Author’s Note: All of us know that what we read here is fiction, with maybe a soupçon of fantasy and a light dusting of wishcasting. It’s escapism, and hey, we can all use a bit of that. Deserve it, even. Everyone knows that the real world isn’t like a good story, right?

Right?

I mean, no one could imagine that . . . . Oh, dear. Really?

Gullible Travails

Travis hit the “kudos” button and set down his phone, his face suffused with joy. Joy, and life, and purpose! Only fourteen, and he had an epiphany! A blinding, stunning, overpowering epiphany, like Paul on the Road to Damascus. Or at least, he thought so. He wasn’t really sure about the whole “Paul” character, but he’d read something about it in a story and it sure seemed to fit, epiphany-wise.

In any event, he had discovered what was wrong with his life. It all made sense, now. And, after reading all of Emma Anne Tate’s stories (well, not the ones with all the warnings, of course; that’s why they’re there!), he knew exactly what to do about it!

He bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until suddenly, at the landing, he realized that the sounding of his bounding was decidedly unladylike. He would need to “move with grace!” And surely, he knew what that meant. He should positively flow up the stairs, like a waterfall! Well . . . like a waterfall in a world where gravity was reversed, so that the water just rushed up, hitting the top of the hill and bursting into the clean, crystal air like a fountain!

Wait, no! He paused a moment longer, realizing that if gravity were reversed, water wouldn’t stay in the riverbed, and it wouldn’t look like a fountain at the top of the hill. It would all just go straight up into the sky, right? Like rain, but backwards? Rain’s kind of depressing.

Travis shook his head, dismissing his own concerns. He had a mission, and it would take more than the failure of a metaphor to turn him from his destiny! His “wyrd!” Besides, he thought confidently, it’s not like I want to WRITE a story about being trans. I want to BE a story about LIVING trans!

The witticism pleased him, until he realized that he had fallen short of true parallel construction. The second sentence would have to have been, “BE a story about WRITING trans,” and that made no sense at all. Well, he thought, as St. Peter would say, “pig farts.”

He tried his hand – well, his feet, really – at flowing up the top half of the staircase, and was pleased with his graceful efforts. Still, flowing seemed to require clearing each tread by the smallest possible margin, and he misjudged the top stair but one. The “penultimate” stair, he thought triumphantly as he sprawled on his face, delighted to have chosen the precisely correct word.

Sprawling was also most unladylike, though, so despite his syntactical brilliance he felt compelled to scramble to his feet. No, he told himself sternly. I most certainly DIDN’T. I Rose to My Full Height, casting a disdainful look at the treacherous tread that had thus dared to defy my feminine progress!

Having completed his difficult ascent with less than the ladylike aplomb to which he aspired, he shook off the failure, assuring himself that transgirls must face many obstacles. No story is worth reading – much less living! – without them. He had simply overcome the first. Was it time, perhaps, for success? Some reward for his perseverance? Or, would tension increase for an additional period, before reaching a mighty crescendo of emotion that would require tissue warnings?

Time to find out!

He glided down the hallway, imagining himself in a tight miniskirt and heels. The heel, when planted, should be in line with the trailing toe, right? And the hips should sway like palm fronds in a gentle tropical breeze, tantalizing, seductive . . . . His efforts in this regard produced forward motion, but were not as graceful as he thought they should perhaps be; the swaying and the heel-and-toe thing didn’t seem to work together very well. But that might just be his shoes. Sneakers aren’t the most seductive horses in the footwear stable, he assured himself.

Wait. Are horses seductive?

His sister’s door was open, for she never bothered to close it. For some obscure reason, Jude preferred to share her musical selections with everyone in the house. In the neighborhood, come to that. Quite possibly with those in adjoining states. Most girls used earbuds, but Jude scorned such bougie concessions to the contrary tastes of others.

Travis raised a hand to knock on her open door, just to get her attention, but reconsidered. Loud knocking, after all, seemed awfully masculine. Unbecoming of the sensitive, quiet transgirl he knew himself to be, deep down. I’m going to have to switch to female pronouns, Travis realized. Or, is it too soon in My Story?

He thought of all of the characters in the stories that he read, trying to think of the one that was the most womanly. The most beautiful. The most graceful, kind, and empathetic. The “epitome” of femininity, he thought, pleased once again to have found exactly the right word, and even more pleased that he knew to pronounce it with four syllables rather than the wholly incorrect three. What would Nicole Fontaine do?

It was, surely, exactly the right question. One he should always remember to ask, as he continued his journey of exploration and self-expression. He briefly entertained the fantasy of wearing a little gold pendant, or possibly a cute charm on a still-cuter bracelet, engraved with the initials WWNFD. That would be “dope!” Maybe even “fire!”

As soon as he formulated this perfect question, the answer in the present instance – the extant circumstance, as it were – was clear. Self-evident, even. Travis traversed the space between the door and the computer chair where Jude hunched, oblivious, and pressed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Before he could softly and lovingly say his sister’s name, she exploded out of the chair, in the process knocking over her Big Gulp(™) and barking her shins on the computer table. Shouting “fuuuuuuuck!” loud enough to drown out the frenetic drumming of Cash Cobain, she lurched around to fix Travis with the kind of stare Medusa would judge medal-worthy. “Son of a BITCH, Travis!!! What the fuck is WRONG with you! You scared the SHIT out of me!”

“I’m sorry, Jude,” Travis said softly, stepping back to avoid Jude’s wild gyrations.

“WHAT???”

He lowered his eyes demurely. “I’m so sorry.”

“SPEAK UP. JESUS!!!”

Before Travis could consider how his favorite female character might respond, his inner little brother hit the “override” button and hollered in response, “I SAID I’M SORRY!”

“True story,” Jude grumbled, turning back toward her computer. “And it seems like you get sorrier every frickin’ day.”

She resumed play, but couldn’t shake the feeling that her idiot brother was still standing there, just behind her shoulder, waiting for the critical point in the game to reach out and touch her someplace. When her megaspeakers finished projecting Wassup Wya to a weary world, she growled, “Tell me you aren’t still there.”

“Well, actually,” Travis temporized. He was about to say something more, when Baddest In The Room blared out from Jude’s dolby instruments of torture.

Minutes passed, while Jude’s hands made sweet love to her mouse and keyboard and things appeared to explode or die on the screen, depending on what exactly was being depicted. Then, just as suddenly, Jude was dead. Well, game Jude was dead, anyway. RL Jude was simply Pissed Beyond All Recognition. “Oh, fuck me! Game’s a complete piece of shit! Yo, Tank, get over here and rez me!”

While his sister engaged in increasingly frenzied efforts to attract the help — or even the attention — of her fellow players, Travis nibbled on his delicate lower lip — at least, I think it’s delicate. I’m not sure what makes a lip “delicate” — and considered whether he might have moved too quickly to emulate the divine Nicole. He could not, surely, just abandon years of his false conditioning without some internal struggle. Though undeniably female from inception, he had been raised a Regular Guy(™), and had passed so well that everyone had been taken in. Was he not required to defend that identity, however false, for some little while before embracing his True Self? I can’t just announce that I’m a girl — where’s the drama? Where’s the tension, the “frisson?”

By the time Baddest had completed its assault on eardrums near and far, Jude was pounding on her desktop with both fists and spitting at the screen, which now showed that her avatar — a ten-foot troll with green skin and the heartbreak of psoriasis — had been deleted. “Game over” strobed across the top of her screen, a chyron that did nothing to improve her temper.

But Travis was immediately inspired by a new plan, and knew he had to execute it without delay. His quest was too important. Too urgent! The next song might get queued up (I wonder if I could persuade her to listen to opera?), and anyway, there was no sense waiting for Jude’s mood to improve. That would be like waiting for Christmas when the White Witch was in charge of the weather. Ha! thought Travis, delighted that he had managed both a perfect simile and a literary allusion in the same pithy thought. Since I’ll need a new name (once my struggle is complete!), maybe I should call myself “Janet!”

So he sallied forth, resolved to carpe the diem. “Hey, Jude . . . can you think of a reason to force me to wear your clothes? Or maybe trick me into it?”

Jude’s chair swiveled slowly, traversing a full 180 degree arc with the dreadful inevitability of a naval battery locking on target. Jude, perforce, turned with the chair, her face a mask of incredulity and bloody-mindedness. “Why. Are. You. Still. Here?” Each word was measured with precision and delivered with venomous intent.

Travis was undeterred. Ah, the trials that I must face, to realize my destiny! “I just thought maybe we could make a bet about something, and I’d lose, and you would force me to dress up in your clothes.”

Jude just looked at him. It was not hard to read her expression.

“Or maybe you could make it a dare!”

Her expression didn’t improve.

“Or, I don’t know . . . just decide that you want to humiliate me?”

“Why?” Jude asked, finally roused to speak. “You’re doing fine all by yourself.”

While Jude’s actual words weren’t the most encouraging, Travis decided that the right thing to do — the decent, empathetic, sisterly thing to do — was to focus on the positive, which was the fact that Jude had actually spoken, and had even responded to the suggestion Travis had made. An opening like that should not be scorned! “But I want your help,” Travis assured his sister. “It’s important to my character development. How else can I overcome my masculine aversion to wearing lingerie?”

“You little shit.” She most definitely Rose to Her Full Height, which, while less than the three-plus meters of her Avatar, was still greater than Travis could muster in heels he coveted but did not yet possess. “You found my stash of gummies, didn’t you?”

“I would never —” The sudden constriction in his throat brought about by Jude seizing him by the collar of his shirt prevented Travis from completing his heartfelt denial.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Jude hissed. With a mighty heave she dragged her brother into the hallway and to the bathroom they shared. Releasing him so suddenly that he stumbled, she pulled a vanity drawer all the way out . . . only to find her baggie of cannabis candies still taped to the back, undisturbed. “I guess you get to live another day.”

Ah, Travis thought triumphantly. Another hurdle overcome! “So, can we talk about —”

“Maybe I went overboard with ‘day,’ Jude snapped, interrupting in a most unladylike fashion. “Don’t push it.”

“But I need your guidance! I need you to be my Spirit Guide to the world of femininity — you know: hair salons! Makeup! Nail polish! Dresses and heels! Please, Jude! I can’t do it on my own! I need help!”

“You need help, alright,” Jude agreed. “You’re freakin’ bananas.”

“No, no,” Travis pleaded. “I’m just tragically misunderstood!”

“By who?”

“Well, everyone,” Travis said, happy to be given the opportunity to expound upon one of his favorite subjects. “Especially our Fundamentalist parents!”

“They’re Unitarians.”

“Right — Fundamentalist Unitarians.”

Jude rolled her eyes. “That is so not a thing. Even I know that’s not a thing.”

Well, that complicates my narrative, Travis conceded — but only in his mind, and only while he regrouped to find a way in which, metaphorically at least, his statement had been true. That’s it! Metaphors show the deeper truth! Mere accuracy is unimportant!

But while Travis stood in uffish thought, attempting to write his way (metaphorically, of course) out of his theological dead-end, Jude decided she’d had enough. “Okay, runt. Listen close, ’cuz I don’t want to say this more than once. One, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Two, I don’t want to know. Got it?”

At Jude’s words, the idiot light on Travis’ reserves of optimism began to flash red. Maybe she’s not The Supportive Sister who will be my feminine spirit guide. Maybe she’s The Transphobic Sister! “You hate me! You hate me because I’m a . . . a . . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say “boy,” for surely, even allowing the word to escape his lips would be a betrayal of his deepest self.

“Nnoying,” Jude supplied, helpfully.

Travis couldn’t manage a better response than a puzzled, “huh?”

“I hate you because you’re a-nnoying.”

“No, no,” Travis said. “That’s not the real reason you won’t help me explore my femininity!”

“Really?” Her eyes took on a dangerous gleam. “Well how about this, then. I don’t own ‘lingerie!’ I have ‘underwear’ like every frickin’ human in the twenty-first century. Have you ever seen me wear a dress?”

“Well, no . . . .”

“Heels?”

“Ummm . . . .”

“Makeup?”

“Maybe it was subtle, and not overdone? That’s how it’s supposed to be, right?” Travis looked hopeful. “You could teach me that!”

“You don’t get it, do you? I wear normal clothes. Jeans. Hoodies. Sneakers. Boots if it’s snowing. I don’t use makeup, I keep my hair short. I rock at video games.” Jude’s voice grew louder and louder as she went through her list, like a kettle that’s been on the stove too long. “Do you know what that makes me? What I AM?”

Travis looked at his sister like he was seeing her for the first time, his eyes wide.

“I’m a GIRL. That’s what I am. And this is what girls look like!”

Jude’s impassioned declaration — her aria! — finally penetrated, and Travis realized with a shock just how blind, and worse, how insensitive, he had been. Jude wasn’t his spirit guide, nor was she a transphobe, and he had been an idiot to entertain either possibility. No, he thought sadly, she’s the Jealous Older Sister who knows her trans sibling is much, MUCH prettier. Eyes welling with tears and his voice breaking, Travis said, “Jude, you know I love you. I’d never steal your boyfriend!”

~o~O~o~
His parents did manage to locate Travis, eventually, though they required the aid of a telescope. His sister had kicked his ass all the way to Nebraska, of course, but he’d been lost long before that, lured away by the siren song of . . .

The Trope-o-Sphere!

~o~O~o~
Two wonderful friends and authors were kind enough to give me a gut check on this story. Their names are omitted as they are wholly innocent of the content of this story, blameless in the manner of its construction and execution. But you two know who you are, and how much I appreciate your help. ;-)