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Sam had settled into his new job as a waiter at the Ritz nicely, and he liked it there. No one cared his birth certificate listed him as “Samantha” and female; everyone accepted him as Sam and male. He was a quick learner, polite, hard-working, reliable, and discreet. And that’s all that mattered to them.
He’d learned many routines quickly. He knew how far in advance to let anyone book a reservation. He’d learned when and how to shuffle tables around if someone called a little too late (only for the most important people, of course). And of course, the first thing, pretty much, that he’d learned was where to place dirty dishes, empty bottles, and uneaten food. The melting into the background thing that so many of the veteran waiters were superb at was still giving him a bit of difficulty, but he was told he showed promise on that front, too.
After several months, he was pretty sure he was getting the hang of things. Oh, there was still a lot to learn, but he had the basic routine down. Nights always went the same: booked to capacity. Lots of good food, better wine. The low murmur of conversation, which he inevitably heard snatches of but managed to be too aloof to care. Quiet music in the background.
So when he came in one day and found a mysterious hole in their bookings for the day, it was a surprise. Just a large gaping nothing from 7pm on until closing.
He stopped his supervisor and asked, “Jim, do we have a secret party coming? I’ve never seen a table not booked. And yesterday… I mean, I could’ve sworn when I checked yesterday that today we were completely full up, same as always.”
Jim just shook his head. “That happens sometimes, Sam. It means they’re coming.”
Sam asked who ‘they’ were, but Jim only said, “You’ll find out soon enough, son. Now prep the silverware, there’s a good lad.”
Sam kept an eye on the table all night. At five, there was that older guy who was in once or twice a month, always with a different dinner partner. Nothing out of the ordinary. At six, it was the German attaché, also completely ordinary.
At seven, the table was empty. It stayed empty until 7:30, which Sam had never seen. Tables were cleared, set up, and seated within minutes of a party leaving, but this just taunted Sam. Set up to receive a party of two that may never come.
At 7:30, two men entered and went straight for the table. They made an odd pair: one was tall, lanky, thin as a rake, with short spiky red hair and sunglasses ( inside! Sam was shocked the maitre d’ had allowed him in like that, especially since he was hardly dressed for the Ritz, not in those tight jeans and tight shirt). The other was shorter, rounder, with an angelic smile and curly white hair in a halo around his head. He was dressed appropriately, although perhaps not for this century. Or the one previous. He looked as if he'd stop following fashion some time in the late 1800s.
Sam was burning with curiosity -- who were they, why weren’t they in the bookings like anyone else, why did Jim just refer to them as they like their names couldn’t even be said aloud -- but he headed for the table. Jim stopped him. “Son, I’ll take this one.”
Sam was a bit puzzled -- sure, he hadn’t mastered fading into the background quite yet, but Jim usually trusted him to go to even the really important people. He wasn’t indiscreet, just a bit more conspicuous than most waiters. So far, anyway. After Jim returned from taking their order, he explained, “They know me. And they’re a bit… odd.”
With that, Sam figured they were just a very eccentric and very rich pair, if they could block out a booking without even a name -- and leave a table unused for half an hour. Some time later, he discreetly cleared away the empty bottles on the table and went to put them in the recycling, same as he always did.
Jim stopped him. “Not those bottles, son.”
“But they’re just empty bottles, Jim. Nothing left.”
“I know. But trust me. Cork them and put them back on the shelf, especially if those two ordered more than four bottles total.”
They had -- they were on their sixth bottle and clearly drunk as skunks. Sam, extremely puzzled, corked the bottles as told and put them on the shelf. He made a mental note of which ones they were so he could remove them later. Maybe Jim had charged them for different bottles and wanted to make sure the tally was correct at the end of the night? It seemed completely unlike Jim, but Sam couldn't think of any reason to cork and store empty bottles.
“Who are they?” Sam asked, peering out of the kitchen into the dining area. The shorter man was laughing delightedly at something the other had said. The other one -- still wearing his sunglasses -- was leaning forward on the table, his hand covering his partner’s.
“No one knows for sure,” Jim said. “Mr Fell -- that’s the shorter one -- and Mr Crowley. They come every so often. None of us know why the bookings disappear the night they come. Or what happens with all the wine. But they’re our best customers, lad, so make sure you never upset them, y’hear?”
Sam looked affronted that Jim would think he’d do such a thing. Jim laughed. “Oh, I know, you’re a good server, son. But with them -- oh, you’ll overhear some very, very odd things. Odder than any other conversation you’ll catch snippets of. Don’t you ever look like you’ve heard or are surprised. Happened once, and that server ended up leaving us very suddenly the next day. Not related, at least not obviously. Jill’s partner really did get transferred to Belgium suddenly, but we’ve always thought the two were somehow connected. Like one of them could pull strings like that.”
“Do they tip well?” Sam asked.
“Extremely,” Jim confirmed. “But it’s not that. It’s like they’re good luck. All sorts of good things happen to us after they’ve visited. Don’t know what it is, don’t care, we just focus on making them happy.”
Sam nodded and made sure to seem even more invisible than usual when he cleared away their plates, brought new wine, or removed empty bottles. A mouse wouldn’t have been quieter.
And as instructed, he corked every empty bottle and put it back on the shelf, marvelling at how much wine those two were putting away. He was also surprised they hadn’t passed out yet, but while they were louder than before and a lot less coherent, they were also very much still conscious.
***
The next day, Sam went to the shelf first thing to deal with the empty bottles. Jim had been so insistent that they be corked and put away again, but Sam didn’t want anyone to reach for a bottle and find it completely empty.
None of them were empty. Every last one was as full as it had been the day before. Sam stared, unable to believe it. There had been an even dozen empty bottles when he’d left last night, forty-five minutes later than usual (thanks to them ). There wasn’t a single one empty now.
He would have thought Jim was playing a joke on him -- haha, prank the new guy -- except Jim didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Not even a mischievous one*. Sam could maybe imagine one of the other servers thought it would be funny, but Sam and Jim had been the last two to leave the night before. And, Sam had discreetly marked each label with UV-ink, so he’d be able to find them again. All the marks were still there. Sam was also fairly certain that one of these bottles had been the last one of that vintage in stock.
*Jim was perhaps the absolute nicest person Sam had ever worked for. Or with. Or ever spoken to, really. Sam was pretty much an atheist, but he was fairly tempted to think Jim was an angel in disguise.
No, as bizarre as it was, the bottles were full. The same bottles.
“And that’s why we cork ‘em and put ‘em back, son” Jim said from behind him. “‘Cause overnight they fill up again, but usually only if they’ve had more than four between them, and only ever their bottles. We didn’t do it once, and the recycling was full of wine the next day, spilled everywhere from the full again bottles.”
“But… how?” Sam asked.
Jim shrugged. “Dunno, kid. Don’t think we ever will. Just cork the bottles.”
“Is it… the same wine?”
“Tastes exactly the same,” Jim confirmed. “We tested it. Couldn’t tell the difference.”
Sam had wondered if the rest of what Jim had said would also happen -- if something randomly good could happen to him. He hadn’t really believed it the night before -- it sounded mad -- but seeing the full bottles made him believe maybe something would .
That night, after he’d gotten off work, his phone rung.
His mom calling, after they hadn’t spoken in the two years since Sam had come out. She’d called him Sam and told him she missed him, missed her son .
Once the tearful call had ended, Sam stared into the distance. He would have thought it would take divine intervention* for his mom to accept him, but here she was, calling out of the blue.
*Which he didn’t believe in, so he’d resigned himself to never again having a relationship with his mother.
When Jim had talked about it and about them, Sam had assumed the good things that happened were monetary in some way: a rent check mysteriously paid or an extra few quid found in a pocket, things that secretive rich people could pull off with a phone call or two. This was way beyond that.
Who the hell were they?
In the end, Sam figured that as weird as it was, it was a coincidence. There was no way those two could have arranged for his mother to have a change of heart like that, and the fact that the two things happened at the same time was just fate. It was -- oh, what was that really cool word he’d read the other day? -- ineffable .
And maybe, just a little bit, they were good luck, like his co-workers thought.
***
There was no set schedule to when they’d come in, no real pattern. Sometimes it was twice in one week, sometimes it was a month, sometimes it was almost half a year. As always, the bookings would have a mysterious hole in them, and most times, the wine would be back the next day.
And good things kept happening after they visited. Once, the day or so after one of their visits, Sam had gotten a letter from the landlord stating that his rent had been cut in half. Another time, his electric and water bills had been paid in their entirety for the year. After another of their visits, he’d met a wonderful woman who wasn’t put off in the slightest by his transitioning status. Amy was smart, wickedly funny, playfully mischievous, and kept him on his toes in all the best ways.
Sam still wasn’t sure if they had anything to do with some of these things (like they could have arranged for his rent to be halved, if they were rich and also philanthropic in general) or if it was all a coincidence.
His relationship with his mum kept improving, too. They met up for coffee or lunch every so often, and she never even used a microaggression anymore. It was weird but also wonderful ; he hadn’t realised how much he missed her until she was back in his life.
About a year after the first time Sam had been there when Mr Fell and Mr Crowley came in, he got a shock when he woke up.
His breasts -- which he’d been unable to have removed (yet, anyway) -- were definitely smaller . He recalled that Mr Fell and Mr Crowley had been in the night before, but he didn’t think that the good thing that happened was ever going to be his body starting to become what he wanted it to be.
But there was no mistaking it. He hadn’t lost weight anywhere else, not that he had a ton of extra weight to lose; his breasts were just suddenly… smaller. His binder didn’t fit as well as it had in the past.
They weren’t completely gone, though, just noticeably smaller. He asked his fiancee if she was seeing this too.
“Honestly, Sam, I’d been thinking they’re getting smaller for several weeks now,” she said with a shrug. “I thought maybe it was the hormones you were gonna go on? Thought you’d’ve told me if you started T yet, but maybe you meant to surprise me.” She sounded a bit hurt by it, but it was clear she was trying to hide it. Sam loved her even more.
Sam shook his head. “I… Ames, you know I’d’ve told you!” Getting on testosterone was unexpectedly difficult for him -- first the psychologist had kept denying him, saying she was unsure if it was right, then the doctors he’d seen had been concerned about the effect of testosterone on his system. Neither consideration had been fair*.
*At least, not to Sam. It is one of the tragedies of transitioning that receiving good care can be very luck-of-the-draw, especially with guidelines changing and new information coming out frequently. The omnipotent narrator here will note that the psychologist and doctor were working with perhaps outdated data and really did want the best for their client, of whom they were very fond.
Amy smiled at him. “Maybe it’s a miracle,” she said jokingly.
Sam frowned thoughtfully at his smaller breasts. Could it be a miracle? A year ago he would’ve laughed at the joke, but not since he’d met (in a sense) Misters Fell and Crowley. He’d spent quite a bit of time rethinking his whole ‘atheist’ stance since they’d appeared*.
*Sam had been trying, very patiently, to reason this through. He had always been a man of logic and science. However, everything that was happening to him was outside of currently possible medical science. It was starting to be a lot harder for him to adequately explain this as anything but a miracle.
And they had been in several weeks ago, when Amy said she’d started thinking his breasts were getting smaller.
***
Several more months passed, and Sam now had absolutely no breasts left (for which he was extremely grateful. If nothing else, binders sucked ) and a full beard. Which was a bit odd, given that he still hadn’t been approved to start testosterone. His voice had deepened, too. It was like his testosterone levels were suddenly that of a born male.
One night, he saw the mysterious blank space in the bookings that meant Misters Fell and Crowley were coming. Nowadays he was torn by that -- while he liked seeing them, he also was having more and more trouble keeping himself from asking if they were the reason everything was changing in his life. Also the wine. That really bugged him. Fell and Crowley had drunk the same bottle of wine about two dozen times by now.
Sam kept an eye out, still debating if he’d say something. On the one hand, it was starting to kill him not to know , but on the other, he didn’t want any of the good things that had happened to be taken away. Or lose his job -- he never wanted to work for anyone but Jim again*.
*As an aside, Jim had taken on the role of Sam’s dad. Sam was invited over for dinner at least once a month and had been included in several holiday celebrations at Jim’s house. He’d never met anyone before who cared so deeply about his employees, and Jim had taken a special shine to Sam right away.
Mr Fell walked in at 7:30, but instead of Mr Crowley being with him, a tall, gorgeous woman was, her hand tucked into Mr Fell’s elbow.
She was stunning: she had long, fiery red hair twisted into a bun, a tight black dress that showed off her figure to perfection and was classy enough for the Ritz (not that Mr Crowley had ever met that standard) but also short enough to be rather sexy, sheer stockings that showcased her shapely legs, and makeup that accentuated her best features but wasn’t overdone (while still being very noticeable. It was a tough balance). She also wore dark glasses, but somehow that bothered Sam less than when Mr Crowley had done it. It fit with the outfit better, maybe.
Mr Fell and the mysterious woman walked to the usual table, and Mr Fell kissed her hand before setting it gently on the table and settling into his seat.
Sam was suddenly very upset. He had been hoping there was an innocuous reason that Mr Fell was with this woman, but the tenderness with which he’d kissed her hand (and the passion in his eyes as he looked at her) told him that they were very much together. Problem was, Sam knew Mr Fell and Mr Crowley were (or had been) together: Mr Crowley called him ‘angel’ and stared at him like he hung the moon and the stars, and Mr Fell called him my dear or dearest, and occasionally my love, and stared at him the same way. Also they had matching rings. Bit of a giveaway, that.
Jim found Sam watching from the kitchen doorway and peered out. “Ah,” he said. “It’s Ms Crowley today, I see.” He said it like he was remarking on the weather.
She was related to Mr Crowley? That was worse , and Sam found his teeth clenching. “His sister?” he asked. They did look extremely similar*.
*Sam idly wondered if perhaps they were identical twins (one of them trans), because honestly, except for the hair and the entire ‘female figure’ thing, they were dead ringers for each other. If Ms Crowley cut her hair short and spiked it, wore a binder and tight jeans instead of a dress, and had no makeup on, you’d swear she was Mr Crowley.
Jim smiled at him paternally. “Oh, Sam, you of all people should get it faster,” he said. “She is AJ Crowley. The same AJ Crowley we’ve seen all this time.”
Sam frowned. “ She’s Mr Crowley?”
Jim shrugged. “Don’t think she likes to be called Mr Crowley when she comes in like this. Don’t quite know if it’s a kink thing or if she’s… oh, what’s the word? The one where someone doesn’t really feel either gender?”
“Genderfluid,” Sam answered. “Or gender-neutral, agender, non-binary, genderless…” Mentally, he kicked himself for not realising it sooner. After all, he’d just been thinking about how they could have been identical twins.
“Eh, any one of those. Don’t know if she’s genderfluid, but when she looks like this, Mr Fell uses feminine pronouns, so we do the same.” He smiled at Sam, who was looking quite sheepish. “Don’t worry about it, son. The first time I saw Mr Fell come in with her, I was upset too. Gosh, that was… a year or so after that weird day we all had. You know the one I mean.”
Sam nodded. No one knew how to describe it other than ‘that weird day’, but everyone felt that there had been something off about it. “Six or seven years now, wasn’t it? I was still in school.”
“Something like that. But I was upset too -- would never show it, of course, but I’d seen Misters Fell and Crowley often, and plain as the nose on your face, they adored each other. Never would have thought of Mr Fell as the type to play the field, especially not with a relative of his loved one. Realised halfway through the dinner it was the same person. Felt like a prize arse, I can tell you.”
Sam nodded and, after a last look at the two, went back to his tasks.
He figured — now that he knew the woman was the same person he’d been seeing all this time — that the night would pass the same way it usually did when they were here.
For the most part, it did. Mr Fell and Ms Crowley put away their usual amount of wine, talked as animatedly as ever, ordered the same kind of food they usually did, and behaved no differently*.
*And this time, Sam was pleased to see they still looked at each other like they hung the moon and the stars. He’d have been jealous of what they had, once upon a time. Especially the way Mr Fell still obviously adored his partner, regardless of her gender. But he had Amy now, who loved him the same way, and so it just made him very, very happy. And a bit soppy.
It wasn’t until much later, when Sam was coming out of the kitchen to clear tables, that he ran into Ms Crowley. He figured she was probably searching for the loo* and was about to point her on her way.
*This made him stop and realise that in all the time they had been coming, neither Fell nor Crowley ever got up to use the loo, no matter how long they were there or how much they had had to drink. It was a thought he did not examine too carefully.
Sam asked, “May I assist you, ma’am?”
Ms Crowley shook her head. “Nah. Been waiting to catch you for a moment.”
She gave him an odd half-smile. Sam was unaccountably nervous. He didn’t think he’d done anything to warrant their attention, and Jim’s story of the server who suddenly left after one of their visits popped into his head. He didn’t want to leave London. He didn’t want to work anywhere else. He regretted ever wondering why things were happening to him and what was going on. He hadn’t even asked anyone about it, not even Jim, but he regretted thinking his questions, like they could maybe read his mind.
He didn’t even know why he was so scared — it’s not like either Fell or Crowley had ever been even a bit threatening. But somehow, being this near to Ms Crowley, having her full attention on him, made him think she was somehow extremely dangerous and scary.
Sam swallowed and finally managed to say, “Uh… is there something I can help with?” He hated how nervous he sounded.
Ms Crowley’s smile got a bit bigger. “Think I’m good. But I found out just now that my angel’s been meddling in bigger things than he usually does, and he didn’t ask first. I want to ask you before he or I do anything else.”
Sam paled. So everything happening was because of the two of them. “Ask me what?” he whispered.
“Do you want a male body? I can do it. So can Azi — Mr Fell. If you don’t like it, I can make him undo it. Or I can undo it. It’s up to you.”
Despite this being what he wanted his entire life — a genie coming up to him and going, “so you want a male body? Done” — Sam focussed on the fact that Ms Crowley wasn’t addressing what he’d thought she would. His curiosity wasn’t why she’d sought him out. “So… you didn’t want to talk to me because I’ve been curious?” It didn’t even occur to him anymore that usually people couldn’t read minds. He was pretty sure both of those people could.
Ms Crowley laughed. “Hea — He— Earth, no.” That was a bit odd; Sam had never heard anyone reject Heavens no and Hell no in favour of Earth no , but this was also perhaps the least odd thing about the two. She continued, “No, I’ve always been in favour of curiosity and questions. Sorta my defining characteristic.” She looked at him steadily; despite the dark glasses she still wore, Sam felt like she was staring right into him. “Do you want us to do that, Sam?”
“So you do make good things happen.”
Ms Crowley grimaced. “Well, uh, for some definition of good, not necessarily my definition of…” Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, who am I kidding?” she muttered. “Yes, that’s us. Don’t tell anyone. ‘Specially not that I’m involved in any way, kid.”
Sam had another question — he felt like he was bursting with them, now that he knew she didn’t mind it. “Why do you call him Mr Fell? Why not his given name?”
Ms Crowley gave him that half-smile again. “Because Mr AZ Fell isn’t really his name. Mr Anthony J Crowley — or Ms Antoinette J Crowley, depending on my mood — isn’t really my name either.” Sam opened his mouth to ask another question, but Ms Crowley (or whoever she was) held up her hand to stop him. “I’m not answering any more. You know too much already. Unavoidable, with what Angel’s been doin’, but I’m not telling you more.”
Angel. Sam latched onto that. He’d heard Ms Crowley call Mr Fell (or whoever) that hundreds of times and thought it nothing but a wonderful endearment. What if it was a very literal descriptor of him?
“He’s an angel? You’re an angel?”
Ms Crowley frowned and muttered curses under her breath. At least, Sam assumed she was cursing. “He is, I’m not, seriously I’m not answering any more questions. Bugger it all, he would have to pick the particularly bright ones to misguidedly help, wouldn’t he?” she added in another annoyed mutter.
So Mr Fell was an angel, Ms Crowley wasn’t, Ms Crowley had specifically mentioned not to tell anyone she does good things... oh. Sam literally could not stop his sudden revelation from spilling out of his mouth. “You’re a demon.”
Ms Crowley hid her face in her hands. “I will bloody well discorporate him. Fine, yes, demon.” She finally took her dark glasses off, and Sam understood why she wore them. Her eyes were yellow and her pupils slitted like a snake’s. She stared into his eyes and asked quietly, “Sam. This is not about my safety. I’m a demon, Aziraphale’s an angel, we can handle ourselves. This is about you. Can you keep this to yourself?” Before Sam could look too panicked about what would happen if he answered ‘fuck no, I just found out an angel and demon dine at the Ritz and the angel decided to change my body for me’ , Ms Crowley added, “If you can’t, I will wipe your memory of this entire conversation for you. It’s up to you. You’re inquisitive — if I do make you forget, you’re going to keep wondering.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah — yes, I can keep this to myself.” He grinned suddenly. “It’s not like that’s even the weirdest theory going on here about what you two are. You think we don’t notice the wine coming back?”
Ms Crowley looked shocked for a moment. Then she laughed. “You know, Aziraphale and I have pulled that sobering trick thousands of times, and I don’t think we ever considered what the restaurants think when we refill their bottles. Hah! What do you guys do with them?”
“Cork ‘em and leave ‘em on the shelf,” Sam answered honestly. “Apparently they didn’t once and woke up to the recycling full of wine.”
She laughed again. “You’ll have to tell me the weirdest theory, then.”
“Oh, that’s definitely the one where you two are stage magicians who only pretend to drink the wine and then secretly put it back in the bottles.”
Ms Crowley made an exaggerated disgusted face at that. “I’m tempted to let you tell people I’m a demon so they’ll stop thinking I do stage magic.” She looked consideringly at Sam. “You haven’t answered my original question. What do you want?”
Sam felt amazingly like he was being tempted — then realised, he was, by a demon, the very creatures who were meant to tempt. He had another minor freakout. “And what do you want from me? My soul?”
Ms Crowley wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, no. What am I gonna do with a soul?”
“Isn’t that what demons do? Get souls for Hell?”
“I’m freelance now, kid. I don’t work for Above or Below.”
“It’s tempting — and that’s my problem,” Sam answered. “Read enough morality tales to know not to believe the devil when he tempts you.”
“Would you prefer Aziraphale to ask you this? He’s the one who didn’t think you might have an opinion on it.”
Sam frowned at her, wondering if this was a trap.
Ms Crowley sighed impatiently. “Seriously, I’ve done a lot of tempting. A ton of it — I was the one who tempted Eve to the apple. First rule of tempting is you don’t tell your target you’re tempting them. Otherwise you get this. This isn’t a temptation, this isn’t a trade, this isn’t a deal. If it makes you feel better, answer it hypothetically. Would you want that if a non-demon offered it?”
“But you’re not a non-demon. Why are you offering?”
Ms Crowley muttered some more curses about Aziraphale picking the bright ones. “Look, I’m usually here as a man. I’m not today. I get gender grey areas and I didn’t want Aziraphale to make well-intentioned guesses about what someone else wants. And if you don’t answer the question finally, I’m going to wipe your mind and let Aziraphale do what he wants.”
Sam felt like the floor had dropped out from under him. This wasn’t a trade or a deal or some contract where he’d give up his soul*. This was what he had prayed for as a very little kid, before he stopped believing in God -- mainly because he’d never woken up with a male body. He tripped over himself trying to get the words out and made rather a hash of his answer. “I want to be male. Properly male, I mean. Like, my body to be male.”
*He was realising that he probably had one and didn’t want it to spend eternity in Hell. With no offense to Ms Crowley, who seemed to be a decent being despite the whole ‘demon’ thing.
“That wasn’t that hard, was it?” Ms Crowley smiled at him.
Sam realised finally that they’d been talking for quite some time. Jim must have been looking for him. He looked at Ms Crowley in panic. “How long have we been talking?”
Ms Crowley shrugged. “Hard to say. For us, it must have been 10, 15 minutes. For everyone else? You just bumped into me as we were going in opposite directions and you’re about to show my very drunk self where the table is.” She raised her hand, about to snap her fingers, and stopped. “Before I start time again, do you need a minute?”
“You’re very considerate. Especially for a demon.”
Ms Crowley growled at him, but the word demon seemed to remind her she still had her sunglasses off. She slid them back on and snapped her fingers.
The sounds of the Ritz flooded back, and Sam wondered how he had missed that they were gone. Taking Ms Crowley’s hint, he helped her back to her table. As he cleared away the bottle of wine, he heard Mr Fell (Aziraphale) say to Ms Crowley, “Well, my dear? You were gone an awfully long time.”
“Oh, angel, you always pick the inquisitive ones,” Ms Crowley murmured back fondly.
“I suppose they remind me of you, Crowley,” Aziraphale answered.
Sam hid his smile as he scurried back to the kitchen. Just Crowley then, regardless of form.
***
The next day, when he woke up, he had a penis. His body felt like it had always been male and always been his, and he idly wondered if a DNA test would show him with XX or XY chromosomes.
He wanted to run and show Amy; he knew she’d be as happy for him as he was, but he genuinely could not resist learning his new body a bit. He had hard planes of muscle on his chest instead of the softness he had loathed so much before*. Actually, everything seemed to have a bit more muscle than he’d had before.
*Even with the gradually disappearing breasts, it hadn’t felt quite right , hadn’t felt quite male yet.
He seemed to be an inch or two taller, like he had been born like this and grown up with XY chromosomes, although no skinnier than he had been before. He’d wager his weight had adjusted upwards to match his new height.
He had an Adam’s apple, for God’s sake!
He’d always wanted an Adam’s apple*!
*And then he laughed to himself, because now he knew exactly who had convinced Eve to eat the apple that got caught in Adam’s throat.
And he really couldn’t resist fondling his new penis just a bit. When he first gave in and grasped it, he reasoned that it would do Amy a disservice not to check it all worked correctly, but he knew he was lying to himself. It worked exactly like a penis did -- got hard, felt good, made a mess.
After he dealt with the mess, he got up to show Amy. Mostly, he wanted to share in the joy and shock of finally having the body he wanted and never ever thought he’d be able to have*. But partly, he wanted someone else to confirm for him he was neither dreaming nor insane.
*The surgeries would not have come close to this.
Amy was impressed and suspicious and curious. She inspected him carefully, head to toe, and only got slightly distracted by her naked boyfriend in all his glory*. She noticed many of the same things he had, like the height change, but also some things he hadn’t . Like all the scars he’d had before, just from living life, were still there. He still had the appendicitis scar and the long, jagged one on his leg from when his mother had forced him into high heels and he’d fallen down a flight of stairs. He had the one on his hand from when he’d cut it on a broken fence trying to free a kitten and the one on his shoulder from a workplace accident years prior.
*But a very good time was had by all.
Once she looked him over carefully, she demanded to know how this had happened.
Sam smiled slowly and said, “I guess I must have a guardian angel.”