To See Through a Glass Darkly
by the Rev. Anam Chara

Chapter 7

Sasha dreams instead of hallucinating.

Sonia escorted me from her room to mine. And to my surprise, Mom was waiting on us there.

“Mom,” I began, “Sonia said you were already asleep.”

“No, not asleep–just in a dream!” Mom replied bearing a very motherly smile. “I just want to tuck my new daughter in. You can see that I have changed your bedclothes.”

A pretty pink, quilted satin comforter was in place of my accustomed blue, coarse one. The corner had been turned down, hotel style, with soft pink, satin sheets peeking out.

This was unexpected. I’d been thinking mostly in terms of how girls dress. Did they also sleep differently? So, tonight I would find out. Maybe this would be my first behavioral challenge?

“We want to get you started in style, Sasha,” Sonia told me. “We don’t always get satin sheets, but the occasion calls for them. You will have pleasant dreams tonight.”

“Just so long as I can quit hallucinating,” I replied. “It’s getting hard to tell what is or isn’t real for me. The problem now is if I can tell a real dream from one that’s hallucinated?”

“Мой Саша!” Mom pleaded, “don’t trouble yourself so much. You really do need satin tonight!”

“Thanks, Mom, Sis!” I said. “I am tired. It’s been a long and strange day. Maybe I can simply sleep tonight. No strange visions or anything.”

Getting into bed I noticed the feel of satin all around me, the lingerie as well as the sheets. My Mom and sister both kissed me on the cheeks and I bid them both “Good night!” The satin felt cool and luxurious. I could get very used to this, it felt so–so…

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There was a chill in the autumn air as I stood along the sideline of the soccer field. Sonia, Deb, Marcia, Jacqui, Tina and myself were all wearing our school’s red, white, and black cheerleading uniforms. I felt happy wearing mine. Then Tom and Bill called to me from the field.

“Sasha, we need you at midfield,” Tom yelled.

Then Bill shouted the same words, “Sasha, we need you at midfield.”

Then, one-by-one, my teammates all repeated the words, “Sasha, we need you at midfield.”

“Sasha, I need you at midfield,” said Coach.

“Sasha, they need you at midfield,” said the referee, offering me a yellow card in his right hand, a red card in his left, as if to ask my preference. I pointed to the yellow one, for some reason that I didn't know.

“Tina, I have to go,”I said to my girlfriend, planting a kiss on her lips. “I’m needed at midfield.”

“But we need you too,” Sonia reminded me, “to do our pyramid.”

“I will come back for that,” I promised my sister.

I asked the referee, Can I stay in my cheerleading uniform?

Again, the referee offered me a yellow card in his right hand and a red card in his left. This time I pointed to the red one.

“The colors are the same. Everyone has seen you and already knows who you are,” he said. “You’re also too cute not to play as a girl.”

So, I began playing the game. My strategy seemed to be mostly distracting the other team with my uniform until I saw all of my teammates wearing the same colors of sweaters and skirts as myself. Yes, somehow my teammates were all wearing skirts instead of shorts.

Now Sonia was beckoning me to return to the squad from our sideline. It was time to build the pyramid. But I had to play on. The ball came to me so I kicked it over to Bill and started for our sideline. I was almost off the field when the play came my way again. An opponent kicked it out-of-bounds. So I took the ball for the throw-in and tossed it toward Tom.

Quickly I ran to my squad and positioned myself standing between Deb and Sonia. Tina and Marcia stood on my shoulders and Jacqui, the smallest of us stood on theirs briefly before somersaulting down.

I started back toward the field, but the referee held his hand up to signal me to wait. And Dad was now the referee.

“Son, are you midfielder? Are you cheerleader?” he asked me.

Then my coach came over. He asked me, “Are you a wave? Are you a particle?”

*******************************

I awoke in a cold sweat. Wave or particle? What was that all about?

The clock displayed, in green LEDs: “2:48.” I turned over to see Tina’s angelic face sleeping. Is she for real? I thought to myself. Then she was gone. If we were married, then I would see her sleeping like that every night. I cried. This was crazy. I was really in love with Tina.

*******************************

In the mirror Sonia was braiding my hair and wrapping the braids around the crown of my head, interweaving them with a wreath of flowers. She and I were wearing similar clothing, traditional maidens’ peasant costumes. We both had white blouses with embroidered trim and beautiful laced bodices and colorful patterned skirts with embroidered aprons. I wore a pair of nice soft leather flat shoes laced across the insteps and up around my ankles and lower legs.

Then I knew she was preparing me for my wedding.

“Art thou anxious?” I heard her ask in my mind.

“I hope so,”I sent my thought to her. “If I be not anxious, then it be not true. Thou art Woman. Understandest thou not?”

“Thou Brother,” she spake in my mind, “within us differeth each the Feeling. Thou feelest so because thou art Man, yet thou hast chosen the Woman’s Life. Christina loveth thee and accepteth thee, both the Man and the Woman. Alone can she marry thee. Thou acceptest her Love both as Woman and Man. Thou alone canst marry her. The One’s Dream awakeneth in the Other’s, thine and hers. Understandest thou not?”

“I, thy Sister, understand, yet I, thy Brother, understand not!” I thought, “How cometh that to be, my Sister?”

“Aye, my Brother! I say it,” she affirmed, “for ’tis true. Therefore camest thou unto me for to teach thee the Way of a Woman. Thou knewest in thy heart that thou must seek a Woman’s Wisdom, even unto becoming Woman thyself. When thou did so, broughtest thou Joy and Delight to Christina thy Betrothá¨d, to thy Mother, and to me thy Sister. And thy Father knew also that thou this Wisdom might seek for such had he in his Youth even sought.

“So would I,” the thought formed in my mind. “As Woman am I content. Christina is also content when I be as Woman.”

“Thou choosest the better Way, my Sister,” I read Sonia’s thought. “Happy am I for so that thou would stay. But know this: I love thee nonetheless in Breeches and Jerkin as in Skirt and Bodice. Thou art both Brother and Sister to me. So the One be always welcome and yet the Other be always missed.

“For he hath been brave and strong and she hath been cheerful and tender. Though but one be near to my Hearth, they both also be dear to my Heart!”

*******************************

Again I awoke. Sliding out from between the sheets, I sat up on the edge of the bed. The display proclaimed “3:39” in bright red digits. Turning on a low light and getting out of bed I thrust my feet into the high-heeled maribou slippers and delicately stepped over to the closet and opened the door.

The face that looked back at me from the mirror was indeed a girl’s. Sonia had done my hair in two braids and tied them off to the sides with blue hair ribbons. I smiled at myself. Then I started to blush. Turning my head slightly, I bowed my head just a little, and batted my eyes as coyly as I could. For some strange reason, I wished just then that I had freckles.

In my closet I noticed that there were now a couple dresses hanging there and a couple sets of skirts and blouses. I noticed a pair of simple black pumps with three-inch heels and a pair of ballet flats with bows on top of their toes. Then I thought back to the look on her face when I asked Sis to put them in my closet. I started to cry again. Then I suddenly knew. I wanted this. I had always wanted this. Sis knew it yet I had always been too afraid to admit it to her. But mostly, I had been too afraid to admit it to myself.

Slipping off the fuzzy slippers and turning off the light, I lied back down in bed. I began to cry yet again, over all the missed opportunities to dress up that I could have shared with Sis. She had always wanted a little sister so badly and I could have exchanged my desire with hers at any time. Was being a boy so important to me that I had broken my sister’s heart all these years?

I cried myself back to sleep.

*******************************

Tom, Bill and I were in the locker room. They had been in there a while longer and already had their pads on, pulling the long wool stockings up their legs and attaching them to the leather garters hanging down from their belts. The sweaters went on next, followed by the short trousers.

I fumbled the combination lock and had to try again. When my locker was finally open, I reached behind my waist to untie the bow at the back of my dress. Then I asked for Tom’s assistance to help unzip it in the back, which he willingly obliged. Quickly I removed my dress and slip, kicked off my pumps, then peeled off my pantyhose. Next I took my cheerleading uniform out of the locker along with a sports bra, a pair of sheer nude tights, and white figure skates.

“Hey, Sasha!” Tom addressed me. “You’ve turned out to be one hot babe for a guy!”

“Yeah!” Bill continued. “If we didn’t know you were a guy we’d wanna date you!”

“Well thanks, guys!” I replied. “I think?”

“If he can’t find anyone else for a prom date,” Bill teased his friends, “Tom might wanna date you anyway.”

“Sorry, guys,” I retorted, “but Tina’s got dibbs!”

“Aww!” Tom pouted. “And I was so looking forward to it.”

He slapped my butt sharply through my panties as he walked past me.

“Ow! Tom?” I yelled. “Y’know, I’m wearing these for female bonding, not male!”

“Pfff!” Bill expelled a sudden bilabial fricative. “I swear, Sasha, you’ve been more the man since your sister began dressing you up than you ever were before. Yeah, you can priss-about in your heels, but you can swagger in ’em, too!”

“Either of you two have the balls to do this?” I asked them, rhetorically. “I think not!”

“We know,” Bill snickered. “If you had thought, you’d’ve never done it!”

At once, both Tom and I threw dirty towels at him. I sat down on a bench.

“You’re just upset,” Tom rose to my defense, “because he’s a cuter girl than Shelley was when you dated her.”

That was a surprise. To any of us Shelley had been the prettiest, the most desirable girl in school. Before Tina and I got together, I would have done almost anything to get a date with Shelley. Among us, Bill had the bragging rights. For anyone to think me cuter than she was high praise indeed.

I had changed my regular panties for the tights and had pulled the red panty of my uniform over them. Next I blushed just a little as I took off my brassiere and put on my sports bra. Then I pulled my white turtleneck on over it and zipped the collar up in the back. The main uniform of matching black shell and skirt with red and white trim went on over the turtleneck and panty. The uniform would be completed with white figure skates, trimmed with red, white, and black pom-poms.

I went back to my locker and propped the door all the way open to view the full-length mirror. Next I brushed out my hair, gathered it up in a ponytail, and secured it with a white scrunchie. Now I sat down on another bench in front of the locker and put on knee and elbow pads. I put on fresh lipstick and lipgloss, then a little rouge on my cheeks.

I looked so cute!

Tom and Bill both wolf-whistled at me and I felt a lovely little tingle go through me. I so enjoyed being me! I was ready to step out on the ice. So, I got my helmet, gloves, and hockey stick from my locker and started out to the rink.

As we stepped onto the ice, Tom grinned at me.

“Now, show some spirit out there, Sasha,” he said. “We don’t want you to drag this game along.”

I grimaced back at Tom and gently elbowed him in the arm as he chuckled at me.

I skated over to the bench where the cheerleaders were sitting. All the girls hugged me and Tina’s lips met mine for a brief moment of liplock. Then they all gave me the high-five as I skated out on the ice.

Tom was a center ice for the face-off and I was on right wing, Bill on left. Tom won the face-off and I took a short pass from him and skated quickly past the opposing forward and into the attacking zone, then passed the puck across to Bill, who dumped it around the boards behind goal. I was there quick and Tom took the passout from me between the face-off circles. He passed left to Bill around the opposing defenseman who inadvertently was screening his own goalie. Bill’s wrist shot found the upper right corner of the net. The red light went on and a cheer went up from the crowd. The game clock shone only “18:54 Period 1” and we were up one-nil.

Skating back to position for the next face-off, the blade of a stick slapped my butt. Whirling around I pushed the offending player, the defenseman who had screened his own goalkeeper, away at his left shoulder. He swung back at me with his left hand and I dropped my stick and hit him with a simple one-two punch before we separated. The whistle blew and we both got called.

Glancing over at my team bench, I saw Mom, sitting behind the glass, off to the side. She smiled and applauded, giving me an approving thumbs-up sign.

The referee announced the penalties, “Visitor, right defenseman, minor for slashing and minor for roughing, four minutes total. Home, right forward, double minor for roughing, four minutes total.”

Then I saw that the referee was Dad.

“Son, are you cheerleader? Are you forward?” he asked.

“What Papa?” I queried.

“Visitor has added two minutes penalty for indecision,” Dad announced to the penalty timekeeper. “Six minutes total.”

The other cheerleaders came out and hugged and kissed me and they all got into their positions to cheer on the ice while I took my seat in the penalty box. They turned to direct their cheer to me:

“Have you chosen particle or wave?
You know ya only get to see one or the other!
Will you choose your legs or your face to shave?
Now tell us who you wanna be: Sister or Brother?”

What? I thought as I awoke in a cold sweat.

*******************************

The alarm began beeping, but it seemed too loud and too soon. I glanced over at the red LEDs glowing a rather premature “5:00” at me. Wait! That was two hours early.

“Good morning, Li’l Sister!” I heard Sonia’s altogether too cheerful voice. “Rise and shine!”

“Sis,” I growled at her, “my wake-up time is seven o’clock. It’s only five.”

“Your my Li’l Sis, now! We girls need to get up early to freshen up for the day, pick out our clothes, do our hair, and apply our makeup. We’ll be lucky to make it to school on time as it is.”

“You forgot, Sis. I can’t go today. I still have that medical deferment that keeps me home.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Sonia apologized. “Sorry I forgot. But if I’m gonna help you this morning, it must be now.”

Sis had a point that I had to concede. I agreed to her game and these were her ground rules.

 © 2010-2013 by the Rev. Anam Chara+