a jumper she just bought.  My hair up in the Betty Grable forties
look I'm trying out.  I'm OK, I decided.  If I smile at him he'll
fall over.  


     So I crouched down pretending to do something with a flower
bed alongside the sidewalk, and when he got nearer I wiggled my
tail at him a little.  Looking him over sideways, I could see he
was trying hard not to notice me, the way polite boys do, but he
couldn't help himself.  Then when he was just about to pass by I
suddenly stood up in front of him and faced him down and smiled. 
I gave him both barrels at close range.  I can be devastating when
I want to be, and I can be mean, too, and sometimes it's the same
thing.  I didn't know which it was yet myself, in this case.


     He stopped walking as if he'd hit a wall, and then he stared
at me with no change of expression. 


     "Hi!" I said brightly.  "I'm JayCee, the girl who lives here? 
My mother was over to your house the other day, a week ago?  When
you were moving in, and she met you and your mother?"  I saw he had
huge almond-shaped eyes and long black lashes and high cheekbones. 
Close up he looked real cute!  In fact he was a living doll! 
Stroke him the right way, and he'll purr like a cat I'll bet.  Or
a tiger.  He might be worth getting to know after all!


     He smiled just a bit, a little nervous, and he passed the bag
he was carrying over to his other hand, then half-hid it behind his
leg.  I'd already seen through the plastic that it had some big
bottles of pills, and a big blue and purple package with "Kotex
OverNite Maxi Pads" in white letters.  No mystery -- he was on an
errand for his mother.  But at his age mothers can seem an
embarrassment.  "Sure," he said. "JayCee.  Your mother said you
might be coming by real soon.  I'm pleased to meet you." 


     "I'll walk you," I said.  "Then I'll have come by."  No sense
letting anyone get any advantage over you, any time.  I started
down the sidewalk.  But he kept standing there, so I stopped and
looked back at him over my shoulder, and I gave him my slow steady
inquiring look with one eyebrow raised real high.  I once turned
two football players into drooling mush with that look.


     "No, I didn't mean that," he said, now altogether flustered. 
"I mean I'm very pleased to meet you.  I was looking forward to
it."  Now he clutched his shopping bag in front of him with both
hands.


     I realized that he was one of those boys who have a hard time
speaking to girls, a late bloomer or something.  He wasn't just
jockeying for position when he'd said that about me supposed to
come by and I didn't, trying to hang a guilt trip on me.  He'd said
it because that was all he could think to say.  He understood that
I misunderstood him and that I was miffed, and now he was trying to
apologize and be nice!  Now that was something!  The other boys I
knew wouldn't have had a clue to anything that had already happened
in this little conversation, and if they could have figured it out
they couldn't have cared less!  


     "Likewise," I said, and this time I gave him my special smile. 
Sincere.  I really do have one, though there isn't much call for
it.  "I'll walk you.  I'd like to."  Should I tell him I've seen
him cutting the grass?  No, too relaxed and neighborly.  Keep the
initiative.  Stay on him.


     "Your name's Marion, isn't it," I noted.  


     He realized he'd forgotten to say so, and felt further
disadvantaged, which was my intention.  "Yes." he said.  "'Marion'
spelled with an 'O.'  That was John Wayne's name, too, before he
was John Wayne."


     The poor boy was belly up!  So sensitive about having a name
that sounds like a girl's that he had a canned speech prepared to
prove he's really a man's man like John Wayne.  Who'd doubted it? 
Obviously he was first in line!


     I decided to keep after him.  "Marion with an 'O," I said. 
"That's pronounced 'Marianne,' right?  Then you won't mind if I
call you 'Marianne'?  'Mary' for short, maybe?"  Then the clincher
so he wouldn't dare object.  "It sounds more friendly that way. 
You don't mind, do you?"  Now let him hang himself.  What's in a
name?


     He surrendered.  "No, not at all," he said.  "Whatever you
like."  I had him.  He was outclassed.  But he *knew* he was
outclassed, and that showed more intelligence than ever glimmered
in any of the boys I knew.  I decided that I liked him.  Maybe I
should have come by after all?  I decided that this could be a
prize fish, so I should reel him in.  Keep up the pressure so he
won't throw the hook.


     "Mary," I said to him, taking his arm real comfy, so he'd know
I wasn't being sarcastic or threatening, but also so he wouldn't
spook and run off, "Why did you buy Kotex at the mall?  Are you
having your period now?"  


     I hung on tight until he could get a grip on himself.  Now his
doll face was bright red.  "Oh, JayCee," he said finally.  "Quit
teasing me, OK?"


     Terrific!  I loved it!  He respected himself after all!  He
didn't fall all over himself to explain the obvious, that it was
for his mother.  He was uneasy about his name, but he didn't feel
totally apologetic about everything, as if everyone's opinion but
his own mattered.  He knew I was mocking and testing him, maybe
even insulting him, but he took off the edge by calling it teasing. 
And it worked!  All of a sudden, I'd only been teasing him, in a
friendly way, the way girls do when they meet an interesting guy. 
I liked that.  I squeezed his arm to tell him, and I knew he knew
that too.  His blush faded, not altogether.  "OK, Marianne," I
said. No reason to back off just because I was beginning to like
him. "Deal!"


     "What're the pills?" I asked him, now just making
conversation.  We were only about halfway to his house from mine.


     "Vitamins," he said.  "I had asthma and such when I was
little, and I took a lot of pills.  Now my mother feels better when
I take them."


     "Prescription vitamins?  Let's see!"  I could see the typed RX
labels through the translucent plastic bag, so I reached over and
took the bag from him before he could pull back and be embarrassed
into playing tug of war, and I reached in and started reading the
bottles.  They had his mother's name on them, not his.


     "These pills are for your mother too," I said, to put my Kotex
taunt behind us once and for all.


     "She's got the health insurance policy," he said, "So she gets
the prescriptions, even the ones for me."


     Was he kidding me now?  About asthma and vitamin pills?  I
could read, and I saw that these were birth control pills.  Female
hormones of some kind.  One was "Estynil Estradiol" and the other
was "Progesterone."  The same stuff the doctor started me on last
year, to make my period more regular, and as Mom said, to forestall
any little problems.  Only mine come in a cute little pill wheel
inside a compact, so I won't forget to take one each day, or forget
which one.  And mine are a lot smaller.  These were big pills, like
the kind my Mom started taking after her hysterectomy, massive
doses of female hormones to keep her in womanly trim.  I checked
again in the bag.  It was Kotex all right.  No hysterectomy.  A
mystery.  I decided he was kidding me but wasn't very good at it. 


     "Well, here we are, Mary," I said.  We stopped for a moment on
the sidewalk in front of his house.  And I added sincerely, because
he needed all the encouragement he could get, obviously, "It's nice 
that we live near each other, Marianne."  He smiled.  "I like you. 
You stop by.  We have a pool."  


     He hesitated, and then asked if I'd like to come in and meet
his mother.  Meaning he wanted me to meet her.  Meaning, he really
liked me too.  He led the way into the kitchen, and there she was
standing by the window, cutting vegetables.  


     Marion's mother was thin too, like him, with a nice figure,
and though she wore no makeup at all it was obvious that she could
look stunning whenever she chose -- she had the same high
cheekbones as her son, and the same almond-shaped eyes, and she had
the same black lashes, though on a woman you can never tell.  She
carried herself like a dancer -- there was something poised and
formally gracious even in the way she turned to greet me.  Her hair
was fairly long for a woman her age, and piled high up on her head,
the way mine was pinned up.  She made pleased and surprised noises
to see the two of us together, looking from one of us to the other
and saying something about my mother's visit the day they first
moved in.  So she knew who I was already, without being introduced. 
I saw that the kitchen window in front of her cutting board on the
counter gave her a full view of our entire promenade, from my
calculated crouch in front of my own house practically to their
front steps.  I glanced out that window, then at his mother again. 
She was watching me, and we saw we understood each other perfectly. 
She smiled.  Marion put the bag on the kitchen table between them.


     "JayCee, isn't it," his mother said wiping a hand on her
apron, and offering it.  "I'm Jane.  Just 'Jane' please.  No
formalities here.  I'm delighted to meet you, I'm sure you know
that."  Then to her son, "You got the prescriptions too, Marion? 
The vitamins?  Yes, here they are."  She opened the pill bottles
and took two from one, then one from the other, huge as pills go,
and handed them to him.  "Take these now," she told him.  "Then if
you don't mind, that washing machine isn't hooked up right.  Would
you mind going down and reversing the hoses, and put it up on its
blocks, and check it over, then holler to me when you think it's
finally installed right, so I can bring down some washing and we
can test it out?"


     "Sure, Mom," he said.  "I'll see you, JayCee!"


     "When you come up.  I'll look after your friend meanwhile. 
I'd like to get to know JayCee a little, if she doesn't mind, now
that she's here.  You go down and we'll talk, and we'll be here
when you've done what you need to do."  


     He went down to the cellar to fix the washing machine or
whatever.  I looked at her expectantly.  She hadn't gotten rid of
her son just to pass the time of day with me.  "Your mother told me
you were a nice girl," his mother said to me when we were out of
his hearing.  "She didn't tell me you were also clever.  I see that
for myself.  I'm pleased to know you."


     "Likewise," I said, not much into formalities myself.  I
looked her straight in the eye, and she looked straight into mine. 
I liked her immediately.  "Mrs....um, Jane, you have a nice son. 
I like him."


     "Yes, I just heard you tell him that," she commented with a
small smile.  Meaning she'd also heard me call him Mary.  She
didn't seem to mind.  Also meaning, she didn't want secrets between
us.


     This emboldened me, but I remembered my manners.  "Can I ask
you something, Mrs...Jane, I mean?  Right out, with no 'I know its
really none of my business, but...' stuff?"


     I had never spoken to anyone like that before.  Not so blunt. 
But Marion's mother seemed to invite it.  I could sense that, and
I wanted her respect, and I sensed this was how to get it.


     "Absolutely, JayCee!  No 'none of my business stuff...'
between us ever, OK?"  


     "Great!" I said thinking to myself that there were certainly
some secrets around here, if she's that open about being open with
me.  "I guess I've got two questions, really.  The first is, why
did you name your son 'Marion'?  That was asking for trouble for
him."


     She looked at me steadily, then sat down at the table and
leaned on her elbows, and twined her wrists together and clasped
her hands.  It was a graceful gesture, like an actress or a model,
and I thought I might try that some time myself.  It might be
useful.  She found it useful, obviously.  She nodded for me to sit
too, so I did.


     "You ask without preliminaries, so I'll answer the same way. 
By the time Marion was born I knew I was going to divorce his
father.  His father is a real shit, a vicious man with no respect
for anyone he can't control, especially women, and a foul-mouthed
wife-beater.  I'd wanted a daughter of my very own, so at least I
could carry something good away from my years with him, not a son
who might  look up to that bastard and maybe some day choose to
live with him, and to think and behave like him.  And a daughter
he'd never contest during a divorce.  He'd want all kinds of rights
over a son."  


     "But we take what we get.  I got a boy.  So I gave him a boy's
name I could imagine was a girl's name, and everyone else could
think was a girl's name if they wanted to.   That way I saw to it
that I was asking for the right kind of trouble for him.  He's
still a little defensive, the way adolescent boys are, but you must
have noticed, he doesn't feel it's al all demeaning to be carrying
what sounds like a girl's name.  You can call him 'Mary' to tease
him, if you like, or even 'Marianne' all the time, and it doesn't
bother him at all.  He takes no notice.  He's not insulted that his
name sounds like a girl's.  He respects girls.  He's had to learn
to respect them in order to respect himself, and not go through
life cringing and apologizing for things that aren't his fault." 
She sat back and smiled.  "Then when his father came home from some
long overseas engineering and whoring trip and got infuriated to
learn that he now had a son named Marion, well, that was another
plus."  


     "Ok, Mrs. ... uh, ma'am, fair enough.  Just now I...."


     "'Jane,' please, JayCee, if you don't mind."


     "No, Jane, I don't mind at all.  I like it.  I like you too." 
I really did.  Why did I want her to know right off?   "That
explains why he didn't mind my calling him 'Marianne' or 'Mary.' 
I didn't get anywhere near him with that."


     "Closer than you'd think, but not the way you'd think, JayCee. 
 'Marianne's' a lovely version of 'Marion.'  And so is he.  I wish
I'd thought of it!  I'm glad you did.  You had another question?"


     "Yes, ma'am.  Yes, Jane.  This one's a little more serious." 
I really hesitated, then I just blurted it out.  "Why are you
feeding your son female hormones and telling him they're vitamins?"


     Jane glanced at the bottles between us on the table, then
looked at me mildly but steadily.  "When he was a boy he had
asthma," she said, "And he got accustomed to taking vitamin
supplements and allergy shots.  He thinks he still is."


     That wasn't really relevant, except that now I knew that he
was also shooting up female hormones, and didn't know that either. 
Pretty heavy duty stuff.  I sat there waiting.


     "May I ask how you know what these are?"  She picked one up
and held it as if to read the label, but didn't bother looking at
it.


     I told her.  And how I knew they weren't for her.


     She glanced at the Kotex package when I mentioned it, with a
quick smile.  Then she resumed looking straight at me.  She added
gently, as if reminiscing, "Yes, I saw you reading the labels
earlier while you two were walking here.  I knew you knew.  And I
notice that neither then nor just now did you say anything to him. 
You saw as soon as you both walked in here that he didn't even
blink when I called them vitamins and handed him some.  He still
thinks they're vitamins.  "


     Now I felt like a co-conspirator.  Was that was how she wanted
me to feel?  


     "He also gets hormone shots, as I've just told you, and I have
his blood monitored carefully each month.  I love him, and I take
no chances with him.  He needs to overcome his body's natural
production of male hormones, so he needs heavy doses of estrogen
and so forth.  If he'd had an arranged accident when he was
younger, and lost his testicles, he could have gone on much smaller
doses to complete his puberty.  But it's too late now -- now he'd
think it was a disaster if it happened, and I don't want him to
suffer anything traumatic like that ever!"


     But she still wasn't answering my question.  


     She looked steadily at me a moment longer, then she suddenly
straightened up.  "JayCee," she said.  "Can I talk to you frankly,
woman to woman?  No 'stuff' at all?"


     Now she really wanted to make me a co-conspirator, no question
about it.  What she wanted to say was not to be known even by her
own son.  It could be a barrier between me and Marion, if we ever
got close.  I hesitated, but I'd never known anyone like this
woman.  She was elegant and yet down-to-earth, direct yet extremely
tactful,  gracious, smart, and she knew her own mind.  She was
already some of the things I realized I wanted to be.  "Yes, of
course, ah, Jane," I said.  She knew I knew what she was really
asking.  But that wasn't good enough for her.  She had to underline
it.


     "What I say now never leaves this room.  And Marion or
'Marianne' is never to hear of it.  Are you willing to agree to
that?"


     "Sure," I said.  I love mysteries, and a big one was about to
be unfolded.


     "I just told you that when Marion was born I wanted a girl,
didn't I?"


     I nodded.


     "Well, in a nutshell, I'm getting one.  Marion is becoming a
girl.  I've arranged for him to have a girl's puberty instead of a
boy's puberty.  He doesn't know it himself yet, but this summer
coming up is a crucial one for his development.  I want to use it
to ease his transition to living as a girl full time by the time
school begins again, not merely so he'll accept it, but so he'll
enjoy it.  So he'll love it!  So he can start school this Fall as
a girl, and never again be anything else, and for the rest of his
life never look back.  Never wish to be anything else.  That's one
reason why we moved here, where no one knows him.  No questions, no
curiosity, no mockery.  A whole new beginning." 


     I was dumbfounded.  I leaned forward and asked her yet again. 
"Jane, why are you doing this to him."


     "Not to him, with him," his mother said.  "For him.  For
different reasons.  Let me list a few, and let's see if they don't
make sense to you."  


     "First, girls are nicer than boys.  If you don't know that
yet, you will.  But I think you do.  Also, girls have more
character than boys.  They can endure and survive more, and once
they understand how boys tick they can put themselves in charge
without even seeming to be there at all.  Because most boys really
want girls to be in charge.  I think you've already found that out
too, haven't you, JayCee?"


     "Yes, I suppose I have," I said evenly, wondering how she
knew.


     "Well, that's what I want for my baby.  To be what you are. 
To know what you know.  To live the life you'll live.  You be the
judge, JayCee.  Which would you rather be?  A girl or a boy?  For
the rest of your life."


     A girl, of course.  For the rest of my life?  Why should
anyone ever want to be a boy?  But I didn't answer her.  There was
really nothing for me to say.  She didn't mean for me to answer. 
I waited.


     "Secondly, I'm still young.  Still in my thirties.  I go out,
and I invite friends back to the house now and then, and sometimes
I'll ask them to dinner here, and sometimes a special friend'll
stay overnight.  It sounds selfish, I know, but it isn't.  Now, I
am not a storybook mother whose whole life is dedicated to her
child.  I wouldn't want to burden any child of mine with the notion
that I sacrificed my life for him.  For her.  That's a terrible
burden for any child to bear.  So I have my friends over.  I enjoy
their companionship and the sex, and so on, and I expect my child
to understand.  It's my life too."


     "Well, responses to a parent's sexuality are fairly standard
according to a child's gender.  At Marion's age boys resent their
mothers' sexuality.  Girls don't.  A girl may even admire their
mother's boyfriends, though usually they resent their father's
girlfriends.  Well, I don't need a resentful adolescent son
implying to any of my guests that they're not welcome, or moping
about unhappy because my life and my affections aren't exclusively
devoted to him.  I love Marion dearly, but I'd love to fall in love
again with someone I can take to bed and dedicate to my own
pleasure, and I'd never want Marion to be in the way.  I'm still
looking."


     I thought, I should be feeling embarrassed to hear that.  But
I wasn't.  I understood well enough.


     "On the other hand, it's nice for everyone when a woman is
living with a teenage daughter.  Daughters understand how their
mothers' feel, and don't feel threatened themselves.  In fact,
sometimes a pretty daughter somewhere in the house can't help but
enrich a guest's fantasy and intensify any romantic moods.  Even a
decent person who'd never touch her.  You're a daughter.  Don't the
older men who come into your house sometimes seem to feel a
compulsion to turn on the charm when they look at you?  Even though
you're your father and mother's child, and untouchable?"


     "More often than sometimes," I said.  I grinned to myself, and
she saw and grinned back at me.  


     "You're a real pet, JayCee.  You hear me perfectly, I can
tell.  Now, so far what I've described are the advantages of having
a daughter instead of a son.  My third reason is why it's necessary
for Marion to be my daughter, not my son.  Not just advantageous,
but necessary.  Crucial.  It's this.  His father comes back now and
then to claim his unlimited visitation rights over Marion.  That
was the price I paid to get a decent child support allotment when
he first abandoned us.  I make plenty of money now, but I didn't
then.  I needed every penny, and the price I paid for it was, any
time after Marion turns 16, and he's just done that, his father can
take him away from me for as long as he likes, and keep him as far
away as he likes."


     "Well, that man resents me.  In fact he has contempt for all
the women who have ever associated themselves with him.  He's
boasted to me that he means to come back and take Marion away and
keep him away for good.  He said he was going to turn Marion into
his kind of man, which means a self-gratifying, conceited, sexist
boor like himself.  A calculating rapist who'll never get caught. 
And he could do it.  At Marion's age a young man is attracted to
the idea that women exist only for his pleasure.  It solves all of
his problems, of relationship, and responsibility, and adequacy,
and respect, everything, all at once.  Marion will want to believe
it, and his father can be persuasive.  Already there've been times
when Marion came home from a week's visit with his father with his
mouth spewing filth, arrogant, for weeks useless around the house,
because he'd adopted his father's belief that women are lower forms
of life placed on earth to serve men."  


     "Well, I mean to put Marion beyond his reach, beyond the
slightest interest his father might ever have in him.  That bastard
is overseas now, and means to take Marion away from me when he
returns next year.  He's told me that repeatedly, to upset me and
then gloat.  Well, when he gets back next year I want him to
discover that his son is the sweetest, loveliest daughter any man
ever disowned.  A lovely girl and a respectable young woman.  And
I'll confess it to you, JayCee, I'll get a lot of personal
satisfaction from seeing my ex when he sees he's lost a son and
gained a daughter.  That'll fix him once and for all!"


     Changing her son's sex just to get back at her ex struck me as
a little harsh, but I saw she wasn't really doing that.  She was
protecting him from her ex, and protecting a lot of women from what
he might become after her ex corrupted him.  I really couldn't
quarrel with that.  In fact I decided to enter even deeper into our
conspiracy by asking some more questions.


     "Marianne knows nothing of any of this?"


     "Nothing, JayCee.  Well, he knows he's having an odd
adolescence, but I've assured him he'll get over it.  As he will." 


     "When are you going to tell him?"


     She stood up and went to the fridge, and took out a Coke. 
Then she looked at me with one eyebrow raised, and I nodded.  She
took out a second coke, handed it over, and sat down again.  I
cracked the can open.


     "Obviously, some time this summer, he'll have to know that he
isn't going to get over it.  Not ever.  That he isn't a peculiar
boy.  That like it or not he's a transsexual girl.  That he'll have
to be a girl for the rest of his life.  That his body is already a
girl's, except for his genitals, and that he needs to change his
gender in his own mind and become a she.  That she can enjoy being
a girl.  But I'm hoping it won't be necessary to tell him."


     "What do you mean?"


     "Think about it.  I'm hoping he'll want it to happen all by
himself, and accept what's happened, so we don't have to tell him
anything.  That he'll help it happen."


     "How do you plan to do that?"


     "By making each step in becoming a girl delightful.  As
attractive as possible.  More desireable than remaining the kind of
boy he is now."  She paused and then looked directly at me.  "Will
you help me, JayCee?  Will you help him?  Will you help Marianne
become herself?"


     I took a swig from my coke can and considered the matter.  "If
he knew, he'd never agree," I said, avoiding a direct answer.


     "No, of course not.  It has to happen because he wants it, not
merely because he agrees to it.  I don't mind if he thinks he has
no choice, and only reconciles himself to it, because I know that
in the long run he'll be grateful.  But back to my question.  Will
you help Marianne become the daughter I want him to be?  The
daughter she should be?  For the rest of this summer?  It would be
so much easier with your help.  You know you'd be doing him a huge
favor, really.  And I can make it well worth your trouble.


     I thought about it.  I didn't have a summer job yet.  "I was
going to work ten or fifteen hours a week at Chicken Licken or
Burger Bob's," I said.  "Evenings.  I figured on earning maybe $75
a week through Labor Day."


     "This is irregular work, but it's a lot more than ten or
fifteen hours," she said.  "It can be a lot of most days.  It's
whatever it takes.  Whatever it costs.  It's my son's life.  My
daughter's life, for the rest of her life."  


     She paused, near tears, swallowed, and recovered herself. 
Then she listened to my silence.  Encouraged, she then went on. 
"JayCee, we can tell your parents you're working for me.  I'm now
setting up training courses for various businesses, the kind they
need when they bring in new computer software to teach to beginning
employees.   I can tell them honestly that at your educational
level you're a typical targeted client and customer who for that
reason can be a very persuasive sales representative.  That's all
true enough.  Each week for the rest of the summer I'll pay you
three times whatever you'd have earned at Burger Bob's.  And if we
accomplish what we wish to accomplish by the end of the summer, and
Marion begins her Senior year in High School as Marianne, and
enjoys being Marianne, I'll see to it that you win my firm's annual
employee full scholarship to any four-year college of your choice,
the money to be held in trust for you by your parents until you can
use it.  That will be a bonus that will need no explanation."


     I just stared at her.


     "Moreover, I'll pay whatever your expenses all summer.  And
that includes clothes.  You'll be enormously helpful going on
buying excursions with him, two girls together deciding on skirts
and things.  You know what girls are wearing these days.  You can
build his confidence by assuring him he'll fit right in with the
other girls.  Her confidence, I should say.  Does that seem fair?"


     I still couldn't speak.


     "She'll be on her own once school begins, of course, because
you'll have prepared her for that.  But I'll want to keep you on
retainer through all of next year, just in case something comes up
that only you can handle.  For my own peace of mind."  


     This was beginning to sound like all the money I'd ever need
for college.  My parents want the best for me, but they aren't well
off, and I'd been expecting to work my way through State, and then
take a job to pay off the loans and debts, leaving graduate school
a long way down the road.


     "JayCee?  Will you help me?  She doesn't have to be the Prom
Queen when she graduates.  Just an ordinary girl.  I'd be so happy
for her if only there's some boy she likes who'll take her to her
prom, and if she's beautiful in her prom dress, and she can feel
the magic I remember from that time of my life, when I was pretty
and young and desireable, with everything ahead of me.  I loved my
own high school prom.  That was the last time in my life I felt
happy and alive when I woke up each morning, before that lying
bastard I married swept away my girlhood, and all my beautiful
dreams."  She blinked and turned her face away from me, and took
several deep breaths.  Then she just kept looking away from me,
looking out of her own kitchen window past my house.  And waited.


     Was I being bought?  Yes.  Well, I thought, also no.  His
mother was right.  What she was asking matched my own deepest
feelings about boys and girls and what's most desireable.  I would
be doing Marianne a favor.  I liked him.  I could help him.  I
would be helping her too.  And the money I'd earn would be real
money.  If it worked, if I could bring it off, I could go to any
college or university that would have me, anywhere in the whole
country.


     Well, I stood up to shake her hand.  As she saw me reach out
toward her, her whole body suddenly shook with a great sob, and
then she opened her arms to me and rushed around the table.  Then
as we hugged each other she really began to cry, and I did too.  I
couldn't help it.  She kissed my cheek and my neck, and I could
feel her wet eyelashes.  My eyes were wet too.  I really was a
co-conspirator, but it felt good.  All in Marianne's best interest. 
I knew that when the dust settled she'd thank us for what we'd
done.


     We broke our embrace and separated a little.  Now we were two
women conspiring together, but we still clasped each other like two
girls dancing.  She was so pleased!  "Invite him over to use your
pool tomorrow, would you?" his mother said.  "And to spend the day? 
He'll say 'No,' of course,  but be sure to leave quickly before you
can hear him say it, and I'll see that he gets there.  Then you'll
see soon enough what his problem is, what our problems are.  And
I'm sure you'll begin to cope."


     His voice came from the cellar.  "Mom?  It's all set up now! 
Let's try it!"


     The two of us grinned at each other.  I never saw a woman so
happy.  


     "JayCee?  Please sit for a moment more, dear.  At least tell
me how you got your name."


     "It's what my Dad said when he first saw me, right after I was
born.  Or it's the initials, anyhow.  He'd wanted a boy, and the
nurse just held me up new born and naked for him to see, and when
he saw my cunt he just said it out loud without thinking.  My Mom
liked what he'd said, what she thought he'd named me, but she
didn't think a girl should have a boy's name.  Not that boy's name,
anyhow.  So they settled for the initals, spelled out sort of.  I
like it."


     Jane smiled at me, and nodded some more.  "I'm very lucky to
know you, JayCee.  I can't believe how lucky I am!  You know, we
used to live across the state in another town about this size, and
I've got a client there with a son named Petey, and Petey once told
me an extraordinary tale about a teenage girl in this town who
helped him discover himself, and how cleverly she did it.  I've
been hoping to meet her so she could help me too.  In fact, that's
why I bought this house in this neighborhood, near you.  To create
opportunities.  I can tell you that, now that we understand each
other, and now that you're on the payroll.  No secrets, right?"  


     I just stared at her.  What an extraordinary businesswoman! 
If she was as resourceful and persuasive with her clients as she'd
just been with me, she must be very wealthy by now, I thought.  No
wonder she can afford to hire me, and even pay my full college
costs for four years, and probably her daughter's too when Marion
becomes her daughter, and yet here she is living in a small house
in a modest part of town, where most kids can't afford college at
all.  She really does love her son.  Her daughter.  


     "Jane," I said.  "I'm very lucky to know you too.  I hope
we'll become very good friends.  There's so much you can teach me."


     She beamed.  "I just may end up with two daughters," she said
happily, "Where I've had none.  That's just lovely!  So very
lovely!"  Then she shouted down the cellar stairs.  "Marianne! 
Come on up now!  JayCee wants to ask you something!"
  
I stood up to deliver my invitation and then make my getaway as
she'd suggested, before Marianne could say "No!"  And that's what
I did.                                       


     
                              III.


     He arrived wearing his usual loose shirt and a pair of
swimming trunks, and also a sour expression, carrying a bag no
doubt with something dry to change to later on.


     "Hi, Jaycee."


     "Hi yourself, Marianne."  He was acting as if someone had
condemned him to death.


     Well, I'd already figured out what his problem was, and how I
was going to deal with it.  After all, now I was his mother's chief
assistant in charge of his transition, and she expected me to cope. 
He may have been gloomy, but I'd put on a bright yellow string
Bikini under a short orange terry cover up, and there I was, all
brilliant colors in full sunlight.  Why not?  Girls have
advantages, and should use them.


     "What's in the bag?" I asked him, ignoring his tone of voice
altogether.


     The answer was interesting.  "Another bathing suit my mother
wants me to wear.  She says it's more proper and decent and
fitting."


     "Well, if it is, why don't you."


     "JayCee," he said exasperatedly.  "I just don't want to!" 


     This was not the moment to push him, so I just pulled off my
cover up, pushed my chest way out, stretched up on tiptoe, and dove
in.  I knew I looked terrific at that moment, like a girl on the
cover of "Seventeen" preparing herself for the cover of "Sports
Illustrated," and I wanted him to admire girls like us.  There's
only a thin line between desiring a beautiful girl and envying her. 
I felt glamorous and natural, and did three quick laps, and then
climbed out again.  Marion was looking at my figure and my
glistening skin rather mournfully while I arched my neck and bent
way over sideways and wrung out my hair and began to towel-dry it,
and smiled at him.


     "What's wrong?" I asked.  "Can't you swim?"


     "Of course I can.  I just don't want to."  


     "Well, at least get in the pool.  That's the polite thing to
do, you know."  


     Seeing there was nothing for it, he stepped down into the
shallow end still wearing his shirt, and waded around in water up
to his hips.


     "That's not how to swim," I shouted.  Then just when he was on
tiptoe on the edge where the shallow end suddenly gets a lot
deeper, I dove in, came up next to him under water, took his arm,
and pulled him under.  He splashed off balance and even his head
went under for a moment.  I was pleased to see he was at home in
deep water -- at least now I wouldn't need to rescue him.  He
lifted his head and shook the water out of his eyes in a reflexive
gesture, swam toward the deep end, did a racing turn, and swam
back.  He could swim all right!  I could see that his shirt's
heavy, loose fabric was waterlogged, weighing him down, and his
sleeves were clinging to his arms.  But he stayed on top easily,
and paused a little distance away from me, looking concerned about
something while absent-mindedly treading water.  It was time for
him to face a moment of truth.  The first of many.


     I hopped out of the pool and went over to the big patio table
where I'd already set out a tray full of sandwiches and a cooler
with cans of soda.  "Lunch time," I shouted.  "C'mon out"


     "No, I'll swim around a while more," Marion said.


     I went over to the edge of the pool and looked down at him. 
This time I wasn't thinking I was a cute young thing on the cover
of "Seventeen."  I was thinking I was Shalimar the Jungle Queen
looking down on her subjects from a high cliff.  I stood with my
legs wide apart and my knuckles against on my hips, elbows squared,
and my chin high up even though I was looking down on him.


     "Marianne," I said.  "Get out of the pool.  Now!"


     He looked up at me.


     "I know why you didn't want to go in and get wet.  I know why
you don't want to come out and get dry.  It's obvious, Marianne! 
But you've got to come out of the pool sooner or later, so come out
now and we'll talk about it.  We're supposed to be friends, aren't
we?  And it isn't as if I've never seen anything like them before,
is it?  Lots of my friends have them." I hesitated, then said it.
"I've got them too, you know.  You shouldn't feel the least bit
ashamed.  Its insulting to girls everywhere that you're ashamed of
what they're proud they have."  I stood up straight, head high, and
ran my hands up my sides to caress the sides of my breasts, then
just stood there cupping them in my palms.  "Out!" I added, as
impatiently as I could.


     Marianne looked at me with an anguished expression.  I felt
sorry for him, really, but I knew I had to be firm.  For both of
our sakes.  Then he swam to the shallow end, walked up the steps
out of the pool with his back to me, and then with a cry of
exasperation, fury, and despair said "All right, then!"   He turned
suddenly to face me, and then started striding toward the table
with the umbrella and the sandwiches, as if sandwiches were the
only thing on his mind.


     When he got close I told him, "Unbutton your shirt and dry
off.  What's that underneath?"  I saw he'd wrapped some Ace
bandages tightly around his chest as if he'd broken some ribs. 
"Oh, sure.  Take that off too, or you'll catch cold."


     "JayCee, I'm going home now."  He turned to leave.


     "Marianne!"  My voice was as abrupt and forceful and as stern
as I could make it.  He turned back astonished, and just stared.


     "Don't you wimp out on me!  Ever!  You hear?  I know what
you've got under there.  I know lots of things.  If you want a
friend, the only friend you'll ever have who can really help you,
you'll be straight with me and do what I say!  Now take off your
shirt and unwrap that bandage and tell me the story!"  I was sharp,
but I really was a little angry, and I let it show.  No one with
Marianne's potential should ever be allowed to run away from
himself.


     Like some whipped puppy, slowly, he turned back and unwrapped
the bandage.  Then he slipped his shirt back on unbuttoned, unable
to bear being completely naked while I was looking him over.


     They were impressive!  How long was it now he'd been on
hormones?  His mother'd said since puberty.  Years!  I must say,
they were bigger than mine, and mine create suspense whether my
bikinis can hold them in!  His wet shirt clung to his curves,
wrapped form-fitting around those two huge melons jutting way out
in front of his chest, each one punctuated by a thick dark nipple
poking through the soaked fabric.  He was stacked!  When his shirt
was dry I'd noticed he hunched his shoulders way forward, so he
wouldn't bulge too noticeably.  But now there was no hiding them! 
At least a C Cup, maybe bigger!  A pair of stunning knockers,
thrust out and self-supported.  He didn't really need a brassiere
yet to hold them up, I saw, though I knew he'd be wearing one
before this day ended, and wearing one for all the days of his life
after today.  Were they freakish, breasts on a boy's body?  No, I
saw that he had narrow shoulders and a very narrow waist, and thin
arms, and wide hips, and even a well-rounded bottom.  A beautiful
girl's figure!  Those hormones had been everywhere in him for years
and years, doing their things.  He had a girl's body, no mistaking
it!  He'd said very little yesterday, I suddenly realized, and
today he'd spoken only in a low, grumpy voice.  Did he also have a
girl's voice?  I tried to remember.


     But this was not a moment for remembering.  I had to respond
immediately, and pretend there was nothing wrong, that everything
was the way it should be.


     "Why Marianne!  They're beautiful!  How can you want to hide
them?  They're just gorgeous!  You must feel very proud!"


     This was not at all the reaction he'd expected.  He'd gotten
used to thinking he was a freak, and he looked at me as if I were
crazy to think he was anything else.  I suppose I would have been,
except that I knew what I was doing.  And actually, his problem
wasn't that he was a boy with huge tits.  It was that he had a
girl's body, a beautiful one at that, but thought he was a boy. 
This will be easier than I thought, I said to myself, and a lot
easier than his mother thinks.


     "Come over here and let me see!  Oh, Marianne, you are so
lucky!"


     My enthusiasm bewildered him.  He came toward me baffled.  I
could see through the open shirt that the upper halves of the round
globes of his wonderful tits were gleaming, smooth, white, and wet
in the sunlight!  In a way I really did envy him.  My boobs were
OK, nothing much.  But his?


     "Come sit down right here," I said, patting his chair, which
was snugged up against mine so our knees would interlock.  I'd set
it up that way first thing this morning.


     Dazed, he sat down.  I sat too, one knee between his, one of
his between mine.  I reached over, and before he could pull back,
I ran my fingertips delicately over his nipples, one hand across
each.  They immediately stiffened.  I saw that that his nipples
were those of a mature woman, practically of a nursing mother,
sticking out a half-inch or more like the tip of a finger, longer
and thicker even than mine.   But he didn't know that, of course. 
It crossed my mind he might still be a virgin, that he'd never seen
any girl's figure naked, perhaps not even his mother's.  He might
not know his breasts were exceptionally well-developed even for a
mature young woman, and that the shape of his whole body was also
female, not male.  To him his breasts were just an embarrassment.


     "How long have you had these, Marianne ?" I asked gently.  I
ran my fingertips back over those huge nipples again, this time
pausing while still touching them, then ever so lightly I started
to caress them.  I noticed that he didn't back off at all.  In fact
he seemed to lean in ever so slightly, and a slight sigh escaped. 
So they felt the way mine do whenever I caress them, or gave a boy
permission to touch them.  Delicious.  Melting.  I saw his eyes had
gone slightly distant, and that his mouth was a little open, his
lips parted.  If I keep this up, I thought, he might dissolve into
a puddle.  I decided then and there that I would seduce him this
very day.  It would be like seducing a girl.  I'd never tried that,
never even vaguely thought of doing something like that.  I
wondered if he had a little boy's cock, or a man's.  Lowering my
eyelids, I saw a bulge in his bathing suit, and saw it throb once
as I tweaked one nipple and then resumed a gentle circular caress. 
Not much there, but something.  


     "Four years ago they started growing," he answered, his voice
a little resentful, as if in long-standing disapproval.  I noticed
that his tone was a little thin, but also gruff.  Probably he's
been habitually faking a boy's resonance, I thought.  I'll have him
practice sounding like a girl, just being himself.  "I asked my
mother if it was normal, and she said yes, it happens to some boys
when they reach puberty.  One or two other guys said they'd had
lumps in their nipples too for a few months, but they went away. 
So I figured these would go away too."    


     Now his voice got very quiet, and began to quaver. "But they
haven't gone away, JayCee.  They've gotten huge.  They bounce, so
I can't run any more.  They're heavy, amd sometimes they hurt.  I
don't dare take my shirt off in school, so Mom gets me medical
excuses from Gym.  She keeps saying it's nothing, it's normal, she
has big breasts too so it's probably hereditary.  She says it's not
necessary for me to see a doctor to get them fixed."


     He paused.  Then he looked up at the sky, as if he couldn't
bear to look directly at me.  "JayCee, it isn't normal!  Boys
shouldn't have tits.  Not like these tits.  I'm so ashamed!"  


     And he started crying.  At first his eyes teared up, and then
a strange keening whine came from the back of his throat, his
pent-up misery squeezing under tremendous pressure through a crack
in his impassivity.  Then a wail.  Then the dam burst, and he began
crying out aloud in great wrenching sobs.  His face contorted, and
he surrendered himself to his anguish.  The years of uncertainty
and embarrassment had finally found an outlet, someone listening,
and he couldn't suppress his feelings any longer.  He practically
howled out his grief.


     My heart reached toward him, pitying so much terrible
suffering.   If his mother had known he'd feel like this, would she
have done it to him?  Probably.  She'd felt she had to do it.  I
tried to remember that there were enormous advantages to his being
the way he was, though he didn't know that yet.  That it was my job
to show him he was better off.  But right now what he needed was
sympathy.


     "Oh, my poor baby!"  I held out my arms.  He lurched forward
out of his chair and fell to his knees in front of me, reaching out
and wrapping his arms around my waist with his fists still
clenched, and he buried his face in my breasts, still sobbing.  I
folded my arms around his head and hugged it tight.  It was that
easy!  "My poor, poor baby," I crooned. "Marianne, my dear, dear
Marianne!" I stroked his hair and hugged him close.  "The luckiest
boy in the world, and yet you're miserable!  Why?  Why?"


     I kept hugging him and stroking his hair, and I kissed his
face repeatedly, tasting real salt tears.  Over and over I kept
making comforting sounds, until finally he began to get a grip on
himself.  His wails softened into sobs.  Then I kissed him.  Not
too gently, and not too consolingly, either.  His manhood needed
reassurance that he wasn't ruined, that he could still be
attractive to a girl his own age.  I knew he needed that
reassurance while he changed slowly into an attractive girl his own
age, with an attractive girl's desires.  


     I held his face in my two hands and pulled it up to mine, and
plastered my mouth against his, and pushed my tongue as deep into
his mouth as it could go.  Down in those dark, moist recesses, I
felt his own tongue press back against mine and then maintain the
pressure, as if mine might disappear if he eased off even for a
moment.  His fists opened and his palms turned, and he pulled my
body toward his, timidly, tenderly, holding me the way a shy young
girl might hold another ... another girl.  Our mouths stayed locked