast, felt his detumescing organ actively expelled from its lushly warm sheath. It was as if the girl had simply closed up. Gradually, he became aware of the increasing bulk and hardness of the body lying beneath him: he could almost swear that Lavinia Abernathy was growing larger and firmer, and himself smaller and softer.
The revolting sensation that he was lying on top of another man finally dawned on Gardiner, and, as it did, the form beneath him stirred. Suddenly, he felt himself flipped over onto his back by a superior strength and found himself staring up into a stranger's face -- the face of a man, just about his size. But no, the stranger was larger than he, and kept growing bigger and bigger until Gardiner understood that he himself was actually shrinking. Not only that, but he felt an excruciatingly fine tearing sensation as his pelvis ratcheted open and his hips broadened. And then .... and then...
O! Horrible! It was like when he tore his knee ligaments skiing and tried to stand, but the joint was all floppy and flail.... He felt a dreadful and disorienting invagination of his genitalia as they slickly turned themselves outside-inwards and slowly retracted into his body with an obscene gurgle, like the final sound water makes as it drains out of a bathtub. He felt them flow and flutter inside him as smoothly as quicksilver running downhill, then congeal into ovaries, tubes, uterus and vagina...... and settle, with a final, harrowing quiver, into textbook anatomical positions within his broad female belly.
After that repulsive sound and the queasy quicksilvery feeling, Gardiner lay perfectly still on his back for a minute or two, staring straight up at the ceiling, afraid to stir even a finger, barely daring even to breathe. He had the sickening impression that he now was deeply cleft, that a humid orifice now ran up and up into him from between his thighs far into his belly, that he was penetrable, open and soft. The impression, however, though horribly repulsive in spirit, was not wholly unpleasant in flesh.
Not to worry, Gardiner reassured himself, this was surely some odd, unexplainable sensory delusion, certain to pass. So he waited a few minutes for the delusion to dissolve: it didn't -- he still had the distinct feeling that he now had a .... had a.... well, that he now had a vagina, as there was no other decent word for what this warm and soft opening between his legs could possibly be. But how utterly ridiculous! Vaginas don't suddenly materialize out of nowhere! But then Gardiner shifted his legs and was electrified by the unfamiliar (yet delectable) friction of his inner labia rubbing together.
Gardiner gasped, raised his head and looked down at himself. His eyes widened in horror to see nothing between his legs but a demure little mons veneris, complete with soft furrow running downwards to fuse with the cleft of his buttocks below. This perfect feminine mound -- and its slit -- was sparsely covered with gently waved -- not curly -- black hair, and as he spread his thighs more widely apart to enhance his view, the blunt-edged furrow opened a little bit, too, revealing a glimpse of his vibrant pink penetralia.
Outrageous! Unacceptable! Disgusting! But there it was, nevertheless, glowing, like a sinister beacon, between twin pairs of lips, lips more perfect than any labiaplasty he ever could have created, lips from which issued that inimitable wet, smacking sound as he again shifted his legs and his lush labial folds and vaginal tissues came together and parted.
Gardinder had, of course, heard such a sound many times before, but never of his own making...
His heart stood still for what seemed an eternity; when it resumed beating, he felt his blood suffuse his limbs and now scaphoid belly like a rush of honeyed milk. Gardiner lay his head back down on the soft carpet and surrendered to the sensation -- to a languid voluptuousness never before felt. He shuddered, then softly moaned as his sensitive new tissues rippled and stirred -- all inside him now -- a stirring thoroughly unfamiliar but recognizably sexual, a stirring rich, velvety-smooth and undulant, turned crazily outside-in, causing his thighs to part even further in unconscious and involuntary supplication to be impaled by a man.
* * * * *
Yes, Dear Reader, Richard Gardiner, gender reassignment surgeon extraordinare, had just had his own gender reassigned -- by Fate, by the gods, or by whatever magical means you care to postulate. The mechanism is quite unimportant; only the end result is of consequence, and Gardiner, Dear Reader, was now a woman..... almost.
Gardiner's transmutation was completed even as his gaze remained riveted on the soft cleft that had just now taken the place of his male genitalia (to which he had become somewhat attached during his forty-five years of existence): the view of his mound and points south was suddenly obscured by the eruption of a pair of monumental breasts -- his own -- with small dark brown nipples set in purplish areolas. Gardiner did not particularly care for small dark brown nipples and purlish areolas in a woman, but he was no longer in any position to choose. Small, dark brown nipples and purplish areolas were what Gardiner had been given, like it or not. And all of his skin, save on his mound, was now hairless, glossy and smooth, like oiled silk, only smoother by far, and of a deep, burnished coppery hue.
Disoriented, confused and frightened, Gardiner stammered:
"Que paso? Que ha hecho conmigo? Siento que.... " and he abruptly cut himself off, because he was not hearing his own voice, but that of a woman, and she was speaking Spanish, a language Gardiner could not understand, much less speak, but here he was, speaking Spanish in a feminine voice.
"¡Madre de Dios, Salvame!" Gardiner heard his voice exclaim, "Que esta pasando conmigo? ¡No lo creo! ¡No es posible! ¡Soy macho! ¡No quiero ser mujer!" and, his transformation completed, Gardiner heard himself scream, a girlish scream, high and drawn out like the shrill of a gym teacher's whistle.
Gardiner sat himself up halfway, leaning on his elbows, only to feel his long and slightly coarse black hair brush over his now-narrower shoulders. Comprehending at last that he really had been transformed into a woman, without the least doubt remaining, he started to sob -- sharp, feminine sobs that only Latinas can do really well and convincingly. He soon became hysterical, in fact, and only stopped screaming and sobbing and flailing about when he felt both wrists tightly gripped in one of the strange man's large hands and felt the sting of his other as it struck him smartly across his cheek.
Gardiner abruptly stopped crying and regarded the man attentively. "Quien es usted?" he heard himself ask, and he stared blankly into the strange man's face. The man was kneeling on the carpet next to him; he had pulled on Gardiner's expensive Guy de la Roche trousers, which, strange to say, fit him perfectly. The man seemed to be in control, while he, Gardiner, was the weaker vessel now, at this man's mercy.
"Calm down, Gardiner, calm down!" the man exclaimed, still clamping Gardiner's wrists firmly. "Getting all upset's not going to help things a bit. And I know you can speak English, so quit with the Spanish, OK?" and he gestured towards a large, white envelope with two magenta stripes running diagonally across it, which, along with the alligator portfolio, was lying on the carpet. Beside it were scattered various documents and some American currency -- worn, crumpled bills in small denominations.
The little gym bag was on the carpet, too, now opened and empty, its contents neatly spread out for display: a flagrantly vermilion push-up bra, frilly garter belt and thong panty set, a midriff-baring spandex tube top in bright turquoise with matching spandex skirt so narrow that it would be tight on an anorexic (and so short it would be an embarrassment to sit down in), black fishnet stockings and a pair of white, faux-patent leather knee-high boots with spike heels. A cheap, light blue feather boa completed the ensemble. A girl clad in such an outfit would fit right in on Van Buren Street. Gardiner regarded these tawdry garments with detached curiosity, having no comprehension as yet that they were intended for him.
"Listen, Gardiner," the man began, "my name's Benjamin Lundquist. I used to be a corporate jet pilot, a regular Top Gun, with a girl in every city, until, one fine day about three years ago, I found this butterfly tattoo on my butt, just as you did this morning. Yes, it fluttered around a bit, changed colors and all, so I was properly impressed and amazed, but I did nothing about it. Then, a few days later, I bumped into this fantastic chick in a hotel bar and took her up to my room. Turns out, she had one of these tattoos, too. Well, naturally, I fucked her and.... I became Lavinia Abernathy on the spot, while the chick reverted to an insurance salesman named Roger Adkins. Adkins, chastened after being this chick for five years, went his way and left me, as Lavinia, to manage as best I could. And I did manage. Actually, I can't deny that there were not a few times I hoped the curse would remain. You'll see what I mean after a few months."
"The curse, the butterfly curse, which I've just passed on to you, is some sort of divine retribution for predatory behavior. Don't waste your time trying to find out where the curse comes from: it really doesn't matter, and you can't do anything about it, anyway. In a few minutes, I'll tell you all about who you are," Lundquist continued, nodding towards the documents.
"By the way, I hope you enjoyed screwing Lavinia, because from now on -- for the next few months or years, or even forever -- you're the one that gets screwed, Gardiner, because you're a woman now. You had best come to terms with this one essential fact as soon as you can, or you'll have a rougher time of it. So if you'll promise to quit carrying on, I'll tell you about yourself and go over how the curse works. It's not quite so bad as you think -- you're not dead, you know: you're only a woman...."
Gardiner obviously still understood English, for his eyes grew wide with alarm as he heard Lundquist's explanation. Then he glanced frantically downwards at his large, dark breasts, and, craning his neck, his eyes practically popped from his head when he reaffirmed that he now, indeed, had a dark-lipped vagina, cleaving him like a ghastly wound, splitting his groin like a peach. His legs, also copper-colored (as was every square inch of his skin), were comely and long, especially a for girl of predominantly Aztec lineage (there must have been a Conquistador or two somewhere in the woodpile way back when), and he shifted them gingererly, not knowing precisely which new and unfamiliar female sensation would next surprise him.
Gardiner looked up at Lundquist again, sniffed once or twice, and waited for him to continue. "Sigue, gringo," he said, "I pay atencion now," and he sniffed again. "Please you let go mis manos. I no scratch your eyes out, OK?" It was an appropriate disclaimer, for Gardiner now had long, pointed red nails.
Lundquist complied, and Gardiner, his hands suddenly free, tossed his head and brushed his long hair out of his face and back over his shoulders with his claws. He was really quite striking, with high Aztec cheekbones, bright black eyes and a rather small Indian nose with chiseled nostrils, set over remarkably thin lips for a mestiza. He had a long graceful neck and shapely but strong-looking copper-colored arms, which he now folded as he waited for Lundquist to continue. Gardiner stubbornly thrust out his brown lower lip and raised his slightly aquiline Aztec nose in the air.
Lundquist rifled through the documents on the carpet and found a Green Card with the Mexican's photo on it. He studied it for a few moments, then looked up and addressed the new-minted girl:
"From here on, Gardiner, you're Elena Hernandez. You were born in a small village in the Mexican state of Zacatecas and you're, let's see..... this Green Card shows you were born in 1981, so you're nineteen years old."
Elena Hernandez raised her fine black eyebrows, protruded her lower lip further outwards and continued to listen impassively. Lundquist picked up another document and read it through, then he addressed Elena again.
"You've been in this country almost two years, you can barely read and write Spanish and even less English, but you're a clever girl who can fend for herself. You lived in L. A., where you worked as a live-in housemaid for two yuppie families in succession, but you were raped by both heads of household. It says here that you met another girl from your home village, and she steered you to a new job, which you're going to take up the day after tomorrow. It's in Big Spring, Texas.
"Seems you'll be employed as a topless waitress and table dancer in the Eighteen Wheeler Lounge at the Red Mesa Truck Stop in Big Spring, with 'extra duties as assigned' ... as assigned by.... let's see, let me look again.... by your new boss, um ... your new boss is Billy Joe Hargreaves, the 'entertainment director,' who, it seems, gets first crack at all the new girls.... Oh, yes, it appears you'll be dancing under the stage name 'Lola Laredo.' Say, that's sorta cute, don't you think?" and Lundquist chuckled.
Elena's dark eyes flashed and her nostrils dilated. "You can no do zis to me. ¡Soy cirujano; nunca sera puta! ¡Ademas, le odio a usted!" And she practically spat.
"Speak English, you little bitch!" cried Lundquist, slapping her face again, but this time much harder. "You're going to be -- and do -- exactly what it says on this identity assignment sheet in my hand, or you'll never see the inside of an operating room again as long as you live -- except as a patient -- because if you don't toe the line, you'll be Elena Hernandez forever, with eight kids by the time you're thirty. You clear on that?" demanded Lundquist.
There ensued a long pause, during which the girl regarded Lundquist steadfastly, her expression unchanged. Finally, having weighed the situation, the girl spoke again:
"Entendido," she replied, slowly stealing her hands up to her breasts to heft them, "Lo siento, I mean, I am sorry. Now I comprend OK. Soy hembra, no soy cirujano," and now she shamelessly cupped her magnificent breasts and rhythmically ran her thumbs around the base of her nipples, bringing them to erection. She smiled, revealing a set of even white teeth. She looked Lundquist straight in the eye: "Now I listen. I no talk mas," she said, "You talk mas now, OK, señor Lunkiss? ¡Hable, hable! Estoy escuchandole."
"Good," Lundquist replied, "I'm glad you understand things so quickly." And he then reviewed for the girl how pregnancy ends all possibility of transferring the curse to another, resulting in being trapped in a woman's body forever. He also told Elena how, when her tattoo moved again (it had come to rest, midnight blue, high on her left breast) -- which might be next month, one year, five or even ten -- it would be the signal that she would soon be meeting a suitable victim who had recently acquired a butterfly tattoo of his own. She should not worry about how to find him: she would know at the time just as birds migrate, or as spawning salmon find the very stream where they hatched. And, a few days before the actual meeting, she would receive a packet by UPS Red Label Service, containing an envelope with diagonal magenta stripes across the front, that would give her all the instructions (in Spanish and English) for the next Butterfly victim, as well as appropriate clothing, accessories, and all pertinent identity documents.
Lundquist further told Gardiner that his first period would be in about twelve days, but Gardiner didn’t blink when he heard he would start menstruating in the not-too-distant future, which was a bit surprising, as the thought of bleeding drove most new transmutes absolutely bananas. That and having to sit down to urinate. These two humiliating female afflictions were usually the most difficult for new girls to accept, even moreso than learning that they now existed for the instant gratification of unvarnished male lust, that they were nothing but penetrable sex toys expected to slip off their panties, spread their legs and be fucked on demand (not theirs). But Elena Hernandez merely nodded stolidly after hearing each sordid detail of his sentence.
Lundquist wasn't sure what to think, but he continued:
"Here's a Greyhound ticket to Big Spring and $200 in small bills to help you set up." Lundquist counted out the soiled banknotes, all in ones, fives and a few tens. "If I were you," he went on, "I'd hide it somewhere secret, because Billy Joe is likely to take it for 'safekeeping,' if I know anything about truck stop 'entertainment directors.' You'll discover you have one or two new hiding places you didn’t have before...."
Elena, despite her coppery color, flushed deeply when she caught Lundquist's meaning.
"And now," Lundquist resumed, "Billy Joe Hargreaves is going to have to take a back seat to me, Elena Dear, because it's my sacred privilege under the terms of the curse to..... to initiate you as a woman. I don’t think I've ever done it with an Aztec mestiza before, but you're a regular jewel. It'll be a rare pleasure to get back in the saddle with someone like you."
Profound silence: there was no immediate response from the girl. After perhaps a minute or so, Elena Hernandez, arms still defiantly folded, cocked one eyebrow and asked, "Entonces, Benjamín, quieres hacer ficky-fick conmigo? Is zis what you are say?"
"Yep, that's it exactly. You're a girl of rare understanding, Elena: I'm going to fuck you. Comprendes?"
Another long silence. One of the girl's hands now descended and she touched herself in her new warm and moist place, then inserted her middle finger. Her practical Aztec brain, whose antecedents, had, after all, outlasted generations of Spaniards and their Jesuit priests, was computing the odds, computing her options, while her finger assessed the new and incontestable reality between her legs. She withdrew, brought her hand up to her nose and slowly drew her middle finger under her nostrils. Then she looked fiercely into Lundquist's eyes and, without breaking visual contact, slowly licked it with the pointy tip of her little tongue. She smacked her lips lightly and swallowed, shifted her long legs again and smiled. She still had not blinked.
"You give me fi' hunred dolares?"
Lundquist was absolutely flabbergasted -- and impressed -- by the perfection of the curse. Things had certainly improved in the three years since his own punitive transmutation! Elena Hernandez was a masterful creation and she was nobody's fool. She'd do well in Big Spring. But Lundquist, knowing that south of the border nothing of monetary value is ever exchanged without an obligatory haggle, decided to bargain. They agreed on a price of seventy-five dollars.
The bargain struck, Elena Hernandez smiled and said:
"OK, I make ficky-fick wiz you, Benjamín, for seventy-fi' dolares. Pero yo no se como hacerlo, I mean, I no know how. Zose two times in L. A., zey were not real ficky-fick, zose men tie me up wiz pantyhose, inyect me wiz drogas, I was no awake. You now show me como hacerlo, OK?"
This was too good to be true: a willing transmute! But something was terribly wrong, Lundquist suddenly thought. If Elena was, for all intents and purposes, a real mestiza from Zacatecas, in what sense was Gardiner being punished? Lundquist simply had to find out.
He leaned over to Elena, pulled her hair back from over her ear, and urgently whispered:
"Hey, Gardiner! You in there somewhere?"
The girl drew back and her face registered deathly fear. Her black eyes lost all defiance and suddenly glistened with moisture. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks from the outer corner of each eye. She opened her mouth and spoke very softly, almost like an automaton, in a small, choked feminine voice, but in perfectly accented colloquial English:
"What do you think, you bastard? I'm in here all right. I can't believe this Mexican chick is really going to let you fuck her... I mean, me .... I'd rather die! And if you're going fuck me anyway, try not to hurt me: I feel so goddamned soft down there. And use a rubber, Lundquist: the last thing I want is a baby. And if this Billy Joe creep ever lays a finger on her.... I mean, me, you're dead meat! And.... and.... " Here the little voice sputtered and trailed off.
The girl blinked slowly, raised her eyebrows, dipped her head to one side, then to the other, brushing away her tears on each upper arm, smiled sweetly, and said:
"Now you show me, Benjamín, now you show me como hacer ficky-fick."
Lundquist marveled at this novel twist in the curse: it subjected the punitive victim to a sort of akinetic mutism -- like a totally paralyzed person who can't move a muscle, not even an eyelid, but whose sensorium and intellect are completely intact. If someone stubs a cigarette out on an akinetic mute's arm, it burns him and he feels the pain, but he can't pull away and he can't even cry out. Gardiner was trapped, in the same way, inside the voluptuous body of the beautiful mestiza Elena Hernandez.
Lundquist knew that Gardiner would be horribly outraged by what he was about to see through Elena's eyes: no normal man wants to watch himself get fucked by another man, after all. But he well knew what Gardiner would feel. He knew, too, that Gardiner would soon come to adore it whenever Elena stroked her breasts, whenever she stepped into her panties or put on her make-up each morning, whenever she brushed out her long, black hair, or, especially, whenever she was penetrated by a man, which, Lundquist was certain, would be rather often.
It was diabolically perverse, really: Gardiner, the man, would always be somewhere inside Elena Hernandez, goaded to the verge of insanity by his new, irrepressible female urges and his new neural wiring, loathing his fate while at the same time yearning to be fucked by all and sundry ..... and absolutely powerless to initiate a thing: Gardiner would have no control whatever over his fabulous female body, though he would feel every last little (or big) thing that touched (or penetrated) it. He was now the quintessence of female passivity.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for Gardiner, Elena Hernandez had a powerful sex drive of her own, so he would be find himself frequently satisfied (or outraged) during the indeterminate span of his sentence -- starting right now.
CHAPTER 4.
Elena Hernandez was a most willing pupil, a responsive one, too, while poor Gardiner was dragged along for the ride, like it or not (mostly, he liked it). Only a few times was Lundquist aware that Gardiner was sharing their lovemaking. At such times, Elena's eyes would glaze over, her face become rigid and her little fists involuntarily clench.
The first such time Lundquist was aware of Gardiner's presence was when he dropped Elena on the sofa -- on her back -- and her dark thighs fell open, exposing her pink little slit, all the more vivid because of its contrast with her rich, coppery skin. She looked down at herself and Lundquist detected a flash of horror pass across her face. He knew just what Gardiner must be thinking and feeling and the knowledge only spurred Lundquist on to penetrate Elena all the more deeply. And again, after he had taken Elena from behind and turned her over on her back to receive him frontally again -- he saw the same look flicker over her face, though more briefly this time. Gardiner must be in a blissful state of agony!
Then, the third time, when Elena was on top, riding his shaft, eyes closed, her face serene with timeless rapture, she finally came -- came massively, her vaginal muscles rippling over Lundquist like some sort of undulant sea life, drawing him into her deeper and deeper, until he came too -- another expression of stark disbelief swept momentarily over Elena's ecstatic face.
After Elena had dismounted and lay tightly clasped in Lundquist's arms, her breathing slowed and became even and regular, and Lundquist knew she was sleeping the blissful sleep of a satisfied woman -- right there on the carpet -- a sleep he had slept many times in the previous three years. Again, he gently pulled her long hair from over her ear and whispered:
"Hey, Gardiner! You still in there? How d'ya like being fucked? Tell me the truth."
The even breathing continued for more than a minute, then the girl stirred, shifted position on the rich carpet and sank into an even more profound slumber. Presently there was a slight hesitation in her regular breathing, and the same little female voice, the mechanical one, spoke out again, muffled by the sofa cushion Elena had taken as a pillow, a voice as if from some other world:
"Did I enjoy it? It was fantastic, you bastard! I hate to admit it, but I couldn't believe how..... how good it felt when she came. Let her rest for a while -- you really gave me a workout, Lundquist -- then wake her up and fuck her again."
Lundquist laughed softly. So it was the same old curse, after all, just with a clever new wrinkle. He couldn't resist putting Gardiner through the paces, so he asked, still in a whisper:
"Tell me all about it, Gardiner, tell me just how it felt: I want to hear it in your own words."
Another long pause ensued. Presently the disembodied voice resumed speaking in its eerie monotone.
"OK. Lundquist," it said, "I'll give it a whirl, but it's not easy to put into words, you know.
"Naturally, the whole idea disgusted me at first," said the small voice, "to be penetrated by another man, I mean. It still disgusts me! When you first pushed up against my lips with the tip of your cock, just before you entered me, I had no idea exactly what to expect. Would it hurt? Would I be too small, or not deep enough? You didn't leave me too much time to think about it, though, or leave me a choice: when your cock pierced my lips, picked up my juices and plowed on into me, it was sort of like swallowing an oyster -- once it starts going down, you can't stop it -- only getting fucked is a thousand times more intense. When that ramrod's getting shoved into you, there's really not a whole lot else you can do besides letting yourself just ..... just be opened up by it. A cock fills you totally, completely. Having one inside you certainly gets your attention.
"I shouldn't have worried that it would hurt: it's amazing how elastic a vagina is! It's a damn shame -- a real fucking shame is putting it better, I guess -- that you aren't twice as big, Lundquist -- I could just as easily have taken you into me. Then, after you impaled me to the hilt and paused... there was this wonderful pressure -- this intense, wonderful pressure that made me feel vast, like an ocean. I wanted to pull you in deeper, I wanted to take your whole body into me! I wanted you to start pumping me (I thought you never would), and when you did, the friction.... the friction took me up to an edge: the longer I balanced there, the more I wanted to be pushed over it. When I came, I thought I'd go mad: I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Sorry, can't be more specific right now. When you fuck me again -- you're going to, right? -- I'll try to pay more attention.
"But you're a total prick, Lundquist!" the small voice went on, now with a petulant edge, "even though I asked you to, you didn’t use a rubber and my period's in twelve days -- you had no right to take those kind of chances with me -- you could have impregnated me .... I bet I'm as fertile as hell right now, and you must have come a gallon inside me; it's still sloshing around in there...."
Lundquist had to laugh. "The hell with you, Gardiner, that never seemed to bother you a bit when the tables were turned, if my information's correct. Now that you're a girl, you just have to take your chances, sweetheart."
A brief pause while Gardiner digested this elegantly simple truth, then the little voice whined:
"Look, Lundquist, do I really have to be a topless waitress at a truck stop in West Texas? And do I really have to dress like a whore in red lingerie and that awful outfit and wear net stockings and white streetwalker boots? With this body, I'll get raped five times a week! Give a guy a break!"
Lundquist chuckled again at the punitive transmute's discomfiture. He was delighted to see how very quickly Gardiner was coming to terms with the incontrovertible realities of being a fuckable female.
"'Fraid so, pal," he replied, "Hate to disappoint you, but it's beyond my control. If you have any complaints, take 'em up with Identity Central, if you can ever find out who or where they are. I know I couldn't. And anyway, your new lingerie isn't red, it's vermilion. When you're a woman, Gardiner, it's important to keep your colors straight. Women, you'll find, are much more sensitive to colors than men. Besides, you'll look terrific in that outfit! That push-up bra should attract lots of attention. If you don't like your clothes, you can always use your two hundred dollars to buy something more to your liking. But now I'm tired of talking, Gardiner. I'm going to wake up Elena and fuck her again...."
Another pause. Then the little voice resumed:
"That's fine by me, Lundquist. Do it, but go slower this time, and don't rub your shaft quite so hard against my clit; it's so sensitive, I can hardly bear it when you do. Lighter is better, OK?" Pause. "You should know all about that." Then the little voice signed off.
Lundquist did precisely as Gardiner requested: he awakened Elena and fucked her again -- more slowly and even more deeply -- and Gardiner was duly transported by another shattering orgasm. That he was unable to cry out, as Gardiner, at his moment of release, rendered his climax particularly excruciating, for he loved it as much as he loathed it.
And Lundquist enjoyed having sex with the lovely Elena Hernandez, his pleasure all the more intense because he knew that he was giving Gardiner a lesson he'd never forget.
* * * * *
Late that evening, Richard Gardiner, M.D., a.k.a. Elena Hernandez, dressed in the very clothing he had seen displayed on the carpet, (with makeup to match), boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Big Spring. His turquoise skirt was so tight he had trouble mounting the step.
EPILOGUE.
So how, pray tell, did poor Gardiner fare? Well, if you're down in West Texas any time soon, you can catch his act every night but Sunday in the Eighteen Wheeler Lounge at the Red Mesa Truck Stop out on the Interstate just east of Big Spring. He's still dancing under the name of Lola Laredo, only now he's gone topless-bottomless, and his English is a quite a bit better. For five dollars he will dance on your table with his little muff in your face and for twenty you can take him out to your rig for an hour. And if you don't have a rig with a bunk, for fifty you can take him to one of the little rooms upstairs in the back, which always seem to have a slight odor of diesel about them. For a hundred, you can have him all night.
Gardiner doesn’t bargain now: his prices are fixed, same as the burgers and chicken-fried steaks he serves to the truckers during the day (when he wears a pink ten gallon hat, stretch denim cut-offs, pink cowgirl boots and no top). Just pay Billy Joe, who will even put it on your credit card and will invoice you for "a complete lube job," so, if you're an independent trucker, you can even write Gardiner off on your taxes.
Gardiner is in such great demand that he rarely spends a night any more in his own tiny room out in the doublewide, except for an occasional Monday, which is usually Billy Joe's night, but sometimes Billy Joe is so drunk he forgets to come over. You'd better hurry, though, if you want to see Richard Gardiner, M.D., gender reassignment surgeon extraordinaire, dance on your table and watch him pick up five dollar bills with his lips (a little trick he learned only last month.) You'd better hurry because any time soon he's due to run into a particularly nasty truck driver with a fresh butterfly tattoo.
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Return to Sauce*Box, Fall 2000