Father-Son-Time

"You have got to be kidding me," Zero said in his breathy voice.

"Not a bit," his father squeaked, "You have a long life ahead of you, and denying who you are is only going to make it worse."

"This is not who I am!" Zero responded sharply, grabbing his breasts, "I am not a woman!"

"Like it or not, for now you are. If you want, once society has settled down a bit, you can talk to a doctor and explore a gender reassignment, but I suspect those doctors will be very busy for a few years." John pursed his puffy lips and again indicated that Zero sit down at the make-up table. "You can dress like a slob all you want when you have moved out and started your own life. In my house, under my roof, you are going to be presentable. And since you're no longer a child, you're going to have to learn to take care of yourself."

Zero looked from his father to the make-up chair, not knowing what horrified him more. His father had announced the night before that they would be having a father-son bonding time, but Zero had assumed it would be the kind of activity they had enjoyed previously. Playing catch, going fishing, or even just watching movies had been a staple. This was different. John had shown up at breakfast wearing a black pleated miniskirt so short that when he bent over, Zero could see the pink panties that his father had on. For a shirt, John was wearing a red spaghetti strap shirt that didn't even cover his belly button. Zero didn't know what had happened to his father while he was away, but he seemed to be fully embracing everything about his new body. It made Zero want to puke.

"Now sit," his father ordered in his squeaky voice.

Zero sat.

Zero stared at his reflection. The face of Bianca Grant stared back at him, although it had been long enough that Zero now recognized the face as his own. The firey-red hair, the cute, upturned nose, the high cheekbones, all belonged to Zero Malone. Bianca had been in her forties, but she looked much younger. An advantage of her wealth and resources. In the months that Zero had owned her skin, though, he had done nothing to keep up her appearance, and it was beginning to show. Early on, Zero had noticed that some grey hair had begun to show in his hair, but he didn't care. Who was he trying to impress, anyway? The crow's feet in the corners of his eyes, too, were natural. And who cared if his skin wasn't perfect? It was his, after all.

"One of the things that I had to come to terms with," Zero heard his father lecture while flipping through stations on the clock radio on the bedside, "is that there is no going back. The Great Shift changed you, it changed me, but it also changed billions of others. We don't know what caused it, we don't know how it did it, and we don't know if it'll happen again." John paused on a station playing a song with a good beat. He turned back toward his son and danced across the floor to the music.

"And so we'd better make the best of what we've been given."

"That's it?" Zero complained, "I'm supposed to be happy that I lost years of my life?"

"No," John said, "I never said be happy. I said make the best of it. Think of it this way: In your old body, you might have been coming home from school, crossed the street, and been hit and killed by a drunk driver. In your new body, you woke up and avoided a gruesome fate!"

"That is ridiculous! How could you ever know that something like that would happen?"

"That's my point exactly," John said, his body dancing in the reflection behind Zero, "Nobody knows. The only thing you do know is that now, today, you look like this. And things could be a lot worse! Sure, you're a woman now, but damn if you're not a hell of a woman! That body, that face, and those tits!"

"Stop it! Don't talk about my body that way!" Zero shouted.

"See? You already think of it as your body. Even if you're not able to admit it," John laid his tiny hands on Zero's shoulders, "this is you. Now, let's see if we can't make you a little bit more comfortable in your own skin."