Richard's Way
Jennifer Christine
Part 3

Sandy looked pensive for a minute or two as I bored into her mind with my eyes, trying to see what she was thinking. Eventually she looked up and smiled gently.
“Don’t worry pet, I’ll make sure you’re not harmed. I can get a ward of court order very quickly and make sure your body is sacrosanct. But, honestly, I don’t think your mother is that far from the truth anyway and your father has no idea — head in cloud syndrome I think.” She grinned and tried to lower the tension. “What I’m worried about is you’re obviously on drugs that aren’t prescription and you’ve been taking them a while. Have you had any blood tests?”

“Well, no, but I have been monitoring my weight and any odd things like kidney pain and stuff. Basically I stopped my Puberty before it started and now I’m just growing up as a girl with a willie.” I coloured up thinking about it.

“Look…Rich… I can take you on as a client, that gives me — and you - non-disclosure and confidentiality clauses that stop me from telling your parents, but it also means I’m risking my relationship with your parents and I don’t want to do that.
What I propose is this. I’m going to be your go between. This means that I’ll sound out your mum for her response to your being transgendered or ‘different’.
I will let you know what the result is and we plan from there. Your father isn’t going to be a serious problem, honestly.”

I looked at her, knitting my eyebrows almost to the point of knotting the individual hairs together. “What do you mean — not a problem? He’s going to be up alongside the International Space Station when he finds out — they’re going to have to haul him on board and send him back down with the next Soyuz. I don’t think I’ve met a man so close to paranoid homophobic, if I used scented soap, he’d call me a whore, a cheap one at that.”

Sandy grinned and patted my leg, “That’s because he’s very sensitive about the situation. A question of ‘methinks he doth protest too much’. I’m not going to say any more, but don’t write him off as a support mechanism just yet. He may surprise you.”

I struggled for a moment to get the grasp of that, I wasn’t going to ask any more questions about that as the look on Sandy’s face was transparently trepidatious. I believed that she was saying dad was not as close to the centre of the bell curve (where sexuality was concerned) as I’d come to believe. There was hope for me yet.

“Right,” she stood and turned to me offering her arms for a hug — I returned the emotion and wrapped my arms round her. She kissed the top of my head. “Sleep tight, R…enata.”
She smiled sympathetically at me and turned for the door.
As she pulled it to, she whispered “And don’t worry, I’ll not let anything happen without your consent.”

I smiled and said loud enough for her to hear, “It’s Rebecca.”

I lay back down and switched off the light. Sleep was a long time coming but when it did it was deep and restoring.

No mention was made the next morning and indeed nothing seemed to have changed — I took the occasional glance at Sandy during breakfast and she didn’t return any of them. The twins were quiet and reflective — waiting for the balloon to go up I guess.

“Us wrinklies are going to go out for lunch, down the local, you kids going to accompany us or are you going to go into town or something?” Dad enquired of us.

The twins looked at me for guidance, “I reckon we’ll go into town if you’re financing the operation,” I held out my hand and dad popped a couple of notes in it. I grinned. “Lunch is on the Coombes.” I directed to the twins who high fived each other. They couldn’t reach my hand. “Thanks Dad. This should cover it nicely.” I pocketed the two 20 pound notes thinking, ‘generous, very generous indeed.’

“That should also be enough for entertainment for the afternoon, we expect you back at a reasonable hour — BEFORE dinner.” He added — “We’ll drop you off — where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere will do on the high street,” Sarah volunteered.

And so it was that we found ourselves seated in a little Alfresco coffee bar in the warm sunlit high street. “So come on, what the hell went on last night, Mum was in your room for ages last night — what did she say?” The girls were both looking contrite and a bit worried though much less so than they had been at breakfast when they expected the ‘fit to hit the shan’

“Your mum said she’d make sure everything is going to be ok and she’s going to sound out my mum to see if we can ride this out without recrimination.” I stirred my coffee thoughtfully. When I looked up I realised that the girls were waiting for me to continue.
“Well, your mum realised that nothing could be done about the situation and is hoping that disaster can be averted and no one hurt in the process.”

“You’re going to have to explain better than that Rich; that sounds like a glossover.” Angela leaned back and looked impatiently at me. “Details, we need details.”

I gave them the full rundown.
They wanted to take me shopping for the afternoon but I said “window shopping only” and then we’d enjoy a share out of the remaining loot as a boost to our allowances. The twins were very disappointed but they smirked at each other when they realised that window shopping to a bunch of girls meant — lingerie shops and department stores and shoe shops and not book stores and similar non gender related outlets.

We did a comprehensive tour of the retail venues and actually came away with a T shirt that was a soft cinnamon colour for me — it was non-gender specific, but not many guys would have the metro-sexual nerve to wear it out. The twins said it was for my post-recognition period. With a bra and decent jeans, it would indeed make a nice casual outfit.

The rest of the weekend passed away with nothing to relate except a quick word with Sandy before we left on Sunday.

“I haven’t had a chance to really get into the nitty gritty of the subject yet,… Becca(?) but we did briefly discuss the topic of self determination. I’m going to take it slow - I’ll chat with Liz during the week if I can. We’re not seeing you lot next weekend so I may have lunch or something later in the week. Just don’t dwell on it. There’s no deadline, though I would like you to see an endocrinologist for a blood test pretty soon. I’m really putting my neck on the line not taking you straight to the hospital. Would you like me to set you up with a blood test?”

“Only if the test isn’t going to get back to M&D (mum and dad) before the news is out.”
I replied tentatively. “I don’t want you to get in trouble with the Bar Association.”

“I’m impressed — you know about the ogres of the Court system eh? — I could only get a reprimand for conflict of interest, though it would be a slap on the wrist I don’t want. So let’s hope it doesn’t come to that eh?” She patted me on the shoulder and we didn’t get to discuss it further.

We chatted agreeably about the weekend as we headed home and no one seemed unduly pointed about anything. I relaxed as it seems only three weekends remained til I felt safe(r).

True enough the week seemed to pass innocuously enough and the new routine of my being home and doingthe house-stuff was couching us gently to the week’s end. Mum had lunch with Sandy on the Friday and spoke of it during supper that evening.

“She seemed a bit introspective today, she must have a hard case to work with; she was telling me about a young man who wants autonomy from his parents.
I said, “as long as the boy was sensible, what was the problem?” Sandy said that he wasn’t of age to be self supporting yet and needed emotional and financial support.
She changed the subject, but I was wondering why the boy needed autonomy AND support. Really odd, I can’t figure it out.”
Dad mumbled something about ‘perhaps he was gay and didn’t want to be grounded by his folks.’ And ‘don’t know what the country is coming to, place is full of wierdos.’

Mum looked askance at him, I continued to chew thoughtfully. I wonder if that’s a cue for me to say something about me? Should I continue the conversation or is it just a primer from Sandy for mum to chew over.

“Maybe the boy is scared that something he is doing is against the parent’s designs. Like changing religions or something — or going out with a girl of different origin.” I advanced a couple of theories. Theories that wouldn’t point directly at what I was doing.

“That’s a thought, something that might upset the parents that they could control if he’s underage. I think it would be sad if parents couldn’t allow their children to grow as they need to to be happy. After all, look at us, we’ve let Rich grow as he wishes and not go to school.” Mum added, slipping another forkful of steak and kidney pie into her mouth.

“Well, I have already passed my six ‘A’ levels for University entrance with all grade A passes — I only needed three you know?” I purposely confused the issue — I was beginning to sweat. Softly, softly, catchee monkey is the way I need to go here.

“Perhaps you should join a gym while you’re home — you don’t want to turn into a wimp with no muscles do you?” Dad intoned, changing the subject but actually changing it for one closer to where I didn’t want to go.

“No dad, I don’t want to turn into a wimp with or without muscles, nor do I want to go to a gym. Perhaps I should get self determination so I don’t have to go to places that my parents wish me to.” I decided to push the envelope in the opposite direction — the old subject was easier than this one.

“It’s a complex issue,” My father waved his fork as part of his instructional technique. “The parents being the guides, mentor and guardians of a child legally until his 16th birthday can pretty much do as they please, as long as the child isn’t physically abused. But they can’t throw him out without making them wards of court. Or so I believe. Someone has to be a child’s guardian until they’re sixteen. What rights do the guardians have and what rights do the children have? Can the child determine his future before he’s sixteen or must the parents take responsibility for his action?” Dad stuck his fork into a potato and popped it into his mouth as he pondered.

This was actually playing right into my hands, if dad determines that a child has responsibility for his actions and not the parent, then I can argue that I can take HRT and he can’t stop me and he can’t gainsay me and fill me with testosterone at his discretion.

“So the child decides he wants to steal an article instead of paying for it? What responsibility does the parent have?” I asked. “Must he go to prison for the actions of the child?”

“No, that would be silly, the child has made a decision that he’s not capable of understanding, that of breaking the law.” Dad decided. “So he may be chastised but not punished per se.”

“You’re kidding? A child of 15 can volunteer for the armed services and take responsibility for his actions — ie be issued with a gun and use it responsibly. Yet that same child can’t be done for theft because he isn’t old enough to be responsible for his actions. Hardly seems right does it?”

“Well put like that, it’s a bit of a grey area isn’t it?” Mum put in.

“Not really, because if you go into the services, someone else takes responsibility for you — the Queen if you work it to the top.” Dad covered his tracks.

“What if a ‘child’ say me, robs a bank — or deals drugs? Do we still have no idea what we’re doing is wrong? There really can be no excuse about responsibility then can there?” Digging my own grave here, but I want dad to commit himself to a child being self determining at some point.

“Well the court would decide to charge the person under the adult code probably — basically giving them — or you in this case - the ‘self-determination’ by default. The parent would have no responsibility for the actions of the child nor would anyone else. They would have TAKEN self determination on themselves.”

I smiled inwardly, I rest my case.

“You aren’t thinking of robbing my bank are you?” He grinned.

Those words were to haunt me later.

Two weeks to my birthday. Two weeks and three weekends really. Perhaps even if I told them now, they wouldn’t have time to mess up my plans. No, let’s leave it until I have let the water under the bridge. I left it right there.

When you’re expecting things to happen, there’s a sort of suspension in the normal run of things. Things carry on as normal, but you seem to be in an eddy, waiting for the moment when the tide slips you back into the stream to carry on with new momentum.

That weekend seemed so slow, we did house and garden stuff — I cleaned the pool, mowed the lawn and cleaned the car. I went into town to buy a book. I spent a few minutes in a department store looking at a dress for my birthday party. Well I was looking for a dress that I might be able to wear when the broken bones healed after I told mum and dad — probably on my birthday.

A retail assistant came over and said, “Can I help you, miss?” I looked up and smiled.

“Oh, no thanks, I’m just checking some stuff out for my birthday,” I said, honestly.

“You come back and see me when you’re ready,” She smiled and wandered off to two other ladies on the next rack.

Short hair, no makeup and boys’ clothes and I still get miss. Cool.

That about cured that weekend — I spent some time on the web reading some gender related fora, but they were really tacky and I got nauseous reading some of the trite rubbish spouted by some of the posters. It was obvious — to me anyway — that quite a few were getting off on it and really weren’t anything to do with being gender screwed.

Before dad left on Monday he told me to go and have a look at the temp jobs in the local shop windows — there may be some folks looking for help or something, it’d be a good way to earn a few shekels.
After doing the cleaning and putting on a wash, I decided it couldn’t hurt and I went down to the local corner store to check out the ads on the window — there were always a few.
Danny’s Supplies
“Wanted
pamphlets poster, ring 123555779. Ask for Mick. 5 hours a week.
Approx 8 pounds per hour. Suit a pensioner or School Student”

So I rang.
“Why is it approx 8 pounds an hour?” I asked before we got too far into the scheme of things.
“Well it’s an average of how many leaflets you deliver.” I could hear him smile.
“How many would that be?” I asked drumming my fingers loud enough for him to hear.
“About 160. “ he said almost casually —

5p each, I calculated in my head and minimum three and a half miles, maybe five.
Just possible in poorer suburbs not possible in expensive suburbs — the house blocks are too big.

“I’m not training to be an Olympic marathon runner, how about I design you a website and you pay me 100 quid?”

“How big is the website? I’m not too good wiv a computer — I’d need someone to manage it. “ He said after a moment or two’s silence.

“Ok, your shop is the local hardware isn’t it?” I was grinning by this time — I’d hooked him

“Yeah that’s right.”

“Well you’d want to put on your tools and stuff and your mowers now it’s coming into summer and stuff like that. About 5 megabytes, I guess would do it with small photos or drawings taken from a catalogue. Do you want customers to be able to order from the website or to come in to the store?” This could be fun.

“I get most of my stuff from a catalogue myself and sell it on. It’s not a big business, it’s my old man’s, he’s too old to run it now.”

“Well how about I build it and show you how to change the prices and stuff then you can just ring me up if you want any big changes. I’ll put tags in the site so that you can print them on your bills and receipts and then it’ll be easy to spread the word.
It’ll be easy to put an ad in the yellow pages and local free papers too. Smaller ad with a bigger impact.” Sell, sell, sell, I thought.

“Come on round, I’ll see what you can do and then we can do a deal.” He started to sound enthusiastic.

“Ok”. I put down the phone and thought — easy peasy!

By the time I got home I had a small catalogue, his nominal price list, logo and a cheque for 150 pounds to buy a domain name. By tea time I had up a simple site with an easy to find price index and the shop’s logo and a pic or two. Enough to see what sort of response was going to happen

“Did you see about finding some work today son?” Dad asked over his lamb chops and mint sauce.

“Actually yes I did, I earned 100 pounds today on my first job. It’s not much, but it should snowball in a week or two.” I smiled quietly to myself.
“Impressive, what are you doing? lawns or what?”

“What, mostly. Lawns are too much like hard labour, I think, for someone my build.”

“That was the point son; it’s to build you up.” He shook his head and took another slice of carrot.

“Dad, I was given a heap of brain cells and no muscles — like the Mekon — you want me to mow lawns? I’ll buy a motor mower and sit on it to do the lawns — I’ll still earn the same but I have to buy the mower. I’m never, ever , going to push a mower round someone else’s garden. Please don’t raise the subject again” I directed him with a stare and pushed the 150 pound cheque at him.

“I wasn’t joking dad.”

Dad spun it round to read it and pushed it back towards me, “Don’t do anything illegal.”
He asked me no more questions.

By the end of the week I had 15 local businesses in my pocket and all the sites linked.
It would be a while before I could make 1500 quid in a week again, but each business was feeding me 10 pound a week to keep the changes going and even emailed the changes they wanted.  ½ an hour every morning for 150 a week. That’s simple enough.

It was Friday again and our turn to host the family. I’d organized the food for the weekend and I’d pre-prepared quite a bit. But I wasn’t going to do it for them. So I handed the kitchen over to mum.

When the family arrived everyone was relaxed and clean and prepared which wasn’t usually the case. It was usually a sort of flea circus on Fridays with everyone busting a gut to relax.

“So what’s been happening this week?” Brad asked as he sipped his whisky.
“Well, I told Rich to go find some work — buggered if he didn’t come home with 150 on his first day and 1500 for the week.”

The twins ears were suddenly on alert — this was serious retail therapy eskudos.

“Hey it’s not all profit. There’s only a thousand profit in that lot.” I complained lustily.

“One THOUSAND pounds?” The twins crooned together.

Uncle Brad’s eyes swiveled towards me over his glass. “I take it if I told the police, they’d not be round with sniffer dogs?”

“All legal — just website building — no biggie.” I held up my hands palm out to show honesty.
Sandy found me alone on the Saturday morning before the others had come to the breakfast table.

“Morning Auntie, what would you like for breakfast?” I was holding a jug of orange juice and she winced and said, “I’d rather a coffee thanks than something that wicked and acidic first thing in the morning.” I put down the jug and picked up the coffee pot.

“I never saw it before, but you’re quite graceful, you don’t move like a man.”

I looked at her and at the door pointedly, “Small Pigs, ears and big are words that spring to mind at this point.” I spoke quietly.

“Your mum is in the shower and your dad is still snoring, Brad is as well. I doubt our conversation would be heard by any that weren’t already au fait”. (that means who weren’t in the know) She sipped her coffee holding the mug with both her hands. “You make nice coffee. Not bitter.”

“I use Kenyan beans. They’re not as harsh.” I was trying to keep the conversation away from the relevant subject.

“Liz isn’t unaware that there’s something wrong, she said something about your development isn’t right. I didn’t broach the subject but asked her what she would do if you were ill.” Sandy sipped again, waiting for me to settle. I sat on the stool next to her with my juice. “Go on.”

‘“I think there is something wrong,” she said, “I think he’s a bit deformed and won’t tell me about it.”’ Sandy looked at me. “Do you think you’re deformed?”

“Yes, but not in the way mum sees it.” I smiled ruefully.

“I asked her, “What way deformed?” She said, “he seems to have a chest that’s all the wrong shape. It’s like he’s got a pigeon chest.””

I giggled a bit, “I guess that singlet is a bit too tight.” I shook my head. “You never think it’s going to happen to your own kids. Do you?” I felt guilty, not for the first time.

Movement on the stairs brought my mum into the room, smelling of talc and peach flavoured soap. “Morning all, is that coffee I smell? Mmm. What? What have I missed? You look like conspirators sat there. Like a pair of pirate discussing your next raid. Spill.” She looked at us with open questions in both eyes.

“We were discussing deformities,” Sandy volunteered, glancing at me to see if I was going to run with it. I shook my head, ‘please NO’ in my eyes.

“Oh,” mum looked at me. “And what conclusions did you come to?”

“That pigeons would look funny with human chests, and probably couldn’t fly very well.” I suggested, “and, that I definitely didn’t have a pigeon chest — nor a hairy one. Just somewhere in between.” I finished lyrically. “Like Goldilocks.” Giving just a hint of irony.

“I’ll have to find you a little bowl of porridge to see if you’re any good.” Sandy suggested.

“Any good at what?” I glanced at her — I could feel myself colouring up a bit.

“Being Goldilocks.” Sandy smiled playfully and bared her teeth in a rictus smile.

Mum’s back was still turned. She saw non and heard little of what we bantered. “What are you two wittering on about?”

“Me being Goldilocks,” I answered brightly. The light did NOT come on. Still too early in the morning and the coffee wasn’t working yet.

“What shall we do today?” Mum looked out of the window to assess the weather. “Looks nice out, maybe we can go for a run out to the beach for a walk.”

“You’ll have to wake the trolls first. Too many ‘talky talky tins’ last night I think.” I think she was referring to the cans of beer.

I finished my juice and roused the twins — “come in,” one of them sang out, I walked in and Sarah was clad only in knickers. “Oops,” I started to back out. “That’s Ok, only us girls in here,” I glanced briefly at her chest — to see how I compared — little in it I guessed. “I’ll wait outside, just the same if you don’t mind.” I smiled, turned and closed the door.

Timing was good — dad came out of the bedroom just after I closed the door, gave me a sort of open eyed look and went into the toilet. A morning glory a little obvious in his PJs.

I realised I’m starting to stress. I went back in my room and lay down and stuck my ear pods in and listened to some Kenny G. Mum woke me a bit later with a rap on the door. I’d slid off into a sort of hideaway sleep — I felt a bit better, but my head ached. I got some aspirin before I went downstairs.

Everyone was gathered and ready to go so I grabbed a jacket and followed. The sea was lovely but a bit blustery.
The whole weekend seemed to be a game of catch up and stress. By the end of it I was a wreck. I resolved that I would divulge all next weekend — I was not up to any more games of ‘guess and run’.

Sandy rang me during the Monday and told me that she’d spoken to her doctor and I could go round to the clinic and get a blood test on my own bat for 35 pounds — noone would be the wiser. I managed to get in there before the close of play and they told me they’d send the results to my doctor, I said, “You’d better not, this is a private consult.”

“Oh, where would you like the results sent?” The receptionist asked. She looked like she wanted to have me committed for being non-conformist.

“Ring me,” I handed her a card, “My number s on this card, I shall pick it up myself.”

“Oh, it’s got to go to a doctor.” She complained.

“Do you want to speak to my lawyer? Or do you want to ring me when the result comes in?” I gave her the option. She looked at me like I had two heads.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She backed off but gave nothing.

I pulled out my phone, dialed Sandy. “Hi Sandy, it’s me. My friendly clinic wants to send my private info to a doctor, would you like to read them the riot act?”

“Pass the phone to whomever it is Richard.” Sandy said and I heard her take in a big breath.

I didn’t hear both sides of the conversation but when she handed me the phone back she also said, “I’ll ring you with your information sir.” Her now pale faced head went down like she’d been condemned to death. I’ll have to ask Sandy what she said.

Tuesday dawned with some really wicked sky and I knew the weather was going to be awful. I stayed put.

I decided a nice stew was the order of the day and made an apple pie to go with it.
At 5 mum came in and waxed lyrical about the smell and poured herself a gin and tonic. We awaited dad. It was a bit late, but the weather could account for that. When it got to an hour, mum rang the bank to see if there was a problem and then when there was no answer but the tape of the opening hours, rang his mobile — it rang out.
Dad was notorious for leaving his phone in his car. But that wasn’t a problem usually.

Mum rang the bank and there was still no answer.
After a few minutes she picked up the phone again and I heard her say. “Who am I speaking to?..... Ah thank you sergeant, I’m ringing because my husband isn’t answering his phone-. …… I’m sorry, you didn’t let me finish, this is a protocol that is in place, my husband in the manager of ____Bank and I’m supposed to call if I can’t contact him or if his normal routine is broken.”

Mum listened for a minute and then said. “Right, his car is an X5 BMW, Silver Reg no L555 FGH. I’ll stay by the phone until you call back.”
Mum looked really pale when she turned back to me, “They’re checking to see if his car is still at work and the hospitals — though you’d think the staff or hospital would ring if he had had an accident.” Mum shoulders suddenly heaved — I rushed over to her and held her as she suddenly released pent up emotion.