Chapter 13: The Call part 3
Once she left, Jackie started bawling her eyes out. Tears flowing like waterfalls.
The sound of the door clicking shut was the trigger. A dam broke. It wasn’t graceful crying; it was ugly, wrenching sobs that tore from his chest and left him gasping. He sank to the floor, his back against the bed, knees pulled up. The soft cotton of his sweatshirt muffled nothing. He cried for the betrayal, cold and legal, hidden in the fine print. He cried for the boy he was, who was now a contractual impossibility. He cried from the sheer, exhausting weight of having every path forward carved out by someone else, each one leading to a version of himself he never chose.
He cried until his head throbbed and his eyes were swollen slits, until the room darkened from afternoon to dusk to deep night. The house below was silent, heavy with unspoken apologies and guilt. No one came to check. They knew. They all knew.
Exhaustion eventually overtook the grief, a thick, woolen blanket of numbness. He crawled into bed, still in his clothes, and fell into a dreamless void.
The morning light was a brutality. It sliced through the gaps in the blinds, landing directly on his face. His head pounded. His mouth tasted of metal and salt. The events of the previous evening assembled in his mind with a grim, surgical clarity. The trap was sprung. The reversal was a fantasy. He had exactly one door left, and it was made of polished steel and cost two hundred thousand dollars a year.
He moved mechanically. Shower. Dress. The clothes felt different. The jeans weren’t a costume anymore; they were just clothes. The sweater wasn’t a prop; it was just soft. The reflection in the mirror wasn’t Jack playing a part. It was just Jackie, puffy-eyed and hollowed out, a person with no past and only one possible future.
He waited until he heard his mother leave for grocery shopping, until the house was empty. He took the gray card from his wallet. His fingers were steady. The numbness was a gift.
The phone rang twice.
“Leo Thorne.”
“It’s Jackie Abernathy.”
A pause, just a beat. “Jackie. I’d wondered if I’d hear from you.”
“I’ll do it.” The words were flat, devoid of inflection. “The job. The… full protocol.”
“I see.” Leo’s voice was careful, professional. “You’ve decided on the complete experience, then?”
Jackie closed his eyes. He saw the father pushing his son on the swing. He felt the ghost of that other life, the one about throwing a ball, slip through his fingers like smoke. It was gone. It had never been his. “I want the full experience,” he heard himself say. “The ability to go through labor. Not a C-section. I want to feel it happen.”
The silence on the other end stretched. He could almost hear the calculations, the risk assessments, the legal permutations clicking behind Leo’s brow. “That is a significant additional commitment. Physically, and Financially.”
“I understand.”
“The implantation of the uterine tissue would be covered under the clinic’s research budget, as we discussed. It’s the cornerstone of the study.” Leo’s tone shifted, becoming instructional. “But the osteotomy and pelvic expansion—the procedure to reconfigure the pelvic inlet for a potential vaginal delivery—that is considered elective, experimental enhancement. It is not covered.”
“How much?”
“Sixty-five thousand dollars. The procedure itself, the specialized traction device, the intensive physiotherapy. It requires a two-month dedicated recovery period before you’d be viable for the implantation surgery. We’d need to schedule it for early January, immediately after the holidays, to stay on track for a February implantation.”
Sixty-five thousand dollars. The number didn’t shock him. It just sat there, another immovable object. The salary from Leo’s offer was future money, abstract. This was a concrete, immediate chasm to cross.
“I don’t have that,” Jackie said, his voice still eerily calm.
“I assumed not. The offer letter stands. Your salary would be paid in bi-monthly installments starting your first day. You could save. It would take time.”
Time he didn’t have. The implantation was in February. The wedding was a blur on the horizon, a pointless ribbon-cutting ceremony before the real construction began.
“What if I don’t do it?” Jackie asked. “The hip thing. What if I just do the… the rest?”
“Then you would be a uterine transplant recipient who could carry a child, but would require a cesarean section for delivery. A perfectly valid, still groundbreaking outcome.” Leo’s voice was neutral, but Jackie sensed the push. This man wanted the full testament, the complete story. He wanted the woman who broke her own bones to make life.
The entire call was awkward, filled with pauses where the enormity of what they were discussing threatened to swallow the words. But Jackie didn’t hang up. This was his life now. This was the business meeting to determine its shape.
“I’ll find the money,” Jackie said, the statement feeling both impossible and inevitable.
“I’ll have my assistant send over the formal employment contract and the separate surgical consent forms for the elective procedure. Read them thoroughly. The liability waivers for the osteotomy are… extensive.” Leo’s tone softened, just a hair. “This is a brave choice, Jackie. It’s the road less traveled for a reason. But the view at the end is unparalleled.”
Jackie didn’t want his pep talk. “Just send the papers.”
He ended the call. The silence of the house pressed in again, but it was a different silence. It was the quiet after a detonation. The landscape was irrevocably changed.
He walked downstairs. In the kitchen, on the counter, was a fresh blender pitcher, rinsed but still damp. Aunt Carol’s morning visit. A little booster for the bride’s sister. He picked it up, looked at the faint green residue clinging to the glass. His hand tightened around the handle.
Then, slowly, he set it back down. He wasn’t angry anymore. The anger had burned out, leaving behind a cold, clear purpose. They had tricked him into voiding one contract. Fine. He would sign a better one.
He had until February. He had a wedding to get through as the maid of honor. And then he had to find sixty-five thousand dollars to pay for the privilege of having his pelvis broken and widened, so that a child grown in a stranger’s womb, placed inside him, could someday be born the way he now felt he needed it to be.
He opened the fridge. The light was too bright. He took out the orange juice, poured a glass, and drank it all. It was just orange juice. Nothing more.
He had never felt more alone, or more resolved. The tears were gone. All that was left was the arithmetic, and the terrifying, singular road ahead.
All that was left was the arithmetic, and the terrifying, singular road ahead. The contracts arrived in his email an hour later, two separate PDFs with enough pages to feel like a life sentence. He printed them at the local library, the hum of the printer a mundane soundtrack to the surreal.
He signed them at the kitchen table, the pen scratching loudly in the silent house. Each signature was a tremor in his hand, but the letters came out clear and definitive. Jackie Abernathy. He scanned the signed pages back into the computer, attached them to a blank reply email, and hit send. The digital whoosh sound felt like a lock turning.
Only 25 days until Jeannette’s wedding. And 25 until the holidays were over and when he needed to come up with $65,000.
Twenty days later, the air itself felt different against her skin. The transformation was no longer something happening inside; it dominated the outside, dictated the physical world. Jackie’s body was almost to the size needed, a fact confronted every morning in the mirror and with every piece of clothing she put on.
Her breasts, once modest bumps, now demanded space, jutting against her shirts and requiring the structured confines of a 40E cup bra. The weight of them was a constant, new gravity on her frame. His butt was huge, Kardashian-sized, but well-toned from the punishing workouts Jeannette made him do; it was a physical asset, not just softness.
His hips were wide, but only fat on the sides, a shelf of curvature that made walking feel like navigating a new center of balance. His actual hips weren't wide naturally, a truth the upcoming osteotomy would brutally address. His waist, in cruel contrast, sucked inwards, cinched by a relentless bone structure and losing fat from the stress, creating an exaggerated, hourglass silhouette that felt less like a shape and more like a container.
His hair had grown to a shoulder-length, copper-colored wave, shining under the winter sun. It was the one change he sometimes liked, the way it felt swinging against his neck.
The money, however, did not magically appear. After a final dress fitting where Jeannette nervously chirped about how amazing he looked, Jackie put on a plain sweater and trousers, stuff that felt neutral, and went to the bank. He’d researched small business loans, anything.
“The name on your account is Jackson Abernathy,” the loan officer said, a man with neat glasses and a too-tight smile, glancing between the driver’s license and Jackie’s face. His eyes lingered on the copper hair, the softened jaw, the curve of the sweater.
“Yes. I go by Jackie.”
“I see.” The man tapped his keyboard. “And the purpose of this loan is for… elective medical procedures?” He said the last two words as if tasting something sour.
“It’s for a medical expense, yes.”
The man leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Mr. Abernathy, the documentation you’ve presented… there’s a significant discrepancy with the individual sitting before me. For the bank’s security protocols, this raises flags for potential identity fraud. I’m afraid we cannot advance a loan under these circumstances.”
“It’s not fraud. It’s me. Look at the license, the birth date, the address. It’s all the same.”
“The photograph suggests otherwise. The presentation suggests otherwise.” His tone was final, a brick wall of polite, impenetrable bureaucracy. “You are welcome to reapply with updated, government-issued photo identification that accurately reflects your… current appearance.”
Jackie left, the heat of shame burning up his neck. The cold air outside was a slap. He walked past a store window, catching his reflection—the copper hair, the impossible proportions under the winter coat. The man in the bank didn’t see a person in need; he saw a discrepancy, a problem of matching data. Jackie felt like a ghost trying to withdraw money from a living person’s account.
That evening, Marie was attempting to thread a needle under the kitchen light, struggling with a loose button on one of Jeannette’s garment bags. “Your aunt says the final booster regimen is really showing,” she said without looking up, her voice carefully light. “You look very… healthy.”
Jackie stood in the doorway, feeling the weight of her body on her feet. “I need sixty-five thousand dollars, Mom.”
Marie’s hands stilled. The needle glinted. She didn’t look up. “What for, honey?”
“For after. For the next step.”
The silence stretched, filled with the hum of the refrigerator. Marie finally put the needle down. She looked at her child, at the woman in her kitchen, and her eyes were wells of a grief she couldn’t articulate. “We… the contract for the reversal, we would have paid for that. We promised.”
“You promised with a loophole big enough to drive a truck through,” Jackie said, the words flat and tired, no accusation left in them. “This is different. This isn't undoing anything. This is going forward.”
Marie picked up the needle again, her fingers trembling. “I don’t have that kind of money, Jackie. You know that. Your father’s life insurance… it’s for the house. For a rainy day.”
“It’s raining.” Jackie’s voice was quiet. She turned and walked upstairs, each step a heavy effort. The arithmetic was failing. The road was narrowing, the walls closing in, and the wedding rushed toward her like an oncoming train, a ceremony that now felt like the prelude to a sentencing.
The road was narrowing, the walls closing in, and the wedding rushed toward her like an oncoming train, a ceremony that now felt like the prelude to a sentencing. She lay in the dark, the numbers scrolling behind her eyes like ticker tape. $65,000. Two months. Broken bones. The bank’s rejection was a sealed door. Her mother’s helplessness was a locked window.
There was one last thing she could do.
She could ask her Aunt Carol to fund it. She was wealthy, after all. The divorce settlement from Uncle Frank had left her comfortable in that sleek townhouse, with her designer purses and her endless, meddling generosity. But Jackie could just feel a stipulation if she did. Carol didn’t just give gifts; she curated outcomes. She’d want collateral. She’d probably ask for him to pay her back with interest. Probably a monthly payment. Another tether, another chain of obligation, fastened directly to her body.
"Ooof. Do I really want to ask her?" The thought was a physical recoil in her gut. "It's the only way to live a normal life. C-section be damned. If I'm gonna be a woman I might as well experience the whole thing."
The logic was brutal and complete. It had a terrible clarity. She picked up the phone from her nightstand, the glow of the screen illuminating her determined, tired face. She texted, her thumbs clumsy. Can we meet at your place tomorrow? Before the final prep stuff. Need to talk privately.
The reply was almost instant. Of course, sweetie! Coffee here at 10. xo
Carol’s townhouse smelled of lavender plug-ins and expensive coffee. Everything was beige and cream, aggressively calm. Carol herself was in cashmere loungewear, her smile wide and ready. “You look stunning, Jackie. The final boosters are just… wow. What’s on your mind?”
Jackie took the offered latte, its ceramic warmth doing nothing for the cold in her hands. She didn’t sit. “I need sixty-five thousand dollars.”
Carol’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyes sharpened, the pleasant hostess evaporating. She took a slow sip. “That’s very specific. What for?”
“The next procedure. After the wedding. It’s for the… the full experience. The labor part.” The words felt clinical and ridiculous at the same time. “Leo’s offer covers a lot, but not that. Not the bones.”
“Ah.” Carol set her cup down with a precise click. “The osteotomy. I’ve read about it. Radical.” She studied Jackie, a gardener assessing a unique, promising bloom. “And you’ve decided this is what you want? Not just the implant, but the breaking? The reconstruction?”
“Yes.”
“And you understand the recovery is horrific? That you’ll be in a wheelchair, then a walker, for weeks? That it could go wrong?”
“Leo explained.”
Carol nodded, her gaze traveling over Jackie’s face, pausing on her mouth. A long, evaluating silence filled the pristine room. “I’ll give you the money.”
Relief, sharp and sudden, flooded Jackie’s chest. It was immediately followed by a tighter, colder squeeze.
“But,” Carol continued, holding up a single, manicured finger. “We structure it as a personal loan. Minimal interest, manageable monthly payments starting six months after your new salary begins. I’ll draw up the papers. That’s business.”
Jackie nodded, already anticipating this. “Okay.”
“And,” Carol said, her voice dropping into a softer, more intimate register. “There’s a condition. A minor one, really. Consider it a styling addition to the overall… project.”
Jackie froze. “What condition?”
Carol stood and walked over, her fingers gently lifting Jackie’s chin. She tilted her head, studying her lips. “These. They’re fine. Pretty, even. But they’re a little… thin. A little severe for the overall softness we’ve achieved.”
She dropped her hand and stepped back, her expression one of cheerful finality. “The condition is you get a lip augmentation. A modest one. Not super big like a porn star, but noticeable. A fuller pout. It’ll balance your face, complete the look.” She smiled, a flash of perfectly white teeth. “Think of it as my aesthetic contribution. You’re going to be a testament to modern science, sweetie. You should look the part. Every detail matters.”
The air left the room. Jackie stood there, holding the cooling latte, her aunt’s words slithering into her ears. Dick-sucking lips. The crude, unspoken term hung in the perfumed air between them, a vulgar secret wrapped in a gift of cashmere and concern. It wasn’t about balance or aesthetics. It was about marking her, about Carol putting her own stamp on the finished product.
“That’s the deal,” Carol said, her tone leaving no room for debate. “The money for your bones, plus a little touch on my terms. You’ll thank me later. Everyone wants fuller lips.”
Jackie’s jaw ached from clenching. She looked past Carol, out the large window to the sterile winter street. The path was no longer narrowing. It was now a single, paved lane with designated landscaping, and Aunt Carol held the gate key. She had asked for this. She had walked into the gallery and now the curator was dictating the final brushstroke.
She made her choice.
“Fine,” Jackie said, the word tasting of ash and expensive coffee. “Do it.”
“Do it.”
Carol’s smile was a swift, satisfied cut across her face. “Perfect,” she said, her voice all business now. She turned and walked to a sleek, minimalist desk in the corner of the room, pulling open a drawer. “We’ll get the paperwork sorted now. No time like the present.”
Jackie stood frozen in the center of the room, the latte cold in her hand. She watched Carol retrieve a legal pad and a pen, her movements efficient and practiced. The lavender scent in the air suddenly felt cloying, thick enough to choke on. This was really happening. She was trading her face for the money to break her bones.
Carol spent the next two hours forming another contract. Her pen scratched rapidly across the paper, pausing only for her to tap her lip thoughtfully before adding another line. Jackie sat silently on the stiff cream sofa, watching her aunt construct the bars of this new, golden cage. The only sounds were the clock’s tick and the rustle of paper.
Finally, Carol slid the completed pages across the glass coffee table. “Read it. Thoroughly. I insist.”
This time, Jackie read it thoroughly. Every word. Every sub-clause. Her eyes, still slightly puffy from weeks of stress and silent crying, tracked each line with a paranoid intensity born of bitter experience. She looked for the hidden voids, the linguistic traps like the one that had nullified her reversal. The loan terms were clear, almost fair. The lip procedure was listed as a “condition of fiduciary release,” scheduled for the week after the wedding.
Then she found it. Buried in a paragraph about “ongoing aesthetic alignment with the recipient’s affirmed gender,” was a single, stunning sentence.
If the recipient undergoes procedures or demonstrates a presentation deemed by the undersigned benefactor to constitute a further material increase in femininity, the recipient will agree to one additional elective procedure, selected by the benefactor from a pre-approved list.
Below, in a separate box, was the list. It contained one item.
Procedure: Height Modification. Description: Surgical reduction of stature by 3 to 4 inches to achieve a proportional, feminine height.
Jackie’s breath hitched. She read it twice. The blood seemed to drain from her face, pooling somewhere cold in her feet. She looked up at Carol, who was watching her with a placid, unblinking expectation.
“This clause,” Jackie said, her voice hollow. “What does this mean? ‘Deemed by the benefactor’? You get to decide if I’ve become ‘more feminine’?”
“It’s a standard incentivization clause,” Carol said smoothly, waving a hand. “To ensure you maintain a cohesive look. Consistency is key, Jackie.”
“But the surgeries I’m getting are feminine. The womb. The hips. By definition.” Jackie’s voice rose, a crack in her numb facade. “You’re saying if I get the procedures you’re paying for, you can decide that makes me ‘more feminine’ and then force me to get… this?” She jabbed her finger at the words Height Modification.
Carol’s expression didn’t change. It was gentle, implacable. “It’s just a formality, sweetie. A safeguard. I’m sure it won’t be triggered.”
“Then take it out.”
“I won’t.” The words were soft, final. “This is my investment. I’m ensuring the vision is seen through to its… logical conclusion. A proportional height is part of that. Those hips, that figure—at your current height, it might look… unbalanced. Top-heavy.”
The argument was circular, maddening. The womb surgery and the hip bone surgery were inherently feminine. They would, by Carol’s own arbitrary metric, trigger the clause. It wasn’t a safeguard; it was a guarantee. A promise of more carving, more reduction, until she fit perfectly inside Carol’s imagination.
Jackie stared at the line. Surgical reduction of stature. They would break her legs. Shorten her bones. Make her smaller. The horror of it was so absolute, so profoundly diminishing, that for a moment her mind just blanked, refusing to process it.
She saw the $65,000. She saw the osteotomy in January, the long recovery. She saw the implantation in February, the point of no return. This clause was a snake in the basket, but the basket held the only food in the desert.
Carol would not budge. Her pleasant smile was a locked door.
Jackie’s shoulders slumped. The fight drained out of her, leaving a familiar, weary resignation. It was just another part of the topography now, another jagged peak on the landscape she had agreed to traverse. What was one more violation stacked upon the others? It was all just… the cost.
“Fine,” Jackie whispered.
She took the pen. Its weight was negligible, but her hand trembled as she brought it to the signature line. The ink flowed, black and permanent, spelling out the name that was now hers in a script that felt like someone else’s. Jackie Abernathy.
Carol collected the pages, her satisfaction a quiet, physical presence in the room. “It’s for the best,” she said, as if signing a permission slip for a field trip. “You’ll see. Now, let’s get you that latte. You look pale.”