The first thing he saw after removing the hypnotron was his mother, sitting across from him on the bed and smiling like the cat that ate the canary.
"Hello, dear."
"Mom?" He exclaimed...but it wasn't his voice that answered, but his mother's matronly contralto. He now talked in a feminine lilt, and couldn't seem to help himself. It had to be part of the hypnosis.
"Call me Linda for now dear. I don't really want to think of myself as being old enough to have given birth to you. At least the way you are now." A simple statement, but the impact on Jon was huge. He realized all at once that he was now a part of his mother's generation. He'd lost over twenty years of his life. Not only was he a woman, but a middle aged woman. He hadn't felt this old since...well, since he'd looked in the mirror.
"Nothing to say? Well I can't blame you. But I think at least a thank you is in order."
"Thank you?" Jon asked, wincing at his new voice. He was nonplussed.
"For getting your punishment changed. I have a friend of a friend in the department of corrections. If it weren't for me you'd be with some strange family right now as a woman you've never met. At least this way you're with people you know and a family that loves you." She put her hand on mine. Oh God, their hands were the same, from the soft, but somewhat dry skin of a middle aged woman down to the manicure.
"Mom?! You did this?!" The voice he was using now was the same one his mother used when she scolded Mikey, but he ignored it. Jon would have much rather been some strange woman than his mother, and he certainly didn't want to think what Zoe or Mikey would make of these changes. Much less his father...his...husband. He felt sick.
"Don't you take that tone with me! I'm trying to help you! This is going to be the most difficult two weeks of your life, and you're going to need your mother!" Jon may now have been the same age as his mother, but old habits died hard, and he was thoroughly cowed by the display.
His mother's face softened, and her grip tightened on his hand. "I'm sorry, I should be more tolerant. That's where I've been this past week, correctional orientation. I know this is strange for you. But it's strange for me too you know?" She studied his face closely, looking intensely into his eyes. It made Jon feel incredibly self conscious. "Is that really what I look like to everyone? What I sound like?" She raised her hand and touched his face. He recoiled.
"Mom!" He exclaimed.
She took this outburst better. She just looked vaguely amused. "Linda." She corrected. "Still don't like your mother touching you? I think you'll get over that in the next couple of weeks. But here, we have things to do. Orientation isn't the only thing I've been doing while you were changed. I've got all your paperwork done." She handed him a pile of papers. Among them Jon found documentation of who he had been and who he was now, a copy of his mother's social security card and birth certificate, and worst of all, a new driver's license.
Madison, Linda. Height: 5'05 Weight: 161 lbs, Sex: F, DOB: 04-15-1961
Jon collapsed to the floor and began dry heaving.
