Chapter 4

Tokuo heard his friend yell from his room. He ran over to the bathroom door. “Are you okay?!”

Evelyn caught her breath… Or caught this Keiichiro guy’s breath. She wasn’t quite sure how it worked. What she was sure of was that she now had the complete package of male parts along with her other changes. “Um… I… seem to have forgotten how to… use the toilet.”

“Oh, shit,” Tokuo sighed, as he ran his fingers through his spiky bleached hair. “Do you need me to show you?”

“No!!” She yelled, before Tokuo fully got the last word out. “I mean… you can instruct me from there, can’t you?”

“Yeah, I mean… You just stand over the toilet, pull it out, and aim it into the bowl.”

“I… have to touch it?”

Tokuo tried to suppress a giggle. “Afraid so.”

She did as instructed, and willed herself to urinate as she had always done, and she miraculously managed to succeed. She blotted it off with toilet paper, a little nervously, trying not to stare at the strange body part. Then she hid it once more beneath her clothes, washed her hands, and flushed the toilet. She let out a huge, deep sigh and then exited the bathroom.

“Look, I’m starting to think I should take you to a hospital,” Tokuo said, as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “It seems really serious.”

Evelyn looked at the slightly shorter man and her eyes opened wide in fright. She thought about what doctors would think. This was no normal malady. Surely they would declare her insane and send her to an asylum. Then her heart sunk as it occurred to her that this could be a symptom of the phenomenon known as female hysteria. They might bleed her with leeches or remove her uterus so that her hormones can’t mess with her like this, and she will never be able to have children and will be an object of shame and disgrace to all who know her! Her heart pounded and tears started streaming from her eyes.

“Oh, shit, Keiichiro,” Tokuo had never seen his friend like this. He looked at him with pity and tried to comfort him by putting an arm around his shoulder. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“I feel like I’ve gone insane,” Evelyn said. “Have I?”

“You aren’t insane,” he assured her. “You’re just injured.”

He brought her back to the room. She realized there was a very thin mattress with no bed frame on the floor where she had been sleeping. It was so thin that she assumed she had simply been sleeping on the wooden planks. He beckoned for her to lay back down on it. She did so, despite it not being particularly comfortable.

“I won’t force you to go to the doctor, aniki,” Tokuo said. “I just wanna make sure you’re okay, y’know?”

Evelyn nodded. “I probably just need to rest for a few days,” she ventured, “then I should be as fit as a fiddle.”

Tokuo giggled at his friend’s wording. “I hope so,” he said, warmly. “You’re welcome to stay here for the night, if you don’t feel up to going back home yet.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind,” Evelyn said, sincerely. Then she looked around the room, and it dawned on her that she was in a man’s bed chamber. “But I shouldn’t sleep in a man’s-!” She caught herself when she realized she somehow was a man now. “I mean, another man’s room!”

“Sure, you can,” Tokuo laughed playfully, his brows raised in disbelief. “What’s the harm?”

“What if we are to change our clothing?” She asked. “Shall I go into the bathroom to do so?”

“Dude, what’s this about?” Tokuo asked, genuinely confused. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times! Did you get a tattoo or something?”

“You’ve… seen me naked?” Evelyn asked, in abject horror.

“Uh, yeah?” Tokuo said, in a tone indicating that such a thing should be obvious. “Why wouldn’t I? We’ve taken baths together.” He was really lost as to why Keiichiro was so appalled by this. Any Japanese man would know that it’s perfectly normal for men to bathe together. Tokuo figured Keiichiro’s amnesia was so bad that he had even forgotten the most basic things that he had learned as a small child. At this point, Tokuo was thankful that Keiichiro remembered how to speak.

“Are we…” Evelyn paused to choose her next words carefully, so as not to offend, and then whispered “like the Greeks?”

Tokuo raised an eyebrow. “I don’t follow,” he said, failing to pick up her subtle insinuation of homosexual activities. “Uh, I think the Romans had public baths like we do, if that’s what you mean?”

“Pu-public?” Her jaw dropped open. “You mean we bathe… in front of other people? They can see our naked bodies?”

“Yeah,” Tokuo replied, “but both our houses have baths, so it’s not like you have to.” His expression took a serious turn. “Has this been bothering you? You know you could’ve told me if you didn’t want to go to the bathhouse with me, right? I just thought it was a nice excuse to get out of the house and hang out. You seemed like you didn’t mind before, so I’m sorry if I was daft and didn’t notice that you were uncomfortable. There’s no pressure if you don’t want to.”

Evelyn felt relieved. She didn’t quite understand the bathing situation, but she could tell this man was very considerate and cared a lot for this Keiichiro person. “So, is it normal to bathe together… here in Japan?” She couldn’t help but ask.

“Yeah, totally!”

Oh, she thought to herself. “So we aren’t…?”

“Aren’t what?” Tokuo asked.

“Oh, um, nevermind,” the girl couldn’t bring herself to ask.