The Creek Walkers

by Shinigami

 

There's this creek by my house that my friends and I used to play in all the time. There was Johnny who was the most mature out of all of us and had dark brown hair. He was the tallest too. Then there was Bobby, with red hair and freckles. He was short and liked to pick fights a lot. Then...well, then there was me, my name was Rick and I was like a mix between Bobby and Johnny really, except maybe I was moodier, and sometimes I'd do stupid things on a dare. We were all twelve years old, or around that, I think Johnny might have been older, but we were all in the same grade, and we were just starting to grow up.

We'd been hanging out less and less. We were just old enough to be called gay for hanging out together a lot without being old enough to know that that stuff really doesn't matter. I mean you're either gay or not, so what right? But we'd feel nervous sometimes about setting up meetings and sometimes we'd invent excuses not to meet.

There was one thing that we still did all the time though, and that was go fishing on the creek. There's not much three twelve year olds can do alone that's more macho than that. Not saying it was a strictly guy thing, just that a girl would have to be pretty cool to actually want to sit outside for hours freezing in the cold in the early spring and late fall, or getting bitten to death by mosquitoes and other critters in the summer.

And no matter how cold it was, we always went creek walking. Which wasn't just walking alongside the creek, but actually in it. And that water was cold! And it was deep enough in place to be over your head.

We had a running bet going as to who could stay in the water the longest. I would almost always win. There were a couple times when I was sick and didn't want to get in the water, and one time Bobby stayed in longer than me just to prove he could do it, and he came down with pneumonia afterwards. Oh and really Johnny could beat me anytime he wanted I think. If he needed money or something he'd get really weird and just breath deeply in the water with his eyes closed and he'd win every time like that. He said he could do that all day if someone fed him, and I believed him. I still think he could.

Most the time though I was the only one who won. Johnny just didn't care all that much and would even call Bobby and I stupid for trying to outdo each other. It almost didn't matter to me either, I mean I couldn't tell you why I did it really, except I just had to. Whenever I didn't win, even when Bobby got so sick, I felt terrible, like I wasn't worth anything. I'm like that with video games too. And if I'm prepared for it, I can beat Bobby in a fight as long as I do it dirty. Well, I should say could. Seeing as he's a lightweight kickboxer now I doubt if I could touch him. Johnny was a pacifist, and he was good at it too. If you got into a fight with him, he would take every punch and just look at you, and suddenly you didn't want to punch him again. He would just make it seem completely pointless.

Bobby and I sometimes thought he was an alien and to this day I think he had something about him, some other quality that twelve year olds just aren't supposed to have. Sometimes I think the only reason he hung out with us at all was because he was lonely. Only child, parents working most of the time, hell I spend an hour alone at home and I start to get depressed, I don't know how he even survived.

He needed us I guess, just like we needed him. Just like we needed each other. We were coming apart like we were magnets turned the wrong way and we were all feeling it. Bobby had just gotten five weeks detention for getting into a fight with some kid that called him a homo. I was failing all my classes except for English and that was because Mrs. Gardner didn't believe in failing marks and gave everyone an A as long as they came to class. Johnny just kind of folded into himself. He read like mad, he even brought a book creek walking. He'd just look up long enough to deal with whatever question someone asked him or whatever chore he had to do and then went back to reading.

I think we were all desperate, even without really knowing we were. And I think that is, ultimately why it happened.

We were creek walking a week around the beginning of October and it was just starting to get cold. It was really the last week we'd be able to where short sleeve shirts and shorts and we could only get away with it now because we were so far south and it had been warmer that week. There had been a cold snap the week before and the water was still at bone chilling temperatures.

So of course we decided to go swimming.

"I'm going to beat you this time!" Bobby declared jumping into the water with abandon.

"In your dreams, snot face!" I yelled back, my voice squeaking on dreams awkwardly, ruining the come back completely. I followed him into the deep section as fast as I could. It really was better to get it over with quickly rather than try to bear the cold gradually. You never completely got used to it ever anyway and you could spend hours just getting in the water if you were scared of it.

"You coming?" Bobby asked Johnny.

He looked up from his book and nodded, "Sure." He marked his place and set the book away from the water before wading in, smooth as anything as if it were the same temperature as a swimming pool. Meanwhile I was shaking like an epileptic at a disco and my balls had already retreated to safer areas of my goosepimpled body. It was insanely cold to the point were I almost couldn't think.

Usually we'd be splashing each other and calling each other names and what not at this point, but not this time. This time we all just stared at each other, completely quiet, shivering.

I know this was stupid. We could all have died of hypothermia. Hell you could die from pneumonia and that's what Bobby had that one time, though it really wasn't that severe. But we were kids what can I say. Were our parents stupid for letting us in the creek with out watching us? My mom was outside in the garden in screaming distance and It's not like our parents could hold our hands every minute of the day.

But if they could have seen the looks in our eyes that day they wouldn't have let us out of the house. Because I swear we were ready to die in that creek just then. We were only twelve, but for just a moment, we were completely suicidal. One way or another we knew this was it, that we'd never see each other again, not like this.

The entire day had been empty somehow. None of our usual jokes were really funny, all of our stories were old or pointless, all we could talk about was school and that was boring, so now finally it had come down to this. This last childish thing we had to hold on to. And even if it killed us we didn't care.

It was Johnny that kept it from going that way, but I don't think he did it on purpose. He just closed his eyes and started breathing steady, like he did when he was serious, but it brought me and Bobby out of that weird state of mind.

"Johnny's going for it," Bobby said in awe. I nodded without saying anything. I knew right away he'd be the first out this time. That he had recovered absolutely from his temporary death wish and would survive. The truth was Bobby was a little scared of the water since his pneumonia, though he'd never admit it.

Me I wasn't so sure of. Because I didn't want Johnny to beat me. Not this time. It was like I wouldn't be as good a friend if I was first out. Bobby could get away with it, but not me. I could last longer and so I had to. Completely twisted logic, maybe but I wasn't really thinking. Ideas and feelings just sort of gurgled in and out of my head. One of these ideas that surfaced was that maybe if I did what Johnny was doing I'd last longer too.

It wasn't the first time I'd tried Johnny's method of course, but I always thought it was a trick only he could do and so I would always give up early. This time it was serious.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I breathe in.

Out.

In.

Out.

Odd thoughts were still percolating in my cerebrum. Things like "I wonder if I'm doing this right?" and "I wonder what Bobby's doing?" though they weren't really words so much as ideas. I thought about how weird it was that balls would go up inside you like that. They never did that normally. And wouldn't it be great if you could make them do that, like if you were in a fight and you though someone might kick you there, you could just pull them out of harms way and bob's your uncle. But what if you couldn't get them back down? That might be bad. But really why are they dangling like that to begin with? It doesn't make much sense if you think about it. Whatever they were doing they could do just as easily inside as out.

I read later of course about how sperm have to stay cooler than the rest of the body to survive but this is me at twelve.

I thought maybe having balls on the inside would be bad if I had a girlfriend. But I didn't have a girlfriend, and even if I did it'd be a while before she would ever look at my balls. Maybe I would never have a girlfriend. Maybe I'd just be single like Uncle Stuart who spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with us every year. Then it wouldn't matter at all would it? Heck I could just as well have nothing at all and it wouldn't matter. I wondered what that would be like. Not having a penis. It had to be weird having nothing there. How did you pee I wondered. Girls had to sit down. That had to get annoying. There were some toilets I wouldn't touch with ten foot pole much less sit on.

But girls weren't just boys with out penises. They had a vagina. They could stick things up in there, like dildos. That kid Mike called me a dildo a couple years ago and I had to ask Dad what it meant because Mom wouldn't tell me. I don't think Mike really knew what it was either. His sister was in high school at the time. She probably used one a lot.

That had to be really weird. Sticking something inside you like that. What was that like? How long had I been sitting in the water? It didn't seem that cold any more. Was Bobby still in the water? I didn't want to look, because if I looked then I would break my concentration. But then I heard Johnny: "Alright, man, you proved your point now get out of there before you turn into an ice cube."

I opened my eyes and looked around. Johnny and Bobby were already on the rocky shore of the creek!

"How'd you get over there?" my voice squeaked pathetically.

"Dude," Bobby said pointing to his waterproof wristwatch, "You've been in there for almost half an hour now."

And suddenly I was freezing again. "JESUS!" I screamed as the cold hit me like a sixteen wheeler. And scrambled out of the water...which made things worse because the air, which was just a bit brisk before was now turning every drop of water into icicles.

Johnny got one of the towels from our gear and handed it to me. I hastily rubbed it over my legs chest and arms. The shorts were a lost cause; they would be wet for an eternity barring some miracle. All I could do was wrap the towel around them so the water didn't drip down my legs too much.

Bobby was laughing through all this. But it wasn't until I was relatively dry that I could ask "What's so funny?" My voice was still in that weak upper register.

"You screamed like a girl just then, dude" He explained, "you were in that water way too long."

The full truth of what Bobby said would not be revealed until much later. At that time I was more concerned about getting a dry shirt on and getting home were it was warm and I could take a shower and maybe have some hot cocoa.

My feet were still in their swim shoes and so I was walking on blocks of ice and I was plenty irritable. "Let's go." I commanded, but though I had intentionally tried to make it lower my voice was still too high. This happened to me before in the mornings sometimes and it always went away after I had something to drink. I wasn't really worried at that point, well maybe a little, but Bobby laughing at me all over again was what drew my attention mostly.

"Shut up Bobby. Rick won. You chickened out after the first ten minutes," Johnny noted. He wasn't trying to goad Bobby or anything, he was just stating a fact and Bobby knew enough to take it that way, even though he grumbled about it.

"Yeah, I know. I guess we should be going." He made eye contact with me for a moment and he was real serious. I could almost swear I heard him thinking "Don't get sick or I'll kick your ass." Then he just glanced up at the sky, then down to the ground and kicked a stone into the water.

"Right let's head back," Johnny agreed, picking up the back pack with the tackle box and first aid kit and other sundry items.

Bobby got the fishing rods and we headed back toward the house. I led our party, and since I won, I didn't have to carry anything. I didn't speak the rest of the way home because I didn't want Bobby to laugh at me again. It was just as well because no one else spoke either.

I was feeling pretty weird then, but I was thinking it was just staying in the cold water too long. You know that pins and needles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? I had that over my entire body. And I wore briefs under my shorts and normally they got real uncomfortable once they were wet but they weren't as uncomfortable now for some reason. These are things I noted only in passing though. My actual line of thought was more "I'm freezing, my feet hurt, I'm hungry, I want a shower, I'm freezing, I'm not doing this ever again, I'm freezing, ow..." and so on.

When we got to the house I had first dibs on the shower, again because I won the bet, and it was only once I was in my bathroom naked with my shorts and underwear in a wet pile by my feet with my shirt that I realized why the briefs hadn't been as confining as they had in the past.

I didn't have a penis.

No balls either. I crazily tried to think back to see if I remembered them dropping. They usually did that pretty soon once I was out of the water, but of course I hadn't remembered them dropping this time because they never had.

Of course the first thing you do when you lose something is check to see if it's hiding under anything. I felt where my penis was supposed to be and there was just a slit under some hair. It was really weird, because I kept thinking I would touch it only I'd get to the area around it some how. You know how some amputees have ghost limbs? I had a ghost penis. I could almost feel it, but it just wasn't there.

Maybe a normal person would have yelled or screamed or something, but it was so weird, so unexpected that I thought I had to be imagining it. I figured I must be hallucinating from being in the freezing water so long and that once I had a nice hot shower I would come to my senses.

My shivering body seemed to agree with me and so with chattering teeth I turned the water on and stepped in like nothing was wrong. The fact that something was wrong made itself apparent as soon as the hot water sluiced down my body and met no obstruction from my private area. I was still in denial though. I soaped up, shampooed, rinsed, soaped up again, rinsed again, each time checking with my hand to see if Mr. Winky had reappeared only to find that, no, he had apparently seen his shadow and there would be six more weeks of winter.

When you doubt your sanity, you can't exactly trust your senses. I was fairly certain now that as far as I could tell, I didn't have a penis any more. But maybe this was because I was completely off my rocker. I mean some people thought they could fly, maybe I thought I had a disappearing penis. The only way to be sure would be to go about as if everything was normal and see if anybody else noticed.

Besides, If I was crazy and I did something like yell out "WHERE'S MY PENIS!" they'd have me committed for sure.

I more or less agreed with this line of thinking and started putting on my dry clothes. My underwear felt very odd when I put them on for the obvious reason, but I managed to ignore that and put on my socks, undershirt, sweatpants, and sweatshirt. The perfect get warm and lay around the house outfit. Looking in the mirror, the lack of any protrusion in the crotch area seemed obvious to me, but then I thought I was loony tunes so after staring at myself for a minute or so I left the bathroom. I didn't look any different really. It was just my crotch was flat now and I noticed that only because I was looking at it. Still I thought that someone would see it immediately and know.

Bobby was next in the shower, because he really didn't want to get pneumonia again and Johnny didn't want him to either. He rushed past me with his dry clothes and closed the door behind him. I could have been the Easter Bunny and he wouldn't have noticed. Definitely not a good test subject.

Through the door, I heard him peeing into the toilet, and that made me need to go too. It was amazing I hadn't had to go earlier what with all the water I sloshed through recently, but the need was suddenly pressing so I rushed up the stairs, hoping I could control my bladder without Mr. Winky's aid.

You can only use one shower at a time at my house because it uses well water and the pressure goes down to almost nothing if you have two showers running at the same time. We have three bathrooms though and since I would have to go past Mom and Johnny to go to the other downstairs one I went to the one upstairs.

I managed to make it without wetting myself and dropped my pants for the second time. I faced the toilet and grabbed for my penis but it wasn't there. I just sat down and hoped everything would take care of itself. That felt weird too, but recently everything had been a great big long string of weird, and I was still thinking I was batso so I took it all in stride. As it turned out I had to go poopy anyway so it all worked out for the best. That, at least was normal.

Now, fully dressed once more, it was time for the big test. Was I hallucinating? I no longer seriously thought so, but it was simply too odd to be real. I hadn't even begun to try and figure out how it happened or why or anything like that. I had to see if Mom or Johnny noticed anything. I would go downstairs, ask Mom for some hot cocoa, and if neither of them said anything, then I'd just muddle through my psychosis until I was knocked back into reality.

So I went downstairs and entered the kitchen where Johnny sat with Mom at the table talking about the book he was reading. It was something by Leon Uris and he was saying it wasn't as good as his earlier stuff and Mom was agreeing. He wasn't a snob or anything he read popular books as well as classics. We were all kind of smart for our age but Johnny was unreal. I walked to the table, my socked feet padding on the linoleum and Mom and Johnny looked up.

"Hello, honey," Mom said, "You feel better?"

I nodded and smiled. My mom's my mom and she'd call me honey even if I was Grungekiss the Slime Troll. Johnny just noted my presence with a nod of his head. Apparently neither of them noticed anything. Well caloo calay! Off to the funny farm with me! And I couldn't have been happier. I sat down across from Johnny and began to relax.

"Do you want me to make so cocoa?" Mom asked, "I've got the water heating up right now."

"Yes please," I answered and suddenly I was tense again.

"Are you okay? You sound funny." Mom looked concerned.

I had spoken in that higher register again. This time I really tried to make my voice lower "No...I mean no...er... no I'm fine." It was no use. It just wasn't happening. "I think I just need something to drink" I said, giving up.

Mom nodded and got up to check on the water.

"What were you thinking, back there in the creek?"

"Hey, you were there too. You could have shook me or something." I spoke just above the level of a whisper so Mom would hear, and that would normally make me squeak like crazy, but now, it was normal, but it wasn't normal. It was freaking me out.

"I did shake you, but you didn't move."

"Come on! I would have felt that!" It was too easy to speak. That was the feeling. There just wasn't the same resistance any more and it felt like a rubber band that's suddenly slack and you can't figure out how to stretch it again. Or maybe the other way around, since vocal chords are tighter when the voice is higher. I don't know, that's just how it was.

"You were completely out of it, I was getting ready to drag you out if you hadn't woken up. Anyway that's not what I was asking. I'm mean while you were like that, what were you thinking?"

Mom came back with two mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top and set them down before us.

"We'll talk later," Johnny said. But he never did.

We drank our cocoa and Mom asked me and Johnny about what we were studying and how school was, subjects I already was determined to avoid, so keeping to short yes no answers wasn't out of character in any way.

Bobby came in and Mom fixed him a cocoa and chatted him up a little. He was excited about getting ready to test for his black belt in Tae Kwon Do, so he was an easy conversationalist. Soon though Johnny's Dad and Bobby's Mom came by to pick them up and it was only me and Mom, sitting in the kitchen.

"I'm really worried about you, you've been acting strange since you got back," she said.

I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how to explain my behavior and the only thing I could come up with was the truth. Tell the truth. Yeah. Easier said than done. "I...um...I know this is going to sound a little crazy but...well...I mean..."

Mom was looking really concerned now. Perhaps it was that I was obviously upset about something, or maybe it was that I had drunk my hot chocolate and I was still talking in a higher register. Maybe both. "Just say it, pumpkins."

She always calls me pumpkins too. I looked at my hands for a moment before I sighed and finally said, "I think somehow I've turned into a girl."

I should re-emphasize that being somewhat of a late bloomer in the sexual department the only differences from the Rick Mom knew and the Rick sitting with her just then was the lack of a certain member and a higher voice. I had short light brown hair and a face of a normal twelve year old boy. I suppose if you put a wig on me and shoved me in a dress I would have looked like a girl but it was kind of hard to see that when everything else, including the way I moved and such said "boy."

So Mom wasn't slapping her forehead and exclaiming "Oh! That's what it is!" or anything. She just looked confused. "You've what?"

"Turned into a girl."

She closed her eyes, shook her head and held her hand up, "Okay. Why do you think you've turned into a girl."

"Because I don't have a penis anymore. I have a vagina." Let's hear it for sex education ladies and gentlemen!

Mom blinked. "Well...I'm glad you're well enough to joke around but, I'd still like to know what's wrong."

I found myself wondering why I would have come up with a joke like that. Then I thought, it would have been pretty funny if it had been a joke and I started laughing wondering why I couldn't have thought of something like that for April Fool's or something.

Mom was smiling now, because from her perspective I'd been found out and was laughing at my practical joke, but then I had to ruin it by saying, "No really. I don't know why but my...penis isn't there anymore." I was starting to feel heat come to my cheeks now. You'd think talking about your sexual organs, or lack thereof would be easier in front of your mother. She has after all seen all the nasty bits already, but it just isn't.

"Honey, this isn't funny anymore. Do you want to be a girl? Is that what you're saying?"

"No! I don't want to be a girl. I just...there's nothing there now," I said gesturing to my crotch. "I don't know what to do."

Mom knows a lot of things but this was a bit beyond her. "Maybe we can discuss this when your father gets home?"

"NO!" And that surprised me probably more than it did Mom. Because normally Dad was the person I talked to about my sexual problems. Heck he talked to me about my sexual problems even when I didn't want him to. Nothing really nasty, just birds and the bees stuff. Whether or not I had a girlfriend, what to do if I got one and wanted to have sex with her. How to treat a lady, dirty jokes, et cetera. Father son stuff really. But this didn't fall into the father son heading at all. Moreover, and this was the clincher, if this wasn't some hallucination, some weird waking dream brought on by a rare version of hypothermia or something. If this was real, then I wasn't his son anymore. And I wasn't ready to face that AT ALL.

But I didn't get any of that at the time. I was twelve. All I knew was that all of a sudden I couldn't talk to my Dad about something, when we talked about everything. And I wanted to cry. The only thing that kept from doing that was thinking if I cried that would be it. I'd be a girl and no going back. I was starting to get really afraid then. My last hope was that somehow Mom would know what to do. "Please," I said quietly, trying not to sob, "I need you to help me."

Mom looked at me, as much as I was trying to hide it I'm sure she knew I was on the verge of tears. She sighed as if releasing something in herself and said, "Okay, let's go to the bathroom."

I nodded and she followed me in. For a moment once we were in the bathroom we just regarded each other. Sometimes you just have to drop your pants and let it all hang out. That's what I did, only of course nothing hung out at all.

Mom was calm until she turned me around and saw that I hadn't tucked anything behind my legs or anything like that. That I simply had nothing to tuck. It was then she looked at me with her eyes wide in panic. That look is the scariest thing I can remember. Because Mom was scared, that was plain enough, but I could swear that for a moment she was scared of me.

I knew then for sure I wasn't making it up. Or at least if I was, I wasn't going to be able to get out of it anytime soon. Because if I was going to wake up, that would have been the time.

"How...?" Mom's face turned confused again.

"I don't know it just happened," I said.

She hugged me. "We're going to figure this out, okay baby? It's going to be all right."

Mom always gives the best hugs, and just then I could almost believe it would be all right.

But that was just the beginning.

 

~~~~~END Part 1~~~~~

  

  

  

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