Chapter 1

As soon as I woke up, the sun creeping in through the annoying gap in the curtains, I felt something was different. Lying in bed in my tiny flat in north London, my body seemed to have more than its usual physical presence. It was as if my body was a piece of luggage, something I was carrying. A very strange sensation. I also appeared to be unclothed. Had I really gone to sleep last night without putting on my pyjamas? Admittedly I’d had a few drinks in the evening, but I surely wouldn’t have been that out of it.

Yawning and stretching out my arms in the bedroom’s half-light, the mystery only deepened, for I noticed the arms looked meatier than usual, rounder and softer, especially in the upper reaches. The skin colour, too, as far as I could tell, seemed a little darker and the surface smoother. Not much body hair. How could that be? I then noticed something odder still, about my hands. They weren’t as slender as they’ve always been. But more than that, I had painted fingernails. They looked like the hands of somebody else, not me at all.

Getting an eerie premonition, I quickly yanked away the bed sheets to see what was underneath. My heart stopped. For looming out of my chest were a pair of women’s breasts, melon-shaped. I gingerly jiggled them a little, and extended one of my painted fingers to gently brush against each of their buds – just as sensitive to the touch as I’d been led to expect. They weren’t fake, they were real breasts. It sounded so absurd, but it seemed to be true. And it wasn’t a dream, unless dreams now came in 3-D. Overnight, a pale male had turned into a dusky woman.

The next bit of exploration was obvious, so I moved a hand lower down my body – was it really my body? – to check if any male equipment remained. It didn’t, though that took me less by surprise than what my fingers found on its downward path: a fairly substantial soft curve of fat layered over my tummy, half-drowning my belly-button, fat that felt at least an inch deep, fat that I could easily pinch between my fingers. Whoever this body really belonged to, it was obviously someone who knew how to eat.

At this point, there was nothing else to do but leap out of bed, dash to the bathroom and look in the mirror: assuming, that is, that I was still in my flat and I knew where the bathroom was. Feeling again as if I was carrying a suitcase, or at least had a new centre of gravity, I found the bathroom in its usual place and looked into the full-length mirror. “My God!” I said, shocking myself a second time by the change in my voice: roughly the same inflection, I thought, but now with a higher register. “My God, my God!” I repeated.

The mirror’s reflection showed a naked woman in her mid-20s, like me, quite attractive (thank God for that), about my own height, but with the skin colour of someone who’d either been overdoing the sunbathing (unlikely: this was England), or, more likely, had mixed-race parents, one of them British, the other maybe Indian, Egyptian, or some place where light brown hues were common.

My face, I thought, was pleasant enough (thank God again), with full cheeks and a hint that it wouldn’t take too many extra pounds before it would feature regular flashes of a double chin. The eyes were brown, instead of my customary Nordic blue. And instead of blond hair, cut fairly short, I now had dark locks with what looked like a natural tendency to curl, reaching down to just below my shoulders.

Below my breasts – I guess I’d categorise their size as medium-plus – my stomach curved outwards towards my much-thickened waist and the thighs beyond, with beginner-sized love handles bulging out on each hips. Previously slim, straight up and down, my chest, face, arms, thighs and bottom were now well-padded. I had curves. I was soft to the touch. I had a higher-pitched voice. I was indisputably female!

The skin colour change I immediately thought of as an improvement. One time at a work party I remember making a joke about my skin being the unappetising colour of sliced white bread. Instead of producing friendly laughter or comments like “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that,” the depressing general opinion was that my description was extraordinarily accurate. After that, looking faintly Indian or Egyptian came as a definite plus.

As for my new shape, with the breasts and the extra poundage (I guessed that overnight I must have gained at the very least 20 pounds), it was too soon to tell. I was very aware, at any rate, that I was heavier, and that it was seriously changing how I moved and experienced my body.

What I didn’t know, of course, was what lay ahead. Was this sex change all a dream, or was it actually real? And if it was real, was it going to be a one-day wonder, or would it last for the rest of my life? At the same time, I had to get on with my daily routine. I had, after all, a job to go to: a job at Blue Sky Advertising, where I’d recently been upgraded to – silly name – Assistant Head of Thinking. For half a second I thought I could call in sick as a temporary measure, but I quickly remembered that there was an important early morning meeting with prospective clients that I had to attend, whatever my current sex. Besides, if my curves and tits were going to be permanent, I had to face the music some time.

Then another panicky thought hit me. What could I possibly wear? My waist size had gone up several inches, and none of my shirts and jackets would be able to cope with my new breasts (which I soon found myself rather liking). I dashed to the wardrobe, where I found that all my male clothes had been miraculously removed and replaced with new supplies. There were dresses, panties, bras, commodious blouses, pretty scarfs, a little collection of high-heeled shoes. Numerous slacks and jeans too.

Conscious that time was passing, I quickly ducked under the shower, where another strange experience awaited as I ran the soap bar over my breasts, belly, arms and thighs, then towelled myself down, in the process getting intimate with my extra pounds, watching them bulge and crease as my body turned this way and that. Then back to the wardrobe. The first slacks I tried on I couldn’t zip up: they must have been a leftover from when the woman I saw in the mirror was thinner. The same thing happened with several others, suggesting that my weight gain was relatively recent.

I felt desperation about to set in until I found some slacks unfortunately coloured cerise pink. These could be zipped up all the way, though the consequence was an overflow of tummy fat bulging out over the top of the waistband. My hope was that there’d be a shirt, blouse, or other garment long enough to cover up that tricky area. I couldn’t find one, and had to settle on a white blouse that managed my breasts with reasonable ease, but still left my much-softened midriff open for all to see. “Oh well,” I said to myself, “nobody’s perfect.”

Thus equipped, and with time now very short, I ran into the kitchen to grab a modicum of breakfast, though poking around the fridge wasn’t very helpful. Inside there were several eggs, but I had no time to boil or fry anything. On the top shelf I noticed a large container of ice cream, something I’d definitely not bought, though the scoop marks in what was left of its contents suggested that earlier in my female life I’d been raiding it fairly frequently. Not thinking ice cream a breakfast thing, I decided to give it a pass, instead grabbing a croissant filled with some gooey cream substance, which I hadn’t bought either. That would have to do.

Coffee! At least I could have coffee! So I did, which gave me just enough of a boost to gather my work things, clean my teeth, forego trying the lipstick and make-up thoughtfully provided in the bathroom cabinet, put on a summer jacket and set out for the day, into my new world.

Walking to the tube station in my female get-up felt really odd. The houses, shops and streets were so familiar, down to the smallest things: the tattoo parlour, the vaping store, the charity shops, the overflowing litter bins caused by big cuts in local council services. The novelty was me as I gingerly navigated forward, unaccustomed to my clothes and body, trying to rebalance myself with my new weight distribution. I could feel my breasts jiggle slightly with each step (I’d decided against trying on a bra).

I could also feel the curve of tummy fat pressing against the inside of my slacks, with the tight waistband just above. I had chunky thighs, adding that extra sense of solidity as I took one step after another. I suspected, too, that the cheeks of my bottom were swaying a little as I walked in my sandaled feet (no high heels: that would have been impossible). All told it was a very curious experience, made stranger still by the hovering fear that that every passer-by was staring at me in disbelief. “I’m not cross-dressing,” I wanted to tell them, “I really am a woman!” Today, anyway.

Once on the train travelling into central London, I started to calm down. Looking into my fellow passengers’ eyes, I realised that rather than thinking me a freak or an oddity, they probably took me as boringly ordinary, no different in kind from any other young woman with a bit of a tummy on her way to work. This was a comfort, though it didn’t stop me from seriously worrying about how my work colleagues – people who knew actually me – would react when they saw me somewhat changed.

As it happened, I needn’t have bothered, for they reacted as though nothing had changed at all, as though I’d always been a woman. It started with Jim, the Irish security guy in the building foyer, the one who’d once confided in me that his hobby was collecting rubber bands of different sizes and colours, and wondered if I could bring in any choice specimens I might find. I’d wanted to steer clear of him after that, but what could I do? He was a security guard.

“Morning, Alex!” he said cheerily, big grin on his face, “how’s yourself this fine morning?” I muttered something about myself being fine, which was scarcely true, but I certainly didn’t want to go into details. Hurrying on to Blue Sky’s open-plan office ¬– I was cutting it short time-wise, for the meeting was due in about 10 minutes – I was met with a cheer from the team’s inner core.

”Here she is!” Greg shouted.

“We were worried you’d gone AWOL,” cried Annette. “Didn’t want to start without you!”

I muttered something again, about over-sleeping and having ‘wardrobe issues’, which seemed to go down well with Annette. “Tell me about it,” she went on: “what to wear, what to wear...” I could see her looking at my cherry-coloured slacks, actually with approval. She called them ‘very summery’.

By now I was starting to get the hang of the situation, bizarre though it was. It seemed obvious that the Alex that was male, that most of them had seen every week for the last four years, had somehow been completely wiped from their minds. Now, right now, if just for this day, they only knew Alex the woman, short for Alexandra perhaps, the woman who stood before them, on the chubby side, wearing tight-fitting cherry-coloured slacks.

I looked around for Claire, the youngest member of the team whom I’d quietly been developing fond feelings for over the last couple of years. Previously, there’d been no sign of them being reciprocated. But now that I was a woman, I detected something of a sparkle in her eyes as she gave me a welcoming smile. The sparkle was nice to see, though at the time I didn’t know quite what to make of it.

The meeting hour was approaching, and we had to get the game plan clear for dealing with the new clients, a pair of honchos from the UK Tea and Infusion Association – not as big a catch, say, as Taylor Swift Productions Inc., but we do drink a lot of tea in Britain, so we wanted things to go well.

In fact it went very well, especially for me, partly because it showed that despite the seismic change that had come about I was still able to function normally and do my job without any thought from anyone about my new identity. The other pleasing aspect was that my idea of having adverts and posters featuring a dancing teapot went down remarkably well with the honchos. For a moment at least I was the golden girl.

It wasn’t to last. Once the tea guys had left, we gathered round the water cooler to digest the meeting and chat. I probably didn’t help myself by slouching a little, but at any rate my soft bare midriff suddenly came under intense scrutiny from Greg, not the most sensitive at any time in his relations with female colleagues. “You haven’t worn that for some time, have you?” he said, a vindictive gleam in his voice as he pointed to the fat overspill looming over the top of my slacks. “Weren’t you going to go on a diet?”

Deeply embarrassed, I couldn’t think of a smart rejoinder, and only came up with a weak apology. I told him I’d meant to go on a diet and I knew I should, but I’d somehow got side-tracked. Greg almost cackled. “You can say that again!” he said, eyes bearing down again on my roll of fat.

Luckily, Claire came to my rescue. “Fellahs, don’t give her a hard time. Everyone’s entitled to gain a bit of weight. It’s absolutely normal. Besides, she came up with the dancing teapot.”

“The dancing teapot,” Annette sighed, “that was just great.”

I smiled gratefully at both, and tried standing up a bit straighter. Greg vaguely apologised: he said he was only teasing. But I still steered clear of him for the rest of the day. Back at our desks and computer, we all got on with our work, though I quickly realised that now I had this tummy bulge I had to move my chair a little further back to get my keyboard and screen within comfortable reach. As I typed away I also had to get used to my breasts looming out, obscuring my view of part of the desk where I usually kept a notepad. Adjustments, adjustments: there were so many to make.

All the while, I found myself snatching glances at Claire, wondering if she was glancing at me, which she sometimes was. Smiles were exchanged. Her eyes still seemed sparkling. I noted as if for the first time how her hair was cut short, almost in a masculine fashion, and how ungirly she was overall. She couldn’t be a lesbian, could she? It would certainly help to explain why Alex the man hadn’t been anything special to her, unlike, it seemed, Alex the woman.

I was intrigued enough to make a point of suggesting we had our lunch break together. I wanted to thank her, I said, for pitching in when Greg made his personal comments. I knew I had gained some weight, I told her, but I underlined that it had only happened recently and I wasn’t yet used to dealing with people’s critical comments.

Claire immediately raised her eyebrows. “Not quite recently, surely. Didn’t it all start with your holiday in Fiji? You came back, I remember, and complained that you’d been eating too much, and some of your clothes were getting tight. That was, what, two years ago? You’ve made other comments about it yourself, here and there.” All this was said gently, as you would when dealing with a backward or delicate child.

I quickly tried to make amends. “Yes of course. Time flies! Fiji, yes, two years. But I still feel embarrassed about it. Greg touched a raw nerve.” God, I thought, this is getting tough. Not only do I have to adjust to being a woman, I’m also supposed to know my female counterpart’s backstory. I’d never been to Fiji in my life. Except, of course, that I apparently had. “I didn’t chose my clothes this morning very carefully,” I went on.

“Oh I thought it was fine,” Claire said, eyebrows back in their normal position, the face friendliness personified, “but if you wanted to cover up certain areas I guess you could say it wasn’t quite ideal...”

“I suppose not,” I said, and tried to sink back into my work, though with my mind more perplexed by the complexities of my new identity and sexual status.

By the time the lunch break came around I knew there was one key question I just had to ask her. I waited until we had got ourselves settled into our table at the sandwich place close by. Claire had picked one of the cheaper and thinner options, an egg and cress thing. I’d gone for a tuna baguette, the bread of which seemed to go on forever. “Well, tuck in!” Claire said. In the circumstances, I thought that remark interesting.

After some munching and harmless chitchat, I came round to the big burning question I had in my mind. I approached it in what I hoped was an airy manner, as though it wasn’t a burning question at all. “I was wondering if you’d ever heard of someone else called Alex, a man this time, working at the agency – you know, either recently or in the past. It would be kind of confusing, wouldn’t it, if there were two of us with the same name” – here I found myself clearing my throat – “but, er, different sex...”

“Oh that would be impossible! I couldn’t handle two Alex’s in the same office. One’s more than enough! No, there’s always just been you. Alexa isn’t it, the full name? Alexa Chisholm?”

I said it was, hoping I wasn’t blushing.

The quizzical look returned. “But why do you ask?”

“Oh,” I said, upping the nonchalance, “nothing really. I thought I heard someone saying something about another Alex, a male Alexander type, working here at some point. Maybe he was a temporary hiring. Maybe I misheard.”

Claire reached out to touch my right hand, now free of navigating my baguette. “Not in my time, anyway. Don’t worry, Alex, you’re absolutely unique. Absolutely.” She then leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek, only to follow it with an anxious look, as if worried that she’d gone too far. “I hope that wasn’t inappropriate?”

I told her it wasn’t. Given my hidden feelings for her, that was true enough. The impact of the kiss, however, was nothing compared to the relief I felt in having my suspicions about the general situation concerned. Bonkers though it seemed, it was as though all of them at Blue Sky had had a lobotomy, with all trace of my previous male existence removed and memories of Alexa put in their place. By this reckoning, even if I phoned my parents it looked as if they would recognise me as their daughter, Alexa. Maybe if I paid them a visit, I’d find my parents had become mixed-race too! All in all, together with the kiss, I had a lot to take in.

Before we returned to work, I realised that that a key hurdle was now facing me in this weird period of transition. I needed to go to the loo. We both did. I had already navigated the act in the female way before leaving my flat, but now I had to do it, as it were, in public. I was nervous, but I survived and rejoined Claire for another novel experience: titivating my soft and dusky self in the communal mirror running just above the soap dispensers, taps, and sinks.

Claire was already in position, washing her hands, and gave me another warm smile. Fetching out a comb, I gave my hair a brush through and a shake, followed by a little mirror inspection of my lips, a female habit I remembered not from real life but from watching too many films. Luckily I could spot nothing that seemed to need a smear of lipstick, a tube of which I ambitiously had with me. That would be an experiment for later.

Titivation done, I smiled back at Claire’s mirror reflection, in the process noticing our striking physical differences. Claire was a few inches shorter than me, with a wiry build and pale-ish skin. I was taller, fleshier and curvier, with a light brown colour that reminded me of those fancy jars of manuka honey in shops, too expensive to buy. If we were going to be a couple, I thought, though I knew the notion was fantastic, then at least we would complement each other.