Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

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Waking up in the dark, Josh looked around the room and saw out the window that it was night. Stretching, he felt a funny pain from his ears. Reaching up to rub his earlobes, he felt the magnetic earring fall off and onto his bed somewhere. The memory of his mother dressing him like a girl for the first time came flooding back to him. Almost getting angry about it, he then remembered the email from David and resigned himself to the fact that in order to get along with everyone, he was going to have to pretend to be the girl that everyone now expected him to be.

Getting up, he stumbled over to his door and turned on the light. Fishing around in his bed, he located the missing earring and took it over to the closet mirror. Hating the sight of himself looking so girly, he pushed the feelings down inside himself and forced a smile. He was pretty. He could at least be honest with himself about that. It was then that he most especially noticed the two obvious 'bumps' rounding out the front of his top that gave him a very nice young girl's figure. If he'd seen himself at school dressed this way, he'd have been tempted to ask himself out. That thought made him giggle a little as he put the earring back on his ear.

Going over to the vanity, he hesitated only a moment before he sat down and forced himself to fix his hair the way his mother had shown him. Satisfied that he was 'all put together' again, he got up and left his room. Coming down the stairs, Josh heard his parents talking at the dining room table. Slowing, he listened carefully.

"So anyway, it turns out in Ohio she can't get her birth certificate changed. That's the law... for now." Fred stated.

"That is so barbaric!" Melanie fumed. "How about the name change?"

"Wheels are rolling!" he answered optimistically. "The county doesn't require her to attend the hearing. We can do it for her. That way she won't be subjected to any further harassment. I already filed the paperwork, and the notice will be in the News-Herald tomorrow. Our court date is for Monday the tenth of next month. I think that's about everything."

"You're such a good father to her!" Melanie smiled. "I understand most fathers react very badly when their daughters transition! I think she and I are both very lucky to have you!"

Hearing his parents kiss made Josh roll his eyes as he sat on the steps. Well, that's it. he contemplated. Next month I'll have the name my parents want me to have and they'll be happy. It'll just be easier this way. Even as the sadness of it all threatened to consume him, he shook off the feeling, pushed it aside, and stood up, making sure to make noise as he descended the stairs.

"Jocelyn?" his mother called out.

"Coming, Mom." he answered as he made his way to the dining room. Stopping in the entryway, he made sure to fold his hands in front of him as he'd seen girls do all the time.

"Well!" Melanie exclaimed. "Did you fix your hair all by yourself, sweetie?"

Nodding at his mother's approval, Josh forced a smile. "Yes, Mom. Just like you showed me."

Hugging her child in pride, Melanie crouched down to look at him in the eye with a smile. "Sweetheart? I was thinking it would be nice to maybe have dinner out tonight? Do you think you're ready for that?"

The thought of going out in public dressed like a girl made his blood run cold, but he knew he could 'man-up' and face anything he chose to. "I... I'm scared... but I won't let that stop me!"

Hugging him once more, she took his hand. "Well Fred? Your ladies await!"

Grabbing wallet, keys, and purse, the two walked out the front door. When Josh crossed the threshold and stepped outside, his heart was beating so hard he thought it might explode from his chest. He only hesitated a moment before he set his shoulders, raised his chin, and confidently strode out the door. His parent's each took hold of one of his hands as they went down the walk toward Melanie's Prius.

Glad that it was dark out, Josh sat in the back seat while his mother drove them to a nearby restaurant. Watching the world through the window, he felt a pang of loss as they passed the cross street where Tracy and David lived. He could almost see their house as they sped by.

Parking in front of the restaurant, his parents got out and Fred opened the door for him to join them. Fear still gripping his heart, he forced himself to undo the seatbelt and slide out of the car. The three walked together toward the front door, Josh gulping as he hoped he could 'pass' and not be seen as a boy in girl's clothes. Then he found himself hoping he didn't pass, that finally the observations of other adults that he was obviously a boy would get his parents to listen to reason. He gave up on that idea as he remembered what he'd looked like in the mirror, still full of fear though as the hostess walked up to them.

"Hi, folks! I'm Linda!" she smiled. "Table for three, or are more coming?"

"Just three." Melanie stated.

Crouching down to his level, the hostess smiled at him, making his brain shut off for a moment.

"What's your name?" she asked sweetly.

Finally regaining his senses enough to realize she'd asked him a question, he stammered, "Josh-elyn." Flushing at nearly 'outing' himself to the first person he met, he tried to smile past it.

"Joshelyn?" she asked, quizzically. Slowly her face went from confused to understanding. "Oh! Jocelyn! Sorry! Sometimes I think I'm going deaf with all the pots and pans clanging in the kitchen!" Standing up, she addressed his parents. "Will Jocelyn need a children's menu?"

"She's twelve, young lady." Melanie said sternly. "She'll have a regular menu, thank you."

Her smile melting under Melanie's withering glare, Linda nodded. "My mistake. If you'll follow me, please?" Leading the trio to a corner booth, she placed the menus on the table and waited for them to be seated. "Your server will be out shortly. Anything I can get you in the meantime?"

"No thank you." Melanie stated coldly.

"Could I get a glass of water, Mom?" Josh asked softly.

"Certainly, sweetie!" she smiled. Turning to Linda, it melted into a frown. "A small glass of water for Jocelyn. We'll order with the server."

Seeing the pretty young woman walk away upset, Josh gulped in fear before he asked a question barely above a whisper. "Did... did I mess up bad, Mom? I'm just used to Josh."

"It's alright, sweetheart!" she consoled him. "You didn't do anything wrong! The young lady did when..."

"Linda." he interrupted her. "Her name is Linda."

Slightly taken aback by the interruption and for how particular he was being that she use the young woman's name, Melanie was caught speechless for a moment.

"Princess?" Fred jumped in. "It's not polite to interrupt."

"Sorry." he demurred.

Collecting herself, Melanie resumed her explanation. "Anyway sweetie, the young lady... Linda... assumed you were a small child, just because you're small for your age. That was wrong of her."

"She asked if I needed a children's menu." he pointed out, using his most deferential tone. "Doesn't that mean she wasn't assuming anything?" He knew his parents well enough to know they wouldn't yell at him for debating them. In fact, they'd encouraged him to all his life.

"She has a point, Mel." Fred opined as a neutral observer.

"It wasn't that!" Melanie retorted. "It was the way she greeted Jocelyn! Like she was five!"

"I thought it was nice!" Josh offered in counterpoint. "Linda made me feel like a real person and not just a child with hi... her parents."

Fred smiled. "She has you, Mel! Perception isn't as important as how she made Jocelyn feel!"

Defeated, Melanie sighed. "Alright. So long as she made you feel good, then I guess no harm was done. She still should have asked how old you were."

Just as Fred was about to make a counterpoint, Linda returned with a glass of water for Josh. "Here you are, Jocelyn! Your server will be right out." she told his parents. As she was turning to go, Melanie caught her attention.

"Just a moment." she said softly. "I wanted to apologize for my rudeness. You were just trying to be nice. That was very thoughtful of you."

Smiling at the backhanded apology that she took to be sincere, Linda looked at Josh. "It's fine! Really! It's just she's so adorable!"

"She is... isn't she?" Melanie smiled.

Blushing, Josh couldn't look back at the lovely young woman paying him so much attention.

After Linda departed, a man in his twenties came up. "Hello! I'm Brian! I'll be your server for tonight!"

Getting Melanie and Fred's drink orders and leaving to fill them, Melanie turned to Josh. "He's cute! Right, Jocelyn?"

Hardly reacting, Josh shrugged as he put the glass of water back down after taking a sip. "I guess. If you say so."

Furrowing her brow, his mother pondered Josh's seeming lack of interest in their quite attractive server. "I know when I was your age, a young man like that would have made me feel very nice!" she pointed out.

As the evening progressed, Melanie tried repeatedly to draw out Josh's opinions on what he found attractive in a boy. Meanwhile, Fred just sat and observed the two without comment.

Getting ready to leave, Linda waved at Josh as they walked toward the door. "Thanks for coming, folks! Bye Jocelyn!"

Josh couldn't help but smile, giggle a little, blush, and turn away at Linda's attention. Walking out the door, he managed to turn, look at her watching him leave, and wave goodbye to her.

Getting in the car and waiting a moment for it to warm up, Fred finally commented, "That was a lovely meal. Not as lovely as the company, though!"

"Oh! So the Sphinx speaks!" Melanie quipped. "I was beginning to think that your vegetarian lasagna had been mixed with super glue!"

"Just wanted to sit and enjoy the evening is all." he offered in explanation. "That and I wanted to watch Jocelyn. Make sure she was OK. This was kind of a big day for her!"

Putting the car in gear, his wife shook her head. "Still, you weren't very good company, Fred."

"I'll explain more when we got home, Mel." he stated cryptically. "Suffice it to say, I think we may have goofed on something."

"Oh, you can't say something like that and not explain!" Melanie exclaimed as she pulled into the light traffic. "What have we goofed?"

"Later please, Mel." he said, glancing back at Josh.

"Fine!" she shot back, frustratedly. "Later!"

When they returned home, Josh was sent off to take a shower and change for bed while Melanie and Fred talked privately in their bedroom.

Stripping out of his clothes, Josh almost felt like his normal boyish self as he showered, until he noticed his normal shower gel had been replaced with a girl's floral body wash. Likewise, his shampoo had been swapped for two smaller bottles, one labeled conditioner, that were covered in pictures of fruit. Sighing, he used the shampoo and read the directions for the conditioner.

By the time he was done, he felt even more trapped in the life of a girl than before. Combing out his hair, he did notice it was much easier than usual though. Thankful of at least that much, he wrapped his towel around his waist and came out of the bathroom, only to run into his mother just walking past the door.

"Sweetie!" she yelled quietly. "You need to cover your chest with the towel, dear! Your father shouldn't be able to see your chest!"

Blushing with embarrassment as his mother unwrapped the towel and re-wrapped it around his chest, he listened as his mother clucked her tongue.

"You should also wrap your hair in a towel." she added. "You'll need to dry it and brush it out before bedtime."

"Why?" he asked simply.

"It helps your hair look prettier." she explained. "It also makes it easier to manage in the morning."

"Oh."

"Now scoot into your room and get dressed for bed!" she said with a sigh.

Holding up the towel with one hand as he closed the door behind him, he went over to the dresser and opened the drawer full of slips and nightgowns. Shuddering that he had no choice but to wear one as he had no PJs anymore, he grabbed the nightgown on top, which was green and had Tinkerbell on the front, and threw it on his bed. Opening the underwear drawer, he was about to just grab any pair when he stopped.

I gotta do this. he grumbled to himself. I have to be a girl. It's what everyone expects of me now. Even Tracy and David. Thinking about his former friends made him almost start to cry, but he just pushed the feelings aside again and shook his head to clear it. No! I can do this! I can be a girl and like it! It's not so bad, really. At least I get a lot of attention.

Remembering what his mother told him, he looked over the underwear and picked out a green pair nearly the same shade as the nightgown. Putting them both on, he looked at himself in the closet mirror.

They're right. he concluded. I look like a girl. I guess I always have. Sighing in resignation, he went over to the vanity and opened the drawer containing his hair dryer. Plugging it in, he dried his hair with his towel, then began to blow it. Taking the brush, he did his best to brush it out, but only ended up getting the brush stuck in his hair. Frustrated, he wanted nothing more at that moment than to get out a pair of scissors and chop it all off.

Just then he heard a gentle knock on the door. "Come in." he sighed.

Melanie came in and gave a pained smile at his predicament. "Here, sweetie. Let me show you again." Untangling the brush, she explained how to brush out his hair like a girl again, making sure he took the brush several times to do it himself. "There! See? Not too hard!"

Giving a weak smile, he nodded to her. "Thank you for helping me, Mom. I really do want to try to be the best daughter I can for you."

Pulling him into a hug, Melanie sighed. "You are, sweetheart! Even if you didn't look anything like a girl, you'd still be the best daughter ever!"

Luxuriating in the affection, Josh sighed contentedly.

"Now, let's go downstairs. Put on your robe and slippers first, though. You shouldn't be out of your room in just a nightgown."

"How come I was earlier?" he asked as he pushed his arms into the sleeves of the fuzzy pink robe.

"That was a special circumstance, sweetheart." she explained as she closed the robe and tied the belt in a bow. "That was girl time, just you and me. Your father wasn't allowed in the living room."

Slipping his feet in the soft pink slippers, he giggled a little as they tickled his toes. "Oh. OK." Taking his mother's hand, they walked down the stairs together and into the living room where his father was sitting on the couch reading a book.

"There's my princess!" he smiled, setting the book aside. "Come sit next to Daddy!"

Climbing up on the couch and turning around to sit next to his father, he was surprised when his mother sat alongside, the two adults flanking him.

"Your mother and I wanted to talk to you about something." Fred began.

Groaning inside, he knew this routine. They're going to tell me something else about me that they think I'm not going to like! What else? Am I adopted? No... I think I'd like that!

"Sweetie? Your father and I were talking about some things we observed about you tonight." Melanie explained. "You didn't seem to care all that much about Brian."

"Who?" he asked, honestly confused.

"The young man who was our server?" Melanie asked, hoping it would spark a response.

"What was the name of the woman that greeted us?" Fred fished.

"Linda!" Josh smiled and blushed as he remembered the smile on her face.

Fred looked up at Melanie and smirked. "Told you!"

"No one likes a know-it-all, Fred!" Melanie said irritatedly. Sighing, she gave in to Fred's obviously correct interpretation of the situation. "Sweetie? I know you kept telling us that you and Davie had always just been friends. Since we assumed incorrectly that you were a boy, and that since Davie was gay and you were his closest friend, that you liked him... like a boyfriend. That wasn't true, was it?"

Josh shook his head slowly. You mean now, after he isn't my friend anymore, they're going to finally admit they were wrong? Grrahhh!

"Jocelyn?" Fred got his attention. "We know now that we were right all along, but for entirely the wrong reasons. You are gay, we knew that, but since you see yourself as a girl..." His voice trailed off, unsure how to say what he was trying to get at.

"We know that you're a lesbian, sweetheart. We still love you!" Melanie finished for him.

Stunned, Josh was about to explode at his parents for doing it again; telling him who he was without asking. Formulating how he was going to deny their claims, he realized that he in fact did like girls, and since he was honestly trying to learn to like being a girl, then what they were saying was true, from a certain point of view. Finding the revelation that they had actually guessed right for once even more stunning, he couldn't help but giggle. I guess that old saying is right! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!

"What's so funny, sweetie?" Melanie asked puzzled. "It's not a dirty word!"

"Oh!" Josh exclaimed. "I know it isn't, Mom. It's just that... well... I guess I just figured that out for myself! I mean, that I... I like girls..." Remembering to include himself, he corrected it by saying, "I mean, that I like other girls... so I guess that does make me a lesbian. I... I just never thought about it before."

Sighing in relief that he didn't fight them on this revelation, Melanie shook her head. "I guess I'll just have to be the only one in the house that can appreciate the male form!"

"I, for one, am delighted about the prospect!" Fred opined. Seeing Melanie and Josh look at him, he smirked. "What? You think I was looking forward to seeing my baby girl go out on a date with her first boyfriend? I may be open-minded, but I'm still her father! Especially seeing as how beautiful she is!"

Blushing at his father's praise, Josh felt a warm glow inside at how he was being treated, but at the same time sad that he had never been praised for being handsome.

"Well, it's after your bedtime, princess!" Fred pointed out as he hugged Josh with one arm. "Give me a hug and kiss and then off to bed!"

Still feeling happy at the compliment, Josh hugged his father tightly and kissed him quickly on the cheek. Turning to his mother, he hugged her, though not as enthusiastically. "Night, Mom. Goodnight, Daddy."

Climbing down, Josh padded his way to the stairs then up to his room. Closing the door, he looked at the room and still shuddered at how girly it was. Oh well. he mused. I guess I'll just have to get used to it. Taking off his slippers and putting them next to his bed, he set his alarm before returning the robe to its hook.

Turning out the light, he got into bed just as he remembered that he'd never gotten around to emailing his teachers. Pulling the laptop over to him from the nightstand, he opened it and waited for it to come up. As soon as it did, he saw the email from David still open. Nearly making him cry again, he shook himself and closed it. Fine! David wants to be a jerk and not give me a chance to give my side of the story? He can just go take a flying leap! Composing himself, he opened a new email and quickly typed out a letter.

Hi!

I wanted to first say I am sorry I wasn't in school today. I am going to do my best to try and not miss too much school. Could you please send me my assignments for Wednesday and Thursday? That way I don't fall behind! I really miss school and hope to be back soon.

Thank you!
Jocelyn Viola Ryan

P.S. I guess I'll have to change my email soon. joshvryan doesn't really fit me anymore. Sorry for the confusion. I'll let you know what my new email is as soon as I get it.

Pulling out his school notebook, he entered in the email addresses for all his teachers and clicked the send button before he realized that he was offline. Duh, stupid! Daddy's network isn't online after he gets off work! Knowing that his email would go out as soon as his father went online in the morning, he closed the laptop.

He was just about to lay down when he heard a noise from his phone. Picking it up and flipping it open, he saw that he'd just gotten a text message. Pushing the button to open it, his stomach lurched when he saw it was from Tracy.

jocelyn. like the name. thought you were a boy. change your mind? i don't understand. call me pls?

Closing his cell phone, he put it down and quietly picked up the handset for his bedroom phone. Hearing the dial tone, he quietly dialed Tracy's number and only had to wait one ring before it picked up.

"Jocelyn?" Tracy answered.

"Yeah." Josh whispered.

"I'm so confused!" she nearly cried. "I thought you told me you were a boy! Now at school they say you want to be a girl? Is this just your parents making you or is this what you want?"

Wondering how to answer her question, Josh sighed. "I... I don't really know anymore, Trace." he whispered. "I'm just tired of fighting them! I don't think I really want to be a girl, but... well... it's just easier this way. Daddy and Mom took away all my camp clothes, so I don't really have any choice. I guess maybe I'll learn to like it."

"Wait! They took away your camp clothes? Then you have to dress like a girl now? Even at school?"

"When I go back, yeah. Mom wouldn't let me go today. I guess I kinda sorta blacked out on the way there. I don't know when I'll be back. Maybe next week."

"I... I wanted to say I'm sorry for being such a manipulative bitch to you, Joss. Can I call you Joss?"

"Sure. It's fine, Trace." Giggling a little, he tried to stay quiet. "Sorry! Joss and Trace just sounds funny!" Hearing his best friend's laughter filled his heart with hope. "Trace? I still like girls and I don't like boys. Is that weird?"

"No!" Tracy shouted quietly. "It's fine! You're not weird! You're you, and I like you! I just don't like-like you, OK?"

Pausing as he tried to repress his giggles, Josh heard footsteps coming up the stairs. "Gotta go, Trace! I'll talk to you tomorrow! Bye!"

"Love you Joss! Bye!" Tracy barely got in before Josh hung up the phone quietly.

Getting under his covers, he was just settling down when he heard the gentle knocking. "Come in?" he said softly.

Melanie crept in with Fred right behind her. "Just wanted to tuck you in, sweetie!" she said with a smile.

"You haven't done that for a long time!" he retorted. "I'm OK! I'm a big... girl." he self-corrected.

"We know, sweetie." she said in a whisper. "But we just wanted you to know how proud we are of you! You were very grown up tonight, but you're still our little girl!"

Biting his lower lip at the compliment that felt like an insult, he looked away, ashamed that he still hated to hear his mother call him a girl.

Melanie tucked him in tenderly and placed a kiss on his forehead, gently running her fingers through his hair before stepping back to let Fred in. "Goodnight, sweetheart!" she sighed.

Fred just leaned over him and kissed his forehead. "Night, princess! Pretty dreams!"

Once his parents left his room and closed his door, Josh tried to settle back and relax, but sleep eluded him for almost two hours while he tried to figure out just how he was going to learn to like being a girl when he hated it so much.