Jacob

Though I was born Jacob Taylor, long ago I was certain that I wanted to become a girl. I’ve been going as Joanna for many years, but that transition took time. At first I was completely closeted, and then was sneaking out of my apartment so not even the neighbors saw Joanna coming and going. I eventually let two female neighbors know about Joanna, and they helped me improve my female appearance. After that, I introduced myself as Joanna to my other neighbors, but didn’t tell them I was Jacob, and just let them think I was Jacob’s sister or girlfriend or whatever. For a few years, though, I’ve been Joanna everywhere except at work.

I did maintenance for a row of buildings here in the city, though ironically not for the similar one I lived in. There were several of us who collectively served those buildings, at least one on site 8-8, seven days a week, with each of us on call two nights a week for emergencies. Though the days moved around, it gave me predictable times I wasn’t working or on call, and could go be Joanna. I didn’t dress as Joanna when working because it just wasn’t practical; the kind of clothes I was able to wear well as Joanna weren’t compatible with the kind of work I sometimes did.

I always figured some day I would save up enough money to take a long leave from work and change the surgical way, but I knew it was a long-term dream. That all changed when I made a connection on that exotic dating site. Maria Lorenti was her name, and as male, he went by Marco. At first, she flew in to New York City for a series of dates, and once we got comfortable with each other, he cross-dressed for dates with Joanna. Those were really good for me, and helped me get to the stage where I was dressing as Joanna almost all the time. Later, I flew to Sicily for dates in his homeland as well, funded by Marco, who could evidently afford it. The Spanish I learned in school helped as I learned Italian during those trips, with the languages and much of the vocabulary being similar. Eventually we agreed to get married and change sex for each other.

Marco assured me that both changing my documents and changing sex physically was easier in Sicily, so my initial paperwork was all done under the name of Jacob. Once all the immigration paperwork had gone through, I packed up all my stuff and had it shipped to Sicily, save for what I was going to take with me on the plane, and most of my male clothes that I was leaving behind for friends and family members to take or dispose of, because I intended to be Joanna full time once I was there.

Marco met me at the airport, dressed as the perfect gentleman, drove me to the inn his family ran, and led me to a room at the inn where he’d already brought some of his stuff. Not all of it; I’d seen that at the apartment he normally lived in during my last visit. There were two beds; we could sleep apart if we wanted to. But would we really want to?

I immediately changed into my dress with the falsies and makeup and all the other appropriate getup to present as female. Only then did I accompany Marco to be introduced to the rest of the family, or at least whoever was around at the time.

“Joanna, since you’re going to become part of the family, it’s time to let you in on the family secrets,” Marco said.

To my surprise the room he led me to was the pantry. It wasn’t surprising there was a bedroom-sized pantry here; they ran a restaurant, after all. But what was surprising was that there were huge worms, as long as my index finger and bigger around, yellow with green and black spots, crawling over the shelves and containers. To my relief, I saw that all the food was sealed up in what appeared to be tightly closed bins. I don’t know how many of them there were, but I saw about two dozen of these worms, and also about a dozen smaller, plain white ones.

“You’ve got a worm problem,” I told Marco.

“No, these worms, we tolerate. They are the worms of change.”

“The what?”

“It’s a family secret going back centuries. Well, secret may be overstating it; a lot of people know, but most people don’t know they are here. But yes, the story. Nobody knows exactly when this occurred, but the place was much smaller then; there was just a small house for the family, and not the restaurant and inn that we have today, but it was located right here. They had seen these worms in their house on occasion, and killed a few, but they were elusive. One day one of them landed in a pot of pasta sauce while it was cooking. Lorenzo tried to get it out, but killed it and sliced it to bits during his efforts, so he figured to just slice it up further and see what kind of flavor it would give to the sauce. And nobody tasted it at all. But to his surprise, he and his entire family woke up changed to the opposite sex.”

Understanding what this meant for us, I asked, “Really? I thought we were going to change the hormone and surgical way.”

“Really. At least, the worms really do work. Some details of the original story are lost and perhaps invented, but as we understand it, this was how the worms’ effect was discovered.”

“What happened next?”

“None of them wanted to be the opposite sex, but the female Lorenzo explained to his family about the worm and made up another pasta meal the next evening, putting in one of these worms on purpose, and they all changed back. They were very relieved! But rather than try to pretend it never happened, Lorenzo’s family realized they had an opportunity. Though the kind of sex-changes with hormones and surgery you know about today are a modern invention, there have been transsexuals throughout recorded history who only did what we’ve done so far. There was a dating couple in Lorenzo’s neighborhood who both wanted to go the opposite way, who shared their clothes with each other to go out on dates both dressed as the opposite sex. They were well known for this within the community, and Lorenzo invited them to try his special pasta. They became the first people to voluntarily and permanently change sex by eating the worms.”

“But you don’t know their names?”

“Like I said, it happened a long time ago and we don’t even know exactly when. But word got out, and others wanted it as well. Lorenzo made a meal for another two couples, which was successful, but there were some failures. They discovered that one worm only provided changes reliably for four people, and it had to be killed and cooked fresh on the day it was served. Once the word got around, there were a lot more people who wanted changes than Lorenzo had worms. So they set a high price, what would have been considered a fortune at the time, for the pasta meal of change. It’s been that way ever since then. We’ve never been able to breed them or produce them in greater numbers, but we let them breed naturally. To tell the truth, nobody’s ever seen them breed, mate, lay eggs, give birth, or whatever they do, but the new white ones come from somewhere, and eventually grow into the big ones you saw. They only live in that pantry; nobody has ever seen them in any part of the house, outside the house, or anywhere else. It was the kitchen of the original house, and eventually was turned into a pantry to give the worms more space to grow. The family built a larger kitchen, and opened a restaurant and eventually an inn as well, and thousands of people over the years have come here, eaten our worms, and changed sex.”

“Do you still charge them a fortune?”

“In relative terms, I think it’s less than the old days, but yes. Today the price is 50,000 euros per person, 100,000 if they come from outside Sicily. And that includes a few days at the inn to let the change fully take effect, and help with the transition and getting your name and legal gender changed. But don’t worry. As a member of the immediate family, I get free changes for myself and for you. The offer is made to every member of the family who stays to help run the place, though only about 1 in 20 or so of us actually want to change.”

“1 in 20 is still a lot,” I commented.

“It is,” Marco agreed. “Definitely more than in the population as a whole, but everyone in our family grows up knowing it’s an option. For most people, it’s at best a fantasy, or at least it was until the 20th century brought sex-change surgery. That’s not any cheaper, though, and you don’t get to be a functioning member of the opposite sex.”

“It’s that thorough?”

“Oh, yes. Members of our family born female have sired children after their change, and those born male have changed and later given birth to their own children. Some of those who paid us have done the same. Usually we don’t keep in touch with them, but we have a file with all the birth announcement cards some of the happy parents have sent here. It’s a 100% fully functional change.”

“Oh, my! Now I have to think about this. I mean, I still want to change and marry you, but do I want to have children with you? I always assumed we’d adopt if we wanted any.”

“I’ll be glad to be the father of your children if you want to bear any with me,” Marco responded.

But it was a much tougher decision for me, as I’d be the one having to carry them. “I’m considering it.”

“Even if you don’t want to bear our children, consider changing with me this way. There will be plenty of opportunities, but our next chance is a few days from now. We have a couple booked to change, with the other two slots open.”

So we ate a normal meal at their restaurant that night, normal meals making up the vast majority of what they served. But I had decided before the end of the night that I would go through with this change (children being a separate decision I could figure out later). Being anxious about the change and our bodies, we chose to sleep apart in the separate beds.

That couple who was changing arrived the following Saturday evening, and the four of us were seated at two small tables in what was called the Room of Change. My Italian was not quite good enough for this, but Marco assured me that just as changing room means something different in English, there is an Italian word for that, and the room here was named not using that term but instead the literal translation of Room of Change.

One of Marco’s family members, a woman named Sofia who appeared to be in her 40s or early 50s, gave a short speech explaining what Marco had already told me, that eating the meal we were about to be served would cause us to spontaneously change gender overnight. She spoke in Italian first, repeating each sentence in broken English for my sake afterwards. Between my limited understanding of the Italian and her translations I understood what she was trying to say.

Next, she handed Marco a boxed pregnancy test and placed one on the table between the other diners, and explained how it was used. She further explained it was important to check every female entrant into the program for pregnancy because those pregnancies ended in a messy way. She didn’t give further details, saying it would ruin our appetites. At the other table, it was the one who appeared to be a woman who took it; apparently they had not arrived cross-dressed. She and Marco separately went off to restrooms to do what was needed for the tests, and brought back the test devices as they returned to the room.

As we waited for the tests to develop, Sofia explained a bit about the change. It wasn’t going to be instantaneous. Overnight we would see the most obvious changes, the new form of the genitals and the growth or elimination of breasts. Some of the internal changes take a bit longer. The changes in the structure of the pelvis, the widening that allows those becoming women to give birth and the reverse of that process in those becoming male, finish during the second night. The changes in body hair, becoming thicker and denser in men and the reverse in women, with the thicker male hair falling out to be replaced by finer, sparser hair, take place more slowly. Where the hair has not been shaven or removed by electrolysis it mostly finishes by the third night. Removed hair grows back over weeks or months, where you’d expect it to grow.

By the end of the explanation, the tests showed negative. Sofia left, but returned with menus as our waitress.

“Vermicelli is traditional, but you can have any kind of pasta, as the magic is in the sauce.”

The other couple didn’t give any kind of reaction to this, and surely they knew vermicelli, which was the same word in Italian, meant “little worms,” so presumably they didn’t know the magic came from a worm. Sofia took our orders and brought us small antipasto trays while we waited for the main course. The pasta meal was nice, but, apart from the change I knew it was going to bring, didn’t seem exceptional. There was optional but strongly recommended dessert, as it provides fuel for the changes overnight; I took a slice of chocolate cake, while Marco had tiramisu. There was no bill to pay, as the other couple had paid their hundred grand in advance which covered the meal and their entire stay, and Marco’s family was covering mine. When we were done, Marco and I retired to the room we were staying at in the inn, as the other couple went to their room.

When we got back to the room, I stripped off my dress, and paused for a bit. Marco and I had only seen each other naked once before, one of the times we met as our original genders in New York, and that was only because we had sex. It was the only time we’d had sex. We were both a bit ashamed of our bodies, as we wanted to be the opposite sex, so we both preferred to show the cross-dressed version of ourselves. And now I know Marco could have become fully male any time he wanted, but was waiting to share his family’s gift with the right partner.

But Marco was stripping down completely, having removed shirt, pants, and underpants, and was now only wearing the accessories that hid his body’s feminine shape, and starting to remove even those. So I went on as well, removing the pocket bra with breast forms I would never need again, as well as the gaff which was supposed to keep my penis from showing, while Marco unwound the elastic bandage holding his breasts tight against his body, and then the sports bra under it.

The last garment Marco removed was a padded thing that went around his stomach. I was aware of the garments that some women today wear, body briefers and such, which are the evolution of the girdle from the mid-20th century and the corset from even before that, designed to enhance the feminine shape and give the appearance of a narrow waist to women who don’t naturally have one. This was the opposite, padding to make his waist appear larger than it actually is. It even had fake abs on the front.

“Are you still going to need that pad to look like a man after the change?” I asked, curious just how much our bodies would change as a result of what we’d just done.

“Tomorrow, yes, but the extra material from the breasts and hips gets distributed across the waist, and after the second night my body will be straight enough for men’s clothes without it. You should develop some curves during the reverse process, though I cannot guarantee how much. Just like some women grow that way and some are straighter, the shape of your figure after this transformation can vary, but your size won’t change drastically, because your body’s mass is conserved. It just gets redistributed.”

I had to pee, and noticed that the change had in fact already started that evening. My balls had gone up inside my body and there was enough penis left for me to pee standing, but not much more than that. When I returned to the room, Marco was already in bed, with the covers pulled partially back, and he invited me to join him there. I accepted that invitation. I knew it was just to snuggle, since our organs were in transition and sex wasn’t really a thing we could do right then.