Body Transplant

Body Transplant By Stephanie Silver

Every story has to start somewhere, and this story starts with April Kovell. But, rather than spend a lot of time telling you all about April, who was 5'5" tall and well over 370 pounds, with the medical conditions to match, let me just say that April and I were friends.

We worked for the same company, and had adjoining cubicles. April was a technical writer; I was a project engineer. In my spare time, I liked writing transgendered fiction, and so it was just natural for me to seek out April's expertise from time to time.

Of course I didn't tell her, at first, what kind of fiction I liked writing. Whenever the question came up, I vaguely replied that it wasn't important. But eventually I knew I would have to tell her.

The time finally came when I finished a story and needed someone to review it. Knowing the questions it would raise, since April still didn't know anything about my transgender desires, I was extremely nervous when I finally sent her that very first file.

The story was about a geeky college student who finds a magic formula in a library book and decides to use it to turn himself temporarily into his best friend - who just happens to be the star of the college football team - in hopes of ending up on a date with his best friend's girlfriend, Lisa, a girl he finds extremely attractive. Something goes wrong, however, and instead of turning into his best friend, he ends up turning into Lisa.

That was a Friday, which gave April the whole weekend to look it over before I saw her again on Monday. When I did, she simply said, "So you played college football."

I guess that was better than saying that I must be some kind of closet transvestite with secret desires of being a girl. I shrugged and tried to smile. "Yeah, I guess so."

Only, as it turned out, April had a secret of her own, which she could then share with me. Her son, Thomas Kovell, was a doctor. Actually, I already knew that. I didn't know what kind of a doctor he was, though. That was the secret.

One warm spring day, as we were crossing the courtyard on our way to lunch, April stopped to rest on a wooden bench. We'd started going out to lunch more often so that we could talk more easily.

"Clay, I have to tell you about Thomas."

"Okay." I sat down, enjoying the warm sunshine.

"He's a doctor. You knew that."

I nodded.

"He does medical research, and he might be interested in seeing someone like you," she said.

"Me? Why?"

She looked at me with what I can only describe as the beginnings of an amused smile. "He does body transplants," she said.

Now, for the record, I was pretty content in my body. Other than its gender, of course. But at fifty years old, I'd pretty much given up any hopes I'd ever had of being able to do anything about that. I still did my best to keep it as feminine as I could. I shaved my legs and chest and underarms regularly. But mostly I accepted the fact that, whatever my feelings were about it, I was stuck in a male body. And, to be honest, it wasn't a bad one. I was reasonably healthy and semi-athletic. I suppose I was even attractive, physically, to many women, although I'd never had much success with any of them.

"Why would I want a body transplant? I asked.

Her amused grin changed into a warm, caring smile. Touching my arm lightly, she said, "Because you're not happy in this one."

Thomas Kovell was a little younger than me. He was a medical researcher, as April said. Very successful. Very intelligent. I first met him on Memorial Day at a backyard barbecue at April's house. It was about two weeks after that talk in the courtyard. Doctor Kovell was tall, about 6'1", with a muscular frame, striking blue eyes, and thick blond hair. I couldn't help being attracted to him.

Now, normally I wouldn't think of a guy I'd just met in terms like that. But April had told me a little bit about her son's history. Not only was he a doctor, he had also dated a transsexual named Sasha up until about three years earlier. They were even considering marriage. And April, oddly enough, really, really liked Sasha. So it was a definite tragedy when Sasha died in a freak skiing accident just three weeks before she was scheduled to undergo SRS. Thomas, devastated by the loss, threw himself into his work of perfecting body transplants, with the goal of helping the transgendered community.

So, knowing a little bit about Doctor Kovell's interest in transgendered women, I couldn't help thinking of him the way I did.

Doctor Kovell, Thomas, wanted to perfect the world's first complete body transplant. Actually, it wasn't a body transplant. Even Doctor Thomas hadn't figured out a way to bring a dead body back to life. It was the transfer of a person's brain activity to an artificial body. Think of the possibilities if he could make it work. But that was the problem. Despite his successes and improvements, it was still very much an experimental, and risky, operation.

First, there was the rejection problem. In the same way that bodies tend to reject an organ transplant, there's a great deal of difficulty getting the mind to accept a different body. Obviously, body rejection is not good, and generally results in death. So, he had been limited in his choice of candidates – people who were going to die anyway.

Second, the transplantation process is very hard on the transplantee. Since he was able to use only volunteers who were typically in poor health and close to death, the physical demands were often just too much for his patients.

Third, the process only worked to make a person female. It had something to do with the transplant mold being an inverse of the person's body, making the penis a very tricky organ to simulate, and so he couldn't seem to do that part accurately. That, he felt, was a minor detail at the moment.

I'm not a doctor, but let me try to explain the transplant process a little. What Doctor Kovell did was to put his patient into a mold. He would then stimulate various senses as he monitored brain activity, and then map that information into the new brain and body. As I said, this required an inverse mold of the person who was being transplanted. I guess it's also where the physically demanding part of the process came up.

He had some ideas on how he could overcome these problems, though. He believed that he might have more success with healthier individuals. Healthier individuals, he thought, would be better able to handle the physical demands of the transplant process. The problem there, of course, was the risk of him being wrong. He needed a willing volunteer who trusted him enough to try it.

He also felt that men would make better candidates than women, on average, simply because they typically have better spatial abilities. The transplant process, unlike other transplant processes, worked best if the patient was actively engaged in the transplanting process. The process required the patient to more or less willfully move their brain functions from one body into the other, and that required a bit of spatial reasoning. Men, in general, do better at that than women.

Unfortunately, that requirement conflicted with the problem that the process didn't work as well on men's genitals. But since Doctor Thomas's goal was to help the transgendered community, he didn't see that as an immediate issue.

After getting to know me, April was convinced I would be a good candidate. Since I wanted so much to be a girl anyway, I wouldn't have a problem with the fact that the operation only worked to make a person female. In fact, I would welcome that. She also told me that Thomas thought that might help with the rejection problem. One reason for rejection is just a general unhappiness with the result. His theory was that the excitement of finally being in a true female body would offset the brain's tendency to reject its new body.

And finally, because I was in good physical shape for my age, I would be more likely to be able to handle the physical demands of the transplant process without as many problems. And, since I was, at the time, fifty years old, I met one of Thomas's criteria, which was that the candidate be between the age of fifty and sixty. His reasoning was that such a person was old enough that the risk of dying was not as costly as it would be in a younger person, but they would still be young enough to meet the physical demands. He also agreed with his mother – in fact it was his opinion which he had shared with her – that the ideal candidate would be a healthy fifty-year-old transvestite who wanted to change his sex from male to female.

C'est moi!

So, after some time, I agreed to do it.

We started with designing my new female body. I got to choose everything about myself, starting with height and weight. Thomas sat in with me as we designed my new body, offering suggestions. Although he had given me final say in every decision, I wanted to show my gratitude by getting his opinion as much as possible. As we went through all of the various features, he couldn't help noticing what I was doing, and being flattered by it. Even though I was a man... My female personality characteristics were already showing up as we sat side-by-side in the lab, and I couldn't help flirting with him. I suppose it was a doctor-patient crush, and he was trying to be professional about our relationship. But... I was going to be a girl! And he was there walking me through every choice about my new body. I couldn't help being attracted to him, and where I had no specific preference, I couldn't help wanting to please him. So very often, I asked him what he would like. He would just grin and say, "It's your choice."

But I would ask again, and get a little flirty – I couldn't help it, it's who I am – and he would finally give in and tell me what he liked.

So... I decided to be 5'4" tall. I talked about being 5'3" tall, but he convinced me I'd enjoy being a little taller. He thought 5'7" or even taller would be a good choice, but I refused to go beyond 5'4". We made me rather thin, and set my weight at 113 pounds. I told him I always imagined my female body flaw to be short legs, and so we designed my body that way. I gave me dark brown hair and blue eyes the same color as his. We made my hair naturally curly, and set the length to the middle of my lower back, just above my waist. As we designed, an image of my new body would appear on the computer screen. I couldn't help being excited by what I was seeing.

Many of the choices were routine, but eventually we chose breast size. I told him I wanted to be a 34B. He showed me how that looked, and warned me it was a little on the small side. He told me how women really do compare themselves by breast size, and told me that I might be happier being a 34C. I hesitated. In all my years of on-line play, I'd always thought of myself as a 34B. I asked him what he'd like, and at first he avoided the question, the way he always did. But finally he said that he was recommending the larger size partly for personal reasons.

I thought some more. I'd always been fascinated by the idea of having breasts, and I was starting to think it might be more fun, as he pointed out, to have something a little larger. I could show them off more than I could a 34B.

Finally, he told me that, if I just didn't like it, we could always do a breast reduction later. It would be easier, and safer, to do that than it would be to live with implants later. I got him to show me both the 34B and the 34C and I toggled back and forth between the two thinking about it for several minutes. I had to admit the idea of being more bosomy appealed to me, and I knew, before I ever gave Thomas my final decision, even as I was still pondering the options, which one I was going to choose. I wanted to be a girl – and I want to be unquestionably and undeniably female. I was going to choose to be a 34C. But I still thought about it for a long time before I told him my choice.

"You can always change it later, if you change your mind," he assured me. "Right up to the very last minute." And he reminded me again that I could do the breast reduction surgery later. I smiled and thanked him for the information, acting like it was something I would continue to consider. But I knew I wasn't going to change it. I was excited. I was going to have nice-sized boobs!

And let's see... Then we designed the pubic area. I made him look away while I fiddled with the options there. He made it so I could put the information in without him seeing what I chose. I knew he could go back and find it later, but Thomas wasn't like that. I knew he would respect my privacy. I made my pubic hair a shade lighter than the hair on my head, and I made it thin and sparse. I liked looking at it, and imagined what it would be like to have a vagina instead of a penis.

We did the same thing with my butt – making him look away as I set the parameters. I gave myself a nice, round shape, with cheeks that hung over my thighs. I wanted it to be my sexiest feature.

Thomas helped me design my face, giving me thin arched eyebrows, full round cheeks, and a soft mouth. I asked him to make my mouth a little on the small side. We gave me perfect, straight teeth, and a cute little nose. We designed my navel. There was no question there – I wanted an inny. We set my hips to be narrow and boyish, just one size bigger than my bust size – 35". We toyed with small waists all the way from 18" to 36". Every change we made changed the body's final weight, and I watched it change as we made my waist smaller and then larger. I wanted my waist to be as small as possible, while still being realistic. It ended up being 25".

With all of the parameters set, the next step was to create the transplant mold and my new body. Thomas was wrong about one thing. Changing anything after that point would be a problem. Perhaps not a major problem but it would require him to make a new body with the new parameters. I had to appreciate the way he gave me that option, though. It showed he was more concerned with my feelings than he was with the trouble it could cause him if I changed my mind. Periodically, he asked me if I was satisfied with the settings, or if I wanted to change anything. I assured him I was happy with them. I knew he was asking partly just to be nice. I knew he also had to ask because there was a great risk of rejection if my brain didn't like its new body.

Preparing the transplant body and mold takes about six weeks. During that time we worked on a few legal issues – mostly related to identification after surgery. I got to choose my new name – Dana Robbins. And then there were some decisions to make regarding disposal of my old body. Of course there were the other legal issues regarding liability and risk. I signed the forms, not really wanting to think about them too much. I just wanted to wake up in my new body. I found myself counting the days until I became a girl.

The day finally came, as sunny and glorious a day as there could ever be. I showed up at Thomas's laboratory twenty minutes early, after getting almost no sleep the night before. Yeah, I was a little bit excited.

Following instructions, I had shaved off ALL my body hair, including my eyebrows and the hair on my head. Hair just confuses the mold. I hadn't been able to eat for 24 hours – another one of the physical demands that made this operation so difficult for people who weren't healthy.

I'd even shopped on-line for some clothes that I could wear immediately after the operation. My new skirt and blouse were waiting where I could see them. I gave them a look and smiled, knowing that by this time the next day, I'd be wearing it. Legally and proudly. Both the skirt and the blouse were a size 5, and they looked so small, that I couldn't imagine how I'd ever fit into them. The skirt was black, and would come down to just below my knees. It was the kind of skirt that you could twirl out in a big circle. I saw it, and the blouse, in a newspaper ad one day, and fell in love with the entire outfit, so it was the first thing I wanted to wear once I was in my new body.

The blouse was white, with long sleeves. My new outfit included black leather boots that would come up to my knees. I couldn't wait to wear them. I'd also bought some sexy black lace panties that would show off my legs up past my hip, and a lacy white bra, with cups that would just barely cover my nipples. Oh, did I tell you my nipples were going to be tiny (for a girl), pink things? Impossibly cute, is how I describe them.

Not that I was planning for anyone to see me in my lace underthings. I was still trying to decide what kind of girl I was going to be. Part of me wanted to be a slut. Part of me wanted to be respectable. For the moment, I was trying to be non-committal. Once I was a girl, I'd figure out what worked best for me.

At last it was time for me to climb into the semi-transparent mold. I took off all of my clothes and lay down inside. They closed the top over me. It fit, as you would expect, very tightly. Almost like a second skin. It felt, actually, a bit claustrophobic. I think my excitement at what was happening is the only thing that got me past that feeling. There were, of course, air holes so I could breathe, and in other places for ventilation.

Dana, my new body, was lying in a similar mold on the table next to me. Once I was inside the mold, I couldn't move, but I knew she was there. I wondered what it would feel like to be transplanted into her body.

Thomas activated the controls, and I felt a tingling sensation all over my body as thousands of tiny probes began stimulating various parts of my body. It would have felt erotic, except that none of the probes was working on my penis. There was no point in doing that – the information would be meaningless to my new body's brain. Thomas had told me that one problem they had with the operation when it came to males was the penis, which tended to respond to the probes by growing bigger. I had to chuckle when he told me about that problem. Because it kept changing size, it was hard to design a probe that would accurately recreate the sensations in a new body. Some patients complained of too much stimulation while others complained of not enough.

For me, coming from a male body, the mapping program would use default parameters in forming my female genitalia. There was a possibility I might be overly sensitive there, or not sensitive enough, but I had assured Thomas at least a dozen times that I would be happy with whatever I got.

With the outer parts of my body-nerve mapping completed, I felt most of the probes retract. That wasn't a good sign, and I gulped involuntarily. It meant that it was now time to map my insides. It was impossible to use a sedative for the mapping process, as it would affect the results.

Mapping the inside required somehow getting the probes inside me. One probe went down my throat; another went in through my anus. It didn't feel at all good. And it got worse. The probes had to get as far as they could to collect information. That's why a healthy person had more chance of success than an unhealthy person. As the process got further and further along, the probes were forced to begin destructively probing the candidate's old body. By this point, the new body was mapped out with much of the information, and it was possible for the brain functions to begin migrating to the new body.

That's where the doctor needed to use great skill in controlling the pace of the probing. The idea was to gain information as fast as possible so that the new body would function better – too much time collecting the information would cause the brain-nerve connections to be weak or ineffective, or possibly even wrong. However, if he went too fast, the patient might die before his or her brain functions had a chance to migrate. In my case, I was so eager to migrate into my new body, that there was no problem.

I'm not sure how to describe the migration process. If you think about the way your mind works, you tend to perceive yourself – I mean the part of yourself that is your core essence - as being somewhere right behind your eyeballs. Thomas explained to me that's because sight is our primary sense. We're aware of our other senses, but they are almost peripheral, and so we tend to associate our core as being there at the point where the most brain activity is occurring. During the migration process, a synaptic pathway is set up between the old brain and the new brain. As various parts of the new body get mapped, your brain has the opportunity of controlling those functions remotely – that is from your old body – or locally, which would be from your new body's brain. During a successful migration, you choose to do it locally.

A problem with body rejection is when the mind doesn't seem to want very much to operate locally. Too many body functions fail to migrate to the new brain, and eventually both bodies die. The old body dies as the probing gets more and more destructive. The new body dies because there is not enough brain activity to support it. The doctor, then, is trying to balance this migration with the destructive nature of the final probing. He needs to obtain mapping information as quickly as the brain activity will migrate.

As I said, for me, I was so eager to migrate to my new body that Thomas was able to let the probes run as fast as they could. For me, it was a weird feeling. I could feel the probes stimulating various parts of my old body, sometimes quite uncomfortably. But it almost felt like it was happening to someone else. I mean, I could feel it... But it was like it was a layer away or something. I found that I could shift my attention to a corresponding part of my new, female body, and the pain would dramatically decrease.

Thomas later explained to me how that was the migration process at work. My mind was finding alternative pathways, and setting up its functions locally in the new body. I was still aware of nerve signals coming from my old body, but they were filtered by my old brain, and by the synaptic link, making them feel less intense. I'm not sure what happened in people who were unable to successfully migrate to their new body's brain. I guess in its simplest form, you could say that the transplant works only if you really want it to.

Although I was told about the synaptic link, my first awareness of it, my first personal awareness of it, came shortly after the external probes lifted. That's when the first real mapping gets downloaded into the new body's brain. As soon as that happened I became aware of my new body's external parts. I guess it was like the pain process in reverse. At first, it was like I could feel things and wasn't sure where I was feeling them. As I focused on the feelings, it would suddenly occur to me that they were sensations coming from my Dana body, being filtered by her brain and the synaptic link. As soon as I figured that out, I immediately wanted to cross the link and experience the sensations first hand. I wanted to migrate to them. And just like that, my brain functions would shift, for that particular sensation, to my new female body.

At first, I was migrating just because I could. I was eagerly anticipating each new development, and migrating functions over as fast as they were ready. Later, I found myself migrating in self-defense, to get away from the probes that were slowly destroying my old body.

For the time in between, I was literally in two bodies at once. I could feel things in both bodies. Of course, once I migrated a function, I never went back. I was aware that I could go the other direction, just exactly the same way I was migrating into my female body. There just didn't seem to be any point in going back. My old body was becoming more and more unpleasant. It was literally going to die. The transplant operation was designed so that the old body was completely destroyed, and would no longer support life, by the time the probes were finished. I was vaguely aware of the fact that my old body was dying. If I allowed myself to think about it from the perspective of my old body, it literally felt like I was going to die. But that wasn't a pleasant sensation, and so I fled. I migrated to a happier, warmer place – my new female body.

Okay, so what was different and when did I first become aware of it? Boobs! They were the first thing I noticed that was different. I could feel them. I could feel their weight as they pushed down against my chest. Oh God! I had boobs! I was so happy. I could feel my nipples as a soft breeze blew across them. Thomas had intentionally placed my new body to receive gentle stimulations, saying that seemed to aid in the migration process. He was right. I could feel things, and I found myself eagerly exploring every new sensation that came along.

I don't remember exactly when I became aware of my vagina. I was looking for it, but I guess I wasn't sure what I was looking for, because I must have missed the sensations a dozen times before I finally figured out what they were. It's like... being in a new house, and running around opening doors and looking in all the new rooms and getting excited by all the new sensations, but for some reason I never noticed the "vagina" door. When I finally did, it was more like, oh, so that's what it feels like to have a vagina. I guess I ultimately had to figure it out by sort of not thinking about it. I thought about the things I knew that were close to it – my tummy, my thighs. I would slowly push those feelings aside, trying to focus on what was between them. I guess I finally became aware of what I wasn't feeling anymore, and that's what finally helped me figure out what it was I was feeling.

As a male, I guess you just get used to having testicles hanging down between your legs. I knew my new body didn't have them, and so I understood why that sensation wasn't there anymore. I guess boys are also vaguely aware of their penises even when they're not hard, and so I recognized that sensation was gone. But it took some time before I could connect the missing sensations with the sensations that had replaced them.

When I did, I nearly leapt for joy. Of course, I was in a heavy mold that prevented me from moving, so leaping really wasn't an option, but if I could have... Anyway, I suddenly became aware of the area between my legs. I suddenly became aware of my mound. I was already aware of what wasn't there, but now I was aware of another, very subtle feeling – my vaginal slit. My vaginal slit! Oh God. I wiggled as best I could, earning a reprimand from Thomas to stay as still as possible.

Oh my God... I was moving Dana's body. Not much, but I was moving. I could feel it. I moved just enough to be aware of the differences in sensation, and it was enough to help me feel my new vagina. Oh God! A vagina! I had a vagina! I was, without question, a female.

Well, other than those unpleasant sensations still coming from my old body. I guess as long as those were there, I wasn't completely transplanted into my new body. But that was a minor detail that I knew would correct itself soon. As far as I was concerned, I was from that moment officially and completely a girl.

What else? Vision! Vision was the most amazing thing. I was feeling things in my Dana body, but seeing things still from my old body. It was just a bit disconcerting. That theory I said about your mind being right behind your eyes at the point of maximum brain activity? Not completely true. My sense of self was on the Dana table, thrilled to be in a female body. But I was seeing things remotely. I'm not sure how I knew that. It just felt that way. Maybe because I knew where I was, and what the room should look like from that angle, and it didn't look that way. It literally felt like my eyes were in the wrong spot. Which in a way, they were.

It was nice when my vision functions finally showed up, and I could see with my new eyes. That made me grin. I was seeing things for the first time as a girl. I smiled, and that made me smile more, as I thought about my lips, my very feminine looking lips, responding.

That's when I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was totally naked. The mold, of course, covered me up somewhat. But I'd seen my female body when I came in, and I knew that if anyone walked in, they'd see a naked girl on the table. Grinning.

Well, there wasn't anything I could do. Just let them look. The thought made me feel funny in my stomach. My girl stomach, I realized. My girl stomach in my 25" waist, which was somewhere in the vicinity of my... oh my! My female sex organs! Not totally functional. Thomas hadn't quite perfected that. I could get pregnant, if I wanted, but it would require an egg donor from another female. Still, it would take a gynecologist a lot of work to figure out I wasn't the real thing.

A gynecologist! It seemed like I couldn't keep my thoughts focused on the things I was trying to think about. Every time I tried to think of something, I'd get all distracted by some new realization that my life was about to change in amazing ways.

I thought about some gynecologist giving me an exam. He'd be handsome, I realized. And I'd happily spread my legs and let him peer inside, secretly hoping, wishing, he was opening me up with his penis instead of with some sterile piece of metal.

I blushed... Hey, I had blushing functions now. When had those shown up? I wondered if Thomas was watching me, and if he was aware of all the crazy thoughts I was having. I wondered if he knew "where" I was now. Did he know I was happily making myself at home as Dana?

I wondered how big his penis was. I wondered what it would feel like inside me. Would I like it? Would I want it deeper? Would I wrap my legs around him, urging him to thrust deeper? Would he even be interested in me sexually? He always tried so hard to be professional. Did I even stand a chance at getting him to consider me as a potential lover? Would I ever find a man that I wanted to give myself to? Oh my! Did I just ask that? I thought I might be a slut, and I'm already being picky.

I knew sex with guys was my destiny. I'd known that before I ever met Thomas or agreed to get a body transplant. Well, no. I didn't know that. Despite my transvestite ways, I had pretty conservative and traditional values when it came to sex – boys with girls, girls with boys. The problem for me was I felt more like a girl than a boy. So I knew, and had known for a very long time, that I wanted to have sex with guys. The thing that had always held me back, up to the time of my body transplant, was that I wanted to have sex with guys as a girl and not as another guy.

So, I knew that, as a girl, I'd want to have sex with guys. I just didn't know if I'd be a slut or the kind of girl some guy would want to marry someday. Well, I was getting my answer. I wanted a guy. I wanted a great guy. I wanted a husband and a father. I wanted someone to build a home with. I wanted to be someone's wife. I knew I might have to battle sexual urges. And I might still be a very naughty girl. But, I would always try to be the kind of girl that someone, someone like Thomas, would want to marry. I'd guard my chastity as best I could, waiting for him. Waiting for him to find me, marry me, kiss me, sweep me off my feet, make me fall in love, and open myself, for the first time, to my husband. I knew that I would try my best to be a traditional, conservative woman.

Wow! So many thoughts. What started that? Oh yeah, I was naked on the table, and if a guy walked in, I wouldn't be able to keep him from looking. Well, what could I do? I knew he'd enjoy what he saw. I made myself that way. It would be fun. "Take a picture. It'll last longer." I imagined myself only directing that thought at some imaginary guy, since I knew the mold would prevent me from actually speaking out loud.

Oh my God! Talking! I was going to have a girl voice from then on. What a thought!

My thoughts went on like that for the rest of the time. Occasionally I'd be aware of some pain that made me feel like I was going to die – my old body, that is – and so I'd search for a new place to perform those brain functions in my new body. I'd find one, and go back to thinking about what life would be like as a girl.

Finally, I became aware that I wasn't feeling, or sensing, much of anything from my old body. I realized I hadn't sensed anything from it for several minutes. It's like it had... Oh my! I suddenly realized what had happened. My old body was dead. Dead! For the first time I felt a sense of loss. Not a profound sense. It was... maybe like the feeling I had when my parents passed away. A sense of loss, knowing I would miss them greatly. But not a crippling loss. I was Dana; safely inside my new body now. I'd miss the old me, but I'd get over it. Life was still good. Better than good, even.

I still couldn't move, but I could sense machinery shutting down around me. Occasionally I could see Thomas walk past me. A few times he would pause to stare at me with concern. I tried to smile, and show him I was fine. Finally, the cover to my mold was lifted, and I could at last get out. Again, I was instantly aware of my nakedness. Using my new, never before used vocal cords, I formed words in my mouth with a mix of practiced ease, and confusion because all the moving parts were new to me. My voice, my beautiful girl voice, cracked once as my very first words as a girl vibrated my vocal cords and found their way out of my mouth. "C-Can I have some clothes?"

Thomas looked surprised. Then immediately he reached for a hospital gown and handed it to me. "Here. Use this."

"Thank you," I said softly. I could hear myself speaking. I could tell I sounded like a girl now. I wished for a moment that my first words had been something more exciting. Finally, I said the one thing that seemed to be the most important. "I'm a girl now."

Thomas grinned, agreeing. He let me get dressed, and helped me tie the gown behind me as I sat up. He helped me off the table and then helped me get used to walking on my new legs. Like my tongue, it felt both familiar and different. "Can you walk?" he asked, the concern evident in his voice.

"I think so," I replied, loving the sound of my feminine voice. "I just need a little practice." I smiled broadly at him. "I think it worked," I said.

"The operation?" he asked.

"Yeah. I think it worked." I suddenly turned to look at the table I had been on at the start of the operation. It was empty now. That was a little weird to think about it. I'd walked in and laid on that table, and without moving, somehow got up from the other table.

"Um, where...?" I asked pausing, not sure what exactly I wanted to know.

"It's not a pretty sight," Thomas explained, knowing what I was asking. "The probes can be pretty vicious toward the end. They have to get as much information as they can before..."

I nodded, knowing what he meant. "I think I could tell when my old body died," I told him. "It's like it just quit sending me signals."

"Yeah, I've heard that before." He stared at me, a look of minor amazement on his face. "So, how do you feel?" he asked.

I thought for a moment. The truth was I felt great. Other than the fact that I was still having trouble figuring out how to move different parts of my body. "Good," I said, compromising.

"That's good," he said. "Most people feel a little lost when they first get off the table. "Like something's missing."

I grinned. I'd had practice grinning while I was on the table, so I was already getting pretty good at that. "Well, it does kinda feel like something's missing," I said, pointing toward the area at the top of my legs. "But I guess we expected that."

Thomas chuckled, but then got serious as he said, "Some people feel like they're missing important things. They say they feel like they're only half there or that part of them died during the operation. Do you have any feelings like that?

"No. I feel... Like I'm all here. I mean, I know what they mean, about the dying part. I felt like my old body was dying. I mean, I knew it was going to die. You told me it would. But... I kept getting out as fast as I could find places to go. When... " I choked momentarily and then said, "...I died, I felt sad, but only because that's part of me that's gone now and won't ever come back. But not sad like I'd lost... I mean... It's hard to explain," I said. "I mean I knew I'd lost part of me... But it was only the physical part. I felt like the rest of me, the part that makes me me, my mind, got out before that happened."

"So who are you?" he asked with genuine concern.

"I smiled. "Dana Robbins."

"Tell me a little bit about yourself," he asked.

"I'm 5'4" tall," I said, "brown hair, blue eyes." I left out the part about my eyes being the same color as his. I reached around to drag a lock of my long, curly hair in front of me and showed it to him. It felt so amazing to show him my hair like that. My long, girlish hair. I was so happy. "I weigh 113 pounds," I continued. "My belly-button is an inny, and I'm a 34C." I thrust my breasts forward slightly, for the moment glad I'd let him talk me into the bigger size.

Thomas stared at my chest for a moment, until I suddenly felt self-conscious. I relaxed my stance, suddenly realizing how hard it would be to keep guys from looking at my breasts.

"Very good," he said. "It sounds like you have a good sense of self. Tell me, when you think about your core essence, where is it?"

I pointed to the area right behind my eyes. "Right here. Right where it's supposed to be."

Thomas did some more tests and asked me more questions, trying to determine how well I was adjusting to my new body. He told me I was doing very well. My reflexes were normal, and everything about me seemed to be functioning normally. Best of all, he said, was that my sense of self seemed to be firmly seated in my new body, which meant the risk of rejection was very low. He promised to watch that very closely, although he didn't tell me what we would do if my risk went up. Another body transplant?

During the exam, Thomas had to reach beneath my gown to put his stethoscope on my chest. I was very aware that he was a man as his hand brushed across my breasts. Oh yeah! I was attracted to him. There was no doubt about that. My nipples responded by stiffening slightly – my first physical sexual response as a woman. As he put the gown back down, I noticed that my nipples were protruding now, evident beneath the thin material. I grinned helplessly at Thomas, not sure if he noticed. If he did, he didn't say anything. See what I mean? Always so professional.

After the exam, I asked Thomas if I could see my old body. He gave it only a moment's thought before saying, "Um, I don't think that's such a good idea."

I asked him why, and he explained that seeing my old body might cause me to regress, basically wanting to reattach with my old body. Plus, he said, it's not a pleasant sight to see. One thing I've learned about medicine over the years is that it's as much an art as it is a science, and that a doctor is best when he can explain the science part to you, and then let you decide on your own what feels right for your personal situation.

In my case I felt he was wrong about the effect it would have on me. I felt very comfortable and at home in my new body. I couldn't imagine any reason for wanting to go back. But I also felt like I needed closure on the issue. I needed to see my old body to know for sure that I really was who I felt I'd become.

I told him that, saying, "I think I need to see it, if you don't mind. I think it will give me closure. Kind of like... going back in your house before a vacation – or more like when you move out of an old house, and all the furniture's gone and it's just an empty house, but you have to go back in one last time and walk through all the old rooms to make sure you haven't left anything behind. Does that make sense?"

He stared at me for a moment and then nodded. "Yes, Dana, it does. Okay, I'll take you to see it. But, I have to warn you, it's not going to be a very pleasant sight."

He was right. My old body looked like it had been in a fight and lost. It was lumpy and misshapen, with cuts and bruises everywhere. "As I said," Thomas explained, "the probes can get pretty vicious toward the end as they collect the last bits of information."

I touched my old body softly. There was a touch of sadness. Not the kind of sadness that made me want to return. Just a sadness of feeling that I'd lost a close and trusted friend. "That was me," I said softly, speaking more to myself than to Thomas.

I continued walking around the lifeless body that used to be me. It was a surreal feeling. I knew that body so well, and yet I'd never seen it from that perspective. It all looked so familiar, and yet it felt like it belonged to someone else. I realized that my new body was now my home. I realized that I literally fled to its safety during the operation. But more than safety, my new body felt like the home I had always wanted. It was where I could be comfortable. Although I'd only been Dana for a couple of hours, it almost felt like I'd always been a girl. The man on the table looked familiar, but he might as well have been a stranger to me. I could never, ever go back. I was home.

I turned to Thomas and asked, "What do you do with him?"

"I think you specified cremation. After that, interment. Just as if he had died normally."

I looked at him again. "He feels like someone else to me, Thomas. He doesn't feel like I ever used to be him."

"That's a good thing," Thomas assured me. "It means the transplant is working. So you don't feel like you left anything behind?"

"No. I mean, I'm sad. I can't help thinking about what it was like... being a man. But it just seems like that was another life. And, now... It feels like I've been in this body... all my life. Even though it's only been a couple of hours. It just feels like who I am. This used to be me," I said, pointing at the body on the table. "But it isn't anymore. If you go back to my analogy about the old house, it feels like it already belongs to someone else."

As we went back to Thomas's lab, we passed a mirror. I saw myself for the first time and had to stop. "Oh my god! Is that me?" I asked in surprise. I was looking at a beautiful young woman in a hospital gown. She shifted and moved slightly, in total sync with my thoughts. I watched myself some more, as Thomas looked on. Finally I turned to him excitedly and said, "I need a mirror with a little privacy for a few minutes. I have to get a good look at myself."

Thomas grinned. He'd been expecting that. He took me to a small bathroom just off the lab, where a full length mirror had been set up. My clothes were hanging on a hook by the mirror and my underthings were on the counter. "Why don't you take some time getting to know your new body? Then put on your clothes and we'll go to lunch."

I stepped inside and started to close the door. "Take your time," he said. "I'll be in my office. Anytime you're ready."

I took my time. I spent several minutes just looking at myself in the hospital gown. The gown wasn't flattering, and yet I realized that I looked very cute and sexy despite that. I studied the way my hair fell, experimenting with various styles, draping it straight back, and then over my shoulders. I realized that I could use my hair to cover my breasts if I wanted.

I stepped closer and looked at my face. I recognized it as the same face we had designed on the computer. I slowly studied my eyebrows, and then my eyes, followed by cheeks and nose and then my mouth and chin. Everything was perfect. I smiled, trying to find a facial expression that fit my mood and flattered me the most. It would be my default expression, I imagined. I looked at my teeth, my perfectly straight, white teeth, and then stuck my tongue out. It was so small – a girl tongue, I realized. All my parts, I realized, were girl parts. I really was a girl.

I stepped back. "Okay, Miss Transplant, if you're so convinced you're a real girl now... Prove it!" I dared myself to strip in front of the mirror.

I slowly untied the gown behind my neck, and then found the tie behind my back and undid it. I shimmied the gown lower and lower, teasing myself as I slowly revealed first the tops of my new breasts and then the whole things. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Breasts! I pulled the gown up slightly, and tightly to my chest, showing just the tops of my breasts again. I even had the cleavage that I'd always found so sexy. I turned back and forth and stared at myself, getting different views.

"Oh God! I've got boobs." I whispered.

I pulled the gown down to my waist and stared at my nipples. They were so small and pink, barely any bigger than the nipples on my old body. But my new nipples stuck out further. They were, unquestionably, girl nipples.

I lowered the gown a little further and looked at my tummy and my tiny waist. No question there. That was definitely a girl's waist. With a feeling of excitement building in my tummy, I kept lowering the gown. The girl in the mirror mimicked my movements, slowly undressing as I watched. I watched as her hips began to emerge beneath the tiny waist. I couldn't believe how much wider my hips were than my waist. No wonder girls always felt so sensitive about their hips.

Finally I begin to see the wisps of pubic hair as my pussy emerged. I paused a moment, revealing it slowly, almost positive that a penis would suddenly appear if I lowered the gown far enough. It didn't. Even after I'd let the gown fall all the way to the floor and spread my legs apart. As a transvestite, I many times would hide my penis between my legs, tucking it back and up. By spreading my legs, I was proving to myself that I wasn't hiding anything. It really was gone, replaced by a beautiful woman's vagina.

I was totally stunned. I mean, having breasts is one thing. But what I was looking at just then was quite another.

For a moment, my thoughts were filled not by what I WAS seeing, but by what I WASN'T seeing. For fifty years, there'd been a shaft of flesh sticking out of my lower body just above my legs, with a ball sack hanging beneath it. Not anymore. I turned and look at myself sideways, thrusting my hips forward, as if I was thrusting out the penis I remembered having. There was nothing there. I was completely flat. I turned back to the mirror and stepped closer to it. "You, girl, don't have a penis anymore," I whispered to my reflection. She grinned back at me with a happiness that only she and I truly understood.

"Okay, I'm starting to believe," I told my reflection. "So... show me what you do got then. Lets see your cunt, you little slut."

I found a chair and sat down, spreading my legs wide and opening myself up to peer inside. "That is definitely a pussy," I said. I touch the wetness inside. "Oh God!"

I opened myself wider, moving closer to the mirror so I could see everything. I found my clitoris and exposed it to the air. I could literally feel and see it throbbing. I touched it softly. The default nerve endings in my new brain matched perfectly, and the lightest touch was both thrilling and intense. I started playing with myself, alternating between rubbing the area right around my clitoris, shielding it from direct pressure by using the soft, puffy mounds of flesh at the top of my vagina slit, and gentle stroking of my clitoris itself, followed by inserting a finger into my vagina.

It was my first time masturbating as a woman, but I had no trouble finding the techniques that felt best to me. I found myself enjoying it immensely, and decided I wanted to give myself an orgasm. I got off the chair and turned around. I bent over at the waist and watched my fingers reaching between my legs to massage my female genitalia from behind. As I did, I got a good look at my cute, sexy ass. I started thinking about a man seeing me in this position, and how aroused it might get him. I imagined my fingers were his cock. I started breathing heavily, and said, "God, yes, Thomas, do it to me. Stick your cock inside me. God yes, right there. Put it inside me."

The words, I realized, felt completely natural and unforced. I wanted a man's cock inside me. It's the way I was built. It was completely natural for me, a young, attractive female, to want a man's cock inside her.

"Deeper," I breathed, urging my imaginary lover to press his imaginary cock further inside me. My fingers did what I would have my lover's cock do, filling me as deeply as they could. I sensed that a cock, so much bigger and thicker, would feel quite different. But that was enough for then. I rubbed my thumb across my clit and shivered. I was so close.

"Fuck me!" I said loudly, loving the way the words sound coming out of me in that lovely soprano voice. "Fuck me, Thomas." Saying his name out loud made it more real, and soon I had pushed myself over the edge. I shivered and shook. For a moment I worried that I might be experiencing the first symptoms of transplant rejection. It felt like my tummy wanted to turn itself inside out. It was like I wanted more sensations and less at the same time. I paused and the feeling subsided.

"Dang!" I whispered. I realized that I had to keep going through the sensation of wanting it to stop if I wanted to give myself an orgasm. A guy wouldn't pull his cock out at that point, I realized. I tried again, building up to the climactic moment once more. This time, as the trembling started, I mashed my thumb down on my clitoris and jammed it up against my pubic bone. I gasped. I wanted to stop, but I knew I had to continue if I wanted an orgasm. I rolled the tiny, sensitive bud back and forth over the bone, sending rolls of pleasure sensations through my legs, which were getting weaker. I thought of changing positions, but it was too late. I was going to cum that way. I mashed my thumb down again across my clit and felt my body buck in response.

The feelings were intense. Not as intense as a male orgasm, surprisingly, but much more spread out. It was like my whole body was having an orgasm, not just the one part. Or at least parts of my body. I felt it in my tummy, and in my legs, and in my nipples, and in my face. My eyes were closed and I bit my lips softly to keep from screaming. Why did I care? I let a soft cry of pleasure come out, "Oh God, yeah."

I rolled my hips up and down, grinding my hips across my masturbating fingers. I shivered again. I had to stop. The feelings were just too intense. I stopped. "No, Keep going." I mashed my clit again and gasped once more. "That's it. That's it. Just let it happen." Another shiver went through me.

I suddenly realized the problem with a woman's orgasm compared to a man's. A man knows when he's finished - semen comes out of his penis and that's the end. As a woman, there was a feeling that led up to that same moment, but where I was expecting some physical sign that I was finished, nothing was happening. The feelings just got too intense. I realized that if I were a man, I'd be squirting cum at that point, and my orgasm would be over. As a woman, all I could do was keep pushing myself up to that point, shiver and tremble as my body tried to find some kind of relief, and then collapse back as the feelings subsided and I stopped what I was doing.

In a way, I decided, it was frustrating as hell. "I can't cum." I whimpered. But in another way, it was better. I could stay at that climactic point longer, and keep pushing myself over that edge several times before I'd had enough. Multiple orgasms. I finally quit when I was just too tired to do any more. By that time, my legs had collapsed and I was kneeling on the floor with my head on the chair.

For a moment I just knelt there, catching my breath. Then I shifted my position so that I could look at myself in the mirror. I loved the way my legs looked, curled beneath me. I looked at the curve of my bare butt, and the curve of my hips. I looked at my breasts, provocatively dangling from my chest. My reflection looked flushed. I had that just-fucked look. I smiled. I was sexy.

After a few minutes, I put on my clothes. I snugged my panties up and reveled in the flatness of my front. I put on my bra, happy about the way it cupped my breasts. I felt the bite of straps in my shoulders and on my back. For someone who had always wanted to wear a bra, and now had a reason for doing so, it was a good feeling. I paused in just my underwear for a minute, looking. It was not my first time in girls' underwear. But it was my first time wearing girls' underwear in a girl's body. As a man, wearing girl things was somewhat disconcerting. You had to learn to look past the surface image to the image beneath. Now, the surface image was totally in sync with that inner image.

I finished dressing, putting on the skirt and then the blouse. I left it unbuttoned to just above my bra, allowing part of my new breasts to show. I cinched up the belt. It was still surprising how small my waist was. I put on the boots. They felt so sexy – like a hug all the way from my toes to my knees. Fully dressed, I looked at myself in the mirror. I twirled the skirt slightly. "Wow!" is all I could say. "I'm a girl!"

A few minutes later I was in Thomas's office. He was telling me how good I looked as we prepared to go to lunch. My first meal as a girl. "So, How are you feeling now?" he asked for the umpteenth time. He had to worry about my transplant failing. I knew that would never happen. I loved being a girl.

I smiled and said, "I keep thinking of that Shania Twain song."

He cocked his head, not understanding.

"Man, I feel like a woman!"