As I lay face down on the treatment table, I was humming to myself softly, listening to some music on my iPod while the ultra-sound probe was being worked over the back of my injured thigh; the music helped take my mind off the pain a bit.     Football Girl Chapter 29 By Susan Brown Copyright © 2010 Susan Brown

Previously...

By now I was feeling a bit uncomfortable because the jab that the doctor had given me was beginning to wear off. After saying goodbye to a few people we made our way out of the club room. As I passed Lance he looked at me and leered. I felt like going over and smacking his smug ugly face, but it wasn’t me who was going to miss the next three matches for being sent off more than once and having a persistent bad record. Anyway, I had an image to try to keep and hitting Lance would only give me more unwanted publicity.

Sometimes I loathe being in the limelight.

And now the story continues…

As I lay face down on the treatment table, I was humming to myself softly, listening to some music on my iPod while the ultra-sound probe was being worked over the back of my injured thigh; the music helped take my mind off the pain a bit. It was the following morning after the match and I was quite stiff. It was considered that the injury was somewhat worse than first thought and it was only fifty-fifty that I would be able to play in the next match.

After about fifteen minutes of the ultra-sound and some other treatments to my leg, I was allowed to go and get changed. I said thank you to the physiotherapist and got a nice smile in return.

I was at the training ground and the place was fairly empty as no training was taking place that day. I said hello to a few of the staff who were there as I made my way back to the office. I had to meet Daddy there–he was the designated “taxi driver” for today. As I entered the office I saw he was not alone: Bill Rogers, one of the coaches was there and a man whom I didn’t know. They were all talking about something but stopped when I came within earshot.

‘Hi, Susan, treatment go okay?’ Daddy asked.

‘Yes, not bad; they’re still not sure if I’ll be fit for the game next week, and want me to come in every day for more treatment.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Sue,’ said Bill, ‘As you know, the FA conduct random drugs tests now and you have been selected for one. This gentleman is here to conduct your test.’

I looked at the man with distaste. He looked a bit embarrassed.

‘Has this anything to do with that picture in The Globe?’ I asked him.

‘No, it’s just that you happen to be on my list.’

I turned to Bill Rogers. ‘I thought that tests were only done after matches?’

‘Yes but the FA has a right to test anyone at random now and you have been picked.’

‘How did you know I would be here?’ I asked the man.

‘I checked with the club and they said you’d be here this morning. I’m sorry about this, but I’m only doing my job.’

‘Okay, Mr–?’

‘It’s Doctor, actually–Doctor Amos.’

‘Well, Doctor, what do I have to do?’

‘All I require is a sample–a urine sample.’ He produced two small specimen jars and handed them to me.

‘If you would pop into the toilet, please, and fill both of them; one is for you and the other for me.’

I looked at the bottles with a degree of distaste and left the room and to go to the Ladies’ loo. He made as if to follow me in, so I turned to him, ‘Do you mind? This is the Ladies’, not the Gents’.’

‘Sorry, I have to make sure that there’s no one else in there.’

‘So, I am going to ask someone to wee in these little bottles for me? Get real, Doctor.’

‘As I said before, I am only doing my job.’

‘Well next time I suggest that they at least use a female doctor. Come on then, if you have to have a look-see, but don’t blame me if you shock any women in there.’

He quickly popped his head around the door. I could have offered to see if the coast was clear, but I wasn’t going to assist him. I had distinct feeling that I was being picked on so why should I help?

‘Okay, Ms Hurst, you can go in.’

I entered and shut the door firmly behind me. Once inside a cubicle, pulled my trackie bums and panties down and did the necessary. It wasn’t easy, and without going into details, I had to wash my hands very thoroughly afterwards, thinking how much easier it would have been if I had still had a penis.

I was in no hurry and wanted to the let him stew a bit, so I re-applied my lippy and brushed my hair before going out and handing one of the, still warm, plastic vials to him.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Don’t mention it,’ I replied as I headed back to the office with him trailing me. I handed the vial of wee that I had kept hold of to Daddy. It had a date and time on it together with a squiggle that I took to be the doctor’s signature.

‘All done, love?’

‘Yes, but I’m not happy.’

‘I know, we’ll look into this when we get home.’

Not long afterwards, we left. I said goodbye to Bill and completely ignored the doctor as I was in petulant mode and couldn’t give a damn about niceties. I continued the conversation about the drugs test with Daddy when we got in the car.

‘Daddy, what’s going on?’

‘I don’t know, honey; I think we should contact the FA about it. I think they might have been swayed by the adverse publicity that you received over that bloody piece in The Globe. It’s not unheard of, having random drug tests, but as Bill said, they are usually done after matches and not at other times. However there are a few players who get special treatment and it looks as if you have been added to the list.’

I spent the remainder of the journey home contemplating the fact that I was–it appeared–a marked girl, not to be trusted and a possible drug addict–all over a flaming peanut!

As soon as we arrived home, I went up to my room and Daddy went to his office. The house was empty apart from us as the others had gone their separate ways. Andrew and Claire had gone off to visit an aunt with Monica, and Mummy had taken the twins to a parent toddler group that she belonged to. Mr Moon was in the garden–I noticed him doing something with a rake when Daddy drove in–and Mrs Moon was doing her weekly shop at the super-duper supermarket on the edge of town. The minders, in the form of Danni and Charlotte, were about, but they tended to stay in the background doing whatever they do and not being in my face all the time.

As soon as I got to my room, I changed my sports stuff for a far more girly black skirt and pink sweater top. After donning my fluffy pink slippers and brushing my hair, I felt somewhat better. I then sat at my computer and fired her up. In a matter of seconds I was surfing the net, trying to avoid anything about me. I was a bit fed up with Susan Hurst super footballer and wanted to get back to reality.

I logged on to ITunes and downloaded some music for my iPod and then looked at a few clothes sites such as Next and Miss Selfridge. I suppose that it was retail therapy, but I didn’t fancy going to real shops at the moment. Getting noticed and stared at wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

After that, I just left the computer and went to lie on my bed, hugging my rabbit and staring at the ceiling. My leg was hurting again as the treatment's effects had begun to wear off a bit.

There was a knock at the door and it woke me up–I didn’t realise that I had dropped off. ‘Yes?’ I said, yawning nearly wide enough to dislocate my jaw.

The door opened and Andrea came in. I sat up and looked at her, she looked very pretty, in a smock top and girlie jeans.

‘Hi, honey,’ she said coming over, sitting on the bed and kissing me on the lips. The mingling of our lipsticks was a big turn on for me and it was all I could do to stop myself dragging her on the bed to have my evil way with her. Instead, I sat up and we sat side-by-side on the bed holding hands.

‘You look pretty,’ I said.

‘You too.’

‘I didn’t know you went visiting dressed like that.’

‘Mum said that if I was going to be more of a girl, we should at least go and see her sister and maybe the rest of the family. I must admit I was a bit scared.’

‘How was your aunt then?’

‘She was cool about it. Mum had told her beforehand. Evidently Auntie was only worried that I might look like a boy in a dress. She said I was pretty.’

‘Oh, Andrea, you are pretty!’

‘D’you really think so,’ she said looking into my eyes.

‘Yes, I do.’

She was quiet for a moment.

‘What?’ I asked.

She looked at me. ‘Susan.’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Can I tell you something?’

‘’Course.’ I held her hand as this sounded like it was going to be a bit heavy.

‘You know when I first told you that I liked wearing girls’ clothes sometimes.’

‘Yes–I’ll never forget that.’

‘Well, I was always frightened that people would laugh at me and that I would never pass for anything remotely like a real girl.’

‘Well you do, the only problem is that you are likely to begin getting a bit hairy soon and your voice will get deeper and you might go full tilt into puberty. It’s funny it hasn’t happened yet, you are only a few months younger than I am.’

She started crying and I thought I had upset her by saying those things. I hugged her tightly as she sobbed on my shoulder. I could smell her perfume and her hair smelt sweet and lovely too, but I only noticed that in passing, as I was very concerned about what could possibly be making her this upset.

‘Sorry, Andrea, I've upset you–’

‘–no it’s not you; it’s me,’ she sniffed and pulled away from me slightly. She had streaky eyeliner and mascara now and looked like she required some emergency repairs.

‘I—I want to stop the possibility of me developing more–as a boy I mean.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I’m the only boy in my year at school whose voice hasn’t broken; I get laughed at–you know what they’re like, you went there. In a way it’s nasty and embarrassing, but if I do hit male puberty, I won’t be happy.’

‘So, what do you want?’

‘I—I want to be able to have breasts and shape of a girl and I want to live as one, but I don’t want the operation, not yet, anyway. I want to keep my penis because I want to…to be able to…to make love to you–when the time’s right. What I’m trying to say is that if we stay together, I want us to make babies.’

She had her head down, looking at the floor. With a finger under her chin, I lifted her face up, so she was looking at me.

‘So you want to go part of the way, but not all the way and you love me enough to have a family. Do you…you want to be a real girl?’

’I think I do, but I’m not sure. I want to give myself time…If we do stay together though, I will want kids, if we can. Once we have done that, I think I would want to have the operation.’

I realised that we were still very young, but I knew in my heart that I loved her and she loved me. Unless something terrible happened, we would marry and hopefully have kids–if we could manage it. We hugged for a minute and I could sense her heart pounding. We were so much in love, it almost hurt. We were young, but not as young as Romeo and Juliet. I just hoped that our relationship would have a more positive outcome!

But there was another way: ‘We could adopt––?’

‘Maybe, but there’s no guarantee that we would be suitable. It’s very hard to adopt in this country; the authorities make you jump through hoops to even be considered.’

‘Does your mum know?’

‘Not yet. I don’t know how she would react and, of course, she hasn’t been well. H––how do you feel about it?’

‘About your wanting to be a girl? I love you for being you, not what sex you are. Yes, I love Andrew, but I also love Andrea; I just want you to be happy, but you must make sure you know what you are getting into. If you go for surgery, you will never be able to revert back.’

‘I know, I don’t want to make any mistakes but I’m pretty sure it’s what I’ll want eventually but I’m not going to be silly about it. Well what do you think, am I being silly?’

I kissed her gently on the lips.

‘No, you aren’t being silly, if that is what you really want. I’ll be with you all the way, but you must tell your mum–’

‘–But I don’t want to worry her.’

‘I know love–look, why don’t you speak with Mummy, she used to be a Samaritan before the twins were born, she would advise you and then you might get to see a doctor. You can take pills to stop you from developing, but I don’t know how that would affect you down below–sex-wise.’

‘I don’t either. Do you think she’d listen?’

‘Of course, silly–’

She looked much happier now that she had told me everything and we found ourselves in an embrace that took my breath away, only to be interrupted by the door opening suddenly.

‘Like–you should come and see this!’

We disengaged, looking daggers at Claire.

‘Claire, could you please knock when you come in?’

‘Sorry, look can you two stop clinging to each other like that and come to my room, there’s like something on the net that you just have to see. We followed her out and soon found ourselves in her rather untidy room. There were clothes on the floor and her bed and the place looked like a bomb had hit it. I didn’t think that knickers and tights draped over lampshades are necessarily a good thing–or even the ultimate in modern decor––

‘Don’t you believe in tidying up?’ a pained-sounding Andrea asked as she stepped around the mess.

‘Never mind that, come and see–’

We went to the computer and stared at the screen.

‘I was like, looking on the fan site and doing a bit of cleaning up in there and I saw a comment on the forum about this site that was like, dissing you.’

I sat down on the chair and looked at the site.

I sat back, saying nothing. At the bottom of the page was a photo of me in ‘that dress’ and another one with the so-called pill popping incident.

Andrea and Claire were talking–well shouting really–but I didn’t take any of it in.

After a minute, I got up and just said that I had a headache and returned to my bedroom, quietly locking the door because I wanted no interruptions for the time being. Sitting on the bed, I stared at the mirror on the dressing table. I looked pale and I had rings under my eyes.

On the dresser was a photo of my poor dead mum, smiling at the camera and waving. It had been taken on the last holiday that I ever had with her. I took the photo; it was on the beach at Penmarris Cove, the summer before last. My stepfather hadn’t come with us and we were both more relaxed and happy for it. We stayed at a bed and breakfast, just off the quayside and it was magical.

I wondered how my mum would feel about all the attention I was getting now. Maybe I was big mouthed, opinionated and shouldn’t be playing with men. Look at how Lance nearly broke my leg in the last game I played? Then there were the vicious attacks by Bob Ferris and The Globe. Will it ever end and would I be allowed to play without all this crap going on behind the scenes? Even the FA seemed to think that there was no smoke without fire as I was now getting random drugs tests. Finally, there was now a website that was actively campaigning and trying drum up support against me. It seemed to me that there were a number of people and organisations that wanted to stop me playing and get rid of me.

My parents and other people were trying to plug the holes and sort things out, but I didn’t know if I could take any more. Tears dripped off my cheeks and onto my skirt. I seemed to go from highs to lows at the moment. A little while ago, Andrea had told me her big secret and that had given me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I knew that she and I would have problems but, between us, I was sure that we would sort them out in time. I had this dream about us walking down the aisle in matching white wedding dresses and that thought was so good, as was the vision of having children together.

On the reverse side, there was all this hate against me. What had I done to them? Had I hurt them? I wasn’t a murderer or anyone nasty; I was just being me. Why couldn’t people accept me as I am?

I stayed in my room as I didn’t want to face anyone at the moment. There were various knocks on my door but I asked them to leave me alone. Eventually it stopped as they realised I wanted some space.

I didn’t go down for anything to eat, I wasn’t hungry. Eventually, it was about nine in the evening and I just cleaned all the smeary makeup off and got into my nightie, unlocked the door and then went to bed. I turned off the bedside light and clutching my rabbit, I tried to get some well-needed sleep…

My thanks go to the brilliant and lovely Gabi for editing, making suggestions that I hadn't even thought of and pulling the story into shape.