Revealing Myself Again

After my night with Evan, I was certainly feeling better about myself and not feeling quite as dismayed about my situation.  So this weekend, I was emboldened to make another attempt with one of my friends to let them in on my transformation.

Since I hadn't heard from any of my friends about my first confession with Josh, I was assuming that he hadn't passed the word along to anyone about my unexpected transformation.  But just in case, I decided to start fresh with someone in a different circle of my friends so I wouldn't have to worry about them being potentially coloured by word of mouth from Josh.  So I decided to try with my close friend Lauren.  Lauren was someone I'd actually dated a few years back, but we just worked better as friends than as a couple, and luckily we'd managed to stay friends since then.  She's a really kind friend and also I thought that maybe a female perspective on this might be a little different (and hopefully better).

I'd decided to take a different tact with it this time too. Firstly I thought maybe a public place might work better.  Somewhere private enough to speak together without people overhearing but public enough to hopefully diffuse any potential conflict.  So I emailed Lauren to meet me at a coffee shop we'd visit occasionally.  It's not usually a busy place and they have some nice deep booths for more privacy.  The second thing I did was to give her a bit of a heads-up ahead of time, without giving any details.  I'd said in the email that I had "something big" to tell her about. This way, she'd be somewhat braced for big news and it wouldn't catch her completely off guard. Fortunately she was available and we set up a time to meet.

I purposely showed up a little late at the coffee shop knowing that she'd already be there in one of the booths.  Lauren is always prompt and the booths were our usual hangout.  I could see that she was keeping an eye on the door as I came in.  She didn't give me more than a passing glance before continuing to watch for "Lee" though.  With a hearty dose of nervousness, I made my way over to her and slid in to sit at the booth with her.

She looked a little surprised to have a stranger sit down with her unannounced, but was gracious about it.  "I'm sorry.  I'm actually waiting for a friend."

I took a slow breath to calm myself down, then started in.  "Hi Lauren.  It's me, Lee.  Before you freak out, remember how I said I had something big to tell you about.  Well this is it.  About a month ago, I spontaneously turned into a woman.  I haven't figured out how this happened yet but I really needed to tell you, since you're one of my closest friends and I need your support on this."

I could tell that she didn't know whether to laugh or run away, but mostly she was just shocked.  A few times, her mouth opened slightly as if she wanted to say something but would just as quickly close again. I knew that she didn't believe me and couldn't figure why this strange girl was doing this.

What had really been the clincher with Josh was when he finally was able to recognize that faint physical resemblance to my old self, so I'd already decided beforehand to try that first with Lauren.  I jumped back in to end the silence between us. "Lauren, please just REALLY look at me.  Can you see that it's me in here?  Here's that old scar under my lip.  And look me in the eyes.  Can't you see the traces of me, even in this female body?"

Lauren stared at me for several seconds without a word.  But I could see the wheels turning and that she was quickly turning from a sceptic to a believer. She blanched and her mouth dropped open as the realization hit her.  For a second, I thought that she might pass out on me as her eyes seemed to glaze over.  But she came to somewhat, enough to utter, "L-Lee?  But... wha... I.... Is it... Is it you?"

I cautiously reached across the table and settled my hand on hers to try to sooth her.  She reflexively startled slightly, but left her hands where they were and allowed me to settle her.  "Yeah, it really is me, Sprite," I used the nickname I'd had for her for years. "Back last month when I had that bad flu, this is what it turned out to be.  I was laid up for over a week and, at the end of it, I eventually woke up one day as a woman.  I've been avoiding everyone since then and trying to figure it all out and come to grips with it."

"But... I don't understand... That's not possible," she said, still stammering a bit from the initial shock.

"That's what I would have said too before this happened, but here we are -- both wrong," I smiled, hoping to diffuse the situation.

Lauren started to regain her composure and think a bit more clearly.  "Well, are you OK?  Are you hurt at all?  I... I'm sorry, I don't even know what to ask."

I told her that I was OK overall and filled her in with as much information as I had about the actual transformation and the time leading up to it.  She took it all in better than I could have hoped. Fortunately, I think her concern for my welfare overshadowed the seeming impossibility of the situation.

Then something occurred to her and she looked kind of uncomfortable.  "I hate to ask this, but  you're not... ALL female, are you?  I mean, I can see that you look female and have breasts and everything, but that's it, right?  You're still a man, right?" she inquired.

I realized then that she wasn't completely clear the extent of this.  I hadn't really detailed the changes and had just talked about my physical transformation in general terms.  So I filled her in, "Sprite, I'm really 100% female now.  I have female genitalia now, not male.  My body has COMPLETELY changed.  I had my period last week, for Christ's sake!  I've been fully transformed somehow.  I've even had different thoughts and feelings than I've ever had before and I don't even want to get into all of that with you yet.  It's still me but I've become a woman now, in all respects as far as I can tell.  I've come to realize that over the last few weeks."

Then it really sunk in for Lauren.  I could see tears welling up in her eyes as she was overcome emotionally by the craziness of it all.  But she was trying to stay strong.  "This is unbelievable," she finally said.  "I... I just didn't realize..." her voice trailed off.

"Yeah, trust me.  This hasn't been easy to accept and I've been trying for a month now.  I've only recently been coming to grips with it."

"Have you been to a doctor or anything about it? Someone must be able to do something."

"I can't.  All of my ID says that I'm male and, even if I try to go to a doctor who doesn't know me, they're going to see that on my ID or in my health records and think I'm trying to do some kind of health care fraud.  And even if I get past that, what am I going to tell them?  They'll think I'm crazy since there's no way I'll be able to prove to them who I really am or what happened to me."

"My god," she said, comprehending the difficulty of my situation.  "Have you told anyone else?"

"Yes, you remember my friend Josh?  I tried to tell him a few days ago.  It didn't go so well and he stormed out.  I haven't been able to talk to him since," I got choked up on that last sentence.  Now it was my turn to get emotional and I suddenly felt tears spring to my eyes as well.  But I'd be damned if I was going to cry in public, so I took a few deep breaths and pulled myself together.

Then Lauren comforted me.  "It's OK, Lee," she said, gripping my hands.  "We'll figure this out.  What can I do?"

"You're already doing it," I said, sniffling and wiping away a tear.  "You have no idea how good it feels to be able to tell you all of this and have you backing me up.  It's just so amazing to have a friend to talk to again."

"OK then, here's what I'm going to," she said, as the idea popped into her head, "and I don't want any arguments.  When we're done here, I'm going to swing by my place to pick up a few things and then I'll come over to your place.  That way, we can talk as long as you want and I'll just stay over in your spare room.  It would make me feel a lot better knowing that you weren't alone there in your house.  Plus I want to know EVERYTHING.  Maybe there's something you're missing being too close to the situation or something, I don't know.  But I'll do whatever I can."

Lauren has always been probably my most considerate friend and it really touched me that she wanted to help out like this.  There was certainly no way that I was going to disagree with her on this. "Thanks, Sprite.  You have no idea how much I need that right now.  You're not getting any argument for me.

So that night, we talked late into the night.  I filled her in about the new name I was using, my trips out of the house and my attempts to find the solution to my problem.  She didn't even laugh at me for sending away the money for that magic potion, even though I told her I would understand if she wanted to.  I told her almost everything, with the exception of Evan.  I sort of touched briefly about my thoughts of attraction towards men, just to let her know the extent of my change.  However I don't even really know how I feel about that yet, let alone telling someone else about it.  And I'm certainly not ready to tell her that I basically went out on a "date".  I wasn't trying to hide it from her or lie about it, but it's just too soon and too confusing to talk about yet.

The next morning, Lauren told me that she was going to stay with me at my house for a little longer.  She wanted to be there to help me work things out and help with anything that might need a woman's perspective.  But mostly she wanted to be there for moral support.  She ended up bringing a couple of suitcases over from her place so I'm not sure how long she'll be here.  However I'm more than happy to have her as long as she wants to stay, so I haven't even asked.