Trick of the Mind - 21 & 22 by Maeryn Lamonte Melanie Ezell's big closet ultimate writer's challenge — Written From The Heart Thanks to Wren Erendae Phoenix for editing/proofing. It was getting late when we arrived and the yellow summer dress that had been so cool for most of the journey was beginning to feel decidedly chilly as the sun went down. I huddled up in my seat and turned away from Dad who was definitely in an uncommunicative mood. I wanted to pull the hem of my dress down as it had ridden up, but it would have brought awkward questions and I didn’t want to make things worse than they already were.

-oOo-

Alice greeted me at the door when I got home. It seemed she’d missed me about as much I’d missed her. She helped Dad and me carry my stuff up to my room after which, as I had predicted, Dad led me downstairs to say hi to Mum.

Alice was heading back to her room as I followed Dad, but she managed to give me a quick grin before disappearing out of sight.

The reunion with Mum was the usual uncomfortable sour greeting, only worse given that Dad wasn’t in a mood to moderate Mum’s words.

Eventually she dismissed us saying tea would be ready in half an hour and Dad led me upstairs to unpack. He made me go through every bag and box and found only the clothes I’d told Alice to leave. These he carried out of my room with him and left me to clear the mess.

A couple of minutes later Alice was in the room with me helping to put stuff away. She gave me the pink nightdress telling me I might want to wear it under my PJs later. I hadn’t thought of that and decided it was worth a try.

“I love the boobs by the way. I think you’ll be about the same size as me if we get a chance to go out together.”

I smiled weakly. “I doubt that’s likely to happen for a while.”

I went on to tell her about what I had spoken to Dad about in the car and how he had reacted.

“I get the impression I’m going to be under scrutiny for a while, and I'm sorry but I think he may have some words for you too.”

After an awkward meal I wasn’t prepared to face an awkward evening with my folks so I headed upstairs and called Jen. Alice stuck her head in five minutes later and told me to come see her when I was done. Another ten minutes and Dad’s head poked around the door.

“Just checking to see you’re honouring our agreement.” He said.

Some agreement!

The call to Jen was long and unhappy, but I did take comfort in talking to her.

“If they do chuck you out, come over here. I’m sure my folks would be prepared to harbour a disowned child.”

“Thanks. Much as I’d love to, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

We hung up shortly after and I snuck along to Alice’s room and tapped quietly on the door. She let me in and showed me where she had hidden all my stuff should I have an opportunity to get to it anytime she was out. We then sat and chatted into the night catching up on all the news we hadn’t been able to pass over the previous weeks.

Eventually I headed off to bed. I thought about wearing Jen’s gift, but mindful of my promise to Dad I hid it away under the bottom drawer of my dresser. It was where I’d hidden my stash of clothes before and I was reasonably confident that no-one would look there.

I didn’t sleep that well. Partly down to the way my PJ’s turned into the pink chemise anyway and partly due to my worries about what Dad was hatching. I’d hoped to reconcile my differences with Mum and Dad this summer, and it seemed had started out very much on the wrong foot.

The morning came with a rude awakening as my duvet was yanked off me. I sat up with a start to see my Dad pulling open drawers and cupboards and hunting through my stuff. I looked blearily at my alarm clock which read seven o’clock.

“What?” I managed to say through a haze of misfiring neurons.

“Just checking to see that we found it all yesterday.”

The bottom drawer of my dresser had been pulled almost all the way out and I dared not look at it directly in case Dad noticed and investigated further. It seemed incongruous to be sitting there in a pink negligee while Dad hunted for girly clothes and, even though I knew he couldn’t see me the way I did, I felt terribly exposed. I picked the duvet up off the floor and snuggled back into the warmth leaving Dad wither to find my stuff or not.

“Oh no you don’t.” The covers were pulled off me a second time and Dad grabbed a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt and threw them at me. “You and I are going for a run. Get changed.”

I forget if I’ve mentioned my aversion to sports. I was always the last kid to be picked for any team games, and on sports day I was always amongst the athletically ungifted who were forced to stumble around the field, running the fifteen hundred metres whilst more able individuals were throwing javelins or jumping into sandpits. The prospect of a run did not appeal and I protested.

“I’ve been too lenient on you son. It may be too little too late, but as of right now this is going to become a regular part of your daily routine. Get dressed.”

There didn’t seem any way out of this, but I wasn’t about to start stripping in front of my Dad in my own room.

“OK, get out and I’ll get dressed.”

“Just get dressed Richard; I won’t be seeing anything I haven’t seen before.” Don’t parents just love throwing that one at you?

“No way Dad. I’ll go running with you, but I’m not going to change with you watching.”

“You can at least take your top off.”

He wanted to see if I was wearing anything under my PJs. Wow just as well I didn’t slip the nightie on for real.

I pulled the chemise over my head and stood there wearing nothing but a pair of frilly pink satin panties.

“Satisfied?”

From his perspective I was wearing my pyjama trousers. He shrugged and headed out of the room.

“Downstairs in two minutes or I’m coming back up for you.”

As soon as the door closed I texted Alice.

“Help. Dad’s gone mental. Need you to get my nightie and hide in ur room.” Then as an afterthought. “Clear ur txt memry.” Dad wasn’t a complete troglodyte and the texts we’d exchanged yesterday were pretty damning if he insisted on examining our phones.

Apparently my subconscious didn’t think any kind of female exercise gear was cute enough. The nearest thing it could come up with that combined athletic activity with Mysterio’s suggestion was a ballet outfit, and the required two minutes after Dad left the room I was standing in the kitchen with him feeling very self conscious in a white leotard, tights and a tutu. The ballet slippers had very thin soles and as we started out, even though I knew I was wearing my trainers, it seemed I could feel every stone and crack in the pavement as we ran. For that reason as much as my hatred of sports and running in particular, the half hour run ended up being closer to forty-five minutes and Dad was showing distinct signs of irritation by the time we got home.

“You’re going to have to do better than that tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want to be late for work and we will finish that course before I go.

“Now go on upstairs and have a shower.”

Oddly by that time I had started to enjoy wearing the ballet clothes. I loved the way the skirt flounced up and down as I moved, and I was reluctant to change. Still, I figured there was a good chance I’d be similarly attired the following morning which at least gave me something to look forward to.

I stopped by my room to find a text from Alice on my phone. “Done and done,” she said.

I grabbed some nondescript togs and headed for the shower. By the time I was dried and dressed, I was wearing a gold puffball dress that I recognised but couldn’t remember from where. It seemed my subconscious was fighting Dad’s new tough regime by putting me in increasingly cute outfits.

I headed downstairs for breakfast to find Dad finishing off a list. He handed it to me as I finished buttering a couple of slices of toast and I read through with a sinking heart. The jobs were long, dirty and potentially backbreaking. Clear out the garage; sweep the drive; mow the lawn; rearrange the loft and many more in a similar vein. It was all make work intended to keep me busy and out of mischief.

“That should keep you going for a few days; I’ll add to it later. No reason why you shouldn’t start today.”

“Why are you doing this Dad? I mean you’ve never asked me to do anything like this before.”

“I know and it seems you’ve developed the idea you can sit back and do whatever you like. Life’s not like that son, you have to suck it up and get on with it. Once you develop a sense of responsibility perhaps you’ll be less inclined to indulge more frivolous and potentially damaging pursuits.”

That was unfair; I’d always carried my weight and done my fair share of jobs around the house. This was Dad punishing me for being less of a man than he wanted in his son. Right now didn’t seem like a good time to point this out though, so mustering what little good grace I could, I finished off the last of the toast and headed for the garage.

When I came in to wash up for lunch, I found Alice in her room crying. Apparently Dad had given her a good talking to, berating her for encouraging me in my little perversion and grounding her for most of the summer.

“I’m sorry sis. I shouldn’t have got you mixed up in this.”

“As I recall I volunteered. You were so down after Susie’s wedding and Mum and Dad were too concerned about how having a deviant for a son was going to affect their social lives. I don’t regret what I did and I don’t think I was wrong.

“Don’t worry about the grounding, I can handle that. I just wish they could see that there’s nothing wrong with you and they’re making an issue out of nothing.”

I looked down at my grubby golden dressed and smiled. Nothing wrong, eh?

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Alice managed to persuade Dad to let her help me and the work became more enjoyable for having someone to talk to.

The next week turned into an extended scene from the Great Escape. Each day started with Dad pulling off my duvet and tossing my room. He never found anything because everything he was looking for was hiding in plain sight in Alice’s room, but it didn’t stop him looking. We’d then set out on our run and, despite the painful heaving for breath by the end of the half hour, I found I looked forward to my daily ballerina time. There were occasions when I was tempted to try a pirouette or jeté, but conscious of the way Dad was acting, I managed to control the urges.

Dad would then shower first while my heart slowly eased its racing and I drank glass after glass of water to replace fluids I’d lost. As he left for work he’d tell me to clear my room then get on with the list. Alice would join me half way through the morning and we’d work at the tasks Dad had set me until he arrived home.

He wasn’t a complete slave driver and let us do what we wanted in the evening, although this was limited by Alice being grounded. Since I felt responsible for that, I tended to stay home in the evenings and do stuff with her. With both Mum and Dad acting weird towards me, this usually meant disappearing upstairs into either Alice’s or my bedroom, and since the chief guard of Stalag Baxter seemed to make frequent patrols to make sure that we weren’t plotting something, there was no opportunity for me to make use of any of my girl clothes. Instead Alice had me practice doing her makeup and arranging her hair, something we could easily move away from if we heard Dad coming up the stairs. Doing girly things while I seemingly wearing girly clothes did something to ease the growing tension I was feeling without access to my wardrobe, and I found myself developing skills that might come in handy if Rachael was going to make more regular appearances next year.

I hung onto the hope of things getting better, and made it through those days without getting too depressed.

Towards the end of that first week, Jen’s parents phoned to say that I would be welcome to come and stay any time over the next few weeks. My Dad was less than helpful, telling them that we had something of a family issue which he was trying to resolve, and maybe I could come later in the summer. With the hope of seeing Jen anytime soon foundering on the rocks, my mood took a downward turn and by the end of the weekend a morose gloom settled over me like a cloud.

-oOo-

Dad had managed to arrange a meeting with a psychiatrist friend of his for the Tuesday. It felt good to escape the day’s chores, but I had my doubts about the outcome of this visit which grew as Dad and I were ushered into the doctor’s office. I had to keep telling myself that I wasn’t really wearing the pleated skirt and top Mum had bought for Alice over the weekend, and the doctor would just see me as a normal teenager in scruffy jeans and tee-shirt. Most of my clothes were looking scruffy now after my week and a bit’s forced labour.

Doctor Finster was an old man who was either past retirement age or otherwise looked quite a lot older than he was. He had a gentle disposition about him and he greeted us affably enough as we entered. There was something about the look that he exchanged with my dad though that had me thinking maybe the outcome of this visit had been decided beforehand.

“Your father tells me you have something you’d like to discuss.” He began.

“Does my dad need to be here?” I asked.

“Well if he’s already aware of the situation I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.”

My spider sense was definitely tingling.

“What if there’s something I want to discuss with you that I haven’t told him?”

The doctor exchanged looks with my dad.

“Is there something of that nature?” he asked.

“Whether or not there is doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is that if my dad’s in here with us during this session, I don’t have complete confidentiality over what I share with you.”

“Surely you’ll want your dad to know the outcome by the time we’re done.”

“Not necessarily, and I do have the right to keep what’s discussed in this room private between you and me.”

“It’s alright Eric,” Dad said, “I’ll wait outside.”

There seemed to be an implied, “You can tell me about it later.” But maybe I was just getting paranoid.

After Dad left Dr Finster seemed a little less friendly than he had been before.

“You know that was rather rude and disrespectful, don’t you?” he asked.

“If we’re going to discuss ethics, perhaps we should start with the whole issue of why you would want to conduct a session with my dad present. I’m not entirely sure just how much I trust you right now and I was under the impression that gaining the trust of a patient was kind of important in a session like this.”

He looked at me over his glasses for a few moments. “You’re right. Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot here. If we could start over, perhaps you could describe the problem?”

“Well right now the biggest issue I have is that I don’t feel I can trust you. What assurances can you give me that you won’t tell my father what we discuss in this room?”

“If you don’t wish me to then I am bound by the law and my profession to maintain confidentiality, unless I feel that in doing so I am not acting in your best interests.”

“That sounds like a get out of jail free card to me,” I said, “and it doesn’t do much to help my trust issues. Still let’s explore another avenue. Would you tell me how long you’ve been doing this job?”

He bridled a bit at the question. “I’ve been practising psychiatry for over forty years, young man.”

“Which means that when you trained, transgender issues were considered to be an affliction, probably treatable using shock therapy or drugs. Would I be right?”

He started to look uncomfortable and made harrumphing noises into his chest.

“Doctor, can we be quite clear here. What are your views on gender dysphoria and how do they compare with current thinking in your profession?”

He made a few half-hearted attempts at evading the question, but rapidly decided that I wasn’t going to be taken in by them. He was right. I stood up from my chair and leaned over his desk.

“You know, this felt like a setup from the moment we walked in here. I reckon my dad’s given you his version of what I told him and you’ve already made your mind up that there’s something wrong with me. Anything I tell you is going to be reported back to my dad and will result in some recommended treatment which will be more in his best interests than mine.”

The doctor wouldn’t meet my eyes but remained silent.

I spun on me heels — only two inch ones today — and stormed out of the doctor’s office with my skirt swirling around my thighs. Dad looked up as I walked past and I told him, “I think I need a second opinion; one that isn’t quite so stuck in the dark ages.”

I didn’t wait for Dad to catch me up but headed into town where I caught a bus home. Public transport being what it is this gave him time to hear what his doctor friend had to report and drive home before me. He was as livid as I was and we spent the next fifteen minutes yelling at each other and barely listening to what the other had to say. From his point of view I had insulted one of his very good friends who had very kindly offered to see me at short notice as a favour. From mine the whole thing had been a setup with a forgone outcome that I would be considered mentally incompetent and be put away somewhere that wouldn’t risk embarrassing the family. It wasn’t a very productive exchange, but it did manage to lift me all the way out of my depression and into a full blown rage.

It ended up with Dad yelling at me to go to my room, which left me laughing incredulously at what he thought he could do to me right now. I realised then that my parents were stuck in the past, still trying to come to terms with me in a dress, and until they did I would always be a fifteen year old boy.

I stormed upstairs and slammed my bedroom door. They wanted a tantrum, I was quite happy to give them one. I started packing and had most of my clothes in two bags by the time Alice found the courage to stick her nose in.

I turned to her and most of the anger drained out of me.

“I can’t stay here Alice. We’ll all go crazy if we have to put up with another twelve weeks of this.”

She nodded, tears running down her face.

“Would you fetch me the rest of my clothes?”

She turned away and headed back to her room.

I was going to have to be pretty strict about what I chose to take with me. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but if it didn’t fit in two or three bags I wouldn’t be able to take it with me.

Jen was back with a neat stack of dresses. The false boobs and my underwear were sitting on top along with a small case I didn’t recognise. I looked at Alice.

“Some makeup and jewellery,” she said, “for Rachael.”

I thanked her and carefully laid the clothes into the space I had left for them in one of my bags. In addition to clothes I had packed my mp3 player, my laptop and a folder with my documents. The rest would have to stay.

“You’re not coming back are you?” The tears were flowing freely now and I took her in my arms.

“Not until Mum and Dad are prepared to be more reasonable.

“I may pop by towards the end of the summer to fetch my books and a few more things, but I won’t stay then. Not unless they’re prepared to listen and talk this through like adults.”

“Where will you go?”

“Well Jen’s folks already offered me a place for a while. After that there’s always the YMCA or something. I’ll get by. I’m only sorry you got stuck in the middle of it.”

“Let me know where you are?”

“Always. The moment Mum and Dad give you the freedom to travel on your own I’ll expect a visit.”

“They may not let me if they know I’m coming to see you.”

“So tell them you’re visiting an old friend called Rachael who moved away from the area. It will only be a slight variation on the truth.”

I kissed her on the forehead and wiped away her tears, and then before I changed my mind, I grabbed my bags and headed out the door. The last words I heard were my Dad yelling, “If you walk out that door don’t expect a welcome when you come crawling back.”

Any response I could think of would have just been petty, and right now I was feeling more sad than angry that it had come to this. I dropped my house keys on the kitchen table and kept on walking.

I caught a bus to the railway station and called Jen on the way. I gave her the short version of what had happened and asked if there was any chance of asylum at her folk’s house for a few days or maybe weeks. They were concerned, but decided that what needed to be done was to get me safely to them first, and only then discuss my problems and possible solutions. I couldn’t believe that two people who had only met me briefly a little over a week ago could be so welcoming and kind when my own folks had been so negative and I started crying.

I received more than a few odd looks from people on the bus, but I decided I didn’t care. I’d probably never see anyone from this town again and why shouldn’t big boys cry, especially if they were wearing pleated skirts?

I bought a one way ticket to the nearest train station to Jen’s house and called her as soon as the train was moving to let her know when I was likely to arrive. I then sat back, searched through my music player for the sad songs and spent the next few hours huddled in misery as the train took me further away from home and Alice. Even the thought of seeing Jen again didn’t help lighten my mood. I was out in the world alone for the first time in my life and it was scary.

Jen came with her Dad to fetch me from the station and there was a mixture of joy and tears as we threw our arms around each other. Jen’s Dad was perceptive enough to see I was working through something painful and apart from a brief word of welcome he left Jen and me together in the back of the car. We didn’t say much, just clung to each other like our lives depended on it.

We arrived at the house and Jen’s Mum showed me to the room they had prepared for me. Jen’s older brother was in the navy and this was his room whenever he was on leave.

“Just drop your bags there for now dear. You look like you could do with a bite to eat and they can wait a while.”

So I did as I was told and headed down to the kitchen where Jen ladled out a generous helping of stew and dumplings and we chatted as I put away the first food I’d eaten since breakfast. I was halfway through my second helping when Jen’s Dad stuck his head in to the kitchen.

“I called your parents to let them know where you are,” he said. “Whatever there is between you they don’t deserve to worry about your safety.

“They wanted to come and fetch you but I told them you’d be safe with us and it was better that you both had some time away from each other to let the dust settle. I told them you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need and I mean it.”

I could feel myself tearing up again and tried to hold back the flood. With a quiver in my voice betraying the emotion that threatened to overwhelm me I thanked him.

“Enough said,” he said. “You get some more of Sharon’s stew in you, you’ll feel better.” And with that he withdrew.

“Your parent’s are great,” I told Jen unnecessarily. I mean she’d lived with them all her life so she should know that.

“I know. We were all worried when you phoned through. Richard I’m really pleased to see you, but I wish it could have been under different circumstances. How’s Alice taking this?”

I swore and grabbed for my phone, interrupting the flow of good hot food for long enough to send a reassuring text to my sister. “Arrived safe. Jen’s parents are great. Feeling cared for. Hope things not too bad at home.”

I dropped the phone and picked up my fork again. “She’s hurt and we’ll both miss each other, but this is best for everyone right now.”

We talked through my third helping of stew and Jen led me up to my room.

My bags were already unpacked.

I opened the wardrobe to find all my clothes hanging up including the dresses. I turned to the door where Jen’s Mum was looking in with a worried but reassuring look on her face.

“Your night clothes are under the pillow,” she said. “We can talk about this in the morning.”

-oOo-