by Darrell Bain
I was still trying to sort out my thoughts. Don had been my best friend for years. In most things, we thought along the same lines, liked the same books and web programs and helped each other in classes; him, when I struggled with math, me, when he had to write compositions or papers. We had grown close, almost like brothers. In fact, many times I had found myself wishing he actually was my brother rather than the one I had. I wasn't comfortable around Derek, nor could I find much to say to him after he came out and told me and the folks he was gay. Every time I saw him, pictures would form in my mind of Derek bending over a man with the guy's dick in his mouth-or worse. It made me queasy.
Russell's blond eyebrows creased in a frown. He looked at Don, glanced away from where she sat hunched between Seyla and Rita, then forced his gaze back to her. "Uh, Don, do you remember what happened to you when you went into that, uh, gate I guess we can call it?"
"I don't remember a damn thing," Don said. "One second, I got close to the arch, and the next thing I remember is coming out on the other side like this." She looked down at herself, then got up and stalked over to the bar again. I couldn't help but notice how her hips swayed as she moved. I looked away hurriedly.
By this time, I had abandoned the idea I might be dreaming. The whole scenario was just too clear and defined, too logically linear once the basic assumption of that gate, as Russell called it, was stipulated. I had two thoughts in rapid succession. "How do we know you're really Don?" I asked. That was the first one.
"Et tu, Brute?" She looked pained.
As much as I loved Don, I thought it was something we had to consider. Maybe I had read too much science fiction, but I couldn't help asking.
"Willy's Arcade. The redheaded stripper," the woman said.
I blushed while Rita looked at me curiously. I had never told anyone about that episode except Don.
Seyla leaned close and whispered something to her. This time, she blushed at the new woman's inaudible response. She looked over at us. "She's Don, all right. I have to believe it now."
"Don't call me she," Don said.
"I still say it's impossible," Russell said. "Something like this violates all the laws of physics I know. Maybe we've all been hypnotized."
Rita shook her head, causing her thick black hair to dance around her shoulders. "I don't think so. This isn't how hypnotism works."
"How do you know?" Don asked, getting up and pouring another two fingers of whiskey. She almost dropped the bottle when she picked it up to pour.
"Remember, I took a course in clinical hypnosis just last semester," Rita said.
Hypnosis hadn't been my second thought, but it was close enough not to matter. "Suppose some, uh, entity inside the gate stole your, or Don's, thoughts and transferred them into another body?"
"I didn't see any entity, and I'll guarantee you that I'm still me, even if I am in a fucking female body," Don said.
Rita and Seyla both gave him an odd, almost angry stare, Rita more so than Seyla. He should have known better to say something like that, but I guess I might have too, under the circumstances.
"How can you guarantee that?" Russell said.
Don had downed three quick doubles. She leaned away from the barstool she had been propping her arm on and wobbled unsteadily. "Because I have to piss, goddamnit, and I don't know how!" She looked almost ready to cry.
Seyla rushed over and led her back to their room, keeping an arm around her waist.
"Hey!" Rita suddenly exclaimed. "I wonder if there's anything on the news or the web about this?"
I don't know why we hadn't thought of that sooner. I told the big wall screen to turn itself on. The first thing we saw as the picture firmed was a shot of a bright green arch, surrounded by policemen holding back a crowd. I noticed immediately from the buildings in the background that it wasn't the same one we had seen on campus, not unless it had moved in the meantime. Then the first thing we heard was a news anchor telling listeners in a voice shaking with emotion of how a woman had entered a sex gate before police arrived and had come out on the other side claiming she had been changed into a man.
And that, of course, is how the term "sex gates" came into being. That news anchor named them without even thinking about it.
Chapter Two
While the anchor was still blathering about "this unique event" and "awesome phenomena", I unhooked my comphone from its belt latch and glanced at the charge. It still had almost twenty-four hours left on it, so I didn't bother to plug in. I pointed it at the screen on the adjacent wall and zapped into the web to see what was happening there, then asked for two minute scans from the most popular webworks. They weren't doing much better. The first two showed scenes similar to what the old networks were displaying. Just before the screen changed to the third, Seyla and Don came back out of their bedroom.
Don was still feeling the effects of her three quick drinks. "Look, Ma. No cavities!" she said, grinning widely enough to show a set of perfect teeth.
I looked. Her familiar gold crown was missing. Maybe this isn't Don after all, I thought. Then I remembered that stripper incident. If it wasn't Don, how could she know?
"And look here! My scar is gone." She pulled up one pants leg to display her shin, where she used to have a scar from a cleating accident in high school. It was gone, too. She dropped the pants leg and headed back to the bar.
I got up and followed her. We stood next to each other at the counter, with me uncomfortably aware of her unwanted new body. I tried to think of something I could say to help make her feel better. "At least if you had to get changed to a woman, they made you a pretty one," I said. It was true. Don had been handsome as a man; as a woman (if it were really him), she was very good-looking.
She glared at me. "I don't give a damn. And stop staring at these." She hooked a thumb at her breasts. "I'm not going to have them much longer."
"What? I mean, you're not?"
She tipped her glass and swallowed half the contents. "Damn right. I just figured it out. If going into that gate turned me into a woman, then going back into it ought to make me into a man again."
Russell, on his way over to join us, overheard the comment. "That doesn't necessarily follow," he said.
"You got any better ideas?" Don demanded.
"Don-" I hesitated, still having trouble thinking of her as my best friend, but concerned for her, nevertheless. "Don, why don't you wait a bit? Like Russell says, you don't know if it will work."
"I don't care. How would you like to have to squat to pee?" She swallowed as a sudden thought occurred to her. "Or Jesus Christ, what if I start having a period?" She set her glass down, plainly intending to head back to the campus.
Seyla's yelp stopped him. "Hey, guys, listen! A man that got changed tried to go back into the gate!"
We all hurried back over to the lounger so we could get a better view of the screens.
"What happened? Did he come back out?" Don asked. Excitement, or maybe the liquor she was still drinking, slurred her voice.
"Not yet," Rita said. "Be quiet and listen."
The report was coming in over one of the webworks. The icon in the corner of the screen identified it as an amateur program originating from San Francisco. "...over an hour now and so far, has not returned, nor has any sign been seen of her, or him, as in his original sex. This may mean the sex gates are a one-way proposition, but of course, it is too soon to say for certain. It's a sure bet, though, that many members of the gay community here will be clamoring for a turn at the gates in San Francisco. Already, we have one report of the police guard set up around the one near the Presidio being overrun and men and women going..."
"Aw, smash it to hell," Don said, another of her-his, rather-expressions. She discarded the notion of trying to go back through a gate, at least for the time being. Instead, she sat with the rest of us through the afternoon and on into the evening, watching the screens and listening to more and more information pour in from the web and networks. I sent out for p
izza. Don ate enough to soak up some of the whiskey and topped it with a Nohang pill to ease her transition back to sobriety.
It quickly became obvious that the military and police, no matter how hard they tried, were unable to control access to all the gates; there were simply too many of them, thousands at least, probably more. They had appeared all over the world at exactly the same time (or as near as anyone had been able to figure), and seemed to be located numerically in proportion to population density. At least that's what it looked like on a world map shown by one of the webworks, with different colors depicting population gradients and white dots representing the location of every gate known to exist up until that moment.
The most interesting datum (other than the sex changes) came in just as we were polishing off the last of the pizza; the network news was ahead of the webs for a change. The elderly anchor, retired but brought back for commentary, was as excited as a child on the way to Disney World as he emoted, "...every case so far, has reappeared as a youngster, no matter what the age of the person when they entered. Are these gates the long-sought fountain of youth? This certainly appears to be the case, if you don't mind changing your gender along the way. Not only are people going into the sex gates coming back young, they're returning with the ailments of old age completely cured! No more arthritis and feeble eyesight! No more senility or incurable cancer! This is a boon for humanity, the dawning of a wonderful new age, a precious gift brought to us by the benevolence of unknown..." They cut him off as he began to ramble euphorically, not making much sense. If I had to bet, I would put money on him heading for a sex gate right from the studio.
"See?" Seyla said to Don. "Maybe it's not as bad as you've been making it out to be."
Don pursed her lips thoughtfully. She had told me once that her-his-family had a genetic disposition for early vascular disease, one of the illnesses still not susceptible to gene therapy. Her dad had died of it shortly after we met.
"That doesn't cover everything," she said. "Damn it, I don't like being a woman. It doesn't feel right." She brushed her hair back over her shoulders with an annoyed flick of her hands.
"How does it feel?" Rita asked. Ever since she decided on psychology as a major, she's always asking people how they feel. She leaned forward to listen from where she was cuddled next to me. We had switched seats after the pizza and taken over the small lounger.
Don was sitting by herself in my easy chair. "Everything is heavier than it should be. I almost dropped the Jack Daniels bottle. And my hips feel like they're out of joint when I walk. Besides that, I'm top-heavy." She grudged a small smile. I could understand that, at least.
Her breasts were pretty prominent. I guess if a person doesn't grow up with a couple of weights swinging from their chest, they would feel a little unbalanced at their sudden appearance.
Seyla went over and scrunched into the seat with her. She patted her cheek. "Don't worry. You'll get used to all that." Seyla is the eternal optimist, a weird attitude considering she had just been accepted for Medical School at Texas U.
"Maybe," Don admitted. "I still don't like it."
I wondered. Don had never impressed me as the least bit feminine. I still didn't know how to treat her, nor understand how we could possibly maintain the male closeness we had enjoyed if the change proved to be permanent. I guess she had been noticing my reluctance to even speak to her, because she suddenly pinned me with a stare.
"Lee, you're not saying much," she said.
I shrugged and felt my fingers tighten around Rita's thigh where I had been resting my hand. "I don't know what to say. This is like something out of a science fiction book."
"Yeah, with me as the alien."
"At least you're not a BEM," I said.
"What's a BEM?" Russell asked.
"Bug-eyed monster. Science fiction term for a nasty alien," Don said.
"Would anyone like some wine?" Rita asked. She scanned the room. We all nodded. She opened a bottle of Texas Valley Chablis, then a little later, another while we continued to watch the news.
President Forbes made a brief address from the Oval Office. He asked for calm and said the government was attempting to communicate with the entities controlling the gates. He assured us there had been no sign of hostility from any gate so far, even after being attacked. He cautioned citizens not to attempt passage through uncontrolled (read that as unguarded) gates until after a more thorough study of long term affects had been conducted.
It was about what you could expect from a politician. He probably hadn't gotten his daily web poll yet. Even if he had, he may as well have been talking to the wind. We saw some shots of oldsters, most walking, but some in wheelchairs. They were lining up and entering any gate they could find which didn't have soldiers or police around it and even some that did. We caught one good scene of an old woman beating a soldier over the head with her cane, then limping past him and disappearing into the gate. The shot shifted to the other side of the gate and we saw a young, naked man emerging, but not looking bewildered nor acting hysterical as Don had done. She, now he, had known what to expect and was grinning when he emerged. The camera made no attempt to conceal the fact he was nude, telling me, if I hadn't already known, that it was a webwork doing the filming rather than one of the newsworks.
I chuckled at the sight of the soldier being caned by the old lady, but I was still thinking about what the President had said about a gate being attacked. I wondered what the result had been. We hadn't seen that on either of our screens, but about halfway through the second bottle of Texas Valley, it came on, seen from such a long distance, even the close-ups were fuzzy. A contrail from a military jet descended from the sky, leveled out, then curved back up. Out in front of the contrail, a bright green speck glittered on a low hill surrounded by what looked like fourth world shanties. Presumably, the squatters had been ousted from their shacks before the bombing run, but then again, they might not have been. Governments don't pay much attention to the bottom fourth of their population. You could barely discern the curve of the arch from the distance, but that peculiar green color was unmistakable. A reddish black explosion ballooned up around it, obscuring it from sight. We watched as the smoke thinned. The gate was still intact. In fact, it didn't appear to have been the least bit affected, though you couldn't say the same for the hovels clinging to the sides of the hill. So much for explosives.
"They shouldn't have done that," I said.
"Why not?" Russell asked.
I had spoken before thinking, as usual, and had to answer slowly, marshaling my thoughts as I went along. "Hasn't anyone noticed we haven't heard a single word about who or what put the gates here? They must have come from technologically superior beings from somewhere else in the galaxy."
"You and your science fiction," Russell said. "Why not from another dimension?"
"Same case," I said.
"Maybe God put them here," Seyla said.
"Please don't start that," I said. I can maybe understand how an uneducated person living from hand to mouth, like so many have to, might be willing to believe that a superior being is watching over them and directing their lives, but Seyla is not uneducated, nor destitute either.
"Why not? There's no proof either way."
Well, she had me there. I didn't believe it, though. If there is a God taking care of us, He sure picks peculiar ways of doing it. Seyla and I had had this argument before. She was adamant about her belief in a supreme being with the will and desire to occasionally intervene in human affairs, though she didn't subscribe to any particular religion, nor was she given to proselytizing. Thank the chips for small favors.
"I can't argue with you there, but I don't think you're right," I said.
Rita joined in. "I bet lots of people will believe the gates came from God, especially those who are still arguing that the Rapture will occur on the anniversary of Jesus' crucifixion."
She had a good point. Millennium fever hadn't quite died down yet, even though the turn
of the century was years in the past. And she was right, though none of us there, or anywhere else for that matter, foresaw the religious uproar the appearance of the gates would cause.
"Why did you say that gate shouldn't have been bombed?" Don asked me. I tried to meet her gaze, not very successfully. I still couldn't think of her as Don, my friend. Every time I heard her clear soprano voice, my first thought was to look around and check out the new girl Russell or one of the others had brought over.
Getting sidetracked with God had given me time to consider the unconscious thoughts behind my impromptu outburst. "Think about it," I said. "Whoever or whatever brought the gates is clearly superior to us. They must have a reason and purpose in mind. If we get belligerent about it, they may move on to something worse, like maybe bombing us back."
Rita got up to open another bottle. Unfortunately, there wasn't anymore Texas Valley. I keep the bar stocked, but not that well. She found some California Chablis and opened that. I think she was enjoying our reactions and conversations, maybe even planning a paper: First reactions of a random group of college students to the appearance of the sex gates, with interaction of one male-to-female interposed, or something along that line. I love Rita but sometimes, I think she goes a little overboard with her psychology. I've taken some courses in it and so far as I'm concerned, it runs a close race with economics for being the most inexact science.
Don's Nohang pill had worn off, or more probably, was being overwhelmed by all the wine we were drinking. She was becoming animated and seemed to be less aware of the fact she was a male inhabiting a female body. I still kept my distance, though, even if I was beginning to be ashamed of myself. It had to really be Don sitting there as a female. She had too many of his mannerisms and memories and speech habits for it to be otherwise-unless the aliens controlling the gates had stolen her memories and plunked them into a new body. It occurred to me then, even if that was the case, what was the difference? It would still be Don, like in the science fiction stories where complete personalities are recorded, converted to electronic data, then booted into a high capacity computer, or into a blank human clone.
