The River Goddess
A Short Story from my latest anthology - Accidental Woman
By Maryanne Peters

We all had enough money to make sure that we did at least one fishing trip every year – just the three of us guys together, Braydon, Kade and me. We fish rivers and lakes. I confess I don’t like fishing in the sea in a rolling boat. People say that the sea offers more adventure, but we just went further to find adventure.

It is not like we need to bring home something to eat. We catch and release. The only sea fish I enjoyed fishing for was Bonefish, which is never caught for food. You catch that in shallow water in tropical areas – you don’t even need a boat.

I started fishing with a dry fly, casting for trout in rivers and pools. Many call it a pastime for the rich, but the equipment is not that expensive. But it is something that can grow into something more costly, especially if you are ready to look beyond local water. We started to look for fishing weekends out of state, and that grew trips that took us away for a working week as well.

We went to Florida to fish for bonefish, to Alaska to fish for Arctic Grayling, travelled to Canada to fish for Northern Pike in Yellowknife and Rainbow Trout in Lake Diefenbaker, and to all good fishing spots in between. And then somebody suggested South America.

We have all heard stories about the special freshwater game fish that can be found in the great rivers in South America, and not just the trout streams of Patagonia. I am talking about fishing for Golden Dorado in the Parana River, the Payara (Vampire Fish) in the Orinoco and Peacock Bass in the Amazon.

It was on our second trip to the Amazon that we decided to be even more adventurous, hiring a guide to take us into the backwaters of the giant river in search of the very rare Chainsaw Catfish. This is a very unusual and spectacular creature, but the challenge was that it is so rarely caught that we needed to follow our guide into a very isolated area.

We travelled upriver in a houseboat of a sort, so we had comforts, but we were a long way from true civilization when Kade’s accident happened.

The Pacu fish lives in the Amazon and other rivers in tropical South America. It is also known as “the ball cutter fish”. It is related to the Piranha, but it is not generally carnivorous. It is bigger than the Piranha and has more powerful jaws, but it eats nuts that fall into the river from trees. We had not only heard of it, but we had seen it in action when our guide threw some nuts into a pond and maybe 30 pacu fish fought over it in a whirlpool of action. He just laughed when we asked about the risk to our testicles. He had never encountered it. He had no idea where the name came from.

The guide was clear that there were no piranha or other dangerous fish in the area we were fishing in, and also no leeches, so we just fished in our shorts and footwear, sometimes with a shirt and always with a wide-brimmed hat. It was often hot, and standing waist-deep in water was comfortable.

I had no idea how loose Kade’s shorts were, but as it turned out he was not wearing any underpants. A Pacu is a big fish, much bigger than it’s carnivorous cousin. I have no idea how one got to him, let alone the feeding frenzy that took place. All I remember was that the water was still until Kade cried out, and then the water around him was suddenly in turmoil and red with blood.

We pulled Kade over to the bank. He was screaming in pain and clutching his groin. His shorts were in tatters, and so was his scrotum. It was clear to see that it was empty. His testicles were gone, apparently mistaken for nuts and swallowed up by the ball-cutter fish.

It turned out that there was a village nearby. The guide had been at pains to keep us away from the villages out of respect for indigenous communities, but in the commotion two native men turned up dressed only in loin cloths. It seemed as if they immediately knew what had happened. Within seconds they had gathered a type of leaf to cover the wound and through signals they directed us to follow them to their village while the guide went back to our boat to get the first aid kit and the satellite phone.

The village was very humble. There was little sign of anything modern except for some steel knives and tools. The huts were made of sticks and leaves bound by a straw twine, and there was a central building that we were taken to. At one end was what appeared to be an altar – a table with carved objects – but these were quickly pushed aside so that Kade could be laid out.

An old woman came forward. She spoke to us in their tongue. We had no odea what she was saying but she appeared to be calm and in control, and I had the immediate impression that she was quite intelligent. She examined Kade’s groin as if she had seen this injury many times, and she immediately set about washing her hands in a wooden bowl and then closing the wound using ants! I had heard about this being done before but never seen it. I remember being fascinated, and curiously Kade stopped his wailing to watch it being done.

By the time the guide arrived with the first aid kit, the wound was closed, and perhaps because of the drink that the natives gave Kade, he seemed to be unaware of any pain.

The old woman spoke to the guide as if telling him something that we should all know. He just nodded, but we waited for him to explain.

“I only know a little of their language,” he began. “She is saying that your friend here has been chosen by the river goddess, and that he has been blessed. They are not Christian these people. They have chased out the missionaries years ago. They believe in all kinds of nonsense. She wants your friend to stay here in the village to recover. But I have the telephone here, so you can call to have him rescued.”

Braydon made the call, but it soon became apparent that there would be no helicopter if the victim of the accident was stable. We had antibiotics if there was any sign of infection, and we should head down river by boat and have Kade checked when we got back to civilization.

But there was no infection. It became clear that the leaves, the cleansing before treatment, the ant head staples and the pain-killing liquor had all done their work. Kade was healing and sitting up talking and ready to eat a meal.

The old woman was insistent that we stay, and even share a meal with the village, and Kade seemed keen on that idea. We had the boat brought up to the landing by the village, and we accepted the invitation.

The odd thing was that Kade seemed strangely relaxed despite the fact that he had been accidentally castrated. Surely, any man would be horrified by that? It was not that Kade could not father children because he had two (and an ex-wife) but that without balls we all accepted that he could no longer function as a man. We put his placid reaction as being down to whatever narcotic he had drank.

The other thing was that the old woman sat beside him for the whole evening, talking to him in her native tongue.

“I have no idea what she is saying, but it is strangely comforting,” he said. “She clearly thinks that I am special somehow – it seems like everybody in the village does.”

I realized that this was true. The villager stared at Kade and seemed to bow slightly when he looked at them. It was not the same for us. They hardly noticed that we were there.

The food was strange, but really quite good. It was washed down with some local liquor that was less pleasant to taste but seemed effective. It seems as if South America is the source of all manner of narcotics because I think we all succumbed.

“We need to get Kade to a doctor,” Braydon said, but strangely none of us seemed in a rush to do that. We actually stayed aboard our boat at the village for a few days before we even thought about leaving. Even then it was only because our provisions were running low.

“I am going to stay,” said Kade. Braydon and I could not believe that he would want to do that. “I am not going to die – that is clear. But it seems that everything has changed. Somehow, I know that I will never be the same. I feel different, and I am starting to consider whether this all might be for a reason.”

“There are drugs that you can take to replace what you have lost, Kade,” said Braydon. “We can get you home and on those and you will not even notice the absence of … you know. They can even stitch in some plastic ones, I think.”

“You know, I have had some time to reflect in these last few days, guys,” said Kade. “I have come to realize that those balls I lost have led me astray more than once. They ruined my marriage and lost me quite a bit of money, and maybe the trust of my kids as well. That old witch seems to think that I have some kind of destiny arising out of all this.”

“The River Goddess?” I had to ask him, in total disbelief. We just had to look around at the village, with its grass huts … and smiling people. There was a part of me that understood what a person might want to take a break in a place like this. “So when will you head home?” I asked.

“Like I said, I have had time to reflect, and a little more time to do that cannot be so bad,” he said. “The guide comes this way all the time. I can find my own way back … but not home – it seems to me that has gone. But I will come back to you guys … just not yet.”

Braydon argued with him some more, but in the end, we left Kade in that crude village with those primitive people. He was right after all, such a place seemed so distant from the world we came from, yet within a day of leaving him we were back in the States, as if it were just around the corner.

We had to get back to work. You need to have money to pay for a hobby like fishing. We talked about him, but just when we were starting to get worried we received a letter, and I mean on paper in an envelope with a postage stamp stuck to it. It was addressed to me and Braydon, and it assured us both that Kade was well, fully recovered from his injury and at peace with the way he was now. We guessed that meant he was coping without his balls, although what that meant we didn’t really know. There was no address on the letter, and the postmark was the village where we had picked up the guide. We considered making contact with the guide, but Kade had organized that part of the expedition, so we had no contact details.

We missed our fishing buddy, but the next two fishing trips were just the two of us, and before we knew it over a year had passed before circumstances called upon one of us to try to find Kade.

Kade’s wife had died in a car accident, and despite their divorce years before, Kade was the next of kin and major beneficiary of her will. Kade’s kids needed to either prove that their father was dead or talk to him to ask if he would relinquish a claim to her estate so they could share in what she was supposed to have left for them. The estate lawyer offered to pay my expenses to go back to the Amazon and find Kade. I agreed to go, as a favor to his family, and because we never did catch that Chainsaw Catfish, I packed my fishing gear as well.

Once again, the travel time was short, at least to the town where the guide was based. I only knew the jetty where his boat was moored, on which the guide lived and had his office, when he was not upriver. I was lucky, because the boat was there. I stepped aboard.

I suppose because I had lived on this boat for those weeks a year or so before, I felt able to just walk on and look around for somebody aboard. I thought that I heard voices, so I walked down the narrow passageway with small cabins either side. Near the wheelhouse was the guide’s cabin, and the door was open. From the sound I knew what was going on in there, but despite the obligation to respect the privacy of the act, I felt compelled to take a peek.

The guide was lying on his back in a state of high excitement while a woman was sitting on his erect penis moving up and down. She was clearly a customer and not local, with light brown curls bouncing around her shoulders and breasts jiggling. They were both moaning. It made me feel how much I missed sex. I stepped back and decided to go back to the dock and call out, but first I waited for them to finish.

The guide answered my call after clearly rushing to dress himself. He recognized me and seemed to appear slightly disturbed by my presence. Then the woman appeared, and after looking twice, I almost fainted with shock. There standing in front of me was Kade, but in the form of a woman!

It was unmistakably him, but yet things were different. He had more hair, not just grown long but a feminine hairline. Some of the heavy features from his face seemed to have disappeared or have been covered by a softness of incredibly smooth and unblemished skin. This creature was wearing very little – a short floral dress with no sleeves, so I could see the limbs were smooth as well, and neither muscled nor bony. The most remarkable thing was that she (as she must be called) was very attractive.

She knew me and she recognized immediately that I knew who she was, or who she had once been. She ushered the guide away in what I assumed was Portuguese – not a language she had previously. She said that I was entitled to an explanation, and I agreed.

I was told all about the River Goddess, who according to local tradition, chose men at random to be unmanned by her instrument, the pacu, the ball cutter fish. She had been told that it was not a punishment, but a blessing. It was not even an accident if you are to believe in the grand plan of the goddess, but it clearly was from the point of view of the victim. But how can it be a blessing?

She said that she had met a few women who had been similarly chosen by the goddess and that their role was to bring the joy of sex to men. The local people believe in monogamy but that no man can be accused of adultery for sleeping with a river woman, I suggested that it might be because she is not a woman at all.

This was hotly disputed, and I was told that it was simply a matter of time. My old fishing companion was slowly becoming more and more female every day and had been since we had left. She offered to show me, but I declined. Can there be anything more likely to make a man squeamish than to view an empty scrotum and what has become of whatever else remained.

It seemed appropriate the explain then, why I had come all this way – the death of the ex-wife and the need to settle things with the children, who were close to adulthood.

She seemed shocked at the news, and she sat down, muttering something about needing to remain close to the river in order to let her transformation into a full woman become a reality. I could see that there were emotions at work so I stood back, as a man should.

She invited me to stay aboard for the night if I had no other accommodation, which I didn’t. She said that she had been assisting the guide with his business for some time, calling herself “Kate” and acting as hostess while staying at the village when he had no guests - she was welcome there as a “special creature”. She had to consider things, not the least of which would be boarding a flight with a man’s passport. But in the morning, she was ready to travel back home to the States with me.

Surprisingly perhaps, we were able to enter through passport control with matching fingerprints. It was late when we arrived in the city, so I offered her my spare room for the night. We agreed that her appearance would come as a shock to everybody and that it should be managed. I contacted the lawyer to arrange a meeting, but it could not be the following day, so I took an extra day to stay with “Kate”.

She clearly needed clothes, so we went to the shopping center together. She had a credit card that had not been used for some time, but which was now given a workout. Strangely, she seemed to have a clear eye for what would look good on her, and then she decided to have her hair washed and styled and makeup applied at the cosmetics store. I might not have thought it possible, but she was even more attractive after all that was done.

I said that we should go out to dinner, which she called “a date” but I waved that notion aside. After all, we were friends and we had been for some time, but even I could not deny the fact that I was very attracted to her.

We went home and before I knew what was happening my hands and my lips were all over her. Things seemed to move at breakneck speed and before I knew it, I was having sex with her, without any idea of how I was able to enter her – I just knew that I had to. It seemed as if I did not, then I would explode.

When we were done and she was lying on the bed naked beside me, I did take the time to have a closer look, simply because it seemed that she was telling the truth – somehow, she had been transformed from an injured man into a woman. The breasts were real – not massive but certainly a woman’s breasts. There was no real sign of a penis unless you looked closely. The hole that I had entered was the anus, but above that was not the wound I expected but folds of tissue that could easily have been a vulva. It just made no sense. Miracles do not happen, but hormones can shape the body and in the absence of male ones, all human bodies carry estrogens that can complete the job.

She said that if she could not go back to let the goddess complete what the pacu had started, then she would need to seek surgery to finish it. There could be no thought of returning to manhood – she was a woman now. I have to say that I was relieved, perhaps even thrilled. A woman this beautiful should stay this way. The world would be better for it. I would be better for it.

We cuddled together and we made promises, like adolescents in love.

And then we went in to see the lawyer and to introduce Kate to the young people who continued to be her family.

I knew that the relationship between Kade and his family had been strained, and he had said that it was because of lies told to the children by his ex-wife, but things were going to be different. For a start these kids had not been expecting this. The man who had been described to them as the epitome of toxic masculinity sat with them now as a woman. Instead of attacking the memory of their late mother as they might have expected, Kate burst into tears and said that she now understood their mother for the first time, now seeing everything from the woman’s perspective. Yes, Kate would make no claim on their inheritance, and she would continue to include them in her will. All she asked in exchange was to be a part of their lives.

I sat and watched as they all wept and embraced. It seemed true – that the gift of the River Goddess was to give peace to this person, once my friend and now my lover.

She had that surgery, and I was there beside her. So too was our friend Braydon. He had been understandably shocked to find that Kade had become Kate, but he, just like me, came to understand just how valuable she is.

It is just that Kate has to help him too, and I just can’t get used to this threesome thing. Kate calls it the burden she carries for the gift of the River Goddess. She is here now to please men, and not just one man.

The End

Author’s Note:
Please check out my blog or Doppler Press for links to my latest anthology - 20 stories about accidental change.
Erin had an idea that she called “Bug Out” (perhaps “Bug In” would have been better) about an accident in the Amazon involving some body invading beetle, but once I heard about the Pacu fish I had to follow that!

© Maryanne Peters 2026