The Cumbrian Confusion - Part 1

A short I am writing for an itch bundle organised with some other trans authors. I’m not 100% sure what I’m doing, but I‘m trying to stick to the prompt as best I can.

It was cold and raining at the small country train station. So, probably a good introduction to her next few months in rural northern England. Months of looking after her ailing great aunt.

“Miss Leblanc?” a man called out with a soft Northern English accent.

“Y-yes?” she replied, turning to see he was a man on the greyer end of middle-aged. He also seemed rather small and frail.

“I’m John Westham. Your aunt asked me to pick you up,” he said. “Since it’s a bit of a walk.”

“Yes, yes. She told me,” she replied, feeling a bit embarrassed at how she’d been a bit zoned out when he’d first called her name. “Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome. Any family of Hyacinth is like family to me… Unfortunately, you will have to put your suitcase into the boot on your own, my old hip isn’t as good at getting in and out of the car as it once was,” the man said, an apologetic look on his face as he popped the trunk.

She walked around, opening the trunk the rest of the way, and then pulled her two suitcases into the small British car. Then she slipped around to the passenger side seat, that did feel like it was on the wrong side. Sitting down, she couldn’t help but notice she was a fair bit taller than the older man. Adding in how small the car was and she felt uncomfortably reminded about how broad her shoulders were.

“A bit tired, I’ll guess?” the man said, as he started to drive down the lane. “All the jet lag?”

“Actually, I spent a couple days in London. I had a friend there I hadn’t seen in a while, so I’m more or less functional now,” she replied. “Didn’t want to force aunt Hyacinth to look after me when I first arrived.”

John nodded. “Smart, smart… if you need a drive while you’re here, just give me a call, miss Leblanc.”

“You can call me Lily,” she replied. “Last names feel so weirdly formal…”

“Ah, yes. Apologies. Not used to that American informality,” he said.

“Canadian,” she mumbled. “I’m Canadian.”

He paused for a moment, seeming confused by the reply, but then moved on to another topic. “If you’re also Canadian, do you know what happened with Hyacinth’s nephew in Ontario, then? She used to talk about him all the time, and then she stopped all of a sudden.”

It was her turn to pause, not sure what to say. That ‘nephew’ had been her, after all. If great aunt Hyacinth hadn’t explained that to the man driving her… was he the type not to respond well to trans people? It was a small town. In England. A country she’d had (what she was sure was) good reason to be reluctant to visit.

If he wasn’t good about trans people, then she could at least take some comfort in knowing that she was successfully stealthing, though that was a patchy sort of comfort.

“People change,” she said at last. It was generic enough she hoped it would work.

“Ah. A shame. Hyacinth seemed so fond of him… well, here’s her cottage now,” John replied, gesturing to a rather nice looking older home that in no way fit Lily’s mental image for the word ‘cottage’.

Standing by the front door, leaning on a cane, was her great aunt. She really did look aged far more than the three years it had been since aunt Hyacinth had last visited Canada. Lily couldn’t help but feel a slight pain at the memory of how much brighter her great aunt’s eyes had been before her recent incident.

Getting out of the passenger seat, Lily’s first move was to hug her great aunt.

“It’s good to see you, dear,” Hyacinth said, a tired look in her eyes.

“I’m glad to be here. Sorry about taking a couple of days in London, but I didn’t want to be a jetlagged zombie that you needed to worry about,” Lily said.

“Quite alright,” she replied. “I have my worker who comes by… but you coming at all is a big help. There’s only so much she can do in the few hours she visits. We fall behind on the non-necessities.”

Lily nodded, before going around to the back of the car to pull her suitcases out. She and her great aunt both thanked John for the drive, Lily trying to give him a bit of gas money as thanks (though he refused).

Then Hyacinth led her inside. The house was less messy than her great aunt had made it seem, though she supposed it wasn’t exactly spotless. Lived in. That was the phrase that came to Lily’s mind. Heading upstairs, to the guest bedroom, Hyacinth apologised about the dust, though it wasn’t all that bad. Lily doubted she’d do much more than sneeze a few times.

-

Stumbling out of bed in his small flat, Ridley Gardener scrambled across the main room to reach the toilet. Upon arriving, he emptied his stomach of its few contents, all while realising he’d broken out in some sort of a cold sweat. Still, throwing up had seemed to do the trick, and he slowly found himself feeling well enough to pull himself over his sink to wash out his mouth. It wasn’t a bad hangover, all things considered. Just a strange one.

Spitting the water out, however, he then found his eyes drawn to the mirror. Something was wrong, but—that was a woman.

Why was there a woman in his mirror?

Wait. That didn’t make any sense. People didn’t go inside mirrors… so… but—well, it couldn’t be his reflection? Even if the woman did look like she could be the sister he didn’t have. One didn’t simply turn into a woman in one night.

Despite that rather obvious logic, the woman in the mirror copied every expression he made, no matter how nonsensical and lacking in dignity.

He also realised there was an odd weight on his chest that a quick glance down told him was from newly acquired breasts. They weren’t exactly amazingly sized, but, considering he’d presumably grown them in a single night, they were fairly impressive.

Which left a question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. Unfortunately he’d find out sooner or later, so he decided to get it over with. Pulling his boxers forward, he felt a shot of terror run down his spine as he took into account what was currently missing.

“How the…” he muttered.

A thought entered his mind. It was probably a rather illogical thought, but he suddenly wondered if that mysterious sauce he’d found in his fridge yesterday had been to blame. Between it having expired before he moved into the flat and the fact all the writing (other than the expiry date) had been in a language he didn’t recognise… well, no. It was probably just something he’d bought from an Indian grocer and it had tasted fi—could he really say it tasted fine when he didn’t know what it was or how it was supposed to taste?

Stll, expired curry sauces did not typically cause spontaneous sex changes. Otherwise he was pretty sure there’d be rather fewer male bachelors in the world.

Well… there was that experimental cough syrup he’d signed up to be a guinea pig for? Maybe this was a risk inherent in being part of the human trial for a medication? Even if said medication was as basic as cough syrup.

It had been a few days since he’d taken any, though. And he was nearly done the trial. So it was odd to see the sudden change happen now. Right?

He wasn’t a medical professional, so maybe it made perfect sense to someone in the know. Some sort of tipping point or… something?

Was he going to have to call this in as a side effect? Would the cough syrup company figure out how to fix him?

If they did, would a medical company trying to fix him see him bumped up from free range guinea pig to detained lab rat? Locking him away in a basement to run endless tests to find out what had happened. Mysterious scientists prodding him day in and day out… probably speaking in German accents, like all good mad scientists.

That seemed rather likely, actually. Well, apart from the German accents bit, that may have been excessively dramatic. The thought of getting locked up sticking with him, he wandered over to his bed, sitting down to stare across to his fridge. The fridge where the other possible culprit lay…

Maybe it was some sort of magical potion that he’d accidentally bought. Mistaking it for a curry sauce… Did magic exist? He wouldn’t have said yes yesterday, but spontaneous losing one’s… manhood did cause a bit of an open mind.

It also all begged the question of what he should do next. Even if he tried to tell anyone, who would believe him? He looked like a totally different person. No one would recognise him… wait. No one would recognise him.

That meant everyone he owed money to would stop bugging him. His ‘friends’ from college wouldn’t be dragging him into problems and pressuring him to do things that kept getting him fired…

Maybe he could make the best of this. However it had happened.

-

That night, Lily sat down with her great aunt at dinner. The two of them had caught up well enough over the previous hours, but there was another question that remained on Lily’s mind.

“So, John doesn’t know about me?” she asked.

Aunt Hyacinth studied her meal for a moment before replying. “No… I’ve not been sure how folks in town would respond, so I’ve not told anyone.”

“Ah,” Lily said, nodding softly.

It seemed it might be best for her to focus on staying as stealth as she could. Which was going to mean she’d probably want to buy a new razor. It was smart to keep her face as clean shaven as possible.

-

The bright artificial lighting of the grocery store wasn’t doing much to help Ridley feel more comfortable as he stared at the women’s razors. Were more blades better for shaving your legs? Was it the same as shaving your face? Did he need shaving cream?

That would be a lot of shaving cream.

Was that why women shaved their legs in the tub? Because they had to wash all of that off? He found himself not envying them… before remembering he was one of them now, and was going to have to learn to deal with it.

As he worked through the weird feelings that realisation was bringing up, a tall woman strolled up the aisle. She had long dark hair and strong features. He wondered if she was Italian or French, but he couldn’t really tell.

“The brands are all different here,” she mumbled to herself in an accent that sounded vaguely American to his ears.

He wasn’t sure what to do, only to have his eyes betray him by lingering on the striking woman rather more than he felt was appropriate for someone who was supposed to be a woman himself.

Then, just to confuse him, the woman shot him a small smile. “Hello.”

“Uh… hi?” he offered, trying an awkward smile.

He’d never been great with women, and, well, being one now left him even more unsure about how to act. It seemed his sudden sex-swap had not changed his sexuality.

That was surely a good thing. Such a major change to his personality would have been even more unsettling that the physical change, but… well, what was he supposed to do with that attraction now?

“Thank goodness,” the woman said, a bit mysteriously. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find any other members of the community in a small town like this.”

“Communi—you mean… I… you’re…” he mumbled, trying to process what that meant as she nodded.

Was he that obvious? And that meant she was also…

How many other people out there had had their sexes changed? Surely if such things were that common he’d have heard rumours about it? That seemed like something people would gossip about.

Did the others know why it had happened to them?

The fact that the woman was dressed so femininely left him suspecting that it maybe didn’t matter how it happened. It seemed it was rather irreversible. Or it was inevitable that one came to like it.

He supposed it was better to learn that right away, rather than having held on to a false hope.

“Ah, you’re new to this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Y—yeah,” he mumbled.

“Well, there goes the hope to meet some local community connections easily, but… one friend is still good,” she said.

“Local—ah, you’re new to around here, then?” he asked.

It was her turn to nod.

“Well, I guess we can help each other out then,” he said with a slightly forced smile.

“I suppose we can,” she replied with a smile that made his heart flutter a little.

Was he going to eventually have that much feminine energy?

… Did he want that much feminine energy?

There was a lot to process to all this. She was definitely good at it, though. He couldn’t help but find her wonderfully attractive. (Though he envied that she’d apparently gotten to keep more height than he had… his clothes did not fit well.)

“I’m Lily Leblanc, and you?”

“Ridley. Ridley Gardiner… and, if you hear bad things about me, they’re mostly true, but they weren’t my idea,” he replied, before adding a slight explanation after a pause. “I’ve had terrible luck with friends.”