So far, Kyle has found it more difficult than he expected to keep a deal he made with his mother: That if he wears girls’ clothes for a month that she would buy him a moped (a motor scooter). Somehow he has become Demi, a full-time cross-dresser with a gay boyfriend and a lesbian lover. Everyone believes that Demi’s a transsexual, including her mother. Only Kyle knows he’s taking sex hormones, and only Kyle knows that he’d still rather be a boy. If the original deal was supposed to ‘feminize’ Kyle’s behavior as well as his clothes, it seems to have failed, unless it was the ‘woman’ in Kyle that caused him to "scalp" his school's coach. As this chapter starts, Demi has good reason to fear arrest and expulsion from school.

Anything for a Moped? - Part 13 By: Dawn De Winter
Chapter Seventeen: Jail Time for Demi?

Gulp. There it was. A police car! It was parked across the front entrance of Hoover High. As well as across the front exit. Indeed, to Demi’s eyes it appeared to block all the school’s exits. Empty, it had lots of room for her broken body. Where were the police? Demi knew: "They’re waiting to nab me at the Principal’s office. That’s how they always arrest you. When and where you least expect it."

She shivered at the thought of the cold steel of a policeman’s automatic pistol pressed up against the base of her skull as she lay prostrate and helpless on the ground, her arms painfully twisted and her wrists already reddening with welts from her manacles. And that was the best possible scenario, feared Demi.

For what would happen if she weren’t gutsy? What if she tried to make a run for it? Would they shoot her in the back? The cops often shot first, and asked questions later, when it was a matter of apprehending someone wanted for ‘attempted murder.’ And that crime bulletin described Demi, didn’t it? That’s what the Vice-Principal had told her mother Barb: That the police were looking for because she tried to kill the coach!

Demi definitely needed a good lawyer. However, she was far from confident about the one she had. Robert Taft Dinkins was, her mother reassured her, one of the best lawyers in Des Moines. But Demi wasn’t so sure about his credentials — former lawyer for the city and chairperson of the state’s Law Reform Commission. And she’d have to take her mother’s word and accept that he was a senior partner in the city’s most prestigious law firm, whatever that was good for.

Demi was underwhelmed by these so-called ‘credentials.’ She focused instead on his negatives, starting with his lack of experience. She had asked Mr. Dinkins whether he’d ever defended someone accused of murder. His reply had been evasive: He’d said something about having pleaded several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Demi continued her cross-examination until she’d forced him to admit that not one of his cases had involved a murder or attempted murder. So he was a rank amateur.

Which perhaps explained his price. Lawyer Dinkins was taking her case for free, "as a favor", he said, "to a fellow activist in Iowa’s environmental movement." However, Demi could see through the man’s pretenses. He obviously needed to get a start somewhere, if he were ever going to become as crafty as the attorneys on Law & Order. He was working for free just to get the experience — that’s how she saw it.

If so, why did he have to start with Demi’s case? Wasn’t Mr. Dinkins liable to lose his first time out? With such a tyro for a lawyer, the odds worsened that Demi would end up a lifer, picking cotton at the Angola prison farm.

With a lawyer so green that he dared not charge a fee, Demi felt she had a right to be nervous, even had ‘Taft’ not also been the father of Sherman Stokes Dinkins, or ‘Sherm’ for short. Yes, incredible as it seemed, Demi’s lawyer was the father of the gang leader.

Did Taft know that his son was a Shark? Did the son know that his father was a professional barracuda? Demi had no real idea of the answers, but she would have run for her life, nevertheless, the moment that Taft had informed her that his son Sherman had told him about "Demi, the brand new girl at school," had Taft’s chauffeur not been speeding at the time. When the 7-series BMW screeched to a halt in front of the high school, it was too late for Demi to run. And so, she asked, fearing the worst, "What did Sherm say about me, Mr. Dinkins?"

"Well, Demi, he didn’t know what to make of you at first. I would be less than candid if I didn’t admit that his first reaction was … negative. Indeed, he feared for your safety."

Demi gulped.

"But Demi, he’s come around. I think he even admires you now. But then, why shouldn’t he? Demi is quite a girl, isn’t that right, Barb? In any case, Sherman was delighted to hear that I’m representing you. He told me that Coach Bryant deserved what you did to him, and that the whole school is pulling for you."

"Sherm wants his father to defend me?" Demi silently fretted. "Jeez, that proves I’m being set up. Sherm knows I’ll get the chair if I’ve got an incompetent lawyer. He wants me to fry."

As she thought through the implications of having a newbie plead her case, Demi wished she had dressed less flamboyantly. Her first instinct had been to dress with prison in mind. Her gray cotton panties by Calvin Klein were so unisex in appearance that they were the natural first choice for the men’s hoosegow. But once she put them on, they didn’t look right on her, not at all. Besides, they weren’t likely to fool anyone about the gender of the clothes she was wearing, not if she wore the companion bra. And almost no one was going to accept her as just another guy in the lock-up if Demi wore her breast forms.

So Demi decided to dress as femininely as possible in the hope that she might distract or seduce one of the men who was about to decide her fate. They weren’t supposed to see her gaff or lilac satin lingerie, with its white lace trim, a push-up bra and high, French cut panties. But they would, with luck, remark on her snug, shooting-star jeans, her burgundy platform sneakers, and her pink-strapped, burgundy halter top, which showed off some three inches of her abs. She’d wanted to plaster on the makeup, but Barb had insisted on her looking her age, inasmuch as a fourteen-year-old was bound to be punished less harshly than an older, more jaded teen.

The more Demi thought about her novice lawyer, the more she wished she’d gone to her showdown as Kyle. While he might have no future at Hoover High, he’d at least survive his first half-hour in juvenile detention.

As Demi contemplated her future prospects, her flash wardrobe, and the gold ring in her navel, she gradually became aware that her mother was also expressing some dissatisfaction with their charity lawyer. Barb was saying, "Taft, you mustn’t tell Demi that her actions yesterday were in any way heroic or admirable, for they certainly were not. She behaved childishly, and today’s she going to face the consequences."

Taft patted Demi’s hand: "Now don’t you fret, child, your mother and I will make sure that you don’t pay an unduly high price for your youthful high spirits."

When they arrived at the Principal’s office at high noon, Demi liked its color scheme: There was an absence of blue. Not a police officer was in sight, either at the office itself or in its antechamber. Indeed, there was only one person whom Demi didn’t recognize. It was Chuck Jones, attorney for the school board. Also representing Hoover High were the Principal, Vice-Principal Cudmore, and Dr. Loupi.

The entry of Taft Dinkins into the office made quite an impression. Chuck Jones immediately rushed up to him, and started frantically pumping his hand, as he kept saying what an honor it was to meet, at long last, the man rumored to be the next appointment to the State Supreme Court.

Though Demi was still unimpressed with her attorney — after all, she needed a superior criminal lawyer, not a supreme type judge — the Principal surprised her by becoming quite deferential. She had never seen him in any role but High and Mighty Potentate. She didn’t know he could cringe with the least of them. She would have been even more surprised had she known that the Principal was at that very moment revising drastically downward the punishment he had in mind for "the school lunatic."

Vice-Principal Cudmore seemed to be lost in thought — or was it in panic? Demi had no idea that Cudmore regarded Taft Dinkins not as an eminent attorney, but as a messenger sent to him by the real masters of Hoover High, the Sharks and the Jets.

For years Cudmore had kept the peace at Hoover by allowing the two gangs to operate unmolested. He knew they were extorting money from younger students, but he deemed their lunch money a small price for them to pay for the privilege of attending a safe school, which Hoover definitely was, thanks to the rough justice meted out by the gangs to anyone else who disturbed the peace.

When the Vice-Principal saw that Sherm’s father was Demi’s advocate, he appreciated that he must classify Demi as a harmless prankster who deserved little more than a slap on the wrist.

Demi should have relaxed. She had the perfect lawyer.

It was Taft Dinkins who started the negotiations, once the pleasantries had ended: "May I ask where is Coach Bryant? I expected the coach to be here inasmuch as I have been led to believe that he has been threatening to have my client arrested for aggravated assault."

The Principal coughed nervously. He answered, "Coach Bryant is no longer a member of the school staff. It’s a personal affair. There is sickness in his family, and he and I agreed that he should take an indefinite leave of absence until his two brothers get better. We’ve known for a while that his brother Arnie was ill, but it wasn’t until yesterday evening that the coach learned that his brother Bernie also required … er, hospitalization, and the coach agreed that he will be too preoccupied with the illness rampant in his family to be able to give full attention to his duties at Hoover for some time to come. We wish him well."

Turning to Demi, the Principal said sternly, "Young … lady, the coach has told me that he all he wants from you is his hairpiece back. He told me that he doesn’t want to give ‘yet another little sh… er, teenager, a public forum for attacking his family.’ He is uninterested in learning the reasons for your … trying to humiliate him."

"Well, I can tell you my reasons, can’t I?" Demi protested. She shot a disapproving look at her lawyer. He hadn’t made a single objection to the principal’s testimony. And it was full of ‘heresay’ evidence! A girl with a novice lawyer has to conduct her own defense, which Demi now did.

"The coach has been picking on people who are at all different. He’s been acting unconstitutionally toward Brad Mitty, and he’s been ridiculing Vicky and me for wearing a bra. What’s it to him? Why should he care what young girls wear?"

Cudmore’s eyes were ordering her to stop. He didn’t like that allusion to the ‘unconstitutional" treatment of a gay, underage youth known to have been the coach’s ‘pet’. The school didn’t need a scandal. That was the reason the coach had been asked to leave, so that parents, hearing about the arrest of the second Bryant brother, wouldn’t demand an investigation of the third.

Demi pressed onward: "The coach gives all the boys the creeps. It’s the way he stares at you, I mean, at them. He’s always hanging around the …."

"That’s quite enough out of you, Miss James," interrupted the Vice-Principal. "It’s not the coach who is trial here. It’s you."

"This is not a trial," responded Demi’s lawyer. "You’re not suggesting anything like that for Demi, I’m quite sure."

"No, of course not. It’s not in the interest of the school for anyone to go on trial. Do you understand that, Demi? No one, I repeat, no one is going to air the dirty linen of this school in public. We don’t need the police and courts to get involved. Is that agreed?"

A knowing smile came over Taft’s face. He said: "Under the circumstances, there can’t be any question of Demi’s expulsion, nor that of any of her confederates, can there?"

"She has to be punished," grumbled the Vice Principal. "We can’t have our students driving their motorcycles through our hallways. We cannot have them assaulting the staff. Her ‘girlfriend’ even threatened me with a sword. There have to be repercussions. Er, what do you recommend we do, Taft?"

Taft looked at Barb who nodded her assent, then authoritatively replied, "A two-week suspension strikes me as being in order — that’s two weeks for Demi, since she was riding the scooter, and a maximum of a week for each of her co-conspirators."

Vice-Principal Cudmore reluctantly agreed. He had been planning to expel Demi, but everyone had let him down. The Coach had been the first to ‘bugger off." Then the police he had summoned to the school to intimidate Demi and her mother had wandered off instead to scrutinize the Coach’s files as he packed them away. Next, Demi had shown up with her ‘gang lawyer’ in a blatant attempt to intimidate the school administration.

And finally, Dr. Loupi had refused to co-operate. When asked earlier to certify that Demi was a menace to her fellow students, he’d threatened to resign rather than "harm that sweet girl." Indeed, Loupi warned Cudmore that anything more than a token punishment would do irreparable psychological harm to Demi at a critical moment in her transition from male to female.

"If Demi subsequently launches a lawsuit against the school board for damages," Dr. Loupi had warned its lawyer, "I am prepared to testify on her behalf. This school should be progressive enough to recognize that any transsexual is under enormous pressure at the moment she makes the decision to change her sexual identity. We should count ourselves fortunate indeed that Demi expressed herself with a moped rather than with a gun. Now that she has vented, I confidently predict, that she will become a model student — indeed, a far better one than Kyle, the boy, ever was."

Beleaguered and abandoned, Cudmore crumbled. Demi would get the token punishment recommended by her psychologist and lawyer. She had, of course, no idea how close she’d come to exiting the school and entering a holding cell. She only knew that her lawyer had let her down badly. .

Demi exploded: "I’m being framed! I thought Mr. Dinkins was supposed to protect my rights. He’s been selling me down the river!"

Taft glared at Demi. Apparently he didn’t find amusing her allusion to the slave auctions in New Orleans. Barb hissed, "Hush, Demi. We’re trying to work out what’s best for you. Please be silent and let the adults decide what’s right."

Vice-Principal Cudmore saw his opening: "The motorcycle has to be part of the punishment, or Demi will have learnt nothing from her mistake. She has clearly proved herself too young and immature to be in charge of a motor. If we were to report her escapade to the police, she’d be banned from driving her cycle for several years. So I propose an indefinite suspension of her driving privileges on an informal basis. I’m sure you’ll agree, Mrs. James, that your son … er, daughter is not ready for the responsibility of motor-vehicle operation."

Barb answered, "I am inclined to agree with you Mr. Cudmore, but I will remind you that teens grow up remarkably quickly these days. I’m confident that Demi will soon develop the necessary maturity to operate a moped safely and responsibly."

"I understand that Demi is going to be 15 years old in May," Taft interjected. "Why don’t we agree that she can get back her driving privileges on her fifteenth birthday if she has behaved in a mature and ladylike fashion in the interim."

Demi was too shocked to speak. She’d heard you could end up doing some serious time if you didn’t have a smart enough lawyer. But six months without her moped? That was cruel and unusual punishment!

How could her mother be so foolish, how could the James family be so destitute, that they had to depend on a ‘charity’ lawyer so incompetent that he thought that it was his responsibility to recommend her punishment! Jeez, talk about hopeless! Didn’t he realize that it was the prosecution that said, "Fry the bastard"? Demi resolved to look for a part-time job, any job, so that she and her mother would never again be so poor that they had to rely on a ‘no-fee’ lawyer.

And so it was agreed: Demi was suspended for two weeks, and Jo, Steve, and Tim for one week each. As well, the moped, so dearly purchased, was to be padlocked for six months. As Taft and the James family left the school, Demi could not remotely fathom why her mother seemed pleased with the verdict. Her mother was actually giving Taft a hug! Could you beat that? Adults! Who can figure them out?

Demi’s punishment did not end at the school gate. Barb also cancelled the expedition with the Lancers to Chicago, and grounded Demi for three weeks. She wouldn’t get, therefore, a second chance to wear her Pocahontas outfit. She was, however, permitted to stay in touch with her friends electronically.

As a result, Demi discovered the joys of phone sex with Jo, who’d insist on their describing every inch of their bodies in pornographic detail. When Demi realized that Jo became most aroused at the thought of making love to a ‘genetic girl’, she became one on the telephone. These chats did nothing for Kyle’s male self-image, but they sure made Demi feel hot. "Lesbian sex is," she thought after one such call, "sure a turn-on."

One call upset Demi "to the max". In it, Jo admitted that her grandmother no longer approved of her seeing ‘Kyle-slash-Demi’: "She thinks you’re a bad influence on me," Jo explained. "Gran says I never got into trouble before I started seeing you; and now I’ve been suspended from school for threatening to stab the Vice Principal. She blames you for that."

"That’s no big deal," Demi replied. "She’ll soon forgive and forget."

"Well, Gran did laugh out loud when she heard about your ride through the school, and she’d probably be willing to forgive you for getting me into trouble at school, if it weren’t for the … credit card."

"Credit card? What credit card," Kyle asked.

"Demi, I did something really bogus. I was so anxious to see you dressed right that I used my grandmother’s Visa card without her permission. She actually accused me of forgery; she said I’ve been acting like a juvenile delinquent. Isn’t that unfair for her to say?"

"Yeh, it sure is. But did you really forge her signature?"

"Once or twice — but it was for you, Demi! I had to help you. How do you think I paid for the gaffs, for the earrings, and the Pocahontas stuff? You needn’t them, didn’t you?" Jo then shocked Demi by starting to sob noisily at the other end of the telephone line.

"Of course I needed them. You did the right thing. Don’t worry, Jo. I’ll find you the money. Once she gets her money back, your Gran will forgive you."

"But how are we going to get any money, Demi, when everything we have goes to the Jets and the Sharks?"

"I don’t know. I was counting on selling rides on the moped. I’ll look for an after-school job, but you know as well as I do that it’s not easy to find work when you’re our age. The deck is stacked against you when you’re not fifteen."

"It’s so unfair," agreed Jo. "But there actually is a way we could earn one hundred bucks. Each of us! One hundred bucks! Are you interested?"

Of course, Demi was interested, but also skeptical: How could a kid earn a hundred dollars? Jo then explained that Melanie had freaked when she’d first heard from Jo that Barb had vetoed Demi’s guest appearance on the Vera Smuttee show. However, Melanie had been in much better spirits three days later when she’d phone back to say that the Smuttee producer had recommended she get into touch with an independent Des Moines filmmaker who was making a documentary about ‘special teens.’

Jo had then phoned Edwina Wood, the one-person production team, who promised each of the kids $100 (and, unbeknownst to them, $500 as well to Melanie) if "Demi" and Jo agreed to her filming a brief interview and then using it in her documentary for a cable channel.

"You mean that … Demi would end up in a movie? I’d prefer it was Kyle," Demi replied, her voice crackling with tension.

"Don’t be silly," replied Jo. "Demi’s really cute and sexy. And she’s an excellent dresser. She’ll look great on TV, ‘specially if she wears a dress."

"No dress!"

"Okay, okay. But you’re going to help me out, aren’t you? We need the two hundred dollars. Oh, Demi, if we don’t pay back my Gran, she may never let me see you again. She said you weren’t welcome at the house, until she was ‘no longer tempted to give Demi and Kyle the spanking that they both so richly deserve.’ Demi, if you really love me, you’ll agree to make the film."

Did Demi love Jo? How could Jo even ask? Demi agreed to be interviewed by Edwina Wood. As she’d need her mother’s permission, Demi outlined a campaign to guilt Barb into agreeing to the filming and to a rescheduling of her NBA weekend with Steve. While Jo was far from pleased to learn that Demi still intended to trade her virtue for basketball tickets, she had to admit that Demi’s plan would probably bear fruit, even in the barren month of November.

Demi said she would play on her mother’s guilt for relying on an inept lawyer and for reneging on their moped deal. While Demi had little hope of getting the moped back before her fifteenth birthday — an eternity away — she did believe that if she whined often enough about losing her wheels, that her mother would soon be asking the price for her silence — which would be, of course, the filming with Jo and the weekend with Steve.

Steve was Jo’s great rival. There were several nights recently in which he’d haunted her dreams. In these, always he seemed to be threatening Demi’s life. In one dream, he hit her over the head with a club to drag her back to his cave where he planned to eat her. In another, he was an archer in a medieval battle whose errant arrow struck Lady Demi in her heel as she watched her champion, Joan of Ark, charge into the fray. In the most frightening dream, Steve was half-man, half-goat. He was galloping after both Demi and Jo like a ravenous werewolf, and just as they were about to escape the beast, he turned into a bat. Jo would awake in a cold sweat just as the great horned bat sank his fangs into Demi’s throat of alabaster white. In the moonlight, Demi’s blue blood had the color of lavender as it streamed down her neck.

As Jo feared that Demi might be bisexual, she figured it was just a matter of time before Demi betrayed her with Steve or some other boy, that is, unless Jo could isolate Demi somehow from male company. A girls’ boarding school in rural Iowa was the obvious solution, and Jo had been spending most of her Internet time searching for a suitable prep school — that is, one that their guardians could afford and that the two teens would enjoy. The school also had to be one with a fairly liberal definition of who or what was a ‘girl’. Judging from its website, a school in Ottumwa, Iowa might fit the bill.

Could Demi be talked into attending an all-girls’ school? Given enough time, Jo felt the answer was definitely ‘yes.’ Jo was convinced that Demi’s destiny was the company of women. But could Demi be persuaded to bury the remaining shards of her boyhood in less than three months time? Probably not, alas.

Even though she would have been living as a girl for several months by then, Demi might still believe that she was taking only a temporary leave of absence from being Kyle. Therefore, Jo concluded that there was only one sure way to get Demi into an all-girls’ school by January: trickery. For her own good, Demi would have to be duped into thinking that she and Jo were going to be attending a co-educational school.

Did Jo feel at all guilty about her plan to trick Demi into attending a girls’ school? No, not really, for Jo believed in her heart of hearts that everything she was going to do, or had ever done, was in Demi’s best interests. After all, Demi must surely prefer to be her own woman at a girls’ prep school than be a browbeaten boy at a public school.

Demi could stand tall at The Amazonian School of Ottumwa, Iowa, whereas Kyle would have to crawl cravenly on his knees at Hoover High until he was old enough and tough enough to stand up to the gangs. The other fourteen-year-old boys at Hoover didn’t face such a stark choice, for no one of else was under gang orders to dress as a girl until he graduated.

Jo was certain that Demi would love The Amazonian School once she got used to the fact that it had no place in it for Kyle. It was, for starters, sports crazy. Not only was every girl expected to belong to several intra-mural teams, but it also had a record number of varsity sports.

Whenever possible, the Amazonians played in boys’ or mixed leagues. In addition to such obvious sports for girls as synchronized swimming, weight lifting, boxing, wrestling and rugby, the school also boasted winning teams in skateboarding and BMX racing. While their website did not mention mopeds, these might be covered by the pledge of the headmistress "to provide whatever sports facilities our students need to develop into self-confident, physically fit adults."

The Amazonian School promised an extraordinary amount of physical activity — rock climbing at Devil’s Peak, shooting the rapids of the Colorado River, cross-country running in the South Dakota badlands, hang-gliding in the High Rockies, and winter camping near Nome, Alaska. The cost of these excursions would be fully covered, it promised, by donations from the school’s graduates, and by the students themselves through bake sales, car washes, and auto repair work.

The school was not all fun and games. It also promised to get its graduates into the nation’s elite colleges, and to teach them the social and political skills to develop into "the leaders of tomorrow." To ensure that its students did not buy into gender stereotypes, the school uniform had optional trousers. And in any case, it only had to be worn on formal occasions, as the Amazonians normally wore jeans and sweats, so that they’d have no excuse to avoid the many physical challenges of their normal day.

The school seemed ideal to Jo. So she phoned up its admissions officer to see if they accepted transsexuals. The answer had been guarded and convoluted, but it basically boiled down to this: The school had no use for cross-dressers, that is for boys who got a sexual thrill out of dressing or acting like girls. It would, however, admit a genuine transsexual, that is one who was keen on transitioning as quickly as possible to the female sex, so long as he had the right attitude towards femininity. In other words, the school would expel any transsexual who deemed women the ‘weaker sex’ or ‘femininity’ as an excuse to mince.

To prove his bona fides, the boy would have to initiate his hormone treatments and show some breast development before he arrived. He was expected to complete his transition — that is, to have ‘the operation’ — within two years of his arrival. Any male student who refused to complete his sexual reassignment in a timely fashion would be asked to leave The Amazonian School.

"Had any transsexual ever attended The Amazonian School?" Jo asked, but the admissions officer refused to comment. Nevertheless, she left the distinct impression that the school had some experience in helping boys to become girls.

Jo came away from the telephone call really pumped. This was the perfect school for Demi and her. Confident that she’d find some way to enroll Demi at The Amazonian School when the time came, Jo badgered her grandmother to send her off to Ottumwa.

Virginia was at first leery of the idea, for she thought an all-girls’ school the last place she should send her ‘lesbian’ ward. But Jo wore her down with the argument that the Amazonians regularly came into contact with boys — especially in sports like football and basketball — and held frequent dances to which they invited the cadets from the nearby O’Reilly Military Academy. Besides, if Jo went to school in Ottumwa, she’d have little or no contact with Demi, whose baleful influence would be left behind in Des Moines.

"A girls’ school is the one place for you to put me if you’re determined to keep me away from Kyle," Jo lied.

While Jo was chipping away at Virginia’s resolve, Dr. Loupi was chiseling away at Demi’s self-image. At his insistence, they met daily, even during Demi’s two-week suspension, at the doctor’s home in an effort to eliminate any lingering doubts Demi might have about the wisdom of completing her transition to girlhood. When she learned that the doctor had supported her in the showdown with the Vice Principal, Demi became eager to please him. So she pretended that Kyle was making progress towards accepting his innate femininity.

But Kyle didn’t really feel that there was a girl inside him desperate to get out. Rather there was a boy inside Demi anxious to get back into his regular clothes — at least part of the time. Kyle had to admit that his favorite underwear and jeans all belonged to Demi. Still, he thought he should have as much freedom to dress in guy clothes as Jo had.

Dr. Loupi inquired as to how Demi’s hormone treatments were progressing. At first, Kyle was stumped for an answer, inasmuch as his steroid intake was not being monitored by a physician. Was he growing breasts? Well, he’d better not be! He was supposed to be building muscle. And was he? Kyle wasn’t sure, but he did think he’d detected the beginning of "something happening" when he’d checked out his chest two days previously.

He’d actually taken his breast forms off, something he rarely did even to sleep. His pectoral muscles, he could see, were definitely larger, especially when viewed from the side. He wasn’t pleased, however, with his muscle tone. His pecs might be bigger, but they were flabby. Kyle blamed himself for not exercising more often.

"Jeez," he’d said to himself, "If I don’t start lifting some weights, I’m going to end up with saggy tits — just like an old woman!"

As Dr. Loupi pressed him for feedback about the hormones, Kyle, remembering that one time recently that he’d checked out his chest, felt that it wasn’t much of a fib to say, "I’m beginning to see a change in my body. I’m growing something that looks like tits." ("But are actually muscles," Kyle chuckled to himself.)

"How do you feel about your changing bust line, Demi? Does it please you to look more and more like a woman?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Demi, could you stand up? Yes, that’s the girl. I want to see how you’re shaping up. Hmm, very nice. Now turn around. Yes, even better. Demi, you’re developing an hourglass figure. You’d best be wary from now on whenever an older woman offers you a candy bar or invites you to her apartment to see her collection of ballerina etchings. A girl with your figure has to watch out for lesbians. They’re everywhere you look."

Kyle smiled. He was constantly watching out for one particular lesbian, Jo, the love of Demi’s life.

"Now, Demi, do tell me. How much padding are you using to create your figure? Are any of those curves actually yours?"

"I’m wearing a body shaper right now. I wear it or a panty girdle every day. They’re the reason I look like a girl."

"But Demi," asked Dr. Loupi thinking of the feminine hormones she was taking, "surely your waist and hips have changed a bit? After all, I remember the first time I saw you in those jeans — because of the plaid hem and pockets — and I’m sure they used to hang on you more loosely than they do now."

"It’s possible I’ve been eating too many French fries. What you say is true, Dr. Loupi, all my jeans are tighter. It’s the fault of the body shaper — it squeezes my waist, and my bod has to pop out somewhere."

It was true: the inch and a half subtracted from his waist seemed to have been added to his hips. As Kyle assumed that the rearrangement was temporary, he wasn’t much bothered by it. He figured that his body would, like an elastic band, snap back into its regular shape once he took the constant tension off his waist. In the meantime, he appreciated that the extra width in his hips made it less likely that he’d be ‘read’ as a boy when he sallied forth in public.

Dr. Loupi was thrilled with Demi’s replies. She seemed extraordinarily nonchalant about her sex change. Nowhere in the half-dozen abstracts that he’d read about transsexualism had he encountered anyone quite like Demi. She’d make his career!

What made Demi unique — to Dr. Loupi — was her uncomplicated transition between genders. Sure, she’d tried to kill the school’s football coach and vice principal, but Dr. Loupi didn’t blame Pocahontas’s ride on ‘Demi’s transsexualism. No. Jo Smith was at fault. She was a "bad influence," and possibly even a "lesbian". So far as Dr. Loupi was concerned, the ride had nothing to do with Demi’s gender dysphoria, or the doctor just knew that Kyle had fewer doubts about the wisdom of changing his sex than any other Iowan in U.S. history.

Dr. Loupi figured that the lingering bit of ‘boy’ in Demi would disappear even more rapidly if Demi were hypnotized and told to explore her essential femininity. He’d learned the art of hypnosis from a correspondence school, but had never had the opportunity to put anyone under — until now. But try as he might, Dr. Loupi was unable to hypnotize Demi, for she was wary of being given a post-hypnotic suggestion that might induce Kyle to have a sex change.

Ironically, Demi hypnotized herself one day. She became mesmerized by the hands of the wall clock that she was watching as Dr. Loupi droned on about lesbians. Fortunately, she came out of the trance when their hour was up, for the doctor had already made "this session is over" her cue for coming out of a trance. Otherwise, Demi might have ended up a zombie. Unfortunately, two of the doctor’s statements had already entered Demi’s sub-consciousness as post-hypnotic suggestions.

As a result of this foul-up, Demi soon had to give up one of Kyle’s favorite pastimes since he’d reached puberty, namely the ritual inspection of centerfolds of ‘naked ladies’ in the company of other pubescent males. Why was that? Well, it seems that every time a boy commented on "those boobs," Demi would mechanically answer, "Yes, wouldn’t you like to be a lesbian so that you could make love to a girl?" Naturally, the boys didn’t warm to the suggestion that they’d have to change their sex to have any hope of getting a date — even if it were true for one or two of them. So Demi found herself excluded from their picture-swapping sessions.

Demi, or perhaps it was Kyle, also found it difficult for several years to stay friends with the politically correct because of a compulsion (eventually mastered) to blurt out, whenever anyone spoke within earshot of a ‘pretty girl" — "All pretty girls are dykes."

To some extent, the doctor’s obsession became Demi’s. Even though Steve made her ‘hot,’ she agreed with the doctor that she must indeed be a lesbian since she was primarily attracted to girls. Indeed, she was quite turned on by the magazines that Dr. Loupi lent her as part of her sex education. Demi decided that the sight of two women having sex was far more erotic than the lingerie ads in the Sunday supplement. Gradually, Demi’s sexual orientation changed to conform to the expectations of her psychologist and girlfriend.

Nevertheless, it upset Kyle to think of himself as a lesbian. It also bothered him that Demi dominated his dreams. Several mornings in a row he’d awakened with a start, after he realized that he’d been female in his dream. When he dreamt about riding his moped, there was always some telltale sign — his long, black hair, or his moccasins, or his buckskin jacket — which told him that Pocahontas was in charge of the bike and of his life. Even more disconcerting was his masturbatory life. After one orgasm unleashed by the thought of being the sexiest, most desired inmate in a prison for girls, Kyle was disturbed to realize that he’d been a female in every one of his eighty-nine sexual fantasies during the preceding twenty-four hours.

It was time for Kyle to take back his life from Demi. He had a feeling that if he didn’t soon resume dressing like a boy, he might never be able to do it again. Demi would be too much in control. Kyle steeled himself, therefore, for a showdown with the gangs. They’d waste little time, he knew, in demanding an explanation from Demi for her continued refusal to wear a skirt or dress to school. And when they did, he intended to ask for "his life back" — that is, for the right to attend school as whatever sex pleased him. Kyle wasn’t positive that he’d ever give up being Demi, but he wanted the freedom to choose.

Kyle was pumped for his showdown with the gang, for Demi had been treated like a hero on her first day back at class after her suspension. Almost everyone at the school knew about Pocahontas’s ride and about its outcome — the disappearance of the reviled coach and the return of the school’s star quarterback to the starting line-up.

They’d also heard (through rumors started by Cudmore himself) that she’d showed up with a mob lawyer who had intimidated the administration into giving the ‘Pocahontas Gang’ an extraordinarily light punishment for so grievous an offense. Demi had become, consequently, a Woman of Respect.

Derek could, therefore, finally admit to liking her. Indeed, he trooped up to her table at lunchtime with the black shirts to tell her, "Demi, we think you’re one hell of a cool chick. You’re welcome to hang out with us anytime you like."

"That invitation is for you, Demi, not for that sissy fag Kyle," snarled Jason. "If I ever see his face around this school again, I promise to smash my fist into it. But Derek’s right — Demi is a righteous chick, and she’s welcome to hang out with the black shirts."

Under his breath, Jason hissed to Demi, "One sex change we can handle, but don’t you dare change back!"

Then Tristin, the newest black shirt, came forward with a shopping bag: "Look inside, Demi. We got you a present to show how much we respect you for sacrificing your moped for the good of the school."

With some trepidation, Demi put her hand into the bag to pull out … a black cotton halter top across the front of which was scrolled in pink sequins one word, "Demi". The message was unmistakable: Demi had just become the first ‘female’ ever to be admitted to the black shirts!

Overcome with emotion, she started to cry. Steve wrapped his arms around her to comfort her. As he did so, Jo was startled to realize that she was not the only one with jealousy burning in her eyes as the couple embraced. Vicky and Brad did not surprise her, for Jo had never seen anyone more lovestruck than Brad was about Steve, and Vicky had been outrageously flirting with Steve during the week she didn’t have to compete with Demi for his attention. No, it wasn’t Brad or Vicky who surprised her. It was Derek! He had a hungry look in his eyes as he watched Demi nestle into Steve. Just what did he crave? Jo hoped it wasn’t Demi.

Demi’s membership in the black shirts didn’t seem to have any downside, although it did occasionally bother her that Derek, Rob and Jason seemed even more intent on feminizing her than did Jo and Dr. Loupi. When she asked Tristin why the black shirts were constantly pressing her to have ‘the operation,’ he said that the gang felt uncomfortable hanging out with a ‘demi-girl’. They wanted her to become the real thing as soon as possible.

Tristin thought his friends had mixed motives: "I think Jason regards all girls as inferior to boys, and so he believes that the more feminine you become, the more he’ll be able to sneer at you. As for Rob, he simply goes along with whatever Derek wants, and Derek definitely believes you’d be happier as a real girl. I once heard him joke about dating you if you ever got your own hooters."

Demi’s historic ride also impressed the Jets enough to make her a candidate for membership in their gang. She had met with the leadership of the Jets and the Sharks at their ‘request’ immediately after her first day back at school. She had gone alone, as she definitely did not want any of her friends to witness any disrespect she might show the gangs. She hoped the gangs might be more magnanimous if there were no outsiders to hear her demand her right to dress as she chose.

Her meeting with the leaders of the two gangs started with Markko demanding an explanation for her shooting-star jeans: "While I do admit you look hot in those jeans, Demi, why aren’t you wearing a dress? You know that’s what the gangs want you to wear."

"You asked me to wear a dress a school. And I did it once — to show my deep respect for the Sharks and the Jets. I almost got thrown out of school. Jeez, I almost got thrown into juvie jail, but I did as you asked. I also scalped the coach while wearing a dress. And here are two photos I took of myself wearing my leather dress and the coach’s red mop. They’re my offering to the gangs. They prove how much respect I have for you. But, if you have any respect for me, you will not insist on my wearing a dress or skirt to school. I am not a nerd, and I won’t dress like one!"

She had raised her voice. How would the gangs react? Sherm spoke first: "You are the most amazing little dude I’ve ever seen. Or should that be dudette? Us Sharks think you’ve earned your right to wear long pants. You’re definitely not the little sissy we thought you was."

"Does that mean I can be Kyle again? That I can go to school dressed like a boy again?"

"No, Demi, it doesn’t mean that," replied Markko. "Demi, we like you. You’re an okay chick. But we didn’t like that little wuss Kyle. The school’s better off without him. We talked this over with the Sharks, and we agreed that Demi is too cool to wear a dress to school. In fact, we like those tight jeans you’re wearing. They make you look real sexy. You should definitely get some more of them. Understood?"

Demi nodded glumly.

The Sherm spoke: "I do hope youse understand your position, Demi. You’ve got our protection — for the current price — for as long as you go to Hoover. We’re even going to make you famous as the first girl in the history of this high school to be elected as queen of both the junior and senior proms. It will be a great joke on Cudmore and the Principal, and the gangs will make sure that the students see the wisdom of voting for you."

"But I want to be Kyle again!" Demi wailed.

"Sure you can be Kyle, if you so choose," replied Markko menacingly, "but you should ‘preciate that Kyle might not survive his first visit to the boys’ washroom. The demijohn is the place for you. Bitch, never forget that you’re now the sweetheart of Hoover High. Shit, we don’t want to see that little puke Kyle ever again — even at the class reunions."

"So, Demi, do you want the gangs’ protection or what?" asked Sherm.

Demi nodded glumly.

"Now, don’t look so gloomy," said Markko with his oiliest voice yet. "You should be happy that the gangs like you. In fact, the Jets think you’re such a hot bitch that we’ve gone and elected you a candidate member of the gang. You even get to wear our colors. With winter coming, we decided you’d look good in a blue and white silk scarf. We want to see it on you at all times."

Sherm then said an odd thing: "I want you to know, Demi, that the Sharks persuaded the Jets that you were still too young for full membership in their gang. You remember that. Us Sharks have been looking after your scrawny little white ass."

And so, Demi left her showdown with the gangs with two new rights — first, the right to wear jeans, so long as they were tight; and the right to wear the blue-and-white colors of the Jets. At first, she believed that a candidate membership in the Jets must be, like her membership in the black shirts, a blessing. But Derek disabused her the following morning when he saw her for the first time in gang colors (as well as her ‘Demi’. halter top)

"My god, Demi, tell me they haven’t made you a member of the Jets! Tell me it isn’t so!"

"No, I’m only a candidate member thanks to the interference of Sherm Dinkins. He seems to have it really out for me. First, he got his father to give away my moped for six months — for no good reason! And then he talked the Jets out of making me a full member in their gang. I don’t know why he hates me so much. He said something about my ‘skinny white ass,’ so I guess it’s something racial."

"Demi, you’re such a little fool," Derek riposted, while shaking her shoulders to get her full attention. "Sherm’s not your enemy. He must be your friend if he prevented your becoming a member of the Jets."

"How so?" asked Demi suspiciously.

"You’re a girl, right? So you’d be a female gang member, right?"

Demi had to agree — she’d be joining the Jets as a girl. Indeed, she’d be their first female member in more than a year. Dawn DeWitt had belonged to their gang for several months before having to leave school in disgrace. Pregnant, she had confessed that she had no idea who the father of her quints might be.

"So, Demi, do you have any idea, any at all, what the duties of a female member of the Jets just happen to be?"

No, she hadn’t, but the tension in his voice raised some dire possibilities.

"If they make you a full member, you’ll be the gang’s bitch. You’ll have to keep them all … happy. I mean real happy. They’ll make you soiled goods in the eyes of all the other boys. No one will want to date you once you’ve begun servicing the Jets."

There had been a lot of shocks for Kyle’s system to absorb since he’d started cross-dressing, not least was the emergence of Demi. But nothing shook him more to his roots than the prospect of becoming a gang’s whore. He fervently nodded when Derek recommended that Demi needed to change schools ‘pronto.’

Hadn’t Jo been talking up the idea of their going away to boarding school? Never had the idea been more appealing to Demi. That very afternoon, she raised the issue with Jo (shortly after they had enjoyed their first sex in more than two weeks). To Demi’s delight, Jo had "good news": Her grandmother had submitted her application to The Amazonian School of Ottumwa. Jo didn’t add, of course, that Virginia hoped to send her granddaughter to a place where Demi, still a boy in the eyes of the law and most educators, could not follow.

Over the next three days, Demi’s reputation plummeted. No longer was she the school’s heroine. Her blue-and-white scarf announced her new identity as the Jets’ bitch. Though she tried to tell her friends that she was merely a ‘candidate’ member, fine distinctions were lost on her schoolmates, most of whom assumed she was ‘putting out’ for the Jets.

Vicky certainly believed her rival for Steve’s affections had become a ‘slut’. In the privacy of the demijohn, she whined, "Leave Steve alone. You know I want him. Surely the Jets give you enough sex. You can’t do everyone in the school!"

Vicky simply refused to credit Demi’s denials. After all, who would believe anything a girl said if she had so little self-respect that she agreed to become a gang’s bitch? In fact, Steve and Jo did believe Demi, as did most of the black shirts, when she protested her innocence of all insinuations, but Tim merely said, "When I joined your table, Demi, I told you that you were my friend whether you were straight or gay, a cross-dresser or a leather fetishist. It’s none of my business how often you have sex or with whom. It’s got to be expected that there will be a bit of tomcat in any boy, even if she dresses like a French poodle."

As for Jason, he was thrilled that Demi was becoming known as the school’s biggest slut. It served her right! Jason even fabricated some stories to ensure that her legend would grow. "No," he’d say, "I’m not sure that it was actually one of the Jets, but I definitely saw her lead a big blond dude by the hand into the demijohn. It’s her own private brothel, you know."

As Jason’s stories spread, it became obvious to Demi and her friends that her reputation had plummeted to such depths that the gang colors had become, ironically, her best protection. All the guys who believed her an easy lay would have to leave her alone as long as she wore the blue-and-white. None of them dared to pick a fight with the Jets by molesting their bitch. The hyenas knew they would have to wait until the lions were finished with Demi.

As the predators circled, Demi became increasingly desperate to get out of town. There was, consequently, no question of her turning down a second chance to go away with Steve and Elvira — this time to see a NBA game in New York City. Elvira, who had no inkling of Demi’s bad reputation, still deemed her the ideal ‘girl’ to seduce her son into heterosexuality. Or at least, Demi was the most feminine-looking and -acting sex partner he was likely to choose at any time in the near future.

Barb had put up little resistance to the rescheduling of the basketball weekend. There were, she felt, lots of reasons to agree to Demi’s trip. First, Barb hoped that her child would stop moping about her moped. With luck, she’d also become less irritable. In recent weeks, Demi had developed a temper, mainly around the house, but also whenever she went shopping with her mother.

Barb also hoped that a weekend in New York would draw Demi and Steve closer, while giving Demi’s a respite from Jo’s machinations. Barb had learned from Demi that Jo had been the first to suggest Pocahontas’s reckless ride through the school, and had concluded, naturally enough, that Jo was a ‘bad influence’ on her daughter.

Steve, on the other hand, had been rising in Barb’s esteem as she became more used to the idea that her son had become her daughter. Originally, Barb had been opposed to Kyle’s friendship with Steve, for she did not want her son to become a homosexual. But the emergence of Demi had changed everything, except Barb’s conviction that her child would be better off a heterosexual.

If Demi were truly a transsexual, and her ultimate fate to live life as a woman, then she should be, Barb now reasoned, dating boys. Barb even thought Demi should get as much sexual experience as possible with boys before Jo persuaded her that she was a lesbian-born. To make it clear that Demi had her mother’s permission to ‘have fun’ in New York, Barb sent her off with a brand new, see-through, red negligee and half a box of condoms.

It wasn’t that Demi was asking for permission to ‘fool around’ with Steve. Although they had petted a couple of times, and knew each other’s mouth intimately, she knew that Kyle was still opposed to her going ‘all the way’ with a boy. While Demi was eager to learn more about her sexuality — that is, to discover whether she was bisexual — she knew that Kyle would have difficulty looking at himself in the mirror the morning after sex with Steve, even if it was Demi’s face that stared back. So she was less certain than Elvira and Steve that she was heading off to New York City to ‘lose her cherry.’

She was as tense as a cat the night before her trip to New York. Her nerves always seemed to be on edge, but then what would you expect? After all, not many girls have decisions as tough as Demi’s to make. She had to decide whether to have sexual intercourse with Steve. She had to decide whether she could finish out the term without being ‘promoted’ to full gang membership, or demoted to the status of used goods available to every boy at Hoover High for the taking. She also fretted about the boarding school. Would Jo find one in time? Would her mother be able to afford it on a secretary’s salary?

And finally, there was the question of the infernal itching under her breast forms. They had become so uncomfortable, the tissue under them so tender and swollen, that it seemed just a matter of days before she’d have to stop wearing the forms. Then what would Demi do to keep her figure? She was a girl with a lot on her mind.

She therefore jumped when the telephone rang at 9:30 p.m. Almost no one called that late in the evening, least of all for her. Barb did not approve of her daughter chatting late into the night. So Demi didn’t even answer the phone, until Barb yelled out, "It’s Jo. Now don’t talk too long on the phone. Remember we have to head off to the airport at six o’clock in the morning, and you’ve not finished packing."

It was true — Demi had been unable to decide what to take. Her two dresses went into her suitcase; then they came out. They went in, they came out. It had been like that for a couple of hours, though she had made some headway when she finally decided to take just one pair of jeans — the pair she’d be wearing to the airport. She hoped she’d be allowed to wear skirts while in New York, but she knew that Elvira insisted on dresses. So into the suitcase they went, and then out again.

The phone call allowed Demi to defer her decision just a little bit longer. At the other end Jo was talking so excitedly that Demi at first had difficulty making out her meaning. But gradually it dawned on her: Two students had just been expelled from The Amazonian School ‘for excessive timidity," and Jo, as a consequence, had been admitted to the school as of the January term.

"You said that two students were expelled. Does that mean there might be room for me too?" asked Demi, fearing the worst. She didn’t want to have to face her fate in Des Moines without Jo at her side.

"Definitely. But you’re going to have to hurry because the school told me they had just one place still open for the winter term. It’s the most wonderful school in the whole world, Demi. You wouldn’t believe their sports program. It’s totally awesome. And they even send you off on trips to the Rockies and sometimes to the Amazon."

"That’s probably where they got their name from," speculated Demi. "You know — the Amazonians take school trips to the Amazon."

"Could be," agreed Jo, though she knew better.

"How far is the school from Des Moines?" Demi suddenly asked. She was hoping it was far enough away for her to leave the Jets far behind.

"Oh, it’s a zillion miles from Des Moines. It’s in Ottumwa, and that’s practically in the next state. The Jets will never find you there, Demi."

"You mean they’ll never find Kyle at The Amazonian School. I’m going to be Kyle at the new school, because I don’t think I can handle being Demi any longer. Jeez, she seems to get into more trouble than Kyle ever did."

"You can be whatever you want to be at The Amazonian School," Jo said soothingly. "That’s in their brochure. They’ll ‘make you be the best you can be’. They promise to help you to achieve any ambition, whether it’s army general or United States President."

"Wow, that’s super. It sounds like a totally awesome school to attend. I definitely want to go to it."

The phone call ended with Jo promising to bring over the application forms for Demi and her mother to sign, as well as some selected literature on the school. In other words, she wouldn’t be showing Demi anything that indicated that The Amazonian School was for girls only.

Would Demi be naive enough to sign yet another form without reading it first? And would Barb agree to her child’s giving up all pretense of being a boy? Jo wouldn’t know the answers until after, as she wrote in her diary, "Demi, that tramp, has finished shacking up with Stevie Lancer in a New York hotel that probably rents by the hour."

To be continued in Part 14, where Demi finds out whether she is bisexual.