Transmutation

  He kissed her ear. “I know. But we’re okay.”

  “Maybe we should leave?”

  “Mel,” someone called from the side.

  “Yes, Bob?”

  “C’mon over here and join us for dinner? Both of you?”

  “We’ve got two seats left, an’ we’d love to have you,” his wife, Betty said.

  Mel spun Nicki around in a show and bent her over backward, kissing her neck, then stood her up. “Okay?” he asked her. “C’mon.”

  Sam continued to sit in his chair.

  Some folks were righting Sam’s table, putting broken glasses back on it in mock concern.

  A woman behind Sam slapped him on the head.

  Mel led Nicki over to the table and shook the hands of people there.

  “Bob, Betty, Dave and Carol. Good to see you all.”

  Nicki smiled and waved to them.

  Betty addressed Nicki. “Sam there— He don’t know no better. He was raised by wolves.”

  “In the woods, a thousand miles west of Toombstone, if you ask me,” Carol said.

  “Old school thinking, to my way of thinking,” Dave said. “Have a seat.”

  They did.

  Nicki was still distressed.

  “Don’t let him bother you— ‘Nicki’ is it, now?”

  Nicki nodded, still not speaking.

  “I didn’t know you had it in you, Nicki.”

  Nicki nodded. “I don’t think— I didn’t mean to be— It was a lark, but then— I don’t know.”

  “Denial,” Carol said. “I had a cousin once who was gay, and I don’t think he even knew it until he went off to college—I think because folks back home was so against it. Denial can get in the way.”

  Nicki nodded. “I guess—”

  “You carried this with you the whole time?” Bob asked.

  “In retrospect—yes. I’ve always needed to be a woman. I think I just couldn’t let myself see that. And I think I’ve always been in love with Mel.”

  She flushed.

  “She’s blushing.” Dave smiled.

  “She does that,” Mel said. “Been doing that since she switched.

  “And sex is like, really good?” Bob asked.

  Betty slapped him.

  “I’d like to do her, too,” Dave said.

  “So would I,” Carol said beside him. “She’s a dish.”

  “Well, she’s a T,” Mel said. “We both are. We switched in Phoenix.”

  “Yeah, but she’s the dish,” Carol said. “You are just okay.” She smiled at him in fun. “Oh, and she’s blushing more! I got to get me one of those.”

  “What about me?” Dave asked.

  “Wanna switch?” Carol asked.

  “I hadn’t thought so,” Dave said.

  Mel smiled at Nicki and kissed her on the lips. “It’s okay.”

  Nicki smiled back at him, melting.

  Bob started, “This group—”

  Betty finished, “—ain’t what it used to be.”

  “Used to be just caught up with bigotry,” Dave said.

  “Carol agreed. “I could have sworn. Those old ideas— People dominate with that, and you think it’s everyone, but it’s not. I guess some of us just needed someone to take the lead so we could come out as accepting.”

  The cateror’s server came by and took their order, when the D.J. began playing “American Saturday Night” by Brad Paisley.

  “Oh, come on!” Carol said to Nicki, jumping up to stand by her. “We got to get part of this!”

  “Mel?” Nicki asked.

  “Sure. What the hell. She ain’t gonna lay you on the floor.”

  Nicki stood up to dance with Carol.

  “Not right now, anyway,” she said. “There’s a ban on!”

  Carol led Nicki out to the floor and started line dancing with 20 others.

  “Carol!” Dave called. “Did you add something you ain’t told me about yet?”

  Folks at the table laughed.

  Bob slapped Dave on the back. “You are sooo gonna be surprised tonight.”

  Another diner stopped by to share a howdy-do. “Mel, I just wanted to say that we ain’t all like dick-head over there, and I think you’ll make a great couple.”

  “Already do, Carmen. And thank you.”

  The man behind her shouted, “Gotta be a first everywhere.” He smiled and took his Carmen to the bar for another drink.

  The night wore on. They ate, laughed, danced on occasion, and had the kind of evening good people should be able to share together.

  Throughout, Sam didn’t move.

  “So I got me a new spread over south of town, with a whole two acres on it—horse country,” Bob said.

  “We got us a new spread,” Betty corrected.

  “Us! Right. And now we got to get us a couple of horses. And were I to guess. I’d say we’d have them by Thanksgiving. Would you four join us for it?”

  “Love to,” Carol said.

  Nicki beamed, leaning into Mel. “Yes, we’d love to,” she said.

  “Find Yourself” by Brad Paisley began to play.

  Nicki leaned over to Mel’s ear and said, “Excuse me a minute.”

  Mel kissed her on the lips and nodded.

  Nicki got up to return to Sam’s table. She leaned over him, said something no one else heard, and Sam got up to walk with Nicki to the dance floor.

  Sam looked at everyone else there with apparent embarrassment, but Nicki began to dance slowly with him.

  At first, Sam was distant, keeping a fist’s distance open between them, but as the song wore on, he relaxed and brought her in.

  “God, you feel like a real girl,” he told her.

  She nodded. Her long hair brushed his cheek.

  “Your back is so small. I remember you, Nick. You were a man.”

  “Well, part of my body was.”

  “Which part was female?”

  “My brain.”

  “Do you miss it? You know, your—”

  “Oh,” she gasped into his ear, shaking her head no. “It’s— When it’s there, it functions, but female is another system, and it works, Sam. You gotta know: It works so well. I get so hot, I can’t get enough of him.”

  “But you’re actually having sex with a man? With his penis?”

  She nodded.

  “You hold it?”

  She nodded. “More than that.”

  “Shouldn’t you be ashamed?”

  “Is your wife ashamed to have sex with you?” she asked.

  “Ain’t got none. She left me.”

  “Ah. But you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, but not really.”

  The song changed to Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on my Mind” and they kept dancing.

  “You thinking of it?” Nicki asked.

  “No! Never! How could I? I’d be humiliated to be with a guy.”

  “That’s your old school thinking. People put that idea into your head. But,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t have to be straight.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  “This is Anna Toothacher of Channel 6 Morning News—all the news that is news in Los Angeles that’s—you know, like—clean enough to print on the air.”

  The buxomous young blond turned toward the other camera. “In the aftermath of the Mother Ship—‘her,’ if you ask the ship, itself—of the Mother Ship sitting over the Dome of the Rock and rocking our world with what we should have expected as soon as the Ahleth were first announced— In the aftermath of that, we’ve dropped the whole A.D. thing as if from the Christian religion, and also dropped the C.E. thing, or B.C.E., because that claimed not to be religious even though it still went, like, from the day we never knew when Jesus was born—”

  Ana stopped to giggle a bit. “I messed that up?” she asked someone off camera.

  “That one, too,” someone told her.

  “Okay!” she said. “Reality check.” Then
pretending to be serious, “And we seem to have adopted the year term of ‘Trans Era’ instead—”

  She stopped for a second to toke on a joint, held her breath a few seconds and exhaled. Smoke filled the air in front of her. She smiled at the camera. “That’s T.E., to those of you who use the abbreviation, because, basically we’re all going trans, now, and that affects us all, not just one religion—because, like, you know: Everything’s changing. Well, everything was already changing. I mean, look at me! Two weeks ago, I was a middle-aged trans woman, and now I’m a 20-year-old trans woman.”

  Lori talked on the phone through her ear buds, as she walked through her transmuter factory, at her compound near Santa Barbara.

  “Thank you, Ella,” she said into the air above the phone’s mike.

  “It all worked out. For what it’s worth, I think you might be right. I hope humanity heard us this time.”

  “Where is Adrien?”

  “He’s still at Gene. He took her back to L4, where she’ll park. He took his husband up with him to share. Bessie went up to bring them back. How’s Cory, Gadin, Marie?”

  Lori smiled at the air in front of her, scanning the property. “We’re getting together later. Fine.”

  “Okay,” Ella said. “I better go now. The President will have us in for a meeting in five minutes. You know Putin found his way back again.”

  Lori laughed. “Darn!”

  Ella laughed with her. “Yup. He’s been kidnapped four times, now. Someone—I don’t want to know who—keeps kidnapping him and turning him into something very different—a little black girl, an elderly Russian trans woman, and then someone intersex, like the Ahleth. That’s three that I know of.”

  “He gets back in one piece?”

  “Yup. Seems to be getting good at it. The first time? Black girl in Ukraine? It took him a whole day to even find a transmuter. They read his prints, and—boom—changed him back. But now he’s got it down to an hour.”

  “And you don’t know who’s doing it?” Lori asked.

  “No, but Ollie keeps laughing. It’s the darndest thing!”

  “Ella,” Lori said. “Did you know, back in the day, that I was Magdalene?”

  “No. That was with Adrien, then? You still have a thing for him?”

  “Not really, any more.”

  “Did you know I was Newton?” Ella asked.

  “No! Really?” Lori asked.

  “’Fraid so. Gotta go, kid.”

  “Don’t be scarce. We lose touch. We don’t know who we are, but we don’t have to disappear any more. Please stay in touch?”

  “Okay, love. Bye for now.”

  Lori turned to wave at the helicopter on the pad. She saw Marie and Bernie in the back seat with Wood and Hanah, who was on vacation from the President’s detail. Marie was talking with Hanah, giddy as usual.

  Lori screwed her finger in the air, telling the pilot to fire it up.

  They flew east south east over Los Angeles.

  The other four talked on and on through their headsets, but Lori’s eyes focused on Marie. She seemed like such a healthy, vibrant young woman, interfacing seamlessly with them.

  Buildings floated beneath them from front to back. They were perhaps 500 feet above them: gas stations, cars in streets, homes with trees—and an obviously expensive church, the front door boarded up with actual planks. Dodger Stadium looked as fun as ever.

  “Looks like a nice place to visit,” Marie asked Lori through the headphones.

  Lori jumped and noticed Marie was looking over her shoulder. “It is, and we must. How about Saturday night?”

  Marie clapped. “Goodie! Can I bring Gadin?”

  The chopper sat down on the Westech university campus, on a lawn in front of the faculty club. Lori, Wood, Hanah, Marie and Bernie exited.

  A few people on a sidewalk noticed and waved.

  “Hanah!” one of them called.

  Hanah waved back like Marilyn Monroe.

  The three walked into the regal, old club and were shown to their seats in the main dining hall, where Gadin, Cory and Estella waited.

  Hanah’s eyes roamed over chandeliers, ancient real-wood paneling and dignified portraits on the walls of former University Presidents and Nobel Prize winners. “Glad I took a bath before coming here.”

  “You and me, both,” Wood said, resting his hand on the small of her back to guide her to their table.

  Gadin, Cory, and Estella waited for them at a large table set for them all.

  “Hello everyone,” Cory said, rising for them.

  “Nice place,” Bernie said. “I gotta get me one of these.”

  Marie kissed Gadin and sat beside him.

  “And you probably could at this point,” Cory said. “You’re rich enough.”

  Lori stood behind everyone as the group found a seat at the table, taking the only seat left at the head of the table—opposite John Michael Faraday’s portrait on the far wall. She tried to turn her head but she couldn’t help staring.

  Everyone’s here, except—

  “Mom?” Marie asked, leaning in to Lori.

  Lori startled. Trying to fight back tears, she smiled at Marie and everyone through happy conversation.

  Loving greetings, catching up.

  Who’s been doing what.

  What is of interest.

  Latest research on a few topics.

  How the Ahleth have changed the landscape in economics, religion, politics—everything.

  The building they were in.

  The food.

  “He’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” Hanah said to Bernie. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he’s an avid free climber. Arms like you wouldn’t know!”

  “Probably those are from wresteling you,” Cory said.

  “That’s Estella, from wrestling you, from what I heard,” Bernie told him.

  Estella laughed with him. “He’s a hot rock for sure! I need someone to take some of the load.”

  Cory stood for a second as if to take a bow, sitting back down when they booed. “What you expect? After all—”

  “I know!” Oliver said, walking in to join them, pulling up his own chair.

  “Ollie!” Cory jumped up to give him a hug.

  “I cooked up coming here as an excuse to take Air Force 2 for a trip—and look what I just discovered on the way in here?”

  Oliver showed them his iPhone 6 Plus with a 20-year-old, angry, bi-racial Latina woman, with a T on her left temple, in a tutu dress, obviously floating in zero-g on the International Space Station, screaming her head off into the camera in Spanish.

  “Such language!” Cory mocked.

  “What is this?” Marie asked, grabbing his phone from him.

  “Turn it around!” everyone ordered.

  She did.

  The lady on the iPhone’s screen was cursing at the whole world. “…All I’ve ever done is care for my country! Work to make the world a better place! I only take over small countries nobody cares about! I only sell arms to terrorists who are already buying them from everyone else! I am a powerful man, you hear me? I’ve stolen over a billion dollars from my country, and so help me I’ll…”

  “Such language!” Hanah feigned virginity.

  The table started laughing at them both.

  “Who is that?” Marie asked.

  “PUTIN!” everyone told her at the same time.

  “What is this, 4? 5?” Gadin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Oliver said, looking at the screen and turning it back to them. “I’ve been laughing at this for 10 minutes, ever since he—she—got on there, cussing the whole world. Oh, lets see—”

  Oliver turned his iPhone around and typed out a text. “Good…girls…don’t…talk…that…way.” He pressed an icon. “Sent that to the I.S.S.”

  “How’d he get up there? She!” Bernie asked.

  The table looked at each other then to Oliver.

  “Don’t ask me!” Oliver said.

  ??
?You don’t know?” Marie asked.

  “I just said don’t ask me!” Oliver mocked indignation. He sat down to join them for lunch. “But lets see him—her! Lets see her get out of this one in an hour!”

  “She’s such a pretty girl!” Hanah said.

  Oliver texted another message to the I.S.S.: “Nice…dress. Would…you…like…a…date?”

  “When’s the next launch scheduled for the I.S.S.?” Wood asked.

  Oliver acted like he was thinking real hard. “Oh, my goodness. We’ve not got one on the table as of yet. The Russians had one scheduled, but it has mysteriously just broken down. You know they don’t have a fingerprint scanner on the I.S.S.? No biometrics at all. They haven’t needed any.”

  Doctor Augustine walked over in her newest mini-dress to stand by Cory at the other end of the table from Lori.

  “Doctor Augustine!” Cory said.

  “Madam President of the University!” Gadin said.

  “Tina, please,” she said.

  “How is it going with you?” Lori asked.

  “Fine, fine. It’s good to see you.”

  “How is it going with your wife?” Gadin asked.

  “You know,” Tina chuckled a bit. “That’s actually working out rather well. I’m lesbian, but she isn’t—but she loves me, so she’s at least bi. I think. I hope I don’t get into trouble for that one.”

  “Good,” Hanah said.

  Wood smiled and nodded.

  “Family is the most important,” Bernie said.

  “Well, family and friends,” Cory said, from the other end of the table.

  Lori looked at John’s portrait again. Distinguished, in a suit, he stood in a laboratory, in front of a chalkboard covered in equations—and his eyes—

  “Mom?” Marie asked again. Marie turned her head to look at her father’s portrait, reaching over to hold her mother’s hand.

  “I screwed up,” Lori said to Marie.

  “No!”

  Lori nodded. “I really should have used the transmuter on your father whether he liked it or not, and let him choose death after he was healthy, if he wanted. I don’t think he would have.”

  “But you can’t force choices on people,” Marie said. “Remember what Socrates told you?”

  * * *

  Lines to transmuters around the globe were orderly.

  People on exit, healthy again, rejuvenated, hugged each other in tears: a formerly elderly couple; a woman who had been in a wheelchair; a trans person seeking a goal.

  Wars around the globe slowed or even stopped.

  Conservative clubs welcomed minorities, LGBTQ, intersex, and full spectrum with open arms—especially since many of their own members had come with a previously oppressed issue out or transitioned.