The next day, Jon went over to Karyn's house. Her mother welcomed him with a smile, and told him that Karyn was in the den on the computer.
"What're you doing, playing BLACK & WHITE?" asked Jon when he entered the room where she was seated.
"No, I've been doing research. I did a search on the word 'wishes'" said Karyn.
"I'll bet THAT found a lot of responses!"
"You ain't kidding! The number was 1,965,229! So, then, I tried 'wish stories,' and the number was astronomical."
"What are you looking at now?"
"'Transformation stories.' I've done searches on it before. I thought it might jog my memory."
Jon looked over Karyn's shoulder. "Were-animals. Age-regression. And -- what's TG?"
"Trans-gender."
"Transgender? You mean, girls turning into guys?"
"Sometimes. Mostly, though, it's guys turning into girls. There are lots of sites devoted to stories about it."
"Yuck!"
"What's the matter with it?"
"It's just ... guys wanting to be girls? What kind of people write these things?"
"All kinds. Some of them are revenge fantasies, you know, turning the big, macho jock into the whimpering little cheerleader who then gets bonked over and over by the nerd he used to pick on. Some of them are lesbian fantasies. A guy gets turned into a girl and finds out the girl he's interested in is actually a dyke. Some of them are rape fantasies. Those are pretty sick, I'll admit, usually having the boy who's been TGed assaulted and then discovering he likes it."
"THOSE are pretty sick?" said Jon. "This all sounds too weird to me! I mean, I'm not the most studly guy in the world, but I'd never want to screw a girl who used to be a guy! And I sure as hell wouldn't want to BE a girl!"
"And what's wrong with being a girl?" asked Karyn.
"Nothing! Not if you're born one! But to change into one?"
"So you're against trans-sexuals, is that it?"
"Yes! No! Stop confusing me! I'm not a homophobe, if that's what you're trying to suggest."
"Look. I'll admit a lot of these stories follow the same basic plot-line. And I've found some that are unreadable because they're just plain spooge! But some of them are pretty good, a little exercise in imagination, trying to see things from the 'other side of the fence,' so to speak. A little role-playing, that's all. It might do you some good."
"No thanks," said Jon.
"Never mind that," said Karyn. "Did you bring the rock?"
Jon took it out of his back-pack and showed it to Karyn. Before he could say or do anything, she had grabbed it from him.
"What are you doing?" asked Jon.
Karyn held the rock and said "I wish, that for one hour ... "
