The Real Me - Chapter 2

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His humiliation had not yet ended, for she looked beneath the tights and saw her blue panties. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Turn round, let me see the back.’ He turned his back to her. ‘One of my best undies sets, oh my God. In any case, that is the wrong bra for that dress.’ Rachel suddenly burst out laughing. He didn’t know what to do, so stayed mute, biting his lip, his vision still blurry with tears. Rachel sat on the bed and pulled him down to sit.

‘OK, spill. What’s this all about?’ ‘I dunno. It’s the first time, honest, Please, don’t tell.’ ‘Liar. I knew someone had been in my things before now. I’m not dumb. I just thought it was Mum being nosey, looking for a spliff or pills. It was you Daniella, my transvestite brother, you little sod.’ ‘Please, don’t call me that.’ ‘Please don’t.’ she mimics. ‘I want to be a lady.’

He bursts into tears again and begins rocking to and fro, the bed creaking in time. She raised his head with two fingers under his chin, observing his red-rimmed desperate eyes and ashen face. She took a tissue and wiped off the lippy. She grabbed him and pressed his head into her shoulder. ‘Well now, Daniella, tell big Sis all about it. I shan’t tell, but I need to think about what to do with you. You can’t go on like this and I won’t share my clothes with you. In any case, they don’t fit.

My bra is all loose, even on the tightest, and really, my panties? I’ve only worn them once, that set. Good thing it was me and not Dad. He would have bloody skinned you. You would have been flung to the bottom of the stairs with two black eyes and a broken nose and God knows what else.’ Danny makes no reply except a sniff and a stifled howl. ‘OK, stand up. Walk across the room and turn and stand.’ ‘Don’t take any photos, please?’ Danny begs, fearful that his sister will put them online.

‘No, do you really think I would? Just do as I ask, or I will tell mum.’ He rises and walks self-consciously across the room. ‘Daniella, no, try and relax. God, I came home early with a headache and my period, and now this. Relax kid, pretend you are a real girl on a fashion shoot. Stand up straight, not stiff, just straight. If you’re a girl, you don’t go around all hunched up.

Shake those arms, make them all floppy. Shoulders back, tummy in. That’s better, now stand one foot in front of the other, hand on your hip. Oh God, you’re hopeless. Look, I’ll show you. Like this.’ She demonstrates and then moves his resisting limbs into a pose. ‘Well that’s better, you look like a girl, I mean passable, but, you have to relax.

Is this about being a girl, or is it for a thrill? Do you get off on wearing female clothes, a thrill, and masturbating, or is it about being, looking, living like a girl? ‘I want to be like you, I mean I feel I should have been born a girl.’ ‘You’re fourteen, you haven’t been chokin’ the chicken in my panties I hope?’ ‘Wanking? No, I haven’t. I don’t, I mean I never do. I hate my boy bits.’ ‘You hate your body? I don’t understand. How can you hate your body?’ ‘Because I hate being a boy, and those are the boy bits. I looked it up, it’s called dysmorphia.’

‘Wow, I’m right out of my depth here. Mum and I have read stuff, wondering if this would happen, gender dysphoria but’ She hesitated. ‘Is this why you bunked off school, to come home and raid my wardrobe?’ ‘Partly. I hadn’t done my essay on Napoleon and it was an opportunity to be a girl for a couple of hours.’ ‘Well don’t do it. You need to pass exams, Daniella.’

‘Don’t call me that in front of them.’ ‘I won’t, anyway, they would just think I was teasing, big sister tease. When you were younger, I used to dress you up. You always wanted to be a princess, didn’t you? Is that why?’ ‘No, it’s not what you did, it’s what I wanted to do Sis. I’m so ashamed.’ They sat again. She held his hand and cuddled him into her, kissing his head through his hair. ‘I’ll find you something you can wear, not my best things, damn you, Daniella. Come.’ She takes his hand and he clip-clops after her in the too-large heels.

‘Rache, please, I’m so embarrassed, why don’t I just put on my boy clothes and pretend this never happened.’ ‘But that’s not what you want, is it? Is it like that film, the Danish Girl we watched together? You feel more like a person, in girl clothes?’ ‘I don’t know Rache. Yeah, I guess that’s sort of it. I hate being a boy. At school, I want to wear the girls’ uniform, want to play their games.

I want to be liked and not beaten up every day. I like girls but not like boys do. They think I’m a perve because I watch the girls, but it’s like study, not lust. I’m jealous of them. I want my ears pierced. I want a bracelet but not a great clunky man bracelet.’ ‘You poor kid. You identify with the girls, you want to be like them? Like me? Are you jealous of me, is that it?’ ‘Yes, I’m jealous of you but that’s not the reason. I know, I should be a girl, I’d be happy as a girl.

I hate being a boy, because, well, I’m not.’ ‘But you are? Christ, I’ve seen you in the raw enough. I’ve seen your bits. I used to bathe you when you were three, four, five, six years old.’ ‘But I see myself as a girl. I smile at myself in girl mode.

In boy mode, my boy body, I want to kill myself.’ ‘Dannie! Don’t say that. Are you being dramatic or do you mean these terrible things?’ ‘That’s how I feel.’ ‘Yet you seem happy, quiet but willing and smile.’ ‘Do I? Do I laugh Rache?’ ‘Well, no I suppose not, but perhaps we haven’t a lot to laugh about.’ ‘I’m trans Rache. I want to be a girl.’ She says nothing.

He seems cool now. ‘I don’t know much about it, Dannie, only what we touched on in our law college lectures on minorities and what’s been on TV. We sat and watched stuff, and you just went very quiet. I just thought you were embarrassed. You were wishing it was you in those clinics?’ ‘Yes, it really hurt watching, but I can’t do it Dad would go berserk. He’d rather kill me.’ ‘If you have to, then you have to. You can’t not because Dad won’t like it. You’ll just get more and more desperate and unhappy.’

‘It’s a rock and a hard place.’ She drew him close and folded him in her arms. Kissed his cheeks, his forehead, brushed his hair back, and stroked. ‘Mum and I thought you had a hard time, but not that bad. We always thought, well, perhaps you were gay. We joked that you would become a couturier, pin pad on your wrist, and talk with a lisp. When you were young, you were always dressing up, being Lizziebet. Do you remember?’ Dannie nods.

‘Every day?’ You get beaten up every day?’ ‘Just about. The boys know I’m not one of them, somehow, they know I’m not a proper boy. I suppose that’s quite easy to see. I’m not rough, can’t kick a ball, can’t catch a cricket ball. The girls won’t let me in their gang either. I have about three friends and only one good one.’ ‘Well, out of those clothes. Slip out of the dress, it’s no good being shy. I’ll find you something.’ She searches in her closet.

‘Here, this mini, had it for ages and it doesn’t fit me now, and this top. Here are some panties. I’ll have to get you a bra, buy you one, perhaps take you shopping at the weekend. You could change in the car, leave here as a boy and enter the Mall as a girl. What do you think?’ ‘I wouldn’t dare. Go dressed as a girl? If anyone from school saw me, I may as well be dead. Why would you?’ ‘Would I what?’ ‘Help me be a girl.’ ‘Ah! Yes, why would I?’ She thinks. ‘Don’t watch me.’ He says, trying to be modest.

‘I already said, I bathed you when you were a baby. We used to play dress-up, being Lizziebet. I have always seen your body. It’s a bit late for modesty, especially when you are dressing in my clothes. Just get dressed.’ He pulls on the clothes she has provided. ‘Daniella, we need to have a serious talk. Put my blue undies in the linen basket. By the way, not bad makeup. That eyebrow pencil is too dark though.’ He is dressed. She eyes him. Nice legs, slim arms, and wrists.

Beautiful hair, but in need of a good cut. ‘Daniella, is this how you see yourself? Look in the mirror.’ ‘I wish I was prettier like you are.’ Rachel rummages in a draw and pulls out some photos, searching through them. She pulls out one of herself. ‘This is me at your age. I would say you look like my twin, wouldn’t you?’ ‘Oh, Sis. Really?’

‘That pleases you? Most proper boys would blush and be angry.’ ‘I’m flattered. I’d love to be you.’ ‘Really? So, this is not a sexual fantasy. You would like to be my twin sister?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So, I need to know just what you are? Not gay, queer, transvestite, what?’ ‘Transgender, transsexual, I may be gay, lesbian. I can’t see myself with a boy. I don’t fancy boys.’

‘Dannie, you’ll need to explain, because I just can’t understand what it is to be you. Like that TV program we watched. You would go through surgery? Take estrogen?’ ‘Yes. Anything, walk through fire. Even tell dad.’ ‘Seriously?’ ‘Yes. It’s my dream, always has been. I want, he stopped, he bit his lip, searching for control. Rachel waited patiently, seeing how difficult all this was for him as well as for her. He suddenly seemed to be recharged, ‘I want breasts, and I don’t want what I have.’ He breathed out heavily. Rachel clasped him to her.

‘Well done. That was hard for you to tell, wasn’t it? Look, darling, let me just say, you can tell me anything. We’ve always been close, haven’t we? Have I ever let you down?’ He shook his head. ‘No Rache, but I’m supposed to be a boy and I feel so ashamed, I just can’t be what people expect me to be. Everyone hates me because I’m not a proper boy.’ ‘Well, we don’t hate you. Oh Dad, yes but then that’s Dad. Mum and I always worried, wondered. If that’s how you really feel, you have to be very brave and do it before things happen to your body.

First, we need to tell Mum. Dad will have to know sometime. You will need to see a doctor. You will need to tell people at school. The neighbors, well they’ll soon find out. Can you go all through that?’ ‘I’ll have to.’ ‘You want to?’ ‘Sis, if I come out the other side as a girl, of course. I’d sell my soul to the devil.’ He blushes. She thinks for a second. ‘You need your own wardrobe. Then perhaps another town. Ipswich, it’s not too far?’ ‘Would I be safe?’

‘Oh, you’d be safe. It depends on how much this means to you? I think you pass, that’s what they call it when you are accepted as a girl rather than a boy in drag. If you are trans, really trans, you need the guts to ignore what people think. People will be cruel, some people. Some will understand. You need a thick skin. Don’t expect fairness.’ ‘What would dad say? He’d go ballistic, I know he would.’ ‘Perhaps not. He’s not beaten me.

If he was convinced you should really be a girl.’ ‘Get real, Rache. He would never understand. You know what he’s like, talking about queers, fucking queers, as he calls them. You know that Sis. You know the beats on me already. He beats Mum.’

‘Yes. OK. Because I see you as sweet, I thought he would have pity, enough love. We can’t risk that. What am I going to do with you? Anyway, try these things on and I’ll give you a corner of my wardrobe with clothes you can use. I’d like you to tell mum, or I will.’ ‘She’ll tell Dad and then God knows.’ ‘She won’t. I think she’s had enough of him, not before time.

She just doesn’t know how to get rid.’ ‘Oh, God. Do you have to tell?’ ‘You told me you would walk through fire.’ ‘I will, would, just people. They can be so beastly.’ ‘It’s up to you. I said you need to be strong. Tell me, this is a one-off and you’ll never do it again, and I keep your secret, forever.’ ‘I can try.’ ‘No good. I can try is not the right answer. Look at you, now you’ve changed into that mini and top. Look in the mirror. There. What do you see?’ ‘Me in girl clothes.’

‘I don’t. I see a young girl in bad makeup and with a rubbish haircut, but a girl.’ He was near tears again. Rachel was relentless. ’If you had meant to stop, you would not have dressed in them. You can’t help yourself, can you?’ ‘No.’ His face crumples again. ‘Does this occupy your mind a lot?’ ‘Every minute of every day.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes Rache, from waking and finding the miracle I prayed for hasn’t happened.’

‘The miracle? What? That you haven’t become a girl overnight?’ ‘Yes. We don’t go to church, we’re not religious but that’s what I pray for. Perhaps if we believed, God would have changed me.’ ‘No, those sorts of miracles never happen. Miracles don’t happen. You know the old saying, God helps those who help themselves. I think that means, faith gives people the strength to make difficult decisions and do difficult things. As a family, we don’t do God. I don’t believe it, do you?’ ‘No Rache. I think it’s like you say, faith is a crutch to lean on.’

‘If you’re going to do this, from what we have read, you need to do it immediately, before male puberty alters everything. If you can’t find the strength, then perhaps you are just a trannie after all?’ Dannie was so embarrassed she couldn’t answer. ‘I’ll not cuddle you again until you admit, you’re a what? A trannie?’ He shook his head. ‘Transgender,’ he whispered.

She took him in her arms again. ‘You’re a girl in a boy’s body, is that it?’ ‘Yes. How do you know so much?’ ‘I read stuff, and kiddo, I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come out, me and Mum. We read stuff. Now we need to read a lot more.’

‘What about Dad? ‘He blames Mum. He says she babied you too much and he says, which is daft, when you were just a couple of months and money was tight, she dressed you in some of my old babies grows, which were, well girlie, some were pink. Sometimes, I think Dad’s not quite right in the head, stuff he believes.’ ‘He frightens me. He never talks to me.’ Danny says. ‘No, well, he says to mum, using his term, you’re not from his seed. Says mum must have gone with someone else.’ ‘I hate him.’

‘Danny! That’s strong. He’s not all bad.’ ‘Not to you. He’s beat me up a few times, hasn’t he? And he’s hit, mum. You know he has. I saw her dressing when she left her bedroom door open, and she was covered in bruises, all down her arms. And there was that time, she said she fell off her bike, but she never.’ ‘Well he never hit me,’ Rachel says. ‘Rache, he dotes on you. I’m just glad he works away, most of the time. All his dodgy friends laugh at me too.’

‘Come on, downstairs and we’ll make tea together. You look OK, nice, if I forget you’re my brother, you just look like a young girl, like any of those hordes of teen girls that walk through the Mall giggling. You’ll need to grow your hair, I mean it’s long enough, but there’s no style.’ They went down together and made their tea. ‘Funny,’ Rachel said, ‘the headache and period pains have gone. Must have been finding you in my dance dress, you cheeky minx.’ She poked Danny in the ribs, making him squirm.

That she was treating him instantly as a girl, filled him with euphoria. He felt he wanted to twirl and dance, even though, moving his feet in the unaccustomed heels might twist an ankle. Rachel viewed him with amusement and concern. At twenty-four, and with university behind her, where she’d met all sorts, and now, working in a busy commercial law office, she had already, enough experience of the World to know its dangers. So, while she viewed her brother with love and with charity, she could also see the dangers or some of them that lay ahead.

His schooling; his father; gaining qualifications and employment. As a trans person, from all she had read, he or she, needed to work harder to succeed than, what is that new classification, ah, a cisgender, someone content in their birth gender, the majority; what some call ‘normal’. They ate breaded fish, frozen peas, and new potatoes. At the last minute, Rachel put spinach in the steamer. ‘Do I have to eat that?’ Dannie asked. ‘Yes, you do. We need our veg and it’s good for the skin. If you’re a girl, you need to eat healthily.’ He ate his share of the spinach.

For after they had an ice cream sat close together watching TV. Afterward, they cleared up together and programmed the dishwasher for its short thirty-minute wash. They sat on the settee, cuddled together, and watched first the early evening mush magazine program and then soap. ‘You need to use a better shampoo and conditioner,’ Rachel advises. ‘I’ll sort you out some products. If I’m to have a sister, I want one I’m proud of. Your nails are nice, quite girly.’ ‘Rache, Mum will be home soon. I better change.’

‘Why?’ ‘I’m scared. What will she say?’ ‘Relax, leave it to me. Me and Mum have worried about this for a long time.’ ‘Why haven’t you said?’ ‘Why haven’t you?’ Rachel returned. ‘I thought you’d all hate me.’ ‘No, silly girl. Me and Mum thought it would come, this or rather, we thought gay, but it had to come from you. You stay a girl for Mum or this will just be a nasty thing you do behind closed doors. Yuck. If you are really trans, for fucks sake, stand up, be proud and do it.