User:Erastus/Implementing the Cure
Implementing the Cure
"Sorry. Species dysphoria doesn't exist!" said my shrink. "And it is quite beyond me how someone can have 'species dysphoria,'" he said the words in a mocking tone, "when the species is mythical."
"Doesn't it make sense that there is the possibility of a step beyond gender dysphoria?"
He gave me a strange look. "No," he said, drawing the word out in a way that implied that only a moron would disagree with him. "Do you think you have gender dysphoria?"
"I'm male and intend to stay male. It is the human part that feels wrong."
"But species dysphoria. I'm sure glad you came to me. We've got a lot of work ahead of us to get to the root of why you feel that way. Perhaps you're repressing an incident with a horse in your childhood."
"Repression means the incident was something bad," I countered, "and I want to embrace the horse."
The discussion circled round and round as it usually did when I visited him. But this time two thoughts became clear. The first was that this particular shrink -- as was the case of the three previous guys -- didn't understand the problem, had no intention of helping me get what I needed, but was quite willing to keep me on as a patient for the benefit of his bank account. The second was a conviction that my distress was not only real, but had to be dealt with in the same way as a transgender person.
I had read several autobiographies of transgendered people and recognized their distress at being in the wrong kind of body. I longed for the freedom and sense of self they celebrated once their transition was complete.
When one is determined enough, one can find the means to accomplish a goal, which is what led me to a warlock. He will remain nameless because, as he said, "The ones who need me will always find me, but this way I don't have to deal with the dilettantes and cranks."
He gave me the "vanishing cream" only after I has memorized and could recite his detailed instructions for using it safely and properly. He finished it off by saying, "I must warn you that while the physical results are guaranteed -- if used properly -- neither I nor anyone else knows what will happen to you mentally. The results are irreversible and your mind may be pleased with the results, it may crack under the strain, or the mental result may be something completely unforeseen."
I knew I had to take the chance in spite of the dangers.
Now that I had the cream I emptied my savings account and went looking for the best stallion I could afford. By best, I also meant one that I seemed to be in tune with -- a quality I had no hope of describing to someone else.
The desired affinity clicked with a handsome Clydesdale. I studied his papers and was satisfied with his youth. I had a vet inspect him carefully for health and virility. He passed easily. The sale left me with very little money left over. I didn't worry about that because I hoped that soon money would not matter to me.
I chose a time in late spring. I moved out of my apartment, donated my furniture, kitchenware, clothing, and bicycle and headed out to a secluded clearing in the forest riding the horse and carrying nothing but the cream, a vinyl ground cloth, latex gloves, an aluminum stool, and the clothes on my back. The plastic in the cloth and gloves were far enough from organic to not mess up the cream.
I tied the horse's lead to a branch and took off the saddle and everything else except the halter.
I then spent a moment removing all my own clothes, letting my skin be caressed by the wind. I spread out the cloth, guided the horse onto it, and set the stool beside the horse.
I opened the small jar of vanishing cream and, while wearing the gloves, began to apply it to my legs and feet, smoothing it on and working it in. I included my genitals, my groin, and well into the crack, stopping at a carefully considered line that went under my abs and over my hips.
The cream would take several minutes to activate but I wanted to be ready. I carefully peeled off the gloves so I wouldn't get the cream on my hands and carefully held them. I then used the stool to climb onto the horse and sat as close to the neck as I could, making sure I was properly centered. It was a delicate task because if I let go of the gloves or cream I would never reach my goal. I then wrapped my legs around that neck. I felt the base of the mane against my groin and I felt fur against my legs.
A few moments later, my legs went numb, though they did not go limp. Soon, I could see the vanishing cream work -- my legs were slowly absorbed in through the skin of the horse. I felt myself settle a bit until the absorption came up to the untreated skin of my waist.
The horse turned his head around to glance at me, perhaps trying to figure out why I just sat there without giving a command to go somewhere. I couldn't see any indication he could sense we were being joined.
Once the process stopped, I could run my hand down my torso and feel a smooth joint from skin to fur. The skin of my torso could feel my fingers gliding past. The skin under the fur didn't send any signals of those passing fingers, at least not to my brain, at least not yet.
If I had stopped there, I would be a human head and torso attached to a horse with no way to directly guide the legs below me and at the mercy of the horse to which I was connected. I would be a freak. It was time for the second part.
I reached forward, and hooked my fingers into the halter and pulled it and the horse's head towards me. It was short work to undo the buckle and pull the halter off and drop it to the cloth. The horse seemed relieved to be rid of it, giving his head a shake.
I donned the gloves again, and began to spread the vanishing cream through the mane and onto the neck of the horse, carefully working down the neck to the line corresponding to my abs. I worked upward, smoothing vanishing cream across his head, into his ears, across his eyes and lips. The horse took it stoically -- until I got to his nose. He refused to let me touch it. I nearly panicked over the prospect of truly bizarre outcome, but realized I would eventually win out.
I then waited for the cream to activate.
After the proper elapsed time, I saw the horse close his eyes, toss his head, then go rigid while his head was still up. I spread my arms out and leaned forward until my chest was against the horse's mane. The long hairs of the mane tickled for a bit, but were soon drawn inward.
It was quickly apparent that my torso wasn't as long as the horse's neck. How was I going to absorb all that? Why hadn't I thought of that sooner? I certainly couldn't abort now with a horse's neck rising out of my chest. I could only proceed.
As the absorption continued I realized I could see over the head a little more easily than I could a moment ago. I glance downward around the horse's neck and wondered, did the ground look a little farther away? I hadn't checked when I started. The mass of the neck had to go somewhere, didn't it? Was it making my torso longer?
Several minutes later the neck had been absorbed leaving me with a horse head protruding from the middle of my chest. I could see the star on his forehead directly below my chin. I took the opportunity to spread cream over the nose and lips. That used up the last of the cream. I wasn't surprised at all that I had been given exactly enough.
The ears vanished into my skin, followed shortly by the closed eyes. Soon, only lips and nostrils remained. The process paused a moment until the proper time had elapsed for the areas where I had most recently applied the cream.
Then I waited. The tip of the nose receded into my chest.
The warlock had warned me to remain still while the spell worked through what had been absorbed and decide how to make a whole from the parts. That wouldn't be hard to do. I couldn't move the legs and I doubted the horse could either. I took off the gloves, making sure none of the cream residue touched my hands, and dropped them on the cloth. I also dropped the empty jar.
And then it hit. There were explosions of multicolored light across my vision, a clangor of sounds in my ears, a confusion of scents in my nose, and a tingling, almost like an electric current, that began between my shoulder blades and moved down my spine. When it got to the small of my back, it spread outward as a blue flame, but then suddenly moved both down and back.
The current that shot back along my now much longer spine felt overwhelming. I had never felt sensations there. The charge reached the tail, which snapped upward, before the charge rebounded back along that very long spine. On the return trip it spread outward, traveling down hind legs, tingling the groin, encircling the barrel, engulfing forelegs, chasing around my torso, and shooting down my arms. The flaming current define the new shape of my body and gave me a sense of where each part of this body was.
I felt a second heart thump deep within me and then felt the one in my torso hesitate so that the two could beat in unison. Air was sucked in more deeply as I felt my barrel expand and contract with my torso. I heard my belly gurgle and felt it rumble as two digestive systems knit themselves together.
Fireworks again went off within my eyes. This time I could feel the searing flames sweep around within the limits of my skull, crashing together, first near my neck, then above my eyes. A rumbling hum seemed to rattle my hearing then rose in pitch until I winced from the shrillness. My nose reported a clangor of scents that I knew did not come from the forest around me. Flashes of sweet, salty, and bitter chased across my tongue. I felt phantoms brush against my body -- horse and human -- some with a delicate touch but most with a hot coal, a block of ice, or a needle. It took a while for the sensory storm to subside, until I could hear the birds and insects, see the trees sway in the wind, feel the wind's caress, and scent the resin of the trees around me.
I was no longer human. My question of what would happen to the horse brain was answered -- it had successfully merged with my human brain.
The thought of wearing a watch was now distasteful, but it took me several seconds of fumbling before I could undo the buckle on the strap. Then my high school class ring felt foreign. Fortunately, it slipped right off. I dropped both onto the cloth.
I did not want to return to live in civilization, to be a part of the lives of humans. I was a part of the forest now, a creature of nature. I may have loved life in the city and the horse may have been a domesticated horse, but the two had now become one -- the human and horse had become centaur -- and I no longer wanted the city. I was home here among the trees and forest animals.
I bolted into a gallop, my hooves thudding in a well-coordinated pattern I would have never managed a few moments ago. I had to get away from those few signs of civilization, but that feeling didn't last long and a new feeling of freedom and exhilaration took over as I bounded through the trees.
This body felt right. It felt proper to travel on four hooves. It felt correct to have a tail streaming out behind me, to have hands that could snap off a branch and twirl it as I ran. I said a mental thank you to the warlock. I was home now, both within the body and without. I rejoiced in my completion.
When my initial exuberance had passed and I was able to find a pool I took a good look at myself. There was a smooth transition from skin to fur at the base of my torso. Below that was wonderful, silky, luxurious brown fur. The fur was white halfway down each leg and the feathering over the hooves looked better than my old human feet ever had.
That night was the first of many horse dreams. I dreamed of trotting across open fields, of carrying a rider, of pulling a carriage with fellow horses beside me. I enjoyed the wholeness of such dreams.
It was only a few days before I went back to my birth clearing. The thought of all that junk -- the stool, the watch, the ground cloth and such -- littering my domain nagged at me. I had to clean it up, which didn't take long. What took the time was venturing onto a nearby farm at night to slip the trash into a waste bin waiting for the next day's pickup.
Within a month, though, I had discovered a need for a few little things for which I couldn't find a counterpart in the forest. They were simple things, but necessary. Things like nail clippers and hoof tools. And though it wasn't a problem yet, I would need a way to trim my hair and beard, and maybe even my tail. And in that month, I found I would need something to keep my torso, at least, warm through the eventual winter. I didn't like the thought of clothing, but I liked the thought of freezing even less.
I scouted the farms around my forest, keeping well hidden. I knew at least one member of many of the families. A few, like the Salingers, would not take kindly to seeing me in my current form. A few more, such as the McKees, were just not pleasant people.
And then there was Joe Henderson, the kind of guy that took everything in stride. I was sure he could deal with, and even become friends with, a centaur. I had known Joe in high school, though we were more like passing acquaintances than fast friends.
I approached the fence on the far side of his back pasture while his mare was out for a run. It didn't take long for her to notice me and to come over to investigate. She was a beautiful animal, but then again, I think all Clydesdales are beautiful.
The mare checked me out, then ran around one end of the pasture. She returned and bumped her nose against my hand. I obliged by scratching her between the ears. She returned and focused her attention to my barrel. After a third time of stretching her legs she seemed most interested in my blend. She backed up and stared at me for a while. When she began a fourth circuit, I jumped the fence and joined her. She kept pace with me, speeding up when I did.
It was an hour of such games before Joe came looking for her. By then I had a new friend. The mare stood in front of me as Joe approached, perhaps protecting me from her owner.
"Hello!" he called once he was within shouting distance. I returned the greeting. I could see he was studying my face as he drew closer. "Do I know you? You look famili -- you're the one we always called 'Colt,' aren't you." I could only nod before he continued. "I didn't recognize you with the beard. You seem to have made friends with Lady and she doesn't make friends easily. I don't know too may people who go out riding without a shirt."
By the end of his monologue he had come up to Lady and began to offer her carrot sticks, which she ate eagerly.
"Joe, it's good to see you too." I reached a hand across Lady's back and we shook. From the crook of his smile he seemed to realize he had forgotten such pleasantries.
But I went on. "Do you remember how I got that name?"
He glanced upward for a moment, in thought. "It was from your fascination with horses, wasn't it?"
"Actually, it was from my fascination with centaurs. Some of my friends probably would have called it an obsession."
"Centaurs are those things that are a blend of human and horse, right?" he asked.
"That's right. Well, I've fulfilled my fascination." I put a hand on Lady's neck to hold her in place and stepped to the side so Joe could see all of me.
His jaw dropped as his eyes scanned me up and down. "Wow!" he said after a moment. Then, "Cool!" And a moment later, once his brain began to work again. "It really suits you. Looks quite natural." He stepped forward and placed his hand just below my blend. He looked guilty at taking such liberties, but I knew what he was after -- if one sense doesn't make sense, try another. He moved his hand back and forth across the blend a few times.
Until I flinched under his touch. "Ooh, that tickles!" I said. That got Joe laughing with me and that was enough for his brain to catch up.
"Pretty radical, Colt. How'd ya do it?"
"A visit to a warlock."
He nodded. Acceptance, as I expected.
"Joe, I was wondering if you could help me out." His head bobbed a bit, which I took to mean he was listening. "I did this transformation about a month ago and, while I don't want to live in civilization anymore, there are a few things that I miss."
"Yeah? Whatcha need?"
"Nail clippers, hair clippers, and eventually a winter parka."
He smiled, I'm sure, at how mundane the requests were. "Yeah, I think I can manage that. I also have an empty stall you can use when the weather gets really bad. I'm sure Lady would love the company."
"I don't want to be a burden to you and I don't handle money anymore. Is there a way I can help out around here?" I asked.
"Thanks for the offer, but it really wasn't necessary," he said. "Though if you insist, I could always use a hand -- as little or as much as you want to offer."
Over the next few weeks we built enough of a working relationship and developed a camaraderie (not quite yet a friendship) that when Lady went into heat, Joe offered her to me.
That's when I discovered the power of my body. Lady gave me twin sons the next summer. Except for little details in markings, both of them looked exactly like me -- well, human parts exactly like my baby pictures and horse parts showing my own coloring and strength. Joe suggested it appears that my seed didn't add to the DNA of the egg, but replaced it. There had always been myths of creatures that could only perpetuate themselves in that manner.
My sons, Kyron and Pegasus (I know the name doesn't quite fit, but it suits his personality well), have become princes of the forest under my lordship. We work to improve life for all those in our realm with the horse part of my brain guiding me to the best choices. We also go to Joe's farm frequently to visit Lady and to offer what help we can as well as to escape the worst storms.
It is a grand life.
