The Original Sex Gates

by Darrell Bain

  "What shall we do today?" Rita asked.

  I nodded at the screen. "I don't know, but I'd suggest we stay inside as much as possible. People are chipping out all over the place."

  "Someone has to go shopping," she said.

  I leered at her silkskin blouse. "If you go out looking like that, someone is going to be shopping for you."

  "They couldn't afford me," she said, smiling at the compliment.

  "Still, I don't think-" My comphone spoke to me.

  "Lee, are you there?" I recognized Dad's voice.

  "On line, Pop." I suddenly realized I should have called and let the folks know we were okay. They must have been worried.

  "Lee, I think you had better come home," Dad said. He sounded worried. I wondered if some webporter had caught a shot of one of us during the fighting around the campus gate.

  "Dad, we're all fine. No problems," I said.

  "I'm glad to hear it. We've got problems here, though. Please, son, come on up for a day or so, anyway."

  "Are you hurt? Or sick? Is Mom okay?" I felt my heartbeat speed up. It must be an illness of some kind, maybe Dad's heart acting up again. I couldn't imagine any other sort of problem in Ruston. The worst thing I had ever seen happen there was the football team having a losing season.

  "No, we're both fine."

  "Then what's wrong?" It wasn't like him to be so reticent.

  "I'd rather wait until you get here to explain. Just trust me, it's important."

  When Dad said something was important, I had to believe him. Normally, it would take something like an earthquake to upset him.

  "Okay, give me an hour."

  "Fine. Drive careful." He always said that.

  Rita had been listening. "Do you want me to go with you?"

  I considered the idea. She had been home with me a couple of times, but this didn't sound like an occasion for a friendly get together. On the other hand, I didn't like the idea of leaving her here when there were riots taking place in Old Houston, just half an hour drive south of us. Before I could make up my mind one way or another, she noticed the indecision I was going through.

  "Never mind. It sounds like a family problem of some sort. You go on and I'll do the shopping."

  "No!" I said, too sharply.

  "Don't worry, I'll be careful."

  "I don't care. There's too many nuts running around right now for it to be safe," I said.

  "Jackson Lee Stuart, don't argue with me. Russell didn't mention having any trouble on the way home."

  That was true, but that didn't mean the crazies had all gone back to their caves. I thought a moment, then had an idea. I pulled my pistol out of my pocket. "All right, but only if you carry this. And don't hesitate to use it if you have to." It was either that or stay there rather than going home. When she calls me by my full name, it means she has her mind already set.

  Rita took it, reluctantly, perhaps thinking of how we had gotten mauled the day before. She thought the country would be better off if there weren't so many licensed gun owners. I disagreed. She hadn't read as much history as I had. Back before the Supreme Court finally came down solidly in favor of the amendment concerning the right to bear arms, a person couldn't even take a stroll in a park without risking life and limb. Well, a lot of places you still couldn't, but at least it was legal to fight back in most states now.

  I quickly showed her how to load and unload it and where the safety was located. She found a red jirt to go with her pants and stuck it in the pocket.

  "Don't go out alone," I said. I kissed her and left. I was five miles away on the NAFTA highway before it occurred to me that Donna knew how to handle a firearm and would probably be less reluctant to use it if the need arose. After all, she had been a man not long ago. I should have given it to her instead of Rita and insisted they go out together.

  The NAFTA highway runs along the route of old US 59. Ordinarily, it is packed with commuters in the morning, coming in from the country to workplaces in North and Old Houston, but at this particular time, traffic was very sparse, as if it were the Sunday afternoon of a Superbowl. The highway engineers were still trying to perfect the much ballyhooed autocontrol system; I had to use manual control. I plugged my comphone in to let it charge and maybe hear something new about the gates; I left the screen off, like I always did since almost running off the road once while watching the beach patrol attempting to arrest a bevy of topless bathers on the family beach at Galveston.

  The one really new thing I heard about the gates while rolling along was a report from Los Angeles South. One of the juvenile gangs there had captured half a dozen members of an opposing gang and thought it would be loads of fun to force them through a gate and turn them into girls. Three of their prisoners made the change; the other three never came out. The ganglord and his two top henchmen had been arrested and charged with murder. I wondered how that was going to work out with no bodies to present as evidence. Right after that, another voice broke in and announced that preliminary statistics were beginning to show that some types of criminals (rapists, murderers, pedophiles, enforcers, etc.) had only about a fifty percent chance of making a successful transition through a gate.

  I wondered to myself if that was the explanation of why some supposedly normal, young healthy individuals never came out of the gates after entering. Rita had told me once that a recent study showed that better than ten percent of the population were restrained from violent and/or sexual crimes only through the threat of punishment. Either that, or they were already committing nasty crimes and just hadn't been caught yet.

  There was some other news. Another war breaking out in Africa, but that wasn't very interesting; there was always a war going on somewhere on that ravaged continent. I couldn't figure out why; there wasn't that much left to fight over, except the chromium mines. We still had troops guarding those.

  Our armed forces had been placed on alert and some national guard units had been called up (not because of Africa; they were needed to keep order in the cities here). The President's request for citizens to go back to work was being obeyed only sporadically. Martial law was being considered. The stock markets were all way down across the board with the exception of companies specializing in the teenage and youth markets. They were all up and still climbing.

  I almost missed my exit by concentrating on the news rather than where I was at. It's easy to do when you're driving an electrobile. They run so silently, your mind tends to wander.

  Grandpa's old house was three or four miles past Ruston, going east after the turnoff. As I drove over the ramp, I could see "downtown" Ruston, a few old buildings clustered together, with others thinning away to homes within a few hundred yards. The elementary school was the largest building in town. From above, I could see the glittering arch of a gate sitting in the middle of the ball field. Two patrol cars were parked nearby, the sum total of Ruston law enforcement vehicles if you don't consider the county sheriff. There were a few people standing around the gate, not doing anything except staring.

  I was surprised to see Derek's car in the driveway. The last time I had seen him was Thanksgiving of the year before, the third anniversary of his announcement he was gay. Other than that, he had only been home for Christmas the last two years and I hadn't had much to say to him on either occasion, avoiding the issue as well as I was able.

  Mom met me at the door with a hug; she must have seen me drive up. I could hear Derek and Dad talking in the den, right off the entry hall.

  "You go on in, Lee," Mom told me. "Maybe you can talk him out of it."

  "Talk who out of what?" I said.

  "Your brother. He came home to tell us he intends to go through one of those gate things."

  So that was it. I tried to imagine having a son, then being told he was gay, then having him turn into a female. I couldn't do it. No wonder Dad had sounded upset.

  "Hello, Lee," Derek said, getting to his feet when I came in. I shook his hand, then let loose quickly to give Dad a
hug.

  Derek sat back down. He didn't look gay, if there is such a thing. He was taller and more muscular than me and had Dad's blonde good looks rather than taking after Mom like I did. I took a seat across the den from him, next to Dad.

  "I heard what Mom told you," Derek said to me. "You're not going to talk me out of it, so save the effort."

  "Lee, tell him how dangerous it is," Dad said.

  Was it? Derek was young and healthy and didn't have any criminal tendencies, so far as I knew. "Some people have gone into the gates and not come out." I said, the best I could do.

  "That's my point," Dad said. "Besides, no one knows what the long term effects might be. What if something worse happened than…" Dad couldn't say it. He would be losing his firstborn son and wouldn't be able to relate to the stranger who replaced him. I didn't think I would be able to either, not that I related very well with Derek anyway, not since he came out.

  "What could be worse than being a woman trapped in a male body?" Derek asked.

  "You're not a woman!" Dad said loudly.

  "In my head, I am," Derek said.

  "Derek, son, please don't. At least wait a while until we know more about those things."

  "What happens if they suddenly disappear as quickly as they showed up? I would have missed my chance."

  Dad got out his old pipe and lit it. He had quit several years ago. I could imagine what the tobacco must taste like by this time. "Son, didn't your mother and I accept it when you first told us you were gay? We love you anyway."

  "Anyway. See, you haven't really accepted it. Neither has Lee." He looked over at me. I couldn't argue. I hadn't even fully accepted Don's change, and he had been normal to begin with. I turned my eyes away from his accusing gaze. How would I feel if I had been forced into a woman's body, to live a lifetime there? Would I have turned out as well as Derek had? There wasn't really anything wrong with him. He was gentle, soft spoken and earned a good living. I thought of the times when I was growing up that he had helped me with adolescent problems. I forced myself to look back at him. What would he look like as a woman? How would he act if he were free to express the femininity he had been stuck with? I didn't know, couldn't know. I felt concern for Mom and Dad. They must be as worried as they had been when Derek was drafted during the Mexican war.

  Derek got to his feet. "Dad, it's no use arguing anymore. I'm going now, while the gates are still here."

  "Please wait, son. I'll go with you." That was Mom. She had been standing by the entrance to the den, listening to us.

  Dad admitted defeat. "All right, son, if you think you have to, I'll go, too. Lee?"

  We all left together. Mom picked up one of her old wraparounds as we left.

  ***

  The Ruston gate was exactly like the one on campus and all the others I had seen on the news. Only the few people standing around it were different; we knew most of them.

  Neither Mom nor Dad greeted anyone; their faces were held rigid, telling their friends they weren't in a mood to visit. I nodded to a fellow I had known in high school, then was sorry I had when he smirked at Derek.

  Mom was waiting as Derek emerged from the gate, no longer male. His short blond hair was now shoulder length. He-she-was shorter than me now and pleasantly curved, as I saw before Mom draped her with the wrap she had thoughtfully brought along.

  ***

  Derek and I left Ruston at the same time that afternoon, each of us in our own car. There hadn't been much to say after she came out of the gate; everything after that was anti-climactic.

  Dad and Mom seemed smaller and older as they stood together and waved good-by. I wondered how many other families in America were going through the same thing.

  Chapter Six

  I noticed there was more traffic on the way back than there had been in the morning. I guessed even with such a world-shaking event like the sex gates, people had to shop and run errands or finally go back to work in order to have money to live on. I kept the news playing, as I imagine most drivers were doing.

  I caught the tail end of the major event of the day. The Pope had finally made an appearance and given a ruling. He told the masses that after days of praying to the Holy Father for guidance, it had been revealed to him that the gates were manifestations of Satan, brought to earth in order to tempt the faithful into living beyond their allotted life span, and anyone willfully entering a gate would be automatically excommunicated. He cited as proof the fact that so many gays and lesbians were opting for the change. (I got the gist of his speech as commentary; he had already gone back inside when I plugged in).

  Several alliances of gays and lesbians disputed his ruling, though in different ways. One group said he was wrong and homosexuals should ignore him and go through the gates anyway. Another said any gay or lesbian person who wasn't old or sick who chose to go into a gate were traitors to their sex and probably weren't homosexual to begin with, if they were at all. Several old Cardinals and quite a few elderly priests announced they disagreed with the Pope and were leaving the church immediately. I doubted it would make much difference in America. Our branch of Catholicism usually went its own way, regardless of what orders came from the Vatican, and it wasn't much of a social force anymore, though it was still one of the largest religious denominations. Most American Catholics went through the motions, then did what they wanted to afterwards. Besides, there weren't enough priests left to give absolution to all their sins and there were even fewer nuns.

  The Methodist leadership was still praying and assuring their flocks that God would soon reveal the purpose of the gates. The Baptists were split, some accepting; some calling them abominations. And as usual, the web evangelists were calling down thunder and lightning on the sinful and asking for even more donations so they could remain on the webworks and bring the very latest word of God concerning the gates to the faithful.

  I didn't pay much attention to the commentary, other than thinking of what violent emotions religious convictions can evoke. There had been confrontations, demonstrations, fighting and even murder by the pro and anti-abortionists as far back as I can remember and it was still going on; in fact, it would probably get worse now since it was known neither fetuses nor unborn babies came out of the gates when pregnant women passed through.

  I made a sudden decision to begin recording everything of interest I heard, knew or felt about the gates with the intention of maybe writing some articles. The webs were bound to be receptive to the subject for a long time to come, and there were always newspapers and magazines. After getting my second degree in journalism, I had some small success with a few science articles (mostly of the Sunday Supplement variety) and had sold a few short stories.

  In the next ten minutes before I got back home, I switched off the news and began creating a major file on the subject of the gates, with subcategories where I thought the impact of the gates might make good subjects to write about. Within a few minutes, I had to back up and rearrange the data in my comphone; ideas were coming so thick and numerous, I couldn't talk fast enough to keep up. By the time I pulled into our driveway, my enthusiasm was running wild. I hadn't been so excited over a project since Dad gave me permission to raise a litter of intelligence enhanced pups back in the ninth grade (that hadn't worked out very well-the web hype about enhanced animals had failed to mention that most of them went crazy early on and had to be destroyed).

  My comphone opened the door automatically and I rushed inside, wanting to share my enthusiasm with Rita.

  Donna and Seyla were locked together in an embrace on the small lounger. Seyla's toga was down around her waist and Donna was busily caressing her breasts while they kissed.

  I stood stock still for a moment. They hadn't noticed me coming in. As I watched, Donna moved her hand down to Seyla's waist and began sliding her toga down over her hips. They broke the kiss and Seyla shifted her body, intending to raise up enough to let Donna finish undressing her.

  Seyla saw me standing there. "Oh!"
she said. Her face was flushed, but I don't think it was from embarrassment.

  Donna turned around. "Sorry, Lee, we didn't hear you come in," she said, taking her hands away. She didn't seem to be embarrassed at all. Well, if Don's male mind was still active in that female body, I guess I couldn't blame her. She and Seyla had been lovers almost as long as Rita and I had, and Seyla's mixed-blood beauty was enough to turn anyone on, including me.

  Seyla pulled her toga back up over her breasts. "Well, don't look so stupefied, Lee. What was I supposed to do? Kick Don out of the house when he turned into a girl?"

  "I wasn't thinking that," I said. I didn't want to tell her what I was thinking. I turned away to hide my rather obvious response to what I had seen. I wondered what Rita would think if she knew. Probably it would amuse her more than anything; one of the advanced psych courses she was taking this semester was on the male sexual response.

  "Is anyone else home?" I asked.

  "Russell is still asleep. Rita took his car a while ago to get some groceries. She should be back any time now," Donna said.

  Two hours later, she still hadn't returned.

  ***

  "I'm getting worried," I said for about the tenth time. Chipping hell, why had they let her go out by herself? No, why hadn't I taken her with me?

  Russell came out, yawning sleepily. He had shaved and washed, but still looked tired. He came to alertness almost immediately when we told him that Rita was missing. "Did she say anything about where else she might be going other than the grocery store?"

  "Oh, hell," Seyla burst out. "I remember now. She said she was going to stop by the campus and see if anything new was happening at the gate. I'm sorry, Lee. It slipped my mind until Russell mentioned it."

  "You girls stay here. Come on, Lee, let's go." He always could think faster than me. We hurried outside, zapping the security system to full closed behind us. I ran for my car and pawed in the glove compartment for my spare gun. We were already on the way before I thought that maybe I should have brought the rifle from my room. Russell had never applied for a license, not that it mattered much in Texas whether you had one or not; he had just never been interested in carrying.