A young teen boy in the U.K. is forced to live as a girl by a disbelieving doctor and his clueless parents after being bullied and pranked by his school mates.

Charlotte’s Tale

Part 1

by Angharad

 
Authors note: This story was originally posted on Sapphire’s Place. I have since re-edited/ rewritten much of it and with Erin’s Agreement, posted here. Thanks to Karen for her as-sister-ance.

It was commented on as being very contrived and weak, nothing new there then. I would ask you to hold judgement until you’ve read a couple or more episodes, because I think they actually show my writing at it’s best. It also contains a theme which some might consider depressing or sad, suicide is also mentioned on several occasions. There is some violence, but no sex.

I hope you enjoy.

Angharad.
 

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Part 1
 
Some people look back on their schooldays as periods of happiness and innocence, protected and encouraged to develop as themselves. Mine were different, dreadful and remembered even now with fear and loathing.

I went to a single sex grammar school, you know the sort of place where no one has a first name, not even to their closest friends. It was a horrid place more a military camp or a prison than a site dedicated to learning or developing young minds. It was a world which would not have been out of place in ancient Sparta, throwing their weakling babies over a cliff, or leaving them out on a hillside to die from exposure. Were such practices allowed, I’m sure my school would have embraced them, to create a world fit for heroes.

The heroes in question were the first teams in rugby, football, cricket and rowing. We had also some successes in martial arts, fencing and boxing. The cadet force was a real force, and at evenings and weekends the various grounds and outbuildings were populated by sinister bodies who were clad in camouflage uniforms, bearing guns and other items of military equipment. Most of this was designed to kill or injure others who had the misfortune to be at the business end.

The school was proud of its achievements: two generals, four rugby internationals, a soccer international and two rowing blues, plus an ABA runner up. So the pupils who had some potential to be an England cap, or the next world champion boxer, or even a Sandhurst graduate, would be encouraged and developed to be a winner. The rest of us, and there were quite a few, would be the cannon fodder for them to practice their antisocial if not homicidal tendencies, upon.

Amongst the under-classes, there was also a culture of predation, where the stronger would prey upon the weaker ones, down to the weakest of all. They would be universally discriminated against at everything except the academic subjects and even here, there would be some bias against them from all but the very rarest of masters. It was to the bottom of this disgusting pile I found myself descending.

There were three of us who were smaller than most of the others, and at fourteen were still awaiting puberty to visit. If I had any saving grace at all, it was my singing voice. A boy treble who could silence even a rowdy morning assembly simply by singing. Of course it got me snide comments as well, which got worse when a Welsh girl called Charlotte Church, began recording some of the hymns and anthems I regularly sang. I had the misfortune to share her surname, Church. So from then on, I was called ‘Charlotte’ or ‘Miss Church’. I tried not to let it get to me, but at times it was too much and I ended up in tears, especially when some of the teachers also called me Charlotte, much to the amusement of the rest of my class.

Being bullied means you either accept it, fight back or go to the teachers or your parents. The teachers were no help and my dad was already disappoint-ed that I wasn’t bigger or more sports oriented. He was proud of my singing, sort of, just not the high girlish voice. So I didn’t report the teasing to him or my mum either, I accepted it mostly.

Sometimes I did fight back, although anger and frustration were the causes, they didn’t always mean it was the wisest course of action. As it proved on that fateful day.

Watson was a huge barn door of a boy or youth, two years older than me and with muscles in places I didn’t even have places. Sadly, he was lacking in ‘little grey cells’ as Hercule Poirot would put it, and was so nick named the ‘Dinosaur’ by the underclass (huge body with pea sized brain). Very few were foolish enough to mix it with him, because of his immense strength. Even some of the teachers left him to roam without challenge. So it astonished several onlookers when I hit him.

What they didn’t know was that a group of barbarians who called themselves, ‘The Pride’, had been tormenting me for the previous hour. I had probably shortened my life expectancy by pointing out to them, that in any group of lions, there is only one adult male. Most of the others are either sub-adults or females. I simply asked who was the dominant male and who were the lionesses? It floated like a lead balloon and I got a thorough mauling from the big cats, including aspersions being cast upon my own manhood, and the pulling off my hair.

My hair was longish to distinguish me from the convict cut of the intellectually challenged inmates. I might have been small, but I fought my own corner in whatever way I could, whenever I could.

So when the Dinosaur began picking on me, having put up with the puerile jibes of the pride, I began to get very hot and bothered. Watson ignored my allusions to his gorilla type appearance, and that he should go and play with the other monkeys. His taunting increased and my rising temper missed the warning signs he was giving off.

“Is the little girly getting her knickers all twisted then?”

“Why don’t you go and eat some bamboo shoots you big ape?” I replied feeling myself growing suicidally angry.

“You gonna make me little Charlotte?”

At this point I lost all sense of anything but a desire to commit homicide. Suddenly everything disappeared in a red haze and I flew at him, when he again called me ‘Charlotte’. He was so surprised that I managed one blow on target, it was useless however, and he completely humiliated me by containing my fury without having to hit or kick me. He simply grabbed me in a bear hug and crushed me until the tears flowed. Of course a small crowd gathered to watch the David and Goliath spectacle, but it was only ever going to end in one way, my disgrace.

“Let me go you bastard. Let me go, I’ll kill you,” I was screaming and sobbing at him.

“Tell us what your name is then and I’ll let you go.” He responded squeezing me tighter until I could hardly breathe. I felt myself growing hotter and hotter as my rage at him and my impotence to do anything, drove me madder than ever. I wriggled and kicked but was unable to do anything which hurt him or helped me escape.

I screamed my name at him, my voice hoarse with fury. “Now Charlotte, tell us your proper name,” he insisted and continued squeezing to a point where it was really hurting me. Once more I screamed my surname at him, but he just laughed at my helplessness. “You even fight like a girl,” he taunted me, which was greeted by a roar of laughter from the growing audience. Word was getting around that, ‘Watson was killing Charlotte.’

As I ran out of breath and strength, I was reduced to a heap of sobbing rags in his arms. “Please Watson, let me go,” I whimpered.

“When you tell us all your name,” he continued squeezing.

Knowing I was soundly beaten, I whispered, “ Charlotte.”

“Come on girly, you can do better than that,”. He then whispered in my ear, “Tell ‘em you really are a girl and that you want them all to address you as Charlotte or Miss Church, from now on. Make sure they all hear it,” he hissed at me, then squeezed extra hard. I squeaked in pain as he hissed, “Do it.”

“Alright, I’ll do it,” I sobbed back at him and he put me down. My ribs were aching and between the crushing and my tears I had difficulty getting my breath. I felt his hand on my shoulder, and looking at the ground, said in a wavering voice, “I am really a girl and I want you all to call me Charlotte or Miss Church from now on.” The tears were streaming down my face like torrents of boiling water, and my face burned in shame.

There was a stunned silence and occasional nervous laughs, finally someone from the back said they couldn’t hear. Watson’s hand on my shoulder made me repeat what I had said. The reply came back, “So you want us to treat you like a girl from now on?”

Spurred on by Watson’s painful grip forcing me to reply, I said,” Yes, I want to be treated as a girl.” I continued to look at the ground.

“Give us a kiss then,” came back the reply which was followed by a roar of laughter.

The gathered throng parted as the duty master arrived on the scene and dispersed the crowd, which was now about half the school. He collared both Watson and me, and asked what had just happened. Knowing that I couldn’t win, I let Watson take the lead.

“I was just giving Charlotte a hug Sir, because she said that was what she wants us to call her from now on, Charlotte or Miss Church. She said she wants us all to know she is really a girl and wants us to treat her as one. I was just congratulating her on her courage for telling us all. That’s right innit Charlotte?”

“Well is it, Church?” asked Mr Merriman, one of the maths teachers.

“Yes Sir,” I tried desperately to look him in the eye as I spoke to get the ordeal over.

“Watson didn’t intimidate you or threaten you in any way?” Knowing that if I told the truth, I would be beaten to death at the first opportunity, I shook my head. “So do you want the staff to accord to your declaration, and call and treat you as a girl?”

With tears dripping down my cheeks, I answered, “Yes Sir.” Whereupon he put his arm around my shoulder and walked me back into the school. He called my home but my mother was out, so he left me in the medical room and told me when I went home lunchtime I was to speak to my parents and have them see the headmaster. He told me I should need to see a psychologist or doctor. He was actually quite tender with me and I don’t know if that was from pity or what, but that was all I remember from that time and my walk home.

I was in a daze as I walked home, I knew that I couldn’t go back to that place, I would have to take my own life. I was a dead man walking. I was preoccupied with my own thoughts of how I could face my parents, and decided that I couldn’t. I had brought shame on them by association with me, because I was small and had a voice like a girl. I decided I would write them a note explaining what happened, and asking them to forgive me. But I had to die, it was the only way I could rid myself of this torment.

My slow pace eventually brought me near the house, and I began to plan my demise. I would hang myself in the garage. I worked out where the spare tow rope was kept, a stool and throw the rope over the beam. Tie it around my neck, tie my hands so I couldn’t change my mind, and kick the stool away. Easy, ten minutes or so and all my troubles would be over. I felt much calmer as I walked towards the backdoor and popped my key in the lock, all I had to do now was write the note and do it.

I opened the door and bodies pushed past me, something like a bag was thrown over my head and secured and I was dragged into the house. I was so shocked that I had no idea what was going on. But I felt myself being dragged and carried and dumped on a bed. My clothes were pulled off and I was held by several pairs of hands, unable to move. I could barely breathe and began to feel faint.

Hands grabbed my genitals and suddenly a pain shot through me from my groin as first one and then the other of my testicles were forced up into my body. That was all I remember.

I came to, lying on my bed a tube of superglue in my hand. I tried to sit up and realised I was wearing a pink bra and panties set. My groin hurt and throbbed, and when I looked down inside the panties, I could only see a slit like a girl has, my genitals were gone. I screamed, I think, saw my computer was on and passed out again.

The next thing I recall was coming to again with my mother leaning over me, and calling me. I screamed again, this was all wrong, I should be dead. I passed out again.

The next time I awoke I was in a strange bed, with a drip in my arm and both my parents sitting next to me. I think I smiled at them and went off to sleep, I had something warm and cuddly with me and I held it firm, it gave me some comfort.

I learned it was several days later when I actually understood what was going on. I sort of worked out I was in hospital, because I saw people who looked like nurses and doctors, but I was out of it most of the time. They kept talking to Charlotte, and it took a little while to realise they were talking to me, and the source of my comfort was a large pink teddy bear, which my father apparently bought for me. I doubted he bought the pink nightdress I was wearing.

Too tired to be bothered with questions and trying to put the shame of the past behind me, I sought my own release in myself. I went into myself and slept as if I were dead, maybe if I did it long enough I would be.

Eventually, they woke me up and I was faced by a swarthy man, to whom I took an instant dislike . “Hello Charlotte, I’m Dr Cervantes, I’ve come to help you.”

“Go away.”

“Come on young lady, you can’t sleep your life away.”

“Only because you woke me up.”

“Well someone had to, and you refused to speak with your parents, why was that?”

“Piss off.” I tried to roll away from him but the teddy, my only supporter got in the way. He rolled me back. “Leave me alone,” I screamed and wrenched my arm from him.

I heard footsteps run in and a female voice ask if everything was all right. “Yes it is perfectly fine, perhaps you’d like to sit in on this while I try and talk to our young lady.

Why were they all calling me a girl or young woman for God’s sake, I was a boy, okay a small one, but I had blue booties like all the others.

“Charlotte, I need to talk with you so please listen even if you don’t feel like answering me. Okay?” he was going to continue whether I liked it or not.

“Charlotte, after they brought you in here, we realised you were wearing a bra and panties under your dressing gown. They apparently found some more in your room, plus instructions for sticking your boys genitals with glue, so they resembled a girls. It’s okay, they are still stuck like you want them to be, but we had a job getting a catheter into you, so I’m sorry if that made things sore for a bit. We did give you a sedative to help.

"Your parents are concerned that they didn’t know you wanted to be a girl. They and I spoke to your school and apparently you told a huge crowd of boys that this was what you wanted. You also told one of the staff the same story.

"That’s okay, if you want to be a girl, I can help you, but you need to talk to me. I need you to talk to me Charlotte, that’s what the school said you like to be called. I can understand that you feel upset, this strange urge to be a girl, trying to hide it from all your friends in school, perhaps feeling ashamed of it. Then suddenly, pow, it all comes to a head, because you can’t keep it in any more.

"The boy Watson said he thought he could feel you wearing a bra when he hugged you, and some other boys said they could see you were wearing a bra on a few occasions, but they didn’t like to speak to you about it. You were very lucky to have friends like this, most boys would have teased you or hit you.”

I lay there thinking I had died and had gone to hell and this was the chief devil, telling lies and spreading the poison even thicker than jam on a slice of bread. I wouldn’t allow him to torture me.

“Will you speak to me Charlotte?”

“Piss off.” Well I spoke to him, I hope it made him happy.

“Thank you Charlotte, I shall come and talk with you again.”

“Come on sweetie pie, we need to wash you,” some cold hands touched me, pulling back the bed clothes, “we need to change the bed as well.” I lay there and looked at the face of a pretty nurse wearing a blue and white overall or uniform.

“Hi, I’m Linda, can you help me to help you?” She smiled at me and I felt my mouth smiling back. “Come on, sit up for me,” with that she pulled and pushed me into a sitting position, and before I could slip back jerked the head rest up. “Pretty hair you have, would you like me to wash it for you?” entranced by this angelic creature, I agreed.

“How about, I help you into the bathroom and we have a little shower, make you feel much better?” Again I agreed. She practically lifted me into a wheeled commode chair and pushed me a few yards down a corridor to the bathroom, having hooked my drip on the back of the chair.

Off came my nightdress, and she helped me to a seat under the shower where she left me with a face cloth to wash my ‘girly’ bits. I rubbed frantically with my free arm, but despite the body wash, or that’s what it said on the bottle, nothing moved including the catheter. I washed my own hair, just in time for her to come back with another night dress, white this time with kittens on it. She helped me towel dry and then popped the nightgown over my head and took me back to the ward, well my private room. I supposed I was an embarrassment for them. Then she blow dried my hair, brushed and combed it and before I could stop her, she braided it into a single plait.

“There, that should feel better, and it’ll stay cleaner too.”

I wasn’t happy with what she had done, but I felt I had to thank her. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome,” she gave me a hug then helped me back into bed, “I changed it while you were in the shower.” I nodded. She looked at her watch, “If you promise me to drink something regularly, we can lose the drip.”

“Okay,” I croaked.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” I smiled at her, she was nice. I took the drink she handed me and sipped it through the straw, even that felt girlish.

She pottered about in my bedside locker. “Your mum is going to be here soon, how about we pretty you up a bit?”

I wasn’t sure I knew what she meant and looked strangely at her. I wanted to please her because she was nice to me.

“Your mum brought you in some smellies and some make up. How’s about, I help you put some on? It will let her see you’re feeling better.”

In some sort of trance I nodded and before a few minutes had elapsed, she’d painted my lips, put some stuff on my eyelids and some mascara stuff on my eyelashes. Then she got me to paint my fingernails a sparkly pink colour. Finally, she squirted some flowery smelling spray down my nightie, on my wrists and around my neck. She gave me back my teddy and I laid back on my bed. Thankfully the trance gave way to sleep.

“Hello darling,” I felt someone kiss my cheek. My eyes nearly stuck together and I wanted to rub them. “No, don’t do that, you’ll smudge your make up,” she said grabbing my hand.

“Hi Mum,” I croaked and she handed me the drink again.

“You look better today, did you do your own make up?”

“No, nurse did it why?”

“Well I brought it from home, it was obviously used and I just wondered if you’d done it yourself.”

Obviously used! Gee whiz, one of those bastards who nobbled me must have pinched his sisters or something and planted it in my room. I was stunned, they had bigger brains than I realised.

“Once you’re eating and drinking again, and able to wee, we can take you home. You look so pretty in your pussy cats. Give me a hug sweetheart.”

A little later I tried to explain that everyone had it all wrong, that I wasn’t a girl just a normal boy, but even my mother didn’t seem to believe me. I lay back in sorrow and shock and slept, refusing to allow her to feed me my lunch, which was why she had come in.

Drifting in and out of sleep, I heard voices talking just outside my door. It was my mother and a man. “He seems to be in total denial of what happened, pretending that it was a prank that went wrong. He says he didn’t glue up his genitals, but I found him with the glue in his hand and some of it was stuck to his fingers. He must have done it. He’d downloaded the instructions from some website, they were printed out and lying on the bed. Then the boys at the school said he’d been seen wearing a bra on several occasions, we found another set under his mattress, and the makeup. Honestly doctor, what do we do?”

“Give him what he thinks he wants, but is denying perhaps from shame.”

“What do you mean?” said my mother’s voice.

“Treat him like the girl he wants to be.”

“What collude with all this?”

“Yes, I think it’s what she really wants to be, and the amnesia and denial is like a psychotic event because of all the emotional tension. She just blew like a volcano.”

“What my little James has gone, forever?”

“I don’t know, possibly, but now you have a lovely daughter, humour her play along with her and see where she takes it.”

“If that’s what we need to do to make him, I mean her, better. That’s what we’ll do. Okay doctor, it’s Charlotte from now on. I’ll make sure her father understands too.”

I was kept in hospital for another week, mainly because I refused to cooperate with anyone but Linda the nurse. She didn’t work everyday, so my mother would come in and cajole me into doing what they wanted. The only saving grace was that Dr Cervantes didn’t believe I was psychotic any longer and declined to give me anything but a sedative and apparently some anti-androgens, whatever those were.

Eventually I went home and seemed to sleep for another week. I was so tired and fed up, it was the easy way to escape. My bedroom had been revamped and was now much more girlish, instead of pictures of planes and spacecraft, I had kittens and puppies. I now had a dressing table and there were frills on everything. I had nightdresses of all shapes and designs and a warm pink dressing gown and matching slippers.

My parents were really trying. Yeah really trying my patience! But I stopped protesting and meekly wore what my mother produced. I don’t think it was my idea of style either as a boy or a girl, except the jeans and tops I finally accepted to wear. They weren’t too bad, if I kept my eyes shut. The jeans fitted snugly everywhere much to my surprise, normally I’d worn the loose fitting ones that were popular with boys. Now they were tighter and embroidered with sequins and things, and the tops were either frilly or had embroidery on them. They also hung a bit loose around my chest. I didn’t care that much except one morning my mother made some extra demands.

“We have to go and see Dr Cervantes today.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“I’m sorry Charlotte, but you have to.”

“Why?”

“Because you have to and that’s an end to it. Now you can either go looking like a boy wearing girls’ stuff or you can go looking like a proper young woman.”

“Why can’t I go as a boy?”

“We discussed this before and you agreed you would live as a girl for a month and see if it felt as you wanted it to.”

I shook my head, I still had over three weeks to go. “What have I got to do?”

“Well it would help if you’d let me style your hair instead of that ponytail all the time.”

“Okay.”

“And wear a little make up.”

“Lip gloss only.”

“How about lip gloss and mascara, you have lovely long lashes.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Your bra and something to pad it out.”

“Why do I have to wear a bra?”

“Because you need to have some sort of shape, girls your age are usually growing breasts. Trust me on this, it will make you look so much better and then no one will give you a second glance.”

I muttered and grumbled but acceded in the end. She hugged me. “I got you some special pads, just to give you a hint of a shape.”

“Can I take the nail varnish off then?”

“No sweetheart, we spent all afternoon yesterday getting your nails to look so nice, please leave it on, it’ll match your lip gloss too. It will also show Dr Cervantes that we’ve been looking after you properly.”

We finally left for the hospital, with me wearing the stretch jeans with sequins, a pink top with lace around the edges and capped sleeves, a short embroidered denim jacket and pink Reeboks. On my back I had one of those backpack type handbags with whatever my mother thought I should carry.

To be fair, the bag was shaped like a monkey clinging on to me, and made of furry stuff. I’d laughed at one of the girls we saw using one when Mum gave me a lift to school. She had remembered.

I tried to make myself invisible in the car, slumping down as far as I could, but the seat belt prevented it and my mother kept nagging me to sit up. We got to the hospital and so far no one seemed to be looking at me. How did I know, I was staring at the ground like there might be some special code which could get me out of this mess.

“Ah Charlotte,” beamed Cervantes, taking my hand in both of his, “you are looking positively radiant today.” He was a lying toad, I looked pasty and sick, as if I’d been suffering with consumption for six months. I could make self raising flour look colourful.

Instead of telling him what I felt, I told him what I thought he wanted to hear, within limits. The object was to get out of there as quickly as possible and to give away the minimum.

The interview passed, I spent half an hour giving monosyllabic answers to everything, except when I said, ‘alright or okay’. Then I had to sit outside while he spoke to my mum. She came out ten minutes later. No one saw me that I recognised, and I eventually calmed down when we got to the car.

We set off for home as I thought, but ended up in a car park in the town centre. Horrified that I would be recognised, I refused to get out of the car. Then Mum argued that anyone who knew me should be in school anyway, so I allowed her to drag me out of the car. I wasn’t convinced but couldn’t think of a counter argument, and so far she’d been right.

We went around the shops and after a bit, in order to look less self conscious, I began to look at the girls clothes. I could never enjoy looking at girls’ clothes but as long as I didn’t look too disinterested, I didn’t attract too much attention. It was pure role play, and I was beginning to get into it, even pretending to like some of the stuff we were looking at, this was a mistake, as I then had to try it on and that was terrifying for the first time.

To most fourteen year old boys, except those whose hormones and ultimately their dicks are dominating their thinking, the prospect of being abandoned in a girls’ changing room is horrifying. The look on my mother’s face showed she would brook no dissent, so I did as I was told and tried on a couple of dresses, and some skirts and tops. Each time my mother made cooing noises or told me how pretty they looked. I was ready to vomit, it was so totally nauseating. If that wasn’t bad enough, something worse happened.

I was just coming out of the changing room wearing a dress when I was spotted by Astley, a boy in the year above me, who was off with a broken arm and was dragging around the shops with his mother and sister. “Hey, it’s Church isn’t it?”

I froze hoping I’d just succumbed to an auditory hallucination. With luck, I was just becoming schizophrenic. Then I heard his voice again, “Church, how ya doin’, I heard they’d cut your goolies off and that you were really a girl now?”

Blushing like a beefsteak tomato, I tried to ignore him. There I was modelling a blue floral print dress for my mother’s enjoyment, and along comes Attila the Hun making more noise than a 747 with wind. Why did he have to be so bloody noisy and shout everything so the whole world could hear him? It was my genitals not my ears that had received the glue. True to my role, I gasped and ran back into the changing room, trying to replace my heart in its normal position, in my chest not my throat. I sat there sweating and gasping like a pig with apoplexy. What should I do?

My brain, now working at approximately four times the speed of light, made everything seem to happen in slow motion. I didn’t actually see my whole life go before me, but I ran through options which varied from sensible to insane.

The first of these was to ignore him, pretend he’d got the wrong transvestite, second was to sit tight until the shop closed or they sent an ambulance. Whichever happened sooner. Next was a kamikaze attack, where if I was lucky, I’d manage to break his other arm before they got me. I even wondered about the possibilities of calling upon some hitherto unknown race of aliens to adopt me and beam me up.

While these and even dafter thoughts passed through the void which had previously contained a functioning brain, fate took its own step. Astley’s sister, on the pretext of trying on a dress came into the changing rooms and saw me sitting in the foetal position on the floor of mine. “Hello,” she said, “I’m Jane, are you Charlotte?”

I sat there semi dazed and only half aware of her presence, I simply nodded. “Simon told me how horrible they had been to you in that pig sty they call a school. He said that some of the boys had said you were a girl, and others had attacked you and cut off your willie and balls. So now you are a girl, is that true?”

I sat rocking, terrified by even this young female, too traumatised to do much more than nod. Tears were forming in my eyes and a big blob of scalding water ran down my cheek and dripped onto my dress.

“Oh Charlotte, don’t cry,” she came and sat down beside me, pulling my head onto her shoulder and rubbing my back. “Don’t cry, they have been so awful to you, but don’t worry, I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

With that, I lost it completely and was crying inconsolably when both mothers came in to see what was happening. I began to wish I’d killed myself weeks before. It couldn’t get any worse could it? I was about to find out.

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To Be Continued...