Michelle is now home from her family trip to the Halsteader's cabin. The rest of her summer is spent in therapy with Dr. Martha, working at the grocery store, and working on her G.E.D. Dr. Martha tries to get Michelle past her boyish pride. Note this chapter is rated as "Mature". There's no sex, but it is discussed in a tasteful and necessary way.   Mike versus Michelle: Part 12 Nothing To Be Embarrassed About By Sharon Parsons

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I had a lot of mixed feelings about my experience at the Holsteader's cabin. It was heart breaking as far my relationship with Cam was concerned. But it was also an eye opener. I discovered that being a woman isn't all fun and games and smoking isn't always as wonderful as I had built it up to be. I learned that even the people close to me have prejudices.

At fifteen, I still had a lot to learn about life. According to Dr. Martha, there were no right or wrong answers. So how was I going to learn about life if there weren't any wrong or right answers?

I had some deep conversations with Dr. Martha when I got home from the Holsteader's cabin. I told her about the things that had happened and she asked me to describe the way I felt about them.

I was ashamed, hurt and embarrassed over Cam's rejection of me, but I had loved the feeling of being accepted as one of the girls. Which feeling was stronger and more important- rejection or acceptance?

We talked about how special and feminine I felt at the falls when Cam lit my cigarette for me. We talked about the thoughts and feelings I experienced during our kiss. She told me to focus on everything that happened before the rejection.

I had to admit those moments leading up to the rejection were magical for me. I felt like a Disney princess in a fairy tale when Cam lit my cigarette for me. For a brief moment in time I was no longer his equal or peer in a male to male sense. He had treated me tenderly and gently like a lady and I had loved it.

The feeling of being treated like a lady had been foreign to me. I'd imagined it many times, but my imagination, as creative as it was, paled to the real thing.

When Cam and I kissed, I saw my father and my mother and every other married couple that I admire and respect. I didn't feel like a boy wearing a dress or like a bad kid smoking. I just felt like a good woman who was feeling great about her self while enjoying a very pleasurable kiss.

Yes Dr. Martha. I kissed a boy and I liked it. So what does that mean? What does that say about me?

She said it meant that I could lead a happy and productive life as a woman!

If that was true, why did I feel so guilty and ashamed for kissing Cam? It wasn't just me. It was him too. He avoided me like the plague once we got back from the vacation. Despite what Dr. Martha said, I didn't feel happy and productive and I told her so.

Its going to take some time, she said. And then she told me that I had my whole life to feel good about myself but that I needed to start by building a solid emotional infrastructure.

She told me that no man was going to love me until I felt good about myself and the only way I was going to feel good about myself was by letting go of the guilt and shame.

I heard what she said about feeling good about myself. I grasped the significance of it. But why had she felt it necessary to link it to a man? No man is ever going to love me?

We talked about my concerns. I wasn't arguing about my feelings. I had truly enjoyed kissing Cam. But that didn't mean I'd enjoy kissing him again, and after that heart felt rejection, I couldn't see putting myself in a similar situation with another boy or man. Boys kissing boys didn't seem right to me.

I argued about my sexuality from a sense of pride. Kissing Cam, regardless of how great it was at the time, made me feel like a sissy.

Dr. Martha didn't like me to use the world "sissy". She said it was a sign of self-hatred.

"You can't help who you are," she said. "Don't deny the things that make you happy. Embrace and celebrate them!"

"BUT I DON'T WANT TO!"

"Why not," she asked? "Is it because you really don't enjoy them? Or is it because you're embarrassed that you enjoy them?"

I didn't know it then, but that was most important question I'd ever been asked.

She and I had crossed this path before. We'd been dealing with my boyish pride from day one. It was the only thing standing between Mike and Michelle. Pride is the last remanent of my life as a boy. Its resilient and I battle it to this day, but on that day, I took it down a notch.

"Its because I'm embarrassed," I said sadly.

"I know you are. And I understand that," she said.

I told her that I felt as if I had failed. I had failed everyone: my parents, my friends, my gender, and of course myself.

My parents had raised me right. They didn't raise me to smoke cigarettes or wear dresses or kiss boys or drop out of school. What kind of example was I setting for my little brother? How can I not be embarrassed?

Dr. Martha smiled warmly and said, "You remind me a lot of your mother from where I sit. You're proud of her, aren't you? Don't you want to be like her?"

"More than anything," I said. "If I was really like her, I wouldn't feel as bad as I do."

"I think you are really like her. That's why you need to think about your life from a woman's perspective instead of a boy's. There's no shame in living your life as a woman if it makes you happy. And it does make you happy, doesn't it?"

I nodded my head and pursed my lips. "Yes."

"Good," said Dr. Martha. "Then its time to start focusing on the things that will make you happy as a woman."

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I spent the remainder of my summer working on things: I worked at my job at the grocer store. I worked at getting my G.E.D. And I worked on becoming a woman with the help of Dr. Martha and my mom.

I had a variety of different therapy sessions. Sometimes I'd go it alone one on one with Dr. Martha. Sometimes my mother and I would see her together. And sometimes my whole family would go.

Family therapy sessions were always "G" rated. Out of respect for Tony's age and my father's feelings, we didn't talk about sex or men. But sex and men were always a popular topic when it was just me alone or me with my mother.

Despite my boyish pride, I made the decision that men would become a part of my life as a woman. It was a liberating decision.

Talking about my feelings for men in front of my mother and Dr. Martha was awkward at first. It shouldn't have been because Mom had seen it coming for a long time and Dr. Martha had suspected it from our first meeting.

I think I started noticing boys about the same time I started raiding my mother's make-up. I was probably about twelve. I was young, so it wasn't a raging feeling. It was more like a tickle, a tickle I had tried to suppress and ignore rather than scratch.

After many summer therapy sessions, I became more comfortable talking about the itch that plagued me, and we began talking about ways I could scratch it.

I gave myself permission to date boys. My job at the grocery had garnered me lots of date requests, but I'd always turned them down. I decided to think twice from then on before saying no.

Dr. Martha wasn't training me to be a slut, but the subject of sexual intercourse was an important issue, and I admit it made me very queasy. After all, there's only one way a woman like me can have sex with a man and that's anally.

Toward the end of summer, Dr. Martha suggested to my mother that she should buy me a dildo, so that I could practice. She didn't intend for me to give my body to men with reckless abandon. She just felt I should be physically and emotionally prepared for when the right man did come along.

My boyish pride took another blow when my mother and I ordered a dildo for me on-line. I was both humiliated and excited. The package arrived by UPS and I tracked it every day from its point of origin. It took five long days for it to arrive on my doorstep.

I was working at the grocery store when the package arrived, so my mother signed for it. I knew it would be there when I got home from work.

When I got home, Mom said that she had put the box under my bed along with a tube of KY Jelly. She said we could talk about it in my room after dinner.

After I finished doing the dishes, Mom told Dad and Tony that she and I were going up to my room for a private conversation and not to disturb us. I didn't want anyone else to know. After all, there are some things a girl doesn't share with her father.

Mom and I sat on my bed behind a locked door and smoked cigarettes while we passed the silicone flesh-colored dildo back and forth while talking about it. Its still a vivid memory to this day. Its also very special to me.

For my mom, it was our mother/daughter talk. In some ways, it was a day she'd always dreamed of, much like the day when I tried on her wedding dress.

Our conversation wasn't dirty. It was loving, instructional, and supportive as she reminded me of what I could expect.

She said that even with lubrication, the dildo would cause pain and discomfort until I got used to it.

She smiled and pointed at the cigarette burning between my fingers and said, "You didn't like that either when you first started, but you knew in your heart that you wanted to do it, and you knew that someday it would give you pleasure. Intercourse is going to be a lot like smoking. Its going to take some practice before you can begin to enjoy it."

I nodded as I took the dildo from her to study it more closely. I was intimidated by its shape and size, but I was also drawn to it. I placed a finger on the head and drew my hand back.

"Its okay to touch it honey," said my mother. "It won't bite."

"Is this the same size as a real man's," I asked nervously?

"Give or take an inch," said my mother. "But its about what you should expect."

"How am I going to know if I'm doing it right?"

"How do you mean," asked my mother? "Are you talking about doing it right with the dildo or doing it right with a man?"

"With a man."

"You'll know you're doing it right when it doesn't hurt and it makes him feel good."

"Is it going to make me feel good too, like when I masturbate?"

"It might," said my mother. "It feels good to me when your father makes love to me that way. And it feels very good for him."

"Do you have an orgasm too?"

"Sometimes, but not always. But thats not why I have intercourse with your father. I do it because I love him. Its the most intimate and special thing two people can do when they love each other."

Those words became my inspiration that night and for the other nights that followed.

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To Be Continued...