The Sacred Cozumel Cenote

The Sacred Cozumel Cenote By Deane Christopher e-mail: deanechris5@msn.com

NOTE: "For the Maya, Cozumel was considered a sacred island. Pilgrimages from all over the Mesoamerica came to honor Ix Chel, goddess of fertility, childbirth, medicine, and the moon. Every Mayan woman was expected once in her lifetime to make the perilous journey from the mainland to the island by large dugout canoes to visit the site."

"You're mad, aren't you?"

"You think?" Sean's wife sarcastically snapped. "You do realize that this was supposed to be our second honeymoon? I mean, our first one was a complete disaster, given the fact that it got cut short because the Feds impounded our cruise ship and we ended up having to pay our own way home the Virgin Islands?"

"But that wasn't my fault!" a beleaguered Sean registered a complaint. "How's was I to know that the cruise line owed all those back taxes?"

"Okay!" Kimberly, who was by no means finished giving her husband a good piece of her mind, irately fumed. "I'll grant you that wasn't you're fault. But this time it is your fault and as you can tell, I'm not very happy about it! The guy at the dive shop was very specific. He told you that the Ix Chel Cenote was off limits to divers. But would you listen to him? No! You're the big bad Florida cave diver! You weren't about to let anybody tell you were you could dive."

"Yeah," Sean, endeavoring to find some wiggle-room, contritely countered, "But how the hell was I to know something like this was going happen? I mean, you didn't believe that crap that our guide at the San Gervasio Ruins was feeding us anymore than I did."

"True..." Kimberly had to admit that her husband was indeed correct. Like Sean, she had thought the Legend of the Ix Chel Cenote was just a lot of nonsense, nothing more than a cute tale cooked up by the locals to keep the tourists entertained. "But we now know differently, don't we?"

Sitting there, with the cheeks of that pert derriere of hers precariously perched on the leading edge of one of their room's ladder-back chairs, her legs splayed wide and employing the mirror contained in her wife's compact to scope out that new genitalia of hers, a thoroughly dejected Sean sighed, "Yeah... I guess we do at that."

Sean's ignominious and unexpected decent into the world of the feminine mystique began several days earlier. The whole thing started when the couple arrived on the Tropical Island and Diver's Paradise of Cozumel, Mexico.

Since it had been five years since that aborted cruise ship honeymoon of theirs, Sean and Kimberly Young had wanted to make the most of their two-week vacation on the Island of Cozumel. Since they were both avid scuba divers, their vacation was ostensibly a dive vacation. However, during their stay, they planned on taking in several of the island's Mayan ruins, primarily the San Gervasio Ruins. Sean, a certified and highly experienced cave diver, having read several articles about Cozumel's extensive underwater cave system, had expressed an interest in diving a couple of the cenotes while there were there. Kim, who was claustrophobic, said that it was okay with her if Sean took a day or two to dive a couple of the island's cenotes, just as long as he didn't go overboard with it and didn't expect her to join him in the endeavor. While she said she might snorkel in the cenotes, Kim made it perfectly clear that she was not about to dive them. She was up front about it. She would tag along and play bubble-watcher, but she was adamant that she was not going allow her husband to bully her into diving anywhere where there was not a clear unimpeded path to the surface.

Their first full day after their arrival, shortly after a hardy breakfast, Sean and Kim lugged their gear down to the resort's main pier. There, along with about fourteen other divers, they piled abroad one of the resort's dive boats. Pulling away from the pier, the boat came about and headed south, paralleling the shoreline that lay off to port. After a short boat ride and prior to anyone entering the water, the dive master, who looked to be more Mayan than Mexican, informed the group that they would be diving Palancar Reef. Having said that, the dive master continued on to explain that their first dive would be to a depth not to exceed 80 feet, adding that their second dive would be to a shallower depth, with that depth not to exceed 50 feet. At the conclusion of the briefing and with the dive master's blessings, everyone donned their scuba systems, and without too much of a hassle, managed to enter the water in reasonable good fashion.

Though Cozumel's swift currents could prove to be somewhat disconcerting for someone experiencing them for the first time, once a diver became acclimated to them, diving Cozumel's leeward shore was some of the easiest and most exhilarating diving in the world. Once on the reef, a diver did not have to exert almost any energy. All that was required of the diver was to put enough air into his or her BC (buoyancy compensator) to achieve neutral buoyancy and the current would simply carry the diver along. Sean referred to it as Peter Pan Diving, owing to the fact that one did not have to kick much at all. Once neutrally buoyant, the diver merely glided alongside of the reef.

Having spent their morning diving, Kimberly suggested that they avail themselves of resort's shuttle service and spend their afternoon checking out the San Gervasio Ruins. Sean, eager to see the ruins himself, readily agreed.

It was while they were traipsing about at the San Gervasio Ruins that Kim and Sean first heard the Legend of the Ix Chel Cenote. As they toured the ruins, the guide leading their group explained that Cozumel was a sacred island in the Mayan Culture and that was dedicated to worship of Ix Chel, goddess of fertility, childbirth, medicine, and the moon. Having laid the groundwork, their guide continued on to explain how every Mayan female was expected to make the perilous pilgrimage to the island at least once in their lifetime. And a perilous journey it must have been, owing to the fact that the passage from the mainland to the island was made in large dugout canoes.

Then, having given Kim and Sean's tour group a concise overview of how the Island of Cozumel functioned in the Mayan Culture, their guide, a consummate entertainer, began to humorously expound on some of the more outlandish tales that comprised the mythology that was part of the island's colorful culture. And that is how Sean first came to learn of the existence of the Ix Chel Cenote and the large freshwater cavern that it granted access to.

As the guide lead the tour group back to the entrance gate, he told them the rather amusing tale that was linked to the Ix Chel Cenote. According to his tale, a tale that their guide laced with a lot of rather humorous sexual innuendo, the only men that the Maya allowed to set foot on Cozumel were the eunuch priests of the goddess Ix Chel. All others were strictly verboten. However, from time to time some of the young Mayan bucks on the mainland would paddle out to the island during the dead of the night, their hope being to link up with some of the women and thereby have their carnal needs assuaged. Though many were successful in doing just that, from time to time some of these young Mayan warriors were caught in the snares of Ix Chel's eunuch priests. Once caught, the unfortunate young men were forcible taken to the Ix Chel Cenote where they were thrown into the crystal clear waters of the cenote on the night of a full moon. And though they entered the pool as males, legend has it that they emerged from the pool as lovely young females.

Needless to say that Sean was intrigue, not by the guide's absurd tale about men being change into women, but by something else the guide had mentioned in passing about the Ix Chel Cenote. Though the cenote was seldom dove, the guide alluded to his understanding that the cenote opened into a huge and spectacular cavern just a few feet below the surface. While it cost him an extra twenty dollar tip on top of the twenty he had already forked out, Sean persuaded their guide to give him directions to both the Ix Chel Cenote and a local dive shop that catered to cave divers.

No sooner had they climbed back into the van for the ride back to their resort, Sean asked the obligatory question, "So, what did you think of the ruins? Was San Gervasio all that it was cracked up to be?"

"Yes. I mean, I know that Stan and Beverly weren't impressed with the place when they were here a couple of years ago, but I sure enjoyed it. In fact, I liked them a lot and I'm sure glad that we took the time to go see 'em." Kim began thumbing through a book on Cozumel's Mayan Ruins that she had just purchased at the souvenir stand that was situated just outside of the gates of the San Gervasio Ruins.

"So, what did you think about our guide?"

"Oh, him, he was great..."

Several minutes later, Sean who couldn't get the notion of diving the Ix Chel Cenote out of his mind, inquired, "Hey, by any chance does that book of yours happen to mention the Ix Chel Cenote?"

"Funny you should ask," Kim replied without lifting her eyes from the page she was perusing. "Would you believe that I was just now reading the couple paragraphs that recounted pretty much the same story that our guide told us?"

"You mean, the one about how those Mayan priests used the cenote to turn men into woman?"

"Yup!" Kim didn't stop reading.

"By any chance does that book tell you where that cenote is located?"

"I'm sure it does. I mean, I saw a map with a lot of numbers on it and since the write-up for the Ix Chel Cenote is number seventeen, I would tend to think that it does..."

Eager to see if the Ix Chel Cenote was indeed marked on the map, Sean asked, "Hey, do you mind if I take a look?"

"Sure, dear... As soon as I finished with it..."

That night, after a very tasty dinner, the two stopped at the resort's dive shop and reserved two tanks for the night dive they planed to make in the resort's small manmade lagoon. Having done that, they headed up to their room to change and get their gear together.

The dive was very pleasant, relaxing, and owing to the lagoon's shallow depth of fifteen feet max, a fairly long one, lasting a good hour and a half. Kim loved playing with all the critters. She especially enjoyed the arrow crabs, puffer fish, the small octopuses and the ridged triangular bodied cowfish. Though it was not ecologically correct, Kim was in her glory when she got an octopus to ink her.

After the dive, they stashed their dive gear in the lockers provided and headed back up to their room. There, they showered and dressed. Feeling invigorated, they headed down to the lounge for a mixed drink. After that, it was back to the bedroom, where they spent the next hour making passionate love.

The following morning was pretty much a repeat of the preceding morning, save that instead of heading south, their boat headed north for La Ceiba Reef. Added to that, their first dive was twenty feet deeper than the deep dive of the day before, while their second dive was conducted at the shallower depth of no more than thirty feet at its deepest.

After lunch, on Kim's suggestion, they flagged a taxi and spent a pleasant afternoon playing tourist and browsing the shops of San Miguel de Cozumel, the island's one and only town. Not one for marathon shopping, Sean had an ulterior motive for spending a good part of the afternoon in the town of San Miguel. The dive shop that catered to cave divers was located on a side street just off the main thoroughfare.

Knowing that his wife would be both busy and content checking out a few of the clothing stores, Sean set his course for the dive shop that the guide at San Gervasio Ruins had told him about the previous day. Informing the shop's proprietor that he was a not only a certified cave diver, but a fairly experienced one as well, Sean expressed an interest in diving a few of Cozumel's cenotes. The proprietor, a former Florida cave diver himself, was more than happy to provide Sean with a rundown on the available sites. Having gleamed a few names of the more popular cenotes from a publication he had glanced at while waiting to reserve cylinders the evening before, Sean nonchalantly slipped the Ix Chel Cenote into middle of those cenotes he made passing mention of. However, taking note of the way the dive shop owner grimaced at his mere mention of the Ix Chel Cenote, Sean thought it best not to press his luck. Since it appeared that diving the Ix Chel Cenote was frowned upon, there was no need to alert anyone to what he had in mind.

"So, what's the damage?" Kim asked when Sean caught up with her husband. "How much is it going cost us to rent all the extra gear you're going to need?"

"Well, seeing that I brought my helmet light and cave reel with me, you know, in the off-chance that I could manage to get in a cave dive or two while we're down here, and seeing that I'm planning on using your regulator on the pony-bottle that I reserved for tomorrow, I seriously doubt that what I've spent on my dive comes even close to how much you just spent on whatever you've got in those bags of yours..."

That evening was pretty much a carbon copy of the preceding one, save that Kimberly managed to thoroughly piss-off not one, but a grand total of two octopuses during the course of their evening dive in the resort's lagoon.

Since they had not scheduled a boat dive for the next morning, they slept-in for an extra hour. They ate a buffet breakfast on the veranda and then Sean packed his dive bag with all the equipped he would need. While her husband was busy doing that, Kim got together her snorkeling gear, plus some towels, sun block, a book, and other various items that she thought she might need. Picking up the keys for the jeep that Sean had rented for the day at the front desk, they headed out to the perking lot. There, they loaded their equipment into the jeep, and with Sean behind the wheel; headed north to the town of San Miguel. After a quick stop at the dive shop to collect the cylinders and pony-bottle Sean had reserved, they headed out of town on the Carretera Transversal (Cross Island Road).

A few miles east of San Miguel, Sean made a left, prompting Kim to inquire, "Isn't this the road to the San Gervasio Ruins?"

"Yes. It most certainly is. Do me a favor. Keep a lookout for a dirty road that should be coming up on our left. "According to the map, it leads to the Santa Rita Ruins."

"There's a cenote there?" Kim was dubious.

"No. But, the one I'm looking for shouldn't be more than a half a mile beyond them."

"And exactly which cenote are we looking for?"

"The Ix Chel Cenote."

"So, I take it that you aren't deterred by the Legend of the Ix Chel Cenote?" Kim giggled at the absurdity of it all.

"No. Why? Should I be?" Sean began to laugh along with his wife.

"No. Not in least," Kim, enjoying the jest, playfully teased. "In fact, it might be an improvement if you did become a woman..."

About a half mile passed the Santa Rita Ruins they came upon a small pull-off that could hold two vehicles and what appeared to be a trailhead leading back into the mangroves. Sean parked the jeep and climbed out. Seeing a few spent chemical light sticks and some broken wire-ties lying on the ground, Sean began to pick up the trash left by other divers. "This must be the place. Tell you what, why don't you stay here and keep and eye on our stuff? I'm going to go see just how far we're going to have to lug the equipment."

"Good news!" Sean beamed upon returning to the clearing. "It can't be more than a hundred feet."

Sean, aware that Kim wanted them to do the beach-thing that afternoon, wasted no time in assembling his dive gear. Then, before donning his equipment and slipping into inviting crystal clear water of the Ix Chel Cenote, he secured the running end of his wreck-reel to a nearby mangrove tree. Checking his watch, Sean told Kim, "It's nine-twenty. I'll be back here in twenty minutes tops. So, if I'm not back up by nine-forty five..."

"I know!" Kim interjected. "Get help."

"I love you." Sean said as he began to vent air from his BC.

"Be safe." Kin murmured as her husband's head slipped beneath the surface.

If anything, Sean was a safe diver. In fact most of the people he had dove with over the years thought him to be too safe. Though many would say that entering a cave alone was asking for trouble, Sean did not see it that way. He knew his own limitation. He also knew that panic, over everything else, was the thing that killed cave divers. Not once, but on two separate occasions, Sean had come face to face with the Grim Reaper while cave diving in the springs of Northern Florida. On both of those occasions it was because a guy he was diving with had come close to panicking. Ever since then, aware of the risks he was taking, Sean preferred to go it alone.

Fifteen feet down, Sean saw the entrance. He considering removing his system and swimming it through ahead of him, but after closer inspection decided that while it would be a tight squeeze, he could manage it just fine as it was. Flipping on two of the three lights affixed to his helmet, Sean kicked himself into the narrow passage that broke to the right and slated down at about a fifteen-degree angle.

Two body lengths in, the tunnel floor fell away, opening into a huge cavern that reminded Sean of Florida's Ginnie Springs, save that Ix Chel appeared to Sean to be almost three times the size of Ginnie Springs' cavern. Checking to make sure that his safety line had not snagged or severed on the way in, Sean, clearing his ears as he went, began to descend the slope of limestone rubble that had once been part of the cavern' roof. The cave bottomed out at a depth of sixty-two feet. Sean checked both his watch and his pressure gauge. Though he had plenty of air left in his tank, he was due back on the surface in fourteen minutes. It was time to begin his ascent. Though he continually kept track of the time he had left, Sean made a grudgingly slow ascent as he weaved back and forth over the rock-pile rubble of the slope he had descend down only moments before. At a depth of twenty-five feet, Sean saw something glitter off to his left when his helmet lights passed over it. Though he would have like to check it out, he thought better of it. There was no need to cause Kim any undo alarm.

Kim, who had decided to snorkel while her husband was exploring the underwater cavern, must have been watching for him, because she was there to greet him as he emerged from the constricted entrance. She gave him a wave and with an energetic dolphin kick of those long and lovely legs of hers, headed for the surface. Sean, after a three-minute safety stop on the sandy bottom that lay just outside of the cave's entrance, joined her on the surface.

"So, how was it?" Kim asked the obligatory question.

"Fantastic! It's like a huge underwater amphitheater in there!"

"So, are you going to make a second dive?"

"Yeah... I thought I saw something on my out at around twenty-five feet that I want to check out."

Kim was intrigued. "So, what was it?"

"I don't know. That's why I want to check it out. But what I can tell you, it seem to glittered like gold."

"Yeah! Right!" Kim had to laugh. "Gold my ass! You just made that up so that I wouldn't give you a fit about making another dive..."

But, it was gold. Sean's eyes had not deceived him. Sticking out from under a piece of limestone about the size and shape of mashed-in football were several links of what appeared to Sean to be a golden chain. Moving the rock and fanning away some of the sand, Sean was surprise to find that the chain was part of a necklace, a necklace set with half a dozen emeralds. Placing the necklace gingerly in the pocket of his BC, Sean prudently checked both his air and his bottom time. Having done so, aware that he plenty to spare of both, he began to broaden his search in the hopes that he might come across some other trinkets. In the next ten minutes, Sean had found another necklace, two rings and four bracelets.

"You do realize that we're not going to be able to keep 'em, don't you? I mean, they're clearly Mayan." Sean pointed out the obvious as he started the jeep.

"Not even one of the rings, you know, as sort of a finders fee?" Kim pretended to pout.

A short time later, as Sean headed west on the Carretera Transversal towards the town of San Miguel, Kim looked up into an almost cloudless sky. "Well would you look at that! It's practically noon, and I'm be damned if we haven't got us a full moon."

"Yeah..." Sean concurred. "Kind of neat isn't it. Funny, but I'll bet you a lot of people think that the moon only comes out at night..."

They dropped off the rental gear at the dive shop in San Miguel and then headed back to their resort. Though they stored most of their diving gear in the lockers provided, Sean surreptitiously removed the jewelry from the pocket of his BC and carefully placed it into Kim's tote bag. Once in their room, they took a few minutes to examine the jewelry and then prudently locked it away in their room's safe along with their passports and travelers checks. Lunch followed and then they were off again to spend a lazy, but nonetheless, thoroughly enjoyable day at the beach.

It was while they were at the beach that Sean began to evidence the first signs that something unusual was going on with his body. On three separate occasions in the space of an hour, he uncontrollably shuddered as cool shivers raced helter-skelter about his body.

An hour after that, Kim took note that her husband had begun to do two things that struck her as being rather odd. Every so often, he would use the palm of his to hand to rub to his chest. Added to that, he also began to reach down to his crotch as if to adjust the deployment of his genitalia in his bathing suit. "Sean, is there something wrong? Are you feeling okay?"

Puzzled, Sean replied, "Yeah... Sure... I'm feeling fine. Why do you ask?"

Kim explained what had lead to her concern and then inquired, "You don't think you're suffering from a mild nitrogen hit, do you?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I haven't even come close to pushing the no-decompressions limits the whole time we've been here. Plus, I've been keep my ascent rate way under the limits." He stood up. "But tell you what, just to be on the safe side, take a look and see if I've got anything that looks like a rash."

Pam did as Sean asked. "No... I don't see any evidence of a rash. How 'bout joint pain? Are you feeling any?'

Sean flexed his hands, knees, elbows, and toes. "Everything feels fine. No pain whatsoever."

"All right..." Kim guardedly replied. "But if you do feel anything out of the ordinary, you will let me know, right?"

"Sure... But trust me. There's nothing to worry about. I'm perfectly okay..."

Though he was sure he wasn't suffering from the bends, as soon as they got back from the beach, Sean headed for the locker where his dive gear was stored. There, he checked both the dive computer that was housed in his console and the back-up computer that was wire-tied to his BC to make doubly sure that he had not exceed his no-decompression limits. Then, after he checked them, knowing that his wife had begun to worry, he had Kim check them as well. Everything looked okay. Both he and Kim were satisfied that he had dove well within the no-decompressions limits. However, though they had planned another night dive in the resort's lagoon, they both agree that it would be best to forgo the dive just to be on the safe side.

Knowing that a hot shower could bring on the onset of decompression sickness (the bends), Sean showered with tepid water. "Hey, honey!" he called to his wife. "I think I know what's wrong. I think I may have gotten a little too much sun this afternoon."

"Hmmm... Could be... But as tan as you were before we came down here, I wouldn't think that you'd burn."

Sean did not think so either. But if it helped to set his wife's mind at ease to think that he may have gotten a little too much sun, it was all well and good as far as he was concerned. Sean knew that his wife tended to be a worrywart. The last thing Sean needed or wanted was to upset her to the point where she began to mother him.

A few minutes later, as Sean was toweling off, Kim, who was about to take her own shower, commented, "Well, while I don't see any redness, your chest does seem to be a little puffy..."

A quick glance at the mirror mounted above the sink confirmed that his wife was right. His chest did appear to be a little swollen. Added to that, Sean's nipples, or rather the areolas surrounding his nipples, seemed to be a tad bit larger and slightly darer in coloration than he remembered them being. 'Damn!' he thought when he touched his nipples. 'They're really sensitive!'

"You know, it could be something that I ate..."

"That's true..." Kim readily agreed.

After dinner, on Kim's suggestion, they took a relaxing dip in the resort's pool. Then, it was back to their room where they polished off the pina coladas that they had purchased at the poolside bar.

"So, what do you say we hit the sack?" Kim suggested as she began to pull down the covers on her side of the bed.

"While I'm tired, I'm afraid I'm not really sleepy yet." Sean, not picking up on his wife's implication, replied.

"Who said anything about sleep?" Kim, playing the part of the sex-crazed vixen to the hilt, mischievously teased.

Sean, not about to miss out on an opportunity to make love to his wife, quickly joined Kim in bed.

Taking it slow, Sean, who thoroughly enjoyed putting his wife's needs before his own, kissed and caressed Kim into a full-blown state of sexually arousal. Then, knowing that she was primed and ready, he moved into the splay of hers legs and began to administer the selfless act of cunnilingus. Tongue swipe followed tongue swipe, driving Kim to the brink of rapture of multi-orgasmic splendor, and from there into the warm-fuzzes of orgasmic afterglow.

Generally, once she thought herself recovered enough to attend to her husband's needs, Kim would encourage Sean to enter her. However, on this particular night, when she reached down to help guide her husband's blood engorged shaft into the satin slick well of her womanhood, Kim was both shocked and dismayed to find that her husband's manhood had not as yet risen to the occasion. Sean's penis was flaccid. And not only did she find it to be both limp and lifeless, it felt smaller than it had every felt before.

There had never been an incident of Sean being impotent before.

Kim, desperate to get a rise out of her husband, began to gentle stroke and caress his penis. It worked. Sean began to get an almost immediate erection. Then, in an effort to move things along, Kim went down on Sean and began to perform fellatio on her husband.

"Holy shit that fells good!" Sean squealed in a manner reminiscent of how Kin squealed whenever Sean went down on her. "Shit! It always been sensitive, but it's never been anywhere near as sensitive as it feels now!"

Hearing that buoyed Kim's spirits. She was really glad that her husband was enjoying her oral administrations, owing to the fact that the last thing she wanted to have to do was to inform him that his penis felt a lot smaller in her mouth than it ever had before did. And that impression of Kim was only reinforced when Sean entered her. The penetration was no where near as deep as normal was.

Oddly enough, what Sean's manly member lack in stature, in Kim's mind it sure made up for in the amount a semen it pumped into her, onto her and all over the sheets. It went everywhere.

"Damn, Sean! What the shit's going on here? I've never seen so much semen before in my life..."

They both needed another shower. That and a few more towels, owing to the fact that neither one of them wanted to sleep in the huge wet spot that Sean had made of their bed. "Sean, while I'm in the shower, be a dear and run down to the pool and get us some more towels?"

"Hey, Kim!" Sean said as he prodded his chest with his fingers. "Does my chest look more swollen to you than it did earlier?"

While she thought it looked a good deal more swollen than it had earlier, Kim, not wishing to be an alarmist, replied, "Yeah... A little... Does it hurt?"

"No... Not at all... It doesn't hurt a bit. Oddly enough, my nipples feel a lot more sensitive then the ever have before."

"Is that a good sensitive, or a bad sensitive?" Kim felt compelled to inquire.

"Actually, they feel pretty good. Want to give them try?" he teased.

"And risk being doused by another semen deluge? I think not..."

It was just a little after three when Kim was startled awake by her badly shaken husband. "Kim!" Sean strained and troubled voice, being neither male nor female, eerily straddled the gender gap. "I think I have a serious problem."

Kim scrambled out of bed and turned on the lights. The sight she saw unnerved her to no end. She never doubted for one moment that the person lying next to her on the bed was her husband. In fact, she knew that the person was her husband. The resemblance was undeniable. It was Sean all right, but it was an androgynous Sean, with nubbins of an adolescent girl's and the genitalia the size and disposition of a male toddler's.

"Sean!" Kim exclaimed in a near panic. "The legend! It's got to be the legend! As crazy as it might be, you're changing! You're turning into a girl!"

"Yeah... I kind of figured that one out all on my own."

"Are you experiencing any pain?"

"No... Surprisingly, I'm not feeling any pain at all. However, there's a weird, almost sensual tingling sensation that's centered in and a round my groin and chest. Oh, and every now and again, I experience a mild twinge of discomfort, as if my body is somehow redistributing itself..."

Sean's body continued to change as his wife looked on in shocked amazement. "You know, Kim, as much as I hate to say this, it might be a good idea if you take some pictures. I mean, if this, what ever it is that's happening to me, can't be reversed, we're going to have to somehow prove to the authorities, both here and back home, that I really am who I claim to be."

Knowing that her husband's suggestion was an extremely prudent one, Kim grabbed her camera and started shooting pictures, taking four or five roughly every few minutes: a full frontal view, a side view, a close-up of Sean's face and one of her husband's genitals as well.

At three thirty, Sean's male genitalia were the size of newborn infant's and while there was no new discernable orifice present, traces of lateral ridgelines could clearly be distinguished.

The same could not be said fifteen minutes later. All traces of Sean's male genitalia had disappeared, replaced by a female's vulva. Though she felt really funny about doing so, Kim had her husband lay down on the bed and open her legs as far as she could. Then, Kin got up close and personal with the major components of Shawn's new sexuality. It was all there. mons veneris, labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, urethra, and bring up the rear, the perineum.

Likewise, those nubbins of Shawn's had continued to bulge outward. Though they were nothing to write home about, there was no denying the fact that Shawn had begun to evidence a little cleavage.

While she was still rather gangly and ill proportioned, by four-fifteen no one would ever mistake Shawn for being anything other than the woman she had become. By four-thirty, her body had begun to show signs of developing a nice hourglass figure. Those developing manly love handles of hers were gone. Her tummy paunchy had flattened. Her hips had widened. And that manly ass had of hers and begun to pleasantly round into the tantalizing promise of a well-hung derriere.

It was approaching four-thirty when an astonished Kim directed, "Stand up for me, Shawn. I want to see something."

Shawn did as Kim directed; only to hear her wife excitedly exclaim, "Well, I'll be! Not only have you become a girl, but you've shrunk as well! I'd say that you're about the same height as I am, perhaps even a half an inch shorter..."

By the time five o'clock had rolled around, there was no denying that Shawn had developed into a moderately attractive young lady. By five-fifteen, she would have been considered by most people to be pretty. Fifteen minutes after that, she had gone from being merely pretty to being beautiful. By six, Shawn was an absolute stunner, in that she was gorgeous to the nth degree, with a body that wouldn't quit. One might even go so far to say that she was the amalgamated personification of damn near every man's wet-dream come to life. Great legs! Great ass! Trim little waist! And a fantastic rack to boot! Plus, Shawn had been blessed with an angelic face with eyes that a man could well lose himself in for days on end.

"Well..." Shawn, who was not at all happy with the bizarre turn of events, was nonetheless quite taken with herself. "I guess if I'm going be to spending the rest of my life as a woman, this definitely has to be the way to go. I'll grant you that I still rather be a guy, but when it comes to looks department, this new body of mine is pretty fantastic, even if I do say so myself."

It was only then that Shawn realized that she was not the only one that had received a comprehensive beauty makeover from immersion in the crystal clear waters of the Ix Chel Cenote. "Kim, you really need to come over here and take a good look at yourself in the mirror."

"Why? Is there something wrong?"

"No, quite the contrary. You look absolutely fantastic!"

"Oh, my God!" Kim shrieked in amazement as she beheld herself in the mirror. "You're right! I'm every bit as beautiful as you are! And that's saying something..."

As one might expect, Kim was not at all happy over the fact that her husband had changed into a woman.

"You're mad, aren't you?"

"You think?" Shawn's wife sarcastically snapped. "You do realize that this was supposed to be our second honeymoon? I mean, our first one was a complete disaster, given the fact that it got cut short because the Feds impounded our cruise ship and we ended up having to pay our own way home the Virgin Islands?"

"But that wasn't my fault!" a beleaguered Shawn registered a complaint. "How's was I to know that the cruise line owed all those back taxes?"

"Okay!" Kimberly, who was by no means finished giving her husband a good piece of her mind, irately fumed. "I'll grant you that wasn't you're fault. But this time it is your fault and as you can tell, I'm not very happy about it! The guy at the dive shop was very specific. He told you that the Ix Chel Cenote was off limits to divers. But would you listen to him? No! You're the big bad Florida cave diver! You weren't about to let anybody tell you were you could dive."

Several minutes later, Kim, who was still seething, irately snapped, "Shawn! Do you know how crass that looks? It's a vagina for cristsakes! I mean, it's not like you have seen one before! So, do me a favor. Put the mirror down; close your legs, and please put something on! I know that you're quite taken with that beautiful new body of yours, but we can't have you running around naked all damn day. After all, what would the maids think if they caught you gawking at yourself like that?"

"And what, may I ask, do you suggest I wear, since all of my clothes are way to big for me now?"

Having first checked to make sure the nylon/lycra diveskin she had worn the day before was dry, Kimberly picked it up and nonchalantly tossed it to her husband. "Here, you can put that on for the time being. Later, after I get back form the ruins, I'll see what I can do to find you something else to wear. Later today, we can run up to San Miguel and pick you up a few outfits to wear. Oh, and while we're there, I guess we're going to have to pick up a few bras and panties for you as well. Plus, you'll need a couple of bathing suits..."

"Hey, Kim!" Shawn interjected. "How 'bout tossing me your other diveskin?"

"What's wrong with that one?"

"Its' pink." Shawn replied.

"So? What's wrong with pink? May I remind you, you're a girl now and we 'girls' have been known to wear pink."

Though she thought that it would probable prove to be a futile endeavored, Kim nevertheless volunteer to run out to San Gervasio Ruins by herself to see if their guide had any suggestion on how to go about helping her husband reclaim his manhood.

Upon Kim's return, Shawn, who was still dressed in her wife's lycra diveskin, anxiously inquired, "So, how'd it go? Did you mange to track our guide down?"

"Yes."

"So, what did he say?"

"Well, after he finished laughing his ass off after I filled him in on what happened to you last night, he told me that while he wasn't absolutely sure, he was of the opinion that your present condition might well be a permeate one."

Shawn, who was probably more upset at that moment with the notion that Kim had gone and told someone about what had happened to her over the fact that she was going to be spending the rest of her life as a woman, was incredulous. "You mean you told him everything?"

"I most certainly did. I told him how you rented a jeep and a couple of tanks yesterday morning and how we drove out to the Ix Chel Cenote and that you dove the cavern."

"Did you also tell him how I changed into a girl over the course of the night?"

"I sure did!" Kim smirked. "Oh, and I should tell that after he stopped laughing, he informed me that he would like to see you. He told me that wants to take some pictures of the 'new' you."

"You didn't tell him where we were staying, did you?"

"I most certainly did. In fact, he's coming by to see us this evening."

"Aw, shit! I don't what him or anyone else to see me like this"

"Settle down, Shawn. You needn't get those new titties of yours in an uproar. He's going to bring an old Mayan shaman woman he knows along with him. And if there's anyway for you to get you're manhood back, our guide assured me that this old women will know how to go about doing it."

After the guide and the old women had left that evening, Shawn dejectedly quipped, "So, it seems I'm going to be stuck like this for the rest of my life."

"I'm afraid so, dear," Kim, always the realist, somewhat reluctantly concurred.

"So, where does leave us?"

Kim sought clarification, "Are you referring to our marriage?"

"Yes. I mean when you get right down to it, we certainly aren't man and wife anymore."

"That's true. We're not. But that doesn't mean I still don't love you, because I do. I honestly don't know why I do, given how bone-headed you can be at times," Kim chuckled at her own gibe. "But regardless of that, I do love you. And as far as I'm concerned, while we might not be man and wife anymore, technically speaking, as far as I'm concerned we're still married. But, that's me. The question is: how do you feel about it? Do you still want to try and make a go of our marriage? Or, would you rather look into how we go about getting an annulment?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure what we should do, Kim. What I can tell you is that I still love you and that no matters what happens, I don't want to lose you. In other words, Kim, what I'm saying is that I want you to be part of my life and I want to be part of your life. But, the one thing I don't want to do is to screw up your life just because I was boneheaded enough to screw up my mine."

Shawn continued on to add thoughtfully, "Look, I know you want to have a couple of kids. Hell, you've already gone off the pill. The trouble is that now that I'm a woman too, I'm not going to be able to fulfill my part of the bargain. So, I guess my question is: are you going to be able to live with that?"

"You're right." Shawn had given Kim something to think about. "But, who knows, the way we've been going at it since we've been here, there's always the possibility that I could be pregnant. And, if I'm not, there's always artificial insemination to fall back on."

"Yeah... That's true..." Shawn replied thoughtfully. "There is always that. But, what about sex? Aren't you going to miss that?"

Kim got up from where she was sitting and joined Shawn on the couch. "And who say we have to stop fooling around?" With that, Kim ran her hand under the top Shawn was wearing and began to fondle one of her husband's boobs. "I have a little confession to make. Back when I was in college, I was in a lesbian relationship for the better part of my junior year with one of my sorority sisters. And though I've never told you this, from time to time I still fantasize about going one on one with another woman. So, tell you what! If you're up for it, how about I give you a hands on demonstration of how all these new girly gizmos of yours work? Then, if you're up to it, you can return the favor..."

Needless to say that by the time the two of them called it a night, Shawn was in a much better frame of mind, so much so that she actually made the comment that being a girl did have its moments.

The next morning found the couple once again in a heated debate.

"I told you last night I wasn't going diving today or any other day." Shawn was adamant.

"I don't see why not." Kimberly was determined that her husband was going diving whether she wanted to or not. "Look, you're the one who insisted that we make this a diving vacation. So, like it or not, you and I are going diving today."

"Not like this I'm not!"

"Oh, yes you are..."

It took a couple of well-placed threats on Kimberly part, but she finally managed to cajole Shawn into seeing it her way. Though they almost missed the dive boat when it came to collect them at the pier, owing to the hissy-fit Shawn gave her wife about the skimpy thong bikini that Kim demanded she wear underneath the pink diveskin, all things considered, they thoroughly enjoyed their dives.

"Did you see the way those guys were looking at us?" Shawn demanded as the two of them stepped out of the elevator.

"For your information, dear, they weren't looking. They were gawking. And give that body of yours, you'd best get use to it, because it more or less goes with the territory. Like it or not, you're a full fledge babe now. Guys are going to be ogling you from here on out..."

As one might expect, Shawn, being the new girl in town quite literally, was not all that eager to function out in the public eye as the woman she had become. Kim, on the other hand, was not about to let her husband's condition detract from their vacation one iota. While Shawn would have been perfectly happy to spend her day hidden away in their room, Kim was not about to allow her to do so.

On Kim's insistence, they continued to go boat diving every morning. Afternoons were spent either on the beach, at the resort's pool, sight-seeing, shopping in San Miguel, or a combination of two or more of those pursuits. Evenings usually saw them doing a night dive in the resort's lagoon, followed by a lot of lesbian sex in their room afterwards.

While Kim generally acquiesced to Shawn's preferences when it came to anything to do with diving, when it came to clothes shopping, she took the lead. Though Shawn tried to raise an objection every now and again concerning the clothes that Kim was picking out for her, she soon realized that her wife paid her no heed whatsoever. Shawn was going to wear what Kim wanted her to wear and that was that. And what her wife wanted Shawn to wear was on the sassy to flirtatious side of stylish.

Shawn, bothered as she was by the knowledge that she looked good enough to eat dressed as she was for dinner, sheepishly intoned "Kim, I'm not sure about this dress. It's awful revealing."

"Well, I'm am. And that's that. So, stop dawdling and put your heels on so we can get going. I'm starving."

"Do I have to wear heels? Can't I just wear those flats of yours?" Shawn dejected pleaded.

"Shawn!" Kim snapped. "We've talked about this. Put your heels on so we can get moving..."

Though she was not at all happy about it, Shawn sat down and strapped on the high-heeled sandals that Kim had picked out for her that afternoon.

"Bitch!" Shawn murmured under her breath.

"And proud of it!" Kim, enjoying the moment, chortled. "Besides, it takes one to know one. Oh, and just so you know, you do look nice. Now, grab your purse and lets get moving..."

After diner, on Kim insistence, they relocated to the establishment's bar. "Kim! Those guys are staring at us." Shawn was not at all happy about being thought of as a piece of eye-candy.

"Yeah... So?"

"Well, what do we do if they come over and offer to buy us drinks?"

"We let them. After all, it doesn't hurt to be sociable."

"Yeah..." Shawn was more than a little skeptical. "But what if they try and proposition us, you know, into going to bed with 'em?"

"Well," Kim was enjoying her husband's uneasiness, "in that case, you simply tell them thanks, but no thanks, you're simply not that kind of girl."

"And what if they're not put off so easily?"

"That's were that ring we bought you this afternoon comes into play. You simply show them your wedding band and tell them that while you've enjoyed their company, that it's getting late and that we've to get back to our hotel so we can hook up with our husbands, who should be getting back from their night dive any time now."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then, I suggest that you make sure that he uses a rubber. After all, we don't want you getting pregnant, now do we?"

"Kim!" Shawn indignantly registered protest. "That isn't the least bit funny."

"Oh, and here I thought it was hilarious. Now, put a smile on that pretty face of yours young lady, because I do believe that they're on the way over here..."

Having just climbed into a taxi for the ride back to their resort, an extremely agitated and highly perturbed Shawn irately quibbled, "Can you believe the nerve of that guy? And the way he was pawing me gave me the willies! I mean, he actually put his hand on my ass! And that pickup line he used on me was about as corny and hackneyed as they come..."

Kim was laughing far too hard to manage any kind of intelligible response. However, after she finally composed herself, Kim, who had heard enough of her husband's complaints, did the only thing that she could think of to shut Shawn up. Turning in her seat so that she faced her husband, Kim forcibly grabbed Shawn with both hands and hauled off and kissed her full on the lips.

Taken aback by Kim's overt action, a thoroughly discombobulated and sexually aroused Shawn quizzically demanded, "And what in the hell was that for?"

"That was to let you know that I love you." Kim giggled as she ran her hand up under the hem of Shawn's dress and began to tenderly caress the erogenous zone of her husband's inner thigh. "And this, young lady, is my way of showing you just how much I love you..."

Though they continued to enjoy their vacation, Shawn and Kim were both well aware of the problem they faced. Though it was 'iffy' at beast, Kim might be able to get by with her passport. However, given those highly upgraded looks of hers, if someone was to do a stare and compare with her passport picture, she could be in for a real hassle trying to convince Custom Officials that she really was Kimberly Young.

It was Shawn who was the real problem. There was no way that Shawn would make it through Customs. Aware of that, on Kim, acting on her husband's behalf, called the State Department's Overseas Citizens Services Hotline and endeavored to explain the problem they faced. Quite naturally, the woman who took Kim's call thought that it was a prank call and basically just blew Kim off and hung up on her. Kim, aware that it would be an up hill battle, called back and asked for the woman's superior. Eventually, after e-mailing all the pictures she had taken of her husband undergoing that amazing male to female transsexualization of hers, Kim got someone at the State Department to at least hear her out.

Oddly enough, no sooner had Kim hung up the phone with the State Department, two uniformed Mexican Federales, along with a Mexican Government Official in a topical business suit, showed up on their doorstep. Though the two young women were informed that they not under arrest, Kim and Shawn were told in no uncertain terms that they would have to accompany the Federales into San Miguel to clear up some matters that had been brought to the attention of the Mexican Government.

It was a long, tedious, and extremely frustrating afternoon for the two young American women. While had not been against the law to dive the Ix Chel Cenote, Kim and Shawn were initially treated as if they had done something terribly wrong.

It seemed that both their guide and the old woman who their guide had brought to see Shawn had been spreading the tale of how a gringo from the United States had dove the Ix Chel Cenote and had subsequently changed into a woman. Eventually, members of the Cozumel Police began to hear the tale, and while most discounted it, one officer who had an interest in Mayan mythology decided to look into it. Basically, what the officer did was to stop by the San Gervasio Ruins and question the guide himself. Having done that, the officer did some research only to discover that this was not the first time such an absurd tale had made the rounds. Several times over the last century the locals had made the claim that some man they knew had experienced a similar transsexualization after bathing in the Ix Chel Cenote.

Knowing that honesty was the best policy, though sorely tempted, Shawn did not lie. When the Mexican Government Official asked him if the tale was true, Shawn told him that it was. She told him without any equivocation that she had dove in the Ix Chel Cenote, and that she had in fact been a man when she dove it. However, Shawn, knowing that she might need a bargaining chip, neglected to say anything about the Mayan jewelry she had discovered inside the cavern.

Save for the jewelry issue, Shawn was up front about everything. Knowing that it might be the only way that she and Kim would be able to return home, Shawn went on to state that she would be more than happy to do whatever was necessary to help prove that she was in fact telling the truth. And that she really had been a man only a few days before.

That's when the Government Official called for the lie detector to be brought into the interrogation room.

Needless to say, both Shawn and Kim passed the lie detector test with flying colors. However, though they did, not once mind you, not even twice, but a grand total of three times that afternoon, their credibility did not follow suit. Though it did raise some eyebrows when they repeatedly passed the lie detector test like they did, no one was going to admit to believing the bizarre tale they told. As far as the authorities were concerned, men do not just up and change into a woman.

Shawn even went so far as to demand that a forensic team check out their hotel room to see if they could find any scientific proof that would backup her story. Though it came as a shock, Shawn was impressed when the Government Official nonchalantly informed her and Kim that such a search was already in the process of being conducted.

Around four, the Government Official was call out of the room to take a call from his superiors on the mainland. A half an hour later, he returned and appraised Kim and Shawn as to where the matter stood. After being fingerprinted, they would be returned to their hotel. However, they were not to leave the island. Their passport would be confiscated while the matter would undergo further scrutiny.

Having been driven back to their resort by a Federale Sargent, Kim and Shawn hoped that they would not find their room a mess.

"Shawn," Kim intoned once they had entered the elevator for the ride up to their room. "You do realize that they make have bugged our room while we were at the police station?"

"Hmmm..." Shawn pondered the matter. "There is that possibility."

"So, since you didn't say anything about the stuff that you found in the cavern while we were at the station today, I would suggest that you don't say anything about it while we're in our room."

"Yeah... That's a prudent suggestion. The problem is that they probably already found it. I mean, I think it's a safe bet that they made a thorough search of our room while we were at the station."

"True, they may have found it." Kim was cryptic. "But, then again, they might not have found it. You see, I kind of figured that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. And because I did, I thought that there was a good chance that when it did happen, they'd search our room. So, to be on the safe side, I put the stuff you found in the cavern in the Pelican Box that we use for a save-a-dive kit. Then, I stashed the box in my dive locker. So, with any luck, maybe they didn't think to search our lockers."

"Here's hoping that they didn't." Shawn optimistically replied. "That stuff may just prove to be our salvation."

"Yeah... I was kind of thinking along the same lines."

"Well, they do say that great minds think alike." Shawn playfully added.

"What about great bodies? What do they do alike?"

"Well... Off hand, I'd have to say orgasm," Shawn coquettishly chuckled. "But, just to be sure, how 'bout after our night dive, we put that supposition of mine to the test?"

"Just my luck," Kim smirked in jest. "Not only did that cenote turn you into a woman, I'd say that it turned you into a narcissist and nymphomaniac as well..."

After diner, they checked the Pelican Box in Kim's dive locker and were relieved to see that the Mayan jewelry was still there. While they were at it, just to be on the safe side, with Kim standing by to warn her husband should anybody head in their direction, Shawn surreptitiously took a few pictures of the items in question.

Prior to their night dive, Kim thought it best to called both of their parents and informed them as to what had happened. And while her wife was attending to that, Shawn pulled out their laptop and e-mailed both of their parents the pictures Kim had taken of her undergoing her transseualization. Thought she thought some of the pictures to be rather crass, Shawn hoped that the pictures Kim took of her changing into a woman would go a long way in convincing their parents the validity of what Kim was telling them was indeed the truth.

Then, having done that, Shawn decided to take out a little insurance. An old dive buddy of hers was a photographer for National Geographic. So, just to be on the safe side, Shawn decided that it would be a good idea to e-mail him the pictures of the Mayan jewelry that she had found in the Ix Chel Cenote. She also included a cover letter to explain how and where she had found the jewelry. Though she was not at first going to tell her friend how her immersion in the waters of the cenote had resulted in her turning into a girl, Shawn reconsidered. Though she was somewhat reluctant to do so, Shawn decided that her friend should have all the facts. That being the case, she sent her old dive buddy a second e-mail which outlined the basics facts of what had happened the night following the Ix Chel dive. In doing so, She also included all the pictures depicting her transformation into a member of the opposite sex.

The next day, Kim's father, a retired FBI forensics expert, in an effort on his part to placate his wife, called in a few favors owed him from former colleagues at the Bureau. Likewise, Shawn's old dive buddy showed his boss the pictures of the Mayan jewelry that his friend had found while on vacation in Cozumel. And things more or less snowballed from there.

Shawn's fingerprints stumped the experts, both in Mexico and in the United States. While it was easy for the experts to distinguish the male prints from the female prints, the patterns of arches, loops, and whorls appeared to be the same. In fact, if one were to use a computer to first shrink and then elongate and narrow Shawn's male prints, they would come fairly close to duplicating the prints made by her smaller female fingers.

DNA taken from strands of hairs, both pre and post Shawn's transsexualiztion, also baffled the experts. Eliminating the sexual markers, there was no apparent difference in Shawn's DNA. Meaning, if Shawn's claim was the hoax that everyone thought it was initially, it was an extremely good one.

Having spent the morning making two dives on Yucab Reef, Kim and Shawn were greeted upon their arrival back at their resort's pier by the same Mexican Official who had questioned them the day before. Oddly enough, he started off by apologizing for intruding on their vacation. Then, he asked if they would mind accompanying him for a few hours that afternoon. He explained that there was compelling evidence that supported Shawn's claim to having once been a man, but that his superiors, in compliance with a request from the United States' State Department, wished to check dental records and would therefore need a comprehensive set of x-rays of Shawn's teeth. Basically, what he needed from Shawn was for her to accompany him to a local dentist. Shawn, feeling that she was making some headway, was more than happy to oblige.

The evidence was compelling. Lie detector tests, fingerprints, DNA analysis, dental records, added to the pictures that Kim had taken to document her husband's sexual makeover, were hard to refute. Though many tried to find fault with the evidence, a large majority of the experts began to grudgingly concede that Shawn might be telling the truth and that she may have once been a man, but had somehow undergone a comprehensive sexual reassignment that had turned her into a woman. It was deemed that extensive medical tests would be required before a finally finding on Shawn's allegations could be settled upon.

Though it took some finagling, the State Department, working in conjunction with the Mexican authorities, had Kim and Shawn flown back to the US. They even sent one of their small business jets down to Cozumel to collect them.

However, in an effort to preserve the integrity of the Ix Chel Cenote, Shawn felt compelled to make Senor Arturo Dezi, the Mexican Official who had first interrogated them, aware of the archeological importance of the Ix Chel Cenote. She even went so far as to hand Senor Dezi the Pelican Box and the Mayan jewelry it contained prior to boarding the plane. In doing so, Shawn urged that the Ix Chel Cenote be protected and that no one else should be allowed to enter its waters. Senor Dezi, who had been assigned as Shawn and Kim's Mexican liaison officer, assured Shawn that the Ix Chel Cenote had already been cordoned off and was being patrolled by members of the Mexican Military on a twenty-four seven bases.

Once stateside, Shawn, accompanied by her wife, spent the next several weeks going from one medical facility to the next, being probed, prodded and put-upon in ways one would not like to even imagine.

Starting with Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, Shawn and Kim hopscotched the country, going from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. After that, they journeyed to the Cleveland Clinic. And from there, they jetted to Boston for a three-day stay at Massachusetts General Hospital. From Boston, they were flown out to California where they spent a few days as guests of UCLA's Medical Center. Next stop, Durham North Carolina and Duke University's Medical Center. Needless to say that Shawn, feeling that one gynecological examination was one gynecological examination too many, was not a happy camper being subjected to one, two and sometimes three or more gynecological exams during the course of a day.

Forensic experts from all over the United States and Mexico were called upon to run their own independent tests. Likewise, water samples taken from the Ix Chel Cenote were also subjected to intense scrutiny. However, working on the supposition that something in the water of the Chel Cenote had caused Shawn's sexual reassignment, test after test showed the samples to be benign. They appeared to be substantial the same in composition and trace matter as the water samples taken from the rest of Cozumel's cenotes.

It was decided that an actually physical test needed to be attempted. On the QT, doctors who dealt with individuals seeking gender reassignment surgery were polled looking for some willing volunteers. >From a host of candidates, four men, each one a certified diver, were selected and with Shawn accompanying them, flown down to Cozumel, where they were allowed to dive the waters of the Ix Chel Cenote. Afterwards, they were checked and monitored by medical teams comprised of specialist from both countries for the next ninety-six hours. Unfortunately for Shawn, not one of the hopeful men experienced a sexual reassignment or anything that even hinted of a slight downsizing of their primary sexual equipment. Over the next several weeks, the experiment was repeated several more times, with the same results. Nothing happened. The men, who immersed themselves in the cenote, much to they own chagrin, remained men.

Eventually, a huge symposium was held in Washington with the hope of arriving at a consensus concerning the validity of Shawn's claims. And that's when the shit hit the fan. The news media, which had been sitting on what they believed to be nonsensical and farfetched rumors for several weeks, got wind of the symposium and came to the conclusion that there must be something to the rumors after all. And once that happened, it did not take long for the news hounds to put a name those rumors.

Shawn became a celebrity name over night. Before and after pictures of her soon began to appear on all sorts of publications, from newspapers to scientific journals, from the Enquirer to Cosmo. To her and Kim's dismay, Shawn soon had her own entourage of paparazzi dogging her trail.

Though the scientific community could not prove that Shawn had once been a man, they could not disprove her claims either. While there were some detractors, most of the experts who had examined the evidence that supported her assertions, were guardedly inclined to believe that she was telling the truth and that she had in fact once been a man. The courts, when faced with the compelling evidence that supported Shawn's claim, were forced to give her the benefit of the doubt. The State Department did likewise, issuing both her and Kim new passports.

Shortly after that, Shawn caved in to the unrelenting demands of various television networks to grant them interviews. Starting on the morning news shows, she made the rounds of both the daytime and late night talk shows. In a two week period, Shawn appeared on: The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, Fox and Friends, CNN's American Morning, Live With Reggis and Kelly, Fox's Day Side, The View, Opriah, 60 Minutes, The O'Riely Factor, Larry King Live, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, The Late Show With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O'Brian and a whole slew of other regionally broadcast shows.

While they were in the states, making the rounds of first, the medical centers, followed by the symposium, which was in turn was followed by the two weeks spent giving interviews on the talk show circuit, Shawn had made good use of her non-demand time. Having demanded to be: one, credited with the archaeological find; and two, included in any archaeological endeavors that might be assembled to probe the secrets of the Ix Chel Cenote, she began to read everything and anything about the Mayan Culture and underwater archaeology. In fact, Shawn became so knowledgeable in both subjects that once the team was assembled and began diving operations in earnest, both the head archaeologist and the diving coordinator began to defer to her judgement, in affect, making her the de facto team leader.

Since it took several months to assemble the small team of scientist and divers who would probe, preserve, categorize and document the mysteries of the Ix Chel Cenote, it was almost five months after that fateful day that resulted in Shawn changing into a woman before she reentered the cavern.

The cavern proved to be an archaeological gold mine. Beneath the sand and silt floor of the flooded cavern, the divers began to find pockets of bones, pottery, jewelry and various other artifacts of Cozumel's Mayan Culture.

The team had been working the cenote for a good month when two rather interesting things happened, one of which vindicated Shawn.

Five divers, six were one to included Shawn, had worked the cavern the day before. Of those five, four had been men. However, the following morning found the four men changed into women. Added to that, the other woman diver, a well respected Mexican archaeologist and an expert on all things Mayan, had gone from being a rather mousy and mannish looking forty-something year old woman, to being an uncontested early twenty-something year old looking beauty.

Needless to say that in light of what had occurred, all diving operations ceased while the scientists on site tried to figure out what had happened.

Oddly enough, it was Kim who came up with the only theory that covered the anomaly. And she did it by just glancing at a calendar that hung on the wall of the team's onsite trailer housed office. The day preceding the men's transsexualization and the woman archaeologist's beautification had been the day of a full moon. Added to that, it had been a full mom occurring closest to the Vernal Equinox, where as Shawn's transexualization had coincided with the full moon closet to the Autumnal Equinox.

While they had no idea as to what had caused the physical changes to occur, they did have a timetable of sorts. The problem was that they would have to wait half a year to put Kim's theory to the test. That being the case, after several uneventful test dives were made by some local women divers who would not have minded a physical upgrade, diving operations resumed.

The following fall diving operations were again suspended. Once again, four males, each of whom had been seeking gender reassignment surgery, volunteered to put Kim's theory to the test. Accompanying them would be four women, ranging in age from thirty-five to six-five. Starting two days before the full moon closet to the Autumnal Equinox, the group began diving the Ix Chel Cenote. While nothing occurred after their first day of diving, it did the night following their second day of diving. As expected, the four men underwent sexual reassignments and became extremely beautiful twenty-something appearing young women. As for their female counterparts who had accompanying them into the cavern, they received the same sort of physical upgrades that Kim and the Mexican Archaeologist had before them.

Understandably, the scientific world was astonished by what had occurred. Somehow, the Ancient Mayans had devised a way to not only change men into a woman, but a way to make common place women into uncontested beauties. The problem was that the scientific world was at a loss to explain how those Ancient Mayan had accomplished what they had. Basically, the accepted theory adopted outside the world's scientific community could be summoned up in one word - magic. Until something else came along, magic would have to suffice.

Soon news of what had happened on the Island of Cozumel leaked to the rest of the world. Shawn, who had already become a poster-child for the worldwide transsexual community was once again skyrocketed into prominence. Shortly thereafter, a sub-culture within the aforementioned community began to form a pseudo-religion based around the Mayan Goddess Ix Chel. Men who harbored the deep desire to become women, began to make pilgrimages to the Island of Cozumel; their hope being that they would be allowed to bath in the waters of the Ix Chel Cenote during the full moon of the next Vernal Equinox.

It should be noted that the Mexican authorities had as yet to decide whether or not to allow these men access to the legendary cenote owing to the rather unusual side effects that accompany a male's sexual reassignment and a female's unprecedented beautification. It seems that Ix Chel was the Mayan Goddess of Fertility, Childbirth and the Moon for a very good reason. Though Shawn and Kim were extremely happy with their monogamous lesbian relationship, the priesthood of the Goddess of Ix Chel had thrown a little shit in the game. Twice a year, on the day of the full moon closet to the advent of either the spring or fall equinox, Kim and Shawn, along with everyone else who had come under the spell of the waters of Ix Chel Cenote, experienced an animalistic like estrus. That is to say they went into heat. Their sexual arousal quotient went through the proverbial roof and they produced pheromones like there was no tomorrow. Added to that, they became fixated on but one thing and that thing was to engage in sexual intercourse with a male come hell or high water.

Though the very though of engaging in sexual intercourse with a man was an anathema to Shawn, when she came under the influence of this semiannual estrus cycle of hers all thoughts of fidelity went right out the window. She would jump on a man like a dog on a bone.

In fact that's pretty much how it happened the first time. They had only been diving the Ix Chel Cavern for about a month when, Shawn, along with the five other divers emerged from the cenote. All six of them were in the process of breaking down their equipment, when out of the clear blue, Shawn felt the overwhelming and insistent need to feel a man's penis nestled snuggly up inside her. Several minutes later, having employed the Darwinian method of selecting her mate, Shawn concocted a false pretense to lure one of the four young male underwater archaeologists into the trailer that served as the team's diving equipment locker. There, before the unsuspected fellow knew what was happening, a sex crazed Shawn was all over him. Oddly enough, spurred on by the very same primordial needs as her sexually transmogrified husband, Kim was in the next trailer over, with that trailer being the preservation trailer, getting herself sexually serviced by one of the other male members of expedition's dive team.

Later that afternoon, once their sexually needs were sufficiently appeased, on Shawn's suggestion, she and Kim went off by themselves and had a long heart to heart talk to discuss what had happened.

Needless to say, they were both upset and extremely apologetic for what they had done. They also agreed that what had happened was not only completely out of character for the both them, but beyond their ability to control. They loved each other and because they did, neither one of them would do anything to jeopardize their life together. Knowing that, they also realized that something must have compelled them to do what they had done.

"I wonder..." Kim mused aloud.

"You wonder what?" a curious Shawn prodded.

"Well, Ix Chel was the Mayan Goddess of fertility, childbirth, medicine and the moon, was she not?" Kim thoughtfully offered.

"Yeah... Sure... So, what's that have to do with anything?" Shawn was not following her wife's train of thought.

"Well, since you could say that you and I acted like a couple of bitches in heat this morning, maybe that cenote made the two of us more fertile than either one of us thought. Think about it, Shawn. How else could those Ix Chel's priests ensure that those poor slobs they turned into girls would be willing to let another guy screw their brains out, unless of course they put the fix in so that these 'new' girls of theirs didn't have any say in the matter?"

"Are you saying that there's a good chance that we're both going to have to deal with another case of the manhappyfuckameis again someday?"

"Probably. But, I think we also have to consider something else."

Distraught, to the point of being scared shitless, Shawn felt compelled to ask, "And what's that?"

"That one or the other of us are now pregnant. Perhaps, we both are..."

"Shit! Being a girl is one thing! Becoming a mother is something else altogether. I'm scared, Kim. I am really, really scared. I just don't think that I can hack being a mother. I just haven't got it in me. You may have the maternal instinct, but I can assure you that I don't..."

It was late that very same night that Shawn's claim to have one been a man was substantiated. All four of the male members of her dive team, including the one who had engaged in intercourse with Shawn as well as the young stud that had screwed Kim, awoke in the middle of the night only to find that they were in the process of changing into women. A month after that, a Mexican doctor informed Shawn and Kim that they were both pregnant.

Roughly eight months after that, Kim gave birth to a baby girl. Two days later, on the very day that the National Geographic's Special on the Secrets of the Ix Chel Cenote first aired on network television, Shawn's water broke. Five hours after that, Shawn gave birth to a bouncing baby girl.

It should be noted that Shawn had gained a healthy, if not heavy-handed maternal instinct during the months of her pregnancy. All things considered, she proved to be an exceptional mother for a woman who had once been a man. It also should be noted that the two young men who had fathered Kim and Shawn's babies had become pregnant themselves six months later, as had the other two formerly male divers. And they were not the only ones. The gorgeous Mexican archaeologist who had been the only other female diver on Shawn's dive team that fateful day was also overwhelmed by an equinox related lust-crazed episode that had in turn, resulted in her becoming in the family way as well.

In the wake of the National Geographic Special, Shawn was asked to speak at any number of Archaeological Societies and Universities throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. She was also awarded quite a number of honorary degrees in Archaeology, while actually earning one in her own right in the up and coming field of Marine Archaeology. This History Channel signed her to host two series, one on the Mayan Empire and the other on underwater archaeology. Kim became Shawn's business manager and with the help of both their mothers occasionally managed to accompany her globe-hopping former husband from time to time.

Though many magazines ran articles on her, the one Shawn treasured the most was the extensive and probing interview she did with Playboy. Near the end of the interview, Shawn was asked if she would ever consider posing nude for a photo spread. Having been a devotee of the magazine for years, Shawn admitted that it would have been hypocritical for her to say no. Then, having said that, she made Playboy an offer. Shawn told the fellow who was doing the interview that she would be happy to pose for a photo shoot on the condition that all the profits from the issue in which she appeared would be donated to various charities that her and Kim's foundation already supported. The deal was struck and Shawn, using the Ix Chel Cenote as the backdrop for several of the photos in the spread, bared all for the camera.

One last point. Neither Shawn nor Kim had to deal with another onset of the manhappyfuckameis as long as they were nursing. However, as soon as they stopped breast-feeding, the next full moon occurring near either equinox saw them nymphed out of their gourds and needing sexual intercourse with a man in the worst way imaginable. As one might expect, they both ended up pregnant for a second time and though Kim's water broke first, Shawn delivered her baby a good fifteen minutes before Kim delivered hers.

That evening, as they lay in the hospital room they shared, Kim sarcastically smirked, well I guess we have Ix Chel to thank for turning us into a couple of brood-mares."

"Yeah..." Shawn, who was cradling that newborn of hers so tenderly in her arms, replied, "Isn't it great?"

The End