Expo Summer by: Kim EM © 2000 All rights reserved
Part 03 - The Peerage
Previously:
"And your name is Kimberly now?"
"Yes. And I'm..."
"Shhh. Come here."
Ma beckoned me and I came right up to her. She extended her arms and
wrapped me in a big bear hug. "Welcome back, Honey." I broke down
weeping again, but this time they were happy tears.
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Chapter Twelve: BACK HOME AGAIN
I was home, sitting on the porch, just like I'd done a month ago.
There was a big difference, though. I was happy. For the first time
in my life I was free to be myself.
The freedom was wonderful. I'd finally found the courage to tell my
parents who and what I really am, and they'd accepted me. I thought it
would crush them, and totally destroy what there was of my life, but
miracle of miracles, they accepted me.
And now I could dress and act like the girl I really was. Someday, I'd
been promised, I'd be able to physically become a girl. That day
couldn't come soon enough. In the meanwhile, well, I knew a lot of
people would have problems with this, but the important ones-- my
parents, my grandmother-- accepted and loved me. And that was enough.
I sat there, enjoying the peace and quiet, the rare sensation of my
stomach _not_ being knotted up, when a head peeked around the back
corner of the garage. Uh, oh. It was time to see how people would
react. And this was a person I really didn't want to see. Tina Libby.
Tina wasn't bad, I guess. She'd never had much to do with me in
school, but she'd never been part of the group that loved to torment
me, either. The one thing I held against her is that she was the twin
sister of Chris Libby. Yes, the Chris Libby who was part of the trio
who had beaten me and forced me to leave town. Now he was in jail and
I had no idea what kind of reaction I'd get from his twin.
She came around the garage, into the yard, and walked up to the porch.
As she crossed the walk, she started "I... I wanted to... Where's Bill?
Who are you?
"I'm Kimberly. Call me Kim. And Bill, he's not here any more."
"Where is he? I wanted to apologize to him for the things my brother",
she gave a disgusted look, "did to him."
She paused at the door and I invited her in. As she stepped inside the
screened enclosure, she took another look at me, and gave a small start
of surprise. "Bill?"
I sighed. "Yes."
"What happened? You're dressed like a... No, you _look_ like a girl!"
I gestured to one of the chairs. "You might as well sit down. This is
going to take a while to explain."
As she sat, Mom came out from the kitchen. "Honey, did I hear...?"
She stopped abruptly. "Tina? Is.. uh.. is everything all right?"
Tina looked up as mom with a small smile. "Oh, yes, Ma'am. I was just
apologizing to Kim for what my stupid brother did to her."
Mom smiled back, but still managed to look kind of nervous. "Would the
two of you care for some lemonade?"
"That would be nice, Ma'am. Thank you."
"Yes, Mom, thanks."
Mom went back inside, but I knew she'd be listening closely.
Tina hiked herself forward in the chair, leaned toward me, and asked in
a low voice "Is it anything you can talk about here?"
I laughed. "A few months ago, no. Back then I couldn't tell anybody.
But now? I really don't care who knows."
"But what..."
I plunged on. "Nobody liked me before. Why should I care what they
think of me now? If people want me to live to please them, they can
kiss... I mean, I'm going to do what I need to, not what they want."
Tine looked down at the floor, then back to me. "And I'm one of those
people, right? I haven't been very nice to you."
I looked her in the eye, trying to figure out what was going on in her
head. "You... you haven't been the worst. You're not one of the
people who made it their purpose in life to make mine hell."
"But I haven't made it any easier. And I haven't been a friend."
"No. Nobody has."
Mom walked back out, carrying a couple of glasses. She silently handed
us our lemonade and walked back inside, closing the kitchen door as she
went. I knew she'd been listening, and had decided there were some
things that she didn't need to know.
We sat silently for a moment, sipping our lemonade.
"Why are you a girl? Now, I mean."
"I've... I've always been one. It's just that I couldn't let anyone
know."
"You've always been a girl? All through school?"
I looked at her through lowered eyes. "I've been a girl on the inside.
Outside I was just what you saw. It's just that I'm finally able to be
myself."
"That's why you've always been a bit diff..." She broke off in
embarrassment.
"Different? You can say it. I know it. I've always known it."
Tina looked at the floor, refusing to meet my eyes. "I feel like a
real jerk. I've always gone along with the other kids. Nobody wanted
anything to do with you because you always acted more like a girl than
a boy." She gave a short, barking laugh. "I guess now I know why."
"I never was a boy."
"I know. And I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I never knew..."
She came out of her chair and hugged me, sobbing into my hair. "God,
I'm sorry." Soon both of us were sobbing.
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Chapter Thirteen: AND THEN THERE WERE TWO
Over the next hour or so, I told her about the rest of my month. She
knew I was gone for a few weeks, but she'd thought it was to recover
physically from the beating. She was horrified to hear what I'd been
planning on doing when I went to Chicago.
"God no! Don't ever..."
"I won't, not as long as I'm able to be myself. You can't imagine what
it's like, having to pretend to be the person everyone expects me to
be."
Tina took my hands in hers and clasped them tightly. "If it ever gets
to that... please, before you do anything, PLEASE, let me help."
Before I could answer, a voice came from outside the porch. "Is this a
private talk, or can I join?"
Gail Bandurski. Another standoffish classmate and neighbor, and also
Tina's best friend. Great.
Tina turned to me, and I gave her a slight nod. What the heck, I may
as well get this over with. Who knows? I was wrong about Tina. Maybe
Gail would be a pleasant surprise. Maybe.
Tina gave Gail what I guess was supposed to be a secret signal to be
cool, and invited her in.
"Gail, this is Kim. She's going to be living here from now on."
"Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood." She came right up to me and gave
me a hug. This is something I never imagined as a boy. Boys don't
hug, don't touch if they can help it. Girls... I guess the rules were
different.
"Thanks. I think I'm going to like it here."
"You look familiar. Are you related to Bill?"
I smiled. "Pretty close. You could almost say we're the same person."
Tina sputtered at that, trying and failing to suppress her laughter.
Gail shot her a puzzled glance, then returned her attention to me.
"Is Bill here? I'd like to see the two of you side-by-side. If he
wasn't an only child, you could almost be his sister."
Tina lay back in her seat, heels pounding on the floor as she
completely lost her composure. Gail's brow furrowed as she tried to
figure it out. "What did I say? I'm missing the joke."
"Bill's gone away and he's not coming back." I turned a bit red with
the strain of not laughing. I was really happy. Gail and I had known
each other since the age of two, and played together until grade school
had made me a pariah. If she couldn't recognize me as a boy in a
dress, I was probably safe from anyone spotting something wrong. Not
that I much cared who knew about it, but I'd prefer to avoid whatever
unpleasantness I could.
Gail was starting to get peeved at her best friend, who was still
helpless with laughter. "Will you cut that out? It's not funny! It
was your asshole brother that made him leave."
Tina pulled herself together long enough to say a few words. "It's...
it's not that. Take another look at Kim. Can't you see it?"
"See what? The resemblance to Bill? Of course, you dolt!"
By this time I couldn't keep a straight face any longer and finally
broke out laughing. Gail was starting to get seriously annoyed.
"Will _someone_ please tell me what's going on here?"
I tried to get it out, but was laughing too hard to keep control of my
vocal cords. "I'm.. I was..." I got that far and then dissolved into
helpless laughter.
Tina finally regained enough control to be able to force it out. "Kim
is.. she was Bill. But now she's not."
Gail looked at me for a long second, then at Tina, then back at me.
"Right. Now, what's the gag?"
"I'm serious. Kim used to be Bill."
"I've known Bill all my life. And Bill is a boy. Kim is a girl. I
think I can tell the difference!"
Mom came to the kitchen window, looked outside to see what the
commotion was all about, raised her eyes to heaven, and walked away
shaking her head.
I was running out of steam. "Really. She's telling the truth. I was
Bill... or at least I was on the outside. Inside I've always been Kim,
and I can finally be myself to the world."
"You really want me to believe that?" Gail sank into one of the
chairs, looking bemused. "Bill is a boy, and you aren't!"
"Thank you."
Gail shook her head tiredly. "I give up. Okay, let's say you are
Bill. Why?"
"Why? Why what?" I asked innocently.
Tina couldn't keep quiet at that. "Why become Kim, dummy!"
"Do I have to go through this _again_?" I complained. "I just finished
explaining it once!"
Yes, I did. I could tell that repeating my story was going to grow old
pretty fast. I gave her the quick version. I wasn't feeling quite up
to the entire hour-long tale again, and besides, Tina had just heard
the whole thing.
It didn't matter anyway, though. Gail kept a skeptical look on her
face throughout.
"I still think you're not Bill, but I don't see why the act."
Tina and I looked at each other in helplessness. "I don't know what
else to say."
"She _really_ was Bill. Really."
"Right. I've got eyes. I can see she's a girl. Why keep trying to
convince me that she's a boy?"
"I. Am. Not. A. Boy."
"That's what I'm saying."
*ARRGH!* "How do I convince you?"
Tina decided this would be a good time to be helpful. "You could
always show her the evidence."
"Evidence?" Gail wasn't quite as quick as Tina.
*SHUT UP* Somehow Tina didn't seem to get my message.
*SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP*
"Kim, why not show her the proof of who you were?" I turned bright
red... and so did Gail when she figured out what Tina meant.
Fortunately we were all saved by Mom stepping out onto the porch. I
hoped she hadn't been listening to this part of the conversation.
"Would you girls like to stay for lunch?"
Gail looked at Tina, then me, and then back to Mom. "Thank you, we'd
love to stay."
Tina agreed. "Yes, Ma'am, Thank you."
"Do either of you need to call your mothers?"
"Our mothers are out shopping together. We we're on our own for
lunch."
I stood up. "Mom, can we help you get lunch together?"
Gail volunteered as well. Mom just smiled and said "Stay out here and
chat. I'll have things together in a few minutes."
As she bustled back into the house, Tina looked over at me. "I give
up. I can't think how to convince her who you used to be." She sighed
and sank back into her chair.
Gail sat upright, her eyes widening. "Oh, no! You really _are_ Bill!"
Tina and I stared at her. "How..."
Mom stepped out with a pitcher and some fresh glasses. "Here's more
lemonade for you girls."
Gail looked up and quickly said thanks. "Your daughter is very
pretty." She giggled. "Much better looking than your son."
Mom just about spit in surprise, then smiled and tried to suppress
laughter. "Thank you, but I'm not sure how Kimberly feels about that
compliment."
"It doesn't bother me, and I don't expect Bill to be around to take
offense." I turned to Gail and asked "What convinced you?"
She nodded towards the kitchen, where mom had just vanished. "You
called her 'Mom'. And she didn't say anything." Gail looked back to
me, her eyes widening anew. "How _do_ you do that?"
"Do what?" I had no earthly idea what she was talking about.
"How do you look like that? You not only dress like a girl, you sound
like a girl, you act like a girl... Where did you learn all that?"
"I'm not 'doing' anything. This is my own voice. I'm not doing any
acting. This is me... this is how I've always talked, how I've always
moved. The only thing that's different is the clothes. And that's
nothing important, just clothes."
Tina sat upright and gave me a hard look. "It's not 'just clothes'.
You do act different. You may not see it, but I can, and I'm sure Gail
can. You act more... more open, more relaxed. Before you were kind
of, well, square."
Gail nodded. "And your voice... before you sounded like you were
afraid the sky would fall on you if you spoke up. Now you sound
more... more confident."
"I don't _think_ I'm doing anything different."
Before either could reply, Mom stepped out with a tray of sandwiches.
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Chapter Fourteen: TUCK AND ROLL
During lunch, I mainly listened to the two of them. For obvious
reasons, I was years behind on the local gossip, and the two of them
were masters (mistresses?) of the form.
I didn't care about a lot of the people they talked about. If I could
help it, I was never going to set foot in that school again, and I
didn't have much use for the people who went there. So why should I
care about Mary Kay Miller and her pierced ears? Or Dave Roberts and
how he looked in a swimsuit. Or... need I go on?
After lunch we helped Mom clean up. It's not something I'd done
before, but Tina and Gail seemed to expect to, so I guess it was part
of the new life. Well, as completely a girl as I felt, and as much as
everybody kept talking about how perfect I was, I still had a lot of
things to learn.
They wanted to go for a walk after lunch, and Mom said that I could go,
but to stay in the neighborhood. We started walking down Belle Plaine
Trail, heading west towards the public school and the nearest park.
Gail resumed her questioning on the way. "What happened to your...
um.. your thing?
This made no sense to me. "Happened? To my thing?"
Tina looked kind of disgusted. "I don't know which of you is more
stupid. Gail, It's called a penis. Kim, Gail wants to know where did
it go now that you're a girl."
I turned about fifty shades of red. And that's nothing compared to how
Gail looked. I had trouble telling if she was that embarrassed, or if
she was red because she was ready to kill Tina and stuff her body down
a storm drain.
Gail mumbled to herself for a while before renewing her question. "So,
where did it go?"
I sighed. I'd been hoping that she'd decided to drop the question.
"It's still there. I just have to tuck it away."
Tina looked a bit startled. "Tuck it where?"
"You know, underneath."
Gail glanced down, trying to visualize what I was talking about. "I
don't get it."
"I have to bend it backwards, okay?" I rolled my eyes. "It gets
tucked down between my legs so there's no bulge. Can we talk about
something else now?"
"But I thought..."
"Look," I explained with a long-suffering expression, "physically
nothing has changed. I've got everything I had as a boy. That's going
to be the way things are for a while. I'll be a girl on the outside,
but my body hasn't caught up."
Tina looked puzzled, worrying a lock of her hair with one finger.
"What happens when it does? Do you turn back into a guy?"
I made a face, and both Tina and Gail snorted when they saw my
reaction.
"Well? Do you?"
"Please. If that happened I'd k... I'd..."
I thought I had better control of myself. I really did. They shot
swift looks at one another as I broke into tears, then as one moved to
take me into their arms. My body was wracked with sobs as we sank to
the grass of someone's lawn, and I held onto them for dear life.
Gail and Tina did their best to comfort me, making little noises and
holding me tight as I fell into the dark pit of a male future. After a
while I began to calm, gradually returning from the nightmare inside my
head.
As I finally started to quiet, Gail was the first to speak. "What was...
Are you all right?"
I nodded weakly, still sniffling, trying to recover some semblance of
normality. "I'm not.. I won't grow up male."
"But how can you stop it? Is there anything you can do to change it?"
"When my body starts to change, the doctors will give me some
medicines, and instead of being like a guy, my body will be a girl's."
"Breasts and everything?" Tina perked up.
"Everything; it will be just the same as if my body had been born a
girl's."
"But what...", Gail and Tina were still holding me, as we lay in a tight
knot on the lawn. "What," Gail asked, "what about your thing?"
"It's called a penis." Tina asserted.
"Your thing," Gail repeated, "will it go away then?"
"No. When I'm old enough, probably at eighteen, I'll be able to have
surgery, and then I'll be just like any other girl, except that I won't
be able to have babies."
Tina sat up in surprise. "Seven years? You have to wait seven more
years?"
"Six. I'll be twelve in August."
A couple of boys I didn't know rode past. They gave us a pair of
disgusted looks and one called out to the other "Girls."
They laughed nastily as they rode off, weaving down the street.
Gail and I looked at each other, still clutched in each other's arms,
and started snickering. Tina looked at us, then at the boys vanishing
into the distance, then back, and pointed at us. And laughed.
She choked out "Kim, you now have the official jerk seal of approval.
You are definitely a girl!"
As Gail and I started to our feet, still arm-in-arm, she quietly asked
"Are you okay now?"
"I'm fine. It just gets to me sometimes... the possibility that things
might go wrong and I could end up male." I swayed a bit as the thought
struck me again, but with Gail holding on to me I kept my feet."
Tina gestured to the street. "Let's go on to the park... We'll be able
to sit down and talk there without anybody thinking anything of it."
Gail turned on her. "Tina! You have the feelings of a rock!"
"It's all right." I started for the street, pulling Gail after me.
"This whole thing has been pretty hard on me, and sometimes it gets to
be too much."
Tina turned to me as we resumed walking towards the park. "Kim... When
it gets a bit much... we'll be here for you."
Gail agreed. "We're your friends, and we want to help."
I pulled back just a bit, and wrapped my arms around my middle. "Why?
I mean, I'm not complaining, but you never had anything to do with me
when I was a boy. So why now?"
Tina answered first. It's just what I said earlier. When you were a
boy, you didn't fit. Somehow you just didn't seem... right."
Gail continued. "That's it! And it kind of, well, creeped everyone
out. It creeped me out, anyway."
I snorted. "Thanks."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to hurt. But it's true. And as a girl,
you seem so natural."
Tina took over again. "Everything fits. If I didn't know that you
hadn't always been a girl, I'd never have been able to tell."
"I'm just like I was. I haven't changed!".
"Yes you have. It's not that you're doing anything _that_ different.
But you're not the same."
Gail looked pensive as she added "No boy can just put on a dress and
instantly be a girl. I mean, he can put one on, but he'll look like
a boy in a dress. He might be able to act a bit like a girl, but not
so perfectly."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm not acting. Before,
when I was Bill, that was the act. This is how I really am."
Gail brightened. "So that's it. That's why you're different. The act,
the phony personality, it's gone."
"I have to tell you," Tina added, "You didn't do the 'boy act' very well. You're much better off as a girl. And..."
"And?"
"I do like you. Maybe it's partly guilt for how I've treated you all
these years, maybe because of... never mind. But I do want to be your
friend."
Gail nodded. "Me too. We were friends when we were little kids, and I
let all that go once we got to school. Some things... happened, and I
just couldn't be friends. That's all over now, and I want to put
things back to where they used to be. But this time, we'll be
girlfriends."
I looked at them, but didn't know what to think. We started walking
again, as I thought about my life, and how it might have been different
if I'd been raised as a girl.
Gail finally broke the silence. "Please? Kim? I want to be your
friend."
Tina joined her. "Both of us. Please?"
All these years I'd lived without friends, barely tolerated by most of
my classmates. And now, within days of publicly living as a girl, two
neighbors wanted to be my friend. Should I trust them? Could I? I
wanted to, more than anything. Being alone and without friends was
more difficult than I can describe.
But how could I trust them? This might all be part of some plot to hurt
and embarrass me. There were limits to how much I could take. I'd
come close to the edge before, when I fled to Chicago and tried to find
a way out. If I accepted them as friends and they betrayed me, would I
be able to handle it? Or would I be plunged back to where I'd started.
Maybe, I thought, If I were to accept their offer, but not to fully
trust them. That way, if things went wrong, I'd have a place of
retreat. That would work, I decided.
Soon, we were at the park, a quiet place with lots of flowers, shrubs,
paths, and benches. The park was right in the center of town, just a
block away from my dad's office, but for all that it was pretty
secluded. Thickly planted with shrubbery, there was a lot of privacy
to sit and talk. From what I'd heard, it was a popular place with the
teenagers in the evenings.
We found a tucked-away bench and settled in for a heart-to-heart.
I opened up. "I'd like to be friends... friends with both of you. You
can't imagine how tough it's been being all alone."
Both Tina and Gail hung their heads.
"Do you have any idea how it's been for me these past six years?"
Tina looked up, then peeked questioningly at Gail. Gail gave her a
small nod, then looked back down, her face flaming red.
Tina looked at me, took a deep breath, and then started. "It wasn't
all you. I mean, with the other kids it was, but, well... God, this is
so hard."
I had no earthly idea what she was talking about. It sounded like she
were trying to say something, but couldn't force it out. Kind of like...
oh, shit. Just like I'd sounded a month before when I was trying to
tell my parents I was a girl.
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Chapter Fifteen: SO FAIR AND FOUL A DAY
I must have had my mouth hanging open a bit. Tina seemed a bit taken
aback, then firmed her resolve. "Something bad happened to Gail back
in first grade. I won't go into what..."
Gail broke in, in a very small voice. "Somebody did something he
shouldn't." She turned even redder, staring at the gravel path at her
feet. "They... I can't... I can't talk about it now. But I was hurt
pretty bad. And ever since, I've been afraid of boys."
Tina slid to Gail's side and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Gail's
been my best friend since forever, and I've tried to help her. But she
didn't have anything to do with you, didn't have anything to do with
any_ boy. It's really not her fault for dropping you."
Gail started sobbing, quietly at first, rapidly growing in intensity as
the pain returned. Tina hugged her tightly. Instinctively I slid over
and hugged her as well. I knew only too well what it was like to be
hurt. Gail clenched me, hard enough to hurt, and started rocking back
and forth as her cries built up into short wrenching screams. While I
held her to me, Tina leaned closer to her and started whispering into
her ear.
Soon Gail started calming a bit, or at least she quieted. The wailing
trailed off to a low, continuous moan, her rigid arms still crushing me
to her still-rocking body. After a while, even that stopped, and she
just sat, staring blankly into space.
When she finally spoke, it was in a low monotone. "A boy hurt me. He
touched me and made me kiss his thing. When I finished he pushed me
down and kicked me in the head over and over. The last thing I remember was him standing over me, and then his heel heading for my
face, and then nothing."
It finally clicked. "The accident you had, back in first grade? Oh God
oh God oh God, I I didn't KNOW, I'm sorry..."
Her eyes looked like windows to Hell.
I curled up into my own little ball of guilt and grief; the only thing
in there with me was Gail's hand, locked with mine. I don't know who was
squeezing harder.
I stopped crying eventually, when I got sick, and that's when Tina spoke
up.
"Gail's family, they lied to the doctors. They didn't want to mess
up the family, so they hushed it up." Tina lurched up, staggering
off until she kicked a tree hard enough to knock bark off it. "THEY
MADE ME NOT TALK ABOUT IT!" she screamed at us as she whirled around.
"They said, they said it was all a mistake, that it didn't happen, that
we were LYING!" she raged, her face red and her hands twisted into
fists.
"Tina," Gail moaned, "It's not your fault-"
"I should have done something!"
"Like what?"
"Something- Anything! 'Cause you know he did it again to her!"
My stomach tightened into new knots of agony as the picture started to
come into focus.
She looked up at the heavens and spit it out. "And he's still out there,
and he's hurt someone again. And it's my fault, for never turning him
in." She looked down at me, then collapsed into a sobbing pile.
"It's all my fault."
Suddenly I knew. "God no."
Tina looked up in pain and whispered "My brother. Chris."
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To Be Continued....
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