The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3268 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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It was a bright and sunny morning, it was also the second of January 2021. Often at New Year, I think back to my past and how different things were now to then. As a child, my life had been safe, except for my unresolved gender issues and the bullying that occurred as a result. Other children could scent that I was different. I didn't present as effeminate, did I? Not having the gift that Burns suggested, 'tae see oorsels as others see us', I really didn't know. Perhaps I was effeminate, not in an exaggerated sense that some gay men perform, but in a feminine manner like a girl, which I suppose when presented by someone seen as male, could be termed effeminate I suppose, though I preferred to see myself as a feminine boy.

I was musing on this as I absently flicked through my Filofax diary when Danni entered my study and made me start as I hadn't noticed her until she spoke. "Ooh, you made me jump," I said recovering from my surprise.

"Sorry, Mummy," she apologised and asked me what I was doing.

"My hands were flicking through my diary but my head was thinking about the past to when I was a kid."

"When you were a girl?" she asked.

I shrugged. I was a girl but wasn't at the same time because I couldn't show the rest of the world that I was one so was treated with a mixture of responses, often confused or hostile.

"Do you ever wish you were a boy?" she asked with an expression I couldn't read for certain.

"I don't know, I suppose if I'd been a normal boy life would have been easier and my relationship with my parents and others would have been a bit easier. Why do you?" I asked back wondering if we'd all made some sort of mistake in helping her transition. If we did, we would have some serious problems helping her revert, I could feel my blood pressure rising and my heart was beating nineteen to the dozen with worry and guilt. Had I misled this child? She wasn't typical gender dysphoric like Trish and Julie, more gender curious and I had encouraged her to experiment, then made her stay as a girl when we went to Scotland and then when Allie had died, she insisted she stay as one in respect for that tragic teen. The final straw had been her relationship with Peter/Pia and their experiences in France leading to Pia drugging her and castrating her leaving the surgeons little option but to create a vagina with what was left, encouraged by the fact that she was dressed as a girl at the time. All this flashed through my mind in a nanosecond.

"Sometimes," she sighed.

I put down my diary and offered her a hug which she took very quickly and I felt her weep silently into my shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong, sweetheart?" I asked gently, stroking her back as tenderly as I could.

"Nothing," she said but continued to sob silently.

I leant over and closed the study door, now we wouldn't be interrupted. She stood up and I re-seated myself and encouraged her to come and sit on my lap for a cwtch, as they say in Wales. She flopped down onto lap and continued holding her face into my shoulder. The sobbing was intermittent now and I hoped I might discover what was wrong with her.

"Do you regret becoming a girl?" I asked quietly ready to pack my cases for the guilt trip of a lifetime.

"Sometimes," said back a tiny voice and inside I felt a huge part of me cringe in shame. What had I done to this child and was I guilty of child abuse?

"Is today one of those times?" I probed gently.

"Dunno," was the response. It didn't help me make things better which added frustration to my increasing sense of guilt. I'm a natural rescuer, I don't like it when I can't make everything better, especially for my kids. This was agony.

"Want to tell me what you're thinking about?"

"Dunno if I can," she sniffed and I handed her a tissue.

"How do you feel?"

"Dunno, sort of confused."

"Would you like me to ask Stephanie to see you?"

"Don't think so."

"Okay, but if you change your mind, don't feel embarrassed to ask me, okay?"

"Yeah, okay but I don't think I need her, just feel a bit down."

"It's quite common after the excitement of Christmas and New Year and now we're back to the mundane and the winter with Covid as an added depressant."

"Maybe that's it," she said blew her nose and stood up.

"It's not though, is it?"

She stared back at me through watery eyes, reddened through crying and I noticed she wasn't wearing any makeup, which was unusual in itself. I now wondered if she had been building up to something for a few days or even longer. "What d'you mean?" she asked.

"Please tell me what you're feeling, I need to know, sweetheart." She took her place back on my lap and cuddled into me again. She may have been sixteen but at this moment her behaviour was more that of a ten-year-old.

"I was just thinkin' what would life have been like if I'd stayed a boy instead of all this girl stuff."

"How different do you think it would have been?"

"Not sure, I don't think you or dad would have loved me as much." I bit my tongue. I wanted to rush in and deny it emphatically, instead, I just held her and squeezed her gently to show I'd heard her. "I'd have been playing soccer for a boys' team an'..."

"And had horrible hairy legs," I joked and she giggled.

"Anything else?" I asked giving her a moment to think.

"Well, all of you wanted to be girls." Her head still snuggled into my shoulder.

"We did," I agreed.

"I didn't, well only sometimes, well, I liked some bits of being a girl."

"Which bits were those?" I asked wondering if I had a way into her melancholy.

"You know...," she said quietly.

"Remind me, you know how lousy my memory is."

"Well, some of the clothes are nice."

"They are, girls have more choice and opportunity to show how they feel or how they want to be accepted," I helped.

"Yeah, that sort of thing, an' makeup, that was quite fun sometimes."

"You're very clever with makeup, far more than me."

"Yeah, I quite like experimentin', it's fun."

"Couldn't you have done that as a boy?"

"I'd have looked like an idiot or a poof."

"Oh, but that doesn't apply if you're a girl?"

"Nah, it's okay for girls, or if you're pretendin' to be one, or if you're a drag artist, some of them are amazing."

"They are indeed, but couldn't you have occasionally dressed up and used makeup or just done it in your own room or the bathroom? No one would have said anything, would they?"

"Only to encourage me, Trish seems to think everyone should be a girl."

"I had noticed, she just enjoys it so much."

Danni gave a little chuckle, "Yeah, she thinks it should be compulsory." I laughed a little as well.

"So do you regret being a girl?"

"It woulda been nice to have had a choice."

"Oh you mean, Pia?"

"Yeah, she really messed me up."

"She didn't help, did she?"

"No. Stupid cow."

"But you forgave her."

"I had to, can't be mad at anyone for long, just doesn't help, does it?"

"That's very mature of you to feel like that and I'm glad you did it."

"Yeah, but I'm not a saint, like you."

I felt my face go crimson. "I'm no saint, far from it."

"You must be good though, 'cause of the blue light thingy."

"I'm not sure I agree there either, that chooses who it wants to work through, being good I don't think enters into it, and besides, you have the gift as well."

"But it only happens to girls, doesn't it?"

"This variety does because it comes from the goddess," I wasn't sure if I actually believed what I was saying, but I wanted her to feel secure in her femaleness, though accepted my motives may have been less than altruistic.

"Yeah, well if she chooses you, you have to be good, or she must think you are."

"I think worthy is the word you were seeking."

"Yeah, worthy, and you have to be female in spirit or something, don't you?"

"I think so."

"So, see you're a good woman."

"If I am, and you also have the gift, doesn't that make you the same, a good woman?"

She was silent for a moment, obviously thinking about what she had said and my rejoinder and possibly how she was going to reply to it. "Am I a good woman, too?"

"Yes, you are, my darling," and I hugged her to reinforce my belief in it.

"Does that mean, I was always one, even when I thought I was a boy like you and Trish were?"

Wow, how do I reply to that? "I don't know, darling, only the goddess could tell you that."

"Can we ask her?"

"Have you thought to try that yourself?"

"But you're her favourite," she almost accused.

"I doubt that very much, sweetheart, I think she sees me as pain in the neck or even lower down."

She chuckled at my self-assessment of worthiness.

"So I could try and ask her myself?" I nodded my answer and she asked, "How do I do that?"

"I'm not sure, but I would think if you were to find somewhere quiet and then sit and empty your mind except for thinking about her. She will come if she knows you need to speak to her."

"Is she scary?"

"No, only when people waste her time and then she only gently chides me--uh them."

"She won't think me a waste of time, not being a real girl?"

"If she didn't see you as real you wouldn't have the gift, as she only works through real women. You are as real as anyone else, you simply have a different route to womanhood, you are a non-menstruating female and there are loads of them, nanny Monica, is one."

"I thought you had to have periods to be a proper girl."

"Some extreme feminists think so but like all extremists, they are so far up their own arses all they see is shit." She laughed at my analogy.

She sat up straighter wiped her eyes and nose and standing up said, "Thank you, Mummy. I'll go and ask her, but thank you." I stood up and she hugged me before leaving me to my diary. I hoped I'd helped rather than confused her but only she would know that. I asked the goddess to help her and went back to my diary.