I didn’t move for a long time. Then I decided to kill two birds with one stone; if I was going to do this, and as good as it had felt before I hadn’t been kidding when I’d told May it had scared me, I was going to finally conquer the mirror. Showering and dressing for bed tonight, I still hadn’t been able to really look at myself, not naked. It was getting beyond stupid.

  Rolling out of bed before I could change my mind, I turned on the lights and stood in front of my bedroom mirror. Taking a deep breath, I whipped my nightshirt off over my head and, bending over, pulled my sleep shorts down and stepped out of them.

  And shut my eyes.

  Oh, we’re so not doing this again. Opening them, for a long moment all I was able to do was stare at my stranger’s face so I focused on that. I honestly couldn’t see anything of David at all, no matter how long I looked, but eventually I was just procrastinating and I managed to force my gaze down.

  Okay.

  I was pale skin everywhere, and I might be a redhead now but I didn’t have a single freckle on my body I could see. Which made sense since freckles were the result of sun damage, and I was brand new. But I was so skinny. Not underweight, I had to tell myself; Dr. James had said I was on the light side of average for my height and development, but not worryingly so. I still looked all bones and angles to me and far too small, but the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts at least declared I was a woman and not a child.

  And on close inspection, I was still not the least bit sexually attractive to me. I supposed it helped that the female ideal in my sexual fantasies was quite the opposite, lushly endowed women with hourglass figures (May didn’t fit that mold at all, but her graceful, slight beauty was undeniable to anyone not totally fixated on big tits).

  Still looking I frowned. I really was hairless—at least there was no sign of adult hair coming in anywhere despite my sexual development. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, May had complained about waxing (I’d once made the mistake of asking her what the big deal was and she’d told me in excruciating detail). On the other hand . . . was there another hand? Should I take the gift of one less grooming thing to worry about and move on?

  Moving on. My world went a little wobbly when I focused on my bare crotch (my pubes, my mons). Despite every sensation hitting me over the head with my new reality, my brain insisted my manhood should still be there. Instead, smooth pale skin with a deep crease was all there was and every muscle in me tensed as if to resist the ghost of a blow that had removed penis and testes to leave me a eunuch.

  But I hadn’t been castrated; I was April Seever now, an eighteen-year-old girl. Developmentally, my brain couldn’t help punctiliously adding as I looked at the rest of myself to make it sink in.

  Okay, a bit rocky there, but Not freaking out, this is progress. This is me. I should take the win and move on. So next— Masturbating, right.

  I couldn’t have felt less like masturbating if I’d tried, and I wasn’t done with the mirror yet. Not letting myself overthink it, I pulled my computer chair over and turned the desk lamp to shine right on it.

  For all the effort dragging it over and up all the stairs, it really was too big now. A high-tech, ergonomic chair, I’d bought it when I’d been a hundred pounds heavier than I’d been three days ago and now it just dwarfed me. Its seat was too wide, its arms too far apart, but that made it perfect for this. Situating it squarely in front of the mirror, I sat down and, taking a breath, pulled my feet up to rest on the seat and spread my legs to hit the chair arms with my knees. The pose reminded me of yesterday’s examination, but this time it was for me.

  Except I’d closed my eyes again.

  Sighing, I opened them and looked.

  Huh. The mirror showed all of my vulva now, at least all of my labia majora, my outer lips. They looked like a kind of a pouch between my legs, a smooth pouch with a seam that started at my mons and ended in a dip above smooth skin—my perineum—that disappeared between my butt cheeks. The flesh of it was a bit darker than the skin around it, more pink than pale. I couldn’t see my anus, my position leaving it tucked away, which was just fine.

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  I couldn’t see anything in the seam either, which kind of surprised me and I touched myself carefully, fingertips pressing lightly on my labia. They were soft, unswollen and feeling different than when I’d stroked them before, and taking a breath I pulled them apart with the first two fingers of each hand. Sucking in more oxygen at the feel of cool air where it didn’t normally flow, I just looked.

  There was a lot of pink. Under the light of the lamp I tried to look at myself critically.

  My clitoral hood, my prepuce, and my inner lips, my labia minora, looked very dainty, and when I parted them everything inside was shockingly pink. I couldn’t see my clitoris, but I hadn’t expected to, I’d read that it had to come out to play. I could see my tiny urethral opening and below it the shadowed hole of my vagina where my labia came together and ended.

  I swallowed, feeling light-headed, but This is me.

  Letting go, I watched myself slowly close.

  Okay. Okay. This is me and I’m fine.

  And I was still not feeling the least bit erotic, even a little chilly in the air-conditioned air. But I wasn’t quitting now.

  Shutting my eyes, I thought about Sunday night. Touch. It had started with touch. Raising my hands, I ran my fingers up my center, over my stomach and higher to cup my small breasts and lightly move my fingers over their swells. Shivering, I stopped for a few breaths before continuing, slow circles again, light touches with nothing in my head. When my nipples tightened I paid more attention to them, trying a soft, plucking motion. Oh. That feels good. I squeezed lightly as the warm, swollen feeling returned, deciding I could do this all night, squeezing and plucking, but when the warmth moved down just like before I smiled to myself.

  Showtime.

  Dropping my right hand in a long pass back down my stomach, I found my vulva and cupped it. Without the tug-of-war between my panic and the pull, the warmth spread faster as I moved my hand over my outer lips from mons to base. My legs twitched, wanting to go wider, and after long minutes of almost massaging myself upstairs and down I opened my eyes and stared. My outer lips had opened and between them I could see my swollen inner lips, looking twice their earlier size. My clitoral hood had also become more prominent and I felt swollen and tight there, too. Gingerly pulling my hood back I found my bashful clit, tiny and pink and looking surprisingly like the head of my vanished penis in miniature.

  My breathing hitched, warmth fading a bit, so I closed my eyes again and returned to stroking my labia until I felt a fluttering. Risking a stroke of my clit again I hissed at the intense sensation, still too sharp for comfort. Well, I hadn’t used it last time.

  Moving down I found wetness and touched my entrance. Opening my eyes and looking down I glistened in the lamplight, and sliding a finger in with a sigh, I was tight but very wet. And also a little fragrant. Not much, but I could smell myself. It wasn’t like anything I’d smelled before (obviously). Musky? Earthy? I didn’t know, just different.

  And I still felt very, very weird with my finger up inside me where it never could have gone before. At the same time it didn’t feel like quite enough, I still wanted something, but oh it felt good when I made curling strokes against the front of my passage, feeling a swelling roughness there. I thought about adding a second finger but decided I didn’t want to risk it with Dr. James’ procedure just a day ago.

  And I wasn’t going to need it. I lifted my feet, toes curling as tension ran up my legs, losing track of time as I moved my finger in and out of me, gripping my digit with my vaginal muscles while putting friction and pressure on my vulva with the rest of my small hand. Losing myself in the new sensations, I wound tighter and tighter until I burst, contracting in deep flutters around my finger as I gasped and shook, this time keeping my whimpers and cries behind my teeth.

  Eventually my feet dropped back to the seat as I just tried to breathe normally, contentment suffusing my body as the spasms died. God. That’s just— God.

  I could feel myself smiling from ear to ear; the floating was back again, and it sucked that I had to move. Finally getting up from the chair I realized I’d left a wet spot—nothing like last night, just a mark that I’d been sitting there. Grabbing some tissues and wiping up the spot, and then very carefully, myself, I disposed of them in the bathroom and washed my hands. Slipping back into my nightclothes, I turned off the lights and fell back into bed.

  As good as I felt, that I could enjoy my body didn’t mean anything. Not really. Everything was still so screwed up and tomorrow was going to be another fight. But right at that moment, staring at the ceiling and suppressing a giggle at a shivery echo of the explosion that had rocked my new body, I didn’t care.

  I like this bedtime ritual, was the last thought I remembered.