Stephanie’s Deal by Jennifer Brock Twelve-year-old Steven Brooks has been through a lot since that fateful day when he peeked at his Christmas presents and was sentenced to two weeks in skirts and dresses. It all snowballed out of control and at this point Stephanie’s been a girl for over a month now. She wanted to be helpful and agreed to be a bridesmaid in her cousin’s wedding, which meant she had to take dance lessons, which led her to try to grow breasts to prove to her snotty partner that she wasn’t a little kid. A pretend date at New Year’s ended up in her having a boyfriend she enjoys kissing, but that also meant she couldn’t go back to school with him as a boy or it would ruin his reputation. She just started seeing a psychiatrist to try to deal with it all, and the doctor gave her some assignments to do before their next appointment.

Episode 17

Wednesday morning, Stephanie took her bath and did her usual routine of rubbing lavender oil into her chest. There was still no sign that it was working, but she felt committed to keeping it up until she got results or the bottle was empty. She bundled up in her fluffy pink bathrobe and returned to her bedroom.

She looked at the plastic totes that contained Steven’s boy clothes. The doctor’s orders said she had to wear boy stuff for a while each day, and to make sure to do something she would have done as a girl while wearing them. Maybe it would be a good idea to get it out of the way first thing in the morning.

She took the clothes out of the bins, keeping them all neatly folded, and organized things into stacks on her bed. Even in boy clothes, she still wanted to look nice and didn’t just want to grab the first couple of things and call it an outfit. It would be better if things matched.

Stephanie took off her robe and stepped into a pair of underpants and worked on becoming a boy. After wearing girl panties for over a month, the briefs seemed extra-bulky, with thicker seams, and thicker elastics, and just more material all over. Plus, Stephanie had taped up after her bath out of habit so there was a baggy space in the front where the boy parts were supposed to be. It was probably wrong to leave the tape on, but it just felt better that way. Besides, the doctor had said to do things girls do while wearing boy clothes, so maybe peeing sitting down would count although that did seem a little like cheating.

Steven tried to shake the girl thoughts out of his head and focus on being a boy. He took a nice green and blue striped shirt off the pile, one of his nicer ones, and pulled it on over his head. It looked okay, but it was really uncomfortable. Stephanie’s nipples did not like the fabric at all. Maybe those oils really were working, or maybe they’d just become used to the cozy softness of a bra.

Steven took off the shirt and looked through the pile of boy clothes for something that would be as soft. He did have some undershirts for wearing under button-up shirts for special occasions. They were maybe a little softer than the other shirt. He decided that maybe laundry could be one of the girlish things he could do in boy clothes, and a wash with extra fabric softener would make the rest of his boy clothes more bearable in the future.

He put on the undershirt, but that sort of meant going with a dress shirt. He picked out a white shirt with blue stripes. Since it had been folded up in a box instead of hanging in the closet, it was a little wrinkled. He didn’t really feel like ironing, so he decided to put a sweater on over it.

He ended up getting a lot more dressed up than he’d planned, but a nice shirt and a sweater seemed to want nice pants. He wore a pair of navy slacks that his mother had gotten him for school but he hadn’t worn very often, sticking mostly to blue jeans.

Standing before the mirror in his boy clothes, he still looked like a girl. Stephanie’s hair was still damp from the bath, and it was easy to slick it back like Mom had done that time to make it pass for boy hair, so that wasn’t it. It might have been the earrings, but Steven didn’t have anything less obvious than the little hoops he’d slept in.

He decided it must be the nail polish, and used some remover to take all the color off. But then the acrylic extensions just looked too fake. He looked through all the colors of nail polish that Michelle had left for Stephanie and found this special kit where you could paint the bottom of your nails pink and the top parts white, just like their natural color. That didn’t really help. Instead of looking like plain ordinary nails, they came out fancy and shiny and just seemed to call attention to themselves. Steven decided he’d just have to keep his hands in fists — that’s something boys do, isn’t it?

He pulled boring tube socks over Stephanie’s pretty pink toes and stuck his feet into a pair of hiking boots Dad had bought him to encourage him to go on one of his and Michelle’s camping trips. They still looked new. He gave a last look into the mirror, trying to see a boy, and went downstairs.

It didn’t go well. When Mom came in while he was eating his cereal, she said he looked pretty. He had to explain that he was wearing boys’ clothes, and she got all embarrassed and said he was a handsome young man, but Steven could tell she didn’t mean it.

He was supposed to try to do girl stuff while wearing boy clothes, so he went onto the computer to play with the Webkin kitty Kayla had gotten Stephanie for her birthday. It was really silly and seemed like it was for little kids, But since Kayla had thought it was something girls their age did, he gave it his best shot.

Then he tried to do the laundry, but Mom made him do the delicates first, so all of Stephanie’s bras and panties had to go in. And that seemed to remind his nipples that they could be more comfortable, and his chest just got really itchy. He finally got around to washing his undershirts with extra fabric softener, but they were still in the dryer when Mom came to get him.

Like Dr. Thomas had told her to, she made Steven help out in the kitchen to get lunch ready. They were having creamy chicken gravy on biscuits, and he had to keep stirring the gravy to keep it from getting lumpy. Mom had made him wear an apron, which made him look girlier, and then the steam coming off the pot made the stuff in his hair let go, and she had to pull it back off his face with a scrunchie.

He nibbled his lunch neatly, and couldn’t even imagine trying to wolf it down all gross and boyish. It just tasted better when you took little bites and spent more time chewing and enjoying. But it seemed like the overall effect was that somewhere in the middle of their lunch, he turned into Stephanie.

So after cleaning up the lunch dishes, she went up to her room to get changed. No sooner had the door closed when she was stripped to the waist. She rubbed more of her tea tree oil where it hurt, and that seemed to take the raw feel, then she pulled on her softest training bra, then took off her boy shoes and pants and slipped into the matching panties. She lay on her bed in her underthings for a minute, and thought about what to wear.

She wanted to look pretty but not overdo it. She put on her girlish pink t-shirt with the lace trim, pink tights, and her denim skirt with a half-slip peeking slightly out from under it just to make it feel less like boy jeans. She wanted more heel, but wore her black Mary Janes anyway since she wanted to look casual. She kept her jewelry simple; a silver chain necklace, Brian’s charm bracelet, and the pink earrings Aunt Jeannie had made.

Stephanie took the scrunchie out of her hair and used a trick her sister had shown her where you lean down and brush your hair out upside-down to give it more fullness. It had just enough of the stuff she’d used to try to get the boy style left in it to make it behave, so she didn’t need anything else to hold it. A nice coat of glittery lip gloss, a couple strokes of brown mascara to each eye, and a drop of cologne, and she was done. It felt good to be a girl again.

The second half of her assignment from the doctor was to do something Steven the boy would have done while dressed as Stephanie the girl. She got out the metal car model kit that had been a birthday present from Mom and Dad and laid out all the pieces on her desk. There were some cool metal parts, but there were some regular plastic ones too. She saw them coming together not as a spaceship like Steven usually did with plastic models, but as more of an alien-looking futuristic castle this time.

But there was also a twinge of regret in the back of her head. Her parents had spent good money to get a special model; she didn’t want them to feel bad about it just being used as scrap for an art project that could just as easily have used any old junk. The least she could do is assemble the model first into the car it was supposed to be and show it to them, and then later on she could take it apart and make her castle, so she actually took the instructions out of the box for a change.

She worked on the model for a while, but had trouble paying attention. Something Dr. Thomas had said was still bugging her. When Mom called to get her to help with dinner, she had to shout twice to get her to notice. Stephanie carefully cleared her desk and put the unassembled pieces back in the box.

Dinner was kind of fun to make. They were having Swedish meatballs, with three kinds of meat mixed and kneaded together in her hands, and then rolled into tiny little balls. It felt almost like a little kid playing with modeling clay. It was messy work, but cool in its way. It turned out to be much more fun than peeling potatoes, which was what she had to do next. But after they were boiled Stephanie got to mash them, and that was another squishy happy thing.

The meal turned out pretty yummy, too. Stephanie wanted to ask for seconds, but wasn’t sure if that would be properly girlish or not. She decided to take a second helping, but to make it only half as big as the first one. To make it last longer she took the teeniest of bites and chewed very very slowly. She felt a little silly, but it did make the flavor stick around for more time.

After dinner, she was still feeling confused. There was a way to settle her worries, but she was scared of what the outcome would be. The nagging curiosity finally got the better of her, and she took the cordless phone up to her room to call Brian. She almost hung up when his mother answered, but she kept her nerve and identified herself when his mother asked who was calling.

Stephanie was very nervous. “Um, Brian? There’s something I’ve got to ask you.”

“Sure, what is it?” He sounded very casual and a lot more comfortable on the phone.

“Maybe I should start at the beginning. My mom tried to get me into your school.”

“That would be cool. And you’d look real cute in one of those plaid skirts the girls at St. Anne’s wear.”

“But that’s the thing. She didn’t get me into St. Anne’s; she got me into St. Philip’s.” Stephanie could almost hear the gears in his brain turn as he put together the same disastrous scenario as she had. “But don’t worry — I’m not going. I explained that it would be awful for you if your friends saw me as Steven after having met me as your girlfriend Stephanie.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome. Anyway, I sort of threw a fit when I was refusing to go to St. Philip’s and my parents made me go see a shrink.”

“Really? Are you okay now?” The concern in his voice was touching.

“I’m mostly okay. It’s just the whole ‘boy or girl’ thing that’s got me really confused, and this doctor is supposed to be a specialist in that or something.”

“Is the doctor going to make you stop wearing dresses and stuff?” Brian sounded worried.

“I hope not. Everybody says I’m better as a girl, so she just needs to make it official or something. Would you like it if I was a girl all the time?”

Stephanie wasn’t sure, but Brian seemed to hesitate. “Um, I guess so.”

“Because when I was talking with the doctor about what I liked about being a girl, I mentioned you, well not with like details and stuff, or giving her your name and address, that’s private, but like I told her that I like that as a girl I get to have a boyfriend, and I gave her the rough idea of our first date, how you asked me out at church and stuff. And anyway, she asked me something that I hadn’t even thought about.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, she said that since you knew I wasn’t a real girl when you asked me out, do you like me because I’m a girl, or because I’m a boy?”

There was a noticeable silence on the line for a while before Brian answered. “I thought you were the prettiest girl in the church, really. And you looked kind of nervous, and I figured my Mom would be more willing to let you come over; you were safer than a girl girl. And if you said no I could pretend I was just kidding around with you, but you didn’t and that was great!”

Stephanie played with her charm bracelet and remembered their first date. “So like when we were kissing that time and your thing poked out at me, you were having sex thoughts of me as a girl?”

“Um, yeah. I guess.”

“So if the doctor decided I should be a girl all the time and they turned me into more of one, you’d be okay with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“They could give me drugs and stuff that could make look like a real girl with boobs and everything.”

“Really? I’ve heard of high school girls who get their tits done for prom, but do they really give implants to someone our age?”

“No, not fake boobs. Real ones. The doctors could inject me with hormones and junk to make my body develop just like any other girl. My sister said there’s a girl at her school who used to be a boy, so I looked up some stuff on the internet.”

“Are you sure you’d want to be a girl forever?”

“I don’t know. But Dr. Thomas is supposed to figure that out for me, I think.”

“Well, if you did grow a nice set of tits, I’m pretty sure that as your boyfriend that means I’d get to touch them. Can you ask them to give you really big ones?”

“Oh really?” Stephanie laughed, but she also wondered what it would feel like to have someone else touching her breasts when she got them. Her sensitive nipples ached, as if asking for attention. “And I suppose that if the doctors cut of my boy parts and gave me girl parts down there, you’d feel entitled to being able to touch that, too?”

“They can do that? Wow.” Brian seemed to lose some of his cool in the surprise, but he recovered. “I mean, if you had a real girl’s thing, that would be awesome! Sure, I’d want to touch it; I wouldn’t be much of a boyfriend if I didn’t. We could even have sex and stuff when you were ready. (My dad says never to pressure girls, so I won’t do that.)”

“So I suppose you should thank him for me. Anyways, I think that’s probably a while off even if the doctor says to do it. But I guess it’s good to know that you’re ready to claim access to any of my parts if I should have them.”

Brian read her tone of voice and realized that he might have said something that annoyed her. “Um, I’m not just assuming things for myself. As my girlfriend, you have the same kind of rights. You should feel free to touch any part of my body any time you want to. If we’re alone and stuff, you can even put a part of my body in your mouth, like I hear a lot of girlfriends like to do.”

It took Stephanie a few seconds to decode what he was talking about. “Ewww, no! The only part of you I want in my mouth is your tongue; I do like kissing you.” She smacked her lips into the phone.

“Real girls do it for their boyfriends all the time, so you might want to try it. You never know, you might even like it. Some girls like it so much they go to rainbow parties where boys compete to collect the most colors of lipstick on their junk; Tim’s brother knows a guy who’s been to one of those. But, whatever. I do agree with you that kissing is good, and you have my permission to kiss me whenever you want to. I wish I was kissing you right now.”

Stephanie made a little kissy noise into the phone again. “That will have to do for now. When can I see you again?”

“Want to come to my Super Bowl party?”

“When is that?”

“It’s two Sundays from now — gee, you really are a girl, aren’t you?”

“Thanks! I’ll have to ask, but I’m pretty sure I’d be allowed to go. Which team are we rooting for?”

“Well, the Patriots are undefeated, so they’re probably going to win again. But my Dad and me are Giants fans.”

“So what color should I wear?”

“Oh brother! Both teams wear pretty much the same colors: red, white and blue, so this is one game where you can’t mess up and wear the other team’s colors. But the Giants ought to be in their red uniforms for the game, so red would be fine. Really, you’ll be pretty in whatever you wear so it doesn’t matter much.”

“Awww, you’re so sweet! That almost makes up for before.” She gave him one last kiss into the phone. “Okay, I guess I’ll say goodbye for now. See you later, Sweetie.”

“Bye.”

Stephanie hung up feeling a little less confused about who she wanted to be, but a lot more scared. Talking with Brian, she hadn’t even remotely considered going back to being Steven full time; she was sort of planning becoming Stephanie for real forever. She had another appointment in two days, and hopefully Dr. Thomas would help make it less scary. Or maybe she’d be trying to talk her into being a boy again.

That evening, she put on her softest nightgown after taking extra time to rub tea tree oil into her poor suffering nipples. She imagined that Brian was touching them, and wondered if he’d like them or complain that they weren’t growing fast enough. It probably wasn’t normal for a boy to lie in his nightie hoping his boobs would grow and trying to picture what it would be like to have a girl place where his boyfriend could stick his thing, but Steven had never really been “normal.” As a girl, could Stephanie be more normal? She certainly had more friends, so maybe.