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Editor Note: The images used for this story were purchased and used under royalty-free license* from Istockphoto.com . ~Sephrena

Author Note: Please email me at AngelJediGirl (at) gmail (dot) com before posting this story to any other site. Posting to a pay site is prohibited.

Comments and suggestions are also welcome at the above email address.

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Chapter 3 - The Real Deal

"Sarah Carerra?"

Mr. Crawford, or Scott as he told me to call him, was thinking the name over.

"I like it," he said. "But are you sure it's what you want? The logistics of this type of decision could get expensive if you get a contract."

"It is," I said, looking towards my dad for support. He had come around after talking to my mom, and he seemed to accept the decision that I had made. He had also decided he was going to be my manager. At least he had the background to do the job, since that's what he actually did for a living.

"Okay, I'll submit the demo under that name then. I can understand why you might want to keep the two separate, a pretty girl like you would be mobbed at school if you became a star. What's the other thing?"

I hesitated now. We'd told him that there were two things he needed to know before I made the demo CD. The first was about my stage persona. The second, well, that wasn't so easy to say.

"I'm not really a girl," I eventually said. I was surprised when I heard Dad exhale his held breath along with my own.

"Say what?" Scott asked. "Is this a joke?"

"I'm afraid not," my dad said before I could continue. It might be better if this part came from him.

"Brett," he paused. "Megan is not female. It's a long story, but let's just say she is in a unique position in her life, and needs to decide if she wants to be male or female."

Scott looked shocked at this revelation. I certainly understood why.

"I don't know about this then," he said while grimacing at us. "I was expecting to promote a female talent. I don't think the record company is going to be interested in a male with, well, her voice."

"I'm willing to live as a female," I told him quickly. "That's why we came up with Sarah Carerra."

He nodded at my explanation. "That's good, but it would be a lot more difficult to show up for shows as a boy and go on stage as a girl."

"I know," I told him. "Like I said, I'm willing to live as a girl. My therapist told me that she wanted me to live as a girl for a while, and I'm going to do that now. She's also the one who came up with the Sarah idea. She wants me to have a normal life too."

He sat back in his chair to digest this information. This was it, I thought, the beginning of my new career, or the end. I hoped it was the beginning.

"Tell me the story," he said, surprising both Dad and me. I hadn't told anyone my story other than Emily and Ethan. I wasn't even sure how they were going to take it when I started living as Megan full time.

Without any other choice, I decided to tell him the story.

*  *  *

It was a nice, warm sunny day. We were going to the beach!

School had just let out for the summer the week before, and the temperatures were somewhat lower than normal, making for a pleasant day. The forecast was for clear skies and the weatherman said there shouldn't be any big undertows.

I was 10, and I couldn't think of anything else I would rather be doing that day. Dad said we could even rent body boards and ride the waves.

We were traveling up the Pacific Coast Highway. My dad wanted to try a new beach that someone at work had told him about. My parents were sitting in the front seats of Dad's sedan. My eight-year-old brother Austin and I were sitting in the back, looking out the windows and enjoying the beautiful scenery. I was jealous because my brother was sitting behind the driver's seat, and he had the view of the ocean, while I got a cliff face.

It came out of the blue. No, not out of the water, out of the sky! A falling rock! I'd seen the "Falling Rock" signs before, but I'd never actually seen one. A falling one that is. Until now.

It landed right in the middle of our lane! It was so heavy that it didn't even bounce; it just embedded itself into the asphalt!

There was nothing my dad could have done, because it happened so suddenly. He slammed on the brakes and he tried to swerve, but it didn't help. We still slammed into the rock at 30 mph.

Dad had tried to swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid the rock. Luckily, there weren't any cars coming. Unluckily, it only changed where the car hit the rock, and we collided with it on the front passenger side.

I don't remember much after that, until I woke up in the hospital. My dad and my brother had minor cuts and bruises. My mom and I suffered the worst. She had a broken leg and some minor lacerations. I was the only who had a major injury.

Somehow a piece of metal from the car had pierced the area between my legs, severing both my penis and my scrotum from my body. The doctors said that I was lucky that was all that had been cut, because the wound came close to reaching the femoral artery of my right leg.

While I was unconscious, my parents were given a choice. They could attach what was left of my penis back on, or they could give me a sex change operation and raise me as a girl, or they could leave the area pretty much sexless until I made a decision later.

Option #1 sounded like the best, but only about 1/4 of my penis would be able to be saved. I'd be able to stand up to pee, but wouldn't ever be able to perform sexually when I was older, at least not well.

Option #2 had the best outcome, assuming I could live with the decision to be a girl. I could live the most normal life of the options this way.

Option #3 was a stop gap. I'd lose the extra length of penis, but they could recreate much of it later using the same methods they did for female-to-male transsexuals.

My parents chose option #1.

Their reasoning was sound. They felt that it gave me the best options. They wanted me to make the decision, not them. By choosing option #1 I could choose to live as a boy and have a piece of my real self. If I chose to be a girl, then I could still have that surgery later.

Naturally, upon waking up, I wanted to remain a boy. I didn't fully understand why they would think otherwise.

Two days after being discharged from the hospital I met Mary for the first time. She helped me to cope with what had happened. But more importantly, she started to help me understand the decision that my parents had been given, and that I was now presented with.

Over the next couple of years I tried to live as a boy. I watched as my friends and my schoolmates started to grow and begin puberty. I listened as their voices broke and took on a masculine tone. I knew that it was an option for me with hormone replacement therapy, but I realized I wasn't ready to make the decision.

Mary also encouraged me to explore my feminine side. My mom was quick to agree with her. I think Mom just really wanted a girl though. At the age of 12 I dressed up for the first time, and my mom named me Megan. She said it was the name she would have given me if I had been born a girl.

For the next few years I would live little bits of my life as a girl. One night at home, a week while we went on vacation, small amounts of time. But never where someone I knew would find out, except for Emily and Ethan, and they seemed okay with it.

At first it was embarrassing, because I didn't want to do it. I wouldn't have done it if Mary and my mom hadn't insisted that I give it a chance to see if I would be happier that way. Over time I started to feel differently about it.

The feelings scared me. I was supposed to be a boy, right?

I tried to suppress the feelings. I kept telling people that I didn't want to be a girl. But the truth was, I wasn't sure anymore. I honestly started to believe that it might be the better choice.

Mary made sure that I understood the ramifications of this decision. She said she could help me through the process no matter what decision I made, but she wanted me to make the decision sooner rather than later. She believed that the older I got, the more complicated the decision would become.

But that wasn't the only thing driving me to make a decision. Without any testicles to produce testosterone, estrogen had become the primary sex hormone in my body. Because both sexes make some of both hormones, and my major testosterone production was now removed, my body started to develop in a way that could make my decision complicated if I wanted to stay male.

Emily and Ethan didn't know it at the time, but I truly was more female than I was male, physically at least. My breasts started budding when I was 15, nearly a year ago. They weren't big, and a training bra sufficed, but they were growing slowly. It was obvious that my skeletal structure was also following a female pattern. My hips were widening and I was now developing an hourglass figure. Without the introduction of a testosterone replacement plan, I was destined to develop as a girl.

This brought me back to the decision that I now faced. But the decision had changed since I was 10. Instead of deciding if I wanted to be a girl, I now needed to decide if I wanted to be a boy. If I didn't alter nature soon, it might be too late.

*  *  *

Scott got the condensed version. He didn't need the specifics.

Scott sat there at his desk, thinking. I was hesitant to say more, and it wasn't something that I wanted to rush. He looked slightly pained. I was sure that this wasn't a standard discussion when meeting with new talent.

"Alright," he finally said. "I guess I can work with that."

I smiled a big grin, and I could feel the tension in the room noticeably lift. I looked over at Dad quickly, and he was grinning back at me with a smile I had never seen him use before.

Whenever we discussed the possibility of me becoming a girl, he always looked sad. But this was a happy smile. Maybe he really did want a daughter!

"Are you ready to make that CD?" Scott asked me. I grinned while taking his hand to seal the deal.

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