Justice(?)

"I was going to ask you to come by tonight..."

"No, now!! Please, doc... don't make me beg. Please!!"

"Of course, come over. I'll be waiting for you when you arrive."

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Tucker was opening his door to his panic-stricken patient.

"Doc, please... you have to do something!!"

"Jack, calm down and tell me what happened."

"This morning when I got up, I went into the john to take a piss, and I ended up pissing all over my hand."

"I don't see..."

"No, doc, listen!! I went into the john to take a piss, I pull out my dick as usual, and almost none goes in the toilet, it went all over my hand! I cleaned up the mess with a towel, then checked out my dick. I found that my piss-hole didn't go all the way to the end of my dick. Instead, it was all the way back to my nut sack... and even the nut sack looked empty!"

"Jack, you're ranting in my living room. Come back to my office and let me see for myself."

Moments later, Jack was standing in the doctor's office, naked below the waist. "See? You see, doc?"

"I can't see much of anything with you in that position. Have a seat in the armchair there, and spread you legs so I can examine you properly. Yes, that's better. Yes, I see it now. Your urethra appears to have been laid open almost to the base of the penis. No reddening or scarring, as if it had always been that way. And it appears as if your testes have withdrawn back through the inguinal canals. The scrotum itself looks as though it was pulled tight against your groin, with none of the usual wrinkled appearance one would expect, nearly smooth, in fact."

"Doc, do something!!" Jack was nearly screaming, and tears were streaming down his face.

Dr. Tucker stood and went to his desk. "The first thing I'm going to do is give you something to calm down," he said, filling a syringe from a bottle he took from his desk. After injecting the contents of the syringe into Jack's exposed leg, he sat on a high-backed chair facing his patient and said, "Now, as calmly as you can, make yourself comfortable and tell me again what happened, starting with any events of last night."

"Nothing happened last night! I stayed in my room all day, I didn't see anyone, and I went to sleep at my regular time."

"No unusual sensations? No pains in your groin?"

"No, doc, nothing like that." Jack's face was beginning to lose some of the panicked look he had had since arriving. "I went to sleep at the usual time, I got up at the usual time, I went into the john as I always do in the morning."

"Alright, continue. Tell me everything you did when you woke up."

"I got out of bed, I went into the john, and I dropped the skivvies I was wearing."

"You took your underwear completely off?"

"Well, yeah... you see, I... as small as my... my dick has gotten, I... I just feel it's... it's easier... easier to... to just take... take them... take them off than to... to.. to go... go hunting... hunting for... for... for... What... what was I...?"

"You were telling me about the events of this morning. Do you have any more to add?"

Jack remained seated with a dazed expression on his face.

"Jack, I know you can hear me, and I feel the need to explain. The injection I just gave you was scopolamine. It's sometimes used as a sedative and used to be referred to as a so-called 'truth serum,' but what it really does is act as a rather powerful hypnotic. It leaves the bodily functions and memory intact but reduces the ability to reason and decide almost to nothing. What I tell you now you will remember, but you won't be able to act on it until it is far too late to be of any consequence.

"Now, where do I begin. I suppose a confession is in order. I have lied to you, but only once. I lied when I indicated that I would help you to regain your masculine form. Everything else I told you was true, but not necessarily the full truth. I said the scientists of the CDC were completely puzzled by the virus that attacked you, and they were. I said they could not explain how it was able to enter your system without using any of the common disease vectors, and they couldn't. What I did not say is that is only true because I am not considered a member of the Center for Disease Control.

"How did I do it? Thank you for asking, Jack. You see, I started as 'mere' endocrinologist. I was always at the top of my classes in school, and I quickly became a leading authority in the field. I know it's considered unseemly to brag, but the truth is that there are few, if any, people in the world who know more about hormones, their functions and limitations than I do. As such, I became more and more involved in cases of gender reassignment - 'sex change,' if you will. For various reasons, some people come to believe that they 'have been born into the wrong body.' They feel the desire, often the 'need,' to carry out the functions and actions for which their bodies are not suited. Surgery and hormonal supplements can do much externally but are a poor substitute for genetics. A fetus with 'XX' chromosomes, and normally only such a fetus, will eventually start to develop those structures that will become ovaries, a uterus and a vagina. If the fetus has 'XY' chromosomes, the equivalent structures become testes and a penis. This is high school biology, and of course you know this. But what if, what if the DNA could be re-written, and - with the help of molecular-level machines ("nano-bots" is the current science-fictional term) the structures could be reassigned?

"'Gene therapy' is a current medical buzzword. It involves changing the patient's DNA to eliminate or correct certain genetic disorders. But while doctors knew the genetic markers for some of these disorders for decades, the means to change or remove these markers was beyond them. Once DNA was written, it couldn't be edited. Or could it? Then it was discovered that viruses changed DNA all the time, and indeed was the method by which viruses survived.

"That led me inevitably to my second doctorate, virology. If a virus could be built up, atom by atom, to make alterations in the DNA throughout a person's body, the body itself would produce the changes in hormones and structures one was attempting to achieve. And if the morphogenesis - the shape-making plan of the DNA could be assisted somehow, then it would appear that the new form one was making was what was 'always intended' by the DNA. And so, I became a geneticist.

"The virus that made all these changes in you had to be extremely virulent, lest your body's own defenses and the medications being given you destroy the virus before the work was completed. It was so virulent that it almost killed you, and for that alone I truly apologize. I made certain to become included on the team that was attending your case, and took actions to assure your survival, but it was a near thing.

"As you may have guessed by now, or would have guessed if you had the capacity, your DNA is now completely female. Anyone taking a blood sample or tissue sample, will find XX chromosomes and conclude that you have always been the woman you appear to be. Your testicles have been repositioned and have the appearance of ovaries. They no longer produce sperm, but they don't produce ova either, I'm afraid. Even I am not that much of a genius. They will, however, produce the 'proper' levels of estrogen and testosterone for a female body. The 'nano-bots' I have introduced to your system will continue to restructure your urethra and go on to furnish you with a functional vagina within the next few days. Your penis will continue to shrink until it is the size of a slightly large clitoris. It would have been too complicated and unnecessarily cruel to give you working uterus, but at least you won't be burdened with a menstrual cycle. Anyone investigating will consider it an 'unfortunate genetic anomaly' and list it as a birth defect. Of course, if you're truly interested, I understand that stem cell research may be able to 'correct' that in your lifetime.

"So, what is to become of you now? That largely depends on you, Jack... or I suppose you should start getting used to being called Melinda.

"Financially, you will be comfortable, if not affluent, for quite some time. I'm leaving the country for Thailand, where the discoveries I have made will revolutionize the gender reassignment industry there, after I make some modifications for the sake of safety. In the meantime, you'll find that this house, and all its furnishings, have been deeded to you and the deed backdated two weeks. You'll also find a wall safe in this office, the combination to which you will find in my desk. This will to some degree compensate you for the loss of everything that used to belong to Jack Mason. That person is essentially dead. He will never be found, because you, Melinda, have replaced him. The only identification you have is as Melinda Feineman, and as such all of Jack's college credits, bank accounts, etc., will be unavailable to you.

"Your lack of employment history is easily explained by your agoraphobia, which the people at the DMV will surely remember. Any memories you have of having been male will be considered delusional, encouraged by the story I will soon tell the police. Any attempts at 'revenge' will have to be financed by you, and there aren't many avenues to that kind of money that will be available to you.

"Socially, your life is now free to choose. You can fall in love with whomever you wish, either as a 'heterosexual' female with as many male admirers as you wish, since you can expect to become a very attractive woman. Quite a few men find B-cup breasts, which is what you should end up with in a week or two, to be the perfect size. On the other hand, a 'lesbian' woman is now quite acceptable socially, and you may be able to find many who will love you just the way you are.

"Oh, before I call the police and tell them of the 'poor, delusional female' who tried to attack me and 'change her back to a man,' I suppose I should tell you why you were chosen as my first, and so far only, human for my new therapy.

"Two years ago, toward the end of your freshman year at Caltech, you were already a rising star athletically, with a growing list of female conquests, including my real niece - let's call her Annie, for now, not her real name. You invited her to a party, and she was thrilled to have gained your attention. You were not the first boy to have gotten her drunk, but you were the first to take advantage of her drunkenness and have sex with her. When she awoke and found you on top of her, humping your body into hers, she tried to push you off and called it rape. You laughed in her face. Not only was there no proof, since you at least had the decency to wear a condom, but any number of people would have been quite willing to testify that she had gone with you... or rather with Jack... quite willingly and any contact between her and Jack was consensual. She was humiliated and quite despondent, since she had been saving herself for marriage. She eventually told me about the incident, and together we plotted her revenge.

"I was already in the latter stages of developing my therapy and needed a test subject. She assisted me in delivering the virus. Jack might or might not remember a slap delivered to his face a week or so prior to the Caltech-USC game. Under her fingernail tiny sliver of metal coated with my specialized virus. The rest you can guess.

"Well, Melinda, I need to call the police now. If you cooperate with them and don't cause much trouble, you should be released in 48 hours, after the scopolamine wears off. Of course, if you make a fuss and try to tell them how I 'made you into a woman,' they are likely to hold you much longer and in any case, by the time any gynecological examination is given to determine the veracity of your statements, all signs of ever having been masculine will have disappeared from your body.

"I'll say goodbye to you now, Melinda. I'll likely never see you again. Perhaps we may both mourn the mysterious disappearance of up-and-coming athlete, Jack Mason. But that hardly concerns either of us now, does it?

"Hello, police? I'm Dr. Jason Tucker, and I have a young woman here who attacked me. I've given her something to calm her down, and she's very docile now, but she was very violent before. Why did she attack? Well, it's hard to believe, but she claimed to be Jack Mason... that's right, the quarterback that fell ill during the USC game. She seemed to think that, because I was Mr. Mason's attending physician, I was somehow responsible for turning her into a woman. Yes, I know... quite delusional. Now here is my address....."