Girlfriend Problems - A Transition Story - Part 4

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Author - Katherine LaRue

We walked in.

“Hi Cynthia,” said Janelle, speaking to the receptionist at the front desk.  “We’re here for Dr. Levine’s ten o'clock.”

“Hi, Mrs. Levine. Good Morning. Is this the patient?”

“Yes,” said Janelle. “This is my dear friend Kathy.”

I must say that it was a bit intimidating being in an environment that was so luxurious. I had never been to a doctor’s office quite as swanky as this.

Cynthia, the receptionist handed Janelle a clipboard with about 3 or 4 sheets of paper on top. “Here, have her fill this out and I’ll tell Dr. Levine that you’re here.”

I filled out the forms. It asked questions about my medical history and any medications I was on. What other physicians I was seeing at that time.

The door opened and a young lady in blue scrubs came out and called my name. “Kathy Hunter?”

“That’s you honey,” said Janelle as we both got up to go inside.

I was led down the hallway and into an exam room with pictures of facial structures and the human body on the walls. I gave the clipboard to the nurse as she sat at the computer in the exam room and started entering in information. She asked me a bunch of questions which seemed odd since I had written them down on the initial sheet. The nurse took my blood pressure, height, and weight. My blood pressure was normal. My height was 5’ 6 1/2” and my weight was still only 110 pounds or so.

She turned to me and said, “The doctor will be in to see you in just a few minutes.”

Janelle got up and left and said, “I’ll be right back.”

After about 3 or 4 minutes both Janelle and Dr. Levine entered the room together. Dr. Levine was a handsome man standing about six feet tall with chiseled features and black hair with a few specs of gray. He was lean but not particularly muscular. But it did look like he was in excellent shape. He could have been a movie star!

“So Janelle, this is your friend you told me about?”

“Yes Richard, this is Kathy. Kathy, this is my husband Richard.”

I got up to shake his hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Levine.”

“Oh don’t be so formal. You can call me Richard.” He continued, “So Janelle told me that you’re in the midst of your gender transition. Tell me a little bit about that.”

“Well, it happened very fast for me. I discovered that I don’t really feel comfortable in a male body.”

“Really?” He asked. “Tell me a little more about that.”

“Well, I’ve tried really hard to pretend that I was a man. I tried dating a woman and that failed miserably. Ever since I was a child I dressed as a girl in secret. I played with my sister’s dolls and played “dress up” with her. As a child, I would pray to God every night that I would wake up a girl. I wanted to have the same parts that my sister had. The older I got the more I had to hide it, especially from my parents.”

“And what do your parents say about your transition?”

“They don’t know anything about it. I haven’t spoken to them in a while. They’re Christian Fundamentalists. So their viewpoint would be quite radically against this.”

“I see,” he said. “How long have you been on hormones? I see you have that listed in your answer about medications.”

“About 6 months in total.”

“Okay then. Let’s take a look at you. I’d like for you to put on this gown. Take everything off except your panties. Janelle, come with me my dear,” said Dr. Levine, as he gave her a kiss on the cheek and held hands walking out the door to give me some privacy.

After a few minutes, Dr. Levine came back in with Janelle.

“So let’s take a look at your face first,” said Dr. Levine. He put his hands on my face very gently, rubbing my cheekbones and then my temples. He then moved his fingers over my brow bone. With a few “Uh huhs”. He then gently pressed his fingers on the ridge of my nose and then underneath on my upper lip. “Just relax your face and don’t tense up,” he said, as he lifted my lip to examine my gum line. He then touched my neck and specifically my “Adam’s Apple”.

“Okay, everything looks good from the neck up. Now let’s take a look at this body. Are you okay with my wife staying here while I examine your body?”

“Yes, of course!” I answered.

“Please undo your gown,” instructed Dr. Levine.

Since it was tied in the back I had trouble undoing the knot. Janelle jumped up and helped me.

Once the gown was off, “Now I need you to stand up.”

I stood up with nothing on except my panties which were of the spandex type. I actually wore 2 that day in order to give myself a better tuck of male parts. Dr. Levine examined my torso, pressing his fingers on my sides. He went around back and felt my rear end which was the only time I felt a little weird.

“Okay you can sit back on the exam table,” said Dr. Levine. He then proceeded to examine my breasts which, at that point, were very tender.

“Okay, everything looks good. I want you to stay undressed. My assistant will be in to take pictures of you. Afterwards, you’ll meet me in my office and will talk about things okay,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Honey, why don’t you come with me and we’ll talk.”

“See you in a few minutes, Kathy,” said Janelle following her husband out of the room.

The nurse came in and took pictures of my face in different positions then took full body pictures and then told me to get dressed. After about 10 minutes of waiting by myself in the exam room, the nurse came and got me with a folder in her hand.

I entered Dr. Levine’s office where Janelle sat in one of two chairs facing him.

“Come in, have a seat. Let’s talk about this.”

I sat down next to a smiling Janelle with bated breath wondering what he would say.

“Well, let’s start with some good news, shall we? The good news is that you have very small facial features which makes your case easy to handle. It won’t take any kind of radical surgery to feminize your face. Let me tell you what I recommend. I first recommend a brow bossing and brow lift. That’ll open up your eyes and raise the eyebrow line slightly.

The other thing I would recommend is a very simple rhinoplasty. You don’t need much and so the recovery time will be minimal. However, what I would recommend for you is cheek implants. Now some trans women have come in to see me already having silicone injections in their cheeks which I highly discourage. But because your face is so thin I would recommend that. It’s just a thin piece of pliable plastic that’s not harmful to your system.

So that’s another thing I would recommend. And lastly, for your face, I would recommend a slight surgery on your upper lip. This is just a small cut underneath your nose that lifts the upper lip and reduces the space between the nose and upper lip giving a more feminine appearance. Now moving down to the neck; I would recommend a tracheal shave. This will remove your “Adam’s Apple'', which is highly prominent in your case. Are you okay with this so far?”

“Yes, Dr. Levine,” I answered.

“Please call me Richard.” He continued. “Now for the body. I think you should wait on this until after your breast development reaches its peak. I can give you breast implants but I would prefer to wait. Moving down, you may want to consider a slight rib removal. This is not necessary but if you’d like to get that hourglass figure then by all means I can do that as well.

But that procedure is costly, so perhaps we can skip that for later down the road if you so desire. Lastly, I can do a hip implant. This procedure is fairly easy. I would recommend this since you’re so thin and hormones will only give you so much hip.

Again, I have many trans women who come to me with horror stories of going to these back alley doctors and getting silicone injected into their butts and hips with devastating and sometimes fatal results. So how does all of this sound to you?”

“It all sounds wonderful to me. I sometimes worry about being out in public due to safety concerns if I don’t totally pass. Looking more heteronormative is my goal. But my concern is how I can pay for this?” I asked.

“Well, it would be cheaper for you if you had only 2 or 3 surgeries. Coming in and doing one thing at a time makes it more expensive for you and for me.”

“So what would be the total cost of each procedure?” I inquired.

“Janelle and I discussed this while you were getting your photos taken. Normally Facial Feminization costs about $35,000. However, I’m willing to give you our family discount and reduce that price to $27,000. That would include all of the procedures we discussed including the tracheal shave. The bodywork, which includes breast implants and the hip implants to fill out those holes will cost you roughly $8000 which is a discount.”

My face, which once was buoyant and smiling, turned sad and worried.

“I love it all but it’s going to be a while before I can even think about getting any of this done,” I said.

“Well, let me show you how you would look before and after surgery,” said Dr. Levine.

He turned his screen around and opened up a program that had all of the pictures that were taken previously. It got to the first picture in the program and then the screen froze. Touching the keyboard he kept hitting the return button. Visibly frustrated he mumbled, “Damn it! This thing has been giving me trouble for weeks now.”

The screen stayed frozen as I watched him become more and more frustrated. He then yelled out, “Doris!” to no avail. He picked up the phone and called up front. “Cynthia, can you ask Doris to come here?”

A heavy-set, older white woman came through the door, “Yes Dr. Levine?”

“Doris, this computer is freezing up again. And for the life of me, I don’t know why.”

“Dr. Levine, did you try rebooting it?” asked Doris.

“No. Let me try that,” said Dr. Levine. Dr. Levine manually logged out and shut down the computer. While we all waited. Dr. Levine introduced me, “Doris, this is Kathy, one of our new patients and a friend of my wife’s. Doris is our office manager. She makes sure things are running properly.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kathy,” sticking out her hand to shake mine.

Dr. Levine then proceeded to turn his computer back on after a minute or two, he went back to the same program. However, he was only able to get to the second page before it froze again.

“Damn it! Doris, can you call the IT people and get someone down here to look at our system?”

“Yes, Dr. Levine,” said Doris.

Dr. Levine’s phone rang. “Yes?” Dr. Levine answered. He looked worried and frazzled.

“Well, apparently all the systems are shutting down. That was Cynthia, she couldn’t pull up anything on the system. That means I’m going to get backed up today. Appointments, scheduling, and billing are going to be behind. Oh boy,” said Dr. Levine leaning back in his chair with his hands on his head.

“Do you mind if I try?” I asked.

“Kathy knows what she’s doing. She worked for an IT department before she was laid off.”

“Sure help yourself. It can’t get any worse,” said Dr. Levine in resignation.

“Excuse me, doctor. I need to get back here?” I asked as I walked behind his desk. Dr. Levine got up out of his chair and I turned the screen around.

I started on the keyboard and looked up code feverishly tapping the keys to find out the source of the problem. Janelle and Dr. Levine looked on while I figured out the problem of going through line after line of code. Janelle had a big smile on her face. This went on for about 10 minutes.

“Would you like some water Kathy?” asked Janelle.

“Sure,” I answered.

“Listen, I'm going to see another patient that’s waiting for me. Let me know how this all turns out,” said Dr. Levine.

Dr. Levine left and I continued to look at the code that was placed in the office system.

“Ah ha!” I said. “I see the source of the problem.”

“What is it Kathy?” asked Janelle.

“This system has bugs and is vulnerable to malware. Whoever set this system did it wrong. But I can fix it. Janelle, do you know where they keep the servers?”

“Not really but I can find Doris she would know.”

Janelle took me to find Doris and then led me to a small closet where the servers were. I took a look at it and I could see the problem.

“Doris, does anyone have a laptop here?” I asked.

“I do,” said Doris.

“Can I borrow it?”

“Certainly if it’s going to fix this issue we’re having. This could be catastrophic.”

Doris ran and got her laptop which I plugged into the main server. I debugged the system and then went to each desktop computer in the office and rebooted them all. Finally, I went back to Dr. Levine’s office and rebooted his computer. I was able to get the entire system back online within an hour.

I heard a ‘Yay!’ from the front desk.

The entire staff came into Dr. Levine’s office. “Where is Wonder Woman?” asked Cynthia, the receptionist at the front desk. She came and gave me a hug. Soon Dr. Levine came back into his private office. “What did you do? Everything is up and running smoothly.”

“Dr. Levine, I mean Richard, your system had a lot of bugs in it. Whoever installed this system did it wrong. So wrong that I detected a virus but got rid of it. You have to be careful because they can steal your patients' information.”

“Virus? Bugs? What am I paying this expensive IT company for?”

“I would suggest upgrading your entire system. It’s very old and outdated. You see systems keep upgrading because hackers are able to figure out ways around firewalls and the like. I can suggest a better system that’s more up-to-date. You can tell those IT people to install that so this doesn’t keep happening.”

Janelle and Dr. Levine (Richard) were amazed.

“Wow, girl! You got talent!” said Janelle.

Richard was able to show me the before and after pictures as initially intended which made my heart race. The before and after pictures made me feel like I had hope that I could be successful. The after-surgery pictures actually made me look HOT! I felt even more determined after that.

Janelle and I left the office after a hug for each of us from Richard (Dr. Levine). We walked to the car with Janelle clicking her stilettos. All while singing my praises.

“Girl, that was amazing! You know you saved my husband today from disaster!” remarked Janelle.

“It was nothing,” I said. “Can I ask you a question, Janelle? Are those Louboutin’s you’re wearing?”

“Yes, they are. You like them?”

“I love them!”

“What size shoe do you wear?”

“Eight. Sometimes seven and a half.”

“These are size seven and a half. You want them?”

“Oh no I couldn’t,” I said, as we got in the car.

“Girl, try them on. I’ve only worn them twice.” Janelle said while slipping off her shoe. “But the question I have for you is, can you walk in them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t wear heels too often. The only practice I’ve had is when I used to get dressed up at home.”

“Well put these on and see.” I slipped my flats off and put on the Louboutins. They fit well and were very comfortable. I stood up outside the car to see how they felt. And I felt extremely tall.

“They look good on you, “ said Janelle. “But I think you need to practice walking in them. These are pretty high.”

“Yes, I know. But I can’t accept this gift from you. These shoes must cost around a thousand dollars!”

“Don’t worry. I have more at home. Take these home and get used to them. I want you to practice walking in heels every day. What you should do Kathy is to wear heels every day around the house. Even if you’re just going to take out the garbage. But don’t wear the Louboutins to take out the garbage,” Janelle laughed. “Now let’s go have lunch. We’re running a little late.”

“Janelle, why are you being so nice to me?”

“Well Kathy, I came from a very poor background and I too had dreams and aspirations like you. I was fortunate enough to fall in love with a man who had money. Marrying Richard was like a dream come true for me. I was his patient and he was a young up-and-coming surgeon who just needed to be loved. Now I will tell you a little secret but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise Janelle,”

“I too was born like you; a boy.”

I was shocked; speechless. There was nothing about Janelle that even remotely resembled a boy, a man. I sat there in the car as we headed to the restaurant.

“Now I know this may come as a shock to you but I believe it’s my duty to help someone else out like someone helped me out. Before this, I had all sorts of menial jobs. I was a housekeeper and a babysitter, I used to work at Marisol’s cleaning the floors and washing hair before she moved to her current location. I was even a sex worker before I met Richard. But that was only so I could get money to have my surgeries. But please, please, please don’t tell Denise or Jennifer, and definitely not Sheila. She’s way too conservative.”

“I promise I won’t,” I answered.

“You’re going to be alright Kathy. When Denise came to me and told me the situation between you two, I could tell something was off. And for some reason when I met you both when you guys moved to town I could tell that you were at least gay, a crossdresser or transgender.”

“How so?”

“Well, your body type and the way you walked and your movements. You know even when you dress in private and act the part of a woman it comes out in public. It’s a very natural thing for us. It’s something you really can’t hide.

Anyway, Denise came to me of all people to ask me for some advice. She told me that she didn’t want to hurt you but she really believed from seeing the websites you visited and your phony Facebook page that you were hiding your transness from her.

You know if she was a lesbian or at least open to being with a woman you all would still be together. But most women are not that open-minded. Although I know a lot of trans women who are still married to their wives even after their surgery.

So this whole plan wasn't my idea but Denise’s. She wanted to punish you but I think she’s helping you. She doesn’t know that much about transition so I helped her by suggesting hormones and amounts and all that.” explained Janelle.

“Wow, I see now. But I think I’m actually happier now. Now that I’m getting used to projecting my femininity in public, I’m less stressed and more fulfilled.”

“I can see that,”

I stared at Janelle’s long full dark brown hair, her flawless makeup, and her beautiful shape while she drove through the streets on the outskirts of Philadelphia on that warm November day. We finally arrived at the restaurant and ate lunch. And talked for over an hour when Janelle said, “Now there’s something I want to talk to you about. I’m about to start my own business. Richard makes very good money,

But I want my own business.

I knew you had computer skills but I had no idea until today. I thought about it and thought about it and I wasn’t going to ask you but figured you need money and you have the skill set that I need. Would you want to help me start this business?

“Sure, I’m interested. What kind of business?” I asked.

“Promise you won’t judge me. And you can say no if you’re uncomfortable. But I’m going to start an escort service. This would be a non-sexual endeavor. Richard has contacts with people that have big money; Wall Street types, other doctors, and a lot of times they come into town and they need companionship; nothing but eye candy for them to wear on their arm. Young beautiful women of all races. What I would need you to do is to build a website that’s secure where clients could go and their payments and identities would be secure.”

“Would this be a legal venture?”

“Of course. I would never ask you to do something illegal. And the pay would be good.”

“Sure, I would help you. Anything to be able to afford the surgeries to make me complete and to get out of being Denise’s maid!”

“Good! If you want a couple days to think about it, take your time. I’m in no rush.”

“I don’t have to think, Janelle. Count me in!”

“Good. Now let’s get out of here. I need to get you back home so you can do your chores before Denise gets home.”