It was only after school, on the way home, that Karyn started to realize something else was wrong. She really had to go to the bathroom.
She had gone three times during the day, in the regular way she was used to as a girl. But each time, the fluid amount was less. She couldn't figure out what this pressure feeling was, because she'd still feel like she had to go to the bathroom even after emptying her bladder, which was already almost empty, but the pressure was still mostly there at the end. She had yet to realize she had two bladders and needed to go to the bathroom through her guy parts too. It was a crisis that occurred slowly, since her second bladder only filled at half the rate it would normally since she had two of them after all.
But as the pressure started to become hard to stand on the way home, she realized that was the situation. "Oh my god," she thought to herself. "That means I'll need to take it out, and change the condom right away!"
She got home and was anxious about what to do about this new increasingly urgent problem when her mom walked up to here and handed her a huge box of condoms.
"Here, sweety, you told me yesterday that you were down to the last one, so here's a new box."
She looked at her mom in bewilderment. "What?"
"Well you don't want to run out, of course, or else you'll get yourself pregnant," her mom said nonchalantly.
"You.. you know?" she said in horror.
"Know what?"
"About my body! That I have..."
"Sweetie, I was there when you were born, and we've talked about this many times before, why would I forget that you were a hermaphrodite? And I understand, you're at that age, it's only natural that you'd be doing sexual things with yourself. You don't need to hide this from me or be embarrassed by it. Especially since you can do it way more easily than other people."
Karyn realized that perhaps all of reality had changed, and only she didn't remember. It was just a coincidence that she had one condom that her mother had given her for a different reason in the other reality, while in this one, she had been down to the last one on that day from a whole box.
"Mom, does anyone else know I'm a hermaphrodite?"
"No, absolutely not, unless you have told them. We have gone through this, honey. Did something happen to you? Why don't you remember this. When you were born, the doctor assumed you were deformed in a strange way, and I asked them to record it as a female birth. They wanted me to consider getting you in for surgery to correct the abnormality, but when I got home, I examined your little body more carefully and discovered the truth, that there was nothing deformed about you and there was nothing that needed to be fixed. It wasn't even put on any records that there's anything unusual about you, that you're anything but a girl. And I have never told anyone, as far as the government or anyone else is concerned, except maybe the doctor who delivered you, and he doesn't care, he probably delivers a thousand babies a year, but as far as anyone else knows, you're a girl. But here is your new box of condoms."
"Mom, has my hair always been this color?" she asked.
"You mean have you ever dyed it? Yeah, remember that time in 6th grade when you dyed it red? Why, are you thinking of dying it again? I think you have beautiful hair, do you know how many girls would kill for long, beautiful blonde hair like you have?"
"I, I guess you're right. I was just thinking about it. I don't want anyone to think I'm a dumb blonde."
"Anyone who knows you at all is going to know you're anything but a dumb blonde."
"Thanks mom." Karyn took this all in. But, that didn't make any sense. This morning, Jon had said...
Of course Jon had made a subtle mistake. He hadn't realized it himself. But he would be hit with it shortly. Unsurprisingly, Karyn called Jon about this.
"Hi Jon," Karyn said.
"Hi Karyn," he answered. He was dreading having to talk to her at this point. He was feeling pretty guilty.
"Jon, let me ask you something. What did my hair look like yesterday, do you remember?"
Jon was suddenly hit with his mistake. He shouldn't have known her hair was any different, and a few conversations with other people would tell Karyn that other people remembered her as always having long, blonde hair. So why not Jon? Why would he think she was wearing a wig? He was silently panicking about what to say at the other end of the phone.
Jon said, "I, uh, don't remember, for, uh, some reason."
"Oh come on, Jon, you said you thought I was wearing a wig this morning. But other people remember me having long blonde hair. I have spoken to other people. Do you, do you remember things as they ACTUALLY were yesterday? Do you remember that other reality?"
"Uh, yeah, I kind of do," Jon says. Maybe he could still play ignorant. He didn't want to mess with her memories any more if he could help it. He didn't want to mess with her if he could help it. Maybe he could get out of it by lying. He'd consider doing that, up to a point. He didn't want to do much of that either, though.
"Why you and me and no one else though. I called other people. No one else remembers. Not even my mom."
Ok, Jon thought to himself. Of course, everyone else in this reality remembered her as she was no. So what he had to do was play his cards right and he could get out of this. He figured everyone else in this new reality remembered her as having long blonde hair, and also knew she was a hermaphrodite, as if there was nothing odd about that at all, because that's the way the stone worked. Right? "But it's starting to feel like a dream, the other reality," he lied. "It's like I remember your hair always being this way, but the other way too. Both realities feel real. I also remember you as being just a girl, and as a hermaphrodite."
Several seconds of shocked silence.
"You remember me as a hermaphrodite?"
"Uh, yeah, of course," he said. "You're a hermaphrodite, everyone knows that, right? It's no big deal, you're a very pretty person, and could easily get a girlfriend or a boyfriend who's gay or straight."
Karyn was appalled. What did this mean. She didn't know that Jon had been stuck in his lie, stuck elaborating on it now when pressed, and had made something up that didn't make any sense.
"No, Jon. NOBODY knows that. In THIS reality, the only two people who know about it are me and my mother."
"Oh shit!" Jon exclaimed out.
"Maybe I could have believed you if you had said you knew, like maybe I had told my closest friend, but you just said that everyone knows. Jon, you're lying about something," she correctly observed.
He had been caught red-handed. Jon seriously considered telling her about the stone again, but there was no way she could figure THAT much out, right?
"Did you have something to do with my current state?" she asked the big one.
"Uh, Karyn, uh," what could he say. Could he say that he found a magic genie lamp and had one wish and had messed it up?
"You DID, DIDN'T YOU! TELL ME THE TRUTH!"
"Ok, Karyn, I'm sorry. Yes. This is my doing."
"Why? WHY Jon WHY!?"
"You betrayed me Karyn."
"What?"
"You don't remember it, but you betrayed me. You see, I have a certain way of getting wishes granted, let's call it a genie in a bottle. And I shared it with you. And you in turn STOLE my genie from me. You betrayed our friendship. You betrayed me. I freely shared it with you, even though it was mine, and you in turn stole it from me and planned to have it all to yourself. But I got it back. And as punishment, I erased your memories of it, and changed you the way you find yourself now. This is why I was cold to you this morning. I didn't want to be your friend any more. Because of this thing you did, this unforgivable thing, even if you don't remember it. But now I'm kind of sorry about it. I think my punishment went too far. And with the memories gone from your mind, I'm not even sure you count as guilty of your betrayal, except that I know you'd do the same thing in the same situation again. So I'm still not going to trust you with my genie. But I'm not sure you deserve to be punished for something you don't remember doing. I don't know what to do. By the way, I can't undo the wish, because wishes are permanent."
A few seconds of silence. "I know what you can do."
"What?" Jon said in apprehension.
"You have to be my boyfriend now," Karyn said matter of factly.
"What?"
"You heard me. Your punishment is to not just be my best friend again, but for us to be friends with benefits. I'm sorry about stealing your genie, I guess, and I guess I understand what you did, and all I can say is it won't happen again. But we have to be friends. And I want more than that. I'm tired of secretly pining for you and subtly hinting at you. Me being a hermaphrodite has maybe made me think in different terms, and I feel more assertive now, more bold, and more sexually driven. And I want a sexual relationship with you."
"Wait, but, are you saying, you want to, uh, with your new guy parts,"
"I'm not going to fuck you in the ass Jon, that sounds like an awful idea to me too so you don't have to worry about it, I want to have sex with you as a girl. And I want to go out on dates with you. I mean, we have done stuff together anyway, things that to anyone else would already count as dates, but I want it to be more romantic."
"I guess that's doable," Jon admitted.
"And one more thing, Jon," Karyn said.
"What's that?"
"One wish. One wish with your genie."
"Rejected. Not a chance."
"Jon, I swear to you I will never steal it from you like you said I did, it sickens me to think that I did what you say that I did and maybe you don't believe me but I swear it will never happen again. If we're going to build back up our friendship, it needs to have trust. Please take my word. Please trust when I say I won't betray you. I swear to you on my life that I will not betray you. Please give me a chance."
"I'll think about it," Jon said. He had done this atrocious thing to her, though. Maybe he should take it like a man and have faith in her. She sounded genuine. Maybe she made one mistake, a lapse in judgement. Maybe it was just too sad to not have faith in her. Maybe he owed it to the world to take his punishment like a man and risk her betraying him again.
They agreed to a romantic date that Saturday. Dinner and a movie.
At their date, he had to admit she was very pretty. He had never seen her in a dress like that. Though she had pretty big muscles on her for a girl too. He remembered that was his doing too. They didn't interfere with her feminine figure though, she just looked like a sexy athlete. It was all too easy to forget that under that dress...
He remembered why he was friends with her in the first place. They talked, they laughed together, they clung to each other at the scary parts of the movie, they both had fun. And they went back to his house. And she wanted to come in. He agreed. His mom was asleep on the couch, the television on. They snuck into his room. And Karyn immediately disrobed.
"Whoa, Karyn, you don't need to be in such a hurry to..."
"I've been waiting the whole date for this. Please Jon."
He was looking away.
"Jon, look at me," she said.
He looked. "Oh my god Karyn, I'm so sorry, look what I've done to you," he said.
"I LIKE it you dummy. I'm happy with it. But I hope you can be happy with it too."
"It's so weird," he said.
"You did it to me, how can you find it so weird."
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
"Stop apologizing! I just don't want you to be disgusted by me!"
Jon looked again. "Maybe, I guess, it's ok. Yeah, maybe I can be ok with it."
She reached into a pocket in her clothes on the ground and pulled out two condoms. "One for you, one for me. No sense spilling ucky stuff around and making a mess."
Jon gulped.
20 minutes later.
"That was fun," Karyn said.
"Yeah. I'll admit it," Jon said. "I'm exhausted. Goddamn but you're strong."
"I've noticed that too. Thanks for that part, by the way."
Jon was thinking about it. All right, let's go for it, he thought.
"All right Karyn, I'm going to trust you with your wish. Please don't make me regret it," he said.
"Really?" she said.
"Yeah. I hope it was truly just a momentary lapse in judgement and you really mean it when you say you wouldn't do it again. I won't just feel betrayed if that was a lie. I'll be heartbroken." He got out the rock. "This is it."
"A rock?" she asked. "I thought it was a genie in a bottle."
"I said 'let's just call it a genie in a bottle'. It's a wish granting rock. Hold it and make your wish. Please don't make any mistakes in your wording, remember that anything you don't specify to last for a certain duration will be irreversible, and please don't make me regret it."
"Ok, how do I use it, do I just say I wish and then..."
"Yeah."
"All right. Jon, you're not going to like it at first, but please stand back and don't intefere, and please trust me when I say you'll like it at the end, ok?"
"Now I'm nervous. But all right."
"I wish that Jon's body would be changed to be like my own, not my identical twin, just the hermaphrodite version of himself with the same basic arrangement of parts, and with a sexy feminine figure and big breasts like mine and a feminine version of his face, and that like me, he'll think like both a guy and a girl and really really like them both."
"Oh god," Jon said.
"Please just give it a chance!" Karyn said.
"I'm going to have to give it more than a chance now," Jon said, looking down at his new body.
"I promise you, this isn't a punishment. It's nice being like this. And you're going to love how pretty you are when you see yourself in a mirror. I'm not kidding, you're gorgeous. You have movie star looks. And it had to be done. Here's your rock back." Jon put it away.
"Now that you're half girl, or more like 80% girl, I think you'll recover a lot more quickly sexually," Karyn said.
"Oh god," Jon said.
"Look at my body now. What do you think of it now?"
Jon looked Karyn over. "You know, you're right about that much. Now I just see you as sexy. It's true, it was no good before, with me just tolerating your appearance and having to try for it, it couldn't have worked out for long, but now, now..."
"Ready for another round?" Karyn asked.
Another 20 minutes later.
"I guess I'm glad we're friends after all," Jon said, staring at the ceiling.
"Friends with benefits," Karyn corrected.
"Thanks for forgiving me," Jon said.
"Thanks for sucking my dick," Karyn answered back.
"Oh god why did I love that so much! What have you done to me!?" he cried, not really upset but trying to hold back a smile. He loved every inch of Karyn's body now.
"To be fair, it probably helped that you were coming inside yourself while you were doing it. So have I sold you on it now? Any regrets letting me use the stone now?" Karyn asked.
Jon sighed. "No. No regrets."
