by David Barton

It hadn’t been planned. He’d only been seeing Tricia for a short space of time – a few weeks, that’s all – when she had fallen pregnant. He’d tried to talk her into an abortion. But she was a catholic, wasn’t she? Wasn’t having any of it. Said her family would disown her if she were ever to commit “that” act.

He’d tried to convince her that if she didn’t tell them, they’d be none the wiser. But no, she wouldn’t budge.

So that was that, Frankie boy, he thought to himself, you’re stuck with it! A pregnant girlfriend! When he still didn’t consider he’d finished playing the field. Didn’t consider himself ready for settling down.

For a time, things seemed to carry on almost as normal. Except for the fact that each time he saw her, her belly seemed to have doubled in size. And their conversations would become more and more dominated by baby talk. Talk of what they’d do with the brat when it arrived. Everything they would need to know about it when it came screaming into the world. What they would have to purchase: clothes, cradle, pram, toys … it was endless!

They had sex, but it wasn’t the same. For some reason the thought of making love to Tricia, with his unborn child inside her, put him off. As if it could see them indulging in the act. As if his as-yet-unborn offspring was staring out with its beady eyes watching them.

It came to the point, however, when Tricia went off sex. They’d done it right up until she was six months gone. Frank knew he couldn’t do without it. He knew he wouldn’t survive without sex. And no amount of self-abuse could satisfy his yearning to be with a woman again.

It was time to stray. Time to be unfaithful. After all, who would blame him?

She wasn’t his usual type, when he saw her sat at the bar, looking very out of place in a public house predominately populated by men. Not his usual type at all. Small, skinny, flat-chested, no curves to speak of, and pale. A little timid and nervous-looking. He got the impression that she didn’t do this kind of thing very often.

She’d do though, he thought. She’d most probably be grateful of the attention. Pretty enough, just not … sexy. Beggars can’t be choosers, he reasoned. She was the only thing on offer there that looked like she wouldn’t give him much trouble.

‘Anyone sitting here?’ he asked her, motioning towards the obviously empty barstool beside her as he neared her.

She stared at the vacant seat for a few seconds and then looked up to him. ‘No, doesn’t look like it.’

Sarky cow, Frank thought to himself.

He noticed that her glass was almost empty. She seemed to be just nursing the bloody thing, staring at it as if she’d been making it last. The woman was no doubt only going to have just the one, see if anyone talked to her, and then leg it, wondering whatever had possessed her to go there in the first place!

‘Can I get you another?’ he asked her.

She looked up to him with a vacant expression. ‘Another?’

Frank nodded towards her empty glass. ‘Drink?’

The timid creature glanced towards it, as if she’d forgotten she had a drink in front of her. ‘Oh,’ she said, and then with a faint smile uttered, ‘Yes, thank you.’

They made small talk, but only really chatted about their interests: music, films, television programmes they liked. They didn’t give away that much about themselves and she didn’t ask much, which he was grateful of. Oh me? Well I have a girlfriend up the duff, but apart from that, there’s not much to say really.

Frank got the impression, that this oddity was definably interested, and that she was definitely there to pick up a man for sex. After they’d had a few drinks and the hour had become late, he asked, ‘Can we go back to yours?’

Again the same vacant expression. ‘What for?’

‘Well, it’s usual practice for two people, who meet in a bar like this, share a few drinks together, and get on.’

‘Is it?’

What planet was this babe from? he thought.

‘We better do that then,’ she said.

God, she was going to go along with anything he suggested! No argument! Not at all his usual type. They normally played hard to get or something, even though he knew they wanted it. After all, that’s what they had to do to prove that they weren’t slags, wasn’t it? Most women were slags, Frank had often thought. If that weren’t the case, why would they tart themselves up so much when they went out for the evening? Why would they show so much cleavage? Wear skirts so short?

Dressing for themselves? Bollocks! They were dressing to get laid!

‘I suppose it’s hard,’ she said, when they got back to hers and were undressing in the bedroom.

‘What?’ he asked, not knowing what she was referring to. Thinking at first that she was referring to his manhood.

‘With your girlfriend being pregnant,’ she said.

He stopped undressing. ‘How the fuck did you know that?’ he asked her.

‘You … said.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘Who are you? Do you know Tricia?’ he asked her.

She ignored his questioning and shook her head to herself. ‘This is wrong, if your girlfriend is with child.’

With child? What kind of expression was that to use in the 21^st Century? Christ, this babe was like something out of the middle ages!

‘Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are … or how the fuck you know that …’

‘I don’t think I want to. I would feel so guilty,’ she then said.

No you don’t, missy! Frank thought to himself. You’re not going to get out of it now! He was going to have her. Even if he had to force himself on her. After all, he’d bought her drinks all night. He’d paid for it, now he wanted it!

Frank made his way around the bed to her; she peered up at him as he approached, eyes wide. The woman looked for all and want like a timid puppy. He liked the power he had over them sometimes in situations like this. How could she say no? The fear that he might do something violent if she didn’t let him take what he wanted was too great. And they were alone. She would have no choice but to comply.

‘Okay, babe,’ he said to her. ‘We can do this the hard way or the easy way.’

‘Don’t hurt me,’ she murmured, no doubt thinking this was his intention, to get what he wanted. ‘I’ll do what you want.’

‘Good girl,’ he said, ‘we’ll have fun, you’ll enjoy it, trust me!’

They made love. The woman didn’t give away any signs that she was enjoying it. Just lay there and let him do whatever he wanted.

He did whatever he wanted.

He fucked her, a few times, and then when he’d finished with her, rolled off her and lay back beside her.

As Frank stared up at the ceiling, he thought momentarily about Tricia. Fat, whale-like, pregnant Tricia. A smile crept across his face.

‘Did I please you?’ the woman asked afterwards as they were dressing.

‘Yes,’ he told her, ‘but I must say, you’re not my usual type.’

‘Usual type?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s face it, you’re a strange one.’

‘Strange?’ she questioned.

‘Yes, odd.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Christ, she was apologising!

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, ‘it was fun.’

‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ she said. ‘All I could think of was your poor girlfriend.’

‘Forget about it, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’

‘I don’t think I can forget about it,’ the woman said.

Frank finished dressing and left. Before he left he told her they probably would never see each other again. She didn’t seem too concerned one way or the other. So that was something, Frank thought. The last thing he needed was a stalker. Some woman that wouldn’t leave him alone, and risk Tricia finding out about it.

The alarm clock woke him with a start. He’d been having a really weird dream. The woman he’d met the previous evening – who he’d never even found out the name of, he later realised – had been in it, and they had been making love again. Afterwards, as they lay side-by-side, she’d turned to him and said, ‘Now it’s in you, I put it in you.’

‘Think it’s more of a case of I put it in you, sweetheart,’ he said to her, smiling to himself.

‘I planted the seed,’ she then added.

As he was dressing, he’d looked down towards his abdomen and it was pulsating. Growing, and bulging like something was inside there. That had been when he’d woken.

He quickly checked – even though he knew it had just been a dream. To his relief his belly didn’t have something alive, moving inside it. In fact, it looked pretty much the same as it always had.

Frank did notice something else, however. His body seemed to be slightly unfamiliar to him. For a start, he seemed to have lost some weight.

Funny, he hadn’t noticed this the previous evening. Frank ran his hand along his arm and the strangest thing happened. His body hair came away as he did so. And as he pulled at the hair he found that it was falling out. Panic set in. What was wrong? His chest hairs came away too, as he brushed his hand against those. But there was something else there; his chest had changed. No, that couldn’t be! He shook his head to himself as he saw the two extended mounds, which seemed to be gaining size even as he watched. His nipples had also become larger. They just seemed to have appeared all of a sudden!

He was growing breasts!

Fuck! he thought to himself.

Frank wandered over to the bathroom and peered at himself horrified, in the mirror. They seemed even bigger now, and his whole body was now slowly taking on the shape of that of a woman.

I’m still dreaming, he thought to himself, I must be!

He undid his pyjama bottoms; more hair fell away in as he tugged them off.

At first he thought his penis had vanished. But then he saw it. It had become so small it was hardly visible in amongst his pubic hair.

Frank looked back to the mirror and saw that the breasts were now fully formed. His whole shape too was now that of a woman. This had all happened within a matter of minutes. His face had changed also, become more feminine, and there was an absence of stubble like there normally was in a morning. The hair had obviously been shed there too. His lips were full and bee sting-shaped like that of a woman also. Frank lifted his hand and ran his long slender womanly fingers over his smooth face. It was as soft as a babe. His fingernails had grown longer also.

He suddenly realised he needed to pee. His bladder, always full in a morning, had been forgotten in all of this.

Frank made his away towards the toilet and without looking reached for his penis and … took purchase of thin air! Then he remembered how small it had been a few minutes earlier.

He glanced down to locate it, and a bolt of fear shot through him. It wasn’t fucking there! Instead he saw something that completed his total, bizarre metamorphosis into that of a woman beyond doubt.

The pain in his bladder was too much. Frank turned around, sat down on the toilet seat, and watched in amazement as he urinated from his newly formed female genitalia.

What the fuck had happened? he asked himself. This must be a dream! It just wasn’t possible!

He’d have to phone in sick of course. He couldn’t go into work looking like this! Besides, they wouldn’t even recognise him!

Frank grabbed the phone. As a voice came at the other end and he opened his mouth to speak, what came out of it was not his voice. At least, not the voice he’d always had. It was the voice of a woman! As soon as the words began emerging from his lips, he stopped himself from continuing.

‘Hello?’ enquired the voice at the other end. It was Helen, the secretary. Frank slammed the phone down.

The knocking at the door was insistent. Then he heard her voice; it was Tricia.

‘Frank?’ she called out, ‘Frank?’

Frank had spent the whole day indoors, not wishing to venture out into the world in his new state. He’d kept the curtains drawn, the doors locked. He didn’t want people seeing him.

Not that anyone would have recognised him of course, not now. It was just that he wasn’t ready to cope with his new being. Not wanting to go out into world as a woman, and not the man he’d always been.

He knew Tricia had a key and that she would use it if he didn’t give an answer. He tried his best to put on a deep voice and shouted, ‘Go away!’ However, it came out sounding comical more than anything.

‘Charming! That’s a nice way to talk to the mother of your baby!’ she said. Obviously Tricia hadn’t heard his voice too clearly or she would have suspected something.

Frank leaned on the door as if Tricia could have pushed it open despite it being locked. There was no way she could enter and see him like this! ‘Just … go away!’ he shouted.

‘What’s wrong?’ Tricia asked, becoming concerned ‘You sound odd.’

He hadn’t put as much effort into his voice this time, and now she was suspicious. Something wasn’t quite right with Frankie boy! No, something was very wrong with Frankie boy!

He gave a laugh. Odd? That was an understatement!

‘Are you not so well? Let me in, maybe I can help!’

‘You can’t help, no one can help me!’

She was putting her key in the lock now. He could hear it being slotted into the keyhole. Then when she’d unlocked it, he felt her weight pushing against it. Frank tried to keep it shut as Tricia pushed against it, but he wasn’t as strong as when he’d been male. Now, Frank was only as strong as a woman was. Tricia had always been strong for a woman. Now, she was much stronger than him!

Tricia finally managed to push her way in. Frank backed away from the door. She just stared at him, her jaw hitting the floor. Tricia nodded her head to herself as she gazed at him. ‘Oh, now I see. Now I see the full picture!’ she said, then glanced around. ‘Where is he? Where is the cheating bastard!’

‘I’m here,’ he told her, ‘I don’t know how it happened, but it’s me!’

‘Might of known only a mental case would put up with him. You’ve obviously got a screw loose, love!’

‘It is me,’ Frank insisted. ‘Remember the time when we were first seeing each other, when you said that you would love me forever. That I was the best thing that had ever happened to you. That we were meant to be together, no matter what? That even if I had an accident or something, and I became disfigured. That you would still love me, would still want to be with me?’

Frank reflected on this momentarily. Boy, had he become disfigured! No disfigurement like this could have entered her head at that time. And he doubted she’d want to stick with him, as she had said; now he was like her, a woman.

‘He told you about that?’ Tricia said, obviously thinking that he had told this new woman in his life about this personal thing that meant so much to the both of them. She was hurt looking at first, but then her face darkened. ‘Well, you can tell him from me, I don’t want anything more to do with him! I’m going to bring up this child alone! He’s not going to have anything to do with it! I’m wiping him out of my life for good!’

And with that she took one last look at the woman stood before her, and then about-turned, storming out. Frank heard her footsteps receding down the stairs, and then the door at the bottom slam.

Some weeks passed. Nothing changed. Frank remained a woman. He thought about going to his GP, but – now a woman – he wouldn’t be recognised as being Frank Clayton. And he’d have a hell of a time trying to convince his doctor that it was in fact him! He’d get laughed out of the surgery! Either that or he’d be committed.

Then one morning, just as Frank thought things couldn’t get any worse, something else happened. He got up one morning and felt some weight around his abdomen, and when he looked down he found that his belly had swelled outwards to an enormous size,

Frank immediately recalled the dream he’d had the night after he’d slept with the strange woman.

His belly, just like his change into a woman, happened at a rapid rate. By the time he’d dragged himself out of bed and made his way over to the bathroom, it was already resembling the bulge of a woman some months gone. His back ached too and he was desperate for the toilet.

As the day went by his breasts became larger, obviously filling up with milk. The nipples became tender, and the bulge became even bigger.

He needed to get out and get some air. Frank dragged on a large overcoat and, still self-conscious of his appearance, made his way down to the seafront, as there wouldn’t be many people around that time of day.

After he’d been walking a while, he saw three young men standing around looking bored. Frank quickened his pace, and as he passed, one of them wolf-whistled. He ignored them and carried on walking. ‘Hey, babe!’ one of then shouted after him.

Then he heard the trio making their way towards him. So he ran. This wasn’t easy in his now heavily pregnant condition, but he didn’t want them to catch up with him, so he just ran the best he could.

‘Hey, come on, sweetheart, let’s have some fun!’ one of them shouted after him.

Frank turned a corner and in his haste bumped into someone. It was a man. ‘Hey, what’s the hurry, love?’ he asked. Then the man saw the youths.

As soon as they clapped eyes on him, they about-faced and wandered off in the opposite direction, muttering and giggling to themselves. The run had exhausted Frank, he suddenly felt a bit dizzy. He swayed. The man reached out to steady him. ‘You okay?’ he asked. It was the last words Frank heard before …

… waking in the maternity unit of the local hospital.

‘She’s coming round,’ said a woman, obviously – Frank observed – a midwife from her uniform.

He couldn’t speak. He just stared around him.

‘Don’t worry, love, you’re in safe hands,’ said another midwife and smiled.

Frank continued to look around him. Lots of smiling, sympathetic faces greeted his gaze.

‘Someone brought you in here,’ the first midwife said. ‘A gentlemen by the name of Roger Pennington. Lucky, really.’

‘Lucky?’ Frank muttered.

‘Yes, not long now, love,’ she said, ‘we should be hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet before the day’s out I should think.’

At that moment he was suddenly gripped with a pain in his abdomen. Frank put his hands to his belly and winced in agony.

‘There, see!’ said the midwife, ‘what did I say? He or she’s telling you they’re ready to make their entrance into the big, wide world!’

Frank was now wheeled into the Delivery Room, where a team of doctors and midwives crowded around him.

‘This you first, love?’ asked the midwife who had been the first to speak to him and who had wheeled him in there.

He nodded.

‘Well, don’t worry, it’s as easy as falling off a log, I’ve had four!’

Something inside of him was wriggling and moving about now. Frank guessed it was the baby, eager to make its way out. He didn’t relish the prospect of giving birth. He’d seen the videos, the documentaries. What women went though looked like sheer bloody agony! But he was stuck with it now. Stuck with this nightmare. Because that’s what it was, a nightmare! How could this have possibly happened to him? It was insane!

‘I can see the baby’s head,’ said another midwife and smiled, then reached forward.

Her smile quickly vanished however, and she recoiled. All the faces of the other people in the room suddenly darkened too.

‘Oh my God!’ said someone, a doctor.

‘What’s the matter?’ Frank demanded. ‘Is there something wrong with the baby?’

The midwife who’d commented that she could see the head, screamed.

Frank felt odd; there was something very painful happening. Surely, childbirth couldn’t be this agonising!

Something was slithering out from between his legs now, without any assistance from the doctors and midwives that surrounded him. They were just stood there terrified, looking upon what was happening between his legs in absolute horror. Another midwife screamed. The rest of the occupants of the room just continued to stare in astonishment.

Whatever it was, it was having difficulty entering the world. It seemed to be huge, much bigger than a baby!

Now, it began to tear its way out. Frank heard and felt his flesh ripping open. He was filled with so much agony that now he himself screamed. Like a woman! After all, that’s what he now was! That, and a mother to something that – as it now came into view – could have only been shat forth from his worst nightmare.

Copyright David Barton 2007