They finished with my ass tattoo a few minutes before Marilyn returned. I stood quietly in the cubicle—it was too painful to sit—wearing just a smock, trying to compose myself. My body had changed so much in the last two years, but the changes had been gradual, except the implants—hair that slowly grew down to my chest, breasts that developed over many months, small hairless patches of skin that grew bigger with electrolysis, a waist that shrank as my hips broadened. As I looked in the mirror I was confronted with a different face than I’d woken up with that morning. And then I thought I was making too much of it. I had easily passed as a woman without makeup before. Now I passed better. I didn’t just look more feminine; I looked more . . . formal. I smiled. Well, that was why they called it “makeup.” It looked just the same as the makeup I’d applied myself. It crossed my mind that this wasn’t a coincidence. She’d brought in a photo. She might have even taken the photo so she could do this some day. How many moves ahead was she thinking?

I shook my head. It didn’t matter if she’d come up with the idea that morning or a year ago. What was done was done. It was like that first time with Gino. She’d forced me into something bizarre and freakish—that I found that I liked just fine. I turned my head, seeing how my eyes looked at different angles. So this was how I was going to look from now on . . .

The curtain parted and Marilyn came in. She studied my face closely, looking displeased. Without comment, she handed me a dress and some underwear.

“What’s the matter?” I asked as I took off my smock.

“We need to go. Let’s see your butt.” I turned away from her and let her have a look before I pulled my panties on. Seeing the butt tattoo improved her mood. “How do you like it, Suzee?”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s what you are.”

I pulled on my dress and shook out my hair. “I hate it. The only good thing about it is I don’t have to see it.”

She walked out to the car and I followed. I winced when my butt made contact with the seat. I looked over and she was smiling. “Think about who is going to see it, Suzee, and how.”

“It’s going to show around a bikini.”

She spoke in a tone of mock sympathy as she drove. “Poor baby, can’t show off her ass anymore.”

I realized why she didn’t like the way my face had turned out. I was prettier now, and she was jealous. She was always pushing for more, and I knew that this would not be my last trip to the tattoo parlor. The next time the makeup tattoos would be heavier. She would think of more body tattoos, bigger and more aggressive. There would be piercings. It might happen in a few months or a few years, but it was coming. “Where are we going now?” I asked.

“Part two of school.” And that was all she would say.

We drove for almost an hour and pulled up in front of a small hospital, barely bigger than a clinic, in a suburb. She got out and walked inside, without even looking back.

As always, Marilyn had it planned to the last detail. She didn’t want me to have any time to think. Or maybe she loved the preparation, thinking through the moves ahead of time. We entered the lobby and walked right past the insurance desk to Reception. I had no time to sit down, not that I wanted to sit, anyway. My butt felt like it was on fire. The needles had gone deep. We were led immediately back to an examination room. The nurse drew the curtain and left us alone. Marilyn looked at me, her arms folded. I could tell she was enjoying the moment.

“Take off your clothes,” she said.

“What are we here for?”

She showed me the little knife again. “In five seconds those clothes are going to be on the ground, one way or the other. And this time I’m not getting you new ones.”

I handed her my clothes. I asked her again what was going on, and she ignored. me, “I see you let your pubic hair grow back. There’s a razor and shaving cream by the sink. I’m going to be back in five minutes. You’d better be bare when I get back.”

“But—“She took my shoes and clothes and left me alone.

There was a full length mirror next to the counter. I wasn’t used to the makeup tattoos yet; the face that looked back at me was a more formal version of myself. I had never been in makeup naked. I saw myself in an unfamiliar way; the way two strangers would see each other. I saw a slender woman, with long brown hair, slightly wavy, falling down to her chest. A fine pair of breasts, not sagging at all, the body tapering to a slim waist and flaring out again. The thighs were trim from swimming. There was only one jarring note; in the middle of the pubic hair, almost hidden, was a cock.

I took hold of it, pulling it away from my body, and went to work with the razor and shaving cream. And it was work; the first time I’d shaved my body it had been exciting, an adventure, the first step in experimenting with a different life. It seemed like a long time ago. Shaving myself, at least my underarms and legs, had been a routine part of my life for more than a year. But shaving today was another matter. We were at the hospital for a reason, and if I needed to be shaved, it meant there would be some surgery down there. How extensive it would be, I could only guess. I only knew that it had been Marilyn’s decision. She had spoken of taking away my choices. That could mean several things. I didn’t want to think about some of the possibilities. She had already surprised me today—twice, if you counted the makeup tattoos as separate from the one on my ass. Exactly how upset was she about Gino, and how much was she going to take it out on me? Did she know how often we had been together? That, in some way, I was more than a sexual release for him? I prayed she didn’t. She was displeased when the makeup tattoos had turned out well. She didn’t want me to be attractive. Marilyn was capable of just about anything she could persuade a surgeon to do, and she had my medical power of attorney . . . I hoped that my secret with Doctor Spector was still safe. If she had asked the wrong question and he was forced to answer . . . she could have me nullified, remove my breasts, sever the nerves that controlled my bowel and bladder, mutilate me in ways I could not imagine, anything to punish me and make sure no one of either gender would look at me twice again. All I knew was that she was capable of it, if she wanted to.

She came back before I was done. “Get on the table and spread your legs, Suzee. I’ll finish this myself.” When I hesitated she shoved me back against the table. I sat down on the edge. She shoved me again, pushing me flat on my back, and spread my legs apart. “What is going to happen?” There was pleading in my voice now.

She applied some more shaving cream and took hold of my limp cock. “Well, at least there isn’t too much hair left.” She looked up at me from between my legs as she finished the shaving. “You use this for anything?”

“Use it?”

“Tell me if it gets hard anymore, Suzee.”

“No, Ma’am, it doesn’t.”

She played with it. “Who took that away?”

“You did. Ma’am.”

“So it doesn’t work anymore, Suzee, does it?”

“No—but I like having it. Ma’am, I do.”

She wiped me down with a towel. “Look at it, Suzee. A tiny little boy’s penis. I bet you called it a pee-pee when it was this big. Where did that big cock of yours go, Suzee?”

“I don’t know.”

She held it up by two her thumb and forefinger, as if she didn’t want to hold too closely. “Yes, you do.”

“You took it away, Ma’am.”

She let go of my cock and held up my scrotum. “And what about those big balls of yours? Is all that’s left?”

Before I could answer the door opened and two nurses in scrubs and surgical masks came in. “Is this the patient?” one of them asked my wife.

“Yes. He’s ready. Here are the consents,” she said. She handed over several forms I’d never seen.. I opened my mouth to say something, but she was still standing between my legs. Before I could say anything she squeezed my scrotum hard. My testicles were small, but they were still sensitive; I gasped in pain. As I tried to get my breath I heard Marilyn say, ”Could you please hurry? He’s very nervous; the sooner we start the better.”

“Of course.” One of the nurses nodded and stepped forward with a thick tube. I was still gasping for air and my mouth was open. In an instant she had passed it through my mouth and down my throat. “Don’t try to talk, sir,” she said. “This is just part of getting you ready.” I felt a prick in my arm as the other one gave me a shot. “This is going to relax you. We’ll give you a general anesthetic when we get to the OR.”

My mouth worked but no words came out. I looked around the room but it was beginning to get dim. Against my will, my body was relaxing.

“He’s doing much better, thanks,” Marilyn said. “Could we have a moment together before you take him down?”

When the nurses were gone she pulled up a chair and sat down by my head. I tried to move my arms but they were too heavy.

“There are some things I want you to know, Suzee. I’ve given you a lot of choices and you’ve always made the one that pleased me. Now you have another one.

“Do you remember when you were a man? I do. When we first met in law school. You took me back to your apartment that first time. You kissed me and took off my sweatshirt and then you played with me . . . I could feel your hard cock through your jeans. I could feel it throbbing. You took off my bra and sucked on my nipples till they were hard. Then you took off your clothes then, and then I saw your cock for the first time. It was so big, and your big hairy balls. I was going to take you in my mouth, but you were in too much of a hurry. You pulled off my panties and shoved it inside me. I was so hot for you it slid right in. You jammed it all the way up inside me. I’d never been filled like that before. I bet I was nice and tight for you, wasn’t I? It felt good for you, I bet. You fucked me and filled me up with your sperm, and then we rested and did it again. The next day I could barely walk. Remember that?”

I nodded. I remembered, all right.

“That’s good, because I want that to be the last thing you remember before they cut off your balls and your cock.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “If you had read the consents, you would know that they’re going to open up your ball sack, top to bottom. Your balls are going to flop out into the open air. Poor little things, I bet they’re going to wonder what happened. They’re probably all shriveled, but I’m going to make sure you never, ever make any testosterone again. The surgeon is going to tie them off, and then he’s going to cut them free. First one and then the other. And when he cuts the last one free, that means I’ve castrated you. He’s going to put them in a jar for me, and I’m going to keep it on the shelf and think about how I took your balls away. It will reminder both of us of who’s in charge.”

She picked up my cock. “Take a good look, ‘cause this is the last time you’re going to see it. All those times you had fun with it, that’s over forever. Your cock is coming off, too. They’re going to thread a catheter up your penis. The urine is going to come out and that is the last time you’ll ever pee that way. They’re going to give you a new place to pee, back near your ass. From now on, you’re going to squat to pee. It’s going to be an interesting operation. They can do so much these days. They’re going to turn your cock into a vagina. They’re going to use what’s left of your scrotum for the vaginal lips. They tell me that it’s going to look very natural. There isn’t going to be a trace that you were ever a man.”

I looked at her without moving. It was getting harder to concentrate on her words.

“You’ll have some work to do, of course. You’re going to have to use a dildo on yourself for six weeks, every day, to keep your new vagina from growing shut. Actually the doctors called it a stent, but I like the other word. And you’re not going to have bladder control for awhile. I’m going to like that, seeing you in Depends. And I’m going to have you use the dildo in front of me. You can fuck yourself and I can tell you stories of what your cock used to be like. I think that’s going to be fun. Maybe I’ll make a video.”

She sighed. “I bet you’d like to know why I’m telling you all this. Partly because there’s nothing you can do, and partly because I want you to realize that I beat you, once and for all. That I am the one who should be obeyed. And that you’ve been a damned fool.”

I tried to raise my head but it was too much effort. It seemed to please her to see me struggle.

“I’ll take that back. It’s not so much you were a fool, though you were. You’re big problem is just that you weren’t lucky. If you hadn’t been prancing around in a nightie Valentine’s Day, I would have given you a letter telling you I wanted a divorce. You know something funny? Because I figured I was going to marry Gino, I was going to give you everything for a quick divorce. But when I came home and saw you, and when I read the porn of yours, I had a better idea. I could have it all—you, your property and Gino, too.”

She smiled at me. “Does it surprise you? Doesn’t matter now. I played along with your fantasies. You were thinking about the moment and I was thinking about the end. If I played my cards right, I always thought it might end just like this. Yes, like this. I had to work for it, you know. You almost slipped away from me a couple of times. Remember when you said you weren’t going to be the maid full time because you had your work? Remember those rumors that got you fired and kept you from getting a new job? I worked my fingers to the bone making those calls. And I had all the papers waiting when you were drunk enough to sign them. That was lucky, you being that drunk, but like I said, you didn’t have good timing. The other time, after Key West, when you said you wanted to stop the estrogen, you might have slipped away then. That wasn’t bad timing; you really were a fool that time. You trusted me to let you have testosterone, like it was your decision. I made Doctor Spector keep the estrogen coming, and he had no choice. You never noticed. But maybe you didn’t want to face the truth. Maybe that’s what you really want. I don’t care. It’s what I really want. Watching you give Gino that blow job? That was great. That was control. I could never get Gino to fuck you in the ass. Too bad. But that isn’t going to be a problem anymore. Think about what it’s going to be like with my next boyfriend. I can understand Gino, thinking it was too gay. But what guy is going to turn you down now? I’m going to watch while he fucks your pussy till you can’t walk.”

The nurses came in with a gurney and rolled me onto it from the table. As they were ready to roll me out, she lowered her face close to mine. “So you have a choice. If you don’t want me to cut off your balls and turn your cock into a pussy, just say the word.”

I tried to speak around the tube but all that came out was a strangled grunt.

She looked me in the eyes for a long moment. “OK, then, Suzee. If that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.” She gave a cheerful smile and then looked up at the nurses. “He’s ready.”

I don’t know when I woke up; it looked like morning outside. I was in a hospital bed. Marilyn wasn’t there. The sheets were up to my chin, but I could feel that I was bandaged at my crotch. My breasts were still there. I turned my head a bit and saw a catheter line filled with yellow urine. I didn’t feel any pain, just fatigue and weakness.

I turned my head to the left, towards the bedside table. I saw two objects; one was a medical equipment box, about the size of a small shoebox. I knew the stent was inside. Next to it was a small jar. I knew what was in there, too.

I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep.

I had won.