Dreamer: Part 6

By Tanya Allan
Original Version Copyright © 1972
Revised version Copyright © 2012

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Philip Coates is seventeen and convinced that he is not only trapped in a boarding school for boys, but also trapped in the wrong body. He spends most of his time lost in a world of his imagination. In this world he is the girl he always wanted to be. The girl who screams at him to set her free in every minute of every waking hour, and most of the sleeping ones as well.

Trapped in a social square hole, he becomes simply what everyone - parents, friends, teachers - want and expect him to be. He knows that he wants to be a round peg, but will, in reality, never make it.

Well, he wakes up one morning convinced that his dream might just be coming true.. or is it?

The signs are there, but then again, are there other explanations for what he is going through?

After a rough few days, the girl is set free.

The future is now gloriously uncertain and fresh, as she sets out on a journey, turning her back on her school, her friends and her old home.....

........or is it?

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My thanks, once again, to PEGLEG for proofing.

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Dreamer: Part 6

What is reality?

Albert Einstein had various theories, as had many other far deeper thinkers than me.

I remember sitting in double maths with a particularly dry teacher attempting to explain the basics of trigonometry to us. Time seemed to take on the consistency of cold treacle. Every second lasted far longer that usual, while my brain seemed incapable of concentrating on the subject matter at hand.

In moments like this, I would lose myself in different worlds, where I was invariably someone far removed from that which I was in reality.

Which brings me back to the question; what is reality?

Is it what exists only in the physical world; bound by the laws of time and physics?

Or is it what exists in the mental and emotional world, bound only by the limits of one’s imagination?

Is there any crossover?

Is there any way that these two very different worlds can converge?

Is it possible to exist in both worlds at the same time?

I don’t know.

I only know that while sitting in double maths, I was transformed to being the young woman of my dreams. I never missed he that I left behind. I did not consider his ties to the world in which he was forced to inhabit. These ties were things that were of no interest to me, neither did I believe they had a hold on me.

In my world, ties were chosen, not given at birth.

In my world, there was no pain, no suffering, no hunger, no thirst, and certainly no mistakes.

Was I a mistake?

This question dogged me for many years.

What is a mistake?

A mistake is something that occurred that was not intended. Either through misjudgement, carelessness or accident, the end result was not what was expected or intended.

I think I was intended to be a boy. Certainly my parents were pleased that I was a male baby, in that I was ready to fulfil my father’s vision of my destiny.

Society saw me as a boy. From a young age, they slotted me neatly into that shaped hole into which I was expected to fit neatly.

Why did I feel that I was in the wrong shaped hole?

Why did I feel that somewhere a mistake had been made?

If there was a mistake, then was someone responsible?

We live in a culture that adores to find someone or something to blame for mistakes. We cannot bear it when something goes wrong and we can’t blame someone. We seem incapable of shrugging and saying, “Okay, that’s life, let’s learn from it and move on.” No, we have to find somewhere to point the finger, even if we can’t recover what was lost or even feel better about it.

So, am I a mistake?

If I am, why?

I cannot recall how much I have thought about these questions. People like me do, you know. We think about them a lot.

I take solace from one thing. To live life is tough, and there are many who have a tough life. Either through adversity, such as handicaps or illness, or through circumstances, such as poverty or deprivation, hardship is something many people have to face, even without the added burden of knowing that one is in the wrong body.

How much tougher, therefore are those, like me, who have to carry this unwanted burden?

I wish I never had the burden given to me.

Then I thought of my time as Pippa.

For the first time in my life, I was free.

I was a true crossover. The product of my imagination created into the physical world.

Was Pippa impossible?

What is impossible?

If Pippa was here, then Pippa must be real. If Pippa was real, then Pippa couldn’t be impossible.

But was Pippa here, or was Philip.

Which was the real me?

I knew which one I wanted to be.

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I stopped my hand.

It was almost too much suspense to bear.

I had to know, and yet I didn’t want to.

If I was……., and I shuddered as I thought about it, then I could no longer continue to live. For to have tasted my dream as reality, I no longer wanted to return to my nightmare. That is what it was to be a boy — a living nightmare.

Worse even.

For a nightmare comes to an end with wakefulness. To have to be Philip Coates until I died was to be, quite honestly, worse than any nightmare. In itself, it would have been fine. But I had lived as Pippa. It was as real as my life as Philip. It was, however, a million, million times better being Pippa.

My dreams contain a quality that real life lacks - choice.

Pippa was who I chose to be.

The palm of my hand rested on my bare flat stomach.

As Philip, I invariably wore either PJs or a tee shirt and shorts. As Pippa, I wore a nightdress or, more recently with Thor, nothing.

So far so good.

My eyes were open, yet in the darkness I could see nothing. Not even a clock. I could hear nothing, save my own breathing.

My mind was almost blank, as I remembered only the cross words I’d exchanged with Thor, and then my dream.

If it was a dream…..

Oh, how I wanted it to be a dream!

My heart was racing, thumping in my chest.

Chest.

My other hand rose and without actually thinking about it or wanting to, it found my chest.

I cried.

The tears formed and fell without restraint.

I wept.

I wept in pure relief.

For my hand was clasped around one perfect and soft breast; a girl’s breast, and one of a pair.

My other hand, without the need for restraint, ventured south once more, encountering the wished for warm cleft of womanhood.

I cried some more.

There was movement and noise next to me.

Thor woke up, switching on the light.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, with concern on his face.

I couldn’t speak, so I simply flung my arms around his neck and sobbed into his chest.

He was at a bit of a loss to know what to do. I didn’t care, as I just sobbed and sobbed. On reflection, I think he thought that this was all due to our cross words, so started to apologise to me.

It took me a while to calm down. My head was spinning as the dream, if that’s what it was, was just so vivid and so real. I remembered it all, every detail.

I then saw the clock. It was four a.m..

Thor grumbled and went to the bathroom, which made me want to go. I followed him, washing my face while he peed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he shook the drops off.

“Bad dream,” I said.

“Must have been bad. What was it about?”

“I dreamed that I was a boy.”

He smiled, as if to say, that’s not so bad. He just had no idea!

“Are you okay now?”

I looked at my reflection, looking down to see those things that showed me to be female to the world. My mind had always been that of a girl, so why couldn’t the world see me for how I felt instead of how I looked?

He gave me a hug and went back to bed while I had a pee.

I thought about the dream.

What did it mean?”

I recalled making a promise at the end.

I was reluctant to do what I’d promised. However I knew that a failure to do so might just have serious and awful repercussions.

Thor went back to sleep quickly, but I didn’t.

I lay there for ages, reluctant to drift off, just in case this was the dream and the awful other was reality.

My mind wandered. It was a very good mind for doing that. Often the places it went were preferable to what was really happening. Like in Maths, instead of quadratic equations, I’d be transported to a world where one’s form is governed not by what you are born as, but how one wants to be seen.

Well, I don’t know how it happened, but I was exactly in that place now. I was now the person I had always wanted to be.

It was different to the make-believe place.

Here it wasn’t perfect. Here it was just as tough, but in different ways.

I was now faced with hard decisions about who I was and about those who needed to know me.

I thought of my promise.

Was it a real promise?

I had no idea. When one’s grasp of reality slips, one cannot actually say what is real or not. By all that was real, Pippa shouldn’t exist.

I pinched myself.

It hurt.

I was real, therefore I existed as Pippa.

The why I could actually answer. Perhaps it wasn’t the right answer, but it worked for me.

I was Pippa because I wanted to be.

There was another question that I couldn’t answer so easily.

How?

How powerful was wishful thinking?

Is it possible to wish oneself into a different existence?

At five in the morning, it isn’t easy to think so deeply. I reached out a hand and touched the man sleeping next to me.

I smiled, feeling strange longings in my soul, which moved to a much more physical place. I rolled over so we were both lying facing the same way, spoon fashion, with me behind him. I felt content.

I must have dropped off, for at eight Thor woke me up.

“You work today, yes?”

I opened my eyes, feeling down below just to make sure, and smiled.

“I’ve time, if you want to,” I said.

After we’d made love, he rolled over and went back to sleep as I went for my shower.

Standing under the hot shower, feeling the water cascade down my breasts and shoulders, I washed, feeling better.

By the time I reached the shop, I had all but forgotten the dream. However, Lizzie was on the phone with her father when I walked through the door. I had no problem with her father, as he was a good accountant and a caring dad. It was with my own attitude towards my parents that gave me problems.

I realised that I couldn’t let them go on worrying. Apart from everything else, the police needed to be told I wasn’t in danger and to stop looking for me.

How could I do this?

I couldn’t call them, as I no longer sounded anything like Philip.

That was another problem. If I’d changed so completely, there is no way that I could have somehow been a bit girl and a bit boy. I had been a completely normal boy (physically at any rate). I had read about hermaphrodites and the inter-sexed, and as much as I’d like to say that I was a bit of both, I hadn’t been. I had been a completely normally functioning male.

Lizzie came off the phone.

“You’re looking glum today,” she observed.

“Am I. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. What’s up?”

“I had a bit of a fight with my boyfriend last night,” I said, neatly avoiding the real reason.

“Oh, okay now?”

I shrugged.

“I think so. We’ve been a bit too intense and with him working all evening, we don’t see much of each other.”

“Do you need some time off?”

“Not really. I’ve also got parents problems,” I said, surprised at myself for admitting it. I’d never mentioned my parents before.

“I thought your parents had died or something. You never speak about them.”

“No. We don’t get on, but I suppose I need to mend bridges, or whatever the saying is.”

“I couldn’t manage without mine. They’re a pain in the arse, but actually, they do know more than I often think they do.”

I laughed.

“So, where do you come from? You never said.”

“My folks live outside Perth.”

“What caused the rift between you?” she asked.

“It’s not so much a rift as a breakdown in communications. I never fitted in with their idea of what I should be.”

“Oh boy, do I know what you mean. What happened?”

I shrugged.

“Nothing. I just left school early and left home. I haven’t spoken to them for several weeks.”

“Give them a call,” she suggested.

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

I paused. I couldn’t tell her anything close to the truth. If I did, she would never believe me anyway.

“It’s complicated,” was all I could say.

Fortunately, several teenagers came into the shop in a giggling gaggle and our conversation had to cease.

We never revisited that particular conversation, so by the end of the day I was feeling wound up over how I could even begin to contact my parents.

In order to prevent further friction with Thor, I popped round to the pub where he was working at about six o’clock.

The pub was quiet, so he grinned when he saw me, coming over and sitting with me in a secluded booth.

“Thanks for coming in. I thought still angry with me you were.”

“No, it was me. I’m sorry, Thor.”

He nodded, but I sensed that he had something on his mind.

“It’s both of us. We’re too busy trying to make money that we forget what we are about,” he said, with a sad smile.

“Maybe we need to revise what we think is important,” I suggested. “It’s just, well, it’s just we’re pushing it too hard. You wanted to see Britain, and then the rest of Europe. All you’ve done is get a crummy job, while seeing a little bit of one city. I think you might want to rethink your plans. I’m not sure that this is such a good idea,” I said.

He nodded, taking one of my hands.

“I think the same. But I have not good news today. I call home and my grandfather died. I have to return to Norway for to go to the funeral. Will you come with me?”

“Oh,” I said, as this completely threw me.

“Well?”

“Oh, um, when?”

“In three weeks, on the Friday.”

“Why so long?”

“Our family is spread out, so it gives us time to get home.

I initially was going to refuse, but then I was curious to see where he came from, and, well, I actually liked being with him. He had talked about his remaining grandfather, and so I knew he was particularly close to the man.

“If I can, yes, but I need to sort out some stuff first. I have to get some time off work.”

“I’m giving up this job,” Thor said, looking round the bar.

“Good,” I said, smiling. “Perhaps we will have more time together.”

“What about your job?”

“What about it?”

“Will you stay?”

“Thor, I have to. I haven’t any money. Until my contract starts, I will need to work somewhere, so I might as well do something I like.”

He nodded still holding my hand.

“I have enough for us.”

“No, I won’t let you use that. You will need it for the rest of your trip.”

“Perhaps my grandfather will leave me some money.”

“Yeah, by the time the lawyers finish mucking you about, it will be months.”

He laughed.

“Ja, that’s true, I think.”

Then it hit me, the truth. I couldn’t go with him to Norway, or anywhere else, as I didn’t have a passport. Not in the name Philippa Stewart, at any rate. Anyway, my passport in the name of Philip Coates was sitting in the sideboard at my parents’ house. I couldn’t get a new one without a birth certificate and the usual references.

“Thor, I’ve just remembered, I haven’t got a passport.”

He stared blankly at me for a moment.

“Then you apply now, and it should be ready in time, no?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated. Look, there’s some stuff I need to do, and, well, I have to do this by myself. I want to come with you to Norway, but it may not be possible. Let’s see how I get on, okay?”

He frowned, but nodded..

“I can help?”

I squeezed his hand and smiled.

“I don’t think so, unless you’re into miracles.”

He gave his notice in to the landlord. As things were quiet, he wasn’t that bothered. The busy time of the festival was long over and now it was a slow wind down to the Christmas break, when things could get busy again.

I left him at the pub and walked back to the flat. Once there, I wrote a brief letter addressed to the police officer in charge at Perth Police Station. I told them I was alive and well and that I’d decided to drop out of school for medical and emotional reasons. What they chose to do now is up to them. I then sat at the table and started to write the letter I had avoided even thinking about up until now.

It took me a long time, and several sheets of paper. How exactly do you try to tell your parents about the impossible?

Dear Dad and Mum.

The first thing you have to know is that I’m fine. In fact, I’m better than fine, but I’ll explain that later. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to build up the courage to write to you, but as you may discover, things have not been easy for me.

I know things are tough for you too, not knowing what happened and everything, and that’s why I’m writing this letter. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the thought of what you might be going through, I probably wouldn’t write.

You see, for the first time in my life I am the person I should always have been.

This person is not the son you always wanted, and is not going to be the person you envisioned I’d be.

This is a very hard letter to write, because what has happened to me is impossible.

I can’t quite believe it, so trying to persuade others that it is true is almost as impossible as the event itself.

The event.

I suppose the best way I can explain this is by telling you what I have been feeling for as long as I remember.

You see, when I was very little, I started to realise that I was wrong. I mean, my body was wrong. I knew that inside I was a girl and my body told lies to the world. It told everyone that I was a boy, and everyone believed what my body said. My soul and my mind were always a girl. It wouldn’t matter how loud I could have shouted it out, my body told everyone what they wanted to see.

I was resigned to my fate, particularly as my body started to change from being a boy to being a man.

I never told you how unhappy I was. I never told you because you wouldn’t have understood. Maybe, Mum, you might have, but I could never believe that Dad could accept what I really was.

You were always going on about how proud you were of me; how much you wanted me to be in the first fifteen, or hoped that I’d go to university and get a degree and so on. Not once did either of you ask what I would really like to do with my life as you were so busy planning and mapping it out for me. I even think you’d have chosen my wife for me if you could.

If you’d have asked and I’d have been honest, I’d have told you that I want to be a girl. I want to be a woman and a mother and to live my life as a woman. I’m interested in acting and drama, not sport and business.

I’m getting away from the point, as I don’t want you to feel that this is any way your fault. It isn’t.

This is no one’s fault. This just happened. I’ve read about it and there is a small percentage of people who are born into the wrong gender. I was one of them

I say WAS….

You see, on the day I disappeared from school, something impossible happened. I can’t explain it, and to be honest I don’t care how it happened. It did happen and I had to go.

I had to go because of what would have happened if I’d stayed.

Firstly you’d have been called and knowing Dad, he’d have called a lawyer to see who he could sue.

I didn’t want that.

Then you’d have called a doctor to see about making it better.

I didn’t want that.

You see, for the first time in my life, I am better. I am the person I always wanted to be.

Without going near a doctor or surgeon or taking any funny pills, I woke up to find that I am now a girl.

The change I experienced is quite pronounced. So much so that I saw Mum in a café in Perth on the day it happened and she looked right at me and never recognised me. I almost said something, but realised that even if I had, the shock would have made all the wrong things happen.

I had a choice. I could have stayed in school and gone though a circus as everyone would try to get to the bottom of it all. No one would have asked me… “What do you want?”

The school would try to limit the damage of any publicity. You’d have tried to find a medical expert to ‘put things right’.. please note that I think that this would be your idea of right, not mine!

I simply chose to live.

I left the school and have now found a place to live, a job and a boyfriend. Yes, he’s a boy and yes, I’m a normal girl. Yes Mum, we’re taking precautions.

You see? This is why I had to write this. I’m telling you stuff that I could never speak to you, face to face, because I’m a coward and I’m terrified of you refusing to believe me.

You need to know that I’m alive and well. I have never been so happy. My only sadness is that my understanding of you is such that you would not share my happiness. I hope I’m wrong, but I think the impact on your social standing is more important to you than my happiness.

I pray that I’m wrong.

I have written a letter to the police, telling them that I’m alive and well. My fingerprints probably haven’t changed, so they can do what they want. I never intended to cause a nuisance or upset anyone. I just want to be me and to live my life my way.

You now have a choice.

You can share my life and my happiness, or you can reject me.

You can never say that I didn’t care or try.

I want to be wrong. You see, as someone who carried a terrible and painful burden for so long, I can only imagine the disappointment that I will no longer be your son will cause you.

I may not need you in my life, but I really want you in my life.

As I said, the choice is yours.

If you want to see me and find out more, then meet me at the railway station in Perth at noon seven days from today (date at top of letter).

I want to avoid any press or police interest, so if I see either, then I’ll disappear again. You see, I have a real chance at a good job, so I want to keep everything calm.

Do not even think about doctors or anything. I’m not sick. I’m a normal and very contented girl.

I want to be your daughter.

Lots of love

Philippa.

I left the flat and caught a bus to Leith. I posted both letters in an obscure post box, miles from where I was living or working.

Sitting on the bus home, I thought about the letters. What was done was done. The ball was in their court now. I arrived back a few minutes before Thor. When we went to bed, I asked him to hold me. I cried and couldn’t tell him why.

I fell asleep in his arms.

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To be continued…….