Synopsis:

Unhappy with the band he was playing with, Jack decided to quit and go back home. Jack's sister Jen knew the perfect way to allow Jack to be Jill, just like she'd always wanted to be, and set things in motion to make it happen.

Story:

Changing Keys
By Jillian

Okay, first of all, I’m a professional musician. Please note, I didn’t say rock star, or anything like that. I’m what most in the music industry refer to as a “sideman”, or “hired hand”. Those terms have always seemed a bit too polite to me. I generally refer to myself as a “musical whore”. My policy has always been that the kind of music didn’t matter, as long as the pay was good, and if it was steady, that was all the better.

The other thing that’s important for you to know about me is, I am transgendered. Not like a flaming drag queen or something, but more like a feminine spirit within a masculine body. Unfortunately for the most part my opportunities for letting my spirit run free, as it were, have been extremely limited over the years.

To begin with, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to be able to manage a complete transition to womanhood for a variety of reasons, courage and money being at the top of the list. Additionally, playing in road bands often means living in hotel rooms with a roommate for months at a time, and contrary to what a lot of people think, musicians as a group are not any more tolerant of alternative lifestyles than the rest of the world. In fact, a lot of musicians are almost reactionary in their approach to gender.

Most of the world believes that men should be men, and women should be women, and that’s that. A lot of the guys I’ve worked with over the years would include the addendum of “And don’t even think of taking so much as a tiny baby step in the direction of that line separating the two.”

I’d spent much of the past year and a half touring the hotel lounge circuit with a five piece country band, and while in many ways it was just as uncomfortable for me as all the other bands I’d worked with in this situation, I did at least have the luxury of usually having a room to myself, so I was at least able to indulge in a few rituals that helped me cope with my situation.

It seems when you’re a non-smoker, working with four walking chimneys, it only takes a little bit of whining to convince the others that you should be the one to get the solo room so you don’t have to breath the second hand smoke in the hotel room, and I made sure to take advantage of this option from the first stop onward. None of them thought to mention that after all these years playing in bars six nights each week and breathing the extremely thick second hand smoke that was invariably present I was probably just as nicotine addicted as they were, and I wasn’t about to raise this thought as it would have been counterproductive to my purpose.

This meant I could at least wear panties instead of men’s underwear and yes, sleep in a nightie, and I could have decent shampoo, conditioner, and body wash with me instead of having to use the same cheap junk the guys used for fear that it all be wasted in some testosterone driven playtime adventure. This is important for me, because frankly these things are what help Jill be more comfortable with having to be Jack to the rest of the world.

Now, if that were the only problem I had playing with these guys, I’d be set. However, since I couldn’t stand any of the four of them because they were basically disgusting to me, I had been looking for an “out” for a long time, and it finally came when we found ourselves heading back home for three weeks because of a couple of cancellations.

As soon as we were given the news of our return to what we called civilization, I informed them that they should use that down time to find a new guitar player, as I wanted to ‘pursue something else’. There, I’d made my escape, and had been able to pin it on ‘artistic differences’. How cheesy is that?

I should also mention that the last time I had been home ‘at liberty’, as the old vaudevillians used to say, I had finally taken the plunge, and in an act of what can only be described as daring for me, started on hormones. Now here I was, a year and a half later, and if it weren’t for my stupid beard, I was probably about as feminine as I was ever going to appear, short of extensive surgery. What all this means is, if I were ever to actually transition, the time would be now.

Going back home meant I was once again going to be staying with my sister, which was actually a pretty good situation for me. She had known and accepted my transgenderism from early on, so I knew that as long as I was there, there would be nothing to worry about as far as problems were concerned, whether I went through with transitioning or not. I called her to inform her of my imminent return, and when we got back in town I asked the guys to drop me off there, and told them I’d come over later to get my gear.

Now, my sister is a wonderful person. She’s the lead singer in a band called ‘Starlust’. They play heavy rock and roll covers and originals around town several nights a week, and make a good living doing it. She’s also the first person I ever confided my secret in, and amazingly has always been very accepting of me and my peculiarities.

I grabbed my two big duffel bags that served as my luggage, and got out of the van. The guys surprised me by climbing out, getting my gear out of the trailer, and even going so far as carting it up to the porch for me. Maybe they were a little pissed because I was quitting, I don’t know. Once all my stuff was unloaded and my goodbyes had been said, I made my way up to her door. Either she had been waiting for us or our arrival was announced by the noise of my stuff being carried up onto the porch, because by the time I got back there from saying my farewells she had the door open, welcoming me back.

“Welcome home, sis,” she said to me as I set down my bags and gave her a hug. She always calls me that in private, and I love her all that much more because of it.

“It’s good to be back. Guess you’ll be stuck with me for a while. I quit those guys,” I informed her as we released the hug and made our way to the couch and sat down together.

“It’s about time!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t sure how you’d made it this long with those jerks.”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not either, but it’s over now. The bad part is, now I’m going to have to find a new gig.”

She looked at me for a second with a strange grin on her face before she spoke, “I might have an idea on that front.”

I eyed her suspiciously before saying, “And what might that be?”

She patted my hand and said, “In good time.” She got up from the couch and, as she headed into the kitchen asked, “Want anything while I’m up?”

“Sure, got a diet coke handy?” I shouted in her direction. I wondered what she was thinking?

As she returned to her seat, she handed me a can of soda, then once settled back in her place she said, “I missed you.”

Still feeling rather suspicious after the ambiguous statements a moment before, I looked at her and said, “I’ve missed you too, sis, but what did you have in mind?”

“Moi? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she feigned ignorance, but I could tell the cogs were spinning up in the old noodle.

Growing frustrated with her evasive answers, I finally asked, “What’s this idea you might have for my new gig?”

She took a sip of her soda, set it down on the coffee table, then turned to me and said, “Come play with us for a while. We need a guitar player, and you are one of the best I know.”

I looked at her as she started to grin at me. “I thought you guys were an all girl band?”

“We are.”

“Well? I am not exactly equipped for that,” I said in an uneasy voice.

She eyed me for a moment before speaking again, “Come on, we both know that deep down you’re more girl than half the female guitar players in this town. I happen to know for a fact that you can look pretty good when you try. Besides, we have a lot of work lined up and need someone who can step in on pretty much no notice; our last lead player got pissed off and quit in the middle of a gig.”

“Why’d she get pissed off?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it had something to do with seeing Shelly making out with her boyfriend backstage just before we went on.” Shelly has been the drummer in ‘Starlust’ for longer than I can remember, and lives her life by the motto, ‘I never met a guy I didn’t make out with.’

“Ouch!”

“You can say that again. Listen, the truth is, she wasn’t all that good anyway, and even if she hadn’t quit, I’d be asking you to do this anyway.”

“But…but…”

“Uh-uh. No buts allowed. You need a gig. We have regular work. We all talked about this as soon as you called to tell me you were coming home, and the girls all think it’s a great idea. It’s not like they haven’t all met Jill before. And who knows, maybe you’re learn a little something about yourself in the process.”

I sat there, unable to move or speak, for what seemed like hours. Finally, I said, “Listen, can I think about this for a while? I’m having some trouble with this idea.”

“Sure, but please don’t take too long? If you decide to do it, we need a couple of rehearsals before Wednesday night.” She then got up from the sofa, and went into her bedroom, leaving me alone in the living room, which was to be my quarters for the night, since apparently what had at one time been my bedroom had been converted into the band’s rehearsal space. I sat there drinking my soda and thinking about what she had just asked me.

My mind went from being frozen still to whirring at a hundred miles an hour in about three milliseconds. “Wow!” I thought, “That was unexpected. How on Earth could I pull something like this off? There’s no way in the world I could pass well enough to do it. No way!”

My brain was doing laps at Indy at this point, “Okay, so I’ve been out dressed lots of times, and at least don’t get sneered at on a regular basis, but we’re talking about being up on stage playing for four hours a night! I don’t think It would work. Now, how do I tell my sister this without coming across like a complete heel?

“I don’t know where she got the idea something like this could possibly work. Yeah, ten years ago we looked like identical twins. But that was ten years ago, and we’ve aged in different ways, most of which in my case have not been kind to my illusion of femininity.

“My damned beard has really thickened up to where it had become almost impossible to hide. My skin, in spite of daily moisturizing, no longer has any kind of feminine glow to it. No matter how hard I try, I’m still going to look like a guy, so how in the hell is this going to work?”

Once I’d finished torturing myself with thoughts of my sister’s hare-brained scheme, I came to the conclusion that I was too tired to even bother getting undressed, so I just curled up on the couch and drifted off to sleep. For some reason, this dream invaded my slumber that night.

I’m standing on stage, playing a really cool solo. As the song progresses, I start to notice things, like what I’m wearing. As things become more clear to me, I realize that I’m wearing a pale pink scoop necked tee with a denim mini skirt, and a pair of leather knee high boots with a spiked heel. Then I notice that my fingernails are painted the same color as the top, and when I start to taste the lipstick, I also notice the rest of the makeup on my face.

I throw my head back as the solo continues and I feel the dangly earrings pull at my lobes. The solo comes to an end, at which point I finally open my eyes to see my sister approaching the microphone, and looking just past the stage lights I can make out an enthusiastic crowd as they applaud my efforts as soloist.

At one point I woke up, shook my head, and said to myself, “It’s been a while since I had one like that.” In order to help clear my head, I got up and headed for the bathroom, where I took care of some necessary functions, then splashed a little water on my face in an attempt to clear the images of my dream from my head. After a few minutes, I returned to the couch and soon find myself drifting back to sleep.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. As I started to wake up, I could hear my sister talking to someone in the other room, and I didn’t know why, but I decided to quietly lay there and eavesdrop.

“I talked to him about it a little last night. I don’t know yet whether he’ll go for it,” I could hear my sister say.

“Oh, come on! We both know that all it’s going to take is a little push in the right direction, and he’ll be ready to abandon ‘he’ for ‘she’ for sure. And as far as we’re concerned, it would save us from having to cancel a few jobs,” said someone who sounded like Shelly.

“That it would, and she’s really good. I don’t know that we would ever be able to find another girl who can play like that,” Jen said as she quietly walked toward the sofa where I was still laying down.

“Hey sleeping beauty, I know you’re awake, so why don’t you get up off your butt so we can get started. It’s going to be a busy day,” she said as she came up behind the couch and smacked my arm as I tried to ignore her and pretend I was still asleep.

I open my eyes, look up at her, and say,” What? Why in the hell do I have to get up? I want to sleep!”

“Well sleepyhead, if we’re going to get you ready to start playing with us, there are a whole lot of things that need to happen,” she said as Shelly came up beside her and joined in staring at me as I slowly wiped the sleep from my eyes.

As I sat up I said, “And who said I had agreed to play with you?” I was going to drag this out a little bit before I gave in. “They can’t know that I’ve decided to do it. No sense in seeming too eager”, I thought.

“Well,” Jen said, “Do you have a lot of alternatives lined up?”

“Um, frankly no. Not at the moment, at least.”

“Good, then that’s settled,” Shelly interjected, then turned around and headed toward the dining room table. Over her shoulder, she added, “You’d best get in here so we can get started.”

I got up from the couch and started walking toward Shelly as I said, “And what exactly do we need to get started with?”

When I got to the dining room I noticed that Shelly was messing with a machine she had set up on the table. I got the feeling that this was for me, and I thought I had an idea what was going to happen.

Shelly sat down in one chair, facing another, with what looked like little electric probes in her hands. “How about we see what we can do with that facial hair? Sit down.”

“Do you know how to use that thing?”

She gave me a look that told me I was treading on thin ice as she replied, “Of course I do. I come from a long line of hairy women. My sisters and I went together a few years ago and bought this kit so we could do each other’s hair removal.”

“So, is this going to hurt?” I have always been a bit of a whiny one, after all.

“Yes,” she answered flatly, “But at least it’ll eventually be over, and then, no more facial hair!”

I realized she was trying to cheer me up, and to be quite honest I should have been jumping up and down with excitement. After all, I had wanted to get electrolysis for a long time, but just couldn’t afford it, plus being on the road made such things difficult.

However, any excitement I might have been experiencing over the impending permanent removal of my unwanted beard was countered by apprehension over my lack in confidence in the skills of my amateur electrologist.

Of course, while my mind wandered through that little landmine, Shelly took the opportunity to get started while I was distracted. I felt her touch my cheek, and then “Yow!” I got zapped with an electric current that took me completely by surprise. It was at that point that I determined that my best course of action was to maintain contact with what was going on around me, so she’d be a lot less likely to surprise me again.

This torture session went on for what seemed like about three days, but was in reality just under two hours, at which point she declared that she’d done about as much for one day as would be possible, so she rubbed a soothing lotion on my face as the tenseness in my shoulders and upper back began to finally relax.

“With the amount of hair you have, this will take some time. We’ll keep at it, maybe do a couple of hours every couple of days, and see where we’re at after the first few treatments.”

“So what you’re saying is that I have a lot more of this to look forward to?”

“That’s about the size of it, girl friend.”

I looked her in the eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask my next question before finally just blurting it out. “So, why go to all this trouble for me? What’s in it for you?” There, I asked it. Now let’s see what her answer is.

She looked at me trying to figure out if my question was serious, or just the male part of me being a jerk. When she did respond, I could tell that she had decided I was serious. “If we’re going to be playing clubs together, I’d like for you to look as good as possible, that’s why. It’s not like we’re trying to convert a total newbie here.”

“We all know you’ve been more woman than man most of your life. I’m just trying to help you make the rest of the journey. Your sister is my best friend, and that practically makes us family in my book. I’m not doing anything for you that I wouldn’t do for any of my other sisters.”

“Well, I really do appreciate it. I’ve thought about having this done for years, but never could put the time and money together at the same time. Thank you,” I said as a tear started rolling down my cheek.

Jen jumped in and said, “Hey, none of that. You may be my sister, but there’s no call for getting all girly on us right this minute.” She said it in jest, of course, but it had the desired effect nonetheless, which was to stop me from balling my eyes out, costing us valuable time in our preparations for my debut with ‘Starlust’, which was now a mere four days away. And I hadn’t even played any of their material yet. Sheesh.

Shelly then said, “Listen Jill, go take a bath, shave your legs, and hurry up about it. The band will be here for rehearsal in about an hour.”

“On my way,” I said as I headed for the bathroom. I took care of my assigned tasks, more quickly than I would have liked, and then proceeded to dry my hair.

After that, I went into Jen’s room and got dressed. It was great to not have to squish down my little but obvious breasts by wearing a far too small sports bra. I did have a couple of nice ones, that I unfortunately had not really had the chance to wear before now, and I was darn well going to take advantage of the opportunity.

Underwear sorted, I knew this was neither the time nor place to dress up, so I just pulled on a t-shirt and jeans, then slipped on a pair of sandals. I did decide to put on just a touch of makeup…nothing flashy, just a little eyeliner and lipstick, but it felt so good to actually be able to do even that much after so many months in hiding.

About the time I emerged from the bedroom, the rest of the band started showing up. I had met all of them a long time ago, but who knew what their reaction to playing with Jill was going to be?

The first one I encountered was Annie, the bass player. We had actually worked together years ago in a top 40 band, but apparently Jen had filled everyone in on my situation, because the first words out of her mouth were, “Hey Jill. Long time, huh?” She then gave me a hug, and I knew that at least for today, everything was going to be all right.

Last to show up was Sarah, the keyboard player. Other than Shelly, whose drums were all ready set up, she had the least to do to get ready for practice, since her stuff was also set up in the rehearsal room and all she had to do was throw a switch and start playing.

It seems I would be the last one ready, but that was partly because I wasn’t sure which setup to use. I’d spent the last year and a half playing my country rig, obviously, which was a Telecaster with a Fender Twin Reverb, plus my PodXT for effects.

Now, for the first time in years, I was actually going to be playing heavy rock, and I had a few decisions to make. The easy one was the amp…it had to be my old Marshall Bluesbreaker. The only action it had seen in years was when Jen borrowed it a couple of times because her ’59 Bassman was in the shop, but I plugged it in, turned on the standby, and the tubes lit up, so I was a happy girl.

Obviously I was going to need the Line 6 Pod, but when it came to the guitar, I was in a quandary. The last time I got to play rock, I used this Yamaha neck through body Strat that sounds killer, but at this point looks a little dated, because of this very 80’s looking pointy headstock that nobody uses anymore.

The other choices were the hated Tele, and an old Gibson Les Paul Custom that I love like a member of the family, but generally don’t play much because it hurts my shoulder from the weight. In the end, I grabbed the Yamaha, tuned up and plugged in, and I was ready to roll.

Jen walked up to the microphone, which was hooked up to the monitor setup, and said, “I think everyone knows Jill. She’s consented to play with us, which is guaranteed to sound better than the last several guitar players we’ve suffered through.” There was a ripple of giggles that went through the room even though there wasn’t really anything funny said, then she called the first tune. “Sweet Child of Mine in A. One, two, three, four…”

I played the ever so familiar opening, and found that everything fell into place quickly. Not like perfect or anything, but certainly workable. We had four days to put together four hours worth of music, so perfect just was not going to happen. Since they’d all been playing together for a long time, and I knew what I needed to do, the morning went pretty smoothly, right up until it was time to start in on some of the band’s originals.

We took a break for everyone to grab something to drink and then returned to the rehearsal room. I couldn’t resist any longer, and asked, “What’s next?”

Jen looked at the others and said, “Guess it’s as good a time as any to take a stab at the stuff from the CD.” With that, Sarah reached over to her rack and started the CD player that she often used at gigs in between sets, in the clubs that didn’t have a DJ.

‘Starlust’ had done one CD, about six months ago, of all original material, most of which were songs Jen and I had written together a couple of years back when we were taking what I had thought was one last stab at playing in a band together. They sold it at gigs and in local music stores, and had actually had to order a second run from the Disc Factory because they ran out of the first batch.

I had of course heard it several times, as the first thing Jen did when they got the initial run back from pressing was send me one by overnight so I could hear it. It was pretty good, and I’m not just saying that.

The first song was called “Politics of Love”, and had the coolest Led Zeppelin kind of groove that you couldn’t help but boogie to when you heard it. I listened intently to the recording so I knew the roadmap they had laid out, and then was ready to give it a try.

You told me your secrets, and I told you mine
But now it seems lately we don’t have the time
We’ve been goin’ round in circles, lost in the rain
Lookin’ for some answers to what’s runnin’ round in my brain

As the song moved into the first chorus, I could feel a rising intensity that struck me as so cool. I couldn’t help but think that I wished I’d thought to write it like that.

Now what can I do, and what can I say
To bring you back to me
I’ve never understood how the politics of love
Can change the way you think and feel and what you do about it…

In between the end of the chorus and the next verse, it was my first chance to show off a little, the way they had laid the song out. For a moment I felt like I’d been possessed by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix or something, because what was coming out of my amp didn’t sound like anything I ever remembered playing before, and when I looked over at Jen, I could tell that she was thinking the same thing.

I kept all your secrets, but you told most of mine
I knew we had problems, but I thought that in time
We could make it better, work it out, alright
I don’t mean to mislead you, but can’t you stay one more night?

I was finally starting to feel comfortable enough with the song that I looked around at my new band mates, and if the impression I was getting was accurate, I guessed they liked what I was doing so far, because everyone was sort of half smiling with this half spaced out look on their faces, like musicians sometimes get when things fall in the groove and they start really enjoying the music. I know I was really starting to enjoy this experience.

Now what can I do, and what can I say
To bring you back to me
I’ve never understood how the politics of love
Can change the way you think and feel and what you do about it…

Following the second chorus, it was my place to ‘shine’, as the good ol’ boys I had recently been playing with would say. The song was turned over to me to solo out to the end, a la Hotel California. While I sort of had some ideas about what I wanted to play, they were going to take some working out, so I just sort of jammed out for a minute before signaling everyone that we should wrap things up. The ending would have been pretty tight, if it hadn’t been for me screwing things up.

Of course, the girls had it down, but I was half lost and sounded like it in my opinion despite how I was feeling about the song as a whole, which can be embarrassing when you’re playing your own songs. So we then listened to it again, and tried playing it again after that. It went much better, but still wasn’t where I’d like it to be.

Not wanting to waste the others’ time any more than I already had, I said, “Why don’t I sit down with the CD and work out my parts tonight, then we can try playing them tomorrow?” That idea was greeted with mostly affirmative responses, so we then moved back to the cover stuff. Some Fleetwood Mac, Pat Benatar, Cheryl Crow, not to mention about half a dozen Allanis Morrissette tunes dominated the afternoon, so that by the end of the day we had about two hours worth of stuff we felt comfortable enough with to plan on it being on the set list for our first gig.

While everyone was shutting down their gear, Jen went and ordered pizza for everyone to be delivered, so it turned into a girls night in, which didn’t wind down until late into the evening, when first Sarah, then Annie and Shelly all headed out so they could get some sleep before heading into work in the morning.

That left just Jen and I alone, well after midnight but neither of us sleepy in the least. We were sitting on the sofa having a little wine when Jen asked, “So, what did you think? Want to stick around a while?”

I was taken aback mostly because I figured it was more up to them than me whether or not I became a permanent member of the band, so I really wasn’t sure what to say at first. I did finally remember how to make some sound that vaguely resembled speech, and said, “I’m in if you’ll have me.”

“I think that’s a given, don’t you?” Jen retorted.

“How many of the originals do you usually do on a job?” I was curious what the ratio was. I’d played in several groups that had their own CD’s out, but most of them only played one or two songs from the disc when they played live, because they wanted to stay as familiar as they could.

“It depends on how well received the first one or two of the evening are. If they go over big, then we might expand and do as many as eight or nine of the songs live, whereas if they’re not well received, we’ll limit to two or three.”

“Gee, that was informative, sis.”

“You did ask.”

Exasperated, I finally said, “So I guess you’re telling me I should get to know all of them, huh?”

“Couldn’t hurt, and considering they’re mostly your songs it shouldn’t be all that hard either,” she giggled as she made her escape from within my reach, anticipating my playful attempt at a punch in the arm.

Okay, so I guess my late night was planned for me. It took me a few minutes to gather up everything I would need, but once I had my laptop, my guitarport, headphones, and my trusty Yamaha, I started working out the guitar parts for all the songs on the CD.

It really didn’t take all that long, and after a couple of hours, I felt like I knew them about as well as I was going to without playing them live with the band a few times. After getting everything put away, I changed into my nightie, tied my hair up with a scrunchie, and laid down on the sofa. I must have been tired, because I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow.

The next morning, I was again awakened by the sounds of Shelly and Jen talking loudly enough that I was sure their intent was to wake me. So I rolled out of bed and wandered into the bathroom, took a quick shower, and got myself dressed casually again. When I came into the kitchen, I found the evil conspirators plotting my fate.

It seemed Shelly had decided that although she didn’t want to zap my face again today, she was most definitely interested in playing with her hair gun again, and decided to attack my chest hair this morning. Thankfully, there wasn’t all that much to begin with, and what there was had long since been lightened by the hormonal assault, so about an hour later, the torture session ended with her declaration that my front upper torso appeared to be pretty much hair free.

This was actually the first time either of them had seen me unclothed since I had started on the hormones, so they were a little surprised to see that I actually had almost B cups jutting out from my chest. They were pretty much silent during the electrolysis treatment, but once that was over, Jen decided she’d waited long enough.

“So, sister mine, I see you’ve done a little remodeling.”

As I slipped my top back on, I replied, “Well I wasn’t going to run around flat chested for the rest of my life like Annie, was I?”

This earned me a slap on the arm from Shelly, but a giggle from Jennifer. Just then, Annie arrived for rehearsal, followed closely by Sarah, and we were once again back at work.

We started with a run through of the original stuff, all of which sounded much better than any of them would have, had we tried them the day before. This made me pleased with our progress, thinking that maybe we would get through this after all. After a repeat of “Politics of Love”, which was one of my contributions, we did another one of mine, called “Let Go of Yesterday”, which sounded like it could have been lifted off of a Pink Floyd album.

Since working on the stuff from the CD had consumed most of the morning, we decided to take a little lunch break, then hit it hard again after about an hour total away from our instruments. First up was Natalie Merchant’s “Wonder”, which isn’t exactly hard rock, but we all love the song, so there.

We whipped through a few Avril Lavigne tunes, then got a little off the beaten path, for girl groups at least, by breaking out “With or Without You”, Van Halen’s “Jump”, and a personal favorite of mine, Stone Temple Pilots’ “Plush”.

The last song on the agenda this day was Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat”, which we played the heck out of on the first try, then decided we’d worked hard enough for one day and the girls packed up their toys and went home, leaving Jen and I alone for the evening.

After a bite of dinner, we thought we’d have a quiet night just the two of us playing together like we did when we were kids, so we each went and got our acoustic guitars…me my Epiphone J-200 and her an Ibanez Artwood that was the same body style as the one Clapton played on his MTV Unplugged special.

We found ourselves going back over some of our older originals…the ones that were too mellow to make the cut with the band. We wound up jamming all evening long, until her cell phone rang and we realized it was nearly midnight, so deciding that getting a little rest before the next day’s rehearsal, we got ready for bed and told each other good night with a nice sisterly hug. Just like the night before, by the time I lay down, I was already nearly unconscious.

Tuesday morning came way too early for this old guitar player, as Jen and Shelly practically jumped on top of me to wake me up. I guess Shelly was going to start in with round two of the facial electrolysis, so I got out of bed like a good girl, and prepared myself for another morning of pain.

Following my two hour shock therapy session, I headed into the bathroom for my shower, where I decided it had been a few days since I shaved my legs, and this seemed as good a time as any. That done, I dried my hair and got dressed, deciding today to be a little more girly. After my bra and panties were on, I never really had enough to need a gaff, I opted for a cute little t-shirt that I’ve owned for a long time but never really had the chance to wear much for obvious reasons, and a short denim skirt with flat sandals. Casual, but feminine. A little touch of makeup…after all, it was just the girls coming over to practice, not much need to tart up or anything…and I was ready to rock, And just in time, as the others showed up as I was exiting the bathroom.

Once practice got rolling, we decided that we should go through and figure out the set list for the gig. This served the dual purpose of making sure everyone was on the same page, and in case anyone (as in me) felt uncomfortable with any of the songs on the list, we could run through them again to try and iron out any rough spots.

It made for a full day, even though we really only played a few songs, but around 5 rehearsal broke up for the day, again leaving Jen and I alone for a sister’s night in. Tonight’s plan? A chick flick fest on TV, toenail painting, and salty snacks followed by chocolate ice cream. Sort of like a slumber party for two.

Wednesday I surprised my torturer by being up and showered before she showed up at our door. Knowing what was on the docket for the morning, I didn’t bother getting fully dressed after my shower, instead donning just panties and a robe.

She had me lay face down and proceeded to zap back hair, which I wasn’t entirely aware I had. But, she swore on Janis Joplin’s grave it was there, and since I believe in being thorough in all things, I let her inflict her abuse on me once again. As she was wrapping up for the day, she looked at me and said, “Ya know, we may be able to finish off your face in just a few more treatments.”

With enough sarcasm dripping from my words that a small child could have drowned, I said, “Great!” got up and went and got dressed. Practical was the order of the day because we were going to have to load into the club that afternoon, so jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers would be my uniform until show time.

Shelly it seemed owned the band’s PA system, not to mention the only van in the group, so it was pressed into service for equipment hauling. It took about half an hour to tear down everything that was set up in the rehearsal room, then another half hour to haul it out and get it loaded around the rest of the PA.

Then we all piled into cars, me riding with Jen, and headed out to the club. An hour and a half later, we were loaded in, set up, and ready for a quick sound check before we headed back home to get dressed for tonight. We played bits and pieces of three or four songs, and declared everything ready.

Back at Jen’s house, I found myself having a heck of a time figuring what to wear. For a moment, I thought to myself, “Why the hell am I having so much trouble? I never had any difficulty picking out what to wear on stage before.”

Then it occurred to me that I’d never intentionally tried to pass as a girl when playing before. This was a whole new world, and as exciting as I was finding it, I was also scared thoughtless, which might have had something to do with my inability to make up my mind concerning clothing.

I had finally narrowed the choices down to three different outfits, all of which were laid out on Jennifer’s bed. She came in the room to grab her shoes, having long since gotten dressed herself, since she obviously had a clue what she was doing unlike me, and reached down and grabbed one of the outfits and handed it to me, saying, “See, it wasn’t that difficult, was it?” After that, she grabbed her shoes out of the closet and left the room, leaving me standing there holding the outfit she had just selected for me.

I finally returned to some level of consciousness and started getting dressed. The outfit in question wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d expect a rock chick to wear, but then I’m not exactly what you’d call a rock chick, so after taking off the filthy t-shirt and jeans I’d worn for setup, I pulled on a different, more low cut t-shirt and a pair of overall shorts, the result being nice but casual.

My next quandary had to do with shoes. I only owned four pairs of girl shoes…a pair of pink and white sneakers, flat sandals, a pair of wedged sandals, and black high heeled pumps. Having momentarily regained use of my brain, I decided that I would have to be an idiot to wear the pumps with this outfit, even if I weren’t going to be on my feet for four hours plus, so they were easy enough to eliminate from the running. I didn’t really like the sneakers with this outfit under any circumstances, and I actually wanted to look good tonight, so contestant number two down. Finally it came to me that the flats were just too casual, so the wedges it was. They dressed up the outfit just a little without looking out of place…a perfect choice.

As I was entering the bathroom to use the mirror to apply my makeup, which obviously was going to be more pronounced that I would normally wear because we were going to be up on stage, Jen was just applying the finishing touches to hers, and she looked great. I said, “Maybe I don’t need any makeup at all. It’s not like anyone is going to be looking my way with you standing in front of me.”

She acted like she was going to punch me in the arm, then said, “That may be, but no sister of mine is going on stage looking like a washed out ghost. Need any help?”

“I’d appreciate you letting me know if anything needs changed once I’m done. Despite the fact I’m older than you, you’re a lot more experienced with female war paints.” She left the bathroom, leaving me to my task.

A few minutes later, I called her to come offer opinions, and she quickly said if anything, I was a little too understated. I tried to explain that I wasn’t really in a position to want to attract a man, so maybe understated was a good idea. She seemed a bit skeptical, but didn’t press the issue further.

We drove back to the club, entering through the back and met with the other girls in the storage room that had been temporarily assigned double duty as a dressing room of sorts, because it could be locked for storage of purses and such. At this point, we hadn’t seen what the crowd was like, but from where we were it sounded like they were large in numbers or enthusiasm, one or the other.

Shelly looked at me and said, “Ready for this?”

I let out a nervous laugh, then said, “I suppose.”

Jen jumped in, “Don’t buy the shy little girl thing. She’s ready.”

With that, we exited the back room and headed toward the stage. Just as I was about to climb the stairs, I happened to glance at the front row of tables, and suffered the shock of my life. Sitting there was Dave, the drummer from the country band I had just quit. I was trying to hide behind the PA speaker stack as Jen came up behind me and asked, “What’s wrong?”

I leaned close so she could hear and said, “See that guy sitting at that table up front? The one with all the empties sitting there?” I tried to peek around the speakers without him seeing me.

“Yeah, so?”

“He was the drummer in the band I just quit!” I hissed in her ear, trying to emphasize just how certain I was that my life was about to end.

“So, what are you going to do?” she asked, intending it to be supportive and at the same time prodding me on stage so we could start the set.

In as feminine a gait as I had ever been able to use, I followed my sister on stage and picked up my guitar. I tried my hardest not to look at Dave, instead turning around to look at Shelly, who was starting to count us in to our first song. “One, two, three four!”

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Does Jill get through the band's first gig unscathed? What happens with Dave? Jill makes some discoveries about herself when she least expects it. Thanks to Karen J and Angharad for their assistance.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 2
By Jillian

You would have thought that once we started playing, my nerves would settle down some, but every time I dared look toward the audience, all I could see was Dave sitting there smiling at me. He knew!

The worst part of it was that all this nervousness was throwing off my timing, so I wasn’t playing nearly as well as I could have. By the time we were through the first song, I’m pretty sure I was sounding pretty much normal, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still scared silly.

The entire first set, I felt like I had chains weighing down my fingers and was afraid that’s how I sounded. To their credit, none of the girls said anything negative to me while we were on stage, and we ploughed through the set without any major incidents. For the most part, the crowd did seem to be enjoying themselves, at least.

As we came off stage after the set, Dave was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking at me. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said with just a touch of a chuckle in his voice.

When I got to the bottom of the steps, I grabbed his arm and immediately pulled him back toward the ‘dressing room’ for a quick chat. “Hi Dave. What are you doing here?” I said, trying not to sound panicked, but failing miserably.

“Well, I was actually here to wind down a little tonight. Imagine my surprise when the band comes on and there you were,” he said as I could see the wheels spinning in his head.

Knowing just how bad this could end up, I started to say, “Dave…”

“Hey, it’s not like this is a total surprise, although I wasn’t expecting to see you up on stage like that. I had my suspicions about you for a long time.” He interrupted me before I could complete my thought.

“Oh, really?” My panic started easing, giving way to curiosity.

“Really,” he continued. “You did always come across as not exactly manly. Although, knowing what you sound like when you sing, I’m guessing you don’t do any vocals with this group.”

I don’t think I’ve ever blushed so much in my life, but did finally manage to speak. “That would be correct. What do you want, Dave?” There, I got to the point. No pussyfooting around, there really wasn’t time.

“Oh, nothing. I just thought I’d hang around and listen to this chick band. I might even call the other guys to see if they wanted to come by as well,” he grinned like he was the cat that just ate the canary.

My heart sank even deeper. It wasn’t bad enough that one person I’d essentially lived with for the last year and a half just found out about me, but he was threatening to call the rest of them so they could all see the ‘freak’ in action. I thought, “How much further ‘til I hit bottom?” Trying to maintain some contact with reality, to Dave I said, “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that. Please?” I was on the verge of crying at this point.

Dave looked at me for a moment, then smiled and said, “Nah, there’s really no reason to, is there? I mean, we all suspected there was something screwy with you all along. We just weren’t sure what it was. That’s not to say we didn’t have our suspicions. I mean, I did see your laundry on occasion when you were washing your things.”

“You mean, you looked through my things when we would stop at the Laundromat? How could you?” I was beginning to move past curious, blew through scared, and into pissed off territory.

“Hey, it wasn’t like we did it on purpose or anything. It’s just that, in all the time we were playing together, you never once brought a chick back to the hotel, and yet you always had panties and bras and stuff in your laundry. It was kinda hard to miss. We just figured you liked to play dress up, so we let ya have a room to yourself so we didn’t have to see it.”

So there it was. My great plan I had thought had secured me my private room all that time, and it turned out it was because they didn’t want to see my in my most comfortable state. I was relieved and sickened at the same time. My secret wasn’t so secret after all. I looked at Dave again, and said, “So, are you going to say anything?”

“Nah, I don’t see much reason in starting a riot here tonight. Just don’t expect to ever live this down,” he said and started chuckling again as he left the dressing room to return to his table.

I sat down on a beer keg, since there weren’t any chairs in the room. As I was going over everything in my head for the umpteenth time since we got off stage, I fought the urge to break down and start crying my eyes out. I knew that no good could come from that, but it was a battle I felt like I was on the verge of losing at any moment nonetheless. Once I finally started to settle down, I just sat and thought until it was time to go back on.

Just before time, Jen came over to me and said, “Hey sis, it’s time to go back on.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“What? Some jerk shows up and gives you a hard time, and you want to just quit? That doesn’t sound like the sister I know.”

“Well, say hello to the new me,” I replied with as serious a look on my face as I could muster. I was only able to hold it for a second before the seriousness started to fade.

She looked at me for a second, then said, “Whatever. Let’s get a move on, girls.”

Shelly surprised me by coming up beside me, taking my arm and pulling me up into a standing position. She gave me a little squeeze to start me walking toward the door, and said, “Nothing’s going to happen, you’ll see.”

I looked at her like she had two heads for a moment, then responded, “Yeah, right.” Once we were at the foot of the stairs leading up to the stage, we all looked at each other. All of a sudden, I felt a new resolve come over me. There was no way I was going to let him get to me like that.

As we got ready to start the set, we could clearly hear Dave shouting, “SRV! SRV!” Obviously, having played together for so long he was aware that I had done a lot of Stevie Ray’s songs at one time or another, but wasn’t going to be doing any singing tonight. I mean, I can look all right, and I can manage a semi feminine sound when speaking sometimes, but there was no way I would ever be able to sing and sound the least bit feminine, period. And since Jen didn’t do any of his songs, we had to try to ignore him. He did say not to expect him to let me live it down.

After the first song was done, Dave started in again with his “SRV!” chant. He carried on like this in between songs, and the longer it went on, the more certain I was that it was indeed intended strictly as a jab at me. However, I was long past getting worked up over his sad attempt at heckling, and we battled on womanly through the second set, and the third, all the while being treated to his “SRV!” chant in between songs. He even carried on some in between sets, and at one point I was certain the bouncers were going to come over and escort him from the premises, but that didn’t happen.

While on our break between the third and fourth sets, I finally spoke up, “I’m so sorry, guys. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have to put up with that idiot Dave out there trying to get under my skin. I just wish I could shut him up.”

All of a sudden, Jen looked like a light bulb had come on over her head. “Maybe there is.”

I asked, “What are you talking about? I know you’ve never done any of Stevie’s stuff, and I’m sure not going to sing. There’s no way I could possibly sound even the least bit like a girl.”

Just then, Shelly seemed to catch on to what Jen was thinking, and said, “Nobody said anything about singing Stevie Ray. You know some of his instrumentals don’t you?”

“Well, duh. You can’t play guitar for a living without knowing some of those tunes.”

Jen then said, “Why not play one of them?”

Finally catching on, my face lit up as I said, “And I know the perfect one. It’ll maybe shut him up for a bit, and give us a chance to bring down the intensity for a minute or seven.”

Annie jumped in, “You’re thinking of digging out ‘Lenny’, aren’t you?” She was well aware of how familiar I was with that tune, since when we were in that band together before, that was my big feature song every night.

I looked first at Annie, then at Shelly and Sarah, and finally at Jen before speaking, “It’s a pretty easy tune for the band to play. You just have to watch for signals when to bring things to a halt.”

I was starting to get excited. Maybe Dave is drunk enough at this point he’ll forget why he was shouting for Stevie Ray all night long, and will shut up once we play it. I doubted that, but it was a possibility. On top of that, if I had to pick one song and say, “This is my all time favorite”, it would be ‘Lenny’.

I explained quickly that I would start things off by myself, then when I gave the signal, the band would come in. I asked them to exaggerate the dynamics a lot, because that helps make the song work. And finally, I told them to watch for my signal toward the end that would tell them it was time to drop out, allowing me to play it out to the end.

If it worked it would be a huge crowd pleaser. If it didn’t, we could expect to hear nothing but the crickets rubbing their legs together when the song ended. I dearly hoped it would be the former.

We climbed those steps one more time and made our way to each member’s respective positions to a smattering of applause, along with Dave’s by now seriously slurred chant of “SRV!” We started the set off with Van Halen’s ‘Jump’, and then as the crowds cheers subsided, Jen took to the mic to say, “You’ve been patient all night, so here’s one for that Stevie Ray fan over there.”

I started in with the jazz chord introduction, like Stevie played live, and then after I finally settled in to the main tune, I signaled the band to come in gently. It felt amazing, considering the fact that we’d never played the song together before, to hear the intensity rise and fall with each passing phrase. I dug deep and pulled out everything I could think of to throw into that song, and by the time I signaled for the band to drop out so I could play the sustained jazz chord ending, I felt completely drained.

Then it came time for the moment of truth. There was an instant of silence during which I was scared to death that maybe it sounded like crap. When the cheers began, a sense of relief washed over me and revitalized me, really. It seemed they really liked the song, and for the first time since the end of the first set, there was no chant of “SRV!” I looked down at Dave’s table and saw why. He had apparently left during the song, the jerk. Oh well, at least we might not have to be heckled for the rest of the final set.

Jen smiled at me in an attempt to bring me back to planet Earth, and then we picked back up with the pre-planned set list, closing with Alanis Morrissette’s ‘Uninvited’. As we walked off stage, cheers and calls of “Encore” assaulted us. But, as it was past 1am, and the bartender had already shouted, “Last call”, we were done for the evening.

Once we were gathered in the storage/dressing room, we engaged in a group hug; and to be honest more than a couple of tears were shed. As the hug was breaking up, the manager came into the room and paid Jen, who then promptly divvyed up the night’s earnings. While she was doing the math, the manager asked, “Did any of you know that jerk up front that kept screaming for the SRV?”

Feeling mildly confident in my ability to sound quasi-feminine, at least enough so to hopefully avoid detection, I replied, “Yeah, I used to play with him. Things didn’t end as amicably as they might have, and when he discovered I was playing with the band tonight, he decided to try giving me a hard time.”

“Well, if you’d played that tune earlier, looks like you could have saved yourselves a little frustration. What kind of jerk requests something all night long, then leaves in the middle of it?”

I really didn’t want to elaborate on that point, as there was a chance that doing so might expose me as a not exactly genetic girl. So I simply said, “The kind I’m glad finally left, so we could enjoy the rest of the gig.”

The club manager started to leave our ‘dressing’ room, but stopped and turned to face us from the doorway and said, “So, ya’ll are here through the weekend, that right?”

I stared at him blankly. The fact was, I had no idea when or where we would be playing, but it turned out I didn’t need to. Jen, who generally served as band spokesperson, said, “That’s right. Tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday nights.”

“Cool, I guess I’ll see you ladies tomorrow evening then,” he said as he exited.

I looked at Jen and jokingly said, “Nice of you to let me know the schedule. What if I’d had a date or something?”

She didn’t say a word, instead simply looking at me with an expression that was intended to convey, “Yeah, whatever.” I ignored her as I closed the final latch on my guitar case. I was ready to go home, but it seemed none of the others were quite on my schedule, so I took a seat on a beer keg and waited patiently for the other girls to finish getting ready to leave.

As I looked around the room killing time, I found that my eyes kept gravitating back toward Sarah. She was the one I knew least well of the band members, and for some reason there was just something about her that intrigued me.

What I did know was that she was very shy, despite being really pretty. The thought occurred to me that I might have to find out if there was a story behind that.

I noticed more than a few times, I’d look her way to find her looking at me, which I found quite disconcerting. I was having trouble reading her expression, partly because every time I caught her looking my way, she would quickly divert her eyes and look at the floor, or her nails, or basically anything but me. Somehow, that intrigued me all the more.

We played this little stare and divert game for a few minutes, until everyone was ready to head out. I was just about to make my way over to Sarah for a chat when Shelly came over to me and said, “I’ll see you in the morning, and be prepared for more pain.” She cackled as she walked away. Unfortunately, while I was distracted by the evil hair killer, Sarah left so I didn’t wind up getting the chance to talk to her.

On our way back home Jen was quiet, which suited me just fine, as I still hadn’t processed everything that had just happened. Once we arrived at the house, we both carried our guitars in and while she headed for the bathroom and started the shower, I sat down on the sofa, almost falling asleep instantly.

The next thing I knew, Jen was standing there in her nightie with a towel wrapped around her hair. She nudged me a couple of times and said, “Hey don’t think you’re going to sleep on my couch in those smelly clothes. Go get showered, so we can get rid of the smoke smell.”

I dutifully did as instructed, and while I was in the shower, my mind began wandering in directions it hadn’t gone in a long time. It seems that at least in part because of my gender issues, I never had really got around to figuring out just who or what I was interested in, sex wise. It just never really seemed all that important, since I wasn’t sure what I was, and without knowing that I didn’t think I’d have a lot of luck figuring out the other. Since it was easier to just not think about it rather than stir up the mud in my river of dreams, it had worked out that despite being in my late twenties, I was still a virgin, and frankly still had no idea what I might or might not be interested in.

That being said, there was one thought that kept returning to my mind that night as I washed my hair…Sarah. It didn’t click with me until later, but I seemed to have finally started to figure out where my interests lay.

By the time I got out of the shower and dried off, Jen had long since gone to bed and I could easily make out the faint sounds of her snoring waft out of her bedroom. I pulled on my nightie, pulled back my hair, and lay down on the couch, covering up with a blanket. Mere moments later, my snores were harmonizing with those of my sister.

I was sitting very close to Sarah at a table in the bar. There was a calm sense of peace that seemed to envelope us, blocking out the rest of the world. We were looking into each other’s eyes silently when a loud noise interrupted the moment from the other side of the club.

Dave and Mike, the front man from my old band, were making a fuss. Dave shouted, “Hey Jack, finally found a girl…besides yourself?”

Mike decided to add his own barb. “I figured you were a fag, but never considered the possibility that you were a lesbian!”

I made the mistake of taking my eyes away from Sarah for a moment, and was instantly assaulted by all the noises that had been previously blocked from my ears. In addition to the heckling from my former bandmates, there were a couple of drunks sitting close to us shouting, “Hey, why don’t the both of ya come on over and try it with a man?”

First I started to cry, then when Sarah looked into my eyes and saw my tears, she also began crying, until the sounds of our sobbing had drowned out the noises from the bar once again…

I woke up shaking my head to clear the foggy images that were fading from my memory as I began achieving a greater level of wakefulness. I got up and went to the bathroom, tended to some personal business, then returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa for a few minutes.

Suddenly, I felt the urge to pick up a guitar, and as I did so an idea for a new song began forming in the back of my mind. I strummed a few chords, trying to find the right feel, then once I found the perfect groove…a soulful waltz like tempo…the words just started flowing…

All I’m asking is a moment
And then I’ll let you go
And if you’ll give me that one moment
I’ll tell you something I think you should know

I could hear the entire band in my mind as I was scribbling down the words as quickly as I could, so as not to forget them.

Then if you don’t believe me
You know I’ll understand
But I’ve got these things just runnin’ through my brain
And if you’ll take my hand…

As I continued, the words came flowing out almost too fast for me to write them down.

I can show you all I’ve got to give
And all my hopes and dreams
We’ve each got our own lives to live
But sometimes I go to extremes

With each passing bar, I fell in love with this song just a little bit more.

And I hope that you’ll believe me
When I say I don’t want you to go
‘Cause It’s too strong, and it won’t let me be
And I wanted you to know

There was a rise in intensity, and while when I first started I had been trying to keep things quiet so as not to interfere with Jen’s sleep, by the time I reached the next section, all thoughts of keeping a lid on the volume were long since gone.

I can’t fight it any longer
I just had to let it show
‘Cause it’s growin’ so much stronger
That I might break down
Fall down on my knees
I just might lose control…

With a return to the first section musically came the realization of where this might have come from. I wasn’t certain how comfortable I was with that knowledge, but…

I’m not asking for a lifetime
I couldn’t ask that of you
But if you gave me a lifetime
I’d be thrilled to spend it with you

And then it was time to complete the thought.

And so tomorrow, when the morning
Comes shining through
Then you can look into my eyes and see
That what I say is true

As the final chord faded, I heard a shuffling come from the hallway. Looking up, I saw Jen standing there listening. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She looked at me for a moment, then said, “Not at all. Good song. How long have you been working on that one?”

I looked at the clock, and replied, “About half an hour, from the looks of it.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. Pity it’s not really suitable for the band.”

“True.”

She came over to sit beside me, and looking me in the eye asked, “So, who’s this about?”

“What do you mean? Does it have to be about someone?”

She started giggling just a bit, then said, “Well, I don’t suppose it HAS to be, but I’m betting it is. Who is it?”

I hummed and hawed for a minute or two, trying to wriggle my way out of this question when she asked, “It’s not that asshole, Dave?”

A smile escaped from my lips as I said, “No, it’s not Dave.”

“Well then, who is it? Is it someone I know?”

I started blushing uncontrollably. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if my face had turned the color of a stop sign.

She said, “It is!” At this point, I didn’t have to say anything, as it seemed my body was intent on betraying my secret. After what felt like about three years, but was in reality only around thirty seconds, Jen asked, “Boy, or girl?”

I looked at her for a moment before replying, “Aren’t you the nosy one, little sister?”

“You better believe it sister mine. So?”

I looked her in the eyes for a moment, then made a decision. “It’s sort of weird to go through a year and a half of hormone treatments and start living full time as a woman only to find out you like girls. Well, a girl.”

“So, why are you so afraid to tell me it’s Sarah?”

I’m sure I blushed again, but tried to cover it up by saying, “What makes you think it’s her?”

“You mean besides the thirteen shades of red adorning your cheeks when I said her name? I take it you haven’t talked to her about this yet.”

“I really have no clue how to go about it. This is all new territory for me.”

“Well, I’m a little surprised, I have to admit. I had you pegged for going after some fireman myself.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

She patted my knee and got up from the sofa, “Ah, well, at least you have good taste.”

“Sis!!!”

She started to walk back toward her bedroom, and as she was doing so she said, “Well she is good looking! Not really my thing, but…” She stopped just before going back into her room, “Put that guitar away and try to get some sleep, would ya? There’ll be plenty of time to talk to your dream girl tomorrow. Imagine, my sister, the lesbian,” she started giggling at her own joke as she went in the room and closed the door behind her.

I set aside my guitar and did try to go back to sleep, but for some reason the Sandman just wasn’t cooperating. After a while, I did finally manage to achieve a state more or less like sleep, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly restful.

I must have eventually managed to fall asleep, as the next thing I knew, Jen and Shelly were once again waking me up. It seemed Shelly wanted to inflict a little more pain on my face, and was getting anxious since I wasn’t awake yet.

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Time to rise and shine,” she said as she poked my shoulder, not unlike prodding a possibly dead animal to see if it were in fact dead.

Still laying there with my eyes squeezed tightly closed, I muttered, “What time is it?”

Jen made her presence known by answering, “Just after noon, and if we can be up, so can you.”

I rubbed some sleep out of my eyes and asked, “We’re not practicing today, are we?”

As she was starting toward the table where she already had her toy set up, Shelly said, “No, but we could still get a little work in on your beard. Who knows, maybe after this all that’ll be left will be cleaning up the strays that didn’t die the first time?”

I had to admit that I liked that idea, although I felt pretty certain that she was being overly optimistic both about her skills as an electrologist, and the thickness of the hair follicles I had left. Prying myself up off the sofa, I followed her over to the table, trailed by Jen. “Funny, you say that same thing every morning, and from the looks of things we’re no closer to being done than we were before. We all know that the truth is this could take a very long time. Although, I must admit that I will be so glad when this is all over with.”

As we took our seats, Shelly said, “I understand. We’ve been doing a lot more hairs on you than I ever had done, and I know it’s not the most pleasant experience in the world. But the truth is, even after only a few days, it’s easy to tell the difference. Let’s just keep at it, and eventually, it’ll be all done.”

That obviously struck me as a much more realistic appraisal than her previous statement, and I couldn’t help but sense my mood soften as a result, even though she had already started with the zapping.

I zoned out for a while, and although I was aware of my sister and tormentor carrying on a conversation while my treatment was being inflicted, I wasn’t aware of the contents of that discussion until I happened to catch Shelly saying something about Sarah. I interjected, “Come again?”

“Oh, so you are still in there somewhere,” Jen teased.

“Yes, sorry, just sort of spaced out for a bit. It makes it easier to ignore the pain.”

Shelly then said, “What I was saying is that Sarah’s a sweet girl. Whoever winds up with her will be very lucky indeed.” I could see the twinkle in her eye, which told me Jen had obviously told her something about last night, and this was her way of subtly teasing me about it.

Trying to play along, I said, “You are right about that.” I felt my mind drifting away again, so I didn’t catch what the girls were saying after that. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I found myself trying to figure out what I was going to say to Sarah, assuming I ever got around to actually doing it. I envisioned any number of different ways it could go, ranging from innocuous to downright disastrous, and had just about convinced myself that I should just forget the whole thing when Shelly brought me back to reality by saying, “Okay, done for today. If we tried to do much more the redness and swelling wouldn’t go down by tonight, so…”

My head now firmly back in place, I said, “Thanks, Shell. Now, what’s for lunch?”

This prompted a round of giggles from everyone followed by my beloved sister telling me, “Go get a quick shower, and I’ll see what I can come up with.” This sent Jen rummaging though the fridge in search of something to eat.

She was still looking around, trying to make up her mind, when after a few more minutes of digging, she finally said, “Anyone just want sandwiches?”

Shelly replied first by saying, “Sure, that sounds fine.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any corned beef?” Jen knew I love corned beef sandwiches, and usually tried to keep some on hand when I’m in town.

“Well of course. I know how to take care of my sister,” she commented as she pulled things out of the fridge so we could build our own lunches.

Lunch eaten, we were all putting dishes and things away when Sarah let herself in the front door. Shelly looked up at her from where she was bent over the dishwasher and said, “Rather presumptuous of you.”

Sarah commented, “Well, if you’d rather…”

Shelly cut her off by saying in a really awful Mexican accent, “Keyboards? We don’ need no stinkin’ keyboards.”

I looked over at Sarah and in a burst of courage said, “Hi,” then looked away.

“Hi,” she replied, as she too suddenly took an immense interest in the tops of her shoes.

Jen quietly grabbed Shelly’s arm and dragged her out of the kitchen, back into her bedroom saying, “Why don’t you come help me with the flyers for next week’s gigs?”

As they left, I asked Sarah, “Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m fine.” She walked on into the living room, with me following closely, and took a seat on the sofa. I then proceeded to sit next to her while I nervously tried to figure out exactly what I wanted to say. Apparently she was suffering from a similar malady, as we sat there looking at each other shyly for a couple of minutes.

I did finally break the silence, in the process chickening out on what I really wanted to say, when I told her, “You know, I’m really enjoying playing with you all. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoying playing this much. Thanks for letting me.”

She looked taken aback, and said, “Hey, I don’t remember us ever sounding so good. We should be thanking you.”

The silence settled over us again, as neither one of us seemed certain what they wanted to say next. That silence was broken by the sounds of Shelly coming out of Jen’s room, but as soon as she saw we were still sitting there quietly, she turned around and went back in and closed the door behind her.

Sarah looked at me for a moment, then asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no. Nothing’s wrong.” I became quiet again for a moment before finally starting, “This is kind of strange.”

“What?”

“Well, I like you, Sarah. Not just as a friend.”

“Oh,” she commented. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow indeed. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to figure me out, that I never really thought about who I might be attracted to.” I took a deep breath, then continued, “This is really the first time I can ever remember feeling any sort of…of attraction for someone. I have to say, I’d really like to get to know you a lot better, if you’d be receptive to the idea.” I couldn’t believe I’d actually told her that.

She looked me in the eyes and said, “I like you too. But, this could get awfully complicated, ya know? It’s like, I know that physically you’re still a guy, but you look like a girl. And, I’ve never been interested in girls.”

“Oh.”

I thought my heart would stop beating. Just as despair was about to wrap it’s claws around my soul and wring the life out of me, she surprised me by leaning in close and lightly kissing me on the lips. With that, my heart started to pound and my spirits soared.

Maybe I was being a little quick in my reaction, but I was ready to find out just exactly where things stood. I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers, starting gently, then building in intensity until she broke the kiss and sat back in her seat.

I looked at her for a moment before speaking, “Well?” I am a girl of few words, it seems, as I couldn’t think of a single other thing to say at this moment. My eyes began to water, as I awaited her next words.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Sarah and Jill explore their feelings, and the band performs. Will they hear from Dave again?

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 3
By Jillian

As Sarah silently looked into my eyes, I tried to fathom what she was thinking. My mind ran through the gamut of possibilities, and I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled or devastated by her indecision.

Finally, she spoke, “I don’t know. I will admit to having some feelings for you, but like I said, I’ve never been into girls. I know that doesn’t seem like much of an answer but . . . .” she allowed the thought to drift off into silence.

“Believe me, I know how weird this seems. I’m still trying to make sense of things myself.” I took her hand in mine and gazed into her eyes. “I sensed something between us this week, and especially last night after the gig. If I was wrong, just say so, and I’ll let it drop, okay?” There, I put it back in her court.

It wasn’t difficult to see the confusion swimming in her eyes as she processed all of this. I sat as patiently as I could manage as her heart and mind tried to make some sense of the situation. Several times, she looked like she was going to speak, but always stopped short.

Finally, I broke the silence, “Sarah, there’s no hurry. Take as much time as you want to think about things. I’ll be here when you have things figured out.” I released her hand, stood up, and started to leave the room.

“Don’t go,” she said as I took my first steps. I turned back to face her. “I’m not sure how to say this.”

I returned to my previous seat and looked into her eyes again. “Whatever it is, just say it.”

She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “We’ve known each other for a while now, haven’t we?”

“A couple of years, I suppose. Not that we’ve had that many opportunities to hang out together before this week.” It was true. She’d been playing with Jen for a couple of years, and whenever I was in town, I’d hang out with her band.

“I remember the day we met for the first time. I saw you as you walked into the living room that day as we were setting up for practice. I remember thinking, ‘He’s cute. A little feminine for my tastes, but . . . .’”

She took another deep breath, then continued. “We got to know each other, and I will even go so far as to admit to being attracted to you back then. In fact, I was almost gutted when I found out about Jill.”

I sat there in a stunned silence. This was all news to me. How had I managed to miss this? I decided to interject, “I had no idea.”

“Well no, you wouldn’t. I made sure not to tell anyone. I had just found what my heart was telling me might very well be the perfect guy, and then the next thing I know, I find out you wanted to be a woman.”

She looked away for a moment, then back into my eyes before finally settling her gaze on her hands in her lap. “I guess the truth is, those same feelings are still there, only they’re all jumbled up. There’s part of me that is just plain scared by the prospect of getting involved with you as more than a friend.”

I looked at her for, I don’t know, maybe a minute, maybe ten years. It was hard to tell at that point, as it felt like time stopped. I finally reached out and with my fingers on her chin, gently urged her to return her gaze to me.

“If I had been less self absorbed back then…” I let that thought die before restarting. “What if we just go really slow, and see what happens?”

She remained silent for what seemed like forever before finally responding, “Okay, I’d like that.”

I once again moved in closer to her and leaned in to give her another tender kiss. As our lips met, my contact with the outside world was gone for who knows how long, until I heard Shelly clear her throat and say, “Okay, break it up in here!”

We slowly pulled our lips apart and smiled at each other. It took a moment or so for the embarrassment to set in as we both diverted our eyes downward.

Jen was the next to speak, “Now that that’s settled, anyone want something to eat before we get ready for tonight?”

She and Shelly went into the kitchen to investigate the fridge, while Sarah and I remained seated facing each other. I don’t know about Sarah, but I was pretty sure that simply being this close to her could sustain me for a week or two at least, but finally good sense prevailed and I piped in, “I’ll take a sandwich.”

Sarah added, “Sure Jen. Whatever you have is fine.”

A few minutes later, we were all gathered round the dining table, having been joined by new arrival Annie. After sharing a small meal of sandwiches and chips, Jen returned to her room along with Shelly, while I took the rehearsal room to get changed. Annie had arrived dressed for the gig, and Sarah surprised me by following me into the rehearsal room to also get changed.

I suddenly felt very shy about changing in front of her, but her response to that was, “You don’t have any parts I’ve never seen before. Just a slightly different combination,” she giggled as she began changing her clothes.

I’m sure that were it not for the fact that my male parts hadn’t functioned in quite some time thanks to my hormone treatments, my reaction to seeing this lovely woman change in front of me would have been embarrassing, to say the least.

But, since that didn’t happen, I managed to refocus my attention to my task at hand, and began changing into a denim skirt and tank top. Once again opting for my wedge sandals, I looked up to see Sarah just finishing with her makeup, as I was ready to begin mine.

Not that I was going to wear much. The fact was, other than some lipstick and eyeliner; I wasn’t planning on wearing much more than a little powder to even out my face tone. I’ve always sweated a lot when playing under stage lights, so anything more than that bare minimum would be at best a waste and at worst would look like a bad joke.

Ready at last, Sarah gave me a quick kiss and we headed back out into the living room where the others were also ready to head out. We had decided to ride together tonight, since the parking was not the most accommodating.

So, we all piled into Shelly’s van and rode the thirty minutes to the club, where we parked in back and entered through the delivery entrance, which came in right beside our ‘dressing room’ door.

After unpacking and tuning the guitars, we were all ready to get started, although we still had a few minutes before we were expected on stage. We sat there for a moment before Shelly broke the silence. “Ya know, I was thinking maybe we should put ‘Lenny’ on the set list. It went over so well last night, other than with that jerk that left…”

Jen added, “Plus, it gives me a few minutes to rest my throat. Let’s put it in the fourth set, about halfway through.”

I simply nodded, knowing that at this point there really wasn’t much sense in trying to dissuade them, as it appeared they’d already made up their minds. Besides, why would I want to? As everyone got up to head out on stage, Sarah took my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze as she moved in close and whispered in my ear, “Break a leg!”

We switched positions so I could have her ear, and I said, “You too.”

Never one to pass up an opportunity to give someone a hard time, Shelly chimed in, “Hey, none of that here. Keep your paws to yourselves!”

We couldn’t help ourselves, and both of us started giggling. It took a few seconds to regain some sense of control, by which time we were due on stage. Everyone filed out and toward the steps, me next to last in line just in front of Jen. As we climbed onto stage, we all took a quick glance at the crowd, and to my great relief, there was no Dave.

I half expected him to show up again just to give me a hard time. He had always been rather closed minded, but then again so were the other guys I had been working with. You know, the kind of people who think Rush Limbaugh is too liberal.

We quickly got plugged in, and after a brief tuning check were ready to get started. My sister and I had never been what you’d call conventional in any way, and that applied to song selection as well, which was in evidence right away this night when we started the proceedings with Janet Jackson’s ‘Black Cat’.

I know I was feeling much more comfortable than I had been the night before thanks to not having to contend with pissed off former band mates, and I’m fairly certain that feeling came through in the sound. Whereas the night before my fingers felt like they were weighed down with lead, this time they were flying as if they were practically weightless.

We concluded the first set with the first of our originals for the evening, playing “Let Go Of Yesterday”. I played the intro, and by the time Jen’s vocal started I was in full David Gilmour mode.

Long ago you said goodbye
After all this time you’d think I’d realize
That you’re not comin’ back again
It’s a fight that I can’t win…

This song was a unique combination of intense yet laid back, in a way not unlike Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”, and that’s the way I played it, with each line of the vocal echoed by a line from the guitar.

Yesterday is dead and gone
I can’t remember where I started from
I look in the mirror, I don’t know
Where it is I need to go…

The intensity grew as we moved into the chorus.

I’ve been wanderin’ through my life
No destination in sight
No reason left to fight…
Now I’m lookin’ for a way to let go of yesterday…

The guitar counterpoint to the vocal built until at the end of the chorus it broke into a singing solo that carried that intensity through a statement of the verse chord progression and gently eased back as the vocal returned for the next verse.

Since that day you said goodbye
I’ve been lost and I can’t figure why
Too afraid to look ahead
I was lookin’ back instead…

Again, the song began gradually building up the intensity of the vocal/guitar duet.

It’s time for me to move along
I’ve been weak but now I must be strong
Like gaining sight when you were blind
It took a while for me to find…

The second statement of the chorus brought with it a return to the full intensity of the first.

I’ve been wanderin’ through my life
No destination in sight
No reason left to fight…
Now I’m lookin’ for a way to let go of yesterday…

Again, the interplay between voice and guitar built until it overflowed at the end of the chorus, where the guitar burst into the same singing line I’d played the first time. The only difference came toward the end of the verse, where instead of letting it die down gracefully, I metaphorically pushed the pedal down a bit more, driving the song into one last statement of the verse.

This final verse carried in it’s lines all the angst, anger, sadness, and fear I’d carried around with me all my life, mixed with the joy and love of life I now felt having finally found myself. The song eventually returned to Earth as the flame gradually died down until all that remained was one sustained guitar note, supported by a soft organ chord that slowly faded to nothing.

As we climbed off stage after that first set, I felt like I’d been playing for hours already, I was so drained. But at the same time, I felt invigorated in a way that only reaching deep within and exposing your emotional self can bring.

I had seriously wanted to disappear into the back room to recuperate but that was not to be, as it seemed some of our ‘fans’ wanted the privilege of buying us all a round of drinks. We commandeered a table to the side of the stage, and the waitress brought us each our usual beverages of choice, mine being a diet coke. It’s not that I’m anti alcohol, rather that I find it easier to do my job well if I have my wits about me, and drinking tends to interfere with that.

A group of guys came over to our table to compliment us on the set, and no doubt try to make some headway on a more personal level. We politely chatted with them for a bit, then excused ourselves for a run at the ladies room before time to return to work.

Over the course of the evening, I did flub a few things, as I was feeling confident enough to try a few things I wouldn’t ordinarily do, but overall the band, and my playing in particular, sounded much better than the night before.

At least that was until about halfway through the fourth set, when we noticed a tussle at the back of the bar. I knew immediately who it was and what they were doing, but I suspect I was the only one in the know until one of them spoke up loudly enough to be heard over the crowd as they responded to the song that had just finished.

“You mean you quit the band so you could go be a chick?” was the first comment I could clearly make out from the altercation near the door. The voice was unmistakable. It was Billy Joe, the lead singer of ‘Kentucky Straight’. I should have been able to recognize the voice, as I’d heard it enough over the past year and a half. “I always knew you were a fruit, ya pansy!”

Dave was the next one I made out, as he shouted, “Yo Jill, where’s Jack?”

“Listen girlie, why don’t ya come take care of me after you’re done here?” I recognized that voice, but couldn’t place a name with it at the moment. “I always knew you wanted it.” Then it hit me. That was Terry, the bass player.

The confidence I had felt all evening long evaporated the instant I heard those voices. I was terrified they might decide to do something physical because they were so mad at me for quitting, leaving them in the lurch as they saw it. Not to mention the over the top homophobic responses I knew would be coming if I ever had to face them in a more private setting as Jill.

As soon as we knew what was happening, we started the next song as quickly as we could, and while we were all obviously distracted, we tried our best not to let it effect how it sounded. However, their continued barbs could still be made out in the background of the music…

“Oh, come on! Can’t you tell that’s a guy?”

“I oughta kick that damned faggot’s ass!”

“Yo Jack, why don’t ya come play with this?”

By the time we were well into the song, the verbal assault had stopped, replaced by the sound of tables and chairs being tossed around, and breaking glass. Eventually, the patrons in question were escorted from the premises, and by halfway through the song, which happened to be ‘Complicated’, they were no longer in the building. Despite that, I was still shaking hard enough that playing was, shall we say, difficult. All of a sudden, I had reverted to my form from the night before.

We finished out the evening without further incident, and retired to the ‘dressing room’, where we were eventually joined by the club manager. He entered the room, closing the door behind him. “So, what was that all about?”

He knew that we knew exactly what he meant, so playing dumb was not in our best interests. Jen was the first to find her voice in response, “They used to play with Jill. She quit their band to come play with us, and they’re kinda pissed off about the whole deal.”

“I gathered that part. It’s the other I’m having some trouble with. They kept going on about Jill being a guy.”

I finally found my own voice. After all, this was my mess, and I’d best own up to it. “Well, technically that’s true.”

“This isn’t a gay club,” he said with more anger than I’d expected. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Jen once again took on the roll of spokesperson. “We thought we were getting a great guitar player, who just happens to be one of the most feminine people I’ve ever met.”

I sat there unable to speak, and finally broke down in tears over his reaction. Sarah was immediately at my side, offering comfort as Jen and Shelly persuaded the manager to leave with them so they could talk. I don’t know exactly what happened or how long things took, but the next thing I was aware of was being held by Sarah, with Annie close by.

Jen and Shelly did finally return, and from the looks on their faces they seemed satisfied with the outcome of their conversation. It seemed that for once, logic had won out over homophobia, as the fact that the cash registers had been busier the last couple of nights than they had been in weeks was deemed more important than having to forcibly escort a couple of rowdy drunks outside because they took issue with the entertainment.

Jen had secured the assurance that the doormen would be informed not to allow Dave or Billy Joe back inside, so I could rest relatively easy in the thought that there shouldn’t be any more incidents like the one this evening. We packed up the guitars and headed out back to make our way home.

That ease I had so recently acquired was short lived, as we got to Shelly’s van and found that several of the windows had been broken.

“At least they didn’t slash the tires,” Shelly joked as we climbed in, brushing chunks of glass out of the seats so we could sit down for the drive home.

“I’m so sorry you guys. This is all my fault,” I said as I buried my face in Sarah’s shoulder and started crying.

By the time we got home, we were all numb from the cold. Annie said her goodbyes as soon as we got there and took off in her car on her way to her warm husband and equally warm bed, while the rest of us went inside to attempt to warm up a bit. Jen headed straight for the kitchen to make up some hot chocolate, Shelly and Sarah took seats at the table, and I disappeared into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

A few minutes later, I was back with the others, minus the bar smell but changed into my most modest girls sleepwear, as a piping hot chocolate was set in front of me.

I took one sip and smiled. When I looked around the table, I could see that the beverage was being met with similar greetings at all corners. We all sat there enjoying the taste and aroma in silence for a few minutes, until Jen broke the quiet by saying, “Jill, would you take care of anyone who wants a refill while I zip off to the shower?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Jen disappeared, wanting to restore herself to a more human state. Meanwhile, I went to the kitchen and got everyone refills. Once back at my place, I looked at the girls and said, “I’m so sorry. I never should have…”

Sarah cut me off, “Enough of that. You’re not the one who owes apologies here.”

“That may very well be, but…”

“She hasn’t started back in with the sorries, has she?” Jen piped in as she returned from the shower.

Shelly answered her question, “Well, duh. What did you expect? You are related, after all.” As she finished her statement, she got up from the table and headed, I presumed, for the bathroom. Moments later, I heard the shower running once again, and knew that Shelly was planning on staying the night with my sister.

I’d known for years that they would occasionally spend the night together, but never really felt it my place to ask if it was anything more than a platonic sleepover. Now, however, I was suddenly intrigued…and then a little grossed out at the same time by my own curiosity.

When Shelly emerged sporting her own nightclothes, Jen surprised me by asking Sarah, “Did you want to clean up a bit?”

“If it’s no trouble,” Sarah tentatively answered.

“Jill, why don’t you show Sarah where the towels and things are?” It may have been worded like a question, but there was no question in my mind that this was more than just a suggestion.

I led Sarah to the linen closet, and as I opened the door to retrieve a towel for her, she moved in close and kissed me on the cheek. I don’t know what overcame me at that moment, but I asked her, “Would you like to stay the night? I don’t really have a bed, but I’d be more than happy to share the sofa.”

She nodded her head yes, then we started giggling for a moment before some sense of sanity returned to us as I helped her prepare for her shower.

While she washed away the remnants of our evening’s labors, I thought about why I’d asked her to stay. I really hadn’t even cast a single thought toward sex, but I could understand how the invitation might have been construed that way. I came to realize that I simply wanted to get to know as much as possible about this woman, and thought we might be able to talk some more about things.

We ‘borrowed’ some sleepwear from Jen’s room, and while Sarah got herself ready, I gathered up everyone’s smelly clothes and carted them off to the laundry room. Once sorted, I threw in the first load and returned to the living room just in time to find Sarah exiting the bathroom.

Apparently, while I was preparing the laundry, Jen and Shelly disappeared into Jen’s room, leaving Sarah and I to our own devices. We converged on the sofa at more or less the same time, and took seats very close to one another.

“So, feeling any better now?” I asked.

“Much. It always feels good to get that smell washed off, ya know?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, the beginnings of a giggle bubbling it’s way to the surface. I stifled that urge, and asked, “Would you like to hear a new song I just wrote?”

She seemed to suddenly glow with pride at the notion that she might be one of the first to ever hear this new creation, and quietly said, “I’d be honored.”

I quickly retrieved my acoustic from the corner, then returned to my place, then proceeded to play for her ‘All I’m Asking’. If anything, it took on an even more delicate tone than it had the night before. Maybe that was due to the fact that I was now playing it in front of the person for whom it had been written. I tried not to come right out and tell her that part for fear the knowledge might seem a bit overwhelming.

Once the song ended, Sarah looked into my eyes for a moment, before looking away in what could only be viewed as embarrassment. I was fairly certain she knew she was the subject of this opus, but I was having great difficulty reading her reaction to it.

I asked, “What’s wrong?” as I set aside the guitar.

She looked back at me once again and said, “I told you how I had a crush on Jack a long time ago. You know, in a lot of ways, I miss Jack.”

I tried not to allow the intense sadness I felt at her statement show on my face, but I’m pretty sure I failed miserably. I finally managed to pull myself together enough to reply, “Sometimes I do too.”

“Do you ever have second thoughts about the course you’ve chosen? Why not go back?”

“Because the life I have as Jill is so much better than anything I ever experienced as Jack. That is, of course, ignoring those jerks I used to play with. Before, I never felt like I belonged anywhere or with anyone. I feel like I belong here with Jen and all of you. Especially you.” I tried to communicate with my eyes just how deeply my feelings ran for this woman. Whether I succeeded or not, I couldn’t tell.

She stared into my eyes for an eternity before finally speaking, “I don’t understand how I’m feeling about all this. I know you’re technically the same person you were before. I can see the same caring, loving nature, and even physically, though there are some differences, you’re still basically the same as you were before. I already told you how I felt about you before, but for some reason, there’s just something in the back of my head that’s making me hold back. I’m sorry.”

She scooted away from me to the other end of the sofa, leaving me in stunned silence. I looked at her and felt a few tears escape my eye, then more and more. I fought the temptation to flat out bawl, and managed to remain silent as the tears rolled down my cheeks for several minutes. I knew I dared not turn my gaze away from her, for fear I could no longer control my desire to bellow in pain and sorrow.

She was looking directly at me, and I could see that she too was crying silently. We sat there like that for what seemed like days, just staring at each other as we silently cried in longing.

I was shocked when Sarah finally broke our silence, saying, “I hope you don’t hate me, but I just don’t think I can do this. I do love you…like a sister.”

I knew this was a possibility, so why was I surprised? Did I really expect her to ignore the fact that I was turning myself into something she’d never been attracted to, just because I loved her? What could I say?

Finally, I just said, “I love you too,” and then we drifted off to sleep, curled up at opposite ends of the sofa.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Jill and Sarah both learn something about each other. Jen and Shelly prepare a surprise for Jill, and the band gets through another night at the club.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 4
By Jillian

Jen and I were sitting at the children’s table in her room, having a tea party with her favorite dolls and my teddy bear. She was wearing her best party dress, while I had squeezed myself into one of her others that had a little more room in it. We were having fun until our mom came in the room, “Jack! What do you think you’re doing?” was all she said.

I got up from the table and started running for my room, removing the dress on the way. I slammed the door shut, threw myself on my bed, and started crying my eyes out…

Jen got up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom. While up, she realized she should probably check on the laundry, so everyone’s things would have a chance of being clean and dry by morning. Once loads were changed over, she started back to her room while Shelly tended to her necessary business.

As they returned to the bedroom, they began to hear a faint crying sound emanating from the living room. Having a fair idea who it was coming from, they both made their way to Jill’s side…

“I’m home,” I shouted as I came in the door, having just got off the school bus. The house seemed empty, so I headed straight for my bedroom. ‘Maybe there’s time for a little girl time,’ I thought as I climbed the stairs.

As I entered my room, I was shocked into reality to find my mom standing by my bed with the contents of my bottom dresser drawer…not to mention the very back of my closet…laid out in front of her. Everything…my panties, bras, hose, my one dress, nightgowns…all of it laying there with her burning holes in it with her eyes.

“What is the meaning of this?” she said, barely restraining herself from completely exploding.

“They…they’re…um…” I stammered.

“How many times must we go through this?” she asked, holding up a handful of my delicates. “Where did you get these?”

“I…I bought them. With…with my lawn mowing money,” I finally managed to stammer out as I lost control of my tear ducts.

She gathered up all of my things and carried them out of the room with her, saying, “No son of mine…would dress like a sissy.” She stormed out the door and presumably downstairs where she disposed of my beloved things.

Despair overtook me, and I fell to the floor unable to hold myself up as my body was wracked with sobs…

Jen immediately sat right next to Jill as she was shaking from the intensity of the sobs as they escaped her still sleeping form. Jen wrapped her arms around her sister and held her tight, in hopes that this would allow her to awaken and not feel so alone.

Meanwhile, Sarah was also waking, and as she did so Shelly led her out of the room to allow the sisters some time alone. They made their way to the dining table, where they took seats.

“Sshhh, it’s all right sister mine,” Jen gently repeated as she held the crying form of her sister.

I finally awakened enough to realize where I was, and the tears began to subside.

After a moment or two, Jen asked, “Was it the same one? Do you want to talk?”

“Yes, the same one. Remembering when we were kids and how much I loved the times when I got to be a girl like you. It almost made the other times bearable.”

“Right up until mom decided to put an end to it,” Jen added, demonstrating little love for their departed mother.

I once again started to tear up, in response to which Jen held me tighter.

In the other room, Shelly was asking Sarah, “What happened?”

“I, uh….”

“Listen, she only has those dreams when something bad happens, and I don’t mean putting up with a couple of hecklers at a gig. So I’ll ask you again, what happened?”

“I…don’t know if I can…”

“That’s more or less what I thought. So, you’ve been carrying around a torch for almost two years, and because the person you profess to love has changed the clothes they wear, you change your mind?”

“It’s not exactly like that.”

“Oh, no? Then how is it?” Shelly became a little more agitated. “From what I can tell, about the only thing that’s changed is the clothes. Even when dressed as Jack, man is not a word I would ever have used to describe him. That, and the fact that she’s a lot more comfortable with herself than he ever was.”

“You make it sound like I’m shallow,” Sarah responded, her voice full of shame.

“Yeah? Well maybe there’s a reason for that,” Shelly retorted.

Sarah slowly began to cry.

Back in the living room, Jen was still comforting the person she had come to think of as her little sister. Jack was her big brother, but Jill…

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jen asked.

“I don’t know,” I said between sniffles.

“I take it things didn’t go as you’d hoped?”

“You could say that,” I replied, finally regaining some control.

Jen looked toward the dining room for a moment, trying to decipher what she should or should not say, then said, “This may just be a little strange for her. You know how I told you that I thought she might be interested? That wasn’t just a guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“She had been harboring some pretty strong feelings for Jack for a long time. Like all the time you were gone this last tour. Saying she’s shy is quite an understatement. It may just take her some time to figure out that you’re still that same person. I don’t think she gets that the only thing that’s changed is clothes,” Jen tried to reassure Jill. “Give her some time, okay?”

I sat there in my sister’s arms, feeling safe, which was still an unfamiliar sensation for me. I eventually managed to convince myself that Jen was right, and finally managed a, “I don’t know if I can, but okay, I trust you. If you say so, then…” I allowed the thought to drift away unfinished.

After a few minutes of silent cuddling, during which I finally regained some control over my emotions, I asked, “Jen, can I ask you something?”

“You mean besides what you just did?” Jen giggled at her joke. “Sure, anything, you know that.”

“Um, how long have you and Shelly…?” I wasn’t sure how to finish the question.

“You aren’t nearly as observant as I used to give you credit for, are you?”

“Hey! That’s not fair!”

We both began giggling. Once we had settled down a bit, Jen answered, “Okay, I’ll admit it. We’ve been together off and on for a long time, as in years. We love each other, but we also still enjoy a little man candy from time to time.” With that, Jen began blushing furiously, which gradually evolved into another giggle fest.

Meanwhile, Sarah was slowly regaining control of her tear ducts, and managed to ask, “Have I screwed things up permanently?”

“I don’t know. The only way to find out is to try.”

“But I still don’t know if I can,” Sarah said, nearly starting to cry once again.

“Listen, pull yourself together and go back in there and talk to her, and I don’t mean the shy little thing you usually do. I mean really talk to her. She’s still the same person you’ve said you loved, and if you give her a chance, she’ll prove that to you.”

In a burst of courage she didn’t know she had in her, Sarah rose from the table and returned to the living room, where Jen was still taking care of me, like she always did.

“Jill, can I talk to you for a minute?” Sarah asked, making her presence known to me.

I looked up, took a deep breath, and finally said, “Sure.”

Jen got up and said, “I think I want to go back to bed.” Looking toward Shelly still sitting at the table, she then said, “What about you, Shell?”

Shelly got up from the table and said, “Absolutely,” as she followed my sister back to bed.

I watched them leave, then as Sarah sat down beside me once again on the sofa. The first words out of her mouth, even before she was sat down, were, “I’m sorry.”

Making an effort to put on a brave face, I replied, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

She cam back, “Yeah, I do. I haven’t been telling you everything yet. When I said I had been interested in you when you were Jack? That was something of an understatement.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I dreamed about you every night you were away. I had this whole relationship built up in my head, and when you came back and I saw that you had changed, I wasn’t sure how to respond.”

“I get the feeling you thought I was someone I never was. You knew about Jill, even back then. Why is it such a surprise now?”

“Yes, I knew about Jill, but in my mind you had always been Jack. I figured you were just a cross-dresser. I thought I could live with that, but this…”

“But this is a little more than you had bargained for,” I completed the sentence.

“Well, yes and no. I still have these feelings for you, and I think I’m starting to understand that no matter what clothes you wear, you’re still the same person. The person I fell in love with.” She looked into my eyes for a moment, then diverted her gaze to her hands in her lap.

I watched as she did this, then said, “But…”

“I think I’m going to need some time to think about things. If you can’t give me that time, I’ll understand, but…”

“…I’ve got nothing but time,” I interjected. “Hey, it’s not like they’re banging down my door.” I then smiled and looked at her as she finally raised her gaze back up to my eyes.

She smiled back at me, and gave me a hug into which I melted like ice on a summer’s day. We sat there gently holding each other, neither saying a word, and eventually returned to sleep in that position.

The next morning I awoke to the sounds of pots and pans clanking in the kitchen, and discovered that we were still entwined, but had somehow managed to make our way to a reclined position, wedged together on the sofa. It might not have looked very comfortable, but to me it was heaven.

“Are you two ever going to wake up?” shouted Jen over the din of her attempts at cooking.

I slowly worked my way off the sofa, trying not to disturb Sarah if at all possible, and once I was clear said, “If we must. What’s got you up and around so early?”

“Well sister dear, we need to go get the window on the van fixed, and someone I know and love is in dire need of a wardrobe update.”

I stumbled into the kitchen so we could carry on this conversation at a more subtle volume level. Once there I said, “Unfortunately, by the time I pay for that window, I won’t have any cash left for shopping.”

Shelly popped around the corner and said, “Don’t be silly. We’ll all pitch in on the window. You need some new clothes.”

“Does that mean we don’t have to play with your torture machine today?”

“Correct. You are hereby given a pass for the day.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” I said as I went to get dressed.

By the time I finished making myself presentable, Sarah had also risen and was in Jen’s room getting dressed. She emerged a few minutes after me, ready for the day to come.

As we ate, I asked, “Where exactly were you thinking of going shopping?”

Sarah said, “Shopping? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I want to go!”

Jen smiled and said, “You must not have been completely awake yet when I mentioned it before. Jill is in dire need of a wardrobe update, so we were going to hit the mall for a while. You can come along if you like. It’ll be fun.”

Sarah smiled back and said, “Count me in!”

Shelly chimed in with, “If we don’t get a move on, we may not have time for the mall, because we’re not going anywhere until the van window is fixed.”

“Ooh, I forgot about that for a moment there. We may not have time for much shopping after all,” Jen said, disappointment obvious in her voice.

Shelly responded, “It won’t be that bad. I’ve already called the auto glass place and told them what we need. By the time we get there, they should be ready to begin the install. There are advantages to having friends who know their way around a car.”

“What Shelly is saying in an uncharacteristically subtle fashion is that one of her many male friends works at the auto glass shop,” Jen said, trying to get Shelly’s ire.

“Are you saying I lack subtlety?” Shelly was obviously taking the bait my sister was dangling.

“Well, you ARE a drummer,” immediately came Jen’s reply.

After we all broke out laughing for a moment, Shelly responded, “That’s why you love me.”

“Is that why? I thought it was that thing…” Jen let the thought go unfinished as Sarah and I gasped, with shocked looks on our faces.

“No, that’s why I love you,” Shelly retorted.

As the room broke out in a fit of giggles, we reached the conclusion that we were done with our breakfast, so we all took our plates into the kitchen, cleared them into the garbage disposal, and stowed the dishes in the dishwasher.

It was a rather chilly autumn morning that was accentuated by the unwanted ventilation from the broken van window as we made our way first to the auto glass shop. Shelly pulled straight into the bay and jumped out to greet her friend who would be taking care of our problem today as the rest of us climbed out of the back. It was rather obvious to all present that Shelly planned on paying for this with something other than cash, as she kissed her friend deeply, then left him to his work.

We found the waiting room and fixed ourselves coffee while we waited. Once we were settled in, Jen addressed Shelly, “I take it I’ll be sleeping alone tonight?”

“If you are, that’s your own fault,” Shelly retorted.

I don’t know why, but I had never expected girls, and especially my sister, to carry on this sort of conversation. While at first, I felt a bit uncomfortable listening to these sorts of exchanges,; by now I was starting to get used to it, and actually found them rather humorous. To that end, I let a giggle escape me as I listened to them carry on there in the waiting room.

Shelly’s friend had obviously been prepared for our arrival, as it seemed he had all the necessary parts on hand, ready and waiting. As a result, we barely had time to finish our coffees before it was time to head out for our day’s shopping.

Shelly was very friendly indeed with her gentleman friend as we boarded the ‘Shelly-mobile’, and we could overhear her telling him he could pick her up at the club at 1am. I guess that meant we weren’t riding together to and from the club, huh?

We arrived at the mall, parked the van, and made our way inside. Jen must have thought she was in charge of this expedition, as she immediately led us toward Victoria’s Secret.

“I don’t need underwear. I have plenty,” I balked as we reached the entrance to that shrine of sensuality.

Shelly immediately asked, “But do you have any ‘nice’ underwear?”

“It’s all in decent condition,” was all I could think to say.

Jen added, “Yes, but if you want to woo the lovely Sarah over there, don’t you think you need something a little sexier than white cotton?”

I think Sarah blushed almost as much as I did in response to that question. Nonetheless, we followed our fearless leaders inside and began browsing through the wisps of silk and lace. I don’t know exactly what came over me, but I caught myself picking up things and holding them up for Sarah’s approval.

To her credit, she managed not to turn completely crimson, and eventually became more engaged in the safari. I still had the feeling Jen and Shelly weren’t telling me everything regarding their interest in seeing the two of us become a couple, but decided to go with the flow for the time being, and didn’t ask.

After some encouragement from everyone present, I did finally consent to a couple of purchases, and we were on our way. Similar scenes transpired over the course of the day, until mid afternoon when we all realized we were hungry, so we meandered toward the food court, each making our selections then reassembling at a table so we could dine together while we dissected the day’s events.

“I really like that new top you picked out. I think it’ll look fantastic tonight,” Sarah gushed.

“Absolutely. Wear those new jeans with the ankle boots you picked out,” was Jen’s contribution.

Shelly looked at her watch, then blurted out, “You know, we really should be heading back. I hadn’t realized how late it was.”

We finished up with our food, then gathered up the day’s haul and made our way back to the van. After a short drive home, we disembarked and went inside. As we entered the house, Jen started acting suspiciously. She suggested I take my new purchases back to my closet in the rehearsal room. I shrugged and, with Sarah’s assistance carried my substantial booty back there to put it away.

As I entered the room, I was stunned to see that it was no longer an empty rehearsal room, but rather now contained a queen size bed, dresser, and vanity. I looked first at Sarah, who was as surprised as I was, then felt my sister put her arms around my neck as she came up behind me.

“What? You think Shelly’s the only one who has gentleman friends willing to do favors for her?”

“But, how?” was all I could think to say.

“Shopping wasn’t just so we could get you some much needed clothing. We had to get you out of the house while this stuff was brought in,” Jen replied.

I looked first at her, then at Shelly, who said, “We can’t have you sleeping on the couch forever, can we?”

I turned around, grabbed my sister, and proceeded to hug the stuffing out of her. “You are a tricky one, aren’t you?”

Sounding a bit like she was struggling to speak because of the intensity of my hug, Jen said, “We would have done it sooner, but since Friday was the first day Jimmy and Bobby could get off work to move the furniture in, it had to wait until now.”

“Thank you, sis,” I said through newly forming tears of happiness.

I then released Jen and grabbed Shelly, giving her a hug equal to the one I’d just bestowed upon my sister. “Thank you Shell. You’re a great friend,” I said to her.

“Hey, all I did was drive,” was her response.

I looked around the room…my room…and smiled. “You shouldn’t have,” I said to no one in particular. A silence settled upon the room.

Jen broke that silence by saying, “Sarah, can Jill ride with you tonight? I need to run Shelly home so she can change, and then I’ll be going to Jimmy’s after the gig to pay for all this moving work he and his brother did while we were out.”

Both Sarah and I blushed a bit before Sarah responded, “Sure, that’s fine.”

Sarah and I sat down on the edge of my new bed as Jen ran to her room and changed outfits in world record time. She then headed out the front door with Shelly in tow. We were surprised by just how loud the door slamming shut was, and both of us jumped slightly at the sound.

It suddenly occurred to me that Sarah didn’t have a fresh change of clothes here, so I asked, “Do you need to run home to change as well?”

“No, I have something in the car. You weren’t the only one who got to buy new things today, you know,” she responded shyly. She then smiled, and went out to her car to get her new outfit.

While she was gone, I changed into my new outfit. The jeans fit like a glove, the ankle boots were gorgeous, and the new top was very pretty as well. The only drawback was that since I didn’t have a strapless bra, I had to go without because of the spaghetti straps. This was a strange, unfamiliar sensation as ever since I’d sprouted I had always worn something to either squash or lift whenever I was going out.

I scooted out the bench and sat down at ‘my’ vanity, where I first brushed out my hair, then started to put on a little makeup. As usual, I wasn’t really all that interested in using a lot of war paint, but a little bit can go a long way toward making an ugly duckling look like a swan, if you know what I mean.

While I was working on my eyes, Sarah returned from her car and started changing right there in front of me. For a brief moment, I was surprised, until I realized that there was nothing odd about girls changing clothes in the same room.

Sarah asked to use my vanity, so I went to the kitchen and got a can of diet coke to drink until she was ready to leave. As she emerged from my room, I felt that same odd sensation I had been getting whenever I saw her. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it felt good to me.

“Are you sure you don’t mind providing taxi service tonight?”

“Not a problem. It’ll give us more time to talk,” she said as she took my arm and led me out the front door and into her car.

I climbed in the passenger seat after stowing my guitar in the back, and once she too was in the vehicle, we set off toward the club.

“You know, I’ve always wondered,” Sarah began, “How exactly did Jen wind up with that house?”

“Okay, it’s like this. Our mom sold the old family home once Jen and I were both out playing for a living, and took the money from that sale to buy a smaller place, because she didn’t think she’d need all that room anymore, you know. When she died, she left the house to Jen.”

“Well, what about you?”

“I was pretty much persona non gratis in our mom’s eyes. I think she might have preferred if I’d never existed, to tell you the truth.” In spite of years of steeling myself against such things, I began to tear up while talking about my mom and how she had always treated me. “Of course, Jen more or less stuck it to mom when she went and had a lawyer change the deed on the house so that we are listed as joint owners.”

“If this is a sore topic, tell me, but what about your dad?”

“He was killed in a car crash when I was two, and Jen was just a couple of months old. Of course, it could just as easily have been called a fishing accident.” I nearly laughed at that thought. “He had gone fishing that day, which for my dad meant he’d take a boat out for 12 hours or so, loaded with massive quantities of beer, and drink himself into a stupor while pretending to fish until the beer ran out. Then he’d head home. That night, he missed a curve and went head on into a huge outcropping of rock. They said he died of blunt head trauma.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” Sarah nearly cried as she said it. “I had no idea.”

“Of course not. It’s no big deal, really. No need to apologize.”

“You said your mom was not exactly happy with the way you’ve chosen to live your life?”

“That’s an understatement if ever there was one.”

“Did she ever do or say anything that might have led you to believe that she really was proud of you or your sister?”

“I honestly can’t remember a single time when I felt anything from that woman other than scorn and disappointment.”

We pulled up to a stoplight, and Sarah took the opportunity to look deeply into my eyes. What I saw in hers struck me as possibly the saddest thing I’d ever seen. I thought that maybe I needed to change the subject a bit, away from the bad things I’d been through before, as they were obviously having an adverse impact on her. And myself.

“Sarah, can we talk about something else for a while?” I asked as we pulled away from the light.

“Sure,” she replied.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked after a few minutes of silence caused by uncertainty concerning better topics of conversation.

“Well, if you’re up to it, I think I owe you an explanation.”

“For what?” I asked, completely puzzled.

“For the way I’ve behaved and reacted to you since you came home,” she responded. Taking a moment for a deep breath to clear her thoughts, she began, “I know that maybe it seems like I’m fighting my feelings for you because of your change. The truth is that’s only a small portion of what’s getting in my way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I realize it might seem like I’m having trouble reconciling my feelings for you with the fact that you used to be, at least in my eyes, a man, and now you’re a woman. I’m not having that much trouble with that idea, now that I’ve gotten used to it.”

She continued, “More than anything, the problems I’m having are related to some personal baggage I’d rather be rid of, to tell you the truth. I’m sorry if I made you think I wasn’t interested in you, because to be honest, I am.”

“Do you feel like you could tell me about it?” I asked, desperately wanting to know and hoping I could do something to make it better.

“This goes back a few years, before I met your sister. I had been living with this guy. At first, he was such a sweetheart, doing things for me, bringing me flowers; all sorts of things that really made me love him. Unfortunately after a while, things started to change. He became really jealous, like if I talked to or even looked at another guy, he’d go nuts. He started not letting me go to gigs without him, because he was afraid I might talk to someone.”

“Wow,” was the only thing I could think of to say.

“At first, I was kind of flattered. But then he started getting worse, and it kind of scared me. Then one time, he thought I was being too friendly with a patron one night, and when we got home, he hit me.”

She gulped, trying to contain the tears I knew had to be forming in her eyes, before continuing. “I was shocked. He’d never given any indication he might do something like that. I was going to pack my things and leave when he said he was sorry, and that it would never happen again. Like an idiot, I believed him.”

“Eventually, he started getting more violent, until one time, I can’t even remember what started it, he got mad at me and was cursing and hitting, and throwing me around the room. He hurt me bad enough that I wound up going to the emergency room, and they admitted me into the hospital. I was afraid to tell them what had happened, and wound up making something up about a car accident.”

“Sarah, I’m so sorry,” was all I could say. Had we not been driving down the road, I’m sure I would have had my arms wrapped around her, trying to provide some comfort.

“When I got out, he was much better for a while, but then eventually things got worse again. It wasn’t until he hit me in the parking lot of a club I’d been working at that the truth came out. One of the bouncers saw him hit me, and ran over to my defense. He tackled him and held him down until the police got there and arrested him. While he was in jail, I moved my things out of his apartment, and tried to move on. Unfortunately, that experience has made it nearly impossible for me to trust anyone since.”

“I must say, I think I can understand that. The only thing I can tell you is I promise never to do anything to hurt you,” I said as we parked the car behind the club. Before we got out to go in, I reached out and gave her a hug, and a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, Jill. You’re the first person I’ve told any of that to. I hope you don’t hate me now,” she said as we got out of the car.

“Sarah, how could I hate you? That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” I replied.

I retrieved my guitar from the back seat and followed Sarah in through the back door, turning into the ‘dressing’ room, where I unpacked and tuned my old friend. Just as I was completing those tasks, Annie arrived and set about doing the same with her bass.

The first thing Annie said, once she was ready to go on, was, “Frank will be coming by later. Do you remember him, Jill?”

Well, of course I remembered her husband. The question was, would he remember me? And furthermore, would he accept me as I am now? In the end, I just said, “Of course I do. How’s he been?”

“Oh, busy as always. He’s been doing well at the dealership. In fact, he sold like four cars just this past week.”

“Wow!” I said with more enthusiasm than I really felt. I knew from previous experience that her Frank was a good salesman, but on the negative side, car salesmen frequently aren’t the most trustworthy of individuals. For that reason, I knew I needed to be wary.

Just then, Jen and Shelly arrived amidst a flurry of activity, as it was nearly time to go on. Jen got out her guitar and made a token attempt at tuning it herself before finally just handing it to me and allowing me to take care of it. To her, it made great sense to do it that way, because I was much better at it.

We took to the stage, and played an inspired first set. Our break was spent accepting kudos from the assembled crowd, who all seemed quite impressed with our performance. Free rounds of drinks were being delivered every time we turned around, which basically meant that I was working on a serious caffeine buzz from the unending supply of diet coke being handed to me.

I was pleasantly surprised when not only did Frank remember me, he came up to me and gave me a warm, friendly hug when we joined he and Annie on one of our breaks. It struck me that while there were a lot of people out there who treated me like a pariah because of my change, not everyone was like that. It was my hope that those people could continue to make dealing with the others more bearable.

The rest of the night went much like the first set, with no unwanted disruptions, no major train wrecks, and no former band mates intent on complicating my life more than it was already. In short, it was a great night.

Once the final notes faded and the last of the evening’s patrons had been safely sent on their way, we were joined in the dressing room by the manager, with the evening’s pay in hand.

“Good one tonight, ladies,” he said as he handed the cash to Jen, who immediately began distributing it amongst the rest of us.

“No problems?” Shelly asked.

“Nope. Just friendly people drinkin’, just the way I like it,” he responded. Then before he turned to leave, he added, “Here’s to another good one tomorrow. G’night.”

We all offered similar parting words, and soon were going our separate ways. First Annie left with her husband, then Shelly took off with her auto glass guy, whom I never did catch the name of, and finally Jen headed out for her ‘appointment’ as well.

I closed the last of the latches on my guitar case and said, “I’ll see ya out at the car in a minute,” to Sarah, who was going to make a quick pit stop before we headed out.

I went out the back door, and was immediately hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. I dropped to the ground, and felt kicks and punches being landed all over my body as I curled up in a ball, trying to protect myself from serious injury.

With my eyes covered so as to avoid injury to that sense, I couldn’t see for certain who it was that had attacked me, but the small amount of conscious thought I was permitting myself told me I was pretty sure who my assailants were. As the beating continued, my only thought was of survival.

With one last swing of the bat, which connected with my groin area; my attackers took off, leaving me bleeding and nearing unconsciousness not ten feet from the back door of the club.

As contact with my surroundings was fading, I heard a scream followed by several sets of footsteps coming toward me. The last thing I heard was Sarah saying, “Jill?”

Then everything went black.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

How extensive are Jill's injuries? And what will become of her assailants? Thanks to Karen J for her assistance in the preparation of this story.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 5
By Jillian

Blinding light…pain…black…

Knock, knock! Came the sound from the door, followed by Dave’s voice, “Dude, you about ready?”

I began rushing around madly, removing my feminine articles of clothing in a flurry and pulling on a plain terrycloth bathrobe before opening the hotel room door. “What is it? I know it’s not time to check out yet.”

“Sorry, I just thought you might wanna go get some breakfast before we have to head out.”

“Thanks, but I’m not much of a breakfast person, ya know?”

“I hear ya. It’s way too early for me too, but Billy Joe figures if we can all force down a meal before we head out, we should be good for a solid four or five hours before we have to stop again.”

“I guess I can see that. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you guys down in the restaurant, okay?”

“Sure,” Dave responded before turning around and heading down the hall.

I watched him walk away for a few seconds before closing the door, leaning back against it, and sliding down to sit on the floor while letting out a huge sigh…

“Do you know where you are?” the voice penetrated the fog surrounding my brain. The pain was beyond excruciating, and before I could even form a thought in response to his question, I once again passed out...

“I wish this fit,” I said to myself as I removed the dress from its place in my sister’s closet so I could hold it in front of me.

“That probably would look nice on you, if it were big enough,” my sister’s voice startled me and I hurriedly hung the dress back up in her closet.

I blushed furiously, and without looking at her said, “Sorry.”

She giggled and said, “At least you didn’t stretch it out.”

I couldn’t help but join her in giggling…

The pain as I slowly regained consciousness was overwhelming. There wasn’t one thing that hurt worse than any other, because my entire body felt like I’d been run over repeatedly by a Sherman tank. I started to make out some of the conversation taking place around me.

“The injuries are pretty extensive. We really need to start treatment as soon as possible,” said a voice I didn’t recognize.

“Do whatever you have to,” I heard Jen say, then she started to cry.

‘Was I really hurt that badly?’ I wondered. I then let a groan escape, which got everyone’s attention.

“I’m Dr. James. You’ve been pretty severely injured, and we’re going to take you in to surgery to fix you up, all right?”

With all the energy I could muster, I quietly croaked, “Okay.”

Suddenly the bed moved and as we made our way toward what I presumed to be the operating room, I once again lost my battle with consciousness...

“Come on, ya queer. I know ya want it,” came one of the taunts being bombarded upon me as I made my way toward my locker.

“Stuck up faggot bitch!” came another barb.

I opened the locker, placed a couple of textbooks in and removed a couple of others, then slammed it closed as I prepared for my next class. As I walked toward my next class, the comments continued until I was seated in my next class, and probably well beyond.

I sat there as the teacher droned on about whatever…I was paying absolutely no attention…trying to think of a way to not continue being the object of everyone’s ridicule…

As I walked down the hall toward the boy’s room, a couple of football players grabbed me by the arms and dragged me into a supply closet. “We’re gonna give you what you want, sissy!” one of them hissed.

The other one, who was standing behind me, put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me down into a kneeling position. The one in front of me undid his fly and pulled down his pants and underwear. “You know what to do,” was all he said, as he forced himself into my mouth…

‘Where am I?’ was the first thing I thought as I began waking up. Lying there, strapped down with tubes sticking in me all over the place, I started piecing together what had happened to me. The club! Who was that? “Ohh,” I let escape me. There were sounds of rustling papers, then footsteps, and I felt someone take my hand.

“Jill?” It was Sarah!

Then someone touched my other hand, and Jen said, “Welcome back, sis.”

I finally started to open my eyes, but was blinded by the intensity of the light in the room. “Ahh, bright…” I managed to utter as my eyes fluttered closed again. My visitors released my hands, as Sarah reached to close the window blinds while Jen tracked down the call button and used it to alert the nurse that I was awake.

Sarah retook my hand in hers, “There, that should be a bit better.”

Taking the other one Jen added, “The nurse should be here any minute.”

I slowly opened my eyes, and realizing that it no longer was causing any kind of discomfort to do so, looked at first my sister, then Sarah. “Wha…what ha…happened?” I managed to whisper.

“There was an incident behind the club,” was all Jen would tell me at that moment.

I looked closely at her, and realizing I was not going to get much more information from her, I turned my attention to Sarah. I stared into her eyes, and saw concern and fear filling them. I’m fairly certain she knew the answer I was pleading for with my eyes.

She finally responded, “You were jumped on the way out of the club. I don’t know who did it, but there are quite a few of us who would really like to find out.”

Just then the nurse came in to check on me. “I see you’re finally awake. I was wondering if we were going to have to bring in a Prince Charming or something,” she joked as she checked my vitals. After entering them in my chart she left the room.

“Fat lot of good that would do,” Jen offered, laughing as she said it.

“You were saying?” I whispered. I had actually tried to speak more loudly, but the whisper was the only sound I could make without it hurting…too much.

Sarah and Jen looked back and forth at each other for a minute, I assumed trying to figure out just exactly what to say, when a man in surgical scrubs entered the room, followed closely by the nurse who had just left.

He opened my chart, looked over it for a moment, then wrote something down in it before addressing me. “Good, I see you’re awake.”

“I see you’re observant,” I whispered back. I don’t know if he actually heard what I said, but when Sarah and Jen started laughing, he joined in with them.

Once that peel of laughter died down, he continued, “We had to do a lot of work on you, and we’re going to need to talk about a few things. Do you feel up to it now, or would you rather rest a while?”

I was tired, but I was also curious, so I whispered, “Now is fine.”

“Ladies, would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?” he asked my visitors.

“We’ll go get something to drink and come back in a few minutes,” Jen said as she and Sarah gave my hands one more squeeze each before leaving the room.

Once they’d left, the doctor asked, “First, how long have you been taking hormones?”

“About a year and a half,” I struggled to reply.

He made a note on the chart, and then asked, “And who is the prescribing physician?”

I was ashamed to admit that I’d ordered them off the Internet and self dosed instead of going to the doctor to have things done properly. I managed to respond, “Not one.”

He seemed to understand what I had thought but hadn’t voiced, and said, “That would explain why your levels are all out of kilter. That was a very foolish move on your part. What were you thinking?”

I started to cry as I whispered, “Sorry.”

He looked again at the chart and said, “According to your blood work, I’d guess you’ve been taking estradiol and aldactone. Anything else?”

“No sir.”

“You were probably taking what you had read would be the normal dose for HRT, is that correct?”

“Yes sir,” I was still silently crying, I felt so ashamed of myself.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll order some more blood work to determine your proper dosage, then we can get you back on HRT,” as he said this I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.

“I’m going to order a phych evaluation, and recommend regular therapy with someone who has some experience in the treatment of transgendered people.” I actually smiled when he said that.

He came over and sat on the edge of my bed. “Now, as for the reason you’re here,” he said, suddenly seeming much more serious. “The beating you took was pretty extensive. Let’s see, three cracked ribs, some abdominal bleeding, severe contusions all over, a fractured larynx with a tear in the vocal chords, and,” he continued the list of injuries, “two ruptured testicles.”

I lay there, stunned by the enormity of what had been done to me by my attackers. The doctor continued with his explanation of my treatment. “We found the bleeder and repaired the tear in your stomach, had to put in some extensive reconstructive time on your larynx and repaired the chords, so eventually you should be able to speak normally again, although you may sound a little different than you did before. Probably a bit higher pitched, and very gravel-ly,” he said, chuckling at his newly made up word.

“As for the testicles, we performed an orchiectomy to remove the damaged organs, and closed the scrotal sac, trying to preserve as much of the tissue as possible for any potential future ‘after market work’ you might have done,” again with the laughing at his own joke. I must admit, that one was kind of funny though.

“Your penile tissue is extremely bruised, and even though the damage was rather extensive, we decided to attempt to preserve the tissue in the event you decide to pursue SRS. Your arms and legs are heavily bruised, but don’t appear to have sustained any serious damage. All in all, you were pretty lucky. If it hadn’t been for your friend finding you so quickly and calling the ambulance, you easily could have died from the internal bleeding.”

I smiled, knowing that I now owed Sarah my life. “Hopefully I’ll have a long life to pay her back for her efforts.”

“Now, I know your official ID says ‘Jack’, but I’m assuming from how your sister and friend address you that you would prefer to be referred to as ‘Jill’, is that correct?”

“Yes, doctor. Thank you,” I whispered, growing even more hoarse with each uttered sound.

He must have noticed the change in the sound of my voice, as he decided to wrap up this session. “Now then, Jill, it is time for you to get some sleep. It’s going to take several days at least before we can even talk about discharging you, so for now just lie back and relax, okay?”

“Okay.”

As the doctor got up from his seat on the edge of the bed to leave, Jen and Sarah returned, bearing flowers. Sarah took them to the window and set the arrangement on the sill, making sure it was secure enough that it wouldn’t be likely to be knocked off accidentally.

“Hi,” I whispered, sounding more like an overly exhausted Lauren Bacall with each passing syllable. ‘I could live with this voice’, I thought.

Jen looked at me and said, “I assume he told you about everything, correct?”

I just nodded, as my throat was starting to feel like it was on fire.

Sarah looked into my eyes and said, “You get some rest, okay? We’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

I obviously didn’t need much convincing, as I was quickly back asleep…

I am sitting on my bed, guitar in hand, with my headphone amp and portable CD player strewn in front of me. As I teach myself the guitar parts to Guns ‘n Roses CD “Appetite for Destruction”, it occurs to me that this is the one and only place in the world where nobody seems to want me gone from their world. When I’m playing my guitar, I am at peace.

Sitting here, doing exactly what I’m doing at this moment, is the one and only form of recreation allowed me by the outside world. The rest of the time, I’m looked down upon as being less than everyone else. So much so, that sometimes I start to believe the same thing. But when I’m playing guitar, all of that goes away. That’s why I do this same thing nearly every day after school, all evening long until mom says it’s bedtime, and then sometimes I’ll keep working past then. Maybe if I can become a good enough guitar player, people will accept me and start to treat me just like everyone else…

Every night, I sit down with a different CD and work until I’ve learned all the guitar parts on the recording. Some nights, I might even do two…

“Why did I answer that ad?” I ask myself for the thirteenth time since I got in the car to drive over here. After sitting in the car for a few minutes, unsure what to do, I get out, unload my guitar and amp from the back seat, and carry them up to the front door.

I knock, and when someone answers the door, the say, “You must be Jack. Come on in, the guys are set up down in the basement. Go on down and get your gear set up, then we can get started.

Once everyone is ready, someone calls out a song title…”Welcome to the Jungle”…and the drummer counts it off. I start in with the opening guitar part, then as the rest of the group comes in I discover a feeling I’ve never known before; that being the feeling of making music with other human beings.

As we work our way through song after song, all of which I know very well from my nightly practice ritual, I start to believe I’ve found what it is I’m supposed to do with my life. For the first time, I actually feel like I belong somewhere, and I decide that I like that feeling a lot…

I opened my eyes and saw that it was dark outside. In the faint light I could just make out Sarah asleep in one chair, while Jen was asleep in the other. I tried to move, but was immediately stopped by an intense stab of pain in my ribcage.

Moving as little as possible to avoid any further pain, I located and pressed the call button. A moment later, a nurse came in and asked, “Do you need anything?”

“Water please?” I managed to say it loud enough to be heard.

She poured a cup from the pitcher on my side table, inserted a straw, and held it for me to take a couple of sips, saying, “Here you go.”

Once I had swallowed a little water, my throat began to feel a little better and I said, “Thank you.”

She set the cup back on the side table beside the pitcher and asked, “Do you need anything else?”

“No thank you. I’ll be okay,” I told her as my consciousness began to fade yet again…

I’m approaching the rehearsal hall when I hear people speaking inside. For some reason I decide not to barge on in, and opt to stand just outside the door where I can listen in on the conversation.

“Dude, we gotta cut him loose. It’s embarrassing, man.”

“But he’s the best we’ve found, period. How in the Hell do we go about replacing him?”

“I don’t know, but the guy is such a pussy. Nobody’s gonna take us seriously with a wimp like him around.”

“I hate to do it, because the guy really can play. But you guys are right. He makes all of us look like fags or something.”

Standing outside the door, I start crying silently. I decide to not even acknowledge them, and I turn around and leave, never to return…

The sunlight was streaming in through my hospital room window, shining directly in my face as I awoke again. Jen was sitting up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, while Sarah was still slumped, asleep in the other chair. Before I had even had a chance to wish my sister good morning, a nurse came in to check on me.

“Ah, you’re awake,” she said with far too cheerful a voice to be allowed near me before noon, “How about we try some breakfast this morning?”

Without even waiting for a response she left, and a moment later returned with a tray of food for me. It consisted of a cup of chicken broth and a small bowl of jello. Upon surveying the morning’s offerings, I nearly told her ‘no thanks’, but realized it was going to be baby steps on the way back toward eating real food, so I took the offered tray gratefully and began sipping my broth.

As Sarah began waking up, Jen said, “I need to go tend to a couple of things, now that you’re awake. I’ll be back in a bit, all right?” She came over to my bedside, bent over, and kissed my cheek.

“I’m sure I’ll find some way of keeping occupied,” I said to her.

“Okay, then,” as she returned to her full upright position, then continued, “I’ll see you later. Love you, sis.” She then turned around and left the room.

I turned toward Sarah and said, “You know, you really don’t have to stay with me all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but…”

“Don’t be silly. So tell me, do you often profess your love for someone, then dismiss them like that?”

“I suppose I did sort of just do that, didn’t I?” I began to blush furiously. “I didn’t mean it like…”

She cut me off, “It’s okay.” She moved her chair closer to the side of my bed. Once settled again, she reached out and took my hand in hers. “Jen filled me in some on what was going on as far as your injuries, but I wonder what your take is?”

“I’m grateful things weren’t a lot worse than they could’ve been, and I think I owe some of that to you.” I brought her hand up to my lips and kissed it lightly. “I hope you don’t mind?” I added as an afterthought.

As I returned her hand, still clasped in mine, back to it’s previous position, she reached forward with her other and then was holding mine sandwiched between hers. “A couple of days ago, I might have. Now, I think I’d mind if you hadn’t,” I felt my heart leap at her words.

“From what the doctor just told me, in a way they actually did me a favor. I had done something very irresponsible that very easily could have threatened my life. Now,” I continued, “I’m going to get the chance to correct my mistake.”

Thinking about the rather vague nature of my last statement, I don’t think she felt like it was the time or place to pursue more in depth information, so instead she simply looked into my eyes and smiled.

“I know I’m not the person you envisioned being with. No doubt, things are seeming a bit strange for you about now.”

“Like I said, I’m starting to become comfortable with things. I look at you, and I see the same person I met so long ago and felt such strong feelings for. In some ways, maybe being the way you are has actually helped me get past some of my own demons.”

She then leaned down, lifted my hand, which was still clasped in both of hers, and kissed my fingertips. Once she had lowered it she continued, “Don’t get me wrong, things will no doubt still feel sort of strange from time to time. But I think things will work out.”

“I hope you’re right, because I really do love you,” I told her. “Maybe it seems strange to say that, given the circumstances, but I do.”

She smiled at me, “I love you too.”

Just then my sister returned. As she entered the room she saw us and asked, “Do you want me to come back?”

We all began to giggle at that, but I had to stop immediately as the pain returned in both my throat and ribcage.

Sarah looked at Jen as if she knew exactly what she had been doing and asked, “So did you get everything taken care of?”

Jen pulled her chair closer to the bed and sat down on the opposite side from Sarah, then replied, “Oh, yes. Everything is set.”

“What?” I asked.

Jen quickly responded, “Oh, nothing really. Just some band business.”

“You found a replacement for me already?” I was disappointed, but knew that this was a business and they needed to continue working.

“Not yet. I don’t really want to, if you must know. Obviously, we had to cancel Saturday night.”

Having just occurred to me that I had no idea even what day it was, or how long I’d been unconscious, I decided to ask, “How long…?”

“It’s Monday,” Sarah offered.

So I’d slept through the weekend. “When’s your next gig booked?”

“This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday back at TC’s,” Sarah jumped in.

“In a way, I’m glad I’ll be missing that one,” I said before I realized it. It was true, I wasn’t looking forward to returning to ‘the scene of the crime’, but I didn’t mean to let them know that.

“Not to worry, they’re putting on a little extra security, and besides, by then the problem will have been dealt with,” Jen said with an air of confidence that made me wonder just exactly what she meant.

“What do you mean? Dealt with?”

Sarah quickly jumped in before I could ask any more, “Never mind, all right?”

“Does this mean I’m out of the band?”

Jen snickered as she said, “Well no! You’re easily the best guitar player we’ve ever had. We’d have to be stupid to do something like that, and even Shelly’s not blonde enough to be that dumb. Besides, I kinda like having my sister around all the time.”

At that moment a police officer entered my room, “Are you, uh, Miss Tucker?”

I looked at him and was pleased by how good it made me feel to be addressed as ‘Miss’, and said, “Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you officer?”

“Just following up on your case, uh, ma’am.” It was obvious he was aware of my condition, but to his credit was trying to be polite about things. “Now that you’re awake, can you tell us anything about your assailants?”

‘Well yeah, I can tell you exactly who it was’ went through my head, but to him my response was, “It was dark and I was hit as I came out the door. I was so worried about trying to protect myself I didn’t even bother trying to see them. I’m afraid I’m not going to be of much help.”

As I said this, I could see Jen pleading with her eyes to not tell the police anything. I finally began to understand her earlier exchange with Sarah, and since I didn’t want to get either of them in trouble, I decided the best course of action was to tell the police nothing useful.

“Well, if you happen to think of anything that might help us find the persons that did this, please give me a call. Here’s my card.” Professional all the way, even in the face of dealing with someone he probably had nothing but distaste for.

“Thank you officer,” I replied.

Jen took the offered business card, “Yes, thank you.”

Sarah didn’t even look at him. Instead, she stared into my eyes. I could think of a lot worse things in this world.

The officer then turned around and left without another word. I suspected he knew that we weren’t telling him the whole story, but by the same token, I don’t think he was all that concerned about getting to the bottom of things in this case. At least he hadn’t been a complete jerk to my face.

Once he was gone, Jen spoke again, “Well, it looks like we may need to find a sub for you for this weekend. I guess we’d best head out so we can get busy on that front.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, then turned to leave. Sarah said, “I’ll be out in a minute, all right?”

Jen replied, “Sure,” and left the room.

Sarah bent over me and gave me a kiss that sent my heart flying loop de loops around Venus before finally returning to my chest, then simply said, “I’ll see you later.” She then quietly walked out of my room, leaving me alone for the first time since my beating.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

As Jill is on the mend, things begin to change, but is it for the better? As always, Karen J and Angharad's assistance in preparing this for release is greatly appreciated.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 6
By Jillian

I spent the next several days lying in bed watching as a flurry of activity went on around me. Doctors and nurses came and went, frequently sticking needles in me to either put something in or take something out. It happened often enough that I started to feel like a pincushion.

All of the girls came by to see me, and Jen and Sarah probably spent almost as much time in the hospital as me. I did something I hadn’t in years, which was read the morning newspaper. I suppose I thought since I was going to be staying in one place for a while I ought to know what was going on.

On Tuesday morning, there was an article about a group of musicians who were beaten rather severely outside a downtown nightclub. All four victims, who were identified as members of the band ‘Kentucky Straight’, were in intensive care for treatment of the injuries sustained. The assailants were unknown, as there were no witnesses save for the victims, and none of them had been able to ID their attackers. The police were unsure what to make of the attack as no money was taken; and rather than stealing the instruments they were carrying, they were instead smashed.

As I read the story I knew who had been behind the attacks as well as why. I didn’t pursue that thought however, as I didn’t want to bring any more trouble to Jen than I had already. Instead, I just moved on and tried not to think about it.

Tuesday also saw my first visit with the psychotherapist. I might have been more nervous had I known she was coming, but then when was the last time someone complained about not having the chance to get nervous? We talked, or at least she talked while I whispered, for about an hour after which she arranged to continue on Thursday and to my great relief she at least provisionally approved the continuation of hormones, pending evaluation by an endocrinologist.

It turned out one of the victims of my attack was my Yamaha guitar. While I was being beaten, so was it; someone took it out of its case and smashed it against the side of the building until the neck broke off. As Jen was telling me this, I found myself overcome with sadness, as if I had just lost a good friend. Maybe I’m a little too attached to my guitars, but for years they were my only friends other than my sister, so I felt like I was somehow justified. This knowledge also helped me understand why my old band mate’s instruments had also been destroyed.

Sarah and I talked a lot about our feelings, and I think we figured out a few things. All in all, things were looking up in that department. That in itself was nearly enough to make me feel well enough to get out days before I was allowed.

Wednesday Shelly tried to smuggle in her torture device, but one of the nurses put a stop to that particular exercise because it could interfere with the operation of some hospital equipment. While I acknowledged that the electrolysis was a necessary part of my continuing transition, that didn’t mean I liked it in any way, shape, or form.

Shelly on the other hand appeared to be enjoying it immensely, which for some reason made me wonder about her and my sister’s activities together. I quickly shook that thought out of my mind for fear I might actually find out, and that would be way too much information.

By Thursday morning, I was back on regular food, was up walking around the ward several times a day; and as long as I didn’t cough or laugh, I didn’t even hurt all that much. After the psychologist and I had our visit the endocrinologist was next to come calling. Following his dissecting of test results from somewhere in the vicinity of three pints worth of blood over the last few days, I was officially put on a properly prescribed dosage of estrogen.

When he made his rounds Thursday, Doctor James’ first words to me were, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in leaving us tomorrow?”

I barely let him finish his question before I answered, “Well, yeah!”

“Good. You’re doing pretty well, all things considered, and I think we can probably arrange for your discharge after rounds tomorrow.”

“Cool,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to contain my excitement.

“There will be some restrictions on your activity, like no lifting or stiletto heels for at least four weeks,” he joked. I don’t think he realized most of his jokes weren’t terribly funny, but considering he had brought me back from the brink of death, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

“I think I can live with that,” I said, unable to suppress a smile despite the awful joke I was still suffering from.

Just then, Sarah came in the room, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were in here. I can come back in a few minutes,” she said as she started to turn around to leave.

The doctor stopped her, “No need, we’re pretty much done here. I’ll leave you to it then.” He then turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Sarah watched him leave, then came over to her usual spot beside my bed and gave me a greeting kiss. “Good morning,” she said as she pulled her chair over right beside the bed and took a seat.

“Yes, it is,” I said, smiling from ear to ear. I could honestly say that this was probably the best I had felt emotionally in years and a lot of that was because of Sarah.

Jen arrived then; once she too was settled I told them, “Well, I had some good news this morning.”

Jen was the first to ask, “Really?”

“If things go according to plan, I should be out of here after the doctor comes by tomorrow.”

Sarah instantly broke out in a huge smile, “That’s great!” she said as she jumped up and kissed me again. I couldn’t help but think, ‘I could get used to this.’

“Good news at last,” Jen added, and gave my hand a squeeze.

As had become our custom, Sarah accompanied me on my walks around the halls, only leaving my side when she needed to tend to personal business or if the doctors asked her to.

We had taken several walks Thursday, and by evening I was feeling quite tired. When dinner was brought in, they actually brought an extra tray for Sarah, for which we were very grateful.

After dinner, we watched TV and chatted until visiting hours were over. As she prepared to leave for the night she said, “You know, if you had told me a month ago that I’d be in love with a woman, I probably would have laughed at you. Heck, two weeks ago even.”

“So, you think of me as a woman?” I don’t know why, but this was one topic we hadn’t explored this week, and suddenly I was beyond curious. I also had suddenly become a little teary-eyed for some reason.

“Of course I do. When you first came home, I obviously was still thinking in terms of Jack. In a way, I think that was a big part of the problem I was having with the idea of a relationship. I didn’t understand that you’d always been Jill inside. I tried to convince myself that this was just some silly game or something. But the more I’ve gotten to know you, the more I’ve started to understand a lot of things, not only about you, but about me as well.”

The nurse stuck her head in the room, “Sorry, but visiting hours are over,” then left as quickly as she had arrived.

Sarah looked at her watch and hissed, “If I don’t get out of here pretty quick, I’ll be late for the gig. I’m sorry.” She kissed me good night, and whispered, “I love you.”

I thought I was going to float off the bed at those words. It wasn’t the first time she’d said them, but they always seemed to have that effect on me. I whispered, “I love you too, but why are you whispering?”

She said, “No reason,” and giggled. She stood up, and as she started backing away from the bed, said, “See you in the morning.”

“I’ll be waiting anxiously,” was my response. Moments later, she was gone from my sight. I was tired enough from the increased walks and physical therapy sessions that once I’d taken care of my daily maintenance in the restroom, I lay down and was quickly asleep…

I’m outside the club, by Sarah’s car. I look toward the back door of the building and see Billy Joe, Dave, Terry, and Mick the keyboard player all hiding around it, waiting. The door opens, another me comes out of the building, and is attacked by the four of them.

I run toward them, shouting, “NO! Stop!” but no one acknowledges my presence in any way. I try to grab hold of one of them to try and stop them, but can’t, my hands go through him as if I didn’t exist.

I feel the pain caused by each blow, and continue to stand there trying to interject myself into the attack in some way to no avail. I whisper, “Why?” and suddenly everything stops.

I say, “Why?” again, this time more loudly, and without moving or looking toward me I hear Dave reply.

“You pervert! For a year and a half we needed you to earn a living. Once you decided to quit, the reason for putting up with you and your queer ways was gone.”

Once again I asked, “Why?” this time pointing at my body lying motionless in the middle of the ongoing attack.

This time, the voice replying belonged to Billy Joe. “Because we hate you. We hate your faggot ways, and we hate the fact that you made us put up with them for so long.”

“But I wasn’t doing anything to you. Why hurt me?”

It was Terry’s turn. “You put our lives at risk! You quit, leaving us to find a replacement without notice? After we put up with you and your disgusting perversions? And you ask why we hate you? Why we want to hurt you?”

Suddenly, the action started anew. I could feel every blow just like I did the night it happened. The only difference was I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was happening…

I started crying in my sleep, gradually building in intensity until I apparently was screaming. At least that’s what I did when the nurse woke me by grabbing me by the shoulders and gently shaking. I could feel the tears on my cheeks, and could still feel the fading pain from every blow I had endured as I pulled myself back to wakefulness.

I didn’t sleep all that well the rest of the night, and I’m sure it wasn’t too difficult to tell that fact from one look at me the following morning. I was in mid breakfast when Sarah arrived, and the first thing she said as she entered the room was, “What the heck is wrong with you? Didn’t you sleep at all last night?”

As she walked around the end of the bed toward what had become her usual spot in the chair right beside my bed, I replied, “Not much, I’m afraid. I had a bad dream and just couldn’t get back to sleep after that.”

Once good morning kisses had been exchanged and Sarah was seated at my side, she asked, “Was it like the ones you had that night we slept on the couch?”

“Well, yes and no. It was like I was watching myself being beaten. I could see it as if I were someone else, but still felt the pain from every blow. It was strange, even for me.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in my ear as she gave me a gentle hug, trying not to make my ribs hurt.

“Not your fault. How was the gig?”

“It went all right. I missed you. So did everyone else.”

“Does that mean I still have a job?”

“Maybe,” she said with a twinkle in her eye that usually indicated some sort of mischief.

“So where’s Jen?”

“Bored of me already?” She tried to look hurt but only managed incredibly cute.

“Of course not. It’s just that I think I’m getting out today, and I could use a ride. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to take me home.” It sounded silly even as I was saying it.

“Not to worry, all has been arranged.”

When Dr. James came by, I was changed into street clothes, had all my belongings packed, and was ready to leave. “Not so fast. I need to take a look at how you’re healing first.”

He poked and prodded, and when finally satisfied that all was left in my recuperation was rest then working my way back to health, he signed off on my escape.

A nurse’s aide brought in a wheelchair…hospital regulations, everyone being discharged must ride to the door in a wheelchair. I don’t think anyone other than the insurance company knows why, but that’s another topic entirely…and we headed for the exit.

Once in the lobby, Sarah went to bring the car around front and the nurse’s aide waited with me for her return. As the car pulled up in front of the door, I stood up and said to her, “Thanks for the ride,” and started toward the exit.

By the time I had made it outside Sarah had gotten out of the car, come around to the passenger side, and opened the door for me. She helped me sit down and once I was settled inside she closed the door before returning to the driver’s seat for our journey home.

As we chatted about this and that during our journey, I found myself thinking how easily I could spend the rest of my life with this woman, if she’d have me.

When we pulled in the driveway, she said, “We have a surprise for you,” then got out and helped me out of the car.

“What? You mean more than the bedroom?” I asked as we walked toward the front door of the tiny house.

“More like something we completed,” she answered as she led me toward my room.

As we entered I saw what she was talking about. They had installed guitar hangars on one wall of the room, and suspended from them were all my friends. My J-200 hung nestled between the Les Paul Custom and Telecaster. As I went on down the line, there were long lost relics form my misspent youth…the BC Rich Warlock with the pink fish scale paint job, the old Fender Strat that I’d intentionally beat up to make it look like Stevie Ray Vaughn’s, and the Kramer Eddie Van Halen model with all the white stripes over the red body.

I wasn’t even aware most of them still existed, and began tearing up as I remembered with fondness each one of them. I turned to Sarah and asked, “How?”

Just then, Jen and Shelly entered the room with Jen answering my question with, “Mom had them down in the basement, believe it or not. I never figured her for a packrat, but there ya go.”

I hugged the stuffing out of all of them, saving Sarah for last and sneaking a kiss in the process. She didn’t seem to mind.

We retired to the living room and spent the afternoon chatting about nothing in particular, watching ‘Oprah’ and ‘Dr. Phil’, and eating a pizza we had delivered for dinner. After spending the early evening in similar pursuits, the three of them went into the bedrooms and got ready for work while I watched some television.

When they were all ready, Shelly asked, “Do you want to come along?”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty tired,” was my response as I gently tried to yawn.

Sarah chimed in with, “Oh, come on. When was the last time you went out somewhere when you weren’t working?”

I had to admit to myself that it had indeed been a very long time, as in years. I also had to admit that with each passing day I was finding it harder and harder to deny Sarah anything. “As long as you promise not to embarrass me or anything,” I said, reluctantly agreeing to the excursion.

All of us, with the exception of Annie who was riding with her husband, made the trek in Shelly’s van. I must say I found the trip enjoyable snuggling up alongside Sarah in the back seat, right up until we pulled in behind the club to get out. I was suddenly hit by what must have been a panic attack…there was no other way of describing what I experienced.

As the girls disembarked from our transport I started shaking, unable to move. Sarah was the first to notice, and she returned to my side to comfort me while I attempted to calm down. Once I was back under control somewhat, she said, “I promise, nothing bad is going to happen here.”

I was a little surprised at how much better I felt after hearing those words; and I was able to get out of the van and walk with the others inside the club. The first thing I noticed was just how busy the place was. It was absolutely packed, to the point that where there had been a dance floor the week before, there now were extra tables set up. Every seat was taken, and people were standing all around the building. ‘Why are there so many people here tonight?’ I thought.

As we went into the ‘dressing’ room, I asked, “What’s going on?”

At that moment, the club manager, Tim, came in the room. “Oh good, you’re here tonight,” he said to me.

“Why is that good?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Because the fundraiser will go better if they see who it is we’re raising the money for,” he replied.

I was obviously still several steps behind here, as I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Before I could ask, Jen offered, “Listen, Tim and the club owners decided to offer up this weekend as a way to raise some money to cover the hospital bills. So last night, tonight, and tomorrow, all the bar proceeds will go into the fund, along with a couple of donation stations that are set up around the club.”

“Wow!” was all I could think to say at that moment. Then I came to my senses, turned to Tim and said, “Thank you so much.” I gave him a hug, which while he looked a little uncomfortable, he managed to return in kind.

After Tim left I asked, “How…?”

Jen jumped in, “…Did we do this? Easy. Shelly went around putting up flyers in music stores all over town saying we were trying to raise money to cover your hospital costs after the beating last week. I was amazed by the response myself last night, and with you here tonight should be even better.”

“Shelly,” I started, “How can I ever thank you?”

As it was almost time for them to go on, Shelly asked, “I know you’re not up to playing all night, but would you be up to playing a couple of songs each set?”

I broke out in a smile that could have lit up the entire room and said, “I’d love that, but what about my sub?”

They all just looked at me, smiled, and laughed. I didn’t know what was so funny, but I had a feeling I was about to find out.

We walked out and received a thunderous ovation the likes of which I couldn’t ever remember hearing before. I looked around the room and recognized a lot of faces as belonging to other local musicians, and I realized they had turned the weekend into a jam session, which was why they weren’t worried about hiring a substitute for me. As we approached the stage, my eyes filled with tears.

We climbed the stairs and assumed our usual locations on stage, all accompanied by ever increasing applause levels. I was crying freely at this point, then saw that my old beat up ‘Stevie Ray’ Strat was sitting there on a stand, just waiting for me. I had no idea how it got there, as the last time I had seen it was earlier when it was hanging on my bedroom wall. I picked it up and the crowd began to die down. The girls all looked at me as if waiting for me to do something.

I finally got my tears under control enough to think, and decided to start playing. I began the jazzy opening to ‘Lenny’, which instantly hushed the crowd. I led the girls into the body of the song, and as it progressed I seemed to be reaching for things, both technically and emotionally, that I rarely attempted. I hoped I made it.

When we brought the song to it’s gentle close, the warmth of the crowd’s response overwhelmed me, once again I was in tears. The next thing I knew Mike, a guitar player I’d worked with off and on for years as Jack, came up with his guitar in his hands and leaned in close.

“Ya know, you don’t make a half bad chick,” he said in my ear. I couldn’t help myself, I gave him a huge hug before exiting the stage.

At the bottom of the steps Tim was waiting for me, and he escorted me to a reserved table right in front of the stage where I was instructed to sit and enjoy the evening’s entertainment. As each musician came off the stage after playing their bit, they were led over to sit with me for a moment; I bet I must have said ‘thank you’ about fifteen thousand times just over the course of the first set. I was amazed by the acceptance these people, many of whom had known me before, were showing me that night.

After they had completed that first set, the girls came and sat with me while a full band took the stage to do their part. At that point, I think a lot of the bands were using the opportunity to audition for the owner and manager of the club in hopes of getting some bookings themselves.

We wound up sitting through most of the evening as band after band took to the stage to play a few songs each. As they came off, they would each come by the table to shake hands and offer well wishes; by the time we returned to the stage near the end of the night, I was absolutely exhausted, even though I hadn’t really done anything.

It seemed Jen was intending for me to show off a bit for the extra large crowd, as we started off with ‘Wonder’ followed by ‘A Change Would Do You Good’. Then we took off and played ‘Let Go Of Yesterday’ before finally ending with ‘Black Cat’. From the sheer volume of the response, you might have thought we were playing to a packed concert venue instead of a small nightclub. It made for a thrilling night, to be sure.

We stood there and waved for several minutes as people cheered, tossed flowers on stage at us, and treated us like real stars. We weren’t allowed off the stage until well after ‘last call’, and only exited stage left as the club’s staff began forcibly escorting patrons from the building.

Instead of retiring to the dressing room as would normally have been the next step, I went out front and made a point of finding each and every person working there and thanking them personally for everything they had done that evening on my behalf. I was a little surprised that nobody showed the least bit of discomfort when I gave them each a hug; it was definitely a good kind of surprise.

The girls and I sat at our table from earlier and each enjoyed a beverage of some sort before heading out. When we were ready to leave, Tim came over and offered to personally escort me to the van, for which I was grateful. Even though I knew that those responsible for what had happened the previous week were unable to make a repeat appearance, I was still a bit wary over the prospect of going out into a dark alley late at night. He helped me up into the van, where I took my seat once again beside Sarah.

During the drive home, I laid my head on her shoulder and was out like a light. The impression I got was that she didn’t mind too much as by the time we pulled into our driveway, she too was sleeping, with her head resting on top of mine. I wish I had a picture, to tell you the truth.

There was never any question of whether Sarah would stay the night. We all took turns washing off the evening’s bar goo, shared some hot chocolate, then retired to the bedrooms, Shelly with Jen and Sarah with me.

As we snuggled together under the covers I said, “You know, I could get used to this.”

“Well, I should hope so,” she replied as she kissed the side of my neck and giggled.

“Mmmm,” I intoned. “Keep that up and you’ll be lucky if I ever let you leave.”

“Promises, promises.”

We drifted off to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms, content in the thought that all was right with the world.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Just when things seem to be looking up for our heroine, Jill and Sarah have a misunderstanding. Then to top it all off, a ghost from Jill's past adds to the turmoil. Thanks to my good friend Karen J for her assistance.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 7
By Jillian

To say that Saturday morning we all slept in would be an understatement. Since it had been so late when we got home from the club and cleaned up, it’s safe to say that nobody got to bed before 3am, and while I don’t know for certain about Jen and Shelly, I do know that Sarah and I did not go straight to sleep.

What all that means is that it was well after noon before any of us dared peek our heads out from under the covers. What it doesn’t mean, however, is that I got a pass from Shelly’s little box of horrors. I think Sarah was feeling rather sorry for me by the time I could convince Shelly to stop for the day, but at least there were two hours worth of hairs that would never see the light of day again.

As I was getting up from the electric chair, Shelly started to give me her standard ‘we’re almost done’ bit, but I cut her off. “Don’t even start, Shell. We both know the end isn’t in sight for this little project, and your bit about ‘almost done’ doesn’t help.”

“And I thought you were grumpy before we started,” she said, making cat claw gestures at the same time.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m just not feeling very well today,” I finally offered.

“Gee, I can’t imagine why,” added Jen. Sarcasm is her native tongue.

“So, what are we going to do with the rest of the afternoon?” Sarah asked as I sat down beside her on the couch.

I took her hand in mine and said, “Whatever you want.”

“Yuck!” said Shelly as she was putting her machine away.

Sarah thought for a moment or two before saying, “It’s a lovely day out. Why don’t we all go for a walk in the park? I know Jill needs to get out and a bit of exercise won’t hurt any of us.”

“Ooh, that sounds like a good idea,” added Jen.

“That’s settled then,” Sarah finished. “What say we all go get dressed, and we’ll go for a nice leisurely walk?” She was the first to get up and go to change.

She had obviously planned on staying last night, as she had not only something casual for during the day, but also already had her things for tonight’s gig. I followed her into the bedroom and pulled on some jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers, then pulled my hair back in a scrunchie. By the time I had returned to the living room, the others were also dressed in a similar fashion.

We walked the half block to the local park, then started our official stroll around the park. There were lots of kids about, playing all sorts of games and we just watched them for a while.

Since I was still fairly weak, I had to stop periodically to rest, and it was during one of these rest stops that a little girl started looking intently at me. This went on for a couple of minutes before she finally worked up the courage to come up to me.

“Are you a man?” she asked.

Wow, that wasn’t what I was expecting. I know I looked a bit flustered for a second before I managed to regain some composure and responded, “I used to be.”

She looked at me for a while with the strangest look on her face, before she finally just shrugged her shoulders, turned, and walked away.

Sarah saw the stunned look on my face, and even though she hadn’t overheard the exchange between the little girl and myself she could sense something was wrong. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

I looked at her for a moment and said, “That little girl just asked me if I were a man.”

I could see a brief look of sadness come over Sarah’s face. Whether it was because I wasn’t one anymore and that fact made her sad, or because she was concerned what my reaction to the little girl might be, I don’t know. Whichever the case may have been, she took hold of my hand and gave it a squeeze.

I flashed her a brief smile before standing up and pulling her up along with me. I said, “I’m a bit tired. How about we head back home?”

She stood there next to me, still wanting to make some unknown hurt go away, before saying, “Sure,” then taking the lead on our way back to the house. Jen and Shelly quickly joined us in our return trip, and before long we were home.

Saturday night at the club went very much like Friday had, with the exception that I knew what to expect. I played with the girls for a few songs to begin the night, then individual jammers started sitting in, one at a time.

I was sitting at the front center table again when I was surprised to see Dr. James walk up on stage to play. He actually was quite good, and the crowd’s response to his performance was enthusiastic. After just one song, he left the stage and came by my table to say hello.

“I didn’t realize this was for you,” he said as he took a seat beside me.

“My sister and friends arranged it with the club owner to help with the hospital bills,” I replied. “What brings you out?”

“I never miss a jam session when I’m off work. This is my relaxation,” he said, leaning close to my ear so I could hear him more easily.

I switched positions so he could hear me and said, “You play pretty well. How long have you been at it?”

“Nowhere near as good as you. I’ve been playing most of my life, but I’ll never be that good. Guess that’s why I’m a doctor instead of a musician,” he cracked a huge smile as he made fun of himself.

“Well, I think you did great,” I said earnestly.

“Thanks. It was fun. I’ve never gotten to play in front of quite so many people before. That was a little nerve wracking.”

“You kind of get used to it.”

“Not me. I’ll never get used to it.”

The band ended the song they were playing, and Sarah came down to sit with me, so there must have been a keyboard player come up. She walked up beside me and gave me a kiss, then to the doctor said, “Hiya, Doc! What’s up?”

“Oh, just relaxing a bit and talking to one of my favorite patients,” he said to her as he patted my hand.

She responded, “Well, it’s good to see you outside the hospital. Having a good time?”

“Yes, very much so. I was just telling Jill I’d never played in front of a crowd this big before. It’s scarier than my first open heart surgery, to tell you the truth.”

“What? This? This is just playing in front of friends. Nothing scary here at all,” she tried to convince him.

“For you maybe, but for me?” he said. “I think I’ll stick to surgery. It’s easier on my nerves.” He then turned his attention back to me, “Jill, I’ve got to get going, because I have to work tomorrow.”

“On Sunday?”

“Hey, I did some of your surgeries on Sunday,” he responded.

“I suppose you did.” I didn’t know that, but I suppose it only made sense, didn’t it?

He stood up and slung his guitar, in it’s gig bag, over his shoulder. “Well, good night, ladies.”

We waved goodbye as the next wave of jammers came up to the table to ‘pay their respects’. He made his way toward the door, and was gone.

“That was a surprise,” Sarah said as we shook hands with the new arrivals.

“Yeah, but kind of a pleasant one, ya know?” I replied.

It turned out that I got to sit out the vast majority of the evening as there were lots of guitar players in attendance, until about the middle of the last set when we took back the stage to finish out the night.

Just like the night before, we weren’t allowed to slink away to the dressing room. Instead, we were expected to hold court for well wishers to come by and say their good nights and so on. By the time we had tended to those duties, it was well after 2am, and we were all exhausted.

The girls started packing up everything, which took a lot less time than it could have, and some of the door staff volunteered to help carry stuff out to the van, since we were girls, after all. Never wanting to turn down volunteer help, we allowed them to do all the heavy lifting, while we just worried about packing up guitars and cords and such.

Again, we all returned to the house afterwards and following showers and changing into nightclothes, we gathered in the living room for hot chocolate. It didn’t take long for exhaustion to catch up to all of us, and in fact I think everyone at some point started to doze off while still sitting there. We eventually retired to the bedrooms, and in no time at all snoring reverberated throughout the house.

The next few days were a little tense, and it took me a while to find out why. Shelly brought over her hair gadget and worked on my face on Monday for a couple of hours, and Sarah spent quite a lot of time with me, mostly at home. Now that I was getting used to sleeping in the same bed as her, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to sleep alone again any time soon, and I decided to broach that subject with her Monday evening.

“What would you say if I asked you to move in?”

“What? You mean here? Wow!”

“Was that a good wow, or a bad wow?”

“Surprised, mainly.”

I couldn’t help but think that was an evasive answer if ever there was one. “Do you not want to?”

She looked incredibly uncomfortable before she said, “Listen Jill, can we talk about this later? I really need to go take care of a couple of important errands.”

“Okay,” I replied. The stunned look on my face was surely obvious to anyone with eyes.

She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then left. I wandered around the house for a few minutes before I ran into Jen in the laundry room, hanging up things out of the dryer.

Jen looked up from her task, “Hey, what’s up?”

“I’m not exactly sure, to tell you the truth.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I think I just screwed something up. I asked Sarah what she thought of the idea of moving in, and frankly her reaction wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.”

Jen suddenly gave me her complete, undivided attention. “Why? What happened?”

“After I asked her she said wow. I asked if that was good or bad, to which she just said ‘surprised’. Then she said she had some errands to run and took off,” I then paused for a moment to let that torrent soak in. “Now I don’t know what to think. Did I screw up here?”

Jen grabbed hold of my elbow and began leading me toward the dining table. “Come with me,” was all she said along the way. Once sat, she finally began, “You know that this past weekend was more or less a charity thing to cover the hospital bills?”

“Yeah, and I’m glad, since I really had no idea how I would ever pay for all that otherwise.”

“Well, it’s like this. The band didn’t take pay for the weekend, so that went into the pool as well.”

“I didn’t know that. So how is everyone going to get by? I know there isn’t another booking for this weekend…”

“Now I think you’re starting to catch on. Sarah is trying to come up with rent money that was due a couple of weeks ago for her apartment. She’s been late often enough that they’ve already told her they want her out if she can’t pay it by this Friday. The errands she was telling you about probably have something to do with that.”

“And she assumed that I knew all about this problem and thought I was just asking her to try and help?”

“That would be my guess.”

“I suppose it would help her out. So what’s the problem?”

“I’m not sure, but if I had to guess I’d say it has something to do with not wanting to be in a position of owing you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I know that, and you know that. She’s so caught up in her worrying about this she probably can’t see it.”

“Now I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t. Maybe you’re guilty of rushing things, but other than that, I don’t think you did anything wrong. How were you supposed to know she was having problems? You’ve been cooped up in a hospital room for the past week.”

“So, what do I do?”

“That’s up to you really. Listen, give it time. I know she loves you, maybe she’s just not ready to take that plunge.” Once she finished making her statement, she got up from the table and returned to the task of folding laundry.

I sat there for quite a while lost in my thoughts. What did I do wrong? What can I do to fix this? How do I convince her that my question has nothing to do with any problems she might be having financially?

I kept coming up with questions. The problem was I didn’t seem to have any answers on hand. The longer I sat there, the bigger the list of questions got even though I still had yet to find an answer to any one of them.

I eventually noticed it was after midnight, I was still sitting there thinking, and there was still no sign of Sarah. Maybe she decided to stay at her place tonight? I hoped I’d be able to get to sleep with her gone. Had I really become that attached to her already?

Succumbing to exhaustion, I finally gave in and went to bed. That’s not to say I got much rest because the truth was I spent much of the night alternating between worrying about Sarah, just plain missing her, and berating myself for asking her to move in even though I don’t think I ever wanted anything quite so much in my entire life.

In spite of my lack of sleep, I got up early Tuesday morning and got ready to go to my appointment with the psychologist. When 10 am rolled around I knew I could wait for Sarah no more so I went out, climbed behind the wheel of Jen’s old clunker of a car, and drove myself to the offices of Dr Janet Filo, PhD. It didn’t occur to me until I pulled into the parking lot that this was the first time I had ever driven as Jill. Just as well, since had I thought about it before I probably would have had to add ‘bundle of nerves’ to the list of items for discussion this morning.

“And who are you here to see this morning?” the receptionist asked just after sliding open the opaque sliding glass.

“Dr. Filo. I’m Jill Tucker, and I have a 10 o’clock appointment.” I then turned around and took a seat on the couch, picking up a six month old issue of Cosmo to peruse as I did so.

I was about halfway through an article describing how to achieve the perfect sexy eye look when the receptionist startled me, “Miss Tucker? The doctor will see you now.”

I returned the magazine to it’s previous resting place and followed the receptionist through the door and down a winding set of corridors before being ushered into an office to wait for the doctor. It was while I waited that just how tired I really felt hit me, and I started to yawn but stopped when the pain in my ribs decided to remind me of my injuries.

Just then Dr. Filo opened the door, asking as she entered the room, “Something wrong?”

“I made the mistake of trying to yawn,” I replied.

She took a notepad off the top of her desk and came around to sit next to me in the armchair facing mine. “Are you not sleeping well?”

“I didn’t last night, but that was an unusual case.”

“How so?”

“I’ve become quite used to sleeping with Sarah, and she wasn’t there last night. I tossed and turned all night long. Fact is, I winced from the pain in my ribs on quite a few occasions.”

“And Sarah was missing because…?”

“Doc, the truth is I’m not entirely sure, but it basically comes down to a misunderstanding that I’m hoping to clear up as soon as I see her again.”

“First please call me Janet. Titles like doctor tend to force a wedge between us that can interfere with what it is we’re trying to do. Now, is this anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Dammit Janet!” I quipped mimicking the line from that song in ‘Rocky Horror’ and breaking out in a fit of giggles until the tenderness in my ribs made their presence felt once again. I eventually got myself back under control and noticed the doctor looking at me with a smirk on her face that told me she was a woman of good humor, but that she was trying to maintain an air of professionalism.

I finally restarted the conversation. “Well, Sarah…and the rest of the band I work with…played this past weekend for free to help raise money to cover my hospital bills, and in the process Sarah has found herself in danger of being evicted from her apartment for non-payment. I didn’t know anything about this until after our problem transpired, but the gist of it is that I sort of asked her to move into my sister’s and my house with me. I actually thought she’d think it was a great idea, so I was stunned when her response was so cool. After she left I talked to my sister, telling her about the whole incident. She’s the one who informed me about Sarah’s financial problems, and how she was on the verge of eviction.

“I was still a little confused by her response until Jen suggested that maybe Sarah was hesitant to accept my offer because she might think it was made out of pity for her situation instead of for more personal reasons. That happened early yesterday evening, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since to explain my motives.”

“You’ve not had a lot of experience with relationships before, have you?”

“That obvious, is it?”

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant…”

We chatted about the Sarah situation, my nightmares connected to the attack, how things have been since I got out of the hospital, and more various other topics than frankly I could remember over the next hour before she glanced at her watch. “Oh, it would appear we have run out of time for today. How about if we pick back up on Thursday?”

“All right,” I said as I got up from the chair and shook her hand to thank her for seeing me. I then left the office, following the exit signs to try and find my way out of the maze of offices I found myself in. Once I emerged back into the main floor hallway I found the elevator and headed back out to the parking lot.

I climbed in behind the steering wheel, started the engine, and set the heater full blast to take the chill out of the air before I set back out. In the few minutes I spent waiting for the warmth to return feeling to my fingers, I reflected on some of my just completed conversation with Dr. ‘You have to start calling me Janet’ Filo.

After a few minutes of allowing the car’s engine and defroster to warm up I put it in gear, backed out of the parking space, and started on my way back home. I must admit that my mind wasn’t exactly focused on the task at hand, as it kept wandering back to what had transpired with Sarah the night before. I was basically making the trip on autopilot right up until I heard the siren.

The sound caught my attention, prompting me out of my trance as I looked at the rear view mirror which revealed a police car with it’s lights going sitting on my bumper, waiting for me to pull over and face the music.

I pulled off the road into an empty parking lot, then took the car out of gear and turned off the engine. While the officer was approaching my window, I checked to make sure I had the vehicle registration and my driver’s license on hand. He wrapped on my window and I lowered it, saying without even looking up, “Good morning officer.”

I then looked up to see that I had just been pulled over by none other than good old Tommy Robinson from high school. Tommy was one of the pigs who had on occasion harassed and taken advantage of me, and I had prayed to God every day that I’d never meet him again…I suppose that meant the answer to those prayers was no.

Tommy started to say, “Do you have any idea how fast you were…wait a minute, you look awfully familiar…I’m sure I know you,” he stammered as I reluctantly handed over the required paperwork.

“Holy crap!” he exclaimed. “Jack Tucker,” he sneered as he looked back and forth from me to my license. “As queer as ever.”

I sat there silently crying and cursing myself for my stupidity in not paying more attention to what I was doing. “Hiya Tommy,” I finally managed to say.

“That’s Officer Robinson to you, faggot,” he snarled back. “I oughta run ya in, but then I’d have to fill out a bunch of paperwork. I guess you’re gettin’ off lucky today, freak.” He finished filling out the citation, and as he was handing me my copy, he added, “Have a nice day,” and started cackling like a hyena as he turned around and returned to his patrol car.

I sat there still crying as he drove off, leaving me in no condition to drive the rest of the way home. Over the next fifteen minutes or so my emotions drifted from fear to anger to sadness, ultimately coming to rest in a depression that brought with it sheer exhaustion.

I finally got my tears under control enough to make the trek the rest of the way home, paying special attention to make sure I didn’t do anything that might attract the attention of any more police officers.

I pulled in the driveway and let go a huge sigh as I put the car in park and turned off the engine. Making my way to the front door, I swear it felt as if my feet were encased in lead, they were so heavy. I entered the house to find that I had the place to myself, so I headed straight for my bedroom, plopping into bed where I intended to spend the rest of my miserable life.

The next thing I remembered was the sound of my sister’s voice shouting, “Hey! Wake up!” as she shook my shoulders trying to rouse me. As I opened my eyes the tears began flowing once again, and as I rolled over to face Jen she grabbed hold of the ticket, which I was still clutching in my hand.

“Obviously you’ve had a great day,” Jen’s voice dripped her normal sarcasm as she looked at the traffic citation.

“Can I just start the day over?” I asked as I tried to pull a pillow over my head and return to sleep.

“‘Fraid not,” Jen countered. “The girls are going to be here for band practice in just a little bit.”

“No,” I moaned.

“Come on. Playing always makes you feel better.”

She was right about this at least. However, at that moment I doubted anything would make me feel better, ever again.

Just then another voice entered my room. “Jill? Are you all right?” It was Sarah.

“I’ll just leave you two to it then,” Jen stated as she got up and exited the room post haste.

Sarah came over and sat on the edge of the bed as I rolled back over to face her. “Can we talk?” she asked once she felt she had my attention.

“I suppose,” I allowed, on the brink of crying yet again.

“Listen, I’m sorry about last night. I was all wrapped up in my own problems, and for some stupid reason I thought you were asking me just because I was about to get kicked out of my apartment.”

“I didn’t even know anything about that,” I protested.

“I know that now. Jen talked to me about a lot of things this morning.”

“The offer still stands.”

“That’s good, because I have a carload of clothes and nowhere to put them,” she tried injecting some levity into my dark little world.

I sat up and wrapped her in a gentle hug saying, “Welcome home.” I then kissed her and she kissed me.

“I take it your day hasn’t gone so well?”

“Let’s just say I ran into a ghost from my past that I would rather never to have seen again.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later, okay? Right now I’d like to just forget about the whole thing; pretend it never happened.”

“I can do that.”

With that, the love of my life comforted me until the rest of the band showed up for rehearsal.

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Has Jill seen the last of that ghost from her past? As she tries to find her way she encounters another hiccup. Thanks to Karen J and Angharad for their invaluable assistance.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 8
By Jillian

Tommy had me pinned against the wall off in a corner beside the restrooms. “Where you think you’re going, faggot?”

“Sorry Tommy, I’m late for class.”

“You ain’t gettin’ away that easy. In there,” he pushed me into the boy’s room as he said it, following behind me.

As I was led into the big handicapped stall I pleaded, “Please? If I get another tardy I’ll have to do an in school suspension.”

“So? That’ll give ya time to do my homework for me, won’t it?” He undid his fly and pushed me to my knees in front of him.

I tried to allow my mind to wander anywhere but here as I did as he bade…

I woke up from my nightmare needing to visit the little girl’s room, so I carefully disentangled myself from Sarah trying not to wake her in the process, then stumbled my way toward the facilities. On my return trip I noticed Jen sitting up in the living room reading. I joined her on the sofa and said, “I think I owe you an apology.”

She looked up from her book, removing her reading glasses and saying, “I’m sure you do for something, but would you care to enlighten me as to what you’re apologizing for? Just so I can keep track.”

“I probably should have asked you before inviting Sarah to live here. I’m sorry.”

She closed her book and said, “Oh, that. No biggie. I mean, it’s as much your house as it is mine.”

“Only because you gave it to me.”

“Is it your fault mom was a pig? I don’t think so.”

“Still, I guess I should have let you know beforehand.”

“That’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Okay then, spill time. What’s wrong?”

I closed my eyes for a moment before I spoke again. “Running into Tommy Robinson really shook me up.” I then opened my eyes again to look at Jen before I continued, “It dredged up a lot of feelings I had thought I’d buried a long time ago. And now I’m feeling like I need to constantly look over my shoulder to make sure another ghost from the past doesn’t rear its head.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“But that doesn’t make it acceptable, does it? How can I get on with my life if I keep running into people and things that make me relive awful moments I’d much rather forget?”

“But you can’t forget them. And for that matter, you shouldn’t. Those things, as bad as the memories are, helped shape you. They made you the person you are now, and they will continue to influence your life, helping you make decisions,” she paused for a second before adding, “Those things are a big part of you. You don’t want to lose them.”

“What if I said I did? What if I wanted to start over with an absolute clean slate? No baggage, no preconceptions, nothing. Like I was born yesterday.”

“Sorry sis, but it can’t be done. And it shouldn’t.”

As I sat there I saw a tear roll out of Jen’s eye, then another and another. I then realized that I too was crying again.

Jen was first to get her eyes back under control, and said, “You are such a chick!” She then started to giggle.

I looked at her and my tears began to dry up, replaced by a soft chuckle that grew into a giggle, until my ribcage reminded me that it still wasn’t better yet. Once I was back under control, I said, “Thanks sis.”

She began to look more seriously at me and asked, “So what are you going to do about this little problem with officer jerk off?”

“What’s to do? I’m not really in a position to be able to press the issue, am I? If I make a fuss, he probably won’t be the only one treating me like that. Hopefully, if I let the whole mess drop, it’ll go away. I just have to avoid running into one Tommy Robertson is all.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you’d be well within your rights to file a complaint against him.”

“I just can’t imagine any good coming from something like that. If it becomes a more frequent occurrence, that would be a different story, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose I see where you’re coming from with that. But if it happens again and you try to let it slide, I’ll kick your butt myself, understand?”

“Yes,” I allowed resignedly. Then I brightened a bit and added, “Thanks again.”

She slipped her glasses back on and as she was opening her book back up, she said, “Any time.”

I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then left her to her date with Ann Rice and returned to bed.

I must have fallen back asleep straight away because the next thing I remember is Sarah nibbling my earlobe in an attempt to wake me. I moaned, part in pleasure and part in frustration, as she continued her ministrations until I finally stirred.

“About time you woke up. Much longer and you would’ve had a little hicky on your ear,” she teased.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I responded as I rolled out of bed and ran for the bathroom in search of a hot shower.

She chased after me saying, “What do you mean, ‘wouldn’t be the first time’?” I swear for a moment she sounded rather jealous. Part of me really liked that.

I was in the shower with the water running already before I replied, “When I was younger I had this little kitten that wasn’t completely weaned when I got her. She was very clingy, and in fact sometimes as I slept she’d climb up onto my shoulder and suckle on my earlobe. Other than the hicky, I thought it was adorable, except for the times she got her teeth caught in my earring hole,” I couldn’t help myself and started giggling as I remembered the incident.

“Oh, that’s cute. Whatever happened to her?”

“She ran off a few years ago when I was out on the road for the first time. Jen looked for her and so did I once I got back in town, but we never found her again. I cried like a baby for days after, much to my mother’s ire. She was always giving me a hard time because I wasn’t exactly a manly man.” I turned off the shower and opened the curtain while reaching for a towel. “Jen says she just thinks the cat couldn’t stand living with our mother.”

Sarah handed me one and said, “Poor baby, though from what I’ve heard about the woman, your sister might be right. Have you thought about getting another kitten now that you’re not going to be traveling so much?”

As I dried myself off I thought for a moment before replying, “I don’t know. Roxy was such a special kitty to me, I don’t think I could ever just replace her like that.”

“So it’s not just guitars you get all possessive about, huh?”

“Nope. You’d best get used to it,” I said as I tried to steal a kiss. It didn’t matter to me that her mouth was full of toothpaste. She allowed a quick smooch before returning to the task of getting herself ready for the day. She climbed in the shower while I brushed my teeth, then we both found our way back to the bedroom to get dressed.

When we joined Jen in the kitchen for breakfast I found out that today we were going to go check out the new Guitar Center that had just opened in our area. “Great,” I said when she informed me, “I need some new strings anyway.”

Just then, Shelly came in toting her little box of horrors and I wound up getting zapped for about an hour before we could get ready to leave for the music store. As she was putting her toy away, Jen asked, “You coming with us?”

Shelly looked at Jen and asked, “Where?”

“Guitar Center!” Jen and I answered in unison, then started giggling.

“Cool,” she replied.

We came to the conclusion that it might be fun to get a little more dressed up before we went, just to sort of play with the store’s sales staff. After all, they would all be younger guys, mostly single, and susceptible to influence at the hands of a pretty girl. So while Jen and Shelly got ready, Sarah and I returned to the bedroom so we could change into something a little more task appropriate.

Once everyone was ready, we all piled into Shelly’s van and made the trek to Musician’s Mecca.

I should probably point out that for musicians, and in particular guitar players, Guitar Center is the biggest and most powerful store chain in the industry, sort of like Macy’s, but instead of clothes they sell instruments and accessories.

In my previous life I probably would have made this journey in whatever I happened to pull out of the closet…probably just jeans and a t-shirt…but since I began my transition I had started to understand a bit more about the power women have in the marketplace. That’s why we all dressed up a bit more than was probably necessary. Short skirts, nice tops, heels and just the right touch of makeup was in evidence all around as we walked into their huge showroom.

As we dispersed, sales staff were on us like vultures on fresh road kill, and who could blame them? A bunch of young guys standing around a music store might be used to seeing other young…and not so young…guys coming in to ogle the merchandise, but they certainly wouldn’t be used to seeing many girls, especially dressed up like we were. This meant we had everyone’s attention in a big way.

The fact that none of us were here to buy anything more than some guitar strings or drumsticks didn’t matter; the rarity of a bunch of girls who not only knew what they were doing, but also dressed up was enough to ensure the finest service ever rendered in that fine establishment, and we knew that would be the case. That’s why we did it.

I’ve never deluded myself with thoughts that I was anything more than just a passable woman. Jen on the other hand had maintained the striking good looks we had inherited from mom, and on more than a few occasions she had been said to look like a young Elizabeth Taylor. Ah, if only…

As my sister and I made our way to the guitar wall, we were practically assaulted by this kid barely out of high school wearing a nametag that declared him to be ‘Mark’. He was obviously new…it was a newly opened store after all…and was still a bit lost amongst the myriad of toys about which he was expected to have expert knowledge.

It might have been a bit evil, but we monopolized that poor kid’s time for nearly an hour just trying out guitars, amps, and effects before finally heading over to the accessory counter to pick out a few sets of strings. I liked Mark. He made an effort to actually be of help, which frankly set him apart from most music store staff I’d dealt with over the years. In a way I felt rather guilty for not buying a big ticket item, but at least we bought enough strings for them to add up to a little bit of a commission.

After we retrieved Shelly from the drum room where she was playing with the electronic kits we all went in search of Sarah, who we found in the keyboard room playing with a Korg Triton 88 key workstation. When she saw us she bid farewell to the keyboard salesman and joined us on our way out the door, looking back wistfully at that big silver machine. At least I knew for certain she understood about my attachment to guitars.

We decided that a bit of clothes shopping was in order, and even though none of us had the money to really buy much, we spent a ridiculous amount of time browsing and trying things on. Following a quick bite of early dinner, we all went back to the house for an evening in with DVD’s and popcorn.

At bedtime, as Sarah and I were getting changed she blurted out, “How can you let him get away with treating you like that?”

I stood there a moment before responding, “If you didn’t know me and you heard that I was filing a complaint against a police officer, who would you be inclined to believe more, the cop or the tranny who’s never held a real job?”

“I guess when you put it that way…” she let the thought drift away unfinished as we crawled into bed. Within seconds her arms were wrapped around me, and for the first time since we got up that morning I felt completely safe.

Thursday morning meant another appointment with Janet. This time Sarah volunteered to do the driving, for which I was extremely grateful as I was terrified of a repeat performance of Tuesday. We sat there in the waiting room flipping through the painfully outdated magazines until I was led back for my appointment. I sort of felt sorry for Sarah, leaving her there in the waiting room with nothing by those ancient Redbooks and Cosmos. Ah well, I suppose she would have to make do.

Janet was already in her office when I was led in, and before I could even take a seat she had come around from behind her desk and taken a seat in one of the big armchairs. For the briefest of moments I toyed with the idea of sitting down behind the desk, but then sanity once again took control of my mind and I sat down in the armchair opposite the doctor.

“How have you been?” she began immediately.

“I’ve been worse,” I replied. “I’ve been better as well, but…”

“Anything you’d like to start with?”

“Well, on my way home from here on Tuesday I was a bit spaced out as I was driving and the next thing I knew I was being pulled over for speeding.”

“I imagine that was fairly traumatic given your legal identity.”

“You can say that again. It was only made worse by the fact that the officer involved knew me back in school. Very well.”

“As in…?”

“As in he had been abusive toward me both verbally and physically on a semi regular basis all through high school.”

“So what happened?”

“He made a slew of derogatory comments along the lines of ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’, wrote me a ticket and left. By that time I was in tears, and it was quite a while before I was able to get myself back under control enough to drive the rest of the way home.”

“Did you file a complaint against him? That would be well within your rights.”

“I know that in the eyes of the law we’re all equal and all that. But in the real world it doesn’t always work that way. If I do anything like that it won’t only be him giving me a hard time. I’ll have the entire police force out gunning for me. I just can’t do that. I can’t put my friends and family through that.”

She sat there writing a note to herself before she continued, “I can see your point, but I want your assurance that if you have any more problems with this particular officer you’ll file a complaint against him.”

“My sister already made me promise,” I said, smiling as I did so.

The remainder of the session was spent talking about how I reached the conclusion that this was the right path for me. When my hour was up, I was ushered back out to the waiting room where I rejoined Sarah and we left hand in hand for our return trip home.

The rest of the day was devoted to band rehearsal, which was uneventful other than for the fact that I found I had to sit through much of it because of my ribs hurting when I stood up holding my guitar. I knew it would definitely be a while before my Les Paul saw a stage again.

Friday started much like many other of my days had of late because I was once again at the mercy of Marquis Shelly de Sade and her special toy box. I swore afterward that if she tried to tell me this project was almost finished one more time I might have to use her machine on her in an area that would be at least as sensitive as the face. For once she heeded my warning and didn’t say it.

It was late afternoon when Jen asked, “Hey, anybody want to go out tonight?”

Shelly was the first to respond, “Well yeah! Where’d you want to go?”

“I’d heard about this new club I thought we could check out, maybe even sit in and then talk to the owner about bookings,” she said by way of reply.

That was my sister, always working. She called Annie to fill her in on the plans and we all set about getting ready for an evening out.

To say I was apprehensive would be an understatement. I’d never really enjoyed going to clubs. In fact, I used to joke that the only way to get me in one was to pay me to be there. Everyone would laugh when I said it, but that was really the way I felt about it. Sarah on the other hand was really excited by the prospect, so I did my level best to make sure I didn’t act as a wet rag.

As I was putting the finishing touches on my face, Annie and her husband arrived at the house so we could all ride together in the van. Apparently parking where we were going was atrocious, so ride sharing was a necessity.

Since I was the last one ready, once I emerged from the bathroom we all headed directly to the ‘Starlust-mobile’ as it was sometimes jokingly called. Shelly had even gone to the trouble of getting personalized tags that said ‘STRLST’ on them.

The drive to this new place didn’t take long, and as we pulled into a parking space, Jen spoke up, “Okay, any volunteers for designated driver?”

“I’ll do it,” I offered. I was never much of a drinker anyway, so nursing diet cokes all night was fine by me.

There was quite the line outside the club. It extended halfway around the block, in fact. Fortunately it was relatively warm out for that time of year, and the line was moving rather quickly. As we approached the door however, I began to get nervous.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked when she noticed me being a bit upset.

“I just remembered my ID,” I said by way of explanation.

“Don’t sweat it. Most of the time they don’t even check girls,” she said trying to ease my fears. To a certain extent, it worked.

She was of course right and we sailed through the door with little more than a collection of leers from the door staff. We found our way down front to a big table and everyone took seats. Before we were even completely settled, the waitress was there to take our orders. I was actually impressed. This looked like a very nice place.

Jen leaned over to me and spoke into my ear, “Look who’s playing?”

As she pointed to the stage I saw my friend Mike up there wailing away. As he ended his solo, he smiled and winked at me so I waved back. At least I knew I had one friend besides the girls.

The end of the set came and Mike made his way directly to our table where he promptly asked as he took a seat beside me, “How come you didn’t bring all these girls around when you were a guy?”

“They knew I was hanging out with you and probably didn’t want to get groped by a lecherous toad,” popped out of my mouth before I knew it. He looked at me and I turned as red as a stop sign. That broke the silence as everyone broke out in a fit of laughter.

The waitress brought over a beer for Mike, for which he thanked her. Once his attention had returned to our table he asked, “You ladies want to sit in? It’s a safe bet that the guys wouldn’t mind taking a few songs extra break.”

Jen jumped in, “Sure!”

“Okay, let me go arrange it. You can start the next set.” With that he was up and on his way to confer with his cohorts.

“What do you want to play?” asked Annie.

“Why don’t we start with ‘A Change Will Do You Good’, then something like ‘Wonder’ before Jill does ‘Lenny’? Then we can finish with ‘Politics of Love’,” suggested Shelly. By the time Mike returned to confirm that we would start off the set, everyone had agreed to the song order and all that was left was to get up and do it.

A few minutes later we were climbing on stage. When the crowd noticed the band was different…and all girls…we had their complete attention. Jen approached the mic and said, “Hi, we’re ‘Starlust’ and Mike and the rest of the guys have been kind enough to let us come up and play a few songs for you tonight.” She then turned away from the mic and said loud enough for all of us to hear, “One-two-three-four!”

We started into the song, and everything just seemed to fall right into place. The more we played this one the more I liked it, which I guess is understandable since I really like pretty much everything I’ve heard by Sheryl Crow. By the time the song was over the crowd was really into it and their applause at the end was warm and loud. If anything, the Natalie Merchant tune went over even better than Sheryl Crow had and by it’s end they were practically on their feet.

Next up of course was my solo, which I started into before the applause died down. Once they realized I was playing the audience quieted down fairly quickly so they could listen. I had their complete attention by the time the rest of the band came in, and by the time I had finished with the statement of the ‘melody’ you could have heard a pin drop if we had stopped playing suddenly.

I played my heart out on that song and by it’s end felt completely exhausted. I know Jen realized just how tired I was because she took a moment to do the emcee thing, which gave me a moment to catch my breath.

“We’d like to thank Mike and the guys, the management, and of course all of you for permitting us to share with you these last few songs. We’d like to close with one from our CD. It’s called ‘Politics of Love’.” Shelly counted us in and we tore into it. She must have been channeling John Bonham or something because the drums sounded huge. The song grooved along like any good Led Zeppelin song would as we played out on an extended guitar solo once the lyrics were over.

The crowd seemed to love us, at least if the enthusiasm and volume of the applause was any indication. Mike’s band came up to replace us and we left the stage, returning to our table where the waitress had delivered a free round of drinks.

We sat through Mike’s band’s set and I don’t think it was an exaggeration to say that we got a much better response from the crowd. As they were finishing up their set, Jen and Shelly took out to try and find the owner or manager about possibly booking us. Sarah, Annie and Frank, and I remained at the table and were shortly joined once again by my buddy Mike. He complimented us profusely on our set and we chatted about this and that and nothing at all for a while until I found that I needed a visit to the little girls’ room.

I excused myself, winding my way through the throng of people until I got near the restrooms. That’s when one of my worst nightmares became reality once again.

“Hey faggot, the men’s room is that way,” slurred none other than an extremely drunk Tommy Robinson.

“Please leave me alone Tommy,” I asked him as pleasantly as I could.

He backed me into a dark corner by the restroom door and blocked me in with his body. “You know you’ll never get away with it,” he snarled, trying to sound intimidating. It worked.

“With what? What am I trying to get away with?” I had a fair idea what he was meaning, but wanted him to confirm it for me because I had just decided to file that complaint against him. I most assuredly was going to include this encounter.

“With this lie you’re livin’, that’s what,” he said. “You’re goin’ ‘round tryin’ to convince the world you’re a woman when you’re not.” The more he spoke, the more scared I became. Somehow that just deepened my resolve.

“I’m not lying to anyone. I’m not hurting anyone either,” I said, summoning every ounce of courage I could muster.

Just then someone tapped him on the shoulder, to which Tommy turned around. It was Mike. After he knew he had Tommy’s attention, he said, “You’re bothering the lady.”

“That’s no lady! That’s just a queer in a dress…”

“I know exactly who and what she is. She’s a lady and you need to leave her alone.”

“And just who’s gonna make me?”

Mike was then joined by a couple of his band mates followed up shortly by some of the door staff, who escorted Mr. Robinson from the premises.

As Tommy was being led away Mike turned back to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Just a little shaken, I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Mike led me back to my table, asking along the way, “Who was that guy anyway?”

As I sat down at the table I said, “Just a ghost from the past.”

Jen hadn’t been aware of what had transpired just then and she stared at me trying to coax information out of me.

Mike looked at me for a moment before saying, “If you’re sure?” He then headed back up on stage for their next set.

Before the band started back in, Jen looked at everyone in our party and said, “I think it’s time for us to go.” She stood up as a sign to the others that she was serious and we should all follow, period. Surprisingly, there was very little resistance to the idea and in very little time we were all walking out the door and piling into the van.

Jen looked at me standing beside the driver’s door and said, “I don’t think you’re in any better shape to drive than the rest of us.” I don’t think I could have argued the point at that moment, not the least reason being that I was still an emotional wreck following my latest run in with our local constabulary.

“Are you okay to drive?” I asked my sister.

“Yeah. All I had was a wine cooler. I’ll be fine.”

I went around and took the front passenger seat while Jen climbed into the driver’s. “I have a stop I need to make, if that’s all right,” I said.

Jen didn’t even ask where I meant. She just drove us directly to the police station. When we got there, we all got out of the van and went inside, where I headed straight for the desk.

“Excuse me sir. Who do I see about filing a complaint against one of your officers?”

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Jill stands up to that ghost from her past, but is that the only source of problems facing her? Some good news eases some of her fears. Thanks to Karen J and Angharad for their assistance.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 9
By Jillian

After being led into a large room with a number of desks spread about, most of them practically buried in piles of file folders, I was introduced to Captain Gibson.

“What can I do for you?” He asked after I took a seat opposite him.

“I need to file a complaint against one of your officers, Tom Robinson.” I replied.

“What’s he done now?” he shot back, seeming agitated that he would have to deal with this situation.

“On Tuesday morning, he stopped me to issue a ticket, and while he was writing it he made numerous derogatory remarks about me.”

“In what way?”

“He referred to me as ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’, and made comments related to our shared past.” I said as I fought to keep the tears from starting.

“Shared past?”

“Yes. We went to high school together. At the time I was known as Jack Tucker. He would regularly make abusive comments toward me, bully me, and on several occasions forced me to...” I found myself unable to even say it as I broke down. I did finally get myself back under control and was able to continue, “When I tried to report the incidents to school officials, I was ignored.” I paused to take a few deep breaths.

“I was intent to let the issue of Tuesday’s incident die until tonight when I was out with some friends to listen to a band at Windham’s, that new club that just opened up. He stopped me on my way to the restrooms, cornered me, and made threatening comments while he held me against a wall. One of my friends happened to come to check on me and saw what was happening. He intervened, and the door staff escorted Tommy from the club. We immediately left and came straight here.”

“I assume you were attired as a woman when these incidents occurred?”

“Yes. I am currently being seen by a therapist and a doctor in treating my gender issues.”

“And do you have any legal ID as a woman?”

“Not yet. I have requested that my doctors fill out the appropriate forms, but paperwork takes time.”

“Don’t I know it,” the captain joked. My fears started to ease as I warmed to this genuinely nice man. “Listen Miss Tucker,” I was thrilled to hear him address me as ‘miss’, “You aren’t the first citizen to have a problem with Officer Robinson, although if I have my way, you may be the last. I can promise you disciplinary action will be taken.” He stood up from his chair, came around the desk, and sat on the edge of it right in front of me.

“I’m sorry you’ve had these problems. I can tell you that these charges are being taken seriously and his days of using his position to intimidate citizens are about to come to an end. If you have any further problems with him, call me directly.” He gave me his card after writing his private cell number on the back. “This way you can get hold of me any time, day or night.”

“Thank you sir, “ I said as I stood to leave. I reunited with everyone in the lobby and we headed for home.

“With all the excitement I didn’t get a chance to tell everyone that we got a booking while we were there tonight. Weekend after next, in fact.” Jen informed us as we were driving home.

“Cool,” said Annie.

“So how many weeks in a row do we have booked?” I asked, since it seemed I was the only one who was still in the dark about our schedule.

Shelly was the first to reply, “Well let’s see. We’re at TC’s again next weekend, Windham’s the next, then the Silo the two weekends after that and then back to TC’s.”

“Great!” I said as she rattled off the upcoming schedule. I was hoping by the time we got through those dates I might finally be back to normal in the ribcage area. They were, of course, still rather sore.

Despite my emotional exhaustion, I tossed and turned all night and I was afraid I was keeping Sarah awake in the process. That was until I noticed her snoring. Around 3am I gave up, climbed out of bed, and went in to watch some late night TV on the couch. I have no idea when I finally fell asleep, but it was late enough that I’d made it through almost all of ‘The Notebook’. I was actually surprised I fell asleep during it, considering how much it was making me cry.

After that, things more or less settled into a routine for the next few days. Electrolysis, band practice, shopping, band practice, therapy session, more band practice…nothing out of the ordinary at all; at least, until the next Thursday.

I got up and around so I could make it to my therapy session on time, and I did in spite of the awful traffic I had to navigate through on the way. Janet surprised me by being ready to see me as soon as I got there, and the first thing she did as I entered her office was hand me the forms so I could go get my driver’s license changed.

After our chat I went and stood in line at the license bureau for about an hour before I got to have my picture taken for my new license. A few minutes later, there I was, with my new license with my new name, and even marked as ‘female’. I was in shock, in a good way.

On my way home I could barely contain my excitement. I was so giddy in fact that I nearly lost control of the car a couple of times. Fortunately for me and everyone around me, I was able to keep from doing any damage to my or anyone else’s property, and when I pulled in the driveway at home, I jumped out of the car and ran inside as fast as my cute little ankle boots would take me.

“Hello? Anyone home?” I called out as soon as I was inside. Sarah made it to me first and I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her and gave her a big kiss, then after I released her from my embrace I held out my new driver’s license and started jumping up and down with a huge smile on my face.

Jen came up to me, looked at my license, and said, “Good news. Hey, that may not be the only good news for you today.” She held up an envelope from the courthouse. “Actually, truth be told I think this could have come at pretty much any time this past week. I’d kinda forgotten to check the mail,” she said blushing. One look at the package and I knew exactly what it was. My official name change papers!

As I stood there, officially and legally Jill Tucker, female, I couldn’t help myself. I started crying at the same time I was laughing. The girls walked me to the couch where I sat down to take a few minutes to get control of my emotions.

After a few minutes I was again able to speak without breaking out in tears of joy. “Kevin works fast, I guess,” I said as I opened the envelope from the court.

“When did you apply for the name change?” Jen asked.

“Maybe I did forget to tell you about that,” I said. “Right after you talked me into joining the band, I called an old school friend who’s a lawyer now. I explained about my transition, and asked if he’d be willing to handle the name change paperwork.”

“I take it his answer was yes?” Commented Sarah.

“I didn’t expect it to come through quite so quickly. Maybe this explains why it was so easy to get my new name on my driver’s license. Kevin must’ve made sure the change was implemented in all the state’s computer systems somehow.”

Ever the practical one, Jen asked, “So how much did all this cost?”

“The filing fee was sixty, I think. Kevin filled out and filed the paperwork for free, believe it or not.”

“Good friend,” Sarah said, looking rather impressed.

“Yeah, he said he still owed me for getting him through Senior English. Now we’re even,” I said through a smile that was threatening to swallow my entire face.

Sarah threw together some lunch for all of us, and we were enjoying an early afternoon of doing absolutely nothing when the phone rang. Jen got there first and answered it.

“Hello? Yes, just a moment,” she said into the receiver. Then she turned her attention to me and said, “It’s a Captain Gibson asking to talk to you?”

I made my way to the phone and immediately took it from my sister. “Yes Captain.”

“Miss Tucker? I just wanted to call and tell you that Robinson’s initial hearing is over, and he’s been suspended pending further investigation.”

“That’s good news, right?”

“Yes it is. Now, don’t be surprised if you get a subpoena to appear before the Board of Inquiry as a witness.”

“I won’t sir. Thanks for letting me know where things stand.”

“No problem, miss.” With that, he hung up on his end. I stood there for a moment still holding the receiver to my cheek before finally lowering it into its cradle and returning to my previous activity.

“So?” Jen impatiently asked.

“Tommy’s been suspended until after a board of inquiry can hear the case. It seems I may have to testify.”

“That’s good, right?” Sarah asked.

“Of course it is,” Shelly jumped in.

I thought for a moment before adding my response. “It is as long as he doesn’t decide to come after me.”

“He wouldn’t, would he?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past him though.”

The somber mood that descended over us clung to the air for the remainder of the evening. No matter what we tried to do, it wouldn’t go away. It even followed us all to bed, as evidenced by the fact that none of us seemed able to get any sustained sleep time.

Friday morning came far too early for my tastes, but I was up anyway having spent most of the night staring at the ceiling. Sarah at least had eventually managed to drift off and not wanting to wake her, I got out of bed with as little disturbance as I could manage and found my way into the kitchen. I started a pot of coffee before stumbling into the bathroom to take my shower.

By the time I emerged, still sleepy but somewhat refreshed, Shelly had joined me in cavorting amongst the living. After I retrieved the morning paper from it’s normal resting place hidden between bushes in the front yard, we sat in the living room talking about nothing in particular and draining the contents of the coffee pot for a couple of hours before signs of life started being heard from the bedrooms.

Since we had a performance that night, we really didn’t do all that much during the day. I had managed to talk Shelly out of a session with her box of tricks, so instead of devoting the entire morning to indulging her Sadist tendencies we got to just relax.

About noon we loaded up all the equipment and hauled it to TC’s. As we were unloading the van and carrying stuff inside, I made a couple of discoveries rather quickly. The first was that my ribs were still way too sore to carry much of anything, so I was pretty much useless until it came time to actually hook stuff up. That I could do, so I did. The other was that I was still having a lot of trouble trying not to get freaked out every time I stepped out that door into the alley.

By about 1:30 we had everything hauled in, set up and ready to rock. After triple checking that we had everything we could possibly need for the evening, we headed back home to relax before we got ready for the evening’s gig. During the journey back to the house I dozed off; no doubt lack of sleep was a contributing factor in my impromptu naptime.

Unfortunately all was not peace and light when we got home. It seems someone decided to do a little volunteer landscaping while we were out. What appeared to be a truck had driven through the yard repeatedly, digging trenches with it’s tires, the end result being that what had once been my mom’s favorite perennial flower bed was now just a mess of tire ruts torn in the yard.

My list of suspects seemed to be growing exponentially, but I decided that the best course of action was to call Captain Gibson to report the incident. Operating on the assumption that this was Tommy’s handiwork, I left a message on the captain’s voicemail and then retired to my bedroom to try and nap a bit more.

After determining that my best laid plans were not to be, I gave in and got up, joining my sister, et al, in the living room.

“Couldn’t sleep?” asked Sarah as I entered the room.

“No, I must’ve used up my allocation from Mr. Sandman in the van.”

“Well then get your buns over here and keep us company,” ordered Shelly.

Not wanting to incur her wrath, I hurried along to take my place beside Sarah. “So what have you guys been up to?” I asked.

“You’re looking at it,” said my sister.

“You know, you didn’t really fill us in on what happened when you called that police captain,” Shelly blurted out.

“Didn’t I? Sorry, all I could do was leave a voicemail.”

As if on cue the phone rang. Jen answered, “Hello? Yes captain…” she held out the phone to me and I took it.

“Thanks for returning my call.”

“So someone decided to redecorate your front yard?”

“It would appear so. Whoever did it must have had a fairly big truck, judging by the size of the trenches left by their tires.”

He paused for a moment, seemingly writing something down. “I’m filling out an incident report. Unfortunately, we can’t say for certain it was Robinson’s doing, but we can at least make mention of it during your testimony. By the way, have they served your subpoena yet?”

“No, but we were out for a while this afternoon.” The doorbell rang, and Sarah got up to get it. “That may be it now,” I said to the captain.

Sarah returned with an anticipated summons to appear. “It was just delivered.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll be seeing you on Monday morning then.”

“I suppose so.”

“If there are any more problems, don’t hesitate to give me a call. Sorry I wasn’t able to take it personally this time.”

“That’s okay sir. Thank you for being so attentive. And so pleasant.”

“Not a problem.” With that he hung up, as did I. I then took a moment to look at the subpoena. It said I was to be at the courthouse on Monday morning at 9am. “I guess this means no electrolysis on Monday then,” I grinned at Shelly.

“Then I guess we‘ll just have to do an extra long session on Sunday.” After she said that, she began cackling evilly. Sometimes Shelly worried me.

Following a period of serious vegging in front of the TV and a quick bite of dinner, everyone retired to their rooms to get ready for the evening. I decided to be brave and packed my Les Paul as well as my Strat, since they sound so different from each other and added an extra guitar stand so the LP would be safe when not in use.

The half hour ride back to TC’s was uneventful, and when we arrived we all piled out of the van and made our way inside. I still suffered from a bit of anxiety as I walked across the alley on my way in, but once in the ‘dressing’ room I began to calm down considerably.

As I was unpacking my guitars and checking to make sure they were in tune, Tim the club manager came in. “Ladies, good to have you back again.”

“It’s good to be back,” Jen replied.

Shelly then asked, “How’s it look out there tonight?”

“Not bad. No records or anything, but as long as you keep ‘em here it should be a good night.”

“That’s what we do,” I said as I closed the latch on my last guitar case.

Tim looked at me for a second before commenting, “Ya know, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever actually heard you speak.” He then started laughing as he left the room to attend to other business.

Over the course of the night, I switched to the Les Paul for a few songs each set, but it was obvious to me that my ribs were still not up to the extra weight. However I did love its sound, so I suffered through the pain every once in a while when the song needed that extra beef.

By the end of the evening, I was absolutely exhausted. It was all I could do to carry my instruments back to the dressing room and put them in their cases, and I had to sit down after I did it. Maybe I was trying to do too much too fast. All I knew was that I loved playing that Gibson enough that I would need to continue working my way back to health so I could include it in my playing rotation.

Sarah, seeing just how tired I was, helped me when it was time to leave by carrying one of my cases for me. To me, that was a sign of true love.

The ride home was silent, as I think everyone was as tired as I was. We pulled in the driveway, wandered into the house, and took turns at the shower trying to wash away the bar smell. Then we gathered in the dining room for our traditional hot chocolate before heading to bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I hope I didn’t keep Sarah awake.

The next morning Shelly woke us by turning on the light and saying loudly, “I let you off yesterday. Today you’re not quite so lucky.”

I looked at her as if I was trying to cast a voodoo curse on her, but finally gave up and went and sat down at the table so she could ply her ‘trade’.

After two plus hours of aforementioned torture, I was released to get ready for the day. Upon my return Jen grabbed me and while pulling me toward the front door said, “There’s something you probably should see.”

She opened the door and I knew immediately what she was talking about. The big evergreen bushes that hid that ugly green utility company box in the middle of our yard and provided the paperboy with such an inviting target every day had been pulled out of the ground.

My first order of business was to reach for the phone. I dialed Captain Gibson’s cell number. He answered on the second ring, “Hello?”

“Captain Gibson? This is Jill Tucker.”

“Please, call me Gerry.”

“Okay. I’m sorry to bother you again, but last night we had a little more trouble.”

“What happened this time?”

“Some bushes in our front yard were pulled out of the ground somehow.”

“He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. Stupid, but persistent.”

For some reason this brought to mind one of my mother’s favorite sayings; ‘the persistent shall inherit the Earth’. I always thought she meant it as an important life lesson, but wasn’t sure exactly why it jumped in my head at that precise moment. Returning to the moment, I asked, “Is there anything we can do to stop this?”

“Let me call a judge to get a restraining order against him. Then, if he should decide to play vandal anymore we can pick him up for violating that order.”

“Okay. Listen, Gerry? Thanks.” I said as I hung up the phone.

The remainder of the day was uneventful other than my attempts to replant the bushes, as was the gig that evening. We were well received, played pretty well, and I even felt a little less tired than the night before. All in all, it turned out to be a good night.

Since I wasn’t really able to do any lifting I was relegated to cord duty, gathering and wrapping up all the assorted cables we had strewn across the stage and packing them away in the old duffel bag we used for such things. I did carry a few smaller things out to the van, but I was regretting that decision by the time I got out there and was grateful that once again the door staff offered to help with the really big stuff.

As had become something of a tradition for us, after arriving home we all showered and had a cup or three of hot chocolate before turning in.

For reasons beyond my comprehension I woke up early Sunday morning, so I went outside and picked up the paper from where it had nearly knocked over one of the bushes I had just replanted the day before. Once inside I put on the coffee and started thumbing through the news.

Everyone gradually emerged from their hibernation and joined me in a leisurely morning with the paper and coffee. It wasn’t until afternoon that Shelly decided it was time for another session with her face charger, so I wound up attached to a chair for much of the afternoon while she tested my pain threshold. We ordered in pizza for dinner and spent the evening watching movies before everyone decided to turn in early.

I was awakened Monday morning by the unfamiliar strains of the alarm clock bellowing out it declaration that it was time to get up. I fumbled my way into the kitchen to start the coffee, then to the bathroom for a shower, which I hoped would help me achieve consciousness. Fortunately for me, and all those involved in my upcoming day, said shower did the trick and I was feeling almost human by the time I poured myself a mug of that wondrous black liquid.

Sarah arose shortly after I did and commandeered the shower as soon as I vacated it since she had planned on accompanying me to the courthouse. We managed to get ourselves ready and out the door before 8:30 and since we didn’t encounter any major catastrophes on the way we were able to find a parking space within walking distance and got to our assigned hearing room with minutes to spare.

On our arrival Captain Gibson greeted us. “Ladies, thank you for coming this morning.”

“Hopefully we can achieve some good today,” I said as I tried to project as much confidence as possible.

“Your testimony will just be the icing on the cake,” he said. I hoped he was right.

Precisely at 9 o’clock the door opened and we were ushered in to take seats in the gallery. By the time we had settled in, the door was closed and a panel came in through another door behind a long raised desk. Once they were seated, the man in the middle, who wore a police dress uniform much like the one Captain Gibson had on this morning, banged a gavel.

“This meeting of the Board of Inquiry is hereby reconvened in the matter of Patrolman Thomas Robinson’s fitness to continue as an officer of the court and member in good standing of the police force of this fair municipality,” he intoned, sounding extremely important.

“We have previously examined extensive evidence and heard from the defendant’s representatives by way of cross examination thereof. We now wish to hear the testimony of one of the plaintiff’s whose charges are under consideration. We therefore call to the stand Jill Tucker.”

I rose from my seat and walked, more slowly than I think I ever did before, toward the witness table. My feet felt like they were encased in lead, and I don’t think I was ever more glad than when I finally made it to the chair and took a seat.

Someone held out a bible in front of me and uttered those words we always hear in the movies. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

Notes:

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Synopsis:

Jill demonstrates her bravery in standing up against one of her tormentors and works to move on with her life. This is the conclusion of the story.

Story:

Changing Keys, Part 10
By Jillian

“I object!” shouted Tommy’s attorney.

“On what grounds?” shot back the prosecutor.

“That this witness is lying to the board concerning his identity.”

The board member sitting in the middle looked at me and asked, “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

I cleared my throat and began, “Your honors, I used to be a boy named Jack Tucker. I’m not anymore.”

Mr. Myers, Tommy’s lawyer piped up, “Have you in fact had surgery then?”

“No, I have not.”

“Then aren’t you legally still a male named Jack Tucker?”

“No I am not. My name was legally changed to Jill, and as a person who is actively being treated for gender dysphoria, my driver’s license lists me as female.”

“Objection overruled,” came from the man in the middle.

The prosecutor cleared his throat. “Now then, Miss Tucker. Could you tell us what transpired between you and the defendant on Tuesday the 18th of this month?”

“I was on my way home from my appointment with my therapist, Dr. Janet Filo. Unfortunately, I had apparently allowed my attention to wander and Officer Robinson pulled me over for speeding.”

“And when he recognized you, what happened?”

“He started calling me the same kinds of names he used to call me when we were in high school.”

“Names like?”

“Queer, faggot, things like that.”

“And at this time, how were you attired?”

“Excuse me?”

“What kind of clothes were you wearing when the officer pulled you over?”

“Casual. Jeans, a top, that sort of thing.”

“And did he threaten you?”

“Not so much verbally, but then he never really did.”

“To what do you refer?”

“Tommy had always been abusive toward me, not only verbally but physically as well.”

“Objection!”

“Overruled.”

Following the interruption, the prosecutor continued, “In what way?”

“We went to school together most of our childhoods. By the time we were in high school, he would take any opportunity afforded him to be mean to me. He eventually reached a point where he expected me to do his work for him and would hit me if I didn’t do it, and…” I had to stop to compose myself before I could go on. “…and he would sometimes drag me into the restrooms and make me…” I started crying too much to continue.

“It’s all right miss. Take your time,” the prosecutor said softly to me. “Whenever you think you’re ready, please continue.”

It took me a few moments to regain control of my emotions. Once I had more or less stopped crying I continued, “He would sometimes make me take him in my mouth and…” I lost it again.

Once I again managed to compose myself, I added, “All I’ve ever wanted was for him to leave me alone.” At that point the tears became so profuse there was no way I could continue.

Coming to my rescue, the prosecutor said, “That’s all right miss.” Turning to the Board he then said, “No further questions at this time.”

The prosecutor returned to his seat, and the panel turned their attention to Mr. Myers. “Your witness,” the gentleman seated in the middle of the dais said.

Rising from his seat, Mr. Myers walked toward where I was seated and stood directly in front of me. “Now then, MISS Tucker,” he placed a heavy exaggeration on the word ‘miss’. “When did you complete the process changing your name and legal identity?”

“This past week.”

“So it’s safe to say that when my client pulled you over, in the eyes of the law you were still male?”

“I suppose so.”

“There’s no supposing to it…”

The prosecutor cut him off by jumping up and shouting, “Objection!”

“On what grounds?” asked Mr. Myers.

“Relevancy.”

“Sustained.”

“How could this not be relevant?”

One of the members of the Board, who had until now been silent, said, “Mr. Myers, this is not a regular court of law. This is an internal police tribunal, and if we deem a line of questioning irrelevant, then that’s the end of it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, your honors.” Clearly flustered, he took a deep breath and tried to begin anew. “MISS Tucker,” he said, again emphasizing the word ‘miss’, “Is it not your contention that Officer Robinson behaved in an inappropriate manner during this traffic stop?”

“And then again during another encounter, yes.”

“Now then, MISS Tucker,” this was getting old rather quickly, “Isn’t it true that you have harbored negative feelings toward the defendant for several years associated with the alleged abuse during your time in school together?”

“It is probably safe to say that, yes.”

“So what is to make this Board believe you’re telling the truth concerning these events? How are we to know you didn’t just make all this up to try and settle an old grudge?”

“It happened!”

“MISS Tucker, please. There is no need to get upset. I’m merely pointing out that you have no proof such an incident occurred.”

“Not the traffic stop, no. But…”

“And what do you mean by that, MISS Tucker?”

“At the nightclub there were witnesses who saw how he was treating me. They intervened and then escorted him from the premises.”

“Who might these witnesses be? Have they been summoned to these proceedings?”

“An old friend of mine, Mike Bishop, and the door staff who were working at Windham’s that night. I don’t know their names. And I don’t know if they were subpoenaed or not.”

“So you’re saying that if we talked to these individuals, they would corroborate your version of events.”

“Yes.”

“I have no more questions for this witness.”

Before I could be dismissed, the prosecutor jumped up and said, “Redirect.”

“Continue,” came a voice from one of the members of the Board.

“Is there anything you’d like to add to this, Miss Tucker?”

I thought about it for a moment before saying, “If I thought I was the only person who had ever had a problem with Tommy’s behavior, I wouldn’t want him to lose his job. I’d just ask that he please leave me alone. An apology would be nice. That’s all I want really. But from what I’ve been told I know I’m not the only one he’s harassed while on the job. That’s why I’m here. Someone needs to stand up to him, and I guess since nobody else has done it, I’m going to have to be that someone.”

“Thank you Miss Tucker,” said the gentleman sitting in the center of the dais. “Will there be anything further?”

The prosecutor answered, “Not at this time. However, we reserve the right to call more witnesses as the situation dictates.”

“So noted. Now we will be taking a short recess before hearing from the defendant.” The panel rose from their seats, prompting everyone in the room to stand up as well, and walked single file out of the room the same way they had entered.

As I stood up, Captain Gibson and the prosecutor came up to me and said, “Good job today Miss.”

“Thanks. I just hope it was enough.”

“With everything else, I’m sure it was,” said the prosecutor. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a phone call before we come back from recess.” He then left me standing there with the captain. We started walking toward the exit and were joined by Sarah.

“You did great,” she said as she gave me a hug and kiss.

“Thanks, but I think you’re a bit biased.”

“Well, DUH!” she said as she slapped my arm.

Outside the hearing room, Captain Gibson asked, “Do you two want to stay for the next part? If so, you can sit with me in the gallery.”

“Thank you, Gerry,” I said. “I just don’t know that I’m up to listening to him right now.”

“Understood. I’ll call you after to let you know what happens.”

“Thanks,” we both told him. We then left the courthouse and headed back home, content that we’d tried to do something good today.

When we arrived home, we joined Jen and Shelly in the living room. “So are you going to tell us what happened?” Shelly is not exactly a patient person sometimes.

“It was a lot like a trial, except instead of one judge there was a panel of people and no jury. The prosecutor asked me questions, then Tommy’s lawyer did the same. I walked out still alive, so it couldn’t have been too bad,” I tried to make light of the morning’s proceedings.

Sarah came to my rescue, “I think you were very brave this morning.” She then leaned over and kissed me.

Jen commented, “Do you two need some time alone?”

“Maybe later,” I said. Everyone broke out in a fit of giggles after that.

As we were about to move the living room around to make room for band practice, we heard a crashing sound as a brick came sailing through the picture window, shattering the glass and scattering it around the room. Everyone dove for cover as the shards of glass rained down upon us, and by the time we had managed to return to standing positions to look out the hole to see who had thrown the brick all we could see was a puff of smoke from where they squealed their tires on their getaway.

“Somehow I doubt Tommy had anything to do with this,” I said as we began the process of cleaning up the glass.

“Why do you think that?” asked Jen.

“Because he’s probably still at the courthouse,” Sarah answered for me.

Shelly said, “He could have had someone do this for him.”

“But would he?” I asked. No one seemed to have an answer to that one.

We spent nearly an hour picking up bits of broken glass, until it got to the point we could use the vacuum to get the rest. While Sarah tended to that task, I hung an old blanket over the broken window in an attempt to preserve some warmth.

“I guess we’re going to have to call someone to fix this, huh?” I asked, not expecting anyone to actually answer.

Shelly went over to the phone, dialed it, and waited for an answer on the other end. “Hey…I need a favor…Yes, actually, it would be the kind of thing I’d pay you back for in that way…Some idiot threw a brick through out front window, and we need a new pane of glass put it before we freeze our cute little buns off…I’ll see ya in a little bit then.” She smiled as she hung up the phone and turned to us to say, “Problem solved.”

It was a couple of hours before Shelly’s friend could make it over to take care of the window, and another hour and a half after he came by before he returned with the new pane of glass, which pretty much meant no band practice today…it was just too chilly, and besides none of us were really in the mood.

Around bedtime, Jen stuck her head into Sarah’s and my room and asked, “Do you think those jerks could’ve had something to do with the window?”

“I suppose. I hadn’t really thought about that, to tell you the truth,” I said as I changed into my nightie.

“They know where you live, and I’m sure they’re ticked off enough at all of us to do something like this,” Jen commented.

“If it’s them, what do we do? Phone the police?” asked Sarah.

“I don’t think we want to open that particular can of worms, do we? No, I think I know a better way,” answered Jen. That reply made me very nervous all of a sudden.

“I think we should wait and find out before going off and doing something rash, ya know?” I offered by way of making peace, at least temporarily.

“We’ll see. For now, I have a date with a vampire,” as Jen left the room, holding her book, Sarah and I settled into bed for the night.

My last thought before I fell asleep that night was a whispered, “I love you Sarah.”

She responded with a whispered, “I love you too Jill.”

We fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Tuesday meant another visit with Janet, so I got up and around just in time to get to my appointment. Obviously, mornings just never were my thing.

We talked a lot about my court experience the day before, as well as how I was doing with the new hormone dosage, how things were going with Sarah, and on and on. I swear, sometimes sessions with Dr. Filo felt less like therapy than they did a gossip session. As far as I was concerned, that was a positive.

Late Tuesday afternoon, I’d been crashed on the couch reading when the telephone ringing brought me from my trance. I ran to answer it, reaching there on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Miss Tucker? This is Captain Gibson.”

“Yes captain. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s safe to say you won’t have to worry about Tom Robinson for a very long time.”

“What? I thought that hearing was just to determine whether or not he could continue to be a police officer?”

“The Board of Inquiry is a little more than that. They have the authority to hand down prison sentences, when such is called for. And since Robinson and several of his cohorts have just confessed to several counts of wrongdoing in hopes of cutting down on their prison time...”

“You can’t be telling me...?”

“Well Miss Tucker, it’s safe to say that your testimony would have gotten him fired on it’s own, but when we discovered some of his felony activities, we shot clean past dismissal and wound up at ‘doing time’.”

“So, Tommy’s gone? Really?”

“On his way to a maximum security detention facility, and in part it’s thanks to you and your courage.”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“When you came in that night to file your complaint, the investigation that triggered stirred up a hornet’s nest of officers engaged in extracurricular activities. My only regret is that we didn’t find out about all of them sooner. This city owes you a huge thank you.”

He couldn’t see me blush, but everyone in the room could and they were really enjoying watching my embarrassment displayed all across my face. “Thank you captain for being so nice to me throughout all of this. I hope I’ll never have to deal with police again, but if I do I hope those officers are as nice and understanding as you have been.”

“Thank you ma’am. Take care.”

I stood there listening to the silence coming through the receiver for a couple of seconds before I heard the click that told me he had hung up on his end. When I finally put down the receiver, I could tell from the looks on everyone’s faces that they knew what the call was about, and wanted details, lots of details.

To celebrate, Sarah and I actually went out on a regulation eat hot food and go to a movie date. Throughout the evening I was a bit distracted, as I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the question I intended to ask Sarah that evening. I nearly did it at dinner. I stopped in the middle of forming the words as we parked the car at the theater. And I was so preoccupied during the film I can’t even remember what we went to see.

During the drive home, I was very quiet. So much so that it started to concern Sarah and finally at the end of the evening, she said so.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as we pulled in the driveway back home.

“Sorry, I guess I’ve been a bit preoccupied this evening.”

“You guess? I’m a lot more certain than ‘guess’. Now what’s wrong?”

I turned to look into her eyes and waited until after she turned to return my gaze before I answered, “There’s been something I’ve wanted to ask you all evening, and just hadn’t been able to get the words out.”

“Yes…” she said expectantly.

“Okay, here goes. Sarah, you know I love you very much.”

“And I love you too.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that a life without you in it isn’t really worth living, so I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me.” There, I said it.

As she sat there looking at me tears started streaming down her cheeks, mirroring the ones raining down my face. For a moment it was difficult to decipher whether they were happy or sad, but then she began smiling and leaned toward me as I did the same. We began to kiss, softly at first before becoming more passionate.

As we broke momentarily for air, she said, “Yes.” We then started our kiss anew, eventually deciding that our best course of action would be to take our activity to the bedroom.

Once behind the closed door of our bedroom, I took her in my arms and began planting kisses on her lips, eventually expanding the scope of my lips’ exploration to include her earlobes, neck, and points south. We undressed each other, all the while continuing our kissing as if it were more important to our survival than air, because at that moment it was.

We gave ourselves to each other in ways we never had before, and became one in more ways than I thought possible. As we finally drifted off to sleep protected in each other’s embrace, I knew for the first time what Heaven surely was like.

Thursday morning my eyes popped open and when I looked at the alarm clock I said, “Crap! I overslept!”

I jumped out of bed, took the fastest shower of my life, threw some clothes on, and was out the door in under fifteen minutes. I didn’t even stop to wake Sarah and tell her goodbye, I was in such a hurry.

As I was headed out the door, Jen stopped me for a moment. She gave me a hug and said, "You know, I'm really glad you're my sister."

I started tearing up as I replied, "Me too. You're about the best sister a girl could have."

After another hug and a wipe of tears, Jen said, "You'd best get going, and be careful."

I turned and headed out the door. As I was unfortunately prone to doing, I had some difficulty keeping my mind on the task at hand. When I should have been focusing on driving my mind kept wandering, thinking about how lucky I was to have found as much happiness as I finally had.

My sister had been better to me than I could ever have expected. She would have been well within her rights to more or less tell me to go away and never come back, but she didn't do that. Instead she had been supportive of me...more so than I deserved, really.

Then there was Sarah. I loved her more than I ever thought possible. And to think that she had actually accepted me, for me?

I shouldn’t have been driving so fast, but I didn’t want to be late to my appointment with Janet. As I was crossing an overpass, I hit a patch of ice unexpectedly and the car spun several times, slammed into another vehicle and eventually going over the shoulder and down an embankment. We rolled over and over, sometimes one on top of the other, before finally coming to rest in a culvert.

As I began to take inventory of my injuries I became aware of several things all at once. I was fairly certain I had numerous broken bones, blood was running from my forehead into my eyes, and while I could feel very intense pain everywhere, I couldn’t move anything other than my eyes. As I directed my vision outside my car, I saw staring back at me Dave and Billy Joe from ‘Kentucky Straight’ trapped inside the van that had joined me in that tumble. They both looked to be injured at least as badly as I was, and at that moment I asked forgiveness for every bad thought I’d ever had about them. They didn’t deserve to die here, any more than I did. It seemed the universe had other plans.

I whispered the name of my beloved, “Sarah,” one last time as there was a burning flash accompanied by searing pain, then nothing.

Epilogue

Mike Bishop walked up to the mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, the group that was supposed to perform here tonight, ‘Starlust’, won’t be able to do so because of the death of their guitarist, my good friend Jill Tucker.” He stepped away from the mic for a moment, trying to clear the tears from his eyes. He then looked at the table down front where Jen, Sarah, Shelly, Annie, and her husband sat, inconsolably in tears already. He finally was able to continue.

“Jill’s car went over an embankment Tuesday morning after presumably hitting a patch of ice on an overpass. Her band mates are here with us this evening, and I hope you’ll join me in offering condolences to Jill’s sister Jen and her friends Sarah, Shelly, and Annie for the passing of a brave and lovely person whom I am proud to have been able to call a friend. She most assuredly will be missed.” As he looked in the direction of 'Starlust's' table, he caught sight of both Jen and Sarah mouthing the words, "Thank you" to him.

Again he stepped back from the mic in a vain attempt at regaining control of his emotions. “We’d like to start this evening with Jill’s favorite song.”

He began playing the introduction to ‘Lenny’, and the band followed him into the song as they conveyed a sense of loss and sadness in every note. His solo culminated in a stinging, powerful outburst of emotion that would have made Jill proud indeed. As the song was brought down to it’s close, instead of applause it was greeted with a moment of silent prayer.

The End

Notes:

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