The Letter

I had fallen into the habit of checking the mail each day when it came through the letter slot. Today's missive contained something different: a letter with FINAL NOTICE prominently printed on the envelope. Mom was three months behind on her electric bill.

I found Mom in the kitchen and asked her if she had forgotten to pay the bill.

"Oh, your father takes care of that. I don't worry about it."

"Mom, Dad isn't here any more."

"I know, dear. I do miss him."

"So how can he be paying the bills?"

"He always did."

You've got to go to where she is…

"That's all right, Mom. I'll take care of it."
 

I felt like a voyeur combing through Mom's desk, looking for bills and bank statements. Dad left her pretty well off, and her Social Security and investment income was direct deposited into her bank account. The money was there to pay the bills, they just hadn't been paid.

So I got on line, set up access for her bank account, the utilities and other bills and arranged automatic payments for them all. I called up the guy who handles her investment portfolio and had a talk with him. Fortunately he's an old friend of the family and knows us all. He was sorry to learn of Mom's difficulties and gave me an overview of how her money was invested.

Lucy came in handy here, as I am not all that sophisticated in high finance. She explained he basically had almost all of it in solid, conservative investment instruments so that the chances of her losing her principal were very small. There were also some pretty good protections against the stock market tanking and wiping her out. As she had been living on the interest of the investments, her principal had actually grown over the last few years.

Sometimes the news is good.

It took a few days and some swearing at the computer, but eventually it was done. Since I had access to all of her information, I didn't even need to have her sign anything.

I did call my lawyer, Chad, to make sure I wasn't doing anything to land me in jail, and he assured me I wasn't as long as I was acting in her best interest. People like me would have a very hard time in jail.

A Slight Interruption

With three weeks to go until the deadline to submit the latest manuscript, I had maybe four chapters to go. The work, which had been progressing steadily as I settled into my sister's identity, came to a screeching halt.

Why? Once the idea of getting implants had been firmly implanted in my brain; I couldn't get it out. So I spent quite some time researching just what was involved. Not that I hadn't done that before, but I needed detail!

With the details in my fevered brain I started looking at plastic surgeons. Plastic surgeons who would give me implants without a note from a doctor. Damn, made me feel like a school kid having to have a note after being out for a day.

I didn't have a doctor's note for the simple reason I didn't have a doctor. When I found a lifestyle that let me dress as I pleased I just started dressing as I pleased. I kept just enough Harry clothes for the occasional visit back home, otherwise I was Sherry.

So, in three weeks I had to go to the Big Apple to formally submit my manuscript and get new pictures taken for the hardcover editions. Since the text would have flown there electronically over the Internet long before, I was really going to have some fun in the big city. I started frantically phoning plastic surgeons to see if I could get the implants done while I was there. There are a lot of people who do boob jobs in the Big Apple.

Not so many who take men for clients for such things, but I did find one and she would soon receive a substantial part of my next advance. I had to go to a local lab and have a few tests, but that didn't bother me a bit.

Now the only problem was what would happen with Mom? I would be gone for five days - too long for comfort.

As had become our custom, Mom, Aunt Carlene, Lucy and I were out for dinner at Eduardo's on a Friday evening. Like many other people in the early stages of dementia, Mom did very well in the company of old friends. Not as vivacious as often in the past, but following the conversation and occasionally contributing. When Lucy asked how the book was coming I told her about my upcoming trip to New York City. Lucy and her mother immediately picked up on the problem, but were careful not to let on.

"Why Elaine!" cried Carlene. "That makes for simply perfect timing. Remember we promised to take that train excursion someday. Wouldn't it be perfect to do it while Carrie is off being professional?"

"I don't know…"

"We can have fun, two carefree schoolgirls on a field trip."

"Remember the trip to see that Shakespeare play, Carlene?

"Indeed I do. The guy that played Benvolio was a hunk."

"Wasn't he! Those codpieces were a scream."

"I asked William if he wanted one and he told me that any more than he already had and I would be uncomfortable.

"It's been a long time since I got uncomfortable like that, Carlene."

"We could get lucky and meet a couple of dirty old men on our trip, you know.

Lucy and I were just about busting a gut at the two old biddies, our mothers! talking about their husbands' cocksmanship. Really!

"Now really, mother, should you be discussing such things in the presence of your innocent children?" Lucy was the soul of innocence - not!

"I'd be more inclined to believe innocent if you weren't divorced and sleeping with your best friend."

Well damn! Lucy couldn't hide anything from her mother any better than I could.

"Do you have a new boyfriend, Lucy?" asked my mother.

"In a manner of speaking."

"I bet you do more than speaking, dear."

"I'm not going to talk about it."

"That's always best. Joel wasn't much of a talker but he did have a way about him."

"Why Mother!" I exclaimed, "I do believe you've turned into a dirty old woman."

"All I did is get old, darling. You wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Well, if you two are looking for a couple of mature studs, perhaps we should sign you up for a cruise to Mexico or the Caribbean."

"Just as long as they don't expect us to play shuffleboard," Mom said. "I'm too young to play shuffleboard."

"I'd rather play with a shuttlecock any time, Elaine," chimed in Aunt Carlene.

All in all it was a very interesting evening. Sex talk with our mothers and then sex later when Lucy spent the night.

The Big Apple

It may seem strange that someone who lives in a cabin in the woods would enjoy visiting the overcrowding and artificiality of New York City. The operative word here is visiting! It would drive me nuts to live in a lousy little apartment at the top of a pile of concrete and steel with a billion people all around me.

But there are theaters and museums and a whole list of things to see that you can find only in a big city with lots of people to support them. To be able to walk down the streets with my skirt swinging and my hair blowing free is a wonderful feeling. To know in just a couple of days I would not need silicon in my bra to feel like a woman only enhanced the pleasure.

So I visited my agent, who beamed to see me again, and not only because he gets 15% of my money. He's the only one in the business who knows that Carrie started out as Harry.

I visited the publisher and ceremonially handed over a thumb drive with the latest adventures of Lady Elaine and the evil Baron. No matter that they already had it in their computer banks because I sent over the Net. They ceremonially handed over a deposit receipt for my advance on the next piece of schlock I was going to write. Please don't tell any of my fans I said that, though.

If you're one of my fans then I guess I'm out of luck.

Next the photographer's studio, where I was primped and painted and polished for my Author's Photo. The photographer was a bit miffed that I wouldn't show any cleavage - after all Lady Elaine almost always depends on her cleavage to get what she wants.

That was a full day. I went back to my hotel, had a nice meal and luxuriated in a bubble bath, hoping to relax and get some sleep. No matter how much I wanted to have breasts, the idea of someone filleting my tender body was not too restful. Yes, I know that's not really how it's done, but tell that to the monkey gibbering in the back of my brain.

That row of asterisks is the surgery. You don't really want to know what I felt like, but I do have to tell you what craziness was in my head when I awoke from the surgery.

The pre-op instructions say you need someone to drive you home after the surgery, but in the Big Apple that's just silly. I may be crazy enough to get implants and live my life as a woman, but I'm nowhere near crazy enough to try and drive in Manhattan!

My original plan was to take the bus to the hotel, it was only about ten minutes on a direct route. That didn't seem all that bad. What I hadn't counted on was how the pain meds messed with my head.

No way I was riding the bus!

A very nice nurse with a New Joisey accent that you cut with a knife put me in a taxi and the taxi driver was instructed (read a big tip) to make sure I was delivered safely to my room. They figured I couldn't get in too much trouble that way.

I conked out completely, but ran into Lady Elaine roaming New York City trying to figure what was going on. Damned if the Baron wasn't hot on her trail, but he kept getting honked at by the cars he was dodging to catch her.

Now this had some plot possibilities. Could I get away with sending Lady Elaine through a time warp or have her face the wrath of an Evil Magician and get sent to modern New York? Hell, If Janet Evanovich could get away with that paranormal crap with Stephanie Plum and Diesel, why couldn't I do the same?

Well, maybe because she's a famous author and I'm the second string.

As soon as I thought about that, along came Stephanie Plum after the Baron, hollering about him needing to go down to the police station to renew his bond. The baron sneers an aristocratic sneer and ignores her, so Stephanie hands her Taser to Lady Elaine, who drops the Baron in his tracks.

Lady Elaine is overjoyed at how easy it was for her to escape his clutches and tries to swipe Stephanie's Taser. Next thing we know, along comes Stephanie's sidekick Lula and she and Lady Elaine get into an argument about who can show the most cleavage.

I tell you, those pain meds were strong! It all seemed logical at the time.

 
So I vegged out wearing a heavy-duty bra that was ugly as sin, taking sponge baths and eating room service trays for the next two days. Then I ran out of happy pills and started to think again.

What a shame!

I got my post-op checkup and everything was healing nicely, so I boarded a plane and headed home. I don't advise hitting turbulence with newly implanted breasts, it's not fun. I may forgive the pilot about the time I forgive the Weather Gods.

Lucy picked me up at the airport and refrained from hugging me, which I greatly appreciated. I was whipped! I also spent the next couple of weeks explaining I had had 'some minor surgery' while I was in New York, so I wasn't doing much for a while.

I was hesitant to show Lucy my new breasts, which were oddly placed and tie-dyed in yellow, brown and purple. She kindly refrained from kissing them to make them better - that would come in time.

 
Things once again settled down while I was waiting for my new breasts to drop and fluff. Drop and fluff is actually a technical term my surgeon used to describe what would happen. The inserts were placed higher than their final position because gravity would make them drop. The fluff part describes the how the inserts soften and round out after a while. Wearing that ugly bra is essential to keep them in place and prevent bottoming out which means the inserts could start to migrate toward my stomach. If all went well, in about three to six months my breasts would be looking natural.

 
Life with Mom was a strange blend of what had been our normal roles. Much of the time she was the woman who raised me and loved me. She could still offer a sharp observation on something we saw on the TV or read in the paper, but then she became confused and frustrated by some small task that she had done thousands of times before.

We still went shopping together, visited friends, did the things people do, only I had to gently guide her when she forgot something or got confused. I was becoming the parent and she the child.

Her one consistent belief was that I was Carrie. There were times when she fretted that she hadn't heard from Harry in a while, but she could forget she had been talking to Pam ten minutes after she hung up the phone. Not too much later she would be telling some story of our childhood in excruciating detail. I never knew what would be coming next.

I needed to get back to work, so I started plotting to have Lady Elaine kidnapped once again, but needed some new way to do it. She had already been kidnapped by pirates, the Baron, assorted Evil Princes, a Sultan, a Shiek, and a horny, megalomaniac goatherd just for variety's sake. Too bad cowboys were out-of-period, having her lassoed and hogtied had a certain charm. I was running out of people crazy enough to think she was worth kidnapping, let alone putting up with her if they succeeded.

I was in my creative fog considering the possibility of having her snatched by a troop of Wild Geese - the Irish mercenaries, not the birds that shit all over the park sidewalks - when my cellphone rang.

"Hi Caroline," I answered my sister.

"Harry?"

"Nope, Sherry. Harry is no longer with us."

"No shit?"

"I've been taking my laxative faithfully, so that's not my problem."

"Sherry! So you finally did it."

"Indeed I did. Just don't tell Mom, she's confused enough already."

"And she still thinks you're Carrie?"

"Too true. I gave up trying to set her straight."

"Sherry, how is Mom?"

"About the same, still mostly there but there are times…"

"What do you think of getting the family together for Thanksgiving? Is she up to it? Are you up to it?"

"I think that might be doable. Mom is at her best in a crowd of people she knows."

"I talked to Pam and she wants to do it if it will be good for Mom. Sherry, we don't want to miss any time with her if she's losing it."

There was a distinct sniffle as she said that.

"Sis, neither do I."

"We can all get there a few days before Thanksgiving so we can help. It wouldn't be fair to have you do everything."

"Darn right. I'm still moving a little slow these days."

"Huh? Why?"

"I had my top surgery done."

"I hope you didn't overdo it, some men have very inflated ideas."

"Same size as Carrie when everything settles down. And there is no inflation involved. They call them Gummy Bears because they have a semi-solid filling."

"And someone will want to be chewing on them, I suppose."

"Without a doubt. Lucy and I are an item these days."

"I'm starting to think Mom's not the only one back home with a few screws loose."

"I assure that Lucy is very tight when we screw."

"Sherry!"

"Hey - I should ignore a straight line like that?"

"A refined woman would have done so."

"Which is why I didn't."

"And which is why there will be more than one turkey at Thanksgiving. At least it won't be a Tom."

"And I shall gobble in a polite and feminine manner."

"I give up. See you in a couple of weeks, sis."