“Dad what’s for lunch?”

I heard my 12 year old son call out down the hall to me. “I don’t know…can’t you just make yourself a sandwich?” I said back “I’m kind of busy right now and I don’t think you want me to make you one” I added as it was quite obvious that I was currently scrubbing the toilet.

“Do we have any pizzas in the freezer?” he asked.

“Yeah…give me a few minutes and I’ll put one in okay” I replied with a sigh.

“Ok” he replied and went back to yet another game of Fortnite.

Week three of pandemic stay at home orders and I was going a bit stir crazy. I am 40 years old and I’m the shipping manager for a company that has been deemed Non-essential. So, these days, I’ve become a housewife.

My wife is a doctor and therefore, very essential.

Now over the years, her schedule has always been more hectic than mine so I’m quite adept at domestic tasks but this is getting ridiculous.

I now do all the cooking, the cleaning as well as becoming a homeschool teacher to my 14 year old daughter and my 12 year old son.

We joke about it a lot. My kids and I joke about it as do my wife and I when I get to see her awake. We make a lot of 1950’s housewife jokes about me staying home and having dinner ready for her when she comes in the back door. I just need to have her pipe and a stiff drink ready as I massage her feet with my apron still on.

I got off my knees feeling my back groan in protest. I’m not as flexible as I used to be and being 6’3” and crammed into a narrow space between the toilet and the bathtub doesn’t do my body many favors. I washed my hands and went to the kitchen to turn on the oven.

Suddenly I just got a clear vision of actually being a woman; it sent an odd tingle through me. I could clearly see a face, hairstyle, body…a whole outfit and it was not someone I recognized. I wasn’t picturing an actress or singer or even someone I knew personally like a co-worker or relative.

I shook my head and went to the freezer “Why am I thinking about this? Bored I guess…”

I unloaded the dishwasher and realized that my mind kept wandering back to that quick vision. “Oh what the hell” I thought and just let my mind wander into a full daydream up to and including seeing my husband.

HE, was still a doctor and only slightly taller than me in our new forms which made me laugh since while I am 6’3”, my wife is 5’2”.

The pizza finished and I sliced it up and called my kids to eat. Still my mind wandered “What if I was their Mom instead of their Dad…what if I had actually, physically given birth to these two?” And part of my mind instantly pictured it. I could see myself lying on my back, my feet up in stirrups as I bore down pushing in labor. My stomach throbbed, I could almost feel the pain. As I stood very still, I could put myself in that exact moment.

It scared me a bit.

I tried to rationalize “You were there at both of their births…you’re just bored and daydreaming”

I sat down in my recliner and put my feet up, crossing my feet at my ankles. I went on my phone but I couldn’t shake the thoughts now. I was into it. It kept forcing itself to the forefront of my mind.

I looked at my legs and easily a picture filled in with what my bare legs would look like, smooth and full with more feminine feet, my second toes slightly longer than my big toes which I noted. My pinky toes were very small for some reason; I couldn’t quite control this. There was a very clear bodily vision that kept coming up.

My breasts weren’t large, my stomach was rather flat for having had two kids and I could picture myself wearing a rather tight and slinky dress and frankly, I looked quite good in it.

I was seeing small details as well. I could see how I pinned part of my hair back when I was dressed up as opposed to how I let it go when I was being more casual.

I focused on what had become my full daydream, seeing this woman, me, as a woman. It was always the same face and the same body every time I brought it to mind.

The highlights in my hair; I also knew that I had to straighten it for my particular style. I just knew that my hair was naturally curly but I preferred it straight. I also knew that the blond highlights and added red to my naturally brown hair also managed to hide the few grays that were coming in.

I knew I was happy with my body and even though I wanted to lose a few pounds, I didn’t beat myself up over it at my age.

My nose was a bit large and my eyes were a bit narrow but, I had come to terms with those features over the course of my life and anyway, my sex life with my husband was amazing.

I laughed out loud. I was still just sitting in my recliner just as I had always been “God I am bored…almost got me believing it was true haha” I got up and went to my bathroom.

The kids had their own bathroom at the end of the hall while my wife and I had our master bathroom.

As I slept walked my way through our room I failed to notice the first few subtle changes immediately.

I closed the door to the hall before I stopped. My side of the dresser was the left side. On top of the my side was usually just our wedding picture, a baseball hat of the Philadelphia Phillies, my cologne, my wallet, my keys and some spare change.

The wedding picture was there but now, perfume and several types of hand lotion sat there. A hair brush was prominent and I picked it up.

My wife has shoulder length chestnut brown hair. All the loose hairs in this particular brush were lighter. I held it up and saw both blonde and reddish strands coming off it.

My heart stopped.

“No” I said simply.

I turned to our closet. Once again, my side was the left side. It was usually full with my dress shirts, dress pants and suits and my button down shirts.

These items were now on the right. I went there first as they didn’t look the same. The colors were different. I checked a size tag and instead of my usual 17 neck and 34/35 sleeves, these were all 16 neck and 32/33 neck. The pants were 30 length instead of my usual 34 “What the heck” I chuckled nervously.

“I must be dreaming” I said. I felt like I was floating, I was going numb from confusion and a bit of paralyzing terror. I sidestepped to my side to find blouses, skirts and dresses. Many more dresses than my wife ever owned. I didn’t recognize one of them.

That wasn’t quite true.

I spied a rather short cut black dress and it hit me. It was the dress I had pictured myself in, pictured my female self in so I pulled it out.

It was a size 6. Some dresses were 8s. I even saw a 10 in there. With the dress still in hand, I put my foot out and hooked the strap of a high heel and dragged it out.

It was well-worn, black with a thin strap to wrap around the ankle and a thicker strap that would sit just before my toes. I studied the worn down toe impressions. The second toe looked longer than the big toe and the imprint made by the pinky toe was barely there.

It wasn’t a shoe my wife had ever worn and I saw it was a size 8 ½ while my wife clearly and always wore a size 7.

I was in a daze as I kicked the shoe back into the closet and numbly hung the dress back on the rail. I staggered a bit looking around. My throat tightened up, I could barely breathe. I went back to the dresser and opened the top left drawer. It should be my boxer shorts.

I gasped as I saw panties and bras.
“Please be Sharon’s size…please be one of hers…please be 36C”

It was a 36B.

“Close” popped into my mind.

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths trying to calm myself. I felt dizzy, overwhelmed and confused.

Little did I know at that moment that my dizziness was coming from something other than mental overload. I was shrinking.

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 6’2”

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 6’1”

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 6’

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 5’11”

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 5’10”

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 5’9”

Inhale…hold…exhale…shrink to 5’8”

I opened my eyes and blinked “What?!” my mind screamed as I turned back and forth looking around the room frantically. “Why does…?” I mumbled scanning the room from the floor to the ceiling, a confused frown on my face. I walked towards the mirror and saw a lot more of the wall behind me than usual. “It’s almost as if I’m shorter” I said out loud and felt heat rush to my face and neck.

Panic was gripping my chest. I was definitely shorter but I couldn’t believe it.

My chest was heaving, my whole body going up and down, my shoulders rising and falling. My shoulders looked narrower.

I blinked again several times as my stubble began to lighten.

I hadn’t been shaving regularly under quarantine and it showed. I also was very under dressed; I had been cleaning the house in just a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt. I wasn’t even wearing any underwear.

My cheeks and chin were going totally smooth along with my upper lip. My bottom lip quivered.

My chin came inward changing the whole look and shape of my face immediately. My mouth came down at the corners correspondingly yet my lips began to plump up and outward.

I could feel my teeth shifting and shrinking down inside my smaller mouth. My upper lip shifted and changed shape as my cheeks rose up high and round.

Next my nose changed. It changed into a more Roman shape, longer and angular drastically altering my face. With my nose now changed and my cheeks higher, my eyes looked smaller. My eyelids double folded and my grayish green eyes changed to a hazel flecked with gold.

I leaned forward getting a closer look. My eyelashes grew out as I blinked. My eyebrows thinned and arced across a narrower forehead.

I was absolutely recognizing my face as it came together. It was the one that had come to my mind so quickly and clearly all day.

Smile lines came to the corners of my eyes crinkling in; I knew how they would look when I gave a genuine smile.

My ears even changed shape shrinking down with noticeable holes appearing in the lower lobes. I looked at the dresser below me and noticed the jewelry box. I knew my earrings, bracelets, watch and necklaces were all inside it. I saw my favorite pair of silver hoops clearly.

I shook my head rather violently as my hair began to grow out. My hair was an odd mixture of blondish brown with some gray but now as my hair grew longer and covered my ears, it became evident it was professionally done with a reddish brown base and blonde highlights.

It came to a stop at my shoulders, an appropriate length for a woman of 40.

I eased back from leaning so close to the mirror just in time to see my shirt puff out and flutter around a bit as my shoulders and back changed size and shape. My muscles were diminishing and changing shape and function.

My neck smoothed out, going flat across the front as my Adam’s apple vanished pulling back. Lines formed in my shorter neck instead

My arms were shorter and softer. I didn’t feel my natural strength any longer coming from me. I hadn’t just lost inches, I had lost weight too. I was probably only around 145 pounds now instead of the 210 I had been before all this began.

My upper arms looked fuller but softer, the long ropy muscles I had were gone, vanished into a more feminine build. My forearms slid inward with a shiver and I put my hands down against the dresser.

Watching my hands feminize was a shock. They shrank down much smaller, it looked like the ends of my fingers would have only come up to my last knuckle had been.

My fingernails rounded and grew out somewhat longer as my fingers slimmed atop shrinking palms.

I blinked again in even more confusion as I saw a true detail shifting. My gold wedding band thinned, halving in width as it also came inward to fit better on my slimmer finger. I jumped when the diamond ring appeared on my finger anew.

I wiggled my fingers feeling the weight of the rather sizable ring; it was larger than my wife’s.

I felt my pectoral muscles clench then slacken. I bundled up my t-shirt and lifted it up as high as it would go and pinned it down with my chin. My chest looked oddly flat, smaller with less weight and already hairless.

My stomach was pulsating; freckles were appearing there and I caught a quick glimpse of my belly button puckering as it shifted position lower.

Then I felt my right side tense up. My jaw dropped open but I had to hold my chin in place. I had to watch. In an odd unbalance, I grew my right breast first and independent of my left one.

The skin throbbed as my nipple grew higher. My areole widened and then the flesh just started to push out. It rounded and filled out larger but, not very large.

A small “Ah” escaped my lips which caused yet another shock. My voice sounded vastly different.

I couldn’t focus on just one thing. As soon as I thought about how my voice sounded, my left breast began to grow to match my right one. It pushed out to join the other and just like that, I had breasts. Smaller than my wife’s I noted but just as I thought they would be from the bras I had seen and from the picture that had formed in my mind through the day seeing this body.

I looked down and examined my breasts from above. I was shocked.

My eyes lifted and caught my reflection in my mirror and examined them from the front “Oh…My…God”

My chin went up upon hearing my voice fully articulated. My voice as a man was a deep baritone, now, it was nasally first and foremost. It was high and even inside my head, this was the voice that dominated my thoughts.

“Oh my God” it said again in my head. For a moment it was like a third person talking but surely this was my voice now. It familiarized itself in moments becoming natural to me.

My sides softened and curves began to define as my hips began to widen, changing from my narrow and boxy male hips into more prominent feminine ones.

My ass began to expand now too “Oh man” I said still adjusting to the voice coming from me.

I shifted to my side and watched my ass growing. I pulled my shorts up and was able to see the bottom curve of my ass cheeks expanding into view. Once again my jaw dropped.

My thighs were starting to change shape, growing fuller and shapelier but it was a certain numbness in the front that would now hold my attention.

I knew this was coming; it had to happen. It was inevitable and had been on my mind since one of my early thoughts of giving birth to my children.

I felt something inside me changing and fluctuating, an energy flowing forth even as I felt my external parts begin to lift up and pull in closer and closer to my body.

My legs weren’t feeling like they were working quite right, like they were unbalanced and I stumbled a bit back as I pulled the waistband of my shorts out to their limit.

My hand went in and I cupped my testicles as they rose up higher and higher, then, when pressed up against my body, they simply passed inside of me.

I shivered all over as my testicles spread out once inside. They reprogramed themselves as they moved changing entirely in form and function into my ovaries. My vas deferens becoming my fallopian tubes as a uterus built up walls and took hold inside of me.

As it did, my penis began to retreat. It pulled back smaller and smaller until just the head remained then in a sudden motion, everything changed.

My skin opened and folded forward. The head of my penis shrank down as skin formed a hood over it. My nerve endings there doubled forming my clitoris. My urethra formed an opening followed by my vagina, vulva and labia.

I gasped again realizing I was now a fully functioning woman. I didn’t understand a single thing that was happening to me “Why am I changing into a woman? Why is this happening to me?” I said trying not to sound whiny in my new voice.

My legs continued to change. I saw my new legs coming out of the shorts. Smooth and fully formed going down my thighs to my knees, which popped outward.

I gave them a quick bend as the hairs on my legs pulled back in, thinning and vanishing leaving smooth surfaces behind them. My calves rose up trimmer yet my ankles moved outward as my changes were almost at an end.

Just my feet remained and they were tingling now too.

As a tall male, my feet were a size 13 and they still were for the moment. My eyes shot back to the closet, the single heel still sat out visible. It was the shoe for my left foot. I couldn’t believe that my foot would soon be that small. The size it would need to be to fit in that. Let alone the fact that I would be able to wear styles like that, open toed heels. I was a guy. I’ve never worn a heel in my life.

Yet, I had. I could feel the strap around my ankle. I could feel the pull along the bottom of my foot that I got every time I wore heels. How sore my feet could be by the end of a full day in them.

My feet began to shrink. My heels came in, the sides came in and my toes pulled back. The shape of my toes began to change as my feet did as well. They trimmed down, the blocky look of my male feet smoothed out in an instant as my arches lifted.

The shape of my big toes came first, getting smaller as my toe nails thinned and rounded to fit atop them. My second toes grew longer than them by just a little bit. My third and fourth lined up, turned a bit crooked in their own unique ways before my little toes got little, really little. They pulled back small and out of the way.

I lifted and wiggled my toes, spreading them out as much as I could which wasn’t much. My toes didn’t have much dexterity but I didn’t care. These are my feet now. I knew them.

With a final push through my body, I knew that my physical changes were complete.

I shook my head, clenching my teeth and closing my eyes. I fully felt my long hair whipping back and forth, brushing my ears, neck and cheeks. I blinked again “What. In. The. World.”

I stepped back feeling my body move and walk. The way my feet planted, the way my hips shifted and my weight settled.

“How am I going to…?” I turned around in a circle slowly.

That was when I saw our wedding picture atop the dresser. I slowly walked up to it; my hips swaying still catching me off guard even when just covering a few steps. I picked it up and with my jaw open the look of shock changed into a smile.

There I was.

Me and my husband.

I was much younger in the picture of course but my smile was the same. The way my eyes crinkled down and my dimples popped. The headpiece and veil were pinned into my naturally brown and curly hair, down over my shoulders at that age.

I was just 22 and out of college when we married.

Full makeup on my face, my wedding dress on me. My husband standing behind me. I recognized him immediately as the man I married, the man I made my life with, the man I loved to this day.

I was no longer Jensen McCartney. I was Jennifer Harris. McCartney was my maiden name…Sharon McCartney was now Shawn Harris M.D.

Other pictures around the room had changed now too. It was me holding both of our kids, a proud mother smiling in a hospital gown, my hair pulled back and sweaty just after labor in both. One picture with my daughter swaddled in pink, the other with my son swaddled in blue.

Our jobs were still the same. I still had my degree in finance and business and was still non-essential. My husband was still a doctor. My joke about becoming a housewife wasn’t a joke. Somehow, we had flipped genders but, I was the only one who knew.

I would always know. I wouldn’t forget my original life but yet, I had also gained another one. I had clear memories of growing up as a girl. Everything was there. My First Communion dress, Homecoming and Prom, playing Volleyball in High School…all the way up through my wedding and giving birth. I could close my eyes and replay the entirety of my labor; the pain, the pushing, the release and sheer joy.

I shivered once again as the totality of my new existence washed over me. But I was smiling when I made my way into our bathroom. I smirked at the face in the mirror, quite satisfied with what was reflected back at me. My toothbrush had always been the one of the left. It was green just like before and my husband’s was still red. I brushed away at my smaller teeth. I looked tired. Slight bags sat under my eyes. I had been suffering from a bit of insomnia being off my routine work schedule while on lockdown “And there is no way in Hell I’m wearing any makeup while I’m off” I laughed. My voice now sounded natural to me both inside my head and coming out of my mouth.

I stripped down; my hands smelled like bleach from my cleaning and one of my nails felt a little rough so I got out a nail file and began to work on it as my shower water heated up.

I took my time.

After I got out, I wrapped myself in my fluffy terrycloth robe and put my hair up in a towel. I padded barefoot through the house.

“Mom! What are we having for dinner?” I heard my son yell out from his gaming chair planted in front of the TV, Fortnite playing still.

I walked past my husband’s recliner and I sat on the couch. I curled my legs my legs up beneath me naturally “I’m thinking about making a pot of chili”

“Oh okay…when will it be ready?” he asked.

“I haven’t even started it yet my love” I smiled. “And you know it takes an hour and a half…you should know, you’ve helped me make it enough times”

I picked up my phone as I heard the text notification ‘Finished for the day. I’ll be home in an hour’

“Well that was your Father…he’s on his way home so I guess I’m back to the kitchen”

“So how do you like being a housewife?” my son asked.

“I absolutely love it haha”