The growl was the same, but the effect it had on me wasn't, even doubled up as this was. Last time it had been full of intimidation and malice; this time it was nothing more than the taunt of a bully, containing little more than hot air. I'd already beaten one of these guys and I’d been almost totally unprepared. This time I had some measure of confidence and, despite the peculiarity of it all, I was properly equipped.

I stood with my head down and feet held in what I seemed to remember was the fourth position in ballet. I’m not admitting to reading any books on ballet you understand? Whatever, it seemed the most stable stance. My arms, naturally, I held firmly by my side.

My eyes were open, but my other senses told me more. I could hear the growls slowly getting closer, could almost feel where each of them was. They stepped out of the shadows and my peripheral vision confirmed they were exactly where I expected them to be.

They approached from opposite sides, slow and cautious. If I didn't want to be fighting them both together, I would have to take the fight to them. I started to tap out a simple rhythm with my feet, increasing the complexity and the degree of movement with each repeated measure.

My two adversaries paused and exchanged glances. It gave me my first opportunity, and I took it. Leaping high onto the air, I pirouetted around and kicked upwards. My target was fast and raised his hand ready to protect his chest. I saws the movement early and aimed higher, catching him under the chin with the spike of one of my heels.

On putting the shoes on, I'd noticed that the rear edge of the spike had been honed to razor sharpness. I'd not understood why at the time, but now it made perfect sense. With the heel of one shoe embedded all the way into this guy's neck, I brought the other slicing past underneath it. No attack to the heart perhaps, but removing the head worked just as well if any of the vampire movies I’d ever seen counted for anything.

The body collapsed to the floor and exploded into dust. The head remained impaled on my shoe long enough for me to spin around and send it flying at the other one, exploding just as it reached him, and blinding him temporarily.

Opportunity number two, and never let it be said that I would allow it to pass me by. It took three long strides to reach him, each footfall seeming utterly strange as I landed on one my spike heels each time, but each step was perfectly balanced and I reached him before he could recover.

He was canny enough to react to the sound of my approach, so I leaned back, just in time to avoid the threat from his flailing arms. I was off balance and underneath him. I looked for any easy way to turn this to my advantage, and found it in the form of his trousers. I didn't know if demon physiology was close to human, but I had to hope there were some similarities as they seemed happy enough to feed off us. I buried the toe of my shoe deep into his groin and lifted him bodily of the ground.

I was on my feet before he reconnected with the Earth, and I made sure he didn't remain unmolested for long, as I sank my heel deep into his back.

Dust to dust.

The rest were easy, coming as they did one after the other. The rhythmic rattle of my feet, combined with the seemingly chaotic movements of my legs, mesmerised each new monster long enough for me to move in close and bury a spiked heel into its chest.

Some of my adversaries were female, which had the gallant side of my personality bounding to the surface. Had it not been for the voice of my observer calling on me to treat them no differently, things might have ended very badly. As it was, I managed to bound out of the reach of the first one just as she took a vicious swing at me. A second or two to recover my wits and I didn't make the same mistake again. Not with her, nor with any of her girlfriends.

It ended up being thirteen rather than seven. It seemed that the sphere of influence of the rift had grown beyond Mr Irritating’s ability to hear, and more had arrived late to the party. It didn't matter much to me. I was exhilarated and on a high by the time I ran out of opponents.

I felt amazing. Not out of breath like I should have been after that sort of exercise, but raring to go another round.

I'd achieved things in that fight I hadn't thought my body capable of. High kicks where my knee almost came in contact with my own nose, acrobatic leaps that had me higher off the ground than my adversaries shoulders, and mid-air twists and tumbles enough to impress any circus audience.

Mr Giles came back into the room and I all but bounced up to him. My body made some disconcerting jiggling movements, especially on my chest, but I put them down to that well-hidden padding.

"Did you see me?” I squealed in excitement. “I was amazing! I've never done anything like that."

He looked grave, which was odd, because I thought he'd wanted this more than me.

"What's up? You look like someone just shat in your soup." My voice sounded strange.

"Something rather, er, unexpected has happened," he said. "I'm not sure exactly how to put this."

"Put what?"

"Would you, er, take off your shoes a moment please?"

"Why? Are you afraid I might attack you?"

"Well, that is an interesting thought," he let out a nervous laugh. "No, it's by way of, er, letting you down, er, gently."

I'd unstrapped my shoes by the time he'd finished talking and stepped out of them. I barely reached his shoulder.

"Why are you so tall?"

"Well, that's rather the point you see. Er, I'm not. It's the, er, magic you see. You remember I said it would make adjustments when you put on the clothes?"

"Yes?" His tone did not sound encouraging.

"Well, I rather expected it to make changes to the clothes."

"What?"

"Come to the changing room, there's a mirror."

#

It was still me, but smaller and decidedly cuter. I had wavy blonde hair now with a faint reddish tint to it, which was kind of amazing, and the heavier features of my face seemed to have receded and softened. The added weights on my chest were new parts of me, but the growing bulge under my skirt offered disquieting evidence that everything else was more cosmetic than anything.

I should probably have been mad. I mean that would be a normal reaction, wouldn't it? For a guy suddenly to find himself considerably shorter, lighter and decidedly more feminine That should have provided ample reason to fly off the handle, but it wasn't like that.

"I, I, I don't understand," Mr Tweedy said, taking his glasses off and cleaning them furiously with a pristine white handkerchief. "There have been male vampire slayers before now, who, who, who have remained eminently masculine in their appearance, and, and it would have made so much more sense to, to, to change these dresses into, I don't know, something else rather than, than, than this."

"It's okay," I said. "I don't know why it is, but it really is okay."

He reseated his glasses on his nose and gave me a startled look through them.

"Really? I'm not sure I'd be so calm."

"No, and I'm not entirely certain why I am, but it's cool. Maybe it's female hormones or something."

"I doubt it; Despite your appearance, I'm not sure you have any. Besides I'd have thought they would exacerbate your hysteria, not reduce it."

"Maybe you're right, except I feel no hysteria whatsoever. I can't explain it, but this just feels… right. Like something that’s always been off just clicked into place."

He shook his head.

"Well, however right it may seem, it's going to bring a few unusual problems our way."

"Yeah, like what's my dad going to say when he realises he's going to have to buy me a whole new wardrobe."

"I wish you wouldn't joke about this; it really is serious you know? This kind of physical change shouldn't be possible without some pretty invasive surgery followed by several weeks of recovery, if it's possible at all. I mean you've lost, what, four, five inches?"

"And about four stone at a guess. Ultimate diet."

"There you go again with the jokes! How do you propose to explain your transformation?"

"I don't."

"What?"

"You’re whatting again."

"What?"

"Exactly."

"I really don't understand you young people sometimes."

"That's okay, I mean that works in my favour doesn't it? It kind of gives me a basis for dealing with this."

"You're really not making much sense."

“No I'm not, but then how much sense does any of this make? Discounting magic, which most people would do anyway, what could possibly explain my transformation? And if there isn't a way of explaining it, why should anyone expect us to offer one?

"The best lies are the ones that stay closest to the truth, which in this case means that we just neglect to mention anything about the supernatural. Here's what happened:

"Nick and I went along to the Irish dancing try-outs – fact. I pissed off Miss Ephermeris who then decided to shame me by putting me in a dress and getting me to try some of the dance moves – also fact…"

"Which we may want to gloss over a little, since we don't want to get her into trouble."

"We can play it down, but there were quite a few people at school who witnessed the event. Anyway, I turned out to be pretty bloody good at the dancing…"

"Also a fact, which would have been no less true without the swearing."

"Alright, sorry. So Miss Ephermeris suggested I should come and see you."

"Yes, how do we explain that?"

"You're an expert on this form of dancing and she thought you'd be interested in coaching me. I mean you were present at the try-outs – shadowy figure at the back, sort of thing."

"Okay, I suppose there's truth in that."

"Yes there is. So anyway, you've been waiting most of the week for me to come and see you, but I've not been so keen – confusion with the whole dressing up as a girl thing and how it'll affect my status at college.”

“I’m not sure I’m so keen on that idea. Your parents would be justifiably upset at the idea of anyone putting you in a dress.”

“Okay then how do we explain this?” I waved my hands to indicate my body and clothes.

“W-well, you could say that I confronted you this morning and persuaded you to come, er, to come into my shop and, er, and talk”

"I suppose. Then once inside, you convince me to give the dancing trial a go, only like Miss Ephemeris, you only had girls’ costumes. I figured since it was just you and me, why the hell not...”

“Language please.”

“Why the fuck not then. Once I had a go, I realised that here was something I really want to do."

"I still don't understand how we explain the transformation."

"We don't! Have you taken stupid pills today? Or is it just something that happens to people when they grow up, in which case kill me now.

"Look, I put on the dress, we go into your practice area where you put me through a few routines. I discover that I'm pretty good, and that I enjoy it, even down to wearing the dress, then when I come back in here to change, we discover that something weird has happened to me. We can't explain it, but the way things are, my old clothes don't fit anymore, so I stay in the dress."

"And you think your parent's will be okay with what's happened to you."

"I doubt it, but they'll have to deal, the same way I am."

"Er, one very important point to make is, I need you to come back here. You need to train, and we need to try and thin down the number of vampires before the concentration of ley line activity goes critical, hopefully enough to prevent it from doing so. If you've undergone this much of a transformation after one visit with me, do you really think they'll allow you to come back?"

“Yeah. I mean, what evidence is there that you caused this change in me?”

“Circumstantial evidence.”

“Okay, but that’s hardly proof.”

“I doubt your parents will be that interested in proof. The merest suggestion that I might have had anything to do with it should be sufficient.” He was cleaning his glasses again.

“Maybe, but nothing can explain what’s happened to me, can it? And nothing’s going to change me back, is it? So in the end, what are they going to do?”

“That’s what I’m worried about. We really don’t have a great deal of time you see, and if they do as I suspect, and forbid you from coming back here, then the consequences will likely be severe. And, and for more than just you and me.”

“I thought it was you and I.”

“Common misconception. Imagine the sentence referring to yourself alone. The first-person conjugation would be the same in either case.” His voice was distracted as though he were speaking on autopilot.

“So what do you think me should do?”

“What?”

“You said imagine the sentence as though it was referring to me alone.”

“Good Lord, whatever do they teach in schools these days?”

“But...”

“This is hardly the time for a grammar lesson. Then again, I honestly have no better ideas than your crazy one. I have considerable misgivings about it, but in the absence of an alternative, it is at least a plan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I believe it was John Claudius Louden who once said, ‘Any plan at all, even a bad plan, is better than none.’”

“Who was he? Some famous general or something?”

“No, he was a botanist, I believe.

"I think you're giving your parents altogether too much credit for rational thought. They're going to see their boy partially transformed, and they're going to get pretty upset about it."

"I imagine so, but what if I tell them this is what I want?"

"Is it?"

"I think so. I mean I've not really given it much thought before today, but the way things clicked for me since I came here this morning, and I guess the way I felt at the trials... I’ve always felt out of place, you know?"

"We all do to some extent when we're young. It's normal. Part of what drives us to change."

"The difference is that the way I am now, even as the freak I am…"

"You shouldn't say things like that."

"I am effectively a chick with a dick, a shemale. I look like a girl, even sound like one, sort of, but I'm not one."

"Point made, but you're not a freak. You’re just… different."

"Fine. The difference is that even… different… as I am, I feel more right than I ever have. I really do think I want this, and if being here and dancing, for whatever reason, can trigger more of a change, then wild horses won't keep me from coming back."

"I still think your parents are, are likely to object."

"Then I'll just have to be super persuasive, won't I? Look, there isn't any other way as far as I can see. We can't explain the transformation any other way, so we have to admit ignorance on that one, which means we have to show transparency elsewhere."

"I’m really not sure I like this."

"You don't have to. What you will have to do is get ready for a visit from the authorities."

"Now I really love your plan."

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Apart from lock you in a room with a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters.”

“Apart from that, sure. Maybe best you don’t mention that bit. For the rest of it stick to the script. You saw me in try outs. You wanted to talk to me about coaching me. When you talked to me today, you persuaded me to give you a trial.”

“And when they ask me why I chose to give you a dress to wear?”

“Tell them it was my idea.”

“What?”

“And you’re back to whatting, again.”

‘What?”

“Yeah, like I said.

“Look, Miss Ephemeris put me in a dress at try outs. That’s going to come out whatever happens. I’m going to be saying that since then I’ve had strange feelings about wanting to put one on again, and when you told me to get changed, that’s what I chose. If you can get hold of some male costumes to put in your wardrobe that might help them believe you.”

“I told you, there is no contemporary costume that would allow you...”

“To fight vampires. I get that, but we’re telling them I was trying out for Irish dancing.”

“Oh. I see what you mean.”

“So when I chose to put on this outfit, you tried to talk me out of it, but I said I’d only try out for you if you let me wear it. You had your misgivings, but I had already changed.”

“Alright, then how do we explain what happened to the clothes you were wearing when you turned up this morning?”

“Well, what did happen to them?”

“What?”

“I’m going to start charging you every time you do that.”

“What!?”

“Okay, one pound please.” I put my hand out

“What?”

“Two pounds.”

“Will you stop messing around?’

“Well you tell me what you actually did with my clothes? You know, in real life? They were beyond rescuing, I think you said.”

“I threw them in the rubbish bin.”

“Then maybe you should retrieve them.”

‘They’re disgusting.”

“I imagine they are, but I’m guessing they’ll clean up reasonably well. Leave them on the floor in the changing room and say I refused to change back, that I ran out of your shop wearing this lot.”

“What makes you think they’d believe that piece of fiction?”

“Because it’s what I’ll be telling them too. Sometime during our practice session my body changed into this. How I don’t know. I’ll probably tell them something about it being a creepy, occult sort of place, and maybe it was some kind of black magic did this to me. When I noticed, I freaked out and ran away.”

“Well, I suppose that’s plausible at least from your point of view, but what about your wanting all this?”

“It’s one thing to want to turn into a girl. It’s something else for it to actually happen, or nearly happen as in my case. I’ll say after I calmed down a bit, I realised this was actually something I was okay with.”

“Well, I suppose it’s not such a ludicrous story after all, except I imagine the police are going to ask me to provide some evidence to show I acted properly in all this. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't seem to apply when concerning misdemeanours involving minors, and I did invite you into the shop on your own."

"So we go back into the arena and you film me going through a few routines."

"God, that'll be worse. Not only am I luring you into my lair, but now I'm taking videos!"

"Except you give the video to me to take home. You didn't want to talk to my parents until you'd discovered whether or not I was actually as good at as you first thought, and something I wanted to do. I noticed your cameras and stuff and suggested you make the video for me to take home to show my parents as a sort of way to show them what this is all about, and to show off what I can do already. It'll give me ammunition for my discussion with Mum and Dad as well as provide evidence that you weren't doing anything dodgy."

"And if any vampires turn up while we're filming?"

"Then I take care of them, we clean up if necessary, record over the dodgy bits and try again."

He sighed.

"Well, I, I, I have to admit I have no better idea what to do, so I suppose we'll give it a try."

"It'll probably be better if the video has me in more conventional footwear though." I pointed to the blade-spike heels on the shoes I was wearing.

He reached into the back of the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of shoes with a considerably blockier and less lethal heel, then headed off in search of a video camera.

#

"Hi Mum, hi Dad, I'm home," I called as I walked into the house. "I, er, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Nerves were eating me up, but best to get this done with. I’d texted Nick after leaving the shop to say I needed some alone time. That wasn’t unusual for me, since I’d always struggled with bouts of melancholy, so he just text back with his usual easy going, ‘yeah whatever,’ and that was that.

Walking around in public in a dress after I’d left the shop had been more than a little disconcerting to start with since so many folks I passed turned to look at me. At first I couldn’t help thinking they could see through the clothes to the boy underneath, and paranoia added to the churning turmoil in my stomach. Then an old lady put a hand on my arm and stopped me.

“Are you alright dear?” she asked. “You look quite pail.”

I laughed nervously and shook my head. Long, full bodied, strawberry blond waves swung into my field of vision. “No, it’s...” My voice sounded high pitched and naturally girly. Reminders that I wasn’t exactly me. “Cramps,” I said with another short laugh. It was a magic word other girls my age used indiscriminately, guaranteed to conjure sympathy in most women and extreme nervousness in most men.

“Well best you get home then, dear. Do you live nearby? I used to find a hot water bottle helped.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I’m not far.”

“You’d be better off in more sensible shoes, dear, mind you I can see why you’d want to wear heels with legs like yours.”

I’d left the shop wearing the lower, blockier heels I’d used during the filming, but Mr Tweedy had insisted I take a pair of weaponised heels with me, which I had in one of his shop’s bags, complete with shop name and occult symbol printed on the side.

I thanked the lady again, a little nervous as to why a random stranger should stop me in the streets, but after that I started enjoying the attention a little more.

Until home appeared around the corner. This was not going to be any easy conversation.

Scene fade back to me standing nervously inside my front door, waiting with some trepidation for a response.

Dad appeared in his office doorway, his habitual friendly smile froze into a rictus grin at the sight of me.

"What do you think you're wearing?"

"It's a dress Dad. It's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Language, darling," Mum said as she came through from the dining room. "Hello sweetie, are you okay, your voice sounds a little… Oh my!"

"Yeah. Surprise! I'm sorry, but I didn't know how else to tell you."

"What happened to you darling?" Mum asked, taking in my shorter stature, narrower waist and other assets. Dad, by this time, was at the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a very generous glass of something.

It took me half an hour to go through my sanitised version of the events that led to me coming home dressed as a girl, and above all looking like one. Overall, it did not go well.

Throughout the whole thing I couldn't take my eyes off my dad's jaw as the muscles bunched with each new revelation. He refilled his glass twice and had more or less emptied it for the third time when I reached the end of my tale. I could see the worry in Mum's eyes, though whether she was more concerned about what I was telling them, or Dad's reaction, I'm not sure.

"I think that's about it," I said, "but it's not the whole story." It was evident that both my parents needed something more. Oddly I found I also needed to add something of my own.

"This has been building for quite some time," I added. "I can't be sure exactly when, but something’s felt off probably about as far back as I can remember." I had their attention. The last of Dad's drink hovered halfway to his lips. He lowered it again without drinking any more. Mum's eye's showed less concern and more interest.

"I've always felt different," I said slowly, deliberately. It struck me that I had rehearsed this moment in my mind before now, but I’d not never imagined a scenario with a good outcome, so to be actually going through with it was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. "When I was a lot younger, I could never figure out exactly what, though. I remember at nursery school, I always wanted to play with the sewing boards, and do skipping with the girls, and I hated it when the lads went off to play football or something and I was made to go with them. They always called me a sissy, and I guess I was a bit of a wimp, and they'd pick on me and make fun of me.

"By the time I started at secondary school, I'd pretty much learned to keep to myself. None of the girls wanted anything to do with me because I was a guy, and pretty much the only guys who showed any interest in me were the ones who wanted to use me as a punchbag."

"I remember," Mum said gently. "You used to come back in the most awful states. Uniform torn, bloody nose. We had words with the school, but they said there wasn't much they could do."

"Nothing happened on school grounds, Mum. Except maybe the taunts and the threats. They waited 'til the end of the day and made sure they caught up with me on my way home."

"There was that one time during PE."

That had been a bad day.

We'd been changing in preparation for a couple of hours' worth of some mindless activity for which I knew I would have neither interest nor aptitude. Our PE teacher's phone had rung, and he'd disappeared to deal with some crisis elsewhere in the school, and the moment he had gone, a bunch of my classmates – term used in its loosest sense – had turned on me, half a dozen of them holding me down while one arsehole wrote 'fairy' across my forehead in biro. He wasn't gentle, and left enough of an imprint that the word had remained legible for more than a week, even after I spent an hour scrubbing at it to remove the ink.

The changing room had been suspiciously silent when the teacher returned, and he'd paused to find out what had been going on in his absence. He spotted me soon enough, and barely managed to conceal a smile once he made out the word. He, of course, asked me who'd done it, and when I refused to name anyone, he became angry with me, all but accusing me of bringing on my own misfortune.

He decided that punishment was in order though and turned on the rest of the class for information. When it became apparent that no-one was prepared either to own up or to point a finger, he sent me to the head teacher’s office and the rest of the class out to do laps of the running track in the rain for what remained of the lesson.

After an awkward fifteen minutes enduring the head’s baleful glare in stubborn silence, I’d been sent back to my class, where I’d joined the rest of them running in the rain.

When he called us in to shower and change, and still no-one would say anything, he put the entire class in detention, myself included since I wouldn't co-operate any more than the rest of them.

Through some bizarrely twisted logic which I still can't fathom, my classmates decided that I was somehow to blame for this latest misfortune, and I suffered a number of dirty looks as well as a minor accident or two in the showers. It scared the arsehole with the biro enough that he intercepted me on my way home, and threatened to make the scars permanent if ever I caused trouble for him. The worst of it was, I believed him.

Despite my protests, Mum and Dad took the incident to the police, which meant they came into the school and set up an interview panel. Somewhat predictably, I was interviewed first, and again I refused to give up a name, telling them I had no confidence in their ability to protect me. The worst they could do to arsehole was expel him from our school, possibly send him to borstal for a short while, but this would be little more than an inconvenience to him. He was one to nurture grudges and he lived in my neighbourhood, so sooner or later he'd catch up with me.

The police went on to interview the entire school, but arsehole managed to intimidate anyone he thought might be inclined to say anything, and by the end of the week, they had nothing new to go on, so they packed up and left us alone.

On the plus side, the few day's they spent in the school brought me a short lived respite from the usual bullying; on the minus, when it restarted, my persecutors had a lot of pent up frustration to get rid of.

After the police withdrew, I joined a school club for every afternoon of the week so I could delay my return home for an extra hour. It didn't work. Arsehole was intent on punishing me for what misdemeanour I can’t begin to imagine, and he made it all the worse because I made him wait. He did lose interest after a month or so though.

"School was a pretty miserable time," I said. "It was never something I could talk to you guys about, because when you reacted like you did that time, everything became worse. The police never had enough proof to accuse that guy of anything, he still caught up with me on my way home and beat me up, and everyone in the school ended up hating me, not just the kids, but the teachers as well."

"Why?" Dad asked. "I'd have thought they'd want to deal with someone like that."

"In the end, they were more worried about the school's reputation than anything else."

"So what did you do?"

"I kept my head down and tried to stay out of trouble. I did things that meant I got to stay on after school. Even after things blew over, I kept on with the after school things, because only the most persistent of the bullies was prepared to wait for me."

"I did think it was an odd selection of interests," Mum said. "Drama club, what was it, D&D or something? Tai Chi, art and the homework club. I mean you didn't even take art at GCSE, and you were never behind on your homework."

"Yes the drama was all the more puzzling," Dad said. "I mean after having that word inscribed on your forehead, didn’t you go and accepted the roll of Juliette in the school play. That made no sense."

"They only had female rolls left when I asked to join. The drama teacher wanted the play to be true to Shakespearean times, which meant no female actors. He couldn’t quite manage that but he was insistent the lead role should be a boy, and he liked me for Juliette."

"You did really well," Mum said through a sad smile.

It had been my first introduction to female clothing, and where I'd met Nick. It was a confusing time, in part because of my mixed feelings about the costume, and in part because of how the play had pushed me into an unusual interaction with him.

Part of me had loved wearing the dresses, but the bigger part of me had been worried about how the rest of the school would react. I almost quit, but the play was the only after school event on a Thursday, and I was more afraid of going home early, so I'd stuck with it. Fortunately the drama group were pretty open minded, especially with so many lads taking on the major female rolls, and news of my part in the whole thing only made it to the general population after the play's first showing, when local critics had raved about it, and me in particular.

Oddly that split the school. Most of the teachers, and even a number of the pupils were impressed that I not only took the roll, but did so well with it, and even though I ended up being taunted all the more by the rest of the student population, I had some people looking out for me, and that made life bearable for a while.

Nick, who had landed the roll of Romeo, and I became friends. I may have developed something of a crush on him, playing his lover in the play, but I wasn't gay, and neither was he I thought, so I sat on my feelings, and just enjoyed being with him.

I didn't wear a dress again after that, at least not until Miss Ephermeris insisted at the try-outs. On occasions I'd think about how I'd felt as Juliette, but my life was shit enough without borrowing trouble, so I'd buried those feelings deep and focused on my studies. Fortunately by then GCSEs had been looming and nobody had time for anything much other than study.

I helped Nick after school, and we both did better than expected in the exams. We then both went on to join the local sixth form college, and that was when life had improved.

For one thing I had my friend with me. For another I was studying only what interested me, and alongside others who were interested in the subjects. For yet another, the stuff we were learning had some depth to it at last. I’d always found school studies tedious and unchallenging.

"So anyway," I said, snapping back into the now, "I guess I was always too busy running away to really figure out what was going on in my life, and then joining in at the try-outs – it wasn't really my idea, but I found I really enjoyed it. I think those Tai Chi classes helped, you know, helped my find me centre, my balance, but for the most part it was amazing being up there. The dancing is so cool, and, and, and I'm not sure how to say this."

"Say what?" Dad asked, but I could see from his eyes that he was dreading the answer.

"Wearing the dress, being one of the girls. It was like when I did the Shakespeare, only more overwhelming. I feel right being a girl, more right than at any time in my life. It was confusing, but Miss Ephermeris suggested I go and see this guy at that weird shop at the arcade. Apparently he knows a lot about this sort of thing – the dancing I mean – and he was at the try-outs. She seemed to think he’d be interested in coaching me."

"To wear a dress?" Dad was outraged.

"There are guys who do Irish dancing as well, Dad. Miss Ephermeris mentioned this Micky Flatulance or something?"

"Michael Flatley." He corrected absently. "So how did you end up in a dress today then?"

"He had a wardrobe full of costumes and he asked me to change into one of them so he could evaluate me. The men’s things were a bit gay...”

Dad’s laugh interrupted me. “And what you’re wearing isn’t?”

“Dad, they were all sparkly sequins, tight leggings and open fronted shirts. Effeminate without being feminine. The dresses kind of felt more normal, less wrong. For me at least.

“He wasn’t that happy about it, but I told him if he wanted me to show what I could do, this was the only way it was going to happen.”

“He put me through a few routines, and each time he kept increasing the complexity and getting more excited about what I could do. He said the next thing to do would be to ask your permission to make a video of me he could take to some contacts of his in the business. I asked why wait, and he said he wasn’t about to film me without my parents’ permission, so I suggested he do so anyway and let me bring the video back to show you, that it would be so much easier for me to explain how I felt about this if I could show you. He relented eventually. Do you want to see it?”

I rummaged in the shop bag for the DVD he’d recorded.

“Stop, Mitchel,” Dad said. “This is... I don’t know, this is too much. You go out to the arcade with Nick for your usual Saturday morning mooch and you come back looking like a... looking like a...”

“Girl,” Mum finished for him. “I mean you look so different, and it’s not just the clothes. You even have...” She made a timid pointing gesture at my chest, as if any more overt acknowledgment if my booblettes’ existence would somehow make them real. “I mean how did this happen?”

I looked down at myself. “I don't know, Mum. I was my normal self when we started, then by the time I’d finished my workout, I looked like this." I indicated my body, "He was more astonished and upset by it than me. I mean, I know I should be freaked out by all this, but I'm really not. I really want this, Mum, Dad. However this happened, whatever caused me to change like this, I don't care, I feel amazing, and I don't want it to stop. Ever."

They exchanged worried glances.

"Look, I'll go and see doctors and psychiatrists, and whoever else you think, but please… All my life I felt I've been running away from shit, and I've never felt there was anything I particularly wanted until now. I know it's weird, but it feels like everything I've been going through has led to this."

"What's this person's name?" Dad asked, still a long way from convinced. "I want to talk to him."

"Er." It had never occurred to me to ask.

"You mean to say that you were prepared to let a complete stranger put you in a frock, and you don't even know his name?"

"Miss Ephermeris does. She recommended I go see him. I don't know Dad, it never came up."

Dad went hunting for the school directory, then picked up the phone, stabbing the buttons angrily. He paced while waiting for an answer.

"Miss Ephermeris. Richard Geller here. I was wondering if you'd care to explain to me why you thought it appropriate to put my son in a dress...

"Uhuh. Uhuh. And did you also dress Mitchel's friend up?…

"And why would that be? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to make an example of them both?…"

He glanced across at me, evidently not pleased with what he was being told.

"I see. I believe you also suggested that Mitch contact a certain individual, you know owns that odd shop in town?…"

"Yes, that's what my son said… Yes I understand… I wonder, would you happen to have the gentleman's name and telephone number?"

He scribbled on a piece of paper.

"Thank you Miss Ephermeris, and just so you know, I don't consider this matter closed."

He put the phone down.

"Dad, she didn't do anything wrong…"

"She was the first to dress you up like this, she introduced you to that, that, weirdo, and now look at you."

"You think this happened because she made me put on a dress, or because what's his name…"

"Stuart Giles, apparently."

"...because Mr Giles did the same? Dad, this was in me before either of them got involved…"

"And it would have stayed in you. For God's sake boy, they've done a number on you, and you don't even realise it…"

"No Dad. It's like the rest of the world has done a number on me. Sure this is all a surprise, but I haven't been brain washed, not into accepting this." Again I pointed at the dress I was wearing. "If I've been conditioned in any way, it's to act normal. I'm sorry, but I'm not normal, and I'm not ashamed of being like this."

"We'll see," he said, poking at the numbers on the phone again. "Mr Giles? Yes, Richard Geller here. My son was with you earlier… Yes, Mitchel. I don't suppose… Yes I see, but you can't be serious… Yes, but he's my son… I know what he bloody well looks like, and I hold you responsible… No I don't care about that. I just want my son back… Mitchel is confused at the moment… Well, we'll see about that, won't we? No I don't intend letting him see you again. Good day.

"Bloody cheek."

"What did he say?" Mum had been quiet for some time.

"Tried to convince me that Mitchel was really good at this prancing about in a skirt. Told me that I should be listening to what he wants."

"Well maybe we should."

"He doesn't know what he bloody wants! Look at him!"

"He's right here in the room Dad, and he does know what he 'bloody wants'. If you'd just listen to what I've been trying to say…"

"No! I will not have this!"

"Dad, it's not up to you."

"It damn well is, at least for a month or so yet. May I remind you, young man, that you are not yet an adult in the eyes of the law, and while you are my responsibility, I forbid you from seeing that creepy nut job. What's more you can go and change out of those bloody clothes."

He pointed at the stairs and glared at me until I stood, a little uncertainly, to my feet.

"Go on dear," Mum said. "I need to have a little chat with your father anyway."

So I did. There were tears under the surface, but I kept them there. For the most part, I was angry. I wouldn't let it show though. Something in me told me that would be letting him win, so I just walked up to my room as calmly as I could.

Undressing was strange. My body was so different from the way it had been earlier. My skin was softer, and my body shape was so very changed. Not just the loss in height and muscle mass, but the broader hips, the narrower waist, the breasts, or sort of breasts. My nipples and the darker areas around them were still small, but there was no real question that they now sat on two fatty globes. I looked like a girl, all except for the bit between my legs.

I could hear raised voices downstairs, but couldn't make out the words. It was going to be about me, which meant it was going to be my business, but I decided not to try and listen. I didn't particularly want anyone to see the new me naked in any case.

I took time to hang the dress up properly, then went hunting for the sort of clothes my dad wanted to see me in.

The boxers hung loose and uncomfortable about my waist, and a little tighter lower down around my hips. The trousers were a joke, also loose about the waist and tight about my larger, rounder back end, and the legs were inches too long, reaching as far as my toes. The tee-shirt tented around my pectoral enhancements and hung loose everywhere else, and the sweatshirt swamped me, again with arms that were far too long.

I rolled up the trouser legs and sleeves to a serviceable length, and looked in the mirror.

I looked like a girl wearing her boyfriend's clothes; if anything I looked more like a girl wearing my own clothes than I did in Mr Giles’s dress. It brought a smile to my face, and for a second, I thought of Nick. A familiar, warm feeling rose inside of me, which I realised had worried me more than a little since our few moments of fame on the school stage, but which seemed far more natural now. I mean, sure I was still a guy, but looking at myself in the mirror, I felt more like the girl it seemed I'd always wanted to be. And if I really was a girl...

The voices had subsided downstairs. Now would be a good time to show them just how much difference male clothes made to my appearance.

The silence was one of those frosty kinds, with such a charge in the atmosphere that everyone with sense trod very carefully, in fear of grounding some of the unspoken anger. I didn't have that kind of sense, besides, I had some unspoken anger of my own.

"Hey Dad," I said keeping my voice as neutral as I could. "Is this better?"

He spun around, ready to let fly again, but what he saw apparently knocked the wind out of his sails. His legs gave out under him and he collapse. Fortunately into a chair.

"I changed my underwear as well, but I'm not sure it's doing much good. Neither my boxers nor my trousers fit anymore. They’re kind of tight across my bum, and way too loose up here." I lifted the excessive folds of my sweatshirt to show him my waspish waist. "Also , I took the bra off, but I think I need something to stop these guys from jiggling." I lifted the sweatshirt further and bounced on the spot. Tight as they were under my tee-shirt, my pseudoboobs responded with a suitably eye-popping performance. "Also, I really don't think my shoes are going to fit any more." I'd picked up a pair from the hallway and held them against one of my baggily socked feet. The shoe was a good inch and a half, perhaps two inches, longer.

"I hate to say, 'I told you so,'" Mum said quietly, "but…"

"How did this happen?" Dad managed after he'd regained some of his composure. You'd have thought it would have sunk in the first time he saw me. I mean the changes to my body were pretty out there, but I suppose you can live in all kinds of denial.

"I don't have an answer, Dad." At least not one you'd accept. "When you get into the dancing, it kind of takes over. I was concentrating so much on what I was doing, I don't think I can even tell you when it happened. Like I told you earlier, I started off looking like I used to, and by the time I'd done, I looked like this.

"I don't understand how you can't be upset by this though."

"Because it takes me closer to what I want to be. I can't explain it any other way, but I wish you could see that.”

“You weren’t like this yesterday, or this morning even, Mitchel. People don’t change just like that. To live is be slowly born.”

Okay, favourite quotes time, which meant lecture mode wasn’t far away. Intervention needed.

“Dad! I haven’t changed. Nothing’s changed.”

“After what you’ve just shown me, you have the temerity to I say that?”

“On the inside, Dad. That quote’s all about us changing on the inside. Sure, my body’s different, but the me inside is just the same. Except that me didn’t fit with what I was like on the outside, and now I’m closer to matching.

“You don't think I've tried to figure any of this out before today? I mean you must have noticed, I've been pretty low for a long time, and I’ve never been able to figure out why.”

“That’s just growing up, son. We all go through it.”

“You never went through what I did, Dad. I mean were you ever picked on at school?”

“How many times did I tell you, you need to stand up to bullies.”

“Yeah. ‘Pull yourself together.’ That was your answer to everything I went through, wasn’t it. Do you know how much it helped? Not one fucking bit!”

“Mitchel! Language!”

Mum didn’t particularly like bad language, but I don’t recall her ever and reacting so strongly.

“Sorry Mum.”

“Get in the car.” Dad’s lips were drawn into a thin line. “Go fetch that fucking dress and get in the car. We’re going to go see this Stuart Giles person. He did this to you. He can bloody well undo it.”

I looked at Mum, but there was no reaction. Apparently language was more of an issue if you looked and sounded like a girl.

I went to fetch the dress, folding it carefully and adding it with the tights and fighting shoes to the Magic Box bag. Since none of my shoes fit, I had to resort to the blocky heels I’d worn home.