Trick of the Mind - 09 by Maeryn Lamonte Melanie Ezell's big closet ultimate writer's challenge — Written From The Heart Thanks to Wren Erendae Phoenix for editing/proofing. The display showed Jen’s name and number. “No Alice,” I said more as a plea than a denial. I made a grab for the phone, but she pulled it out of my reach. “I guess I’ll just have to send this to all the J’s then.” “OK it is, but please don’t.” “Too late,” she said handing the phone back to me. The display read 'sending photo message' for a second then cleared.

“It’ll be OK bro, you’ll see.”

A few agonised seconds later the phone rang — Jen’s ringtone.

“Hello?” I used the softened voice that had become habit whenever I was dressed.

“Rich is that you? You look gorgeous! I know I said you should go for it, but aren’t you worried that you parents’ will come back early? I mean you can get out of the dress in a few seconds, but it’ll take a while to get the war-paint off. As for the hair style, you’ll need a long soak to get that to go away. Did you do the makeup yourself? ‘Cos it looks absolutely fantastic! I don’t think I could do myself that well. You’re going to have to give me some tips, or at least let me talk to your sister. If this is her doing she is a sheer genius! Thanks for sending the photo, that is so sweet and trusting of you. I love you so much, and I wish I could be there ‘cos right now I am so hot for you…”

“Jenny, calm down.”

The tirade subsided.

I ran through Jenny’s bubbling outburst in my mind.

“Yes it’s me. Thank you. My parents are out at the theatre and shouldn’t be back for a couple of hours at least, but yes I’m terrified. This is Alice’s idea and her efforts with the makeup. I will let you talk to her as long as you promise only to try out what she tells you on yourself. I love you too, and I don’t need to be dressed this way to feel just as hot for you.

“Please keep the photo safe, I really can’t afford to let it get out into the world. If it gets back to my parents…”

“You’re right. I’ll make sure nobody else ever sees it. It's a shame though, 'cos you look good enough to eat. Can I talk to your sister please? Alice isn’t it?”

I handed the phone across and left the two of them getting squeaky and excited about this latest venture. I didn’t listen in, not wanting to worry myself if Alice and Jenny started hatching elaborate plans for when I got back to university.

Instead I wandered back into my sister’s room and stood in front of the full length mirror on her closet door. I marvelled at the young girl who looked back out at me; there wasn’t a trace of Richard in the person who stood there. For the first time since I could remember a remarkable calm settled over me as I looked at the girl inside of me.

I knew I didn’t want to be a girl — not exclusively, not completely. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the years trying to explore why I felt the way felt and reconcile myself to the strange urges inside of me. I had considered my feelings about having a sex change, and decided that I liked being a guy too much. I wasn’t even vaguely attracted to other guys, although if I was all girl that attitude might change. I doubted it would though, because I found beauty in the feminine form and it would seem even more wrong to go to all the effort of changing just to become a lesbian.

I was a guy and that’s what I wanted to stay. I wanted to get married and be a dad one day, not a mum, but I had known for a long time there was something different about me, as though somewhere inside me was girl who wanted to come out from time to time. And there she was.

“Hello Rachael,” I spoke softly.

Alice heard me. She had finished talking to Jen and had just that moment walked into the room.

“Rachael it is then.” She sounded disturbingly cheerful. “I had been wondering what we should call you, because you are definitely not a Richard tonight.

“Do you fancy going out for a walk?”

I looked at her panicked.

“Oh come on it’ll be fine. If we head out the back gate, none of the neighbours will see. The woods are usually pretty deserted at this time, and if we do meet anyone, I’ll introduce you as a new girl at school. You know you’ll pass, especially if you keep walking and talking as you have these past ten minutes.”

“And if Mum and Dad come back while we’re out?”

“They won’t, they’ll be out until gone midnight if the last play was anything to go by, and we shouldn’t be more than about half an hour.

“Look if you’re that worried, we’ll take some of your normal clothes with us.”

“And this?” I said pointing at my face and waving my nails at her.

“I’ll pack some wipes and some nail varnish remover.”

I lifted up my now femininely styled hair.

“Take a rubber band with you and pull it back into a pony tail. It’ll pass until you can get to the bathroom and wash it.”

I was running out of objections and, rather more worryingly, any desire to object. I shrugged my shoulders in assent, and before I had a chance to change my mind again, Alice had gathered up the clothes I had left strewn across her floor, and slipped them into a large shoulder bag along with the other things she'd listed.

She lent me a jacket and we headed out the back door. Pretty much all the gardens in the neighbourhood had well established trees blocking the view of the path that ran down the back. We made it out into the open and headed down a woodland path.

Feeling the night breeze playing around my legs for real was altogether new. The sensations from wearing imagined clothes were close, but based in part on memory and part on imagination. This was real and felt different; more believable.

It wasn't yet dark, the April sun continuing to illuminate the sky from below the horizon, and we did pass a few dog walkers on our travels, but no-one we recognised. From their expressions, none of them saw anything more than two girls walking through the woods. One old man did tell us to be careful because 'who knew who we might bump into in the dark', but this was too posh a neighbourhood to have a real lout problem. Once or twice in the past, a group of youths had moved in on the area, but the well connected in the neighbourhood, my Dad included, had made sure that there were enough police around for a long enough time afterwards to chase the yobs away. Eventually this had become known as a place best avoided by the neighbourhood ne’er do wells.

As predicted, we were back home half an hour later. I was buzzing with the feeling of being out dressed as I was, for real, and with no-one seeing me as a guy. I felt great, and it took Alice being cautious to stop me heading straight back into the house.

She went down the side path and checked the front drive to see if the car was back yet. It wasn’t and we made an uneventful re-entry into the empty house.

Alice and I went straight to the kitchen and she put together a light salad for each of us while I made us a couple of cups of cocoa, and we sat in the living room eating and chatting about nothing much for what seemed like forever.

The clock on the mantle piece chimed ten thirty and a growing unease compelled me to head upstairs and change. Alice came with me and helped remove the makeup and nail varnish. I was tempted to leave my toe nails painted, but I had already taken too many risks tonight.

With my face and digits clean and my dress and extras hanging back in Alice’s closet, I ran a bath. A half hour soak had the shape out of my hair and my nerves calmed down. Once I had dried off and blown my hair back into its usual shaggy mess, I pulled on my jeans and tee-shirt. It was no surprise when I looked in the mirror to see Rachael staring back out wearing the coral dress. I mean her makeup was gone and her hair was a mess, but somehow it wasn’t Richard.

I wandered back downstairs and, scooping my skirts under me, sat down on the sofa with legs tucked up near my bum. Alice found me a few minutes later ploughing my way through the first chapter of a book on quantum mechanics.

“You may want to think about the way you’re sitting before the fossils arrive back,” she told me and I realised just how much of a girly pose I was in and unravelled myself.

“How are you dressed now?” She asked me.

“Pretty much as I was before I had the bath,” I replied, “only not so made up.”

I presented my unvarnished nails.

“You may want to work on the voice as well. Rachael is definitely still around.”

As predicted, it was well past midnight by the time the ‘rents were back. I heard the car on the drive and disappeared upstairs before my Mum’s habitual displeasure and acid tongue ruined what had otherwise been a perfect day. I heard voices downstairs as Mum and Dad shared their evening with my sister, and I felt a twinge of sadness that I couldn’t join in as I changed into my Pjs and brushed my teeth. I was in bed with the lights out long before anyone else came upstairs.

The next two weeks seemed to last forever. Mum’s disapproving expression remained etched into her face, even when I fixed the washing machine, managing to get grease over an otherwise very pretty cotton blouse and skirt that I had seen Alice try on during our shopping expedition.

When I changed out of the dirty clothes, it turned out to be just an old pair of jeans and a plain white tee-shirt that had turned grey-blue from having shared the washing machine with something new and non colour-fast at some stage in my early experiments with washing. When I headed back down I was wearing a scandalously short denim mini skirt and a white cotton blouse tied off above my navel. It gave me some malicious pleasure to appear before my mother dressed in clothes that would have shocked her no matter who she'd seen wearing them.

During the rest of my stay I tried to be as helpful as I could, but Mum was determined to stay upset with me. My uncle and aunt were still awkward and only coldly polite whenever they contacted us, and it seemed that my mother’s opinion of me would remain low until they managed to get over my transgressions at my cousin’s wedding. Apparently my cousin had told her sister what I had done as soon as she was back from honeymoon, and was highly unimpressed when Susan had laughed and said she was sorry to have missed it. This somehow added to my offence to the extent that that, even all these years later, my aunt and uncle and their as yet still unmarried younger daughter could barely stand to be in the same room with us, especially if I was around.

I did go out for a drink once with Dad at which point he started off by apologising for Mum’s attitude, but then ruined it by telling me that it was my own fault and what was I thinking doing what I did at Cousin Susan’s wedding. I rather stiffly thanked him for the drink and walked out of the pub leaving most of it in the glass. Given that I appeared to be wearing a pink mini-dress at the time, my exit didn’t give me the full sense of dignified retreat that I might have wanted

As the end of the Easter break loomed near, I decided to head back a few days early. This upset Alice, but she understood why I didn’t want to stay any longer than I had to with the way my folks were going on. I gave her a big hug and told her to come visit me sometime if Mum and Dad would allow.

Mum very graciously allowed me to kiss her on the cheek but then flinched as I did so, as though she was afraid I might bite her or something. Dad drove me to the station and shook my hand before I headed onto the platform. He mumbled some gruff bit of parental advice like “Make us proud son” and I turned away from him and climbed onto the train without looking back. I tried to keep the walk natural, but the pencil skirt and three inch heels restricted my movement. I’m not sure if it looked odd to Dad, but he was the last person I could ask, so I just kept on walking.

As I sat down in my reserved seat, I thought back over the past fortnight. Pretty much all I had that seemed worthwhile were the happy memories of that day shopping with Alice, the evening after and the coral dress folded neatly at the bottom of my bag.