Becoming Zandra - Part 7

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Sunday we all lunched in a pub by the river. Life had never been so good and I said so. I had never realized the camaraderie of girls. I thought it was men that clubbed, joked, and yarned, but we four had a gorgeous time, yarning and gossiping, laughing at silly jokes. When we returned home, I asked what I should wear for college in the morning. ‘I suggest eyeliner and mascara, a touch of lippy.’ Gemma suggested. ‘How would you like your hair?

We could put some waves in or crimp it, that would be really girly but not too elaborate.’ ‘Yes that would work and you could still catch it back in a ribbon on your neck.’ ‘I think you should make a statement over your dress. If you are a girl, then nothing looks better than dark tights and those suede-effect shoes. You have that red mini and you have a black sweater with that shiny interweave.

It would be really effective.’ ‘I like it. Thanks, girls. So no concessions then?’ ‘Oh no. No why should you, if you are out girl, then you are out, and the lovelier, more femme you look the better too.’ Monday morning came quickly and as planned I dressed in the red mini, black top with a little cream blouse with a Peter Pan collar under it, black tights, and patent shoes. The girls had all risen early to see me off and sat on my bed, making sure I was pristine.

Jay touched up my makeup, emphasizing my eyes even more. Gemma crimped my hair and tied it back with a red ribbon letting it fall loosely at the sides. I felt I had been prepared for something great, like a wedding day, or a prize giving. I was very emotional. I loved my reflection and I loved these girls. ‘Now girl, go get ‘'em,’ Sue said. I wore my nice flared topcoat as the morning was quite cool. With my patent bag slung over my shoulder and backpack in my other hand, I was escorted to the front door by my team and kissed by each.

I felt like a child going off to my first day at a big school. These girls were pure gold and I told them so. I set off on the half-mile walk to the Creative Arts block. I swung along in small strides in the three-inch block heels, enjoying the air on my legs, and the touch of the skirt on my thighs. The ponytail bobbed with each step. I knew I looked good. The bag on my shoulder further emphasized my femininity. It was liberating, I felt free at last, able to show the world the real me.

I walked in the door and showed my pass, the guard did not even look at it otherwise he might have noticed the difference. I took the stairs to the first floor, my heels clacking on the concrete steps, and entered the long corridor past Jewellery to Fashion. I pushed through the double doors and found Hugh, one of the senior fashionistas, there on his mobile, I just heard him say, ‘here now.’ I walked down the corridor to my little studio. Before I reached that, I had to pass the large cutting room that was used for meetings. Surprisingly I found it full of students, standing back to me, around the one large long cutting table. I wondered what was going on.

Prof stood in my way. She clapped her hands and all the fashionistas turned and clapped. I blushed crimson and did a little pirouette and curtsey, luckily without falling off my heels. The café must have been good practice. ‘Thank you, everybody,’ I said. ‘You have made me so happy.’ I felt tears welling in my eyes and I almost ran from the room. I made it for my studio and found a hankie.

I was dabbing my eyes when Charlotte entered, with short dark red hair, a nose stud, and tattoos on her arms. She always wore jeans, with black Doc Martens. ‘You OK kid?’ she asked. ‘Yes Charlie, thank you,’ I sniveled, ‘never better.’ I was laugh-crying. ‘Well you look the real deal, I’d take you out. When are you free?’ ‘Oh Charlie, now that would be an experience, wouldn’t it?’ ‘You know what my dad always said, and he was as hetero as a male elephant in musth, don’t knock it till you tried it.

Anyway, it was not entirely a surprise, we were speculating all last week.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t think I was that obvious.’ ‘You have always been obvious, dubious, well, we just thought you an effeminate gay. So you aim to join the sisterhood?’ ‘Always thought of myself as a girl, wanted to have dresses. I hid my feelings until I came back. My parents’ death has set me free. I live with three girls and they have helped me.’ ‘Well good luck Zandra and if you ever feel like a walk on the dark side, see me.’ She laughed and left.

All day various members came and wished me well. Some didn’t, but I did not expect to win everyone over. My work progressed and my designs took shape. Having looked at them, Prof had said I could make up three of the six designs, one I had already cut out. She assisted in making patterns for the other two. I started sewing the first, made to my own measurements. I would model them myself. This was a cocktail dress, four inches above the knee, a reduced tutu skirt and a bodice with wide shoulder bands, and a plunging back. I was making it in dark emerald silk dupion, studded with crystals.

It took me the rest of the week. There were layers of tulle in contrasting eau de nil, the bodice had to be supported by bones that had to be carefully positioned in pockets and the whole bodice stiffened so it would stand on its own. I spent four days sewing and swearing. The hardest part was positioning the waist to sit exactly. Charlotte assisted me. By Friday I was wearing it. I hung it in the dressing cupboard with a plastic cover. The café was going well. Friday and Saturday were really busy, flat out all evening, with six tables with relays for second sittings. It was mad but it mostly went well, at least I had no complaints, though one table did sit for twenty minutes between starter and main.

I apologized and brought them another bottle of wine, which I told Gino I would pay for. He said not to worry; in this case, they would cover it because part of the trouble was a backup in the kitchen. Each week I managed to put together another dress, concentrating as Prof said, on workmanship. The end-of-year show, whether we were graduating or not, was viewed by rag trade companies looking for talent. The finish was almost as important as the design, I learned. Other students became interested, especially when I started to model them myself. Mostly they were complimentary, one or two just smiled. Geoff Ainsley said quietly, ‘Perhaps I should put on a fucking dress.’

I received an appointment to go to London Gender Clinic two weeks after my visit to the GP. The date was Tuesday the following week. I told the girls and immediately Jacquie asked to come with me. ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I’d love you too, but it is my treat. I pay for your ticket and I’ll take you for a meal.’ ‘If you like, but lunch will be on me, well on Daddy. He works in the city and he will take us to lunch.’ ‘Oh meet your father? Does he know? ‘About you? No, I don’t really talk about my housemates and certainly not our little dressmaker, other than the day-to-day.’ Gemma had met a boy and he took up three nights a week.

Sue had several clubs she belonged to, tennis and rowing, and athletics so they were both busy. Jacquie was still free, mostly. She had been away for a week doing a TV show, a small part with ten lines of diction in two scenes. Now she was back and devoting time to me. I was pleased, for of all three housemates, she was the driving force behind me. She alone seemed to understand me completely whereas Gemma and Sue were supportive but I felt, and I have developed a heightened sixth sense, that they did not fully understand me. Perhaps it was their different backgrounds.

Jacquie was rich; her grandfather was Sir Robert Coles, owner of a large Norfolk estate. Her father, although in an artisan industry like transport, had also gone to Eton. She went to Cheltenham where nothing much mattered except good manners and money, not necessarily where the money came from. Her classmates might have been daughters of pop stars or Earls, so she was used to diverse personalities. Gemma and I had gone to what was considered a good comp, Dad believing that a boy worth anything would rise to the top anyway. But of course, Gemma had known me as a boy, however weird I may have been, so my change took some getting used to. Sue had gone to an academy.

In both schools, it was a convention that was valued. I was anything but conventional but Sue was the straightforward one. She took everything at face value and as long as everything was fine in her world she did not bother about what other people did. It was truly live and let live. She had a relaxed attitude to life. So with me, as soon as she had sorted me out regarding name and sex, I seemed just to be Zandra. Now it was Jay who looked after me and pressed me forward, analyzing my mannerisms and dress, educating me in decorum.

I don’t mean to say that I was a complete slob without manners, but having been brought up as a boy and my only real friend having been Gemma, there was a lot to learn, especially small things, like how to wear a silk scarf or a thicker scarf, how to arrive in a restaurant and take a seat at a table, how to get in an out of a car without showing the world, as she put it with a laugh, ‘what you had for breakfast. I had to learn even, how to accept a door being held open for me as though it is a natural courtesy. You may think the latter easy but when one has been left to fend for oneself previously, it is difficult to accept with good manners.

So I was doubly pleased to have her company in London and the invitation to meet her father, the son of a baronet. That should not have impressed in this age of dumbing down, denigrating any class difference, or lowering all behavior to the lowest common denominator. Her grandfather had been a Governor of a West African colony and had faced down an uprising, unarmed except for his staff of office and a plumed hat. I admired that. What I dislike is the self-serving, financiers, bankers, pop stars, and actors being given such honors. Jacquie, as we called her, was always Jacqueline at home she said and I would try to remember.

I drove to Epping with Jay and we arrived just in time to get one of the last parking spots at the Underground station. I bought the returns to Barons Court. My heart started to beat more quickly as we walked through the cemetery to Fulham Road. We entered a door after using the intercom and mounted the stairs. I wondered what I would find on arrival. There were five or six people waiting already, some distinctly weird and some really old. I wondered they had delayed the change for so many years. There were a number of really weirdly dressed older people and I certainly didn’t want to be in the same category.

There was one young girl there, about seventeen who could not stop preening herself. Her poor mother looked distinctly embarrassed. My heart went out to them both. I presented my letter to a busy clerk and we were asked to take a seat. Surprisingly I was called in quite quickly. Jay asked if I wanted her to come and I said I would like her to if she wished. We entered and were asked to sit. I explained that Jay was a close friend. ‘So you are living and dressing as a female and attending university.

What course?’ ‘Fashion, I am what they call on campus, a fashionista.’ ‘And how long have you been cross-dressed?” ‘Well permanently for five weeks, but virtually all my life in secret.’ ‘And why do you do this unnatural action?’ ‘Oh, that is a surprise question. Oh I see, because I feel I should have been a girl, I feel like a girl and identify with the female sex. I have always dreamed of being a girl.’ ‘That is all I was asking. There are no catch questions.

You have always felt this way? You dreamt of what? Being a girl or being changed?’ ‘Yes, both.’ ‘And why has this suddenly become so important that you have come out and come to see me?’ ‘My parents were killed in a car crash four months ago. Father was in debt and I have found myself with no parents, no financial support and no inhibitions, no one restraining me, no one to shock or disappoint.

It was time for me to become the person I always wanted to be.’ ‘But if your home still existed, would you be doing this?’ ‘Oh I am certain I would be, but it might have taken longer to come out. Father was a man’s man, he expected me to be much more manly than I ever have been. But this desire, this belief in myself as a female, is so strong that in the end, I would have had to declare myself.’ ‘And this young lady is here why.’ ‘She is my friend and has assisted me a great deal to become as I am now.’ ‘You are at university. You say you now have no financial support, how do you live.’ ‘I work five nights a week as a waitress.’

‘Successfully?’ ‘Oh yes, I get more tips than the other girls and my bosses to think, well, they are very complimentary.’ ‘And what do you want me to do?’ ‘I would like to have hormone treatment and eventually surgery.’ ‘You are certain about this?’ ‘Oh yes. In spite of the grief over my parent's sudden death that sent me into a spin for three months, I have come out of it into a sunlit world of being a girl.’ He smiled for the first time.

He sat examining me. It was disconcerting. He turned to Jacqueline. ‘How would you assess your friend?’ ‘Every inch a girl. Sweet, hard-working, interested in her girlfriends, considerate, what the Italians call simpatico and the French sympathies. We live in a house of four girls, us and two others. She is just one of four.’ ‘My purpose is to be sure you are convinced and convincing, to assist you in your desire, whatever that may be. If you change your mind, there is no shame in that.

If you want to transition and are firm in that resolve, then I am here to assist you. A word of warning though, this period before surgery is for you to be certain. You cannot have everything put back as it was after the surgery, in other words, if you go through any sex change surgery, you will never be a proper man again.’ ‘Thank goodness.’ ‘You seem very certain. Tell me more. Have you been depressed for example?’ ‘Moments of despair, I mean dysphoria, hopelessness.

Having a life that was meaningless. I don’t think I was ever suicidal, but after cross-dressing, I would sometimes, well often, self-harm.’ ‘And now?’ ‘I love my new life. I feel it has a meaning and a future.’ He started writing. He held out a prescription. ‘Give this to your GP. You will have three drugs, two to kill the nasty male hormones and estrogen for feminine development. I want to see you initially in six weeks, and thereafter every three months, to monitor your mental state. Some turn back after the initial euphoria. In six weeks, if you are still convinced, I will put you on the surgical list. You will have a two-year wait.

At that time you may turn back or not. It is entirely up to you.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘You may go. Make an appointment for six weeks' time.’ We left. I made an appointment. I felt absolutely elated. I waited until we were on the landing and jumped up and down. I skipped down the stairs. ‘I’m on my way.’ I grabbed Jay and kissed her. ‘Thank you for everything.’ ‘Come down, you will explode. We are meeting daddy in the Duck and Waffle. I hope you are going to be sane by then.’