Trouble With Horns

I was bone tired and looking forward to escaping my reality when I finally opened the door to my apartment. It was worrying how fast my mood had plummeted once I was away from Dawn and her uplifting company. The problem was that everything reminded me of what I was... and what I was not. From the bro nods that other male students gave me, to the more subtle ways that people reacted to me.

At least in the comfort of my own apartment I could hide from the world and the constant socialisation as a man. It was lonely sure, but as long as I distracted myself with stupid videos and random posts online, I could forget about my reality for a few hours. What a fucking turn my life had taken. I had been such a cocky, confident guy before my downward spiral had started, and now I was absolutely pathetic. Barely functional, depressed and self hating.

I walked into the apartment as I always did, kicking off my shoes and flicking off the lights. Wait, flicking off the lights? I flicked them back on and looked around, discovering that I was not the only human in the room after all. Taylor lay on my couch, looking over at me from where she had been reading something on her phone.

“Hey. Sorry I let myself in…” she said, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain.

"Um… no it's okay," I said finding that although I hadn't wanted to talk to her before, seeing her here and now, I definitely wanted her around.

She smiled, sitting up and patting the couch next to her. “Come sit.”

I did as she bid, walking over and letting myself fall down with a sigh. What a fucking day. I felt like I was wound up tighter than… well tighter than Krissy’s parents.

“How are you doing?” Taylor asked innocently.

“I’m fine— “ I started to say, but didn’t even get two words into my reply before my throat closed up. I was not fine. I tried to cover it up by clearing my throat, then tried again. “Dawn and I are talking again.”

“I know,” she replied softly. “She sent me a message.”

“Oh. Is that why you’re in my apartment instead of fighting that war you have going on in Cora?” I asked. Of course Dawn would message Taylor. She probably figured that if I wouldn’t tell her what was wrong, Taylor would get it out of me.

“Yeah, something like that. She said you didn’t look so great… and well she was right. You look like shit,” Taylor said, her tone full of concern.

“Yeah she said something similar,” I groaned, turning to look out the window rather than meet my sister’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, laying a caring hand on my arm.

“Nothing, I’m good. Seriously. I just… I don’t know. It’s the Krissy thing,” I lied, trying to divert her away from the truth.

She was silent for a while after that, and I was more than happy to let that silence stretch on. Her watching me, me avoiding her gaze. She knew I was lying, she was just trying to figure out if she should call my bluff or not.

“Tami.”

As soon as she said that name I felt my stomach drop and my heart start to hammer at my ribcage like a drum. Tami… My name. My true name. Before I was even really aware of what was happening, I was bawling my eyes out. My twin’s arms went around me almost as quickly as my tears had appeared and she began making soft soothing noises. As my tears graduated into heart rending sobs that threatened to do physical harm from their sheer intensity, she pulled me even tighter still.

“Hey, Tami… it’s okay. It’s okay,” she whispered tenderly into my ear.

“It’s not!” I choked out, shaking my head and half turning to look at her, only to flop my head down onto her shoulder.

“Yeah it is. Everything will be okay. You aren’t alone,” she said, kissing the top of my head gently.

“How?” I cried, desperately reaching my arms around her for more comfort.

“Because we’re sisters and we’ll figure this out alright?” she said, a note of determination entering her comforting tone.

“How can we possibly figure this out? I can’t just… become a girl,” I said, shaking my head and leaning up to look at her through tear filled eyes. “How do you even know?”

“It’s obvious Tami. You didn’t feel the dysphoria when you were in a girl’s body, but more than that, you absolutely loved it! Guys don’t feel those things! You should have seen yourself from everyone else's eyes, you looked the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Ever,” she said, emphasising the last word with a finger to my chest.

“So what? Do I get myself shelved in some long term storage facility so I can stay in VR the whole time?” I despaired. “It doesn’t matter if I’m… if I’m Tami on the inside or whatever. A girl. I’m still a guy in the real world, and nothing can change that.”

Shaking her head, Taylor flicked the coffee table holoprojector to life and pointed at it.

She had an article on an encyclopedia website up with the heading: “Gender Dysphoria and Transgenderism.”

“You aren’t alone. Not by a huge margin. There are literally millions of other people like you who find themselves at one point or another in their life dealing with the same thing you are. You’re a girl, probably always have been inside that head of yours… and you can be outside of it too,” she said almost excitedly.

I didn’t reply to her immediately, my eyes devouring the words on the holo projector. I wasn’t alone… there were explanations… and… so much. Studies on it, detailing what was going on with me and people like me, and… I broke down in another wave of tears when I got to the section on treatments. What the hell? This stuff was possible?

“A lot of that costs money in UN city…” I said, some part of me trying to throw a wrench in the revelations I was being handed.

“So what? Between our parents and I, we can figure something out,” Taylor said resolutely.

“I can’t… I don’t… this is too fast!” I stammered, shaking my head to try and clear it of reeling thoughts.

“Why? Is there a set time limit before someone can make a life decision?” she asked sarcastically. “Imagine being as happy as ingame Tami, but all the time. Imagine getting to romp around having… well a shitload of Lesbian sex by the sounds of things, but in the real world!”

I couldn’t help myself, I laughed, then choked on my own laughter at the absurdity that was my sister saying ‘Lesbian Sex’. She had always been the bashful one. “Oh my god, it was only like three times.”

“I knew it! It was that Aurora chick wasn’t it? The one from the last two videos of you!” she said, getting unreasonably excited.

I felt my cheeks grow warm as she hit the nail on the head. “No… maybe… look, why are you getting so excited about this?”

“I don’t know! I just think it’s kinda cute! You’re finally discovering yourself, and shit I could do worse than having a hot lesbian twin sister. You can wingwoman for me some time, and we can… crap I’m excited. This feels right, even to me you know? It’s like everything is falling into place. All those times you helped me with my makeup because I was too hung over to do it before school, even though you definitely were too,” she said, beginning to ramble a bit.

“Wow I did that didn’t I…?” I said with a disbelieving snort.

“Yeah, oh my god. Remember how you sat me down when mum was first teaching me makeup, and made me teach you what she’d taught me. Wow the excuse you used as well! That was so weak now that I look back. You wanted to be able to do it for me if I ever got my arms cut off or something morbid like that,” she laughed.

“It was if they got broken… actually…” I said defensively.

“Wow you’re even doing it now! Fuck you are the cutest,” she giggled, putting a playful booping finger on my nose.

“It just looked really fun okay…” I grumbled quietly.

I’d liked the way the brushes and powders felt when you applied them. I’d never been good at drawing or anything, but putting makeup on Taylor hadn’t required getting the perspective right and making sure everything was in proportion. I could focus on just contouring and shading. The parts I liked and was good at.

“You don’t have to make excuses anymore Tami, you’re a girl, you’re allowed to like makeup. Shit, you’re allowed to like makeup even if you’re not a girl, but that’s not the point. Point is, you don’t have to make up silly excuses to like what you like. I’m not going to judge you, especially knowing what I know now,” she said earnestly, running her fingers through my short hair and scratching along the way.

“I know… I know… it’s just a habit I guess,” I sighed, enjoying her calming gestures.

“Speaking of habits… I think we should talk to Mum and Dad about this…” Taylor said slowly.

“That was the shittest segue ever Taylor. It doesn’t even make sense,” I laughed, trying to draw the conversation away from that rather terrifying topic.

I had no idea how our parents would react. They were accepting of those kinds of issues at least on the surface, but if it was their own kid turning around with news like this… surely they might get a bit upset?

“Don’t avoid it Tami. We should go over to their place tonight,” she urged, seeing right through my bullshit.

“But what if they don’t— “ I started, before she interrupted me.

“Tami you dumbass, they already suspect it. They actually spoke to me after you called them because they were worried,” she said with a note of exasperation.

How is it that everyone had known but me? This wasn’t fair. Although, even if the topic was stressing me out, the way she’d been consistently calling me Tami and referring to me as her sister was making me feel some crazy things.

“Okay… and what do they think?” I asked tentatively, my heart in about a dozen different anxious places waiting for her response.

“They love you of course, and want you to be happy. If that means that you become their daughter then they will love you anyway. It’s Mum and Dad! What else would their reaction be?” she said gently. “They’ve always been crazy supportive. Remember when I came out to them as pan and brought home Julia?”

That had been an interesting time. During middle and high school, Taylor and I had drifted into our own separate friend groups. Taylor had ended up with a best friend called Julia, but it had turned into something more between them, and Taylor had struggled with her sexuality because of it. One night, she’d wandered into my room while we were meant to be sleeping and unloaded the whole thing onto me.

She’d been having issues finding a label for herself, she’d wanted a name, something she could call herself, but she hadn’t been able to find anything that fit the way she felt. So we’d stayed up late into the night together browsing the internet and looking up various words. In the end, she’d decided that Pansexual and Panromantic were the two terms that she felt fit her. A day later and she was introducing a confused but supportive set of parents to her girlfriend.

“Right… but their son telling them she’s actually their daughter is a bit different…” I said uncertainly. Sexuality and Romance were a bit different, especially when the way Taylor worked theoretically left the door open for her having children, which had kept our Mum happy.

“Sure, but you know they won’t care. Mum will get excited about taking you clothes shopping and Dad will think it’s cool he’s going to have a daughter who still likes to punch things,” she said reassuringly. “I mean, any traditionally masculine task is far cooler when a girl is doing it anyway, let’s be honest here.”

“That is true…” I nodded, starting to come around to the idea.

“You will have to reassure Dad you are still interested in tinkering with his skimmers though. You know how he loves those things,” she said jokingly.

“Why would I not want to help him with the skimmers?! They’re awesome! Oh wow actually if I do get my body changed, it will mean I’ll be lighter! I’ll have to tweak the aerofoils to get more downthrust, but I’ll be getting more speed for sure!” I exclaimed, getting excited. Dad would probably get excited too and want to do it all himself. We’d probably have one of those arguments that ended in him tickling me until I gave in. Damn it.

“Yup, still the same twin I’ve always known,” Taylor said, rolling her eyes theatrically.

“Okay… so we go to see Mum and Dad…” I finally agreed, still feeling a large degree of anxiety and apprehension.

“I’ll let them know we’re coming. You go and get a bit more presentable. You know Mum will have a fit if you turn up like that,” she said, already typing out a message on her phone.

 

****

 

We stood down the hallway from the entrance to our parent’s apartment, my hand desperately clasping at my sister’s one as I tried to psych myself up for what was about to happen. There was a terrified animalistic part of me that was screaming that I needed to run, to hide, to get away from this place. It was causing me to twitch unexpectedly as the nervous energy I was generating fired off randomly when it became too much.

"We don't have to do this tonight if you don't want to Tami," Taylor said soothingly, running a hand up and down my back in an effort to comfort me.

"I need to… if I do, then maybe they can help, right?" I asked, an edge to my tone that reminded me of steel cable whipping through the air.

"How about this, we go in there because we want to have dinner with our parents, and if the subject comes up, we'll talk about it with them?" she asked.

It could work. If I tricked my brain into thinking this was just any old visit, I could work around my nerves.

"Alright. We're just going to go and see them for dinner," I said, trying to convince myself that everything would be fine.

“Sweet. Let’s go, we got this. Twins!” she said, offering her fist for a bump.

I smiled gratefully at her and matched her gesture, bumping our fists gently together. Taylor was amazing, I didn’t know what I’d do without my twin.

We walked down the hall to our parents door and pressed the doorbell. Our parents lived in what would count as suburbia in any other city. Instead of being an apartment in a huge tower like where Taylor and I lived, they lived in a conical building that had terraces of apartments running up the outsides and a shopping center in the middle. The idea was to give people backyards like in a normal house while still accommodating the strange way things worked in UN City. Sprawling suburbia wasn’t an option when your whole city was built in the water, so this was their solution.

The door opened on its own, our parent’s house AI welcoming us both as recognised family. When we walked inside, we were surprised to hear raised voices coming from further into the house. Mum and Dad were arguing rather loudly about something.

“You said when we got married that you’d put all that behind you!” Mum’s shrill voice came through, causing Taylor and I to pause and exchange worried looks.

We couldn’t hear Dad’s reply, his voice filtering through the house as a low rumble.

“Fine! We’ll talk about this later! The kids are here… but this isn’t over!” Mum cried.

Taylor and I had stopped now, and after a moment our Dad turned the corner from the Kitchen and spotted us. His expression was worried and annoyed, but when he saw us he schooled it into a welcoming smile. “Come in! It’s not often our little twins visit together in person! We’ve missed you!”

“You too, Dad!” Taylor grinned as the both of us were pulled into a hug by the much larger man that was our Father.

Dad was huge, I’m talking almost seven feet tall, and built like a tank, although he was starting to look a bit lean these days. His hair now had hints of balding, but the salt and pepper hair was still plenty thick enough.

“Hey Dad,” I said much more quietly, unable to push the apprehension from my voice.

“Hey there…” he said, hesitating and trailing off where my name should have been in the sentence.

Damn, Taylor was right, he knew or suspected already. I guess this was going to be easier to bring up than I thought, I just hoped the outcome would be okay.

“Is Mum cooking?” Taylor asked sniffing the air and breaking the awkward pause to pull us both through into the house by our arms.

“Yeah she is. Slow cooked pork or something, I’m not sure about the particulars,” Dad smiled, looking sideways at me.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, forgetting my apprehension for a moment. “Is it the recipe I sent her?”

“You’ll have to ask her that yourself, she’s in the kitchen,” he laughed, pointing the way through to the kitchen, although both Taylor and I knew it by heart. We’d grown up here after all.

“Right,” I said, rushing forward and past the both of them to find Mum.

I found her in the kitchen bent over and checking on some roast veges in the oven. Mum was shorter than Dad by a considerable margin, and she made up for that by being a terror when her temper got up. She used to be one of those girls you see in advertising, intimidatingly beautiful and effortlessly graceful. She’d stopped bothering so much with the upkeep that life demanded when she married dad, settling in as the gorgeous housewife and numbers woman for Dad’s business.

“Hey Mum! Is that the pork recipe I sent you?” I asked, moving over to the slow cooker and staring inside. “Oh it is! You put whole garlic cloves in though.”

“Hello there kiddo,” she laughed standing up from the oven. “The minced garlic is in there too. You know how your father likes things with a lot of garlic in them, so this is my compromise between that and sensible cooking. He can chew on the cooked cloves if he really needs to, although I will not be kissing him if he does!”

“Oh true… I don’t blame you, that’s gross,” I agreed, then turned around and shouted back through the house, “Dad! Your garlic obsession is weird and gross!”

Predictably, his head popped in through the kitchen door with a mock scowl on his face, “What did you say to me, little punk?”

“Nothing!” I grinned cheekily, already beating a hasty retreat through the other door and into the lounge.

I rushed in and plopped myself down on one of the big overstuffed couches. I loved these things, they seemed to half swallow you, like they were filled with gel or something. Taylor was right behind me, sitting down and pulling me into a side hug, letting me rest my head on her shoulder.

“See? They love us. Things will be fine,” she whispered reassuringly into my ear.

“Mmm,” I mumbled noncommittally. I wasn’t going to believe it until it had already happened.

Even when I was in a smaller position in the hug, I was hyper aware of how large, ungainly and inflexible this body was. The hug felt awkward because my body wasn’t able to bend properly and settle into it.

As if on cue, both of our parents came in and sat down on the couch opposite us, and suddenly things felt strange and confrontational. I could see it in their expressions that they knew something was up. Mum was gripping Dad’s forearm hard enough to make the flesh around it go white. Dad seemed slightly calmer, although he was doing that thing where he fluffed the big shag carpet with his toes.

“Ummmm,” Taylor said falteringly, her hand finding mine and encircling it protectively.

I knew it had to be me who started this conversation, but I was struggling. They looked so serious, and I was now definitely afraid of the outcome. Should I really go through with this? I could pretend everything was fine and try to shove it back in the bag so to speak. I’d lived this long as Terry after all.

To my surprise, it was Dad who broke the silence with that big deep voice of his, “Uh, kiddo… We know there’s something wrong.”

I tried to open my mouth and reply, but the words were shy, hiding down my throat only to peek out just a little, creating a little squeaking sound. Taylor squeezed my hand tighter and pulled me closer against her side.

Making another attempt I said, “Um… yeah.”

“What is it?” Mum asked with an obviously forced calm.

“I’m... a girl,” I choked out around my anxiousness.

Like the sun had come out, a smile spread across both of my parents' faces, and Mum leaned forward to put her head in her hands. Wait, they were happy? What was going? My nervousness was chased away by bemused confusion.

“We suspected, especially after your sister mentioned she was worried,” Dad said gently, his big face full of kindness.

“Then why were you looking all… like… like I was about to tell you I’d fucked a pig or something!” I exclaimed, annoyed now.

“Language!” Mum said, looking up sternly.

Simultaneously, Dad chuckled, “We were afraid you hadn’t admitted it to yourself. We were afraid we’d have to convince you of it or something. Repressing something like that… we know the stats. The toll it takes isn’t something to joke about.”

“Wait so you were worried I wouldn’t tell you?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes of course!” Mum said. “If you don’t tell us, we can’t help you very well can we?”

I looked up at Taylor for some backup, only to find her biting her lip in an attempt to hold her amusement. When she saw me watching her, she lost her composure and dissolved into a fit of giggles, falling to the side onto the cushions.

I rolled my eyes and couldn’t help but join in a little, laughing quietly to myself as my family all smiled at each other. Well at least they all didn’t hate me over this.

“In all seriousness,” Dad said, waving his hand to quiet my twin. “Would you like us to call you Tami now? That is the name you have inside that game right?”

I nodded wordlessly, a broad smile causing my cheeks to ache. I don’t know why I had been worried. Mum and Dad were perfect, especially with their flaws… like garlic chewing or accidentally harming their spouse through nervousness.

“Alright Tami,” Mum said tenderly, getting up off the couch to sit on my other side and give me a hug.

“Wow…” I choked, my voice raw with emotion as I began to cry with relief. “I thought things might go bad… I just… I mean I know you guys love me but…”

“It’s fine. We’ll help you with this little problem, same as we’ve helped out with everything else. It’s our job as parents after all,” Dad rumbled reassuringly.

“Thanks Mum… thanks Dad…” I whimpered happily, before I asked the one question that was still bothering me. “But how? What can I do? What can we do?”

“There’s the shaping clinics…” Taylor said half heartedly. “We could save up together and pay for it?”

Mum winced beside me, but nodded affirmation while also offering an alternative, “There’s also the standard methods… hormone replacement therapy and the periphery treatments that augment it.”

The article Taylor showed me had detailed both of those methods, and obviously the shaping clinics got the best results, completely changing people’s bodies if they wanted to. HRT as it was known, took far longer, years in fact and required a lot of other treatments alongside, but it was far cheaper while still achieving some good results. It would probably be the method I ended up using.

“I have another solution,” Dad said seriously, and something about his tone caused us all to look up.

“What’s that?” Mum inquired suspiciously.

Dad hesitated for several moments, looking uncertainly at her. “You know my past. I know I said I’d cut contact with my old associates...”

“And we said we’d discuss it later,” she replied stonily. “The kids are here.”

“I did it to help Tami!” Dad said with a tone that was both annoyed and apologetic. “There are ways for her to transition that we can get through the people I knew in my old life.”

“What do you mean?” I asked breathlessly, a spark of hope igniting within me.

“I used to be— ” Dad started cagily.

“A gang member,” Mum finished for him.

Taylor and I exchanged looks at that. Our dorky kind hearted dad? A gang member? Really?

“There is nuance to that and you know it!” Dad grumbled in frustration.

“I know,” Mum sighed, backing down abit. “Okay, what did your old friends tell you?”

“There’s another way...” Dad said slowly.

“Yeah…” I prompted, getting annoyed with the piecemeal way he was feeding us the info.

“The shaping clinics follow strict regulations that were placed on them during the build up to the war, when the fascists and the churches were fighting for any ounce of power they could find in UN City. The methods they use are actually fairly… well, basic isn’t the right word, but definitely accessible if it weren’t for those ridiculous gatekeeping measures and the like,” Dad explained.

I had already known that there were parts of the law that were like that. Leftovers from a time when human rights laws and the like had been a political battleground before the real battles took place. We’d learned about it all in history class.

Continuing, Dad brought the coffee table projector to life and started browsing as he spoke, “Well, there’s a black market shaping business. They skirt the rules and the law, obviously, but in this case they are more of a humanitarian cause than an… illicit one. Technically speaking, it’s not against the law to use these methods, but it is against the law to offer them as a service.”

“So we could get Tami through this… back alley shaping thing… I don’t like the sound of that,” Mum said with a frown. “It’s like those doctors that treat patients in weird dingy buildings in Old City is it?”

“No, nothing like that,” Dad shook his head, then let out a grunt of triumph and pointed to the hologram. “Here we are. This is it.”

He’d brought up the Artemis Module website of all things. It had nothing about changing bodies or anything, instead detailing all sorts of other things like custom AI that could be slotted into compatible pods and stuff like that.

“How will that help?” Taylor asked, her confusion mirrored in my own expression.

“It uses the Artemis system I think, but it requires a bigger refit than just that. Basically, we would buy a big kit and use it to modify a pod. It interfaces with the pod using the Artemis Module slot and does the same thing as the shapers, only without their restrictions and… safety standards, at a significantly lower cost. Your mother and I would have to forgo our trip to Luna, but we could do it,” he finished.

We all sat there in silence for a minute while we digested this information. It sounded too good to be true… but if it worked… I could… Oh my god it could be real! I could be Tami in the real world too!

“What’s the catch?” Taylor asked pointedly.

“It’s not one hundred percent effective…” Dad said seriously. “Without the safety measures that are there for a reason, as well as the team of doctors ready to tweak the changes as they happen for best effect… well most people don’t reach the target template. You prioritise things like genital reconstruction, but things like bones and everything don’t usually make it all the way.”

“So… this won’t work fully, I’ll end up somewhere in between how I am now and how I look like in the game?” I asked, feeling my hope deflate a little.

“If we do this… I want it to happen in this house where I can keep an eye on Tami… I want to make sure things go smoothly, and I’d also… like to watch my daughter forming… being born,” Mum said, her eyes waterlogged as she looked at me worriedly.

“I know this comes with risks, but Tami... staying as you are now has risks too. In fact, that option probably poses more risk. The decision is yours of course Tami… would you like to do this?” Dad asked, dismissing the hologram with a swipe of his hand.

Did I want to do this? Would I be okay with some in between state? Dad said you could prioritise like… getting rid of my dick. That was a big positive… shit I’d realised this was all a problem when Rora had her fingers inside me. The big thing was how far I could get? Would I be okay with looking like someone who was neither a man nor a woman? I guess it was closer to woman than man… fuck it. Anything was better than full man. I could use HRT to get the rest of the way.

“Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it,” I said resolutely.