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Seven Dresses by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Michael Thorne has always known he was different, but his parents have left him with no illusions that what he feels is wrong. He struggles with it for much of his short life, then in the space of a few weeks, and a few dresses, he discovers… something new. |
You remember your firsts. First kiss, first crush, first consummation of carnality. Watersheds in the train ride to Adultsville.
Actually, that's a misconception I picked up from somewhere. I always thought that watersheds were where old steam locomotives used to refill their reservoirs – kind of replenish your reserves, build up the strength to carry on – but it seems the term derives from the German word wasserscheide, meaning a ridge of high ground dividing two river systems. It makes more sense. You cross a ridge into another valley and rather than following the same old course of the same old river, you find yourself on a new road with a new destination.
I have a few more than most, but then the river by which I was born wasn’t heading anywhere I wanted to go. Sometimes you have to take the difficult path, the path less travelled, the path everyone pretends isn’t there, or tells you leads to nowhere good. Because we’re not all the same, and some of us belong somewhere else.
My first wasn’t so much a mountain ridge as a bump in the terrain. Climbing it wasn’t so hard but choosing to was.
When you're young you take your cues from those about you, most of all your parents. I had one particular question which no-one else seemed to be asking, on a topic no-one else seemed to be talking about, so I asked my mum one day.
“Boys don’t wear dresses,” she laughed.
“Why not?” I persisted.
“Because... they don’t.”
I could see I was making her nervous, so I dropped the subject. Later I remembered a whispered conversation between her and Dad, and a few glances in my direction. Later still, I remember my father coming into my room and sitting on the bed. He coughed nervously and looked everywhere but at me.
“I hear you’ve been asking some questions,” he said when he’d finally decided how he was going to handle things. “It’s not something that men do.”
“What, ask questions?”
“Don’t be cheeky boy!” He did look at me then, and I could see the anger flashing in his eyes. I dropped my gaze, more than a little frightened. “You know what I meant, and it’s not something that men – real men – talk about. So, I don’t want you bothering your mother with this nonsense again, are we clear?”
“Yes Dad.” I used my careful voice, the one I reserved for snarling dogs and angry adults.
“Alright.” He stood up sounding mollified. “I don’t want to hear any more about this though. do you understand?”
“Yes Dad.”
I understood. I understood that I wouldn’t get any help from my parents on this particular issue. I understood that it was wrong – very wrong. At that age you don’t tend to question such concepts. I also had the beginnings of an inkling that deep down, maybe – just maybe – I might not be a man. At least not a real one.
It remained in the periphery of my vision for a long time, that low ridge. I couldn’t afford for anyone to see me looking at it, so I kept it buried. Not so deep that I wasn’t aware of it, and it niggled at me constantly, like the gap left in my teeth whenever one of my baby ones fell out.
I thought about it the next time that happened. I mean who could be more sympathetic about such a thing than a fairy? I thought if I asked her for some magic instead of the money, she’d surely help. So, I wrote her a short note and left it with the tooth.
Next morning the tooth was gone, but the note was still there. Scrawled at the bottom was a short response, “Only a bad boy would ask for this.”
There wasn’t any money.
I went down to breakfast still clutching the note and found my father glowering at me over his newspaper.
“Morning sweetheart,” my mum greeted me cheerfully. “Did the tooth fairy leave you anything?”
My dad raised an eyebrow, daring me.
“Yes Mum,” I said quietly. I crumpled up the note and put it in my dressing gown pocket. She’d left me a message alright. She’d told me who she really was. Not a particularly nice way to lose a piece of childhood magic, but I’m not sure any of it dies a peaceful death.
Later, as we were passing the shops on the way home from school, Mum asked if I wanted to spend my money, so I told her I’d lost it. Mum’s always been a bit of a soft touch, so she gave me fifty pence and I at least ended up with a bag of sweets to compensate for my shattered dream.
I kept out of Dad’s way as much as I could for the rest of the week, but you can’t live under the same roof as someone and avoid them completely. Every time we’d cross paths, he’d give me a scowl by way of reinforcing his message, and it came through loud and clear. Real men – and by association, real boys – do not do that.
What can’t be cured must be endured, my gran always used to tell us. I couldn’t help what was happening inside me, but I did get better at hiding it. Whenever I’d go out shopping with Mum and Dad and we’d stop in front of a window full of women’s clothes, I’d feign boredom and keep my face turned away from the goods on display. My eyes would be all the way over on one side though, taking in as much as I could see at the edge of my vision.
At other times it was easier. Dad didn’t mind me looking at other girls, in fact he encouraged it – saw it as an indication that I was in the process of leaving all that nonsense behind me. What he didn’t need to know, what I didn’t dare tell him, was that I was more interested in the clothes they were wearing than I was in the girls themselves.
I fought the sense of guilt I had over wanting something I knew was wrong. I fought it in a bunch of ways. At first, I tried to fight the tendency itself, but I found the more I denied and tried to suppress that part of my nature, the harder it fought back, and I couldn’t hold out for long. What I wanted with so much of my heart that it left almost no space for other things was forever denied me and it made me miserable. As I entered my early teenage years, I became sullen and withdrawn.
Mum and Dad worried of course, but they managed to convince themselves that I was just going through a phase and would get over it in time.
I did, but not in a way that brought them any comfort. I took the first step the day my cousin got married.
Aunt Miranda is my dad’s older sister and something of the family’s black sheep. Dad doesn’t speak about her much and usually has that disapproving twist of his mouth when he does. From what I’ve pieced together over the years, she apparently married in her teens and was divorced before she was twenty. Time enough to give birth to her first daughter, Lonny. Then she remarried the same man six years later and brought her second daughter, Chaney, into the world just a year or so before I came along.
For some reason, Dad heartily disapproved of their names and would tell anyone who’d listen that some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children. The closest he’s come to an explanation is to say that Uncle Richard used to call himself the Wolfman when he and Aunt Miranda married the first time.
I don’t really get it, but it used to upset me, because Uncle Richard and Aunt Miranda are two of my most favourite people in the world. Mum’s the same and I remember one time when she'd had enough, she told Dad that he was one to talk and that anyone who names his son after Princess Michael of Kent doesn’t really have any high ground to preach from.
Dad’s always been a bit of a royalist but apparently, he didn't like any of the names given our current lot of princes. He argued that if the royals were going to give a man's name to a princess that wasn't his fault and shouldn't stop him from putting it to its proper use.
If they'd known I was listening I doubt they'd have been so free with their words, but I can’t tell you how much better it made me feel to know I’d been named after a princess.
Anyway, it was during my thirteenth summer that Lonny got herself hitched. She was twenty-two, which was still way too young in Dad’s opinion, but she was family, so we had to go.
Sorry, Dad’s words, not mine.
Anyway, it was a full top hat and tails kind of affair. Usually, as a thirteen-year-old, I’d have been allowed to get away with smart casual but, given the poshness of the do, we had to keep up appearances, so Mum managed to wangle a new and really expensive dress out of it all and I was stuffed into a suit and tie.
I’ve always hated ties. From the moment I first put one on. I’d have hated them without the peanutting I got from the kids at school. I hate having anything constricting around my neck, and in hot weather it’s so much worse. So, needless to say, I was more miserable than usual sat crammed onto an overfilled pew without even enough elbow room to ease my collar and let some of the steam out.
Dad kept telling me to cheer up, that this was a wedding, not a funeral, and for goodness sake, to stop ogling the girls. For all that he seemed okay with me looking at girls most of the time, apparently cousin Lonny’s wedding was not an appropriate venue.
“I'm not ogling them,” I hissed.
“So, what are you doing?” There was the raised eyebrow.
I was envying them. Their low necklines, their raised hems and short sleeves, the amount of skin they were permitted to expose to the summer sun, their light summer fabrics. I was also admiring them. The riot of colours was enough to sweeten the sourest disposition, and the variety of patterns and styles in the clothing was an unbridled celebration of beauty and design.
Not something I could say to Dad though, so I resorted to teenage response number one and hunkered down into my silent sulk.
The music started and, for my cousin's sake if not my dad's, I plastered a smile on my face as we all stood. I turned to watch the bridal procession and almost lost my composure.
I know weddings are supposed to be all about the bride, and to be fair, Lonny did look stunning in a simple, unadorned ivory silk sheath, as did her maid of honour whose dress was a close match in pale pink satin. That being said, to my eyes it was Chaney who stole the show.
It seemed that the protocol Nazis had decreed that fourteen was too young to deserve a full-length adult gown, so Chaney's dress was quite different in design. The same pale pink satin, but with a full skirt that reached to just below her knees. Whereas the other two dresses were sleeveless and about as low cut as you could hope to manage with limited support, Chaney's had a higher, more modest neckline and short, capped sleeves. It was exquisite.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Dad hissed in my ear. “She's your cousin for heaven's sake!”
As usual, Dad sees a stick, Dad grabs a stick, Dad gets hold of the wrong end. Mind you, he’d have been even more upset if I'd told him exactly where my mind was. And since I couldn’t tell him, he would never find out how wrong he was, so he would never stop getting it wrong.
Chaney’s never been much of a girly girl and you could see it in her eyes – the double insult of pink and a dress. She caught sight of me looking at her and raised an eyebrow in challenge. I offered her a sympathetic smile and a shrug, and she bit down on a smile of her own, averting her eyes.
“Michael.” Dad’s tone held an edge to it. I pulled my eyes away from Chaney’s dress, but still joined the rest of the congregation in following the bridal party’s slow progress to the front of the church.
Boring music, boring litany, boring sermon, more boring music, and all in mid-summer heat. I have no idea why people get such a kick out of weddings. I was hot and fidgeting by the end of the service and very much in Dad’s bad books. After we left the church there was more tedious hanging about while the photographer lined us up in various groups, which I’ll admit I didn’t endure in any good grace. By the time we were ready to move onto the reception, Dad was foaming at the mouth.
The journey to the hotel passed in frosty silence and once Dad had parked the car, he made a bee line straight for Aunt Miranda. When he came back a minute later, he thrust a key card into my hands.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” he said, “as long as you keep clear of your mother and me. You’ve ruined today so far with your sulks and your fidgeting and your bad attitude. I’ll be damned if I let you do the same with the speeches.”
He stormed off in the direction of a large room laid out with tables and chairs.
“Best do what your father says,” Mum said, beginning to chase after him. “I’ll call you when they’re about to serve the food.”
Result! Who wanted to listen to a bunch of boring speeches anyway? The room number was printed on the key card, so finding it took next to no time. I let myself in and kicked the door closed behind me.
“Just a minute,” said a voice from the bathroom, a voice I recognised.
It was nearer to twenty seconds when Chaney stuck her head through the door. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a low-cut top, both brand new by the look of them.
“Oh! Hello Michael. What are you doing here?”
“Dad’s having a rant. Figured I’d be better off out of the way. What about you? Shouldn’t you be downstairs?”
“Just going,” she said. “Will you give me a hand with this?” She held a thin necklace and pendant out to me.
I took it from her and fiddled with the clasp while she held her hair out of the way. “Shouldn’t you…? I mean, I thought you’d still be wearing your wedding gear.”
“I made a deal with Mum. I wouldn’t make a fuss about the dress as long as I only had to wear it for the wedding and the photographs. I mean pink for crying out loud. Sometimes I have no idea what goes through my sister’s head.”
“Well, I thought you looked pretty amazing in it. I mean, not that you don’t look amazing right now. Erm…”
She laughed. “You’re sweet cuz. If you like the dress so much, why don’t you wear it?” She was out the door without waiting for a response.
She’d just been joking of course, but there’s many a true word spoken in jest. I probably would never have given it a moment’s thought if she hadn’t said anything, but there I was with the room all to myself, and there was the dress on a hanger in front of the closet.
I sat down in a chair and pulled my phone out, tried playing a game, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept looking at the dress, and this feeling kept growing inside me. My mouth was dry and my stomach doing summersaults. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it hammering away inside my chest. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this.
I checked my watch. I’d been up in the room for ten minutes and no-one else had turned up. The speeches had most likely started. I went to the door and stuck my head out, but the corridor was clear. I let out a breath and could hardly draw in another.
I felt an overwhelming sense of unreality as I walked back into the room and lifted the dress down. The material was soft and silky smooth. Just feeling it under my fingers was a sensual delight. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I had to know what it felt like to wear, what I would look like with it on. I stripped down to my boxers and slid the dress off the hanger.
Chaney must still have been wearing the same underwear, not that I’d have gone that far, but the stockings were laying on the bed though along with the suspender belt. I took a shivering breath. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, I thought and hung the dress back up for a moment while I tried to figure out the legwear.
I’d seen my mum put on tights before, so had half an idea on how to do it. The suspender belt was a bit of a tangle at first, but once I’d sorted it out, the rest kind of came clear. Having all that elastic under tension near my danglies didn’t do much for my nerves, but I loved the way the sheer stockings felt against my legs.
I slipped the dress off the hanger, unzipped it and stepped into it. It was as much as I could do to reach behind and do up the zipper and clasp, and when I finally had it hooked in place I realised that if anyone opened the door to the room just at that moment, there would be no way I could undress quickly enough.
It didn’t matter though. The cool sensation of the satin brushing against my silk clad legs was the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt. Heightened by the overdose of adrenaline coursing through my body, my brain was near overload. I opened the closet and stood in front of the mirror. The matching shoes were there on the floor, but a quick check convinced me I wouldn’t be squeezing my feet into them any time soon. I might have been a couple of inches shorter and about as slim as my fourteen-year-old cousin, but she still had tiny feet compared to me.
I don’t know how long I stared at my reflection. My short and distinctly male haircut didn’t do much for the overall impression, but even taking that into account, I still felt right. There was a sense of an enormous weight falling off my shoulders, of being let out of a confined space, of finally arriving at the place I should have been all along.
I walked around the room in my stockinged feet, stared at myself in the mirror from different angles. I mean, there wasn’t much to it all. Just standing and walking around in a room wearing a dress. It seems stupid, but for the half hour it lasted, it meant the world to me.
Something in my hind brain was getting nervous. A part of me wanted to leave the room and walk about like this in public, but it was only a very small part of me. Most of me screamed “No!” at the idea and conjured up images of me getting stuck on the other side of the door without the key card. The more I simply luxuriated in the feel of the clothes, the more the cautious part of me became aware of time passing. What if Mum forgot to phone and Aunt Miranda or Uncle Richard came up to get changed or something? What if Mum or, worse than that, Dad came up to collect me? I couldn’t afford to be caught like this. The initial delight was wearing off to be replaced by a growing sense of dread over the possibility of being found out, and I had just reached the point of convincing myself to change back when my phone rang.
I almost collapsed with the shock. I know, it’s stupid, it was just a phone ringing. I was almost too terrified to answer, as if the person on the other end might possess some supernatural ability to sense what I was doing just through talking to me. I told myself I was being ridiculous and put the phone to my ear, taking a calming breath or two before speaking.
It was Mum. Food was about to be served, she said. I told her I’d be down straight away. She wanted to know if everything was alright. Apparently, I sounded a little breathless. I made some excuse about being in the loo and having to scramble for my phone, though I’m not sure how convincing that might have been. I am known for taking my mobile everywhere with me, even into the toilet.
I hung up. Maybe not so ridiculous, I thought and set about the contortions necessary to undo the clasp and zipper.
It took next to no time to climb out of the dress and hang it back where I’d found it. It may have been my imagination, but the stockings looked a little stretched compared to when I’d first picked them up. I put them back on the bed and hoped they’d shrink a little with time. The suspender belt went back into a similar tangle to the way I’d found it, and things looked more or less the way Chaney had left them. I climbed back into my suit and tie, gave the room one last inspection, trying to compare it to when I’d first arrived, and once I was satisfied, I headed back downstairs.
“Are you alright dear?” Mum asked as I made it back to the table. “You look a little flushed.”
“I ran,” I said. I’m not the sportiest individual, so that much was believable.
“You shouldn’t run in a place like this,” Dad said distractedly. Trust him to find something to criticise me over. “Are you going to behave now?”
I bit back the response I wanted to give him and nodded. “Yes Dad,” I said. I could give him this much of a show of respect. After all, if he hadn’t sent me up to the room in the first place, I might never have made the discovery. All I needed to do now was figure out what it was I had discovered.
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Seven Dresses - The Second Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Having awoken something in the half hour alone with his cousin's bridesmaid's dress, Michael wonders what might be possible, especially with his father around. Fortunately for him, his aunt is also present and gifted with a little insight. |
Like the genie released from the bottle, I knew there was no way I would willingly go back to the way things had been. I had tasted the rainbow and I was hooked. All I had were the memories of the half hour I’d spent in Chaney’s dress, and most of that time scared half to death that someone would walk in on me, but it was enough to convince me that life would only remain bearable if I could spend at least some of it in a frock.
I wouldn’t have put it in such words back then, but there was a definite feeling of crossing that first ridge. A whole new valley stretched before me, filled with possibilities I’d never dared believe could exist. It was a step away from the safe and familiar, which was more than a little terrifying, but the safe and familiar were what had me bent out of shape. I didn’t know how I was going to manage to keep to this new course, but wild horses could not drag me back to where I had been.
Freed from my cage, my mood soared – a lark ascending on currents of hope and singing its delight to anyone who would listen. Even sweating in my suit with the hated tie threatening to throttle me, I could still feel that unusual sense of liberation my cousin’s clothes had bought me. It kept my usual sullen self at bay, and for the rest of the afternoon I held my own in conversation with the other guests at our table. Mum kept looking at me as though I had somehow grown a second head, and eventually even Dad felt the new me deserved a comment.
He leaned towards me and murmured in my ear. “I don’t know what you got up to up there,” he said, “and maybe it’s as well that I don’t. It’s good that you’ve sorted yourself out. Now no more nonsense, alright?”
How was it that he always knew the exact wrong words to say? The newly released me felt some inkling of how much my father had contributed to putting me in the cage in the first place. For an instant I was tempted to tell him exactly what had improved my mood, but it wouldn’t have been fair on Lonny and her new husband. Besides, I didn’t want to spoil my buzz. It had been so long since I had last felt this good, I was resolved not to let him of all people ruin it. Instead I offered him a generic teenage grunt and focused back on the table conversation.
The food was good, as was the company – Dad being the exception that makes the rule – and the disco that followed wasn’t a total loss. Not quite my preferred style of music, but it had a beat which made you want to move.
Again, Dad did his best to derail the train. A couple of songs in he gave me a fairly hefty nudge and told me to go ask one of the girls to dance. It’s not something I’ve ever been comfortable doing. For one thing, whoever you choose, it affects how the others look at you, and I’ve always preferred to be on good terms with all girls rather than have a special relationship with one. For another thing, I know I’m not the greatest catch in the world – a bit scrawny and very self-conscious about it – which knocks my confidence, and most girls don’t seem to like that. For one more thing, I’m really sensitive about rejection – yeah, thanks Dad – and it hurts more than I dare show to be turned down, and since that’s pretty much what happens to me every time... I get that a lot of guys enjoy it – thrill of the hunt, challenge of trying to capture the heart of the most beautiful girl around, kudos to be won, etc. It’s just not me.
I was tempted to ask Chaney just to mess with Dad’s head, but without her bridesmaid’s dress she’d blended into the background and I couldn’t find her. Besides, as I’ve already said, it would have been unfair on my other cousin to wind Dad up on her special day. Instead my eyes fell on another girl about my age. She had a somewhat plainer than typical face and had apparently acquired a minor cake addiction in consequence, but her dress was exquisite.
I told her so. It was a fairly neutral introduction, but she blushed a little and looked around her, checking whether it was okay to accept a compliment from someone like me. Before she received any definitive response, I asked if she’d like to dance. Her mother was apparently on my side, providing a gentler equivalent of the parental nudge that had brought me here. She accepted my hand with some reluctance, and I led her out onto the dance floor.
I can’t say it was the highlight of the day. My dance partner was all enthusiasm and very little talent when it came to dancing and gave a creditable impression of an epileptic trifle. What’s more, she didn’t look at me once during our time out there – universal body language for, “look, I may be dancing here, but this guy just followed me, okay?”
My dad caught my eye at one stage and shook his head with an expression of bemused disappointment. Apparently, my choice of dance partner hadn’t even made it to the bottom of his list of suitable girls. That didn’t bother me. It turned out that the reinvention of me that had occurred earlier in the hotel room, in Chaney’s dress, had given up on the idea of Dad’s approval. If he was incapable of seeing me from the right perspective, then he wasn’t much use to me.
We lasted through about three tracks before the mixture of heat, embarrassment and impending exhaustion had her begging for a break. She headed for the terrace, and I followed, via enough of a diversion to pick us up a couple of glasses of fruit punch. Non-alcoholic of course.
She accepted hers with a mixture of gratitude and discomfort. She was still glancing around looking for some way of escape. Apparently, there were worse things than being a wallflower, and the evidence suggested that I was one of them.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re not into me, I get it. Thank you for the dance. It is a very pretty dress, and you look amazing in it.” I moved away from her, found a low wall to lean on and gazed out at the hotel grounds. She did me the courtesy of looking uncertain for a second before heading back to the safety of her family. It occurred to me that she had not said a single word to me in the short time we’d been in each other’s company.
“That was nicely done.” Aunt Miranda leaned on the wall next to me.
“Yeah,” I snorted. “How to win friends and influence people.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You were courteous and kind, and that little white lie at the end didn’t do any harm. I’m guessing she’ll be regretting some of her decisions before the day’s out.”
I gave my aunt a grateful smile and we stared out at the grounds in silence. One of the things I liked about Aunt Miranda, when there wasn’t anything to say, she didn’t try to say it. After about five minutes she glanced sidelong at me.
“This isn’t really your thing, is it?”
I shrugged. “Not really.”
“You’d be more comfortable if you took off that jacket and tie.”
She was right, but… “I don’t think Dad would like it.”
“You leave your dad to me.”
That was a point. Hadn’t I stopped worrying about what Dad thought? He’d probably give me a good ear bashing on the way home but compared to enjoying a little cool air on my skin… I slid my jacket off and went to work loosening my tie and top button while Aunt Miranda glanced at the sweat stains down my back and under my arms, her expression unreadable.
“Shall we re-join your family?” she asked once I was well and truly comfortable.
“Er…” I looked nervously at my jacket, now folded neatly over my arm.
“Don’t worry, I’m coming with you. I’ve a few words I’d like to say to your dad.”
The temperature was significantly lower inside, despite the packed crowd. I felt the damp patches in my shirt evaporating and let loose a sigh of relief at the coolness. Aunt Miranda threw an amused grin my way.
Dad’s expression wasn’t so welcoming. I tried to brazen it out, but I was too used to him winning. As we approached within earshot – quite close given the volume of the music – my anger curdled into defeat and I withered under his gaze. He was about to launch into one of his disapproving rants when…
“Derek, don’t you dare!” My aunt was using her dangerous voice. “This is your niece’s wedding and it won’t be improved by you publicly lambasting your son. Besides, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s hot. If you took a moment to look around you, you’d see you’re pretty much the last person here who hasn’t made some concession to the weather.
“If it makes any difference, Michael only took off his jacket after I told him to, and even then, he needed some convincing.”
Dad held his tongue, but the look he gave me promised that long and tedious lecture on the way home. I think Aunt Miranda must have spotted it too, because…
“Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind lending him to me for the next couple of weeks. With Lonny off on her honeymoon, Chaney’s going to be moping about the house and getting under my feet. It would help if she had some company her own age to keep her distracted.”
Dad’s eyes were still boring into mine, his mouth twisted in disapproval and he twitched an eyebrow at me.
“I suppose you’d like that, wouldn’t you Michael?” I dropped my gaze.
“What do you mean?” my aunt wanted to know.
“Well Michael? Would you like to tell your aunt how you were ogling your cousin earlier, or should I?”
Way to give me a choice Dad. I had no response to give other than the reddening of my neck. Fortunately, Chaney arrived just then, and she did have something to say on the matter.
“You have to be joking Uncle Derek,” she laughed. “We’re cousins. That’d be too weird.”
“Well, he couldn’t give me a decent answer when I challenged him about it earlier in the church, and he doesn’t seem to have much to say about it now.”
My aunt and cousin turned their eyes my way. I took a breath and reminded myself that I didn’t care about Dad’s opinion anymore. I did care about what Aunt Miranda and Chaney thought though.
“I was admiring her dress, Dad. I didn’t say anything then because I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“There you go.” Chaney turned back to my dad. “He said as much when he came up to the room earlier.”
“Your cousin was in the room when you went up?” The storm clouds over Dad’s head darkened. “Well that certainly explains your good mood.”
“You’re twisting things around, Uncle Derek,” Chaney said. “Michael’s not like that. Mum, tell him.”
“I have to agree with my daughter.” Aunt Miranda sounded a little distracted, and the look she was giving me made me feel even more uncomfortable. “You always were lousy at choosing which tree to bark up.”
“I’m not sure it would work.” Mum joined in the conversation. “Michael doesn’t have any clothes with him apart from his suit.”
“That’s okay, we have shops where we come from, and I’m guessing you’ve grown out of most of your things this year, haven't you Michael? My two were constantly doing the same at your age.”
“Er…” Hang on, what did she mean at my age? Chaney was only a year older than me.
“And who’s going to pay for this shopping spree?” Dad wanted to know. He’s not used to being on the losing end of an argument, and his sister’s response was making him more belligerent than usual.
“We’d be glad to buy him a few things. Call it a thank you for letting him come and stay for a while.”
“We don’t need any handouts,” Dad spat.
“Fine,” Aunt Miranda said, finally losing patience with her brother. “When my daughter’s virtue remains intact at the end of the summer, you can pay me back twice whatever I spend on his clothes. I’m sure I can find a charity somewhere that wouldn’t say no to the money.”
Somewhere along the line it had stopped being about me. It seemed my aunt had as little time for my dad as he did for her. I kept quiet and tried to keep out of it. The two of them locked gazes and I tried not to squirm under the weight of Aunt Miranda’s hand, now grown heavy and not a little uncomfortable.
“Fine,” Dad said at last.
“And you’ll apologise to your son.”
He glared down at me, and I dropped my eyes. I wished my aunt had left me out of this.
“Or you’ll apologise to me,” Dad told his sister.
“Agreed.”
“We should go,” Dad said to Mum. “We’re obviously not welcome here anymore.”
I watched them walk out of the hotel. I could feel tears prickling behind my eyes. I wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, only that it hadn’t been that good.
Aunt Miranda crouched next to me and squeezed my shoulders.
“That had nothing to do with you,” she murmured in my ear. “Your dad and I have always found it easier to argue, but that’s between him and me, and it won’t ever affect the welcome you will receive from us. I hope you know that.”
I managed a nod.
“Your dad’s an arse,” Chaney said from my other side. “Sorry Mum, but he is.”
“Right now, Chaney, I couldn’t agree with you more. Michael, you can take that stupid tie all the way off if you like.”
We stayed the night at the hotel. As parents of the bride, Uncle Richard and Aunt Miranda were hosts of the party and felt obliged to stay till the last of the guests had left, which was past midnight. Besides, they’d booked the hotel suite – for changing and stuff – so it seemed sensible to sleep in it.
It had two bedrooms, one master which my aunt and uncle shared, and another smaller one with two single beds. My aunt demonstrated her trust by insisting I share the smaller room with Chaney, and I wasn’t about to do anything to betray it. For one thing I really wasn’t into my cousin – not that way in any case – for another I wanted my dad to pay for what he’d said, and if the best I could do in that regard was land him with a bill for double the clothes Aunt Miranda was going to buy me, then that would have to be good enough.
I slept in my underwear, having nothing else suitable. By the time I went to bed I was exhausted, mainly from the emotional turmoil, and fell asleep before Chaney had finished in the bathroom.
She was awake and dressed before I cracked my eyes open the following morning. It was another bright sunny day and, with no formal gathering to attend, she had on a pair of denim short shorts and a white summer top with spaghetti straps. She looked pretty stunning, and I told her so.
“Well good morning sleepy head, and thank you for the compliment.” She took it as it was intended, purely as an observation, not in any way as a come on, which pleased me.
“Where are my trousers?” I asked.
“Mum has them. Shirt and jacket too. They’re a bit hot for this weather, so she wondered if you might want to wear this instead.” She pulled a yellow summer dress out of the nearby closet and held it up for my inspection.
“She wants me to wear a dress?” I asked, somewhat dumbfounded.
“Not what I said. She wondered if you might like to wear it.” Emphasis on the like.
“It’s a dress.”
“Yup. It’s one of mine. She brought it in case I decided to go girly. She keeps hoping things like that.”
“So, you get to wear shorts and I get the dress?” I was beginning to sound like a broken record.
“One, you wouldn’t fit in these shorts. Two, they’re my clothes, so I get to choose what I wear, and this is it. Three, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you might want to try it on before you decide.”
She threw it at me and scampered out the room.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but for some reason it didn’t feel wrong. Maybe it had been my experiences from the previous day still living with me, maybe it was Dad not being around, maybe it was the matter-of-factness in the way both Aunt Miranda and Chaney had dealt with the issue. I pulled the dress over my head and twitched at it till it hung neatly from my shoulders. There was a full-length mirror in the closet, and I spent a few minutes staring at my reflection. My hair was the biggest giveaway. Dad always insisted on a standard, boring side parting and that, more than anything, made me look like a boy in a dress.
I headed out into the main part of the room where Uncle Richard sat behind a paper. He gave me a nod over the top of it and went back to reading as though nothing were amiss. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how Dad would have reacted on seeing me like that, which made my uncle’s acceptance all the more liberating. I still felt awkward, but a little less terrified.
Aunt Miranda appeared a minute later, fiddling with one of her earrings. She stopped and gave me a long appraising look.
“Chaney?” she called.
My cousin stuck her head through the door and smiled at me. It was a friendly smile rather than the half-expected ridicule.
“I bought you some new underwear yesterday. Do you have any skippies left that you haven’t worn?”
Chaney disappeared for a second then reappeared carrying a pair of lemon coloured knickers. Apparently the aforementioned skippies. She threw them at me and, in an uncommon feat of athleticism, I caught them. I looked at them then at my aunt.
“They’re new and unworn,” she said. “They’ll probably be more comfortable than what you have on under there, and they’ll definitely look better,” she said, before heading off in search of her other earring.
Somewhat bemused, I returned to my room and replaced my boxers from the previous night with the lemon “skippies”. As my aunt had predicted, they were considerably more comfortable. Another look in the mirror and I could see that the dress hung better after the change. I made my way back into the main room with my underwear draped over a finger.
“Much better,” my aunt said. “Drop those in that bag over there and come in here.” She indicated first a plastic bag already bulging with used underclothes, then their room. I did as I was told, eventually settling into a chair in front of the dressing table in their bedroom.
Aunt Miranda flourished a pair of scissors and smiled at my reflection in the mirror. “Do you trust me?”
I swallowed and nodded.
Her smile widened a little. “Good. Just relax and close your eyes.”
Again, I obeyed. It was kind of my default setting with Dad, but somehow I felt safer in my aunt’s hands. The scissors snipped a few times and I felt one or two locks of hair fall onto my shoulders and arms. There wasn’t much to cut, which did make me wonder what she hoped to achieve, but after a surprisingly few minutes, she brushed me down and told me to open my eyes.
The parting was gone. The pixie cut that replaced it was maybe a little short, but between it and the dress, I found myself struggling to find the boy in my reflection. My body filled with a strange cold sensation – more excitement than terror, but not by much. I stood and brushed the last of the hair from my lap.
“Right,” My aunt said. “Who’s ready for breakfast?”
That gave the terror the edge. “You want me to go downstairs to breakfast looking like this?”
“Well, you could put your trousers and shirt back on if you prefer. You may get a few odd looks with your new haircut though, and I doubt you’ll be that comfortable when the day starts heating up.”
“People will laugh at me,” I said.
“Why?” Chaney asked.
“Because I’m a…”
“You don’t look like one,” she interrupted me.
I looked in the mirror. I supposed I didn’t.
“What would you like us to call you?” Richard asked, folding his paper. “We could stick with Michael and explain who you were named after, or we could avoid all the potential awkwardness and…”
“I like Michelle,” Chaney interrupted again. It was kind of rude, but I get a little cranky when I’m hungry too.
“Michelle sounds good,” I said, trying to soften my voice a little. It was still pretty high pitched, but my efforts definitely made it sound a little more girly. “I, er, I don’t have any shoes.”
“Lon left a pair of sandals,” Chaney said, offering them up, hanging from her fingers by their ankle straps. “I think her feet are closer to your size than mine.”
They were. The thin straps were fiddly to buckle up, but it didn’t take long. Before I knew it, certainly before I was ready, we were outside in the corridor and heading for the lift.
I felt horribly exposed, but the people we passed in the corridor, the people in the lift, the people in the foyer, all either ignored us or gave us pleasant smiles and passed on by. By the time we reached the hotel restaurant, I was totally over my nerves.
The dress was nothing special, certainly not compared to Chaney’s bridesmaid’s dress. It was old enough for the colour to have faded noticeably, and it had a snag or two where my cousin had evidently tried climbing trees in it, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was the way people saw me.
My new found confidence lasted all the way to the breakfast table. By the time I was seated, I had my head down and was glancing around nervously for any signs that someone had figured out that I wasn’t what I seemed.
“Relax,” my aunt told me. “Everyone who was at the reception last night went home. Outside of the four of us, there isn’t a single person in this hotel who might recognise you.”
“Mind you Michelle,” Uncle Richard chipped in. “If you want people staring, you’re doing exactly the right thing. Nothing like that guilty look of yours to pique someone’s curiosity.”
His words might have made me more nervous had he not used my newly adopted name. That in itself helped to calm me, which allowed me to think about his words rather than simply react. I took a deep breath or two then looked up and around.
“That’s better,” Aunt Miranda said with a smile. “You do make a pretty girl, you know.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Playing a hunch,” she said, “but let’s wait till we’re in the car, when there aren’t quite so many ears about. For now, what would you ladies like for breakfast?”
I settled on a bowl of muesli and a small glass of orange juice then looked on enviously as Chaney tucked into a full English. Her eyes turned out to be considerably bigger than her stomach though, and she gave up half-way through, passing her plate across for me to finish with her mother’s reluctant shrug of approval. It wasn’t quite as balanced as I might have liked, Chaney having polished off all the hash browns, but she’d left the mushrooms untouched and I’ve always liked mushrooms. I kept my bites small and ate slowly, and nobody so much as glanced at me twice.
Aunt Miranda’s car was a sizeable SUV – not at all what you might expect from a dyed in the wool hippy (tie-dyed in the wool, my dad would say and expect a laugh. I didn’t get it, but then being a dad joke I figured there wasn’t much to get).
Chaney and I spread ourselves across the spacious back seat and settled down for the hour-long drive to their place. Not the worst way to spend an hour, I decided as I curled up on the white leather seat.
“So, this isn’t just a way of getting at my dad?” I asked once we were on our way,
“Sweetie, of course not!” Aunt Miranda glanced back at me long enough to elicit a nervous cough from Uncle Richard. In someone as laid back as him it was about the equivalent of a terrified scream.
“Then what?” I wanted to know.
“Shelley.” It took me a while to realise this was just a contraction of my girl name. I decided I liked it. “Shelley, your father can be insufferably frustrating at times, but I would never do anything to you, or anyone else for that matter, just to get at him.”
“So what is this about?” More or less a repetition of my last question, but at least I felt somewhat mollified.
Just as well, since Aunt Miranda went into one of her pensive silences. It lasted maybe five minutes before she’d sorted out what to say next.
“Sweetheart, no judgement, but did you put on your cousin’s bridesmaid’s dress yesterday?”
That cold sensation was back, and this time considerably more terror than excitement.
“Chaney suggested I should,” I offered rather lamely.
“Would you jump off a cliff if your cousin thought it was a good idea?”
If it was the right cliff, sure. Some cliffs aren’t so high and have deep pools of water at the bottom. But I would have looked before doing what she said, so point well made.
“She did suggest it, but...”
“But it felt like the right thing to do?”
“Kind of. How did you know?”
“Oh, a whole bunch of little things. I can’t say I was certain, but there were enough hints and suggestions to make it more than a guess.”
“Your aunt has always been highly intuitive,” Uncle Richard chipped in.
“Do you think...”
“Your dad hasn’t the first idea – too self-involved. As for your mum, I think she spends so much time and effort worrying about your dad, I doubt she has much left for you. Sorry kiddo.”
“See what I mean,” Uncle Richard smiled and twitched his eyebrows at me. “Scary, but quite impressive.”
“Anyway, you should know I never intended to push this on you. Nudge you, maybe, but the decision has to be yours – not Chaney’s, not mine or your uncle’s. Give it some thought and let us know how you want to spend the next few weeks. It might be easiest if you could do that before we get home though. Quite a few twitchy curtains on our street. Your suit’s in the laundry bag in the back if you decide to go back into hiding.”
They left me to my brooding. Chaney kept her eyes out of the window, but there was something about the set of her shoulders that suggested she really wanted to say something. Once she looked my way, but a warning glance from her mother, via the rear-view mirror this time, kept her from speaking.
Eventually we took a slip road off the motorway and as we eased up to the traffic lights – red of course – Aunt Miranda spoke again.
“Well kiddo? Decision time. Who’s coming to stay?”
“What if I’m found out?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. It’s more a case of when rather than if.”
I think it was the matter of fact way she said it more than anything that had me shocked.
“Listen, if you’re going to let her out, you’re going to have to accept that sooner or later someone will spot something, so rather than worrying about whether or not it will happen, try and come up with a few strategies of how to deal with it when it does. Either that or, as I said earlier, go back into hiding.”
“I don’t know if I could do that,” I said, surprising myself with the realisation.
“Good, so Shelley it is. Best you have a chance to explore this side of yourself in a supportive environment first.”
Chaney had her megawatt grin aimed my way, so I nearly missed that last part.
“Wait, what? What do you mean ‘first’?”
Aunt Miranda sighed. “Shelley, what do you think’s going to happen at the end of these two weeks?”
“Well, I suppose I’ll be going home, then…”
“Then? You’ll pack this part of you away and never speak of it again? Somehow I don’t think so.”
“I can’t tell my dad about it. He’d kill me.”
“I think the law has some fairly firm views on that sort of thing.”
“You know what I mean. He’d never stop going on about it. It’d be his new favourite rant, and he’d never get tired of it.”
“So, you’re going to let him tell you how to live your life? Yesterday you gave me the impression you’d decided to stand up to him.”
I recalled the sensation. It was distant, almost as though it had happened to someone else, but I remembered how good it had felt.
“I went through a similar thing around your age,” my aunt continued. “Your dad’s always been completely in love with his own opinions, and he’s always needed a passive audience for his rants. Once he has someone under his thumb, he’s really good at keeping them there. The moment they show signs of having an opinion of their own he comes down on them like a ton of bricks, trying to keep them in their place.
“The thing is Shell, you can’t let him do it. For me, I just got tired of his rubbish, so I told him he was a prat and spent all my time with my friends until an opportunity came along for me to move out. You have it tougher since you have to live under the same roof with him for maybe at least another three years, but if you fall into the habit of giving in to him now, you’ll end up trapped like your mum.
“This may not be the most conventional way of standing up to him, but if it’s right for you, it has the added advantage of being totally wrong for him.”
“What do you mean?”
Aunt Miranda smiled. “I deal with people like your dad every day, Shell. The ones who hold the strongest opinions are generally locked into the most fixed ways of thinking. I seriously don’t think your dad would have the first idea how to respond to you as you are right now. You never know, it might just be enough to break him.”
“I don't want to break my dad,” I said, suddenly worried. “I mean, however much he pisses me off, he's still my dad. Besides, I'm not sure you're right.”
“Oh?”
While we drove the last half mile to ‘the Wolves’ Den’ – and yes, that’s actually what they call their house – I told her about the note from the tooth fairy. It had happened such a long time ago, but some memories don’t fade with time.
“Your dad is such an arsehole!”
Chaney’s exclamation yanked me out of my memory. As usual, I’d allowed myself to be consumed by the misery of it all, but for once I had a sympathetic audience.
The outrage on Chaney’s face shocked me. I glanced at my aunt, whose jaw was set, her lips pinched shut. Even Uncle Richard’s usually easy-going manner held a hint of thunderstorms in the distance.
It’s probably as well that Aunt Miranda’s auto-pilot found its way onto their driveway about that time, because it meant we had to ‘put a pin in it’, in Uncle Richard’s words, until the car was unloaded and we were all safely hidden behind our own defensive line of lace curtains.
It’s always amazed me that a couple like my aunt and uncle would end up settling in middle class suburbia. I mean living in a commune somewhere seems much more their style. Uncle Richard has only ever been a jeans and tee-shirt kind of guy, making a concession on his daughter’s wedding day by wearing the suit he’d worn at both his own weddings. Light blue with wide lapels and bell bottom trousers. You can imagine what my dad had thought of that.
Aunt Miranda, on the other hand, had worn a navy-blue pin striped skirt and jacket with a cream silk blouse. Entirely appropriate to the occasion if a little lacking in colour, but then it did have the added practicality of being something she could wear to work, according to my uncle who saw it as yet another sign she had ‘gone over to the dark side.’
The bohemian attitude remained though. My aunt offered me the choice between a small guest room which I could have had all to myself, or the option of sharing with Chaney whose room had become a yawning cavern of a space since her sister moved out.
I looked at Chaney, uncertainty etched in every line on my face.
“Would you be okay sharing with a boy?” I asked.
“I was kind of hoping I’d be sharing with my cousin Michelle,” she said tentatively, pointedly ignoring the looks her mother was giving.
“Well yeah, sure, but you know underneath this dress I’m just Michael.”
“It’s who’s underneath the Michael who interests me,” she gave me her megawatt smile – like her megawatt grin but softer. Unfortunately, it was the Michael in me that responded.
I plonked myself on one of the beds and dropped my hands into my lap to cover up my embarrassment. “Okay,” I replied rather thickly, doing my best to avoid everyone’s eyes.
“You’ll do,” Aunt Miranda said, turning away and guiding her husband out of the room. I could hear the smile in her voice though and felt the blush rising up past my neck.
“I’m sorry,” Chaney said, also smiling. “Are you alright Shelley?” This she said with genuine concern, hovering nearby.
“I’m great.” I don’t think I was selling the performance though. “Just, er, I’m not sure Shelley’s home right now.” I moved my hands enough to reveal what I was hiding.
“Oh my God! Do you really see me like that?”
“No! I mean no. I mean I don’t think so. I mean, this isn’t... I’m not doing this. I hate it!”
“You hate it?”
“You’re my cousin, Chaney. I don’t see you like this, at least I don’t want to. It’s like my body’s acting on its own. It feels like it’s not really mine.”
“What about other girls?”
“There are a few but none of them has your smile.”
Which of course prompted her to smile.
“Oh God!” I turned my face to the wall and started counting flowers in the pattern.
“I’m really sorry. I’m going to have to keep a lid on that, aren’t I?”
“I wish you didn’t have to. I mean I really like your smile, just my stupid body has this stupid reaction to it every time.”
“Yeah. Well thanks cuz. If it means anything, I really like your smile too.”
“What?”
“I’m hoping we’ll get to see more of it while you’re here.”
“What?”
“I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready. If you want to get changed, my wardrobe is yours. You might like to try the left-hand side. That’s where I put all the wear-once-and-never-agains.”
“What?” I repeated for the third time, this time to her retreating back. My blood was slowly redistributing itself more evenly about my body and after a minute or so I felt safe enough to stand up.
|
Seven Dresses - The Third Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 With the girly side of Chaney's wardrobe to choose from, Michael was soon able to find something that suited him perfectly. The next challenge would be to find out how Aunt Miranda's neighbours would react to him. |
The left-hand side of Chaney’s wardrobe was filled with frillies. Not a lot of pink, which made sense given my cousin’s dislike of the colour, but there was a fair bit of lace and quite a lot of floral patterns in bright, primary colours. There were a couple that caught my eye, and one in particular – a cotton summer dress with puff sleeves, an elasticated waist and a loose, full skirt that would fall down to about my knees. The loose fit looked like it would be cooler than the one I was wearing and the fuller skirt would make it easier for me to hide any reaction I might have to Chaney’s smile. I’d already sweated more than was ladylike in the yellow dress, so I picked the towel off the end of the bed and headed for the bathroom.
One cold shower later – refreshing in the summer weather and effective in putting my nethers in their place – I put on the new dress and followed everyone downstairs.
Aunt Miranda smiled at me with a fair imitation of her daughter’s megawattage, but apparently my id wasn’t into older women, either that or it was still recovering from the cold shower.
“That looks so much better on you than it ever did on Chaney.”
I couldn’t help the shy smile that crept onto my face.
“And that makes it all the prettier. Would you like a cup of tea? I have some brewing for our visitors.”
“Visitors?” the shy smile submerged to be replaced by the rabbit in the headlights.
“Yes. Nosy neighbours. It usually takes them a quarter of an hour to come up with a pretext, but they’re going to want to know who else we brought home with us this time.”
The doorbell rang and Aunt Miranda raised her eyebrows knowingly, adding an amused smile.
“I... I... I....”
“Look stunning, Michelle. They are going to love you. If I were meeting you for the first time, all I’d see was a pretty young girl. And even if they don’t, remember what I said in the car.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet “
“Then be a shy little mouse by all means, just not a scared one. If you don’t show any fear, they won’t think you’re hiding anything.”
“But...”
“Do you think you are doing something wrong? Wearing that dress, I mean.”
“No, but...”
“No buts. We don’t either, Richard, Chaney, myself. You need to get used to telling the world what you believe, not what that asshat of a brother of mine has been indoctrinating you with all your life. Now, shoulders back, back straight, deep breath and where’s that smile?”
I complied with her instructions, even allowing myself a smile at the way my aunt’s gentler series of commands contrasted with my dad's ranting. She opened the front door on the second ring.
“Hello Miranda.” The greeting came from a short dumpy woman whose speech, I would discover, had a tendency to start high before dropping to a sort of creaky, stretched out almost-stutter. She had a smile on her face that had all the mechanics and very little of the feeling. “I saw you were home and thought I’d return this.” She held out a spotlessly clean casserole dish.
The presence of her longsuffering husband and a couple of children about my age made a blatant lie of her words.
Miranda smiled her own plastic smile. “Hello Sandy, what a lovely surprise. You really didn’t need to bring this back so soon.”
“Well, I was done with it so I thought I might as well.”
“And you brought Jack, and Toby and Jean. That’s lovely. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? I have a pot brewing.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Nonsense. Come in. This is my niece Michelle, by the way. She’ll be staying with us for a few weeks over the summer to keep Chaney from going stir crazy.”
“Keep you from going crazy, more like.” Sandy’s laugh came out as a high pitched hoot. “Jean was the same last year, if you’ll remember, when Toby went off on his cadets trip.”
“Mum!” Toby complained. Apparently just the mention of his name was enough to turn his ears red. Said ears showed signs of fairly extensive scrubbing, but whether that had been at his mum’s insistence or his, there being a potential new girl to impress, I wasn’t in a position to say.
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” I ventured, “so it’s a nice change to have someone my age to stay with.”
Chaney reigned in her smile a little, for which I was grateful.
“How long are you staying?” Jean’s voice was quieter even than mine. Her brother looked both relieved and upset that he was no longer the focus of my attention.
“A couple of weeks, I think.” I looked at my aunt for confirmation.
She nodded. “Maybe longer if you like, and if your parents don’t mind, but that’s what we agreed for now.”
“Maybe you’d like to come over sometime. I mean, both of you of course.” It was now Jean’s turn to blush.
Chaney was making frantic motions behind their backs, the gist of which didn’t take much interpretation.
“That’s really kind of you,” I said. “I should check to see what else we might be doing first though.”
Chaney rolled her eyes, but I wasn’t about to turn down an offer of friendship just because she didn’t approve. We got on okay – better than okay – most of the time, but we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, preference in girl's clothing being another thing to add to the list.
The neighbours stayed long enough to finish their tea, then made their excuses. Jean gave me a shy smile as she left. Toby was too embarrassed by the whole thing to do even that. Mind you, his dad had contributed exactly nothing to the encounter.
“Why would you even suggest you’d like to go over?” Chaney wanted to know once there were enough walls and doors between us and the retreating neighbours that we were relatively safe from being overheard.
“Because she knows how to be polite.” My aunt came to my defence.
“Whatever, Mum! Aren’t you the one who always says, ‘if you want to know what your wife’s going to be like in twenty years, get to know her mother?’” Chaney retorted
“Well, it’s not as much if I’m planning to marry her,” I said, coming to my aunt’s defence. “Besides, she’s not a bit like her mum.”
“I think that must have been your father said that in any case. Besides, if it were true, we’d never have seen Lonny married off yesterday.”
“Lonny’s more like Dad. It’s me you’re going to be stuck with for ever and ever.”
“Actually,” I interjected, “if that really is a basis for choosing who you’ll marry, I think your mum’s pretty awesome.”
“She’s bloody scary is what she is.”
“Chaney,” Uncle Richard rumbled. His one trigger was bad language.
“Sorry Dad, but she is.”
“She’s only scary to people who need scaring.”
“Like my dad?” I asked.
“Your dad's the exception,” Miranda said, “but he's the one who inspired me to stand up to all the bullies in the world.”
“Is that what you do? I mean I know you’re a lawyer, but I’ve never known what kind of law.”
“Probably because your father doesn’t approve.”
“She stands up for the little guy,” Richard said proudly. “Anyone who’s being pushed around by some corporation that’s all money and no morals, she’s in there like a wolverine defending her cubs.
“And she does terrify them. Believe me, if you have a legal problem, she’s the one you want on your side.”
“How did you two get back together then? I mean you hardly look like the likeliest of couples.”
“You have to remember your aunt wasn’t always the high-powered corporate sell-out she is now.” Richard gave his wife an indulgent smile and she snuggled up next to him, leaning her head on his broad chest.
“We were both politically active at university, in fact we met at a climate change rally – one of the first ones, do you remember?”
“That I do, my sweetness. We dropped out of university, joined a commune and put everything we had into standing up against all the injustice we saw around us. Got ourselves arrested a few times.”
“That made things awkward when I finally got round to qualifying as a lawyer.”
“How did you manage it?”
“Determination and not taking no for an answer. They finally figured that if I was likely to fight as hard for my clients then maybe they should give me a shot.”
“That was after Lonny was born, right?” Chaney asked, joining in on the conversation.
“Yes. Your mother changed after your sister was born. Once she had a daughter, it became all the more important to fight for her future and, whilst she totally supported the fights we were picking, she started to lose faith in our ability to win them the way we were fighting.
“I wasn’t prepared to give up on what I was doing, and she wasn't prepared to keep fighting one losing battle after another. We shared some pretty harsh words back then before we went our separate ways.”
“Then, the year after I graduated from law school, your dad sought me out. He and his friends were fighting their usual losing battle, what was it dear?”
“That patch of trees down by...”
“That's right. There was this firm of real estate developers who'd managed to bribe, steal or blackmail permission to build on a tract of forest in a region of outstanding natural beauty. The houses would have sold for a mint, but we'd have lost another piece of our natural heritage.
“I got permission from my firm to take the case pro bono and we sent them running with their tails between their legs less than a week later, thanks largely to Richard...”
“My friends in the commune knew how to dig up the dirt on those assholes...”
“Hey! No fair! How come you get to swear?” Chaney wasn’t one to let a chance like that slip by.
“My apologies, but they earned the title...”
“They did indeed. And I knew how to use the dirt your uncle gave me in court. After we won, we went out to celebrate and woke up the next day in a cheap hotel...”
“It was a pretty expensive one as I recall.”
“Maybe by your standards, but mine had climbed a social peg or two. Anyway we woke up in each others arms and decided we'd been idiots to break up the team all those years ago. We remarried and a few months later, Chaney came along.”
“It was seven months,” Chaney said. “Mum wasn’t quite showing when they tied the knot for the second time, but I'm the result of their little victory celebration.”
“We think you are, dear. Not that it matters. Richard started business as a private investigator, with my firm and mainly me as his primary customer and we haven't looked back since.”
“I set ‘em up...” Richard declared proudly.
“And I knock ‘em down.” Miranda looked her husband in the eye and they shared a high five.
“And living here...”
“Is part of the price we pay for playing the game. No-one would hire a hippie lawyer no matter how good she was.”
“So we made the great sacrifice of giving up the bohemian lifestyle we prefer in order to live in the lap of luxury surrounded by all the other moderately well off.”
“It doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.”
“Wait till you meet a few more of our neighbours.” Miranda said. “Jack and Sandy are about the best of them. He's an actuary by the way.”
“What's an actuary?”
“Someone who finds accountancy a little too exciting as I understand it,” Richard chipped in. “His one and only joke by the way, so if he tells it to you, be sure to laugh.”
“So,” Miranda said, rubbing her hands and standing up, “I think we’ve given the rest of the neighbourhood enough time to find jobs to do in the garden. Do you fancy a quick walk, Michelle?”
“Erm...”
“It’ll save us a string of visits later,” Chaney said, “and you’ll get to meet the rest of the kids around here. It’ll be worth it.”
It was. Some of the girls were a bit snooty, but most were quite friendly. Several made a comment about my hair with at least one saying she wished her mum would let her cut hers that short. I said I was thinking of growing it out, and that met a mix of responses evenly spread between the enthusiastic do its and the emphatic don’ts.
A number of the local lads asked me out, and I was grateful to have Chaney and my aunt and uncle nearby to run interference for me. They’d evidently done it before too, since almost without any effort, I made it through the afternoon without either turning anyone down or agreeing to something I might regret in the future.
The afternoon wore on. Uncle Richard wanted to know if I fancied eating hippy or decadent, so I asked what each entailed.
“Well, if you choose one, you’ll find out, won’t you? Whatever we don’t have tonight we’ll have tomorrow, so it’s more a choice of what we have first.”
We’d eaten really well at the wedding and I hadn’t done too badly out of Chaney’s leftover breakfast, so it felt like simple fair was the way to go.
“I’m happy to go hippy today,” I said.
“Black bean and tofu burgers it is then.”
“Don’t worry,” Chaney reassured me, “they’re better than they sound. Good choice too. It’ll mean tomorrow’s decadence will be loads better?”
“Why?”
“Fresh ingredients. Mum’ll do a shop after she finishes work tomorrow.”
“Mum’ll meet up with her daughter and her niece tomorrow afternoon and they’ll all do the shopping together, thank you very much.” Miranda said.
“Do we have to, Mum?”
“How’s your cousin ever going to get hold of any new clothes unless she goes shopping?”
“Why can’t she have my old stuff? I mean I’m never going to wear that dress again, and it looks better on her than it ever did on me.”
“When you’re right, you’re right, love, and we do need to make a bit of space in your wardrobe for your bridesmaid’s dress.”
“Can’t she have that too, Mum? I mean, it’s pink for crying out loud.”
“And it’s also silk. Your sister won’t like you getting rid of it so soon.”
“She’ll be fine once she knows who it’s going to. I mean it’d be staying in the family.”
“Except Lonny doesn’t know about Michelle yet, and we don’t really know if she’s here to stay, do we?”
She was here to stay, but I wasn’t about to interrupt the discussion, not if it meant...
“Well, if I need to make room for all that pink silk, I’m going to have to get rid of at least five of those dresses.”
“Four will be enough.”
“Four then. Hey, Shell, did you see anything else in my wardrobe you liked?”
“Er, there was one other dress that caught my eye...”
“Fine. Come pick out two more.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the stairs.
“Excuse me, but we haven’t stopped talking yet. I don’t mind Shelley having some of your hand-me-downs, but she still needs some new things, and she needs someone who knows a bit about girl clothes to help her out, so you two are going shopping tomorrow.”
“With what?” Chaney asked.
“With one of my bonus credit cards, AND a budget. And you’re to help your cousin find things that she likes and that work for her, NOT just what you think she should have.”
“Yes Mum,” Chaney put her exasperation on show.
“You get an allowance too, sweetheart.”
“How much?”
“How much do you think you can fit in your wardrobe?”
“After Shelley’s picked out her four more dresses...”
“Three more dresses; four in total. And you have to put that pink blancmange away.”
“Why can’t we give it to Michelle if you don’t like it either?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“But Mum!”
“WHEN your sister is back from honeymoon, IF I feel it’s appropriate, I MAY have a word with her about it, but that’s an end to the discussion for today. Now, go empty your wardrobe a little. Michelle gets to choose three more dresses from the left-hand side and you can clear out as much as you like from the right. I’ll set your allowance by what room you have left over.”
“What happens to the stuff I chuck out?”
“Charity shop. What else?”
“Can Michelle have first dibs?”
“Well, charity begins at home, I suppose, but Shelley, don’t take anything you don’t like.”
“Where am I going to put it all?”
“Use the wardrobe in the spare room. That room’s yours for the duration of your stay, if you need to get away from us all for a bit, or if you want a night’s respite from your cousin’s snoring.”
“I do NOT snore!”
“Oh yes, Chaney. You remember that nightdress grandma gave you last Christmas?”
“Oh shit, yeah.”
“Chaney!” the warning growl came from the kitchen along with a whole bunch of smells that seemed too good to have anything to do with tofu.
“Sorry Dad,” Chaney yelled, but she’d already dragged me halfway up the stairs.
The second dress I’d particularly liked was also summer cotton. Loose fitting with a long tiered skirt and a bodice that could easily have been a separate blouse. It was all white and would do amazingly for the following day.
“Just don’t stand against the light,” Chaney warned me.
“Why not?”
She sighed and stripped out of her shorts and top. I was too stunned at having a girl undress in front of me to do anything about it, at least not before she’d pulled the white dress over her head and walked over in front of her window.
“Oh!” I said. “I see what you mean.”
I could see the outline of her entire body through the dress. I could even see hints of where her underwear was. Backlit, it really didn’t hide much, especially not in the places where I particularly needed it to.
She changed back just as unselfconsciously and handed the dress to me. A little digging about unearthed a cotton slip about the same length as the skirt. She handed that to me too.
“This’ll do away with the x-ray effect, but it’ll make the whole lot hotter too. Your choice.”
We hunted a bit more until I found a flamenco dress I had somehow missed before. A very full skirt with overlapping tiers of alternating red and black, and above the waist, a riot of red and black lace and flounces.
“Are you sure?” Chaney asked.
“I have no idea when I’ll wear it, but I have to have it.”
“You could take up flamenco dancing maybe. I have a pair of castanets to go with it somewhere.”
“Why did you buy it?”
Chaney shrugged. “Fancy dress party at Mum’s work at Christmas,” she said. “I told them what I wanted, they made it and I got to keep it. Sort of Christmas present from them.”
“Why a flamenco dancer?”
“Mum said something girly, and I guess I came up with this as a way of getting back at her. It didn’t work out though. Mum had a fun night with her colleagues and I got to wear that.
“You’re welcome to it if you’re really sure, but choose something practical for the last one or Mum won’t believe I didn’t just foist all the things I really don't want onto you.”
Aunt Miranda joined us while I was deliberating between two dresses. My last choice came down to green or blue. Apart from the colour, there wasn't much to choose between them, and that was the problem. I'd hold one up then the other and couldn't decide.
Miranda looked at the spoils I'd accumulated thus far and raised an eyebrow at her daughter, who shrugged and sighed.
“You might as well have them both,” she said after watching me for about a minute. “Chaney’s right. She's never going to put any of these on again, so you might as well get some use out of them, though I've no idea...” she fingered the flamenco dress. “Go on, hang them up in the spare room then head downstairs. Dinner is ten minutes from ready. Chaney, did you...”
The door shut behind me as I carried my swag to its new home. For all its small size, the guest room was well furnished. The wardrobe had a full length mirror inside one of its doors and I couldn't help pausing to admire my reflection. It was hard to believe it had all started a little over twenty-four hours earlier with a terrified little boy barely daring to put on a dress in an empty room, and now there was almost no sign of the boy at all. I would have preferred longer hair, but I didn’t really need it. The shy smile in the mirror belonged to a girl, and that girl was me.
“Come on Shell,” Chaney stuck her head around the door. “Dad’s just serving up.”
After Dinner and washing up, both of which involved the whole family, we settled down to rot our brains for a bit in front of the idiot box. Less of a box these days since they were all very tall and wide but not the least bit thick. Richard and Miranda snuggled on one sofa while Chaney joined me on the other, leaning her head on my shoulder. I surreptitiously crossed my legs in an effort to hide an involuntary swelling, but I doubt I fooled anyone.
With the choice of programs falling to the older contingent, Chaney and I sat through the news, but drew the line at whatever current affairs program followed next. Chaney cracked first, jumping to her feet and grabbing my wrist, leaving me very little choice but to follow.
“One last gift,” she said as she dragged me into her room.
I’d been expecting to spend the night in my underwear again, with the lemon skippies promising greater comfort than what I’d worn in the hotel. The lacy cotton nightdress Chaney had left on my bed proved to be the icing on a very delicious cake.
“My dad's mum is a little old fashioned,” Chaney said. “She's bought one of these for Lonny and me every Christmas since I can remember. Lon always loved hers and Mum insisted I wore mine to bed whenever gran stayed with us. She doesn’t visit anymore, so I write my thank you and it goes straight to the charity shop, which is a shame, because they’re not cheap.”
“How come you still have this one then?”
“Well, I don’t, ‘cos I’ve just given it to you.”
“You know what I mean.”
She grinned.
“Gran visited at Easter, so I had a wonderful week pretending to be Wendy Darling. I guess we never got round to getting rid of it after she went home.”
“I’d have thought Lonny would make a more convincing Wendy. You’re more of a Tiger Lily.”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean. I mean I ended up going to bed looking like something from a Victorian period drama.
“And now you get to do the same, except you're going to be like my sister and love it, aren't you?”
I grinned and pulled my dress off. It still felt weird undressing in front of my cousin even though I'd been doing it most of the day, or maybe because of it. Probably the weirdest bit was how natural it felt.
The nightdress fell almost all the way to my ankles and the material was a little thick for the sort of summer we were having, but I couldn't think of anything I'd have rather worn. Chaney’s idea of sleep wear consisted of boxers and a camisole, which was far more sensible.
We went through the whole pre-bed ritual, which formerly had consisted of using the loo and brushing my teeth, but now apparently included the liberal application of a selection of different goops. Even with the added extras, we were in bed and chatting about the following day when Miranda stuck her head in.
She smiled at me. “Not too hot?”
I shook my head and grinned back.
“I just talked to your mum and dad, just to let them know you were okay. After yesterday I wasn't sure if you'd want to.”
“I wouldn't have minded having a few words with Mum, but Dad would just have found a way to ruin it.”
She sighed. “I know what you mean. Still, you can call home tomorrow while your dad's at work.”
“Thanks. That’d be great.”
“Okay. Lights out, or do you girls still want to chat for a while?”
“You can turn the lights out Mum,” Chaney said. “We can talk just as easily in the dark.”
“Fine, but not for too long. I want you both up and about before I leave for work tomorrow.”
“Mum, it's the holidays!”
“Yes Chaney, it is, and I don't want you wasting them by spending half the day in bed.”
We didn't chat for much longer. It turned out Aunt Miranda usually headed into the office about seven thirty which meant our only chance of surviving the early morning wake up would be to get the balance of our beauty sleep at this end of the night. There was still a hint of light outside when we finally settled down.
The dream started with me in the flamenco dress. I hadn't yet worn it for real, but my imagination had a fair idea what it would feel like and what the castanets looked and sounded like, even though Chaney had yet to dig them out from wherever she'd hidden them.
In the dream I danced the flamenco, whisking my skirts from one side to the other, lifting them to reveal my nylon clad legs and my feet perched on a pair of high heels I had no idea how to wear. Chaney appeared dressed a lot like a matador with a long-stemmed rose in her mouth.
Then we were both running through a field together, both wearing her bridesmaid’s dress, except mine was pink and hers a powder blue. The sun was shining down on us and I could just about make out the individual blades of grass through the thin soles of my flats.
Chaney stopped running and pulled me into a spin. We were both laughing with the sky reeling above us. Somewhere along the way, Chaney’s dress transformed into her father's suit and we were falling. I landed on my back with Chaney smiling her amazing multi-megawatt smile down at me.
I awoke with a start. My underwear and the front of my nightdress were wet and sticky and I felt as breathless as I'd been in the dream.
I climbed out of bed trying to hold the stickiness away from me and anything else. It smelled sort of sickly and left me with an odd sense of offness.
I made it to the bathroom and stripped off my nightclothes, dropping them in the sink and filling it with water. Once I was naked it became obvious where the stickiness had come from because it was all over my stomach and upper legs too. I turned on the shower and hosed myself down before going back to the nightdress and skippies. The stuff was stubborn but I finally managed to get my things clean, only now they were dripping wet and I didn't have anything to wear.
A light tap sounded on the door. “Are you alright, sweetie?” Aunt Miranda called quietly through to me.
“Yes?” I wasn’t but I didn't want her finding out.
“What are you doing up at this time Mi... chelle?” She’d started pronouncing my name as Michael, but shifted part way through. “It's half past two.”
“I, er, I had a bit of an accident.”
“What kind of accident, sweetheart?”
“I don't really want to say.”
My aunt's presence disappeared from the other side of the door. I perched on the side of the bath and tried to figure out my next move.
“Open the door, sweetie.” She was back.
“I...”
“It’s okay, love. I know what's happened. I just want to give you something else to wear.”
I cracked the door and she passed through a shorter and lighter nightdress along with a light satin dressing gown.
“They're Lonny’s. She won't mind. I'll be downstairs when you're ready. Bring what you were wearing if you’d be so kind.”
I dressed and headed downstairs with my wet nightwear in hand. A quick look in Chaney's room showed my bed had been stripped.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said, handing her the bundle and watching her add it to the washing machine.
“First time?”
“What do you mean?”
“You had a dream and it all felt wonderful until you woke up.”
My face felt so hot from blushing I’m convinced there must have been steam.
“What’s happening to me? Am I turning into a girl?”
“What do you mean, sweetie?” She was stirring a pan of milk heating gently on the stove. She looked over at me and paused.
“That stuff came out of me. Is it the bit that makes me male leaving because I want to be a girl?”
“Oh sweetheart, wouldn’t that be something? No, it’s not. If anything it’s the opposite.”
“What do you mean?” I felt a cold trickle spreading through me.”
“Are you telling me you’ve never heard of a wet dream?”
“Yeeeaahnnoooo.” I kind of managed in a long drawn out attempt at incomprehensibility. I had heard the term, at school and stuff, but I’d never been able to make out quite what it was. “What does it mean?”
“It means you came to us at just the right time and I have a bunch of phone calls to make tomorrow. Is that really what you want, sweetheart, to be a girl?”
“Well, I mean, it's only been today so I don’t know for sure, but yes, I think so. It feels like I've spent my whole life squeezing myself into a shape that doesn't fit, but yesterday with Chaney’s dress and today with... well, with everything, it's just felt... right.”
“And what about when you go back home? Are you going to go back to being Michael?’
“No way. Not going to happen.”
“What about your dad?”
“He's just going to have to deal with it, the same way he's made me deal with his shit.”
My aunt handed me a mug of hot chocolate. “You're going to have to sleep in the guest room tonight after all, sweetie. Go on up. I'll follow you in a while.”
“What if it happens again? You know the er....”
“It shouldn't, but if it does, come and wake me and we'll deal with it together. For now, get back to bed and I'll see you when we all get up.”
|
Seven Dresses - The Fourth Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Following Michael's embarrassing dream, Aunt Miranda has ideas on a few things that need to be done. The first involves a visit to a doctor and third a meeting with Michael's mum, for which (secondly) he rather urgently needs something special to wear. For those of you who opened they third chapter early, please go back to it. I moved some text from the beginning of this chapter to the end of the last, so you may miss some relevant information if you just read on from here. |
“Morning sleepyhead.” Chaney’s melodic voice preceded her through the door. “Mum says you couldn’t sleep with my snoring.”
“No it...” Her smile, toned down to kilowatts, told me she was kidding. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” I finished with a rueful grin.
“It’s fine.” She had two mugs of tea in her hands, one of which she gave to me before plonking herself on the bed and nearly causing me to spill it. “Oops, sorry. I just wanted to check you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just, like I say, embarrassed is all.”
“Well, Mum says to come down when you’re ready, and you may like to check under the pillow before you do.”
“What time is it?” It was always hard to tell in summer. The sun came up at some ridiculous time like four or five o’clock, then it was down to the quality of the light. I’d never got the knack, but it felt later than it should have been.
“It’s half past eight.”
“But, weren’t we supposed to be up before this? I thought your mum left for the office around seven thirty.”
“We were, she does, but after last night she’s decided to take some of the day off. Like I said, Mum says come down when you’re ready and don’t...”
“Forget to check under my pillow. What’s that about?”
She made a doh face. “You could try checking under your pillow.”
I lifted it out the way to reveal a small plastic rectangle and a folded slip of paper.
“Dearest Michelle,” I read out loud. “It gets busy in tooth fairy land and sometimes we have to delegate our responsibilities. It’s just been brought to my attention that one of your pickups was passed on to a grouchy old ogre who didn’t complete his mission as instructed. You can rest assured that he won’t be asked to collect teeth for us ever again. In the meantime, I hope this makes up for your unfortunate experience. Yours in kindness, Tooth Fairy Customer Relations.”
Chaney held up a piece of plastic of her own and turned up the wattage on her smile. Either I was developing an immunity or I was learning not to interpret friendship as anything else. Whatever the reason, Little Id didn’t respond. Of course he could still have been tired out after his part in the dream, but I didn’t want to think about that.
“What are they?” I asked picking mine up. I mean I knew what they looked like, but...
“They’re prepaid credit cards. Mum’s firm uses them to pay out bonuses and incentives. She tends to save them up for summer. Whatever Lonny and I don’t get through buying clothes and stuff, we spend on holiday. They have the prepaid amount printed on them here. See? Mum’s given me two hundred quid to spend.”
I looked at mine and blinked. It had an extra digit.
“Yes, Peter, I do understand that it’s inconvenient, but this is a matter of priorities, and you know that when it comes to priorities my family always comes first... Look, Linda can handle the deposition this morning. I’ll be in by eleven, no make that half past, and we can sort out the rest of what needs to be done from there... No, I know it means we’re going to have to put that back a day, but we have the time... No, I can hear you’re not happy Peter, and I'm Sorry about that. I’ll see you in a while and you can take as much time as you like telling me how unhappy you are. Goodbye, Peter.”
She stabbed at the phone and checked it was off before muttering a few unsavoury words. I peeked tentatively into the kitchen, empty mug in hand.
“Morning Michelle. How did you sleep?”
“Fine thank you. I mean, after...”
“That’s what I meant, love. Breakfast? We have orange juice, more tea if you want, your uncle makes a mean muesli which I cannot recommend highly enough. We have fruit and yogurt to go with it, or we have a five seed spelt loaf I can toast for you.”
“Muesli sounds great thanks, and some OJ. I, er, there has to be some mistake.” I offered up the prepaid card.
“What, a thousand pounds not enough for you?”
“No, I mean I don’t know how much Mum spends on my clothes but it can’t be this much.”
“Except we’re going to have to get you kitted out from the bottom up, or from the inside out. Those dresses your cousin’s donated are a start, but you’ll need a lot more than that. Speaking of which, Chaney’s cleared out the right side of her closet and we agreed you could have first pick on those things.”
“Dad’ll never agree to this.”
“He already did, don’t you remember? I buy you what I think you need and, as long as Chaney’s virtue remains intact, he pays double what we spend and apologises to you.”
“But he never agreed to buying me girl clothes.”
“He never stipulated that they shouldn’t be. My discretion what’s appropriate.”
“He’ll go ballistic. All the more so when he finds out how much.”
“I know. Unexpected bonus, don’t you think? Now come on, eat up. I have you booked in to see a doctor at half nine, so we need to be up and dressed and out of here in half an hour.”
“A doctor? Is something wrong with me?”
“No sweetie, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to prevent that from happening. It’s nothing to worry about, you’ll see. Now eat up and get a move on.”
We made it out of the house five minutes late which is pretty good going for me but apparently unheard of for Miranda’s girls, so we arrived at the rather posh doctor’s surgery with ten minutes to spare.
“This isn’t the NHS,” I observed from the absence of any NHS logos anywhere.
“No dear. You don’t think I could arrange an appointment so quickly through the NHS, do you?”
“Dad says private’s way too expensive. He won’t pay for this.”
“Luckily, he doesn’t have to. Your Uncle Richard agrees. This is something we’re going to do for you.”
“But...”
“The proper response is, ‘thank you Aunt Miranda.’ Now get out of the car before we are late.”
I managed to mumble my thanks and climbed out of the car, careful to keep everything covered. I’d had a quick look through Chaney’s discards and, on a whim, had grabbed a gipsy top and denim skirt, which had turned out to be a little shorter than I’d anticipated. Lonny’s sandals were getting another outing along with a shoulder bag Chaney had thrust at me, which currently held my phone and wallet, complete with the prepaid credit card. Chaney had decided to meet us in town after the doctor’s appointment, so it was just my aunt and me.
We’d barely sat down when a nurse called us through to meet a kindly middle aged gentleman, lean but jowly with one of those bald patches that left a horse shoe crescent of hair over the ears. Fortunately, he wasn’t vain enough to try a comb over. I’ve never been able to take people who do that seriously.
“So, Michelle,” he said leaning forward in a friendly, avuncular manner, “or Michael as I understand your parents refer to you.”
I looked nervously across at my aunt who smiled reassuringly.
“Doctor Prendergast is a specialist in gender issues Michelle. I spoke to him about your situation this morning. I apologise if you see that as a breach of trust, but the doctor needed a little information before he would agree to today’s appointment.”
“And now I need a little more information from you, young lady. Would I be correct in assuming you prefer to be referred to as such?”
“Er, yes. I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Yes. This is all very new to me.”
“I understand it started two days ago.”
“Yes. Well, er, no, not really.” I glanced at Aunt Miranda again.
“Perhaps we should continue this conversation in private. just you and me, eh? Your aunt can wait in the er, the waiting room.”
“No! I mean, no. My aunt can stay if she wants. I mean, I’d like her to stay.”
“It’s all right Shelley.” My aunt stood up. “I could do with making a few phone calls in any case.”
“So, perhaps you’d like to start at the beginning. I know you may find this a little embarrassing, but the more you can tell me and the more honest you are, the better able I will be to help you. And it is entirely confidential. As your doctor, I will not share any details of what you say to me with anyone, including your aunt, without you first giving me permission.”
“Even though she’s paying?”
“Even though she’s paying.
“So, when you’re ready.”
It took the best part of an hour. I covered pretty much everything from my parents’ reaction, especially my dad’s, when I was really young, to all the little things that had been a part of my life since the tooth fairy incident, to the events of the previous few days.
“I understand something happened last night,” he said when I thought I’d finished.
“What do you mean?” I asked, though I could feel the blush rising up my neck.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Very much a part of the trials of teenage boyhood. Something all boys go through, including myself a great many years ago. What I’m interested in is the subject matter of the dream. I see it embarrassed you a great deal, so if you feel you cannot tell me...”
“No, it’s alright.”
And so, with my ears burning, I told him all the details I could remember.
“You have feelings for your cousin?”
“Well, she has a really nice smile.”
“But how does she make you feel?”
“Confused a lot of the time. I mean we’ve been friends for more years than I can remember. She always used to joke that I was more girly than she was.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Kind of warm inside. Like she saw something in me that nobody else did. I mean, you know.” I lifted myself off the seat briefly to smooth my skirt under me. I’d been holding my legs together for the best part of an hour and parts of me were past feeling uncomfortable.
“Did your cousin ever suggest that you should put on any of her clothes?”
“No. I mean, the way she usually dresses I wouldn’t have looked much different anyway.”
“Your other cousin perhaps? Lonny I believe?”
“Lonny’s quite a lot older. She looked after us sometimes, but she was always more like a grown up than a kid.”
“So, no-one influenced you to do this?”
“I don’t know what you would call influenced. I mean, Chaney suggested I might like to try her bridesmaid’s dress on, but that was only in fun and only because I was making more of a fuss about it than she was. The next morning Aunt Miranda suggested I might be more comfortable in Chaney’s summer dress than my suit.”
“She said this to you?”
“Not exactly. Chaney told me her mum had suggested it and neither Uncle Richard nor Aunt Miranda seemed at all surprised when I decided to try it.
“My aunt has made it very clear all along that this was something I could choose to do if I wanted, and I really do want to “
“No second thoughts?”
“I’m terrified of being found out. My aunt says it’s something that’s going to happen sooner or later.”
“Yet despite the terror and your aunt's warning, you still choose to present yourself in this manner?”
“It's hard to explain. I feel... I suppose I feel right like this.”
“How do you feel about boys?”
“They scare me.”
He gave off a brief choked laugh. “I am dreadfully sorry. I haven’t heard that response before. Perhaps you would elaborate? Explain further?”
“I know what elaborate means,” I said a little testily, though I'm not sure how much of it was because of the laugh. “I suppose I'm scared of what they might do if they found out I was actually a boy under all this.”
“You are not so worried about what girls might do if they made the same discovery?”
“I don't think so.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s easier to imagine guys being unpleasant.”
“Because this has been largely your experience. Your father bullies you and your aunt and cousin are supportive.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Can you think of a time that a girl has been unkind to you?”
“There are a couple at school who pick on me, and I’ve been turned down by pretty much everyone I asked out.”
“How many would that be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe two?”
“Were they girls you were attracted to?”
“Not so much, but all the other guys were pairing up. I figured it was something boys did.”
“So why did you stop after just two?”
“It hurt too much. Being rejected, you know?”
He offered a sympathetic smile. “And apart from your father, how do you get on with other...” he shrugged, “males?”
“Well my Uncle Richard is pretty cool.”
“Friends at school?”
“A lot of a-holes. I get picked on quite a bit.”
“Because?”
“I’m kind of little, though my mum says it’s because I’m smarter than them.”
“Another supportive female influence in your life. Might it be possible that your desire to be a girl stems from your having a positive view of women and a negative one of men?”
I wanted to deny it straight away, but something stopped me. I tugged at my lower lip for a while and gave it some serious thought.
“I don’t think so,” I said at last. “I mean, you’re probably right, it helps, but this was inside me before I had any idea what my parents thought about it. I asked to be a girl before I knew how my dad would react. I’ve kind of felt like I’ve been sneaking peaks at the life I should have had since then, and burying myself in being a boy.
“You know that practical joke thing, snake-in-a-can?”
The doctor shook his head.
“It looks like a tube of Pringles, only when you pop the lid off, this sort of spring-loaded snake thing jumps out of it. When I look back at all of my life before yesterday, that’s what it's felt like. Like I’ve been jammed into this space that felt all cramped and awkward, and now the lid’s been taken off, I don’t see how I can go back to the way things were.”
“Alright, thank you Michelle. I think we have spoken enough for one session. It’s time to invite your aunt to join us again if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t, so, following the inevitable short delay while Miranda finished the call she was on, we reconvened.
“Well, once again Miranda, your instincts are right on the money. It seems very likely you have a niece rather than a nephew. Now, if you’d be good enough to let me have Michael's parents’ phone number, I’ll be glad to explain my findings to them as well as their options for the future.”
“What? That’s not how this was... Can’t you just give me a prescription for him?”
“Not without parental consent, Miranda, which you know full well, being a lawyer and all that.”
“This is serious, Philip! You know what last night means.”
“Of course I do Miranda. Unlike you apparently, I don't forget my professional standards when the situation becomes inconvenient.”
“I am his aunt, and his godmother. Surely that counts for something.”
“Miranda...”
“Couldn't you just jot down the name of a drug and an appropriate dose and leave it somewhere I could see it?”
“Miranda stop! You know how much trouble that would put you in.”
“Yes, but this is a crucial time.”
“I agree, and you did the right thing coming to see me as soon as you did, but a day or two more at this stage isn't going to make any difference. We need to talk to Michael's parents.”
“You heard for yourself what his father's like.”
“I did, but you know as well as I do where the law stands on this. Michael's parents have legal responsibility for him so these are their decisions to make.”
“They're obliged to act in Michaels best interests though, which is precisely what I'm trying to do. If my brother decides to be awkward about it he could end up tying this thing up in the courts for months, and...” She petered out.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. I'd been watching the exchange bounce back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, but I hadn’t understood a lot of it.”
“That dream of yours last night,” my aunt said. “It’s an indication that you’re starting puberty.”
I looked blank. Sex ed was never a lesson where I paid much attention, possibly because I preferred to live in denial on that particular matter.
“Puberty is when your body starts to mature sexually,” the doctor took over the explanation. “In your case, it will be producing a lot of testosterone which will result in your body changing and taking on a more adult masculine appearance. There are drugs that can prevent, or potentially delay, these changes...”
“I want them,” I said.
“I’m sure you do, but that’s the issue. I cannot prescribe them without your parents’ consent. Your aunt doesn’t have the legal standing to do this on your behalf.”
“Dad’ll never agree,” I said, suddenly very worried.
“Which is why we’ll be starting off with your mother.” Aunt Miranda stood. “Philip, thank you again, both for fitting Michael in so quickly and for keeping me from doing something inordinately stupid.”
Dr Prendergast stood and held out his hand. “Miranda, your passion is what makes you so good at what you do. If you need reigning in a little from time to time, I'm always happy to oblige.
“Michelle, I wish you luck, although with an advocate like your aunt here, I doubt you'll need much.”
Miranda strode out of the surgery with a purpose, leaving me to trot along in her wake, pulling at the hem of my too short skirt.
“Where are we going?” I asked from somewhere behind her.
“Don’t tug at it, dear. You’ll have people wondering. We’re going shopping.”
“Okay. I thought I was supposed to be doing that with Chaney.”
“You are, but there’s one thing we need to get you before I go into work.”
“What’s that?” I climbed into the car and buckled up.
“You’ll see. “ She glanced across and down. “This might be an appropriate time to sort out your hemline though.”
We were close enough to home that we could have picked Chaney up, except she’d decided to go in early to get a head start, whatever that meant. Miranda texted her to set up a rendezvous then drove us fifteen minutes or so to park in the high-street near to a deceptively small shop.
Glad Rags it said over the door and the variety and quality of the dresses on display was breath-taking, especially so given the limited space.
A bell jangled cheerfully as we stepped inside. My aunt bore down on the tiny shop girl standing behind the counter so forcefully, I could see her eyes widening in terror.
“My niece needs to look magnificent tonight. What do you have?” Miranda barked out, causing her quarry to glance about her, looking for somewhere to escape. Fortunately for her, the curtain at the back of the shop twitched aside and a slim woman of about the same age as my aunt stepped through.
“Miranda, what an unexpected surprise. How long has it been?”
“Too long, Christine, and that’s entirely my fault.”
“Well, I’ll thank you not to scare my staff. Good help is so hard to find these days and I’d really like to keep this one.” She smiled at the diminutive shop assistant, giving her leave to escape the encounter.
“You must be doing well for yourself if you can afford to take on shop girls.”
“Yes. I have a partner now and a regular section in the Miller and Stone catalogue.”
“Oh Christine! Not you too! I would have thought you at least would have had the integrity not to be enticed by the corporate world.”
“You just want the snob value of being able to parade about in a bespoke piece of haute couture, and don’t you dare talk to me about being a corporate sell-out, you Jezebel.”
Miranda laughed out loud, joined by her evident long time friend. “I’ve missed you, Christine. So tell me about this new partner of yours.”
“You’ll never guess, not in a million years.” She pulled the curtain aside. “Alison, would you come out here a moment please.”
Miranda’s expression turned to shock then delight as a slender and very pretty girl stepped through, smiling like the sun.
“Alison Turner, as I live and breathe, and in a dress too, no less. One of yours, Christine, unless I miss my guess?”
“Actually, one of her own.”
“No!”
Alison nodded and ducked her head to hide the blush forming there.
“Well, you’re just the person I need.” My aunt stepped to one side revealing me standing self-consciously behind her skirts. “This is my niece, Michelle. She has something very important happening tonight, and she needs to look her absolute best. Do you have any suggestions?”
Alison gave me a critical once over then held out a hand. Still a little nonplussed, I took it and allowed myself to be led into a changing room.
“I have an idea,” she said, “but I imagine you’d like to try a few things on first?”
I nodded.
“Anything in particular?”
I pointed out a few dresses I’d spotted during my aunt’s rather loud exchange with the shop-owner.
“You have a good eye,” Alison said. “Just promise you won’t make your mind up till I’ve shown you what I have in mind.”
I nodded again. Somehow, I’d completely lost the capacity for speech.
The next half hour had me trying on one dress after another. I loved them all until I caught sight of the three-figure price tag. I was staring at the ticket on one when Alison swept through the curtain so swiftly it was almost magic. I turned away from her, but not, I think, before she caught sight of the bulge in my underwear.
Her expression softened to something between sad and sympathetic, but she didn’t say anything. Not about what she might have seen anyway.
“This is what I had in mind,” she said, offering me something with way too little fabric. “It’s stitched onto a leotard so you don’t have to worry about exposing anything embarrassing. There’s a pair of tights goes with it, though in this weather you may prefer to go without. Why don’t you give it a try?”
She did a sort of reverse swirl and was gone.
I climbed into it and felt it settle about me, feeling it almost become a part of me. The leotard hugged me like a friend, the ragged skirt, despite only falling to my thighs, belled out around my hips giving me a far more feminine figure. With the back zipped up, a sheer layer stretched gently over my shoulders and arms and discrete pieces of padding in the bodice hinted at budding breasts I didn’t have.
I tried lifting the skirt to see what showed underneath, but it comprised such a tangle of material that it was impossible to see any details of what lay there.
It offset my pixie cut perfectly just as the deep blackberry colour matched my complexion.
Eyes shining, and with my own piece of the sun radiating from my smile, I stepped out of the changing room and gave a delighted twirl.
“It’s a little bit Tinkerbell, don’t you think?” Miranda asked, breaking the silence.
“I could do something about that if you like,” Alison said, but she was grinning. She looked at me and raised her arms.
I copied her gesture to find the sheer material that made up the sleeves connected to the sides of the dress, forming something very like wings.
“I love it,” I said.
“I can’t deny you look adorable,” Miranda said, “ but it’s still more of a Halloween costume than an every day dress. I mean, would you walk out of here wearing it, Shelley?”
There was enough of a little girl still in me that I really wanted to, but she was right. It felt like a light going out.
“Give me a moment,” Alison said and ducked back behind the counter and into the workroom. When she returned, she held a strip of heavier material in a slightly lighter shade. Precisely what she did with it I couldn't tell you, but less than a minute later she had it pinned to the dress in a way that covered the short, ragged skirt with a far more elegant one that fell in loose pleats to just above my knees. The shape of it still conveyed the impression of broader hips and a narrower waist.
“It’ll take me no time to make this up into a wrap skirt,” Alison said. “You'd be able to wear either as separate pieces or both together as you wanted.”
“Well, I won't deny you look irresistible in it. I'm not sure it'll look as good once you've grown your hair a little though.”
“Why don't we find out,” Mrs Turner said. She picked up a wig from a nearby display and settled it onto my head.
I loved the feel of long hair cascading down my back, and just like that my smile was back.
We left the shop twenty minutes later with the promise that the alterations and embellishments would be finished by the end of the afternoon. My prepaid credit card had taken a significant hit, despite Alison giving me a generous discount – much to her mother's disgust. It still had a lot of spending left in it though.
Miranda left me in Chaney's capable and highly excited hands and I spent the next few hours in a whirlwind tour of just about every shop in the high-street. Every shop, that is, that had just about anything to do with clothing.
By the time we were due to meet up with Chaney's mother back at Glad Rags, I'd just about worn out the shoes I was wearing, or at least that's what it felt like. The two of us staggered down the high street buried under so many bags and boxes, I had serious misgivings about where we were going to put them all.
Miranda’s SUV was up to the challenge though. We packed out the luggage space in the back, and left the car creaking under its burden.
The final fitting took a lot longer than i expected. So many last nips and tucks and minor alterations. Apparently, all part of the service, but I desperately wanted to sit down. It was worth it though. In addition to the skirt, Alison had also found time to put together a short cape that added an element of elegance to the whole thing.
“I'm almost envious, cuz,” Chaney said as we both climbed into the back of the car.
“Almost?”
“I could just about be persuaded to wear a dress if it came from that place.”
“I'll bear that in mind next time we have a wedding to go to,” her mum said as we pulled out into the heavy end of day traffic. “Chaney, you and your dad will be fending for yourselves this evening. Michelle and I have somewhere to go.”
“What happened to decadent dinner?”
“It'll have to wait till tomorrow. This is something that can't.”
“Where are we going?” I wanted to know.
“Quite a long way,” came the cryptic response. “We’ll grab a snack at home first, and you may want to bring your phone charger with you.”
Wherever Aunt Miranda was taking me, it was a long way. Certainly long enough for me to get bored of the games on my phone, and since I didn't really have any friends to text, I dropped my technobrick into my handbag – one of the day’s many new purchases. The handbag, I mean – and looked out the window at the countryside sailing past. I didn't mind that I had nothing to do. Just wearing the dress was experience enough to keep me stimulated.
I'd opted to wear the tights despite the warm weather and I loved how they felt. Also, Alison had found the time to line both the skirt and the cape which meant they were deliciously cool against my skin. I found myself wondering why guys would willingly forgo the pleasures of wearing such clothes.
My aunt glanced across at me and offered me a penny for my thoughts. I told her and she laughed.
“I've come to the conclusion that men are their own worst enemies,” she said. “They don't communicate a lot of the time, which means it's nigh on impossible to figure out what they're thinking, for us as much as for them, then they worry so much about what the guys around them are thinking that they're afraid of trying anything new. So afraid that, when one of them does have the guts to experiment, they can’t even acknowledge the good ideas.”
“Is Uncle Richard like that?”
“He's better than most. In a way, I think one of the more important things a guy gets out of a relationship with a woman is someone to confide in, someone to trust. It doesn't mean he tells me everything, not by a long shot, but he will be honest if I notice something bothering him and ask about it.”
“Dad's not like that.”
“Don't I know it! Men like him are probably the biggest part of the problem. He's opinionated and vocal – in love with the sound of his own voice, as our mum used to tell me. There are enough guys around who’re grateful to have someone like in their circle of friends because it means they don’t have to make up their own minds what they should be thinking, only what they're hearing is the biggest load of bull-crap out there. Anybody bright enough to spot that just avoids him, so he never has an opportunity to learn just how much of a tool he's being.”
“Except when you're around.”
She snorted. “He is my brother. Someone has to look out for him, and those he's likely to hurt.” She rested a hand briefly on my arm. “Nearly there.” She nodded at a small village in the valley ahead.
“What are we doing here?”
“We’re meeting someone I hope will be able to help. Do you trust me?”
“I’ve come out into the middle of nowhere with you wearing a dress. Do you really need to ask?”
“Fair point. Just remember that in a few minutes, won't you?”
Way to make me feel uneasy, Aunt Miranda.
“We’re a little early,” she said as we pulled up into a pub car park. “You go find a table in the garden while I grab us a couple of drinks. What would you like?”
“Erm, orange juice and lemonade please.”
The garden was about half full, and quite a few heads turned my way as I chose a table with an umbrella and sat facing the pub. I only managed to control my nerves by telling myself it was the dress they were looking at and not me.
There was no cure for them a few minutes later when a familiar face appeared at the garden entrance walking alongside my aunt.
I stood as they approached, noting the confused and worried look on the newcomer’s face.
“Hello Mum,” I said, just about keeping the quaver out of my voice.
“Michael?”
“I, er, prefer Michelle just now, if you don't mind.”
“Your father is not going to like this.”
I gulped and took a breath. “He’s going to have to get used to it, Mum. Is he, er, is he here?”
“No, thank God. Monday night’s his darts night.”
Of course it was. I breathed a sigh of relief. I certainly wasn’t in a state of mind to face him at that moment.
“What's this all about, Miranda?” It occurred to me that my mother had never addressed that question to me if there had been someone else to talk to about it. It left me with something of a sinking feeling.
“Let's order,” my aunt said. “I don't know about anyone else, but I'm famished.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted anything. I mean, I’d been ravenous before I'd set eyes on my mum, but the feelings curdling in my stomach didn't leave much room for appetite.
“What do you fancy, Shell?” Miranda asked.
“I don't know. I’m not that hungry.”
“Nonsense. You have to be starving after today. I seem to remember you like scampi.”
“Sure. That sounds good, thank you.”
“Comes with peas and chips.” I nodded. “How about you, Jane?”
“I couldn't possibly...”
“Chicken salad then. I'll go and order. Just be a moment.”
It was a long moment and an awkward one. I stared at the table in front of me, feeling Mum's eyes boring into the top of my skull. Suddenly, I wasn’t upset anymore. I was angry. I looked up into her eyes ready for an argument. I wasn’t ready for the tears though.
“Mum?”
“You look very pretty, darling.” Her voice was on the edge of breaking.
I stood up and moved round to her side of the table, sat next to her and leaned gently against her. I could feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes.
“Is this really what you want?” she asked.
“It’s... I don't know, Mum. It feels like something I need.”
“You probably won't remember, but when you were four or five you asked if you could wear a dress.”
Of course I bloody well remembered.
“There have been times I wondered if it ever really went away. The way you'd look sideways at certain shop windows, the way you looked at girls, the way you always wanted to play with them...
“Your father really is not going to be happy.”
I didn’t know what to say so I simply leaned into her.
She sniffed and straightened a little. I backed off and looked at her face, at the ruin her tears had made of her makeup.
“I think maybe we should pay a visit to the ladies, Mum “
“You go into the ladies?”
“Where else should I go, Mum? I mean, I think I'm more likely to cause a scene if I go to the little boy’s room.”
“But there will be women there.”
“Yes, and if the doctor I met this morning knows what he’s talking about, I’m one of them.”
“What?”
“Well, a girl in any case, now we really should get you somewhere where you can fix your face.”
“What?” She scrabbled in her bag for a moment and pulled out a compact. “Oh my gosh!” She stood up. “Stay there,” she said and hurried off towards the pub entrance, passing Aunt Miranda on the way out.
“That’s a shame,” my aunt said, retaking her seat. “We come all this way, the least I was hoping for was a good argument. What did you say to her?”
“Nothing... Much. I mean, she said most of it herself. I just kind of suggested we go sort her out in the ladies. She didn’t particularly like that idea so I may have sort of, you know, mentioned what the doctor said this morning.”
“Just what did you tell her?”
“You know, that I'm really a girl?”
“Oh. That's not too bad.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we need your mother on our side, so we’ll be better off not springing any surprises on her.”
“Like what?”
“Like telling her that I took you for a consultation over a non-life-threatening condition that she has no idea exists.”
“She has an idea.”
“Does she?”
“She was telling me about all the little things I’ve done that gave me away. I mean, not so she actually knew what was happening, but she’s had her suspicions.”
“Alright. The thing is you said you trusted me, Shelley. I need you to trust me now and let me do the talking.”
“Alright.”
I sipped at my orange juice and lemonade and waited, then, after my mother returned, sat in silence while my aunt very cautiously addressed the elephant in the room, or garden or whatever.
She gave an accurate account of what had happened over the previous couple of days with me nodding a confirmation every now and again.
Food arrived part way through and I was hungry enough to dig into mine while my mum and my aunt carried on talking over theirs.
I ate daintily, of course. For one, I didn’t want to risk spilling anything on my dress, for another, it just felt right to do so. I caught Mum watching me out of the corner of her eye, which made me realise just how obvious I must have been for all those years.
I was done and sitting patiently with my hands folded in my lap when Miranda reached the end of her presentation.
“And you're sure this is really what you want, dear?” Mum asked me.
I glanced at my aunt who nodded.
“It’s hard to be sure right now, Mum. I mean I've felt like I've been squashed out of shape all my life, or at least since that time when I asked about wearing a dress. Then this weekend I had an opportunity to get away from all that and, even though it's only been two days, I can't see myself going back.”
“Even once your dad finds out? Because he will.”
“I'm not looking forward to that, it's true, but I'm done doing what he says just because he thinks it's right. This is my life, and this feels entirely right for me.”
“At the moment, dear, but what about when the novelty wears off?”
I shrugged. “I really don't know. Maybe I will want to go back to the way I was. It definitely doesn't feel like it right now, but a lot of things can change.”
“The thing is, Jane,” Miranda chipped in, “one of the things that is going to change very soon is Michael’s body. He's showing signs of puberty beginning, which means that quite possibly in the next few weeks his body will start to take on more male characteristics. He'll begin to look more like a man.”
“Well there you are then. Problem solved.”
“No Mum, very definitely not problem solved. It's not going to change the way I feel inside. I'll still feel like a girl, but I won't look like one anymore. You think I've been miserable before now, just wait till that happens.”
“The doctor who saw him this morning agrees. He's prepared to prescribe a course of blockers which will hold off the effects of puberty. If Michael changes his mind over this, all he has to do is stop taking the pills and his masculine body will develop as nature directs, just a little late. If Michelle doesn't change her mind it'll mean that she'll be in a far better position to choose a course of treatment that will help her become the woman she is inside. We’re just looking for a stay of execution here, just until we know what's right.”
“That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?”
“Mum. Imagine you’re a girl of my age again. You've been told that unless you have a certain treatment, your body is going to change, make you tall, strong, hairy, and a lot less pretty unless you take a particular course of treatment, and after the change happens there's no going back. Would you want your parents to allow the treatment?”
“Well of course I would. No girl would want to end up looking like a man.”
“Neither does this one Mum. Mummy, please.”
“Derek would never agree.”
“Why do you think I asked to see you, Jane? It only needs the permission of one parent. It is even possible to force that permission if it's seen as being in the best interests of the child, but that would take time I'm very much afraid we don't have.”
“You're certain this is reversible?”
“Absolutely.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Thank you, Jane.” Miranda pulled some papers out of her very sizeable handbag and passed them over. “This one is a letter granting permission for Michael to take the blockers. They're the only drugs the doctor recommends at this stage. Read through it, ask any questions you like and, if you’re happy, sign and date it at the bottom.”
My mum may take a while to make up her mind, but once she has, it's all the way made up. She skimmed the document then made use of Miranda’s pen.
“This one is an optional extra,” Miranda passed a second document. “You don't need to sign this but it could make things easier in the future. It's your permission for me to act in loco parentis. If you're not happy, I can tear it up, but if you sign it I would be in a far stronger position to be able to act On Michael's behalf, and I wouldn't have to involve you first. It could afford us all some additional clout if Derek decides to be unreasonable.”
“I don't know. I don't like going behind his back like this.”
“What you're doing is acting in your son’s best interests, knowing that your husband's point of view in this matter is a little skewed. As I say, we don't need this, but it might help. I hope you know that my first priority is my nephew's well being, and I would do my best to include you in any decision making process.”
“You're right. If Derek does find out about this, he’ll do his best to reverse it all, which will include getting me to change my mind. Miranda, would you do whatever you need to make sure Michael's father can't take this away from him?”
“If you sign that, I'll guarantee it.”
“Alright then. Oh my, this feels so liberating.” She scribbled on the second sheet of paper.
“Thanks Mum.” I gave her a hug. Tears were involved again, but happier ones this time, and Mum had used a much lighter hand when repairing her face, so there was no panicky rush for the loos.
As it was, I did need to go, so I left the two of them chatting and eating while I wandered off to take care of things by myself.
|
Seven Dresses - The Fifth Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 With the issue of his prescription sorted, Michael - now very much more Shelley - falls into the more girly lifestyle she's always felt was missing from her life. She only has two weeks with her uncle and aunt though, and the prospect of going home becomes more daunting as the end of her stay draws to an end. |
Two weeks passed remarkably quickly. Miranda sorted out the prescription the next day and, much to my delight, I stopped having to worry about a certain part of my anatomy trying to sabotage me.
I did spend a day round at the neighbours house, somewhat to Chaney's disgust, but it turned out the Jean and I were very similar minded, and she had a wealth of information regarding being a teenage girl that I wasn’t likely to get from anywhere else.
Of course I was largely there to keep my cousin company, and we did spend most of our time together. According to her, putting on a dress hadn't changed me that much except that I smiled a lot more, and I'll admit I did feel very much more relaxed in my new form.
The blockers took the edge off so much. No more confusing thoughts and feelings, I felt free to be a girl around her. There were times when we'd snuggle up together, both of us feeling nothing more than the close friendship we'd always shared, and maybe fall asleep, then wake the next morning to find ourselves still snuggled together with a blanket or duvet thoughtfully laid over us by my aunt or uncle.
Chaney didn't snore, but she did have a tendency to dribble, which was mildly gross and great fun to tease her with.
I had several more sessions with Dr Prendergast and other members of his clinic, some of which involved me repeating much of what I’d said to different people, but there was also a lot of me being told what to expect if I chose to go this way.
They said much the same as Miranda, that I’d most likely be found out eventually. People from my generation seemed to be a lot more accepting of non-binary gender issues, so I’d most likely only have to face the prejudice of older generations along with the few die-hard dinosaurs in my own. They said there was always a possibility that some members of my family would never accept the new me.
They said I’d never be able to have children of my own, which didn’t bother me much, but they said that might change when I was older.
They said I’d have to take hormones regularly for the rest of my life and there might be health complications further along the way. They said I wouldn't be permitted to take cross-gender hormones until I was sixteen, which gave me three long years to decide if this was really right for me. Gender reassignment surgery wouldn’t be an option until I was eighteen and if the hormones didn’t give me the sort of breast development I wanted, the breast augmentation would be something I’d have to fund myself.
Most of it didn’t see to matter. Then and there I was happy just being a girl.
In the second week, Aunt Miranda suggested a social experiment. Since I'd successfully managed to stay under the radar during all of my first week, and since I wasn’t planning on staying there long term, she said it might be educational to let the people I'd befriended know exactly who they'd been spending time with.
I asked if we could delay it to closer too the end of the week, so I wouldn't have to endure any disaster for too long, and Miranda agreed to set it up for the Friday.
Lonny and her husband we're due back from honeymoon on the Saturday, when we'd all join them for a family meal out, then on Sunday, Richard and Miranda would drive me home.
As Friday loomed, I became progressively more withdrawn. Chaney tried to lift me out of it, but she understood, so didn't push it. Miranda on the other hand was less sympathetic.
“You’re supposed to be keeping Chaney company,” she said from her vantage leaning on the bedroom door.
“I don't feel like it,” I said from behind one of Lonny’s old girly magazines. I didn't much feel like reading either, but it gave me somewhere to hide.
Miranda snatched it out of my hands. “You're worried about the barbeque on Friday, I understand, and you’re worried about how your dad’ll react on Sunday, but those things haven't happened yet and you can't do much, either to predict what's going to happen or to improve the outcome, can you?”
I shook my head.
“So you're wasting effort worrying about something you can't change and you’re wasting precious time you could be spending with your cousin right now. That doesn't sound like the rational response I've come to expect from my favourite niece.”
I sighed and climbed off the bed. There aren't many things more annoying than losing an argument to logic.
It did mean that Chaney and I were able to enjoy our last couple of days together, and that I was somewhat better than useless when it came time to prepare for the barbeque.
Every girl had one, Chaney had told me, even her. The little black dress she'd persuaded me to buy was precisely that. I'd vetoed her first choice and settled on one with a fuller, loser skirt, but between the narrow straps and mid-thigh hemline, it still left a lot of me exposed to the elements. Perfect for keeping cool in what was proving to be yet another hottest summer on record, but still a little nerve racking to wear in public. It would have all the lads drooling and begging for a taste of something I didn't have to offer, so I'd have to be very much on guard.
Fortunately, through Jean I'd made friends with a lot of the local girls and they’d agreed to help keep the wolves at bay. Though I did wonder if they’d be as willing when we reached the end of the evening.
Richard was in his element, flipping burgers and sending out plate after plate of lightly smoked meaty goodness, along with enough meat substitute to keep his hippy reputation intact. I did try a veggie burger, which was okay but no substitute for genuine cow.
The evening wore on with my age group naturally separating into couples, single girls and single guys. The olds did their own, subtler and more complex social dance and we all had a great time, right up until the moment my aunt tapped a fork against her glass, the high-pitched ting sufficient to draw everyone's attention and drop the conversation to a murmur.
“As you know,” she said, “we've been fortunate enough to have a temporary addition to our household.” She looked my way and the crowd made a selection of appreciative noises.
“You may also know that Shelley is due to go home this weekend, on Sunday. This little soirée is an opportunity for her to say goodbye to all the friends she's made while she's been with us, but it's also an opportunity for her to say something else to you all.”
Miranda had allowed me the option on this last part. If I’d given her even so much as a shake of my head during the evening, she'd have limited her address to making this a farewell party. I'd been tempted, but my friends deserved honesty from me and, as my aunt has said, this was a good opportunity to give me a low threat glimpse of what my future might hold.
“Good evening everyone,” I said, glancing around nervously. This was going to be harder than I'd thought. “So, yeah. You all know me. I’m Lonny and Chaney’s cousin, and I've really enjoyed getting to know you all over these last two weeks. The thing is, I guess I haven't been completely honest with you. Not that I haven't wanted to be but, as I hope you'll give me a chance to explain, this has all been a little bit difficult and new to me too, and deciding what to say and when has been a bit of a challenge.
“You see, you all know me as Michelle, but my parents actually christened me Michael.”
A few gasps from the parents, a few louder and slightly more inappropriate responses from, in particular, the male contingent of the younger crowd. More than a few shocked faces all around.
“I knew it! I knew there was something off about that freak!”
The words came from Todd, the one local boy who’d made the biggest effort to climb into my panties. Obviously there had to be something wrong with me since I was the only girl who had thus far resisted his, for want of a better term, charms.
A word sprang to mind. As a derogatory term, it was a little unfair as it described an occasional pastime common to all teenage boys. It was also, to a small degree, ironic, being something currently denied me due to my drugs, however, it did give me some perspective on how it felt to insult someone using a part of their nature over which they had little or no control.
The loudest gasp among the adults had, unsurprisingly, come from Sandy. I could see her venting her outrage at my aunt, with her husband standing passively by. She gestured to her kids who reluctantly broke off from the group of teenagers to follow her home. Jean fell into step behind her mum, but she caught my eye and gave me the universal sign for 'call me’ before disappearing through the gate.
Everybody else stayed, waiting for more of an explanation, and it was too late to back out now. I carried on with the speech I’d spent most of the day planning.
I gave them a brief and somewhat expurgated version of my life up to that point, leaving out all less pleasant details of how my dad in particular had made life miserable. This was not dirty laundry day, after all. I told them what the specialists my aunt had taken me to had told me and about the effect the drugs I’d been given were having. I’m not sure if Sandy would have been mollified to know that I couldn’t have acted inappropriately with her daughter even if I’d wanted to, but it did make a point that I was prepared to make sacrifices for what I was doing. I apologise for not being honest with them from the start, but hoped they’d understand. It had all been very new to me when I’d first arrived and the opportunity to say something at the outset had come and gone. This I hoped would be enough to make up for it.
As predicted, most of my peer group were pretty cool about the whole thing, Todd and a couple of girls, whose names I’ve happily forgotten, being the only exceptions. Most of the adults were warily accepting, asking a few questions of their own but for the most part being a group of people with enough intelligence to override their natural prejudices.
The evening came to an end shortly afterwards. I hung around to say a few goodbyes then retreated to my shared bedroom and my phone.
“UOK?” I sent to Jean.
The phone rang a few seconds later.
“Mum had her rant,” Jean said. I could tell from the sniffles she’d been crying. “Wanted to know what we’d got up to all those times you were alone together and wouldn’t accept the truth. She told me to go to my room, so I guess I’m grounded.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Mum would still have blown her lid. I still can't believe you're not a girl. You're the best friend I ever had.”
“That's what I was trying to say though. I am a girl, just not physically, and I'm kind of hoping to fix that eventually.
“Look, I can understand if you're upset. I wanted to come clean right at the start, but couldn't think how to.”
“It's okay. I probably would have flipped out if you’d said something when we first met, but you've been a great friend since.”
“Hopefully still a friend?”
“Definitely, though I don't know how Mum’ll take it.”
“We’ll find a way to fix that.”
“Yeah. Well not right now, she’s in full righteous indignation mode at the mo, and will probably keep at it for a week or more.”
“I guess this is goodbye then, at least for now.”
“Let me see if I can sneak out tomorrow evening.”
“Can't tomorrow evening. We're going out with Lonny and her husband.”
“When you get back then. Even if it's late, text me.”
“Okay. I'll see you tomorrow then.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
“I hope you're not intending to wear that when we take you home.” Aunt Miranda stood in the doorway. I couldn’t say how long she’d been listening, but a quick mental review suggested I hadn’t said anything incriminating.
“It wouldn’t be right for a girl to wear the same thing two days running.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. We take you home on Sunday.”
“That’s true. Is there something wrong with this dress then?”
“Not at all. Would I be correct in assuming my daughter suggested it?”
“The one she had in mind was even more revealing. It had a tight skirt which always worries me a little.”
“I had noticed you like full skirts. They look good on you too. They give the impression of a narrower waist.”
“So why not this dress if there’s nothing wrong with it?”
“What would you like your father’s first impression of you in a dress to be? I mean, as teen-girl-wear goes, it’s fairly tame, but Richard and I have had quite a few years to get used to it. Chaney not so much, but some of Lonny’s skirts would have been indecent if she had a bout of hiccups.”
I giggled at the image. “What would you suggest? My Glad Rags dress?”
“No. That was special for your mum. I very much doubt your dad would appreciate it as much. Was there anything you bought last week that wasn’t Chaney’s idea?”
“Most of it. I mean, I get the whole less is more thing, but it’s not me. Most of the time she’d pull me into a shop and show me something and I’d go through the racks until I found something else I liked more.”
“Was there anything that was entirely your choice? You picked the shop, you picked the dress?”
“Well...” I led her through to the very full wardrobe in the spare room and pulled out a modest summer dress. Hem below the knee, boat collar that just about showed a hint of my clavicle and three-quarter length sleeves. Cotton of course, with a fussy little flower pattern on a cream background. I held it up in front of me.
“That looks just about perfect. Do you have a cardigan to go with it?”
I reached back into the wardrobe and pulled out a white, crocheted cardi. It shouldn’t have gone with the cream base of the dress, but somehow it did.
“You keep those out to wear on Sunday. Choose something else for tomorrow. Nothing too outrageous though.”
“Erm...”
“What?”
“Where am I going to put all this?”
“Don’t worry about that. The loft is full of old suitcases. I’m sure we can spare a couple in good enough condition.”
“What’s good enough?”
She gave me a mock severe look. “Your uncle would say, ‘When someone offers you a horse for free, don’t waste time checking out the condition of its teeth. Just say thank you, climb on its back and ride. Even if it collapses under you in a few miles, it's still worth a bob or two at the glue factory, plus you’re a few miles further down the road without having had to walk.’”
“Is that anything like, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“It's exactly like that, except your uncle tends to get carried away with his metaphors.”
“What was that bit about checking its teeth?”
“One of the ways you could tell the age of a horse was by looking at the condition of its teeth,” Uncle Richard said from just outside the door. “That is a very pretty dress, young lady. You have better taste than either of our daughters.” Then to his wife he added. “I'll just pop up into the loft and see if I can find a couple of cases, shall I?”
Saturday morning was largely about packing. All The new clothes I’d bought plus the hand me downs from my cousin filled a lot of space and most of it needed handling carefully so it didn't get crushed or creased. Some of the posher stuff like my suit from the wedding – now dry cleaned and pressed – went into garment bags. With that easing the load and more than a little help from my cousin, I managed to fit everything else into the two suitcases Uncle Richard had found for me. Apparently, ‘good enough' meant slightly scuffed. The zippers all worked and the wheels were all there, which was more than could be said for any luggage I had access to at home.
Afternoon involved a visit to my aunt's salon where my hair growth from the previous two weeks was sorted into a more believable pixie cut and my finger and toe nails were treated to a little subtle colour. Nothing to shout out, 'look at me, I'm a girl!’ but enough to leave no doubt once you noticed it. The varnish was hardened under ultra violet light which meant even nail polish remover wouldn't touch it.
The evening with Lonny and co was so much fun. She was thrilled to meet her new cousin and, despite the fairly significant age difference, we hit it off from the start. Her husband didn't quite know what to make of me, so Richard kept him distracted while the rest of us girls talked.
Afterwards, when we arrived back at the house, I asked Miranda if it would be okay to go for a quick walk. She agreed but suggested I keep it short since, even in a good neighbourhood like theirs, it wasn’t a great idea to be out alone after dark. I assured her I wouldn't be long and headed for Jean’s house, fishing my phone from my purse as I did so.
Jean’s bedroom was inevitably upstairs. She opened a window.
“Climb up,” she hissed, pointing at a nearby tree.
“What, in this dress? You must be joking!”
“I can’t come down. Mum’s on the prowl.”
“Hang on.” I’d spotted a ladder laying on the ground against the side of the house. I’ll admit I was a bit pathetic with it, not wanting to get any muck on my clothes and having forgone, at least for the time being, any upper body strength my hormones might have given me, but it was aluminium and even with my feeble capacity I was able to put it in place. The hard bit was leaning it against the wall and extending it enough without making a lot of noise.
Climbing it meant I’d be inviting anyone below to look up my skirt, but I hadn’t worked out how to avoid that yet, so I trusted to luck and the lateness of the hour and just got on with it.
“Hi,” I said when I was on a level with her.
“Hi yourself,” she said with a contented smile on her face.
“I didn’t want last night to be the way we left things. I wanted you to know that whatever else you may hear, I really did just want to be your friend, as a girl.”
“I get that. I mean, Mum’s an idiot. I tried to tell her you never did anything, but she just wants a scandal to get all stupid about.
“As far as I'm concerned, you're about the girliest girl I've met, and it’s been great having someone I can let my hair down with. Chaney and the others are alright, but none of them are into, you know, pretty dresses and stuff.”
“So we’re okay then?”
“Oh yeah. If anything I'm a little disappointed, 'cos I've been thinking it would be kind of cool having a boyfriend who was into the same stuff as me.”
“Well, maybe there's someone out there like that, but it's not me. Friend yes, but not boy. I'm not even sure it'd work out the way you'd wanted if you did find someone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the drugs I'm taking kind of get in the way of my bits working. I don’t know many boys my age who’d choose to do that.”
“You don’t have to take the drugs though, do you?”
“You do if you want to stay pretty.”
“Well, you certainly are pretty. Would you mind if I kissed you?”
Not something I’d anticipated. Not something I particularly wanted either.
“How disappointed would you be if I said I’d rather not?”
“Well, disappointed obviously. But I’d get over it. Don’t you think I’m pretty?”
“Well, yeah, but... But I don’t think I’m into girls. I kind of thought you were the same.”
“Yeah, I am. I mean I’m not. Into girls I mean. I just thought... This is kind of confusing.”
“Yeah. You should try it from my side. Look, I wanted to make sure we could still be friends. I kind of hope I’ll be able to come and stay with my aunt and uncle and Chaney again sometime, and I’d really like it if we could hang, maybe go shopping and stuff.”
“I’d like that too.”
We ran out of words and silence rushed in to fill the gap.
“Well,” I said after an uncomfortable pause, “I told my aunt I wouldn’t be gone long.”
“Best you go then. My mum’ll probably stick her beak in sometime soon.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m coming next time.’
“Sure. See you.”
She was shutting me out which wasn’t ideal. I wasn’t going to see her again for several months at least. I'd just have to wait until the next time then try to mend whatever fences were still broken.
I climbed down the ladder. Her window was closed and the curtains drawn before I reached the ground. I still made the effort to retract the ladder and lay it back where I'd found it.
“Hey, if it isn't the freak.”
“Hi Todd. You're out late.”
“I could say the same about you, freak. What, were you visiting your pretend lezzer girlfriend?”
I ignored the bait. “I hope you can understand why I kept turning you down now.”
“Yeah, ‘cos you was afraid I’d find out and tell everyone what a freak you are.”
“Except I told everyone what a freak I am, so that doesn’t seem so likely, does it?” I smiled at him to make it clear I wasn’t goading him in the same way he was trying to goad me. “It was going to come out sooner or later, and I didn’t want you having to deal with your mates laughing at you because you went out with a boy in a dress.”
He moved in close and snarled at me. “Yeah, well it didn’t work did it? ‘Cos they’re laughing at me for wanting to go out with a freak in a dress.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I did my best to discourage you, and you know, these days they do try to make sure you lads understand that no means no.”
He took another step forward, forcing me backwards. The neighbour’s fence wasn’t more than a couple of feet behind me. “Well, you’re not going to say no to me now are you?”
“I’m not sure what you don’t want me to say no to. I never meant you any harm and all I want to do right now is go home.”
“Everything alright, Shelley?”
I had never been more glad to hear another voice in my life. We both turned to see my uncle leaning on the fence not fifty yards from us, sucking on a pipe. Todd was bright enough to back off, but he still kept his face turned my way, and there was murder, or manslaughter (freak slaughter?) at the very least, in his eyes.
“It’s alright, Uncle Richard. I was just on my way home when I bumped into Todd. He says it can be dangerous to wander around by yourself after dark, and he’s kept me company since.”
“That’s as well. If anyone was to hurt any of my girls – including Shelley here – I’m not sure I'd trust myself to act rashly, and I really don’t need a GBH charge added to my criminal record. You know what GBH stands for l, don’t you Todd?”
“Erm...”
“Well, why don’t you get yourself home and google it? I can look after my niece from here.”
“Fine.” Todd sneered at me one last time, then just loud enough for my uncle to hear, he added “you should be careful about climbing ladders in a dress. Wouldn’t want anyone catching sight of something you didn’t ought to have, would we?”
He looked like he wanted to say more, probably some jibe about the small size of what he was referring to, but he was pushing his luck and he knew it, so he headed off into the darkness.
“He won’t thank you for that kindness you know?” my uncle said.
“Probably not, but I don’t need the hassle right now, and you could argue he has a right to be angry.”
“Not that angry. Up a ladder, eh? What’s that about?”
“Saying a proper goodbye to a friend.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“No, nothing like that. Just making sure we were still okay.”
“You wouldn’t have been if Sandy had caught you.”
“Maybe not. What’s that you’re smoking? It doesn’t smell like tobacco.”
“Oh, it’s a bad habit I haven’t managed to kick yet. You’re aunt doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way, so no more talk of ladders and no talk about this, okay?”
“Okay, but she probably does know.”
“Why d'you say that?”
“The smell is pretty strong and I don’t think it’s going to go away that fast.”
He chuckled. “You’re probably right, but I’ll be happy to pretend she doesn’t know as long as she wants to play along. One secret to a long and happy marriage, not being totally honest. I mean, I admire what you did yesterday, but there is such a thing as too much truth, like with what’s-his-face back there.”
“Todd.”
“I don’t really want to know. Safer for him maybe.”
I spent a restless night, catching snatches of sleep here and there, but never managing to settle completely. I eventually gave up trying when I heard footsteps passing the bedroom door. It was already light, but being the middle of summer, that didn’t count for much.
I followed the footsteps downstairs and into the kitchen where I encountered one of the widest yawns I’d ever seen.
“Morning sweetheart,” Aunt Miranda said once she’d reattached her jaw. “Trouble sleeping?”
“I can’t help thinking about, you know, going home.”
“I understand, kiddo, but you’re going to have to face it sooner or later.”
“Couldn’t it be later? I mean Lonny’s moved out now so surely you could do with having me around to keep Chaney company still?”
“Don’t call me Shirley.” It was a family joke. Well, yeah sure, it was an ancient joke, probably prehistoric, but one that our family adopted long before I understood it. “We’ve all enjoyed having you, Shell, but two weeks was what I agreed with your mum and dad, and I don’t have any good reason to prolong it.”
“But what’s he going to say?”
“I could take a guess, and I might even get close, but my brother is a law unto himself. Whatever he does choose to say, there’s not a lot you can do about it right now.”
“I could dress as Michael.”
“And that would be a hideous waste of all the progress you’ve made over these last two weeks. Besides, he’d still have something to say about your haircut and your nails and the pills you’re taking.”
I looked at my nails, all shiny and subtly pink. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Besides besides, the only Michael clothes you have are the ones you wore to the wedding. It was too hot for them then and it’s too hot for them now.
“Shell, you chose this route two weeks ago. You knew back then what it would mean. You did, didn't you?”
“Yeah, of course, but this day seemed a long way away back then.”
“Yes, like Lonny on her wedding day. She said yes to Martin eight months ago and had a whale of a time planning the wedding. She still needed help getting over a pair of cold feet on the day.”
“Really? But she was so radiant when she walked into the church.”
“I didn’t think you noticed. According to your dad, you only had eyes for your other cousin.”
“Yeah, well he can’t see past his own nose, can he?”
Miranda laughed and poured out the tea. Three mugs, one of which was placed in front of me.
“That’s the spirit. That’s the Michelle who came to stay with us two weeks ago. The Michelle who decided to stand up to her dad because she’s had enough of his cr...rubbish.”
I hid my smile in my mug of tea. By the time I put it back down, I’d made up my mind about something.
“Would you mind calling me Michael?”
Her eyes shot up.
“I’d like to at least give it a try. I mean I’m not a princess, but if she can own it as a girl’s name, then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t, is there?”
“No there isn’t, not really. Except I did a bit of digging into that particular conundrum, and it turns out her name is actually Marie-Christine something or other. She’s called Princess Michael because she’s married to Prince Michael.”
“Seriously!?”
“Mhm.”
“My dad named me after Princess Michael even though there’s a Prince Michael?”
“I know. Better not tell him or the next thing we know you’ll always have been named after the Prince.
“So, what’s your decision on the name?”
I exercised my woman’s prerogative.
“Alright Michelle. I’m going to take these cups of tea upstairs and go back to bed because five-thirty is way too early to be getting up on a Sunday. Stay up and watch the TV if you want. Use the comforter across the back of the sofa as a blanket if you like, and I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t feel much like telly. Even with all the on-demand choice on offer with a well equipped smart-TV, nothing really appealed. I did make use of the sofa though, and the comforter. I stayed awake long enough to finish my tea, but the next thing I knew was the sounds and smells of a cooked breakfast being put together emanating from the kitchen and a gentle clunk as a fresh mug of tea was placed on the coffee table nearby.
“Morning sleepyhead,” my cousin greeted me. “You know, a girl could develop a complex with all the times you’ve deserted my room in the middle of the night.”
“That’s only the second time, and it’s not all about you. What time is it?”
“About ten-thirty I think.”
“What! Why didn’t anyone wake me?”
“Mum thought you could do with the sleep. Besides, you looked so vewy, vewy cute sleeping there like that, with your pwetty little snorts and mutterings.”
“I do not snort!”
“How do you know what you do when you’re sleeping?”
“Like you and your dribbling? Only you only need to touch your pillow to know that’s true.”
“Girls!” Miranda called through. “Stop squabbling. Shelley, you should get dressed. We’re going to want to leave soon after breakfast. I’ve left a carrier bag on your bed for your nightclothes, slippers included. If you bring those down with you when you come, Richard will sort everything else.”
Chaney joined us for the ride. It would mean a long drive one way just to go all the way back again, but I appreciated the gesture. She’d been offered the choice of staying behind, but I think she could tell how nervous I was, so instead we talked and played games and had all the usual fun we’d enjoyed in each other’s company over the years, only according to her this was ten times better because she didn’t have to cajole me out of my mood first, and there were so many more things we could talk about now that we were both girls.
Good company ate up the miles and before I was ready, we were driving through familiar neighbourhoods. I fell silent and Chaney left me to my thoughts.
“We’re here,” Aunt Miranda announced as she pulled on the handbrake, proving that men do not have a monopoly on stating the obvious.
I looked out of the window at the all too familiar front of my home. It was quite a bit smaller than my aunt and uncle’s house, a three-bedroom semi in the middle of semi-desirable middle-class suburbia. It had a comfortable old-clothes feel that a home should have, except it now brought a depressing weight with it. For all that I had no bad memories of living there, I realised I didn’t have any that were half so good as the least enjoyable of the previous two weeks. Here was Michael’s home, and the best he’d been with it was a reluctant okay.
“Come on, sweetheart. We’ll come in with you – you know, show a united front and all that – but we’d better make a move before someone objects to us just sitting out here. Better to face your dad out of sight of prying eyes, eh?”
“Too late,” I said, nodding at the front door, which was opening. I stepped out of the car feeling as though a cannonball had just settled in my stomach.
“What the bloody hell is that?” No prizes for guessing who. I felt myself wither under his gaze as I so often had in the past. “I thought you said our son had grown into a man.”
“No dear,” Mum said, a little more steel in her voice than usual. “What I said was that you wouldn’t recognise your son when you saw him next. You just made a whole bunch of assumptions and filled in all the blanks with your own nonsense, as usual.”
“Well, you’re right that I don’t recognise him. How long did it take you to turn him into this poncy little fairy then, and just what the bloody hell do you think you were playing at?” His voice rose steadily throughout to the extent that neighbouring front doors were beginning to open a crack. “Get inside you,” he growled at me. “Go upstairs and change into something more appropriate before you make us the laughing stock of the street.”
I raised my eyes to meet his. I was angry and wanted more than anything to stand up to him, but there was something in his eyes that cut through all my resolve. “Yes Dad,” I murmured and started walking past him.
“You always were a bully,” my aunt didn’t have the same difficulty as me standing up to him, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. He was surrounded by angry faces – Aunt Miranda, Mum, even the usually laconic Uncle Richard, but Dad’s superpower has always been obstinate misogyny, and he had the strength to stand against us all.
“Hey, cuz,” Chaney called.
I turned to see her holding a couple of garment bags, which she offered to me. Dad was building up steam for a proper rant with my aunt matching him. Apologies for the mixed metaphor, but they had locked horns and so didn't notice anything going on around them. I took the bags from Chaney and slunk indoors.
Upstairs in my room, I hung the garment bags on the back of my door. I opened my wardrobe and hunted through the sorry array of jeans and tee-shirts that made up Michael's selection of clothing. I'd never taken any interest in shopping for clothes, somewhat obviously because I would never have been allowed to buy what I really wanted, but now it was so depressingly less than anything I would care to have covering my skin.
I considered for an instant going back downstairs wearing nothing but skin, but for all the momentary satisfaction that little rebellion might have given, it was an infantile gesture and not one that would help win any arguments.
Things were going badly out of control downstairs and the only faint hope I had of fixing them centred on trying to diffuse the tension, which meant opening Dad's pressure release valve.
It was still too hot for the suit, but I figured I'd show willing. I stepped out of my dress and lay it carefully on my bed, conscious of how easily it would wrinkle, and pulled out my suit. I had no intention of changing out of my underwear. Dad wasn't going to see that and I needed some lifeline to cling to.
The argument outside was gaining momentum. I'd have to hurry if I hoped to achieve anything. I pulled on the trousers, shirt and jacket and looked in the mirror.
I could have cried. I’d forgotten, Dad had told Mum to buy me something I could grow into. I'd looked a little ridiculous in it at the wedding but now, with my pixie cut and pink nails, I couldn't have looked more like a girl.
On a whim, I looked in the other garment bag. What I found derailed the train of thought that was currently shunting me back into the sidings of my old life.
Yeah, Uncle Richard isn't the only one who goes a little far with his metaphors.
Ten minutes later I stepped back out the front door to find my father and aunt red in the face and yelling at each other at the tops of their lungs. Mum looked distressed and Uncle Richard was being his normal bemused self, although beginning to look worried. Quite a few of our neighbours had come out into their gardens, the live action event evidently of greater interest than whatever they'd been watching on the box.
I walked up behind my father and placed my hands in his. It was enough to interrupt his diatribe. He looked down at me.
“What the f...”
“Daddy, there are children.”
“What the hell do you think you're wearing?”
“Well, you called me a little fairy and told me to put on something more appropriate. I did try some of my old clothes first, but they didn’t look right, whereas this struck me as perfect.” I took my hand back and spread out my arms to show off the gossamer wings. A quick twirl showed the dress of to its full effect. I’d left the cape and wrap-around skirt upstairs, so couldn't have looked more fairy-like if I'd tried.
It left Dad speechless and Aunt Miranda fighting so hard to keep from laughing that the argument evaporated like a snowflake in the Sahara. While the adults were busy trying to sort out their next move, I headed for the neighbours who'd congregated into a small crowd.
“Hi Mrs Jones, Mr Peterson.” They were the only two names I was certain of. “My name’s Michelle, but I used to be Michael. My Dad’s not too happy about me becoming a girl, but like you can see,” I gave them a happy twirl, “I’m much better at it than I ever was at being a boy, so I think I'm going to stay like this.
“I know it's a bit strange, so if you have any questions, just ask. I’ll be happy to talk to any of you about it.”
“No, you bloody well won’t.” Dad had regained some control over himself and had marched over to grab me by the arm.
“Ow! You're hurting me.”
“Derek, perhaps you should ease up.” Mr Peterson came to my rescue.
“Shut up Frank. I know how to look after my own kid.”
“I don't think you do, Derek.” Mrs Jones this time. “And if you carry on like that, I shall be calling the police, Sunday or not.”
Some people have funny priorities.
Much to my delight, every one of our neighbours sided with me and, despite his evident anger, Dad backed down. He let go of my arm.
“Michael, will you please come inside. We don’t want to disturb these nice people.”
“It’s Michelle, Daddy, and I wasn’t the one who was shouting.”
Storm clouds formed briefly behind his eyes, but he kept control.
“Michelle’s a girl’s name.”
“Yes, but didn’t you name me after Princess Michael of Kent? If I’m going to have a girl's name, I'd like it to be a proper one.”
“Fine, but can we talk about it inside? Your aunt, uncle and cousin are going indoors.”
This was true. Mum held the door. Chaney was already in the house, Richard was manhandling my two sizeable suitcases up the driveway and Miranda was just closing up the car.
“I'm not coming in if you're going to start shouting again.”
It was almost comical watching Dad struggle to be reasonable, but the crowd was on my side for once, and without the upper hand, he had no choice but to abandon his usual high and mighty perch. It occurred to me that he was just as outnumbered and off-balanced when it came to our small family group as well. Mum had already shown that she was ready to stand up to him, and he’d even roused the wolf man enough to set him growling.
I told my neighbourhood fan club that I’d be out and about the following day then let Dad guide me – gently this time – back towards our house.
“Would you like to come round to ours tomorrow?” The question came from a girl with freckles who was maybe a year or two younger than me. She looked up at her mother, checking that she was okay to make the offer.
“What’s your name?” I’d seen her around but had never thought to ask.
“Sophie.”
“I’d love to come round, Sophie. If it’s okay with your mum. It’s number thirty-four, isn’t it?”
Sophie’s mother nodded in approval as well as confirmation on the house number. We agreed a time of around ten o’clock and I let myself be guided away.
“You are not going round there in a dress,” Dad murmured through gritted teeth and a rictus grin.
“I don’t have much choice. Most of my girl clothes are dresses.”
“You have some perfectly serviceable jeans in your wardrobe.”
“I’ll put some on when we’re in the house and show you. I can’t help looking like a girl, Dad, and I really don’t want to stop.”
“Well, you’re going to bloody well try.”
I stopped talking. Like the bullies at my school, he would always win when it was just two of us because he was more interested in getting what he wanted than he was in reason.
. My only effective response was to keep my arguments for when we were in a group because, also like the bullies at school, he was usually more reasonable when other people were around.
Usually. It depended on the people and their mood, which was what I was counting on.
“Mum, you know Sophie from number thirty-four?”
“The Peterson’s, yes.”
“She asked if I’d like to come round tomorrow. Would that be okay?”
“I don’t see why not, dear.” She was talking to me but her eyes were staring into Dad’s, daring him to contradict her.
As I said, depending on the people and their mood. Mum didn’t stand up to Dad often but when she did he rarely won. He broke eye contact first, but he was evidently not happy.
The next half hour consisted of Miranda talking for the most part but with Mum and Chaney chipping in with even a supporting grunt or two from Richard, all explaining the events of the previous two weeks.
Dad didn’t say anything, but his expression reminded me of a war film I’d watched with him once, when the soldiers were hunkered down in a fox hole with artillery shells and mortar rounds exploding all about them. He was just waiting for the barrage to stop so he could make his escape or counter attack or whatever.
I walked over to his chair and knelt beside him, putting my hand on his. It took a while for people to notice, but slowly the noise dropped until it was just me and Dad sitting in a pool of silence
He wouldn’t look at me at first, but I was ready to wait. Eventually he gave up and raised his eyes to meet mine.
I offered him a sad smile. “I know you hate this, Dad. I know you don’t understand it and think it’s just wrong. But it’s something I need to do, or at least I feel I need to try. Would you just let me? Please?”
I held his gaze, keeping my expression gentle and sad rather than angry and insistent, as the rest of my family had chosen.
I watched as the obstinate set of his jaw relaxed, as the expression in his eyes shifted from recalcitrant to... I don’t really know. Regretful? Finally he nodded.
I rose and reached towards him only to have him recoil from me.
“Just a hug, Dad. Surely that’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” he replied, but he allowed the hug.
I mean, I told you it was a family joke, didn’t I? I mean, if only by adoption.
Also, if Dad was making jokes, it meant he wasn’t in combat mode anymore.
“Are you going to listen now?” Aunt Miranda said, causing Dad’s shoulders to stiffen. It was a reaction I recognised since it was usually the way I responded to Dad most of the time.
“I don’t think we need to talk about it right now, Aunt Miranda.”
“He has to know...”
“He will. When he’s ready. Please Aunt Miranda. Things are going to be okay.”
And they were. We had some refreshments, with Dad doing the silent thing – which was better than the ranting thing – and the rest of us chatting in a comfortable relaxed way. Aunt Miranda insisted on telling Mum all the things she’d planned on saying to Dad, about the legal documents she’d drawn up which gave me, and not my parents, the right to decide whether I took the drugs I was being prescribed, and Mum played along asking all the right questions as though she’d never heard it all before. I suppose there was a chance Dad might have absorbed something through osmosis, but I doubted it. He’s always had a very thick hide, has my dad.
When time came to say goodbye, I gave a hug and a kiss to my cousin, aunt and uncle. I thanked them for looking after me, words I have never meant more, and leaned comfortably against Mum’s side with her arm draped gently about me as they headed out the door.
“Mum, wasn’t there the matter of a bet?” Chaney asked just moments from climbing into the car.
I tried to catch my aunt’s attention and shook my head gently.
She must have noticed because she locked eyes with her daughter. “I think we can let it go this time, love.”
“No, she’s right,” Dad said. His first words in over an hour.
“Well, my virtue is still intact,” Chaney declared, ignoring her mother’s warning. “Shelley has been a perfect lady the whole time she’s been with us. I wouldn’t have been safer with my sister.”
Dad was doing his best not to rise to the bait, which I appreciated. “So, how much do I owe you?” he asked Miranda. “Two suitcases full and good quality stuff if I’m not mistaken.” He looked over my fairy dress, with a surprisingly discerning eye.
“They’re not all the same quality, and quite a bit of it is stuff Chaney was chucking out. I really don’t need the money.”
“And I said I would cover the cost, and since my son is obviously more of a gentleman than I took him for...”
“Lady,” Chaney interjected.
“Then I owe you some money.”
“You also owe Michelle something.” Chaney was really pushing it.
“I do, but let’s get the business out of the way first. How much do I owe you?”
“Five hundred quid.”
I hadn’t been sure if she’d be honest. I fought to keep my face relaxed since Dad was staring at me. Probably as well since Chaney wasn’t doing a great job of hiding her outrage.
“Seems a bit steep, but okay. I’ll transfer you the money later if that’s alright.”
“A cheque would be fine.”
“Only you’d never cash it. Besides, the bank’s don’t like cheques these days.”
“Whatever.”
“And now the rest of it.” Chaney had herself back under control, but seemed still to be intent on sabotaging the whole afternoon.
“Michael, I owe you an apology,” he started.
“It’s alright Dad.”
“No, fairs fair. I thought the worse of you and you’re evidently a better man than I gave you credit for.”
“Call that an apology!” Chaney was incensed. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed either.
“It’s okay, Chaney,” I said, but I couldn’t quite keep the disappointment from my voice. “You guys should hit the road. It’s a long way back. Thanks again for everything.”
“Everything, Shell?” Aunt Miranda said. “Everything includes you calling me if you need anything. Anything at all. If you’re thanking me for everything, I’ll expect you to call me for any reason, alright?”
“I will, Aunt Miranda.”
And they were gone, disappearing down the road.
“Five hundred quid for a pile of rubbish he’s going to grow out of in a couple of months,” Dad said. “What a bloody waste.” He headed back inside to his television and whatever sports rubbish he'd been watching when we arrived.
I followed him back into the living room and started collecting dirty plates. He gave me an odd look, but I was in and out in just a couple of minutes, so he didn't have long to puzzle over it.
“Thanks, sweetheart. Why don't you go upstairs and unpack? I can sort this lot.”
“I don't mind Mum. I'm not sure I have room to put everything, even if I chuck out all the stuff that's in my wardrobe.”
“Yes, I imagine you have quite a lot more then five hundred pounds worth there. Tell you what, I'll sort you out some cardboard boxes and we'll put anything you don't want up in the loft.”
“Thanks Mum. I could still use a bit more hanging space. Some of my new dresses will get quite creased if they’re too crammed together.”
“I think we have a free-standing clothes rack up in the loft somewhere. I’ll get your dad to look for it when he puts the boxes up. Let me get the washing up done and I’ll sort everything out.”
“Well, let me help with the washing up first. I can’t really do anything else till it’s done, so I might as well help.”
“Well, it seems, whoever went off to stay with Miranda and Richard, it certainly wasn’t my son who came back.”
“You’re better off without him. He was always too caught up in his problems to be much use to anyone.”
“Well Michelle, wash or dry? Oh, or do you prefer Shelley?”
“Whatever you like, Mum. Even Michael. Why don’t I wash? Save you the wrinkles.”
So we did, then Dad was chased from his roost until he’d found enough cardboard boxes to take the stuff I didn’t want from my wardrobe, and dug out the freestanding clothes rail – dismantled of course.
I emptied my wardrobe into the boxes then refilled it with my everyday things, then I spent fifteen minutes with a screwdriver figuring out how to put the clothes rail together. It was a little rickety, but it held the rest of my clothes. I chucked a stack of comics and made enough space for the rail which, with its riot of colours and materials, made a pleasant added feature to the room.
As usual I had no interest in Dad’s choice of TV, so I dug out my school books and had a go at my maths homework, getting stuck after a very short effort.
“I don’t know what I’m doing with this,” I announced, coming into the living room.
“What do you expect me to do about it?” Dad asked.
Mum slapped him on the shoulder. “Aren’t there a couple of girls from your class who live nearby?” She asked.
“I don’t know, Mum. I never got to know any of the girls in my class.”
“’Cos he’s a wimp.”
Dad’s contribution earned him another slap.
“I’ll call around tomorrow, love. Maybe we can find you a study group.”
“What makes you think they’ll want anything more to do with him now?”
“I don’t, but there’s no harm in trying. Why don’t we switch that stupid thing to something more than half of us want to watch? I mean you’re not even watching that, are you?”
“What do you know?”
“I know that when you start channel hopping, like you were doing a minute ago, it means you’ve got bored with what you were watching, and you haven’t been watching this for long enough to care. If you had, you wouldn’t have made all the comments you just did.”
“Oh, whatever. What do you want to watch?”
“Bring up the list.”
“You don’t even know what you want.”
“Of course I don’t. You hog the bloody thing all weekend so I never bother to look. Here, give me the remote.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
The screen changed, showing a list of programmes.
“There. Anna and the King. It’s just starting. Let’s watch that.”
“What the hell is it!”
“It’s the remake of the King and I. You remember, with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. The new one has Jodi Foster in it, and that Chinese actor you like.”
“What, Jackie Chan?”
“No. He was in that rubbish film, what was it, Bulletproof Monkey or something.”
“Bulletproof Monk. Chow Yun Fat?”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”
“Fine, we’ll watch it.”
The screen changed again, showing an advert, which Dad muted.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“It’s set in the nineteenth century,” Mum said, “about an English school teacher who goes to Siam, modern day Thailand, to teach the king’s children, and ends up falling in love with him.”
“I’d forgotten how mind-numbingly dull the plot was. Come on Michael, I’m sure we can find something better.”
“Sorry Dad, I’m with Mum on this.” The film had started with a scene of Jodi Foster wearing an enormous dress with skirts that belled out so far, everyone was scampering to get out of her way. I was captivated and settled onto the sofa next to Mum, leaning on her and snuggling down for a good watch.
Dad was disgusted, of course, in part by default for not getting his way, but mostly, I think, because a son of his could be interested in such a piece of drivel.
I didn’t follow much of the storyline, and the film felt a little off at times, but overall, I enjoyed it. The costumes and the rich sets were wonderful, and the idea of a relative nobody being overlooked by her countrymen but eventually having such a profound effect on the king worked for me.
“You know it’s a load of rubbish,” Dad said as the credits finally rolled up the screen. “Full of historical inaccuracy.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “It made me feel good, and it was only intended as a piece of fiction.”
“She was a real person, this Anna Leonowens. The film’s based on her Memoires.”
“And if she wrote a bit of wishful thinking, it was still uplifting and romantic.”
“And utter rubbish.”
“Perhaps the sort of rubbish we need a little more of in this day and age. Thank you, Derek, I enjoyed that. We enjoyed that. What do you fancy for tea?”
“I don’t know. Bangers and mash an option?”
“With peas or baked beans?”
“Peas, I think, unless the princess objects.”
“Peas will be great. Do you want me to peal the potatoes, Mum.”
It took a lot less time to put the meal together than usual, and with us chatting through it all, it hardly seemed like a chore.
Mum served up the food while I lay the table and stuck my head through to the lounge to tell Dad we were ready to eat. It all felt very ordinary and very new and exciting at the same time.
Until, of course, Dad tried to ruin it.
“So,” he said from around a sizeable mouthful of sausage. “This is how is going to be, is it? You two ganging up against me.”
Mum and I exchanged puzzled looks.
“What are you talking about, dear?” Mum finally asked after she'd swallowed her mouthful.
“You two conspiring together in the kitchen, ganging up on me to decide what rubbish we watch on the television. Don't think I haven't noticed you’re now supporting our son's ridiculous notion of parading about in a dress.”
It felt like a good time for me to stay quiet. Anything I said would likely only fuel his paranoia. I scooped up another delicate forkful of food and carried on eating.
Meanwhile Mum had been marshalling her arguments. She tried to keep her voice calm and patient, but it came out as more condescending than anything.
“In the first place, we weren't conspiring in the kitchen. Michelle...”
“Michael.”
Mum forced a fragile smile. “Our little princess Michael then, was helping me. Not because she...”
“He.”
“She,” Mum emphasised, “felt obligated, but because she,” another emphasis, “wanted to. The film just happened to be something we were both interested in, so thank you for letting us watch it.
“As to the last, yes I do support her choice to dress and behave as she is doing. I didn't try to make a secret of it...”
“You could have warned me...”
“I did try, Derek, but you... Once you've made your mind up about the truth of something, there's no changing it. Even when the actual truth is right in front of your face, you will not accept the possibility that you could be wrong.”
“May I be excused?” I asked. I'd only half finished my meal, but I'd lost my appetite.
“You can sit where you are,” Dad said, ever the control freak.
“If you're sure you've eaten enough, you can get down,” Mum said in what appeared to be an increasingly less rare show off resistance.
“Daddy, please...”
“Don’t call me Daddy. That's for girls and little children.”
I sighed. “Dad, you said you'd let me do this. Please.”
“See? Now you’re conspiring again.”
“Why don't you go to your room, dear? That way you can't be conspiring to do anything.”
I took the escape. Raised voices followed me up the stairs but couldn't make it past my closed door. I needed something to distract me and I knew I had a piece of English homework I'd been putting off.
Write an essay on the subject of your choice. I hated things like that because either I couldn't think of anything, or I had too many ideas and couldn't choose. The afternoon’s film was still fresh in my mind, so I decided to make it my subject. It wasn't supposed to be that long but once I started, I couldn't seem to stop.
I wrote about the king’s belligerent arrogance and about Anna’s need, almost constantly at first, to tread softly. I wrote about her bravery in refusing to compromise her standards and her delicate diplomacy that slowly undermined the kings resolve, eventually winning him over.
I compared the story to Beauty and the Beast, exploring the idea of how some men become so caught up in their pridefulness that the only way to help them is with a gentle and consistent hand, which was something only the right woman could offer.
I don't think it occurred to me until nearly the end that I was writing about my hopes for my mum and dad. Dad in particular.
Things had settled downstairs when I finally put my pen down. I looked at the pages of writing and wondered what my English teacher would make of it. The sky outside was getting dark so I quietly ducked into the bathroom to wash and change for bed, and do all the other last things of the day. Sometime over the previous couple of weeks I had added cleansing, toning and moisturising my face to the list. I wasn’t sure if I could see any benefits just yet, but it left me feeling a little more girly just for doing it.
I caught sight of Dad coming up the stairs as I made my way back into my room. From the look in his eyes, he hadn't faired too well in the heated conversation he’d shared with Mum, and he wasn't at all impressed with seeing me in a voluminous white nightdress.
“’Night Dad,” I said, my voice breathless and barely audible, before disappearing into my room.
By the time he appeared in my doorway, I had already burrowed deep under my duvet. All that was visible was my face and my pixie haircut.
“What happened to my son?” he asked.
“I’m not sure you really ever had one, Dad. I’m sorry.”
“No, I can’t accept that.”
“So, give me a chance to show you.”
“My sister did this to you.”
“She gave me the choice, Dad – which is more than you’ve ever done. Sorry, but it’s true. ‘Only a bad boy would ask for this,' remember? Aunt Miranda unlocked the door for me, but it was my choice to step through.
“I thought you agreed earlier to let me try this. Are you saying you’ve changed your mind?”
“I’m trying to save you the humiliation you have coming if you do this. It’s not something you’re going to recover from. You’ll be picked on by pretty much everybody after you’re done.”
“I’m picked on by pretty much everybody anyway.”
“I told you. You need to man up and stand your ground.”
“Not a lot of man in here to up, Dad. I have to try my way.”
He shook his head. “Fine. I won’t stop you, but don’t come crying to me when it all turns to sh... When it all goes wrong.”
“And if it doesn’t go wrong? What if I find a way to be happy doing this, Dad? What if I end up being happy, but not in a way you like? Will you try to be happy for me? Will you try to see things from my point of view?”
“Do you know how selfish that sounds?”
“Do you know how selfish you sounded at teatime? I mean, isn’t that the problem? You can only see things from your point of view, and right now I’m seeing things from a different point of view which works for me. Right now you’re giving me the choice of abandoning the only thing that’s brought me a bit of happiness in a long while just to fit in with your ideas of what’s wrong or right, or doing my thing and having you more angry and disappointed than usual. I’d like there to be a third option, but that’s up to you. If you’ll only give me the two, well don’t blame me if you don’t like the choice I make.
“I do love you Dad, I really do, but I don’t think I can turn back from this now.”
“Well, I see your mind is made up. I hope you’re right, but I don’t think you are.
“Your mother has explained about the pills. I think they’re a bad idea because how are you going to stand up for yourself if you don’t let your body grow a bit of muscle. She says that they only hold off your development, so I suppose I can’t really object if you can put things back on track when you’ve realised how much nonsense this all is.
“If you're going to do this, you’re going to do it right though. We’re not going to pretend you always were our little girl, so you’re going to have to get used to people knowing exactly what you are. When you go back to school, you’ll be wearing a dress, which I have no doubt will delight you right up to the moment when you walk through the school gates and discover just how unpleasant your school mates can be.”
“They’re unpleasant enough now, Dad.”
“And that’s nothing compared to what you’ll encounter in a couple of weeks. But, this is your choice. You get to deal with the consequences.”
“Thanks Dad. I suppose it’s as much as I can ask for now, but please try and have an open mind when it works out.”
“If it works out, which it won’t.”
“Goodnight Dad.” There wasn’t much point in arguing further. We had our trenches dug and this was looking like World War One all over again.
|
Seven Dresses - The Sixth Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Shelley spends the last few of the holidays playing with neighbours and catching up on homework with a couple of new study-buddies. Then they invite her to hang out with a few friends at the mall. She agrees to go, because soon she'll have to do the same thing at school. What she doesn't realise is that most of the school rugby team will be meeting them for the event... |
The rest of the holiday turned out to be not dreadful.
On the downside, Dad barely spoke to me, responding to just about anything I said to him with a grunt if I was lucky. I would catch sight of him looking at me quite often when he was about, his expression somewhere between pensive and disapproving.
On the upside, I made quite a few friends and learned a lot. I spent quite a lot of time round at the Peterson’s, enjoying playing like a girl for the first time in my life and learning a lot of what I’d missed. Mrs P was a little wary of me at first, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, but I made sure Sophie and I were always somewhere she could find us at short notice and I was careful never to do anything that might have been seen as compromising. The closest we came in that regard was the game of Twister we tried to play with just the two of us, which left us in hysterics and dumped us unceremoniously into a small tangled heap on more than one occasion. Paradoxically, it may have been that which persuaded Mrs P that we could be trusted.
The two girls in my class who lived locally – Linda and Meabh (pronounced Maeve) – were just as unsure to begin with, but when Mrs Peterson started sharing stories of how Sophie and I were getting on and how I seemed more like an older sister than anything else when we were together, enough of what she had to say filtered through to the girls that they were prepared to give me a go. “After all, if two heads are better than one, three heads have to be better than two, right?” as Maebh put it.
I was open with them from the start.
“I know you’ve probably heard about me by now, but I want to be honest. I was born a boy, but I’ve always felt more like a girl. I’m taking drugs to stop puberty which have a side effect of suppressing any sexual urges I might have, which is as well because I don’t want them. I just want to be a girl, or to be fair, I think that’s what I want. This is my first chance to find out and only time will tell what I decide in the end. I’m never going to be all the way female. In a few years I’ll be able to take female hormones and after that maybe have surgery, but however much they can make me look right, It’ll only ever be skin deep.”
“So why do it then?” Maebh asked.
“Because it’s better than nothing. Because I’ve always been a girl deep down and if I at least look like one, then people will be more likely to treat me like one. What I have to figure out is, is that enough?
“My choice is between becoming a fully functioning male who always feels like he should be female, or becoming someone who looks and feels like a woman, but never will be completely, so it’s not going to be obvious what the right choice is for me.
“I hope I can make friends along the way who will support me with the decisions I need to make, but for now what I really hope is that I’m not going to freak you guys out and we can get some maths done, ‘cos I really don’t get this stuff.”
Honesty proved to be very much the best policy as it enabled them to relax with me a lot quicker. Linda was the whizz at maths and science with Maebh proving that much more able than me, but between them they had me understanding it well enough to finish the homework and feel confident about the outcome.
I proved to be better at English and helped them with their essays. Between Maebh and myself, we managed to sort out Linda’s history and geography – history mainly me, geography mainly Maebh – and the rest we muddled through together.
In one of our final sessions in the last week before school began, Linda mentioned that she and Maebh were going to meet up with some friends in town and asked if I wanted to join them.
It brought all my nervousness crashing down on me. The previous week had involved walking around the neighbourhood and meeting friends in small groups. Next week I’d have to deal with a school full of kids, and that had me scared enough – not that there was any going back now. My parents had already informed the school that I would be coming back as trans, non-binary.
“How many friends, and will it just be girls or...”
“I think there’s eight of us?” She looked to Maebh who nodded. “Nine with you. It’s just us girls, but we might bump into some guys while we’re out. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
It would be a taste of things to come with some of the girls I’d seen Linda and Maebh hanging out with being former antagonists of mine.
“Will Hannah and Cheryl be there?”
“Almost certainly, but we’ve told them about you and they’re cool with it. Everyone’s cool with it.”
Until they chose not to be. Still, I couldn't hide forever, and if I could make even one additional friend, it would make school that much easier.
Linda and Maebh came round to collect me. Linda looked cute in a yellow tee-shirt and denim shorts while Maebh had opted for a very short yellow mini dress. They looked like a couple, and I was relieved I’d chosen the green dress from my cousin’s hand-me-downs over the yellow dress she'd put me in that first day at the hotel.
“I love that dress,” Maebh said. “Do you think maybe I could borrow it sometime.”
“Sure,” I said, gathering my keys, phone and wallet into my handbag and hunting out a pair of kitten heels that would go with it. “Bus?”
“Leaves in ten. Can we have a quick look in your room?”
Dad was out so no source of dissent. Mum shrugged and nodded, so I took my friends up for a quick look.
The place was transforming slowly. My duvet and pillows were pale yellow with lace trim, the posters on my walls had been replaced with cute drawings of kittens and bunnies I’d downloaded from the internet and put into some old picture frames we had cluttering up the loft. The main feature was still the clothes rail which sported the best of my clothes.
“Wow!” Linda exclaimed heading straight for my fairy dress.
“Bespoke,” I said. “From a shop near where my aunt lives. She thought I needed something super-special to wear when I met my Mum for the first time.”
“That’s an odd way of putting it,” Maebh said.
“Well, it’s like I’ve become a totally different person since doing this.”
“And how!” Linda handed me the dress. “Come on then, let’s see you in it.”
“We’ll miss the bus.”
“So? We’ll catch the next one.”
We actually missed two buses. The girls kept me trying on different things until they had me in the dress I’d chosen to come home in.
“Now you’re ready to meet everybody,” Linda said and shooed me out of my room. It wasn’t quite a bombsite, as I’d insisted on hanging things back up as soon as I changed out of them, but my green dress still lay across my bed, since I’d expected to change back into it.
I was worried I might be a bit overdressed for the company we were going to meet, but it proved not to be the case. Linda texted ahead, so the group were waiting for us at a food court just inside the mall entrance. Two of the girls were definitely dressed down in distressed jeans and loose-fitting tops. One of them wore a trouser suit that wouldn’t have been out of place in some swanky law firm. The remaining three wore dresses of varying quality, ranging from the quality of the green dress my friends had rejected to something that almost rivalled my fairy dress.
“Hoping we might bump into Wayne, Cheryl?” Linda asked, eliciting a few titters from around the group and a faint blush from Cheryl herself.
“It is a lovely dress,” I offered.
“And who the hell might you be?” Cheryl wasn’t an easy friend to anyone, apparently.
“I’m the freak you’ve probably all been hearing about. Last year you knew me as Michael.”
That brought the chatter to an abrupt standstill.
“What do we call you now?” It was Hannah, one of the grunge wearers and formerly the worst of the bullies among the girls.
“My cousin thought Michelle would work well, and I kind of like it. My aunt calls me Shelley most of the time.”
“I hear you've made friends with Sophie Peterson.”
“Yeah, she’s been showing me what I’ve been missing about being a girl.”
“She’s my cousin. She has good things to say about you.” She quirked an eyebrow at Cheryl who shrugged.
“Yours is really pretty too,” she said, though she didn’t sound massively like she meant it.
“Thanks.” I made sure I sounded just as indifferent.
“So, Shelley,” one of the other girls I didn’t recognise said, “are you into guys or girls?”
It was one of the many questions for which I’d prepared an answer. “I haven’t really decided yet. I don’t think I’ll be ready to make up my mind for a while either. For one thing, I need to make sure I’m happier as a girl...”
“Of course you’ll be happier as a girl.” Cheryl interrupted. “I mean who wouldn’t?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Wayne?”
Renewed laughter and more blushing.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re absolutely right. Wayne wouldn’t.”
“Wayne wouldn’t what?” A gruff voice and two very beefy arms encircled Cheryl from behind.
Wayne was one of the good ones, unless you crossed him. He was a year ahead of us and possessed a prop forward’s physique, which also happened to be the position he played on the school rugby team.
“Oh,” Cheryl said leaning into the hug. “We were talking about who wouldn’t choose to be a girl if they had the chance. Shelley here suggested you, and I think she may be right. I can’t think of anyone less likely to want to be a girl.”
“And Shelley is...?”
I waved a little self consciously.
“Do I know you?”
“Shelley’s starting at the school this year.” It felt strange to have Hannah covering for me after all the misery she’d brought my way.
“So how do you know me?” he asked, intrigued more than interrogating.
I shrugged. “One of the others mentioned your name, like maybe there was a thing between you and Cheryl, and she seems like the sort of girl who’d be into, you know, real men?”
Wayne laughed. It was a deep sound, but filled with genuine amusement. “You're alright, new girl. And with that in mind, who here wants to meet some real men?” He gestured vaguely towards a group of guys loitering over the other side of the mall.
I shot Linda an accusatory look. She responded by glancing guiltily at Hannah who, in turn, smirked and twitched an eyebrow at me. Not so much a gotcha as a challenge, as in what was I going to do about it.
A quick head count confirmed our numbers matched. Most of the girls were smiling nervously and jiggling in anticipation. This was apparently most of the reason for today's little outing. Wayne’s hand gesture had apparently been a signal of sorts, as the group of lads started heading our way. They didn’t make up the whole rugby team, but as far as I could tell, they were all members and in the year above all of us girls.
“Hey Josh,” Wayne called and the smallest of the group of lads detached himself and trotted over. He was handsome with a friendly smile and a look of uncommon intelligence about him. “Josh, I’d like you to meet Michelle. Shell? Shelley?”
I shrugged. “Any and all,” I said, holding out a hand. “New girl works too, apparently.”
“Yeah. Shelley’s starting at the school this year.”
Meanwhile, Josh took my hand and raised it to his lips. It was a silly gesture, but it had an odd effect on me. I felt myself flush and fill with an odd warmth while my brain sparked and short circuited.
“I, er, I wasn’t expecting this. I thought we were just meeting up to wander round the shops.”
“That's still the plan,” Hannah said through her smirk. She’d paired off with her own slab of beef. “Only now we get to do it with these guys.”
“You don’t mind, do you?” Josh asked. “I mean, I know I’m not built like the rest of these guys, but...”
“Josh is the team hooker,” Wayne explained. He wasn’t a mansplainer, but sometimes he assumed too much knowledge in his audience.
“Isn’t that...?” I stammered, giving Josh a decidedly confused look.
“A prostitute?” he chuckled. “Only in America. I’m the guy in the middle of the scrum whose job it is to hook the ball out to my team.”
“And a scrum is like when you all do that group hug thing?”
He laughed again, but in a friendly and open way. “We don't have to talk about rugby if you don't want to.”
“Thanks. I'm not really in to sports.”
“How about sportsmen?”
“I don't know.” A few of the girls turned suddenly worried looks my way. Was this maybe an all or nothing deal? “I mean sure, why not?” The looks of relief suggested I was right. “It’s just, I don't know, don't get too comfortable, okay?”
“Is it just me you don't like?” Josh asked putting on a mock wounded face. Hannah meanwhile was giving me warning looks, the subtleties of which I couldn’t quite grasp.
“No. I mean, I like you. At least, you know, first impressions and everything. It’s more, I don't know, I'm not sure you'll like me so much when you get to know me.”
Hannah’s warning look intensified. Subtleties duly understood. It didn’t get me out of the minefield though.
“I can’t imagine why you’d think that. I mean, a girl as pretty as you.”
There went the blush again. It didn’t make much sense. With the testosterone blockers I shouldn’t have felt anything, unless maybe I had a small amount of some other hormones.
“Just, can we take it slow? At least until we get to know each other a bit better? I’d hate to get your hopes up then, I don’t know, disappoint you.”
“Oh, I don’t think you'll do that, but sure, well take it slow.”
The tension in the group faded. Couples started drifting off in different directions until just Josh and me, Cheryl and Wayne and Hannah and her side of beef remained.
“So, what’s really going on here?” Wayne asked.
“Nothing,” Hannah chopped in before I could find the courage to form a response. “Shelley’s just nervous ‘cos she doesn’t know anybody.”
Not true. I knew most of the girls and had even had a run in with several of the guys in the rugby team in my previous years.
“Shell?” Wayne wanted to hear from me. No implicit threat, but Hannah’s hunk was a little intimidating.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” I said nervously, but truthfully. The truth would be important when everything was revealed. “I, er, I’ve always tried to keep to myself. I was picked on quite a bit before this,” I flashed my own brief challenge at Hannah, “so I’m a bit nervous when someone springs a surprise on me.”
“Well, hopefully I’m a nice surprise,” Josh said, “rather than the nasty ones you’re so evidently used to.”
I smiled at him. I knew what effect my smile had on me, so could imagine what it would do to him. I did try to tone it down a bit, but wasn’t sure how well I did.
“Definitely a nice surprise,” I said. “I just hope I don’t end up being the nasty one.”
“What do you mean?”
Now I was getting warning vibes from both Cheryl and Hannah. “Can I tell you later? Just, no expectations this morning, okay?”
“I guess I can live with that.”
Hannah and Cheryl moved off with their guys, each giving me an unhelpful little meaningful look as they went. I more or less got the meaning, but it didn’t much help me figure out what to do.
“So now it’s just the two of us, maybe you’d like to say a little more?” Josh asked.
“I suppose that kind of depends. What would happen if I told you something that made you not want to be with me anymore?”
“I guess I’d be disappointed, but I’d say goodbye and head off home.”
“And when the others find out that you went early?”
“The plan is that we all meet up afterwards, so I suspect Wayne in particular wouldn't be that happy with Cheryl, since it was them who set it up and we were all supposed to have a fun time.”
“How do you feel about living in denial for the morning then? I mean we can do stuff together, I’ll pay my own way, we won’t try to take things further than just enjoying each other’s company, and after we’re ready to go our different ways, I’ll tell you what’s bothering me.”
“I guess I could live with that.”
So, we wandered around the mall. Josh did take hold of my hand at one stage and I didn’t want to bring more of a downer to the day than I already had, so I let him. Besides, I kind of liked it. He insisted on buying lunch, and again I didn’t feel I could turn him down. The chicken salad I chose was hardly going to break the bank.
We talked about just about anything but sport, which endeared him greatly to me. He wanted to know about me, which was hard because I’d lived so much of my life crammed into a person I didn’t really want to be, and avoiding the attention of people who would call that sort of person loser and make their life more miserable than it already was. But I didn’t really have a way of telling him about that without either lying or telling him too much. I hadn’t been the new me long enough to realise I could now dream of a future where I could be something, but there was one thing I’d discovered quite recently that was a growing passion.
I told him about the essay I’d written for English, which had him confused for a bit until I told him how much I’d enjoyed writing it, how much it helped me, being able to express my feelings in words.
Telling him about my controlling and manipulative father was relatively neutral ground, and segued neatly into drawing the parallels out of the story behind the film. I must have done something right because he listened with rapt attention as I spoke about the feelings writing had released.
“You should totally do that,” he said at last.
“What?”
“Write. You have an amazing way with words. I don’t know anyone in my year who could write half so well as you sound just talking. I want to hear more.”
“Maybe another time.” There was that blush again. Self-conscious delight at his response. “I want to hear about you. You don’t strike me as a typical sporty type.”
So he told me about his hopes and dreams, to become an architect or a civil engineer. His heroes from history included Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Christopher Wren and a selection of other names I’d never encountered before. I could feel the passion in him and wondered if I sounded half so excited when I spoke about writing.
The afternoon wore on. We found enough things to laugh at that it became apparent we enjoyed a lot of the same things. I paused at enough shop windows to admire the dresses on display that he began to comment, first suggesting things that would look good on me, then making gentle fun of me by pointing out some of the seriously outrageous things on show in some windows. I retaliated by stopping at a few sporting goods shops and pointing out some of the more garish trainers. Eventually we found our way back to the food court where the whole thing had begun.
He stopped me when we were still a way off, still out of sight of all the others.
“I’ve had an amazing time, Michelle. I don’t remember ever enjoying myself more with a girl. Usually they’re all just gushy and excited to be around a member of the school rugby team, but you’re different, in a good way I mean.”
“I never expected to enjoy myself so much either. Josh, you’re an amazing guy.” I could feel the clouds looming overhead. “I guess it’s time for that uncomfortable truth though.”
“One more moment of denial,” he said cupping my chin, lifting my face until I was looking into his eyes. Advancing slowly, looking for any signs that I was going to pull away.
I wanted to. I didn’t want the fallout that would come from this, not for me but all the more not for him. But I didn’t want to at the same time. I didn’t have time to resolve the internal battle though, which meant inaction won. I felt his lips on mine, gently caressing.
You remember your firsts. First kiss, first crush...
I pulled away, turned away. I could feel tears prickling the backs of my eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that Josh, I'm sorry.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s what I wanted to tell you earlier. Josh, do you remember a kid from my year last year called Michael Thorne?”
“Not really. Unless you mean that sad loner kid who was always being... picked... on.”
“Tada.” I did a very understated jazz hands.
“You’re a guy?”
“I kind of found out over the summer that I’m trans, almost definitely. My doctor’s giving me something to block my body’s testosterone production, so I’m kind of not anything at the moment. Not physically. I mean, yes, I have the same equipment as you, but it’s kind of little and largely inactive...”
“Largely?”
“I use it to go to the loo, but it doesn’t do anything else.
“I don’t know exactly what the future holds for me. Right now I need to explore whether or not it feels more right for me to be a girl, and right now I don’t think there’s any question. In a few years, I’ll have the choice to start taking female hormones. A year or two after that I can have my bits rearranged. Right now I’m stuck in between, and I guess most people, once they figure out what’s going on, will see me as a boy in a dress. I’m hoping that in time I’ll be able to show them I’m actually a girl in a boy-skin, but it doesn’t change what that all means for you and me.
“I’d have told you at the outset because I don’t want to lie to anyone about this, but then that would have messed everything up for the group and maybe got Cheryl in trouble with Wayne. I’m not sure whose idea it was to invite me along to this, but I don’t think Cheryl deserves all the blame.”
“Hang on, the girls know about you?”
“Yeah, I kind of owned up to it before Wayne arrived. Linda and Maebh knew before that, and I think Linda may have said something about telling everyone. It felt like a set up when Wayne came over, but I don’t think they were all involved.”
“It explains why you said what you said about just keeping things friendly, but why did you let me kiss you?”
“I didn’t want to because I knew how awkward this moment would be, but I wanted to at the same time because... I don’t know, I guess however messed up I am right now, underneath it all I am a girl and I... just... really... wanted... you to. Sorry?”
“So, where do we go from here?”
I looked up at him, half expecting to flinch away from the anger I’d find there, but he showed no emotion other than concern.
“Well, I don’t plan to hide what I am or who I was. Blowback would be a lot worse if I were found out rather than admitted to it all, so the question is how do you want to handle having spent the day with whatever I am in everyone else’s eyes?
“We can say I came clean early on and you were cool enough about it just to spend the day with me so we didn’t spoil everyone else’s fun. Then after today you don’t have to see me ever again, except maybe in the corridor at school and I won’t mind if you ignore me.”
“What if I do want to see you again?”
A trickle of cold ran down my spine. For a second I couldn’t breathe.
“I’d really like that,” I said, unable to lift my eyes to look at him, “but you do realise what it will mean? You’ll be the guy who goes out with the boy in a dress. They’ll call you gay and queer and a whole bunch of other things.”
“Let them. It’s okay to be gay these days, besides I don’t think I will be, will I?”
“Well, no, but it’s different from their perspective. Josh, please at least take a few days to think about it. You’re an amazing guy and I’m in real danger of falling for you big time, but you need to be sure you want this before you do it. I’ve had four weeks to decide I want to go back to school as a girl, even though I have a pretty clear idea what it’ll mean when the arseholes find out. You don’t have to be tainted by association with me, and I’d much rather you saw what you were letting yourself in for before deciding to do it.”
“I doubt it’ll change how I feel right now, Shelley, but if you want me to do that, then okay.”
“We should rejoin the others,” I said, pushing gently against his chest. “If all we get from this is today, I’ll at least have some great memories.”
“A few more of those to come then,” he said putting his arm around my shoulder and pulling me to him. I couldn’t help but snake my own around his waist. He propelled me gently towards where the rest of the crowd were congregating.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.
“Never surer. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay with my friends and me.
“Hey everyone,” he called as we arrived.
Hannah looked a little too satisfied, putting me on my guard. “Have a good time, guys?” she asked.
“Fantastic,” Josh replied with enough enthusiasm for us both, “and for those of you who were in on it, Shelley told me everything, and I’m okay with it.”
“Told you what?” Wayne wanted to know.
“Up to you, Shell,” Josh said. “Yours to share or not, as you like.”
“I guess everyone will know soon enough,” I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. “I’m, er, I’m trans. I used to be a boy.”
“What!?” Wayne did not seem pleased. His mammoth counterpart on whom Hannah was leaning did not look it either.
In for a penny, I thought, one of Uncle Richard’s obscure little sayings cropping into my mind. “Actually, technically I still am a boy. They won’t do much to you at this age. I used to be Michael Thorne if anyone remembers who he was.”
“Who knew about this?” Wayne rumbled like distant thunder.
“Does it matter? When I accepted the invitation to come, I thought I’d be spending a couple of hours wandering about the shops with a group of girls, maybe get my ears pierced. To be fair, they did warn me there might be boys involved, but I didn’t realise that bit was going to be compulsory until you’d more or less paired me up with Josh.
“By then, I didn’t have much choice. If I’d backed out, it would have ruined the day for everyone, so I trusted Josh was as good as his reputation and waited till we were on our own. It took me a while to gather a little courage, but I told him about me, and he was totally okay about it.”
“This true, Josh?”
“I can’t remember ever enjoying myself more. And yes, she did tell me about it before things went too far.”
“So what was that I saw a couple of minutes ago with you two playing tonsil hockey?” Hannah was pretty much crowing with delight.
“That was me going a little far AFTER Michelle told me. It was also a first kiss, so no tongues were involved.”
“What the hell man,” Wayne wasn’t handling it well, neither for that matter was his silent counterpart. “Are you gay or something?”
“Maybe, if you still live in the last century. I thought we were all supposed to be cool with the LGBTQ scene. And I ask you, does anyone see anything other than a girl right here.”
I withered a little bit under the scrutiny, but managed a shy smile.
Heads shook all round, except maybe Hannah’s. Even Wayne and Hannah’s pet leviathan joined in.
“I guess not,” Wayne spoke for the group. “Okay Shell, you’re good with us, just don’t mess with our star player.”
Matters resolved and all present and accounted for, the lads drifted off in response to some unseen signal, and the girls began to disappear as well. Before long it was just Linda, Maebh, Hannah and me.
“We’re sorry,” Linda said, “we didn’t have much of a choice.”
“It’s okay. Can I ride home with you guys?”
“Sure, if you still want to.”
“Of course. Just give me a minute here.”
My two study buddies retreated a short way and it was just Hannah and me.
“Not too shabby, freak,” she said. “You’re not as much of a loser as I remember.”
“I’m not struggling with pretending I’m a boy anymore.”
“Whatever.”
“Listen, I get that you and I are never going to be friends...”
“Ha! You wish.”
“Actually, I don’t. I think I'm a lot better off without someone like you as a mate. I’d be just as happy if we agreed to give each other as wide a berth as possible.”
“Suits me.” She stood up and started to saunter off.
“One more thing.” She paused and glanced back, listening. “You try and screw with me again, I’ll find a way to make you regret it.”
“You don’t have the guts.”
“That’s a shame, because now I’m going to have to show you that I do. Watch your back, Hannah.”
I headed for where my two friends were waiting.
“Shelley, we’re really sorry...” Linda reprised her hand wringing.
“And I said it’s really okay. I know what Hannah can be like when she thinks she has a reason to be nasty to you.”
“I suppose you do.”
“Yeah, well, it’s about time she got taken down a peg or two. I don’t suppose you happen to know the name of her boyfriend, do you?”
“Who, Speechless?”
“Who?”
“His real name’s Micky, but everyone on the team calls him Speechless because he never says anything, unless it’s to Hannah.”
“Thanks, that’s a good place to start.” I had thoughts floating through my head, slowly forming into the framework of a plan, but this part of the creative process was best left to my subconscious. “Hey, do you think we have time to get my ears pierced before we catch the bus?”
There wasn’t much to be done for the few days that remained of our last week’s holiday. All homework was complete, so I had no pretext to visit Linda or Maebh. I did drop in on Sophie to play a few times, and I may have asked in passing if she had any funny stories she could tell me about her cousin.
It was like a dam bursting. Sophie didn’t have much affection for Hannah, and she had access to so much family dirt.
A lot of the remainder of the time, I spent on my aging laptop. Dad’s reason for giving me such a lousy one was to stop me wasting my time playing games, but it was almost too decrepit to run any useful programs. On the plus side, that meant any writing I wanted to do on it started life in a simple notepad programme, which kept me sharp on my spelling. It also meant I had simple text which was then fairly easy to copy and paste into a WordPress page.
I created a site entitle 'The Hideous Histories of Hannah the Horrendous' and sketched and scanned a few simple but recognisable pictures of Hannah to add to the text.
I wrote a few Introductory paragraphs about Hannah the Hag, who had a hideous mole on the back of her neck. In real life the mole wasn’t anything worth writing about, but Sophie let slip how much Hannah was self-conscious about it and kept her hair long in an effort to conceal it. I also introduced a few characters such as Micky the Mute, an affable giant who’d had his voice stolen by the evil witch and who was forced to do her bidding on the vague promise that she’d give it back someday.
With the groundwork laid out, I wrote the first story which I entitled ‘Hannah the Horrendous and her Anus Horribilis’, a story based on a time when Hannah had come down with amoebic dysentery whilst on holiday. It was a purely fictional story, of course, with disclaimers and everything, and I embellished the truth with the most extreme hyperbole. It wasn’t my best writing, but it was funny, and all the more so for the believable degree of truth involved.
I posted links to the site on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram where school friends could find it and shared links to it with the girls I’d met on the Mall excursion, via Linda and Maebh who were keen to do something to get back into my good graces.
By Friday half of our year group at school had seen the story and quite a few had posted comments, most of which were supportive of me. Also on Friday I received an email from Hannah which just said simply, “Take it down or I’ll destroy you.”
I wrote a few paragraphs about Hannah the Horrendous’ nemesis, Michelle the Mysterious, a wordsmith with a magical quill who had vowed to stand against the evil witch and bring an end to her tyranny. It spoke of how, when threatened, Michelle’s response was to put her quill to work. That the first two stories were warning shots across the bow and she didn’t want to escalate to full on broadsides.
Below it was a story entitled ‘Hannah Face Plants a Cowpat,' based loosely on a holiday excursion in which Hannah had tripped and landed in something wet and unutterably filthy, and had been unable to clean any of it off until most of it had turn crispy in her hair and clothes.
The next email was one pleading for the stories to be removed and promising not to be such a cow.
I left the site up for an additional day and sent Hannah an early draft of the third story I’d been writing. This one included certain characters, easily recognisable as individuals at school, and some of the underhand things Hannah had done to them in recent years.
On Saturday evening I removed the stories from the site, replacing them with the promise of more, should Hannah the Horrendous not make an effort to mend her ways.
Sunday came and went relatively peacefully. I had a few texts and emails asking where the stories had gone, but they’d served their purpose, I hoped.
Monday meant a school uniform. With the summer weather extending into September, that meant blue gingham with a navy cardigan just in case it turned a little cool. I’m not sure if the uniform had been designed purposefully to be as unflattering as possible, but if I could pass as a girl in it, it would be all me and no help from my clothing.
I stood in front of the mirror and twisted back and forth. No makeup, not that I’d experimented much with it anyway, but it was school policy not to wear any. A lot of girls ignored that particular rule once they reached their teens, but it was most likely another puberty thing and that didn’t apply to me. At least not yet.
The night time face creams had started to show dividends though, and between my clearer complexion, my pixie cut and my dolphin studs, I still looked kind of cute. Jewellery was also not allowed, but studs for ear and nose piercings were overlooked as long as they weren’t too obvious. Lacy ankle socks and patent leather T-bars helped complete the look, and even if the dress looked like a sack, I at least looked like a pretty little girl in a sack.
With a rucksack full of books that was about as big as me.
Well, not really, but it was just about as much as I could raise up off the ground, and I wasn’t looking forward to the walk to school. Dad could have offered to give me a lift, but he still wasn’t saying much, plus I think he was hoping that the more time I spent in public ‘looking ridiculous’ the sooner I’d be ‘done with this nonsense.’ His words, gleaned from the few gems he was prepared to utter in my presence.
I’d arranged to meet with Linda and Maebh on the way, so at least didn’t have to enter through the school gates on my own. It didn’t make a lot of difference though as there were a couple of teachers waiting to herd me into the headmaster’s office the moment I arrived.
Mr Oslow carried every year of his considerable age like a burden. His sallow skin hung loose on his face giving him significant jowls and bags under his eyes. He was entirely bald, and would most likely have been white haired if he’d had any. He didn’t seem happy to see me, though I can’t remember him ever being happy about anything.
“So, you’re actually going to do this are you? I had hoped... but alright. On your own head be it.
“We have a whole school assembly to start the day, you can wait with Miss Prentice until it begins. I'll say a few words and then introduce you as a new student. Is that alright?”
“Thank you, sir. I wondered if I might say a few words as well.”
“I'm not sure that would be a good idea.”
“Do you know much about why I'm doing this, sir?”
“No, I confess I find this whole thing to be utterly perplexing.”
“Then, with respect sir, I’m not sure you'll be able to say anything helpful.”
“I can tell the school to leave you alone and that we'll be watching.”
“Yes sir, but that hasn't helped me much in the past.”
“No, I suppose it hasn’t. Very well. It’s probably not much more ill advised than your turning up looking like that. No more than five minutes though. We do have quite a few notices to get through.”
“Thank you, sir.”
So I spent the next half hour fiddling nervously behind reception with Miss Prentice until Mr Oslow finally appeared and led me to the hall...
Where the entire school sat fidgeting and murmuring speculation on what this was all about. I mean, first day back usually involved a school assembly, but the rumour mill had been grinding.
“Good morning all,” Mr Oslow waited for silence and eventually got it. “Welcome back for another year of life and learning. We have a number of notices to get through, but I doubt any of you will be listening until we address the issue that’s on everyone’s minds.
“I’m sure all of you have heard the rumour that one of our students, who was a boy last year, has chosen to return to school as a girl. The rumour is true, and the student in question has asked to address you all, so without further delay...” He stood to one side and offered me the microphone.
“Erm,” I said, “hi. My name’s Michelle, but last year some of you may have known me as Michael. Thorne.”
The place erupted, pretty much as I’d expected. A lot of laughter, most of it louder than the situation merited. Quite a few cries of, “I knew it!” or “I told you so.” A general cacophony of sound.
I stood by patiently while Mr Oslow took back the microphone and made dire threats of whole school detentions unless order was restored. When everyone had just about settled, I stepped in front of him and held out my hand for the mike, which he surrendered after a short deliberation.
“I suppose it would seem funny to most of you,” I said quietly, regaining most if not entirely all my audience. “Most of you are happy being exactly what you are. You girls feel right at home in female society and you boys are just as comfortable being the boys you are.”
The room was totally quiet.
“It’s not the same for me. It never has been, and I’ve been struggling to come up with a way to explain it. The best I can do is invite you to take part in, what is it Mr Miller calls them? A thought experiment.
“Close your eyes if you will, and imagine yourself going home tonight. It’s been a pretty normal first day back at school. On the plus side, you’ve caught up with some of the friends you didn’t see over the summer, on the minus side you have some homework already.”
A few people jeered, but it was relatively good natured.
“Evening goes as normal, you girls have texted each other till your thumbs are numb, you lads have watched a bit of rubbish on the box which involved either kicking a ball about or blowing stuff up and shooting things. It’s time for bed. For the girls it’s upstairs, brush teeth, cleansing routine and into those soft, comfy nightclothes. Your room smells faintly of your perfume, your sheets and duvet are soft and snuggly. Everything feels normal. Not special, but normal and you're content.
“For you lads the whole things a bit quicker. Brush teeth, into a fresh pair of boxers or whatever you sleep in and into bed. There are posters of football players in action or Marvel and DC superheroes on the wall. Again, everything is normal and you drift off to sleep feeling okay with the way things are.
“I should say, I know what I’m saying isn’t true for everyone, but hopefully it’s close enough to the norm that you can get the gist of what I’m trying to put across.
“Because morning comes and everything is wrong.
“If you’re a girl, imagine waking up wearing nothing but boxers. Those breasts you older girls are so pleased with, and you younger girls are hoping for and maybe feel beginning to grow, are gone and there’s this awkward thing dangling between your legs,” Several raucous jeers, “part of which is sticking to the inside of your thigh which is gross,” lot’s of cries of yuk or euw, and a severe warning look from the headmaster. “I’m sorry, I’m getting a little too graphic. There’s a sort of funky smell in the room, which you realise comes largely from you. You want to scream but all you can manage is a sort of ugly croaking sound. You go to the bathroom and look in the mirror, and you definitely aren’t pretty anymore. You have a whole bunch of zits that you try to scrub away, but it just makes things worse as you take the tops off some and make the rest of your face red raw.
“You manage to shower away most of the smell, then end up going overboard with deodorant to mask what’s left. You wonder what your friends are going to think of you, so you try texting them. By the time breakfast is ready, most of the girls you thought were your friends have blocked your number because they don’t want anything to do with unsolicited messages from a boy, and a spotty one at that. Your parents treat you as though nothing is wrong. You look ahead to the day and wonder how you’re going to get through it. You don’t have any girl friends to help you cope, and you’ve seen how boys are with one another and you don’t know how to do that.
“Nobody realises how you feel inside and nobody’s prepared to listen to you. Everything feels wrong and you realise everything’s going to keep feeling wrong maybe for the rest of your life.”
The room was pin drop quiet.
“That’s how I’ve felt since my earliest memories. I mean none of the shock of suddenly turning into something else, but all of the misery of always feeling like I should have been otherwise.
“You boys, you wake up in a big poofy bed with flower smells everywhere. You're wearing a nightdress and everything is so soft, including you. I could go into details again, but I’m not sure I have a lot of time left. Plus if I were to talk about what older girls go through every month, I imagine Mr Oslow will take the microphone back from me pretty quickly.
“Even without details like that, you can imagine what it would be like for you to wake up in a girl’s life. Some of you might feel like maybe it’s something you could enjoy, in which case there’s a possibility you’re a bit like me, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Most of you would just feel horrified by what switching lives will mean that you’ve lost.
“What I wanted to put across to you is, there are some people in this world, like me, who have to cope with it for real. In my case it turned me into a depressed loner that quite a few of you thought would be fun to pick on. I’ve heard of kids like that who saw no way out of their misery and ended up taking their lives. I’ve decided that’s not an option and I plan to take more positive control of my life instead. Right now, I don’t know for sure if I’m going to go all the way,” I made snipping actions with my fingers that had most of the boys protecting their delicates, “but at the very least I’m going to go far enough to see if it’s worth me doing so.
“Right now I’m taking drugs that block my body from producing testosterone, which should prevent me from going through puberty with the rest of you for as long as I keep taking them. It'll also mean that, even though I’m stuck with something between my legs I don’t really want, I’ll only be able to use it for going to the toilet until I either stop taking the drugs and let nature complete it’s original plan, or I reach an age when I’m allowed to complete the change in a different way. For now, I’m stuck in a sort of in between place, probably until after I’ve taken my GCSEs, but I plan to live as I intend to go on while I’m waiting. If you’d like to share my journey, I’d really value some friends. If you think what I’m doing is totally weird and can’t handle it, then maybe the kindest we can do for each other is to give one another space.
“I’m not doing this as a publicity stunt or to freak anyone out. I’m doing this because standing here in front of you lot, while it scares the sh... I mean wits out of me,” a few appreciative laughs, “it also makes me feel more right than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’ll happily talk to anyone who wants to know more, but I’m not going to let any of you push me around. Not anymore.
“Thank you, sir.”
I handed the mike back to Mr Oslow and started to make my way to find a seat. The headmaster held me back, for what reason I couldn’t be sure. It took a while, but a few of my classmates started to applaud. The clapping increased until well over half the room was standing. Not all by any means. The likes of Hannah and the other haters remained seated with their arms crossed. I noted a few faces as people to be wary of. However, most of the school, from youngest to oldest, stood and showed an unexpected degree of appreciation.
The noise subsided and Mr Oslow bent to murmur in my ear. “Come to my office after assembly, before your first class.”
“Yes sir.” I could only think it had to do with my anatomical references, however vague I’d tried to keep them.
He was already behind his desk when I arrived, typing away at his computer – most likely a letter to my dad. He nodded at a chair and I perched nervously on it while he kept writing to the end of his paragraph or whatever.
He turned to me and steepled his fingers.
“It took a lot of courage to do what you did today, Michelle. Standing in front of the whole school is one thing. Doing so as you are dressed and admitting to be a boy, well...
“I have to admit, when your mother contacted me a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know what to make of you. I thought... Well, I’m not sure what I thought, but I’ll admit, I wasn’t inclined to take you seriously. You changed my mind just now.
“School is a place of learning, but usually it’s you pupils who do the learning and us teachers that do the teaching. This morning you turned that around and impressed me, something that has occurred on only very rare occasions in my career. If the response you received in there was anything to go by, you impressed a good number of your peers as well.
“I’ve written a letter to your parents. I thought you might like to read it.”
He twisted the screen round so I could do just that. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Thorne, I’m writing to tell you how very impressed I was with your daughter this morning...’
It went on in similar vein for several paragraphs, but that opening said it all. Not so much that he was impressed as the way he referred to me.
“Thank you sir.”
“We need to sort out how you make use of the toilets and changing rooms. You don’t have PE today, do you?”
“No sir.”
“That makes things easier for today at least. Here is a pass to give you permission to make use of the staff toilets. I don’t think it would be fair to allow you to use the girls any more than it would be fair to ask you to use the boys, do you?”
“No sir.”
“This is going to be an issue for the next three years at least, I imagine. Do you have any ideas for a more permanent solution?”
“Me, sir?”
“Of course. Since the issue affects you, it occurred to me you may have some thoughts on the matter.”
“Could we maybe have a unisex-toilet block?”
“I’m not sure that would be a great idea. Too open an invitation for couples to have a little alone time. Would a non-binary toilet work, do you think?”
“I’d be the only person using it, sir.”
“For now, but who knows what the future might bring? You do make a point though. We could only afford to set one aside since it’s only you, and that would mean you’d have quite a way to go to get to it.”
“And if it ended up being out of order for any reason...”
“You mean if any of our less tolerant students were to sabotage it. You do make a point.”
“Would it be something I could ask, to have the staff toilets renamed as staff and non-binary? For one thing, no-one’s going to mess with staff toilets, for another, it’d mean I’d have access to as many facilities as the other students. I mean, I’d understand if some of the staff felt uncomfortable about me doing that, and maybe we could make it just a few...”
“I’ll raise it at the staff briefing tomorrow. For now the pass should get you by. How about changing rooms?”
“I’d be happy enough to be excused games, sir.”
“I’m sure you would,” he chuckled, “but I don’t think that’s an option. Alright, leave that with me. You have history first, don’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Give this to Mr Lyons. Don’t mix it with your toilet pass. Alright, Michelle. Have a good day, and do tell a member of staff if you have trouble with anyone.”
“Yes sir. Thank you sir.”
|
Seven Dresses - The Seventh Dress by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Things are as good as she can hope at school, although home life is still difficult for Shelley. She's reached the age when she can start taking feminising hormones and thing change rapidly, with her body, with her boyfriend, with her father. A few more hurdles to leap. |
And I did. All of it. It became the beginning of the first of a lot of good days, with only a few unfortunate incidents with individuals who couldn’t accept the new me. I found a lot of friends among the girls, many of whom appreciated that I would choose to be one of them over what I had been. They were chatty, gregarious, supportive, all the things I felt I’d been missing all my life and I fitted in with them as though I’d been born to it.
Perhaps I had been. Perhaps it had just taken me this long to realise it.
One of the plus sides was that they felt fully justified in reporting bullying behaviour when it applied to someone else, so I didn’t even develop a reputation as a snitch, while everyone who picked on me discovered that such actions just weren’t worth it, given that the school’s no tolerance policy was even more strictly applied when it came to minorities like me.
As I moved through my last three years at school, the number of potential hazards reduced as the years above me moved on to bigger and better things.
Josh insisted on sticking with me through it all and we became something of a celebrity item within the school. The blockers kept me small and cute, and during his tenth year – my ninth – he put on a growth spurt that left him rivalling Wayne size-wise. He took on the second prop forward position in the school team after Mike and Hannah were caught on school grounds doing something highly inappropriate and just a few weeks away from being legal. Fortunately for Mike, he was also a few weeks away from his sixteenth birthday, so he avoided a charge of statutory rape, in fact there were no legal proceedings at all as I understand, but they both ended up being taken out of school by their parents and ended up somewhere different for the last term or two. This meant everything Hannah had been trying to doq to get back at me for my story posting just went away.
My GCSE year was a mixed one for me. Josh moved on to sixth form which was on a separate part of the school grounds, so I saw a lot less of him. On the flip side, I was allowed to start taking female hormones. It seemed like my body had been waiting impatiently for any signs of puberty to come along and it soaked them up like a desiccated sponge. I’d been warned that the results might be less than spectacular, so it was with an immense amount of surprise and delight that I watched my hips broaden and my breasts swell over a period of weeks.
Mum and I were obliged to go shopping for bras several times in the weeks following my sixteenth birthday and the beginning of my oestrogen treatment, something which obviously delighted me, but really put Dad into a snit. Bad enough that bras were the price they were, but he still insisted on complaining how inappropriate it was to be spending that much money on girl’s underwear for his son.
There were other changes as well. My skin softened, the lines of my face changed from vaguely boyish to very distinctly feminine and beautiful. The more my changes excited me, the more they depressed and angered my father.
I started getting hit on more often, even at school where everyone knew exactly what I had under my skirts. Not that I was interested. There was only one person I had eyes for.
Around the time I started changing, he started acting weird. I only had to smile at him and he’d find a pressing need to leave the room or put a cushion on his lap. I remembered the involuntary reaction I’d once had to my cousin all those years ago, and it excited me that he saw me that way, even if it was his body reacting rather than his brain. I did try to tone down the smile for his sake, but the more I changed the less it took to set him off.
Even when he wasn’t struggling to control the monster in his trousers, he seemed stuck somewhere between wonder and worry. I asked him about it once.
“You’ll think it’s stupid,” he said.
“I promise I won’t.” I meant it.
“I’m worried you’ll find someone you like more than me. I mean you are rapidly moving out of my league.”
“That’s...” stupid. I managed to stop myself from saying it, but I definitely broke the promise inside my head. “That’s not going to happen,” I finally managed. “Eye candy’s all well and good, and you really don’t do badly in that department.” He didn’t do that well either. Three years of rugby had taken something of a toll. “What really matters, though, is what’s in here.” I touched him on the chest. “You remember when we first met?”
“I remember every moment I’ve spent with you.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t, because there was that night after you won the regionals and, you know, Wayne managed to get hold of a crate of whisky?”
“Oh hell. Don’t remind me.”
“You’re only remembering the morning after. I’m stuck with the memories of what you were like during the actual evening.”
“Alright, you’ve made your point. And I’ve sworn never to do that to myself, or to you, ever again. The point I’m trying to make is all my best memories have you in them. I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”
“Including that first day at the mall.”
“Yes.”
“Including that first kiss which you planted on me before I told you what was going on with me, and the way you reacted afterwards?
“You knew me when I was a caterpillar, you met me when I was a chrysalis, and you’ve stayed with me all this time without knowing what was going to hatch out of it. I fell in love because of the kindness you showed when I was a hideous mess.”
“You were never that.”
“The point I’m trying to make is that there is nobody I know who has shown me the care, thoughtfulness and commitment you have shown me. When you make the caterpillar feel special, don’t be surprised when the butterfly only has eyes for you.”
“So this is a loyalty thing?”
“Nooo!” I hit him. “Maybe. A little. More than anything it’s a ‘you showed me who you really are and I will never have enough of you’ thing.” I kissed him. By this time in our relationship, tongues were expected as well as the capacity to hold your breath.
“So what happens when I go to university?” he asked when we eventually came back up for air.
I leaned on his chest, listening to the quiet thump of his heart. “Best not think about that. Live in the moment, eh?”
The heartbeat quickened. I stepped back and looked at his worried expression.
“Why, what do you mean? What do you think will happen?”
“Oh, I don't think, I know.” I forced my face into a serious expression. “You’ll let yourself be enticed into bed by the first vacuous floozy you meet with a sizeable pair of titillations, and I’ll have to run off and join a nunnery where I’ll spend the rest of my sad life with a broken heart, knitting socks for orphans in Peru and crying over what could have been.”
He snorted. “They'll never let you into a nunnery.”
“Why? Because I'm not a real girl?”
“Because you'd never fit these titillations into a habit,” he said, gently stroking one of my breasts, which reacted to his touch, setting off a wave of, I don't know, something. All I know is I wanted him inside me in a bad way. “As for vacuous floozies, I can't imagine anyone alive who could entice me away from you.”
We had several moments like that before he finally accepted that there was no-one else in the world for me, and I would wait for him until the end of time.
When he finally did leave for university, he found a place with a decent architecture course less than fifty miles from home, which meant an affordable hour’s coach ride away. All the more affordable after I had my first novel published. I was still in the middle of my A levels, but the passion for writing had never left me, and after he moved away, I spent all the free time I would have spent with him putting my feelings into page after page and sending one draft after another of to a list of potential publishers. It couldn't have been that bad because I had a call back after what must have been only my one hundred and seventieth rejection letter. It did well enough to allow me to fund a car and put enough in the bank to afford a series of private appointments with a well-respected doctor.
You find out how much something really matters to you when you're prepared to spend a five-figure sum on a series of procedures that leave you unable to function properly for the best part of two months. Josh and I talked it through ahead of time and agreed that soonest was best, so he supported me through it all the first summer of his degree course, which was also the summer following my A levels. If I hadn’t fallen all the way in love with him before that, I did over the weeks while he looked after me and put up with all my complaining. I was still pretty tender when he headed back to uni at the start of his second year, and I didn't really begin to feel totally the new me much before Christmas.
Which left me in the care of my parents, or rather my mother, for several months. Dad went into a whole new stage of denial when the female hormones started to transform his ‘little man’ as he put it. Not my favourite euphemism, especially as he and I used it differently. After I paid several grand to have my own 'little man’ removed, he finally reached his breaking point.
In Dad’s case this meant drink. I mean, he’d always drunk socially – most adults in our neighbourhood did – but after my operation he hit the booze big time, polishing off at least half a bottle of spirits per day, and he wasn’t fussy about what. His work suffered, but he’d always been good at his job so, rather than fire him, his boss told him to take a few weeks leave and get his head straight. It didn’t help Dad as, with nothing to distract him, he doubled his drinking to a bottle a day.
I didn’t see much of this, lying in bed as I was, in considerable discomfort. For all the post-op aches and pains, I had the satisfaction that I was finally right. I’d rest a hand gently between my legs and the evidence that gave me made all the unpleasantness worthwhile. Josh was a sweet and ever-present support over the time it took me to recover until I was nearly ready to take to my feet, but he did keep the news of my family’s implosion from me until he was ready to return to university. Mum took over then and I was aware enough of my surroundings by that time to see that she’d been crying. A lot.
When I asked her about it, she told me what Dad was getting up to, then had to fight to keep me in bed. She promised to ask him to come up and see me, but however much she tried to persuade him, he wouldn’t shift from his chair. Just sat there with some mindless rubbish on the box and a bottle of budget vodka slowly rotting his brain.
Eventually I was given the all-clear to climb out of bed. That involved a whole new set of twinges and misery, but I was determined and made it downstairs to the living room. He looked up at me blearily and lifted his bottle to take a swig.
I snatched it out of his hand. He leaned forward to grab it back but overbalanced and fell forward onto his face. I walked my tender walk over to the window and poured the contents – still about two thirds at that time – out into the garden, possibly poisoning a few roses.
“Aiyadiun!” He yelled at me, reaching an arm out for the empty bottle.
I slammed it down on the sideboard then stooped to help him back into his chair. He was heavy and it strained me more than I cared to think about, but I managed to get him seated. I turned off the television and sat next to him.
“Whayawump?” he asked, lolling about and very nearly falling out of his chair again.
“We can talk when you’re sober. Until then we can sit here quietly, or I can get you a coffee.”
“Domwanacooofffeee.” He slurred.
“Fine. You can sit here while I get one for myself.”
Of course, I made two cups and of course he wanted one when I brought them back. He still didn’t say anything for several hours, but that suited me fine. I still needed my rest.
I was drifting into a light doze when Dad finally spoke.
“What did I do wrong?”
“Hm, what?”
“Where did I go wrong? With you? I mean how did you end up like this?”
He wasn’t slurring too badly, so I assumed an appropriate level of cognition.
“I ended up like this by choice, Dad. Where you went wrong was in expecting me to become one thing and then believing you’d failed when I chose to become something else,”
“Something else being a gay, gender-bending freak.”
“No, that’s still you choosing to believe what’s in your mind. I mean, exactly how am I gay?”
“You have a boyfriend.”
“Yes, and?” I rearranged my nightdress to cover my knees. It was loosely laced up and showed a generous amount of cleavage.
“What do you mean, ‘Yes and?’”
“If I were gay with a boyfriend, that would mean I’d have to be male.”
“You are male!”
“How do you work that out?”
“You have a...” he gestured towards my mid-section, “had a...” he looked around for his booze, caught sight of the empty bottle and let out a sigh.
“Dad, do you remember when you tried to explain the offside rule to me in football?”
“That was a bloody waste of a good Sunday afternoon, that was.”
I couldn't help smiling. “What made you think I'd be interested?”
“I don’t know. I suppose you were about the same age I was when my father told me.”
“Except I imagine you showed some interest in football at that age.”
“Well of course I did. Every boy’s into football.”
“When did I ever give you the impression I was interested in football, Dad?”
“Er, well, er...”
“It’s not the point I was going to make but does quite well. You decided what sort of person I was going to grow into from the start and you didn’t give me a choice in the matter. You didn’t even pay attention when I started showing signs of being different from your master blueprint.
“The reason I brought up the offside rule is because it wasn’t always part of the rules of football, was it? Not just that, but the rule's not always been the same.”
“When did you get to be such an expert?”
“When you told me about it on a wasted Sunday afternoon, Dad. I listened and I learned. I just wasn’t interested.
“You told me that the last time the rule was changed was back in nineteen ninety, is that right?”
“Yes, a player is onside if he’s level with...”
“Dad, I’m still not interested. The thing is, they changed the rule because they decided it would improve the game.”
“Yes, you see the old rule was a little ambiguous...”
“This is what I don't understand about you, Dad. You’re willing, even eager, to accept changes to a bloody stupid game. You'll sit there and pontificate about the reasons for changing a rule and how the change improves the game, but you adamantly refuse to do the same when it comes to gender issues like those affecting me.”
“That’s different. ‘Male and female created He them'. There were only ever two sexes intended, and you, and people like you should bloody well accept that.”
“How dare you turn to the Bible for any sort of justification? The last time you were in a church was Lonny's wedding. Besides, the ‘if God had intended us to’ argument does not work. If God had intended us to fly, he’d have given us wings. If God had intended us to follow recipes, he wouldn’t have given us grandmother’s. If God had intended us to take showers, he’d have given us armpits that face upwards!
“You could as easily argue that God gave us intelligence, ingenuity and free will, and we should assume he intended us to use them. When our intelligence tells us that what we always believed about gender is flawed, shouldn’t we modify our understanding? When our ingenuity comes up with ways to correct nature’s mistakes, shouldn’t we use them? As for free will, I’ll agree it’s not a God given right for us all to do whatever we want, but it’s sure as hell not a God given right for one person to impose his will on another.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing? What makes you think you have the right to talk to me like that?”
“What makes you think you have the right to call me a gay, gender bending freak?” I kept my voice calm and measured. “And it’s not what I think you’re doing, it’s what I know you’re doing. We all know it, but most of us are afraid of what will happen if we confront you about it. Aunt Miranda told me about it that summer I went to stay with them.”
“Ah yes, I was wondering when my sister would come into this. I was right not to let you go stay with them again.”
“Except she’s not the problem, Dad. Who is it who’s drowning his misery in a bottle of cheap vodka and wrecking his life and the lives of those around him, just because he’s too damned stubborn to acknowledge there may be a valid opinion out there somewhere besides his own?”
“What valid opinion?”
“The opinion of pretty much the whole medical profession, supported by pretty much the whole legal profession, that people like me exist, that there is a genuine scientific, medical explanation for why we are as we are, that our best chance for happiness is through the changes medical science can give us.
“I’ve been luckier than most. My aunt, your sister, recognised what you refused to see. My mother agreed to what you didn’t want to allow. I was able to stop my body turning me into something that looked like a man, and as a result I've been able to become what I’ve always felt I should have been. Only a bad boy would ask for something like this, Dad? Remember that? Maybe a girl stuck in a boy’s body would too. Maybe you had a daughter all along, but you were too blinkered to let yourself see it. Maybe you still are.
“I love you, Dad. God help me but I do. So does Mum and Aunt Miranda in her way. But not enough to let your narrow mindedness control our lives.
“I’m tired and I ache, so I’m going back to bed. I’ve said all I have to, so now it’s up to you. You’re probably steady enough on your feet to make it down to the off licence to buy yourself another bottle of poison, but I hope you won’t. I very much hope that you’ll have a shave and a shower and change your clothes, because it’s kind of rancid in here, Dad. The thing is, whatever you decide to do, that’s your choice, just like this is mine.”
I stood and made my weary way back to my bed, via the loo. That was a definite downgrade in functionality, but it felt right all the same.
As I was drifting off to sleep, I thought I heard the shower.
Which brings me to now. There are so many other dresses I could have mentioned. The dress I wore to the prom with a tuxedo clad Josh on my arm, the dress my mother bought me to celebrate finally becoming a woman. The dress Josh all but tore off me when I next visited him and asked if he felt like taking his newly modified girlfriend for a test drive. The dress I wore the first time I was invited onto a TV show to talk about my latest novel. The dress I wore the night Josh went down on one knee and asked me a question that made me the happiest woman alive.
But if I only get to talk about one more dress, it has to be this one. It’s a bit of a meringue, but then I’ve always preferred full skirts to tight ones. Maybe it goes back to when I had something to hide under them, but I don’t know, I just like the way they make me look.
I have so many petticoats under it, I can barely move my feet, but it’s worth it. Not quite one of those immense parachutes from Anna and the King, but it is fit for royalty.
Alison’s fussing around me, putting in a few final stitches here and there to make it perfect, but when you’re paying what I’m paying for this thing, you expect personal service and perfection. Glad Rags apparently hadn't branched into this particular market before I made my special request, but they rose to the occasion magnificently.
It’s ivory because I couldn’t in all good conscience go for white. It’s silk because what else would it be. The bodice fits tightly to my upper body enhancing my natural shape and it’s low enough cut to show off my very natural assets to great effect. It almost seems a shame to hide them under the veil, but then maybe that’s where the word titillation comes from. Besides, I wouldn’t want my cleavage to detract from the exquisite embroidery and seed pearl beadwork. The dress really is a masterpiece.
Mistresspiece would be more appropriate, but it sounds wrong, and I’m not really that much of a feminist anyway.
Alison declares her work done and leads me out to where my bridesmaids are waiting, also wearing Glad Rags creations. Dresses – sorry Chaney – but at least they're burgundy rather than pink. I’ve told my cousin that she doesn’t have to wear it to the reception, even if it’ll leave the top table looking a little unbalanced. The decision’s hers but I think she’s so taken by the way the dress looks and feels, that she may keep it on for once. I mean, she may not be a girly girl, but she’s still at least as much of a girl as me, and I wouldn’t be able to resist looking and feeling that good.
Lonny is, of course, my maid of honour, and Jean – Aunt Miranda’s neighbour, remember – is my other bridesmaid. I paid a visit to my aunt and uncle once I’d fully recovered from my surgery and, after enduring Aunt Miranda's scolding for not being in touch sooner – after all there had been that ‘everything means everything’ speech – I dropped round to the neighbours.
Sandy didn’t recognise me, which made getting through the door easier. Jean took a bit of convincing that I was the same person she’d befriended three years previously, but once she’d accepted the truth of the matter, the changes I’d gone through in the intervening years did more to fix our friendship than any words I might have spoken. She admitted she’d been a little confused at the time, but no evidence remained of the changeling I’d been, and she could see in the person I’d become something of what I’d tried to explain to her the last time we’d spoken. Whatever feelings she might have thought she had for the boyish version of me, she really wasn’t into girls.
Aunt Miranda took a bit longer forgiving me. She knew that Dad had continued to be an arsehole right the way through the three-year silence, but I reminded my aunt that it was her who'd sent me back to my parents, more or less telling me this was my battle to fight, and for all that it would have been easier if I had called on her, I hadn’t actually needed her. She respected that.
Chaney was pretty cool about it all. Sure, she would have liked to spend a little more time with me, but she’d had her sister nearby, so hadn’t missed me that much.
I look at the three of them, all smiles and delight, holding their bouquets of flowers and ready to stand by me on my short journey down the aisle to my new life.
Dad takes my arm and smiles. It’s a warm and genuine smile with only the faintest hint of discomfort deep at the back of his eyes. He’s come a long way since our ‘chat’ but he’s not quite there yet. I caught him practicing his response to the question, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” It’s only two words but I think he still struggles to think of me as his daughter sometimes. Of course, it may also be the linen suit I’ve persuaded him to wear, since it’s yet another summer wedding. More comfortable, definitely, but hardly appropriate to the occasion according to his rigid standards.
Somewhat ironically, it’s me that’s going to suffer with the heat. Top half fine with lots of exposed skin, but then I have all those layers from the waist down just to give the skirt its proper shape.
Oh well, it’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make if only for the look in Josh’s eyes when he catches sight of me for the first time.
I can see him fidgeting nervously at the front of the church. A murmured comment to Wayne has his best man dipping a hand into a pocket to make sure the rings are still there. The two of them are big enough to block out a significant amount of the available light, so it’s comical to see them so nervous. Like two naughty school children standing outside the headmaster's office.
Speaking of nerves and naughty children, I’ll admit to a few nerves about Josh choosing Wayne as his best man, because I can imagine the opening line of his speech. “When I met Michelle for the first time, she was still a boy.” Still, my friends and family all know about my past, so if that’s the worst he can do, bring it on.
I nod to the vicar, who passes the nod onto the organist, and strains of here comes the bride fill the church. All eyes turn to follow our procession, but I only see Josh’s. They’re round with such wonder and desire. I’m glad of the veil hiding my megawatt smile. The last thing my future husband needs on his wedding day is a little uncontrolled movement in the trouser department.
Best to save that for the honeymoon.