Do you find it hard getting up in the morning?
Penny did. Now, this fateful morning, for the first time, Penny understood what those teen-age boys had meant. But Penny had no idea what to do about it. It was part of the bigger question: what did it mean to be a man?
By way of finding an answer, Penny went into the bathroom, stripped off Pennington P. Potter’s pajamas, stood nude in front of the full-length mirror and studied the masculine image reflected there. The face that stared back at Penny was pleasant without being handsome, rugged rather than hard, youngish and faintly etched with laugh-lines. Short, curly brown hair lay flat over a forehead that was just a trifle on the broad side. Deep-set blue eyes peered out over a nose that was generous, but neatly shaped. The cheekbones were high, the jaw well-defined, square-cut and cleft. Two dimples pinked either side of a full moustache that had grown in much darker than the hair on the head. At first glance the moustache looked black; actually, it was a very deep shade of brown.
Penny’s eyes traveled downward. Broad shoulders, a deep chest tapering to a narrow waist and flat hips, well-developed muscles—particularly the biceps-—a hard stomach, no rear end to speak of, strong, manly legs, a matting of hair on the legs and on the chest too-—such was the image of Penny’s new body. And there, right in the middle of it, distressingly perpendicular, stubbornly tumescent, was the undeniable hallmark of Penny’s new role.
Penny stared at it with distaste and willed it to relax. But all of Penny’s strained concentration was to no avail. It continued to point impudently toward the ceiling like some oversized finger giving the age-old gesture of supreme insult.
A cold shower! Hazily, Penny remembered having heard somewhere that a cold shower might cure the condition. So Penny stepped into the shower stall and turned on the cold water. Some ten minutes later Penny emerged shivering and surveyed the result. It had worked. It was placid and flaccid now. Penny nodded, satisfied at having coped with the first of the problems of being a man.
Penny got dressed. It felt strange putting on a man’s clothes for the first time. The idea made Penny giggle. The giggle was cut short when the shirttail was tucked into the pants and Penny thoughtlessly yanked up the zipper of the trousers.
“IIIYYEEEOWOOOOHHHH!”
With that one gesture Penny had almost undone all of Dr. Kilembrio’s hard work. Limp as it was, the proof of manhood still constituted a snag in the upward progress of the zipper. The agony was indescribable.
Holding the injured member tenderly in both hands, head thrown back, Penny hayed at the ceiling like a werewolf with a sore fang, hurling imprecations at a halo’d moon. Like that tooth-ache-y werewolf, Penny ran around in circles, howling with pain. What did it mean to be a man? This was one of the things it meant and the lesson was a bitter one. It brought home to Penny the necessity of genital caution.
Finally the pain subsided. Shaken, Penny resumed dressing. Everything tucked away neatly—if a bit sorely--the next item of apparel to be coped with was a necktie. Once the shirt collar had been raised and the cravat positioned neck-wise, Penny’s fingers moved with the finesse of a woman-oriented brain conditioned to knitting. Agile though the movements were, the result looked more like a Christmas package bow than the Windsor knot which was intended.
Penny ripped the knot out and started over again. This time the tie reached to the groin and the short end immediately slipped out, unraveling the knot. A third attempt left the under-part looking like a length of rope and the top side short.
Penny had learned something about the pain of manhood and now came this introduction to its frustrations. It was a side of the coin that Betty Friedan had never considered. Penny reacted the same as any other red-blooded American man would have under the same circumstances. The necktie was flung to the floor and Penny stomped on it with both feet.
Bending down to pick up the cravat, Penny spied the white sheet of paper with the writing on it. The paper was lying behind the bureau where it had fallen, propelled by a stray gust of air, some time after Pennington P. Potter had propped it up on top of the dresser. A brief perusal told Penny it was a suicide note:
To those it most concerns—
I’rn killing myself because of what I’ve done. I can’t face the consequences! But I couldn’t help doing it. It’s not my fault. I had to do it—-for her! She is really the one responsible for my despicable actions -- and for my death! I name no names. She knows who she is! My death is on her head. May she fry in Hell.
Very truly yours,
Pennington P. Potter
Penny puzzled over the note. It raised two questions. Who was the “she” responsible? And just exactly what was it that Pennington P. Potter had done that was so despicable as to drive him to suicide? If Penny was to inhabit his body, the questions were crucial to the future.
However, at the moment, Penny couldn’t even begin to guess at the answers. The note was laid aside—for the moment Penny decided against showing it to anybody else and shoved it under a pile of shirts in the top drawer of the bureau~—and the battle with the cravat resumed. This resulted in muttered oaths turning to loudly voiced curses which finally attracted Mrs. Potter to her son’s room.
“How dare you use such language?” she demanded. “Don’t you have any respect for me? I’m a very sensitive woman.”
“Sorry,” Penny muttered. “It’s this damn tie!”
“Whatever is the matter?”
“I can’t get the blankety—blank thing right.”
“Well, let Mother do it, dear. You don’t have to use language like that. All you have to do is ask Mumsy to help.”
Mrs. Potter crossed to Penny and took an end of the tie in each hand. Before tying it, however, she stretched upward to bestow a morning kiss on Penny’s cheek. “My goodness!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t shave!”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Well, you just take off your shirt and march yourself into the bathroom and shave right now, young man! The very idea! Starting the day unshaven like one of those hippies or something!”
Meekly, Penny complied. The compliance was more a matter of getting away from the high whine of Mrs. Potter’s voice than of agreement with her. Nevertheless, Penny faced the prospect of shaving for the very first time.
Penny read the instructions on the container of shaving cream very carefully: “1) Wash face with soap and warm water. 2) Dry face. 3) Wash face with soap and warm water and LEAVE FACE WET AND SOAPY. 4) Shake can. 5) Hold can firmly in a vertical position. 6) Remove cap. 7) Press top to release lather. 8) Spread lather evenly over surface to be shaved. 9) Shave.”
Penny performed instructions 1, 2 and 3 one-two-three. Number 4, however, gave her pause. “Shake can.” Penny thought about it for a long moment, finally shrugged and wriggled Pennington P. Potter’s rear end. Penny figured it had something to do with circulation, driving the blood to the face so the surface would take the shave better or something. The next instruction was even more confusing, but Penny followed it anyway, carefully holding Pennington’s derriere “firmly in a vertical position.”
Instruction number 6 was too much altogether. “Remove cap?” How was that possible when Penny wasn’t wearing one? Why should anybody put a cap on their head to shave anyway? Penny decided to simply ignore it.
The next one, however, couldn’t be ignored. Besides, it seemed simple enough. “Press top to release lather.” Penny pressed the top. Nothing happened. Again. Still nothing. A third time. Results nil. Penny thought about it and finally it percolated. Making the connection between 6 and 7, Penny managed to “release lather.” Two big gobs of it landed in each of Pennington P. Potter’s pearly blue eyes.