The Joiners pt 6.
by
Angharad
Penny rushed up and interrupted Cary's practice. He had his electronic piano keyboard plugged into his computer and headphone set. This included a microphone, so he could speak or sing while he played and no one would hear the music except him, though they would hear his voice.

He didn't notice his mother enter his bedroom, he was playing the music from the book he'd bought earlier and he was sight reading, she didn't think he could do that. This child was full of surprises. Then she remembered he'd stopped taking lessons because he was better than Colm and she had thought at the time that it was more like a girl than a boy to act like he had. What she didn't know was that he played quite frequently but only for his own amusement. Cary had a very strong musical bent.

She moved towards him and he spotted her, "Hi, Mum, what d'you want?"

"Let me see how tidy you are?"

"Why?"

"I want you to come out with me a minute."

"What for?"

"I'll explain that when we get there." She checked him over, told him to change into a different skirt and top and to wear the grey shoes and use his new grey bag. She tidied up his hair and told him to check his makeup. He complied but primarily because his curiosity was piqued. She told him to use his eau de toilette as well.

He was now completely intrigued by her rather secretive actions and instructions. He thought it was probably to go to the shops or something but then she had spent quite a lot on him recently, or on Carrie. He was downstairs five or six minutes later looking quite presentable in a red slash necked top with three-quarter length sleeves and a grey pleated miniskirt. He was wearing the grey shoes and the matching bag was hung over his shoulder. She handed him the jacket he'd used before and they walked out to the car.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Her answer frustrated him but he held his tongue and waited as they drove down the road and ten minutes later pulled into the doctor's practice. Now he was confused. Suddenly he wondered if she was going to have him declared insane.

"What are we doing here?"

"We're going to see Judy Herring."

"Why?"

"I'd like her advice on what we're doing with you."

"So she can lock me up?"

"What?" she was shocked, "No, so we make sure what we're doing is safe."

"Course it's safe or half the population of the world would be at risk," he retorted misunderstanding her answer.

"Look, just behave and answer any questions Judy asks you, she's doing us a favour in seeing us as an extra."

He shrugged but was not best pleased, he was beginning to really get into being a girl and he didn't want it to stop, not for the moment anyway. He hoped Judy would understand what he was doing and maybe even prescribe the pills he would like, though he doubted it. He did have a plan to try and con her, but he'd have to be clever because she wasn't stupid and would see through most things quite quickly.

They sat in the waiting room and time seemed to drag by, no one there seemed to be paying him any attention except a teenage boy who was checking him out every few minutes and looked away as soon as Carrie looked back, but then she was doing the same. Actually, he looked quite cute and then blushed at the thought that she was almost fancying a boy as a girl would and that was without any hormones other than naturally produced ones. Certainly nothing was moving down below, but then it never did, so Cary never quite understood what Colm or the other boys were talking about when they mentioned woodies. He thought they probably meant erections, only he didn't seem to get them, but then he just thought that he was a late developer. Was there something else? If there was, was he pleased or worried? He wasn't quite sure.

They were eventually called into see the doctor and she seemed impressed with her new girl patient. "Who does your makeup?" she asked.

"Tara gave me some lessons, so I do my own."

"I'm impressed, did she do your hair as well?"

"Yeah, this morning, I'm still learning to do that, but I'll get there."

"I'm sure you will, Carrie. Tell me, how long have you wanted to be a girl?"

He blushed and shrugged, he even felt his eyes growing moist. It was no longer a game, this was real. "I don't know exactly, I've never felt entirely comfortable as a boy, never quite fitted in."

"And this has been going on for some time?"

"As long as I can remember."

His mother nodded, it looked as if this had been creeping up on them for a long time and none of them had seen it, some mother she was, she berated herself.

"And how long have you been dressing as a girl?" asked the doctor.

"Since the weekend."

"You've never dressed as a girl before?"

"Only when we were younger and Tara wanted me to pretend to be her sister and we'd play with dolls or do tea parties."

The doctor looked at Penny who nodded, it was just kids playing. "How did you feel about that?"

"It was okay, no one saw me except Tara and Mummy and very occasionally my dad. They didn't say anything and Tara was always nicer to me when I pretended to be her sister."

"And you haven't done that recently?"

"No, not for years."

"But you have been a girl all this week?"

"Yeah." He blushed.

"And have you enjoyed it?"

"Oh yeah, it was a bit scary when we bumped into people from school but we just told them I was Tara's cousin."

"You've been out in public as a girl and so one seemed to think you were anything but the genuine article?"

"No, we caught the bus to Macey's house this morning and there were two boys from school on it, they didn't spot me as a boy. Then we went into town to have a look where the karaoke competition is happening."

"In the hotel?"

"Yeah, the manager let us try the equipment, he seemed impressed that we wanted to suss it out. He let me sing a couple of songs."

That explained something Penny received on her phone earlier that day.

"So do you want to live as girl?"

"I think I might, but I'd like to try it for longer and see what it's really like. I am worried that my voice might break and mess everything up before I have decided, but the more I do the more I like it."

"I see, do you like boys?"

"I'm not sure, but then I'm not sure about girls either. I don't get erections like other boys, so I wonder if perhaps I'm really a girl anyway, if so, I don't think I'd mind too much."

"Okay, I need to do some bloods. We need to see what's happening in your body, it could be that you have a problem preventing you from becoming a man or as you say, it could be your body is confused and would be better as a woman. Until we know the answers to that, we can't look any further, though if you wanted to be a girl, we could perhaps stop your body masculinising."

"I think I'd like that."

"You want to be a girl?"

"Probably."

"I think we'd need more certainty than that, Carrie."

"Okay, yes, I want to be a girl all the time."

"We need to proceed a bit more cautiously than that, Carrie. I'd like you to continue dressing as a girl for the moment, but if you decide you no longer want to do so, that's fine and I'd like you to tell your mum, don't do it because you think other people want you to, only do it if it's what you want. Okay?"

He nodded then added, "I think I'm really a girl, aren't I?"

"I can't answer that, Carrie, but there is a possibility that you are and if it is and you still want to be one, I'll try and help you become who you think you really are. Have we got a deal?"

"Yes, doctor."

"So that means no buying any pills on the internet because some of those are fake and very dangerous, people have died and I want you to be happy and safe."

"Okay," Cary said and reluctantly agreed but he realised why she was laying down the law.

"Did you want to see this?" Penny held up her phone and played the video of Cary singing as Karen Carpenter. The doctor watched it shaking her head and occasionally glancing at her patient.

"This was at the hotel, this morning?" she asked.

"Did Tara record me again?" he asked.

"She sent it to me this morning on whatsapp."

"I hadn't seen that one before," he admitted.

"Well, Carrie, I have to say that was pretty amazing, you have a wonderful voice."

"And I don't want it to break."

"If it's necessary, we may be able to help stop that, but not until I know what's going on inside you. So take these forms with you and wait for the nurse to take these blood tests."

A few minutes later they were sitting in the nurse's room and she was filling vial after vial with blood which seemed to suck the blood out by themselves once the needle was in the vein. Cary didn't enjoy it but it wasn't too bad and the nurse was pleasant enough about it all and perhaps more importantly it could be the start of becoming Carrie Carpenter for real. It both excited and terrified him.

Driving home, they stopped at the local chip shop and got fish and chips for everyone. "So you've decided you want to be a girl, have you?" asked his mother.

"Mummy, I'm already a girl, I just want to live like one."

"Not just to pretend to be Karen Carpenter?"

"No, that's fun at the moment and could make me some money, but I think I'd like to go to uni to study music and then write and perform my own."

"Okay, that sounds good to me, but I think we need to tell your dad and also start planning how we do things when we get the blood test results. If you really are a girl, we have a lot of thinking to do."

"I am, Mummy, a girl, that is. It's just taken me a while to figure it out."

They all ate their fish and chips, Penny had called ahead and asked Tara to put some plates to warm and heat a large tin of baked beans to go with their fish and chips. Cary, who was thinking as himself more and more as Carrie, had gone into the shop and ordered four portions of the British delicacy and paid with his mum's contactless card. They ate fish regularly but rarely as a take-away and not often with chips, so Tara squeaked when she learned what they were having for tea, she also told her mother that her dad was home.

Penny knew it was going to be an interesting evening but she decided to say nothing until they had all eaten, why spoil a nice meal, which was an increasingly expensive one, working out at over seven pounds per portion. For the same money, she could do a whole roast leg of pork or lamb. But it was convenient to her to treat them all this once.

They enjoyed their meal and Cary asked to be excused and left the table. He knew what they would be talking about and he felt he had enough interrogation for one day. He wanted to try and sing while playing the piano, he knew the Carpenters performed with other musicians, like a flautist and guitar as well as piano, but he wondered how it would sound with just his piano.

He decided to try Ticket to ride which he was surprised to learn was written by Lennon and McCartney and that the Beatles had recorded it first. He called it up on youtube and decided he preferred the Carpenter's version. He ran through the music and found it was probably in his capability to play the melody, whether he could do so while singing it, was another matter. Oh well, practice makes perfect. So he played it through several times, then went for a live recording. This meant taking off the headphones and playing the music audibly while singing, his recording device - his mobile.

What he didn't realise, was that his mother had set off to ask him to join the rest of the family downstairs, so he had just started playing and singing as she entered his room. He was so focused that he didn't notice her, concentrating on remembering the words while he read the music and played along. It was only when he went to pick up his phone to stop the recording that he saw her.

"Oh, sorry, Mum, didn't see you."

"That was all you, wasn't it?"

"Apart from the fifty-piece orchestra, you mean?" he joked perhaps a little sarcastically.

"You play quite well don't you?"

He shrugged.

"Are you still doing it in school?"

"When the teacher deigns to come."

They knew that music education was seen as a luxury by many schools and his was one of them, so their use of a peripatetic music teacher wasn't a priority and Cary didn't get much opportunity to play on the baby grand they had in the school hall, it was for the more pushy kids like bloody Amanda Colby, whose father was a good friend of the headmistress.

"Why did you stop going to have lessons with Mr Burgoyne?"

Cary shrugged his answer.

"Does Colm still go to him?"

"Dunno, don't think so."

"You're a better pianist than him, aren't you?"

Cary shrugged.

"You didn't stop because of that did you?"

He shrugged again, "I might have, why?"

Just like a girl, thought his mother, how did we all miss it? "Would you come down and speak to the others, I told them what happened at the doctors."

"I thought you might, I hope there won't be too many questions, I'm a bit questioned out."

"Your dad needs to know how you feel and tell him the truth this time."

"I did last time."

"I mean about wanting to be a girl all the time."

"I am a girl, what else is there to say?"

"Bring your phone down with you, I'd like to listen to your song again."

He clutched it as they left the bedroom and went down the stairs wondering what his dad would say this time, he didn't expect he'd be very pleased to discover he had two daughters.