Authors note: This story first appeared in the “One Dozen Roses” anthology and has been edited to be read as a standalone.
You can read it in the anthology here.

I’ve been asked just how I came to choose the name Rose. The story of my name goes back to my childhood. I was eight at the time. It was in just after the second gulf war. I blame the whole thing on Susan. Susan was the girl who lived in our basement apartment. Her father had been called up in the National Guard and was in Iraq for a year. They decided to give up living in their house and rent it out to cover the mortgage payment. The rent on the apartment we had in the basement fit the budget imposed by his Guard pay which didn’t even come close to his regular pay. The apartment had been grandma’s before she died. It’s just two bedrooms, a bathroom and a sitting room with an efficiency kitchen and the rent helps us with the mortgage, since dad left. As part of the deal, Susan’s mom watched me while my mom was at work.

The easiest way to tell the story is to recount the conversations that led to my name. I had to tell my mother just how strange a girl Susan was.

“Mom, while we were playing today, Susan wanted to play dress up,” I told her.

“We played dress up when I was a girl. We had lots of fun. What did you dress up as?” Mom said.

“I didn’t?” I answered.

“You didn’t? Why not?” she wanted to know.

I answered “Well, all she had to play dress up with was her mom’s old clothes. Besides, she wanted to be the mommy and me to be the little girl and wear her old clothes.”

Mom got a mischievous grin and said, “Oh I see; too tough a part for you huh?”

Confused by the comment, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘too tough a part’?”

“It’s pretty tough pretending to be a girl,” she told me. She also said she could understand why I wouldn’t want to do it.

I had to tell her it wasn’t that it was tough; it was that boys just don’t do that kind of thing. She answered with a non sequitur.

“Tommy did.”

I had to wonder, if she was deliberately trying to confuse me. “Who’s Tommy?” I asked.

She told me about Martha and her little brother, Tommy. They lived down the street from her when she was ten. Martha had a whole bunch of clothes they could dress up in and Tommy joined in with them. Most of the time he played the little girl to their Mommy and aunt or some such.

I’m sure I sneered when I said, “Yeah, well he was some kind of sissy. I bet he grew up some kind of wimp.”

“Not really,” she said in an off handed manner. I was informed that he had been a star running back in high school and college. Apparently he was so good some pro scouts looked at him, but he was in ROTC and went into the Marines instead.

I commented that they had probably forced him to play dress up with them. After all, he was the little brother.

Mom retorted, “We didn’t force him, he asked to join us.” When they didn’t want him to, Martha’s mother made them let him join in. Mom claimed he was good at it and a lot of the time it was him that suggested that they play dress up. She said he liked it so much that sometimes he’d suggest it even when the weather was good enough to play outside.

“You’re not making that up?” I wanted to know. Before she had a chance to answer, I fired off, “This Tommy guy really did play dress up and like it?”

“Sure,” Mom claimed. She maintained she could prove it with some pictures in her old family album.

I followed her to her bedroom where she pulled a box down from the shelf and put it on the bed. She took out an old album and flipped through the pages and showed me a picture of three girls sitting at a picnic table on a patio. Two older ones of them were wearing ill-fitting grown up clothes and the other one was wearing a party dress complete with tights and Mary Jane shoes. Her hair was a little short for a girl, but had a big bow on the side.

“See, there’s Tommy,” Mom said. “The weather was nice so Martha’s mother had us have lunch on the patio,” she explained.

I was convinced that it was not a boy, but a girl with short hair. But Mom insisted it was Tommy. She showed another picture of him. In that one the three of them were standing in front of the fireplace, again, the two older ones were in grown up clothes and the younger one was wearing a short skirt and a blouse. This time, she had on ankle socks with lace and little flats. The blouse was sheer enough I could just make out her training bra underneath.

I claimed she was pulling my leg; that it was really a girl.

“OK then, look at this picture,” she said

In that picture they were at some park and the two older girls were wearing shorts and halter tops, but this time, there was a boy in jeans and T-shirt with them.

“Is that a girl?” she asked.

I had to agree that in that picture it was a boy. She told me to look at the face in both pictures. I did, and it was the same face.

I was astonished and said, “But that’s … She… he… looks so much like…like a girl.”

Mom informed me that at that age boys do.

I countered, “I’ll bet he turned out to be some kind of fag.”

Mom snapped back, “Watch your mouth! Fag is not a nice word.” Mom informed that he was not homosexual. That he’s married with two kids and never did have any gay tendencies. He just enjoyed playing the part of a girl.

She was shooting down my arguments right and left.

As we talked, she produced several more pictures. Apparently, this guy played dress up for years. Mom had been fixing dinner and the oven timer went off, needing her attention, so she left me to study the pictures.

In the later pictures, he obviously had on a bra and his hair was long and with the make-up he had on he looked older than his sister or my mom. In some of them he wore heels and nylons and mom and his sister weren’t playing dress up at all. But most shocking of all were the pictures of him in girl’s clothes outside, like the ones of the three of them waiting in line for movie tickets and the one of them at the beach. Mom and Martha were wearing two piece swimsuits and Tommy had on a one piece that had a little skirt on it and there were lots of other people around.

Mom appeared at the door and said, “So you see, it wouldn’t hurt you to play dress up with Susan.” The roast was ready and she directed me to call Susan and her mother up for dinner as she took the album from me. They ate dinner with us instead of mom paying her to watch me.

I went to the stairs across from mom’s room and called out, “Dinner’s ready.”

“OK… Mom, dinner,” Susan called from the bottom of the stairs.

All through dinner Susan looked at me, grinning.

The next day was a teacher planning day and wouldn’t you know it was raining again. Susan and I were sitting around bored while her mother watched the soaps.

She asked me to show her the album.

I played dumb and said, “Album? What album?”

She wasn’t buying it and said, “The one with the pictures of Tommy in it.”

I just blinked at her as if I didn’t know anything about it..

She told me, “The one your mother showed you last night.”

I started to say something more to deny any knowledge of what she was talking about, but she stopped me informing me that she had been on the stairs and heard everything Mom and I had said last night before dinner. She said she just wanted to see what Tommy looked like. She asked if he really did look like a girl.

I told her he did, but that I wasn’t sure that mom had been telling the truth. That I thought she was just pulling my chain.

She insisted that I let her see the pictures and see if she agreed. I went to mom’s room and found the album on her dresser. She hadn’t even put it away. That was good. That meant I wouldn’t have to rummage through her closet to find it.

We put it on the table and I leafed through it until I found the first pictures. “There,” I said. “Mom says that’s a boy. Now I ask you, does that look like a boy?”

She observed, that he didn’t, not very much. But she pointed out the hair was kind of short.

I pointed out the bow. I insisted that no guy would wear a bow in his hair like that.

She just countered, “Not unless he was trying to look like a girl.”

We leafed through some more pages and found lots more pictures of this guy. Most of them were him dressed in girl’s clothes, but some were him as him. Susan was convinced that they were all Tommy.

Susan was obviously convinced that this Tommy really did cross-dress; that Mom was on the level. But I still wasn’t convinced. The whole idea seemed off.

“No way,” I told her. I insisted that it had to be some sister or cousin or something; that no guy could look that much like a girl.

Susan kept to her guns, saying, “I don’t know; if I put you in the right clothes and did something with your hair, I think I could make you look that good.”

I showed a brave front and said, “No you couldn’t. I look too much like a boy.” But there was a part of me that thought just maybe she could. It both scared me and excited me.

She went for the kill. She said, “OK, let me prove it. Let me put you in one of my outfits and do your hair. If you look as good as Tommy, then we’ll play dress up.”

Shaking inside, I wanted to put the idea to rest before it became too tempting. I wasn’t sure that I could put the idea out of my mind. It had already been foremost in my mind since Mom had shown me the pictures. I demanded, “And if I don’t, then we’ll drop the subject totally!”

She agreed. But I wanted to tie down the subject and said, “And never talk about dress up again.”

She repeated, “… And never talk about dress up again,”

It was a dumb move. A really dumb, dumb move. I should have known it because I had been wondering just what it would be like to do what Tommy had done. I hoped that by letting her dress me up that it would put an end to the wondering. I guess I just didn’t want to believe that I could look like a girl. I was absolutely sure that I was so masculine that no matter what she did, I’d look like a boy in a dress. I was sure, well at least hoped, it would put an end to it in my mind.

“OK, now let’s see what I’ve got that would look good on you,” Susan mused as she slid the dresses in her closet across the rod. When she found a dress she liked, she said, “Oh, this will be perfect. Only, you have to wear something under it.” She struggled to remember the word, ‘translucent’ that her mother had said about the dress, but finally came up with it.” With that, she picked a slip off the hook on the side and told me to take off my shirt and put it on. She handed me the slip.

I dropped it on her bed as I peeled out of my T-shirt. Picking it up, I had a hard time figuring out just how it went on. After turning it around a few times, Susan told me that the little bow went in front. Turning it that way, I put it over my head. I was totally unprepared for the feel of the slip.

It was a real experience to have that soft, silky thing right next to my bare skin. I was thinking, ‘Why couldn’t my T-shirt be made of this kind of material? It sure beats plain cotton any day.’ That thought brought me up short. I continued thinking, ‘Whoa! The guys at school would really think I was weird for thinking that.’ But then I thought, ‘What am I thinking? I think I’m weird for thinking that.’

Nonetheless, I went on with what she wanted me to do. By the time I got the slip on, she had the dress ready and slipped it over my head. She fussed with it a bit and then had me go into the bathroom and where she worked on my hair.

I couldn’t admit it, even to myself, but I liked the slip the first time I wore it. I mean, it was so different from my T-shirts. But something inside of me said I shouldn’t like it and that I shouldn’t admit to anyone, not even Susan that I liked it.

But back to my hair; well she brushed it every which way, like she couldn’t figure out what to do with it. ‘This is where her whole scheme falls apart,’ I told myself. ‘My hair will never look like a girl’s.’ After a bit, she did something really dumb. She got a comb and holding my hair up by the ends, she combed it backward, down toward my head. I guess she realized how dumb that was and then took her brush again and smoothed it all out again. She then gave up and just put a barrette in it on one side.

“OK,” she said, “now all we need is some shoes.” Back to her bedroom we went and she got out a pair of really girly sandals. “You won’t need socks with these,” she told me. I sat on her bed and while I took off my shoes and socks she said, “You know, you should take off your shorts. They show when you sit down. It ruins the effect.”

That made my heart rate go up a notch. ‘If I did that,’ I thought,
‘wouldn’t that make me just like Tommy?’ “What? Take off my shorts?” I said, “No way. That’s, that’s like, like … well I couldn’t do that.”

She looked smug and said, “Why not? Us girls do it all the time. What do you think we wear under our dresses or skirts? And don’t tell me you’ve never looked up a girl’s skirt to see what they have on.”

I blushed. I had looked up a girls skirt and just about every boy I knew had as well. And she was right; girls just wear underwear under their dresses.

She went on with her argument, insisting, “If a girl can do it, you can do it. Besides it will help with how you look. Those shorts kind of show under the dress anyway.”

OK, so I turned my back and pulled the shorts off. I’ve got to tell you, I felt like I was naked. It was like I was doing something naughty… deliciously naughty. I was blushing again when I turned around.

“Deliciously naughty,” that's a good way to put it.

Her next order was, “Put the sandals on and we’re done.” By this time I thought she just might be in charge and I’m sure that she thought she was.

I self-consciously sat and put the sandals on trying not to show off my underwear. That accomplished, she took me to the full-length mirror in the hall. When I got there, I was stunned. I did look like a girl. Try as I might, I couldn’t see anything about me that didn’t look like a girl.

“There,” she said. “I guess we play dress up don’t we?”

I was completely dumbfounded and could only nod my head yes.

I had to ask myself, ‘Were you honestly surprised? I mean, your mother told you that young boys could easily look like girls. I guess I shouldn’t have been. But I guess I was in denial. I wanted to believe I was manly even at ten-years-old.

Well, she went to her dress up clothes and got out an outfit and soon I was the “daughter” to her “mother.” To my surprise I actually had fun. She had me doing all sorts of girl things like sitting with my legs crossed at the knee, and hanging one shoe from my toe. We changed outfits a couple of times. Each time I put on a different outfit, a little thrill went through me.

Just for the record, she never undressed. She was wearing some short shorts and a tank top. They didn’t show when she put on her mother’s old clothes.

Anyway, then without warning, disaster struck. Mrs. McCormick was standing in the door. “Are you ‘girls’ going to want lunch soon?” she asked. There was a smile on her face that somehow reminded me of the witch in Hansel and Gretel when she invited them inside.

Susan grinned and said, “Look mom, Ross is playing dress up with me.”

Her mom said, “So I see. Ross, you look just great. I’m fixing lunch and I just wanted to see what kind of sandwiches you wanted. We have PB&J, tuna and bologna.”

“I’d like tuna, please,” Susan told her.

“Ross, what would you like?”

I had been standing like a deer caught in some headlights with my mouth slightly open.

“Ah, tuna is fine,” I said, finding my voice.

“Why don’t you girls wash up while I make your sandwiches?”

It was a very weird lunch. I felt really self-conscious sitting at the table eating soup and a sandwich wearing Susan’s dress, but her mother acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. In fact the only recognition of what I was wearing was her referring to us as “you girls.” It was as if she thought I was a girl for real and not just pretend.

Susan and I continued in our game for the afternoon. Around 4:30, I said, “Ah, I think I should go up and make sure my room is clean before mom gets home. I didn’t make my bed this morning.”

“OK, you can come down and play some more after.”

“I don’t know, I think maybe I’ll just watch some television ‘til mom gets home. So I need to change back to my own clothes now.”

“Oh,” she said, obviously disappointed.

I told her that we could play some more the next day. I claimed, “I just kind of need to do some other things for a while.”

“OK,” she said, brightening a little. “I’ll pick out some really neat stuff for you tomorrow.”

With that, I pulled my cutoffs up and pulled the dress over my head. She took it from me and hung it while I pulled off the slip. After I put my shirt on, I started to head up the stairs, but she giggled and told me to not forget to wear those sandals again the next day when we played dress up. Embarrassed, I came back and changed my shoes.

Mom got home at her usual time and started dinner. When she was setting it on the table, she told me to call Susan and her mom.

“Dinner,” I yelled down the stairs. They showed up just as I was sitting down.

Mrs. McCormick filled Mom in on the day. “Ross and Susan played dress up today,” she said just as calmly as if she were commenting on the latest episode of “As The World Turns.”

“Oh?” mom replied, looking at me. Then she dragged me into the conversation. “Did you have a good time?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and confessed, “I guess so,” is all I said. I know I was blushing three shades of red, and thankfully, mom let it drop.

That evening, Mom decided to revisit my time playing dress up.

She told me, “I’m proud of you, you know.”

I asked, “Proud of me? For what?”

She replied, “For playing dress up with Susan. With the way you feel about it, it was brave of you to do it and it was nice of you as well.”

I explained that she didn’t exactly leave me any choice. I went into detail about how she made a bet that she could make me look as good as Tommy. I claimed she did some really sneaky stuff with my hair and then made me take off my cut offs after I had everything on. I told her that Susan claimed they ruined the effect. I concluded, “It was only fair for the bet.”

“So, I take it that you did look as good as Tommy?” Mom wanted to know.

“Yeah,” I sighed and asked, “Mom, what does it mean that I can look so much like a girl?”

She answered simply. “It means that you’re young and haven’t gone through puberty yet. Though given your genetics puberty may not really change you that much.”

That got my attention. I asked, “What do you mean?”

She explained that her father was sometimes referred to as being ‘baby faced’ well into his forties and that my dad didn’t exactly have super masculine facial features.

That took me by surprise. She could read that on my face.

She smiled gently at me and said, “But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is you tried it and had a good time. Do you think you’ll do it again?”

I told her that I kind of had to, because when I changed back to my clothes to come upstairs, I kind of promised to do it again.

“Good for you,” she said, “Tommy really liked it. If you give it a chance, I’m sure you’ll like it too. Most boys who get by the old ‘boys don’t do that’ thing usually do.”

I told her that the only thing that bothered me was that I had to take off my cut offs. Up until then I just had on a dress and slip over my clothes.

She asked, “And when you took off your cut offs, you felt strange?”

I told her I did.

Mom looked thoughtful for a while and asked, “So, the slip… what kind of material was it?”

I told her I didn’t know that it was slick and shiny.

She said it was probably nylon or polyester. When I shrugged, she asked, “Did you like the way it felt?”

I started to say no, but I remember the thoughts that raced through my head, wishing that my T-shirt was made of it when I first put the slip on. I looked down and nodded my head. Mom reached out and lifted my chin. She was smiling.

She told me that Tommy said he like the feeling of the clothes, especially the underwear. She said, “It’s OK really. Girl’s clothes really are much nicer than boy’s clothes.”

Tommy liked the feel of the underwear… that was TMI. It caused the whole idea of dressing completely in girls clothes, underwear and all to run rampant in my head all night.

That was just the start of it. It was a very rainy spring and every rainy day after that, I found myself in a dress almost from the time we got home from school until just before Mom came home. Even though she knew I was playing dress up, and she couldn’t help but know because Susan often recounted our adventures at dinner time, I couldn’t bring myself to let Mom see me in a dress. The idea of Mom knowing and approving of me wearing girl’s clothes and that I liked it scared me.

That changed when we went into a weekend that was filled with not just rain, but a really gully washer. It had rained all evening Friday depositing over two inches of rain over night followed by two days of steady soaking rain. Just looking out the window and seeing standing water in the grass told you that stepping off any paved area would lead to disaster. Susan wanted to play dress up.

I told her that I didn’t think I wanted to; claiming we’d played dress up a lot lately. I suggested that we could play some board games and then on Monday, after school, we can play dress up some more.

Susan objected with a counter claim that after school, we didn’t really have much time. That we were just getting started and I want to change back. She said that we could have a chance to make it a real pretend time and do some really neat things on the weekend.

Just then Mom came into the room and said, “Why don’t you go ahead Ross? Susan has a point. After school you only have about two and half hours and you’ve never continued after dinner.”

I tried to object but Mom continued. “You’ve admitted that you like playing dress up, so go ahead.”

It was almost like an order. What’s more, she was right; I did like it; I liked it too much. Whenever it was raining I was distracted in class. I knew I’d be dressed in Susan’s old clothes. It was hard to concentrate on what the teacher was saying. When we got out of school, I actually looked forward to it. On the way home, Susan and I would talk about which outfit I’d wear. Over the previous month and half since we’d started my hair had grown and she could really do stuff with it that made it look good.

So there I was, wearing a dress down in the apartment with Susan while Mom was home. When Mom called us up for lunch, I nearly panicked. Susan insisted that I stay in her outfit because we’d just come back down and play dress up some more.

As I walked into the kitchen to eat, Mom smiled at me and put an arm around my shoulder, bending down to kiss the top of my head. As we ate, I relaxed a little. Susan did her commentary on what we had played that morning and Mom dragged me into the conversation by asking my opinions about it.

The next morning, over breakfast Mom questioned me about how I really felt about playing dress up.

She said, “So, Ross, it looks like it’s another dress up day. You and Susan really seem to be having a good time to spite the fact you’re stuck inside. Aren’t you glad you decided that you could do it?”

I agreed that it was better than watching daytime TV.

Mom couldn’t resist making a point. She said, “Now that you’ve let me see how nice you look, maybe you’ll not be so quick to call a halt to it before I come home during the week. I know that Susan would like to continue after dinner.”

I agreed.

She got a wistful look in her eye and said, “You know that you really do look good in her dresses. Easily as good as Tommy. I’ll bet we could take you anywhere and no one would suspect you weren’t really a girl.”

That was prophetic. Because, that summer I ended up with Susan and our moms at the state fair. My skirt was long, it went down to mid-calf. Susan was in a sundress. By then, I’d become really at ease in dresses, but it was still a bit of a rush to have everyone see me as a girl.

Of course at the end of the school year, Mom and I had had the conversation that really got me hooked on the dress up thing. It went something like this.

Mom speaking, “Ross, you know there’s only one thing about this dress up thing that has me concerned.”

That statement got me concerned. I worried that whatever it was might be enough for her to put a stop to it, because by then I was liking it a lot.

“It’s your underwear. Tommy’s mom ended up buying him panties because he said he didn’t feel right wearing boy’s underwear under the girls’ clothes and Martha drew the line at letting him wear hers.”

I didn’t know where she was going with this, but she didn’t leave me much time to wonder. She handed me a bag from JC Penney’s. It contained four packs of girl’s nylon panties in varying colors.

Tommy liked the feel of the underwear… that was TMI. It caused the whole idea of dressing completely in girl’s clothes, underwear and all to run rampant in my head all night.

I know, I know, I should be thinking “Oh, my, what a dream come true.” Most other trans folk at that age, were still sneaking their sister’s clothes. And I’ve heard that the really brave would sneak out late at night. after their parents went to bed and walk around the neighborhood.

Susan’s dad came home just before Thanksgiving. That put a stop to our playing dress up. Even Susan allowed that her dad wouldn’t like me wearing her old clothes. Susan’s dad gave notice to their renters that they had to be out on the end of January. He figured that he didn’t want to evict them before Christmas.

They went to Susan’s grandmothers for Thanksgiving and stayed until Christmas. When they came back I helped them pack things up. We put all her old clothes, the ones I’d been wearing for dress up, in a large garbage bag to be given away. I felt really kind of sad that they were going to be gone. She surprised me one day after school when she brought the bag to me and asked me to find the clothes a good home. I threw it in the back of my closet, not wanting to deal with it right then.

While I missed Susan, I was relieved. I truly thought that I’d leave the dress up thing alone even though Susan had given me all of her old clothes. To my dismay, wearing tighty-whities all the time irritated me. Not my skin, but my feelings. By spring break I had become entirely surly and Mom noticed. One Saturday morning she confronted me as I flipped through the TV channels.

“You know Ross, I really wish Susan and her mother still lived downstairs and you were playing dress up with her. You had a much better attitude then.”

That made me think about the bag of dresses dumped in the back of my closet and the panties in my underwear drawer. I suddenly knew that’s what I wanted.

I said, “Well she’s not so I don’t have anyone to play dress up with.” I’m afraid I was really surly.

“You don’t really need to have anyone to dress up with. I know that Susan gave you her old clothes before she left. You can dress yourself, you know.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “You… you really think… I couldn’t do that. It’s strange enough that I did the dress up thing with Susan, but it would be really strange to do it by myself.”

“Not as strange as you may think. There are lots of boys who sneak around and dress up by themselves whenever they can. You’ve got it all over them. You don’t need to sneak.”

I sat there doing an imitation of a goldfish.

“Why don’t you go put on something nice and we’ll have a mother/daughter day,” she continued.

That was what I needed. By dinner time I was really relaxed.

“Well,” Mom said as we ate, “I think we’ve solved your attitude problem. I think we’ll do this a lot more, don’t you?”

I looked down and shrugged. She waited a bit and then went on.

“It’s OK. Tommy found out he couldn’t stop when Martha and I outgrew our dress up stage. I’m thinking you’ll never stop wanting to either.”

I was conflicted because I thought she was right.

“Mom, I… I don’t know if it’s really OK for me to do this.”

“Of course it’s OK. You’re not hurting anyone. I’m good with it. Nobody else’s opinion means anything.”

She got up and came around the table and drew me into a hug. I cried for a bit and when I calmed down we sat and finished dinner while I processed the whole idea. As we cleaned up I realized that I was indeed going to be dressing up a lot.

“Thanks Mom.”

“Thanks for what?”

“For realizing that I needed to do this.” I waved my hand up and down indicating my outfit.

“So I was right, you really do need to do it?”

“Yeah.”

We were both grinning.

“You know if you’re really going to be dressed like that, I can’t keep calling you Ross.”

“What else would you call me?”

“Well, if you had been a girl, I’d have named you Rose.”

So that’s my story. I still get together with Mom for lunch a couple of times a month. And we do vacations together. She loves having our mother/daughter outings.