Review: Metamorphosis by Stacey Zackerly

The Brookings Rehabilitation Institute was a radical new concept in the field of criminal justice. With prisons overcrowded and funding constantly cut back it was only natural that someone in the private sector would seize the opportunity to profit from the growing criminal ranks. BRI aimed to take trouble-making young men with long, if petty, criminal records and turn them into female sex slaves to be sold to the public.

Jonathan McCormick was only 18, but he had spent most of his life in one sort of a jail or another. In between he lived on the streets and almost always ended up doing something to get him incarcerated again. Now he was a woman, known only by the serial number tattooed on her foot, and a piece of merchandise waiting to be sold to someone who would legally "own" her as well as serve as her jailer in this new type of house arrest.

Instead of being sold she was "won" by the BRI lawyer, Dave Morgan, who reluctantly accepted his "prize" after his name was drawn in company lottery. Dave had been having serious moral qualms about having been involved in such a project but a lawyer tends to learn to represent their client, despite whatever they may feel about them personally.

Together Dave and "Cindy," as the prisoner was to be called, forge a strange relationship that runs from master and slave to father and daughter and even friends and beyond as Cindy explores her new life as a woman and as human being with a chance to change her world for the better or sink even further into the depths.

"Metamorphosis" is the latest release from Stacey Zackerly in her long line of acclaimed works of transgender fiction and brings her usual blend of humor, highly charged erotica, and thoughtful musings on the nature of gender identity.

The more I read from Stacey Zackerly, the more I am convinced she is simply the finest writer working in transgender erotica today.  With her latest, “Metamorphosis,”  Zackerly takes a familiar storyline and injects it with a humanity that is far too absent from more stories of this type.  Her work extends beyond mere titillation and explores some of the fundamental truths beneath gender confusion and identity, and “Metamorphosis” is certainly no exception to that rule.

Dave Morgan is an attorney in the charge of a company who has proposed a bold new solution to prison overpopulation.  For career criminals of a certain age and psychological profile, they are given the option of becoming sexual puppets for their masters, changed to new feminine forms and given psychological and physical training to make them pliant objects built for pleasure.  Once released to their new owners, these transformed servants become the property of their new owners, just as they would be property of the state as prisoners.

For A0027, previously known as Jonathan McCormack, this means a life of sexual torture and abuse in the lead-up to his (now her) eventual purchase.  Fortunately for this ‘Cindi’ model, her fate will now rest in the hands of Dave Morgan, after he is awarded ownership of her at the launch of the new product line.  When A0027 offers a smile within her bindings as he passes by, Dave selects her and takes her home, where A0027 is renamed Cindy for lack of a better name.

At first, Cindy is only interested in how she can manipulate the rather meek Dave into a position where she can escape, perhaps become a prostitute to support herself, and Dave, for his part, wrestles with the notion of owning his new sex slave, a proposition he finds ethically sticky, to put it mildly.  As time goes on, though, the unlikely pairing changes both of them into something greater than their individual roles.

Like “The Experiment,” there is certainly an element of arousal that accompanies this story.  How could it not when one of the main characters is transformed into a late-teen pleasure toy?  And yet, Zackerly cannot allow the character to be only that caricature.  As the story winds on, Cindy begins discovering things about herself and reaches some understanding of how her own behaviors might have led her to this place.  We are treated to Cindy’s changing worldview, not because of some sort of psychological manipulation, but through the process of self-discovery.  From there, we see a debate about sexuality itself, gender roles and more than a little discussion (however sub textually) of nature vs nurture.  It’s heady stuff without ever being didactic and lifts this story from simply good to something great.

With equal parts fun, sexiness and genuine contemplation, Zackerly’s “Metamorphosis” is truly one of the most satisfying reads I’ve enjoyed in a while, and for those of you who prefer a little story to your erotica, there is no one doing it better than Stacey Zackerly.  Unreservedly recommended!

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