David's heart pounded when he lay down on the table almost naked. Of course he had one of the infamous green gowns on, but that would not cover his shaking, skinny body for long.

He was freezing, like all too many people getting ready for an operation in a hospital. Why the hell do they have to keep it so damned cold in here!

No, his heart did not pound because he was cold. It pounded because he was not sure who he would be when he emerged. He had heard of many who went through this process and emerged so changed they lost all their friends and families. No one whom they loved wanted anything to do with them anymore.

His hands quivered and he could not tell if it was from what was ahead or the stupid cold room. For he was a family man, bound in an unbreakable web of dependency. The thought of losing his family was a terror - plain and simple. Stark, horrible, enough to scare you to death kind of terror.

The doctors said anyone who would be normal would go into the operation and come out little changed, except for a few minor tweaks of DNA here, a few adjustments to glands there, a nip and a tuck, so to speak. Nothing more.

But he knew more than that. Way back years ago he had read in a magazine for those who were 'different'. Those who held the secrets thoughts inside had the most to fear. For the process could tell all. And that was the most frightening thing in his life.

He had managed to keep it a secret for some thirty years now.

#

He remembered when he first realized how bad it was. He was eight at the time. His parents said they were going to a family get together but it was people he did not like. He managed to give an excuse, saying anything to get them to leave him behind. When his parents accepted that, he saw his opportunity and knew he could not resist. His pulse quickened and the hairs on his head pulled tight. His heart pounded and all he could think of was what he would do. He was out of control and would do it again.

When they shut the door behind them, he allowed himself to breathe faster. He watched from the living room window as they got into the car, shut the doors, and eventually pulled out of the driveway, his mother waving through her window.

He watched carefully as they drove off, afraid they would stop and return, perhaps for something they left behind. He locked both doors and went around all the windows in the one floor house and pulled the curtains tight, checking carefully to make sure no one could peek inside and see what he was going to do. Next he waited a full ten agonizing minutes on the clock before he took his major step. All the while he listened carefully, dreading the sound of tires on the stones of the driveway.

When he felt as safe as he could be, he would study the clock and memorize what it would look like when they returned. He had to be finished, all done, everything put away a full fifteen minutes before they said they'd be back. He dared not take any chances at discovery. If they came back too early, he would be in the most serious trouble of his life.

He flicked on the light and descended the stairs into the basement. He hands shook as he approached the hot water heater. Slipping behind it, he wiggled in the narrow space until he found the old wooden box.

He lifted the dark rag that covered the box and lifted out the paper bag. He uncurled it and looked in. There they were, like old friends patiently waiting for his return. The closer he got, the more he felt his pulse quicken, the demand on him growing stronger every second.

He lifted the bag out, his hands vibrating with excitement. He held a mask up to his cheeks and moaned with the pleasure of it pressing on his flesh. In just a few minutes now.

He took the contents of the box upstairs, stopping at the window near the top of the stairs for another nervous peek outside. The driveway was empty, as was the street.

He hurried to his room and turned the bag upside down on the bed, emptying its contents, eager to get started. He stripped off all his clothes and donned the mental mask.

And slipped into that world.

Where he felt peace again. He was a new being. Someone from another world. A happy place where he could be at peace with himself like nowhere else.

#

His mother saw one once on the telly. David watched, enthralled, but when his mother said only one horrible word, "sick", he knew he could never trust her, not all the way.

As he grew older, he was always afraid of making too close a friend, lest he let his secret out in a moment of weakness. He had only himself to trust, alone with an awesome secret for such young shoulders to bear.

One summer day, he came within six inches of being discovered.

He was fully in the fantasy, attire and all, talking to himself as if this world was the real one, having the time of his life. When he heard the garage door opening.

Oh my God! My parents are home early.

Quickly he looked around to see what needed to be put back in their usual places. There was so much to hide!

He had planned on escaping into the bathroom, where he could lock the door and change. But when he heard his mother’s voice in the kitchen, he realized he was out of time. He could not escape in that direction. Grabbing his things, he realized he had no time to put everything right. He must hide. But where?

Voices came closer. There were headed this way! He parted his father’s suits in the closet and slid behind them, pulling the sliding doors shut and moving as far back in the dark corner as he could. The sound of his panting echoed in the tight space. He opened his mouth and practiced breathing as quietly as possible.

Voices of his parents mumbled through the door. A bright light as the closet opened. A hand slid some clothes aside. His mother appeared.

He carefully and slowly pulled the corner of a jacket to cover as much of his face as he could. What was he going to do? Discovery was seconds away. He thought of whispering to her, hoping she would understand and help hide him. But the old fear gripped his throat. She might panic and scream. Agonizing seconds passed with the closet door open as his mother removed a dress within six inches of his face.

This was it! He was going to be found out!

She talked to herself as she changed clothes. Then she walked out of the bedroom, leaving David in a cold sweat. Footsteps receded. Noises from the kitchen perhaps, hard to make out. Then a door slammed. Still he dared not come out. He waited, his lips quivering, breaths coming in short spurts.

A rumbling noise. Then quiet.

The quiet lasted and lasted. Drumming up courage, he parted the clothes and peeked out, ears alert. He waited some more, then slowly, careful to not make a noise, crept out of the bedroom, fearful of finding his mother or father sitting in the living room. Still it was quiet.

He put his special things in the bathroom and locked the door. In a frantic haste, he changed back to normal. When he came out, he searched the house and found he was alone. Slumping onto the sofa, he bowed his head and put his forehead onto his palms, breathing through open, dry mouth. God! So close!

He had nightmares about that for weeks.

#

Ever since he had read the comics he knew of those who were different, those who were not born as others are. Those who were not what they seemed. He pondered if he had been altered while he was in his mother's womb to make him the way he was. His boyhood fantasies often led him to wonder if he were planted here on this planet and his parents were not his real parents. A lot of unusual thoughts can happen to a boy when he's feeling that way.

Now, years later and countless more times of having to find a new hiding place and a new supply of outfits, David lived a dual life. Most of the time he was just a normal guy, going through school, then college, then getting a job, and even marrying a beautiful girl his age.

Now, as an adult, he had been many places and seen many things, including people who were not what they seemed. Some pretended to pretend, some flaunted it, flirting through the moment as if they were a child in a game of fantastic make believe.

But he could tell. He could see it in their eyes. They were having entirely too much fun for it to be just a game. They were one of his kind inside.

Every Halloween someone in his neighborhood dressed up as one and he couldn't help but stare when he saw the figure answer the door. That's when his heart picked up speed. For he could tell. That one knew. That one was not just pretending. He was getting away with it and David couldn't! Especially not with his wife Janette and his son Gary standing beside him.

He was stark raving jealous and tormented with craving at the same time.

Even when he got drunk with his buddies, he dared not let it out. For he knew what they thought of "those". He had read of many being beaten savagely, even to their deaths, when their secret was revealed.

He would drive dozens of miles from his home or workplace to find a store with the proper supplies. And always paid cash. The last thing he needed was a paper trail to his real identity.

He grew more sophisticated in his hiding places too. Now he rented a locker in a bus station thirty miles from home. When the times came, he would get a room at the cheapest motel he could find, changing to a new one every few months. When he locked the door and leaned up against it, his mind would flip. Those were his only times of peace, when he could live his secret life.

Oh how he wished he could go out in public that way. To walk as if this was his natural world. But that was impossible, so he would spin the most elaborate fantasies in his little room instead, using a new name for himself and playing at making love to a fantasy lover of the opposite gender of the species, the way that is natural for that kind but oh so unnatural for the one he was born into.

So strong was the fantasy he lived in every spare moment he could find that one day he almost let it slip. He was standing in line to get his driver's license renewed, bored as were all the others in front and behind him. He let his mind drift into his favorite daydream, shuffling ahead to the next spot when it became vacant, hardly aware of where he was, engrossed silently in his other world.

That's when he almost let it out. A voice asked, "Your name, please?"

"Di..." He clamped his jaw tight barely in time.

"Ah, David. David Knowles." He studied the face of the clerk to see if she had guessed and was relieved when the bored government employee hardly looked up as she asked for his license, unaware of his licking his suddenly dry lips. He glanced around to see if anyone else paid him any extra attention, but all eyes had the same glazed stare of boredom. His heart did not slow down until he got out into the parking lot.

#

Fate had another surprise in store for him at the ripe age of thirty-five. He started losing weight no matter how much he ate. First it was the loose pants, then the floppy shoes. He thought he was going through some mid-life crisis or something.

At first he laughed at it and flaunted his ability to gorge on the most fattening foods and still lose weight. When he lost fifty pounds and kept dropping them, he knew something was wrong, something serious and potentially deadly.

His doctor ran all the tests he could think of and sent him to the university medical hospital to be examined and tested all over again by God knows how many doctors, experts in their fields all of them. But no one could figure out why he kept getting skinnier and skinnier, no matter what he ate or how much.

One day, he got out of bed and found the room wobbly. And fainted for the first time.

His doctor read about a new procedure, one that had some success with rare conditions. He took the tests, not expecting much. After all, he had been disappointed countless times before. He knew he was dying.

Life was totally unfair.

Those tests were the first to come up with a positive diagnosis, one that described his loss of weight. The cells inside his body had turned against him and began to eat him, as if he were his own lunch. David had a rare genetic disease for which the only cure was a radical one - DNA remapping. His doctor explained it all to him, even why it had taken so long for the self-digestion process to begin.

At first he was happy to hear an explanation that made any sense at all and offered a chance for a cure. He would live! He headed home with a smile, eager to share the good news with Janette.

And remembered his secret.

The wave of fear that swept over him made him almost loose control of the wheel. He held it with the tightest grip he could muster and bit down hard on his lower lip, afraid of passing out one more time.

The operation would find out. His own body and brain could not tell a lie.

The thought of their discovering it while he lay unconscious and helpless made his breathing quicken, his lips quiver, and his vision blur. What the hell was he going to do!

If he did not get the operation he would die. And if he did, he might lose everything that was dear to him.

Life was shoving the cold hard truth in his face, the truth he had fought so hard to contain.

The next few weeks were the worst of all his years. He had often thought of what he would do if he were discovered. Daydreams of being cast out, forbidden to even see his own son again, let alone his parents and siblings. Losing his job. Not knowing how he would live. Or where. Possibly dying in a gutter someplace.

Janette and his family shook their heads, not understanding why he should be so depressed when he was going to be cured. He dared not explain.

There had been many times when he thought of ending this miserable life. What good did it do to live a lie? He felt trapped inside this body he wore with reluctance.

Now he would have no choice.

#

The time finally came. He was in the hospital and the nurses wheeled him, shivering and all, into the operating room. One guy, with dark skin and the features of someone from the Mediterranean, his mouth hidden behind green gauze, held a clear plastic mask over his own mouth and nose.

He smelled an odor that reminded him of cinnamon and something sweet.

"Take deep breaths, please. Count backwards from ten. Out loud."

He took a deep lungful. "Ten. Nine." Then he began to feel the weight.

"Eight...Seven..." It was pulling so hard he found it hard to concentrate. His thoughts blurred. He struggled to remember the next number.

"Six..." Fog crept in. His lips got heavy. Fi..." And the lights went out.

The next three hours were lost to the patient, who did not hear the doctors exclaim "Oh, my God!" when they saw where the process was headed. But nothing could stop it once it started. Cells changed. Testicles shrank as DNA dictated, for they were no longer necessary. With the creation of millions of new stem cells, whole lumps of tissue shrank in some places and grew in others, at a pace a thousand times faster than even that of a young embryo. Glands changed to match the new demands put upon them. The body underwent an unexpected transformation.

Chills. Shivering. Light in the eyes. A feminine voice asked, "Are you cold?"

Vision returned. The familiar bearded face of Doctor Evans peered from the left side, his eyebrows furled, pulled together in obvious concern. "I'm afraid something unusual has happened. Can you tell me your name?"

Grogginess from the sleeping gas still pulled. A swirl of thoughts. Strange, yet familiar. A new feeling. More like a sense, a sense of relief. Comfort. The old inner struggle gone. Calm. Delicate, delicious calm.

The peace of it all was supreme, like a terrible storm had passed, never to return. The body was whole now, without the old tormenting twists and pulls.

A smile spread across lips.

There was no need to lie any more.

"I am Diane."