Weekly challenge again. Let's see if I can give justice to MELANIE EZELL'S BIG CLOSET ULTIMATE WRITER'S CHALLENGE, the second week challenge:

2. The Uncomfortable Truth

idea: Write a story from the viewpoint of a non-passing transgender individual. This can explore any facet of the transgender spectrum, but try to focus on either the stigma of being one's self in a culture that values appearances or the difficulties of not being able to express ones inner self.

Length: Any

Hard to do this topic in a non-depressing way, so I wanted to disconnect it from the real world a bit. So I decided to try to do this in the boy-having-trouble-passing-for-a-male way. With magic.

This could probably do with an editor checking it over and then a total revision, but I'll post it anyway...

What's in a blessing?

I looked at my image in the mirror and nearly fell in tears again. This time it was my eyebrows. Every time I try to do something for my appearance, the magic beats back. The more effort I spend, the less I'm able to be myself. Such is nature of the enchantment. Despair again rose to fill my throat. It all started with great grandmother, I'll tell you the story. She was blessed, you see. Blessed and thereby leaving me cursed.

In her youth, there was an old seamstress living just outside of town. Old and withered, but all clothes she made, the people swore they lasted three times as long as any other garment, didn't stay dirty no matter how badly soiled they were, and they never lost colour nor that slight flowery aroma the colourings she used gave them. But then came the reverend, and he began gathering followers in town, and inciting riots and torch mobs against those not of the right faith, followers of Beelzebub as they were. Eventually the old seamstress crone was the target of their aggressions. A mob marched on her house, torches held high, eventually putting it on fire when failing to gain entry and bringing her out.

That day great grandmother had been given some money for a new dress by her mother, and she was with the seamstress to fit it, when the villagers arrived, preacher at their front. A rock thrown through the window hit the old woman in the neck, and she fell to the floor with blood starting to seep from a long cut the stone had caused. The girl had managed to get the trapdoor to the old cellar open and gotten the unconscious lady down the ladder, closing behind her. As the house burned to the ground above their heads, she had carried her through the cellar and up through the ramp to the outside. Waiting for the villagers to leave, she somehow managed to get the old crone all the way through the forest and through alleyways all the way back to her home.

Grateful over great grandmother saving her life, the seamstress asked her if there was anything in the world she wished, anything at all, be it riches, prosperity, handsome prince — well, as close as comes in America anyway — for husband, anything. Her answer was that she very much would like to get a new dress, she was outgrowing her current, and she'd lost the money to pay her new one. Her mother, knowing the reality of the offer her daughter had gotten, told her to not be silly, wouldn't she rather have eternal beauty for for herself and her daughters?

And that's when it all went so wrong. Because the seamstress answered “Of course, Child, you will have your new dress, I promise you this. For the Goddess rewards those that are kind to her servants, and blesses the children who are unassuming and modest. I think I can do one better for you. In the name of the Goddess I extend this blessing to you and all your descendants. May you be blessed with never withering beauty, grace and wit, attractiveness to the men you desire, and freedom from ails and aches. May the skin of your face be smoth and unmarred, eyebrows well defined and elegant, eyes large and clear and deep and captivating. May your hair always stay long and voluminous and shiny, stay ordered and well kept and never be of inconvenience. May your body be free of unseemly hairs and marks. May your bosom always have sway over the gentlemen, your waist stay slim, your hips form well to carry children, your legs be long and graceful. And may you always wear the most exquisite smocks, always pristine and whole, neither too cool nor too heavy, never indecent but neither unwieldy — smocks worthy of a real lady of your time.”

Great grandmother stood there, still a girl on the border of becoming a young woman, with a new prettiness to her features, shining of health and vitality, in her beautiful silk gown, watching the old witch exit the door and leave the village to never return.

My body betraying me, giving after to the magic, it was all I could do to stop myself from crying. I might look like a girl, but I detested the vision I presented and the feminine patterns of movement and speech that my body and voice took as their nature when not watching over myself. I was not going to give after to girly shows of emotion. Boys ground their teeth together and kept trudging on. And while my body looked anything like a boy’s, my mind was solidly male.

Swallowing down the tears, I got dressed, not in the clothes I would have worn had it been up to me of course, and down the stairs to where Mom was preparing breakfast.

“Oh Sweetie!” she said as she rushed to hug me. Nothing needed to be said for her to know how I felt about this my most recent change. I don’t think she even got time to see what it was, just how upset I was.

Just then Sis came down and made it into a group hug. She’s great. If it were not for her, I’m not sure I would have survived to this day. She’s given more than one bully a black eye or a broken arm. And somehow, looking at her always cheers me up, because however girly my appearance may be, she’s more so. I’m at least not quite as far gone as she.

Breakfast was a fast affair, and Dad got down the stairs just as Sis and me finished.

“Good luck today, son!” he said as he ruffled my curls. “Show them all it’s all about skill and not appearances.”

School today was a special day. Morning classes were all cancelled so all pupils could partake in the team try outs for this season. Our school was large and had a team partaking in just about every sport from football to figure skating. I was determined to make the judo team. And maybe the sprint team if joining both was possible. I had a lot of training in that, running from bullies.

Sports were one of the few reprieves I had from the full brunt of the magic. Apparently the enchantment had some respect for uniforms. All sports outfits I wore followed the rules of dress in that sport, even if the magic perhaps fiddled with just how well they fit and how nice they looked on me. As I was entering the dressing room, one of the seniors I knew had been on the football team last season threw the door open, nearly in my face.

“Sorry, beautiful!” he even looked sincere when he said it. “I think you want the next door over in any case, doll.”

“Next door over? But that’s where the girls change… No, I’m pretty sure this is where I’m supposed to change.”

“You’re a guy?” he asked, eyebrows twisted out of shape. Apparently there were some who had not yet heard of me in school still.

“Of course, wouldn’t be changing in this room if I was a girl, would I?”

His eyes travelled my entire body from head to feet and back.

“How can anybody looking as great as you be a guy?” he asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Well, you know this sex thing? It’s all about what is in your pants. It doesn’t matter what the rest of your body looks like.”

“But you’re hot!”

“Thank you!” I answered his not-too-bright line of thinking with an eyebrow wiggle. “Now you’re blocking the door. Can I pass?”

“Uhh, sure”

After passing the first obstacle for getting into the try outs, I noticed how the entire dressing room was looking at me. I ignored them and took a looker in the far corner. Incidentally, it turned out the big block of muscles that had blocked me from getting in the door had the locker next to me. Despite him obviously having finished dressing, he came over and sat there for the whole time I took in dressing. His eyes went wide when he saw my bra and panties, but the obvious bulge in them caused him to look the other way.

Once or twice in the dressing room I saw a few of the more obnoxious bullies looking daggers at me, but with one of the seniors on the football team beside me, nobody made a move on me.

“Well, thank you for intimidating the neanderthals back there”, I offered him my hand. “The name is Michael. Michael Brian Radcliffe Rayson.”

“Uh, Lance. Lance Evans. Sorry about before. So, which marital art are you trying out for?”

“Judo. Been doing it since I was big enough to walk down to the sports center.”

“Well, gotta get out there or coach is going to flay me. Catch you later.”

“Not if I see you first!” I said, then gave a little laugh to tell him I wasn’t serious.

Judo try outs were more like a relaxed tournament. I did pretty well, considering all. The teacher telling me it was so good to have a girl of my skill there was about the only downer. She looked a little weirdly at me when I told her that “I’m not a girl, and my name is Michael”, but after a second or two she just nodded and told me she’d be seeing me Mondays, Wednessdays and Fridays then.

I made it to the sprint try outs through inventive dodging in the dressing room. I had a bit of trouble with being put in the right group, as the coach directly had put me in the girls’ heats. It took a lot of arguing and even showing him my student ID with photo and a distinct M in the sex field to convince him. The atmosphere among the runners was substantially tense around me after that. But after my finishing third in the 400 meters category both in the first and the second heat, I made it. Their practice time was after school hours, so I could join both.

Trouble came in the showers however. One of my Cro–Magnon sprinter colleagues decided it was fun to grab my breast and squish it. I was a bit stunned at this, so he hit the floor three seconds later and was just lying there. After a bit of a panic among all the naked guys, one of the PE teachers came and took him to the nurse, wrapped in a towel. The rest of the guys kept their distance from me after that.

It was second period after lunch when the anticipated call for me to report with the Administrators’ offices immediately ran out through the PA system. I got my stuff and left for the offices. Well there, I was pointed to the larger of the conference rooms. There I was met by the headmaster, the school nurse, the boy that had attacked me, both his parents, Dad, and three of the PE teachers. The first twenty minutes of the meeting felt like a trial, and I was accused of being a serial massmurdering, streaking faggot girl who went whapping innocent guys left and right for my own enjoyment. It took about two hours to put things straight, including a call to Dad’s attorney and threats of bringing legal action to the school. Eventually the boy apologised to me, I told him that I was sorry he got hurt but that it was his own fault for sexually harassing me in the showers, and if he did it again I would gladly point the lawyers his way. His parents got a bit upset about that.

I would have to use the special individual changing rooms and showers that school had for girls who were feeling a bit off because of their period in the future. And both of us got detention for a week.

Getting home after that turned into a hugfest, and I fell asleep on the couch relishing Sis combing her fingers through my hair. Normally I would abhor so girly a reaction, but I badly needed the relaxation, and it just felt so good.

The next morning, I woke up not to the bruised breast that I had the night before, but to yet another cup size. This time I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.

And so I'm cursed. Cursed by a blessing.