Author's Note - It's been a long time since I've written a TG story. And it is probably my third to last because I have little more to say. I wouldn't have even finished it if it hadn't been so close to completion. You should probably know that everything before the pair of asterisks was written on and around August 2001, before 9/11/01. Everything after that was done recently. Before 9/11 I had a clear end to this story, one not even noted in the post-script; an ironic, whimsical treat placed atop this dour piece.

 

The Monroe Item

By Rocketman

 

I knew what would greet me when I switched to the local news channel but I didn’t care. I was sick of nature programs. The weather forecaster rambled on about the usual. "As you can see, we’ll be hot and muggy with highs in the 90’s and the humidity hovering around the seventies for the rest of the week. Perfect weather for copulating. Oral sex also feels great in this kind of weather. So, Gina and Diana, if you don’t see me tomorrow, you know I’m with a male partner."

The view shifted back to Gina, who smiled. "Thank you, Brandi. In other news, the Annual Dildo and Vibrator Expo in Los Angeles kicked off today. The event features the World’s Largest Vibrator. Now while it’s physically impossible to use the device, many woman have claimed to reach orgasm just by leaning against it. The Expo also features displays and demonstrations by all the major distributors of female masturbation aids."

I yawned. Even the sight of naked newscasters failed to grab my interest. I clicked over to one of the other major networks, the Home Sex Network. More naked women talked candidly about their favorite sexual techniques. Not a damn thing I found interesting. I tried CNN. At least they kept the clothes on their reporters. Jenny Simon wore a see-through blouse without a bra.

"The United States and Russia have finally inked an agreement settling the long-standing conflict over who owns the Monroe Item. According to the agreement, from now on Russia will be able to select which five years out of a ten-year selection period the permission fees will go to them. The five years of the ten left unselected will automatically default to the United States. Reports that this deal came about due a number of lesbian sexual encounters between President Roe and Russian Premier Annika Groski are being denied by both the White House and the Kremlin."

Now that I found interesting. I’d been planning my contact period with the Item for quite some time. What was I supposed to do now? The government had my money. They said I’d get my period in a few weeks but what if I got pushed back into the next ten-year term?

I switched off the TV, leaned back and shut my eyes. I mentally went through my description again. My eightieth version of it. I knew they’d ask sexuality and libido questions. My assigned psychologist told me so. There’d be some blank questions too. Fortunately, she had a sample info sheet that I was able to preview.

Not that it made me any less nervous. And not all of that came from wondering about the questionnaire and gender transition.

Even though I’d read all that’d been written about the Item, I still had questions. How could we trust what was basically a smooth rock that fell out of the sky and landed in northern Siberia? What if it was an alien mind control device that would send for its masters once the entire population of Earth was female? And what if it turned me into something I didn’t want to be?

I’d presented all these questions to my psychologist. She told me not to worry about them. The Item had been tested exhaustively before any humans were allowed to deliberately touch it. No hyper-spacial waves were emitted by it, no electromagnetic signals, not even any tachyon bursts. It didn’t have the capability to communicate. As for the science of the transition, well, that’d been explained a long time ago by rational scientific principles.

I wondered aloud to her why it was better to be a woman. But she had an answer for me.

Females are the proven genetically superior to males. Even in the animal kingdom, all higher species are trending toward female dominance. Career jobs are going more often to females because of their longer expected lifespan. No businesses want men, who are often hostile to co-workers, can drop dead of a myocardial infarction at half their expected-lifespan and force sexual tension upon the female majority. And even those homosexual applicants who actually get hired receive starting salaries a third of what a woman would earn.

But then, she cautioned, I’m not out to make you want to become a woman. I’m just laying out the advantages for your career. You’re in medical school, Mike. Have you ever heard of a man in the medical field? As a psychiatrist, I can tell you that I haven’t heard of any men in my field in a while. And when there are any they’re usually close to their transition or just irrational. No disrespect, implied or otherwise. But if you choose not to go through with your transition, only a few career choices will be open to you and all of them are degrading.

She convinced of the advantages and I agreed to go through with the submission process. I still had questions and worries though.

The foremost was what my grandparents would think. Their generation still saw the Item as an abomination to human nature. As opposed to the anarchists who saw the Item as another weapon in the war of individuality vs. globalization. But that was another matter.

I tried calling them a few nights ago but got only their answering machine. After a generic message, I left them a notice that I was trying to get in contact with them because I "had something important to tell them." By the next day, I expected them to call me back. I even stayed home from class to make sure I wouldn’t miss their call. It didn’t come.

Opening my eyes, I stood up and walked over to the phone and tried their number again. This time I heard someone pick up the home. But it wasn’t my grandmother who answered. At least I didn’t think it was.

"Hello?"

"Oh, it’s Michael! Dana, it’s Michael!"

The woman who answered clearly wasn’t my grandmother since she’d called for her. Who could she be then? She sounded too young to be any of her friends. Maybe it was my uncle? No. She didn’t sound anything like that.

"Who is this?" I tried to make my voice sound pleasant despite my confusion.

"It’s Dara. Oh wait. Oh my. Dana, we haven’t told him." A short giggle followed her last sentence.

"Dana? Who’s Dara? What’s going on?"

This Dana, whoever she was, picked up the phone. I call her merely Dana, because the voice she used was not my grandmother’s. "Hello, honey. How are you?"

My grandmother has a sweet, small voice that reflects her five-foot-even stature. This woman sounded like a husky six-foot Amazon. "Who are you? Where’s Dana, my grandmother?’

"I suppose we have a few things to explain to you dear. I’m your granny. Yes, I know I sound a little different. That’s because I had a Re-vital."

I blanched. Of all the people on this Earth, the last one I expected to go along with one of those New Age Re-vitals was my grandmother. The thing I remembered most from my occasional visits was her preaching about the glory of wearing your age and earning your wrinkles.

Sure the doctor had tried to talk her into it but she would have none of that. What had changed her mind?

"Old age did. I realized one day that I was going to die. Really realized. And I decided that I wasn’t going to suffer through it. I was going to have fun, if at all possible, in my last few years of life."

"So who’s the woman with you? New friend?"

"Oh, a little more than that, my dear."

"Where’s grandpa?"

"She’s him, dear. He touched the Item."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No kid, dear. We’ve been at it like there’s no tomorrow since she got back. Dildos, vibrators, oral sex. We were about to smear peanut butter on each other’s clits right before you called."

I reeled for a minute, as though I were hearing a confession from my grandmother that she’d just committed a gruesome murder.

When I didn’t answer for a little while, she asked if there was anything wrong.

I wanted to yell and scream at her and tell her that she was wrong. She was eighty years old and was supposed to be crocheting or playing bridge with a couple of friends, not having hot lesbian sex. Hadn’t she grown up?!

Then I paused. What was I saying? Growing up? What did that even mean anymore? Children refrained from intercourse. Even teens were rare to it. Too many concerns about building a career. But sex was always on the minds of adults. Most adults, anyway.

So would I be saying that sex was wrong, childish?

"Honey, are you still there?" A soft moan followed Dana’s question. She giggled and exclaimed, "You naughty girl! Sit down and be good or I’ll have to tie you up."

"Grandmother!"

"Oh, good. You’re still there."

"What’s happened to you?"

"Carpe diem, dear."

"And grandpa is okay with all this?"

"He wanted to try something new."

"Really?"

"Mmm-hmm. So what did you call about, dear?"

I really wanted to tell them but I knew now what they’d say. "Just checking in."

"That’s sweet of you, dear. It’s so nice to hear your voice."

Well, I thought, enjoy it now because next time you hear it, it’ll probably be a soprano.

"Are you sure that’s all, honey?"

No.

"What’s grandpa like now?"

"Oh, she’s so cute. And her vagina is always lubricated. I love that. She asked for that and I’m glad she did."

I shuddered and put the phone against my chest so I could have a moment to think. When I put it back to my ear, I resolved to tell them.

"I’m going to transition, just like grandpa."

I hoped she would say something discouraging or at least uncertain. Even a, "are you sure you want to?" would have sufficed.

"That’s wonderful, dear! Dara recommends high sensitivity for nipples. Sure, it comes with a constantly lubricated vagina but she says that’s a plus rather than a minus once you get used to it."

I shut my eyes and answered, "Thanks for the info. Have a nice day, grandmother."

"Oh, call me Dana, dear. And I will have a nice day. I hope you do to."

I laid the phone down on the receiver and leaned my head back against the wall. Slowly, I allowed myself to slide to the floor. The tears came a few seconds later. I covered them with my hands even though no one was watching. Like a true man would do.

I beat my fists against the carpet and gnashed my teeth. When I settled down, I imagined my now young grandmother licking the vagina of my grandfather. It felt so strange, so awful that I couldn’t stand it. I wished so much to purge the thought from my body.

She was my grandmother. This wasn’t the way she was supposed to behave. I stood up and slipped off my pants, then the panties I was wearing underneath them. Getting a feel for what it would be like to wear them. As I was, they were quite uncomfortable.

I slid them off and grasped my penis. I ran my hands along it. Soon you’ll be extinct, I told it. Gone the way of so many species. I clasped my testes and gave them a good squeeze. You too.

Not that I loved it. Who did anymore? Most discarded it before it had a chance to ruin them. I just felt accustomed to it.

I told my psychologist this. She said that just because I was accustomed to it didn’t mean that it was the best thing for me. Kinda like Dana looking old. That’s what bothered me about it.

I entered the shower and masturbated to orgasm, wondering as I rinsed my come away whether a female orgasm was as good. When I’d cleaned up, I phoned my psychologist, who sounded very naked.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?"

She panted a few times and answered, "It’s okay. I’m just having hetero, anal sex……oh yeah, fuck my ass. Fill it up."

"I’ll call back later."

"No, you called. I’ll try to answer your questions. I hope my orgasms don’t distract you….oh yeah. Fuck me."

"It’s kinda like this. My grandmother and grandfather have become horny young lesbian lovers. And it bothers me."

She moaned. "Ooo, well. That’s their choice. And I say good for them. I expect they’re enjoying themselves."

"Kinda like you are." I deadpanned.

"Your problem is you can’t accept anyone else having pleasurable sex just because you’re a sexual deviant."

"I’m not deviant."

"When was the last time you had sex?"

"A month ago with Cindy Cross."

"Anal, oral or vaginal?"

"What does that matter?"

"Ooooo, just asking. Yes. Harder."

"Could you quit that for one damn second!"

She didn’t say anything into the receiver for a moment, but when she returned, she sounded irate. "Okay, you have my undivided attention!"

"I should have hung up."

"Talk!"

"Vaginal, natural sex. She’s in my Anatomy Lab. It was good sex. But she said she’s had better. Especially with women."

"So?!"

"I got angry at her."

"What did you say?"

I searched my mind for the exact words, "I said ‘You damn cunt, what the fuck is wrong with you!?’. I screamed at her. I just couldn’t stop yelling at her. She transferred to a different class."

My psychiatrist’s panting slowed and she asked. "Why do you think you said that?"

"I don’t know. You’ve been analyzing me for months, what do you think?"

"I think you have strong aggressive tendencies toward woman because you hate that they have things better than you do. But you can touch the Item. No big deal. So, it’s not the anger about being out of the ‘club’, so to speak. I think, Michael, after all the time we’ve spent together, that you don’t want to join them. You want to change them to accept you as you are. You want women to be like you, rather than submit to being like them. Typical alpha-male domineering behavior."

"I am not. The whole world is just fucked up."

"How so? How is it ‘fucked up’?"

"Everything has become about sex!"

"Has it ever not been? When men dominated the world long ago, what was the most important thought in their minds? Sex. But it was a one-sided world. Women who slept with many partners were abnormalities. I believe the word ‘slut’ was applied to them. And they were open to rape and genital mutilation. Sex may be more rampant now but it’s sex for pleasure. With women, as well as men, the pleasure beneficiaries."

I tried to come up with something to counter, some inspired speech to show her that her view of the world was wrong, that humanity had only put itself out to pasture for some alien race to harvest us a generation down the road. That I was the only one on the planet that realized this. But she’d just shoot that down as well.

In the end, all I could come up with was a meager, "Whatever."

"Relax, Mike. I’m not trying to persecute your sex. Your sex will be my sex soon enough. And I’m really looking forward to that. I hope you are too. And I hope that we can still have a professional relationship, as well as personal one."

I decided not to delve into the suggestion of her offer. "Thank you. You’re probably right, as always. I appreciate that you accepted my call."

"No problem. Have a good day. Oh, and before I hang up, I got a notice in the mail that your contact period has been set. You should get an appointment slip soon. Did you?"

"I haven’t checked my mailbox yet."

"Go ahead. It should be in there. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye."

I hung the phone up and took a deep sigh. It was in there. I had a feeling about it.

And I was right. The blood-red piece of paper had my appointment etched onto it.

‘Noon. Tomorrow.’ **

There’s not much you can do once the death notice on your old life has been signed, certified and sent. Mostly I just sat around, recited the description of the kind of woman I wanted to be and refined it one more time.

Morning came far too soon.

"Mr. Michael Metz?"

I nodded in reply to the receptionist’s question. The Item Local Office was designed like a generic doctor’s office crossbred with a federal building.

She told me to go to interview room five, where someone would be waiting. That someone was a young, raven-haired woman wearing a white lab-coat with apparently nothing underneath because she had the top four buttons undone and a substantial amount of cleavage was exposed. Over her legs she wore a mini-skirt, legs uncrossed.

She rose to shake my trembling hand.

"Just relax, Mr. Metz. This won’t take long. Please sit here across from me. Now let’s see, I have your file here and all the personal information has been filled in. Let’s begin. You’re here for direct contact with the item, correct?"

I nodded.

"Chosen name?"

"Manila."

"Interesting choice. Do you want to keep your surname?"

"Yes."
"Manila Metz…" She tapped on her PDA. "Any middle name?"

"No."

"Okay. Height?"

"5’6’’."

She took a minute to convert that to metric.

"Proportions?"

"37’ to 27’ to 34’ and a chest size of 36DD."

"Going all out, eh? Profession?"

"Medical student."

"Hmm. Weight?"

"Roughly 120 pounds."

"Fair enough. Eye color and hair color?"

"Sea-blue and brown."

She then proceeded to ask me a number of personality questions, like in such and such situation how I would respond to it. Did I want to be passive or domineering? Flighty or serious? A talker or a listener? Etc.

I chose passive, flighty, a talker, and picked a level of ten out of ten for female personality/attitude/mental arrangement.

Mental expression? I picked ditzy but with creativity and other certain skills that would benefit me as a medical student.

Self image? Good. What else could I tell her to put?

Soprano voice.

Sex? What about sex? Bisexual, high libido, highly sensitive nipples. Dana would approve.

And so we were done. She left for a minute and returned with a bracelet for me to wear. She said that the Item would vaporize my clothes in the process. Yeah, yeah, I knew. She said a whole bunch of other things but the important thing she told me was to touch the Item with the hand the bracelet was on.

I nodded and was led to a hallway. At the end, covered in a glass dome, was the Item. Little more than a polished cut of rock awash in a rainbow of colors, the Item looked back at me and, in my mind’s eye, I could see it licking its chops. Another customer. Another fool.

My little entourage backed away, the woman in the barely-on lab coat keeping the closest. "Just touch it, Manila."

I reached out my hand, bracelet encircling my wrist and shut my eyes. I thought about what I had and what I was giving away. I thought about life and why. And I thought about the hand and wrist that would be greeting me when I awoke, Manila’s hand, not Michael’s.

All I had to do was touch it and all my problems would be over. I would be one of the majority, one of the status quo, I would have wonderful, glorious sex. Live a long and happy life and have nothing to worry about.

I felt so tired.

I touched the Item.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post-script

 

And that is all.

What, you ask, what happens next? Does Mike turn into the sexy, successful Dr. Manila Metz? Does he live happily ever after as a she? Perhaps. Or did he reach out and intentionally touch the Item with the wrong hand, bringing an end to his dour life when the energy burned his body instead of remolding it? Just as likely. Or did something else happen? Did the Item, sensing his hidden unwillingness to go through with this, reject him? Can't say.

Any of them could easily appear after that last period. I could say that dear Manila cured cancer had six in-vitro children and married her psychiatrist and they lived a happy life and Manila died at the age 120 while having sex and looking like a 19-year-old.

I could also put that Mike melted when he put the wrong hand to the Item. The entourage tried to stop him but by the time they got to him, he was nothing but a steaming puddle. In death, Mike leaves a small legacy of a brief Congressional investigation into the incident that nets nothing and had a simple funeral with three guests, his grandmother, 'grandfather' and psychiatrist.

Or I could make him the savor of the human race, because the Item could do more than just reject him, it could realize that what it was doing was wrong and vanish from the place where it rested to the horrified gaze of all who watched. Of course he would become the most hated man on the planet for many years, even till the day he died, but he could rest a little easier knowing he made a difference. And in the generations to come, with genders returned their previous nature the world would slowly revert to, more or less, the state it had existed in before.

But this is all supposition and interpretation. As it stands, "I touched the Item" is the last thing Mike says to us.

Where it goes from there is up to you.

 

The End

 

 

 

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© 2001 by Rocketman. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.