I spent the night at Yosefin’s house after she invited me inside to do what I wanted. Just like before, she stood naked for me to gaze at. But, there were some special changes. I couldn’t look at her while I was clothed. She presented herself as normal. Every inch of her body was thoroughly viewed. She gave me more than what I wanted. She tried to mimic dancing erotically from an old 80s movie she saw years ago. We couldn’t hold in our laughter from how badly she performed. She gave up and tried twerking. It wasn’t good but the cutest thing I had seen her do. The jiggle of her ass was enough for me to enjoy.

At the end of our unfiltered fun, we did our usual intimate closing before bed. I slept feeling optimistic about where Yosefin’s mind was. Things began to feel normal. I felt like if I could keep her focusing on me and any fun intimate things we love, she could forget the troubles fucking with her mind, or at least see there was nothing wrong with the way she looked.

The next day on a Monday morning, I woke up with her frantically rubbing my arm. I heard another voice in the room, but it came through the wall. The more I woke up, the voice became clear. It was her father. I sat up and looked around to see if he was in the room. He was on the other side of the bedroom, knocking loudly.

“Wake up,” Yosefin’s father said several times. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

“We’re up!” I said. “What do you want?”

“Your car is blocking his truck,” Yosefin said moments before her father said it too. I put on the bare minimum of clothing before opening the door. Nothing but my pants were on. I greeted him at the door with it cracked open and then rushed to back my car out of the way so he could head to work. When I came back to her room, she was under the blankets. Only the top of her nose upward was visible.

“Hiding?” I said, locking the door behind then stripping naked.

“It’s six in the morning, Josh,” she said. “I’m naked and I’m tired. We got class in a few hours.”

“Shit! I forgot.”

“Me too. Are you coming to bed?”

We had two hours and thirty minutes left to catch some Zs. I went back to sleep for the remainder of what we had left. Her phone woke us up. It took two snoozes to get her out of bed. I was up, but stayed in bed, watching her routine. She tossed the clothing she wanted to wear on the bed. It was a plain pink shirt with white athletic shorts. She turned on her computer and went to her nightstand to throw a pair of old-looking black socks with the clothing. They were cut low below the ankle and came up behind the heel area.

“Are you gonna go home and get ready?” She said.

“Eventually,” I said while admiring her naked body. “I just need a few more minutes to wake up.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later then. I’m gonna hop in the shower.”

“Not without giving me a kiss,” I said once she turned her back to me. She crawled on the bed and laid on top of me. I got more than one kiss. She made out with me and then rolled off to her side of the bed.

“Go before you get there late. We have a test today.” The excitement I got from those kisses left me in a state of wanting to play with her. I rushed over to the foot of the bed to give her a tender backhand to the ass. “Dude!” She laughed. “What was that for?”

“Can we shower together?”

“Josh,” she sighed yet grinned afterward. “No. Go home.” I didn’t want to push her buttons even though she turned her head and smiled before going into the bathroom. “Leave!”

“Kay! I’ll see you later!”

Yosefin came at her usual time of being five minutes early for class. Misty was in Yosefin’s seat. We were going over some issues she wanted to make sure she understood. She got it down just before Yosefin shooed her away.

“Y’all got this,” I said. They wished me good luck. Yosefin whispered in my ear, asking me when did I became friendly with them. “Yesterday, I guess,” I whispered.

“Mkay.” She hawked them like she was trying to check them out. It looked mischievous and scandalous, yet quite adorable. The last time she looked at a woman with caution was after I told her I kissed Kat.

“Ready for the test?” I said and poked her thigh to break her attention. “Do you need any last minute help?”

“I’m good. I know what I’m doing,” she said, projecting her voice to Misty and Shannon. “If one of us finishes, wait outside,” she said softly to me.

An hour passed. Fortunately, we both finished about a minute from each other. She was the first out of the entire class to finish. I saw her standing near the open lounge in the middle of three hallways, scrolling through her phone. She didn’t take her eyes off it even after I said hello. I peeked over her shoulder to get a glance. There were images of various women of different races in matching stylized underwear. The price fluctuated between twenty and fifty dollars. One image was eighty dollars and blurred out.

“Dude, what the hell are you looking at?” I said.

“Have you never seen lingerie before?” She said with a smirk.

“Oh!” I bopped my forehead after realizing it. “Why are you looking at it?”

“Just window shopping,” she said and shoved her phone into her little waist purse. “Anyways, do you have any other tests?”

“No. I’m free till work. You?”

“Same,” she said and looked down the hall to my right with a big smile on her face. “Hey.” Her smile grew and broke into soft laughter. She tilted her head in my direction, followed by her eyes. “I don’t wanna sound boring, but wanna chill at my place before we work?”

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“How would that sound boring?”

“Because we do it consistently.” That was true. It was either her house or my house. We were three months into the new year and we only went out twice. “I rather go out but I’m not in the mood. So, you heading there or not?” I thought about her offer. If I went right away, it would be less than two hours of spending time together. Two hours didn’t sound enough for me. I’d rather spend time after work. Since we worked part-time, we could have more time together and repeat what we did before we came to class.

“I’ll come after work,” I said. “More quality time right?”

“Sounds good!”

Work was unusually hectic. The store I worked in had a spike in sales for a certain company’s retro games. People from all over the state and some out of state came to the store to buy them up. My coworker and I had to deal with them thirty minutes after my shift ended. I was pissed. I left my coworkers to handle the mess. Yosefin sat alone at our table, sipping on her drink while messing with her phone. She bought our usual meal ten minutes before I got out.

“Busy, ja?” She said still looking at her phone. “I thought you would never come out.”

“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” I said. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“It’s all good,” she said, putting her phone into her pocket. “I didn’t want to break tradition again.” Her commitment to stay made me smile. “So,” she said, stretching the word.

She didn’t have to say anything else. I said I would race her to her house while going the speed limit. She drove behind me all the way there. Her mother and father were in the living room watching TV. She paid them no mind. I couldn’t ignore them entirely. I said hello and gave them a quick wave. The only acknowledgment I got was from her mother. Her father just looked at me. His stare made me give him a double take.

“Yes?” I said.

“What are you doing here?” He said.

“She,” I said and paused, pointing down the hallway. “Wanted me to come.”

“How long are you staying?” I felt like I was being put on the spot. My mind wanted to tell him I would leave when I felt like it, but I couldn’t articulate it. Luckily, Yosefin spoke for me.

“Until he wants to leave,” Yosefin said and then emphasized her statement with a clarification. “Will there be a problem?”

“We need to talk,” he said and looked at me for a split second. “In private.”

“Why did you look at him like that?”

“Yosefin,” he said through his teeth. The tension between them began to make me uncomfortable. She stood, waiting for an answer with her hands gripping the shorts on her hips. “Your doctor called back. He’ll see you Friday.” I could see the stern look on her face slowly receding. Her shoulders dropped before the arms came to her side.

“Oh... Okay... Umm...” She turned around with her hands clasped over her crotch. “Let’s head into my room,” she said and lightly held my fingers. I walked with her. Once we got in the room, she immediately shut and locked the door. “Scheiße! Jetzt weiß er es. (Fuck! Now he knows.“)

“That didn’t sound good,” I said. “You okay? Is there something wrong with your health?”

“No,” she said and slowly turned around with her head down. Her hands went back to her crotch.

“So, what is it?”

“I,” she stuttered, twirling her thumbs. “I’m going to get checked.”

“On what?”

She kept beating around the bush. The moment I told her I had given up trying to figure out what her doctor wanted, she decided to be honest. I asked her to be blunt with me. All of the evasiveness turned out to be something absolutely shocking. My heart felt like it stopped when she told me the Friday appointment her father mentioned was for a pre-examination before constructive surgery. She didn’t need to tell me anything further, but she did it anyway. All I could think about was what she told me about the possibilities of reverting her mutations.

“Don’t worry. I’m just curious to hear what he’ll say to me,” she said.

“I thought you were bothered by the process of changing,” I said.

“I was,” she said with her arms crossed. “It kinda still does.”

“So, why are you going?” My voice cracked from how agitated I got.

“Calm down, dude,” she said calmly. She interlocked her fingers through my hand and put them near her breasts. “I’m not going to do anything.”

“You’re not?” I said, softening my voice to her volume.

“Just looking,” she whispered while making me press her boobs inward. “And listening.” She tossed her hat on her desk without breaking eye contact with me. The apron came off the same way. When she unbuttoned her jeans, I put my arms down to unbutton mine. “I’ll race you!”

I didn’t move as fast. I was trying to digest my head around what I heard. When she got down to her bra and underwear, she walked backward to the bathroom, signaling me to come with slow finger curls. Two conflicting decisions were fighting in my head. I didn’t want to join her, yet I couldn’t resist the urge to please her. Once I saw the bra unbuckle the second she moved out of view, I got naked and went inside without her noticing.

“Joshy, you don’t mind... coming in?” She said quietly when she messed with the shower’s turning handle. “Joshy? Can you hear me?” She said a bit louder and then looked over her left shoulder. “Looks like that answers my question.”

**

I stayed the night again and went through the same sequence of events, minus Yosefin’s father waking us up. Unlike the day before when it came to admiring her beauty and her morning routine, I had a hard time enjoying what I saw. All I could think about was if she was serious about her doctor’s visit. At a glance, she looked happy. The problem I had was I couldn’t truly tell if she was. Last night when we showered together for the second time, she showed no signs I considered hesitant or questionable. She was like her usual self. Loving, intimate, horny, and a goofball. How long would it last? If she went through with what I feared, how long would we last as a couple? The problems she thought were an issue about herself stemmed from a rude bitch and an unsupportive father who made her feel underappreciated.

My sulking thoughts caught her attention once I realized she asked why I looked sad. I didn’t want to make her worry, so I said something gross to throw her off.

“Do roaches like to bathe?” I said.

“What?” She said. “Ew!”

“They’d probably drown.”

“God, I hope so,” she said and laid on her back. “They make my skin crawl,” she said, holding herself with arms crossed over her chest. My diversion seemed to work. She didn’t pursue me with questions or say anything for ten seconds. “Josh...” I grunted to let her know I was listening. “I know you’re worried.”

“Worried is an understatement,” I said and sat up crisscrossed. She sat up too but laid on her left side with her right leg crossed over. “I’m more concerned with what you might do.”

“Why?”

“After everything you told me about what you went through, and to hear that you don’t like your image...” The words I wanted to express were hard to form. I gave up after I failed to find the words to describe what worried me.

“Do you think I’m wrong that I might want to look normal?” Before I could tell her that she was normal, she said the second I opened my mouth, “Stop! I do not want to hear it!”

“But, it’s true.”

“Others will say different.”

“Who the hell cares!”

“I do!” She said, pointing at herself. “I do!” Her finger jabbed her chest several times. It was hard enough to leave a red mark. “I’m going to see what my doctor can do to me. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

One visit turned into many visits. One doctor wasn’t enough to satisfy Yosefin. She went the extra mile and became their lab rat. They took her blood to study it. She let them X-ray and use an ultrasound to view her reproductive organs. Her visits were weekly. It took valuable time I wanted to have with her. I felt like the end was near and at any moment I would find out she accepted to be something she wasn’t meant to be.

One month later while I was heading back from getting groceries for dinner, Yosefin called me. Her voice sounded shaky. I could tell she was smiling by how pitched up her voice was.

“Hey, Josh,” she said as if it was a sigh. “Are you busy at the moment?” My stomach turned as I prepared for the worst.

“No,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I’m about to do it.”