On the personal front, things were moving along, too. Doug and Sandra returned looking tanned and relaxed. Doug was a chemist who Sandra had met at a professional conference. He had done some of the work on the materials they used in the medical business, and things had just clicked. He worked for one of the big names in that business (no, I won't name names!) and after almost twenty years without a partner Sandra had fallen - big time. For that matter, so had Doug.

"Tell me again why we are doing this?" I mumbled.

It was Sunday morning. Far too early on Sunday morning since Saturday night had gone into extra innings.

"Because you're taking your parents out to brunch at eleven. You're doing this because you're a good daughter and love your Mommy and Daddy."

"And you're doing this to me because you wake up cheerful and know I don't."

When you are young, it seems that there is always some lesson to be learned. When you are old, you can look back and laugh at how many times you had to learn those lessons, because the young always think they have learned everything they need to know and don't need further schooling.

Sandra had arranged for our internship to start after the wedding, giving us some actual vacation time before we began to work. Besides, with a wedding in the works, two built-in assistants were a boon to the busy bride who also had to keep up with full-time employment.

Exams ended, we all were able to store much of our stuff in the garage of our new apartment. I left all of Conrad's clothes behind, leaving the only vestige of him on my body, to be removed a soon as we reached home. Indeed, Julie's home would be my home, Connie's home, our home. This time the bus ride was without incident, and Sandra was there waiting for us.

This might be a good place to stop and talk about the 90% of my life that isn't directly connected with being transgendered. Of course, since this in a memoir of my life as a transgendered woman, it isn't surprising that that's what I've been writing about.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

 

“I don’t know,” Davey said. “Are you going to believe me? Mom and Dad didn’t.”

 

“I promise I’ll listen,” Dr. Menendez said.

I hadn't even had time to hang my new clothes up before Julie reached over and squeezed my new breasts. "They do feel almost real," she commented. I could vaguely feel her finger as it traced the nipple of the form. "And it has a nipple!" she enthused.

Over the years I have developed a philosophy that has held me in good stead. Any time you interact with the medical establishment, the government or any form of bureaucracy, bring a book. Technology had forced an amendment recently - a cell phone or an e-book will work just as well as long as the battery is fully charged when you arrive.

We got settled in Julie's room and she cleared a couple of drawers for my clothes. She surprised me with a pair of matching nightgowns for us to wear and then dragged me downstairs to talk with her mother.

"Connie," she started. "I don't want to embarrass you, but I have a little present for you."

"How could getting a present embarrass me?"

Saturday Morning
"Mmmm," came a sleepy voice. "I could get to like waking up with your hand on my breast."

"You weren't saying that the first time your breast ended up in my hand. As I recall, you were saying something rather salacious."

"I've reconsidered. Leave your hand there as long as you want."

She jumped out of the bath, hastily threw on a robe, and rushed to the room where the portal-cabinet was stored, carrying a towel. She was overjoyed to see the portal still open as she entered the room.

Sunday Morning
I woke up to a discrete knocking on my door. My first fuzzy thought was that at least my head wasn't pounding like the door did yesterday. So call me stupid, but I stumbled to the door and opened it wearing just my pajamas.

Devi woke to find Tashni shaking him gently. “I’ve got your breakfast ready, miss,” she said. She couldn’t seem to understand that Devi was a boy... and today, anyway, Devi needed to be a girl for Zindla’s ceremony.

CASTLE THE SERIES – 00035010
BETH AND GREENSWARD
“You don’t have to let go of my hand if you will not, Greensward,” Beth telt him.

CASTLE THE SERIES – 00038010
MORGELLE AND TUYERE
Morgelle’s life was improving, and she could now think of Caoilté with regret, rather than the crushing unhappith of before.

CASTLE THE SERIES – 00038020
TURNER AND OTDAY THE WAGGONER’S APPRENTICE
Turner was, Otday discovered, taciturn and, when she did spaek, surly.

CASTLE THE SERIES – 00041010
WARBLER AND JED
“Jed, doet you have aught to do with Otday apprenticing to Turner? For to start with he doetn’t wish to leave the Keep and then suddenly he couldn’t leave fast enough, and you doet say if he doetn’t will to go he’d have to be maekt to will to.”

Grandpa Dave has a saying he's fond of: Be careful of what you wish for, you might get it. It's the kind of stuff old people like to say to young people. Lord knows I've used it a time or two myself.

Let me introduce you to my grandmother - my mother's mother. I had another one, Dad's mother, that you'll hear about later, but she had died when I was very young.

By Friday morning things had settled down a bit. My parents had recovered from the Birds and Bees session, even if I was still mulling it over. At thirteen I was too young to maunder, but mulling was good practice for later in my life.

It's really hard to pay attention in class when you're distracted. School was pretty easy for me, I enjoyed learning and liked to unravel puzzles. Math was OK, history was fascinating and I loved science. About that time I started to figure I could do without gym class. Not that I didn't like exercise, but I got plenty of that on my bike. It's the posturing and jock idiots that got my goat.

Up in my bedroom I sat at my desk in a daze. Until a half hour ago I wouldn't have thought anything could have made me think of anything but not being able to try on my new clothes. I wasn't happy with my mother for trying to distract me from my funk, but - Sonya Henie's Tutu! - she had managed it.

When I started to get interested in bras and girdles I was pretty much out-of-luck, no sister and my mother was considerably larger, but back then the bras went for $1.49. I could actually buy that stuff and try it on!

“Do you want me to show you how to sew?” Pasyala asked. “Or has your mother already shown you?”

 

“No,” Devi said at first. “Girls do sewing and knitting and stuff.” But then he reflected: People go into other worlds to learn valuable lessons and have adventures and stuff. The portal made me a girl, so maybe it wants me to learn about girl stuff before it will let me go home and be a boy again? “I guess I’m a girl now, so I can learn how to sew and stuff.”

Stevie’s Tale – Chapter 7

By Kelly Blake

“…the start of a new life.”

Stevie’s Tale – Chapter 5

By Kelly Blake

“Wait… What…?” Deuxième partie

Fortunately I didn’t have to go home Sunday evening. I was not prepared to face my mom. I was not prepared to remove my nail polish. I was not prepared to give up who I was? And I was definitely not prepared to go to school on Monday.