I was born in a boy’s body, but of course I don’t remember it! For most that may be a fatuous remark, but in my case it’s relevant. Both my parents are doctors. Mum’s a shrink and Dad’s a surgeon specialising in female genital reconstruction which includes male to female confirmation surgery. He only does ‘bottom surgery’. They both work at Simmington Saint Mary’s Charity Hospital which is a world leader in trans issues. At Simmington every surgeon specialises at just one procedure. He’s got colleagues that do every other kind of gender confirmation surgery there is. Female to male too.

My parents knew long before I was aware there was a difference that I was really female, so I grew up that way. Later there were never any issues about hormones and surgery, so I went through a female puberty and not a male one. I probably would have been ok even if I had because Dad has no body or facial hair and has androgynous facial features with no Adam’s apple. In fact he has no pronounced masculine features and could probably pass as a woman with little effort apart from being six four, till he opened his mouth that is. The deep voice and masculine topics of conversation would definitely give him away!

I’ve been Gillian, a girl, as far back as I can remember, more or less as soon as I could crawl I suppose. Dad sometimes calls me Jilly, but spells it Gilly. I never went to school or anywhere else as a boy. I’ve never had any idea as to what being a boy is like. I’m girly, but not over the top girly if you know what I mean. I do own some jeans. I just don’t wear them very often, apart from anything else I don’t like the crude comments I receive about my bottom when I do. It’s not overly big, but it is unmistakeably female. From the age of eleven, going to secondary school, it’s been a rare day when I’ve not worn make up. However, the trowelled on foundation look and the tangerine girls make me shudder, which may explain why I’ve never gone for the full face mask, just a bit of lipstick and a touch about my eyes. When I go out I use more, but still not a lot.

I went to a school in an area where there were individual changing cubicles for games and PE in every school, so that was no problem. I’m not sure it would have been anyway because I never had much in the way of boy plumbing, and what I had was low down and set back, it could easily have been mistaken for girl plumbing. My testicles never descended which would have helped.

Years before I was born, Mum, Dad and some of their colleagues from the hospital had set up a volunteer fund raising team to raise the money as part of the hospital’s trans awareness and tolerance program to pay for all the schools in our area to have their sports and PE changing facilities modernised. The local education authorities were on board and helped financially as well as politically. It was a popular program and the money was raised quickly because a lot of folk said any kid having to undress in front of the others was Victorian and barbaric and whether the kids were cis or trans was irrelevant.

Both my parents are pure blood Irish with strawberry blond hair, white skin and freckles. My brother Samuel who’s two years older than I is a throwback. He’s brunet and tans easily like Dad’s brother Uncle Michael. I need sunscreen factor 50+ on cloudy days, and according to Samuel a welder’s mask too. I was always pretty, and the jealousies of other girls and the unwanted attentions of the boys used to give me a hard time at school, but Sam sorted them all out for me. He was good looking and big, so a disdainful look at a girl sorted her out, and the boys he just intimidated.

Bottom surgery was no problem for me, Dad did it on my eighteenth birthday, but he’d been planning it for a couple of years. Dad and I had talked and he’d shewn me hundreds of pictures of female genitalia. He’d challenged me to tell him which were natural, which were reconstructed and to pair up before and after photos. I made a complete mess of it, but what I found encouraging was that the nicest looking ones, the ones I wanted to look like, were all his work, and I wouldn’t have imagined they could have been created from their before photos some of which were male looking and some of which were female looking.

I suppose for some girls it would be a bit weird having your dad messing about down there, but not for me. My dad was going to be giving me the absolute best present any daughter could ever receive. I wasn’t even freaked when towards the end of my recovery from surgery Samuel asked, “Can I see, Freckles?”

I was amused that he’d used my childhood nickname which had fallen out of use in the last few years, but I said, “Sure why not, Samson.” I used to call him Samson, cos he was so much bigger than I was.

After he’d looked, he said, “Cool! Looks like Dad did a really good job, cos there’s nothing to see. The real deal, discreet like you always said you wanted. Happier now, Sis?” I started crying, I couldn’t speak I was so happy, and as he hugged me and kissed my cheek a nurse came in. Now she was freaked! The first thing she saw was me with everything on wide screen display, and I was being kissed by my brother. I think Mum had to sort her out. I still don’t really get it, but Sam had been watching my back for so long it all seemed quite natural to me. Him too.

I paid my way through university studying pharmacy with my winnings from beauty contests. I wasn’t keen on being a piece of meat, but what the heck it paid the bills. Mum and Dad would have paid for it all, they weren’t short of money, but they understood I wanted be be able to cut it as an adult myself, so other than making it clear they were there if I needed them they let me get on with it.

By the time I was twenty-one, Mum’s genes and the hormones had given me what even I knew were a sensational pair of girls and the rest of me was pretty easy on anybody’s eyes too. I’m not vain about it, but I’d rather look like me than what Samuel describes as having a face like a bashed crab or sometimes a bag of spanners.

Sam’s a really great brother, there’s never been any sibling issues between us, and we’ve always been close. He’s six three and good looking, but has had a hard time with girls these last few years. They were all more interested in his Porsche and his wallet than him. He runs his own highly successful company with his school friend James who’s gay, something to do with software development. They’re both pretty nerdy really, and do a lot of stuff for Simmington Saint Mary’s hospital. He was taking some time out from dating. Since I was fed up with men in their late twenties and early thirties who turned out to be boys not men and was looking, without any success at that point, for a man not a boy whatever his age, it suited the pair of us to go out together till we found something better.

It was good going out with Samuel, we both like dancing and I don’t think either of us had ever received that much attention before. Must be true, people want what someone else has got. He has Uncle Michael’s build not Dad’s, broad and deep as well as tall which was handy when after having told a couple of idiots they couldn’t cut in they chose to make something of it. I wore an engagement ring after that. That worked, but to make it stick we had to be seen kissing from time to time, which was no chore for either of us. Sam was good at it too. Well he made my toes tingle though he’s never told me what it did for him.

After a while Samuel and I ‘broke up’ because whilst we were having fun we were both looking for something serious so we could settle down. I started going out with Richard and a month later Sam met Sapphire. What a pair! We were as bad as each other at finding a relationship. Cutting a long story short Richard truly was a dick, and Sapphire was a gem all right. Back to square one, and both of us still looking.

The Friday afternoon a fortnight after Sapphire’s spectacular exit stage centre, if there is such a thing, we were in the kitchen when Sam said, “Hey, Freckles, you fancy tripping the light fantastic at the Buzz tonight? Or you doing something?”

“Got no plans. Why?”

“I’m bored. Other than work I’ve not been anywhere or done anything for ages. To be honest, Sis, I think I’m getting a bit depressed after Sapphire. I truly thought she and I might, but then….” His voice just faded away and there were tears in the corner of his eyes.

I rushed to him and put my arms around him just as Mum came in. I waved her away. I just held him for a minute or so, kissed his cheek and said, “I hadn’t got that far with Richard, but I had considered giving my new equipment a test drive with the real thing instead of a dilator, so I know what you’re feeling. Richard was a self centred, two timing dick, but she’s welcome to him, cos I doubt he’ll treat her any better. Maybe he and Sapphire will hook up. Life’s a crock of shite, then you die. So yeah! Lets do it. Who’s on at the Buzz?”

“No idea. Don’t care. Dancing to a crap band’s got to be better than sitting here staring at crap on the telly feeling sorry for ourselves. You want to drink or drive? If you want to drive you can take the Porsche.”

“Hell, Sam, you’re offering to let me drive your baby? You must have it bad.”

“Somehow it doesn’t seem such a big deal any more, Sis.”

“Tell you what. Let’s take a cab then we can both have a drink, but let’s not be silly about it. What time are Mum and Dad getting in, or do we need to take a key?”

“Mum?” Sam shouted.

As she came in Mum asked, “What’s going on?”

“Sam’s upset cos of Sapphire and bored, so we’re going to the Buzz dancing. Do we need to take a key?”

“Yes. That was what I came you tell you before. Your dad and I are going to a reception in Bedford. It’s to do with work. We’ll be staying with Granny and Granddad Owens tonight. Your dad said we may as well stay the weekend and come back Sunday afternoon or evening. So you’d both better take a key.” She looked at Sam and asked, “Are you all right, Samuel? Not going to crawl into a bottle or anything equally stupid?”

“I’ll be fine, Mum. Freckles will make sure I behave myself. That didn’t exactly sound like the sort of question a shrink should be asking you know, Mum.”

“And that was one hundred percent pure lip. You’re still not too big or too old for a paddling on your bottom young man. I’m your mum not your shrink, as you so inelegantly phrased it, and different rules of professional conduct apply.” Mum kissed us both and said, “Ok. Have a nice weekend. I’ll see you on Sunday. I’ll ring you Sunday lunchtime, so if we come back early you can get a Sunday dinner on. I’d prefer to do that, but it may not be possible. There’s a goose in the big freezer. I’ll get it out now to defrost. If we don’t have it Sunday it’ll do midweek.”

“Ok, Mum.”

That Friday night changed my life forever. We had three or four drinks, no more, certainly not enough to blame for what happened. I think we both knew it was going to happen sooner or later. We came out of the club looking for our taxi. On the way out I’d booked the private hire vehicle for our return at two. There were a few people who’d had too much to drink trying to jump someone else’s taxi, and as we were getting into ours a man pulled Sam out and said, “I’ll have the car and the girl too.”

He threw a punch at Sam which burst his lip, but he threw no more. Sam only hit him once, but he goes to the gym twice a week. Sam told me afterwards he hit the man as hard as he could, and obviously it was hard enough because the man hit the floor and didn’t move for several minutes. Fortunately one of the dozen police officers present had seen the entire incident. After they had arrested the man and taken our names and address, one said to Sam, “You’d better take your wife home, Sir. It’s going to get worse here before it gets better. You might think about calling at the hospital to have your lip looked at.”

Sam replied, “I don’t fancy casualty at this time on a Saturday morning. I’ll be ok. Both my parents are doctors. I’ll have it looked at. Goodnight and thank you.” We got in the cab and as we left Sam said, “Well, Mrs. Samuel Owens, how do you feel about that?”

“I feel good about it, Mr. Samuel Owens.” Of course it was easy to see how the police officer made the mistake, same surname, same address, right age to be a couple, Sam was protecting me and I was concerned about him. Obvious really. Of course us holding hands may just have tipped the balance.

I blotted his lip with a tissue and was very careful as I kissed him. Cuddling in the cab we both knew there was going to be more once we got home. I patched Sam’s lip up a bit better when we got home. We’d both had extensive first aid training, so I knew it was a bit late for steristrips to work to best advantage but it was all that could be done. Casualty couldn’t have done any better.

“My bed or yours, Sam? I’ve got some untested equipment that I’d really like to have an independent certificate of bed worthiness for.”

“Yours. It smells nicer than mine.”

I’d had absolutely no experience of real male equipment before, but Sam’s was bigger than my largest dilator, and a lot more fun. We had three bouts of fun before Sam said, “That’s me for the while, Freckles. Shall I make a coffee and toast a couple of crumpets? Because I have things to say and I hope you have too.”

“Yes. I’ll use the bathroom and remake the bed. Bring the crumpets up on a tray. I don’t want any crumbs interfering with my equipment.” I could still hear Sam laughing as I went into the bathroom and he was halfway down the stairs.

“I love you, Freckles. I think I always have. I don’t ever remember you being anything other than my sister, but I don’t love you like a sister. It was what that policeman said that made me realise it. For me you are the one. I know just from the look of you that you stole my share of the freckles, but whether that old saw that says every time a ginger steals a soul they earn a freckle is right or not, I know you didn’t steal my soul because it always was yours.

Sam looked nervous as if he expected his entire life to be taken away from him. I’d already reached the same conclusion, but unlike Sam I knew how he felt, and that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, so, with tears running off my cheeks, I put him out of his misery straight away. “Me too.” There was a five minute interlude of serious kissing that only ended with an exclamation of pain from Sam due to his lip. “How do we plan a life together, Sam? It’s not going to be easy.”

Sam was kissing and teasing my girls so it was a moment before he replied, “Mum and Dad will be fine. Even if you could have children the myths about genetic damage are just that, myths. The Egyptian royal Pharaoh line married brother to sister for generations before anything shewed up and even then it wasn’t serious.

“You are legally female, so from that point of view we can marry, though James told me homosexual marriage will be legal within two years. There has never been a legal proscription against consanguineous marriage of any degree here, it’s just been strongly frowned upon, and the church will freak if we were stupid enough to let them know, but if they do find out I can live with any fallout if you can.

“I suggest we move away from here, marry quietly and say nothing. Folk forget and nobody takes the church seriously, especially about things that have been going on for years. James and I can work around it. You’ll still be away studying most of the time for the next six months. After that you can apply for jobs near wherever we move to. How does that sound?”

By this time I’d discovered that a man or at least my man wasn’t quite as hard as a prescription dilator, but there wasn’t a lot in it. “Ok, but eventually I want kids. Two girls to start with if I can. You cool with that?”

“No problem.”

Sam was right about Mum and Dad, like my gender to them it was a non-issue. I think they were both glad that at least with Sam I wasn’t going to get hurt or murdered like some trans girls. Dad must come from a long line of sneaky people. He rang Uncle Michael and a month later I’d been adopted by our uncle. We bought a house twenty miles away, found an accommodating clergyman and I quietly married my first cousin with just Mum, Dad, Granny, Granddad, Uncle Michael, Auntie Susan and my four new siblings in attendance.

Sam furnished the house whilst I was away at university, and by the time I returned for good, complete with Ph.D., and started looking about me for a job all had settled down. We were just another young married couple amongst hundreds in the area, all too busy to take much notice of the others.

I took a job as a locum pharmacist for a local chain of nineteen pharmacies. It was ideal, their staff got rotating relief for holidays and weekends, I never had to travel more than thirty-two miles to work, sometimes only a few and it paid really well. Sam had put it about amongst the men that he’d taken a chemical hit whilst working as a student that made it inadvisable to have children and had had a vasectomy.

One of Dad’s colleagues did his vasectomy. Sam’s argument was, “We can’t use my sperm, so I’ll make sure no false allegations of anything can succeed.” I wasn’t happy because if something happened to me he might have lived to regret it, so I insisted he saved sperm in the bank. Sam was ok with that, and it didn’t cost a ridiculous amount. Then we set about looking into adoption.

Sam may have been right about Mum and Dad, but he couldn’t have been more wrong about adoption. There was a problem, a big problem: me. The authorities didn’t have had a problem with us being first cousins and told us they wouldn’t have done if we had been brother and sister. I held my tongue and prevented Sam from saying anything. “But you are not, you are a pair of cousins living in a sinful homosexual relationship. And we can not simply can not release a child to—”

“Stop right there,” thundered Sam. “Not another damned word, or I shall not be responsible for my actions.” I was crying, and Sam was trying to regain control of his temper as he pushed me out through the door. I’d never seen him lose it like that, not even throwing a tantrum as a child.

Through my tears I choked out, “How hard can it be, Sam, to make the dreams of a child in desperate need of love and care come true? Love and care don’t even cost anything. What is wrong with those people? Those attitudes are decades out of touch.”

Sam had in the main recovered as he said, “Come on, Freckles. Lets talk to Mum. If she can’t help, she’ll know someone who can.”

Mum knew lots of people who could help. We should have asked her first. Loretta Young and Mum had known each other professionally for years. Loretta was a senior social worker and she liaised with private and charitable adoption agencies, rather than the ones directly under local authority control. The social workers who liaised with the local authority agencies were her subordinates.

We met her at her office where she took notes of our experience and said, “That should not have happened and changes will follow. However, I’m sure we can help both yourselves and a couple of girls without you having to go back there.”

The day after, she came to look at our house and took copies of various bits of paper work, mostly proving we could afford to adopt and were not about to be evicted, and said, “I don’t see any problems, but then I didn’t expect any, however the hoops have to be jumped through to protect us all, me, you, and any children you adopt. I’ll monitor the situation regards your girls closely and get back to you as soon as I know anything.”

Nine days later I answered the phone to hear, “We have a potential match for you, Gillian.” I asked her to wait till Sam arrived, shouted him to come and listen and put the phone on speaker. Loretta continued, “However, it’s a sibling group of four sisters which may be too much for you to cope with. The older two girls don’t want to be separated from their younger sisters, and we will not separate a sibling group unless one or more is a threat to the others. You told me you were looking for two girls. It is almost impossible for us to place four siblings. They are currently in two short term emergency foster homes, so unless….”

I looked at Sam and said, “You’d be hopelessly out of you depth with five females in the house. Think you could survive it?”

“No problem. We’d need another bedroom, better yet two and another bathroom. How long would you give us to organise that, Loretta?”

“Whilst they’re young your existing house is fine, but you’d need to have more room in shall we say a couple of years. Are you sure about this. Twins at two and a half, another at eighteen months and a baby of six months is no easy task. For us you are the answer to a prayer, and we could provide a considerable amount of support, but are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Freckles?” Mrs. Young laught at that.

“I’m sure. When can we meet the children?”

“This afternoon, at my office. They are bewildered, but they are now orphans with no relatives we can trace. Their parent’s died in the shooting incident at the shopping precinct last week, and neither parent had any siblings nor parents alive. Early adoption is our only good option, and we’d like it to happen as soon as possible. I think you will be in for a surprise. None of the girls look anything like you Samuel, but they could all be Gillian’s, for they have her complexion, hair and the freckles too.”

That was six weeks ago. As soon as Dad heard about baby Lilly he had me to Alice a colleague of his who kick started my lactation with an injection in each buttock and gave me a prescription. Alice told me, “You milk should arrive within three weeks. Take the tablets for another week after it does. In the meantime, allow your baby to suckle both your breasts till she becomes frustrated before you bottle feed her. If you have any problems give us a phone call. Ask for me if you wish but any of my colleagues will be delighted to help in any way they can.”

That was that. By the time sitting down had became pain free, my breasts had started to balloon and within a fortnight Lilly couldn’t take all I was producing. Mum came to the rescue this time. She contacted a friend of hers, explained and later that evening Marian had my breasts connected to what Sam jokingly referred to as a twin cylinder, over head cam, fractional horse power, high volume milking machine. He had a point, the pump was loud and sounded vaguely like a motor bike in the distance. You’d have thought Marian, Mum, Dad and Sam, and me of course, were attending some entertainment event, but it did have its funny moments. I’d had no idea milk could travel that far straight from the source.

I’d officially become part of Marian’s baby nutrition resource team, a human dairy cow, but it did solve my problem and helped other mums and babies. It wasn’t long before I was producing going on for two litres a day. I looked it up on the internet, and to my relief I discovered there were women who produced more, so I didn’t feel like a freak, but if the freckles on my breasts were anything to go by I was stealing a greater volume of souls than I was producing milk.

It's Saturday and this morning we woke early. Sam said, “You stay there, Freckles. I’ll get some coffee and breakfast. I’ll bring it on a tray and after eating we can check your certificate of bed worthiness is still good.” It was a good plan and my equipment was recertified.

To my surprise, after making love, Sam started crying and eventually he admitted, “I didn’t exactly tell you the truth that night when we came out of the Buzz. I’ve known I wanted to marry you for years, probably since you joined me at primary school. I never dreamt this could happen. Even as a kid I wanted you to love me and care for me like Mum loves Dad, long before I knew what that meant. It hurt for years knowing it was never going to happen, and probably all those girlfriends that messed me about had realised there was something they just couldn’t compete with. Now I have everything I ever wanted. Life is good at last. My dream came true.”

I kissed him passionately in all sorts of places and said, after I got my breath back, “That’s good. I don’t think I loved you like that then, but I do now. You always made me feel safe in a way no other boy ever did and that’s important to a girl, especially one like me, so maybe there was something going on in my head about you that I didn’t understand. Again? Before breakfast?”

“Yeah. We’ll run late, but not much.”

We had to be up on time because Mum and Dad were coming round so Dad could help Sam moving furniture into our new six bedroomed house set in an acre and a half of what will be a play area for the girls. Mum and I are going shopping for girls’ clothes, with the girls. I knew I’d have to keep stopping her or she’d buy up half of Mothercare’s stock.

I was still feeding Lilly and Sam was still assisting Jasmine, Claire and Elizabeth who were sitting in three high chairs intent on eating their porridge with three inexpertly held spoons when Mum and Dad arrived. We were a little behind, and from the look they exchanged they knew why we were running late. With an adult each assisting in the transfer of porridge from their dishes to their mouths things with the girls proceeded more quickly. Mum started to put breakfast things in the dishwasher and asked, “What are these for?” She was holding up a palm sized rubber oval with suckers on each side.

“They’re sold for sticking soap down onto the side of a wash basin, Mum. When Sam saw them he bought some to hold the girls’ dishes down on their high chairs. They get upset when in their enthusiasm to eat they push the dish over the edge, I don’t think it cuts down on the mess much, but it does make meal times quieter.”

Dad and Sam started loading up the van Sam had hired and long before Mum and I had washed and dressed the girls, strapped them into their respective restraints in my new to me three rows of seats Volvo and loaded up the buggies they disappeared on their first run. It was the first time I’d gone shopping with Mum and the girls. I think Mum regarded it as an adventure. I was wondering where to park to make sure no one could park so as to prevent me accessing all the doors when Mum broke my introspection. “You happy with all this, Gillian? It’s not overwhelming you?”

“Well it certainly has its moments, Mum. I get tired but all mums do. The girls have settled in and are good and being a mum is brilliant even if it is chaotic. Sam does more than his share. I listen to the complaints of other wives at work about their husbands, and I can’t help but know I dropped lucky. But I’m happy, and no it’s not overwhelming me. If it does you’ll be the first to know when I run screaming for help. Why?”

“I don’t know really. When you were born I certainly never envisaged this outcome, but it did have an inevitability about it as your life progressed. I can see that when I look back. Being a granny is great fun, and definitely puts some of the smug and superior women at work in their places. Your Dad is grateful you’re safe and live locally, and he can’t get over being a granddad. I had a thought last night about Jasmine and Claire. You could do worse than ask Marian to look into a play group for them even if only for a couple of mornings or afternoons a week. They’d trade you for the milk, you might as well have something for it.”

Mum and I had an enjoyable time and Jasmine and Claire learnt a new word ‘chopping’ as in going to buy things. After dumping our purchases in the car, we went for coffee in ‘Mums and Toddlers’. We were lucky to have such a place. It wasn’t cheap but it wasn’t expensive. It catered to harassed mums, nursing mums and mums with children of all ages. There was a big sign in the window that said ‘Dads Welcomed’. It marketed itself as a parent oriented establishment, and its explicit adverts in the local press stated, “If the sight of a nursing mother offends you then we don’t want your custom. Please go elsewhere.”

There were far more staff than in most places of its type, and they were reinforced over the weekend by a platoon of older school girls, who like the full time staff fell over themselves to help. When I went to town, I hadn’t stopped for a break anywhere else since the girls’ arrival because it was an almost stress free experience. Even on my own with all four girls, and yes it can be done with two buggies that link together, there were always enough willing helping hands to manage easily.

I nursed Lilly while Mum supervised Jasmine, Claire and Elizabeth, who secured in escape proof high-chairs, were exploring the delights of Battenburg cake and orange juice from spill proof plastic mugs. As I alternated my free hand between my coffee and my cake and my mind went to wherever it went when I was nursing, I thought back to Sam’s confession that morning. I smiled to myself as I thought, Yes. Life is good at last. I mean, How hard can it be, Sam, to make the dreams of a child in desperate need of love and care come true? It’s a piece of cake! Battenburg cake! And I’ve bought a piece for you too, my love.