by Daniel John
“Gonads are the organ for today,” the teacher said in organ class. I opened my expensive anatomy book to the drawings of the female reproductive system. My face started to heat up. Women crowded around to see the pictures, like a flock of ovaries. I moved back to give them room. I felt left out.
“Come here, Daniel,” Susan said. “Let me give you ovaries.”
“Uh…I’m not sure I need them.” I wasn’t sure if I trusted her. She was short and solid, with black hair, and usually confronted me with a fierce intensity. I always felt she was mad at me for being a non-woman.
“It won’t hurt! Just let me try.”
“Okay,” I said. She stood behind me and put her fingertips in the hollows of my hips. “But there’s nothing there,” I said.
“Curve your hips around the emptiness, instead of flaring them out to the sides and sticking your penis out the way you usually do.” The movement was almost imperceptible. “Now feel your ovaries inside the emptiness. Lift your legs up, one at a time… No, not from the outside, from the center of your legs. Now straighten the leg from the heel and walk.” I moved delicately around the periphery of the room. She walked next to me, saying quietly in my ear, “Curve your hips inward, move your legs from your ovaries…” I sank swiftly into a soft internal black.
“Look, Sara!” she said to the teacher. “I gave Daniel ovaries! I feel like a mad scientist!”
“Then you’ve got to give him a uterus too. He’s already lateral enough.”
Susan put her hand on my bladder and said, “Wrap your hips around my hand. Feel your bladder as an upside-down cup that’s opening down and out through your vagina… Now walk.” Women looked up from their partnering work to watch me stroll among them like one of them. “Your upper body is still rigid. Move your womb up to your heart, wrap your ribs around it, deep, in, and back.” With a gentle melancholy I swayed around the room and thought, Demure. The word “demure” was a little black velvet purse hinting it might open.
“Demure,” I said, demurely.
“Are you okay?” Susan was worried.
“Yes,” I said, but I wasn’t. I had to reverse this for the sake of my sanity. “Are you ready for me to give you a penis and balls? Lie down.” She looked uncertain, but lay down. I sat on my knees next to her and touched each side of her lower belly above her ovaries, and then moved my fingers down to her labia, saying, “Your ovaries are now inside your labia like little eggs, swelling with life, weight, and power until they hang down away from your body. Your balls are always moving in response to changes in temperature, motion and emotion, sparkling and condensing, lengthening and loosening.” I lightly grazed her vulva. “Your clitoris is swelling and lengthening into a penis… Now get on all fours. Your penis and balls are flapping against your legs. You hold your legs apart to give them room.” She did, looking perplexed. “Now stand up. Your toes, feet, and knees go slightly lateral, your penis sticks out. Now walk.” I talked in her ear as she strode around the room. “The head of your penis is extremely sensitive; you’re always aware of where it’s touching your leg or your pants. Your huge upper body sends your heart swelling out like a penis of love to take care of all the women in the world. Your deltoids are bulging to the sides with the power to shoulder that burden.” She marched like a soldier. I hurried to keep up with her. “Your nose sticks out. Your toes stick out. Your vision shoots out ahead of your movement. Your ego sticks out, so any critical comment makes you feel castrated. Your body sticks up from the ground like an erection.”
She stopped abruptly. “I’ve had enough, Daniel.”
“You got it. You look like a football player.”
“I know. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back.”
“Let’s hug and trade.”
“No! That’s sex!” She looked horrified.
“Come on, just a little hug.”
“I don’t like your hugs! You stick your penis out.”
“Well, I won’t hug you then. You hug me.”
She did. “That’s no good,” she said, stepping back.
“Let me hug you, softly, like the woman you made me.” We hugged, and the man I’d made her into penetrated me and was received by the woman she had grown inside me. I stepped back, grinning. “You’re right. That was sex.”
She glared at me, then frostily turned her back.
I roller-skated home from class, my lips juicy and huge, full of kisses and tears, my cheeks as fluffy as the clouds high above my head.
Category: Featured, Fiction, Short Story, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing