Amazing Grace (March 20, 2011. Issue 26. The SLAM & FLASH Issue!)
Saturday morning Grace awoke from a night of strangely provocative dreams and noticed that she lay in a wet sticky puddle. She reached down between her legs to see if she’d gotten her period, and felt a grotesque growth. Grace bolted upright and threw back the covers, assaulted by words like prognosis, oncologist, malignant, metastatic, death.
But instead of a tumor, a perfect set of male genitalia hung between her legs. Grace stared as if she had given birth. Surely she was still asleep; she'd wake up 
soon enough, and return to her unremarkable life: an unmarried reference librarian with a lawyer boyfriend who put his shoes back in their original box every night.
Slowly Grace reached her slender hand down and lifted her penis to admire it. Of course, she’d known penises before; she was in her late twenties and not a prude. But she squirmed as her very own member began to swell at her touch. It was a handsome specimen, she thought, smooth and circumcised and it grew and hardened as she held it. Grace stroked the head and then firmly grasped the shaft and she groaned and she pumped, and she pumped and she couldn’t stop. And she drifted off to sleep, fearing she would wake for real.
Grace Sullivan woke up. She grabbed her crotch and smiled. Her new penis was still there, soft and sleeping on a scrotum pillow. She walked naked to her full-length mirror, feeling the heft of her package. She was the same ordinary woman except for her balls and the organ that before her eyes was swelling and lifting at the sight of herself.
Grace tried to stifle her glee. To wrinkle her brow. After all, what would her boyfriend think? Unless he happened to wake up this morning with a vagina, this would surely be trouble. Could she ever be a mother? A father? Should she cancel her GYN appointment?
Those issues would have to wait. Grace had to pee.
She stood in front of the toilet, hesitated, lifted the seat, grabbed herself and aimed. She giggled. She shook her penis like she had seen men do for years. Ha! No toilet paper. She did the happy dance. She put the seat down. Clearly, she wasn’t a man.
Of course she would get tired of this strange appendage. Get tired of feeling like a freak. She would yearn to have a baby. To feel like a woman. She would.
But this morning Grace slipped on a pair of girl’s boxers. She put on a dress and a pair of heels and carried a large purse she could hold in front of her or put on her lap, just in case. She stepped outside her building and twirled, feeling her package swing. She wished she had a hat she could toss in the air.
Babes In The Bush (April 24, 2009. New Moon. Issue 4)
Holy shit, man, look at that!” Mike’s pimply face melts into drooling bliss. His dad had stopped in this whacko town on the way to our campsite, muttered something about angry lesbians, and disappeared. Rick and I follow Mike’s dumbstruck gaze to a shop across the street.
“What the heck?” Rick says, squinting.
“Fuck, man, is that what I think it is?” It’s not like I’d had a whole lot of experience, up close and personal, that is. But I’d seen pictures, plenty of pictures.
“That door – it’s a giant snatch!” Mike says.
Rick fumbles in his pocket for his glasses and recites the crimson words above the door, “The Vagina Diatribes.”
“A supersized pussy!” Mike says, punching me in the arm. “Shit, man, we’ve come to the Holy Land!”
“You dumbassses. Don’t’ you two jerks know the meaning of ‘diatribe’?”
Mike and I barely hear him. We’re shoving each other and dodging cars as we run across the street, cracking jokes and licking our lips. Rick waits for the “walk” sign, and catches up with us standing outside the shop.
“I bet this is why your dad came to this town.” I say to Mike. “He’s probably in there right now.”
“Shut up, you fuckhead. My dad doesn’t like pussy. He’s married to my mom.”
“We’re going in, right?” I ask.
“What are you blind? Look at that!” Rick is starting to sweat and turn red.
Hanging from what I figure must be a gigantic clit, is a sign warning, “No Penises Allowed.”
“This is a man-eating pussy, I tell you,” Rick warns. “Haven’t you ever heard of Vagina Dentata?”
“Vagina den-what?” Mike and I chorus.
“Vagina dentata. A vagina with teeth!”
We stand there trying to delete that image from our minds, when a beefy guy in a red plaid lumberjack shirt walks over and pushes his way to the entrance.
“Get out of my way, you creeps,” he says, and ducks inside.
We hold our breath, and wait for the screams and the blood.
“I don’t hear any chewing,” I say. “If he can go in, so can we.”
“Uh, not so fast. I don’t think that was a he,” says Rick.
Mike and I blink.
“Shit, man. This is a free country, I say. “Diatribes and bullshit teeth don’t scare me. They’re only girls in there. Come on.”
Rick gets busy cleaning his glasses. Mike’s hand moves protectively over his crotch.
“Uh, like what if my dad shows up and can’t find us?”
“No wonder you pussy-whipped wimps never get laid.”
Mike and Rick pretend to swagger away, but I swear I can see the tails between their legs.
I turn, grab the doorknob, take a deep breath, and step inside.
Nothing bites me.
I look around. I don’t see the lumberjack bull dyke, or anyone else, but I can hear some voices coming from the back. One of the walls is papered with a mosaic of crotch shots, but they aren’t your airbrushed, prettied-up beavers. Above a huge display of vibrators of every imaginable shape and size, some with multibutton switches and even remote controls, a sign declares – “Men are Obsolete.” My poor pecker doesn’t know whether to get rock hard or shrivel up and hide like a turtle.
A poster on the wall announces a Coven seeking new members. Another advertises a self-speculum class: “See your own cervix!! Bring a towel, a flashlight and a mirror. We supply the plastic speculum.” I read the date and time, check my watch, then turn to get the hell out of there.
A woman’s hand on my shoulder stops me. The fingers are slight, but strong, and tipped in red polish. I hear her say, “So you like pussy?” before she turns me around. She wears a long black lace dress, and I can’t stop staring at her naked breasts and the outline of her crotch through the lace.
She speaks in a husky voice. “Soft and pink and warm. I bet you even dream about it. Like to feel it all around you. A strapping, handsome young boy like you can’t live without pussy, can you? I can make your wish come true.”
She takes my hand and puts it between her legs. A jolt of electricity crackles through me, and I collapse.
When I come to, I am small and stiff, lying on a towel, and I can’t feel any arms or legs. No matter how hard I struggle, I can’t move or speak, and can see only a few inches in front of me. But I can hear just fine. And I hear that husky voice saying, “Now that you’ve explored your vulva and clitoris, it’s time to look inside. You are about to see a part of your body that has been kept secret from you! Everyone pick up your plastic speculum by the handle and practice opening and closing it.”
I feel a meaty hand lifting me off the floor. It squeezes my handle, and my blades click open. And when I am turned around, I see all too distinctly the pattern of lumberjack red plaid.