Kelly Girl 24-Dixie Cup Love- 25-Floop or Consequences- 26-Desert of My Heart :: BigCloset Classic :: BigCloset TG Stories <br /> June 2001 to November 2004

"I told everyone!" Kelly insisted. "No one believes I'm a boy."

Big finish! Three chapters at once!
24. Dixie Cup Love
25. Floop or Consequences
26. Desert of My Heart

Kelly Girl 24

"Dixie Cup Love"

The three taller girls sat with Kelly on the bus bench at Bristol and MacArthur. The fading summer turquoise of an early evening sky in Southern California promised a gorgeous sunset. Valerie, the slender brunette, sat half turned around to watch the western sky. Flotillas of birds had begun seeking their rest; seagulls heading toward the shore from a hard day at the landfills; crows heading from shopping malls and athletic fields toward Disneyland where the myriad trees provided safe nesting for ebony scavengers.

Valerie felt a little sad; the adventure, such as it was seemed to be winding down. She felt glad to have helped Kelly's Aunt Connie get away from the police safely, and didn't feel at all guilty. Even if a crime had been committed, no one had really been hurt, so that made it all right, didn't it?

Crystal's golden head leaned toward Kelly's hot pink wig. She'd been straining to hear both ends of the phone conversation between Kimberly and Richard Mann but with the phone held between Kelly and Kim, she hadn't heard much. She rested an arm across the back of the bench and as Kim ended the call, Crystal impulsively pulled Kelly into a quick hug. Kelly was a strange one, letting almost everyone think she was a boy all during school last year, but Crystal liked her anyway. She looked so tiny and cute, it was hard to believe Kelly was the same age as the other girls, twelve.

In fact, Kelly was second eldest, with a birthday in March, Kimberly's in January, and Valerie's in April. Though youngest with a July birthday, Crystal had the most curves; she, like the other girls assumed Kelly's meager bosom had simply sprouted since school let out three months ago.

Kimberly closed her phone, satisfied that she had handled the task of calling for Kelly's rescue with adult competence and cool. She stifled her giggles at Kelly's outburst at what she had said to Richard about Kelly waiting for him.

She nodded, her crisp bright red curls bouncing with the decisive movement; Kim loved getting things done and doing them well. Helping Kelly and Connie escape South Coast Plaza had been quick, thrilling, and a tiny bit naughty, a perfect escapade to spend hours dissecting with her girlfriends later. She wanted to squeal with delight but settled for a grunt of accomplishment though her gray eyes sparkled and even her freckles seemed ready to dance.

Kelly returned Crystal's hug and nodded at Kim. He'd been worried when the three classmates had found him in the mall but they had somehow convinced themselves that he had always been the girl he now seemed. Everyone's willing acceptance of his masquerade had begun to wear down his doubtful resistance. He felt relaxed around the three now, comfortably sure they weren't going to treat him like a freak or a pervert, as long as they didn't know. And he certainly had no intention of telling them, he'd even improved his masquerade himself with the purchase of a padded bra.

He wanted to squirm and squeal; hope, anxiety and relief mixed in nearly equal proportions. He'd never really had friends his own age before but now six of his classmates had met him in his girl disguise and demonstrated their friendliness. A flash of memory warmed his cheeks--kisses from Jimmy and Tommy on top of Triangle Square--had that been only this afternoon?

Kelly opened his other arm to Kim and she and Valerie both joined the triumphant, giggly hug. "Thank you for making the phone call," he whispered to Kim. He'd wanted to talk to Richard himself but hadn't dared.

Kimberly smiled. "You're welcome. He sounded really nice. What was it you didn't want him to think?"

Kelly squirmed a bit. "I don't know, you made it sound like...I was real anxious, I guess?"

Kim grinned. "He's got a deep voice. Is he a big guy?"

"Um, yeah? He's about six feet tall." For some reason, Kelly didn't want Kim admiring Richard, even over the phone.

"How old is he?" asked Valerie, who liked tall boys, too.

"Uh, fourteen."

"Wow, he is tall, for fourteen."

"The perfect age," commented Crystal.

Kelly frowned, "How do you figure?"

"When you're a freshman, he'll be a junior and he can take you to all the really cool upperclass dances at school. Then you get to go again when you get to be upperclass yourself while he's away at college," Crystal explained with crystalline logic.

"Besides," added Valerie, "he'll have a car by then and boys our age are always stupid."

"Uh," Kelly shook his head. "He's supposed to be my...I mean, he's going to be my step-brother?"

"Oh, well," said Kim, "Then you can introduce us to him." The three friends giggled but Kelly frowned.

"Oh ho!" said Crystal.

"Huh?"

"You like him?" asked Kim, as quick to pick up on Kelly's expression as Crystal had been.

"She likes him," agreed Valerie.

"I guess I do," said Kelly, wonderingly. Then slapped his hands over his mouth to stifle more giggles.

* * *

Harold closed his phone, looking at Barbie whose eyes seemed to have grown two sizes. "They found her?" the tiny blonde whispered, repeating what Harold had just said. Then she corrected herself, "Him. They found him?"

Harold nodded. "Yup, the boys were nearly to the airport when she called Richard. Or someone called Richard for her. She got away from the kidnapper, apparently, they're going to pick her up then come back and get us."

Barbie shook her head. "You keep saying 'her', Kelly is a boy."

"I'm sorry. You're right, I mean, of course, you are. But, uh, Richard thinks Kelly is a girl."

"I don't care what he thinks," said Barbie, a little cross. "That's just because Andie dressed Kelly up for some goofy reason."

Harold stood quietly for a moment. The long galleries of John Wayne Airport stretched away from them on both sides, full of bustling people going and coming and sparing only a glance now and then for the tall, handsome, dark-haired man and his diminutive, pretty, green-eyed companion. In front of them, tall windows opened on the lower automobile concourse. They'd been staying in the air conditioning rather than wait for the boys out in the sticky heat of an August evening.

"You know about Andie," Harold said, not asking.

"Yes," said Barbie. "She told me. But Kelly's not like that." Andie had confessed her own transsexual past to Barbie months ago when Barbie had told her rich friend about having thrown out another boyfriend over calling Kelly a sissy.

Harold said nothing, but he put his large, comforting hand against Barbie's back. She leaned into his touch, sighing. He glared at a passing teenage boy who couldn't help staring at Barbie's recently augmented bosom. He probably thinks she's my daughter, Harold realized. Barbie still looked pretty much like a teenager herself, a small one. Maybe that's why she wants to have double-dee breasts, Harold wondered, so people will stop treating her like a child.

Barbie sighed again. "I wish the boys had stopped for us, but it was right that they go on. Pickup Kelly first, I mean."

"We could get a cab?" offered Harold. Outside the windows, Elise Fremont had just pulled her green-checked taxi into the queue to wait for a new fare after dropping Andie off at South Coast Plaza. Neither Harry nor Barbie knew Elise, of course, or knew how the middle-aged cabdriver's life had intersected their own already, however obliquely.

"No," Barbie decided. "We might miss them. You get people running in all different directions looking for each other and things go wrong. We'll wait here." But she put the side of her hand in her mouth and chewed on it nervously. She never chewed on her nails anymore but her substitute activity looked a bit odd to Harold. She grinned at him around her hand,"You'd think I'd be better at waiting, I'm a waitress.

Harold smiled at the feeble joke. "Kelly will be all right," he said, pulling Barbie over to lean against him.

"I know. Phil would never have hurt him," she murmured. "But I still don't think Kelly is like Andie," she added. "Wouldn't I know? Am I really that dumb?"

Harry didn't answer that, choosing instead to kiss her on top of her blonde head.

She giggled and craned her neck to look up at him. "Tell me I'm not stupid."

"You're not stupid," he said. "You're Kelly's mother. I don't think my parents had Andie figured out when they died, it's harder for a parent to see stuff like that than for anyone else."

* * *

Pete spotted the little girl in the burgundy slacks as soon as he turned onto Bristol. "Is that her? How come her hair is pink?"

"I dunno," said Richard, but before they could speculate more, Kelly turned and waved at them.

"It's her!" they both shouted. Pete jackrabbited to a shuddering stop at the curb and Richard jumped out of the car before it stopped moving.

"Kelly!" He grabbed her around the waist and swung her high into the air, laughing.

"Richard!" she squealed in delight and terror. "Put me down, you goof!" She laughed, kicking her feet as Richard pulled her into a hug.

Watching from across the street, Valerie nodded to her two friends. "Yup, she likes him." Crystal and Kimberly nodded and giggled.

"How did you get away?" Richard was asking her.

"Why is your hair pink?" Pete asked, having raced around the car to try to take a Kelly handoff from his brother..

Kelly laughed again; they were all three laughing like red-headed loons. She hugged both of them when Richard put her down. And she didn't slap either of them when they each kissed her on the cheek.

* * *

Lt. Bartolo Mendoza spoke laconically into the police mobile. "Yeah, uh huh. Okay." Andie watched and listened in a mix of boredom and anxiety. Nothing seemed to be happening. She wished she had her cellphone so she could call someone. She wished she had her car back so she could go somewhere. She wished most of all that she knew that Kelly was okay, that crazy Phil Constable had not harmed his 'daughter' and that Kelly could get out of all of this without revealing any secrets.

Mendoza watched her while he spoke to his headquarters. The fading light twinkled off of her multiple piercings; he could see the jewel-colored snake she had tatooed around her neck. Her long legs looked deliciously slender in her peach-colored slacks. A circle of tattoed charms showed at her left ankle and a vine twined around her right wrist. Bartolo wanted to see whatever tattoos her clothes might be covering, he wanted to trace them with his fingertips, taste them with his tongue.

Andie's tongue touched her pink lips, toying with her piercing there, all unknowing of the synchronicity with Bartolo's thoughts. He groaned and she looked up at him and he said into the phone, "No, I'm okay, just....gas." He hung up. "They found her," he said to Andie. "Your nephews found her walking up Bristol Street." He waved vaguely northward. "They're taking her to the airport to her mother."

Andie shrieked wordlessly and kissed him. Her car having been impounded, Lt. Mendoza was happy to give her a ride to her brother's house in Newport Beach, later. After he had asked her for a date, after she had considered what she would tell her boyfriend Tony and after she had accepted because he had asked three times. She wondered what she would say to her boyfriend, Tony, about this and decided she wouldn't tell him.

* * *

Kelly had discarded the red wig in the car and exited the back seat like a platinum-headed torpedo when he spotted his mother coming out of the airport terminal doors. They matched; Andie had intentionally used the same color on Kelly's hair as she had previously used for his mother.

"Barbie!" Kelly shrieked.

"Omigod!" squealed Barbie as the two tiny blondes collided. The Manns loomed over them, three grinning hulks, while the two pretty, doll-like figures danced and hugged and took in each other's appearance at arm's length.

"You've got boobs!" Kelly said, astonished at his mother's new C-cups. He didn't mention the expensive jewelry, shoes and clothing. And he wasn't sure he liked Barbie's new sexier look just yet but he was too happy at the moment to worry about it.

"So do you!" laughed Barbie, poking Kelly in his padding. "Omigod! Kelly, you're gorgeous!" She still didn't think it had been one of Andie's better ideas but looking at Kelly was like seeing her own younger self, a very odd thought.

Harold couldn't believe it. Kelly might be an anatomic boy, but this child had been born to be this beautiful. The thunderbolt of love and lust for Barbie he had felt before had a new companion; Harold had fallen just as suddenly in love with the idea of Kelly as his new daughter. She was so pretty, so irresistably a miniature of Barbie, it shook him and thrilled him and gave him a moment of unaccustomed anxiety. He felt intensely protective, something he hadn't felt since Richard had pneumonia six years ago. Whatever happened now, he must be sure that these two were safe and had every opportunity to be happy that he could give them.

At that moment, just as suddenly as their laughter, Kelly and Barbie simultaneously burst into tears. The Mann brothers grins turned stricken but their dad only laughed, a bit relieved. He knew how to handle feminine tears and Barbie and Kelly were not crying because they were unhappy. "Let's get them into the car and take them home," he shouted boisterously.

It would be some while before Kelly and Barbie had time and solitude for a mother and son reunion.

* * *

Grant Walker filed his story about a kidnap in Triangle Square and a manhunt in South Coast Plaza, about the rescue of a little girl and her return to her loving family. He'd gotten Phil's name from some police informer and described the short man with the pale hair and bright eyes as an ex-convict who was "wanted for questioning." He resented the fact that he hadn't been able to interview the little girl or her mother but he did learn that Barbie Drew was the girlfriend of Dr. Harold Mann, one of Newport Beach's famous squadron of plastic surgeons. He didn't mention either Barbie or Harold by name, but kept the information for future use.

A three-state police bulletin went out for Phil, five-foot-three, one hundred fifteen pounds by his prison records. Age, mid-forties but appears much younger. Blond hair, blue eyes, wears prescription glasses for astigmatism to drive. Assumed to be armed with knives and a veterinarian's humane killer but not considered violent; approach with caution. Wanted for questioning by Costa Mesa Police and California State Parole Authority in connection with charges of kidnapping, carjacking, assault, vehicular assault, theft and parole violation.

* * *

"Kelly is beautiful," Harold told Barbie when they were alone later.

"Hmm," said the little blonde. She took off her gown and hung it up carefully.

"She's the very image of you, I know what you looked like at that age now."

"He," Barbie reminded him. "Kelly is a boy." Barbie kept her bra on, Harold had said she should wear it practically continuously for two weeks after the surgery. She reached under the cups to massage her bruised tissues carefully. Harry waggled his brows at her and she giggled.

Harold shook his head. "I can't call Kelly 'he' or 'him' when she looks like that."

Barbie sighed. "Goddam Andie, anyway."

"It wasn't all her idea," Harry reminded her.

"No, you started it, confusing the boys by telling them Kelly was my niece."

"Sister. Whatever." He lay back against the couch, watching Barbie get dressed in silky green pajamas he had bought for her in Las Vegas. " I honestly thought she was a girl."

"Well, she isn't--he isn't, dammit!"

"You mad at me?"

"No, I'm just annoyed that you've got me doing it." She buttoned up the last of the tiny pearly buttons on the pajama top.

"Sorry," said Harold.

"No, you're not," she said and plopped herself into his lap. "You're imagining having Kelly for a daughter, taking her on pick-a-nicks, scaring away boys who try to date her, giving her away at her wedding."

"Wow?" said Harold, bemused.

"Confess."

"I confess, she's just so pretty."

Barbie pecked him on the lips then studied his face while he massaged her bottom. "You want Kelly to stay a girl, don't you? You helped Andie when she was just a little older than Kelly. You've turned boys into girls before, in your clinic down in Mexico--did you say hundreds of times? You'd do the surgery on her in a moment if I said yes, wouldn't you?"

"No. She'd have to say yes, too." Harold admitted. And he wasn't sure it would be ethical for him to actually operate on Kelly but he didn't mention that.

Barbie bit him, felt his erection surge beneath her, then hopped off his lap and danced away, giggling.

"You're not spending the night with me?"

She shook her head, taking the short powder blue robe he'd also given her and heading for the door. "I told you, Kelly and I are going to sleep in the spare bedroom. We've got to talk."

Harold wanted to suggest that maybe a mother should not be sleeping with her twelve-year-old son, that maybe that was part of the problem Kelly seemed to have with gender. But he recognized the essentially selfish interest he had in such a view and restrained himself. In his mind, Kelly really seemed like a girl and what was wrong with a mother sleeping with her daughter who had just gone through a terrible experience. "Give her a kiss for me, tell her I love her, too," he said finally.

Yikes, thought Barbie, not choosing to answer. She left the big master suite with its sweeping view of Newport Bay and went down the hallway to open the guestroom door.

Kelly had already changed into pajamas and sat in the middle of the huge queen-size bed. He clicked off the television and got up to hug his mother. His pajamas were covered in multi-colored lollypops, the least girly ones he could find in the saccarine bedroom of the vanished Darla. They were short-sleeved and only calf-length, though, and they buttoned on the distaff side.

"You really gonna marry him?" he asked her.

"I guess so," she admitted. "He's nuts about both of us." They hugged then clambered into the bed to sit facing each other. "You're wearing earrings," Barbie noted.

Kelly fingered one of the tiny hearts. "Andie said I shouldn't take them out till the holes had healed up. I doctored them a bit ago. Stings."

"Did you clean your face?"

"Uh huh," said Kelly. "Took off all the makeup and then washed and used some of that cream."

"You don't need that stuff."

"It smelled nice."

"Your nails look pretty," said Barbie.

Kelly blushed.

"Do you like having everyone think you're a girl?"

"I don't know?"

"What if you'd ended up on television? It could still happen, did you think of that?"

"Barbie!" Kelly protested. "This wasn't really my idea. It... just happened. I told everyone I'm really a boy! Nobody believes me."

Barbie snorted. "I'm beginning to have doubts myself; except, I remember the Dixie cups."

"Huh?"

Barbie mimed changing a baby's diaper, dropping a strategic Dixie cup over the baby boy fountain while dodging an imaginary stream.

Kelly laughed. "I got you a few times?"

"Uh huh. A neighbor lady showed me that trick. Mom wouldn't have known, she never had any boys. Just me."

"Mom screwed up again," commented Kelly. "She's in the hospital."

"I know." Neither of them suggested visiting Amanda.

"Phil seemed nice. Not at first, but later after he told me who he was."

"He was nice, too nice for what I did to him," said Barbie with a twinge of guilt.

"He came down here to ask you to forgive him," said Kelly. "I told him you would and he seemed happy."

"Me forgive him? Well, yeah, I know he already forgave me. We both messed up but I got you and he got prison, the dirty end of the stick, for sure."

"I think he's a little crazy," Kelly said slowly.

"He's got the right to be," said Barbie. "Did he get away?"

Kelly started to tell her how he had disguised Phil and how his acquaintances from school had helped.

"Wait, wait!" Barbie insisted. "Start at the beginning, tell me everything!"

"It'll take all night," Kelly protested.

"We can sleep late, tomorrow is Sunday."

Kelly talked, starting with Harold's miss-identification, with much back-filling and explanations, gigglings and incredulity. He told about the pool party and breaking his glasses and the expedition to Fashion Island and Andie doing a make-over on him. By the time he got to Triangle Square, they were both yawning. "Finish telling me tomorrow," suggested Barbie.

Kelly nodded sleepily, "I'm gonna have some weird dreams."

"I'll be right here, sugar," said Barbie. They pulled the covers back and hugged, then turned out the lights and rested their heads on the pillows.

"Did you like being a girl, Kelly?" asked Barbie.

"It's been fun. Scary, too," said Kelly slowly.

They hugged again. "Don't be scared, baby. I'm right here."

Kelly nodded, "I love you, Barbie," he murmured, his breath already slow and even.

Barbie sighed, then snuggled and they fell asleep in each other's arms.

* * *

Kelly Girl 25

"Floop or Consequences"

Down the hall from Barbie and Kelly, in the boys' part of the house, Richard and Pete dozed in front of the big TV in the children's lounge. Richard woke up from a very vivid dream and stared at the screen for several minutes, not really seeing the infomercial that had replaced the Australian Rules Football he and Pete had been watching.

"Pete," he said.

"Uh," his older brother grunted.

Richard turned off the pitch for the ultimate kitchen gadget and poked Pete in the ribs, not too gently. "Go to bed."

"Get out of my room," muttered Pete.

"You're not in your room. Get up and go to bed. You don't want Skipper to come in here in the morning and find you scratching your balls in your sleep do you?"

Pete grunted again, but opened his eyes and yawned, then stretched and got up. They headed down the hallway to their rooms, making manly, or at least, boyish, noises. "Good night, peanut," Pete said at his doorway.

"Good night, loser," said Richard. "Hey."

"Hey what?"

"I'm gonna marry Kelly when she grows up," said Richard. They blinked sleepily at each other. "I'll protect her from lunatics like that Phil guy. And you."

Pete pointed at him. "Good idea, moron. Except one thing, you can't."

"Why not?" Richard asked.

"'Cause Dad is gonna marry Barbie and adopt Kelly; you can't marry your sister."

"Sonuffa! That's just not right."

"Only one way to make it work," suggested Pete. "You gotta marry Kelly before Dad marries Barbie, ain't no law against marrying your son's mother-in-law."

Richard considered this suggestion. "You already been thinking about this, you bastard, haven't you?"

Pete grinned. "Way ahead of you, little brother."

"But Kelly likes me better," sneered Richard.

"Ha, ha," said Pete. "You wish. I asked her to be my girlfriend first."

Richard grinned. "I remember, she told you she couldn't because she was a boy."

"She did not."

"She did, too!"

They left their doorways and shoved one another a couple of times. "Well, she'll have to make up her mind which of us to marry," said Pete finally. He backed off, knowing that if he used his height, mass and muscle to overpower his smaller brother, the mock fight would quickly come to real blows. Pete could push Richard around any time he wanted but if he won unfairly too often, he could wake up with a knee in his groin.

Richard glared at him, then seeing the physical contest was over, he scratched his head. "She's only twelve. How soon can we ask her to marry one of us?" he asked.

"I think she has to be sixteen, even if Barbie or a judge says yes."

"Four years? Dad's never gonna wait four years to marry Barbie!"

"Only one thing to do," said Pete.

They nodded. "Kill Dad," said Richard.

"You do it," said Pete.

"You're the eldest, you do it," said Richard.

Pete considered. "He'd cream me."

Richard sighed. "And he'd probably haunt us anyway."

They grinned at each other sleepily and went each to his own bed.

* * *

Very late that night, or rather very early the next morning, a middle-aged lady with light brown hair and very blue eyes got off the Greyhound bus in a small town in New Mexico. In the ladies' room of the bus stop, she used the privacy of a stall and a mirror from her purse to shave with the little travel razor Kelly had bought for her. Then she touched up her makeup and, carrying her bags and the heavy overnight case she had brought along, she took a room in one of the old-fashioned downtown hotels. She'd done a lot of thinking on the long bus ride so she signed the register, "Virginia Bellamy," and paid cash in advance for a two night stay.

Up in her room, Ginny made a careful list of things she would need in her new life and notes of how she might obtain them. Then she settled back to re-read the copy of "The Horse Whisperer" she had bought in Yuma. After a nap, she got up and went to the nearby Catholic-run homeless mission. She waited through the services to talk with the priest and told the father that she wasn't Catholic but she was looking for work as a maid.

"You're running away from your man?" asked the old priest.

Ginny blinked. "Why would you think that, sir?"

"First kind of work a woman leaving her husband thinks she's qualified for, doing housework. Either that or you're a recent widow?"

Ginny shook her head, thinking quickly. "N-no.You were right the first time. W-we weren't really married and I'm afraid of what might happen if he finds me. What else can I do?"

The priest sighed. "You won't find maid work in this town, not at a living wage. Do you think you can waitress?"

For a waitress job, Ginny knew she'd have to have a social security card. She shook her head. "I'd be afraid he might find me in a restaurant. It would scare me so bad I couldn't work."

He nodded. "I'll ask around," he said. "Mayhap someone in the parish knows someone who needs a maid."

Ginny smiled at him, and he thought, what remarkably blue eyes she has.

* * *

Barbie and Kelly slept late Sunday morning, no one disturbed them. Harold and Andie got up early enough for a long quiet drive down the coast together while Buzzy read his sister the riot act. "What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded as his ranting finally ran down near Main Beach in Laguna.

"I don't know," she confessed. "You thought the kid was a girl. I thought I'd push a bit and shee how Kelly reacted. He took to it like a duck to water."

Harry frowned.

"He never threw the kind of fit any other boy would have. Most boys would have been retching and puking and cusshing like crazy to keep from being dresshed in girl's clothes, or even thought to be a girl. Yeah?"

He nodded. He'd done a lot of reading in this subject, not just professionally but because his own little brother had needed help in becoming the person sitting next to him.

"He even let me do a makeover; he complained about it but he co-operated and he liked it, Buzzy. He really liked it," Andie insisted. "She liked it."

They were quiet for a few miles. The trees and cliffs and water raced past, another day in paradise.

"What do you think we should do?" Harry asked cautiously. He made the turn-around in Dana Point and started back up the coast. Andie didn't answer right away.

"I should shtop pushing," she said finally. "And you should let Kelly shtay a girl until she decides he wants to be a boy again."

After a bit, Harold nodded.

* * *

Barbie and Kelly lay in the big guest room bed together till nearly noon, talking about what had happened. "Do those hurt?" Kelly asked about Barbie's new implants.

"A little," she admitted. "They ache in my armpits."

"Your armpits?" Kelly giggled.

Barbie rubbed them carefully, Harry had told her they needed to be massaged frequently as soon as she could stand it. Of course, he'd volunteer to do that, she reflected and grinned. "Still tender a bit and there's like a tube running from my navel to each one."

"Your navel? He put them in through your navel?"

"Uh huh," Barbie pulled up her pajama top to show Kelly the stitches in her belly button. The curve of the underside of her new breasts looked startlingly prominent.

Kelly hesitated then asked, "Can I touch them? Your new boobies?"

Barbie giggled. "Sure."

Kelly touched one, it felt soft but firm, as yielding as real flesh, though Barbie's skin seemed warm and taut as a drumhead. Kelly snatched his fingers back after only a moment.

Barbie rubbed them again, a bit more vigourously than before. "They itch, too," she told Kelly. "A stretchy sort of itchy feeling."

"Wow," Kelly said. "The bra I wore yesterday made me itch."

"Why were you wearing that? Did Andie put it on you?"

"No, it was part of my disguise to help get Phil out of the mall," Kelly said.

"Uh huh. Tell me about that, you left off last night with leaving Andie's to go to Triangle Square." Barbie settled her pajamas back around her and propped her head up on her hand.

"Um, yeah," said Kelly. He reached onto the head of the bed and retrieved Robin, the old, yellow-haired, plastic boy doll that Andie had given him. He hugged the doll, thinking of how scared he had been yesterday when the boys from school had found him outside the mall.

Barbie blinked. Kelly had told her about the doll last night and shown it to her. He looks about five when he hugs that thing, a five-year-old girl, she thought. "Did you buy the bra there at TS?" she asked, prompting him to continue.

"Uh, no," he shook his blonde curls and rolled his eyes. "At first, I was gonna buy boy clothes? But the sales lady kept showing me girl's slacks and tops and stuff and I already had my nails done and hair and earrings..." he paused. "I just decided to spend Andie's money on things I didn't think I'd wear after we were through playing her silly game." He squirmed a bit. The rationalization sounded even thinner than it had at the time. "She was going to take me to Disneyland today."

"Uh huh," said Barbie. "Maybe we can go tomorrow." Barbie knew Harold would take them if she asked and she loved the park as much as Kelly did. But how would Kelly be dressed.

Kelly continued his story of his adventures; Barbie giggled about the kisses at the Upper Crust, squealed about the kidnapping in the basement garage and laughed happily as Kelly told how he had disguised Phil. "I don't know," he deadpanned, "the idea just occurred to me. And it worked."

"Phil was a real cute guy," said Barbie, "I guess he'd make a passable girl."

"More than that," said Kelly. "He can sound like a girl, too. Scary."

Barbie considered. "I wonder what happened to him in prison?" She didn't dwell on that for Kelly's sake. "We'll probably never know. He got away, didn't he?"

"I think so," said Kelly. He sighed, "I'll probably never see him again."

* * *

That same Sunday, in the afternoon, the Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach discharged Amanda, convinced that her mild concussion had healed well enough for her to go home. Amanda dressed quietly in her semi-private room, saying goodbye to her temporary roommate, an elderly Filipina whose endless family had visited her in large noisy groups last night and already filled the hospital room again at a little after nine a.m. "Vaya con dios, carita," said the old lady. "Buena suerte."

"Good bye," said Amanda, not risking an attempt at her faded high school Spanish.

Rachel had promised to come and take her back to Riverside when she called, but Amanda didn't feel much like company. She hadn't had a drink since her tiny sip yesterday and she thought that if she waited at the hospital for Rachel, she wouldn't have a chance to sneak away and be bad before she got home to the hidden bottles in her kitchen cabinets. Two more hours without a drink looked like a huge obstacle; her hands shook a bit already.

If she took a taxi, it would cost her fifty dollars or more but she'd be able to stop somewhere and get a drink. The doctors had warned her not to drink at all for at least two days because of a chance of a relapse from her injury. "If I could keep from drinking for three days, I wouldn't have made such a mess of my life, already," she muttered.

A young orderly pushed Amanda in a mandatory wheelchair to the circular drive in front of the hospital. The Pacific Ocean stretched away in two directions, southeast and southwest; misty silver under a periwinkle sky, so beautiful it hurt to look away. To the south, below the little hill the hospital sat on, Newport Avenue crossed Pacific Coast Highway leading onto the Balboa Penninsula. Half a mile away, near the Crab Shack and the Spaghetti Factory, in front of the McFadden Pier, Balboa Avenue branched off from Newport where the Penninsula took a dogleg to the southeast. Down along that narrow spit of land, two narrow for even two parallel streets in places, down there lay the tiny apartment where Amanda's daughter Barbie had tried to raise Kelly alone.

Amanda took her eyes off the view and looked for the cab she had asked for. By coincidence, Elise Fremont, coming back from another fare, had answered the call to the hospital in her green-checked taxi. Not that she knew Amanda or Amanda her, but it was an odd happenstance. Both Amanda and the orderly waved to her as she wheeled the vehicle into the valet line in front of the hospital. Only in Newport Beach do hospitals have valet parking, thought Amanda; but she was wrong, Hoag Memorial is partly in Costa Mesa.

Elise dashed around the green-checked taxi to open the rear passenger door. The orderly helped Amanda into the backseat. She settled in, feeling oddly fragile and unsure if it were lingering effects from her concussion or just the over-solicitous attention..

"Where to?" Elise asked the tiny redhead before closing the back door. Amanda thought Elise looked like a dyke. Her short gray hair stood out in spiky disarray. She wore a short-sleeved, denim shirt, minimally decorated with flowers, a turquoise necklace, khaki pants and the sort of shoes nurse's usually wore. Her horn-rimmed prescription sunglasses gave her face an impossibly anachronistic air. It was the hair, Amanda decided.

"Riverside," she told Elise. "Do you know where Mockingbird Canyon Road is?"

Elise groaned. "That's nearly a fifty dollar meter, lady. Then I've got a half hour drive to get back to where my medallion is any good."

Amanda chewed her lip. "Twenty buck tip," she offered.

Elise sighed. "Fifty bucks tip, or double the meter total, whichever is less?"

Amanda groaned. "Seventy bucks total, you pay the meter."

"Eighty-five," said Elise. Amanda made a face and before she could answer, Elise said, "Okay, eighty bucks, I pay the meter. I really can't do it for less and I might get caught in traffic on the way back. Santa Ana Canyon can be murder on Sunday afternoon."

Amanda nodded, Elise closed the door, raced back around to the driver's side, got in, started the engine and dropped the flag. "We're off," she said, happy to have a long fare and a nice tip. She leased the taxi for one hundred fifty per day, paid for gas herself and anything she made, she kept.

They took Newport Boulevard to the 55 and merged smoothly into freeway traffic. Amanda realized that she should have negotiated a stop somewhere to get a drink but she had only gotten a hundred out of the hospital ATM. She dithered for a bit and then she turned her head to look back toward Triangle Square, thinking of Kelly and Barbie and wondering where they might be and what they might be doing. They didn't seem to need her anymore or even want her in their lives.

Why had Kelly been dressed as a little girl? She'd never found out. The police had called her this morning and told her that her "granddaughter" was all right and back with "her" mother. She hadn't corrected them. The police had told her they were still looking for Phil and that if she heard from him to call them. She had promised she would but she wondered about that. I never seem able to do the right thing at the right time, she told herself.

"I need a drink," she said out loud, intending to start negotiations.

Elise heard what she said but ignored it until the cab had crossed the 405. "You'll be home in forty-five minutes," she promised, obliquely.

"Okay," said Amanda after considering it. "I can wait that long."

"Boy howdy," said Elise, wonderingly. "Can or can't?"

"Can," repeated Amanda. "I can."

"Good deal," agreed Elise. She didn't tell Amanda the story about her own father who had gotten "potted and planted" all in one day because he tried to pass a slow moving lumber truck on a curve. In her experience, talking about drinking or drunks with a drinking person was a sure way to encourage the desire for a drink. She suspected her fare had just gotten out of detox; she's got the look of a drunk, something about the eyes, Elise thought.

They didn't say anything else much going north up the 55 and east on the 91. Amanda thought Elise had exited one exit too early in Riverside but the cabbie turned out to know a quicker way to Amanda's neighborhood than Amanda had ever found.

Elise let Amanda out in front of the little mobile home in Space 234 of Mockingbird Canyon Wheel Estates less than forty-five minutes from the valet parking circle at the hospital. Amanda paid the fare as agreed and hurried to open up her door, worried about her cat, Flooper, and trying to think about that and not the liquor bottles hidden in the cabinet. Her hands trembled only a little as she worked the key.

Once inside, she saw that someone, Rachel surely, had already put food out for the lazy tom. Floop's buttered-toast-colored tabby body with the darker Siamese points at ears, tail and feet lay stretched out on the turquoise couch. When the door opened, he turned his head in a way impossible for mere humans and blinked his pale green eyes at Amanda. Then he made a production of stretching, rolled over, dropped to the floor and sauntered toward her, perhaps curious that he hadn't seen her since yesterday. "Mow?" he asked

Amanda laughed and scooped him up. She sat down in her easy chair and put the cat in her lap. Floop purred contentedly, working his claws against her leg, right through her slacks. She glanced once at the liquor cabinet and resolved to call Rachel before she opened it again. She petted the cat and her hands didn't shake. "Well, I'm back," she said.

* * *

Chapter 26

"Desert of My Heart"

Elise Fremont didn't get to pick up Barbie and Kelly in her cab when they left Newport a few days later; Harold had leased a car for them to use and Barbie had the five thousand dollars in cash she had been promised for the whirlwind Las Vegas date. Barbie had chosen a Saturn, a green one that practically matched her eyes. She liked the little car's reputation for reliability and quality and Saturns were among the friendliest cars made for short drivers. They'd had to wait most of a week for Barbie to heal well enough to drive after her breast implant surgery on Saturday. It still hurt a bit to put her arms above her head but the Saturn had power-assist steering.

They could have flown where they were going but Barbie didn't want Harold to know exactly where the would be for a few more days at least. They had new luggage and new clothes, too, and most of their things from the little apartment on the Penninsula had gone into boxes and bags stored in Harold Mann's huge garage.

"I'm missing the start of school," Kelly noted as they drove away. Pete and Richard had started class on Tuesday and weren't there to see them off on Friday morning. Harold had said his good-byes to Barbie last night and left for his clinic in Rosarita Beach, Mexico, early in the morning. Andie had been avoiding them since their Disneyland trip on Monday. No one wanted them to go and had painfully chosen not to watch them leave. Only Connie, the housekeeper, waved as they pulled away.

"Did you want to start school dressed like that?" asked Barbie.

Kelly glanced down at the same yellow blouse and turquoise slacks he had purchased in Triangle Square the day of the kidnapping. "I guess not," he admitted.

Barbie grinned. "It's okay with me if you want to jump the fence, you know? We talked about it, right?"

"Uh, yeah," said Kelly. "I guess I don't want to do that. Not right now?"

"Right. And if you're not going to tell Richard and Pete that you're really a boy, well, we can't stay with the Manns."

"I'm sorry, Barbie," said Kelly.

"Don't be. We both need time to think, away from big people." They both grinned.

"Are you sure Harry knows?" Kelly asked.

She nodded, "He knows, I told him."

"He doesn't act like he knows. He still treats me... I mean, he's worse than the guys?" Kelly squirmed, the last few days, Harold Mann had taken to calling Kelly "princess".

Barbie considered. "I think he's always wanted a daughter? And he thinks you're like Andie."

"Yikes," said Kelly. Then he asked, "Do you love him?"

Barbie shook her head firmly. "No. No, I don't think I love Harry. He's nice, he's super-nice, I like him a lot and I think he thinks he loves me. Which could be trouble." The idea of falling in love with Harry scared Barbie a bit, he was the most considerate lover she had ever had, he was crazy about her and Kelly, he was rich and handsome and smart and he didn't mind that she was little and uneducated and poor. What was there not to love? Still, Barbie held back on that commitment even though she had agreed to marry Harold. They just hadn't set a date yet.

"Oh," said Kelly, exactly as if he had read all of the confusion and complexity of Barbie's relationship with Harry in her voice.

They took a familiar route north then east. Kelly watched the scenery through the fancy emerald-frames of his new glasses, part of the set Andie and he had finally picked up Sunday afternoon. Barbie turned off to the north on the I-15 before they passed Amanda's exit on the 91. Neither of them mentioned the woman they both called Mom.

Somewhere near Devore, Kelly asked, "I'm not like Andie, am I?"

Barbie glanced at him sitting there with his platinum hair in curls--his heart-shaped earrings, his feminine eyeglasses, his pink nails--dressed head to foot in girl's clothes. "Well," she said judiciously, "you don't have enough tattoos or hardware."

Kelly grinned. "You know what I mean?"

"I can't answer that for you, honey," said Barbie. "You're the only one who can know something like that? Do you think you are?"

"I dunno," said Kelly. "Everything's been so crazy?"

"Well, why didn't you want to tell Pete and Richard that you're really a boy?"

"I did tell them," Kelly insisted. "I told everyone and no one believes me."

Barbie laughed. "Yeah, I think you might have to whip it out and pee on the wall to convince them."

"Ack! Barbie!" But Kelly giggled too.

"You didn't let me tell them either, or Harry. They might have believed us," Barbie pointed out.

"Yeah, well," Kelly murmured. "I didn't want them to stop liking me," he almost whispered.

"They wouldn't have stopped liking you, sugar," Barbie said. "They know all about Andie and she's their aunt."

"Not the same thing, is it?" Kelly said.

Barbie thought about that for a moment. "No, I guess it isn't. You don't get to pick your relatives and you have to take them as they come, feebles and all."

"Foibles," he corrected her.

"Foibles," she agreed. "And Andie has a real collection." She thought of her own mother, Amanda, and Kelly's father Phil. Kelly had confided to her how he had gotten Phil out of the mall under the noses of fifty or more policemen. Maybe it runs in the family, Barbie had thought, imagining how Phil might look disguised as a soccer mom. "I guess I see what you mean, they like you as a little girl and if it turns out you're a little boy, they might decide you were fooling them?"

"I'm not so little, I'm twelve," he pointed out. "And, and I don't think Richard likes me as a little girl..."

"Ah. Even more reason he might be annoyed?"

Kelly nodded. "They're huge, Barbie. They are huge guys, if they got mad at me, I wouldn't even be a greasespot."

"They wouldn't hurt you," she said firmly.

"Well, I know that, but still..."

"Do you like it that Richard thinks of you as a girl? A pretty girl?"

"I don't know," said Kelly. "He makes me feel funny." He looked out the window again, avoiding further conversation for a bit.

The desert mountains passed quickly but seemed endless; a monotonic variety that wasn't at its best in the dessication of late summer. Now was the danger time in Southern California, when careless or deliberate sparks might start an inferno that could eat up desert scrub, mountain forest and urban sprawl in a raging, death-dealing wall of fire twenty miles across, or more. Wildfire was more to be feared than the much more famous California earthquakes. And after wildfire, when the rainy season came too late to stop the burning, flashfloods and mudslides would ravage the land no longer protected by vegetation. It was a California story older than the string of Spanish missions along the coast.

Kelly sighed and crossed his arms; under the fake breasts of the padded training bra he was still wearing, Barbie noted. From somewhere, Andie had supplied jiggly little silicone booblets to go into the cups of the smallest bra available in department stores. They made for Kelly a very realistic looking, nearly-A bosom.

"I want to go back to being a boy. I want to try that," he said, tossing his head in an incongrously feminine way.

"Shoot," said Barbie. "We were going to stop somewhere and buy you some boy clothes..." and get you a haircut, and switch your eyeglasses, and clean off your nails, she didn't say, partly because he interrupted her.

"Las Vegas has malls, doesn't it?" While neither had told the Manns, Kelly knew their destination.

"Sure it does, honey." They were going to Las Vegas as a place far from Newport Beach where Barbie could find work and still visit Harold Mann's plastic surgery clinic every week or so for more filling of her free breast implants, a process that might take months. The Metropolis of Lights, the City without Clocks, would be a safe place to live until she married Harry--and Kelly made up his mind about his wardrobe.

"That'll be soon enough, when we get to Las Vegas," said Kelly.

"You can be my little girl for a few more hours, then," said Barbie, teasing, testing.

"Okay," said Kelly. He thought of something and reached into the back seat to retrieve Robin. He played with the yellow-haired plastic boy doll on his lap for a moment then gave the old toy a comforting hug. His mother said nothing until he remarked, "You know, this stuff is just scaring the shit out of me?"

"Poop," said Barbie. "Nice little girls don't say 'shit.'" And holding that doll, Kelly did look like a little girl, no more than eight or nine despite the bustline. It made what he had said sound even more emphatic.

Kelly giggled and kicked his feet. "You say stuff like that?"

"Yeah, well, don't do it around guys unless you want them to think you're... never mind."

"See? That's the kind of stuff that scares me?" He hugged the doll again and rubbed his cheek on Robin's soft plastic one.

"Scares me, too," admitted Barbie.

"I don't know anything about being a girl," said Kelly.

Barbie said only, "There aren't really any manuals."

Kelly nodded. "Not on how to be a boy, either."

"Guess not."

"I don't think I'm very good at it."

"Being a boy? Well...." Barbie didn't want to agree with that but she couldn't think of anything else to say.

Kelly sighed. "I've got to... I mean, I am a boy. I can't just be a girl 'cause I'm better at it, can I?"

"I don't know, sugar? I mean, why not?" Barbie almost bit her tongue when she realized what she had said.

"You think I should be a girl from now on?" asked Kelly. He placed Robin in the seat beside him and looked out the window then turned back to look at his mother; she hadn't answered him yet.

Carefully, Barbie said, "I think you should be whatever you have to be, to be happy."

Kelly bit his lip then began to cry, softly. "I don't know what to do, Barbie? I don't know what would make me happy. I've been a girl at the Manns' house for a week now and--and it was fun? But--I've been a boy for twelve years and I thought we were happy then?" A tear ran down into his mouth; he tasted salt and the strawberry lipstick he had been wearing yesterday.

He pulled down the vanity mirror and took a look to be sure he hadn't put more lipstick on this morning. The pretty girl in the mirror looked back at him, lush golden lashes damp with tears, rosebud mouth unadorned but lovely. "I'm not sure who I am, anymore," he said.

Barbie extended her right hand to clasp Kelly's left. She winced a bit, the muscles of her chest and upper arms were still a bit sore. "We'll just have to find out, kiddo," she said reassuringly.

Kelly nodded, folded the mirror up, took off his glasses, wiped his eyes and sighed. With his glasses back on, he picked up Robin again and settled the doll into the crook of his arm.

"Just between you and me," said Barbie, "I thought we were happy, too." She grinned at him.

He giggled. "Doesn't take as much to make someone our size happy...."

"Short people got no reason," Barbie agreed. They laughed; then they sang the Randy Newman tune in close harmony and very loudly, all the way through, twice. Kelly made the doll dance on his lap, even doing a high kick on the choruses.

Above them, the sky ached; a vast, impenetrable blue so deep it looked painful. Icy crystals twenty miles up made a sunbow of a million phantom colors, a meterological migraine. In front of them, the wide desert floor stretched to three horizons; behind were the mountains they had just come through.

End of Book 1

Book 2 - Kelly Girl Incognito coming soon

Note: TG crossdress under-13 deals prison crime series Rated-R
Chapter 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 15a. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.