A story about a family with two boys aged 10 and 13, in which choice is a delusion and gender, an illusion. So far Maggie has convinced her husband to let her transform his younger son Blair into a girl, and Pierre, her hairstylist, to give Blair the works. Brother Kirk may be getting hit by the fallout from Operation TG.

Choices, Chapter 3 (Part 3)

While still within spitting distance of Pierre’s salon, Blair whispered in Maggie’s ear, “Mommy, I don’t think my sneakers are right for a girl. I don’t know any girls who wear black Nikes.” He pointed to a shoe store: “Can we go there?”

After he had tried on his sixth pair of shoes, the salesgirl commented, “A typical tween, she simply can’t decide, can she? Madame, if you don’t make the choice for her, you’ll never get out of here. And I do have other girls to serve.”

So Maggie selected two styles that she deemed undeniably feminine, but reasonably inoffensive to the boy who’d have to wear them: first, pink Ked sneakers with white laces; second, brown suede Mary Janes, with pink stitching and a pink appliqué heart and daisy on the left front.

When Blair complained about her selections, Maggie agreed to buy a third pair of shoes — this time of his choosing — if he promised to wear them to school the following Monday. “I’m sure you can find a pair of girls’ sneakers,” she said, “that any boy could wear. Sweetie, we do live in a unisex world.”

It took a while — too long a while from the clerk’s perspective — but Blair eventually selected another pair of Keds, this time “hopscotch” sneakers, with white stitching and a thick pink line separating their (suitably masculine) black canvas top and white rubber soles. Each side had a profusion of small hearts, stitched in yellow, blue, pink and lavender. Two metal charms dangling from silvery lacets — a lavender-trimmed peace sign and two intertwined hearts, one blue, the other pink.

They were an amazing choice for a boy. Maggie had to ask, “Why these, Blair? Do you really think they’re appropriate for school?”

“They’ll look great, and sound great, especially when I’m playing hopscotch with Caitlin and Alison. Don’t worry — I’ll put the charms in my pocket when I’m at school. See, they come off like keys on my key ring.”

While not entirely reassured, Maggie intuitively grasped Blair’s objective when he explained what he liked best about his new shoes: the five multi-colored canvas straps between the lacets. Arrayed in descending order from scarlet and fuchsia to lavender, the straps resembled a gay-liberation banner. The shoes might get him beat up at school, but not “for dressing like a girl”. Still, with the charms attached and jangling, she agreed with Blair that they definitely looked (and sounded) “girly” enough for him to wear until they got home.

Meanwhile, Kirk had plenty of time to grow restive over the attention being paid to Blair’s feet, and Maggie, taking pity on him, agreed at last to buy him a pair of sneakers. However, in an attempt to dissuade him from making a fuss at every shop stop, she decreed that he’d have to find a pair of girls’ sneakers that didn’t “embarrass him too much.” As before, she pointed out that many of the girls’ shoes on display were downright drab compared to the turquoise sneakers favored by his friend Glenn (the only friend of Kirk’s to come by the house since Christmas). Kirk soon opted for black Puma trainers — with red laces and red vinyl trim around a large swoosh. As nothing about them screamed out “for girls only,” he’d be able to wear them to school, while having to deal with the knowledge that he was playing footsy with his gender.

As they were leaving the store, Maggie couldn’t restrain herself — impulsively she bought a pair of girls’ ballet shoes for Blair in flamingo pink and honeysuckle trim. He fussed about the purchase until she explained that she didn’t expect him to wear them outside the home. “They’re slippers, sweetie. You can wear them to keep your white socks clean or you can wear them when you’re dancing around the house. Blair, sweetie, will you wear them a slippers when we get home?”

“Yes, mommy.” He squeezed her hand. “Blair, since they’re expensive, I’d also like you to wear them as your slippers until you grow out of them. Is that okay with you?” Then, taking his little hands in hers, she looked deep into Blair’s eyes. As their eyes locked together, he saw the deep yearning in hers. He couldn’t disappoint her: “Yes, mommy, I’ll wear my pink slippers from now on.” He snuggled in her arms as she rewarded him with kisses.

Blair still wasn’t yet ready for the big shop at J. C. Penney’s department store (but is anyone?). Nervous even now about being “outed”, he wanted to look “so girly” that everyone would be “fooled” when they finally went shopping for girls’ underwear.

His concern Maggie found understandable, yet amusing since it was relatively easy for most ten-year-old boys to pass a girl if suitably attired; as for Blair, who looked effeminate in a hockey helmet and uniform, with makeup and bobbed hair, he could probably wear little more than a jockstrap and still be taken for female. However, to humor Blair, she took the children to a shopping island selling trinkets for tween girls.

Blair and she agreed that the following purchases would definitely make him look “feminine” enough to fool Penney’s sales staff: first, heart-shaped, mirrored sunglasses with lavender, green and blue frames; second, a purple hair band (to compliment his eye shade and amethyst studs); third, a silver and amethyst butterfly pendant; and finally, a “High School Musical” backpack, featuring photos of six actors, surrounded by their names, stars and hearts in pink or blue. In his new ensemble, Blair definitely looked like a pampered tween girl.

As before, Kirk demanded to be let in on the shopping trip. Once again, he was given no choice but to find something suitably masculine at a store for young girls. He quickly selected a lime green and black backpack and an eighteen-inch silver chain with a round silver medal, on which was engraved a buxom and muscular female soccer player about to kick a ball.

“Are you sure you want to have a picture of a girl hanging around your neck?” asked Maggie, who added, I’ve seen more masculine pendants in my time.”

“Well, there wasn’t much choice here for a real boy, was there? Besides, I’m going to tell the guys that the medal is my version of a crucifix or Jewish star — that I’m carrying about my symbol of faith, the ultimate female, my idea of paradise. Do you see those leg muscles? Whenever I get bored in class, I’ll study the girl on my new pendant. I’m definitely going to wear it to school. I bet it grosses out my English teacher ‘cause she’s got a dirty mind.”

Trooping through the mall, her two sons festooned in girls’ wear, Maggie couldn’t help but notice the wide range in choices for girls. They could either look like a princess or like a prince; it was their choice to make. Or was it? Mentally, she transposed the haircuts, earrings, shoes and backpacks. Would Kirk look as feminine as Blair if Kirk wore makeup and a bob and wore pink? “No,” she decided, “No matter how much she dressed him up, Kirk would at best look like a boy in drag.”

Reversing the thought experiment, she also concluded that it wouldn’t take much more than ear studs and a soccer-girl pendant to make Blair look 100% female. There hadn’t been any real need to buy him so many “girly” things, but heck, it was great fun to treat her daughter. Thanks to her divorce settlement, it was kids’ stuff for her to buy presents for her children at this downscale Mall.

Kirk interrupted her thoughts: “Is that right, Maggie? You really think that I’d look like a boy no matter what I wore?”

“Oops, sorry, I must have been thinking out loud. Do you think your new sister also heard me?”

“Blair? No he’s walking around in a daze as usual. You know him: He’s always staring off into space. It’s a miracle that he never bumps into people or bangs his head on a post.”

She whispered to Kirk: “Well, be kind and don’t tell him what I said about him. It’s true, Kirk, you’re the lucky one — you’re a boy through and through. God didn’t get your body wrong, like he did with Blair.”

Kirk frowned. “Yeah, I’d look like a dude even if I wore a dress — just like Brad Pitt did.”

“Like Brad Pitt, the actor? When did you ever see him in a dress?”

“On the Internet. Blair found it. He showed me the picture just to spite me. I was supposed to be upset to see one of my faves dressed like a sissy; but Brad Pitt didn’t look like a sissy, no way, Maggie, no way. He is a tough-looking dude even wearing a frigging silver dress! So you really think that I look as totally male as Brad Pitt?”

The question seemed to ask for an affirmative answer. And yet why was Kirk’s face fill with tension as he awaited the reply?

Maggie replied: “Of course, honey. But there’s no time now for idle chatter, for here we are at Penney’s.”

She turned now to Blair: “Are you ready, Blair, for a whirlwind of shopping? We’re running late if we’re still going to see a movie before going home. So let me do most of the choosing. That way things will go a lot faster. But don’t wander around; I’ll need to send you frequently to the fitting room.”

“Frequently?” Blair blanched at the word. It was yet more evidence that Maggie expected him to dress like a girl for more than a single day. “It’s all right,” he said to himself. “I can do it. Just like an actor who wears just about anything to get a laugh or smile, I’ll dress at home like a silly girl, if that what it takes to keep mommy happy.”

Blair had no objection to his mother doing most of the shopping, but there were some items Blair definitely wanted her to buy; they included a ruffled blouse and tights. Was it possible, Maggie wondered, that Blair was already settling into his new life as her daughter?

Given how Kirk was now behaving, she silently wished that she had two daughters instead of a thirteen-year-old son determined to over-compensate that he was, gasp, being required to enter the innermost sanctum of the opposite sex: the girl’s department at J. C. Penney’s.

“Maggie!” Kirk called out, “Watch me! I’m going to make a commando raid. The salesgirls won’t know what hit ‘em. They’ll be paying so much attention to me that you and Blair won’t even be noticed as you stock up on girly clothes. Did you hear that, Blair? I’m going to run interference for you! Nobody’s going to have any time to wonder if you’re a sissy boy.”

Kirk, looking at Blair and finding a grateful smile, next nimbly evaded Maggie’s desperation tackle to run towards the two salesgirls in order to block their lunge toward the lone adult, the only one of the three whom they considered capable of reaching pay dirt. Scowl as they might, Kirk would not let them by: “I’m here to buy a dress, a dress with frilly lace — the frilliest, sissiest you sell,” he bellowed. “Isn’t that right, ma? Aren’t I here to buy my first dress?” With Maggie still lagging fifteen feet behind, his voice crackled through the entire girls’ department.

Blair giggled. Otherwise, silence. It was difficult to say who looked the most perturbed — Maggie, because her boy doll was running amok, or the salesgirls, because they had never seen a boy publicly announce that he crossdressed. Oh sure, they knew that not all the clothes (especially the panties) that they sold actually ended up on sisters, girlfriends and daughters, but they expected furtive skulking and discrete fibs — not brazen, almost macho indifference to the world’s good opinion.

Maggie, with Blair skipping to catch up, finally reached the sales station, breathless from exertion and mental shock. Kirk fairly shouted in her blood-filled face: “Don’t worry, ma. I won’t need your help. These girls will help me find a dress, stockings and …” (he winked slyly at Judith, the fiercely blushing blond clerk) “… satin bra and panties with ribbons and bows for ‘Gender Reversal Day’ at school. I intend to win this year, you all; so give me something really girly to wear. Ma, I know you don’t need their help to find some rags for Sis.” He bowed to the two salesgirls, both of them now giggling, “Ladies, my name is Kirk and I am at your disposal. Do your worst.”

And “worst” the senior clerk, Amber, a brunette, decided he’d get. The brat might think it a great lark to noisily shop for bras and panties with none of his mates around, but she resolved that he would, with her “help”, end up looking like someone who enjoyed Gender Reversal Day a ‘bit too much’ to be trusted in the boys’ shower.

Amber, her voice dripping with sarcasm, now said: “Judy, you heard the little … gen…tle…man. He’s here to show off what he’s really made him. Madam, your son insists that both of us serve him first. I trust you and your daughter won’t mind a small wait. You’ll find some exceptional bargains in white dresses in the “Easter Parade” section to your right.”

Maggie, at a loss for words, took Blair in hand to check out the Easter specials. Blair blew a kiss in his brother’s general direction, for this was the first time in memory that he could recall Kirk actually helping him out. Thanks to big brother, there would be no telltale witnesses while Maggie explained the basic what, why and when of girls’ wear to a ‘daughter’ who looked too old for lessons from the nursery. Blair believed it almost as bad “to be treated like a retard as like a transvestye”. He didn’t want to stand out in any way. Today he would be Zorro, an action hero whom no once noticed because he only dressed and acted tough when it was time to carve a “Z” onto (Blair giggled) … onto the villain’s ass. Blair resolved to find a black blouse and slacks — just like Zorro wore in sword fights.

“Well, Queerk, we’ll start with foundation garments,” said Amber. “Without them, you’ll look like a scrawny nine-year-old kid, no matter what else you wear.”

“I’m thirteen. I’m not a kid. I’ll show you who’s scrawny.” Kirk flexed his biceps.

Amber said, “Oh, I’m so impressed. With macho muscles like those to hide, you’ll need a dress with puff sleeves. Judith, please take his vital measurements. Then go over to the Women’s Department to find an appropriate extra-firm, high-waist brief with a padded seat and hips. Queerk will also require a padded bra — definitely a “B” cup for a big boy like him. He’ll want a maximum of lace trim.”

“As much pink lace as possible!” Kirk shouted to Judith as she scurried off. “I can handle it.”

“My, my, aren’t we the rowdy lad. Let’s see if choosing a dress can soothe you. You really should have picked a more grown-up department in which to shop, but there is one dress that I believe perfect for a big … show-off like you.”

“Make sure it’s got lots of ribbons and bows. That’s the only way that a he-man like me can win Gender Reversal Day.” Kirk snapped his fingers: “Let’s get down … to it.”

“That’s it, buddy. Let’s see how you can handle bare shoulders,” Amber thought. She’d have to find it in the Junior Girls’ department, but couldn’t leave her station until Judith returned with the shapewear. “Well,” she said to herself. “I know just the way to call the brat’s bluff.”

Out loud, Amber said. “Queerk, the perfect dress is in another Department, but I can’t go for it until my assistant returns. So let’s find panties for you — the sissier the better, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” Kirk ostentatiously scratched his crotch.

Determined not to let the boy off with a single set, Amber picked a seven-pack of satiny “Days of the Week”, high-cut panties (in suitably “feminine” pastels) with ribbons at the waist and leg openings. “Be sure to wear the appropriate day of the week,” she advised Kirk, “Or you’ll likely to look like the biggest fool on Gender Reversal Day when some idiot flips up your dress. And you’ll also need this Hanes five-pack; I’m sure your mother won’t object to paying a buck a panty for you, and the trim is sufficiently feminine to soothe your inner girl.”

Kirk, having quickly acquired eleven more panties than a boy could possibly need for one dress-up day, loudly objected: “What are you up to? I NEED ONLY ONE PAIR OF GIRL’S PANTIES!”

Amber grabbed both of his collars, tightening them on his neck: “Keep your voice down, Queerk; you’re not at home. You’re in the girls department and so, damn it, you’re going to speak softly … like a good little girl. Got it!” She poked him sharply several times in the ribs. “And, little man, you’ll buy what I choose. Did you really think that there wasn’t going to be a price to be paid for acting like a boor?”

“Okay, okay. Whatever you say. Stop poking me … please.”

“That’s more like it. Now I see that Judith has returned with your shapewear. Use that changing room to put it on, while I’m finding the perfect dress for you in Junior Miss.” Amber bustled off, while Judith pushed Kirk into a change room with a busted lock.

Kirk was “shocked and appalled” by the way he looked in an extra-firm girdle (that’s what it looked like to him) and a B-cup bra, both of them padded to define him as a young teen girl. There was no way he was going to let anyone see him like this — but Judith, on orders from Amber, had decided otherwise. She charged into the room, grabbed the boy, and pulled him out into an antechamber filled with mirrors. When Amber returned with a dress, the two girls insisted that he put it on in front of them. Meanwhile they teased him mercilessly about his “girlish curves”.

Kirk wasn’t going to let them beat him: “I’ll show them. Try to humiliate me? I’ll embarrass the hell out of them!” With that resolve, Kirk scampered to the middle of the Girl’s Department to announce with dress still in hand, “Come one, come all, watch a boy put on a dress!” Somewhere close he could hear Maggie groan. However, it was too late not to go for broke, and Kirk, loudly humming “Let Me Entertain You”, pretended to be a stripper as he first put on, then took off a Baby Doll mesh dress in yellow-green matte chiffon, with a gathered bust, beaded empire waist, tie back and spaghetti straps.

Maggie intervened:”That will be quite enough from you, Kirk Alexander. The show is over. I’m sorry, ladies, but my son is going to behave himself from now on. Kirk, get back into your own clothes … right now!” Maggie then told Amber, “It has been very wrong for him to waste your time; and so wrap up whatever he’s selected. I’ll pay for it. I really don’t know what got into him. He’s never acted like such a jerk in public before.”

Amber figured she knew what got into Kirk (was not the lad enjoying the rampage a wee too much?) and to ensure that Kirk got maximum hell when he got home, she added a pink Maidenform A-cup bra (“with a pinned note saying it was “for everyday use”) a five-pack of Maidenform rainbow bikinis (giving him seventeen pairs of panties, a total likely to alarm any mother), a pair of stockings, two pairs of pantyhose, two halter tops, a three-pack of girls’ tanks, patent leather Mary Jane shoes, black polyester-spandex gaucho pants with a shirred waist, a jean skirt with rhinestone detailing and pink leggings and a nine-pack of Bobbie socks (the colors including lavender, pink and fuchsia), a two-pack of polyester nightgowns (one short-sleeve, one tank style) and, finally, a floral two-piece bathing suit.

When Kirk returned from the changing room, he loudly announced that none of the clothes were good enough for “a boy of my sensitivity”. “I will have to buy my girls’ clothes in a better establishment — like Wal-Mart. Here, lady, take back these rags,” he loftily and loudly said as he roughly pushed his C-cup bra, girdle and Baby Doll dress in the general direction of Amber. Take them she did, so that she could pack them away in the two, large shopping bags already dedicated to his new wardrobe.

“My, my, your daughter looks absolutely adorable,” said Judith to Maggie as she arrived at the cash registers to find Blair already adorned in his new purchases from Penney’s. (“Feminine yes, adorable no,” thought Maggie; “I’m not sure that any girl could look adorable garbed in that much polyester. Maybe Kirk’s right and we should have gone to Wal-Mart.)

As Blair had insisted on looking as “girly” as possible (so that no one could guess his true sex while they were at the Mall) he was now wearing a peach-colored “Hello Kitty” screen tee shirt; a classic, tan-colored, pleated skirt (with a confusing, for him, side zipper); peach-colored knee highs (to hide his boyish bruises and scrapes), as well as his hopscotch sneakers, amethyst pendant and earrings, and underneath it all, a white training bra and pink cotton panties with small multi-colored hearts and a green bow.

Overall, the clothes being totaled at the cash register were an eclectic mix of the classically feminine in bright colors, so that no one would question Blair’s femininity while wearing them, and of the drab unisex, since Maggie picked out for him because she wanted to send him to school dressed entirely in girls’ wear, without anyone’s being the wiser. She hoped to get Blair in the habit of always dressing “like a girl,” without getting him sent home with a black eye or principal’s note. Ideally, Blair would still be able “to pass as a boy” until the end of the Spring term, even as he got used to the idea that he would, as Maggie’s daughter, never again wear clothes that had actually been marketed to boys.

Oddly, as Maggie saw it, Blair had insisted on some purchases of his own: These included black gaucho pants (like Kirk’s); a polyester black top with a sequined neckline; a white, belted ruffle shirt with a poplin top and empire waist; and a wide, black patent-leather belt with a large buckle. These items didn’t match anything else in Blair’s wardrobe and were, she felt, much too mature-looking for a ten-year-old girl. She couldn’t fathom why Blair desired them.

Blair ran over to hug Kirk: “You were wonderful. Mum and me were able to shop all by our lonesomes. She kept sending me to the change room to try on clothes, and the sales clerks never noticed me once. I was afraid they’d want to see me in my undies. And then, they see ‘it’. Thanks, Kirk, I owe you one.”

“And I will collect,” Kirk said, the words muffled by clenched teeth.

Amber did her best to hide Kirk’s “purchases” underneath Blair’s. Meanwhile, Judith rang up the bill. The total didn’t surprise Maggie, who normally shopped at more expensive stores; so she had no idea that Kirk had unintentionally cost her as much as Blair. She in fact believed Kirk was leaving the store purchase-free. Indeed, she was relieved that this time he wasn’t demanding, as he had before, a tat for each of Blair’s new tits because, upset with Kirk’s antics, already she had resolved to buy nothing for him at Penney’s.

Maggie distractedly signed the credit card bill: “I can’t believe I bought so many clothes for Blair. Four shopping bags full!” She turned to her two kids: “You’ll each have to carry a shopping bag, and I want no complaints from you, Kirk. You are skating on thin ice.”

As they left Penney’s, Kirk, a middle finger stuck out, bellowed to Amber and Judith, “Guys rule! Yo, babes, I hoped you enjoyed looking at me in my underwear. That’s as close as you’re ever going to get to paradise.”

Amber called out: “Queerk, you belong here. Admit it, you little fairy, you love the way you look in a bra. You’ll come crawling back when you’re mommy’s back is turned to beg us to put you into a black lace nightie. You’re pathetic!”

“Amber, get a grip.” Judith was attempting to calm her supervisor, who was beginning to hyperventilate; “The little coward has already run out of the department. He didn’t hear more, you know, than a few words of what you shouted. You’ve got to quiet down, you know, and take it easier. You don’t want management to learn, you know, that you lost your cool with a customer, even a little brat like him. That a-hole is not worth your job, right?”

When Amber finally caught her breath enough to nod, Judith asked, “Do you think Queerk will actually wear any of those clothes he ‘bought’ (her fingers signing the apostrophes) with our help? The panties, maybe? Or is his mother going to come back tomorrow, you know, like spitting fire, to demand a refund?”

“His mother return Queerk’s clothes? I don’t think so. The money doesn’t seem to matter to her. I suspect she’ll give his clothes to his sister, to grow into, or simply pass them on to a charity. She didn’t seem very impressed by Penney’s quality. I wonder why Ms. Moneybags took her daughter shopping here. Slumming?”

Judith shrugged. Not knowing that Blair’s dress-up day was an experiment, its costs therefore to be contained, she couldn’t hazard a guess. Instead she asked, “But, Amber, you inferred to Queerk that he was set to be a tranny even if he didn’t yet realize it himself — you know, that he’d be back soon enough looking for lingerie. Don’t you truly believe that? I do. I can see through him. He struts, you know, like a rooster so no one will see that he’s a hen.”

“Queerk a budding tranny?” Amber reflected: “No, I don’t think so. Wouldn’t he have been more interested in the clothes if he were? And more eager to pose in front of a mirror? Judith, I kept my eyes on him and I didn’t see any sign of sexual excitement or gratification. I don’t think he likes either girls or their clothes. Maybe he’s gay. That may explain his hostility and anger. And yet, and yet … there was one moment when Queerk let down his guard. I caught his eyes when he didn’t think anyone was looking. It seemed like I was looking deep into his soul. There I saw so much pain that I almost felt sorry for him.”

“Almost?”

“Well, not enough that I don’t want to kick his butt around the block a few times. I’d like to give Queerk the spanking he so richly deserves. Maybe that would smarten him up.”

Judith chuckled: “Amber, you know you’re hopeless. You always want to mother every boy you meet. I think Queerk’s mother is fortunate, you know, to have only one son. You just know that she couldn’t handle two boys like Queerk. His sister is the exact opposite, you know; she’s a genuine sweetheart. I’d love to have a daughter like her one day.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Amber. “The sister didn’t strike me as truly genuine either. I felt like she was doing a lot of play-acting. Anyway, she’s much too eager to please. You can’t trust a child like that.”