Call me Waldo. From my earliest days I knew I was different. In appearance I was a boy like other boys, but not in spirit. There was something in my personality, a tendency to wander both in body and in mind, that set me off. Nothing in my upbringing was unusual. I was born in Salisbury, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore. My parents were employed by Franklin Chicken, a major east coast chicken producer. They’d met in high school, fell in love and soon after, as they would lovingly remark, I was hatched into this world. They were calm, caring and understanding. My father cut the grass; my mother made the dinners. Chicken was a daily specialty, she had hundreds of recipes. “A day without chicken is like a face without a smile” was our household dictum.
Each year my feelings of difference grew stronger. I shared nothing in common with my male playmates. Slowly, I became convinced that I wasn’t really a boy. What was I then? There was only one conclusion, if I wasn’t a boy, well, I must be a girl. However, at adolescence when the other boys discovered sexuality, I again felt strangely distant; I had no desire for either sex.
An event occurred. My parents went to an employee costume party. My mother had dressed as Daisy from The Great Gatsby. After the party their various costume accessories were left draped over the chairs in the dining room. Among these was a feathered Boa scarf. Upon seeing it, a feeling of electricity ran through my body. I wrapped it around my shoulders, pressed it to my skin, caressed it. Afraid it’d be returned to the costume shop I hid it in a box under my bed. The next morning, they looked for it, but assuming it was lost on their way home, they quickly forgot about it.
One day I met Monica. Her parents also worked at Franklin Chicken. On all points our feelings were identical, she also felt different, concluded that she wasn’t a girl but a boy, and, like me, felt devoid of all sexual passion. Together we’d wander.
After we’d gotten to know each other, I casually showed Monica the purloined feathered Boa. She became fixed upon it. I was overcome by an indescribable urge to dance and prance around her. She accepted this as normally as the other quirks of my personality; it excited her. She took the Boa from my hands, put it between us, grasping me in her arms and, for what seemed an eternity, we laid there pressed together in ecstasy. The feathered Boa along with my dancing and prancing became permanent fixtures in our relationship.
We arranged to go to university together, both majoring in Livestock Farming Systems. Though we kept up the charade of normality, something was missing. We began to consider sex change surgery. She’d become a man; I’d become a woman. We’d marry, move to a new state, start a new life.
Anyone considering sex change surgery must go through a battery of psychological tests. Nothing in our profiles went against protocol, we were found to be sane and well-balanced. Next came the physical exams. We went through each patiently, looking forward to our coming emancipation. A week after the final blood tests, we got a call to come in for the surgeon’s findings.
Entering the clinic, we had the feeling that the doctors, nurses and staff were all trying to catch glimpses of us from the corner of their eyes. In the doctor’s office we took our seats. Doctor Frallo, our surgeon, looked up from our medical records.
“I asked you to come in today to share your physical test results. Allow me to be blunt. I’m afraid that the sex change procedure is not a viable option in either of your cases. Though your psychological tests had no negative indications, in the physical tests we have discovered certain abnormalities which preclude any surgical intervention.
“You both spoke of feelings of difference which have accompanied you throughout your lives. You then assumed that this was due to a mistake in your gender assignments. We have discovered undeniable proof that this is not the case.
“Your intuitions did however prove correct elsewhere. We have found abnormally high levels of unexpected hormones in your blood. So high that they have effectively replaced your normal hormonal make-up. These in turn have fused with your genetic material.
“There is a reason why you stare at the sky, why you wander, why your lovemaking takes the form it does, why you, Waldo, dance and prance, why the feathers on the Boa excite you so. But this reason isn’t due to any error on the part of God or Nature.
“I recall that both your parents were employed by the Franklin Chicken Company and that chicken, due to the discounted chickens available as employes, was the staple food of both your childhoods. This is the source of your feelings of difference.
“You will not need surgery because you are already changing. It has been in operation since your first meal, and it is just a matter of time before it’s fully accomplished. Until then, wander, stare at the sky, dance, prance and grasp the Boa. For that is the rudimentary version of what will become the Cloacal Kiss.”
Monica and I took each other’s hand. The doctor continued to speak.
“Do you recall that during the physical examinations we remarked certain irritations on your skin? What are commonly called goosebumps, what we had at first thought due to some allergic reaction? And consider your recent change in diet, eating less meat, showing a preference for small, edible grains. All this is part of the transformation.
“You may both expect this to continue, along with other indications. The clinical results have revealed that, due to the vast amounts of hormones you have both consumed since birth, you are undergoing gallus domesticus hormonal-genetic transformation.”
He stopped there. We thanked Dr. Frallo and left the clinic. Nothing he said had come as a surprise, we’d known everything intuitively since birth, we just hadn’t known the right name for it. We were different. Our studies in Livestock Farming Systems had also prepared us, for it was there we learned that Gallus gallus domesticus is the Latin name for chickens.