Little Pink Pills

Part Twenty-Four, by Michelle Wilder

It ain't a man's world (You go, girl!)
No more sugar and spice (And everything nice)

It ain't a man's world (You go, girl!)
No more sugar and spice (And everything nice)

It's a she thing, and it's all in me (It ain't nothin' but a she thing)

(Ain't Nuthin' But a She Thing, Salt N Pepa)

(Revised and reposted)

----

I tried to look mature. Or less stupid. I was sick of laying down, or having my stupid leg be the stupid reason for everything.

She closed the door and sat beside me and then pulled me over so I didn't have to sit anyway, just be with her.

-

We both said about ten things at the same time.

"Sorry thank you and I'd ~love~ to I wanted everything make love with you I know but it doesn't matter but we have to wait I'm just I know but ~I'm~ not ready and I don't want to get you in trouble you too or us and I... I so want it to be right and I'm sorry I'm sorry... "

"I love you so much."

"I love you."

I kissed her to show her how, right then, and even with the shivery feeling, I just held her, after.

I felt her warm skin, totally different than mine. How it was...

Like I dreamed it.

----

Mom gave me a big smile when we came downstairs. Brenda looked like she wanted to say something but I couldn't decide what and I sure didn't want to ask. Mom pulled her into the kitchen, anyway.

Dad patted the couch next to where he was sitting and Carson gave me a squeeze and kinda pushed me over towards him and followed Mom and Brenda, I guess to give us privacy. Dad pulled me close when I sat down.

After a little time, I guess when I didn't get the courage to look up at him, he leaned way over me and whispered.

"You know, your mother told me all about what you did for Carson this week. How you looked out for her." He bumped his head on mine.

I didn't know what to say. I was still full of thoughts and feelings from what just happened and didn't know what Dad meant, or why he'd
talk about that.... He kept speaking, almost whispering.

"When you do something like that, or when she does something like that for you and keeps you safe or shows you how much she loves you..."

He stopped, like he was trying to think of words. Like I always had to.

"When you do that for each other, every time, it makes your love grow. It makes... it makes it so when you ~do~ go to bed with her, it'll be all the more special."

I made a little jerk, I was so surprised. Dad chuckled and when I looked he was smiling at me. Then he leaned over again and touched foreheads.

"This is supposed to be hard, the talk about sex I have to give you." Even from an inch I could see his smile. "But since I don't know much about what you two will do for each other, the hard part'll just have to wait and I get to tell you the easy part." He leaned up and kissed my forehead, where he'd been touching with his.

"Carson loves you and you love her. Follow your heart and respect her and it will be wonderful."

I started to cry. "Oh, Daddy...."

He hugged me like it was all true and I wasn't a bad person at all.

----

Brenda didn't ask what happened at home while we were driving over. She didn't say anything much at all and even when I asked if anything was wrong she just smiled a bit and said, no, she was just thinking.

-

Jason's mom was out with his brother so we had the place to ourselves. He told us to go in their living room and Cheryl, Jerri and Heather were there already, and Jerri smiled at us from the couch and patted beside her and when we sat down she sandwiched me tight up against Carson.

"Hi." She took my arm and cuddled closer. "How're you doing?"

She sounded serious. I said I was great, and she smiled a bit again.

Brenda sat in an armchair across from us and it seemed like she was still sad or something, and I couldn't figure it out, but with Jerri being... well, not all happy like usual, I... I guess I got worried.

"Oh, anyone want a Coke or anything?" Jason kinda half-sat-up after sitting down, but everyone just shook their heads or said no. Jerri whisper-asked if I wanted one, too, and looked like she wanted to, but when I whispered no thanks she whispered okay. I was getting more and more nervous.

Carson wrapped her other arm around my chest and leaned down and whispered, "Are you okay?"

I wasn't. By then I was ~really~ afraid of what they were going to say, what Jerri and Brenda were thinking. I thought for sure it was about the start of all the bad things that we'd figured out.

What Brenda'd said about the game. And it wasn't funny anymore.

Cheryl started.

"Look.... Everyone's talking about you."

"You ~and~ Carson." Jason interrupted her but Cheryl just nodded and looked sad.

"Look, after the game... people were talking, about how you were acting, and some of the the team, I was at the Pit, after... they said some pretty awful stuff." She was looking just at me.

Jason sounded the same. "Sherridan called me this morning and said he knew you were, that you proved you were... gay...." He looked unhappy at me, and then Carson.

I knew he meant gay wasn't what Joel really said and I guess Jason saw that too. He looked at Carson.

"He said it was all over the locker room too, before I got there. He said they were saying stuff like... you were with... the faggot." I could hear the quotes and I knew he hated words like that. "It's not really everyone, but there're a couple of s- jerks...."

Carson hugged me tighter. Jerri hugged my arm tighter.

Heather talked more softly. "And I guess lots of people noticed how you were, with your parents." She blushed.

Jason snorted. "Look.... It's stupid and you were just sleeping, but Joel says some of the dicks were talking about you, and... waving and stuff... and they were making stuff up to make the story- um, worse." He made a face. Bad.

"They're playing off the both of you. It's pretty ugly." He looked just at me like he had to apologize. Like I was all... the cause of it all....

I suddenly didn't see what Carson would want with me. I couldn't even see what Mom and Dad could. I wanted to move away, not touch Carse or Jerri. Not make them have to touch me.

cli-

Carson twisted down and kissed me on the lips.

"I. Love. You." She looked at me, closer than she could see, right in my eyes.

"I know what you're thinking. It's not true and you're wrong."

She kissed me again.

"I ~love~ how you are and I don't want you to change." She kissed me again-again. "I was very, very happy to see you with your daddy. And he was very happy to have you hugging him. There. Where everyone could see. The a-holes ~talking~ are the bad guys. ~Not~ you."

She kissed me again.

"And you waving at me was the best thing that happened, all game."

----

Heather and Jason had been brainstorming a ~lot~ about the GSA and Monday or Tuesday and whether all the talk was gonna matter, or make it harder or easier to start it up for real. Officially.

Jason thought it would go better. Heather, not as much.

"Look. People ~like~ you." Jason leaned forward and looked at Carson, too.

"Both of you. Most of the guys on the ~team~ like you. It's just the dicks doing all the talking and I think the GSA'll make... it'll be easier for the good guys to shut them up."

"Nobody visited me..." I didn't mean to say it, especially to Jason. He just smiled.

"Hey! I sent you that pile of Glamor magazines! They were my personal collection, like, they were ~me~, in spirit!" His smile was like he understood. I tried to smile I was sorry.

"But...." He smiled a lot less. "Look... guys are... unless they're real close buds, they, they just don't do that kinda stuff, like visiting and...." He ran down. I knew he had a kinda fear of hospitals, really, 'cause of his dad.

"Because the other guys will call them gay." Cheryl sounded disgusted. Jason nodded. Then he looked at us again.

"But they ~do~ like both of you, and most of the team would tell them to shut up in a second if they... if they could have an excuse or something. Like the GSA." He looked down.

"It's hard for guys, most of 'em." He looked at all of us.

"If the club can make... if guys can stop being so shitty about anything that even ~looks~ like a real feeling..."

"Girls, too. Different but the same." Brenda spoke up after he stopped, and looked at the floor.

Jerri started to say something, but only made a noise and then shook her head. And looked unhappy. I held her hand harder and she smiled a bit.

-

Jason and Heather and Jerri thought we shouldn't change anything from what they'd planned. And they wouldn't tell me exactly what they'd planned.

Cheryl and Brenda and Carson thought sorta the same thing, but that we had to wait and see what happened after Monday or Tuesday, after the packages went out, and maybe the stuff from the game went down. Cheryl said if any of the policies or stuff were announced or leaked or whatever, we'd maybe have to re-plan. ~Again.~

So ~I~ asked ~again~ what they were talking about and they said I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it. Jason said. The rest of them laughed, but Carson whispered she'd tell me later. Stuff from the meetings.

-

When we left, Jason waited until we were in the front hall and then gave each of us a hug bye, me last. He got a huge grin and winked at me, and then kissed me on the cheek.

"I figured I better get used to putting up or shutting up."

Carson and Jerri both laughed and Brenda slapped his shoulder. It was the happiest she'd been since the morning and made me almost not blush my head off.

----

After delivering Brenda and me back to my house, Carson and Jerri had to take off away right away again to see her counselor. They gave me huge hugs and kissed both of us goodbye (which had Brenda laughing again) and Jerri said it'd all be way better, real soon. I said I knew.

-

We sat in the living room and told Mom and Dad and Val about what we talked about. Or Brenda told them.

I mostly just sat there. It was a lot to think about. The whole day. And it was only two.

And Carson still had to tell me what stuff they had planned besides. She'd made it sound good, but I was worried just 'cause they were keeping it a secret, it seemed.

----

"What?"

Val was smiling.

"I said, 'Want to go upstairs and play dress-up like we used to?' And then you said-"

"Dress-up?"

"No, you said 'What?'" She grinned bigger. "Remember? When we used to put on Mom and Dad's stuff and play house and stuff?"

We used to, Val and me, maybe up to grade two.... I played it way more with Cathy and them....

"C'mon..." She stood up and gave me a hand on the side I couldn't stand up from but Brenda laughed at something and gave me her hand too.

"Dress-up?" I must have sounded stupid. And I was trying to grab my crutches from the couch.

"YES!" Val laughed. "Putting on clothes that don't fit? Pretending? Remember?" She pulled out the bottom of her top.

"But-"

"Oh, c'mon! It'll be fun! We haven't done it in forever and I wanna. Please? Please?"

"P-p-p-p-leeeee-e-e-" Brenda broke up, ruining a pretty good Roger Rabbit.

----

I sat way back on her bed and Brenda followed Val to her closet and they both just stood there for a minute, looking at everything. Then Brenda looked at me. "None of this is gonna fit."

"Why not?" Val looked at me too, with a weird smile. "We're the same height, and I weigh, what... five pounds more than her? She was less than that, last week...."

"But he's not... she?" Brenda stopped looking at me, like my size, and switched to Val.

"She just needs padding. Lotsa padding!" Val laughed and looked up at the shelves again. Then she turned and gave us a 'wait' finger and ran out. I heard her thump down the stairs.

"Moooommmm!"

Brenda looked at me and made huge silly eyes. "She?"

I made weird eyes. "Val..."

Then I tried to find a comfortable position.

----

Mom apparently had whatever she wanted, and Val brought back a huge box of sewing stuff, or stuff from sewing, anyway, and Val and Brenda were digging through it. And sorting out stuff, mostly padded half-circle things, dozens of them, all different sizes.

And she had a beige panty.

A panty.

I wasn't really all the way back up from earlier, or thinking in circles about what we'd talked about, about what the Jason said the team said... or what the GSA was going to do... they didn't even bother telling me what they really talked about or what their plan thing was....

I guess they noticed. Val and Brenda both came over and sat on the bed.

"Hey, sis." Val leaned down and half-hugged me. "I just wanna see what you look like in my stuff like when you were little... okay?" She smiled like it would be fun. I didn't hear the smile.

"So I can be a bigger sissy than I already am?" Maybe I was just still depressed or whatever, but I hurt.

I hurt her too, from her expression. She sat back up and went stiff and her face went all flat.

"You-" She stood up and walked out. Brenda looked mad too.

I rolled over and hid. I was too depressed to cry... too everything. I heard Val stomp downstairs. Again.

She came back with Mom about a half-second later and they pulled me upright and then kinda off the bed and back on and I ended up half on Mom's lap, half-laying down, and Val was holding my waist.

-

I couldn't hide against Mom but it wasn't the same, because I didn't feel like nothing, and I could cry.

-

Good crying. Crying it out. Being depressed gives you more choices.

-

"Better now?" Mom held me really tight and talked quietly. I nodded.

"Do you still want to play with Val and Brenda?"

They both moved yes, please? or something. I didn't want to be alone so I nodded.

"Then have fun, and ~you two~ behave!" She sounded mad at them, but fake? Val and Brenda both did 'awwww' sounds and laughed.

----

"So!"

Val was sitting on the floor picking through the sewing stuff while Brenda knelt beside me on the bed.

"Okay... I think I know what we'll do. First."

She held up the panty thing and a handful of other stuff, too and explained her plan.

The panty was one of Mom's old panty-girdles, she said, and lots of the half-moon and round things would be padding for in it. Half-pie shapes. Apparently they were shoulder pads and stuff that Mom always took out.

And Val said I needed put them ~in~ the panty thing.

When I asked why I needed padding Val sighed and said I couldn't play dress-up unless I at least ~looked~ like I hadn't lost all that weight and she said it'd work better ~because~ I'd lost weight.

I dunno.

But apparently Brenda completely understood Val's plan.

First, before the girdle, I put on regular panties instead of my REALLY baggy boxers (to fit over my old cast) and then they came back in to help because Val figured it would take a bit of doing by both of them so it wouldn't hurt my leg.

I took off my cast and Val took the bandages off and then she decided if maybe she rolled an old stocking over the incisions then the girdle could slip on easier.... She went off again to ask Mom if she had any, or old pantyhose.

My leg was almost normal-colored and just pink and a bit lumpy around the operations and even the last incisions were really completely healed except for the stitches.... But it was there, and it was the first time Brenda'd seen it naked.

"Oh..."

Her eyes got shiny with tears and then she looked at my face and sat beside me and held on. Val sat with her too when she came back, and rubbed my back past her.

My leg was painless. Brenda's crying hurt, though.

----

The stocking was a good idea and the girdle was almost loose on my leg. It only took a minute to pull on with Val and Brenda holding it out from the stitches.

-

Val put on really light gauze and I put my cast back on so I could stand better and then they both stuffed padding around my hips and butt, or where they weren't, on the sides and back. Lots of pads, like a dozen on each side. Even some in the ~front~. Val kept saying I ~had~ to eat more....

After a while, every few pads they'd both step in front or behind and look and think and say something like 'more there, or lower, or too bumpy.'

Or "perfect!"

They both smiled and stood back to admire me. Or their work.

I looked down again at what was finally perfect. It looked the same as the last look, maybe a little less lumpy, but I looked pretty much the same as normal down there, except about an inch wider. And a bit more in the back.

And it sure was warm.

Dress-up was a lot easier the way I used to do it with Cathy. Find something fun to wear and... play. Or sit around and talk, or listen to music.

I remembered I had to check my email.

-

Val dug out one of her old bras since she said I was ~way~ skinnier than her up there. Why she had an old bra was weird, but I didn't ask. But she'd kept Strawberry too.

Then she had to find a bit newer one because it turned out I wasn't ~that~ skinny and we had nearly the same bustline, she said. Or bandline. Something that meant ribs, anyway, or almost the same, and some of the bras she had from high school fit me.

I had to laugh at the empty cups. Very weird. And just. . .well, weird. On the one they said was best, if I pushed one in, half the time it slowly popped out again, and the other half, it stayed like a... a weird shape. An innie.

Val put balled-up pantyhose in them and they both said it looked really good for a second until I lifted my shoulder even a bit and then they said it looked really bad. Like crooked. They tried some of the pad things and they were bad ~and~ bumpy.

Then they thought about it.

I just looked down. It was really odd that they looked better empty. Outie-empty. But only if I didn't move.

"Tennis balls!" Val barked out a laugh.

"Water balloons!" Brenda yipped and I thought of Carson's balloons and ~knew~ that was dumb before I said anything.

"Mom's squishy balls?" Those de-stressing things Mom had from somewhere.

They both thought they were definite maybes and Brenda said it was that the padding had to ~weigh~ something and I guess that made sense.

They both said they'd used hankies and socks and stuff when they were just starting but they said they were with training bras and they were already padded so they hid it, and it looked bad too, but nobody cared on a ten or twelve-year old.

-

Val went looking for Mom ~again~ and Brenda dug through her closet for a minute making "ewwwww" sounds and laughing and showing me stuff and joking. Then she sat down and just looked at me.

I must've looked stupid laying on the bed in Val's and Mom's undies trying not to move my leg 'cause my hip needed a rest right then. She didn't look like she thought I looked stupid. She mostly looked at my face, like she was thinking.

"What?" I smiled like I'd heard the um she didn't really say. She smiled.

"I'd'a thought you'd be screaming to get out of here instead of smiling." She wiggled my foot and I smiled back.

"We used to do this all the time...." I had to think what Val played with us, with Cathy and Crystal and us.

"When I was in maybe grade one or two, and she was in, like, grade five? she was really into pretend games and we'd do 'going out' and stories, and everything she saw on TV or read in a book. Cathy and me, and Val would be the queen or..."

I looked around her room. It was where we did most of it when we were inside, here, though it must've felt a lot bigger then... we spent the whole day in it, lots of days. She had a different, bigger bed now....

Val was old to play dress-up, then, but I remember it was so much fun we never wanted it to stop, most days.

"Mom'd let us use some of her stuff, and Dad's I guess, their old clothes, and I think she must've gotten a lot from yard sales and stuff because it was pretty silly, like old long dresses and hats and all." I smiled at her.

"No padding then, though. I was chubby." I smiled at the pictures I remembered. Then didn't smile. I really was too skinny.

"But I mean, dressing... like, a girl?" She looked like I was acting different than I just explained.

"We pretended to be boys too! Just... whatever was in her stories. But they were boring, I guess, the men, except the prince and hero types, but not really? I guess... I dunno, I guess when you're like six or whatever, the boy parts are pretty boring." I smiled when I remembered.

"It was mostly like Cinderella, all balls and magic and evil stepmother stuff and her chapter books, like Nancy and her friends and mysteries? And now she likes me to wear her nighties all the time...." I looked around. She still had the magic wand I remembered stuck behind her mirror. I grinned at it.

"Poof! You're a princess!"

"What?" Brenda looked at me like I was nuts. I grinned back and pointed.

"The fairy godmother wand. ~Poof!~ You're Cinderella!" I did the wave and tap motion at her just as she looked back. "Bibbedy bobbedy boo!"

She broke up and rolled around and then stopped laughing and grinned at me. "~More~ than that one? All the time?"

"What?" Sometimes we weren't on the same planet.

"You said, Val, she likes you in her nightie~ZZZ~?" She had the oddest smile. I had to smile too.

"I think it's part of her girlie thing." I rolled a bit sideways so I could grab her bear and hug it. "She really likes that. I dunno why." Then I had to smile.

"She bought me a really pretty one that looks like Strawberry's dress, the petticoat part."

I squeezed the bear and for a second I wished he was Strawberry or that she was that big. I smiled at the idea of big Strawberry, as soft as Val's bear.

"I think she always wanted a sister...."

I grinned really big at a joke I just had and had to squeeze my face into the bear a second and pretend it was Carson.

"I bet she's ~totally~ jealous of Jerri!"

Brenda like stopped for a couple of seconds to get that and then spazzed all over the bed. Off the bed.

When she mostly stopped barking and coughing she sat up so she could see me over the edge and started all over again.

Girls.

----

Val came back with the de-stressing things and they were pretty well what we'd thought, but way too small. And not as heavy as either of us remembered, either. But they wrapped them in a couple of pantyhoses and they were still better than what we'd tried before.

"How come you're doing all this?" I poked my new shape and grinned at Val. "You never wanted to do anything like ~this~ before."

"You were ~six~ before!" Val and Brenda both started giggling their heads off again.

"And I didn't even ~have~ bras to do this." She switched from giggling to grinning, and went to the closet.

"Now that you're sweet sixteen...."

"Hey! I'm seventeen, remember?!" I tried to sound all offended. She made a face back.

"We're playing dress-up, so pretend, okay!?"

She came out of her closet with a blue garment bag and unzipped it from the top and peeled it back and it fell off the hanger and all slithering to the floor and the wide skirt of her senior prom dress opened like an upside-down flower. Val grinned even more.

"Poof, you're a princessssss!!!"

Brenda almost cried.

----

End of Part 24