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I changed my gender on the year 3876. I was twenty three at the time, and I made absolutely certain to do it on the fourth day of the fifth month. Making sure the date lined up chronologically was very important to me.  I thought it would be cooler that way; I thought I'd be less nerve wracked, if I could hold that idea in my head, as I waited for the front desk to open and drummed my hand on the forms, occasionally looking down at them. Name, age, current gender, and preferred gender. Sex was there, too. A few other unimportant details; I'd filled out everything before I walked into the Nevark City General Federal Office, though. I had my five dollars ready, for processing. I had everything I needed.

But chanting that didn't stop my legs from shaking.

The old lady who was settling herself behind the desk just frowned at me, though, her lips puckering unpleasantly when she read over my form. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon, reading it. She looked like she wanted to spit all its juice on my face when she looked up. But she still asked me what color genderclip I wanted.

"Pink," I murmured, turning in my blue clip. It felt like a shell of lead was falling from my body as I gave that clip away. The light click it made when it touched the wood almost didn't seem like enough. It felt like the wood should have been cracking under the weight of my life changing decision, the mahogany splintering and the tile beneath it cracking as the weight of my supposed boyness tried to hide itself in the earth's core. It just sat there, though. No singing angels or anything.

The world was always annoying me with stuff like that. I make a life changing decision, and nobody seemed to care. The old lady in front of me, who was just blinking those eyes of hers again. The random old man behind me, talking to his wife about their taxes, didn't suddenly switch to the implications of her gender change. Nobody gasped, fainted, or had a minor and undeadly heart attack. I didn't really expect it. It probably would have bothersome if one of them had done it. Scary if they had a heart attack, for sure. But I'd have liked it if the world could at least pretend it cared.

Instead, the old lady just ruffled her hair, checking the pink genderclip nestled in the iron gray strands. After a moment, she took my old genderclip by the tips of her fingernails, grimacing. She held it at arm's length, too, and checked her clip a few more times on the way out.  I had hoped for a bit less prejudice from a federal office. A beep from the corner reminded me how stupid that was.

The formuals had been the start of it all. Including the General Federal Offices. They'd taken up a lot of new purposes since, as one shop stops for paperwork; but they'd startd life as places for people to shift their forms, since way back before the home models. A lot of people still used the office ones, if they had an older home without a Formual of its own. They had a curious appeal to them, that made everyone want to try it at least once.  You could be anything with them; or at least look like anything. Young or tall, old or young; grow a tail and lose it overnight. Want some cat ears? Why not. There were even some rumors about people transforming into full animals. Though how they'd actually turn back afterwards was beyond me. Come to think of it, that stray cat outside had been giving me a rather intent stare.

But the most important part of it by far had been the sex changes. They'd swept across the entire nation like wildfire, people quietly and worriedly testing it out. What it felt like to be on the other side; what it really felt like to be on the other side. I wasn't even born yet, but I'm convinced a lot of people found their ways to bed in those days.

They still did, actually. Couples changing bodies and experimenting with one another, trading kisses and making faces and jokes. The entire thing seemed like one big joke, sometimes; a bunch of people just playing around without any real emotion behind it. But they're playing had brought something real – genderclips.

The biggest revolution in gendrical history, and all because a bunch of teens had hoped to avoid awkward questions; but people started to use them separately from the machines, too. People started to put on the clips that they thought identified them. Males wore Pinks in utter defiance of social conventions. Females wore blues and stuck their tongues out at the stereotypes. Most of them changed their bodies, when they had enough money, but some of them refused. They just wore the hairclips, and said it represented their real gender.

For a while, people didn't care. They didn't give a flying fuck about the protests, or the hate crimes. The random graves that no one would mark properly, just because it felt too "awkward." But people kept struggling, kept defiantly wearing their hairclips, kept saying "this is me!" to the world. Eventually the government gave in, and declared that "genderclips" would be the official indicator of true gender "regardless of original or current sex." They were issued at thirteen, and reissued as necessary. It made gender changes  easy.

Except that it just made the attitudes worse. People felt that girls had to be female; that anyone who wanted their gender to be recognized as female should spend a quarter and change their sex instead. They didn't understand; they didn't get what it was like. How it felt, when you just wanted to show who you were without losing who you had always been. Without having to give up your "manhood" and get used to a whole new sex. A smaller body lacking half the hair, and giant lumps where you'd never even managed to grow muscle before, everyone suddenly angling to slide something you used to have yourself into the very place you used to have it.

I don't want that. I'd hate that. Getting used to a whole new form, when all I'd ever wanted was to be able to act like myself within my own body. To be a girl within my male form – to chat with my friends, and hang out at the mall, and try on clothes without someone whispering behind their hands about me acting like the very thing I was. To be close to someone. To tell them how I felt and not have them laugh at me for being too emotional. To cry when I was upset. To glare and yell when I was mad. To not be constantly locked behind this wall of 'how men are supposed to act.'

But people didn't get that; they never got that. To them, the genderclips were a way to declare who they always were, even when they looked like someone else. They weren't comfortable with people declaring who they really were, regardless of what body they'd been born with, instead. It raised questions they were trying to avoid, about what it really meant to be a girl or guy. They'd have rather been groping themselves in their bedrooms than answering stuff like that.

But their discomfort hadn't changed anything. Forty years had passed, and I was standing at a desk, smiling as the old lady came back with my pink clip. She was smiling back, but hers looked forced; possibly by fishhooks by how much pain it seemed to be causing her to keep it up. The lines must have been wrapped around her ankles, too, from the tiny steps she was taking to reach the counter.

She had my new genderclip at her side instead of stretched out for me to take it. I think she was hoping I'd change my mind, if she just give me those extra few moments to do it. Just turn around and run. I didn't, though. I stared at her nameplate, instead, trying to pass the time by seeing if I could read her name from afar. It had a old fashioned script, the curvy sort you'd see on wedding invitations. All I could make out was the letter "B." Betty, perhaps; or Beatrice? Bitter and old.

"B" placed the clip down on the desk with a smile, surprising me. I'd gotten distracted. My fingers actually started to shake when I gripped the packaging. It crinkled lightly under my touch, and slid gently away from the pink clip when I pulled, and it clattered against the desk, dancing light as a feather against the surface.

It was made up of cheap plastic. They had metal ones, but they were more expensive, and too heavy for most people to bother. Cheap plastic was enough for anyone. Cheap plastic with a silly little eagle imprinted on it to mark it as official. Cheap plastic, and yet somehow the most important thing in the entire world, the only thing in the world even, making everything else feel so near and so far at the same time.

I could make out everything going on around me. The chatter from the line behind me, still taking shape as early morning risers poured in. The soft smile of "B," which looked just a little crooked, her eyes not quite managing to sparkle, and her hands digging into the wodden desk. The irritated noise of those directly behind me, who were waiting for me to finish up my business so that they could take care of their assorted issues. Their taxes and complaints and reports or whatever the hell else plagued them. They could deal with all that when I was done; I'd feel guilty about it later.

I'd arrived at 6 AM in order to be the first one there. Just so that I could experience that momen

t of unwrapping the hairclip, and then sliding it into my hair.

The moment when I became an official woman, in the eyes of the law.

------End First Entry of Johathan Stark's Autobiography – 5/4/96------

"Crap, that sounds stupid… Maybe I should try rewriting it?" I ask, handing the paper to Jessica. He glances at it, smirks a little, and then lets out a laugh. That sound always makes me writhe. Jessica's humor tends to come at the most horrible of moments. Like when someone's telling us about their dead cat. And it makes his breasts wiggle, too; I always end up ogling them. Often while someone's telling them us about their dead cat. But he means well, as a rule. Even if he does tease me too often for ogling him; particularly when he's all sweaty from a game of basketball, and the white cloth is practically – bad brain. My transcriber is still recording; everything here is going to end up in my autobiography eventually. Thank god it doesn't have illustrations.

"Sorry," Jessica wheezed, handing me the paper; I stuff it in my pocket. "Sorry, sorry. It's fine, John. A bit overdramatic for me, but fine." He smirks, hugging his arms against himself, and rocking back and forth.

"What is it?" I ask, trying to keep patient. It's hard, but worthwhile, at least when Jessica's acting like this. Fighting off those giggles and clutching at himself, his blonde hair flowing from sideto side all pretty like while he shoots me glances. It means that he actually wants to share, but that he wants me to ask first; sometimes he prefers to keep the joke to himself, so when I ask he just punches me "lightly" and says it's a "guy" thing. I find it safer to wait for the signs.

"It's nothing," Jessica mutters when he has full control of his speech again. "I was just thinking about genders and sex; you know, how people used to act like they were the same thing?"

I nod, uncertain. It's taught in elementary school that they're different, now; federal requirement.

Jessica giggles again, and I wait for it to die, watching him bend over, hands gripping his knees as he fights for control. I make myself stare at those hands. Slender hands, feminine and seemingly soft, all callouses on the other sides.  Safe hands, for all that they can break my bones. They at least don't turn me on.

"I was…" Jessica frowns, pushing at his knees, pushing himself upright. "I was trying to imagine you all masculine, because of the male parts; or me picking out flowers and sticking them in my cleavage, or whatever crap old school girls used to do with it." He snorted. "Crazy, right?"

I nod, squirming a little more as I try to avoid letting Jessica see my blushing face. It was for their hair. I know he knows that. But he likes messing with me. Otherwise he wouldn't have brought up the idea of me and ripping muscles in the first place; he knows I've always sucked at the objectivity required to laugh at jokes like that.

"So," he drawls, glancing around the street of the suburb where we live. It's mostly empty, other than a passing cat girl. She doesn't even bother to twitch her ear towards us, though her tail is flashing fiercely. It makes me wonder if there's a dog about, though they usually don't chase anyone without at least fur.

"So," he drawls, louder, trying to draw my attention back to him. "Where do you want to go today?"

"Go?" I ask. The cat girl is turning a corner, a hovercar heading past her. She glances at us, and pauses when she sees Jessica, her yellow eyes glimmering as she starts to change directions. I put a hand on my friend's arm and smiles, turning him the other way before he has a chance to notice her. "How about we go hang out at the arcade or something?" I demand.

"But you don't like the arcade," he pointed out; he sounds worried, but there's a glint in his eyes I don't like.

"You do, though, right?" I give him my most charming smile, but I don't know if it does any good. I don't even know if he likes male-girls. I'm scared to ask. I'm not too scared to tug his arm though, trying and failing to pull him along. Jessica works out a lot.

"But this is your day," he murmurs, slowly turning back around. I squeal and point randomly to the left, risking a glance to see that the cat girl's getting closer, her had outstretched. Jessica has a thing for them. He'll talk to them for hours if they see each other. They might even exchange numbers.

"There's something in that direction!" I declare, knowing how stupid I sound. "Let's go there! Right now!"

He smiles at me. It's totally unfair. It makes my heart beat like crazy, and my eyes rove over his body, picking out his slender yet muscled form. The muscles ripple with a quiet grace as he slips an arm around me, and my legs melt. Jessica looks like a super model, to me; and it's natural, too, he says; I'm convinced his parents were using a formual when they conceived him, though, because there's no way in hell anyone gave birth to that without help.
That strong arm of his settles around me, and tightens around my waist, and he turns, the cat girl right  next to us. And then he walks, without even seeing her, his arm wrapped around me. My legs feel like noodles, because he's smiling at me, his soft and full lips peeling back to reveal a perfectly white smile.  "So, what's this way?"

Crap. This is going to look bad when I have to put it in my autobiography. "Um…" I glance around, trying to find something I can bluff with.  There's a sign in the distance I can't even make out, so I point at it. Jessica squints, and whistles, so I guess I made a good choice.

"Good eyes," he murmurs, loosening his grip on me as we walk.  I'm caught between regret and happiness; I can breathe better without him in my face; but I sort of liked the smell of him near me. But then his hand grips mine, and he smiles. I can feel the callouses decorating his fingers, the hard strength gained from working with weights day and night in order to keep up with the male-boys. The entire world was filled with equalizers for girls, strength gauntlets and levitational boots, but he refuses to use any of them. He always says that he wants to go at it naturally.  Properly. I don't really get it.

"So, why didn't you just get a sex change?" he asks me.
I flinch, glaring at him; he looks at me innocently, brushing aside a strand of blond hair, as he glances to the side; I can see the flash of tongue he sticks out at me, though. Which means he wanted me to see it. Which should make me mad, but leaves me struggling not to giggle instead. "You didn't get one either," I remind him, pointing my finger to where his genderclip would be if he ever bothered to wear one. I'd seen it once, battered but blue, thrown in the back of a drawer and mostly forgotten about.

"I didn't need one," he pointed out. "I said blue on my first try. You're the one who's switching teams during half game."

I make a face; sports references. "I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting used to a new body, alright? I'm fine with how I look; you're supposed to be the one who frowns on all that stuff, anyway."

"No. I frown on making everyone show off their labels just to function. And I frown on throwing away personal skills to rely on tech. I have no problem with you turning into a female so you won't get beaten up."

I hunch my shoulders, ducking my head down and hoping Jessica misses my blush. "I'd get beaten up either way, doing something sudden like that…"

"Not as bad as if you suddenly start showing up with a pink genderclip." I can feel Jessica's eyes on me, making me want to run, but his hand is still on me. It doesn't feel nearly as comforting anymore. It feels restrictive. "You know how people treat that. Like you're betraying their cause, or something."

"I'm not betraying anything." I tug, but he doesn't let go. His eyes are focused on me, trying to find mine, but I refuse to look at them. "I'm not a boy, and that's all there is to it; but I'm not a female either," I added, before he can say anything more. "I'm not… I don't have… or want… I hesitate, glancing at his chest, and then back to his hands. Which are gripping his tightly clothed thighs; dangerous territory.

"You want to browse, not own." Jessica finishes for me. My eyes jerk up toward his, and then move away, my heart beating loudly.

"Something like that, yeah. But in a way that makes me sound less like a pig. I just… don't like the idea of me with breasts…" I glance down at my flesh, pressing a hand against the bony surface. I never tried that hard to gain muscles, so it's no surprise that I never "succeeded." "The idea of them just creeps me out a little… like someone stuck putty on me…"

"But you have no problem at all ogling mine." Jessica smiles as he says it, his head tilted a little. He looks like he's inviting me to laugh at a personal joke between us, but I know a trap when I hear one. I glare at him, hands on my hips. "I thought I asked you not to make me look like such a pig."

"You're the one who's been staring at my hands like they're beacons of salvation," he points out, smirking. Shit. "I'm just wondering why you don't want a pair."

"Why don't you?" I demand. I meet him in the eye, this time, but flinch first; he's calm and collected. I'm most definitely not.

"I told you," he said, "I don't need it. I don't see the point in it, and nobody's going to beat me up for not doing it. I've been acting like this since the moment I was born, and it's not going to surprise anyone that I'm still doing it tomorrow."

"Whereas I've been hiding what I am since I was old enough to understand it," I whisper, bitter. Jessica doesn't understand. She's strong. Strong enough to say how she felt from the start; and I'm not. I'm not strong enough to say pink when all the males I know have been saying blue, to go against the line of history where sex and gender were considered to be almost one and the same, and where form was all that ever mattered. Every male I'd known had come home with a blue genderclip. So I'd done the same thing.

Except that Jessica's birthday came after me, and she had said blue too. She gets it more than most, but she still doesn't understand that final component – that heart gripping fear that if you go against the crowd, the crowd will go against you. That they'll hurt you, punch you, kick you when you're down and force them to change yourself into one of them. Make you the female they think a girl should be, because they still can't wrap their minds around the truth even after so many years.

Jessica brushes a strand of brown hair from my eyes, breaking into my thoughts with her tender gesture. The textured fingers slide roughly across my forehead, but they feel good; they dipped beneath my eyes, picking up a few tears I hadn't realized were there. The grip on my hand is still there, but it's much looser. I don't try to pull free, though.

"If  you're this scared, why are you bothering to go through with it?"

"Because i want to be as strong as you." The words slip out of my mouth before I can think about them. Sappy, but true in a way that only under-thought things can be.

He's staring at me. I blush, and pull myself free of his grip as it crumbles entirely. I can spin it off as a ploy later if I have to. I don't want to, though; it doesn't seem like a very strong thing to do. A very Jessica thing to do.

I should be bursting into laughter at the thought.

I run down the street, hearing him call after me. I don't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop. I'm scared to stop. Because if I stop he'll say something reasonable, and I don't want him to say something reasonable. I don't want him to try and talk me into giving in and becoming someone I'm not, just so that I can act like the person I am. I don't want to be female just so that I can be  a girl, and I'm terrified he's going to convince me to do just that. I'm terrified that he'd prefer me that way. As a female. I've always been afraid to ask about his sexuality.

Worse, I'm scared that he's going to say something cowardly; or even just more reasonable. I'm terrified that he's going to tell me that everyone's scared, and that he's no exception. I'm terrified that my one shining example is a lie. That there's nothing fearless in this world, no matter how much I need to believe that there is, if only until this is over.

I don't want him to say something reasonable. I don't even want him to say something irrational, like that one time he told me about the fish who kissed the monkey. I just want him to do something irrational – to be the fish; to kiss the monkey. To ignore my looks. But he won't do that. Because I'm the irrational one but I'm also the monkey. Monkeys don't generally get the fish unless the fish makes the first move; and no rational fish would ever make the first move.

…God, I'm not even making sense any more.

"Jonathan!" he calls after me, and I resist the urge to turn. I plug my fingers in my ears like it'll do some good, fold my elbows against my body and run until I feel his hand grip against mine, and then run a bit more until his muscled elbow drags me to a stop and my feet slide uselessly against the floor.

"Let me go," I demand; there's no threat in it, though, I feel drained. Hurt. A little bit thrown by the entire situation. I didn't know what to say anymore. That hurt a bit. "Let me go," I repeat, woodenly.

Jessica sticks his tongue out at me, but doesn't comply. "You'll run away if I do."

"A woman's prerogative." I tug my arm, but it doesn't come free. He pulls, and I fall backward into his arms, the muscular limbs closing in around me

"You're scared," He accuses, a little laughingly. His arms are cradling me lightly, and I can feel his breath putting slight pressure on my back. It makes me shift uncomfortably for a moment, and then stop, a soft blush passing through my features as I realize just what part of him is pressing into my back.

"It's not fair that you get to affect me like that," I mutter, angrily wiping a tear from my eye. "I'm supposed to be mad at you…"

"So be mad why don't you?" he teases, folding his hands together at my waist, his slender arms teasingly holding me against him with a mix of light pressure and my own desires.

I push that aside and stomp on his toes, glaring at him as I stalk away. The sight of him bouncing on one foot almost brings back my smile, but not quite; Jessica only has one solution to everything, after all:

If I'm mad, tease me. If I'm sad, tease me. If I'm happy, tease me. If I'm hurt, tease me; and then go beat something up. So maybe he had one and a half solutions, instead; but I still didn't want to deal with it.

"John, don't be like that," he wheedled, trying to hop after me, his foot trailing on the floor; I didn't step on him that hard. He's probably trying to make me laugh. I'm not going to laugh. He's being stupid. I'm not going to laugh, damn it, even if he puts on that fake pained expression with his tongue slightly outstretched and his eyes intently focused on something in the distance.

"Leave me alone, Jess," I mutter, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice. "You know I hate it when you start pestering me like that."

"And if I didn't pester you who would?"

My foot falters, stopping me long enough for Jessica to slip his hands around me again. I can feel his entire weight pressing against me, not unpleasantly; I can smell his hair, his skin, his sweat. That last part is a little disturbing, actually, but it feels good having him close. I like having him near. I wonder if it's a bad sign, that I let him get so intimate with me after everything he does.  "I don't need to be pestered," I tell him, instead of asking any of my own questions.

He snorts, and ruffles my hair a little, his fingertips gently pressing at my head until I'm looking at him in the eye. "You… totally need to get pestered." He grins when I give him a cross look. "You chose to be classified as a boy because of peer pressure, and then gave it up because you cared too much about what people thought about you."

I glare at him, but it falters; I'm hurt, but I don't want to admit it. I want to cry, but I don't want him to see it.  "Nobody wants to be seen as something they aren't."

He ruffles my hair again, acting oblivious to my death glare. There's a wary look in his eyes, though, and something else. A sense of pleading. "I had to make sure you were going into this with your head on straight. If you make the wrong choice here…"

"It'll ruin my entire life, I know." I sigh, trying to let some of my frustration go. The worried look Jessica is giving me helps more than I'd care to admit. He looks so cute; I'm still mad, though. It's just hard to remember that with those soft brown eyes on me.

"But you're still doing this." His eyes were on my clip, now, taking on the pink color I'd put on display for the world to see.

"I've already done it. And I don't want to hide it." I stick my chin out as I say it, nice and brave like. My lip is trembling, though. It's easy to act brave around Jessica, but only because he's always pushing me towards it; or getting me so mad I can't think about being scared. Seeing the actual concern in his face makes me worry. I suppose he's worried too, though.

People still get killed by things like this. Sometimes they're people like me, who just want to change their gender, and sometimes they're people who changed their entire bodies. It's almost impossible to trace the crimes, too, since anyone can look like anyone. The trace amounts of original DNA left in a transformee helps, but not enough when it's a case no one really cares about.

Except Jessica does care, I guess; I mean, he's like me, too, to an extent. So I guess he's worried about himself when he looks at me. But I want to think that he's worried about me, too. That he'd cry if he saw me laid out on the floor, little shards of glass glittering beside my brown hair, instead of laughing. It hurts to think of Jessica sad, but it makes me happy, too; and I don't quite understand that, but it's there all the same. Moreso when I look into his eyes and give him a soft smile, watching the gentle curve of his mouth as he returns the gesture back, with just a hint of nervousness.

"I think about it all the time," I admit. "Ever since they gave me a blue hairclip. It felt…" I trail off, uncertain how to continue. "It felt like the light had just disappeared. Like the sun had died, and the moon had exploded, and the earth was going to fall out from underneath me and I was just going to disappear through it. Wearing it was like putting a lead weight in my hair every morning – hanging the word 'boy' around my neck, and telling everyone…"

"Should have just thrown it in a drawer," smiled Jessica.

I smirk, but I don't say anything. I already knew that Jessica didn't quite get it. What it meant to be terrified, holding up your blue hairclip as a sign that you're normal – glaring with envy at the only boy who dared to be different; we're friends now, though. And I like him; a lot. I don't want to be glaring at him with envy; I want to be…

I blush, glancing at the ground. "Kiss me," I mutter.

"What?" he demands, trying to catch my eye. He looks like he's choking down a laugh, so I punch him in the shoulder – with my small arm, it doesn't hurt him in the slightest; just my own hand.

"Kiss me," I say, louder, my eyes squeezed shut. "A girl who likes you is asking you to kiss her, so just do it already!"

His lips touch mine; gently, then a little more firmly, and then pull away; he's blushing furiously, which is cute, but my own face is red too, which is just annoying. "No more acting like I'm not brave enough to handle this," I mutter.

Jessica nods, though he looks a little shell shocked. That's good. He deserves to be a little shell shocked. I'm annoyed at him. "So… um... about that sign…?"

I stare at him blankly, hoping it makes him uncomfortable; it seems less embarrassing than "What the hell are you talking about?'

"The, um… sign you had us heading too…" He glances to the side; a yellow diamond glowing faintly, plain black text projected in front of it to draw the attention of passersby.

Detour. Please take the long route.

His hands slip around me, his fingers sliding around my waist as his mouth comes to my ear. He laughs softly, his breath tickling me a little; all confidence and suave, as if I hadn't seen his discomfort. "And for the record? I totally saw the cat girl."

Description
I changed my gender on the year 3876. I was twenty three at the time, and I made absolutely certain to do it on the fourth day of the fifth month. Making sure the date lined up chronologically was very important to me.  I thought it would be cooler that way; I thought I'd be less nerve wracked, if I could hold that idea in my head, as I waited for the front desk to open and drummed my hand on the forms, occasionally looking down at them. Name, age, current gender, and preferred gender. Sex was there, too. A few other unimportant details; I'd filled out everything before I walked into the Nevark City General Federal Office, though. I had my five dollars ready, for processing. I had everything I needed.

But chanting that didn't stop my legs from shaking.

The old lady who was settling herself behind the desk just frowned at me, though, her lips puckering unpleasantly when she read over my form. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon, reading it. She looked like she wanted to spit all its juice on my face when she looked up. But she still asked me what color genderclip I wanted.

"Pink," I murmured, turning in my blue clip. It felt like a shell of lead was falling from my body as I gave that clip away. The light click it made when it touched the wood almost didn't seem like enough. It felt like the wood should have been cracking under the weight of my life changing decision, the mahogany splintering and the tile beneath it cracking as the weight of my supposed boyness tried to hide itself in the earth's core. It just sat there, though. No singing angels or anything.

The world was always annoying me with stuff like that. I make a life changing decision, and nobody seemed to care. The old lady in front of me, who was just blinking those eyes of hers again. The random old man behind me, talking to his wife about their taxes, didn't suddenly switch to the implications of her gender change. Nobody gasped, fainted, or had a minor and undeadly heart attack. I didn't really expect it. It probably would have bothersome if one of them had done it. Scary if they had a heart attack, for sure. But I'd have liked it if the world could at least pretend it cared.

Instead, the old lady just ruffled her hair, checking the pink genderclip nestled in the iron gray strands. After a moment, she took my old genderclip by the tips of her fingernails, grimacing. She held it at arm's length, too, and checked her clip a few more times on the way out.  I had hoped for a bit less prejudice from a federal office. A beep from the corner reminded me how stupid that was.

The formuals had been the start of it all. Including the General Federal Offices. They'd taken up a lot of new purposes since, as one shop stops for paperwork; but they'd startd life as places for people to shift their forms, since way back before the home models. A lot of people still used the office ones, if they had an older home without a Formual of its own. They had a curious appeal to them, that made everyone want to try it at least once.  You could be anything with them; or at least look like anything. Young or tall, old or young; grow a tail and lose it overnight. Want some cat ears? Why not. There were even some rumors about people transforming into full animals. Though how they'd actually turn back afterwards was beyond me. Come to think of it, that stray cat outside had been giving me a rather intent stare.

But the most important part of it by far had been the sex changes. They'd swept across the entire nation like wildfire, people quietly and worriedly testing it out. What it felt like to be on the other side; what it really felt like to be on the other side. I wasn't even born yet, but I'm convinced a lot of people found their ways to bed in those days.

They still did, actually. Couples changing bodies and experimenting with one another, trading kisses and making faces and jokes. The entire thing seemed like one big joke, sometimes; a bunch of people just playing around without any real emotion behind it. But they're playing had brought something real – genderclips.

The biggest revolution in gendrical history, and all because a bunch of teens had hoped to avoid awkward questions; but people started to use them separately from the machines, too. People started to put on the clips that they thought identified them. Males wore Pinks in utter defiance of social conventions. Females wore blues and stuck their tongues out at the stereotypes. Most of them changed their bodies, when they had enough money, but some of them refused. They just wore the hairclips, and said it represented their real gender.

For a while, people didn't care. They didn't give a flying fuck about the protests, or the hate crimes. The random graves that no one would mark properly, just because it felt too "awkward." But people kept struggling, kept defiantly wearing their hairclips, kept saying "this is me!" to the world. Eventually the government gave in, and declared that "genderclips" would be the official indicator of true gender "regardless of original or current sex." They were issued at thirteen, and reissued as necessary. It made gender changes  easy.

Except that it just made the attitudes worse. People felt that girls had to be female; that anyone who wanted their gender to be recognized as female should spend a quarter and change their sex instead. They didn't understand; they didn't get what it was like. How it felt, when you just wanted to show who you were without losing who you had always been. Without having to give up your "manhood" and get used to a whole new sex. A smaller body lacking half the hair, and giant lumps where you'd never even managed to grow muscle before, everyone suddenly angling to slide something you used to have yourself into the very place you used to have it.

I don't want that. I'd hate that. Getting used to a whole new form, when all I'd ever wanted was to be able to act like myself within my own body. To be a girl within my male form – to chat with my friends, and hang out at the mall, and try on clothes without someone whispering behind their hands about me acting like the very thing I was. To be close to someone. To tell them how I felt and not have them laugh at me for being too emotional. To cry when I was upset. To glare and yell when I was mad. To not be constantly locked behind this wall of 'how men are supposed to act.'

But people didn't get that; they never got that. To them, the genderclips were a way to declare who they always were, even when they looked like someone else. They weren't comfortable with people declaring who they really were, regardless of what body they'd been born with, instead. It raised questions they were trying to avoid, about what it really meant to be a girl or guy. They'd have rather been groping themselves in their bedrooms than answering stuff like that.

But their discomfort hadn't changed anything. Forty years had passed, and I was standing at a desk, smiling as the old lady came back with my pink clip. She was smiling back, but hers looked forced; possibly by fishhooks by how much pain it seemed to be causing her to keep it up. The lines must have been wrapped around her ankles, too, from the tiny steps she was taking to reach the counter.

She had my new genderclip at her side instead of stretched out for me to take it. I think she was hoping I'd change my mind, if she just give me those extra few moments to do it. Just turn around and run. I didn't, though. I stared at her nameplate, instead, trying to pass the time by seeing if I could read her name from afar. It had a old fashioned script, the curvy sort you'd see on wedding invitations. All I could make out was the letter "B." Betty, perhaps; or Beatrice? Bitter and old.

"B" placed the clip down on the desk with a smile, surprising me. I'd gotten distracted. My fingers actually started to shake when I gripped the packaging. It crinkled lightly under my touch, and slid gently away from the pink clip when I pulled, and it clattered against the desk, dancing light as a feather against the surface.

It was made up of cheap plastic. They had metal ones, but they were more expensive, and too heavy for most people to bother. Cheap plastic was enough for anyone. Cheap plastic with a silly little eagle imprinted on it to mark it as official. Cheap plastic, and yet somehow the most important thing in the entire world, the only thing in the world even, making everything else feel so near and so far at the same time.

I could make out everything going on around me. The chatter from the line behind me, still taking shape as early morning risers poured in. The soft smile of "B," which looked just a little crooked, her eyes not quite managing to sparkle, and her hands digging into the wodden desk. The irritated noise of those directly behind me, who were waiting for me to finish up my business so that they could take care of their assorted issues. Their taxes and complaints and reports or whatever the hell else plagued them. They could deal with all that when I was done; I'd feel guilty about it later.

I'd arrived at 6 AM in order to be the first one there. Just so that I could experience that momen

t of unwrapping the hairclip, and then sliding it into my hair.

The moment when I became an official woman, in the eyes of the law.

------End First Entry of Johathan Stark's Autobiography – 5/4/96------

"Crap, that sounds stupid… Maybe I should try rewriting it?" I ask, handing the paper to Jessica. He glances at it, smirks a little, and then lets out a laugh. That sound always makes me writhe. Jessica's humor tends to come at the most horrible of moments. Like when someone's telling us about their dead cat. And it makes his breasts wiggle, too; I always end up ogling them. Often while someone's telling them us about their dead cat. But he means well, as a rule. Even if he does tease me too often for ogling him; particularly when he's all sweaty from a game of basketball, and the white cloth is practically – bad brain. My transcriber is still recording; everything here is going to end up in my autobiography eventually. Thank god it doesn't have illustrations.

"Sorry," Jessica wheezed, handing me the paper; I stuff it in my pocket. "Sorry, sorry. It's fine, John. A bit overdramatic for me, but fine." He smirks, hugging his arms against himself, and rocking back and forth.

"What is it?" I ask, trying to keep patient. It's hard, but worthwhile, at least when Jessica's acting like this. Fighting off those giggles and clutching at himself, his blonde hair flowing from sideto side all pretty like while he shoots me glances. It means that he actually wants to share, but that he wants me to ask first; sometimes he prefers to keep the joke to himself, so when I ask he just punches me "lightly" and says it's a "guy" thing. I find it safer to wait for the signs.

"It's nothing," Jessica mutters when he has full control of his speech again. "I was just thinking about genders and sex; you know, how people used to act like they were the same thing?"

I nod, uncertain. It's taught in elementary school that they're different, now; federal requirement.

Jessica giggles again, and I wait for it to die, watching him bend over, hands gripping his knees as he fights for control. I make myself stare at those hands. Slender hands, feminine and seemingly soft, all callouses on the other sides.  Safe hands, for all that they can break my bones. They at least don't turn me on.

"I was…" Jessica frowns, pushing at his knees, pushing himself upright. "I was trying to imagine you all masculine, because of the male parts; or me picking out flowers and sticking them in my cleavage, or whatever crap old school girls used to do with it." He snorted. "Crazy, right?"

I nod, squirming a little more as I try to avoid letting Jessica see my blushing face. It was for their hair. I know he knows that. But he likes messing with me. Otherwise he wouldn't have brought up the idea of me and ripping muscles in the first place; he knows I've always sucked at the objectivity required to laugh at jokes like that.

"So," he drawls, glancing around the street of the suburb where we live. It's mostly empty, other than a passing cat girl. She doesn't even bother to twitch her ear towards us, though her tail is flashing fiercely. It makes me wonder if there's a dog about, though they usually don't chase anyone without at least fur.

"So," he drawls, louder, trying to draw my attention back to him. "Where do you want to go today?"

"Go?" I ask. The cat girl is turning a corner, a hovercar heading past her. She glances at us, and pauses when she sees Jessica, her yellow eyes glimmering as she starts to change directions. I put a hand on my friend's arm and smiles, turning him the other way before he has a chance to notice her. "How about we go hang out at the arcade or something?" I demand.

"But you don't like the arcade," he pointed out; he sounds worried, but there's a glint in his eyes I don't like.

"You do, though, right?" I give him my most charming smile, but I don't know if it does any good. I don't even know if he likes male-girls. I'm scared to ask. I'm not too scared to tug his arm though, trying and failing to pull him along. Jessica works out a lot.

"But this is your day," he murmurs, slowly turning back around. I squeal and point randomly to the left, risking a glance to see that the cat girl's getting closer, her had outstretched. Jessica has a thing for them. He'll talk to them for hours if they see each other. They might even exchange numbers.

"There's something in that direction!" I declare, knowing how stupid I sound. "Let's go there! Right now!"

He smiles at me. It's totally unfair. It makes my heart beat like crazy, and my eyes rove over his body, picking out his slender yet muscled form. The muscles ripple with a quiet grace as he slips an arm around me, and my legs melt. Jessica looks like a super model, to me; and it's natural, too, he says; I'm convinced his parents were using a formual when they conceived him, though, because there's no way in hell anyone gave birth to that without help.
That strong arm of his settles around me, and tightens around my waist, and he turns, the cat girl right  next to us. And then he walks, without even seeing her, his arm wrapped around me. My legs feel like noodles, because he's smiling at me, his soft and full lips peeling back to reveal a perfectly white smile.  "So, what's this way?"

Crap. This is going to look bad when I have to put it in my autobiography. "Um…" I glance around, trying to find something I can bluff with.  There's a sign in the distance I can't even make out, so I point at it. Jessica squints, and whistles, so I guess I made a good choice.

"Good eyes," he murmurs, loosening his grip on me as we walk.  I'm caught between regret and happiness; I can breathe better without him in my face; but I sort of liked the smell of him near me. But then his hand grips mine, and he smiles. I can feel the callouses decorating his fingers, the hard strength gained from working with weights day and night in order to keep up with the male-boys. The entire world was filled with equalizers for girls, strength gauntlets and levitational boots, but he refuses to use any of them. He always says that he wants to go at it naturally.  Properly. I don't really get it.

"So, why didn't you just get a sex change?" he asks me.
I flinch, glaring at him; he looks at me innocently, brushing aside a strand of blond hair, as he glances to the side; I can see the flash of tongue he sticks out at me, though. Which means he wanted me to see it. Which should make me mad, but leaves me struggling not to giggle instead. "You didn't get one either," I remind him, pointing my finger to where his genderclip would be if he ever bothered to wear one. I'd seen it once, battered but blue, thrown in the back of a drawer and mostly forgotten about.

"I didn't need one," he pointed out. "I said blue on my first try. You're the one who's switching teams during half game."

I make a face; sports references. "I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting used to a new body, alright? I'm fine with how I look; you're supposed to be the one who frowns on all that stuff, anyway."

"No. I frown on making everyone show off their labels just to function. And I frown on throwing away personal skills to rely on tech. I have no problem with you turning into a female so you won't get beaten up."

I hunch my shoulders, ducking my head down and hoping Jessica misses my blush. "I'd get beaten up either way, doing something sudden like that…"

"Not as bad as if you suddenly start showing up with a pink genderclip." I can feel Jessica's eyes on me, making me want to run, but his hand is still on me. It doesn't feel nearly as comforting anymore. It feels restrictive. "You know how people treat that. Like you're betraying their cause, or something."

"I'm not betraying anything." I tug, but he doesn't let go. His eyes are focused on me, trying to find mine, but I refuse to look at them. "I'm not a boy, and that's all there is to it; but I'm not a female either," I added, before he can say anything more. "I'm not… I don't have… or want… I hesitate, glancing at his chest, and then back to his hands. Which are gripping his tightly clothed thighs; dangerous territory.

"You want to browse, not own." Jessica finishes for me. My eyes jerk up toward his, and then move away, my heart beating loudly.

"Something like that, yeah. But in a way that makes me sound less like a pig. I just… don't like the idea of me with breasts…" I glance down at my flesh, pressing a hand against the bony surface. I never tried that hard to gain muscles, so it's no surprise that I never "succeeded." "The idea of them just creeps me out a little… like someone stuck putty on me…"

"But you have no problem at all ogling mine." Jessica smiles as he says it, his head tilted a little. He looks like he's inviting me to laugh at a personal joke between us, but I know a trap when I hear one. I glare at him, hands on my hips. "I thought I asked you not to make me look like such a pig."

"You're the one who's been staring at my hands like they're beacons of salvation," he points out, smirking. Shit. "I'm just wondering why you don't want a pair."

"Why don't you?" I demand. I meet him in the eye, this time, but flinch first; he's calm and collected. I'm most definitely not.

"I told you," he said, "I don't need it. I don't see the point in it, and nobody's going to beat me up for not doing it. I've been acting like this since the moment I was born, and it's not going to surprise anyone that I'm still doing it tomorrow."

"Whereas I've been hiding what I am since I was old enough to understand it," I whisper, bitter. Jessica doesn't understand. She's strong. Strong enough to say how she felt from the start; and I'm not. I'm not strong enough to say pink when all the males I know have been saying blue, to go against the line of history where sex and gender were considered to be almost one and the same, and where form was all that ever mattered. Every male I'd known had come home with a blue genderclip. So I'd done the same thing.

Except that Jessica's birthday came after me, and she had said blue too. She gets it more than most, but she still doesn't understand that final component – that heart gripping fear that if you go against the crowd, the crowd will go against you. That they'll hurt you, punch you, kick you when you're down and force them to change yourself into one of them. Make you the female they think a girl should be, because they still can't wrap their minds around the truth even after so many years.

Jessica brushes a strand of brown hair from my eyes, breaking into my thoughts with her tender gesture. The textured fingers slide roughly across my forehead, but they feel good; they dipped beneath my eyes, picking up a few tears I hadn't realized were there. The grip on my hand is still there, but it's much looser. I don't try to pull free, though.

"If  you're this scared, why are you bothering to go through with it?"

"Because i want to be as strong as you." The words slip out of my mouth before I can think about them. Sappy, but true in a way that only under-thought things can be.

He's staring at me. I blush, and pull myself free of his grip as it crumbles entirely. I can spin it off as a ploy later if I have to. I don't want to, though; it doesn't seem like a very strong thing to do. A very Jessica thing to do.

I should be bursting into laughter at the thought.

I run down the street, hearing him call after me. I don't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop. I'm scared to stop. Because if I stop he'll say something reasonable, and I don't want him to say something reasonable. I don't want him to try and talk me into giving in and becoming someone I'm not, just so that I can act like the person I am. I don't want to be female just so that I can be  a girl, and I'm terrified he's going to convince me to do just that. I'm terrified that he'd prefer me that way. As a female. I've always been afraid to ask about his sexuality.

Worse, I'm scared that he's going to say something cowardly; or even just more reasonable. I'm terrified that he's going to tell me that everyone's scared, and that he's no exception. I'm terrified that my one shining example is a lie. That there's nothing fearless in this world, no matter how much I need to believe that there is, if only until this is over.

I don't want him to say something reasonable. I don't even want him to say something irrational, like that one time he told me about the fish who kissed the monkey. I just want him to do something irrational – to be the fish; to kiss the monkey. To ignore my looks. But he won't do that. Because I'm the irrational one but I'm also the monkey. Monkeys don't generally get the fish unless the fish makes the first move; and no rational fish would ever make the first move.

…God, I'm not even making sense any more.

"Jonathan!" he calls after me, and I resist the urge to turn. I plug my fingers in my ears like it'll do some good, fold my elbows against my body and run until I feel his hand grip against mine, and then run a bit more until his muscled elbow drags me to a stop and my feet slide uselessly against the floor.

"Let me go," I demand; there's no threat in it, though, I feel drained. Hurt. A little bit thrown by the entire situation. I didn't know what to say anymore. That hurt a bit. "Let me go," I repeat, woodenly.

Jessica sticks his tongue out at me, but doesn't comply. "You'll run away if I do."

"A woman's prerogative." I tug my arm, but it doesn't come free. He pulls, and I fall backward into his arms, the muscular limbs closing in around me

"You're scared," He accuses, a little laughingly. His arms are cradling me lightly, and I can feel his breath putting slight pressure on my back. It makes me shift uncomfortably for a moment, and then stop, a soft blush passing through my features as I realize just what part of him is pressing into my back.

"It's not fair that you get to affect me like that," I mutter, angrily wiping a tear from my eye. "I'm supposed to be mad at you…"

"So be mad why don't you?" he teases, folding his hands together at my waist, his slender arms teasingly holding me against him with a mix of light pressure and my own desires.

I push that aside and stomp on his toes, glaring at him as I stalk away. The sight of him bouncing on one foot almost brings back my smile, but not quite; Jessica only has one solution to everything, after all:

If I'm mad, tease me. If I'm sad, tease me. If I'm happy, tease me. If I'm hurt, tease me; and then go beat something up. So maybe he had one and a half solutions, instead; but I still didn't want to deal with it.

"John, don't be like that," he wheedled, trying to hop after me, his foot trailing on the floor; I didn't step on him that hard. He's probably trying to make me laugh. I'm not going to laugh. He's being stupid. I'm not going to laugh, damn it, even if he puts on that fake pained expression with his tongue slightly outstretched and his eyes intently focused on something in the distance.

"Leave me alone, Jess," I mutter, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice. "You know I hate it when you start pestering me like that."

"And if I didn't pester you who would?"

My foot falters, stopping me long enough for Jessica to slip his hands around me again. I can feel his entire weight pressing against me, not unpleasantly; I can smell his hair, his skin, his sweat. That last part is a little disturbing, actually, but it feels good having him close. I like having him near. I wonder if it's a bad sign, that I let him get so intimate with me after everything he does.  "I don't need to be pestered," I tell him, instead of asking any of my own questions.

He snorts, and ruffles my hair a little, his fingertips gently pressing at my head until I'm looking at him in the eye. "You… totally need to get pestered." He grins when I give him a cross look. "You chose to be classified as a boy because of peer pressure, and then gave it up because you cared too much about what people thought about you."

I glare at him, but it falters; I'm hurt, but I don't want to admit it. I want to cry, but I don't want him to see it.  "Nobody wants to be seen as something they aren't."

He ruffles my hair again, acting oblivious to my death glare. There's a wary look in his eyes, though, and something else. A sense of pleading. "I had to make sure you were going into this with your head on straight. If you make the wrong choice here…"

"It'll ruin my entire life, I know." I sigh, trying to let some of my frustration go. The worried look Jessica is giving me helps more than I'd care to admit. He looks so cute; I'm still mad, though. It's just hard to remember that with those soft brown eyes on me.

"But you're still doing this." His eyes were on my clip, now, taking on the pink color I'd put on display for the world to see.

"I've already done it. And I don't want to hide it." I stick my chin out as I say it, nice and brave like. My lip is trembling, though. It's easy to act brave around Jessica, but only because he's always pushing me towards it; or getting me so mad I can't think about being scared. Seeing the actual concern in his face makes me worry. I suppose he's worried too, though.

People still get killed by things like this. Sometimes they're people like me, who just want to change their gender, and sometimes they're people who changed their entire bodies. It's almost impossible to trace the crimes, too, since anyone can look like anyone. The trace amounts of original DNA left in a transformee helps, but not enough when it's a case no one really cares about.

Except Jessica does care, I guess; I mean, he's like me, too, to an extent. So I guess he's worried about himself when he looks at me. But I want to think that he's worried about me, too. That he'd cry if he saw me laid out on the floor, little shards of glass glittering beside my brown hair, instead of laughing. It hurts to think of Jessica sad, but it makes me happy, too; and I don't quite understand that, but it's there all the same. Moreso when I look into his eyes and give him a soft smile, watching the gentle curve of his mouth as he returns the gesture back, with just a hint of nervousness.

"I think about it all the time," I admit. "Ever since they gave me a blue hairclip. It felt…" I trail off, uncertain how to continue. "It felt like the light had just disappeared. Like the sun had died, and the moon had exploded, and the earth was going to fall out from underneath me and I was just going to disappear through it. Wearing it was like putting a lead weight in my hair every morning – hanging the word 'boy' around my neck, and telling everyone…"

"Should have just thrown it in a drawer," smiled Jessica.

I smirk, but I don't say anything. I already knew that Jessica didn't quite get it. What it meant to be terrified, holding up your blue hairclip as a sign that you're normal – glaring with envy at the only boy who dared to be different; we're friends now, though. And I like him; a lot. I don't want to be glaring at him with envy; I want to be…

I blush, glancing at the ground. "Kiss me," I mutter.

"What?" he demands, trying to catch my eye. He looks like he's choking down a laugh, so I punch him in the shoulder – with my small arm, it doesn't hurt him in the slightest; just my own hand.

"Kiss me," I say, louder, my eyes squeezed shut. "A girl who likes you is asking you to kiss her, so just do it already!"

His lips touch mine; gently, then a little more firmly, and then pull away; he's blushing furiously, which is cute, but my own face is red too, which is just annoying. "No more acting like I'm not brave enough to handle this," I mutter.

Jessica nods, though he looks a little shell shocked. That's good. He deserves to be a little shell shocked. I'm annoyed at him. "So… um... about that sign…?"

I stare at him blankly, hoping it makes him uncomfortable; it seems less embarrassing than "What the hell are you talking about?'

"The, um… sign you had us heading too…" He glances to the side; a yellow diamond glowing faintly, plain black text projected in front of it to draw the attention of passersby.

Detour. Please take the long route.

His hands slip around me, his fingers sliding around my waist as his mouth comes to my ear. He laughs softly, his breath tickling me a little; all confidence and suave, as if I hadn't seen his discomfort. "And for the record? I totally saw the cat girl."