Trismegistus Shandy: chapter 2

2017-02-19T02:21:08Z

chapter 2

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[[You Could Go Home Again|Table of contents]]

----

After we got unpacked, we walked over to the nearest dining hall
for supper, and sat together. Most of the people we saw were Raleigh
rabbits; I also recognized several other North Carolina neospecies from
my research, and saw a handful of people from farther off, like Amy.

We sat down and talked for a few minutes about our high school
experiences, what we planned to do in college, and so forth. After we'd
been eating for maybe ten minutes a girl came over to us and said,
"Mind if I sit here?" The dining hall was getting crowded and there
weren't a lot of empty seats left.

"Sure," I said, and Amy nodded, her mouth being full.

The new girl was, I guessed from her height, the stripey pattern of her
curly hair, and the bulge in her pants, a Cary hyena. She introduced
herself as Radhika; her mother was from India, but she'd lived in Raleigh
all her life. She was also a freshman, but lived in a different dorm
from us. Amy and I told her a little of our own history, but by mutual
consent didn't tell her about our spat with the housing clerk.

A couple of Raleigh rabbits, both boys, sat down near us as well, but
didn't join in our conversation at first. But when their conversation
hit a lull, one of them looked at me and said, "If you're smart enough
to start college at twelve, why didn't you go to Duke or Harvard or
somewhere?"

"I'm eighteen," I said angrily, my ears trembling.

"Oh. Sorry." He looked like he wanted to ask me something, but was too
embarrassed or too polite to say it. After a few moments' hesitation,
I volunteered the information he was probably curious about, and he said:

"Welcome back to Raleigh, I guess. Do you remember a lot about the city
from when you were a kid?"

"A few things," I said. "We lived in Garner and didn't come into downtown
much as far as I can recall."

He nodded. "My family's from Auburn, not far from there. I'm Katie
Cartwright." So a girl before the Divergence, apparently, but developed
as a boy at puberty. Or maybe he'd been a girl until a short time ago;
I didn't want to ask.

"Joel Hampton," I said. "And this is Amy Taniger, and Radhika Eames.
We're all freshmen."

"My buddy Quill and I are sophomores," he said. "Let me know if you've
got any more questions after you get through with the orientation tour
tomorrow," and he wrote his contact information on a slip of paper and
gave it to me. I thanked him, but I wasn't sure I wanted to spend much
time with guys for a while yet. I needed to meet more girls, Raleigh
rabbits in particular, to have any chance of developing as a boy.

-----

That night, after talking on the phone with Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler,
I went down the hall to shower; I figured it would be less busy than
in the mornings. The bathrooms in Alexander Hall were unisex, but I
didn't see any guys using it when I was in there, just girls, all but
one of them rabbits. I blow-dried my fur -- the dorm bathroom had a
wonderful full-body blow dryer, much better than the hand dryer I'd used
back home -- and put on my bathrobe, and when I got back to the room,
Amy had changed into her pajamas and gotten into bed.

"I'll close my eyes while you dress," she said, and she also pulled
a pillow over her head. I dressed for bed and read for a few minutes
before turning out the light.

-----

The next morning after breakfast, Amy and I found ourselves in the same
orientation tour group. There were about twenty people in the group,
more than half of us Raleigh rabbits, about twelve or fourteen girls
and six or eight boys (if you counted me as a boy). The leader of our
tour group was a Greensboro tiger, and an RA in our dorm; he showed us
around the campus and answered a lot of questions, and left us at the
administration building where some of us needed to talk to people about
changing classes or other things.

"Do you want to talk to the housing authority?" I asked Amy.

"Nah. Let's see how things go for a few days. Or until we know how
you're changing. How long does that normally take?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. With kids going through puberty at the
normal time it's over two or three years; with adults changing because
they're in a group that doesn't have the right sex ratio it can be
just a few weeks. I wasn't able to find anything about people like me;
maybe there aren't any."

"If it takes you a year or more to change, are you going to know which
way you're changing before it finishes?"

"Oh, yeah. Probably within weeks. Maybe days."

I didn't see Amy again until that night, at the party in the common room
of our dorm. I said hi to her, but I spent most of the party introducing
myself to other people, mostly female Raleigh rabbits, and trying to
get to know any of them who seemed at all interested in talking to me.

"So you grew up out in the middle of nowhere?" asked Sarah, a girl from
Knightdale, an eastern suburb. "What do you think of Raleigh?"

"I haven't seen much except for the campus, and I don't remember a lot
from when I was a kid. I vaguely remember going to the capitol and the
natural history museum on elementary school field trips."

"We can show you some things next weekend, maybe," said her friend Rob.
They'd gone to the same high school and were roommates. I guessed Rob
had been a boy until the Divergence, but from what they said I gathered
that she'd been a girl since puberty, and a pretty girly girl at that;
she was dressed fancier than anyone else at the party, wearing a long
dress with puffed sleeves, a silver necklace, and a tiara.

In our age group, kids who were prepubescent at the time of the
Divergence, there was almost no correlation between names and sexes.
A few people had changed their name when they entered puberty and saw
what sex they were going to be, but most didn't.

I chatted with Sarah and Rob for a little while. Then a guy came in
and sat down between them, and they scooted aside on the sofa to make
room for him; Sarah was now wedged up against my thigh. A few months
later that might have been exciting; for now it was just uncomfortable.
"Hi, girls," the new guy said, and kissed both of them. "Who's your
little friend?"

"This is Joel," Sarah said. "Joel, this is our boyfriend Rico."

"Hi, Joel. I'd guess you're a genius to graduate high school so
early... do you do tutoring?"

"I'm eighteen," I said. "I haven't grown up all the way because I
lived in Hebron, Nebraska where there aren't any other Raleigh rabbits."
I was getting tired of explaining that.

"Huh. Why'd your parents move there?" Sarah swatted him on the arm
and he looked at her in bewilderment.

"They died and my aunt and uncle adopted me," I explained briefly.
I'd already told Sarah and Rob about it in a little more detail. "I'll
see you guys later," and I went to introduce myself to some more people.

Even though my goal was to meet a lot of female Raleigh rabbits and nudge
my puberty toward the "male" setting, I wound up spending the last hour of
the party hanging with Amy and George, a Nashville bat who was apparently
the only person of his species in our dorm, maybe at the university.
He had no eyes, and sensed things by echolocation. His family had moved
to North Carolina a couple of years after the Divergence. He had a
good sense of humor and we shared several interests; it was nice, too,
to talk with someone who didn't treat me like a kid, like too many of
the Raleigh rabbits I'd met in the last couple of days.

-----

Classes started the next day. Amy, George and I had compared schedules;
I shared one class with each of them, English 101 with Amy and Biology
101 with George. We walked together to breakfast and then George and
I walked together to Biology.

Dr. Wilson was a Cary hyena, not as tall and massive as Radhika (most
older Cary hyena women weren't as big as the younger women who'd gone
through puberty after the Divergence) but taller and broader-shouldered
than the average Raleigh rabbit of either sex. She spent little time
going over the syllabus and other administrative details, but got
straight into lecturing on different types of single-celled organisms.
I'd gotten to class too late to talk to anyone beforehand, but after
class I introduced myself to some of the girls I'd been sitting near.
All were too busy to do much more than tell me their names before they
had to go to their next class, and one was too rude to do even that.

I had Political Science next, with Dr. Ashton, a male Raleigh rabbit
who used a wheelchair, then lunch. I didn't see anyone I knew when I
walked into the dining hall, so I found a table with more girls than boys
(that wasn't hard) and asked if I could join them. They were polite
enough to let me sit there, but didn't include me in their conversation.
I watched and listened and learned a few things. I knew what flirtation
looked like; I may have been asexual but I'd spent plenty of time around
horny teenage Lincoln bison. But the thing where a girl leans over
so her ears brush the boy's ears was new to me. Was I going to be the
brush-er or the brush-ee?

Amy came in while I was partway through lunch, and we waved to each
other, but she didn't try to sit near me. There wasn't any more room at
the table by then. I joined her after I finished eating and walked to
English from there; we got there early enough that I could talk to a few
people before class started. Radhika and Rob were also in that section
of English, taught by Ms. Allen, a Durham bull. Durham bulls look a lot
like Lincoln bison, but they're generally taller and skinnier; Ms. Allen
didn't have horns but she had the distinctive facial features of a bull.
(I wasn't sure why they named the whole neospecies "bulls" when that's
a sex-specific name for male cattle, elephants and so forth. I found
out later it's because before the Divergence, Durham had a sports team
called the Bulls -- I can't remember what sport they played. Of course
almost all sports are local now, so most of the big city-based teams
that played teams from other cities are all gone.)

Amy had somewhere else she wanted to go, so I walked with Rob back
to our dorm, where I worked on homework until Amy got back and for
a while longer. Except for brief greetings when she came in we were
silent until near bedtime.

"Is it okay if I ask you something?" I asked, looking up from my biology
textbook.

"Maybe," she said. "What is it?"

"If you identify as female... does that mean that when you're, um, -- I
think you said 'in heat'? -- that you're attracted to other hermaphrodites
who identify as male? Or...?"

She flushed, and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse to
answer. "No. When we're in heat we aren't attracted to other people --
we just want our flowers pollinated." At first I thought that was a
weird euphemism, but then she explained that Athens magnolias actually
grow *flowers* for a few days each year, and they lounge around outdoors
while insects and hummingbirds come along and pollinate them. "At least,
if you're old enough. My parents always made me stay indoors all during
the blooming so I wouldn't get pregnant. Even after scientists developed
birth control pills that worked for us, they still made me stay indoors
just in case."

"Huh. So even when you're -- in heat, you aren't attracted to other
people?"

"No... we're asexual, not aromantic. We can fall in love like people of
other species, we're just not obsessed with their bodies. I --" She broke
off, and I didn't press her. After a minute or two of silence I said:

"I'm scared. Of turning into a girl, or even a boy. I've done all the
research, I have all the facts, but I still have no idea what it's going
to *feel* like. Looking at Rob and Sarah, and the way they hang onto
Rico... I envy them and I'm scared of becoming like them. Does that
make sense?"

"I guess. Why'd you come here, though, if you were afraid of --
all that?"

"It... seemed like an important part of life. Something I should
experience. And now -- well, it's too late to back out. Even if I
got on a train to Nebraska tomorrow, I've still been exposed to enough
Raleigh rabbit pheromones that I'm going to go through puberty one way
or another."

"I think you'll do fine. Almost everybody goes through it, and it's
rough for some people, but... I think you'll have an advantage, being
more mature. You've done all the research, like you said."

"Yeah. I hope it's enough."

-----

By the end of my first week in college, I'd made the acquaintance of
several dozen people and started to become good friends with a few.
Unfortunately, most of those were foreigners; the only Raleigh rabbit
I was really friends with was Rob, and that perforce meant spending
time with Rico as well as Sarah. (Back in Hebron we called anybody
who wasn't a Lincoln bison -- such as me -- a "foreigner", even if they
were native to Hebron and just happened to be in Omaha or Kansas City on
Valentine's Day. That wasn't the custom in Raleigh, which was a lot more
cosmopolitan, but I found myself thinking of non-rabbits as "foreigners."
I tried not to say it out loud.)

Saturday after the first week of classes, Amy and I joined Sarah, Rob,
and Rico on a trip to see more of the city. Rico was the only one
of us who had a car; Sarah sat up front with him and the rest of us
squeezed into the back. With new post-Divergence safety regulations
that forbid manually operated cars, and the increasing fuel costs, not
as many people can afford to own and operate cars; there aren't a lot of
cheap used cars around for young people to get started with like there
were when Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tyler were growing up. I gathered that
Rico's family was tolerably well off.

He showed us the capitol, the cathedral, the convention center, and some
historic buildings. I remembered some of them from when I was a kid,
but most of it was new to me. Finally we stopped at a restaurant near
a mall on the outskirts of the city, and then went to the mall itself.

Amy, Rob and Sarah wanted to shop for clothes. Rico looked down at me
and said: "You want to go with them, kid, or hang with me? I'm going
by the GameStop first, not sure where to after that."

I was torn. I didn't really want to go clothes-shopping; I'd always
worn fairly simple boys' clothes and let Aunt Ellen do most of the
shopping for me. But I didn't want to spend hours one-on-one with
Rico; that might seal my fate as a girl. And even if I didn't care
what sex I was, I wasn't keen on spending more time with Rico, period.
"I'll go with them," I said, and Amy looked surprised.

"Suit yourself," Rico said, and kissed Rob and Sarah. "Give me a call
when y'all are done."

I learned more about girls' clothes in the next few hours than I'd learned
in all my previous Internet research. I found out that Rob needed two
different size bras for her upper and lower breasts, for instance; Amy
looked as bemused at that as I did. She wouldn't need a bra until and
unless she got pregnant; Athens magnolias don't develop breasts until
they start lactating. Sarah tried on and bought a dress that had a high
neckline, but two little peepholes, one between each pair of breasts;
Rob preferred more modest garments. Sarah persuaded Amy to try on a
dress with a low neckline, but she didn't buy it, saying it looked silly
without breasts to fill it out.

They persuaded me to try on a child-size skirt, but I declined to buy it.
"I still don't know if I'm going to be a girl; if I turn out to be a boy,
this would be a waste of money."

"Not necessarily," Rob said. "Some boys wear skirts. But I guess it
might not fit you for very long."

"I hope so." I didn't know if I'd finish growing up once I hit puberty,
or if my growth was permanently stunted by not starting puberty at the
right age. My pediatrician back in Hebron had done some research and
said it was anybody's guess. That reminded me I needed to find a local
doctor, somebody who knew Raleigh rabbit biology.

After visiting a shoe store and a jewelry store (Rob bought a pair of
shoes; the others didn't buy anything), we met up with Rico at the food
court, where he was drinking a smoothie and playing a game on his tablet.
Sarah and Rob sat down on either side of him and Amy and I sat across
the table.

"You girls find anything good?" he asked.

"We'll show you later," Sarah said, and whispered something in his ear.
He smiled.

"What about you?" I asked.

"Last Dragon to Avondale," he said, holding up his tablet. "There are
these dragons that live in the subway tunnels, and people ride them,
but if you don't treat them right they'll eat passengers and driver both.
You buy anything, kid?"

I was sick of him calling me "kid." "No, I tried on some things but
I didn't want to waste money on stuff that probably won't fit me when
I've grown some more."

"That's good sense."

We returned to campus, and Rico walked with us back to Alexander Hall,
though he didn't live there. I saw him go into the stairwell with Sarah
and Rob as Amy and I turned to go down the hall to our room.

-----

Sunday morning, I got up early and showered before going to chapel.
I examined myself carefully before I turned on the water in the shower.
Was there a little puffiness behind my nipples or was I imagining it?
Being a girl wouldn't be too bad, I decided; I'd mostly enjoyed hanging
out with the girls yesterday. Except for the parts involving Rico.
Why did Sarah and Rob like him so much? Or did they love him? What was
that about, anyway? Some of the stuff I'd read suggested that sex made
you like people you wouldn't like otherwise. Other sources seemed to say
that it made you like one of your friends a lot more than all the others.
It was pretty confusing, especially when some of it was pre-Divergence
stuff that might not apply anymore, or might apply to other neospecies
but not to Raleigh rabbits.

Radhika was the only one of my new friends I saw at chapel. We chatted
for a few minutes after the service, and then walked to the library
together; both of us had some research to do for different classes.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" I asked her.

"I had two boyfriends in high school, at different times. I broke up
with the last one, Miguel, a few months ago... he was too clingy."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I had a vague idea what "clingy"
meant from looking at some of the teen couples back in Hebron, and I
was pretty sure some people would describe Sarah and Rob as clingy,
but Rico didn't seem to mind. She continued after a brief pause:

"Here, I've met several boys like me, and I asked Paul out. We went to
dinner last night; I think we'll go out again."

"How do you know? I mean, how did you know you wanted to go out with him,
and not one of the other Cary hyenas you've met here?"

"He's smart," she said; "he's on a full academic scholarship. And we
both like a lot of the same movies. And he is just a little taller
than you -- very cute, just the right size to sit in my lap. Next date,
or no later than the one after that." She smiled.

All the male Cary hyenas I'd seen were shorter than the girls, except
for one librarian who'd been an adult at the time of the Divergence,
but most of them were taller than me. If this was the Paul who sat in
front of me in Political Science, he was just an inch or so taller than
me, more than a foot shorter than Radhika.

We parted when we got to the library, and went in different directions
to do our research.

-----

[[You Could Go Home Again/Part03|Part 3]]

You Could Go Home Again/Part02 - Revision history

Trismegistus Shandy: chapter 2