---

Edited by S.L.Hawke
Image Copyright © 2012 Tracey Willows

---

 
The Taylor Project
 
Chapter Eighty-Five

It was almost noon the next day before I made my way to the kitchen. I vaguely remembered Dad giving me another painkiller before he left for work and asking me if I would be okay alone. He’d offered to have Grandma come over, but I’d refused. I could look after myself and besides, I really didn’t want to deal with Grandma. I set some water on to boil to make some oatmeal.

I was still groggy as I opened the fridge, but then I saw something that woke me up. There it was staring at me – grapefruit juice. Dr. Flynn had told me to stop drinking it. He’d also chopped my Prednisone down to 20 milligrams, once per day. Apparently it was only in the later parts of tapering off that drug that you had to take things real slow. Last night I’d been a bad little girl and had taken a pill anyway, but honestly I had been a little bit out of it yesterday. Alright, I’d been a lot out of it and was still a little bit out of it now. However, my painkillers were wearing off and my head was clear so that excuse no longer applied. Should I really be doing this?

I took the half-empty jug of grapefruit juice out of the fridge. There was more in the pantry, as my dad always bought plenty of my favorite juice. I closed the fridge, and stared thoughtfully at the jug as I put it on the counter. If Dr. Flynn was right, grapefruit juice was more than just tasty tartness. For me, it was girl juice – the magic potion that would keep me in female puberty. I wanted it, but did I really want to start self-medicating? Part of me screamed, hell yeah! I really wanted to give in and listen to that voice, the voice of my inner girl wanting nothing more than the right to exist. However, there was another voice, a more timid voice – the voice of caution – that warned me that I would get caught.

When, though? I won’t see Dr. Flynn again for another two weeks, but I have bloodwork scheduled for this week. He said some medical stuff about tapering off Prednisone being a slow process and it might take a while for my body to stabilize at the new levels. I wish I’d listened closer to that. Will he be able to tell immediately? Or will he think my metabolism is slow to respond? I can’t fool him forever. Sooner or later he’ll realize I’m self-medicating. Or worse, he might think there is another cause, and send me in for more tests. That wouldn’t be good. Neither Dad nor Julie have said much about medical bills, but I know we weren’t exactly rich. HRT would cost money. SRS, if and when, cost even more money. Dad wouldn’t be happy with me running up bills… and then there was the risk of more 'exploratory' surgery. Maybe they’d want to check out something else and cut me open again. Was self-medicating really worth it?

Standing there, I took stock of where I was. I already had breasts and the start of a figure. I took deep breaths and watched my chest rise. Odd. I can remember watching other girls' breasts when they were taking deep breaths, but looking down on my own they barely seemed to move... at least when seen from this angle. Whatever, I didn’t need to see them move. I could feel them. I’d already gone too far to stop. I’d crossed the line of no return a long time ago. To stop now, to be put in a holding pattern, was intolerable. Deliberately, I got a glass out and poured grapefruit juice into it. The liquid called to me, ‘come to the girl side, Taylor’. I reached, tilted the glass back, and drank deep of the nectar of womanhood. I swallowed gulp after gulp, draining half the glass without stopping. Then I took a few gasps to catch my breath, and drained the glass.

When it was empty I smiled. I wasn’t without guilt. There would be a price to pay for this act of defiance. I knew that. Whatever it was, I would pay it. I could almost feel the juice flowing through me, feminizing me. Whatever the cost may be, it was worth it.

One glass wouldn’t be enough, though. I’d need at least three glasses a day to be sure. Dad and Julie wouldn’t be likely to keep buying grapefruit juice, so I’d have to lay in my own supply. Now was the best time to act. I still hurt down there, and I was walking bowlegged, but I was alone. I could walk the quarter mile down to the little mom and pop store where the bus picked us up for school. No one else was home. This might be the only time I could sneak in grapefruit juice unnoticed. Okay, maybe not literally true: I could stop any day after school, but that would mean involving Hailey. If I did it today, then I could hide it from Hailey as well. That way I could at least save her from whatever punishment I earned for self-medicating.

My water was boiling so I mixed in the instant oatmeal and made my breakfast. I should probably go right after eating, then take a painkiller as soon as I got back. I wasn’t looking forward to the half-mile round trip the way I was feeling, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Chapter Eighty-Six

“So are you going to talk to me, or just ignore me and play that damn video game the whole time?” asked Dad.

In fact, I had been doing my best to ignore both my father and the pain as we drove to the camping spot he’d picked out. Not that it was easy to ignore either. We were on back roads, and every little bump seemed to go straight to my still tender parts. Walking to the convenience store to get grapefruit juice had been a bad idea. I had no idea how heavy a couple of jugs of juice could get. Or how painful the walk home would be. I’d barely made it home before I collapsed. I don’t think I’d reopened anything. I’d checked and there wasn’t any bleeding, but I was still in pain. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to be back at home in bed. Dad didn’t get it. He kept trying to start a conversation that I wasn’t interested in having. Yet, I’d promised to do this. With a frustrated sigh I snapped my DS closed. “Okay, what do you wanna talk about?”

“How’s school?”

“It sucks.” I had a lot of sympathy for girls now. Maybe getting stabbed in the testicles wasn’t equivalent to menstrual cramps, but it was awfully easy to be bitchy when in pain. No wonder they got cranky sometimes.

My father sighed. “Can you be more specific?”

“Sure. I’m bullied almost every day. I’m borderline flunking English because my teacher hates me, as does almost everyone. Plus I have to pretend to be a boy every day.”

“I thought we agreed that you would be my son for the duration of this trip?”

“Yeah, so?” Like I’d really had a choice? It had been one of those non-choices that adults give, where there is only one right answer. “I’m dressed as a boy.” What more did he expect?

“Yes, but you’re already complaining about being a boy. I thought you were going to try.”

“Oh give me a break, Dad. You asked me about school. I answered your question honestly. Would you rather I lie to you?”

“No, but complaining isn’t trying.”

Grrr. I hadn’t been complaining. It would be so easy to complain. I didn’t want to be dressed as a boy and be bouncing along in his truck. “Fine. I won’t complain.” I flipped my DS back open.

“I wasn’t done talking to you.”

“Okay.” What he really meant was stop playing Harvest Moon, but I wasn’t feeling very cooperative.

“Would you close that damn game?”

“Okay.” I did as he asked and closed the game. That’s all I did. Yes, I knew I was pissing him off, but what did he expect?

“Is it really that bad at school?”

“It’s a little better now that Haley is going to school with me. It’s still not fun.”

“You get good grades. I thought you liked school, Scott.”

“Really Dad? Taylor. My name is Taylor.” Unbelievable. I turned away from him and looked out the window. The sun was already close to setting. We would have to put up our tent in the dark. This trip was turning out to be so-o-o much fun – not.

“I’m sorry, Taylor. I thought you were going to be Scott for the weekend.”

“I agreed to dress in boy mode, but that doesn’t make me Scott. No matter how I’m dressed, I’m always Taylor now.”

“I thought you went by Scott when you dressed as a boy?” His voice was lower and not easy to hear over the road noise.

“I let them call me that, and I respond to it at school, but that doesn’t change who I am inside.”

“Taylor, can we stop beating the dead horses? What is it that you want?”

Beating dead horses? That was what Aunt Dee Dee had said about Grandma. As far as I was concerned Dad was acting just like Grandma. “I already told you what I want,” I muttered. I tried shifting in my seat and winced as my tender parts complained about moving.

“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said, ‘I already told you what I want.’ You just don’t want to hear it.”

My dad gripped the wheel tighter. “Other than that. Let’s try it another way. What do you want to be when you grow up.”

“A girl.” The answer was right there on the tip of my tongue.

“I meant, what do you want to do for a living?”

I shrugged, not that he could see me while driving. “I don’t know, Dad. I really don’t know. I’m in the middle of changing my gender identity. It makes it kinda hard to see what’s beyond. It’s like driving on these twisty roads. There is big curve up ahead. Can you see what’s beyond that curve?”

“No, but I still know where we’re going: to the campsite by the lake. Just because you can’t see every curve in the road doesn’t mean you can’t have a destination in mind. Where are you going?”

Grrr, so maybe I picked a really bad example, because Dad just turned it back on me. “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. When I look ahead, I can’t get past wanting to be a girl. For now that is my destination... and there is more than enough trouble just to get there. It’s like you're always telling Rick: if you want it, you’ve got to work for it. Being a girl is what I want. It’s what I’m working for. Maybe when I’ve got that in hand, I’ll think about a career.” I shifted down, trying to be less confrontational. “I always thought I’d go to college and get a degree. That hasn’t changed. I just have other priorities now.” I liked science, but that wasn’t very specific. I certainly didn’t have any particular career in mind.

“Taylor, I’m really trying to have a conversation with you as my son, but you keep throwing the girl stuff in my face.”

Is that it? Out of that entire speech, he picked up on that only. I was losing my patience with this whole camping trip. I’d promised to try – I hadn’t promised to be Rick. “Duh. It’s right there. It’s the big elephant in the middle of the room.” Oops. Another bad choice of metaphor, as we were in a pickup truck right now. Whatever. “What are you expecting, Dad? Do you really think forcing me on this stupid camping trip is going to make me suddenly decide I want to be a boy? I’m tired and I hurt. I wish they’d just chopped them off and gotten it over with instead of poking them full of holes.”

“You don’t mean that,” scolded my father.

“Oh hell yeah, I mean it. They’re not doing me any good.” I did, too. Why should I have to suffer through this pain twice? Plus, it had almost certainly been for nothing. The missing source of estrogen hadn’t been ovarian tissue at all. It had been grapefruit juice plugging my estrogen drain.

“Taylor, what part of this is slowing down? You promised to be certain before doing anything irreversible. Chopping your balls off is pretty damn irreversible.”

“Yeah. I guess it is.” I still wasn’t sure about SRS or getting parts chopped off, but that was because of the surgery and pain involved. Well, I had the surgery and now I was suffering the pain. I would have been better off if they’d gone ahead and gotten rid of the damn things while they were there.

“So you’re backing out on your part? What happened to the father-son camping trip? Aren’t you going to try?”

He just wasn’t going to let it go was he? “This is me trying.” I gripped my DS. I wanted it back on. No, I just plain didn’t want to be here. I was trying – couldn't he understand that? Why couldn’t he let me just be me? I felt tears flowing again. There go the waterworks. I turned away. I didn’t want him to see.

“Oh yeah, facing the window and not talking to me is really trying, Taylor.”

I didn’t answer. I never wanted to be here in the first place.

Chapter Eighty—Seven

The awkward silence between Dad and me lasted until we reached our campsite at the lake. Then the silence was replaced by equally awkward conversation. It wasn’t much of a conversation. Dad would tell me to do something, and I’d do it. He set up the tent. I mostly carried things... which didn’t help my physical pain any. There was another tent and an RV present, so we weren’t entirely alone, but the campsite wasn’t anywhere close to full and we were able to set our tent up some distance from the others. That was fine with me. I didn’t feel like being sociable. Dad had brought wood which he set it up in a circle of stones and started it off with some lighter fluid. Presto, instant campfire.

As much as I hated the drive up here, and the prospect of the weekend out here, I did like the campfire. I guess I am just a bit of a firebug, but there was something hypnotic about flame. We were far enough from the other campers that we felt isolated and the flame was almost mythical. Dad broke out some hot dogs and handed me a skewer. I stuck it over the flame and began cooking dinner. This part, I actually enjoyed.

Dad opened the cooler and fished out a beer. “Would like to try a beer, Taylor?”

Oh joy, beer. Male bonding at its best. “No, thank you. I don’t like the taste.” Which was true enough. I’d never been offered a whole beer, but he’d let me have a sip before to settle my curiosity. Beer tasted nasty. “Besides, I’m not supposed to drink alcohol with my painkillers. I read the fact sheet this time.”

“Hey!” My father turned from the cooler with a scowl on his face. Then he sighed. “Okay, so maybe I deserved that. I’m sorry that I didn’t read them. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“Don’t be. This is the best thing that could have happened to me. It brought it all out in the open. A lot of transgendered either don’t figure it out or don’t speak up until they’re older. They end up trapped in bodies shaped by the wrong hormones. I’ll get to grow up female. I won’t end up looking like Rick in a dress.”

My father popped the top of his beer and took a good swig from it before he responded to me. “No matter what we do, we keep coming back to that, don’t we?”

Duh. “You know, if you really wanted to go camping with me, you should have let me come as myself. Then maybe you could have gotten to know the real me instead of this… this… façade of a father-son camping trip.”

A brief flash of anger passed across my father’s face before it was replaced by his salesman’s smile. However, I don’t think he’d be selling much with that smile. It looked too forced. “You go as a boy to school every day. Why is it so hard now?”

I wondered if I’d gone too far, but at least we were talking about it. “Dad, we’ve been over this already. I hate school. I’ve hated it for years. Nobody likes me. I don’t have any friends. I retreat into a shell and try to make it through the day.”

My dad skewered his own hotdog and started roasting it. “I know you’ve had some rough times, but I thought you had some friends: Lloyd, and what’s his name? David.”

“Dave, not David. We’re not friends any more. We never really were. The final straw was this past week. Dave called Hailey a ho. I stopped talking to both of them. Family first, right Dad?”

“Yes, family first.” He sighed. “You were right to stick up for your step-sister. Breaking off the friendship was the right thing to do.”

“They weren’t my friends.” They never invited me to their home, not even for a birthday party. I had invited them, but they’d made excuses. They weren’t anything close friends. They were just two guys that I’d hung out with. I was better off without them.

“You know, it’s not going to get easier if you go to school as a girl.”

“I know, but it isn’t easy now anyway. If they hate on me when I come out, well… at least I’ll be true to myself. I’m not trying to be popular. I’d rather be hated for what I really am than be adored for being someone I’m not.” I surprised myself with that comeback. It almost sounded wise.

I noticed my hotdog was starting to burn so I pulled it out of the fire and onto a bun. Okay, this part wasn’t bad. We already had the fixings, so I just put my dog on a bun with some mustard and relish, served with a side of potato chips. Certainly it wasn’t healthy, but I’d been eating a lot of girl food lately. If I had to suffer through this campout, I was going to enjoy roasting hotdogs. I planned to toast marshmallows and eat smores later, too. I took a bite of my dog and it was delish. Always thank the cook. That’s how I was raised. Except, I’d cooked it myself... but I guess I owed Dad for the fire and fixing, and everything that he’d put together while I’d been resting in my bed. “The dogs are good. Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled at me as he toasted his own hot dog and drank his beer. He removed his slightly scorched dog from the fire and fixed it up, and then opened another beer. He was hitting it pretty fast.

I’d probably have another hotdog, but I was pacing myself and enjoying my first one. I wasn’t really happy with the way Dad was downing the beer. He drank beer often, but he usually nursed his beers. My thoughts drifted back to what I said before, that he should have let me come as Taylor. That would have been so much better. I found myself wishing I was back in my skirts, a father-daughter trip.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Dad.

I shook my head. “No, you don’t want to hear it.” I took a bigger bite of my dog on purpose, to avoid having to say anything else.

Dad looked up at the sky, sighed, and then looked back at me. “Go ahead and tell me. Whatever it is, even if it is about being a girl, I won’t be mad. I promise… Taylor.”

I swallowed my food, chased it down with water while wishing it was grapefruit juice. “Okay, but you asked for it. I was just wishing that I was in skirts. That I was free to be myself. If this this could be a father-daughter thing, it might almost be fun.”

The salesman’s face looked at me and nodded. “Is it really so hard to just be a boy?”

“When you’re a girl at heart, yes, yes it is.” Ah hell, not the waterworks again. I turned and tried to wipe my eyes without being too obvious about it.

“So why is it so great to be a girl?” His tone wasn’t challenging now. He sounded almost sad… wistful.

“Everything…” Was he really listening. “I love my breasts. I can’t even say why I love them so much, but they’re part of me and they mean more to me now than what’s below. I love dressing as a girl. The clothes talk to me so much more and... I’m not saying it right. Those are external things and it isn’t external. It’s about being free to be who I am. You asked about friends. Hailey is my friend. Cathy is my friend. We relate like girls. We talk, and we’re just there for each other. Being out dressed as a girl with Julie last weekend, shopping for my own clothes, being accepted as one of the girls… It was just… wonderful.”

“I thought that Cathy was your girlfriend?”

“Cathy was Scott’s girlfriend. Now that I’m Taylor, I don’t think we’re going to make it. She wants it to work, and I’m trying, but being Taylor is more important to me. I know that sounds selfish, but I have to figure out who I am first. Plus with her mother being a witch with a B, we’re not seeing each other.” Half-truths, again. I couldn’t honestly see us working out.

“Does that mean you like boys now?”

It was a good thing that it was dark now, and that our light source was the red flame from the campfire, because I could feel myself blushing. I remembered all too well the ultrasound with call-me-Pam. I was less sure about the later waking dream I’d had where Kurt from Glee had been pushing my gurney. Had that been real or not? “I… maybe. I don’t know. I have to sort out me, first.” Then another thought hit me. “I also really wish you’d lose your fixation on my sexual orientation. Whether I like boys or girls is another issue. I’m a girl inside.”

“Yeah, I know.” His voice almost broke, heavy with emotion. I’d heard him talk like that only once – at Grandpa’s funeral.

“W-what? Do you really mean it?” I could feel my heart soaring, but like a kite on a short string it didn’t fly very far. It was tethered by the pain I heard in my father’s voice.

“I think I’ve known it for a while. I just thought I could change it.” He wasn’t crying – I’d never seen him cry – but sadness clung to him like moss to a stone. He took a deep breath. “You would have thought that after little league, I would have learned that I can’t force you to be what you aren’t.”

“I’m still me, Dad. I’m still the same person.”

He shook his head. “No, Taylor, no you’re not. This is really what you want?”

“Yes, this is really what I want. Can you accept me as your daughter, instead of your son?”

“I can…” His voice got stronger and more resolute. “I will. It just might take me some time.”

I rushed over to him and hugged him. Awkwardly at first, then with no reservations, he returned my hug.

Chapter Eighty-Eight

Saturday, March 30th — Taylor Project Day 89

So camping with Dad proved to be not so horrible after all. The first few hours were terrible, but we started talking around the campfire and somewhere along the line something changed within him. I’m still not sure even now what it was that tipped the balance, but he’s genuinely acknowledged me as his daughter... and not his son. That doesn’t mean he is happy about it. There was a strong undercurrent of sadness and disappointment from him, but he seems to have finally accepted that I’m a girl inside.

You know, I just have to write that again. Dad has accepted that I’m a girl. I still find it hard to believe. I’ve been afraid for so long that he’d never accept me. I’m not stupid. I know I still have to jump through the alphabet soup hoops: GID diagnosis, HRT, RLT, and SRS (maybe?). Those aren’t going to be easy, but it feels like I’ve reached a turning point. It’s all downhill from here. No matter how bad it gets, if I have Dad and my family (minus Grandma) on my side, I’ll make it. It’s like before I had hope, but now I really feel like it will happen – eventually.

Dad and I talked for a long time. I can’t remember when we talked like that. We discussed my hopes and fears about being a girl. I talked about Cathy, and how I’m afraid that our relationship is failing. We even strategized about when I would transition. If Dr. Yeatts approves, Dad thought that after summer would be best. He suggested coming out at the start of summer and letting the rumor mill do its thing. That way, everyone would know before long but I wouldn’t have to put up with all of them. By the time I started high school in the fall, hopefully it wouldn’t be fresh news any longer. I’m not so sure that I like that plan. Yes, I wouldn’t have to face everyone... but the idea of me being a 'boy in a dress' would fester all summer long. I don’t look like a boy in a dress. I’m lucky, I look like a girl. I think letting people see me will help, not hurt. Anyway, that’s something to discuss with Dr. Yeatts.

I certainly didn’t tell Dad everything. I didn’t tell him that I maybe, might be, sort-of am, finding some boys attractive. I also didn’t tell him that I was self-medicating. I feel guilty about that. We had this great clear-the-air conversation... and I didn’t tell him that I’m still guzzling grapefruit juice by the gallon. I’m afraid that is going to bite me sooner rather than later, but I don’t know what to do about it. I’m not going to stop, but it’s going to be ugly. About the only thing that I have decided about that is to pester Dr. Yeatts for when she’ll make some kind of decision about my hormone treatment.

Once Dad decided to see reason, he also listened when I told him that I was still in pain. It was too late to avoid spending the night in the tent, but he agreed to cut our camping trip short. We packed up the trip on Saturday morning and came home. After we got home, I took more painkillers and slept most of the day. I did get to catch up with Hailey when I woke, though, and it turned out there was important catching up to do. Trouble is brewing with Cathy and at school.

Since I wasn’t around, Hailey decided to pay a visit to Cathy. Apparently Cathy thinks that I’m neglecting her. I don’t know what to do about that. I borrow Hailey’s cellphone almost every night to call Cathy, and we’ve gone bike riding together a few times, but I feel the distance between us. It’s not my fault her mother has grounded her. When we are together, it feels like she’s pushing me to be either her boyfriend or her girlfriend – but a romantic relationship of some sort, not just friends. I don’t think it is ever going to happen. Hailey also thinks it isn’t just me that’s driving Cathy nuts. Apparently Mrs. Andrews is being a little ‘coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs’. Cathy’s mom has always been a little out there, but apparently she’s gotten nuttier lately. Big sigh.

Then there is school. Hailey didn’t tell me until Saturday, but apparently rumors are already flying that I have a ‘serious’ condition. It’s pretty obvious that Mandy let it all slip. That is the exact wording we used at the table when we talked about it. Hailey is pretty pissed at Mandy about it. I’m not sure if they’re friends now or not. I’m not sure it is all Mandy’s fault, though. My being out for two days likely helped fan the rumor flames. Hailey refused to answer the questions, and that probably contributed as well. She stuck by what she suggested on the bus and just told everyone who asked that it was personal. According to her it has been variously suggested that I have cancer, tuberculosis, the plague, and/or the T-virus from Resident Evil.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hide any more. Are people going to let me get away with 'it’s personal' at school on Monday? Hailey really thinks I should go ahead and post to the Pine Hill GSA forums. She has a point. The way rumors are flying, and as many people as know, how long until something leaks? On the other hand, coming out to the GSA will add even more people, and they’ll be people I don’t know – that I’ve never even met. I might be willing to tell Oscar, Paula and Tamara... but I don’t know the high school members. I just don’t know what to do.

Oh, and tomorrow is Easter Sunday. Thankfully, we’re not going to church. However, we are still getting dressed up because we’re going to go meet Sarah Jones, aka Julie’s mother, my new grandmother. Apparently she isn’t so happy that she hasn’t met her new son-in-law and grandchildren yet. Also apparently, Julie told her mother everything... which is why we haven’t met Grandma Sarah before now. Julie refused to let her meet us until her mother promised to be civil to me. I get to go in girl mode. In fact Julie thought it best if I go in girl mode. She has promised we’ll leave if her mother is rude, but it sounds like her mother is likely to be judgmental. Whee. Happy Easter to me.
 

---

 
To Be Continued...