Seven Dresses - The Seventh Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Things are as good as she can hope at school, although home life is still difficult for Shelley. She's reached the age when she can start taking feminising hormones and thing change rapidly, with her body, with her boyfriend, with her father. A few more hurdles to leap.

One More First Dress

And I did. All of it. It became the beginning of the first of a lot of good days, with only a few unfortunate incidents with individuals who couldn’t accept the new me. I found a lot of friends among the girls, many of whom appreciated that I would choose to be one of them over what I had been. They were chatty, gregarious, supportive, all the things I felt I’d been missing all my life and I fitted in with them as though I’d been born to it.

Perhaps I had been. Perhaps it had just taken me this long to realise it.

One of the plus sides was that they felt fully justified in reporting bullying behaviour when it applied to someone else, so I didn’t even develop a reputation as a snitch, while everyone who picked on me discovered that such actions just weren’t worth it, given that the school’s no tolerance policy was even more strictly applied when it came to minorities like me.

As I moved through my last three years at school, the number of potential hazards reduced as the years above me moved on to bigger and better things.

Josh insisted on sticking with me through it all and we became something of a celebrity item within the school. The blockers kept me small and cute, and during his tenth year – my ninth – he put on a growth spurt that left him rivalling Wayne size-wise. He took on the second prop forward position in the school team after Mike and Hannah were caught on school grounds doing something highly inappropriate and just a few weeks away from being legal. Fortunately for Mike, he was also a few weeks away from his sixteenth birthday, so he avoided a charge of statutory rape, in fact there were no legal proceedings at all as I understand, but they both ended up being taken out of school by their parents and ended up somewhere different for the last term or two. This meant everything Hannah had been trying to doq to get back at me for my story posting just went away.

My GCSE year was a mixed one for me. Josh moved on to sixth form which was on a separate part of the school grounds, so I saw a lot less of him. On the flip side, I was allowed to start taking female hormones. It seemed like my body had been waiting impatiently for any signs of puberty to come along and it soaked them up like a desiccated sponge. I’d been warned that the results might be less than spectacular, so it was with an immense amount of surprise and delight that I watched my hips broaden and my breasts swell over a period of weeks.

Mum and I were obliged to go shopping for bras several times in the weeks following my sixteenth birthday and the beginning of my oestrogen treatment, something which obviously delighted me, but really put Dad into a snit. Bad enough that bras were the price they were, but he still insisted on complaining how inappropriate it was to be spending that much money on girl’s underwear for his son.

There were other changes as well. My skin softened, the lines of my face changed from vaguely boyish to very distinctly feminine and beautiful. The more my changes excited me, the more they depressed and angered my father.

I started getting hit on more often, even at school where everyone knew exactly what I had under my skirts. Not that I was interested. There was only one person I had eyes for.

Around the time I started changing, he started acting weird. I only had to smile at him and he’d find a pressing need to leave the room or put a cushion on his lap. I remembered the involuntary reaction I’d once had to my cousin all those years ago, and it excited me that he saw me that way, even if it was his body reacting rather than his brain. I did try to tone down the smile for his sake, but the more I changed the less it took to set him off.

Even when he wasn’t struggling to control the monster in his trousers, he seemed stuck somewhere between wonder and worry. I asked him about it once.

“You’ll think it’s stupid,” he said.

“I promise I won’t.” I meant it.

“I’m worried you’ll find someone you like more than me. I mean you are rapidly moving out of my league.”

“That’s...” stupid. I managed to stop myself from saying it, but I definitely broke the promise inside my head. “That’s not going to happen,” I finally managed. “Eye candy’s all well and good, and you really don’t do badly in that department.” He didn’t do that well either. Three years of rugby had taken something of a toll. “What really matters, though, is what’s in here.” I touched him on the chest. “You remember when we first met?”

“I remember every moment I’ve spent with you.”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t, because there was that night after you won the regionals and, you know, Wayne managed to get hold of a crate of whisky?”

“Oh hell. Don’t remind me.”

“You’re only remembering the morning after. I’m stuck with the memories of what you were like during the actual evening.”

“Alright, you’ve made your point. And I’ve sworn never to do that to myself, or to you, ever again. The point I’m trying to make is all my best memories have you in them. I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”

“Including that first day at the mall.”

“Yes.”

“Including that first kiss which you planted on me before I told you what was going on with me, and the way you reacted afterwards?

“You knew me when I was a caterpillar, you met me when I was a chrysalis, and you’ve stayed with me all this time without knowing what was going to hatch out of it. I fell in love because of the kindness you showed when I was a hideous mess.”

“You were never that.”

“The point I’m trying to make is that there is nobody I know who has shown me the care, thoughtfulness and commitment you have shown me. When you make the caterpillar feel special, don’t be surprised when the butterfly only has eyes for you.”

“So this is a loyalty thing?”

“Nooo!” I hit him. “Maybe. A little. More than anything it’s a ‘you showed me who you really are and I will never have enough of you’ thing.” I kissed him. By this time in our relationship, tongues were expected as well as the capacity to hold your breath.

“So what happens when I go to university?” he asked when we eventually came back up for air.

I leaned on his chest, listening to the quiet thump of his heart. “Best not think about that. Live in the moment, eh?”

The heartbeat quickened. I stepped back and looked at his worried expression.

“Why, what do you mean? What do you think will happen?”

“Oh, I don't think, I know.” I forced my face into a serious expression. “You’ll let yourself be enticed into bed by the first vacuous floozy you meet with a sizeable pair of titillations, and I’ll have to run off and join a nunnery where I’ll spend the rest of my sad life with a broken heart, knitting socks for orphans in Peru and crying over what could have been.”

He snorted. “They'll never let you into a nunnery.”

“Why? Because I'm not a real girl?”

“Because you'd never fit these titillations into a habit,” he said, gently stroking one of my breasts, which reacted to his touch, setting off a wave of, I don't know, something. All I know is I wanted him inside me in a bad way. “As for vacuous floozies, I can't imagine anyone alive who could entice me away from you.”

We had several moments like that before he finally accepted that there was no-one else in the world for me, and I would wait for him until the end of time.

When he finally did leave for university, he found a place with a decent architecture course less than fifty miles from home, which meant an affordable hour’s coach ride away. All the more affordable after I had my first novel published. I was still in the middle of my A levels, but the passion for writing had never left me, and after he moved away, I spent all the free time I would have spent with him putting my feelings into page after page and sending one draft after another of to a list of potential publishers. It couldn't have been that bad because I had a call back after what must have been only my one hundred and seventieth rejection letter. It did well enough to allow me to fund a car and put enough in the bank to afford a series of private appointments with a well-respected doctor.

You find out how much something really matters to you when you're prepared to spend a five-figure sum on a series of procedures that leave you unable to function properly for the best part of two months. Josh and I talked it through ahead of time and agreed that soonest was best, so he supported me through it all the first summer of his degree course, which was also the summer following my A levels. If I hadn’t fallen all the way in love with him before that, I did over the weeks while he looked after me and put up with all my complaining. I was still pretty tender when he headed back to uni at the start of his second year, and I didn't really begin to feel totally the new me much before Christmas.

Which left me in the care of my parents, or rather my mother, for several months. Dad went into a whole new stage of denial when the female hormones started to transform his ‘little man’ as he put it. Not my favourite euphemism, especially as he and I used it differently. After I paid several grand to have my own 'little man’ removed, he finally reached his breaking point.

In Dad’s case this meant drink. I mean, he’d always drunk socially – most adults in our neighbourhood did – but after my operation he hit the booze big time, polishing off at least half a bottle of spirits per day, and he wasn’t fussy about what. His work suffered, but he’d always been good at his job so, rather than fire him, his boss told him to take a few weeks leave and get his head straight. It didn’t help Dad as, with nothing to distract him, he doubled his drinking to a bottle a day.

I didn’t see much of this, lying in bed as I was, in considerable discomfort. For all the post-op aches and pains, I had the satisfaction that I was finally right. I’d rest a hand gently between my legs and the evidence that gave me made all the unpleasantness worthwhile. Josh was a sweet and ever-present support over the time it took me to recover until I was nearly ready to take to my feet, but he did keep the news of my family’s implosion from me until he was ready to return to university. Mum took over then and I was aware enough of my surroundings by that time to see that she’d been crying. A lot.

When I asked her about it, she told me what Dad was getting up to, then had to fight to keep me in bed. She promised to ask him to come up and see me, but however much she tried to persuade him, he wouldn’t shift from his chair. Just sat there with some mindless rubbish on the box and a bottle of budget vodka slowly rotting his brain.

Eventually I was given the all-clear to climb out of bed. That involved a whole new set of twinges and misery, but I was determined and made it downstairs to the living room. He looked up at me blearily and lifted his bottle to take a swig.

I snatched it out of his hand. He leaned forward to grab it back but overbalanced and fell forward onto his face. I walked my tender walk over to the window and poured the contents – still about two thirds at that time – out into the garden, possibly poisoning a few roses.

“Aiyadiun!” He yelled at me, reaching an arm out for the empty bottle.

I slammed it down on the sideboard then stooped to help him back into his chair. He was heavy and it strained me more than I cared to think about, but I managed to get him seated. I turned off the television and sat next to him.

“Whayawump?” he asked, lolling about and very nearly falling out of his chair again.

“We can talk when you’re sober. Until then we can sit here quietly, or I can get you a coffee.”

“Domwanacooofffeee.” He slurred.

“Fine. You can sit here while I get one for myself.”

Of course, I made two cups and of course he wanted one when I brought them back. He still didn’t say anything for several hours, but that suited me fine. I still needed my rest.

I was drifting into a light doze when Dad finally spoke.

“What did I do wrong?”

“Hm, what?”

“Where did I go wrong? With you? I mean how did you end up like this?”

He wasn’t slurring too badly, so I assumed an appropriate level of cognition.

“I ended up like this by choice, Dad. Where you went wrong was in expecting me to become one thing and then believing you’d failed when I chose to become something else,”

“Something else being a gay, gender-bending freak.”

“No, that’s still you choosing to believe what’s in your mind. I mean, exactly how am I gay?”

“You have a boyfriend.”

“Yes, and?” I rearranged my nightdress to cover my knees. It was loosely laced up and showed a generous amount of cleavage.

“What do you mean, ‘Yes and?’”

“If I were gay with a boyfriend, that would mean I’d have to be male.”

“You are male!”

“How do you work that out?”

“You have a...” he gestured towards my mid-section, “had a...” he looked around for his booze, caught sight of the empty bottle and let out a sigh.

“Dad, do you remember when you tried to explain the offside rule to me in football?”

“That was a bloody waste of a good Sunday afternoon, that was.”

I couldn't help smiling. “What made you think I'd be interested?”

“I don’t know. I suppose you were about the same age I was when my father told me.”

“Except I imagine you showed some interest in football at that age.”

“Well of course I did. Every boy’s into football.”

“When did I ever give you the impression I was interested in football, Dad?”

“Er, well, er...”

“It’s not the point I was going to make but does quite well. You decided what sort of person I was going to grow into from the start and you didn’t give me a choice in the matter. You didn’t even pay attention when I started showing signs of being different from your master blueprint.

“The reason I brought up the offside rule is because it wasn’t always part of the rules of football, was it? Not just that, but the rule's not always been the same.”

“When did you get to be such an expert?”

“When you told me about it on a wasted Sunday afternoon, Dad. I listened and I learned. I just wasn’t interested.

“You told me that the last time the rule was changed was back in nineteen ninety, is that right?”

“Yes, a player is onside if he’s level with...”

“Dad, I’m still not interested. The thing is, they changed the rule because they decided it would improve the game.”

“Yes, you see the old rule was a little ambiguous...”

“This is what I don't understand about you, Dad. You’re willing, even eager, to accept changes to a bloody stupid game. You'll sit there and pontificate about the reasons for changing a rule and how the change improves the game, but you adamantly refuse to do the same when it comes to gender issues like those affecting me.”

“That’s different. ‘Male and female created He them'. There were only ever two sexes intended, and you, and people like you should bloody well accept that.”

“How dare you turn to the Bible for any sort of justification? The last time you were in a church was Lonny's wedding. Besides, the ‘if God had intended us to’ argument does not work. If God had intended us to fly, he’d have given us wings. If God had intended us to follow recipes, he wouldn’t have given us grandmother’s. If God had intended us to take showers, he’d have given us armpits that face upwards!

“You could as easily argue that God gave us intelligence, ingenuity and free will, and we should assume he intended us to use them. When our intelligence tells us that what we always believed about gender is flawed, shouldn’t we modify our understanding? When our ingenuity comes up with ways to correct nature’s mistakes, shouldn’t we use them? As for free will, I’ll agree it’s not a God given right for us all to do whatever we want, but it’s sure as hell not a God given right for one person to impose his will on another.”

“That’s what you think I’m doing? What makes you think you have the right to talk to me like that?”

“What makes you think you have the right to call me a gay, gender bending freak?” I kept my voice calm and measured. “And it’s not what I think you’re doing, it’s what I know you’re doing. We all know it, but most of us are afraid of what will happen if we confront you about it. Aunt Miranda told me about it that summer I went to stay with them.”

“Ah yes, I was wondering when my sister would come into this. I was right not to let you go stay with them again.”

“Except she’s not the problem, Dad. Who is it who’s drowning his misery in a bottle of cheap vodka and wrecking his life and the lives of those around him, just because he’s too damned stubborn to acknowledge there may be a valid opinion out there somewhere besides his own?”

“What valid opinion?”

“The opinion of pretty much the whole medical profession, supported by pretty much the whole legal profession, that people like me exist, that there is a genuine scientific, medical explanation for why we are as we are, that our best chance for happiness is through the changes medical science can give us.

“I’ve been luckier than most. My aunt, your sister, recognised what you refused to see. My mother agreed to what you didn’t want to allow. I was able to stop my body turning me into something that looked like a man, and as a result I've been able to become what I’ve always felt I should have been. Only a bad boy would ask for something like this, Dad? Remember that? Maybe a girl stuck in a boy’s body would too. Maybe you had a daughter all along, but you were too blinkered to let yourself see it. Maybe you still are.

“I love you, Dad. God help me but I do. So does Mum and Aunt Miranda in her way. But not enough to let your narrow mindedness control our lives.

“I’m tired and I ache, so I’m going back to bed. I’ve said all I have to, so now it’s up to you. You’re probably steady enough on your feet to make it down to the off licence to buy yourself another bottle of poison, but I hope you won’t. I very much hope that you’ll have a shave and a shower and change your clothes, because it’s kind of rancid in here, Dad. The thing is, whatever you decide to do, that’s your choice, just like this is mine.”

I stood and made my weary way back to my bed, via the loo. That was a definite downgrade in functionality, but it felt right all the same.

As I was drifting off to sleep, I thought I heard the shower.

---

Which brings me to now. There are so many other dresses I could have mentioned. The dress I wore to the prom with a tuxedo clad Josh on my arm, the dress my mother bought me to celebrate finally becoming a woman. The dress Josh all but tore off me when I next visited him and asked if he felt like taking his newly modified girlfriend for a test drive. The dress I wore the first time I was invited onto a TV show to talk about my latest novel. The dress I wore the night Josh went down on one knee and asked me a question that made me the happiest woman alive.

But if I only get to talk about one more dress, it has to be this one. It’s a bit of a meringue, but then I’ve always preferred full skirts to tight ones. Maybe it goes back to when I had something to hide under them, but I don’t know, I just like the way they make me look.

I have so many petticoats under it, I can barely move my feet, but it’s worth it. Not quite one of those immense parachutes from Anna and the King, but it is fit for royalty.

Alison’s fussing around me, putting in a few final stitches here and there to make it perfect, but when you’re paying what I’m paying for this thing, you expect personal service and perfection. Glad Rags apparently hadn't branched into this particular market before I made my special request, but they rose to the occasion magnificently.

It’s ivory because I couldn’t in all good conscience go for white. It’s silk because what else would it be. The bodice fits tightly to my upper body enhancing my natural shape and it’s low enough cut to show off my very natural assets to great effect. It almost seems a shame to hide them under the veil, but then maybe that’s where the word titillation comes from. Besides, I wouldn’t want my cleavage to detract from the exquisite embroidery and seed pearl beadwork. The dress really is a masterpiece.

Mistresspiece would be more appropriate, but it sounds wrong, and I’m not really that much of a feminist anyway.

Alison declares her work done and leads me out to where my bridesmaids are waiting, also wearing Glad Rags creations. Dresses – sorry Chaney – but at least they're burgundy rather than pink. I’ve told my cousin that she doesn’t have to wear it to the reception, even if it’ll leave the top table looking a little unbalanced. The decision’s hers but I think she’s so taken by the way the dress looks and feels, that she may keep it on for once. I mean, she may not be a girly girl, but she’s still at least as much of a girl as me, and I wouldn’t be able to resist looking and feeling that good.

Lonny is, of course, my maid of honour, and Jean – Aunt Miranda’s neighbour, remember – is my other bridesmaid. I paid a visit to my aunt and uncle once I’d fully recovered from my surgery and, after enduring Aunt Miranda's scolding for not being in touch sooner – after all there had been that ‘everything means everything’ speech – I dropped round to the neighbours.

Sandy didn’t recognise me, which made getting through the door easier. Jean took a bit of convincing that I was the same person she’d befriended three years previously, but once she’d accepted the truth of the matter, the changes I’d gone through in the intervening years did more to fix our friendship than any words I might have spoken. She admitted she’d been a little confused at the time, but no evidence remained of the changeling I’d been, and she could see in the person I’d become something of what I’d tried to explain to her the last time we’d spoken. Whatever feelings she might have thought she had for the boyish version of me, she really wasn’t into girls.

Aunt Miranda took a bit longer forgiving me. She knew that Dad had continued to be an arsehole right the way through the three-year silence, but I reminded my aunt that it was her who'd sent me back to my parents, more or less telling me this was my battle to fight, and for all that it would have been easier if I had called on her, I hadn’t actually needed her. She respected that.

Chaney was pretty cool about it all. Sure, she would have liked to spend a little more time with me, but she’d had her sister nearby, so hadn’t missed me that much.

I look at the three of them, all smiles and delight, holding their bouquets of flowers and ready to stand by me on my short journey down the aisle to my new life.

Dad takes my arm and smiles. It’s a warm and genuine smile with only the faintest hint of discomfort deep at the back of his eyes. He’s come a long way since our ‘chat’ but he’s not quite there yet. I caught him practicing his response to the question, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” It’s only two words but I think he still struggles to think of me as his daughter sometimes. Of course, it may also be the linen suit I’ve persuaded him to wear, since it’s yet another summer wedding. More comfortable, definitely, but hardly appropriate to the occasion according to his rigid standards.

Somewhat ironically, it’s me that’s going to suffer with the heat. Top half fine with lots of exposed skin, but then I have all those layers from the waist down just to give the skirt its proper shape.

Oh well, it’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make if only for the look in Josh’s eyes when he catches sight of me for the first time.

I can see him fidgeting nervously at the front of the church. A murmured comment to Wayne has his best man dipping a hand into a pocket to make sure the rings are still there. The two of them are big enough to block out a significant amount of the available light, so it’s comical to see them so nervous. Like two naughty school children standing outside the headmaster's office.

Speaking of nerves and naughty children, I’ll admit to a few nerves about Josh choosing Wayne as his best man, because I can imagine the opening line of his speech. “When I met Michelle for the first time, she was still a boy.” Still, my friends and family all know about my past, so if that’s the worst he can do, bring it on.

I nod to the vicar, who passes the nod onto the organist, and strains of here comes the bride fill the church. All eyes turn to follow our procession, but I only see Josh’s. They’re round with such wonder and desire. I’m glad of the veil hiding my megawatt smile. The last thing my future husband needs on his wedding day is a little uncontrolled movement in the trouser department.

Best to save that for the honeymoon.