By Tanya Allan
Take two young people: - John in England and Amy in California. Take a common factor: - both recognised that they had been born into the wrong gender. As they grow up, they realise that their bodies are in imminent danger of changing into something neither wants.
Result: - Two very unhappy souls.
Their dreams are the only place they can find solace. Then they start to dream of each other, and to get a little glimpse of the other’s life. Over time they learn how to crossover at will and not just when asleep. They start to leave childhood behind as puberty beckons. The lines become blurred, who is where?
Solution: - One of them takes the bold step and suggests they try to live each other’s lives. Will it work?
Find out……………………….
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Originally written in 2006 - never posted, Reworked & Revised in 2009.
The Legal Stuff:The Other Side Of Dreams ©2006, 2009 Tanya Allan
This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited.
This work is fictitious, and any similarities to any persons, alive or dead, are purely coincidental. Mention is made of persons in public life only for the purposes of realism, and for that reason alone. Certain licence is taken in respect of medical procedures, terms and conditions, and the author does not claim to be the fount of all knowledge.
The author accepts the right of the individual to hold his/her (or whatever) own political, religious and social views, and there is no intention to deliberately offend anyone. If you wish to take offence, that is your problem.
This is only a story, and it contains adult material, which includes sex and intimate descriptive details pertaining to genitalia. If this is likely to offend, then don’t read it.
Chapter 1
John first knew he should have been a girl when he was quite young. The funny dreams may have started at about the same time, but he couldn’t really remember. All he knew is that if it hadn’t been for the dreams, he could well have become yet another sad statistic that would have ended in up in life’s gutter.
To begin with, he started to remember his dreams. Now, usually, he was aware he dreamt, but would forget the dreams very quickly.
He also dreamed in colour, despite hearing somewhere that people could only dream in monochrome.
In his dreams he was always in sunshine, always with other children, all of whom were laughing, and he was always a girl. He knew this because he had long hair, wore dresses and just felt like a girl. It felt right.
However, the first dreams were wispy and vague, just leaving him feeling that there was more, somehow. He always felt happy immediately after the dream, but then became depressed as he realised he had to go back to the real world and being a boy.
He will never forget the first dream that had any substance.
It came at the end of a really bad day.
He was nine. It was 1987 and the school he went to was a small primary school in a small village, deep in the Cotswolds. As schools went it was no better or worse than any other.
The school had a big front door and two side doors. One of these side doors was marked ‘Boys’ and the other marked, ‘Girls’. He recalled the school being huge, but when after recently returning, it now looked very small and rather shabby.
Memories are funny things.
This particular day was one he tried to forget, but repeatedly failed. It was early September and the sun was still warm enough for the children to be allowed to take off their red pullovers at playtime. He had a friend called Jacquie. His parents knew her parents, so they had been friends ever since they could remember. However, on this day, they found themselves in breach of one of the worst unwritten rules in this particular school.
“Thou shalt not fraternise with the enemy!”
The ‘enemy’ being anyone having the appearance of being of a different gender.
The pair, both being completely innocent of this rule, sat comparing picture cards that were to be found in a particular brand of sweeties.
He had a selection of racing drivers, footballers and film stars. Jacquie had some film stars, some Star Wars cards and a host of others. They were sitting cross-legged in a secluded corner of the playground, when some shadows fell across them.
John looked up and saw Kenneth Myers, a rather large and particularly unpleasant boy whose father drove the local refuse truck. Two others boys were with him. They were followers and Kenneth was the leader.
To a nine year old, an eleven year old is almost an adult. Kenneth was larger than most eleven year olds, yet he unfortunately had the intellect of a five year old.
“Wot you doin’?”
“Looking at cards.” John said.
“Gimme!” he said, snatching the cards from his hand.
“No, you give me them back,” John demanded, trying to get them back from him.
Kenneth simply laughed and punched the smaller boy in the tummy.
It was the first time John had ever been punched, so it came as a real shock. He was winded, but not really hurt. The surprise made him sit down hard and he started to cry.
Jacquie turned on Kenneth and told him he was a bully. John didn’t hear the actual words, as he was too busy being sorry for himself.
Ken simply laughed, saying, “Boys and girls mustn’t mix. He had it coming.”
One of the others said something, so Kenneth reached down and grabbed John’s shorts.
“Let’s see if he is really a girl, he certainly cries like one.”
With that Ken tugged at the shorts and pulled, but was unable to remove them. At this point Mrs Hepburn came over and grabbed him by the ear, pulling him off the crying boy.
“Kenneth. You're a revolting little bully. What did I tell you about picking on smaller children?” she said.
Kenneth was now the one crying, but threw the cards onto the ground. He had scrunched them up in his hands so they were now almost all ruined.
He was taken off to see the Head Teacher, so John and Jacquie picked up the scattered cards. Jacquie was so cross, but John was more ashamed of himself than anything else.
She helped him pick up the cards, and then they tried to straighten them out.
“He’s a pig,” she said, to which John had to agree.
“Mind you, you do look like a girl,” she said, as he went bright red.
“It’s because of your hair. I think your mum should cut it. Mind you, I’d rather be a girl than a boy. Boys are horrid things,” she said, smiling knowingly. “Except you, that is.”
When one is nine, one’s gender is not an overbearing concern. It wasn’t the first time that John actually thought about it, but he could hardly voice his feelings. He actually agreed with her, as he thought he would much rather be a girl too.
He had an older brother, Miles, and a sister, Rebecca. Miles bullied John unmercifully, as he was ten and a half, while twelve year-old Becky was always the little lad’s idol. She was kind and considerate, so would always protect him from Miles. He adored her, but loathed his brother.
“I’d rather be a girl!” he said, rather rashly and unwisely considering that Kenneth’s mates were still hanging about. But it was heartfelt, which as he got older, became an all-consuming part of whom he was.
When it was time to go home, he had more or less forgotten about the incident. As Jacquie and John walked home after school, Kenneth and one of his cronies intercepted them. Jacquie only lived 400 yards down the street, and on the same side of the road. They had to pass the village shop, and it was there Kenneth ambushed them.
“You got me into trouble,” Ken said accusingly at them.
“You did it by yourself. If you hadn’t stolen my cards and hit me, nothing would have happened,” John said.
Kenneth hit him again.
This time he hit him in the face, causing his nose to bleed.
With both hands at his face and tears in his eyes, John didn’t see Jacquie as she went for Ken like a terrier after a rat. He was told later that she just ran at him and raked his face with her nails, and then kicked and slapped him so much that he ran away.
They pair managed to get to her house, which was closer by about fifty yards, and John was sat on the kitchen draining board as her mum, Anna, saw to his mortal wounds.
Actually, it had stopped bleeding by the time they got there, but she helped clean him up, and made him feel better.
He had never cried like that before, when the breaths seem to come in great gulps and it was almost like whooping cough.
Anna called John’s mother, Kathleen, who was round like a shot. He was her baby, so she did mollycoddle him a bit. She was all for going to the police.
John’s father was a neurosurgeon who worked in the Oxford NHS Trust in Oxford itself. There were several hospitals in Oxford, both NHS and private, so he divided his time between the two. By the time he got home from work, John’s mother was on the verge of calling the Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police at home.
His father, James Brightwell, was a rock steady, realist of a man, so in a way he was actually quite pleased that his son had had his first fight and lived to tell the tale. He knew that life was tough at times, and no amount of protection would prepare a child for the big bad world.
“Ye hae te realise, Johnnie, nae ayebody will be a friend, an’ if ye want te get through life, then ye must recognise friends and enemies fast. Now ye hae te learn how te take care o’ yersel’!”
It ought to be explained that his father was a Scotsman, but despite being married to an Englishwoman and having lived in England for sixteen years, his accent was straight from many miles north of the border.
Wee John adored his Dad, as he was always there for him, so despite other things being pressing, James would always make time to do stuff with his boys.
So much so, that John would try hard to talk like his father whenever he was with him. His mother found this amusing to start with, and then got a little annoyed, but it was a fad, and one that would pass, she thought and hoped.
When John went to bed that evening, he was not happy. It had been a bad day and, if he was honest, it was the first bad day he ever had. It wasn’t going to be his last.
He lay there, listening to Miles fidgeting in the other bed. He had long ago learned to keep very still and pretended to go to sleep instantly, so as to avoid any interaction with Miles. Such interaction usually ended up with John in pain and crying.
He listened as his brother’s breathing settled down, so gauged him to be asleep. He was free now to expand into his own make-believe world. His imagination knew no bounds, as the wonderful thing about his world, was that he could be whoever and whatever he wanted to be.
He thought about the things that had been said to him and about him. He thought about what Jacquie had said about him looking like a girl, and that boys were horrid. He decided then and there that he should have been a girl, so tried to imagine how different life would be.
For a start, Jacquie and he could be best friends forever. Miles would be outnumbered by girls, two to one. Kenneth only bullied boys, so he would leave him alone.
He could wear pretty dresses and have long hair tied back with different coloured ribbons. He could play with dolls without Miles teasing him and calling him a sissy.
As he drifted off to sleep, he smiled at the thought of how much nicer life would be.
He awoke with a start.
You know those strange times when one wakes up and for some reason everything is strange for a moment, and then one’s brain catches up and one remembers?
Well, that was how he felt.
Only this time, his brain didn’t catch up.
He sat up in the darkness, his heartbeat sounding loud in his head, as he tried to find something familiar to bring his brain back on track.
HisMy eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, but his heart rate increased. He wasn’t in his room any more.
Miles wasn’t in the other bed, because there wasn’t another bed.
He fumbled for the light, but even that wasn’t there. There was a wall where his table and light used to be, but where the wall had been, there was a void.
He stepped into the void and felt his bare feet on a rug. He fumbled with his arms until he found the door, feeling around to locate the light switch. When he found it, even the switch was of a different type.
He turned on the light and looked around.
There was a girl in the room. She was staring at him with horror written across her face.
She was about his age, dressed in a long pretty nightdress with teddy bears on it. She had very long fair hair and big blue eyes. She was standing with a door behind her, as he did.
John’s heart almost stopped. For there was only one door in the room, but it was behind him.
He was looking into a mirror that was on the front of a large wardrobe.
The pretty girl was him!
He stood there, frozen to the spot, when the door behind him, or her opened.
“Hey Honey, did ya have a nasty dream?” this strange woman asked. She was wearing a skirt and top, so either she had yet to go to bed, or it was time to get up. Her next few words signified the former.
The girl stared at the woman in complete confused amazement.
“Is she okay?” said a male voice from outside the room.
“Sure, she’s still half asleep. She’s had a nasty dream. I’ll just put her back to bed,” said the woman.
“Come on Amy, back to bed, hun. You’ve school in the morning, so you need all the sleep you can get.”
John let the woman drag him back to bed. She then tucked him in, kissing him on the temple. She put on a small night-light that was fitted to the socket on the wall by the door.
“Sleep tight, Honey-bun. Don’t let the bugs bite,” she said and walked out.
John lay there in the dim light. He saw some pictures, and a dressing table. A My Little Pony with a purple mane was on the dressing table next to Barbie and a make up model face with real hair. The latter was still in its box.
This was a girl’s room.
The woman was American, as was the man who never came in.
Her parents?
The girl (that John dreamed he was) got out of bed and walked to the window, looking out.
There were some hills in the distance and a street below the window. It was a street like lots of movies, lined with trees at regular intervals and neat lawns. Individual detached homes, in a nice neighbourhood, with driveways, sprinklers and letterboxes on poles. It was a well-to-do neighbourhood, but the cars were all strange because the steering wheels were on the wrong side.
The car on their driveway had a blue number plate with pale letters. The word California was above the letters and numbers.
John smiled.
This was a really cool dream!
He went to the mirror and looked at the reflection.
His smile became bigger.
The girl was really pretty.
Almost guiltily, he watched as the girl’s hand lifted the hem of the nightdress. The girl’s eyes became very large as the total absence of male genitalia was exposed.
John stood there, disbelieving his eyes. Her eyes? He looked at the girl in the mirror and swallowed. He took a pinch of skin and tweaked.
“Ow!” the girl said. Her voice was very loud in the night.
The girl touched herself, feeling her new gender for the first time. A look of wonder came over her, while the smile threatened to split her pretty face.
She went back to bed, snuggling down under the unfamiliar duvet and wondering how she could manage to make this dream last forever. She slept, the smile fixed on her face.
Amy was woken up by a strange noise.
It was a sort of buzzing noise.
She frowned and sat up, feeling disorientated.
The frown deepened, as things were all wrong. There was a wall to her right, so she wondered why someone had moved her bed in the night.
Then she saw there was another bed in the room, from which the annoying noise was emanating. There was someone in the other bed and he or she was snoring.
It was then she realised that somehow she was wearing pyjamas. She had pleaded with her Mom to let her wear PJs, but her dear Mommy insisted that her little girl only wore night dresses. She felt conflicting emotions when she thought about her mother. She loved her, but also despised some of her values and attitudes.
Mom had kept insisting she take part in child beauty pageants over the last few years, yet Amy hated them all with a passion. She had everything that mothers desired in their daughters; - a cute face, beautiful golden curls, a lovely voice, poise, a super smile and a charm that money could never buy. However, she was also stubborn and lacked the will, so reluctantly, her mother had finally given in and stopped entering her.
How come she was now wearing PJs?
She knew she’d had to slip on a night dress when she’d gone to bed, although she’d have loved to wear PJs, she knew she hadn’t. Had she?
She got out of bed.
She looked down in the gloom and grinned. These were boys’ PJs. They had tie tops and a split for their wieners to escape at toilet time.
She placed her hand into the split and froze to the spot.
She had a wiener!
She pulled the pants down and stared at the perfectly formed penis and small scrotum that lay close to the skin of her (his) crotch.
“What are you doing?” said another voice.
“Huh?” Amy said.
“What are you doing, you maggot?”
“Maggot?” Amy asked incredulously. She didn’t know who this guy was, but he was going the right way to get a beating.
The other boy sat up. “Are you wanking?” he asked.
“Huh?” Amy was confused.
“Oh, has little diddums had anudder nashty dweamy weamy?” said the boy, childish sarcasm dripping off every word.
Amy pulled up her (?) pants.
“Get stuffed Bozo!” she said, getting back into bed.
“Bozo? And what’s with the fake Yankie accent?”
“Hey, asshole. Go screw yourself!” Amy said. What was the point in having four older brothers if you couldn’t pick up their vocabulary?
The other boy was out of bed in a flash.
“What did you say? You little bugger, I’ll teach you to cheek me,” he said, almost snarling the last words.
Amy saw the boy raise his fist in a rather childish and ineffective way. She swung her legs out from under the duvet and kicked him in the groin.
As he went down, she punched him on the nose, hearing a satisfying ‘crunch’ as he fell back.
Needless to say, all hell let loose.
The boy screamed and howled, so within a few moments the lights came on. Two completely strange adults came in, both talking at once, asking what happened.
“He hit me!” the other boy said, pointing at Amy (or at the boy in whom Amy found herself).
“Oh yeah, like you didn’t come over here with your fist up, saying you were gonna beat on me first,” Amy said.
Both the adults looked at her.
“John, what did ye say?” asked the male.
“Huh?” she said, confused, as the man’s accent was real weird. And who was John?
“Miles, get back into bed. You aren’t hurt. What did I say to you about bullying your wee brother?”
“He hit me first!”
“Miles. How come you’re the one out of bed and over there, yet John is still in his bed?” the woman asked.
“He swore at me. He called me an asshole!”
There was stunned silence. Amy was aware that these people spoke a whole different English, particularly the man.
All were looking at her, so she decided she’d try to look innocent and lie.
“I didn’t. He’s lying,” she said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could. It seemed to work.
“Enough, both of you! If this goes on much longer, we’ll hae to separate you and convert the loft for another bedroom,” said the man.
The light went out and they left.
Amy lay in bed, with her heart thumping. She had always wanted to be a boy, but this was not they way she had wanted things to work out. She couldn’t remember a night when she didn’t pray for God to make her just like her brothers.
“Maggot! I’ll get you tomorrow,” the other boy whispered. Miles, was it? What a dumb name.
“Oh yeah, you an’ whose army, asshole,” said Amy with a grin.
That silenced Miles, who was frowning in his bed. It was the first time that John had ever stood up to him, so he found he was a little afraid, as the smaller boy had hurt and surprised him. It was bad enough having a weedy little brother, but he wasn’t sure he wanted one who fought back.
Amy held her new genitals and suppressed a giggle. If this was a dream, it was a hoot. If it wasn’t, she started to frown. If it wasn’t, then life could have just taken an unexpected turn.
She lay awake for ages, hoping that she could have the best of both worlds, her own home and family and a wiener. She drifted off to sleep, holding her crotch in case anyone would steal it.
Amy woke with the sunlight streaming through the window. As she blinked, she looked around her and noted the familiar old room and the trappings of her mother’s ideals of girlhood. She suppressed a sob of frustration. The dream had been so real she had almost believed it. Just as she struggled onto her elbows and looked at her hated dress that her mother had laid out for her to attend school in, she sighed.
Why couldn’t she have been a boy? She asked herself.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and thought about the dream. She wondered who the boy had been she had kicked and punched. She went to her small desk, and took out her diary. She sat and wrote down everything as she remembered it, and looked at what she had written:
|
She put her diary away just as her Mom came in.
“Morning sweetie. Are you okay after last night?”
“Last night?” Amy asked, as goose-bumps started to prickle her back.
“You had a nasty dream and we found you out of bed. You looked at us as if we were total strangers. Don’t you remember?”
Amy shook her head.
“Well, you were standing by the door, with the light on and seemed to be in some kind of shock. Did you have a dream or nightmare?”
Amy decided to admit to nothing until she knew what was going on. If she dreamed she was a boy somewhere else, so then was it possible that the boy dreamed he was her?
If so, then he would have got the shock of his life to be a girl.
Amy shrugged and shook her head, going to the bathroom. When she appeared at breakfast, dressed and looking very pretty, her Dad kissed her and went off to work.
“Mom, can’t I wear pants like some of the other girls?”
“Honey, you will be able to wear what you want in good time. But while I get a choice, you will look like the pretty little girl that you are.”
“But Mom, these dresses are so lame.”
“Amy, some people want everyone to look the same. I happen to believe that God made us different for a reason, so we should celebrate that difference and not try to look the same.”
Amy knew she was fighting a losing battle. She had four older brothers, the eldest being a US Marine and the youngest was still five years older than she. They were all her idols, but she so wanted to be like them.
However her mother had wanted a daughter from the outset, and Amy believed that if she hadn’t been a girl she would have kept going until she had had one.
Amy was the complete answer to her prayers. With beautiful blue eyes and golden curls, she was a truly beautiful baby, and was turning into an exceptionally beautiful girl.
Thus, Amy was feminised to the ultimate extreme.
Her hair was as long as it could be, and her clothes were the finest in frills and lace.
Her mother had entered her into every “Little Miss” competition and junior beauty pageant that existed, and she had won several trophies. Amy had hated each one more than the last and had put up such a fuss at the last one that her mother reluctantly agreed with her father to give it a rest for a while.
Her father had recognised that his wife had yearned for a girl, so was to a certain extent re-living her own youth through her daughter. He also recognised the complete disgust that Amy felt over the whole process, to such an extent he was aware that lasting damage was possible.
Whenever possible, he encouraged her to be the tomboy. All her brothers, without exception, adored her. She was affectionately known as Daddy’s little Spitfire and could mix it with the best of them.
She took part in all the activities that her brothers did and, much to her mother’s anguish, there was rarely a day when she didn’t appear with a new cut, bruise or a rip to her clothes.
She set off on the bus to school as usual, where she met up with her friends. All her friends were boys, as she found the girls were pretty insipid and mainly concerned with things that didn’t interest her at all. It was a real conundrum, as she was often the prettiest and dressed in the most effeminate manner, yet of all the girls in her year, she was the least feminine in outlook.
In fact, she had taken to packing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt in her backpack and changing on the bus. One or two of the girls were reasonably friendly, but her tomboyish antics made her less popular with most.
“Yo, Amy, how’ya doin’ girl?” said Paul Ross, her best friend.
“Hey Paul, I’m okay. Had a cool dream last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I dreamt I was a boy.”
Paul and a couple of the others laughed. Amy may look like a girl, but all who knew her recognised that at heart she was more of a boy than most of the boys.
She sat in her seat and took her jeans and tee shirt out of her pack. She struggled into her jeans while still wearing the dress, but then whipped the dress off and put on her tee shirt.
Stuffing her dress away into her pack, she then tied her long hair back in a ponytail and relaxed for the first time.
She proceeded to tell Paul about her dream.
“So this guy, John, d’you think that he switched with you?”
She shrugged.
“I dunno. I guess. Because, how else can you explain the fact that Mom says I got out of bed and I can’t remember it?”
“This is weird,” Paul stated.
“Yeah. I’d really like to be a boy, but I don’t know if I want to leave my mom and dad.”
“That sucks. Why not stay as you are? You’re cool as a girl.”
Amy shrugged, as she didn’t really know how to explain it. She knew what she felt, but didn’t have the words.
The bus pulled up outside the school and so another day started.
Comments
Suger, spice, snails and puppy dogs
Well you know the quote! Nicely done so far. Body switch stories usually leaves someone in the cold. This one however has started off with a bang and yet is sweet all at once. I thought you did an excellent job with Amy making the boy show though. Well done! All the characters seem kool and I'm looking forward to knowing them better. Once again Tanya you have captured my attention.
hugs!
grover
Yep, Great Start
I'm looking forward to where this one is going. So glad that you are posting it here.
Body Switches
I confess that body switch stories are usually not my cup of tea. There is still family to considered. In a sense they are fostering themselves out to the other family. Now what can happen is that our two protagonists switch families also but then they will no longer be blood relatives of course.
It gets complicated.
The body switch stories that seem to work in a satisfying manner is when the villain/ess who is forcing some kind of body exchange for whatever nefarious reason dies in the hero's decrepit body and the hero winds up in the villainess's young and healthy body so there is a net gain.
I really would like to see how this all pans out.
Kim
Amy/John - John/Amy
RAMI
Sounds like both children would be happy with the switch, but both have basically loving families (Miles will eventually mature), that they would miss dearrly. So I guess Amy's diary is going to become the means for communications between the children. When John returns to Amy's body and house again, I guess s/he will read Amy's diary entry, write one of his own to her begining an ongoing communiction.
Looks like this will be a fun story to follow.
RAMI
RAMI
A lovely premise
I find I'm enjoying another delightful body-switch story by Tanya Allan in spite of not particularly liking the "genre". She'll convert me yet.
- Moni
Very Good Beginning
I really like how this starts. It's not your usual body swap story -- as usual from Tanya. :)
I hope that the children can connect somehow and stay in touch with their original families, but I'm sure I'll like wherever this goes.
Thanks and please keep up the good work.
- Terry
Good Start...
Looking forward to seeing where this goes. (Well, the synopsis already says where it's going, but the journey should be enjoyable.)
Eric
Time-paradox?
Seeing your earlier stories posted on BC has been great, but to find a completely new tale here is wonderful. So far it's been an excellent start. I'm a bit puzzled over how they could swap while they are both asleep, when they are in different time zones, so there is obviously some sort time-paradox thing going on as well - maybe they can take advantage of that?
Amy seems pretty quick working things out, wonder how John reacts when he wakes up? Guess he's going to get a lot of hassle from his brother.
Great start, Tanya - can't wait to read the next part!
Pleione
It seems
like advanced Astral Projection. A nice start to the story and I look forward to reading more, too.
This is fun
I will be interested in how they resolve exchanging parents though. Also why the time zone differental.
Thanks for sharing.