Kate Draffen (Chapters 20 + 21)

By Swishy

Michael Taylor was a 17-year-old boy living in a town in Australia. Something happened and he found himself on a path to becoming a 17-year-old girl. This is a story about an ordinary teenager that had something extraordinary happen to him and how he tried to cope.

How will Gemma cope at a 'cool' party? Find out in these two Chapters.

Hi there, the author here. Thank you so so much for sticking with this story. As always comments, questions and critisms are very welcome. Either post a comment or email me at [email protected]

CHAPTER 20

The material was lodged firmly in my bum. Alana didn’t want me showing any ‘panty lines’ while I wore these white, tight pants so she prescribed a tiny white thong. Her mum drove us down the shops specifically to buy one that matched my pants. It was absolutely tiny, I couldn’t believe something that small could cost almost $20. The woman at the cash register couldn’t believe who she was serving. Even though there was four females (Alana’s mum, Alana, Lilly and me) buying the tiny undies it was obvious by how much I was blushing that they were for me. But I was assured it was vital that the panties matched the pants that matched the top that matched the bra that matched my earrings.

Outside of the shop were the paparazzi, they had found me at the beach during my impromptu autograph session and had followed me to Alana’s house and then the shop. The girls hadn’t gotten over the novelty of my following troop of photographers and happily posed for them while I just grimly hid my face. I was getting sick of it, frankly. Who needed to see the pictures of me walking out of a shop anyway?

When packing for the sleepover I had just thrown in any clothes that would be dressy enough for a party. Apparently, according to the girls, my random tossing must have been terrible because nothing at all matched. So, although the shoes and pants (and now panties) were mine, everything above the waist was from Alana’s collection. I must admit they had done a great job dressing me up. I totally felt like a life-sized Barbie doll while they held up clothes to my body and got me to spin around in various outfits. The results were impressive. I looked decidedly cute in my little ensemble and I got so caught up in it all I even let them decorate my face with their make-up.

I was excited about this party. It was officially a ‘cool kids’ party, not only that but Jeff Macdonald was in Year 12, so there would be plenty of 18 year olds there to go on alcohol runs for us. I would sometimes be invited to these parties back as Michael but rarely went. I was always too aloof to allow myself to have any fun but I was ready to show everyone that Gemma Taylor was not like that at all.

I wriggled up the path to Jeff’s house, trying to get used to having a permanent wedgie. Lilly was wearing a dress, Alana was wearing a skirt and they were both wearing heels. I felt a little underdressed but the truth was they were probably overdressed. But they didn’t mind, they really enjoyed looking glamorous and if weren’t hurting anyone why shouldn’t they look as sexy as possible? As we waited for someone to open the front door, I tugged at my top, nervously trying to cover up as much of my heavily exposed cleavage as possible. It was an exercise in futility.

“Hey girls! Hey Gemma!” said Erica, Jeff’s girlfriend and host of the party, “Come on in! I’m so glad you girls came, especially you, Gemma. That’s so brave!” I still have no idea what she meant by that. She led us into the back part of the house where the party was going on. The majority of people were outside, swigging out of cans and chatting loudly. The rest were in the garage/night club where an ipod kicked out some tasty jams. Nobody had imbibed enough alcohol to think dancing was a good idea yet but the night was young and the drinks were plentiful.

A pre-requisite for any party in the rural part of Australia was a fire, and even thought the temperature was in the smouldering 30s and it was probably a fire ban day today, in the centre of the backyard was the fire; surrounded by ten guys all of whom were prodding it and making sure there was enough to burn.

“So, this is a 'cool' party, huh?” I asked, mockingly.

“Well, not just yet but it will be,” Lilly smiled back, her exotic eyes glistening. She handed me a fruity, girly pre-mixed drink and I took a big first gulp. I needed a little liquid courage if I was going to survive my first party. I scanned the party for people I knew. While I knew most of the people there, I couldn’t rightly call any of them friends. But I guess that was one of the reasons I attended this little soiree — to befriend people from my new social strata.

Lilly and Alana, in an obvious ploy to get me to talk to other people had both gone to the toilet together, leaving me alone. I suddenly felt the weight of 40 pairs of eyes right on top of me. Sure, they were much more scared of me than I was of them but that in turn, only made me more scared. I wanted to be able to casually flirt with boys without them questioning whether finding me attractive was ‘gay’ and I wanted the girls to accept me as one of their own, because I really wanted to be.

Deep breaths. Shoulders back. I reminded myself that I had the most interesting story out of everyone at the party, not only that the result of the story meant I looked super hot in this cute top I was sporting. It was going to be easy to be the life of the party. I had to be, I was a celebrity and thus it is expected that I am fun at a party.

“Hi,” said a guy from Year 12, who’s name I didn’t know.

“Hi,” I responded. Nice start.

“How’s things?” he asked me.

“Things are a little crazy, as you can probably imagine,” I replied, “How are things with you?” OK, this wasn’t the world’s most riveting conversation but it was a start.

“Not too bad.”

And then the conversation hit a snag, I was too nervous to say anything and he didn’t know what to say to me. If the silence had gone on much longer I might have either kissed him or ran away, just to remove the awkward silence. Luckily, a third party saved us both.

“Rick! Gemma!” It was someone who seemed to know us both. He firmly slapped Nick on the back and gave me a gentle hug, enveloping me in rippled arms.

“Kev!” It was great to have someone I knew well so that I could talk comfortably. I hugged him back hard.

“Aren’t you all dressed up?” He made a motion to spin around and dutifully, I did. “You look so hot! Doesn’t she, Rick?”

It was a tough question to throw at Rick. “Yeah,” Rick looked right in my eyes, “Very.”

“So, blonde, wearing make-up, dressed to the nines. Looks like your new social group has had a little bit of an effect on you, huh?” Kev didn’t seem at all furious or disappointed with me like Dot did.

“And I got my ears pierced!” I said, wiggling my lobes with my fingers.

“Well, you pull it off well. It would have been disappointing to guys everywhere if Dot turned a potential hottie like you into a mini-dyke like herself.” It was a weird but typical Kev compliment. Rick, feeling left out of the conversation slowly sidled away to find another, more accessible one. Kev sighed, “I just wish you two would stop fighting.”

“Did Dot tell you that we had a fight?” For a girl that prided herself on not getting caught up in the bitchy side of being a girl, she sure liked whinging about me behind my back.

“She didn’t tell me, but her Facebook status alludes to you being a bit of a bitch,” Kev told me. OK, that may be worse.

“Fucking hell!” I squawked so high-pitched that it was painful to hear, “I just can’t please that girl! She’s fucking impossible! Why is she being such a bitch to me?”

“Gemma, just be cool,” advised Kev, “You know what she’s fucking like. She likes everything to go her way and suddenly her best friend is in this weird situation. And you know, she’s probably jealous of you.” It was a thought that had crossed my mind. She was pretty but she didn’t stand out from the crowd like I could. Not only that but I was the centre of attention (something she secretly relished in) and I had made a whole bunch of new friends.

“I just don’t know why I have to keep being the bigger person all the time and forgiving her. I’ve just gone through such a traumatic fortnight and all she worries about is her own feelings,” I was working myself up into a tizzy, not at all the fun, flamboyant and carefree attitude I was going for. “Alana and Lilly have been so gentle with me. They sit down with me and talk me through how to do things and answer even the stupidest of questions. Dot just calls me ‘Hootie’,” it was quite obvious that Kev had become momentarily distracted, “I never thought I would ever have to say this, buddy, but my eyes are up here!” Kev’s gaze broke from my cleavage and hurriedly met my eyes.

“Sorry, it’s just so amazing to think those things grew pretty much overnight,” he didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

I shrugged. “You are such a perv,” I laughed as I went to find someone with a little more sophisticated etiquette to talk to. I didn’t look back but I wouldn’t be surprised if he watched me leaving. And maybe a swayed my hips a little more than usual, just to tease him.

“Enjoying yourself?” asked Lilly as she bumped into me by the Esky. Maybe I was drinking a little too much too quickly but I wanted flirty, chatty Gemma to emerge and this was the only way I knew how to call her out.

“Yep. You?” I said.

“Certainly am,” she smiled as she leant down to rummage around the ice, “I’m already in the middle of my ‘Snag Aaron’ plan.” I couldn’t believe out of all the good looking boys in our school Lilly was going after the one who I could possibly, maybe see myself with one day, eventually, sometime down the track. Feeling the joyous yet scary buzz of the alcohol kicking in, I almost told Lilly that I wanted to pursue Aaron Lekakis but I held back. There was more than one way to skin a cat.

“Good on you! So what’s the next part of your plan?” I asked Lilly.

“Oh, you wanna know how to catch a guy yourself?” Lilly smiled a cheeky smile, “Well, so far I’ve chatted and flirted with him but now the important thing to do is to leave him alone for a few hours until he seeks you out. I’ve laid the trap and set the bait, if he comes around to talk to me. I’ll know that he is interested and then I can flirt with him big time.” It wasn’t the most concise or even coherent advice, but I guess it was handy.

Off the in distance, through the haze of the party, I saw a friendly face. However, the face was doing something that made my night a little worse. “Oh, Holly came. Cool!” said Lilly.

I guess I would have agreed that it was ‘cool’ that Holly was here if it wasn’t for what she was doing. “Is she going out with Sobey?” I asked as I watched her and Sobey passionately making out by the trampoline.

“Yeah,” Lilly casually said, “She kinda hit it off with him at Deb practise so she broke it off with her old boyfriend and now she’s with him.” The pair continued kissing as if public displays of affection weren’t disgusting. I can’t believe she would do this to me. Three weeks ago she was so in love with her ex-boyfriend that she couldn’t even help me in a time of crisis and now she had Trent Sobey’s tongue wedged firmly in her mouth, a tongue that would say the most vile things about girls when there were none around, a tongue that would make racist remarks quite casually, a tongue that has never said anything worth hearing.
And she looked like she loved it.

When I was at her house the other day she had plenty of chances to tell me. All that she did was tell me that she had broken up with Jake, not that she was now with Sobey, my archenemy. I couldn’t believe that she would look into my eyes and say that we should be more open with each other, all the while she was keeping a secret of that size from me. It hurt. I wasn’t sure what was hurting - I wasn’t positive I was suffering from a broken heart because I no longer had a deep yearning for her, but it still hurt a lot

Trent Sobey! I was livid but tried concealing it. “Why in hell would she go out with him?”

“Umm… maybe because he’s one of the hottest guys in school!” Lilly said as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. I’ve never found him attractive, what with his strong, toned arms and his perfect shaped calves and his rugged broad chest… Damn it! He was hot! Very hot! It’s a very disturbing thing to realize that you’re attracted to your archenemy, it’s like loving the taste of poison. He was such an ignorant and insidious idiot, why did he have to have eyes as blue as the ocean and abs you could wash clothes on. Still, despite being looking good inside he was all bad and Holly must have noticed it.

“But he’s a total fuckhead!” I fumed.

“Huh?” Lilly looked at me weird, “I can only judge him on how he treats me, Gem, and he’s never been a fuckhead to me.”

Oh, of course! None of the girls know he’s a moron because he’s on his best behaviour around them and they are probably all blinded by his good looks, like the way Glen doesn’t notice Alison is a snooty bitch. It annoyed me that Holly couldn’t see the real Sobey, that she was so enthralled by the book’s gorgeous leather bound cover she hadn’t noticed that the book was Mein Kampf. Maybe I had been judging Holly the same way too. Back when I was Michael, she seemed perfect — a Hollywood beauty and the nicest person in the world. But now that her immense sexual appeal to me has been stripped back I can see that she wasn’t even close to perfection.

I just couldn’t watch them kiss anymore. The sight of these good-looking bodies with not so nice minds inside them enjoying each other was turning my stomach. I grabbed another girly fruity drink and took a swig. At the bottom of the bottle lay Chatty, Happy Gemma and I was desperate to set her free. I turned to Lilly to talk to her about the pain I was feeling but she wasn’t there. A little scanning around the party revealed to me she was currently chatting to Aaron, playfully punching him in the arm. Just great!

The party was horrible. As I sat in Alana’s Mum’s car earlier, I could barely contain my excitement. I pictured myself being the star of the party, everyone surrounding me, listening to my every word but I was currently alone with nobody to listen to me at all. I was having an abysmal time.

But the night was still young. There was nothing stopping me turning this into a great night for myself. As the effects of the Chatty, Happy Gemma trickled into my brain, I decided to reclaim the night. I confidently ran my hand through my fabulous blonde hair. I marched my way back into the garage where the music was the loudest. “Kev,” I said, grabbing his arm, “I want to dance.”

“I don’t dance,” he stated, almost proudly.

“C’mon!” I wriggled in frustration, “Just for a few songs! This party is dead. I wanna liven it up!”

“No,” he replied, stoically, “I don’t dance.”

“I don’t want to dance all by myself!” I needed a plan, “Please… I’ll be your best friend!”

“You already are one of my best friends.”

“I’ll give you 20 bucks!”

“I don’t need your filthy money!”

I had played to his vanity and his greed, but those weren’t Kev’s cups of tea. There was only one thing that truly motivated him, I just didn't want to resort to that.

I got up on my tiptoes to whisper into his ear, but even on tiptoes I came up woefully short. “Dance with me,” I purred, “and I’ll show you my breasts.”

His eyes, very predictably, lit up. “Now you’re on the right page. How long for how many songs?”

Not only was he a total perv, he wanted to nut out the details too. “Umm… 10 seconds for 5 songs.”

He furrowed his brow, obviously he didn’t approve of the deal, “How about 4 songs and 30 seconds?”

30 seconds seemed like a little too long, but I was not going to waste anymore time haggling. I needed desperately to fill my head full of music and dance to push my angry thoughts to the back of my head. I bit my bottom lip and nodded eagerly, pulling Kev by his hand onto the ‘dance floor’ which was actually just Macca’s garage floor.

Girls dancing was the sexiest thing in the world to the old me. There was something about how effortlessly natural girls looked when they writhed to a rhythm. Girls could look like sex personified doing a move that would look foolish if a guy did it. Therefore, I strolled out to the dance floor with an air of confidence. This body looked good standing still and so dancing it would make it a force to be reckoned with. We were the only people on the dance floor when I finally was able to drag Kev out to it. There were 20 or so other people milling in the garage all watching the famous Gemma Taylor drag an unwilling male to dance.

I suddenly panicked. I had forgotten how to dance. I didn’t know that such a thing was possible. I stood frozen and stared up at my reticent partner, who looked at me blankly. He wasn’t going to be any help. Everyone was wondering why I had dragged Kev out to the allocated dance area only to stand there. I closed my eyes and let the pop music surround my body. The relentless rhythm violently grabbed my hips and began to shake them. My hands followed them and a smile crept onto my face. I was dancing.

Kev joined in but was a little self-conscious. After being in the spotlight for so long, I didn’t really care what large groups of people thought of me, it was fine if they liked me but it was OK if they didn’t. At that particular moment I was too busy enjoying the dancing to be bothered by other people.

The pop song wound down and Kev held up one finger, “3 to go,” he mouthed. The DJ (an iPod connected to some speakers put on shuffle) chose the next song, an RnB number made for public displays of sexual prowess. I shook my small but nicely rounded butt in time to the throbbing beats, entwining my arms around my body. I looked up at Kev (Man! I was short!) who looked a little stiff and decided I needed to help him. I placed my hands around his waist and gently swayed to the music, trying to get his lower half involved as well as his flailing arms. “I see why you don’t dance,” I teased.

“Shut up!” he replied as the song came to a halt, “That’s the halfway mark!”

It doesn’t matter how old or young you are or where in the world you live, a party is simply not a party until ‘Love Shack’ is played. When the opening strains of the song began I knew this was a party. It really is a fun song to dance to and it wants nay demands you to sing along. My singing voice was high and a little breathy but skilled from all the practise I had back when I was male. Miss. Manning, the choir teacher had asked me to rejoin the choir again but all I could do was say I would think about it. I liked my deep voice when I sang, I liked achieving the very low notes. Now, a low note for me is one where humans can hear it not just dogs. I just wouldn’t feel the same sitting beside all the pretty sopranos and not alongside the bass boys.

Not only do you have to sing a long to Love Shack you have to jump around like you’re crazy. I raised my hands above my head (a classic girl move that guys just can’t pull off.), smiled and jumped around. The dance floor became a little more populated by people ready to join the celebration of this so-called ‘Love Shack’. Even Kev seemed to be enjoying himself, bouncing around like a spring-loaded goon. All the same he still said, “Three” as it finished.

The dance floor had about 15 people on it now, most of them girls who had little inhibitions when it came to dancing. Guys were always a little more cautious of leaving their drinks behind for a little bit of a dance. It would take enough pretty girls or one special girl to coax them from their comfort zone. That’s why I was a little upset to see Aaron dancing with Lilly. She was playfully gliding her hands over his body. I retaliated by doing the same to Kev, rubbing my body against his in a way that would have felt very pleasing. It wasn’t until I rubbing my butt against him that I realized that I realized my plan was all backwards - I didn’t want to be turning on Kev, I wanted to separate Lilly and Aaron.

“Let’s call this 4, OK?” I whispered to Kev, “I’m going to talk to Lilly. Come get me later and I’ll give you your reward.”

“30 seconds,” he reminded me. I wearily nodded and let him return to the wall with most of the other guys. I came over to the couple and tried to politely wedge myself in between them.

“Hi,” I smiled to them both, “My dance partner chickened out. Is it OK if I join you two?” They both smiled back although Lilly’s looked decidedly more forced.

“Of course!” Aaron said, holding my tiny hand in his, “It would be a pleasure.” Lilly’s smile remained stapled to her face. We danced in a triangle, both of the girls competing for Aaron’s attention. While Lilly had longer legs and a better butt over me I had a top half she couldn’t compete with, not even with her exotic Eurasian features. Aaron didn’t know where to look as two girls competed for his attention. It was tricky for me because I couldn’t make it obvious that I was trying to get Aaron to notice me, while Lilly was openly flirting

Despite that minor setback I think I did pretty well, swivelling and undulating in a way that was probably quite pleasant to men. Lilly rubbed her hands over her body and bit her bottom lip, Aaron found that interesting but his eyes wandered off my body. It was a secret war we were fighting and our strategies seemed to be the same. I was fighting a losing battle for a few reasons — 1) I wasn’t allowed to openly flirt and 2) Lilly had a lot more experience in her body than I did.

I was just getting into it when Alana grabbed me on the arm. “Hi! Having a good time?” she asked me.

“Yeah, I actually am,” I admitted, a little surprised with myself.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she told me.

“OK,” I said. I found it a little strange that she would come and find me just to tell me that.

Alana stared directly at me, “I’m going to the bathroom. Gemma, I know you haven’t been a girl for very long but surely you know what that means?” I hadn’t been a girl for very long and I didn’t have the smallest clue what that meant, my facial expression reflected that.

Alana grew slightly flustered, “Gem, what do girls never do when they do to the toilet?”

“Stand up?” I asked, bewildered.

“GO ALONE!” Alana shouted back at me, “I thought everyone knew that. C’mon!” She dragged me away from my dance battle leaving Lilly, the assured victor, behind. I glanced back at Aaron with hopeful eyes and was ecstatic to see him look up at me as I was dragged out of the garage.

Alana led me through the throng of people, like a big sister dragging her little sister. I didn’t like the fact both of my new friends were taller than me. One thing Dot had going for her she was the same height as me. Alana passed the eskies assembled on the porch and grabbed me another drink. At the rate I was drinking I would soon become a crying, sleepy mess but they tasted nice and made me feel ever confident.

“Did you know that Holly Morrissey and Trent Sobey are going out?” I asked Alana, sounding as indignant as I felt.

Alana ignored my question and instead asked one of her own, “You’ve still got a lot to learn about being a girl, don’t you?”

Yes, I did. You couldn’t assume someone studying anything for two weeks could possible be an expert. I would consider myself a total and utter novice when it came to all matters feminine, but I was willing to learn and that was the main thing. Alana was about to lay down a rule that I actually kinda already knew. “OK, if a girl is going after a guy you never become a third wheel, OK? Just let Lilly work her magic. Lucky I spotted you or all of Lilly’s work on Aaron might have been in vain!”

“Sorry,” I lied, I wasn’t really sorry. “I didn’t know,” another lie, I knew exactly what I was doing.

“That’s OK. It’s just that girls don’t do that to other girls. She’s worked really hard to get him alone and dancing and if you come over with your hot little body, you’re only going to confuse things!”

“I’m so sorry, that was never my intention.” I wasn’t sorry and those were my precise intention. I’m not sure why, I certainly wasn’t mentally ready for a boyfriend but there was part of me that wanted Aaron on the shelf until I was ready. He seemed like the perfect first boyfriend for me: he was good looking, smart, funny and had gone through a physical transformation of sorts himself. He used to be the ‘skinny kid’ and now he had a body that would make most models jealous. I had more in common with him than Lilly did. Lilly just wanted him as another one of her fun little playthings. Girls could be so shallow!

“Just don’t do it again!” Alana scolded me as we winded through the halls of the house until we came to the bathroom.

“And just for the record, why do girls to the toilets in twos?” I asked as Alana slid the bathroom door open.

“I dunno, I guess so we can talk,” she retorted.

As I waited for Alana to finish her private business, private business I had to travel across the entire party to bear witness to, I skulled my drink. If I stood a chance with Aaron I needed more ‘liquid panty remover’. Maybe with less inhibitions and more confidence I could do something that would capture Aaron Lekakis’ attention. Not that I knew what to do with his attention if I got it.

“Hey Gemma!” called out a voice, “You owe me something!” It was Kev, lurching down the hall after me. He had lust in his eyes and boobs on the brain. He would literally be chasing me the entire party until I paid him his fee. And he would probably get drunk and thus more vocal about it. If I didn’t do it tonight he would hassle me at school and at home until I did it. I knew him, he could be tenacious about the tiniest of matters, and this would become a crusade.

He cornered me at the door of the bathroom, where I waited for Alana. “Right, can’t keep running, Gem. I danced to 4 songs with you and now you owe me 30 seconds of face time with the two most famous lady lumps in the country at the moment.”

“You do know you are a total pervert, don’t you?”

“I am well aware of that but that does not change things,” he calmly explained things. There was some noise coming from behind the bathroom door. Alana emerged straightening herself.

"Oh hi… Kev right?" Alana guessed.

"That's right," Kev joyously beamed from being properly identified, "And you're Alana Sturt, everyone knows you."

Alana seemed unnerved by Kev's presence a little bit, "Gemma, are you coming?"

"I've just got something to show Kev quickly. It will take, like, 30 seconds. I'll meet you outside," Alana nodded and walked down the hallway. Kev's eyes were glued to her backside as it swayed back and forth. I felt a little perturbed, couldn't he just find one girl and ogle her? "Let's get this over with!" I said dragging him upstairs. I ducked into the first door at the top of the stairs. It was a bedroom, probably Jeff's parents' bedroom — large bed, ornate furnishings and the like. I switched on the lights with a deft flick of my flinger and pulled Kev inside. I fumbled around in my pockets and found my phone. It had a stopwatch; there was no chance Kev was getting one second more than 30 seconds. "This is soo stupid," I told him.

"Don't do the deal if you don't want to pay the piper," he told me. I started the arduous task of unzipping, unhooking and undoing the few items that stood in the way of a public display.

There were some rules that needed going over, "OK Kev, you are about to see my bosoms but before you do there is some ground rules. You are going to want to touch them because they are plump and round and oh-so inviting but you cannot touch! OK? You are going to want the memory of this event to last but please no photography of any kind. You are going to want to tell your friends about what you have seen tonight, if you do I shall hunt you down, Kevin Owen Madsen, and you will be ended. Is this understood by you?"

He swallowed, hard, "No touching, no talking and no flash photography."

"No photography of any kind."

"Deal."

"Your time shall begin the second you see my second nipple," I said professionally as I fiddled with the clips on my bra. Within seconds I had the thing unclasped and I quickly whipped it off. The fleshy objects that were the subject of this meeting gently bounced as they were released. I clicked a button on my phone and the countdown began. They looked, well to be honest, amazing, almost worthy of the adoration ladled on them by Kev. Full, round and perky, they looked like they were they were the design of a million 14-year-old boys. Actually, it was sad to admit but I was getting attached to the new friends, which made sense because they were very much attached to me.

"Very nice," commented Kev, "I thought your nipples would be bigger but still…. Very nice." I was proud of him, followed the rules to the letter. He walked around me getting the view from every angle, almost as if he was memorising what he saw seeing. 15 seconds had now passed but it felt like 15 hours. "Now, I know I can't touch them," Kev began, "but I was wondering if you could?"

"I don't do requests," I told him coldly, he looked disappointed. Now if I wasn't such a show-off I wouldn't have cared if he was disappointed. But I was just so damn proud of my boobs it seemed almost unfair not to give him a full show. Without saying a word, I brought my hands up to them, cupping one in each hand. Kev promptly stopped looking at me like an old, sad dog and more like an excited puppy. I jiggled them about, more explorative than erotic. Then I put my hands down and shimmied my shoulders making the pair clatter together. I was about to rub my finger around areola when my alarm went off, thus ending the free show. As quickly as they were unveiled they were re-veiled.

"That was 30 seconds?" Kev sounded a little disappointed.

"Yep, that's all you get!" I said pulling on my top and adjusting it so everyone else got a hint of the view that Kev had just seen.

"Well, it didn't seem that long but I must tell you, Gem; they were amazing! If I hadn't been friends with you for like 4 years I would ask you out on the spot." I didn't have the heart to tell him that I would have said no because he creeps me out too much. He was the type of guy who had a lot of male friends but girls couldn't stand him, from the way he ogled me I could tell why but we had too much history together to stop being his friend, plus he was harmless.

The rest of the party became a bit blurry. I do remember answering a lot of questions for a lot of people I didn't know very well. We all sat around in the backyard around the fire and I told stories from the hospital and my first few weeks back. Aaron sat down to listen to me talk and I made as much eye contact with him as possible. I had a bit more of a dance, mainly with girls, like Alison and Alana. Lilly still was working on Aaron. I walked past Holly and Sobey a few times, rolling my eyes and muttering under my breath, I heard from Becca that Holly was annoyed that I was giving her the silent treatment. I didn't join in on a game of spin the bottle because I thought that some guys would have a problem kissing me and that was fair enough; instead I talked to Kev about my breasts for like 15 minutes straight. That boy had a lot to say about breasts. All of this was interspersed with more and more fruity, brightly coloured drinks.

Not all of us could cope with too many fruity, brightly coloured drinks. I gently held back Lilly's hair as she vomited all over Macca's mother's vegetable patch. "I got some on my shoes," she mumbled as I rubbed her back.

"It's OK. I'm sure we can clean that right up." Surely, this was a job for her best friend, Alana but she was nowhere to be found, so I had to step in.

"Did Aaron see me puke?" Lilly moaned, the plastic flowers she had put in her dark brown hair coming loose.

"Yeah," I confessed, "A little bit but it's OK, he still thinks you're cool." I wasn't sure on that last part and kinda even hoped that it wasn't true either. "Are you going to be OK?" I asked. She nodded in a way that told me she was a lot drunker than I was. "Do you want me to call you a taxi to bring you home?"

She began to stand up. It looked like when a baby giraffe stands up for the first time, knees firmly together and a general look of trepidation in her eyes. "No, I'm OK!" she declared as she hurtled clumsily back to her grassy inevitability.

"Oh no you're not. I'm calling a taxi."

"Thanks for this, Gemma," Lilly said with line of vomit dripping down her chin as we walked to the front of the house, "You're a good friend!" I wasn't sure if I deserved that comment. Sure, I was looking after her now but the whole night before this point I had been scheming on how to keep her from Aaron. We sat on the curb, her legs apart, revealing her pretty underwear to the tranquil suburban street. I was lucky, in pants there was no risk of exposure, not that anyone was here to look.

CLICK!! A bright light flicked my in the eyes, blinding me. The paparazzi were here. Not a massive group but the two or three guys that had followed me around pretty solidly for the past 2 weeks. "Hi boys," I said as they revealed themselves from their hiding spots.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! "Gemma! Gemma! Hi!" CLICK! CLICK!

"Now isn't a great time!" I groaned, burying my face in my hands. I physically closed Lilly's legs, saving her from an embarrassing picture in a magazine. "I'm just waiting for a taxi with my friend here. Nothing worth taking a picture of."

"What's your pretty friend's name?" asked one of the men.

Lilly smiled at the men. Despite being intoxicated, this was a question she could answer, "Lilly Badawi. B-A-D-A-W-I."

"Very pretty, are you Chinese?"

This was a sore point even with a sober Lilly. "No! I'm half Malaysian, dickhead! Not everybody who is Asian is from China!"

Luckily, the paparazzi were in no mood to bicker with a drunken teenage girl. "Come on, Gemma. Throw us a few poses!"

"You've been taking photos of me all day! Why would you possibly need more?"

"Just giving the public what it wants and everyone loves Gemma Taylor!"

"What's not to love?" I joked, "But come on guys, I'm looking after my friend. I'll be leaving the party in an hour or so myself and then you can take all the pictures you want of me. OK? Just get back in your cars."

"An hour? You promise?"

"An hour or so, or so! Christ guys! I don't mind you documenting my entire life but please, let me have one!" I begged the men while Lilly rested her head on my shoulder.

"Thank you, Miss Taylor," one of them said and they all returned to their cars on the other side of the road, their cameras still trained on me, just in case I suddenly became more newsworthy. I brushed my fingers through Lilly's hair. It felt weird comforting someone taller than you. You normally think of someone you nurture as being smaller than you, but Lilly was three or four inches taller than me. If you couldn't nurture people smaller than you I wouldn't be able to look after many people. I was kinda short and way skinny.

I poured Lilly into the taxi and made sure that she would get safely home. "Thanks Gemma," Lilly said as I put the seatbelt on her, "I'll see you at school."

"Remember to act sober when you get home," I reminded her. Lilly had gotten in trouble for drinking too much at these parties so she had promised her parents that she wouldn't drink. She now had the unenviable task of trying to play sober when she was anything but. I dusted the dirt off my now slightly dirty white pants and went to see how the party was going. I was now down a few friends; Lilly had just left and so did Kev pretty much straight after his 30 seconds in 'paradise'.

"How's Lilly going?" asked a familiar voice.

"Not too bad. She'll live to see tomorrow. She won't enjoy it much though. Her head is going to fucking kill," I told Aaron, sitting beside him in the empty garage with undevoured party food and streamers as our only other companions. Everyone else were now in the garden, drinking and talking or inside, playing Guitar Hero. It was weird to walk into the garage to see him standing there alone, almost as if he was waiting to talk to me. I couldn't help but admire how cute he was looking, a few shirt buttons tantalizingly left open. If my hormones controlled me completely that shirt would be ripped open.

"Poor girl. She was really pounding them back. She was going one for one with me and I am a damn lot bigger than her." Aaron was even taller than me when I was male, not that I was a giant in anyone's book but now he positively towered over me. But I didn't find him threatening at all; instead he seemed comforting and protective.

"She was trying to impress you," I revealed to Aaron, "I'll let you in on some Secret Girl World stuff. Her one goal of the night was to get you interested in her. That's why she cut you off from the herd and was flirting with you."

"Shit! She was flirting with me? Fuck! I can never tell. I thought she was just being nice to me," Aaron seemed genuinely stunned to what I thought was tremendously obvious.

"Really, Aaron? She was rubbing herself against you on the dance floor. Are you that bad at reading people?"

"Yeah, I am. I was the fat kid for so long it's hard to think that any girl would want to talk to me, let alone want to go out with me. Plus I was mainly watching you when we were dancing."

"Me?" I asked. It was my turn to sound surprised.

"Sure, it's so weird to think you were ever Michael Taylor. You were dancing like all the other girls, meanwhile all I could do was my awkward man-dancing," I giggled at Aaron, yes giggled. "You just act so girly. I mean, I couldn't help but notice you are wearing a thong. That's pretty girly thing to do, Taylor."

"I'm wearing a fucking bra too, isn't that girly?" I retorted, "Look dude, I'm just doing what I need to do to fit in. I've been thrown into another world and all the rules have been tossed out. OK, most of the time I'm forced to do these extra 'girly' things but I let people force me so that the next time I have to do it, it wont be too hard. Sorry if that was a bit of a speech but I'm a little drunk and I'm a talkative drunk."

"That's OK, I'm drunk and when I'm drunk I love to listen," he laughed and so did I.

"I am a little scared about how much I'm changing though. Last week I was a crying wreck who couldn't get out of bed because of how much I hated it all and now I'm dancing suggestively next to a hot guy while I wear a low cut top and a thong."

Aaron clearly picked up on one part of my last sentence, "You think I'm hot?"

"I am happy to reveal to you that you don't need to worry anymore about your looks. You are officially hot. I tell you this as a novice girl. It's really amazing who I find attractive, you would be surprised who my body finds appealing. I'll look at a guy I would have never guessed was attractive and my body will say, 'Man, he's looking good.' Let's just say my body shouts it whenever you're around." It was both really weird and strangely comforting to be this candid with someone.

"Good to know. And as a side note, I find you alarmingly sexy."

"Yeah, it must be a little scary to find me attractive. But believe me, it doesn't make you gay anymore than me finding you attractive makes me gay."

"You look good as a blonde," he told me. Was he flirting with me? Great! As soon as I get good at reading exactly what a girl was thinking I lose the power to understand guys. Why couldn't life be easy? Or a least easier.

"Another thing I was too easily forced into. Next you know I'll be wearing a dress and doing the Deb."

"Oh," Aaron looked at me, "Are you doing the Deb?"

"No," I said, trying to explain, "I meant if I kept getting forced into doing things. Mum so desperately wants me to do the Deb I can see her holding back a comment about it every 5 minutes. It's killing her, she really wanted at least one of her kids to do the Deb and I guess I'm her last chance. I know it means the world to her but it's just a little too much, too soon."

Aaron sat forward, staring at me in confusion, "What do you mean too much? At this party alone I've seen you dance and handle the attention of a large group of people. The only thing different is you'll be wearing a dress, and I'm pretty sure it would be more comfortable than that piece of cotton you currently have wedged up your bum."

"I guess that's true. But I would need to find a partner and then…"

Aaron butted in, "I'm not doing it."

Wow, shot down before even offering, that must be some kind of new record. "Well, I didn't ask you…"

"No," he explained, "I meant I'm not doing it with anyone yet."

My mind let his words slowly roll around in my head. Did he mean…? "Are you saying you'd do your Deb with me, Gemma Taylor the ladyboy of Marrang?"

"I was just saying if your Mum was going to force you into it… and you said how much it means to her… maybe we should." This was an awkward thing for him to say, "Should we?"

"Umm…OK, let's do it." I extended my skinny little hand out, "Shake on it, Deb partner." He clasped my hand and we shook hands.

WHAT DID I JUST DO?!?

CHAPTER 21

"Is it true?" Becca asked me without needing to clarify what 'it' was. The news got around the party pretty fast — Aaron Lekakis and Gemma Taylor were going to do the Deb together. The news travelled like electricity, although without the need to follow wires, it travelled through air. I guess it was my fault. I did tell Alana.

"What? That's fucking amazing! Now we can be Deb twins!" I had no idea what Deb twins were, I hoped that it was a term she made up in her excitement. She hugged me so tight I thought maybe she heard me wrong. Maybe she thought I had said that I was shipping off to Iraq and I would probably never see her again? But that still wouldn't have explained 'Deb Twins'. I did make her promise to keep it quiet but promises by drunken girls aren't really strong, I discovered.

"Yes, Becca. My Mum is forcing me to do it so Aaron was nice enough to be my partner." Even deep in the fog of intoxication I could still question my sanity. Was I really going to do my Deb? Why? Was it because of Aaron and they way he looked at me? Was it really to make my Mum happy? Or was I so addicted to getting attention that I could smell the media frenzy a mile off and got excited? I hoped it was just for my Mum but I had my doubts, Aaron was too hot and the media frenzy too exciting for this to be a completely selfless act.

"You're going to look sooo cute together! Are you planning on wearing your hair up or down?" Unsurprisingly, my hair was the last thing on my mind.

"I have no idea," I mumbled as I realized I would be asked variations of that question everyday until the silly event. I was about to be thrown headlong into the deep end of girlyness, I just hope that I can tread water for as long as possible. And it wasn't just my hair that would be asked about, girls could talk for hours straight about every little detail about their Debutante dresses and make-up and shoes and jewellery. I wasn't sure I was ready for it. But it seemed impossible to back out now as I watched the news emanating across the entire town. I wouldn't have been surprised if somebody rang my Mum to tell her the good news, despite it being 3 in the morning.

Holly removed her mouth from Sobey's long enough to approach me. "Hi," she softly said. I was amazed that her jaw wasn't too sore to talk after making out with Sobey all night. "You look really pretty tonight."

I used to find all compliments about my looks repulsive but I enjoyed them now. If I was going to be a girl it was pleasing to be a pretty one. "Thanks."

"Alison told me something a little shocking a few minutes ago."

"Yeah," I confirmed, "I'm sick of being so selfish and self absorbed so I thought I would do something for my Mum."

"That's cool," she told me, perhaps not quite believing me, "Why Aaron?"

"Because he asked me. And he's been really nice to me since… you know."

Holly leaned closer to me. "Have you noticed he's smoking hot yet?" she asked.

A grin slid across my lips, "Maybe."

"Thought so," she told me, "You are such a girl."

"I don't know much about guys, but I know what I like," I replied. While the tone of our banter was friendly there was the distinct aroma of cattiness in the air. And it wasn't all from Holly, I was angry about her keeping her relationship with Trent Sobey a secret from me. I could not shake the feeling that she was looking down on me, probably because at least physically she was. She was 5'10 normally but she was wearing heels. I used to be 5'11 but I was now a modest 5'4 and flat out refused to wear heels, despite desperately wanting those lost inches back. I convinced myself I was only 17 and still growing and would regain a fair bit of height back. I was sure of it, mainly because Dr. Chisholm had once said fleetingly that I might not be finished growing.

"So, I'm not the only person with a secret," I said, trying to sound a little hurt and totally cool at the same time, not an easy thing to do I can assure you.

"Oh yeah? Who else?" she asked, seemingly unaware of what I was hinting at.

"You. You broke up with Jake to go out with Trent Sobey?"

"Not really," she said, shuffling her feet, "It just kinda worked out like that."

"Really?" I said, the contempt in my voice quite obvious, "Trent Sobey?"

"You don't know him," Holly said as she fussily fiddled with a strap on her top.

"Why didn't you tell me? That's why I'm annoyed," I told her.

Holly snapped right back, "I don't tell you everything. We're hardly the best of friends, Gemma." Was I destined to loose every friend Michael had made?

"I want to be, though. I thought we were going to tell each other stuff, so that we would be better friends. It was your idea."

"You want me to tell you 'stuff''? OK," Holly took in a deep breath, "I broke up with Jake because he cheated on me with some bush pig while he was at Uni and I'm going out with Trent because around me he doesn't act the same as he does around everyone else. We've always had a special connection." I was thoroughly put in my place.

I thought that being female would have made me closer to my female friends. But it seemed like the opposite was happening. My relationships with Dot and Holly were in their worse positions ever. Dot and I weren't on speaking terms and things with Holly had gotten frosty. But why? Sure, I was changing a little bit here and there but I would think that we would have more in common now, especially with Holly. I ran with her circle of friends now but yet we weren't great friends.

"They are probably just jealous of you," said Alana as we waited out the front for a taxi. The paparazzi surrounded me as I robotically posed for them. Stand up straight, shoulders back, a big smile showing teeth, I went through all the things Tyler had taught me. It was early in the morning and the flash of light bulbs were mixing with my light head in an unpleasant way.

"Jealous?" I huffed through a crack in the wall of photographers, "What do they have to be jealous of?"

"That fact you have your own media circus following you around is one thing I can think of," Alana said, "Plus you're really pretty and smart and nice and have made some awesome new friends, if I do say so myself. And you're going to be the main focus when you do your Deb!" What Alana had just done was let the cat out of the bag. And I was surrounded by dogs.

CLICK! "Gemma! You're doing your Deb ball?"
"Who with?" CLICK!
CLICK! "What do you plan on wearing?"
"What has your mother said?" CLICK!

"Nice one!" I called out to Alana as the wall swallowed me whole, engulfing me in a onslaught of clicks and questions. I wore a fake smile as genuine as I possibly could as I prayed for the taxi to come screeching down Macca's quiet semi-rural street. "I am not answering any questions at this time," I parroted over and over, a stark contrast to how informal I normally am with the press. I didn't want my sister to find out that I had agreed to do the Deb let alone the whole world. The taxi finally pulled up, surely dragged here by my will alone and Alana and I piled in. "Drive!" I commanded, as if I was a real celebrity and we disappeared into the night.

A brain left to its own devices and fuelled on fruit flavoured, alcoholic drinks can go a little weird. A dream snuck into my mind while I left it unattended. There I was, aglow in that dress, the dress that hung in the wardrobe dreading that no one would ever wear it. I looked amazing in it, the entire ballroom lit up entirely by the vision of me in this dress. No one could keep their eyes off me. I was so proud! But then I felt something on my neck. A lump! Was it cancer? No, it was worse, it was my Adam's Apple! I tried to scream but only a deep, manly groan came out! "Help me!" I begged the crowd in my old guttural voice. The crowd turned away in disgust, no one wanted to help the freak. I turned to Aaron for help. He hugged me close and told me everything would be alright. I felt secure and relaxed in his arms. A lump grew in my dress and poked Aaron. He looked down and slowly backed away from me. I looked down, I was sporting a giant 12 inch boner, jutting out of my dress!!

I flung myself out of that dream as quickly as possible, jolted upright and flung my hands to locations around my body to confirm my gender; boobs, pussy, no Adam's apple, I was still a girl. I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately wondered why. Why had a dream where I turned back into my old self shook me as bad as any nightmare? I rubbed my pussy through the cotton of my panties, like a beloved pet that I thought had ran away forever but had finally returned. I couldn't welcome it back too hard because I realised where I was — in Alana's room. In fact I was in Alana's bed, beside Alana. Girls, you see, will quite happily share a double bed together, no worries. So, there I sat, in Alana's bed, ever so gently rubbing my pussy, just to remind myself that I was 100% female. If you had told me a month ago that I would be in Alana Sturt's bed, with her, gently massaging female genitals, I highly doubt that I would have believed you but that was the truth.

The dream had really scared me but what scared me more was the fact I was scared by the dream. I wanted to be male, didn't I? All this 'girl power' and 'I'm loving being a woman' was just for show, right? As much as I was OK being a girl, there was the general impression that I would much rather be back, being regular, average, dull-as-dish-water, old me, right? It seemed like a question that should be answered easily, but in truth, it wasn't. My head hurt and if I was anything like the sleeping girl beside me in bed, my face would be covered in smudged make-up.

I wanted to want to be male again. It seemed like a given, 'boys rules, girls drool' was the maxim I had swore by at 8 years old and I should never change teams, even if my body did. By saying 'Yes' to Aaron I had turned my back on my old gender. Doing the Debutante Ball was the girliest thing I could ever do, not even all the girls at school are doing the Deb. But I had agreed to join the girliest of the girly and throw myself into a world of 'delustered satin' and 'sweetheart necklines', I didn't even know what they were but I knew that but the end of this ordeal, and it would be an ordeal, I would. I needed to assert that there was still a boy inside this body, that behind the perky bosoms and squeaky voice was a testosterone filled man (I use the term 'testosterone-filled' in a very loose way, because Dr. Chisholm had informed me that my testosterone level was actually quite low, even for a girl.).

I looked at my situation; there I was in a girl's room, in her bed, lying next to her. It seemed quite obvious had I had to do. I scooted across the bed towards Alana Sturt, the hottest girl in our Year level, and I wrapped my arm around her. I began gently spooning my new sleeping friend, our bodies softly touching. I quietly pushed my imaginary erection up against her. She rustled a bit but stayed asleep. The physical contact felt good, but admittedly a little unfulfilling. Alana was soft and smooth, that was annoying, if I wanted to touch soft and smooth all I needed to do was touch myself. There was no point lying to myself, I wanted rough and angular.

Deterred by my apparent heterosexuality I released Alana from my gentle grip and tottered into her bathroom. It was there I came face to face with rough and angular — and he was wearing just a towel. "Oh sorry!" I said as I had realised I wasn't alone.

"That's OK," Connor, Alana's older brother said as he concentrated on his image in the mirror as he shaved, "I'll just be a minute. You must be one of Alana's friends, yeah?"

I stared at him and his proud body and felt two things —
1) Alana's brother is hot!
and
2) I missed shaving.
It was like my feminine and masculine sides were looking at him in two ways — one saw him as a spunky older man with a great body and the other saw him as a lucky bastard who still had his penis. I let my mind wrestle with these conflicting thoughts as I answered his question. "Yeah, we went to a party last night so I crashed here."

Connor was a little older than my sister and went to University in Melbourne, Alana had told me that he would be home on Sunday, but I paid no mind to it. I knew Connor a little bit but older brothers never used to be such a big deal, until now. As Alana was gorgeous, Connor was handsome in a bright-eyed, take home to meet Mum kind of a way. However wholesome he looked, I was compelled to tug his towel to reveal what was underneath. Connor casually finished off his shaving, he wasn't ashamed of his body and nor should he be, as it was delicious. I was disappointed how little a fight my masculine side was putting up when looking at Connor. I'm quite sure my nipples were plumping up because of my thoughts about biting those majestic abs, not because I was reminiscing about shaving.

"Was it a good party?" he asked.

"Well, I seem to have a hangover and look an absolute mess, so yes, I guess."

"If you're a mess now, you must be the hottest woman on the planet when you are cleaned up!" he laughed, sounding both amused and ashamed of his pick-up attempt at the same time, "Sorry about that. I just meant that you are very good looking. I'm Connor, by the way," he said, extending his hand. He might have not recognised me but I knew who he was.

When you first start at Marrang High School they assign Peer Support Leaders to you. A Peer Support Leader is a Year 11 student, who trains for a few days to be able to look after the meek and scared Year 7's who join the school. They make sure you know your way around, teach you study techniques, play games with you and just generally try and make you feel confident about High School. You and another 6 or so Year 7 students meet once a week for 6 months with your Peer Support Leaders (generally there is two assigned to each group.). I was actually a Peer Support Leader up until the transformation where they cut me some slack and found someone to take my students. When I was in Year 7, my Peer Support Leaders were Kelly-Ann Papaworth and Connor Sturt. And to think I used to have a crush on Kelly-Ann Papaworth!

"Yeah, we've met before. I'm Gemma."

"Gemma, Gemma…" he mulled over my name, letting it roll around the room, "I'm pretty sure I would remember a gorgeous girl like you."

I very much appreciated the compliment (although it was a little worrying that a 21-year-old was cracking onto a 17-year-old) but I was going to have to burst this bubble. "Gemma Taylor…" I told him. The name didn't seem to jog anything in his head.

"Gemma Tay…" He knew. It was obvious that he now knew. "Oh of course, you used to be one of my little Peer Support kids and now look at you! You're all grown up! And by that I mean you're old… not that you're 'bigger'. Because I guess you might ever be shorter now that you are a… I am so sorry for flirting with you earlier, I didn't recognise you… blonde hair and all. You look so much taller on TV. I didn't mean to flirt… Please don't take that the wrong way. You were always a nice guy… I mean girl… I mean…" It was fun watching him scramble but I did have to intervene at some point otherwise he might have just kept going.

"Connor, it's OK. I'm not about to get all offended! It's OK, buddy, my situation is confusing and I know it!" I said trying to stop him from falling apart like an old car. He mumbled something about finishing shaving in his parents' bathroom and left me alone. As he passed me I felt so tempted to grab the towel, just so I could get a glimpse of his cute bum as he scampered away. My rampant heterosexuality scared me less and less as time went on. Guys were hot and I was beginning to enjoy that.

My hands, with agendas all of their own, wandered a little when I was in the shower. The thought of Connor and his body, Aaron and all the excitement all had prompted my fingers to explore. One hand discovered the mountain range of my breasts and gently began to climb to the peak of one. Once at the top, signified by a nipple standing tall and proud like a flagpole, it kneaded the soft flesh. I had inhabited this body for a while but I was still astonished at the softness of my boobs. They were like two jiggly pillows stuffed with goose down. So soft to the touch and so fun to touch.

My other hand had set up camp between my skinny thighs, a hot and damp area made more so by the warm water trickling down my body. My fingers wandered around the cavernous valley without entering it, tickling the soft velvety folds. These weren't the clumsy actions of a boy unsure of this weird body but a woman who knew exactly what she was doing. One finger, the long, thing middle one, decided to leave its friends and explore the hot, damp cave. Slowly, it pushed its way inside, carefully rubbing against the pulsating walls. I moaned in sheer delight, a woman deep in pleasure. Upon reaching the end of its tether, the finger returned to the surface only to repeat the process but this time faster.

My eyes rolled around in my head like two marbles on the deck of a boat. The pleasure was too much for them. The hand that had scaled the mighty breasts began working the nipples more furiously. I was about to double the effort with my other hand, when I saw it. Almost every girl I had talked to about self-pleasure had mentioned the immense benefits of a hand held showerhead and there was one staring me in the face. I fiddled with it and diverted the water from the main head until it was blasting out of the smaller, handheld one. I took it in my hand and slowly, ever so slowly brought it down between my legs. The pleasure was immediate and overwhelming. "Wow!" I moaned as I braced myself against the wall, "Oh my… Wow!"

The foreign visitor was doing the work of a thousand warm fingers — tickling and rubbing, caressing and massaging. I gently moved the head around trying to find the very best position. My skinny thighs closed in on it, bringing it deeper and closer to me. I moaned as a proud and excited woman. I would have to see about getting one of these installed in our shower, like tomorrow. I made excited little yelps, my squeaky little voice all the more squeaky. I thought about Aaron, lovingly peeling me out of my beautiful Debutante dress, both of us sharing a smile from ear to ear. "Your magnificent," he'd softly whisper.

"You are not so bad yourself," I'd joke, as my womanly body would be exposed to him. We'd embrace, his hands desperate to explore my body as my hands to his.

"You are the perfect woman!" he'd moan, as he would candidly rub my delicate thighs.

"I am! I am the perfect woman!" I gasped, out loud in the shower as I reached the pinnacle of my pleasure. I had never climaxed standing up before and the force was so powerful that my knees buckles and I almost fell to the floor. I panted deep heavy breaths and enjoyed what was left of the warmth. I felt the urge to have another round with the showerhead but decided against it, I didn't want to waste all the hot water in Alana's house servicing my sexual appetite. I hoped no one had heard me yelp that I was the perfect woman, which would be quite embarrassing and tough to explain.

After washing myself properly, I emerged somewhat triumphant from the shower. I tiptoed over to the vanity and rubbed a face-sized portion clean in the fogged up mirror. Gone was the smudged make-up that was all over my face and a cheery girl smiled back. I wiped clean a larger portion of the mirror and looked at me. I stood, naked, damp on Alana's bathroom floor and felt happier than I had in a long time. I'm not sure what had caused this jolly mood but I wasn't on the verge of crying, unlike most of the time lately. I sponged myself dry with a towel, practically dancing as I did. Foolishly I had forgot to bring some extra clothes with me to the bathroom so I had to wear only what I brought down with me — the white thong and Alana's top that I wore last night. I wriggled into my thong, pulling it on my hips. I didn't seem to mind it in my butt today, although last night it drove me mad. In fact, according to my reflection it made my bum look pretty good, which I was happy with. I pulled on the top and looked in the mirror, it was far too dressy for lounging around in the house with but it would do until I got back to my overnight bag in Alana's room.

My Mum was going to pick me up at 11am because she said I had too much homework to do and I couldn't spend the whole weekend away from school work. What she knew about my homework load, I'll never know. Truth was teachers were too sensitive to my needs and often held back on giving me any homework at all. The rest could be done 'in my own' time. I had the benefits of being sick without feeling ill at all. I felt great! Without waking Alana, I pulled on some shorts, a bra and buttoned up a little shirt for me to wear.

"Honk!" was the sound to alert me that Mum had arrived.

"Hey," I whispered as I tried to wake Alana gently.

"Mmmph," was the all to familiar response.

"I've got to go now, my Mum's waiting downstairs. Thanks for a great weekend!"

I roused her enough for her to put a sentence together. "Bye Gemma." It wasn't much of a sentence.

I trotted down the stairs with my bag in tow to face the music. I hadn't told Mum about dyeing my hair or piercing my ears or even that I went to a party last night. I wondered what she would think of it all. It was impossible to gauge whether my Mum would be angry or not about things. Sometimes she would treat me like an 8-year-old and other time she expected me to be an adult. I was neither. I was a teenage girl with the mind of a teenage boy, a tricky thing to parent indeed.

Gingerly, with one foot in front the other I approached the car. I could see Mum's reaction with each step I took closer. She didn't seem to be freaking out at all, in fact she seemed only a little surprised. "Gemma Mae Taylor!" she said as I opened the door, "What have you done to yourself?"

"Like it?" I meekly squeaked as I tentatively climbed into my seat. The vinyl of the car seats had heated underneath the hot summer sun all morning and burned my soft thighs as I sat down. It was such a common occurrence that I didn't even wince.

"Let me have a closer look," she said and so I looked at her dead on, "Who did this to you?" I still wasn't sure whether she liked or not. I turned my head and my recently dyed follicles danced for her. Surely, she wouldn't have a problem with it; her hair was dye a colour only a few shades different to mine anyway. Like mother, like daughter.

"Alana and Lilly. They also did this," I announced as I pulled back a curtain of blondeness to reveal my pierced ears.

"Fuck me, Gem! You didn't let them do that to you with a pin did you?"

"It's OK, I've been rubbing alcohol on it so that it doesn't get infected. It didn't hurt much, I promise," I wasn't liking how quiet Mum was being, "Mum… say something. Do you like it?"

"Gemma, you know I'll always think you're beautiful. It's just that Nicole really wanted to do something like this with you and now you've gone and done it without her." I had never thought of that. Nicole would be pissed that she didn't get the honours of making me over, since she had practically begged me to do it from day one.

"Shit, I didn't think of that. I'll make it up to her," I told Mum. The car coughed a few times and spluttered into life. I still had the big news of the Deb to bring up with Mum and I thought about withholding from her until she was really mad at me about something and then I could divert her with the happy news. But with the speed that news was travelling from the party I wouldn't have the luxury of keeping it from her until a rainy day. I didn't want to do it in the car though, a surprise like that deserved to be a face-to-face moment.

"So what did you get up to this weekend? Aside from mutilating your body in the name of fashion, that is," Mum asked me. It was one of those parents' questions that they ask and they want an answer but they don't really expect the truth. They expect an 'Oh… nothing much,' and not a detailed list of things they probably don't want their child doing anyway.

"Oh…nothing much," I said.

"Didn't go to the beach?" Mum asked as she smoked out of the window of the car.

"No," I said, quizzically.

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"So, you didn't go to the beach and pose for photos with tourists AND sign autographs?"

I looked at her with a look of slight astonishment, "How did you know that?"

"Mother's intuition," she proudly proclaimed.

"No, Mum, really. Where?"

"Pictures of it were in the paper this morning." It was going to be tricky to hide anything from anyone if everything I do was a major news story.

I gradually came to realise something and spoke slowly as the pieces of the puzzle came together, "So, you already knew about me dyeing my hair then?"

"Yes, supposedly you going blonde is worth page 7 in the Herald Sun," Mum sighed as if although I was special I wasn't deserved of all this attention. I didn't let on that I thought it should have been at least page 4. Come on, I'm now a blonde, that's big news! The car made assorted groans as we pulled into the driveway.

"So, that's all you did this weekend?" asked my mother as she stamped out her cigarette on the driveway. It seemed she was giving me another chance to reveal any secrets I may be harbouring but my Deb announcement wasn't a driveway moment, it was an 'Are you sitting down?' thing.

"You are just going to have to read the paper to find out," I teased her, seriously hoping that the newspapers hadn't yet had time to print what they had found out outside of Macca's party last night.

Sometimes something very small is all it takes. I opened the door and saw an old tin box that used to have old toffee lollies in them, though as long I had been alive it never contained lollies. Upon seeing that tiny box sitting on the kitchen table I knew that the jig was up.

They knew.

I had seen that old toffee box a lot a few years ago.

When Mum and Nicole made the dress. Mum kept pins in it.

I hadn't seen it since.

And there it was.

They knew.

To say seeing Nicole holding the Debutante dress and shouting, 'Surprise!" wasn't still frightening would have been wrong.

They knew.

********

As always, feel free to email me any comments, questions or criticisms to [email protected] The response I got to this story has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.