Synopsis:When Robert's lying, habitual stealing, and attitude about women gets to be too much for his mother, she comes up with a Plan to help her delinquent son turn around.

As I lay sobbing on my bed, I could hear Mom talking to Josh. I wasn’t sure what she wasn’t saying and I didn’t care. Even if no one recognized me at the mall, I just knew that as soon as I stepped through the doors of my school, Josh’s reaction would be the reaction of every other student in the building.

I angrily took of my blouse and skirt, wadded them in a ball, and threw them in the corner. I started to take off my bra and panties and stopped. I didn’t have any other underwear and I was kind of reluctant to take them off.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my emotions down. Crying wasn’t going to help. I turned my thoughts to revenge. Usually if someone crossed me, I’d make them pay by stealing something they cherished. It helped move my emotions in a different direction.

I was about to start thinking about what I could do to hurt Josh when I stopped. I knew that if I did something Mom would probably escalate my punishment. Plus there was no way I could get back at an entire school when they started laughing at me. Frustrated by inability to retaliate, I threw myself onto my bed and buried myself under the covers.

“Rebecca? Dinner’s ready. Are you OK, Baby Girl?”

“STOP IT MOM! I’m not a girl! I’ll never be a girl! And when I go to school in a few weeks, everyone will recognize me and I’ll be a laughingstock. I can’t believe you’re making me do this. I’ll probably get beat up everyday after this!” I was angry and I hoped that maybe a guilt trip would get me what I wanted.

“Becky, stop that. Don’t worry about it, you’ll be all right. Just stay away from your macho friends and you’ll be fine!”

“No, Mom. I won’t be fine. Even if no one recognizes me at school, there’s still the problem of my name, my family, where I live. You can’t just make up a new identity. Even if you could, I’m a BOY! You can’t just turn people into something they’re not. It’s not like I like being a girl and you’re giving me what I want. This will never work.”

Mom looked at me with a strange look on her face, “Becky is there something bothering you? I mean besides what’s going on with school? If it’s Josh, I talked to him and he’s sorry if he hurt your feelings.”

“Mom, I don’t want to be a girl. What I’m scared of is that by the end of the year, I won’t have any choice except to be a girl.”

“Well, Honey, I promise not to push you to do something you don’t want to do. You have to attend school as a girl, but anything else you choose to do is up to you. And if at the end of the year, you go back to your old ways, that’s fine.

"I’d have done everything I can think of to change you and I would have failed. Plus you’d be an adult anyway. You’d be free to make your own choices in life.

"But if you somehow want to be a girl at the end of the year, that’s fine too. I don’t want to have a daughter at the end of the year, but if that’s what I have then know that I’ll still love you.”

“Thanks, Mom."

We hugged again. Two hugs in one day? I usually average about a hug every 6 months! Still it felt pretty good and I needed it.

“Still we do need to talk about what I’m supposed to tell people when I go back to school.”

“That’s a good point, Becky. What do you suggest?”

I started to think. The best scenario would be to create someone who never existed. I’d done that once, convincing a girl that I was the third string QB for a rival school. I wasn’t big enough to be a football player and the school didn’t have a third string QB, but I pulled it off and got a date and an iPod out of the deal. Still the key to that ruse is disappearing when you get what you want and that wasn’t going to work here.
So maybe something more grounded in truth. A half-sister? No that raises more questions than it answers. A cousin? That might work! It’d seem unbelievable if you were reading it in a book or watching a movie, but the human mind usually accepts the easy answer no matter how ridiculous it might seem.

I had an uncle and aunt who lived out on a farm somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska or something. The story could be that my “cousin” wanted to experience life outside the farm and Mom wanted me to go to the farm to “shape up.” Yeah, that might actually work. I explained my plan to Mom and we agreed that it would make the most sense.

After Mom left, I decided to get my room in order. I put all “my” clothes in my closet and dressers. It’s so weird to think of them as my clothes! After that, a hot shower and then I decided to get dressed for bed. I selected a dark blue pair of sleep shorts with little hearts printed on them as well as a plain white cami to go with it.
A cami is apparently some kind of girl’s undershirt, this one was comfortable and it held up my rack pretty well. I walked downstairs to go grab whatever was left of dinner.

“Hey Roberta! Your boyfriend’s going to be pretty disappointed to see you covering that much skin! You better entertain him some other way!” Josh started cracking up at his own joke.

“Josh! We talked about this. Her name is Rebecca and you’ll treat her with respect or else! Now apologize to your sister!”

Josh grumbled, looked at me, and mumbled, “Sorry sis.” Then in a whisper, “sorry that you’ll never get a boyfriend, you’re probably crying that you can’t get one.”

That jerk! Although if Josh had walked down wearing what I was and looking like I looked, I would have given him far worse. Hell, I probably would have taken pictures and posted it all over Facebook by now.

After eating a pretty quiet dinner, I decided to go to bed. Three hours later, I was still tossing and turning. With this extra weight on my chest, it made sleeping pretty different to what I was used to. Still, I somehow managed to fall asleep.

The next few weeks passed by in a blur. I asked Mom to teach me how to pass as a girl and she had obliged. How to stand, how to sit, how to walk, how to talk, and on and on it went. I struggled to learn them and after I had mastered them, I’d go up to my room and practice switching back and forth between Rebecca mode and Robert mode. I knew if I let it, I’d probably let those feminine mannerisms take over and the last thing I wanted was to be caught walking or talking like a girl after this punishment was over.
Dad had called a few times to ask how things were going. None of us had told him about the punishment, mostly because he was pretty stressed and very busy. Dad works as a Service Delivery Manager for a major software company. He usually doesn’t go overseas, but apparently this was a pretty tight contract and the company needed its best on the job. When Dad’s in a high-pressure situation he’s usually pretty abrupt and doesn’t pay much attention while on the phone.

I had hoped that he’d come home before the first day of school and he’d put a stop to this ridiculous punishment, but it looked like I’d have to accept my fate. Still, the weeks flew by and before I knew it, it was the first day of school.

Ugh! Where is that stupid alarm? One thing I’d never get used to is waking up earlier to get ready. I loved my sleep and I didn’t want to sacrifice it. Still, I shut off my stupid alarm and trudged into the shower. I checked for any stray hairs on my legs, to my relief I didn’t find any, and then took a quick shower.
I brushed my hair out, another thing I wouldn’t get used to doing, and then changed into my clothes for my first day of my senior year of high school. I know it’s important to make an impression on your first day, so I’d carefully picked out what I’d be wearing. I was wearing a white tank top with a pink flower print, a denim skirt, and some gold strappy sandals.

After hurriedly applying my makeup and wolfing down a quick breakfast (with my mother trying to tell me something about ladylike behavior the whole time I was eating), I grabbed my purse and my backpack and headed out the door. To my shock, my car was gone!

“Mom! What happened to my car?”

“Rebecca, Honey, a black corvette with flames all over it is no vehicle for a young lady to be driving. I traded it in last night for something more appropriate.”

“Mom, I paid for that car myself! You can’t just take it from me.”

“Don’t worry, Honey, at the end of the year I’ll personally buy you another car you want. It’ll be fine.”

I guess she had a point. Still I had put in a lot of work into earning the money for my car. Sure I earned it by stealing most of it off other students, but earning money is earning money. Oh well! There’s nothing I can do about it now. Mom was going to be driving Josh to his school so I had my brand new pink VW bug all to myself. I took a deep breath, started the car, and headed off to school to start a senior year unlike any other.

Thanks for reading! As always comments, criticism, and kudos are appreciated. Hopefully we'll really start getting into the meat of the story in the next chapter. Still I believe that buildup is very important to a story so I'm glad that you've stuck with me this long!