A story about a family with two boys aged 10 and 13, in which choice is a delusion and gender, an illusion. In the last chapter, Kirk openly and noisily shopped as a boy for clothes in the girls' department in order to distract the clerks from Blair's more furtive shopping expedition.

Chapter 4, Part 4 --- A Preacher’s Choice

“We’re home! Come and see your beautiful daughter!” Maggie pushed Blair across the family threshold. Alas, his feet already wet from the rain, Blair slipped on the entryway tile right into and over his own shopping bags. In consequence, he went sprawling: With his feet up in the air and his skirt bunched up at the waist, Blair presented his father with a full view of his panties.

“Good lord,” Laird sighed to himself, “she’s already gotten Blair into a skirt and pink floral undies. It’s hard to believe he’s a boy. There’s not even a telltale bump in his, gulp, panties.” (Blair had followed Maggie’s advice to put his “little thingee” between his legs.) “Maggie’s right. From the look of him now Blair definitely wants to be a girl. Sweet Lord, help me to get through this. Help me be a loving father for Blair.”

Laird extended a hand to Blair to pull him up.

Then Laird tightly hugged his youngest son, daughter, son, daughter as though for the first time ever. “Blair, you look … beautiful. You’re as pretty as any girl your age. The new hairstyle looks good on you. What do you call it?”

“It’s a bob. Do you really think it looks good? Do you still love me? asked Blair. As his father’s fingers playing with Blair’s new hair-do, Blair tightened his own grip around his father’s hips.

“Still love you? Honey, I’ll always love you — forever and a day. And I’m very, very proud of you. It takes a lot of courage, doesn’t it, Maggie, for a boy Blair’s age to decide that he wants to be a girl from now on?”

Blair squeaked: “From now on? Mommy, you said it was for one day only. You promised that I wouldn’t have to go to school looking like a girl!” Blair, pulling away from his father’s arms, confronted Maggie, his arms folded in a “show me” freeze.

Maggie was, as always, reassuring: “Blair, sweetie, no one is going to force you to go to school looking like a girl. That’s why, remember, we bought so many unisex clothes that could be worn by either sex. You and I will be the only ones, I swear, to know that you’re dressed in girls’ clothes. Your new jeans could be boys’ jeans, right?”

Blair nodded. Maggie finished off: “We’ll start you in a new school next September, but until then, we don’t want you to get into fights. So, no skirts, dresses or halter tops at school. Agreed?” She struck a pose as the soul of compromise and discretion.

Blair grasped at the concession: “Mommy, don’t worry. I promise not to wear anything that makes me look like a girl to school. Daddy, let me show me what Mommy bought for me.”

Blair scampered into the living room with two of the shopping bags, where he started laying out his haul on the sofa.

Meanwhile, Kirk, last through the doorway, finally caught his father’s eye. “Kirk, what’s that on your ears?” Laird demanded. “Earrings, what gives? Am I going to end up with two daughters?” Angry, Laird jabbed Kirk’s right shoulder hard enough to push the boy backward.

“Dad, I’m not wearing earrings. They’re studs. All the cool dudes wear them. You don’t want me to be a dweeb, do you?”

“Well, no.” Laird seized Kirk’s right hand: “But do the cool dudes polish their nails too?”

“Yeah, a lot of them do. And some of them wear eyeliner, but that’s not for me. The only reason I’m wearing clear, you know, clear polish is to stop me from biting my nails.”

“Kirk, the solution is far worse than the problem. Most boys your age bite their nails. You’ll grow out of it. In the meantime, no nail polish or eyeliner, got it?”

Then Laird, seeing Kirk tear up, embraced his son, “There, there. I’m not mad at you. I just need one of my boys to look like the genuine article. You understand that, don’t you? I love you just as you are — all boy, through and through. Please God, don’t ever change.” He kissed Kirk on the forehead: “Great haircut, son. The military look really suits you.”

Kirk cheered up quickly: “You won’t ever see me again in polish. And eyeliner? Never! However, can I keep the studs? Even Steve Cowell — you know him, he’s our quarterback — even he wears ‘em.” Laird nodded assent. What else could he do? He realized that studs were popular with pro athletes, including even a super dude like Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star.

Maggie stayed silent until Kirk had gone to the kitchen for a glass of milk (or more likely, a swig from the carton); and then she turned on her man: “Laird, you surprise me. I didn’t think it mattered to you what the boys wore. You’ve always said that you wanted them to do their ‘own thing’, even if it meant, in Blair’s case, wearing a skirt.”

“Well, that was before I actually saw Blair in a skirt and pink panties! I’m sorry, Maggie, theory’s one thing, reality quite another. When I agreed to let you Blair vent his “feminine side,” I had no idea that it would take you less than a day to get him completely dolled up. Forgive me for being thick-headed, but I actually believed that there was part of Blair that wanted to be a boy. A sissy boy definitely, maybe even a gay boy, but a boy nonetheless. Yet obviously I was wrong. You’ve won a daughter, Maggie, and I have lost a son. I suppose Blair’s already wearing a bra.” When Maggie nodded, Laird’s face did its utmost to express his dismay, but failed by a grimace and a half.

Laird pleaded for a deal:

Maggie, if you leave Kirk alone, I’ll let you have a free hand with Blair. You and he, or should I say ‘she’, will determine how quickly or slowly he changes sex. You’ve got enough money of your own to pay for a private girls’ school, hormones, even surgery eventually. So you handle it. I won’t interfere; I even promise to tell Blair each day how pretty she is. You see — I can even change pronouns, when I have to. Just advise me what’s best for Blair and you’ve got my full cooperation. However, never — and I do mean never -- again try to turn Kirk into a sissy. I promise to help Kirk to accept his new sister, but you in turn must pledge to help Kirk to grow into a manly man, Blair’s total opposite. Agreed?

They embraced in forgiveness and accord, their deal sealed.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it’s difficult to know which word applied, for Blair was surely, after all, much too young know which was the best sex for him, Blair hadn’t heard his parents’ negotiations because he was avidly sorting through his purchases in the living room. Suddenly he wailed, “What gives? I’ve got the wrong clothes! This green dress isn’t mine. I could neverwear this green dress, ‘cause it’s too big. And it clashes with my eyes!”

In the kitchen a “manly” boy gasped — somehow his green dress had come home to haunt him. Did a bra and extra-firm panties accompany it? Spluttering milk onto his tee shirt, Kirk raced toward the living room in a desperate attempt to head off his parents. However, they reached Blair and the tell-tale green dress first.

“You’re right, sweetie. We didn’t buy this dress,” Maggie was saying. As she said it, Blair, unable to stop in time, crashed into the coffee table. He first yelped with pain, and then started blubbering. Maybe tears would distract them from the dress.

Laird was distressed for his older son: “I told you, Maggie, that it’s foolhardy to mess with Kirk’s gender identity and self-confidence. Now, you’ve got him crying, crying like a little girl.”

“I remember this dress,” Maggie announced to them all. “Kirk, put a cork in it. I’m not impressed by phony tears, especially coming from you. This is your dress, isn’t it? I saw you wearing it at Penney’s. Laird, honey, I swear to you that I never asked Kirk to put on this dress or any other dress. It was his idea to do it, and I was so upset with his boorish behavior at Penney’s that I made him go without ice cream and popcorn. I wouldn’t even let Blair share his extra-sprinkles double-scoop cone.”

“Kirk, in a dress?” Laird moaned. Then more angrily he spoke directly to Kirk: “What got into you? Do you want to be a girl too? Tell me now, and we’ll let you wear your dress to school tomorrow. Better yet, we will insist on your wearing it. After all, you’re better with your fists than poor Blair, and if you’re looking like an even bigger sissy than Blair, the kids are more likely to leave him alone.”

“Dad,” Kirk wailed, “I don’t want to dress like a girl. Never, never. You can’t make me. I’ll run away from home if you try to dress me like Blair.”

Kirk then explained that he’d worn the dress to distract the sales clerks while Blair did his shopping: “Blair was scared shi …., was really scared that the salesgirls would catch him in his undies, with his pecker somehow showing. Not that he has much to show! Even so, he was terrified. So I did what any big brother would do — I made myself as obnoxious as possible so that Blair could flit about under the radar.”

When Maggie confirmed Kirk’s story, Laird supposed that one of the clerks must have stuffed the dress into a shopping bag to “get even” with an obstreperous youth. He began to have serious doubts, however, about his theory as Blair, with ever-increasing concern and confusion, pronounced almost half of the clothes to be someone else’s: “They’re not mine. I’ve got better taste than that!”

While Kirk admitted to having tried on the bra and shapewear (Laird could scarcely think of anything worse for his elder son to have done in public), the boy noisily denied having ever seen the rest of the clothes that Blair had discovered and rejected. Yet Laird wasn’t buying Kirk’s protestations: “Son, we need you to tell the truth. If you tricked Maggie into buying girls’ clothes for you — if you actually want to wear them — well I guess it’s just as easy to raise two girls as one.”

Laird sighed like Sisyphus. Was he really going to have to roll this burden up hill more than? Unable to look Kirk in the eye, he smiled benevolently at Blair, who turned away in confusion.

Blair simply couldn’t believe that his big brother wanted to dress like a girl, even in play. Blair’s day had already had more upsets than a child can bear — at least without a hot dog and a hug. First, he had learned that that his ‘mother’ wanted him to act and to dress like a girl. Second, he had discovered that he didn’t mind — maybe even enjoyed — masquerading as a girl in public, so long as no one saw through his disguise. Blair also had no problem with being a girl around the house if it kept his mom happy. He even thought it a bit of a giggle to wear girls’ clothes to school, provided that no one there suspected. And why would they if he had the same sloppy appearance as most of the boys in the school?

His mom had her harmless whims, which Blair felt obliged to serve in order to lift her sagging spirits. And he did think it “harmless” to pretend to be Maggie’s daughter, for Blair believed he was in no more danger of turning into a “real” girl through acting and dressing like one than Corey Haim had in the TG movie, Anything for Love. It was all make-believe, wasn’t it? In the movies the crossdressed dude always revealed his true self in the final reel, didn’t he? Blair was sure that everything would work out right for Maggie and him in the end, for he was certain that he would always be able to distinguish the player from the play, and the actor from the role. Blair was old enough to know that they weren’t the same: After all, it was stupid to think that Robert Downey Jr. took drugs just because he played Sherlock Holmes, a coke fiend, or that Charlie Sheen was a “bad boy” just because he pretended to be one in the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

However, the third piece of news — that his big brother might want to dress and to act like a girl — menaced Blair’s sense of security. It was no big deal for Blair to flirt with a skirt, for he couldn’t remember a time when someone wasn’t calling him a sissy. He had been told so often that he looked, walked and quacked like a queer duck, that the sudden realization that he could actually pass for a female was for Blair, as they say, like water off a duck’s back. It wasn’t something to fret over.

Yet Kirk was somehow different. Blair had always considered his brother to be pure drake, more eagle than duck, as macho as a bird could get. If Kirk could be a transvesty, it meant that nothing was what it seemed. It meant that Blair was living in a world full of smoke and mirrors, where everyone was stumbling about, perpetually lost, even Kirk.

It was important to Blair’s security that Kirk remain what he had always appeared to be — an average heterosexual kid, with nothing much in the way of looks, talent or skills to suggest that he was anything out of the ordinary. Kirk was solid; he was the adamantine rock upon which Blair, motherless for most of the life that he could remember, had built his sense of place, self and safety. Kirk was not supposed to crumble like talc. Blair therefore begged Kirk to clarify that none of the “dainties” in the shopping bags were things that Kirk actually wanted to wear.

All three — Blair, Laird and Maggie — had in the end little choice but to accept the “clerks’ revenge” story being peddled by Kirk. Maggie, showing everyone the cash register receipt, admitted that she had somehow bought the extra clothes unwittingly. Kirk had never asked for them. So how had they gotten into the bags? “I guess the sales clerks were, as Kirk says, out to punish him for disturbing the tranquility of their empty department; they must have snuck the clothes into the bags to get us wondering about Kirk’s manliness.

And it did get Laird wondering about Kirk’s virility. While Blair’s childish concerns were easily soothed, Laird realized that if son were a sissy, then both might be. Weren’t limp wrists, lisps and a passion for pink hereditary? Weren’t there entire families in which everyone sought to change gender? What if his XY chromosome was just potent enough to inseminate his deceased wife with boys, but not strong enough to ensure that her XX chromosome didn’t eventually prevail, making them girls at puberty?

Laird also appreciated that Blair and Kirk were the product of nurture as much as nature. Naturally it bothered him — Was he not a man and a father? If pricked from behind, did he not bleed? — that Maggie was determined to turn one of his sons into her daughter. Could he trust her to leave the other alone?

He definitely found it disconcerting when Maggie declared herself to be too busy to return Kirk’s share of the girls’ wear:

Laird honey, the clothes didn’t cost enough to bother to go to the bother to take them back. Blair will eventually grow into them. In the meantime, as punishment for his bad behavior, Kirk can stow them away in his bedroom. The sight of a blue dress hanging in his closet for the next one or two years should remind Kirk to behave like a gentleman the next time he accompanies Blair and me shopping.

“But mom, the bitches …” Kirk began before Maggie warned him, “Kirk, wash your mouth!”

Kirk resumed: “Those bit…ter salesgirls added twelve — twelve, you counted ‘em — pairs of panties. I don’t have that many underpants. Where am I going to put all those panties?”

Maggie replied:

Well, Kirk, I’m sure you’ll find some place in your room to hide your dainties. The best place for the panties, girdle and bras might be in the back of your underwear drawer, behind your undies. You can make room for them by throwing out any of your undies with holes in them. As for the socks, the white ones go to the front of the drawer, the pink and lavender ones, to the back. That should work unless you dress in the dark.

Laird scowled: “Kirk, understand, you’re just storing the girls’ clothes for Blair. Hand them over to Blair when he, she’s old enough to wear them. Under no circumstances, are you to wear any of them yourself — even as a joke, no matter who might ask you too. You’re a boy and I insist that you dress like a boy.”

Kirk, his head hung low, sort of nodded.

“What about me, daddy?” Blair asked. “I’m a boy too. Don’t you want me to dress like a boy?”

“Blair, honey, you’re different from Kirk,” replied Laird:

You’ve always been more delicate, more sensitive, more like your dear departed mother. You do so remind me of her. Kirk should stick to boys’ clothes because he’d make a really ugly girl. You, in contrast, look absolutely adorable as a girl. You’re exceptionally pretty, far too pretty to be a boy. Maggie’s right: You were born to be a girl, just as Kirk was born to be a boy.

Since Blair still looked doubtful, Maggie jumped in:

Blair, sweetie, boys have always treated you badly because you looked and acted like “a sissy” in their eyes. As a girl, you’ll be treated much, much better. Instead of trying to diss you, they will be trying to kiss you. Even that Justin Bibber kid will want to kiss you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Blair’s face went beet-red. “Yes,” Maggie thought, “you’d love to mess around with a mop-haired, pimple-free, teenaged boy. I’ll have to watch my daughter closely once she’s sufficiently altered for her to permit boys to reach home base.”

The rest of the evening had the appearance of tranquility, with Blair, who changed into a pale blue nightie after dinner, snuggling under Maggie’s arm, and Kirk, in denim shirt, Levi jeans, and black Converse sneakers, sitting by himself on the far side of the room. The kids had insisted on watching Mrs. Doubtfire.

The last thing Laird wanted to watch was a movie about a father who dressed as a “mature” woman to stay close to his children, but he appreciated that both Blair and Kirk had just gone through a lot that day. So the kids got their way, and Laird squirmed as his son and “daughter” laughed uproariously at the thought that their dad might end up in skirts. He looked over toward Maggie: “She’s not heard a word of the film,” he thought. “Blair has her rapt attention.”

Laird suddenly realized that he was jealous of the attention Maggie was giving to Blair: “The sooner that kid ends the suspense and admits that he’s a girl and has always been a girl, the sooner we can pump him full of estrogen, cut off his willy, and pack him off to a girls’ boarding school. Then and only then can Maggie and me get back to full-time loving.”

There’s no telling what Laird would have thought had he realized that there was no way legally to “cut off Blair’s willy” for another six years, even in Denmark and Zimbabwe. Laird expected Blair’s total transformation to take less than a year, for he was a firm believer in Maggie’s ability to get whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. She wouldn’t let American law or physicians’ ethics get in any plans she had for Blair.

That night, after they had gone to bed, both kids were awakened by a loud argument emanating from the bedroom shared by Maggie and Laird. It was frightening: Never had their “parents” been so angry with each other. After forty anxious minutes of eavesdropping and sleeplessness, Blair finally divined that they weren’t fighting about him. Indeed, he heard his daddy yell, “You know that Blair’s not the issue. We both agree that he’ll be happier as a girl, but Kirk’s an entirely different matter.”

Now convinced that he only had to dress like a girl to keep his parents happy and their “marriage” intact, Blair drifted off to the land of the sleep fairy. Kirk, however, was still tossing and turning a full hour after the argument stopped. He had been forcefully reminded that his father wouldn’t permit the slightest deviation by Kirk from gender “normalcy”.

“My life’s a straightjacket,” Kirk muttered, “while Blair’s is Joseph’s multi-colored coat. One minute he’s a boy, the next, a little girl. He’ll probably be a boy again tomorrow. Life’s not fair.” All too true, and Kirk was unable to fall asleep until he’d yanked his new studs from his ears. Two drops of blood stained his pillow case.

Maggie made sure that Blair dressed as a girl the following morning. It was Sunday and, to get him into an actual dress, she insisted that the whole family go to church for the first time in their irreligious lives.

Maggie had to accept Blair’s word that he was wearing his fanciest satin panties, since neither child was willing to let a “woman” see them in their underwear. Maggie tried to explain to Blair that it was common for “we females” to see each other undressed, even naked. “It’s different for us girls,” she explained. “If you really want to be my daughter, you’ll let me give you a bubble bath, dry you off, and then dress you, starting with your bra and panties.”

Blair did agree to stand bare-chested, wearing nothing but a towel around his midriff, while Maggie affixed his training bra, but only because he couldn’t figure out how to close the clasps by himself. But there was no way that he was going to drop the towel in front of his mommy. Maggie had come into his life at an age, ten years and counting, that he had already become shy about his body. She had never seen his boy parts, and that wasn’t about to change now, no matter what she said “us girls” did together. They all sounded like lesbians.

It was embarrassing enough for Blair to have to tell Maggie that, yes, he had taped his balls into his body and his dick between his legs, so that, as Maggie had explained, nothing could possibly show if he ever forgot to sit demurely like a girl. (She also intended the tape remind him that if needed to pee when they were away from home, that he must do it while seated in a stall in the girl’s toilet. He was never to chance standing.

Although Blair didn’t think he could ever find the nerve to enter a women’s washroom, sitting down to pee had in recent months become second nature. Even Kirk claimed to have been sitting down to pee for the past three months — ever since Maggie had berated the two boys for missing the bowl “most of the time”. Blair, an obedient child, hadn’t once stood to urinate since the harangue. He even squatted when he peed outdoors. Kirk, by contrast, always used an available urinal, and at home he left the toilet seat up more often than not. Blair had gotten into the habit of closing toilet seats to cover for his brother.

This Sunday morning Blair had largely dressed himself, although he’d turned to Maggie for help with his bra, dress zipper, makeup and hair. He looked spectacular in his white tights and “Cinderella” taffeta dress in soft peach polyester with pearl accents. His white “Rachel” sandals (with embroidered flowers and beads) would have been the perfect finish to his “look,” had Blair been able to cope with their two-inch heels. He tottered about like a drunk.

Kirk stopped laughing long enough to suggest that Maggie teach Blair “how to walk like a girl”.

“No can do,” Maggie replied, “We don’t have time for lessons. We’ll be late for church. After all, we’re not even sure where to find it. No, we have to leave right now. Kirk, hang close to your sister and make sure that she doesn’t fall flat on her face.”

It wasn’t surprising that Maggie and the family had only a vague idea where the church might be located, for neither she nor Laird had ever paid the slightest attention to organized religion. Laird was so ignorant of Christianity that he surmised that Jesus of Nazareth must have been, given his name, a Mexican Indian.

Why then did Maggie insist on a church? Because she wanted an excuse to dress Blair up in his Sunday best. In America in the early twenty-first century there weren’t many opportunities for a young girl to wear her finery.

In the single, yet empty, church in their post-Christian suburb there was little or no chance of meeting a friend or neighbor who knew Blair as a boy. However, Maggie refused to attend it because she had no intention of letting her son Kirk come anywhere near a Catholic priest; thus the family drove to Paradise, a nearby college town to find an alternative to Our Lady of the Lustrous Child.

Despite a population of 92,000 souls, Paradise’s sole “religious institution” (the non-committal designation on the Fraternal Sorority of Sea Otters’ sign listing the town’s facilities) also had difficulty filling the pews, and to attract a critical mass of paying customers, St. Wicca of the Sacred Crescent, Cross, Mushroom and Menorah had not only dispensed with pews in favor of prayer rugs but also offered a religious mish-mash that it hoped would exclude nobody. (Even atheists could buy a certificate, suitable for framing, signed by St. Wicca’s Board of Directors affirming that “…. [the atheist’s name goes here] is too intelligent and rational to believe in God.”)

After hanging their soggy rainwear on wall pegs just inside the entryway, Laird’s family nervously entered the place of worship. Although St. Wicca sold postcards of a haloed President Barack Obama for five dollars each in its outer lobby, the walls inside its main hall were as unadorned and devoid of religious symbolism as a US government office. Indeed, the only hint that St. Wicca was a place of devotion was the twelve-foot-tall statue of गणेश (or "Ganesh", for the handful of readers whose Sanskrit is rusty), the elephant-headed deity revered by Hindus as “The Remover of Obstacles” (as a prominent plaque explained).

Although Maggie wasn’t sure which book of the Bible related the story of Ganesha, she considered “The Remover of Obstacles” to be an auspicious omen for Blair because Ganesha, originally as human in form as an American boy, had had his head cut off by omnipotent Shiva. Shiva (pronounced Shee-vah, according to the plaque — could one get more female than that?) had then replaced the original with an elephant’s head. Thus transformed, Ganesha had become a true immortal — like Lillian Gish, Katherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep or Paris Hilton. If only Blair could be so fortunate! And it was only his littlest head that Maggie hoped to have cut off.

On entering the church, the entire family had been immediately drawn, as intended by St. Wicca’s preacher-facilitator, Dr. Bryce Frederick Mercury-Wilde, to the statue of Ganesha. Mercury-Wilde had also arranged their second stop: in full, enticing view to whoever stood directly in front of Ganesha, it was a wall plaque containing “The Ten Commandments.” As none of the family had been able to read the original Hebrew when they had seen Charlton Heston bring the Ten Commandments down from a desert mount, they were naturally curious to see if any of the (translated) Commandments applied to them. (Kirk, having heard some schoolyard jokes, wondered, for example, what exactly it meant about “not coveting your neighbor’s ass.” Did it apply only to neighbors of the same sex?)

Somewhat disappointingly, there was nothing Mosaic about the so-called Commandments; they were instead a list of “Rules for proper comportment within the religious edifice”, as follows:

1) No running, skipping or frolicking
2) No spitting, belching or tooting your own horn
3) No smoking (except Holy Weed)
4) No drinking (except Fair Trade coffee)
5) No eating (except organically-grown, local fruits & veggies)
6) No use of electronics (phones, games, iPods, stoves, etc.)
7) No displays of emotion or religious fanaticism
8) No sandals, swimsuits, bare feet or visible nipples
9) No snoring or frequent yawning
10) Absolutely no cross-dressing!

Maggie was appalled at Number 10. The elephant god seemed bent on trampling her most cherished desires. “I am beginning to think,” she announced to the family, “that this is not the right church for us. Perhaps we should leave now, before the service gets underway.”

Blair, giggling too hard to have read past Number 2, protested: “But mommy, I went to a lot of trouble to dress up for this place. It seems like a fun church. Can’t we stay for a while?” Kirk, having read Number 10, but seeing an opportunity to please his “sister” while teasing their mother, backed up Blair: “Yeah, Maggie, Blair should have a chance to show off her new threads.” (To Maggie, he whispered: “Don’t worry, Blair’s looks too much like a real babe to get busted.”)

So, despite Laird’s misgivings, the family seated themselves on four prayer rugs, each with its own colorful Zen Buddhist motif, in the middle third of the “religious edifice,” mingling there with the other twenty or so worshippers present. One of them was a bearded man wearing a crucifix, keffiyeh and kippah (a Palestinian shawl and Jewish skullcap respectively). Immediately he clambered to his feet and hustled over to them: “Salmus, newcomers! May peace be with and upon you; but you can’t all sit together. Here we keep the sexes strictly separated for propriety’s sake. Look around and see that it is so.” And so, it was: Blair and Maggie were the only “females” on the left side of the hall.

Maggie, a true-pink feminist through and through, would normally have objected and stood — well, actually squatted — her ground, but she couldn’t risk bringing undue attention to Blair. So, muttering all the while about Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony and Sara Palin (Maggie blaming the ex-governor for the church’s sexist rule), she shepherded her “daughter” to the women’s fold. Once there, a college girl offered them skullcaps to wear, its being unacceptable for a female to worship at St. Wicca’s with her hair uncovered. (Maggie noted only one female without a kippah: a teen girl with a shaved head and nose piercings.)

Finally the service began as Dr. Mercury-Wilde emerged from behind the elephant god. He was dressed in a colorful, embroidered kaftan in violet and velvet. At first, Laird’s family couldn’t understand a word he said. (Laird later learned from the officious, bearded man that the good doctor, believed that Catholicism and Islam were, or had been, wise to use Latin and Classical Arabic, “dead” languages learned by rote “because these conveyed the absolute inscrutability of God.” Likewise, he used Old Church Slavonic for the liturgy. He had originally tried Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon, after deciding that it was “truly as dead as a Norwegian parrot”, but he tended to slur his Akkadian, causing the congregation’s Marxists to fret that he was trying to put something over on them in Hebrew. In memory of the original, failed experiment, many congregants still greeted each other with Salmus, the Akkadian for ‘peace’).

The only thing that kept the family awake (although Laird once violated Rule 9 loudly enough to attract a stern look from Dr. Mercury-Wilde) was the two-boy choir, who manfully attempted the mixture of medieval plainsong, Wiccan chant and Tantric mantra required by the liturgy. Maggie couldn’t quite decode the language being used; it might even have been English, but no one had taught the boys not to mumble.

After the ritual sharing of a marijuana bong (Laird wasn’t pleased to see that Kirk handled it with familiarity), it was time for the sermon by Dr. Mercury-Wilde. Although none of the family stayed awake through it all, later in the car, with each one contributing a piece of the puzzle, they concluded it had been a discussion of “how to address God”. That was a very difficult thing to do, said the preacher, because no one knew what God was like or whether “he” even existed.

Dr. Mercury-Wilde immediately apologized to the congregation for the use of the word “he” because it was next-to-impossible for God to be anything like a human, and God was definitely not an elderly male with a flowing white beard. If not human, then what? Well, God wasn’t an animal, thing, spirit, sprite, animus, angel, force, light, essence, entity, first mover, big banger, clockmaker, space alien, Egyptian potentate, sun or star, black hole or nebula, planet or comet, Nature or Earth mother. What then was God? The preacher admitted that he hadn’t the faintest idea; “I only know what God is not. Does God even exist? You’ve got me — that’s a question above my pay grade. But I do know this: It’s impossible to find the words to address God. Don’t even try.”

Dr. Mercury-Wilde then uttered some imprecations in an unknown language, ending with, “Klaatu barata nikto,” his standard way of saying “Amen”. The two-boy choir repeatedly chanted a Zoroastrian prayer, “Righteousness is the best. It is happiness,” as their preacher sashayed to the lone exit, which he intended to block long enough to thank his flock as each of its “lambs” stumbled out of the darkened hall toward the gloom of the noonday rain.

When Laird’s family, having despaired of finding an alternate route out, finally reached him, Dr. Mercury-Wilde warmly embraced each of them in turn, giving each what he called “the kiss of peace” firmly and moistly on their lips. He lingered longest with Laird, who later swore that he had been ‘Soul-kissed’. Whatever actually happened, Laird was rendered speechless, spluttering and spitting. That left Maggie to speak for the family.

After welcoming them to the St. Wicca community and inquiring about the family’s home coordinates, Dr. Mercury-Wilde asked whether “one of the children” might wish to join the church choir. “They’re both of the right age, after all, and as you have seen, the choir could use some extra bodies.”

As Maggie had “read his beads” even before she had caught a glimpse of Mercury-Wilde’s hand flickering across her husband’s buttocks, she got downright mean: “Are you sure you’re interested in both of my children? Judging from what I’ve witnessed so far, it is my thirteen-year-old son who alone would interest you.”

“Madam!” the preacher said in injured rage. “Are you a homophobe? Yes, you’ve guessed correctly: I am indeed a gay man. But I am not a pedophile and it’s outrageous, simply outrageous, for you to suggest that I am sexually attracted to young boys simply because I am looking for another adult male with whom to share my life. Your brats don’t attract me; however, Laird does. He’s definitely my type.”

The good doctor leered at Laird, who turned away in confusion. “If you hadn’t such a narrow, bigoted view of the world,” Mercury-Wilde continued, “I was going to pay the two of you the high compliment of, first, asking whether you had an open marriage, and second, if I heard a mature answer, then whether Laird was willing to come with me this afternoon to meet my lover Bruno. Laird, you’re an obvious bisexual; don’t limit your affections to a blatant homophobe. I’m a loving man with slow hands, and Bruno is hung like a Kazakh stallion.”

It took both Kirk and Blair to hold Laird back, to stop him from slugging the preacher.

Taken aback, Maggie stammered, “I … I’m n…n…not a b….b…bigot. You’ve only g…g…got young b…b…boys in the choir. I figured you wanted another one — to chant, I mean. I meant no more than that.”

“Madam, why do you mention boys, given that you have only girls to offer the choir?”

“What the f…k!” Kirk and Laird immediately hurled themselves at Mercury-Wilde, Kirk kicking frantically, and Laird punching away. “I’d strangle you, you sick bastard,” Laird yelled, “but it would give you too much of a thrill to feel a real man’s hands around your throat.” Laird then joined Kirk in kicking Dr. Mercury-Wilde, who had fallen to the floor.

With each kick, Kirk shouted, “Can’t you see that I’m a boy, you sick fuck? Does that feel like a girl’s kick?”

In self-protection, hapless Mercury-Wilde assumed a fey version of the fetal position. His ears could still hear, however, and it gradually dawned on him, as Blair and Maggie begged with their “menfolk” to stop hurting him, that maybe he’d been mistaken about the gender of Laird’s two children. It was so difficult these days, he moaned, to tell the sexes apart. Yet he knew he had to apologize.

“I beg your forgiveness,” the preacher sobbed. “I truly beg forgiveness from you all, but especially from you, dear, dear Kirk. You’re obviously a boy. It’s now obvious.”

“Then why did you say I look like an effing girl? Does a girl wear a tie and blazer? (Earlier he had protested at having to wearing them, preferring his standard jeans and a tee; but it now suited him to take shelter in their mystical masculinity.)

“Why? Why did I get things so wrong? Because … of the … damn … Ouija board,” Mercury-Wilde gasped.

“What the …!” All four of Laird’s family simultaneously uttered a profanity, each starting with a different letter.

The preacher, now risen to his knees, explained: “You all heard the sermon. You heard me say that I don’t know how to address God. Well that’s true, tragically true. I don’t know how to talk to God. What sort of preacher is that — someone who can’t talk to God?”

Not much of one, Laird’s family concurred.

“But I have found a way to interact with God. God’s in the Ouija board. Last night I was sort of depressed about the size of the congregation and choir. So I asked the Board if either was going to grow. The planchette started moving ‘round the board like a soul possessed, spelling out words so frantically that Bruno scarcely had time to write them down. What do you think they said?”

“Well what? Laird’s family chimed in unison.

“First, that I had a chance to enroll a new family in the congregation — for the first time in months! Well, that was truly encouraging! I would have gotten down on my knees to thank God if I thought there was anybody listening. But I panicked, truly panicked today, because the Ouija lied to me about your children. True, it did say that I would know I had the right family because it had two children. It even got their ages right. Ten and thirteen, right? But the Ouija hopelessly faked me out when it indicated -- quite specifically, there being no equivocation — that the two children were of the same sex. Which sex it didn’t say; I wish it had been clearer about their both being boys or both, girls.”

His abusers had grown silent. None of them liked where this story was headed.

“I saw you worshipping Ganesha. As usual, I had secreted myself behind his statue in order to get a first look at my audience. Then, as I intended, you went over to read The Ten Commandments. I saw your back and neck muscles tense, Laird, when you reached Rule 10. Even your firm buttocks clenched — delightfully I might add. As for Maggie, she almost jumped out of her skin. I could tell that Rule 10 had triggered a discussion about leaving. I can’t tell you how joyous, and unsettled, I was when you all decided to stay for the service.’

‘Unsettled? What do you mean by that?” Maggie, now quite subdued, quietly asked.

‘Unsettled because everything — the Ouija board’s prediction, the family’s reaction to Rule 10 — just about everything told me that one of your children, Maggie, is crossdressing.”

Laird intervened: “Are you, a man of God, actually saying that you would actually enforce that ignorant rule?”

“Against a mere child? Never! Rule 10 is only intended to chase away the drag queens from “Cleopatra’s Clones”. You may have noticed its neon lights; it’s a gay bar only half a block away. I used to go there myself — that’s where I met my fashionista Bruno — until its drag queens, who all want the entire world to know that they’re guys, started standing around the back third of this hall, loudly gossiping and bickering. They were driving away all the paying customers,” the preacher wailed.

“So, despite what the sign says, you’d have no problem with a crossdresser in your children’s choir?” Maggie looked significantly, but furtively, at Blair.

“None at all. I was trying to find a way to tell you so, but then — it’s all my fault — I became distracted by Laird. I do apologize, Laird, for coming on to you so strongly. I’m usually more subtle than that. Normally I would have invited you first to join our Board of Directors; it generally meets for late suppers at my place. There is always more wine than food when we supp. After a while, in vino veritas, as the good book says.”

“It wouldn’t have worked, buddy. I don’t drink alcohol. But I wouldn’t have punched you out if you had moved more carefully. I’ve got nothing against gays, unless they get unduly aggressive. Why in hell did you grope me at the entry to a church? Why did you insult my boy Kirk?”

The questions triggered another bout of weeping: “I’m a woeful sinner. A stupid sinner,” Mercury-Wilde sobbed.

Only after Blair, taking pity, helped him to his feet could the preacher finish his tale:

When the four of you finally got to the door, I knew — absolutely knew -- that one of your children is a crossdresser. But God help me, I couldn’t tell whether it was Kirk or Blair. Both seemed so natural. So I basically spun the roulette wheel in my foolish, wicked brain and it came up ‘Kirk’. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Kirk; and please don’t kick me again. But there does seem to be slightly more of the feminine in you than of the masculine in Blair. Now, I know you don’t want to hear that, Kirk, but a boy your age must have learned by now that half of you comes from your mother and that part of every male is, therefore, intrinsically feminine. If that weren’t the case, men would be heartless beasts, incapable of enjoying music, the arts, or the beauty of women. To detect the feminine in you, lad, was no insult. But I do humbly apologize, with all my being, for concluding that you’re a girl pretending to be a boy. It just couldn’t be, and still can’t be, the other case — that sweet, darling Blair is actually a boy. The Ouija board must have lied to me! But why?

The preacher averted his face, protected his crotch with both hands, and tried to use the door jam to shield his shins. He expected Kirk to lash out at him again. Instead, Kirk, an odd, indecipherable look on his face, actually relaxed for the first time since the preacher had begun to speak as crazily as a Mad Hatter. Even more surprisingly, Kirk now thanked the preacher for an eye-opening church service. Kirk even seemed sincere.

What more was there to say? It seemed unnecessarily risky to tell the truth about Blair to such an unbalanced individual as Dr. Mercury-Wilde, and so the family, without further ado, took polite leave of his despondency.

After they had gotten into the car, Maggie turned to Blair: “See, I told you, sweetie. You’re definitely not a boy. You never really were. As the preacher said, there’s nothing masculine about you. What does my pretty daughter have to say about that?”

Blair beamed: “Say? Only this — that I’m as good an actor as Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams. Now will you believe that one day I’ll be able to buy a house for you in Hollywood?”

Maggie was speechless until they reached the pancake house they had chosen for brunch. And even there she seemed distracted, lost in her doubts.

As the family drove to the restaurant in the drizzle, there was no need to discuss the obvious: They would never return to St. Wicca of the Sacred Crescent, Cross, Mushroom and Menorah. Despite the lingering buzz from the bong, they had learnt that formal religion was not their cup of tea.