Carlie has sissy predispositions, but overcomes difficulties with love, courage and increasing self-awareness. In this chapter, Carlie begins college, makes friends and an enemy without trying.
Carlie
VII. Friends and Not
When classes started, I decided to dress as I liked. That was usually in a bra and pantie set under slacks and a sleeveless top. I wore light make up and my wedges or flats as long as the weather held. I was feminine enough that people I met in passing took me for a girl, but most of my classmates figured out I was male. Two conservative Christians and a Mormon girl treated me like I had a terrible contagion, but most of my classmates didn't make a big deal of how I dressed and were glad to be chatty with me.
My nursing and education classmates were mostly girls, with a sprinkle of boys. (Some sprinkles were almost as cute as me, but most looked masculine.) I was one of the few who knew what I wanted to do with my life. Many were in college because it was expected, or because the alternative was finding a job. A few were more intent. One of the serious ones, Sharon, was very shy and seemed lonely. I knew what that felt like. So, near the end of our first week, I made a point of sitting next to her at lunch.
“Hi, we’re taking nursing together. May I sit with you?”
She was surprised. “Hi. I guess ... if you really want to.” It wasn’t hard to tell why she was alone. She was tall and chunky, not graceful, dressed plain, had acne, and her hair looked like she washed it with soap instead of shampoo and conditioner. There were better pickings for boys and most of the girls wanted to hang with aces to have their leavings. On the other hand, I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, just a friend, and from the little I’d seen, Sharon seemed smart and nice.
“I’m Carlie Robinson, by the way.”
“Sharon Kawalski.”
“You going for a BSN?” I assumed she was, but I was trying to make conversation.
“I guess. I wanted to be a premed, but the guidance counselor said I didn’t have the personality for it, so he put me in nursing.”
“Can he do that?”
“I don’t like fighting, so I said OK.”
”Who was the counselor?”
“Mr. Jenkins.”
“I met with him. He told me I couldn’t be what I want, but I just ignored him. You should do the same.”
“I’m not like that. I don’t make waves. It never does helps anyway. … What do you want to be?”
“A nanny.”
“You have a good personality. I bet you like children too. I think you'd be a good nanny”
“Thanks, I do love them. I already work as a nanny summers and Sandy, the lady I work for, promised to write me a glowing recommendation.”
“You’re a boy, aren’t you? I can see why Jenkins would say you can’t be a nanny. He has no imagination.”
“You’re right — but I do, and I can imagine you as a doctor. You care and pick up on things quick. That‘ll really help when you’re a doc.”
“If I ever am.”
You can’t change people in a few minutes, so I decided not to push her. I switched to a point that I didn’t understand in pharmacology, and we had a pleasant lunch. I sat next to her in class, and soon we were friends. As you may have guessed, Sharon was much smarter than me — she was taking computer methods while I was in college algebra — but still we studied together. Mostly, she helped me, but I helped her a bit with her writing assignments in English.
Sharon was orphaned when she was 6 and had been raised by a maiden aunt Catherine, who’d been jilted. Her aunt discouraged Sharon from having anything to do with men. I met her aunt when she visited Sharon in October. She gave me a pass because I didn’t qualify as a man in her view. She assumed I was gay and Sharon was safe enough with a sissy.
Sharon seemed to notice girls more than boys. Maybe it was because of her aunt, but I thought it was a way for her to pretend she didn't care that boys ignored her. A couple of times I pointed out that I was a boy and liked her. Still, that did not do much to build up her self confidence, because, as she pointed out in a kind way, I was not the regular kind of boy.
Sharon wasn’t my only girl friend. Peggy was another. She was the class gossip. The main object of gossip was our classmate Russ. I thought Russ was cute in a boyish way, but not really athletic. Still he was better looking than Jason, and much more outgoing and ingratiating.
The consensus was that the only reason he was in nursing was to bed as many girls as possible. You’d think that with a reputation like that, he'd be a pariah, but a lot of the girls seemed attracted to bad boys — or maybe thought they could hook him. Either way, his score rose steadily as the weeks went by.
One morning after algebra, he asked if he could borrow my notes from the previous class, which he’d missed. I said of course and handed him my notebook pages. The next day he said he didn’t understand completing the square and could I explain it to him. When I did, he told me how smart I was and it was rare to find anyone as smart and pretty as me. I reminded him that I was a boy. He said that made me even more interesting. Would I go to the football game with him Saturday? I told him that I wasn’t interested in football, so he asked me to a concert. I turned him down on that as well.
This went on for a while, with him touching my arm, leg or breast “accidentally” as we passed. I started to understand what the girls saw in him. He made me feel wanted, and gave the impression that he’d be warm and tender with me. Still, I knew from my experience with Jason, that however fun it might be to date boys, it would not take me where I wanted to go, So, I kept brushing him off.
After many brushoffs, he finally cornered me in an empty hallway after a late class. “I know you wanted it, so stop playing hard to get.”
“Look Russ, I don’t like boys that way and so you can keep it for whatever bimbo finds you attractive. Now, let me go!” I tried to leave.
He grabbed me, squeezed my breast and forced his tongue down my throat. He was too strong for me, so I pretended to relax, then kneed him in the groin. I ran for it while he was doubled over holding himself. He yelled, ”I’ll get you for this, you bitch!” When nothing happened after a week, I dismissed it as an empty threat.
Peggy’d seen him hitting on me, and asked if he’d bagged me. I told her he hadn’t, but the juicy morsel for her was that he knew I was a boy and wanted me anyway. Word got around that he was bi, and his success with the girls dropped. Next, a few of the sprinkles hit on him. Some of the girls decided he was gay, and only hit on girls to have a beard. That was why he dumped them, they said. Three of the girls he’d dumped picked up on that and enhanced the rumor with juicy details, which, real or fictitious, lent weight to the impression that he was gay. Since he was cute, that was enough to get him hit on by guys that weren’t even in nursing. None of this made him happy, and he made it clear he blamed all of it on me. Still, he didn’t do anything, so I figured he was all bark and no bite.
