Dear Linda                                                                                                      September 4th

                                                                          

I shan't presume to expect a reply to this letter as I understand how hurt you must be, but I hope that, after you've read it, you will find it in yourself to forgive me and to forgive Christine too. I know she loves you and please believe me when I tell you that she did this to help you, with only the kindest and most loving intentions. It is only now I realise how wrong and selfish I was to intrude upon the love you have for each other. You both seem to lead such an idyllic life in that house together and, as I'm single these days, I suppose I was jealous.

 

As I hope you can understand, intimacy for me can have its problems, and getting close to others is a matter of establishing trust, sometimes over a lengthy period, usually far longer than just a week. You called me a prostitute and, although I understand why you'd say that, I'd like you to know that, until now, I have only been to bed with three people in my life. I know now that, when you found out about me, it was too early for you. I should have taken things more slowly.

 

I do love you, Linda, more than you probably think. If you read on, you'll understand how much. As Christine's intentions, I believe, were good, so were mine, hard though that might be for you to accept. I love your creativity, your sensitivity, your honesty and childlike lack of guile. You have an extraordinary talent and naturally I was very flattered when you wanted to use me as a model. You are beautiful, everything anyone would want in a partner. Christine is very lucky, I think. Perhaps, one reason I agreed to go through with Christine's idea was to get back at her for making the proposal.

 

When she called me I thought it was about my health, that there was something seriously wrong. Why else would a doctor call you? Then when I met her she seemed a bit embarrassed at first and I thought she was going to try and chat me up. I thought she was someone who just assumed that, because I am transgendered, that I am anyone's just for a few drinks. I have met men like that who have found out about me from people who knew me as a child and have harassed me and even stalked me. I thought Christine was desperately trying to seduce me. I got extremely angry and offended. The idea of my being used in such a way filled me with horror and disgust. So part of me wanted to hurt her by taking you away from her and that, I know, was incredibly selfish of me. It was only when she showed me your picture that I relented, and not just because I liked the picture. You see, Linda, I knew you when we were children, though I know you've completely forgotten, as I lived as a boy in those days.

 

My childhood was not easy. I know yours wasn't either. Christine gave me an idea about that, though she didn't tell me anything in detail. Mostly I know about yours from what you told me. But mine was hard for the following reasons.

 

From an early age I would scream out when an attempt was made to cut my hair short. I hated having short hair and, apparently, I would do anything to stop someone cutting it, including trying to grab the scissors off them. I would hide in cupboards, all kinds of poky places that grown ups would have trouble crawling into. I'd steal mum's hats and try to protect my hair that way. I only know all this from my two sisters who are older than me. I was too young to remember any of this. But I do remember refusing to play with the toys that were bought especially for me and instead preferring those of my sisters. At first they were not too happy about me doing this and they would try to exclude me. But I was determined to be part of their little club rather than be on the outside of it and play with the kind of toys I was expected to play with. I saw their dolls and felt jealous that I had not been bought such pretty things too. Over time both of them, Emma and Caroline, came to accept me as one of them and this is one of the reasons why I still love my sisters very much. Unlike them, Mum and Dad had trouble accepting me as a girl and that's where the problems arose.

 

Dad was the headmaster of the private school I was sent to. I love my dad very much, always have, despite his prejudices and quaint ways. Mum stayed at home, and I knew she resented that. She was very intelligent and well educated, but she had no self belief and Dad didn't want her to work anyway. They're not a very progressive couple. Then there was the religion, which I'll mention shortly. We were comfortably off and my sisters and I were well cared for. It was a pretty unremarkable childhood in some ways. Another child would have loved it and been very happy. But my difference, just the fact that I had all the characteristics of one gender with the genitals of another made much of my childhood very unhappy.

 

You may be surprised that, despite my religious faith, I hated religion as a young child. I have always believed, but the inflexible attitude of my parents, determined mainly by the church and its dogmas, was something that harmed me and made me resent them and the church for a long time. As you know, St Benedict's is a Catholic school so I had religion during the week. Then, unlike you, I had it at the weekends and evenings too. We would attend church at least once a week and I'd have to wear my little suit, tie and tie clip like good little boy. I loved God as a child and, though I knew I was different, I never thought of my body as a mistake. It made me special. I knew I was a girl and I knew my parents were wrong to think I was a boy. They were the ones with the problem, not me. And I would get so angry when they would point to passages in the Bible to justify what I considered an unwillingness just to accept me for what I was. If God does not make mistakes then I was fine just the way I was and should not have been considered a freak. But my mother once used that word, just as you did. I forgive you, but I can't forgive her.

 

The business with my hair had become quite an issue with me, so much so that, despite their dislike of my having long hair, they'd allow me to grow it over the collar of my school shirt and sometimes even down to my shoulders. Everyone would say what beautiful hair I had and I think that flattered Mum's ego a little. But if I ever did something wrong, it was off to the barbers for me and a short a short back and sides.

 

Once, when my hair was just right length I like it, down to my shoulders, I was eight, Emma was nine and Caroline was thirteen, the three of us were left alone for a whole day, with Caroline in charge. She and Emma had apparently been planning something for a while since Mum and Dad had told us they would be attending a party a good drive away and would not return until late. I had been dancing to the radio in my room, practising some steps I had just learned in my dance lessons. I was wearing my underpants and nothing else. Suddenly Emma burst into my room, all made up like a tart with Mum's lipstick, blush and eyeliner, looking a bit of a sight. A curler had been used clumsily on her hair. She has very similar hair to mine, by the way. She was in a mauve party dress she had worn for her birthday party. She grabbed me, grinning like a maniac, and pulled me across the landing into Caroline's room which was strewn with the contents of Mum's wardrobe, along with her underwear and shoes. I gawped around me at the chaotic scene, wondering what on earth was going on. The two of them had often played at dressing up but this was on a different scale. Everything of Mum's was being utilised by my sisters to doll themselves up, but not just them. They had plans for me too.

 

Caroline bent over me, her long, dark hair hanging straight down from her round head, and examined me through heavily mascared eyelashes, her eyes, thickly lined with black, narrowed and her deep red lips in a pout. Being quite tall, Mum's red dress looked just about acceptable on her, though with its split up the side to the waist, it was completely unsuitable for a child. She wobbled in a pair of Mum's high heels. She winked at Emma, pulled me over to the dressing table and sat me in the chair with my bare feet dangling.

 

In a few minutes just about every make-up item in the various boxes on the table and on the floor had been applied to my face, though I think that, as I was their third attempt, they managed to make me look slightly less frightful than they had made each other. I didn't protest at any of this, however, and laughed along with them. Initially I had been a little taken aback by the violence with which I had been dragged into this experiment, but I was eager as they were to see how I'd look. Then the curler was also applied to my hair, with a slender barrel. Despite singeing me a little they did not burn my hair off and I was left with a beautiful head of curls my sisters cooed and ahhed over. Then Emma pulled down my underpants and they studied me, the same way you might study an unfinished painting and wonder what more needs to be done to it.

 

They spent an age giggling at my genitals, teasing me mercilessly, so I covered them with my hands which only provoked more teasing. But when I saw Emma's I felt like laughing myself. I loved having a penis and the amount of pleasure it gave me when I rubbed it into hardness and made myself cum. I've never resented other women having clitorises. In fact, I loved the fact that I had something that made me different.

 

Emma took my hand and led me to her bedroom, realising that nothing of Mum's would fit my tiny body. She dressed me up, first in her pink underwear, drawing two pairs of knickers onto me in order to disguise my genitals. I don't think she needed to worry, considering their size. She even tried putting a bra on me, though I was way too small. Then she picked out her beautiful first communion dress which no longer fitted her. The skirt was of white organza and, having only been worn once and then a couple of times since when she had wanted to show off, it was still immaculate. First she pulled me over to the bed and pushed me onto it. She told me to lift my legs and she roughly drew onto them a pair of white, opaque tights. Then came the dress which she zipped up at the back. Caroline stood watching and they both giggled the whole time. Then Emma shoved me into a pair of her white shoes, ones with a low heel and a strap across the top of the foot. She yanked me back up and I was led to our parent's bedroom. They stood me in front of the full length mirror and studied me for a long time, humming and hawing, looking me up and down like a pair of fashion designers at a show, before bursting into fresh peals of laughter.

 

At no point did I protest at Emma's rough handling. At no time did I feel indignant that I was being made up like this. They had known I wouldn't protest. We had all known that, since I had been tiny, this was what I had been longing for. I hated boys' clothes. Now I looked the way I was supposed to look. I smiled at my reflection and both Emma and Caroline kissed me, one on each of my cheeks.

 

It was a sunny Saturday and, once Caroline and Emma had finished touching up their make-up, we all trooped out together onto the street and took the bus into town. Emma held my hand all the way and was very protective. They had both seemed to mature just a little the moment we had left the house, or they had stopped laughing so much anyway. In town we pooled our pocket money and decided to go to a place that sold milkshakes at the shopping centre. We all had peanut butter malts. I found the taste a bit weird at first, but came to love it later. We sat on a bench for a while, watching shoppers go by, sucking our drinks through straws and swinging our legs that wouldn't reach the floor.

 

A bunch of girls we knew from school came up and started chatting after laughing at the dresses and make-up. Something told me that, dressed as they were by their parents in jeans, shorts and T-shirts, they were jealous of us. They recognised Emma and Caroline but not me. This pleased me no end. Caroline told them I was a cousin who had come to visit. We spent all day wandering around, treating each other to soft drinks, sweets and cookies until we had all run out of cash. It was only then we realised we had no money for the bus home and would have to walk back.

 

We did not live far out of town, but it seemed like miles to us, especially Caroline who was unused to walking in high heels. On the way we bumped into two of our neighbors, old ladies who both did double takes when they saw me. In the end, we all took off our shoes and raced each other home, though I took the last part of the journey riding on Emma's back.

 

All this time Emma had been using her phone to take snaps of Caroline and me. She dressed me up in some more of her clothes, in her underwear, tights, skirts and blouses, even her school uniform. She took pictures of me in each outfit with me on my bed, pouting like I'd seen models pouting. Emma and I flirted with each other. Then the three of us lay on the bed together smothering each other with kisses in between burping into each other's faces and giggling hysterically. All we'd had to eat all day were sweets and chocolate. We eventually grew tired from the excitement of the day and fell asleep in each other's arms. I felt so happy, closer to them than never before.

 

It was the slam of the bedroom door that woke all three of us much later. It was gone midnight when we looked up to see Mum standing at the end of the bed, trembling with anger, her big face bright red, her hands on her broad hips. She slowly leaned forward to place her hands on the foot of the bed and screamed to my sisters to go to their rooms. I lay there perfectly still, unsure why she was so angry. I think part of me expected her to be pleased, to see that I looked so pretty. But it was with a look of revulsion that she fingered the skirt of the white dress I wore and looked me up and down as I lay beneath her gaze. Then, with frightening violence, she yanked me up and began tearing at the dress, not caring that it was one of Emma's prettiest. She stripped me until I was completely naked, then pulled me by the hand to the bathroom where she scrubbed my face with soap applied to a nail brush, the bristles of which were coarse and hurt my skin until it was red raw. I fought back and struggled hard, but then she struck me in the mouth and the impact knocked one of my new, grown-up teeth, a molar, clean out of my mouth. She was gentle after that and she cried a little with me, telling me to look at how upset I had made her and that it was my fault she had hit me so hard.

 

"Tomorrow you're having your hair cut," she told me later, her manner hardening again as she sent me back to bed. "You are never to have long hair again, Steven, and I don't want to ever see you wearing these clothes, do you understand?" and she scooped up my sister's stuff from the floor. I crawled under the bedclothes, my whole body shaking with sobs.

 

True to her word she took me to the barber's the next day instead of the ladies' hair salon. I had been having my hair trimmed by young women while Mum had hers done at the same time. I had loved those occasions, being pampered by the girls, having them coo over me like I was their pet. Mum had tolerated this, but I knew it had made her uncomfortable. But now all that stopped. My new hair cut was very short and I thought it made me look ugly. Mum stopped my dance lessons for a while, worried that dance was making me effeminate, until my begging and whining became too much for her.

 

In addition, I was encouraged to participate more in school sports, even being made to join the school football team, though I could barely kick a ball. I enjoyed swimming but everything else I hated, especially ball games. I couldn't stand having a ball coming at me and would always panic and end up ducking, not catching it or not kicking it rather than whatever it was I was supposed to do. So I'd constantly feign illness and beg Mum to write the school letters to have me excused from sports. And it was during these PE lessons, when I'd be sitting things out while everyone else enjoyed themselves, that I'd see you, dear Linda.

 

You were a year above me and I didn't even know your name, but you caught my attention immediately. I'd see you playing netball or hockey with the other girls on a neighboring pitch and I'd spend hours staring at you. You always seemed a little apart from the others, not quite fitting in, not as happy as the others. During swimming lessons, of course, things would be reversed. I'd be swimming and enjoying myself while you'd be sitting the lesson out at the side, staring at the water in fear.

 

You were the first girl I was ever attracted to. I'd been attracted to girls on TV and in newspapers but you were my first real crush. It was your apartness that hooked me, I think. You were above the others. I had seen pictures of African princesses in picture books and that's how you looked to me, tall and strong, even at that age. Then, almost all my friends were girls and I hoped that you could be my friend too. I wanted to get to know you, but somehow the opportunity never seemed to present itself. I remember speaking to you once, but you just stared through me as I had been invisible.

 

At the age of ten I was shorter, slimmer and weaker than all the boys. Children, seeing me for the first time, would accept me as a girl until 'corrected' by teachers. Teachers, unfamiliar with me, would repeatedly send me off with the girls until 'corrected' by the girls who knew me. There would be much laughter among the children and embarrassment among the teachers. When this confusion arose I would say nothing, hoping that I would continue to be accepted as a girl. This kept happening, so Mum, who found this out from some girls I was 'friends' with, complained to the school.

 

Being bullied by boys was routine and I was constantly being punched and knocked over. I couldn't understand why, out of all the girls in the school, they had to pick on me. If I had had long hair, been wearing a skirt and not been called 'Steven' all the time, they would have left me alone, like they left the other girls alone, most the time. Two boys in particular in my class, Mark and James, seemed to really hate me.

 

I remember one day when I was sitting out a PE lesson, when the boys were playing football, and you were sitting out a game of netball because you had a cold. You were sneezing a lot, sitting on the bench next to me at the edge of the field, staring straight ahead while I stole secret glances at you. You had your thick hair pushed back by a white Alice band. Mark and James heckled me from the field, calling me 'faggot', 'Queen Steven', and 'Gaylord', and I noticed you frowning at them. It was a cold day and I was wrapped up in a thick coat, scarf and woollen gloves. I stood to walk around and warm myself a bit, then noticed something on the ground a few feet behind where I had been sitting, in the shade of some trees. It was brown and red, lying in between blades of grass, expanding and contracting rapidly. It was a robin with an injured wing. I knelt and bent over.

 

Suddenly I felt something hard thump into the small of my back and was pushed onto the grass until I was almost flat on my front. I suddenly realised, with mounting panic, that the spot among the trees was hidden from where the teacher sat. My next thought was that I had crushed the bird and I quickly rolled away from where I had fallen. I looked up to see Mark, a dark-haired, fat boy with narrow eyes, bending over me, with James, his ginger-haired, freckly friend, standing behind him grinning. I tried to get up and run but I was grabbed around my ankle and pulled back. I was turned onto my front again and then they both began pulling at my trousers. I was so panic-stricken I think I lost my breath, otherwise I might have screamed out. They said it was revenge for something they thought I had done, something I had said or maybe a look I had given them, I can't remember exactly.

 

Mark removed a tube of something from his pocket and showed it to James who cackled. Then Mark opened the top and squeezed it so that a white goo oozed from it onto my groin. Then they slapped my penis up onto my lower belly where it stayed put. I reached down and was unable to pull it from the skin of my belly. It was only then I managed to find my voice and began screaming. The boys stood back and laughed as I struggled to my knees tugged gingerly at myself while screaming continually. Then I heard a thud, looked up and saw you, standing over the prostrate form of James who was now lying beside me with his hands clutching his belly. Then you lunged forward, your blue skirt billowing up around your hips and you landed your fist into Mark's face hard. You kicked both of them as they lay on the ground groaning. Then you crouched beside me and asked if I was OK. You laid your hands on my arm and shoulder and looked at me with such tenderness and pity that I instantly felt safe, though the boys were still right next to me.

 

Then the teacher arrived, finally. The boys were sent home and suspended. I was sent to hospital, but I could think of little more than your kind hands and face, and of the injured robin that I felt sure must have been killed with so much violence in its proximity.

 

Mum took me out of school and I was eventually sent to the coed boarding school where Dad taught. But that same day, after the hospital, after I had received painkillers and told to stay at home and rest, I stole out of the house and ran back to the school, only a short distance, my mind intent on two things: you and the robin. It was only just after going home time and the field was deserted. I found the robin still in the same place, still panting weakly and almost dead. I picked it up gently and cradled it in my hands.

 

Then I heard footsteps, looked up and saw you standing behind me. You asked me if I was alright and I merely told you that I had found an injured bird. You sat down beside me on the damp grass and I felt your soft hands on mine as you carefully took the bird from me and held it to your chest. I watched you handle it and stroke it so caringly while you continued to ask me if I was OK. Though I felt very protective of the bird, considering it was my discovery, I could see by the way you touched it that you felt as sorry for it as I did. We walked to the gates with it still in your hands, but then my mum appeared, angrily yelling about my having left the house without telling anyone. As I was pulled away from you I looked back to see you open your hands. The bird spread its little wings and flew straight up into the sky. I watched it soar over the school and into some trees, then looked back down at you. Your eyes were fixed on its path and you seemed to have forgotten me, like your mind was with the bird.

 

I didn't see you again for years. At the boarding school I was again forced to be a boy, wear a boy's uniform, call myself 'Steven' and keep my hair short. Naturally I hated it and naturally I was bullied again, and sometimes the incidents were worse than the one I have just related. I was very unhappy there. I no longer made friends with girls, not being considered one of them, and was excluded from the boys' company too.

 

I found comfort in religion. I lived for the time I'd come home and spend with Emma and Caroline who had not been sent to boarding school. The three of us have always been close and I don't know what I'd have done without their love and support during my teens.

 

Every day I would look in the mirror for the signs of the damage that puberty might be inflicting on me: unwanted hair, coarse features, a more muscular physique, but I remained girlish, as if puberty just happened to everyone else. My voice never broke. I didn't even get spots. Every time I went home people would be amazed at how little I had grown. I worried a great deal about my weight and did not eat enough as I wanted a skinny, supermodel look. The gap in my teeth became narrower as the neighboring teeth grew until I was left with the little gap you see now.

 

Once, when I was back home, Mum and Dad went to one of their friends' parties and again stayed out until late. Caroline, now seventeen, was obviously considered mature enough by now not to let the same incident as four years before happen again and I do not think Mum and Dad ever suspected that such a thing might recur. I had been doing well at school academically and had kept silent about wanting to be called 'Stephanie' or wanting my hair long, and so on. The three of us watched our parents' car disappear down the road, then we hit their bedroom like it was Christmas.

 

Caroline now had ambitions to be a beauty therapist and Emma wanted to be a photographer. They both saw my being home for a few days and our parents' absence to do some experimenting and I was to be their model, their guinea pig. I was made up this time with much more skill than before and when they had finished I looked at my reflection and, it's embarrassing to admit, I fell in love with myself. I found my appearance ravishing. Caroline had made me up professionally, perhaps a little heavily, but it still looked amazing. My lips were glossed, my eyelashes curled. I looked like a grown woman except for my stature which was still small. Emma had found a beautiful dress in Mum's wardrobe, a sky blue, sleeveless dress that Mum had not worn for years since she had put on weight. It should have gone down to just above the knee, but on me it almost came down to my feet. It was of tulle, felt lovely on my skin and fitted me surprisingly well around my thin torso. To complete the outfit, Caroline had found me a blonde, curly wig, just like my own hair when long. The two of them had clearly been planning this little experiment.

 

It was a Friday evening. We hit the town and did pretty much as we had four years earlier, though the reactions we drew this time were very different. There were wolf whistles, cat calls and barefaced lechery from all sides. Maybe there had been four years earlier but I had been too innocent to notice. This time I understood the reactions we were getting and what the words I heard meant. And I liked it, all of it, every admiring glance, every stray, fondling hand on the bus, every blown kiss. It aroused me, though I found the men repulsive to look at. I just loved the attention. I was Stephanie Bell, just as God intended me to be, everything about me perfect, complete with cock and balls, and I skipped along in Emma's high heels, smiling back at everyone.

 

On our way into town, on the other side of the road, I noticed someone a little older than me, a pretty, dark girl: you. You wore a red miniskirt and were made-up for a night out. You were with someone who was dressed in black, androgynous and with very pale skin. You looked deeply unhappy, were saying nothing and had your eyes kept on the ground as you walked. I waved but you did not notice. I could see you were blossoming already into a beautiful young woman, but your looking unhappy made me unhappy too, until we had passed you by. Then my teenager's mind swiftly returned to my own enjoyment.

 

We had more money this time, not just pocket money but also from the money Caroline had earned from her Saturday job at a beauty salon. We went to the cinema and saw one of the 'Twilight' films. My sisters mooned over Robert Pattinson while I drooled over Kristen Stewart and sucked on my peanut butter malt. Caroline managed to buy us a bottle of vodka which we passed between us on the street while waiting for a taxi to take us home. I hated the taste of it and didn't feel the need to prove myself in any way by having more than a sip. Emma hated it too and so the most mature member of our little team arrived home completely drunk and collapsed into her bed, leaving Emma and me to stay up and fool around with her new camera.

 

We had barricaded the door shut but, as it turned out, Mum and Dad didn't return until the early hours of the morning. Emma continued to take photos of me, encouraging me to flirt with the camera, telling me how gorgeous I was. I did a little striptease and became so turned on I had an developed an erection. Naked, I fondled myself in between posing sexily. For years I had been masturbating while looking at myself in bathroom mirrors. I would start by squeezing my genitals between my legs until there was a perfect 'Y' shape at my groin. I'd admire myself like that with my hands on my hips, turning this way and that, studying the ways my body was changing, ever so slowly. Now for the camera I closed my legs tightly together so that my genitals were completely hidden from view and Emma took many pictures of me like this. After teasing myself so much my cock would spring up, hard and erect. I'd play games with myself, turning myself on by looking at myself so seductively that eventually my penis would have no choice but to desperately spring free and waggle in the air, proudly declaring its lustful desire. It did this now and I masturbated while blowing passionate, crimson kisses at the camera, looking at it with heavy-lidded, mascaraed eyes. When I came Emma zoomed in and caught my ejaculation, snapping away furiously as my penis spurted thick ribbons of sperm onto the carpet. Later Caroline let it slip that Emma had uploaded these pictures onto her Instagram account, but that they were taken down a short while later.

 

Emma kissed me goodnight and tiptoed back to her room. I went to bed but lay on the sheets still naked, with one hand behind my head and the other still at my genitals. Then I thought of you walking past me on the opposite pavement, of your beautiful, long, brown legs, the bumps in your chest. I masturbated again, slowly, imagining you with me, drawing my hand up to the tip, rubbing the head with my palm, then sliding my fingers down again, gripping firmly and then squeezing at the base. I twisted my fist around it, using my precum to make the action nice and smooth, then pumped myself vigorously until I came again, my genitals thumping and spewing more streams of cum straight upwards, making me cry out with pleasure and shock. I lay still for a while as the cum pooled around my cock and trickled down through my legs and onto the sheets. With your name on my lips I rolled over and fell asleep.

 

As the years went by I never forgot you, though I hardly knew you. I found you beautiful and I knew you were a good person. I hoped that one day we would meet again and actually get to know each other. Puberty hardly touched me at all, leaving my voice high and my body mostly hairless. My testicles dropped, but only a little. I kept the body of a diminutive girl, exactly as I had hoped. Having developed little and having a body that never menstruated I was probably one of the few girls to finish puberty feeling like things had turned out completely the way I wanted. The bullying persisted though and not just by the kids. Dad instructed the PE teachers to ensure I participated in sports suitable for boys, even rugby, and I was never let off unless I was seriously ill. I think, though I'm not certain, that all the other teachers were told to watch for any indications I might be 'slipping back into girlishness'. In art classes, a picture I made which was considered to be 'something a girl would draw' would never receive a good mark. Similarly, in English classes, if I wrote a story what was deemed too feminine, it would more often than not be marked as a fail, though I knew it was good.

 

As well as my faith and the support of my sisters, music and dance was another thing that kept me going through these years. After passing grade eight at piano I moved onto the pipe organ. I was lucky that the school offered ballet classes. I was never that dedicated enough to be a professional dancer, but I was grateful for that training as I learned how to move more gracefully, more like the way I felt a girl should move. It encouraged me to keep myself skinny, which was perhaps not such a good thing. I have learned not to starve myself now and am happy with my current body weight.

 

When I left school I went to London to study at the Royal College of Music in London. It was like being let out of a cage. What little spare money I had I blew on make-up and clothes. I became Stephanie, and everyone who knew me there knew me as a girl. Suddenly the life I had wanted, that I had dreamed of after the 'experiments' with my sisters, was mine. Surviving as a student in London was not easy and my clothes were mostly second hand and not the latest fashions. I didn't care. They were the right clothes for me, the ones I should have been wearing. I soon found a style I was comfortable with, a little Fifties, a bit 'retro chic'.

 

One day, in a charity shop, I found such a pretty pair of lace gloves that fitted me perfectly. I wore them for the rest of that day and didn't want to take them off, even when I went to bed. As I lay there, waiting for sleep, I thought about a girl at the college I had become close to. I started to wank, but I still had the gloves on. As I continued I found that the sensation of the lace scratching over the skin of my cock was absolutely incredible. I came into the gloves so powerfully and so hard that both were smothered. So the next day I bought a brand new pair, but washed the old ones and kept them just for masturbating.

 

After I graduated I came back to this part of the world and became the organist you know. My decision for coming back was to be near my sisters who I love so much. They both still live in Uppingford. It was not an easy decision to make as our parents still live there and many people in that town know me. So my sisters come to visit me in Grettonham and I prefer to stay out of Uppingford if I can and only visit it to see Mum and Dad. I still love my parents. They were not really nasty to me. They just didn't understand or want to and they still call me 'Steven'.

 

One day, just a few months ago, I noticed, in the community hall in the church, a new, framed watercolor of three little girls. You know the one I mean. It caught my attention as, in their communion dresses, they looked so much like me and my sisters and the artistry was so precise and almost photographic, like so much of your work. It was only after admiring the picture for a minute that I noticed your name in the corner. I remember the names of many kids I went to school with but I only knew one name from the year above me. You had never told me your name, so I had found out from someone else. It made me so happy to know that you were still around, apparently living locally. So when I heard there was going to be an exhibition of your new work I had to go, though I didn't know what I would do if I saw you.

 

I went. Did you see me there? I had gone thinking I might talk to you. But after seeing you with Christine, and how tactile she was being with you, I just wandered around, staring at the pictures for a while, then left, feeling sad and awkward. I think we're often afraid of approaching the people we are most attracted to. The consequences of rejection are greater. And I was in awe of your work.

 

After I had agreed to Christine's proposal I went back to the gallery, as you know, thinking that I could learn a little about you from your paintings. One thing they made clear to me was your love for children.

 

The gossip that the man you know at the gallery had been listening to, I don't need to tell you what kind of gossip it was. It was his persistence though and his assumption that, because I'm transgendered, I might be interested in flashing him or something stupid like that. I purchased your sweet picture of the two sisters and he wrapped it up for me. When I turned to leave, suddenly his hands were all over me. So that is why he got a sock in a mouth, though I'm not proud of it. I hope you are still able to exhibit there, if that is what you would like.

 

The last week has been really amazing for me. It was wonderful to be your model. I loved being with you, just chatting and finally getting to know you, after all these years. I hope that we can still be friends as I have done this with nothing but the best of intentions. I know Christine and I should have been more open but, when I first saw you by the lake on Monday, I began to think that I could not go through with it. I became aware of your sensitivity and vulnerability. All this week I have been praying to ask for guidance, but by Saturday I felt assured that I was doing the right thing. Now I am not so sure. I have always wished you well, ever since you showed me so much kindness at school. If you do have a baby I shall, of course, do whatever I can for you and the child, if you would like me to.

 

My fondest and sincerest wishes,

 

Stevie

 

Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2015