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Chapter Three: The Pajama Party
 
 
Stacy called the following day, inviting Lawrence to a pajama party on Friday night at her house.

“Mom is planning all sorts of neat stuff, and you we can all swim at the pool in our apartment complex,” she said.

“You mean an overnight sleeping PJ party?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes, silly, that’s what PJ parties are. Sleepovers. Haven’t you ever been to one? No, of course, not, you’re a boy.” There was a hint of a giggle in her voice.

“Who’ll be there?”

“Just a bunch of girls. You know ‘em all, Heather.”

“What’s going on?” he asked suspicious now, hearing his girl’s name.

“Come on. It’ll be cool. You can come as Heather, and just be among us girls.”

Lawrence hesitated. Was he being made the butt of a joke? Were the girls going to tease him?

“Please, Lawrence, it’ll be fun. The girls all like you and I know you’ll have fun, really.”

Stacy promised the party was just to have fun. She said she knew Lawrence would enjoy it, since the girls she was inviting were either on her softball team or were serious students and were not girls who would make fun of him or tell other kids. He enjoyed all six of the girls, and often joined them in schoolyard chatter or at the lunch table, usually as the only boy. None of the group could be considered as “slutty,” since they were all 12 or 13 years old, were considered bookish and nerdy and still showed some basic naiveté.

In the end, he agreed, telling his mom he was sleeping over at Stacy’s house, a fact confirmed by Stacy’s mother, who told Dorothy Collins that there would be seven girls and Lawrence at the party. Stacy’s mother had suspected Lawrence’s feminine nature was deep-seated and saw how much he enjoyed doing feminine things and being with her daughter.

“Isn’t that a bit strange,” his mother questioned. “A boy among seven girls at a PJ party?”

“Yes, Dorothy, I’d say so, but in Lawrence’s case, it seems he’ll fit right in, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“I guess you’re right, but I need to talk to you first,” his mother said.

*****
Dorothy Collins and Mary Kwiatkowski met the next day for a mid-afternoon coffee at a local family restaurant, a time that seemed to fit both women’s work schedules.

“Thank you for coming, Mary,” Dorothy said, after the two were settled in a booth with their coffees. Dorothy had ordered an apple pie, the restaurant’s specialty, but the other woman had deferred.

“Just looking at that pie adds three pounds to me,” Mary said. “How do you stay so slender, Dorothy?”

“Just lucky genes, I guess,” she said with a warm laugh.

“A bit like your son, I can see. Both so slender.”

“Tell me what you think of Lawrence and his friendship with your daughter,” Dorothy began with a direct question. Her voice was suddenly firm, almost hard.

Mary settled back on her seat, not answering immediately. Dorothy looked into the other woman’s eyes.

“Well, Dorothy, I think the two kids enjoy each other,” she started.

“That’s obvious.”

“And, Dorothy, I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They’re just good friends.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they are either,” Dorothy answered with a slight laugh. “For one thing, Lawrence is so shy I don’t think he’d try anything and if he did, I’m sure your Stacy could handle him. Physically, that is. She is so much stronger.”

Mary laughed. “I think both of our children are a bit behind the curve when it comes to boy-girl things. Although you can never tell for sure. They are at a critical age.”

“Yes, I know, but my concern isn’t that.”

“What is it Dorothy?”

“Let’s be frank, Mary. This pajama party thing has just brought the matter to a head in my mind. Why would a 13-year-old boy want to be in a sleep-over with seven girls?”

“You’re right, it is a bit strange, but then your Lawrence is a very special boy, Dorothy.”

Dorothy Collins looked at the other woman across the table, wondering how much she should tell her. It was the first time the two had met, other than running into each other once at a parents-teachers evening at the school in the previous year. Can I trust someone I hardly know, she wondered.

Dorothy felt dwarfed in the presence of this tall woman with her study body and military bearing; she felt, too, to be inadequate in the presence of such a majestic woman, comparing her own slender body, pale complexion and wispy hair to Mary Kwiatkowski. Too, she knew the woman’s superior education added to Dorothy’s hesitancy in talking about her family and what she considered its own secrets.

Yet, she saw in the sparkling blue eyes, the round face and snub nose of Mary Kwiatkowski warmth and kindness that Dorothy found reassuring.

After a moment of silence, Dorothy began, “Yes he is a special boy, as you say, and a very good boy, too, but he just always wants to be doing girl things. It’s just not natural, and my husband, Lawrence, Sr., is just livid about it. He even sits like a girl, it seems, and loves reading girl books. Would you believe he’s reading ‘Pride and Prejudice’ for the third time?”

“He’s a boy with different tastes, Dorothy. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Oh, I know that, but it seems he wants to be a girl. He even told me he dreams of being Mary, one of the sisters in the book. The shy, bookish one.”

“I noticed he seems to act like just one of Stacy’s girl friends when they’re together, but I know she’s taught him to throw a baseball better and they go on long bike rides. Your son is healthy, Dorothy, and smart and very polite. You should be proud of him.”

“I know, but Larry . . . my husband . . . is just tormenting the boy now; he and I argue constantly, telling him Lawrence will never be an athlete and to let him find his own way.”

Mary leaned forward, extending a hand across the table, putting it on Dorothy’s arm. The fingers of her hand, large and beefy, nearly encircled the smaller woman’s slender arm, holding it gently, but firmly.

“I may have caused it, Mary. I let him dress in my things sometimes, because he wants to. I should have stopped it. If Larry ever finds out I did that, he’ll be impossible to live with, always ragging on me and Lawrence.”

“Does your husband beat you?”

“Oh no, Dorothy answered quickly. “Never touches me that way. It’s just how he gets. Looks at me and Lawrence with scorn, like he hates us, like we’re both failures or something. I know I’m not a college girl, like you. Only been a waitress, but I love my son, and I love Larry. He’s really a good man, except for this.”

The two were quiet for a moment, and then Dorothy continued her lament:

“It just seems I let Lawrence act so much like a girl. I let him wear some of my things. You know we’re about the same size. And I shouldn’t have done that. Oh, what have I done, Mary? I made him into a girl, but he seems so happy as Heather.”

“Dorothy, you did no such thing,” Mary said firmly. “That child was headed into life wishing he was a girl, regardless what you did.”

“You think so?”

“I’m not really sure, Dorothy, but from what I have seen your son may be transgendered,” Mary said. “Do you know what that means?”

“Just that it’s when a boy wants to wear girl clothes and act girly.”

“It’s far more than that,” Mary said. “A transgendered child is one who feels he or she was born in the body of the wrong gender. Like Lawrence, who may indeed wish he was born a girl, but ended up with male parts.”

“It’s more than crossdressing or being a drag queen?”

“Yes, honey, it’s a real feeling. The child can’t help it.”

“So Lawrence wanting to be Heather is a real feeling? Not just play-acting?”

“Maybe so, we can’t tell ourselves, Dorothy. He’ll have to be getting some professional help to determine that.”

Dorothy sat stunned; she realized many boys liked dressing as girls but wasn’t sure they actually were girls inside, within their inner being.

Mary also mentioned a former first sergeant who served with her in one of her tours of duty in Iraq.

“Outwardly, Mark was all male,” she said. “He was my lead mechanic, and he was a good one, just like your husband is, I would guess. All the guys respected him, and he got a medal for bravery by going under sniper fire to save a corporal who had been wounded on the remote air base where they worked.”

“Oh, was he transgendered?”

“I guess he was, Dorothy,” she said, pausing, with a heaviness coming into her voice.

“What’s wrong, Mary?”

Her blue eyes suddenly moistened and Mary seemed about to break into tears.

“Two months later after receiving the medal, Mark shot himself. He was alone in the barracks and when he found him he was in lingerie and was wearing lipstick.”

“Oh my?”

“And he left a note saying he could no longer bear living a lie that he was a man. ‘I am a woman,’ he wrote. He expressed shame and asked forgiveness of his family and the other men in the group. And he signed it ‘Maryanne.’”

Mary explained that as his commanding officer she had to gather up his effects and send a note to his parents, living in a small town in Minnesota. His father was a retired Army colonel. She said she found printed email messages buried in his barracks locker to a friend in Chicago who seemed to be urging him to “come out.”

“But he said his family would be shamed, even though he had wanted to be girl as long as he could remember.”

“Oh so sad,” Dorothy said, and the two women held hands across the table, both with tears in their eyes.

The two sat there silently for a moment, Dorothy thinking about her son, and remembering the joy she saw in his face whenever he was dressed or acting like a girl. Could he indeed be transgendered? She’d have to look into that possibility. But, what would her husband do about that?

“Do you think I should let Lawrence go to the PJ party, Mary?” Dorothy asked. “Maybe I should say ‘no’ so as not to encourage him in this.”

“No Dorothy, let him come, and let him be with the girls,” Mary replied. “I got an idea that might help both you and him get a better idea about just how much of a girl he thinks he is.”

“Yes, what’s that?”

“Here’s what I got in mind,” Mary said. After she outlined her ideas, the two agreed upon a plan for Lawrence and the pajama party.

*****
Lawrence was the hit of the PJ party, once they got over the idea that there was a boy in their midst.

“He’s no boy,” Stacy said teasingly. “Tonight, he’ll be Heather, and just one of the girls.”

“Heather!” the girls squealed in delight.

“You really want to be Heather?” asked Wendy, a dark-complexioned girl, taller than Lawrence. She had a serious demeanor to her question, as if she couldn’t believe the idea.

“Hmmmmmm, I guess,” he said. “If I wanna stay for the party, I guess I better be Heather for the night.”

The girls fussed over him, all seemingly bent on making him more and more a girl. Stacy produced an entire outfit for him, panties, bras, a camisole, short skirt, scooped-neck blouse and sandals.

“I think these will fit you, Heather,” she said.

“These are new,” Lawrence said, his mind questioning where this was going.

“Yes, just for you Heather,” Stacy said. “My mom said if you were to stay over, you’d have to be a girl like all of us.”

She explained her mother made an educated guess at sizes having gone just that afternoon to Penney’s to purchase the clothes.

“Your mother did this? She wants me to look like a girl?”

“Yes she did, and she’d like you to go to her room now, and she’ll help you dress.”

Mrs. Kwiatkowski carried herself erectly, befitting her military status. As Lawrence entered the room, she displayed broad smile, her blue eyes bright and cheerful.

Lawrence walked in carrying the clothes daintily over his arm so as not to muss them.

“Here’s my darling girl,” Stacy’s mother said.

Lawrence nodded, his face growing flush. He was confused and worried, convinced he should run out of the house and head home.

“Sit down Lawrence,” she said, beckoning him to a rocker covered with dainty pink pillows.

He did so, sitting with his knees together, pushed to one side, in a most feminine manner. He brushed his hair from his face, and placed his hands on his lap.

“Lawrence, the girls would like you to be dressed as a girl tonight, and I wonder if that’s OK with you,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said, hesitantly. “My mother would be mad if she found out.”

“Oh she knows, and it’s OK with her, if it’s OK with you.”

Mrs. Kwiatkowski explained that Stacy had told her how much Lawrence had seemed to like girl stuff, and that he did most of the housework at home. She said his mother had told her he seemed to think of himself as a girl.

“Now, if you don’t want to do this, Lawrence, that’s OK,” Mrs. Kwiatkowski continued. “You can just stay for the movie and the hotdogs and stuff and I’ll call your mom to pick you up.”

“You mean I don’t have to dress up as a girl?”

“No honey, you don’t. It’s up to you.”

Her smile was soft and warm, and Lawrence now understood why her daughter was so well-liked and so friendly to everyone.

“You know, I kinda like all Stacy’s friends,” he said, slowly.

“They’re nice and they won’t tease you honey,” she said. “But if you don’t like it, you can go home anytime.”

Lawrence sat before this woman; she smiled and looked at him with warmth. He wondered what would happen if one of the girls told some friends; how much more teasing and bullying would he get? And, what would happen if his father found out?

Yet, the prospect of spending an evening with these girls, as a girl, giggling, and fixing each other’s hair and painting nails, maybe even talking about boys, was a lovely thought.

“I’d like to stay, ma’am,” he said simply.

*****
“We need to paint his nails,” Wendy said.

“Oh yes,” chimed in another girl. “He’s got pretty feet.

“And such lovely hands, too.”

After Stacy’s mother completed dressing Lawrence, he returned to find the girls all gathering in Stacy’s bedroom, which was large and surprisingly feminine in decoration, given Stacy’s activities as an athlete.

They sat Lawrence on the vanity stool in Stacy’s bedroom, and Wendy took his feet in both her hands, admiring them, noticing his slim ankles and barely noticeable curves to the calves of his legs.

“Mom’s a cosmetician,” Wendy said. “She’d love to make you pretty, Heather.”

“She’s already pretty,” said Althea, a tall dark-skinned African-American girl.

“Well, then, prettier,” Wendy said with a laugh.

Soon, the girls tired of making Heather out of Lawrence, and turned to giggling over the school yearbook that had just come out, looking at the pictures and picking out who they thought were the cutest boys. Soon teasing developed over Wendy’s swooning over Jason Templeton, a blonde boy with bangs and a mischievous smile.

“Wendy’s picked the cutest boy in class,” Stacy said.

The girls agreed.

“Doesn’t Heather need a boy friend?” Althea asked.

Lawrence blushed and turned away.

“How about Paul?” volunteered Sheila, a rather chunky girl, with round face and already developing breasts that strained the cloth of her purple tank top.

“Yes, Heather,” teased Wendy. “How about Paul? He’s nice.”

Stacy intervened. “No, Paul’s not good enough for Heather. Why not Jason Templeton for Heather?”

“You mean my Jason?” Wendy asked. “No way. He’s mine.”

“But doesn’t the prettiest girl deserve the cutest boy?” Stacy said, giggling.

“Yes, Wendy, we all know Heather’s the prettiest one here,” Althea said.

All the girls nodded their heads in agreement.

Lawrence felt elation, realizing that while the title of “prettiest girl” may have been made as a bit of fun, it may indeed have been true. Looking around the bedroom, Lawrence thought in all honesty he was very pretty, and probably prettier than any of the girls. Yet, he felt shame, that he was a boy who was so feminine and un-masculine that he could easily become a pretty girl.

Lawrence finally spoke up in his sweet voice, girly voice, “Wendy I won’t steal Jason, besides mommy says I’m too young for boys.”

The girls all giggled, and Wendy hugged Lawrence in gratitude.

*****
“OK, girls, it’s time for the pool,” Mrs. Kwiatkowski said, entering the room, as they continued to argue over various boys in the class.

Stacy and her mother lived in a condominium project that was favored by Air Force personnel at the base; it had a number of amenities, including workout rooms, a small gymnasium and a large swimming pool that was always well attended.

“Did all you bring your suits?” she asked.

They all nodded, except Lawrence, who stood somewhat puzzled.

“Come with me, honey,” Stacy’s mother said, grabbing him by the arm. “We’ll fix you up.”

She led Lawrence to her room and gave him two tiny pieces of clothing, a pink top with ruffles and a matching bottom. She also gave him a jock strap, suggesting he wear it under the bottom to tuck in his penis.

“These aren’t bikinis,” she explained, “Since we need to cover your male part, you’ll wear a fuller bottom than most of the girls, who like the bikinis. And you don’t need filler for this top, since girls your age usually don’t have much up there anyway. And I see you have a hint of breasts as it is.”

“I’m scared, ma’am,” he said, taking the clothes from her. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to the pool. What if somebody finds out I’m a boy?”

“I understand,” she said. “And you don’t have to go there. But you’ll just be taken as one of the girls out there.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, Heather, you really do have a lovely body and you look very sweet. Now go get dressed, and go have fun.”

*****
The pool was just beginning to full up on this early Friday evening, but the girls were able to find several lounges and a table and chairs where they could put their towels and sandals. All of them wore bikinis, except for Lawrence and Melanie, who was chubby and whose ballooning tummy would have looked out of place.

The rule, however, was that girls and boys with long hair, had to wear swim caps, and Lawrence wore a purple one, tucking his pigtailed hair up into the cap. He found he was enjoying this, acting totally like the girls he was with, giggling at times and prancing about as they approached the water.

“Oh darn, here comes Jonathan and his bunch,” Stacy complained.

“Who?” said Wendy.

“He’ll try to flirt with us, but he’s in high school and must be 16 by now,” Stacy said. “He’s boring.”

The boy named Jonathan was tall, slender, with long dark hair; he had the body of swimmer, sinewy and smooth. He wore a bikini bottom, exposing his muscular thighs and tiny waist and he walked with swagger.

“Him?” Wendy asked nodding toward the boy. “He’s cute.”

He was joined by three other boys, also in bikinis and showing off their tanned muscular bodies. Lawrence looked at the foursome, wondering how boys got such strong, manly bodies when his was so feminine and weak.

“Stacy,” Jonathan said. “Who are all your friends?”

“You don’t wanna know?” she answered back tartly.

“Stacy, you’re such a snob, why don’t you introduce us? I think they wanna know us.”

“Go away, Jonathan, you know we’re all too young for you and we’re having a PJ party. Just for girls.”

Wendy piped up. “Oh Stacy, why not introduce us?”

Stacy relented, introducing each girl, and, of course, stating that Lawrence was Heather. Jonathan’s friends were all freshmen and sophomores at the high school, and they were introduced as Marcus, Jackson and Will.

The boy named Will was particularly muscular, his shoulders broad but he was not muscle-bound, just with long arms and legs with sculpted sinews. He was standing closest to Lawrence.

“So you’re Heather,” the boy said. “I’m Will. Do you go to Roosevelt too?”

Lawrence nodded, keeping his eyes looking down.

“You’re a shy girl, Heather,” the boy said.

Lawrence looked up, into the boy’s eyes. The boy looked back, and the two looked at each other for a moment, not saying anything. Lawrence was puzzled; how does a girl act when a handsome boy approaches her, he wondered?

“I like to read a lot, do you?” Lawrence finally said, realizing how stupid the statement must have sounded.

“You do? I do too,” the boy said, obviously pleased to find a topic about which the two could talk.

Soon the two were discussing in some detail about the books they liked. It seemed Will liked sci-fi books, but he admitted to reading “Pride and Prejudice,” realizing it was a “chick” book. They giggled when Lawrence said he wanted to be Mary, the bookish girl.

“You can’t be Mary,” the boy said. “You’re too pretty.”

The other girls soon were teasing and flirting with the boys, as Will and Lawrence (as Heather) moved off to one side and continued their conversation.

“Let’s go swimming,” Will said after a few minutes.

“I’m not a good swimmer,” Lawrence said. It was a fact; he was a terrible swimmer, hardly having only recently progressed past the dog-paddle stage.

“Then I’ll teach you,” he said, smiling and grabbing Lawrence’s slender hand and leading him to the pool.

With his strong arms, he lifted Lawrence, holding his narrow waist by both hands and walked him into the water.

Will was a gentle strong boy, and he guided Lawrence into a swimming mode, holding him up with both hands and showing him how to best kick his legs. Lawrence grew excited by the feel of the boy’s hands on his tummy, his penis growing hard. Lawrence hoped the jock strap would contain his penis, and not pop out and spoil everything.

The boy grabbed Lawrence’s weak upper arms, showing him how to best do the crawl stroke, and when Lawrence began to lose his breath, Will turned Lawrence over so that he was facing the older boy. Lawrence was alarmed: he saw the boy’s eyes brighten and strange smile come on his face. Was the boy going to kiss him? Lawrence was shocked at the prospect, but mercifully nothing happened.

The girls left the pool after an hour, all of them gushing about Heather’s “love affair” with Will.

“I told you that you were the prettiest and you got the hunkiest guy,” Wendy said.

“Is he going to ask you out, Heather?” Althea asked.

“I’m too young to date,” Lawrence blushed, hoping that explanation would halt the talk. In his mind he realized that if this what happens when you’re a girl, how marvelous. He also found great comfort in being treated as a girl; it seemed so natural to him.

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(To Be Continued)