Struggles - Chapter 1

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Struggles of Self
The life of Richard Bromely

The Second Book of a Trilogy

by Sherry Ann Bryson

Author’s Note:

Struggles is the second book of a trilogy. The title speaks for itself. It tells the story of a child beginning in the 1950’s at age eight and concludes in the mid- 1990’s when the child has become a successful adult, married with three children but focuses on the struggles of gender and identity. The story is meant to provide some insight of the dynamics of being different in an earlier generation.

Choices, the first book of the trilogy is also the story of a child growing up in the 1950’s and is told as if it were written by an older woman, a mother, reflecting back on raising a daughter. Miriam, the fictional author, writes the book in an effort to bring an improbable tale to life and to record it so it will not be lost. The story Miriam tells is, of course, fiction. It did not happen, and perhaps it could not have happened. Still it is not entirely improbable, given the power of a mother’s love, and the recorded history of the work that a very few in the medical profession were doing in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The reader will be the ultimate judge of probability.

The Third book of the trilogy is Paths which brings the main character from each of the other two books in the series together as adults. The reader may read either Struggles or Choices first but it is suggested that Paths be reserved until both have been completed, and thusly Paths will be posted last.

The writer attaches the usual caveats. Of course, this is a work of fiction, so any similarities of the people or happenings contained herein with real events, or actual persons, living or not, is just coincidence and, well, inconceivable with the exception of two real medical professionals incorporated as characters, each with a professional public record. The author has penned not inconceivable fictional conversations with these men. Perhaps, some will claim this statement is the real fiction but as of this writing it is doubtful anyone reading what follows and making such claims would see themselves, or the author for that matter.

Part 1
Unavoidable Roads

Chapter 1
Young Girl, Get Out of My Life

It scared the girl, the first time it happened. Little Richie had been wearing dresses secretly since he could remember, probably since he started the first grade when his mother started working in the family store, the general store that was part hardware (lumber, nails etc.) and part software (clothes for the average family). As the children’s used clothes piled up, they were carted to Gramma’s attic to be saved for the baby girl Richie’s mom hoped to have. A fourth child, two girls and two boys would be perfect, but no baby girl came and the dresses hung in the attic waiting. There were so many of Mary’s dresses for the boy to choose from, neatly displayed in the huge attic of the big house on the hill; displayed almost as if customers would soon be browsing, by size and function, but there was only one customer. There were dresses for church, and dresses for the first dance; dresses for all ages from little girl dresses to the latest for young teen girls and play dresses. To the little boy they were all play dresses.

By the time Rich was 11 years old his trips to Gramma’s attic were routine, usually happening at least weekly. It started when Rich, or Richie in earlier years, was being watched by Gramma while his mom worked at the store, after school or on Saturdays. In the attic he was a girl, like Mary the older sister, and as a girl, she spent much time wearing her sister’s dresses, twirling in front of the big mirror and just sitting reading, mostly Nancy Drew or something similar, but sometimes books about boys. She loved Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. When she was eight she and a friend, a girl named Vickie, played dress up together and Richie often thought about her after she moved away. He missed her, actually she missed Vickie. Richie really wanted to have a friend; a friend who was also a girl. In the attic she even began calling herself ‘Vickie’ after her friend who had moved away.

Being children of the business, Rich and his brother and sister had a lot of clothes and were always the best dressed children in town. Their mother would send the boys out to play in sweet outfits but only one boy would return with their clothes in tack. Gary would be covered with dirt and grime with something torn, ripped or stained. Richie would look almost as he did when she pushed him out the door. Mary, the oldest, was almost five years older than Richie and while he played with his brother he seemed attached to Mary, following her around. As a toddler Mary couldn’t keep Richie out of her room.

Richard Bromely was born into a very nice and respected family in Johnstown Pennsylvania. Rich’s great grandfather came to Johnstown before the Civil War and was a merchant starting a successful general store, which grew into other businesses which, coupled with some investments into property around town, created a very comfortable life for Rich’s father, Winston Bromely, an only child. They lived in a large Victorian house on a relatively safe high spot just west of the center of town, out of the path of floods.

Now, in 1956, Richie would be twelve in a few months and things were changing; changes he didn’t understand and didn’t welcome. So the first time he felt the strange sensation between his legs he didn’t know what it was and it scared him. It was a lazy summer afternoon and it was hot in the attic. He had opened a window on each side of the attic and a hint of a warm breeze blew through but barely changed the temperature. He stripped off his boy shirt, pants and underwear and found the girl things he kept hidden. She pulled on the panties, but decided not to put on the ruffled socks, or the slip. It was just too hot. She pulled the summer dress over her head and buttoned the back. She sat down in the old overstuffed chair and started to read.

It happened while she was lost in the story. When the story turned to a girl dreaming about boys and being kissed, Vickie (not Richie) felt a tingling sensation run down her spine and a warmth between her legs. Without realizing she lifted her dress and touched herself. Something was happening. She was larger, no longer just a tiny little thing, and it felt different, it felt good. Vickie had not felt this before and she didn’t know what to do. She continued to touch herself, now inside her panties while she continued to read. There was some connection between the words on the page, about what the fictional girl in the story was feeling and wanting, and what Vickie was feeling. The chapter she was reading ended but without the fictional girl being kissed, and Vickie became aware of what she was doing, doing to herself.

Vickie jumped up and quickly took off the dress and the panties. Soon Richie was dressed and outside playing in the yard, trying not to think about his first erection, in a dress and panties, reading about a girl wanting to be kissed by a boy.

It was several weeks before Richie returned to his grandmother’s attic, and then it was to retrieve a few items he wanted to keep, to hide in his own room, in his own house. Richie Bromely never again put on one of his sister’s dresses stored in that attic; at least not the dresses for little girls, those meant for girls before things start changing. Those dresses were for young girls and they didn’t fit well anymore. That and the first sexual awareness that happened that hot summer afternoon forced Rich to consider the changes that were taking place; the slight growth of pubic hair, the ever so subtle deepening of his voice and of course, the sexual arousal that happened, mostly without any conscious prompting. Richie didn’t welcome those changes. Richie didn’t want to become like the other boys, like his brother. It just didn’t feel right for him. Richie Bromely wanted to stay just the way he was, being able to go off to the attic by herself and lose herself in a book while wearing a dress meant for a nine year old girl.

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