When Lucy reconnects with an old flame named Shawn, it’s exciting at first. He seems to be everything a girl could want: thoughtful, charming, and attractive. But just as things are getting settled, she learns his shocking secret: Shawn transforms from man to woman, and back again in a process that he’s only now learning to harness and control.
Will Lucy be able to find love with someone who may not always be the man she knows — someone who has done a very good job at keeping others at bay for their entire life?
Both is a new novella exploring what it means to share every part of yourself with another person — even when those parts aren’t always the easiest to explain and understand. It’s a look at relationships through the lens of gender and sexuality as something fluid, and what being part of a couple truly means.
The novella is 32,000 words and contains adult situations but no explicit content. It’s available on Amazon Kindle from $4.49 USD (check out my Amazon Author Page to find it in your market) or on Smashwords from $3.69 USD.
Excerpt:
Shawn passed her the phone. The light flickered against her skin as she watched. The video lasted less than 20 seconds.
“No way,” she said quietly.
Then she watched again, and a third time. She shook her head in disbelief.
The video depicted a woman – pretty, short, with shoulder-length blonde hair – dressed in a white bathrobe, the very robe Lucy often wore in the mornings here. She stands before the camera for a moment, then closes her eyes. She seems to concentrate hard. Then in nearly an instant – so quick you can hardly believe it’s real – her body grows, and suddenly she’s a man, several inches taller, square-jawed, with similar enough features to be a sibling, still with shoulder-length blond hair, standing on the same spot, still wearing the same bathrobe. Shawn watched Lucy’s eyes as she let it play over and over, seemingly looking for the tell that what she was seeing was a trick, a special effect.
Finally, she looked back up at Shawn. The last vestiges of denial and doubt were trickling down her wide-eyed face. “You… can’t.”
“I can,” Shawn said. “I don’t always like to, but it’s not always my choice.”
“What do you mean it’s not always your choice?”
Shawn let out a resigned sigh. He stood and produced that very robe from his closet, wrapping it around himself. He closed the distance between himself and Lucy somewhat but still kept a respectful space between them. He leveled his gaze at her, and she watched him back.
“For the last ten years or so,” Shawn said, “I’ve never been a man or a woman for longer than eight months or so. 250 days is the record, to be exact.”
“This happens every eight months?”
“No, sometimes it’s shorter,” Shawn said. “It used to be totally involuntary, but over the years I’ve learned to harness it. Then, after I’ve transformed, I can’t change again for 6 weeks, so I have to be very careful about whether I do it deliberately or not. It’s not a choice I make lightly. But then sometimes, the choice gets made for me… if I’m stressed or anxious or upset.”
Lucy stood still for a moment. She backed up and leaned against the door jamb. Her body was still facing Shawn’s though, which was a good sign as far as he was concerned.
“We’ve been together for almost two months,” she said – she had clearly been doing some mental math. “You could transform at any time now. You will transform within the next six months.”
“End of April at the latest,” Shawn nodded.
“You just… won’t be a guy anymore.”
“Yeah.”