May won this fight, too, sitting through my automatic shocked “No!” and pointing out it was an ordeal I’d need to face eventually and that really I should get everything, everything checked out now. While there was no record of Changeling Syndrome changing someone in a bad way, there was no record of a transformation like mine either. Who knew what developmental time bombs might be lurking in my body?

  And, making it perfect, her gynecologist was also a primary care physician specializing in female patients and could run every basic test I needed.

  They were actually gym buddies (big surprise), and May had called her directly yesterday and told her she’d had a cousin come to town who needed to have a female exam STAT. Because, stuff. Apparently Doctor Meredith James knew enough about May’s family history to assume I was a cousin up from the country and Something Had Happened that nobody back home could know about.

  After laying out her case May went back home to feed Steph, leaving me to stew quietly and talk myself into it. The big problem for me (besides the very idea of it), was I couldn’t see how we were going to do it. I wasn’t anyone, legally, except David Ross. If David Ross showed up for a gynecology exam Doctor Meredith James was going to know exactly what I was—that or think May had gone insane—and if we gave her a fake name, she’d still realize something wasn’t right when we couldn’t produce my medical history. Unless we could work without it? Would doctors do that? I didn’t know.

  Finally I decided that if May was confident it would work then she knew what she was doing, and when the hour was up I trekked over to meet my doom.

  My doom began with a ride in the family van to drop Steph off with one of her Emergency Sitting Circle moms. (May had built the co-op out of her Lamaze class group and church circle; the woman networked like she breathed.) Then we drove to her doctor’s, a nice enough office in a renovated Victorian home. Apparently Dr. James kept a select practice; there was only her name on the plaque by the door and a single office administrator. Becky, the office admin, handed May a clipboard with papers to fill out, which she did while I sat nervously (knees together), distracting myself with the framed lithographs on the patterned wallpaper covering the walls. May and I were the only two people waiting.

  Fifteen minutes later, Becky ushered us into an examination room that looked like a private, homey den but came stocked with the standard medical equipment—standard except for the extra-fancy examination chair with worrying leg supports. The thing looked more like a streamlined futuristic easy chair than piece of medical furniture, but that didn’t reassure me. A minute later, a fitly mature woman with slightly graying hair joined us, saying hello to May. “And you must be April,” she said with a smile. “Hello.”

  I blinked. “I’m—yes. Hello.”

  Kind eyes studied me as I squirmed. “Why don’t we all sit down?”

  There were enough comfortable chairs for three and I imagined she might be used to having heart to hearts with couples or mothers and daughters over diagnoses and prognoses. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Meredith,” May said and was waved away.

  “Mondays generally have a spare slot or two and it wasn’t a problem. So, how shall we begin? You didn’t explain much.”

  “No, I didn’t. We should start with this.” Reaching into her pocket May pulled out a shiny card and handed it to her.

  “A driver’s license? Is this the man who . . . I’m not sure I understand.”

  Driver’s license? I froze, going cold. “May—” She put a hand on my arm.

  “David Ross isn’t April’s victimizer. David is April.”

  “May!”

  Dr. James looked at the two of us. “Excuse me, what?”

  May took my hand, squeezing. “Trust me? Please?”

  I finally nodded, but— “No labs, May.” It came out a plea.

  “No labs, I promise.” She turned back. “April is our next-door neighbor, one of our dearest friends, and a changeling.” And she laid it all out, from Sunday morning on. Dr. James didn’t interrupt and sat silent when she finished. Finally, she said “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Neither have I,” May said. “I researched and the closest I’ve found is a seventy-year-old changeling woman who physically reverted to a biological age of around twenty-five. But she was still herself, just rejuvinated. I have a theory, but I’d rather not share it yet.”

  “But you believe that April—” she gestured to me, “—is your sixty-year-old neighbor?”

  “Yes. I can’t offer physical proof, I can say that she knows everything David would, she acts like someone who’s suddenly found themselves back in their teens and the opposite sex. And—this isn’t completely objective, but . . .”

  “Go on.”

  May squeezed my hand, smiling. “David was there when Stephanie was born, was there for me and Carl while I recovered and we waited for her to grow strong enough to release from neonatal care. He’s held her and changed her and knows all her quirks and all the tricks to settle her and make her happy. He loves her. Yesterday when we brought this young woman we’ve never met before back over to our place, she was exactly the same with Steph. Exactly. She’s David.”

  “I see.” The woman studied me intently. “Do you prefer David?”

  “What?” I squeaked. I hadn’t thought about that at all. “I— I guess April is fine for now.”

  “Alright.” She turned back to May. “And what do I need to do for April?”

  May laughed, throwing up her hands. “Everything! Absolutely everything, like she dropped out of the sky with no medical history whatsoever. Everything’s changed, she can’t even have the same genetic makeup. She could have conditions—”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “I’ve never heard of a changeling transforming with unhealthy results.”

  “Perhaps not syndromes or anything, just, non-normative conditions we’d need to know about? We’re even going to need to see a dentist—see if she has wisdom teeth again that might need to be pulled in the future.”

  “So, a complete workup. DNA, blood, physical, pelvic.”

  “And the ‘So you’re a woman, now,’ lecture.”

  My eyes almost bugged out at that one, and Dr. James smiled. “Then we should get started. The insurance—”

  “Cash!” I said, hitting on something I could at least take care of. “I can cover everything.”

  “That will do.” She stood. “Would you like May to remain, or do you desire privacy?”

  I swallowed, looking at May. I was a grown man—well, an adult—but . . . “Stay, please.” May squeezed my hand again. “Of course.”

  Turning to a row of drawers, Dr. James pulled out a folded examination gown and socks and handed them to me. “If you’ve had a full adult physical before you know at least part of the drill. You can change in the other room, I’ll prepare everything we’ll need.”

  I sighed. This was going to be no fun at all.

  ************************************

  “Call me Meredith” started with everything I already knew. I answered that I was feeling fine today, and there were no medical history questions since I really knew nothing about myself now, but I was an old hand at blood draws, EKGs, tongue depressors, cold stethoscopes, “Take deep breaths,” and all the other rituals of a general physical exam, even vision and hearing checks (my vision was 20/20 and my hearing was within expected range). Her check of my new breasts was deeply embarrassing, but she explained she was just establishing a baseline there and confirmed May’s opinion that I was at Tanner Stage Five. She also took an x-ray of my left hand with a portable machine. Then came the words I was dreading; “Now I’m going to need for you to move to the chair and put your legs up.”

  She snapped on fresh gloves while May helped me get situated. It was comfortable enough, but the leg supports—extended pads that went under my knees and put my legs in a raised spread position when Meredith adjusted them—left me wide open and feeling incredibly vulnerable. Stepping up to stand by my shoulder, May held my hand as I tried to regulate my breathing. I’d had testicular examinations before and bent over for annual prostate exams since I turned fifty—why did this feel so different?

  “Now,” Meredith said, looking me in the eyes. “I’m going to examine your vulva, vagina, and cervix. This is not going to be comfortable but won’t hurt. I’ve done hundreds of these, and I promise you I know how to be very, very gentle. May I proceed?”

  “Yes,” I squeaked, nodding. On the one hand it seemed ridiculous, she was treating me like a patient getting a personally invasive exam for the first time when she knew that couldn’t be further from the truth given my described pre-change history. On the other hand, I felt incredibly grateful for her care.

  She smiled kindly and pulled an instrument tray over before sitting where she could see everything beneath the short gown and I couldn’t. “First I’m going to examine your vulva,” she said, and I closed my eyes at the light touch, squeezing May’s hand. It took only moments, her warmed fingers gentle as they manipulated flesh I’d stroked last night, but I wasn’t at all aroused; frozen, I barely breathed.

  “Alright,” she said, and I opened my eyes. “Now, I’m going to insert a speculum to have a look at your vagina and cervix. Don’t worry,” she smiled up at me, “It’s warmed. Just relax. You may feel a pinch, but it will be over quickly.” I closed my eyes again at the first touch and squeezed May’s hand again at the “pinch” as it slid into me. A minute and it was done. “And now the bimanual exam.” Two warmed and lubed gloved fingers slipped inside me, poking and pushing as she pressed down low on my abdomen with her other hand, all that feeling weird enough that I shivered.

  “And done,” she announced, removing her fingers and sitting back to peel off her gloves before standing. “You did quite well April, thank you. I’m going to make some notes while you change back.” May helped me get shakily down and I retreated to the other room to change as fast as I could. Returning to the exam room broke up a conversation, and Meredith waved for us to resume our seats.

  “Well,” she said when we were all comfortable. “First, good news. You are a healthy, physically quite normal young woman, however you became so. We’ll need to wait on the bloodwork and DNA results to confirm that definitively, of course, but everything looks good. Now, judging your stage of sexual development is a little difficult. At your level of skeletal and breast development I would expect to see other marks of puberty such as the appearance of adult hair on your mons and armpits. But some women develop very little or no adult hair so that’s not so unusual as to be a concern. The x-ray I took of your hand to check your growth plates shows consistent with mid to late teens and I feel comfortable dating you as developmentally somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. You may gain another inch or four in height. Anyway, everything about you appears healthy and normal.”

  Beside me May relaxed with a huge sigh. “That’s great.” I blinked at that. Had she been more worried than she’d let on? And I was so, so grateful for her support but she was treating this as if I were her personal responsibility. Reaching over I found and squeezed her hand; today appeared to be a handholding day.

  “Yes,” Meredith agreed with her own smile. “That is great. Now, there is an anomaly, but it’s nothing to be concerned about and is easily explained by your reported rejuvenating transformation.”

  I tensed. Of course everything couldn’t be normal. “What is it?”

  “Your hymen.”

  “My what?”

  “Your hymen. The hymen is a membrane that grows across the entrance of the vagina during development. With every other woman alive that happens before birth. With you, you say it happened two days ago and now I can believe it.”

  May looked as confused as I was. “Why?” we both asked in what would have been a funny echo in other circumstances.

  She kept her smile on me. “Your hymen is partly covering the entrance of your vagina in sort of a half-moon shape. That is perfectly normal, just one of the shapes the hymen can have. But what is also normal is for the hymen to thin and wear with time and activity. Since you present as a healthy young woman of any age from sixteen to eighteen or so, I would expect to see some wear, or possibly no hymen left at all, just from general physical activity. Yours is unworn and extremely thick.”

  “But— I have a hymen? I didn’t feel it.”

  Her smile widened. “So you’ve experimented a bit already. Good. But would you know what one feels like? It’s just a membrane that helps to shield the vagina against bacteria—perhaps, we’re not really sure if it’s not just something vestigial from our evolutionary development with no purpose anymore— but it’s not normally a barrier against penetration, not by things like fingers and tampons, sexual penetration usually breaks it of course. But with all the patients I’ve examined, I’ve never seen such a thick and unworn hymen as yours on a young woman. Nothing close. Which brings me to my only suggestion for today. I suggest that we take care of it before you leave.”

  “Take care of it?”

  “Remove it. It is extremely thick and bound to be painful for you when you do break it. There will certainly be some bleeding, likely more than the normal amount, and you will want to keep things sanitary. I can administer a local anesthetic here and take care of it right now. You won’t feel a thing beyond what you’ve already experienced besides the needle, and you won’t have to worry about it going forward.”

  She made it sound so easy. “May?”

  May squeezed my hand. “If Meredith thinks it’s a good idea, I think we should.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Good,” Meredith said. “You’ll need to get back in the chair, but you won’t need to change again. Just remove your panties and I’ll put a towel under you.”

  Fifteen minutes later it was done and I was wearing a sanitary pad for the first time and feeling very weird about it, and we were going to lunch.