He comes as Rachel, his female self

Instead of getting to my feet and scanning the area around me for my friend, I settle myself on the edge of the fountain. After a few seconds, my phone lets out a short jingle, notifying me of a new message on my phone, which reads, “I'm at the fountain. Are you here?”

I quickly type out a short answer, “I'm here.”

Not even five seconds after I send it do I get a call from my friend. It's in that moment that I remember giving him my phone number, just in case Facebook craps out on us. I stare at the phone with my friend's name on the caller ID, but hesitate to quickly slide the cursor to the side where it would connect the call to him. I decide it would be unwise and rather rude to slide it to the other side where the phone would disconnect the call.

Before the call redirects to my voicemail, I slide the cursor to answer and bring the phone to my ear, a bit shocked that my female voice is what my friend will hear. “Hello?” I answer. For about a minute, I don't get a reply. Thirty seconds after I answer the call, I shoot off another “Hello,” but I do not get anything from the other line. I bring the phone down to look at the screen. The call still looks like it's connected and doesn't seem to have dropped for whatever reason. I start to wonder if my in-call volume was turned down low, but I discover it's at maximum volume when I try to adjust it. I put my phone back up to my ear to determine if my friend has said anything.

Then I hear a girl's voice ask, “Charles?” but it's not through the phone. It doesn't have that tinny, electronic sound like you would get from a call, but it sounds like the voice is coming from right beside me. I slowly bring my phone down and look to my side. To my surprise, I see a shirt, sized for a girl, on a very feminine body.

I stand up almost immediately, almost dropping my phone. “Raymond?” I ask.

“It's actually Rachel, but yeah,” the woman says, confirming it's my friend, but on X-Change. I squeal something incoherent as I close the distance and embrace the girl before me. She reluctantly hugs me back.

“Sorry. I might seem like the real thing, but I've been doing this a lot longer than you,” I apologize as I push myself back from the girl.

“No worries. Must be nice to get into that kind of persona once you have the right plumbing,” Rachel mentions. “I might not be ready for the whole girly thing, but I figured we meet up and chat. You could give me some pointers.”

“Definitely,” I respond, tucking rogue locks of hair behind my ears. “Did you want to chat here or go someplace else?”

“Well, you see, these are my sister's clothes and they don't really fit me that well,” she says and upon mentioning her outfit, I can tell that though the shirt is sized and shaped for a woman's body, it's much bigger. About two sizes bigger. I recall what height her sister stood at and figure she was probably an inch shorter than the height Raymond stood at. There is an almost undetectable sag to Rachel's pants and it may be dragging on the ground when she walks. Judging from what this girl is feeling just from her facial expression, it doesn't feel all that comfortable to wear such an outfit.

“Did you want to go to the mall? There'll be a lot of options to choose from,” I tell her, stashing my phone in my back pocket.

“Sure. Once I find something that fits me and that I can wear comfortably, why don't we grab something to eat afterwards?” she proposes.

“I'm down. So, are we driving separately?” I ask.

“Well, I was wondering if you'd drive us there. I was late because I hadn't driven before as... you know,” she explains and gestures to her body.

“That's fine, I'll drive,” I assure her. We make our way to my car and I drive out of the lot and onto the highway, heading towards the large mall in the next city. Along the way, Rachel explains her first moments as a woman. It felt awkward at first, but it also felt right. She also tells me that no one but me knows about her interest in X-Change and she chose this day specifically because no one was going to be home and thus there was no chance of anyone catching an unfamiliar girl stealing clothes from my friend's sister and then stealing my friend's car.

I explain my situation, how I moved out and into my own apartment to prevent such a thing from happening. I tell her how long I've been on X-Change, however I have never been with the opposite sex in an intimate manner. While that is the popular thought one has when taking X-Change, it's not a route that should be taken if one doesn't have the slight interest in it. I tell him my family also has no clue. The only people who know is my managers at my workplace, but I choose not to go to work as Charlene.

We arrive after twenty minutes of driving and get out of the car. We enter through the nearest entrance, which has a hallway of sorts, with various businesses on either side. We walk to the railing that overlooks the first floor down below us. There are many department stores as well as specialty stores. As she looks at the various options, I turn to her and ask, “So, where should we go to first?”