A story about a family with two boys aged 10 and 13, in which choice is a delusion and gender, an illusion. It’s a familiar theme in the TG literature, but this time with an unfamiliar twist. It seems impossible for Blair to stay a girl, even in a play. Maggie decides to take him to a doctor to accelerate his feminization. But why would any doctor cooperate?

Choices, Chapters 15 Mandy’s choice

Maggie was pacing. Already Blair and she had been waiting for over an hour. Why did these greedy doctors overbook? Finally, just as she had finally decided to leave in a huff or a minute and a huff, a haughty, middle-aged nurse with ramrod straight posture suddenly blocked her view of the door; the nurse sniffed, “Doctor Bene Sentirsi can see Blair now. I suppose you will insist on accompanying her.”

The nurse, pivoting sharply on her heels like a palace guard, marched into the physician’s consulting room, Maggie scurrying to keep up, Blair lagging well behind. After slapping Blair’s newly-made file onto the doctor’s desk, the nurse left to the quick march playing in her head.

“So you are Blair. And what can I do for you and your mother today,” the doctor began.

Maggie replied: “I’ve become worried by Blair’s breast development. It started early enough, given that she’s still one week shy of her eleventh birthday; but it seems to have entered a period of … stasis. Her breasts are no longer growing; and they’re always an angry red, puffy, and ultra-sensitive to the touch.”

“Hmm, Sentirsi replied, “I think I need to look at them. Blair, would you please remove your halter top and bra, that is, if you’re wearing one.”

Blair hesitated. He had never let an adult male see his breasts. It wasn’t proper.

Sentirsi cooed: “Oh come now, Blair, you’re going to have to get used to male doctors seeing you without your clothes. After all, I am going to have to give you a vaginal examination as well. I can assure you that I have seen so many female breasts in my practice that they have lost the allure they held for me in my adolescence.”

“If that’s the case,” Blair mused, “then why is he staring at mom’s breasts? And why, come to think of it, is she wearing that blouse? Not only is it missing the top button but I heard mom complaining only last week that the blouse had become too tight to wear anymore. She’s practically popping out of it.”

Blair also couldn’t remember when he’d last seen his mother wear a mini-skirt and sheer stockings. It was with these vaguely unsettling thoughts that Blair stripped off his halter top and training bra.

Doctor Sentirsi pinched, poked and prodded. He then looked up in some perplexity. “It’s definitely a rash. The swollen breasts and rawness result from the allergy and from the itching and scratching it induces. Does Blair have any known allergies?”

“Allergies? I don’t know of any,” said Maggie. “Oh, maybe strawberries. I remember being told that they once gave her hives.”

The doctor picked up Blair’s halter top and bra, on both of which he noted the J. C. Penney label and the polyester blend. He asked, “Do you often shop for Blair at Penney’s? And are Blair’s bed linen made of polyester? When Maggie nodded twice, Sentirsi believed he had found the culprit — it was polyester. He explained that allergies to polyester were quite common and that Blair’s symptoms — especially the redness, the sensitivity and the swollen breasts — were classic.

“The treatment is straight-forward. Blair should avoid polyester from now on. Her bed sheets should be 100 percent cotton and any comforter or duvet should be made from wool. And I’ll prescribe a hydrocortisone cream to deal with the symptoms.”

The truth was gradually dawning on Maggie: “Are you saying that Blair’s breasts, tiny as they are now, will be even smaller when her allergy abates?”

“Of course, Madam. Except for some subcutaneous fat, which might be baby fat, Blair hasn’t started breast development at all. It’s going to be quite a while before she has breasts as magnificent as her mother’s. While I shall have to verify my conclusions by examining her vulva, it would seem that Blair is late to enter puberty. She still has a boyish chest and [his eyes dropped] … waist, and hips.

Maggie glared at Blair, then yelped, “But that can’t be. That simply can’t be. Blair has been taking herbal hormones for months. They should have kick-started puberty.”

“Herbal hormones, like what precisely?” queried the doctor, a severe look on his face. He didn’t like people to self-medicate.

“Well, Blair has been taking Evanesce, Feminol, AndroEase and CalmCompanion, several pills of each, two or three times a day.”

“AndroEase? A testosterone suppressant? What the f ….” Doctor Sentirsi never finished the expletive (or was it an interrogatory sentence?); instead he grabbed Blair tightly by both shoulders and said in his most authoritative voice, “Blair, tell me the truth. You are a boy, aren’t you?”

Before Blair could answer, Maggie interjected: “Blair’s actually a transsexual, a girl who was born with a boy’s body. She and I have been trying to rectify that cosmic mistake, but as you have observed, the herbals that she has been taking were, it would seem, a total waste of money. That’s why Blair has come to you — to have a doctor oversee and accelerate her feminization. She desperately needs hormone therapy and surgery if she is to have the feminine body she needs for boarding school in September. Isn’t that right, Blair sweetie?”

Blair, gulping, nodded.

His veins bulging, his fists clenched, Dr. Sentirsi leaned towards Maggie:

Feminization is entirely out of the question. Blair is far too young, criminally too young, even for hormone therapy, never mind reassignment surgery. Madam, are you out of your mind? You cannot legally, morally, ethically, sensibly or sanely mess around with the body of a prepubescent. No matter how severely Blair appears to suffer from gender dysphoria, nothing can — or should be done about it — until he has passed beyond puberty and is thinking like an adult. A sex change for a ten-year-old? It is sheer lunacy. What’s next — gold crowns on his deciduous teeth?

Maggie shot back:

My dear doctor, the only lunacy is to require a transsexual, who knows her own mind and destiny at age ten, to have to endure the agony of undergoing puberty as the wrong sex. He or she — it’s the same for both sexes — will never look as naturally feminine or masculine as they would if their hormones worked with, and not against their development into happy, well-adjusted teens. What earthly good does it for Blair’s features to coarsen and for his chest and chin to grow unsightly hair if he’s destined to become a woman at the first legal opportunity — at the first moment that you, the almighty physician, deems acceptable? Who are you to play god?”

“Ms. Maguire, I am a doctor. I always play god. It’s a role that I spent more than $150,000 to obtain. And you, Madam, with your insanely inappropriate behavior have put me in an extremely awkward position. On the one hand, as a doctor, I am required by State law to report your treatment of Blair to Child Protective Services. If CPS are true to form, they will charge you with abuse and take Blair into protective custody, and since I suspect that your husband is implicated in this mess, Blair will probably end up in foster care.”

Blair started wailing. “No, I don’t want to lose my parents. I’ll do almost anything to stay with them. I love them. They love me. Foster care will kill me.”

“That, alas, is the ‘other hand’ or the equation. If I report this situation to the authorities, I will surely destroy a family, and possibly a child as well. What makes my situation especially hellish for me is the fate of my own brother.”

Sentirsi’s voice was quavering. “My parents called him Michael, but she was Mandy to those who loved her. So many, many people loved her.”

Sentirsi suddenly broke down completely. Blair went to his side and wrapped his small arms around the weeping doctor.

Dr. Sentirsi wrapped his own arms around Blair: “Mandy died exactly fifteen years ago Tuesday last week. A suicide. Our family didn’t have the money for her surgery, because every dollar we could earn, save, beg or borrow was going to my medical education. Finally, in despair, Mandy took a desperate gamble that in heaven she could at last be a woman. She told us beforehand that God owed her at least that much. If only I had recognized the signs of distress …. I wish I shared her faith in an afterlife. It would make it easier … to live … with my guilt.”

Dr. Sentirsi, breaking free of Blair’s embrace, buried his head in his own hands. His sobs were the only sound in the room until Maggie spoke: “Blair sweetie, I want you to put your halter top back on. You can stuff your bra in your purse; it seems that you don’t need it. When you’ve dressed, could you return to the waiting room? Please tell the doctor’s nurse that he has asked for privacy while we discuss your … condition. Would you do that for me?”

As Blair hurriedly dressed, Maggie strode over to the window and pulled shut the Venetian blinds. As Blair quit the room, he saw that Maggie had gone over to console the seemingly inconsolable doctor. The last Blair saw were her hands kneading Dr. Sentirsi’s neck to release the tension.

Maggie spoke softly and sensually as she worked the tension out of his shoulders and neck: “There, there, you have no reason to reproach yourself. You couldn’t have known.”

“But I should have known! I was her brother. I was interning at a hospital; I shouldn’t have been so blind ….”

“An intern? You mean you were working sixteen hours a day for a risible salary? It wasn’t your fault. It really wasn’t. Yet now I know why you’ve been providing hormone therapy for teens as young as thirteen, and why — yes, I’ve been told —you’ve got a clinic in Cuba where you’ve been doing gender reassignment surgery, again for young teens who otherwise would have to wait four years or more for it. It’s all because of Mandy, isn’t it? You’ve been helping girls just like her.”

Maggie then swiveled the doctor’s chair so that he faced her. Tenderly she took his head in her hands and lifted it so that she could kiss his lips; then she whispered in his right ear, “Bene, that’s the perfect name for you, for you are a saint walking among us. You know, don’t you, that you’ve saved many, many lives? Think of all the brothers and sisters, parents and children, who have their Mandy still present in their lives — all thanks to you.”

This time he kissed her back.

As she kissed Bene’s lips, cheek and forehead, Maggie found time to say, “I just know you can help Blair too. Sure, she’s young but she’s a smart kid and she knows that she was born with the wrong genitals. You can help her, I know you can.”

Before the doctor had a chance to reply, Maggie took one hand and placed it on her blouse, his fingers touching the bare top of her right breast. She didn’t have to move the other hand; of its own volition it began unbuttoning her blouse.

Sentirsi said nothing until the blouse lay upon the floor: “You’re so beautiful. Your breasts, they’re wonderful. Please, please let me see them in their natural glory.”

“Put your arms around me, Bene. I want you to unhook my bra.” Then, as the doctor’s fingers fumbled with the clasp, she whispered in his ear, “You can help Blair. I know you can. I know you will.”

“I can’t. I just can’t. Blair is much … too young. I don’t have … the right,” the doctor said, breathlessly, just before he tried to bury his head between Maggie’s exposed breasts.

With one hand Maggie guided Bene’s lips to suckle on a nipple, and with the other she moved his right hand to unzip her slacks: “Bene, the priests and the lawyers would say you didn’t have the right to help any of those girls. They were all too young in somebody’s eyes. Blair needs your help. Don’t let her become another Mandy. You can’t ask her to wait six or eight years.”

Bene had nothing to say, for Maggie’s lace thong was coming off with her slacks.

At this point in Blair’s story, it is important to realize that Maggie is, no matter her behavior, the only mother the poor child has. For Blair’s sake, it is best not to relate vivid stories about the half-hour she spent in the doctor’s locked office.

By all means let your imagination and sympathy roam. Ask yourself what you think Maggie would have done to further her ambitions for Blair. Consider as well how much or how little a doctor as fundamentally decent, yet as lawless as Bene Sentirsi, would demand of her, as she pled for her child’s happiness. How far did they go? How much did they do? Or how little? These are questions for you to answer in your own imagination, for they cannot be laid out in a story about a child, even one as sexually precocious as Blair Finlayson.

Blair had just finished his third pamphlet about the dreadful ailments that might await him as a woman when Maggie, her face flushed and clothes disheveled, emerged from the consulting office with Dr. Sentirsi. Excitedly she rushed over to Blair to say, “Sweetie, it took a lot of persuading, but the doctor has agreed to take you on as a patient. He’ll be giving you your first shot — that’s the really important one — on Thursday. In the meantime I have pills for you that will work a lot faster than those herbal hormones. And this is the best news — we’re going to Cuba, to a Caribbean island, in July! Won’t that be fun?”

Meanwhile, Dr. Sentirsi asked his nurse to schedule a series of sessions with Blair, as well as a weekly appointment with Maggie to deal with her “cervical” problem.

“Wednesdays, right after lunch, as usual, doctor?” the nurse asked.

“Yes, Wednesday afternoon will do fine,” said Bene, as his fingers played with Maggie’s thong, currently in a pocket of his white coat, but destined for his trophy drawer. Maggie definitely wasn’t his first “mlf”, but she was the best so far.

It was in the car driving home that Maggie detected that Blair was less than enthusiastic about the hormone therapy she had just arranged. “Do I have to?” Blair whined. “Things are fine the way they are. Nobody ever guesses I’m a boy. I don’t need boobs to fool ‘em.”

“Fool them? We’re not playing a game, Blair sweetie. We’re playing for keeps. I don’t want you merely to pretend to be my daughter; I want you to be her -- a real girl, who for love of me is willing to become a complete female … forever and a day.”

“But I’m a really good actor. I got the lead in both Giselle and As You Like It, didn’t I? And I’m much better at playing a girl than Corey Haim, Alex Linz, or Chad Lowe, or even that little French boy in that rose movie. Isn’t that enough, mommy?

“Blair, can’t you understand that I want you to be a real girl, not a pretend one?”

“I want to be a real girl for you, mommy, but I can’t grow girls’ breasts.”

“And why not, sweetie? Why have you changed your mind? There have been weeks when all you talked about was getting breasts to please Alicia. Blair, have you given up being a lesbian?”

“Sometimes I’m a lesbian,” Blair confirmed:

Alicia calls me a lipstick dyke. She’s got a way of making me beg for boobs, even for a virgina, ‘cause I know they would make her so happy. And I always aim to please. But I stop wanting to have a girl’s body when I’m with Cody. He’ll freak if I grew boobs or my willy vanishes.

Maggie sighed. Deep down, she’d always known it was a mistake to allow a gay boy like Cody to pal around with Blair. However, she had welcomed Cody into their life because he encouraged Blair to associate his sexuality with crossdressing. Cody had always seemed as anxious as Maggie for Blair to dress in an especially feminine way. Until it was too late it hadn’t occurred to Maggie that Cody was also teaching Blair to love the male body, even Blair’s own.

Maggie admonished Blair: “You can’t live your life to please Cody. He’s almost three years older than you; he’ll soon be moving on to girls or boys his own age. You can’t count on Cody. Your family — that’s what you can count on in life. And you know that everyone, even Kirk, wants you to continue with your sex change.”

“I don’t think that Kirk wants me to be a girl. He just doesn’t want a sissy brother at his school.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Blair. Everyone believes that you’ll have a much happier, better lifer as a female than you’ve had as a male. Isn’t that already the case — I mean, that the past few months have been your happiest? As a girl, you’ve made far more friends, including two exceptionally close friends, than you ever had as a boy. You even won a soccer trophy as a girl. You’d never have gone near a soccer pitch as a boy. Even Cody wants you to be a girl for him. You know something? You two boys are awfully loud when you’re together; I’ve even heard you through two closed doors. I know that Cody treats you like a girl, Blair. If you don’t start taking precautions, you could get pregnant.”

“Do you think I could get pregnant? Boys can’t have a baby, can they?” Blair asked.

Maggie replied:

Boys don’t normally get pregnant and have babies, Blair, because they don’t let other boys do to them what Cody does to you. Of course, you’re at risk of getting pregnant. That’s one reason why you’ve got to start taking the pills Dr. Sentirsi gave me for you; one of them is a birth control pill. If you’re going to do ‘naughty things” with Cody, then I insist on your protecting yourself by taking this pink pill each morning. After all, with you entering puberty, you and Cody will become capable of creating a baby together. If you can cum, Blair, then you’re not too young to have a baby. So you’ve got to go on the Pill. Understood?”

No, Blair didn’t understand. He was getting very confused. He would have sworn that a guy couldn’t get pregnant, but earlier that day he had seen revealing pictures of a pregnant man in the waiting-room copy of Egyptian Weekly Magazine. Unable to read the eGypsy language, Blair couldn’t decipher how the guy got knocked up, but given the basics of male plumbing, the man must have gotten pregnant while lying on his stomach, just like he did for Cody. Maybe, Blair hoped, the pink pill could undo what he and Cody had done together last night: “Mom, can I have a pink pill now? I don’t need any water ‘cause it’s pretty small — not like that other one the doctor gave you.”

Maggie smiled exultantly as Blair got his first taste of synthetic estrogen. Fear of pregnancy would keep Blair taking the pink pill. All Maggie had to do now was to sell Blair on the merits of the “horse pill”. There was no point, Maggie decided, in sugar-coating it. She wanted Blair to know it would give her “big boobs” and a “smaller willy” and maybe even make it impossible for her ever again to wear boys’ jeans. So Maggie, stopping the car by the side of the road, held out the “horse pill” and told Blair to swallow it, even as Maggie exaggerated its immediate effects:

I want you to take a Big Pill like this twice a day and to give us a big smile when Dr. Sentirsi gives you a needle with enough female steroids in it to turn two boys like you into females. After taking just one of these Big Pills, your body’s chemistry will become half-female. After three of the Big Pills, your body will have swung so far over to the female side that you’ll never be able to be a boy again. Your genitals will eventually disappear entirely — that’s after just a couple of months of taking the Big Pills. But don’t fret — the doctor can give you a clitoris and vagina so you don’t end up with nothing at all to touch between your legs. Okay, Blair, this is where the play-acting stops and real life begins: If you love your family, if you love me, if you want to be truly happy, you will take the Big Pill now and will keep taking it until Doctor Sentirsi declares your sex change complete.

Blair cautiously moved his right hand toward the Big Pill, as though towards a glowing hot coal. He actually touched it before his arm retracted with a violent spasm, as though he had scorched his fingertips. “I can’t, I just can’t. I’m happy with the way I am. I don’t need my body to become more feminine ‘cause I already look prettier than most girls. Everyone says so.”

“Maggie replied sharply:

Blair, you little fool, if you don’t start taking the Big Pill, then male puberty is going to make your body ugly; your cute button nose will become an enormous hooter, and your features will coarsen. Who knows? You may end up looking like Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame. Your eyebrows may grow together into a bushy unibrow; if that happens, you’ll look like a werewolf bitch whenever you wear a dress. You may end up with such a heavy beard that you’ll have to apply your makeup with a trowel, and still have a five o’clock shadow. Your shoulders may become so broad that you’ll look as hopeless in drag as Michael Oher, The Blind Side offensive tackle. And you’ll probably end up so narrow in the hips, with such a skinny ass, that Gumby will have more chance of passing as a female than you.

“That might not happen,” Blair objected. “Maybe I’ll grow up beautiful like Justin Bieber, Jason Dolley or Nick Jonas. They don’t look like cavemen.”

“They’re still awfully young. Time will tell. Look at what happened to John Travolta and Corey Haim. Passing through male puberty is, Blair, like playing Russian roulette with your appearance. You are a true beauty right now and if you faithfully take the Big Pill, I guarantee that you will always be a beautiful girl. If you don’t take it, one day you might look like Mick Jagger or Keith Richards. Here — take the pill, sweetie. Do me this one big favor. If you do it, you’ll be my beloved daughter forever; I’ll never stop loving you. Take the pill, sweetie, and you’ll never lose your mommy again.”

This time Maggie put the Big Pill directly on Blair’s tongue, and as one would a cat, she stroked his throat to activate his swallow reflex. Sure enough, the pill started going down Blair’s throat.

Maggie had won. Or had she? Without water, the pill proved too big for Blair to swallow. He started choking, his face becoming Na’vi blue once again. Alarmed, Maggie herself put her arms around her “daughter’s” chest to expel the Big Pill. It plopped into the dirt as Blair, bent over, fought to regain his breath.

Finally, he had inhaled enough oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide to speak: Apologizing for wasting a pill, Blair actually offered to take another. Though tempted to let him try again, Maggie realized that Blair needed a glass of water to keep the Big Pill down: “Blair, sweetie, you’re the best daughter, indeed the best child, any mother could have. The Big Pill can wait until we get home now that you have convinced me that you are committed to changing your sex permanently.”

During the rest of the drive home, Maggie reminded Blair, over and over again, of the critical importance of Blair’s completing his sex change. She explained how suicidal she had felt when the doctors told her that she would never have a daughter. She had almost gone out of her mind. Grieving for the daughter she’d never have, her mind had been seized with thoughts of harming herself, of running away, even of finding another family to love, one with a daughter Blair’s age. But then, like a Biblical miracle, she and the Finlaysons had been saved by the fortuitous discovery that Blair was a transsexual.

“That’s what you are, Blair — you’re a transsexual. As such, you have a split personality. To heal yourself, to become a whole person, you need these pills and some minor surgery by Dr. Sentirsi. Once you have the right body, a gorgeous female body, you’ll never be lonely or unhappy again.”

Blair was doubtful. Life just wasn’t that simple. It is true that he’d often fantasized about being a female, but not for the rest of his life. He just wanted to be a real female long enough to verify whether Alicia was telling the truth when she told him that no male had ever experienced anything like the orgasm that one woman could give to another. His body tingled in anticipation of comparing the two types of orgasm that Alicia had promised him; yet that tingling was the very reason he feared losing his manhood forever. Both Alicia and Cody had amply demonstrated to Blair that there was nothing wrong with the pleasure sensors in his existing, male body. What he already had, he was understandably reluctant to give up — especially when it was easy for him to pass as a female.

“Blair, I have an idea,” said Maggie. “Let’s make a party out of your taking your first Big Pill. With chicken nuggets, fries, chocolate milk, vanilla ice cream and chocolate cake — all the things you like. And we’ll invite Alicia and Angela. Isn’t that a great idea?”

Blair guessed so. He wasn’t going to turn down ice cream and cake. So Maggie pulled out her mobile phone, and as she drove along one-handed, she arranged for Alicia and Angela to attend Blair’s “coming out” party. As Maggie got into convoluted conversations with their mothers, through inattention she and Blair had one narrow escape after another from slow cars, passing cars, turning cars, cars wandering like them over the white line, and from cars brazenly parked in the parking lane.

As his brief life kept flashing through his brain, Blair wondered if he really wanted to die as a girl. The mere thought of being undressed in the morgue so seized him with dread that he and Maggie almost ended up there, as he became too preoccupied to advise Maggie that traffic was backed up at a stop light. Fortunately, it was only a fender-bender.

Understandably, Blair begged off accompanying Maggie to the supermarket. That gave Blair some time alone with Kirk, who had arrived home from school with the news that “the guys” had discussed over lunch whether any of them would ever date “a girl like Blair” after a sex change. In principle, the answer was “no” or “never” or “I’d rather date a nanny goat”, but two of the guys allowed that Blair was bound to be “a fox” and that for “her” they might make an exception — just out of curiosity, mind you.

Kirk told Blair that the conversation “almost made me lose my cookies, but, funny thing, “it also made me realize that it might be different for you, Blair. Maybe you won’t end up looking like a drag queen or skank. By starting young and being prettier than a heap of girls, maybe you can become a real babe, “cunt, periods and all”. Kirk expected to be hugged for his magnanimity, but Blair hung back, more pensive than grateful.

First of all, Blair wanted to find out whether he’d have “periods,” whatever they were if he became a real girl. Kirk’s reply was not reassuring: “Of course, you’ll have ‘em. If you’ve got a cunt, then it’s going ooze blood once a month, like clockwork.”

“Ooze blood? That sounds dangerous! Do girls ever die from their periods?”

Kirk was “reassuring”:

Nah, they stuff a sponge or piece of cloth up their cunt to stop the bleeding. So girls rarely die from having a period, but I’ve heard that they can become murderers when they’re on the rag — real crazed like that older chick with a guy’s name in Fatal Attraction. So you’re going to have to learn Yoga, sewing or Mohammedism, something to help you chill; otherwise you’ll off somebody. But never take drugs; that ain’t cool.”

Possibly if Kirk had been less “reassuring”, Blair would have left undiscussed the events of his day, for the two siblings hadn’t confided in each other for several months, in fact not since the expedition to Pierre’s salon and to J.C. Penney’s. Blair had been “too full of herself” for a real conversation, and Kirk had been too resentful of his “sister”, especially after Blair had “used her feminine wiles” to intrude on Kirk’s friendships. Most of all, however, Kirk resented Blair’s beauty and the effortless ease with which Blair passed as a female.

Yet it took only two words from Blair to topple the psychological barriers built over the past six months. Big Pill. Once Blair started talking about that evening’s last-minute party, Kirk became all ears. He even became sympathetic. Most of all Kirk wanted to know whether Blair “really wanted her girl’s night out to last a lifetime.” Blair, in turn, wanted to see whether Kirk had been keeping faith. After both had bared their souls, they again became close enough, if only for an evening, to hatch a conspiracy to mess with the Big Pill Party.