Chapter 17

Bee's period started during the night. I only found out when she didn't turn up for yoga so I was concerned about her. I didn't see her since she was in the shower, but I did notice her bed and the tell-tale dark red signs. I listened at the bathroom door and heard the shower running and Bee crying. I spoke to Triss who told me to do my yoga on my own that morning, while she sorted Bee out.

I think Bee was in a state of shock. The problem with treating things secretly is that no one but you knows what is going on. I found out from Bee later that Triss had lent her a pair of panties and a pad, before telling her to get herself to the doctors. Bee had tried putting the pad in her boxer shorts, but that hadn't worked and so had to swallow her embarrassment and wear a pair of panties. I didn't understand. I thought she would be nothing but happy.

No one knew that she was anything but a normal male, apart from me and her psychologist and presenting as a man, but wearing panties and a pad made her so embarrassed, especially when she was going somewhere for that area to be examined. She phoned her psychologist who put her in touch with a recommended doctor. One ultrasound later and Bee knew she was a girl. They did a minor operation to properly open the skin so that she could deal with her period properly.

Of course, there were repercussions. She couldn't hide anything from work since she was living at the director's house and Triss knew something was wrong. Telling Triss that she was having her first period was an unusual statement. Triss asked if she was going to have a hysterectomy which upset Bee, although Triss didn't mean any harm. Bee told her that she had stopped needing to shave and her hips had widened, so she was going to transition to be female.

Triss apologised and promised to support her. Now that Bee knew she was truly female she felt able to tell Triss that she had felt that she was a girl all her life. In fact, she had told her parents when she was eighteen and they had kicked her out of the house. She had headed to California because she had heard they were more accepting than the other states but was too scared as well as too poor, to be able to present as she actually felt.

Bee admitted that she was scared how all her friends were going to react to her and she still needed to gather some money to have plastic surgery to make it all look how it should. Bee had been living at the Slater's for over a month, stayed for Thanksgiving and spent most of her days looking after me. By that point, Bee was considered one of the family, especially by me. I immediately offered to use any money I earned from the film to help Bee become more complete. Triss said that might not happen for some time and she was sure she could arrange something before then, even if it required an interest-free loan.

I later asked Triss about that. I was quite happy to just give Bee the money, but Triss explained that a lot of people consider accepting money as charity diminishes their self-worth. By offering a loan with no interest, Bee could pay it back as slowly as she likes with no stress without feeling the sting to her pride.

Triss invited Bee to prolong her stay and helped her by going shopping together to buy some clothes. Unfortunately for me, it was past my bedtime, so I missed Bee's first shop as Rebecca. I did hear about it the next day as Bee came back to work. Bee had gone back to her apartment to get changed into Rebecca. Triss made sure she was looking acceptable and then they went shopping. I felt jealous and told her so. Bee promised that I would be invited the next time.

Bee spent time over the next few days speaking to people on-site and explaining her situation. Some were fine with it and some were not. Most of it was done outside of my hearing so all I saw was the result. Sometimes Bee was upset and sometimes she was ecstatic. I took note of those who gave Bee funny looks.

I now started imagining Bee with A-cup breasts, a slightly more feminine face and longer hair. I even went as far as tightening the vocal cords but stopped when the voice was a bit higher and my intervention was not too noticeable. I think everyone just thought she had become better at speaking with a female voice.

An incident did occur with one guy who worked with stunts. He wasn't a stunt guy, just someone who liked to blow things up. To explain what happened I need to step back a bit and talk about my experience of playing the role of a firestarter.

When I concentrated on heating things up or making them catch fire, I didn't expect it to actually happen and because the belief wasn't there, I knew nothing would actually happen. However, I started chatting to this cameraman, in between scenes and he talked about the major abilities that he believed humans were capable of. He based his list on what he believed was provable fact. What is one person's hard fact is another person's myth, but the important point is that he believed it and he made me believe it too. He believed in firestarters because of something called spontaneous human combustion. There were cases of people bursting into flames with no known cause and he believed that a firestarter was responsible. He also talked about telepathy, telekinesis, healing, speaking to the dead and seeing the future. The fact that I was able to heal people and he didn't know that but knew there were people like me made his other thoughts sound more believable.

Now when I thought about heating something up and believed that I could actually do it, I knew I had to be careful. Because I was an eight-year-old and they didn't want to worry me or horrify me in any way, I was taken to the stunt people who explained about a gel they used that would catch fire, but not actually burn them. They also made sure that I would see everyone who pretended to be hurt or die, get up and tell me they were OK. So when I was asked to set someone on fire, I concentrated on setting the gel on fire rather than the person. Reinforcing my belief was the fact that when I was asked to concentrate on setting something on fire, it did. I knew that part of that was the excellent special effects department, but I also believed that I was responsible.

Bee was still my personal assistant and minder, so if Triss and Pierce were delayed, which was often, Bee would take me home. On the night of the incident, this idiot waited in the car park and confronted Bee as we approached her car. He called her all sorts of names that didn't make sense to me and then offered to make a real woman of her. He even pulled out a knife.

Bee pulled me behind her and tried to back away slowly. I could feel her shaking in fear. That really pissed me off. I decided to take action. I didn't want anyone to know that I was able to set things on fire, but heating something up is not obvious so I concentrated on making the crotch of his jeans get really hot. The man stopped his speech, mid-word, did a high pitched scream, dropped his knife and frantically started trying to get his trousers off, while Bee and I looked on confused. I was pretending to be confused and I think I was doing a good job of it.

Someone heard the scream and came running. He called security because a man screaming, trousers and underpants around his ankles with his hands holding his private parts in front of a young woman and an eight-year-old girl takes a lot of explaining. We actually went back to my dressing room so that Bee could calm down and inform Triss of what had happened, or at least, what she knew of what happened. The presumption was the man was crazy and you can't understand crazy people.

From then on Bee and I were given a rape alarm necklace. Bee was also given a can of mace, whatever that is, and we were escorted to the car in the evenings. I never saw that man again.

My other intervention was harder to monitor. A month passed with me making sure Triss and Pierce were fertile, so now it was up to them. A week before Christmas Triss started throwing up in the morning. I googled what that could mean and confronted Triss to see if she was pregnant. Triss was 39 years old and had been married for 15 years without conceiving so told me it was just something she had eaten.

To mollify me, she did a pregnancy test and for my education, she showed me how it all worked. She bought the test, explained what you needed to do and even let me be there. She carefully used her mid-stream, explaining what that meant and then almost fainted when the test came up positive.