In the first seventeen parts, Kyle 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. He’s not quite sure how it happened, but somehow he has become Demi, a full-time cross-dresser with a lesbian lover. She has even unwittingly begun to take female hormones, and has convinced her mother to send her to all-girls’ school in the mistaken belief it is co-ed. Part 17 ended with the Greeks of Central High poised to kidnap Demi. This is the grand finale.

Anything for a Moped? - Part 18 by: Dawn De Winter
Chapter Twenty-Two: Who Won?

There was hope. Just as it was about to lurch off with Demi a prisoner in its backseat, the Kia stalled. As it struggled to turn over its engine, the car found itself surrounded by a crowd of Hoover students. Derek, Tim and Steve were pounding with their fists on its rear doors, while four Sharks and three Jets were threatening its windshield and hood with hockey sticks and baseball bats.

The armed assault on the Kia would already have commenced had not Sherm been in charge. He had seen Pablo pull out a knife, and so feared for Demi’s safety if the Sharks and Jets didn’t negotiate her release. He figured the Greeks would be willing to trade Demi in exchange for their lives; but only if he had assured them that they’d be able to make good their escape.

Sherm motioned to the Greeks to roll down a window for a parlay: "What the f..k do you think you’re doing! How dare you invade our turf! Give us the girl immediately, if you want to get out of here alive!"

Paco yelled, "What’s she to you? She’s ours, for we made her a member of the Greeks weeks ago. Today she’s going to be initiated by all of us. So back off. She’s our bitch now."

Sherm then hurt Demi’s feelings by saying, "Christ, you’re a sorry lot if you’ve got to start kidnapping girls as worthless as Demi in order to get laid. I don’t give a rat’s ass what’s she promised you. You’re not going to use a Hoover girl, even this one, to lose your virginity. We’re not going to let anybody come into our turf and start messing with our women. Hand her over if you want to leave here alive!"

Sherm smashed out a headlight for emphasis.

Surrounded, outnumber, outgunned, the Greeks capitulated. Not only did they release Demi, they agreed to hand over their money as well as the shirts off their back in order to compensate the Sharks and the Jets for their ‘time and effort’.

The two Hoover gangs laughed as the shirtless, penniless Greeks vowed revenge, but Demi didn’t think their threats a laughing matter. As they finally got the Kia’s engine to turn over, Paco shouted to her, "There’s no place to hide, bitch! We were going to treat you like a lady. But not now, bitch! You’ve cost us money, and you’ll pay it back to us! But don’t worry, bitch, we’ll teach you how to satisfy several guys at a time before we have you peddle your ass."

The Kia then carried them off.

"Never mind them," Sherm laughed, as he waved Paco’s shirt in victory. "They’re nothing but talk. Nothing’s going to happen to you, as long as you’re protected by the Sharks and the Jets."

Demi was worried. She didn’t see how Hoover’s gangs could guard her twenty-four hours a day. She found even more alarming Sherm’s next comment: "Demi, you should be aware that everything has a cost, especially protection. As we know you don’t have any spare cash, we Sharks will be expecting you to keep us sexually satisfied. But we’re not a bunch of fags like the Greeks, and so we should like you to become as much like a real girl as possible. We’ll make you a member of the Sharks in mid-January. By then, you’d better have lost your dick."

"That goes for the Jets too," Markko growled. True, the Jets until now had been intrigued by the idea of having a demi-girl as their bitch, but they’d lose face if they demanded less from Demi than the Sharks did.

Demi and her friends were glum when the gangs and the crowd had finally dispersed. Tim spoke first: "Thank God, you’re leaving town, Demi. Otherwise, the Jets and Sharks will be cutting off your dong in January." Steve advised Demi to seek police protection, but she refused. It had never been Kyle’s style to rat to the authorities, and Demi feared a vendetta from all three gangs if she squealed on any of them.

Yet she was terrified of a second kidnapping. What if the Greeks learned where she lived? Was she in danger of being kidnapped from her own front porch?

Demi decided to be too sick to attend school until it was time to change schools and towns. Had Barb known what really ailed her daughter, she would probably have sent her off to The Amazonian School immediately. Instead, she allowed herself to be conned into thinking that Demi had the flu.

To keep herself looking a sickly green, all Demi had to do was look at the prairie oysters that Steve had suggested she buy. To gag or vomit, all she had to do was think about eating them.

She wondered if the bull had been upset to lose his testicles. Maybe he hadn’t been. Maybe he’d been a "cow stuck in a bull’s body," but she winced every time she thought of the pain he must have felt when the knife fell.

Although Demi’s plan — to be ‘sick’ for three weeks — wasn’t a practical one, it did explain why she was alone at home on the afternoon of December 15th when the E-Z Moving and Storage Company came for her moped. Until then, Demi had no idea that the bike had been sold to Elvira Lancer. Even when Arthur and Leonard showed her the bill of sale, Demi refused to let them take her moped. "My moped’s locked away in the garage and that’s where it will stay."

"I don’t think so, sweetheart," Leonard responded. "Your mother told us where to find the keys for the garage door and for the bike’s padlock. We’re taking the bike, and there’s nothing you can do about it."

"Besides," said Arthur, "a pretty girl such as you doesn’t belong on a motorbike. If you want some excitement, I’m sure there are lots of guys who’d be happy to give you a ride … in the bedroom." His leer said he was one of them.

Demi slammed the front door on them, and then raced through the house to the connecting door to the garage. She hoped there was some way to lug the moped into the house. To her dismay, it was padlocked to the ductwork.

When the garage door opened, she briefly interposed her body. She hoped they’d leave rather than strike her. If they hit a kid, they could get into trouble with their employer or the law. They’d know that and back off is she physically blocked their way to the moped.

Yet Arthur didn’t see his only options as being combat or retreat: "Didn’t I tell you, Leonard? She may be young, but that bitch is definitely in heat. She wants to ride me right here in the garage! Honey, come to papa; I’ll make a woman out of you."

As Arthur wasn’t about to wait for Demi to come to him, she beat a hasty retreat into the house. From behind a locked door she heard Arthur laugh, "It works every time. Whenever one of them bitches tries to stop me from doing my job, I come on to them, and they get out of my way."

Then Leonard guffawed: "That bitch is so stupid she didn’t realize you’re gay! That was rich when you offered to give her a ride! If she had a brain one half as big as her hooters, she’d realize that you wouldn’t give her a ride if you was a bus driver!"

Furious, Demi charged back into the garage, just in time to see the truck door being closed on her moped. Leonard and Arthur had a huge smile on their face as they drove away. Demi had not only lost her moped, but also some pride as well.

Demi had to blame someone for the loss of the moped. Should it be Elvira who’d bought it? No, it should never have been for sale in the first place!

Demi was thankful that Auntie Elvie had been the buyer, for she’d undoubtedly give it to Steve — probably for Christmas — and he’d definitely let Demi ride it from time to time. Indeed, with the moped garaged at the Lancers, it would no longer be padlocked and inaccessible. Demi would be able to race it well before her fifteenth birthday! After all, neither Steve nor Auntie Elvie was going to squeal on her to Mr. Cudmore or her mother if Demi took the bike out for a spin.

So who was responsible for stabbing Demi in the back on the Ides of December? Her own mother, who else? Demi was not, therefore, in a good mood when Barb came home. Indeed, she greeted Barb with, "I hate you and I’m going to run away from home," and then locked herself in her room where she alternated between sobbing and shouting insults.

Eventually, Demi emerged, either because Barb’s words of love and empathy, uttered through the closed door, had calmed her down, or more likely, because the smell of a simmering beef stew reminded her she was hungry.

Over supper, Barb explained yet again to a sullen Demi that the moped had been sold to raise her school tuition. "There was no other way to raise the money. We’ve got such a big mortgage on this house that the banks weren’t willing to lend us money for your schooling. I thought your realized that the only way we could get cash quickly was to sell the moped? After all, you signed the bill of sale. I was proud of you. I told myself, ‘My baby is no longer a young girl. She’s becoming a woman.’"

"I didn’t know I was selling the moped," Demi cried. "I never would have agreed to sell it! There must have been another way to raise the money. Why didn’t we sell the house? A mobile home has got to be a lot cheaper. Couldn’t you have sold the car? You could have ridden the moped to work, ‘cause I don’t need it when I’m at school. Or why didn’t you enter law school and become a lawyer? If you did that, we wouldn’t have to sell the moped."

Demi was grasping at straws, as she knew herself. Maybe there had been no real alternative to selling the moped, but her mother still had no business selling it. Didn’t her mother realize how much Kyle had given up for the moped? (Some people would say it was everything.) How could she sell it? Wasn’t Demi’s mom reneging on a deal? Didn’t she appreciate that the kids of moped-selling mothers were likely to become runaways?

Demi had thought of running away. It would have served her mom right to come home to an empty house and a note that said, "The moped is gone and so am I." Yet Demi didn’t want to end up on the street, selling sex to ugly old men or giving it away to an abusive pimp.

So she was going to run away to a place that would feed her three times a day — The Amazonian School. Once she got there, her mom would definitely miss her. Her mom would wish she hadn’t driven Demi away by allowing the E-Z movers to drive off with her moped.

By mid-December, Demi was desperate to go away to school. Not only would it teach her mother a lesson, but also it would extricate her from the ever-tightening grip of the gangs. They were determined, she recognized, to bleed her dry — of all the money she and her friends could raise, and then of real thing, real blood, as they forced her to submit to the knife. Afterwards, the gangs would want even more money from her, and the Greeks had already given her some inkling of how she’d be expected to raise it. For her own sake, and that of her friends, Demi had to leave town.

And The Amazonian School was the only logical place to go. First, and most important, the love of her life would be there. Wherever Jo led, Demi wanted to follow. Second, it had a great program. It would definitely be a fun school to attend. And third, there was no alternative to it, at least in the short run. It was the only school that had admitted her for January. Demi could either be an Amazonian in January or she could be dead meat. That’s how she saw it.

It was crucial, therefore, that Kyle not be allowed to screw up her life — and his. He mustn’t hear anything that would turn him against The Amazonian School. To keep him content with the decision to attend it in January, Demi played hooky as often as her mother would allow.

Worried that her daughter was missing so many days of school that she risked being suspended or expelled, Barb telephoned Dr. Loupi for advice. He had a ready explanation for Demi’s school avoidance: "She wants to forget," he said, "that she was ever a boy. It must be quite an ordeal for her to attend a school that knew her as Kyle."

"Barb, don’t you worry. I’ll square it with the Principal," Dr. Loupi promised. "He’ll understand Demi’s situation and we’ll keep her in good standing." (In fact, the Principal told Dr. Loupi that Demi should be encouraged to stay away from school as much as possible, as he didn’t want a gang fight to break out on campus.)

Demi had to show up for some exams, on which she did passably. If she’d kept her ears open to the buzz in the corridors, she’d have heard that the entire school knew that The Amazonian School was an all-girls’ school. She’d also have learned that most of her schoolmates assumed that Demi would lose her testicles on her second day at the new school. She’d be too busy unpacking and familiarizing herself with her new surroundings, they figured, to have time for the operation on the day she arrived.

Since everyone was too embarrassed to discuss her coming surgery with Demi directly, she would have had to eavesdrop on one of the many conversations about her. Even so, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to learn that she’d be attending The Amazonian School as a pre-op transsexual, or not at all.

Yet she put no effort into finding out the truth of her situation. She remained blissfully ignorant, for she was determined to attend it. Too much knowledge would definitely be a bad thing.

It suited Jo for Demi to live in denial. Jo planned to tell the Demi the truth about The Amazonian School just as their car was passing through its gate. Then it would be too late for Demi to change her mind. She’d be stuck. She’d probably pout for a day, but she’d soon agree to hang around for another six months, especially as her nights would be spent in Jo’s bed. The two of them were going to be roommates!

It was a good plan. So why did Jo abandon it in the wee hours of the New Year? Why did she tell Demi the truth when there was still time for Kyle to escape the fate Jo had prepared for him? Why did she inform Demi less than a week before they were scheduled to leave for Ottumwa that Kyle was excess baggage who was going to be left behind?

It was a conversation Jo had overheard at Demi’s New Year’s Eve Party that impelled her to tell Demi that she had enrolled at an all-girls’ school that would soon expel her if she didn’t have sexual reassignment surgery.

Everyone was at Demi’s house to celebrate the beginning of her new life in Ottumwa, and more poignantly, to say goodbye to a friend they had grown to cherish in the three months since Kyle had made his deal for the moped.

All of the black shirts had accepted Barb’s invitation, save for Jason, who was at home working on his anger management by pretending to be Demi in the Internet chat rooms. That night, "Demi" had virtual sex with so many guys on-line that two or three of them were bound to look her up in Ottumwa.

Though Steve was in New York, he phoned at midnight, to the delight first of Demi, and then of Brad, who spent the next forty minutes whispering to Steve on the phone in Barb’s bedroom.

Brad spent the rest of the evening chatting with Vicky and Tim. They were starting to act like a couple, Brad decided, though he was positive they’d never even kissed.

"Still, it’s just a matter of time," Brad thought, "before she’s got him begging for sex. He knows I’m her ex-boyfriend. So I expect he’ll be asking me what she’s like in bed. I suppose I’ll tell him the truth — that he’ll never have a happier night than his first one with Vicky. She’s a frigging sex machine."

"Jo must be one as well," Brad decided, "for Demi will do anything for a night with Jo."

And this would be one of those nights, for all of the kids were staying overnight, so that their parents wouldn’t be tempted to drink and drive. Jo and Demi would be the only ones, however, with any privacy (which was okay with Brad since he’d get to see Derek, Tristin, Adrian and Rob without their black shirts).

Virginia wouldn’t have approved of Jo’s spending the night in Demi’s bed. Indeed, she didn’t want her granddaughter even to speak to "that messed-up kid." However, she had reluctantly agreed to Jo’s attending the party when Jo pointed out it was her last chance to say goodbye to her friends before she left town. "There’ll be lots of kids at the party," she advised Virginia. "And Demi will be so busy playing hostess that we won’t have much time to talk."

Jo didn’t, of course, tell her grandmother that she and Demi were more interested in action these days than in talk. Jo dealt with her grandmother on a "need-to-know" basis. For example, Virginia didn’t need to know that Jo and Demi would be attending the same school come January, for Virginia would be unnecessarily upset to learn that the money she was spending to separate Jo from Demi, was actually going to put them into the same bed every night for the next six months.

Jo had been honest with her grandmother when she’d said that Demi would be preoccupied with being the perfect hostess. Consequently, Jo was left alone for long stretches of the evening, at which time she watched the other guests.

Mentally, she gave Vicky and Tim another two months before their pairs act moved into the bedroom. Rob and Adrian were, she decided, hopelessly juvenile, for they spent much of the evening playing with a Gameboy. Tristin, she noticed, was smitten with Derek. Was Tristin gay? Probably not. He was simply a puppy dog eager for his master’s attention.

And how about Derek? With whom or what did he want to play? The answer was dismayingly obvious, for Jo saw that his eyes followed Demi’s every move. "Damn it," thought Jo, "He’s openly lusting after her." The more that Derek stared at Demi’s breasts, the more that Jo stared at him. As everyone was acting a little ‘drunk’ after their two ounces of champagne at 11 o’clock, Jo became worried that Derek might steal a kiss from Demi. To ensure that didn’t happen, Jo followed him whenever he left the room.

Thus, when Derek snuck off with Vicky, she followed close behind. Jo hoped they were heading off to neck, for then she’d have a story to tell that would turn Demi against Derek. However, it wasn’t Vicky that Derek had on his mind. It was Demi! He had drawn Vicky aside to talk about Demi.

"Vicky," Derek said, "you’re not to tell another living soul what I’m about to say. I’ve got a secret I’ve got to share. But only with you. Only with you, understood?"

She nodded. It was an easy promise to keep because Vicky was no dummy. She knew that Derek was going to confide in her that he was head over heels in love with Demi.

"I’m not gay. Vicky, you know that’s true, right? I’m a normal guy. I want to ball chicks. But damn it, Kyle’s always had an effect on me. Even before he started dressing like a girl, I’d have dreams about him…."

"So, what’s gay about your friends being in your dreams?" asked Vicky.

"They were wet dreams, Vicky. Christ, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. At night, I wanted to have sex with Kyle, but in the morning I’d realize it was impossible. We were both guys, for chrissake, and I don’t have sex with guys. No way, no how."

"I understand how you felt, Derek. But then Kyle began to change into Demi, and everything changed, right?"

"Yeh, Demi really turns my crank. One look at her hooters and I get an instant woody. God, she’s hot! And she’s going to get even sexier. Don’t tell anyone this, promise? But I want to be the first one inside her vagina, as soon as she has one. Do you understand? Not a day goes by without me thinking about the day that Demi and I make love as a man does a woman."

"And then what?" probed Vicky.

"And then we get married. I want Demi to become my wife and the mother of my kids — well, you know, the mother of the orphans we adopt from Sweden or Denmark or one of those other messed-up countries where the mothers are so frigging poor that they abandon their babies in the street."

Vicky thought Derek needed a shot of reality: "Derek, I understand why you’re attracted to Demi, but you’re not being very realistic if you expect her one day to marry you. After all, she tells everyone she’s a lesbian, and she’s going away to school with Jo, leaving you and me behind in Des Moines. I don’t see how you’re going to seduce a lesbian who’s perfectly content with her girlfriend and living two hundred miles away."

Jo liked Vicky’s speech. Vicky was a true friend.

"But she won’t be two hundred miles away," Derek countered. "She’ll be no more than a mile away, because I’ll be going to the O’Reilly Military Academy in the same town."

Neither Vicky nor Jo could believe their ears, but it was Vicky who asked, "What, how did that happen? How come you’re going to a military school?"

"For discipline, what else?" Derek replied. "My dad’s never approved of me being a black shirt, and he’s been worrying about me joining the Sharks, ‘cause they’re also black. He kept threatening me with military school — to make a man out of me, he said — but he didn’t do anything drastic until a police officer came by the house to tell him that I’d been seen hanging with ‘known gang members’ — you know, with the Jets and the Sharks. The very next day he signed me up for O’Reilly."

"That’s dreadful," Vicky replied. "Did you tell him you wouldn’t go — that you’d rather die than spend the best years of your life in Ottumwa?"

"Hell no. It really will be the best years of my life if I’m in Ottumwa with Demi. Sure, we’ll be attending different schools, but the Amazonians invite us Radarians to all their dances. They want their girls to learn how to behave around guys. Even the lesbians are expected to date us so that they can figure out, as near as I can tell, how to wrap guys around their pinky finger. So I expect to have lots of opportunity to see Demi. We’ll start by dancing together, real formal-like, at the school mixers, but it won’t be long before we’ll be grinding our hips and making love on the dance floor."

"And what do you expect Jo to do while you’re seducing her girlfriend?" Vicky asked.

"Accept defeat gracefully. Christ, Jo is going to be surrounded by beautiful girls. She’ll easily find a replacement for Demi, once she accepts the inevitable — that Demi’s destiny is to marry Derek. It has to be true, for both of our names start with the letter "D".

While Jo was pleased that Vicky, carefully neutral, didn’t wish Derek ‘good luck’ in his efforts to poach Demi, she was understandably alarmed to learn that she’d have a rival in Ottumwa. And he would be a very dangerous rival if Steve had told him that Demi was a slut who’d sell her body for basketball tickets. Demi, she could see, was attracted to Derek. Possibly she believed he could get tickets for Iowa State games.

In her struggle with Derek for Demi’s heart and mind and body, Jo recognized that there would be a dangerous window of vulnerability during the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after Demi learned that Jo had not been entirely honest about Kyle’s prospects at The Amazonian School.

If Derek were hovering, looking for an opening, he might realize that Demi needed comforting. He’d provide her with a shoulder to cry on, but the rest of his body would soon follow. Demi might agree to sex just to spite Jo. She might even pretend she was ‘straight’, just to get back at Jo.

Jo decided she’d have to modify her plan, for she couldn’t afford to have Demi go ballistic in Ottumwa — not with Derek ready to launch everything he had. Demi would have to be told the truth about The Amazonian School while she still had time to change her mind. If she decided to attend the school anyway, then she wouldn’t be able to blame Jo for her predicament. The threat from Derek would be defused.

Jo figured the best time to break the news to Demi about The Amazonian School was right after they’d had sex, when Demi would be most thankful for being a girl. After the party, as soon as they hit the Pocahontas sheets, Jo devoted herself to Demi’s pleasure. An hour later, as Demi lay satiated and exhausted, Jo finally told her that there was no need to pack any of Kyle’s clothes, for Demi alone would be attending The Amazonian School.

Demi was confused. She wasn’t used to hearing the truth; and she found it difficult to concentrate on much of anything with Jo’s fingers still playing with her nipples. So she simply moaned, "Kyle … Kyle’s … the one who’s going away … to school."

"Demi, don’t you ever listen? Your mother and I both told you weeks ago that The Amazonian School doesn’t admit boys. It’s for girls only. They admitted you, not Kyle."

Jo then suckled Demi’s breasts to give her something else to think about. Demi might have gotten cross at this point if Jo weren’t doing such wonderful things to her body. She langorously replied, "But … I don’t … understand. If the school … is really … for girls only, how come … how come … they want me?"

She moaned as Jo nibbled her nipples.

"Because you are a girl, silly! Would you feel this good if you were a boy? Hardly! Demi, you’ve got breasts! More than that, you’ve got a sexy hourglass figure. Since you gave up on Kyle, you’ve taken two inches off your waist and added them to your hips. Demi, you’re quite a sexpot, a lesbian’s dream date."

Demi was gasping with pleasure as she asked, "But … I’m … a boy … from … the waist … down. How … did I … get into … an ... all-girls’ … school?"

In the midst of her orgasm, Demi learned that she had been admitted to The Amazonian School because its administration believed she was a transsexual intent on completing her sex change within the next year.

"Sex change?" sighed Demi. "I’ll never … have that. I’m happy … the way … I am." She became even happier as Jo started building to another next orgasm.

"But Demi, you must never tell the school that you don’t want a sex change. Only a handful of boys are ever allowed to attend The Amazonian School, and all of them are transsexuals who’ve asked the school to help them to make their transition — to have all their operations — with a year, maybe less."

"But I didn’t … tell them … I was a … transsexual," Demi protested — but not too loudly, for Jo was making her body tingle. "And I … definitely, ah, didn’t tell them, ah, that I … wanted … someone … to cut off … my dick."

"Don’t worry, Demi, no one’s going to do that to you — not unless you ask them to." The vibrator started up. "Demi, you’ve been telling people for weeks that you’re a transsexual, just keep saying it. That’s all you have to do to get treated like this every night for the next six months. Just tell people you want to have a sex change eventually, and I’ll make you super happy every night to be a girl. What do you say?"

Not much, for Demi’s mind had turned to mush. She could sigh. She could moan. She could even utter one or two words of endearment. But think? Really think? No, that would have to wait until Jo had gone home after the communal breakfast, and Demi was able, at long last, to reflect on the real choices in her life.

As she did, she couldn’t come up with a scenario in which Kyle replaced her any time in the immediate future. First of all, there was no way he could attend Hoover High as a boy with breasts. He’d be ragged unmercifully by most of the students and teachers, and the Jets and Sharks would be tempted to kill him for disobeying their orders to go to school in girls’ clothes. As for the Greeks, they were bound to find out that they’d made fools of themselves with a cross-dressing boy, and react violently.

There was no way that Kyle could resurface at Hoover High. Indeed, he’d have to hide out until his mother could find an out-of-town school willing to take a boy with a severe case of ‘gynecomastia’.

For Demi, the situation in Des Moines was just as bleak, for sooner or later the gangs would catch up to her. She’d become a gang bitch, giving away or selling sexual favors — it scarcely mattered which — while living in mortal dread that they’d make good their threat to cut off her balls. It was clear that Demi would have to leave town.

That meant The Amazonian School, which meant in turn that she’d have to pretend that she wanted a sex change. On her past record, she was confident of her ability to gull the school’s administration into thinking she was cooperating. She realized the stakes were higher now, and that she might have to show her good faith by agreeing to one or two procedures to make her look more feminine. Though she’d refuse any changes that were permanent, she’d agree to any surgery that she knew to be reversible.

For example, she’d probably agree to have her testicles and most of her penile shaft temporarily tucked away in the body cavity that Jo had told her about. Jo had even demonstrated how easy it would be to hide Demi’s ‘boyish’ parts in her own body. Demi realized she’d be a lot less self-conscious about her body while attending a girl’s school if she had this procedure done. It would enable her to dispense with her gaffs, while still looking super in a bikini swimsuit or thong.

If they did the procedure right, she might even look like a girl when she had nothing on at all. A temporary tuck held no terrors for her. She’d agree to that sort of thing to make sure that nothing more drastic happened during the six months or so that she planned to attend The Amazonian School.

And if everything went smoothly, Kyle would resurface, good as new, in June or July after six months of making love every night to Jo and showering every day in the buff with dozens of beautiful girls. He would have wrestled or tackled nearly all of them in one sport or another. Unquestionably, Kyle would come away from his brief stint as an Amazonian with enough memories and fantasies to keep his right hand busy for a lifetime.

Once Demi had made up her mind to attend The Amazonian School as a pre-op transsexual, her packing became much easier. It had been difficult to pack for Kyle because she couldn’t decide which of her own pants, tops and panties were sufficiently unisex for a boy to take to boarding school. Packing for herself was easy — she wanted to bring everything, well, everything except for the boy’s clothes.

These were, in any case, beginning to disappear as Barb decided that many of Kyle’s clothes would never again fit him, no matter how his adventure as Demi turned out. To spare Demi the trauma of seeing Kyle’s wardrobe disappear, Barb had Jo help her with the sorting. Consequently, it was Jo who decided that all of Kyle’s boxer shorts should go into the boxes earmarked for the Goodwill, a local charity.

Not that all of the boxes actually got to the Goodwill, for Jo kept the best of Kyle’s jeans, tops and boxer shorts for herself. While she never again would try to hide her breasts, Jo preferred to dress as much like a boy as possible, and now with Kyle’s unwitting help, she’d have lots of boy’s clothes to work with. As she didn’t want to shortchange a charity, Jo replaced every item of Kyle’s clothing that she took for herself with something particularly feminine of her own.

On the day of the big move, there were two cars heading for Ottumwa. Jo would rather have gone with Demi, but she realized she had to maintain the fiction of heading off to boarding school alone, all alone, and so she went with her grandmother, who was — to Jo’s astonishment — incredibly weepy throughout the drive.

Jo had coordinated her departure time with Demi, so that Jo would arrive first, and her grandmother could be sent on her way back to Des Moines with no idea that Demi was also becoming an Amazonian that day. Jo wanted no scenes from her grandmother, and she figured Virginia would freak if she saw the kiss that Jo intended to plant on Demi at the moment of her arrival. Jo intended to kiss Demi so shamelessly that all the Amazonians would know that they were both lesbians, and that Demi was definitely taken.

Barb was almost as tearful as Virginia as she drove Demi to school slowly along a congested State highway (chosen instead of the Interstate so that Barb could defer the inevitable — the moment when she had to leave her only child at a boarding school). She’d look over frequently at her daughter, marveling at how pretty she’d become (especially her long blond hair), and how impractical she remained.

She was wearing her Christmas present from Barb — a red, sleeveless cotton top, a woolen, red-and-yellow plaid mini-skirt, and red knee socks (and underneath, a red cotton bikini and bra). "She’s going to freeze to death," Barb thought. "I didn’t think she’d wear that outfit until March."

Jo had been the one to talk Demi into wearing her new outfit to school, along with an engraved watch from Jo. Demi had resisted: She’d have preferred to show up in Kyle’s clothes. Yet she eventually saw reason when Jo pointed out that the last thing Demi needed on her first day of school was speculation about her gender. "You’ve need to dress femininely," Jo insisted, "so that none of the girls will suspect you were once a boy."

Even though Demi hadn’t liked the insertion of "once" in front of "a boy", she reluctantly agreed to show up at school in her new outfit. This decision turned out to be a mistake, for everyone else — both students and staff — was wearing pants. Her skirt, therefore, drew a lot of attention — of the wrong sort. Indeed, it took several daredevil stunts to rid herself of her nickname, "Little Missy."

Barb never knew that the red outfit was a mistake; otherwise she might have been even more teary-eyed that day. Any more tears and Barb would have been driving blind. She had difficulty seeing the road through the film, and she was so misty-eyed that she didn’t realize that Virginia Smith had almost driven into the ditch after she caught a glimpse of Demi being driven in the direction of her granddaughter’s new school.

Demi, in contrast, knew that it was Jo’s grandmother whose car had kicked up the cloud of dust; it saddened her to see that Gran was becoming too old to drive in safety.

Before Demi could comment on Mrs. Smith’s driving, her mother earnestly made "the speech" she had been planning to deliver at some point in their trip: "Demi, I want you to know that I love having a daughter. But I also loved having a son. Kyle was just as special to me as you are. If you decide that you want to be Kyle again, don’t hesitate to tell me. We’ll find a way to get him back. I’ll pay for whatever surgery or treatment is necessary to make your body as masculine as possible."

"But mom, you must know that The Amazonian School has very different plans for me. They want me to have a girl’s body — all over."

"Don’t worry, Demi. You’ll get a women’s body if you want one. Mrs. Lancer’s money has been set aside for whatever surgery you need. You and I have signed all the consent forms, as have three doctors. Your new school will provide two more signatures —- from a psychiatrist and from the surgeon who’ll do the work — and after that it won’t take much time at all to complete your physical transformation. It could happen as early as next summer, if that’s what you want."

"That’s too soon. I don’t want things to happen that fast."

"I understand, sweetie. There’s no need to rush. I certainly don’t want you to do anything … irreversible, without giving it lots of thought. You’re going to be meeting the psychiatrist every week, and she’ll help you decide whether you want to take the next big step. My own advice is to put off your decision as long as you can."

"Don’t worry, mom. That’s the idea."

"That’s good, sweetie. Take your time. You’ve been in such a hurry since September to become a girl that you’ve scarcely had time to catch your breath. I think it’s a good idea for you to pause for a while before taking your next big step toward womanhood."

A pause? That was fine with Demi. She was content with the way she was. And yet she knew that it wouldn’t be easy resisting the immense pressure she’d be under to complete her sexual transformation.

It would come, she realized, from both Jo and Auntie Elvie. Both of them could hardly wait for her to become a complete girl. She didn’t yet realize it would also come from Derek, for he hadn’t even told her that he too would be going to school in Ottumwa.

The school would also be constantly pressing Demi to complete her sex change. If she resisted, it would start to threaten her with expulsion. It would tell her that it had no place for cross-dressing boys. If she weren’t willing to make her transition as rapidly as the school’s medical staff recommended, she’d be asked to leave.

Demi knew that she would be able to withstand the pressure to feminize, whatever its source or intensity. She’d agree to a nip here, a tuck there, in order to delude everyone into thinking they were getting their way with her; but Demi would always be in control of her own fate. About that she had no doubt, whatever others might think.

These thoughts preoccupied Demi as her car neared her new school. Suddenly, unannounced, its playing fields surrounded both sides of the road. Everywhere Demi looked there were girls playing sports — on skates as they played hockey; on skis as they soared from a ski jump, as they ran around an oval track, and chased the ball on a frozen soccer pitch.

Demi marveled at the beauty of the Amazonians, as well as their toughness, especially of the girls playing soccer, who were wearing shorts and tee shirts on a blustery January day. As Demi watched their bodies in motion, she decided that the Amazonians were several times more athletic and attractive than the girls of Hoover High. They were a joy for any lesbian, or boy, to behold. Though it was a winter day in Iowa, the Amazonians made Demi hot.

As did their sports facilities. The baseball diamond; the soccer and rugby pitches; the basketball, volleyball and tennis courts, the — she could scarcely believe her eyes — the skateboard ramps and BMX dirt track — they all said, siren-like, "Welcome Demi. This is your real home. You’ll do whatever it takes to stay here as long as possible among Iowa’s sexiest girls."

When she saw girls scrambling up a rock face, while hang-gliders landed among them, as she looked up to see girls her age handling hot-air balloons, Demi wondered whether she was entering paradise.

Yes, she must be, for there was her angel! Jo was beckoning her. And so, to Demi’s astonishment, was Derek. He was standing thirty feet away from Jo with one of the most endearing smiles Demi had ever seen. Mentally, she blew him a kiss.

The most incredible sight of all was her moped. There it was in front of the school’s administration building. It had a big pink ribbon, and beside it stood Steve and his mother. They were holding up a sign, "FOR DEMI — from Steve and Elvie!"

Demi suddenly realized that her Auntie Elvie had bought the moped in order to help her mother pay for Demi’s schooling. That’s why Steve had never ridden it! And now, Elvira and Steve were showing how much they loved Demi by making a present of it.

Did any other girl have such generous friends? Demi was afraid that the answer would make her start to bawl. Even Barb had a lump in her throat, for she hadn’t known till now that Elvira intended to return the moped to Demi as a gift.

Elvira’s hand painted sign made it clear to Barb that the moped, once Kyle’s, was now Demi’s. It wasn’t on loan to her from Kyle; it was truly hers. Kyle’s hard-earned moped he had witlessly sold. This moped was a gift to Demi from her ‘aunt’. Demi had wheels because she was a pleasing girl, and not because Kyle had won a foolish bet.

Though Demi never quite understood the symbolism of the moped’s return, even after her mother had explained it twice, she did recognize that she owed a lot to Auntie Elvie.

Demi wept that day as she thought of the friends she had made since September, and of the friends she’d be making this winter, and of the total, absolute, awesome thrill she’d have the first time that she rode her own moped into the wind, with Jo clinging to her on the tiny seat as they leant into a curve, their bodies merging with the moped’s frame into a cosmic threesome.

Demi knew that she was going to have a super time at The Amazonian School. How long a time would that be? Would it be long enough for her to complete her transition to womanhood? Demi wouldn’t know the answer until she understood herself a whole lot better.

The first step on Demi’s belated journey to self-awareness came three months later, after a particularly bracing ride on her moped. She had driven for miles, and was now standing by the side of a deserted road, her moped leaning against an oak tree while it recuperated for the homeward journey. Demi could see for miles across the snow-covered cornfields. In the distance she saw a falcon soar. She knew it had to be a female.

Alone with her thoughts, on a day so silent that Demi could hear her inner voice, Demi suddenly understood, "I once thought Kyle would do anything for a moped, but I now know that Kyle would do anything for a woman."

The million-dollar question was this — For how long had Demi been one of those women that Kyle instinctively obeyed? For a few weeks or for his entire life? Neither Kyle nor Demi knew the answer.

Do you?

An epilog: What did Madam Zeta Tell Dawn?

Dawn DeWinter felt she had to know the answer. Or else she’d have to stop telling the story of Demi’s life. Dawn, hoping to quiz Demi about her plans, had trekked out to Ottumwa to greet her arrival at The Amazonian School. She’d actually been standing beside Elvira and Steve when Demi arrived with Barb. Dawn, ever helpful, had even offered to guard the moped while the two Lancers embraced Demi.

However, Steve had been so suspicious of Dawn’s looks that he’d entrusted the bike to Edwina Wood instead. Edwina was there with her video camera and with Melanie, her new assistant, to shoot some footage of Demi’s arrival at school for her documentary on ‘Special Teens’. It amazed Dawn that Steve thought Edwina less likely than she to steal the moped, since Edwina was an obvious ‘drag queen’ who looked like she hadn’t been able to afford new clothes in decades.

"Who, after all," thought Dawn huffily, "still wears Angora sweaters?" Edwina was, in Dawn’s opinion, hopelessly frumpy.

Dawn, by contrast, wore the latest teen fashions. At that very moment she was wearing a polka dot Ellie May mini-dress, just like Demi’s. As it was a January day, Dawn wished she’d worn tights. "It would be nice," she thought, "if I could learn from other people’s mistakes. I should have bought some new panties to go with this dress! Heaven knows everyone’s getting a good look at them!"

Maybe Steve was leery of Dawn because of her frayed, yellowed panties. Or maybe he was an ageist who scorned her for trying to dress like a teen when she was, as the French so delicately put it, "a woman of a certain age."

Or maybe it was her male pattern baldness. She planned to do something about covering up her bald spot (which made her look like a Franciscan monk) as soon as she’d sold her first story. She also hoped to start electrolysis to get rid of her telltale beard (which not even pancake makeup could hide).

As Dawn realized that no one was going to buy Demi’s story from her until she’d figured out how it would end, she’d asked Steve to inform Demi that, "Dawn, your biographer is here, and would like an audience." Dawn wasn’t sure what Steve actually said to Demi after her arrival, for the girl gave her one hurried look — "my word," Dawn thought, "that girl always looks like a scared rabbit" — before jumping on her moped and speeding off on it to her dormitory.

School life then took over, for Demi sent word that she was much too busy settling in to be interviewed by anyone. Well, that’s what Demi claimed, though Dawn was miffed to see that both Demi and Jo had time for an interview with Edwina Wood and Melanie.

"It’s the lure of being on TV," Dawn guessed. "Demi wants her fifteen minutes of fame. The silly girl, doesn’t she know that my biography of her will make her immortal?"

But that would only be true if Dawn could figure out how Demi’s story ended. After several days of waiting at the school gate for a glimpse of Demi, Dawn finally agreed with the school’s security chief that it was time to move on. And so, she hopped on a bus and a week later returned to her apartment in Newark, New Jersey (a one-room charmer with an excellent view of the road to the airport).

Dawn was going to type up a storm on her Smith-Corona just as soon as she knew about Demi’s fate. Suddenly, it occurred to her that there was somebody who could tell her about the future not just of Demi, but of all the people whose lives had crossed Demi’s: Madam Zeta, whose else?

Once Dawn decided to do something, she wasn’t going to let a little thing like bad weather deter her. Sure, there was a blizzard raging outside, and drifting into the lobby of her building. But she was determined to get into central Manhattan, come what may.

Two feet of snow may deter non-writers, but Dawn recognized that it might give her a captive audience if she could get through to the Brazilian Tea Room. Once there, after she’d dug out the front door of the restaurant, Dawn found to her delight that it was completely empty, save for Madam Zeta whom she found sound asleep on a pool table. Madam Zeta would have, Dawn reckoned, oodles of time to tell her about the future of Demi and her friends.

After some negotiations about money, and after Dawn agreed to stop drinking out of her own hip flask, Madam Zeta dusted off her crystal ball. She was still a bit drowsy, and so the ball (actually Madam Zeta as its medium) rather foolishly started describing everything it saw in the future — the Dow Jones stock market average in a year’s time, the century the Red Sox would next win the World Series, the next winning number in the Power Ball lottery, as well as the answer to the question "what would Bedford Falls be like if Dawn had never been born."

Dawn was uninterested in the answers to these trifling questions. She was focusing on the really important question: What’s to become of Demi? Eventually, Madam Zeta awoke to Dawn’s needs, and she coaxed the crystal ball into revealing the future for Demi and her friends.

The first scene showed that Virginia’s, Jo’s grandmother, would become a consumer activist. She’d fill her hours after Jo went away to boarding school by fighting against credit card abuse on the Internet. She’d eventually become so prominent in this cause that Virginia was appointed to a Presidential commission to find ways to prevent Internet fraud. Whenever reporters would ask Virginia to identify the taproot of her activism, she’d allude to "girls getting into trouble." The reporters then would nod knowingly: There was nothing like a teen’s unplanned pregnancy to upset a grandmother.

Next, the crystal ball revealed that Sherm Dinkins was destined to remain a shark his entire life, for he would work hard enough in college to get a law degree and to establish himself as a Hollywood divorce lawyer. He would be by far the luckiest of his gang, for the rest of the Sharks would end up doing time, either in a penitentiary, or in a call-center.

Markko, the most dynamic of the Jets, would go, said the ball, into English teaching. He’d eventually replace Vice Principal Cudmore, who’d be fired for taking a bribe from Hoover’s first Asian or ‘thong’ gang, the Yeshivas.

As Markko had a soft spot in his heart for Coach Bryant, the coach would be finally able to end his extended leave of absence and resume his efforts to separate the boys from the girls. He would be, however, no longer openly homophobic. Indeed, thanks to several years of sensitivity training, he’d be bending over backwards to accommodate the gay males on his teams and in his classes.

According to the crystal ball, the coach’s two brothers, Ernie and Arnie, would be less fortunate. Trouble would follow them, even to a desert ranch in New Mexico, where they would move to be as far away from shopping malls, sports complexes, and teenagers as possible. They’d hoped to keep their noses clean by taking up sheep ranching together, but would eventually go on trial for bestiality.

Ernie and Arnie seemed to live under a curse, as did Dr. Loupi, who would never be able, despite his best efforts, to escape Des Moines. His paper to the prestigious Mental Health Conference of South Central Iowa on ‘Kelly X’ effectively would destroy his career.

His audience would scoff at the results of the gender test, as they’d point out that Loupi had omitted the sole correct answer from the ‘best-desert-for-a-tan’ question. And they’d be amazed that he’d scored as correct — that is, as the transsexual answer — Kelly’s selection of "to please a strict, lesbian aunt" as the best reason for a boy to wear a dress. Indeed, there’d be general agreement that only half of Kelly’s answers had revealed a transsexual.

Loupi’s reputation and career would be shot, his days as a school counselor effectively over. The following summer would see him start a second career in selling ladies’ shoes for a certain Mr. Bundy, who had bought a chain of women’s shoe stores after winning the Power Ball lottery.

Loupi would love his new job, as it would bring him into intimate contact with so many ‘lesbians’. True, women would tell him they were looking for spiked heels in order to awe their husband or boyfriend, but Loupi would know better. He’d long ago concluded that Des Moines was a hotbed of lesbianism. And that knowledge would make him a very contented shoe salesman, even if it meant that he would never find a suitable woman to date.

While there were many in Des Moines who had long believed Elvira to be one of Loupi’s beloved sisterhood, New Yorkers would know better. The crystal ball revealed that she and Steve were going to move to New York the summer after Demi went away to school, so that Steve could be closer to his father, and Elvira to Dr. Johansson.

Sven and she had fallen in love during a night of wild passionate sex after Demi’s fateful visit to the ballet, and she would soon decide to move in with him. Demi would have, as a result, two places to stay whenever she visited New York, which would be fairly often.

In fact, there would be three places to choose from once Steve had graduated from high school and had moved in with Brad, who like Steve, would win a basketball scholarship at St. John’s University. They would live on the top floor of a six-story walk-up in Greenwich Village, but Steve would believe, the ball promised, that he was in gay heaven.

Indeed, he would chase so many ‘angels’ down Christopher Street that he and Brad would stay together only because Brad would be too shy to ask him to leave. The crystal ball cut out just as it was about to tell Dawn whether Steve would ever calm down long enough to realize that there wasn’t anyone in New York as desirable as the boy he’d lure from Iowa.

Brad would develop, all his friends would agree, into a real sweetheart. For example, he’d help Tim and Vicky out financially as best he could while they established themselves as an ice-dancing team. Success wouldn’t come easily to them because blind prejudice would keep them out of both the Olympics and the Gay Games. They’d have to turn pro, as a result, without ever really having established their credentials as amateurs.

However, they’d skate with such brilliance, such panache, that they’d eventually become headliners in the Ice Follies. Though it would take her seven years, Vicky would finally take Tim’s virginity, and having taken it, she would never give it back. They’d get married — the crystal ball was sure of that. But it lost count of the number of children they’d adopt.

That was Derek’s ambition as well — to adopt two or three children from war-torn Scandinavia. Did he ever get to do it? "Definitely," said the crystal ball. And he would have lots of room for them after he made a fortune in his early twenties by speculating on Energy futures. He’d even guess correctly that Californians would agree to sell San Francisco to three Persian Gulf sheikhs in order to pay their air-conditioning bill.

Naturally, Dawn wanted to know something about Derek’s wife. If it were Demi, then she’d know enough about Demi’s future to write the next chapter of the biography. But no, it wasn’t going to be Demi. His wife would be the spitting image of Demi, mind you, but she’d be Jason’s only sister. And she wouldn’t be a virgin when she married Derek — thanks to Jason’s early attentiveness.

And what would become of Jason, Demi’s erstwhile friend and nemesis? According to the crystal ball, he was going to keep track of Demi wherever she moved, and so he would probably have the best idea of her ultimate fate. Certainly, he’d always know where to send a dozen boxes of extra-large pizza, each with a triple order of anchovies.

"And where will I find Jason after he leaves Hoover High?" Dawn asked the crystal ball (well, Madam Zeta).

It replied: "He’ll be working as a waiter in a gay restaurant. He’ll be the one with the biggest income from tips, the tightest pants, and the most attitude. He’ll tell you he’s not gay, and maybe he isn’t. Even a crystal ball can’t figure out Jason."

Despite its garrulousness, the crystal ball had still not told Dawn much about Demi. True, the girl was not going to be the mother of Derek’s children, and she was apparently going to stay friendly with the Lancers, but the crystal ball for some reason refused to show Demi’s body or face. Perversely, it even called her Kyle at times.

Dawn decided that the spirits were toying with her. So she demanded that the crystal ball tell her about the two people closest to Demi — about Barb and Jo. Once she knew their fates, Demi’s biography would almost write itself. Dawn would be able to write an epic!

Barb, it turned out, would have a great future. Upset at first when Demi told her to go to law school so that the moped wouldn’t have to be sold, she would in fact take the advice. She would study law at night after work in the many hours left empty by Demi’s departure for Ottumwa.

Barb would become an environmental lawyer and a partner in Taft’s firm. With his help, she’d be elected to the State Assembly exactly six years to the day after Demi had left home. This was great news, Dawn decided, though it didn’t tell her much about Demi.

So what about Jo? Dawn knew that the crystal ball couldn’t talk about Jo without divulging Demi’s future. "Jo," the ball said, "definitely will be a lesbian."

"Well, I could have told you that!" answered Dawn intemperately. "Tell me something I don’t already know, you cheap hunk of plastic!"

The crystal ball went dark.

"You shouldn’t have yelled at it," Madam Zeta said. "The spirits have feelings too, you know. I’m afraid they’ll never speak to you again."

And Madam Zeta was right. Poor Dawn never did learn how Demi’s story ended. She wasn’t able, therefore, to finish her epic biography of Demi. She couldn’t even fake another chapter.

So Dawn went back to her true calling — unemployment — while she waited for Demi’s life to unfold. Dawn had no idea of how it would all turn out. Yet she figured that Demi’s life would be an interesting one to watch from afar, especially as Dawn no longer could afford cable.

Acknowledgements: This story could never have been written without the kind words, encouragement and advice of the many people who wrote me. Everyone who wrote me or posted a comment influenced the story, as it was definitely a work in progress. So I did notice when I was told there was too much ‘reminiscing’. The pace improved after that. Particularly influential and helpful were Crystal, John, Sapphire, Amber Palmer, Britney, Kelly Ann Rogers, Sissy Demi, and Josie.

Kelly Ann helped me to understand my characters better, and has been gently improving my style. There would have been no Moped without Sissy Demi, for my first posting of Part 1 at Crystal’s Storysite had only nine readers after three days. She found me an audience. As I was determined to thank her by using her name for Kyle’s alter ego, I’m thankful Demi’s name was one I could play with. What if it had been Henrietta? Josie’s name appeared only once in this story, but her playful, optimistic spirit suffused it.