Chapters 1--15
Through a series of unfortunate events, Martin's body is transformed, and his life takes a turn for the worse.
[Note: Cautions apply to the entire story.]
I wasn't always the girl you know. I didn't used to go to a great school. I didn't used to have a gang of great friends. I didn't used to think that I mattered all that much.
I used to live with my brothers and my parents over on the west side of town.
I used to go to West High School.
I used to be a boy named Martin Rawlings.
This is my story.
It all happened because I was in love.
I was madly in love with my brother Pete's motorcycle.
Pete had gotten the motorcycle so he could get to his classes at the local community college when our parents couldn't spare one of their cars for him. It mostly sat in our carport, but sometimes he would ride it to school, and sometimes, if he was in a good mood and I begged him hard enough, he'd give me a ride on it. My parents were scared half to death, of course. That was part of the fun. When I was on it, I was in heaven, and when I wasn't, all I could think about was when I'd next be on it. In class, instead of paying attention to the lesson, I dreamed of riding down country roads with the wind on my face and all my cares left far behind. I got in trouble for it, but what did I care? I was already branded a "loser", which is what they called us boys at the bottom of the social pecking order, and it wasn't like I could fall any lower.
The trouble started with me just looking at it. It was a warm June day, my parents were at work and Pete at the campus and Biff was somewhere or other, and I had only a half-day of school. I felt it call me. I was just going to take a look and then go back to whatever boring stuff I usually did. The motorcycle was standing in the carport, just begging me to come closer. When I did, I saw the key still in the ignition. Pete was always doing that. It was a miracle it never got stolen.
It couldn't hurt to just sit on the motorcycle, could it? So I swung my leg over the saddle and sat on it. Not in back, where I sat when riding with Pete, but in front, where I could reach the handlebars. After pretending I was riding all over the place with it, I thought, now that I'm here, I could see if I can start the engine, but I won't go anywhere.
Well, one thing led to another and before long, I was on the open road, enjoying the wind on my face and the thrill of speed. Just like riding a bike, not so hard, is it? Then I saw that the road in front of me made a sharp right turn at the bottom of a hill, and then I saw the gravel.
The last thing I remember was going "oh, shit!"
[Note: Cautions apply to the entire story.]
When you've had a head injury, you don't just wake up. It's more like bits and pieces start to sort themselves out like a jigsaw puzzle, only over months. And the pieces sometimes unsort themselves for a while. At least, that was how it was for me. I have pieces of memory from early August, and longer ones from later in the month.
At some point I realized that I had been in a serious accident, with broken bones and a bad concussion. I hadn't worn a helmet (because I wasn't going to actually ride it, right?) and they said it was a miracle I was even alive. They told me I had spent a month and a half at the University medical center and had been in a medically-induced coma for a month while they pumped gene therapy drugs into me to encourage my brain to heal. I wasn't healing as fast as they hoped, which said something about how bad the concussion was.
But by September, most of the casts were off and my brain was working well enough that the doctors thought I could go back to school, although I should avoid anything that might bang my head. I hoped my brain injuries hadn't hurt my survival skills -- I needed to be in top form to survive at West High. They let me go back as a sophomore, even though I had missed freshman year finals. I don't know if I'd done well enough or if they just didn't want to have me around any longer than they had to.
I'd hoped that I'd get out of gym class, which I hated, but no such luck. The other classes were okay, although I got a lot of headaches, especially when the other guys harrassed me too much.
Now I should say that sports, and especially football, are a big deal at West High. West High is like a small town. The parents all know each other; most went to West High themselves. And in the fall, most of the conversation, in school or out, is about whether the team will win the next game. If the team wins, especially the big game with Hollingsworth, everybody screams and drives around honking and throwing stuff. And that's the grown-ups. So the guys on the football team are gods. They can do anything they want, and nobody will say anything. Even the freshman team is a big deal. The basketball team is a big deal, too, but those guys are just demigods.
For some reason, my gym class was always getting out when some of the football players were coming in. They liked to hang out and harrass anybody they thought was a wimp, which meant pretty much anyone who wasn't on the varsity or one of their buddies. I didn't do well in gym, anyway, so the class kept proving I was no good as a guy. And then I'd get to the showers, and they and the jocks in my class would make fun of people's private parts and pop them with towels. I always had a splitting headache after gym, what with the concussion and all.
[Note: Cautions apply to the entire story.]
It was in the boys' shower that it started. Tom Prescott, one of the football players and a ringleader of the jock clique, was pointing at my penis, when he shouted, "hey, what's with your dick? It looks like a little boy's dick. Hey, little boy, whacha doin' in high school?" I did my best to ignore him, but that night I looked in the mirror for the first time. My penis was about half its usual length and smaller around, too. My scrotum was shrunk and pinning my balls to my crotch. I also noticed that my nipples were sore.
I started worrying that puberty was throwing some new humiliation my way, then I started worrying that I was worrying for nothing. I actually started measuring it. To my distress, a week later, it was a half an inch shorter. I couldn't even stretch it to the length it was a week earlier. I thought about asking my father about it, but I couldn't imagine him coming back with anything but one of those idiotic man-to-man platitudes. I thought about my mother, but she was uncomfortable with anything that reminded her that I was male. She had trouble even washing my underwear.
I was still seeing the neurologist every two weeks, so I brought my measurements to my next appointment. At first, he thought it was just some adolescent thing, but I insisted he examine me. When he did, he said, "I think we need a second opinion." He gave me a very thorough examination, including blood tests, and set up an appointment with a colleague before he let me go.
It was October by then. Every week, I got sent to a different specialist, each one more eminent than the last, and each one did a thorough exam. The third one noticed that I was a few inches shorter than at my first exam. The fourth one noticed that my nipples were enlarged and my chest had started to develop breasts. By then, my penis was so short that I had to sit to pee, and my scrotum had flattened into my crotch. I had no idea what had happened to my balls. I started wrapping my chest with several ace bandages to flatten the breasts out, but it made the nipples hurt and I started getting backaches.
The fourth doctor didn't set up another appointment. "I have a few ideas, but I'm not ready to say anything yet. I'll have someone call you." Four days later, yet another doctor called -- in person, not through a receptionist -- and asked my parents and me to come in.
[Note: Cautions, themes, etc., apply to the entire story.]
When we got there, the doctor -- Dr. Newcomb -- ushered us into his office. He must have been really somebody, because it was big and carpeted and had lots of mahogany and leather furniture. I didn't know if this was how he always looked, but he looked nervous and sweaty.
"I'm -- I'm not a neurologist. I'm the director of research for what is usually called 'gene therapy' here at the University. We've been working with other gene therapy groups on techniques for regrowth -- and corrective growth."
My parents looked as perplexed as I felt.
"One of the uses is regrowing lost limbs, or correcting congenital defects. That's still experimental, but we all hope to have it FDA approved in a few years. Our work here is more experimental. One group of patients we work with are people with gender dysphoria." He must have realized we had no idea what he was talking about, because he tried to clarify it. "You know, men who feel they're a woman in a man's body, and vice versa? The usual treatment is sexual reassignment surgery. We're trying to do it using gene therapy techniques."
"And what does that have to do with Martin?" my father asked.
"One of our subjects was in the coma ward at the same time your son was. We're still running tests to be sure -- by the way, Mr. Rawlings" -- here, he looked at me -- "could you stop by the lab on the way out and leave us another blood sample -- but we think that whoever was actually doing the work, taking samples and injecting the material mixed up our subject and your son."
"You mean, your guy got the brain drugs and our son got the sex-change ones?"
"Essentially, yes."
My father looked stunned. We all did. Then he sat back and said, very quietly, "then you've got to fix it."
The doctor looked even more nervous and sweaty. He'd been sitting with us, like it was a social visit, but now he got up and stood behind the desk. "I'm afraid that isn't possible. I'm sorry." He rushed ahead. "Once the genes have been delivered to all the cells, there's no removing them. Maybe we could have done something if we'd caught it, say, a half-hour after the vectors were injected. But now it's too late."
My father isn't the rant-and-rave type, so he just stared at the doctor. Finally he said, "don't you have a treatment to turn women into men? Couldn't you use that?" My dad is pretty smart. I'd never have thought of that.
"Unfortunately, we can't do a second gene therapy -- any kind of second gene therapy. For some reason, the two therapies interact, and you get bad results. We've tried it in animals, and the results were hideous."
"So I'm going to -- turn into a girl?" I sputtered.
"Externally, yes. You'll develop a normal-looking clitoris, labia, and vagina with a cervix, but there won't be a uterus or ovaries behind it. There's a gland that puts out female hormones, so you'll have breasts. We've even developed an approximation of female sexual response."
I could see that my parents had mentally checked out. Any kind of discussion of sex made them uncomfortable, I'm sure that hearing about the sexual parts that their son was in the process of growing was tripping all their circuit breakers. I was still thinking, "this isn't real, I'm going to wake up and it was all a bad dream." Except I knew it wasn't.
I don't think it ever occurred to my brothers that there might be any reason not to tell everyone about what the doctor had told us. I survived the first day after we met with the doctor only because the word hadn't really gotten around yet. The second day, I could hear the whispers and see the pointing and smirks from the minute I got on the bus. Soon, the bolder guys would make open taunts, like, "sissy, you're a sissy girl now," or "why aren't you wearing a dress, stupid?" I was able to sort of ignore them during my classes. Gym class, of course, was another story.
It started the minute I got into the locker room to change for gym. "Hey, girlie, whacha doing in the boys locker room?" "Isn't your name Martina now?" I raced through changing and hustled into the gym. I didn't even take time to put on my gym shoes before going in. In the shower, after gym, it was much, much worse. Tom Prescott started by getting everyone to look at my crotch, then trying to grab it. Several of his buddies tried to, too, but I punched them. Or tried to, anyway -- they had no trouble avoiding my punches. But at least they kept their distance, sort of. I didn't really wash and just sort of wiped the water off with my towel before jumping into my clothes and rushing out of the locker room. I swore to myself I'd never go in there again.
The next day, the whispers and taunts continued. I was starting to get used to it, or at least inured. When I was supposed to go to gym class, I took my books to the library. Mrs. Tomlinson, the librarian, was very strict about quiet, so I didn't need to worry about people bothering me there. I expected trouble, but nobody said anything. I went to all my other classes as usual, but went to the library during gym class. After a week of this, I got called to the office. They told me I had to start going to gym class. I told them, no way in Hell, They said I'd get an F. I said I didn't care. And that was that. Afterwards I though: I should have done this years ago.
By now, my penis was completely gone and my crotch didn't look a lot different from a girl's. At least, if the pictures on the web were any guide; it's not like I'd ever had seen any girls naked in real life. I also noticed that my hips were wider, so my pants were really tight there. On the other hand, they were now a few inches too long. The worst part, though, was that the pants legs rubbed on my thighs and it was driving me crazy. It was a mix of feeling turned on and hurting. My crotch and thighs were very sensitive now. If I lay in bed and gently tickled and stroked down there, I got really, really turned on. I finally got my mother to pay for some new pants, shorter and wider, and it helped a little, but not that much.
At home, things weren't easy, either. My dad was mostly interested in suing the hospital, the doctor, and the University. He didn't want to think about what I was going through. My mom would barely look at me. And my brothers thought that my predicament was the funniest thing that ever happened and were forever making jokes at my expense. They were always threatening to come into the bathroom when I was on the toilet or taking a shower, though fortunately they never did.
The bathroom was a problem at school, too. I had to sit down even to pee and a lot of the boys, if they were in the bathroom when I was, they'd pull themselves up and look over the partition at me. I complained to the assistant principal and he said he couldn't do anything unless he caught somebody doing it. That just told those boys exactly what to do to stay out of trouble. They'd post a lookout as soon as I went in. I asked whether I could use some bathroom other than the boys' bathroom. The teachers didn't want me in the teachers' bathrooms and the popular girls decided to claim they would be afraid to use the girls' bathroom if I could use it and got their mothers and their friends' mothers to complain, even before I asked. I hadn't even suggested it yet. I asked about the handicapped bathroom, but they said it had been converted into a supply closet because they never had handicapped kids, and besides, I wasn't handicapped. So I tried to hold it in as much as possible.
The doctor had recommended counselling for me. First, my parents had me go to the school psychologist, but she was useless. I didn't have any of the problems she'd been trained for, so she simply talked to me as if I had one of them. I'd talk about the bathroom problem and she'd offer me studying advice. Or suggest I have a talk with my parents. Then my parents sent me to a shrink that the school social worker recommended. He was worse. He spent the first session asking about whether I had the hots for my mom and seemed to think my transformation was because deep down inside I really wanted to be a girl. The second session, he tried to get me to take my clothes off so he could "accurately assess" my problem. I decided there wasn't ever going to be a third session.
Not everyone was trying to make my life miserable. My fellow "losers" would sometimes secretly warn me and help me hide if they saw the bullies coming, but if they got caught, they'd catch it, too. And some of the "uglies" -- that's what they called the girls on the bottom of the social heap -- would sometimes come over when no one was looking and tell me they thought it was really awful and unfair what was happening to me, but they couldn't do much because they were afraid of the popular girls. I couldn't blame them.
Every year, at Thanksgiving, we get together with my dad's sister and her family for dinner. This year, it was at our place. My mom put the turkey in to bake and a little while later, Aunt Edith, Uncle Boris, and my cousin Teresa showed up with salad and deserts. Aunt Edith and my mom would then work together to make the rest of the meal.
My brothers had been making fun of me all day and they didn't stop when my Aunt and her family came in. "Hey, Martina," Pete would say to me, "got a boyfriend, yet?" Biff chimed in, on cue: "would that make him -- I mean her -- gay?" Then Biff would mince across the living room. "Don't you think she looks cute?" We'd done a little of this sort of thing to Teresa, which used to get her so mad she would punch us. Then Dad would tell us to be nice to her, which would quiet us down for a while. Dad wasn't saying anything to them at all now. And while they were doing this, my breasts were killing me under the ace bandages and my crotch was driving me crazy.
My aunt and uncle just stood in the entrance to the living room and stared as my brothers teased me. I remember my aunt having this appalled look on her face. Then she turned to my dad and said, "Claude, aren't you going to do something?" He just stood there. Then she got him to go into the front hall, and a few minutes later, he stormed into the living room and started yelling at my brothers.
"How can you do this to your own brother? You should be supporting him." They looked stunned. "How's he getting treated at school?" They just stared. He looked at me.
"Like they were doing to me now," I said. "Sometimes worse. I stopped going to gym, it was so bad."
He looked at Biff. "Is it true?" Biff nodded. "You should be defending your brother. Haven't you heard, 'he ain't heavy, he's my brother'? I'm very, very disappointed in you. In both of you." It didn't make much sense to me, either. Pete wasn't even at my school, so how could he defend me?
Both of them got really quiet, and after a few minutes, they politely excused themselves and went downstairs to the TV room. Aunt Edith and Mom went into the kitchen. That left Uncle Boris and Dad in the living room in the upholstered chairs talking about work and cars and Dad trying to sue the hospital and Teresa and me on the couch, saying nothing.
"Want to go upstairs and hang out in my room?" I asked. She nodded, and we quietly snuck out of the living room. I don't know if my dad even noticed. I showed her my CD collection and asked if there was anything she'd like to hear. She kept looking at me like she was trying to figure me out. She picked out a CD and I put it on. She sat on the floor with her arms around her knees and I sat on the bed. She was wearing a simple shirt dress which wouldn't have actually hid what she had on underneath, except she was sitting so I couldn't. I suddenly wondered: is this intentional? Has she learned exactly how to sit so no one can see? Was this something I needed to learn?
"You know, Martin, you're a lot nicer to me than you usually are."
"Making fun of you isn't any fun now, now that I know what it's like to be on the receiving end. I'm sorry now that I was so mean to you in the past. That was really shitty of me. Also, it's nice to be around someone who isn't picking on me. My own age, I mean."
"Is it that bad? Don't you have any friends?"
"I used to have some guys who would talk with me about stuff, like music or motorcycles or what we'd do when we got out of West Hell -- that's our name for West High. But they're afraid to be seen around me now."
"Martin?" She looked straight at me. "I'd be willing to talk to you. I'd even try to help. I think I could get my parents to help, too. I know you're going through Hell right now. Just -- well, just don't be mean to me any more, okay?"
"I promise," I said, with as serious an expression as I could manage. "I really appreciate you being willing to talk to me. The worst part of all this is that I don't have anyone to talk to." I told her about the shrink. "And Dad and Mom just don't want to think about what's happening to me, so there's no point in talking to them."
We listened to another CD, just rocking and grooving on it. When it was over, I said, "you know, there's something you might be able to help with, but it might be a little embarrassing."
"For me? Or for you?"
"Both, maybe. You see, my body's turning into a female body, and there's lots of stuff I don't know about it. I can't talk to my mom about it. I figure, your mom must have helped you when you were growing up and getting, uh, you know."
"Breasts? Menstruation? Sex?"
I blushed a little. "Yeah, that kind of stuff."
"Maybe I'm not so easy to embarrass as you think. How far along is your, ah, transformation?"
"Pretty far. I have breasts and my crotch looks like what those medical web sites show for a woman's crotch. I've been squashing my breasts with lots of ace bandages, but it hurts like hell. Do you have any suggestions?"
"Do you mind showing me? I won't make fun of you."
I was afraid I was going to get really embarrassed. At least I didn't have to worry about getting a hard-on. I pretended it was another one of those physical exams and took my shirt off, then the ace bandages. If she'd smiled or giggled, I don't know what I'd have done, but she kept a serious expression and looked carefully at my chest.
"They look like full-sized breasts all right. A little bruised -- I don't think the ace bandages are doing them any good. I'll ask my mom, but I think you're going to have to get used to the idea that you'll need a bra."
"Oh, great. That's all the guys at school need, to see me in a bra."
"There might be a way to make it less obvious." She didn't sound too hopeful, though. "Anyway, do you want to come by this weekend? I'll check with my parents if it's okay, but we're not doing anything."
Mom called us to dinner then. Teresa helped me wrap my breasts up before we went down. We spent dinner mostly talking about neutral subjects, like sports, or how we were doing in school, but every now and then Uncle Boris or Aunt Edith would ask about my condition or what I was enduring in school. Nothing too personal, and always in a way that I could avoid going into more detail than I wanted to. I had a feeling they were listening to every word I said and maybe some I wasn't saying. They also asked my parents things, but whenever it was about me, the questions just slid right off like they were made of Teflon. I was mostly enjoying being able to eat without my brothers persecuting me.
After dinner, I followed Aunt Edith, Teresa, and my mom into the kitchen to help with the cleaning up. The other guys went into the living room. Aunt Edith gave me a questioning look.
"If I'm here, Pete and Biff won't be tempted to pick on me." She went back to scraping plates.
"Hey, Mom?" Teresa said. "Can Martin come over this weekend?"
"Certainly. Not Friday, we have some chores to get done and your dad has to work that day. But Saturday would be fine."
"When?" I asked.
"All day, if you want. We get up by 8:00; if you're there then, we could feed you breakfast. We go to bed arond 10:00. P.m.," she added.
"I don't think I could get anyone to drive me over that early."
"If you have trouble getting a ride, one of us could fetch you."
"That's really nice of you, but I'll try to get my mom or dad to drive me."
By the time we finished cleaning up and dividing up the left-overs, it was dark. We all sat around in the living room for a while making small talk, and then my aunt and uncle and Teresa left.
I got my mother to agree to take me over to Teresa's. The earliest she'd leave was 8:00, though. She said she'd pick me up if I gave her a few hours' notice. So, Saturday morning, I packed up a few CDs and got driven to my aunt's and uncle's.
When I got there, they were just finishing breakfast. Teresa was still in her pyjamas, working on some toast, and looked surprised to see me. I apologized for getting there too early, but Teresa said it was fine and offered me a muffin. I showed her the CDs, but she said it was too early. We went upstairs to her room.
"I talked to my mom, and she thinks you probably need a bra. You can't keep squashing your breasts like that, and since you say the nipples are sore, you need a bra that protects them. She also says you can get bras that make your breasts less obvious. But you need to go to a store that specializes in bras. We can take you shopping next weekend."
"Thanks. It's sort of scary, but I guess that's what I need to do."
"Anything else I can help you with?"
"There is something. I hope it's not too stupid." I think I blushed again. "What do you do about when your pants legs bother you -- irritate your legs right up here." I pointed to right near my crotch.
"Is it getting red and all?"
"No, more like it, uh, tickles or itches or something." I didn't want to describe it more accurately.
"Is it better when you don't have pants on?"
"Oh, yes. When I'm alone in my room, I take them off, and it's so much better. But I can't walk around the house or outside in just my underwear."
She looked like she was weighing her words. "I don't know if you'll like this suggestion, but: would you be willing to try a skirt? It wouldn't have pants legs to irritate you. And it wouldn't have to look all girly."
I thought about it for a minute or two, but the way my legs were bothering me kind of pushed me over. "Okay, I'll try one. But -- would you have one that fit me?"
"I've got one in a one-size-fits-all size. It's sort of flowery and long, but I don't think it's too bad." She went into her closet and pulled it out. It was long and crinkly and had some sort of pink and blue pattern. "Do you want to put it on now?"
I nodded.
"I'll turn my back while you change," she said, and turned. I took off my shoes, then took a deep breath, slipped off my pants, and pulled the skirt on up to my waist. Within a few seconds, I felt relief.
"You know, maybe you can take off the ace bandage. No one here is going to tease you about it." I pulled my shirt off, and she started taking the bandages off. When she was done, I could see my breasts kind of slumping down. They weren't exactly pin-up size, but they weren't tiny. And I had to admit, on a girl, they wouldn't have looked half bad. I tried putting my shirt back on and looked in the mirror. The breasts weren't all that obvious, but you could tell they were there if you looked. I stood back and looked at myself. It had been a long time since I'd looked at my whole body in the mirror. I hadn't even looked at my face since October, when what little beard hair that I'd had had been gone for weeks.
I looked like someone else.
I looked like a girl. A fashion-challenged girl, but still a girl.
It wasn't just my chest that had changed. I was shorter, my hips were wider. And my face looked different. I couldn't figure out exactly what had changed, but it didn't look like I remembered it.
"It's so weird. I'm looking in the mirror, and I'm seeing a girl. Not me. The skirt and the no bandage and ...."
"Hey, Martin. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You don't look a lot different from when you came in. I know it sucks. I know it's not what you want. Hey, I'd be pretty upset, too, if one day I started looking like a boy. But maybe you need to start getting used to it. I mean, suppose you'd gotten this horrible burn scar. You could have gotten one in that motorcycle accident. You'd have to get used to looking that way."
"I guess you're right. But -- I don't think I'm ready yet."
"Now, can you turn your back so I can get dressed?"
After she got dressed, I tried looking in the mirror again. If I didn't think about it being me, I could see that "she" wasn't bad-looking. Maybe even a little pretty. I shuddered and felt a heavy rock drop down through the bottom of my stomach. I turned away.
"Let's go downstairs and talk to my mom."
"Dressed like this?"
"Why not? It's not like it will bother them. It's not half as weird as what they already know about you.
When her mother saw me, she looked me up and down, but said nothing and her expression was pretty casual.
"He's wearing a skirt because pants rub in sensitive places."
My aunt nodded. "Do you like it?" she asked.
"It's a little girly for my taste."
"Maybe when we go shopping next Saturday we can find something that's a little more masculine-looking."
I plopped down on a chair. "What's the use?" I moaned. "I'm going to look like a girl no matter what I do."
Teresa started to say something, but her mother interrupted. "Give him some space. Let him feel it. It's going to take a while for -- it'll just take a while. Martin: do you want us to leave you alone?"
I shook my head. I was trying to hold off tears, but I didn't want to be alone. "But I'm keeping you from whatever you were going to do today. And I'm sure I'm boring Teresa."
"This is more important."
"What's more important?"
"How you're feeling. Helping you deal with all this."
Now I did start to cry. The idea that how I felt was important to somebody besides me, that they'd drop what they were doing to make me feel better. I couldn't take it in.
I won't bore you with the details. Short version: I spent the next fifteen minutes or so crying and feeling sorry for myself and Aunt Edith stroking my shoulder until I'd cried myself out.
Once I was able to do more than whimper, Aunt Edith and I arranged that we would all go clothes shopping next Saturday. She extracted from me the fact that my boy-underwear wasn't fitting right any more, so she added that to the list. Bras, skirts, now underwear. And shirts that would hide my breasts, sort of.
Teresa suggested we go for a walk.
"Dressed like this?"
Teresa rolled her eyes. "Is that all you can say? Nobody's going to think anything weird, even if they see us. Most people are inside, or if they're outside, they're working and won't pay attention to us."
We got on our shoes and coats and walked the block to the nature preserve. It was warm for the end of November, but that's still not warm, and my legs got cold. I reminded myself that outdoor gym class in gym shorts was even colder and soldiered on, but by the time we got back, I was cold through and through. Uncle Boris was in the kitchen, and when he saw us, he made some mugs of hot chocolate to warm us up.
"How's it going?" my uncle asked.
"Should I be honest?"
"Of course."
"Pretty shook up. I looked in the mirror and I don't look like me any more. Nobody's going to see me, they'll see some girl."
He'd been standing while Teresa and I sat, but he squatted down until his eyes were level with mine, in a sort of man-to-man attitude.
"When I look at you, I see my nephew Martin. Your appearance may have changed a little, but I still see the same Martin." He stared at me for a few more minutes. "Your appearance is not you. It's what's inside that's you, okay?" Then he stood up. "What do you say we download a movie and make some popcorn?"
"A horror movie!" Teresa squealed. Then she got a serious look on her face and asked me, "do you like horror movies?"
I didn't, actually, but didn't want to disappoint her. "As long as they're not too scary." So we downloaded a campy horror movie, which took us to dinner time. I thought I should call my mom for a ride, since she wanted a few hours notice, but Uncle Boris said he'd drive me. I stayed for dinner -- leftover turkey.
When it was time to go, I went to change into my pants.
"Don't you want to keep the skirt on?"
"I don't want to have to deal with my family's reaction. I don't know how I'm going to explain it if your mom really does buy me a skirt next week. It really was a lot more comfortable, though," I added wistfully.
I changed, but she insisted on giving it to me in a bag. "Don't worry about the skirt," my uncle said as he drove me home. "Edith will talk to your dad and straighten it out."
When I got home, my brothers were in the living room watching the TV there. Since Thanksgiving, they hadn't dared to harrass me. They looked all stiff and nervous, like they didn't know how to act around me. Actually, my parents did, too. It was like I was living with strangers.
On Monday, I plunged back into West Hell, doing my best to just focus on schoolwork and ignore everything else. Wednesday night, I called Teresa but got my aunt.
"Everything's straightened out. They won't bother you about wearing a skirt or a bra or whatever. Whether at home or out."
I spoke to Teresa, but she said couldn't talk long because of homework. She suggested I text her, but not expect her to answer right away. I had to look around on the web to find out how to text on my phone. I texted "see you Saturday" and went to bed. Next morning, I saw a reply that was sent an hour or so after my message: "Saturday see you :)"
Meanwhile, at school, I saw some signs that Biff was trying to stick up for me. When I saw him with his friends, a lot of the time he was arguing with them. One time I thought they'd get into a fight, but he just stormed off. I don't think it did much good, though.
Saturday, I put on the skirt and I didn't bandage my chest. My mom didn't say anything, but did take me over to my aunt's. I couldn't help noticing that she didn't talk to me, except for the essentials. It was a very quiet ride. Just as I was getting out, she said, "maybe you should look at the bus routes. I think there's a crosstown bus that goes near your aunt's house."
Aunt Edith said we'd go to the bra shop first, but before we went, she got me to measure myself for underwear. Then she sat me down.
"Martin, you're going to have to decide how you'd like us to introduce you to the salespeople: as a girl or as a boy. If we present you as a boy, you'll end up having to give more explanations than I think you want to. If you don't want that, I think you'll have to put up with being my niece and having people refer to you as 'she'. I'll go with whatever you decide, but I'd like to settle it now, not when we walk into a store."
I thought about it: letting them pretend I was a girl was one more step down a path I really didn't want to go, but I really didn't want to have a long conversation with every salesperson, and I really, really didn't want people to look at me like I was a freak all day. I sighed and said, "I'll go as your niece. What's my name?"
"Martina?" suggested my aunt. "That way if we slip up and call you 'Martin,' it won't be so obvious."
I winced. "That's what the jerks at school have been calling me. But maybe I can stand it for one day. If I have to use a girl's name, I'd like to think about which one."
The lady at the bra store was just what I'd expected: a hearty, big-chested lady in who looked like one of those society matrons out of a Marx Brothers movie. Aunt Edith introduced me.
"This is my niece Martina. She's getting fitted for her first bra. She's not too wild about it and she'd like something that doesn't make it too obvious."
I was afraid the lady would start getting chummy with me, but she didn't. Either my aunt's comments or my hunched shoulders and unhappy face must have signalled to her that I wasn't in the mood for being jollied or for nosy questions.
"I'll see if I have something in a Minimizer. I think you want it to fit right," she directed to me. I just nodded. "Any other things I need to think about? Special closures?"
My aunt replied for me, "she's having sore nipples, do you have something that won't rub or press on them?"
"I'll see." She turned to me and in what I guess was her most clinical way, she said, "Martina, I'm going to have to measure you. You'll have to pull up your shirt. If you want, we can go in a dressing room. Do you want your aunt or -- is that your cousin?"
"Cousin. No, I'm okay with just you. In a dressing room." It wasn't as embarrassing as I thought it'd be. The exams at the sex-change lab (that's what I was calling it) were worse. She told me to stand up straight with my shoulders back, took a few measurements, looked carefully at my breasts, and then went out to her stockroom. A few minutes later, she returned with a stack of boxes and started putting bras against my chest. When she'd narrowed them down to a few, she showed me how to put one on and got me to try them all. We found one that wasn't too uncomfortable and didn't press too hard on my nipples, which were still a little sore. I took a deep breath, left that one on, and put my shirt back on. My aunt bought three and also bought some women's panties in what I assumed was my size.
The next stop was a clothing store. I basically put myself in Aunt Edith's and Teresa's hands, and they found me a denim skirt that went over my knees and didn't look too girly and some shirts that were loose enough that the bra didn't show much. They also picked up some cotton T-shirts, which they said would make it so you couldn't see the bra through the shirt. They found a sock store at the same mall and picked up some knee socks. They also insisted on getting a package of black tights. When I protested, they said that men also wear tights and I would need them if I wore the skirt in winter. I didn't talk much, but still the sales people called me "miss." It grated, but I didn't protest.
We stopped off at a fast-food place for lunch, then headed home. The bra felt funny, but my back and chest no longer hurt and my nipples just felt tingly instead of sore. On the way back, Teresa was lost in thought, then looked at me and laughed.
"Am I so funny?"
"No, I was just thinking about a story I read, and you were reminding me of it. It's Kafka's The Metamorphosis"
"What's it about?"
"It's about this guy.... Uh, maybe I shouldn't have said anything."
"You might as well tell me, I'll find out anyway."
"It's this guy who wakes up one morning and finds out he's now a giant cockroach. His family isn't very nice to him. I'm sorry, that's not how I think of you. I shouldn't have said anything."
"You've got a point. Things could be a lot worse. Maybe if they'd done the brain treatment on me the same time as the sex-change, I would have been turned into a giant cockroach. Can you imagine what they'd say at school if I'd shown up as a giant cockroach?" We laughed all the way home.
Back at their house, I changed into my new clothes. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a boyish girl, but I had to admit, I now had a "look."
"It actually looks kind of cool," Teresa said after I'd looked at myself for a while. "But I have to agree, you're not a 'Martina.' If you end up going as a girl much, we'll have to come up with a better name."
"What do you mean, 'going as a girl'?" This was getting to be too much. I'd spent the morning letting myself be called "miss" and I didn't want to think about having to do it regularly.
"Be reasonable, Martin. There are going to be times like today when you can't pass as a boy, and it'll be easier to just let people assume you're a girl. You can still be Martin the rest of the time."
Uncle Boris called us downstairs, which cut off further discussion. My aunt and uncle looked at me and pronounced my clothing a success, then we all went out to a movie and then came back for dinner. When it was time for me to go home, I mentioned my mother's comment about busses, so Uncle Boris looked up the bus routes. I asked Teresa if we could get together again next Saturday.
"Oh, Martin, I'm sorry, but I have friends coming over."
"And you don't want me around then, I guess." As soon as I said it, I felt like a petulant little kid.
"Martin, it wouldn't work. Right now, you need all my attention when I'm with you. I'm not putting you down, you're in a tough spot right now. But I can't pay attention to my friends and give you the attention you need at the same time. Why don't you come over Sunday afternoon? I'll try and get my homework done by then."
I agreed to that and tried to look grateful. Uncle Boris had printed out some timetables and we all worked out times and routes for next Sunday. Then my uncle drove me home.
I tried wearing the bra and T-shirt combination to school. I had to wear one of my new shirts over it, because my old ones were too small. I expected people to find out and harrass me for it, but I actually didn't have much trouble. Either they didn't notice, or they already assumed I was wearing one. The harrassment wasn't better, but it wasn't worse than last week, which I counted as a plus.
Meanwhile, I was discovering things about my body. At home, I'd always spent a lot of time in my room, but more so now that things were so weird at home and I didn't have any friends. I'd taken to feeling my breasts and my crotch a lot, mostly to get used to what they were shaped like and to the feelings I got when I touched them. It felt funny to be shaped that way, and I guess it was a way of getting used to it. I was discovering that gently rubbing my breasts or just touching the insides of my thighs or pretty much anywhere near my crotch turned me on.
Anyway, I'd be rubbing somewhere and I wouldn't want to stop, and then, after another while that just felt better and better, I'd have a feeling sort of like what I had when I had a penis and I'd jack off, only different. I'd heard that girls masturbate. I didn't exactly know how they did it, but I wondered if this was it. I also wondered if Teresa did it. I was sure her parents would have let her know that it was just fine for her to do it. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't hard for me to get myself off. One time, I managed it just rubbing my breasts and tickling my nipples. This must be what Dr. Newcomb meant by "an approximation of female sexual response." I have to admit, I liked it, but at the same time, I was weirded out by it.
I was trying out wearing the skirt at home. It really was a lot more comfortable and it felt kind of cool to be able to move my legs around without pants legs pulling on them. Sort of like being naked from the waist down without actually being naked. I came down to dinner once or twice wearing it and nobody said anything. I think they were trying to pretend it wasn't happening. I didn't blame them. I even went out a few times after dark, when I figured no one would see. But the cold air got under my skirt, and I was really cold!
I tried the tights a few times, just to see what it felt like. It felt really funny, cold and hot at the same time. But one thing I noticed: I didn't have the same problem with my thighs that I had with pants. They didn't rub me the same way. Mostly, they didn't move around at all. I thought about wearing them under my pants at school.
I'd go back and forth. One minute, it all felt perfectly logical and normal, the next minute I felt like I was getting swallowed up by quicksand. Every move I made seemed to be pulling me into being a girl. It felt like it was turning me into not-me.
I survived the week. I spoke to Teresa on the phone once, and texted her almost every night. I don't know what I wanted, maybe just to know that someone would talk to me and would return my texts.
I spent Saturday Christmas shopping. I went to a mall on the other side of town, to practice using the bus. It also had the advantage that I wasn't likely to see anyone from West High there. I wore the skirt with knee socks. I got called "miss" most of the time, but I ignored it. It was cold outside and, with just knee socks, my legs were numb by the time I got on the bus. Maybe tights weren't such a bad idea, after all.
I tried wearing tights the next day on my trip to Teresa's, and they were a lot warmer. I had to walk a mile from my house to the bus, wait for the bus, then walk a mile and a half to Teresa's. I was still cold, but it wasn't as bad as the day before.
When I got there, I went up to Teresa's room. We listened to music for a while, then Teresa asked me, "Martin, have you considered just living as a girl? Or at least trying it out.?"
"What do you mean?" I could feel the walls closing in on me. It seemed like everyone was calling me a girl, putting me down.
"It would be a lot easier. Maybe change schools and register as a girl. You'd still be the same person--"
I interrupted her. "What is this? Is everyone in league with the sex-change mad scientists? I'm a boy, dammit, but you and your aunt -- and the jerks in school -- you're all out to make me what I'm not. Like the guy in that story."
"Martin --" she protested, but I was really going now.
"Is that why you've been pretending to be nice to me? So you can get me to act like a girl? And maybe make fun of me then? You're trying to turn me into a giant cockroach! You and your aunt and uncle, you're all as bad as the kids at school!"
I was screaming now. And so was Teresa.
"You're awful!" she shouted. "You promised not to be mean to me and now you've broken your promise! You're just as bad as your brothers! I hate you! I never want to see you again!"
I could feel tears coming into my eyes. I grabbed my jacket and ran down the stairs and out the door. It was a lot colder, so I ran all the way to the bus stop. I only had to wait for about 10 minutes, so I didn't freeze.
By the time the bus had reached center city, my anger had cooled and I was beginning to feel like I'd been unfair. My accusations were ridiculous, I was just upset by the whole sex-change thing and had dumped it all on her. As we got closer to my stop, I was also realizing that I'd just driven away the only friend I had. By the time I reached my house, I felt like I was the one who was just as bad as the kids at school. I wanted to kill myself, I felt so bad.
In my room, I thought, well, you could at least apologize. Even if she never wants to see you again, at least you'll have done one halfway decent thing. I spent the rest of the afternoon writing a letter:
Dear Teresa,
I was wrong. I was unfair. Your suggestion was a a reasonable one, and I'm thinking it over, and even if I decide not to do it, I know you did it with the best intentions. I was just frustrated with lots of things, none of which are your fault, and I took it out on you. You've done nothing but good to me and I treated you like shit. I'm sorry. I don't deserve to have you forgive me, but I'll ask anyway. I'll do whatever you ask. But if you don't want to see me ever again, I'll understand. Whatever happens, I wish you the best. You deserve that much.
I went out and found a mailbox and mailed the letter. Then I came home and texted Teresa: "I was wrong. Please read letter."
At dinner, my dad asked Biff if he'd managed to get the boys to lay off of me.
"I tried, Dad. I really did. But they won't listen to me. Now they won't be my friends and they're harrassing me, too. I've almost gotten in a fight several times. I never realized what jerks -- total jerks -- they are. I'm not sorry for myself that they aren't my friends, but I'm sorry for Martin that I can't do anything for him."
My mom and dad got this empty look that really scared me. I think Biff and Pete were scared, too.
School was much harder to face now that I didn't have a friend in the world. I hoped Teresa would get the letter and at least know I didn't mean what I said. I didn't want to get my hopes up that she'd maybe forgive me. Monday, Tuesday went by. Wednesday night, I got a call. From Teresa.
"I got your letter," she said.
"I'm sorry I said those things to you. I was really a jerk. A total jerk."
"You were being a jerk, but I shouldn't have said what I did, either. I know you're under a lot of strain, and people who are under a lot of strain say things they don't really mean. I'll forgive you. But, please, try not to take things out on me. It really hurts when you do that."
"I promise. But I don't know how much my promise is worth now."
"It's okay. You made up for it with that letter. I have a lot of respect for a guy who'll admit he was wrong. One thing, though. You keep talking like being a girl is something horrible. But I'm a girl. Don't you think it's a little insulting to me, and my mom, and, well, all of us to act like it's the end of the world? Think about it."
I said I would.
"Now that we've got that out of the way, do you want to come over Saturday? I still need to do some Christmas shopping and would love to have company."
"I'd love to. I've taken care of my family, but I'd like to get stuff for your parents and I could use your advice."
The rest of the week of school was almost tolerable. Nothing had actually changed at school, but Teresa was back to being my friend.
I took the bus over on Saturday and we went shopping. I was getting used to going out in public in a bra and a skirt and tights. Nobody ever even looked twice at me.
I was having trouble figuring out what to get my aunt and uncle. They were suddenly a big part of my life -- Teresa, too -- and I didn't feel like I could give them sort of random presents. "You know, I don't really know what your parents like. I mean, I've always just gotten your dad a tie and your mom something for the kitchen, but now that I think of it, that makes it sound like I'd gone to a store and grabbed the first thing I saw on the 'for Mom' and 'for Dad' tables."
"You know Dad likes to cook, even if he doesn't do it that often. Um... He likes classical music. No, rennaisance music, really. You know, before Bach. But I don't know what he has, if you're not careful, you'd probably get him something he already has. Oh, I know! He likes Legos. It's kind of a secret vice, he doesn't want anyone outside the family to know. I think it's cool, but he's afraid other people will think he's immature.
"I don't know about Mom. I usually get her a scarf or a blouse, but that would be hard for you. She also likes books. She's got all of Jane Austin's books, she majored in English in college."
Teresa had gotten her Dad a T-shirt that said, "Champion Beer Drinker." I think that was some kind of in-joke, because she also got him some flower bulbs. I don't remember what kind, but they must have been the kind you can plant in the winter. She was going to buy another blouse, but then found a necklace. After that we went to one of the toy stores where I got her dad a Lego railroad car, and then to the bookstore. I must have spent an hour looking for stuff I thought an English major might like. I finally settled on Little Women, and just hoped she didn't already have it. I wasn't sure I wanted to think about why I wanted that book to be her gift from me.
We wandered around a little longer to see if there was anything that jumped out at us as being just right for someone. At the last store, a poster shop, Teresa ran into a friend of hers.
"Hi, Teresa! Long time no see."
"Hi, Carol. This is my cousin Martin. Martin, this is my BFF Carol Vanderbrook."
I could see her trying to figure it out. "Is Martin a girl's name now?" she asked.
"It's a long story. If I tell it to you, you've got to promise to keep it secret, at least for now."
"It won't be much of a secret if you tell it at the mall. Can I come over? I'm almost done shopping. If I can ride with you, I'll tell my mom. And then you can tell me."
Teresa looked at me. I shrugged. "Sure," she said. "My dad's picking us up at 3:00."
So Carol called her parents and said she'd be going over to Teresa's, and Teresa called her dad to ask if it was okay for Carol to come over. ("It always is," she said.) My uncle drove us home and fed us hot chocolate. Then the three of us ended up in Teresa's room. She told the story of the motorcycle accident, the mix-up at the hospital, and mentioned the crap I was going through at school.
"I was saying, he might find it easier to pass as a girl. He's still thinking about it."
"She -- I mean he -- did a good job of fooling me. Is your body really -- I mean, is everything --"
"Yes, I look like a girl under my clothes. I mean, I haven't seen a lot of naked girls, but from the pictures I've seen, yeah, you'd probably never guess I used to be a boy. And Teresa is right," I sighed, "it'll probably be easier if at least sometimes, I just let people think I'm a girl. I'm sure the salespeople at the mall thought I was. I'm still not ready to do it with people who know me."
"We're still working on a name," Teresa continued. "He doesn't like 'Martina,' because the kids at school tease him with that. And I don't think he looks like a Martina, anyway."
"How about Melanie?" Carol suggested. "It also starts with M, and it's nice and smooth."
We batted around a few other names, like "Michelle" and "Moira," but I didn't like any of them as much as Melanie.
"Melanie it is, then," pronounced Teresa.
We listend to a CD. Carol asked, "was it tough, suddenly finding out you were going to be transformed into a girl?"
"You have no idea."
"Probably not. I imagine it would turn me upside down. I don't know what I'd do if I found out I was going to turn into a boy. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being a boy, but I'm happy as a girl."
Teresa and Carol started talking about mutual friends, and I just leaned against the wall, eventually stretching out on the carpet. It was nice and friendly and I enjoyed just being around people who accepted me and weren't being mean to me. Teresa started stroking my hair while they talked. It felt a little weird, but it was nice. Eventually, my aunt called us down to dinner. I don't remember what we said or did, just that I felt relaxed and at home in a way I hadn't felt in who knows how long. My uncle drove Carol and me home, and when Carol got out, she said, "goodbye, Melanie." It took me a second to realize she was talking about me. It felt kinda weird, but also kinda nice, like she was accepting me -- maybe more than I was accepting myself. It left me with a glow that lasted all the way home, and maybe even a little afterwards.
I could never have believed it, but it seemed like I was almost getting used to all the crap at school. I also wondered if they were getting bored by it. Besides, there was Christmas to think of. At home, I was pretty much always wearing my skirt and thinking maybe I'd like a second one. I was also texting Teresa. I tried not to do it too often, maybe once an evening, and she'd reply in an hour or so.
Two days before Christmas -- the first day of Christmas break -- I woke up to a nasty surprise. I'd been dreaming that I was peeing in my clothes and was feeling my legs and pants all wet. When I woke up, I still felt sort of damp down there. When I felt around, it felt sticky. It was blood. I totally freaked out, but quietly. Was there something wrong with their sex-change thing, and now I was dying? I got up and found some blood in my pj's, and some on the sheet, but it hadn't made it onto the matress. I took the sheet and the pj's to the bathroom and quietly washed the blood out, because I'd heard that you won't get a stain if you wash it out soon enough. I discovered that the blood was coming from my vagina. It felt so weird to put those two words together: "my" and "vagina." It wasn't really bleeding, just sort of oozing. I washed it off and stuffed some toilet paper inside. I put on some underwear -- my new underwear -- and stuffed lots of toilet paper inside.
As soon as I thought someone would be in, I called Dr. Newcomb's office. I must have been on some kind of VIP list, because he called me back in about 5 minutes.
"Doctor, I'm bleeding. From my, uh, vagina." I said the last word kind of quietly.
"Is it a large quantity? Would it fill a cup?" He sounded worried.
"No, it's just sort of oozing."
He sounded relieved. "You're just menstruating. You know what that is, right?"
"What!?! Yes, I know, but why am I, uh, you know?"
"It's something our subjects -- our patients -- wanted, and it wasn't hard to add."
"So now I'm going to be bleeding -- how often?"
"About once very 28 days. It's usually pretty regular."
"Oh, jeez! I gotta sit down." I was already sitting down, but, whatever. "And you didn't think to warn me about this? You wanted it to be some kind of Christmas present? Thanks, Santa!"
"I didn't want to get you worried. You were upset enough already." No, you didn't want us to get any madder at you.
"So, do you have any more surprises for me? When does my head fall off?"
"You're head won't fall off, don't worry." Doesn't this guy have any sense of sarcasm? "Hmm. Oh, yes, you may lactate a bit certain times of the month."
"Lactate?" I thought I knew what he meant, but I didn't want to.
"You have functional milk glands. Most men, do. Well, the hormones your body is producing at certain points in your monthly cycle will stimulate them to produce milk. With the right stimulation, you could get them to produce enough to nourish a baby. It probably won't be very much, but I thought I'd warn you."
I went and changed the toilet paper and peed. It was pretty messy. Then I texted Teresa:
"Dr Newconb's Xmas surprise: I'm menstruating."
To fill up the time, I wrapped my Christmas presents. About 20 minutes later, I was almost finished, when Teresa called me.
"You're kidding, aren't you?"
"I wish I were. Now I have to figure out how to not bleed all over everything. I should have paid attention in health class, I guess."
"Do you want me or my mom to come over and help you with it? I could take the bus, or my mom could pop over on her lunch hour. Or you could come here."
We arranged that I would take the bus over. She would show me how to use a tampon and a sanitary napkin, and then we'd walk over to the local drug store and I would buy my first "feminine hygene products."
When I got there, she gave me a washcloth and sent me into the bathroom to take off my tights and underwear and wash up. When I finished, I suddenly felt weird about letting her see my body like this, but I didn't see any alternative, either. I steeled myself and went into her room.
"I've got a tampon and a sanitary napkin. You could try using one, or we can do both so you can see how to do it yourself. I don't mind showing you, but I'm not going to do it for you each time!" She looked at my red face and added, "I admit it, I kind of like embarrassing you a little. Revenge for all the mean things you used to say to me, I guess."
She got me to pull up my skirt and sit on a towel on her bed. Then she showed me a tampon and how to slide it into my vagina. I was afraid I would feel weird, but by this point, we were too involved in what we were doing. She then showed me how to put a sanitary napkin into my underwear. "If you're using a tampon, you have to change it every couple of hours. And you shouldn't wear just tampons during your period, you should sometimes use a pad." I put my underpants and tights back on. I didn't go back to the bathroom to get dressed because, well, she'd seen it all already.
"Thanks for helping me out. I don't know who else I could have talked to. I don't think my mom could have dealt with it."
"Probably not."
"But -- isn't it a little weird for you, doing it with your cousin, knowing that I'm really a boy, or at least used to be?"
She shrugged. "It isn't weird for me. I guess my parents raised me not to be self-conscious about my body. I mean, I don't take my clothes off at school or anything, but if I'm in a situation where I need to get undressed, like skinny dipping or a physical exam, it doesn't bother me that much. I don't mind a boy seeing me naked, as long as I think he isn't going to use it as an excuse to be mean to me. Which a lot of boys do, by the way."
We walked over to the drug store, which was a half-dozen blocks away. On the way, she explained the different sizes and absorbancies I might need. When we got there, she pointed out the boxes of tampons and pads, but I had to actually pick them out and carry them to the register. I was feeling embarrassed and afraid the salespeople would notice, but the cashier didn't really even look at me. I might just as well have been buying cough drops.
I stayed for dinner. During dinner, her dad said to me, "as often as you come over, maybe you should just move in." Teresa giggled and I felt my face getting warm.
"I'm sorry, maybe I am over here too often."
"Your uncle is just teasing you a little," my aunt explained. "He's really saying that we all like having you here. You're welcome any time. But do call first," she added with a smile.
Around the time I discovered Dr. Newcomb's "Christmas present," as I started calling it, we got a call from a local TV reporter, Gary Saunders. He'd apparently heard about my little mishap at the hospital and wanted to run a story about it. I thought I needed that like a baseball bat to the head, but my Dad thought it would help put pressure on the hospital to settle the malpractice suit. We talked with the lawyer and also with my uncle, because he had a lot more experience with PR and talking to the press than my Dad. So we agreed to an interview to take place sometime between Christmas and New Year's.
The lawyer and my uncle had me in for a couple of sessions where they explained to me what I needed to emphasize and what I should downplay. They thought I should mostly say how weird and unhappy it made me feel, and though I should mention some of the bullying, I shouldn't make a big deal about it since it might make people think that the school was the problem and not the hospital. I thought that was backwards -- the sex change wasn't fun, but what was really making me miserable was all the crap I was getting at school.
Anyway, a few days after Christmas, we met on a sidewalk across from the hospital. I insisted I didn't want it near my house because the last thing I wanted was for people to go drive by to see where the freak lives. It was a grey day so they had lights set up so we wouldn't look like zombies. The reporter looked like he thought he was the biggest celebrity on the planet. He had a fancy suit and a tie with the TV station's logo and his hair was slicked up in a fancy wave and he had this big self-satisfied smile on his face. Yeah, he didn't make a good impession on me.
The lawyer had had me put on my boy-jeans which were really too small and a band T-shirt which was also now a little too small, so I would look like I was supposed to be a boy, but they would also see that I had boobs and a girl's butt. It was kind of humiliating.
They started off with some shots of me and Mr. Saunders with the hospital behind us. The hospital hadn't let them inside (I couldn't blame them), but they'd gotten some close-up shots of the outside. Then they got me to face the camera and Mr. Saunders started in.
"For KZTV, this is Gary Saunders, star reporter--" No, he didn't actually say "star reporter", but he might as well have. "-- and I have with me Martin Rawlings. Until six months ago, Martin was a normal boy, spending time with other boys, playing baseball. Then an unfortunate motorcycle accident landed him in here" -- he pointed to the hospital -- "where he was mistakenly exposed to an experimental treatment which turned him from a boy into --" (dramatic pause while they pointed the camera straight at me) "-- a girl. Martin, can you describe for us what happened to you?"
"Well, uh, it's kind of embarrassing."
"I understand. But we need to know. We need to know what they (points at hospital) did to you."
"My, uh, stuff started shrinking. It took a while. Months. And then I started getting, uh, breasts. I didn't know what was happening. I thought maybe I had some strange fatal disease. It was scary. Weird. Surreal."
"Would you say, humiliating?"
"Kind of. I mean, if I were a girl, at least it would be what's supposed to happen. But I'm a boy. It's like if I had put a West High shirt on in the morning and came to school and when I looked, I saw it had morphed into a Hollingsworth sweatshirt."
"Hollingsworth High is the arch rival of Martin's school," Mr. Saunders explained. "Did you have a lot of problems at school because of it? Or with your friends?"
"Oh, yeah! Lots of people act like I'm some kind of pervert, even thought it wasn't me that did anything. And my friends are afraid to say anything because the other kids might think they were perverts, too." The lawyer was watching, and I could see he wasn't happy."
"So would you say you're getting bullied because of it?"
I knew I was supposed to downplay it, but I'm no good at lying. "Yeah, kind of." I couldn't look at the lawyer.
"How is your family taking it?"
"They're trying to be supportive. Like, my brother is trying to stick up for me at school. But it's hard. It's weird for them, too."
"Are you starting to get interested in boys now?" He gave me kind of a leering look.
I looked at him like he was crazy, then I remembered I was supposed to look at the camera. "Right now, I don't have time to get interested in boys or girls. I'm still trying to figure out what's happening to me."
"This must be horrible for you, suddenly having to be a girl. Who would want that?"
I kept thinking what Teresa said, and I started getting mad. "What do you mean, 'who would want that'? Look: I didn't want to be a girl. I was, well, okay with being a boy. But I've got a Mom, and an aunt, and a cousin, she's been like the best friend and the biggest help to me in all of this, and" -- I pointed at the script lady -- "her, and all these girls and women. And if I say who would want to be like them, then I'm telling them, your lives are no good. And that's an insult and a lie. Being a girl is just as good as being a boy!" I practically shouted that last bit, but then I didn't know what to say next. I was sure the lawyer was super pissed at me. "But it's a big change, and getting used to it is hard. Really hard."
"Cut!" said Mr. Saunders. "I think we have enough." Then he shook my hand and said "thanks, boy. Keep up the fight." Fortunately, the lawyer didn't try to talk to me. My uncle and Teresa led me to their car. Teresa gave me a big hug.
"I really liked what you said at the end. I hope they air it. 'Being a girl is just as good as being a boy.' That's a great line."
"I'm sure the lawyer is pissed, though. He wants to say the hospital ruined my life, and here I am saying it's just as good as it was before."
My uncle answered, "he won't have any trouble spinning it. What you said just shows your injury hasn't defeated you, it doesn't say that what the hospital did isn't an injury. And you did say that it's causing you problems."
The next day, the TV station told us I would be on the 7:00 p.m. news. Most of what I said was there, especially my rant at the end. They somehow got a closeup of me when I sad the bit about "really hard." It was a real tear-jerker. But I couldn't help wondering if it would make things better or worse at school.
Due to reader demand, I am posting two shorter chapters as one post. I'll do this going forward when chapters are short and the chapters seem to fit together.
I don't know if it was because of my interview or just because Christmas was over and the people picking on me didn't have to worry about getting on Santa's "naughty" list, but things got a lot worse when I went back to school.
The biggest problem was that the harrassment started to get physical. Sometimes someone would sneak up behind me and try to pull my pants down. They usually managed to expose some of my underwear. Or they'd try to grab the back of my bra and let the band snap back against me. Sometimes two guys would corner me and feel up my breasts. They'd stop if a teacher came by, but if I told the teacher what happened, they'd say I was lying. I don't think the teachers believed them, but they didn't do anything, either. One time, when I was in class and the teacher stepped out, someone tossed a dirty condom on my desk.
The verbal abuse got worse, too. For one thing, the football guys started calling me "it" instead of "he" or even "she." Stuff like, "look what it's wearing today. Doesn't it look stupid." Or, "they say it's a girl, but it's so ugly, I wouldn't fuck it if you paid me." Or if I had books in my hands, they'd knock them down and say things like, "look, it's such a wimp it can't even hold a few books." The guys who always sucked up to the jocks started doing it, too, and then some of the girls from the popular girls' clique. I talked to the teachers, I talked to the administrators, I talked to the school psychologist, but nobody took it seriously.
I told my parents that the harrassment was getting worse, but just hearing that made them so upset that I didn't give any details. When they asked Biff, he just got a sick look on his face and said, "it's bad. Really bad."
The only thing that kept me going was visiting with Teresa. Sometimes she'd have some friends over, but I think she picked who it was, because they were all really nice and sympathetic to me. They said that West High had a reputation for people being pretty mean. Her parents were really nice to me, too. When I was at Teresa's, I felt like it was okay to be myself, whatever that was. I'd hoped I could hang out with her more during winter break, but it seems that for the past six months her family had been planning a vacation to Hawaii for that week, so she wouldn't be around.
One day, about a week before winter break, Tom Prescott and a couple of his buddies cornered me again and dragged me into an empty classroom. I started screaming, and one of them covered my mouth. Tom said, "let's see what it looks like under those stupid clothes," and one of his friends pulled up my shirt so the bra was showing. "Hey, it's got tits," he said, but not too loud, and put his hand on my breast and started squeezing. It hurt some, but it mostly felt gross and made me feel dirty. "It feels like a girl. Let's see if it has a cunt like a girl," he said and started pulling down my pants. He had to unbuckle the belt. They got me onto a desk and pulled my pants down past my shoes. He pulled down my underwear and put his fingers all over my crotch and then stuck one of them inside me. Somehow, I got a cramp there, so he had to push hard and it hurt. I bit the hand that was over my mouth. The guy yelled and then hit me on the head real hard, so my head rang like a bell and I was dazed. When I could see again, Tom's pants were around his knees.
Right then, one of Tom's flunkies stuck his head in the door and yelled, "teacher!" The boys started running out of the classroom. Tom was getting his pants back up when a teacher came in. I guess someone had heard my screams and called a teacher. Tom was still arranging his pants, and two of his buddies were still in the room with him.
"What's going on here?" asked the teacher. I'd seen this teacher, but I didn't know his name.
"Tom and the other guys dragged me in here and pulled my clothes off," I said. I was struggling to get my pants back up over my shoes, and my shirt was still pulled up. "They also hit me." I had a headache from the blow and I could feel a tender spot.
"He's lying, like he always does," Tom said. "He asked us to come in so he could show us his you-know-what."
I don't think the teacher believed him, so he waited for me to get dressed and then hauled all four of us to the principal's office. We all told our stories, and of course the principal believed Tom and his friends. Wouldn't want to mistreat their star athlete. The principal gave me a one-week suspension for being undressed, causing a disturbance, and for lying. They called my mother to pick me up, and got a teacher to walk me back to my locker to pick up my stuff.
My mom was completely silent when she picked me up. The principal had told her his story when he called my mom, but he told her again when she arrived, anyway. We both walked silently to the car and I got in the back. Only when we were on the road did I say anything.
"Mom, the truth is a couple of the jocks dragged me into a classroom and pulled my clothes down. I think they were going to--" I couldn't say it. "Please, Mom, believe me."
"I believe you, son. Oh, how I believe you!" Her voice was really tight. A block later, she pulled over, stopped the car, and turned to face the street.
"Mom--" I said. Then I noticed her shoulders were shaking. She was crying, but without making a sound. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she put a hand on my hand. We sat there, parked, for I don't know how long. At last she stopped shaking and faced the front.
"Yes, I believe you." Her voice sounded all broken up. Then she drove me home.
I was up in my room after dinner, and my parents were in their bedroom. I went down to get a snack, and I heard my mother's voice through the door. I stopped. I could clearly hear my mother say, in that same broken-up voice, "Claude, I don't know what to do. What are we going to do?" Dad said something I couldn't make out. Biff came down and when he saw me standing there, he stopped and started listening, too.
"Claude, I can't stand watching him suffer any more." She was crying. "He's out of it for a week. Two weeks with winter break, but after that, what?" Again, Dad said something we couldn't understand.
We listened some more, but she got quieter, so we couldn't hear what she was saying.
I talked to Teresa that night and told her the story. She was horrified, and called her parents over to talk to me. I told it to them, and they sounded horrified, too. I told them what I'd overheard my mother say.
"We'll figure something out," my uncle said.
"Should we postpone our trip?" asked my aunt.
"No, don't, you all have been looking forward to it for so long. I'll be okay. After all, I'm out of West Hell until after you get back, anyway."
"Just hold on," my uncle said. "You're not going back to that place if I can do anything about it."
I spent the week in my room. I tried dressing in my "girl clothes," then in my "boy clothes." It didn't feel any different. Actually, it didn't feel like anything. To add to my troubles, I got my second period. Another thing to get used to. I texted Teresa and sometimes talked to her on the phone, but she was busy with schoolwork and with getting ready for the trip. She told me I could text her while she was away. She would check from time to time. "Just sit tight and don't do anything stupid." On Saturday, my mom and dad drove me to the airport to see them off.
After Teresa and her family left, I got really down. I kept thinking of the future, and every possibility looked miserable. I could live as a girl, but any school would find out I was born as a boy. My driver's license, whenever I got one, would say Martin, sex male. I could try to live as a boy, but I'd already learned that wouldn't work. And even though Uncle Boris had sort of promised that I wouldn't have to, I was pretty sure that, sooner or later, I'd have to go back to West High, or else some place just as bad.
The only comfort I had was my CDs. I started to listen to real emo groups, ones about how awful life is and how people suck, and it made me feel better while I was listening. But the end of winter break kept getting closer.
Biff and Pete were out a lot, so I had time to wander around the house. I discovered my mom had a bottle of sleeping pills. I kept thinking about taking the whole bottle. I'd heard that alcohol makes them even more deadly, and I knew where my parents kept their vodka. Vodka and sleeping pills, the phrase kept running through my head.
Friday morning, I woke up and knew, if I was going to do it, today was the day. My parents would be around on the weekend, I didn't think I could sneak the pills or the vodka with them around. Plus, they might find me before I was dead. I wrote a letter to Teresa, saying I was very sorry, and that I appreciated all she had done for me. She and her parents had done the best they could, but it was better this way. I waited for my brothers to go out. It was about 10:00. I walked out to the mailbox and stood for a long time with the letter in my hand. If I dropped it in, there was no going back.
I pulled open the door. It felt like it was happening to someone else. I put the letter in, and let go. I walked back home. I went in and got the pills, then went to the kitchen and filled a glass with vodka. I took them up to my room. I took the pills one by one, each with a mouthful of vodka. The vodka tasted terrible, and my stomach started to feel upset, so after half a glass, I switched to water. I went to lie down, then I decided to write a will.
"Please let Teresa take whatever CDs she wants. She is also welcome to take my bunny." I had a stuffed bunny rabbit that I'd had since I was a little kid. I slept with it almost every night, but I'd hide it in a drawer so my mom couldn't find it. He was going to be with me when I went to sleep for the last time, but after that, he'd need a good home.
I wrote a note to my mom and dad. "I know you've done your best, I appreciate it. But this is better. I won't hurt any more. Goodbye." I went to lie down again. Then I thought: I should send a goodbye to Teresa. So I texted, "Thanks for everything. I love you. Goodbye" I don't know why I said "I love you." Then I turned off the ringer. I had my skirt on, but I was getting cold, so I put the tights on. I looked in a mirror. I looked like a girl. Maybe even a pretty girl, I thought. I'll die a girl. It didn't seem so bad.
I turned on my CD player, put my headphones on, and lay down. "Now I lay me down to sleep," I thought. It was the last thought I remember having.