Copyright 1999, 2002 by Wanda Cunningham. Lainie, Vickie, Rebel, Bashful, and everyone else thanks for the encouragement. There is no actual sex or transformation in this chapter, but I guess it should be rated R for context. So, nobody under 18 should read this, or whatever is the appropriate age in their community. This story deals with transgenderism in children and may be uncomfortable for some readers.

 

Kelly Girl

by Wanda Cunningham

Chapter 13

"Another Hole in My Head"

 

Kelly looked in the mirror again, Andie had begun covering his head with plastic tubes wrapped in strands of his hair. Curlers. He looked bizarrely like his mother, shrunk to ten-year-old size, on one of her visits to Andie's beauty shop. A pale mauve smock covered his dress and actually draped almost onto the floor. Andie had smaller smocks but she liked the way he looked in the adult-size tunic. Kelly decided he hated it but bore it, at least no one could see his polka dot ensemble.

He felt the tug as Andie rolled another lock of his now-platinum-blonde hair around the plastic curler and quickly pinned it in place with a piece of plastic shaped sort of like a cross between a bobby pin and a paper clip. The rollers came in two colors; larger green ones on the top of his head and down the back, smaller purple ones on the sides. The little clips were baby-pink, almost the same color Andie had earlier used on his nails. "Ouch," he complained mildly as Andie worked down his neck, pulling and tugging the shorter hairs there around the curlers.

The rolling process would take most of half an hour, and he had plenty of time to think while Andie hummed the music from Rocky Horror Picture Show. At times the charade he had fallen into actually seemed like fun, fooling people and being silly. Then at other times, he felt very afraid of what was happening. How was it all going to end? Would he ever be able to go back to being a boy? He shied away from considering whether he really wanted to.

Kelly stewed quietly in his own worries while Andie worked. His mother, Barbie, he knew would not mind him dressing up as long as he enjoyed the masquerade. She was firmly in favor of having fun, and had helped him a few times when he got curious about her clothes and makeup. He blushed a little thinking about that; but those incidents were all private and just for play and make-believe or for feeling safe when she had to leave him alone to work.

If he wore a piece of her clothing to bed in her abscence, then he could pretend to be her; and Barbie wasn't afraid of anything. Well, he knew that wasn't true and sometimes he had rather wished that she would worry a bit more. Over the last two years, he had taken over keeping the household money and paying the bills. He had both of them sticking to budgets; this cracked Barbie up and he smiled remembering her telling the girls she worked with, "I only got 30 bucks this week to play with; my kid gives me an allowance."

Nearly finished with the rolling task, Andie leaned down to whisper in his ear, "He's just a shweet transvestite..."

Kelly flinched away. "Stop it!"

She laughed. "Shorry, punkin, it's hard not to tease you."

"Well, don't. I mean it, Andie." His voice just wasn't the right sort to sound threatening but he put all the determination he could muster into the warning.

She looked at him for a moment and decided he might be seriously annoyed at her. His pout looked so cute, though, she knew she would be grinning at him in a moment if she didn't distract herself. She deftly rolled and pinned the last roller and dribbled the last of the thinned-down perm solution onto it. "There you go, sweetie, I'll do your toenails, we'll take these curlers out and you will be even more gorgeous."

He shivered a bit thinking about it. How had things ever gone so far? How had he ever let Andie talk him into getting a perm? Or half of the other things he had done to further the masquerade?

His insides felt like ice. Fear, cold fear, chilled his heart and made him sweat at the same time. "This stuff stinks," he complained to Andie, mostly just to have something to say instead of admitting how scared he felt.

"Shure does," she agreed. She held up a bottle to show him again the pink nail polish she had chosen. "Doesn't that look good?"

"No." The frost inside him extended down his arms and legs. Andie had taken his shoes off to paint his toenails. "I don't want my toenails painted," he said doubtfully, pulling his feet up under the edge of the salon chair.

"We've got an agreement, shugar," Andie reminded him. "Now be good and hold still and stick your toesies out here."

"Why paint my toes? No one is going to see them?" he protested.

"They might, besides, I want to do it and you said I could," she pouted back at his pout.

Kelly sighed and let Andie lift his feet onto the little pedicure tablet. Andie happily went to work. At nails, she had girls in her shop who could actually do a better, quicker job but she wanted to do Kelly's fingers and toes herself. She had put the smallest size of foam plastic toe-separators on Kelly's feet and she began carefully painting each tiny toe. What size shoe did the kid wear, she wondered; then remembered that the shoes Harry had bought for Darla had been size 8. Those were the ones Kelly was wearing; even for his height, Kelly had little feet.

Kelly watched Andie work, interested in spite of himself. Why don't I cry? Kick and scream? he wondered. Why can't I stop this? But instead he sat quietly while Andie painted his toenails a very soft pink. The ice began to thaw, the more thoroughly he looked like the little girl everyone thought he was, the less likely anyone would guess his secret. Or was that what he had really been afraid of?

"It's not supposed to be a secret," he muttered aloud. "Heck, I've told everyone!"

Andie looked up and grinned at him. "That you're a boy?" She had switched to clear polish for the last coat. She worked quickly, expertly, one or two swishes per toe per coat.

He nodded. "Yeah, I keep saying it, I'm a boy. I told what's-his-name, the one who calls you 'Porkie'." Andie grinned but said nothing. "He didn't believe me; he just laughed. I've told almost everyone."

"And no one believes you?" Andie added, going back to her task.

Another flashing streak of internal frost, his stomach seemed frozen to his spine. Kelly looked up in the mirror again, he was still himself for all of the concealing disguise. Below the hair curlers and above the smock, his own face looked back. Okay, so he did look like a girl; soft, full lips, big, long-lashed eyes, smooth cheeks, but really, not that much more than a lot of other boys, ones his age or younger.

Okay, if he wore girl's clothes, there could be some confusion, sure. But when this whole charade had started he had been dressed in his own things. He shook his head. "Why doesn't anyone believe me, Andie?"

"I dunno," she admitted. "Just a vibe you give off, honey? I guessh?" She sat back on the low stool and began capping the bottles; she'd finshed up with the clear coat and thought Kelly's toes looked so very cute that she wanted to giggle. But the child was trying to be serious so she suppressed the impulse.

She thought for a moment, her personal opinion remained that Kelly would be much happier as a girl; she tried to discount that knowing that she might have a personal bias. But really, Kelly always acted much more feminine than most boys ever would, sometimes it came across as childish but more often it just looked like normal girliness, normal for a girl. "It's been happening a long time," she said carefully, "I've known you, what? Three or four years? And it happened a lot all during that time, a lot more than you probably know."

"Huh?" Kelly, tried to wipe his eyes but the smock covered his hands; he struggled a moment, squirming and frowning.

"People would say things to Barbie like, 'She's really shweet,' or "What a cute little girl," talking about you. We just didn't tell you when it happened."

Kelly's mouth twisted in distress and his eyes, already full of quiet tears, squeezed little streams onto his cheeks. Andie stood up quickly. "The kids at school..." Kelly gasped. He shook his curler-encrusted head and began to sob.

Andie moved to take Kelly's hands in her own; the poor kid, she thought. I've got to be sweeter and more gentle. Such a good person as Kelly, boy or girl, child or adult, deserved to be treated better. She squeezed the tiny hands softly, her own eyes tearing a bit as she remembered personal experiences with the cruelty of school children. "I know, kid, believe me, I know," she said sadly.

* * *

Barbie knew she looked great in the green silk dress Harry had bought for her; it flattered her new figure and almost matched the color of her eyes. Being so short, she had been surprised that any shop in had something to fit her, but Harry had said that Vegas got a lot of Asian visitors. And the shop had also altered the dress to fit very well indeed, displaying as much of her new charms as could be considered decent. She had to resist looking down frequently, it still startled her how much cleavage the neckline revealed. Of course, yesterday she hadn't had cleavage like that. She took a sip of her diet soda to distract her from the blush she felt moving from her cheeks downward.

The dress must have cost a thousand dollars or more; heck, she knew for a fact her matching shoes had cost more than three hundred. Harry had wanted to buy jewelry for her, too, but she had complained of being hungry and now, here they were, in what was probably one of the few places in Vegas where it was possible to spend a lot of money on lunch. Or whatever a meal at two in the afternoon was called. No gambling in sight, that's what made it expensive, she decided. The food was okay but she had tasted better salads back in Newport.

She kicked off the expensive shoes and pulled her silk-stockinged legs up under her. Sitting on her feet brought her face closer to Harry's level. She sucked on an ice cube and looked across the restaurant table at her doctor, her lover, and more and more, she realized, someone who wanted her, wanted to please her, and was willing to spend a lot of time and money trying. The shopping spree, what with underwear and stockings, must have totalled more than the free boobjob.

Dr. Harold Mann stood well over six feet, almost a third taller than she, even sitting down . His black hair had receded from his forehead a bit but his handsome good looks pleased her. He was rich, smart, good-looking, generous, funny and he was crazy about her. And he's pretty good in bed, she reflected. If only he hadn't proposed on their second date, it made him seem a little bit scary.

And his willingness to try to buy her affection scared her in a different way. Scared her not because it made her feel cheap or used but because it excited her. Barbie knew a lot about herself but she had not yet puzzled out why having men spend money on her made her feel the way she felt. Or perhaps she had chosen not to pursue that further.

The room seemed oddly quiet for Las Vegas, and dim. Deep well-padded booths, lots of plants, huge tinted windows showing the city, menus without prices, at least, Barbie noted, hers had no menu. She grinned at Harold suddenly and he smiled back. "You're unpredictable," he commented.

"Uh huh," she said, "it's part of my charm." She wagged her head from side to side and giggled.

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is." They made an odd couple in more than one way. Big, wealthy, almost-famous, Doctor Mann and tiny, poor, unknown Barbie the grade school dropout. He didn't want to think about it; some of those things were part of her charm, too. Harold Mann never thought too deeply about his own motives; he trusted himself and considered introspection to be dangerous to the self-confidence he needed as a surgeon.

"You're trying to spoil me, aren't cha?" She lifted a brow, still smiling.

"I'd like to," he said. "You would be fun to spoil..."

She interrupted, "What about Kelly?"

"Kelly?" He chuckled, "Well, if anyone would be more fun to spoil than you, I guess it would be a sweet little girl like Kelly."

Barbie didn't say anything for a moment. The room bustled quietly around them, waitresses in mid-thigh dresses, fancy stockings and sensible heels delivering food and taking orders. Barbie wondered vaguely what they made in tips and also thought with one part of her mind that this really wasn't all that snooty of a place if they didn't have waiters. Waiters always wanted more money; only a real high class place could afford to have mostly waiters in nice clothes. Women, she knew, would work for less.

"Kelly's not..." she began but trailed off, undecided if now was the right time to tell Harold the truth about Kelly. One of the truths about Kelly. It all depended on if this relationship had any real hope of lasting. She used the thin straw to stir her Diet Coke and watched the bubbles. If they had just a wild weekend together, then who cared what Dr. Mann thought about Kelly. But if something more permanent developed, well, the sooner Harry knew the truth, the better.

"Kelly's not that sweet?" asked Harry, grinning.

Barbie looked up at him, her green eyes troubled. Her eyebrows drawn together with a little wrinkle inbetween made her smile look rueful and tentative. She took a deep breath.

* * *

Again the mirror showed Kelly the reflection of a beautiful little girl. Her hair now combed out in soft platinum curls that framed her face and fell almost to her shoulders, her nails and lips painted Baby Blush Pink, her eyelids traced with just a hint of blue-tinged green to echo her eye color and another trace of rose pink to contrast. The little darling had a heart-shaped locket around her neck and a charm bracelet around her wrist.

His mood had lightened up a bit while Andie fussed over him and now that it was almost complete...well, he wondered if he would ever look like a boy again? And now, well, what would life be like if he never went back to boyhood? He turned his head from side to side, the new hair color really did make him look more like his mother. He suspected that he shouldn't feel quite so pleased about that.

"All you need is a tiara to be a little Princess," said Andie, smiling in the mirror behind him. "Harry will probably buy you one," she added, chuckling.

Kelly shook his head and the curls bounced prettily. "I'm too cute, I look like I'm going to audition for the part of Bunny in a Sailor Moon movie."

Andie laughed. "You watch Sailor Moon?"

Kelly blushed. "Well, I did. It's not on anymore." He tilted his head one way and then the other, but the image of a lovely young girl didn't change. "Really, don't you think the makeup is a bit much?"

Andie shook her head. "Nope, even nine-year-olds wear makeup these days..."

He interrupted. "I'm twelve!" He wanted to stamp a foot but restrained himself.

Still grinning, Andie continued. "...and since we don't have a tiara for you to wear, it's time to pierce those ears." It tickled her that she had finally gotten Kelly to agree to it.

"Like I need another hole in my head." Kelly sighed but obediently followed her to another station where the piercings were done. Andie held a hand out for him to hold as an aid to getting into the big salon chair. He sat primly upright, knees together, ankles crossed, hands in his polka-dotted lap while Andie adjusted the chair to the proper height.

She glanced at the clock, "We better hurry, my two o'clock appointment will be here soon; someone you ought to meet."

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"You'll meet her, I won't say anymore."

Not satisfied but compliant, Kelly watched Andie get things ready. The piercing gun he had seen before, a hand-held pneumatic device that worked on the same principle as a nail gun. He didn't want to think about that he decided.

He looked around the rest of the salon curiously; he'd been here with Barbie many times but the gleaming shop had lots of doodads and gadgets, and other interesting things. Glistening chrome chairs and stainless steel sinks, marble counter tops, real wood paneling and bottles full of a rainbow of shampoos, polishes, ointments, salves, pastes and, for all he knew, philters. He giggled, what the heck was a philter?

"Which of these do you like?" Andie asked, holding out a tray of tiny stud earrings. Some were in the shape of hearts, or flowers, some had little paste jewels, others were fairly plain, silvery or golden.

Kelly reached out, if not exactly reluctantly, at least hesitantly. He intended to point at the plain gold ones but Andie moved the box so his hand would indicate one of the prettier pairs. He glared at her and she grinned. "Well," he said, "which ones do you want to use? Let's get this over with."

Andie lifted out a set that had two heart-shaped jewels, one rose heart and one aqua heart for each earring. Kelly made a little noise, they weren't the fanciest in the box but they certainly had been the ones that had caught his eye already. "Pink and blue," he said.

Andie nodded. "Okay? It'll be our little joke?"

Kelly giggled nervously but nodded his agreement. His earlobes had already begun to tingle in anticipation and he felt excited all out of sync with what ought to be something he knew he should dread and resist.

The little studs fit into the gun like a shell into the chamber of a more dangerous pistol. Andie did all this in front of him as much as possible so he could watch. The backings for the earrings fit into the target side of the business end, that part would go behind his ear. Andie dipped studs and backs in a disinfectant solution then loaded one set of them and pushed the button to cock the gun, filling the piston with air for the pneumatic thrust. She swabbed his earlobes with alcohol and disinfectant then put the gun to his ear, his lobe between the back and the stud.

Kelly felt a pinch and heard a noise like--kufff! "Ow?" he said.

"That didn't hurt, did it?" asked Andie as she dabbed at a bit of liquid; not blood, there was almost never any blood with this sort of piercing.

"I guess not," said Kelly.

Andie swiftly did the other ear then turned Kelly to face the mirror. The pink and blue gems gleamed from his earlobes and he felt an odd thrill to see how feminine and cute and--complete--he looked.

"What a darling," someone said. "Who's little girl is this, Andie?"

Kelly looked up to see a tall brunette wearing an exercise suit, hot pink spandex and gray terrycloth, her long hair pulled up into a ponytail with a yellow scrunchie. She might have just come from the fitness center across Newport Boulevard. She beamed at Kelly and he smiled back but bit his lip, unexpectedly feeling intensely shy.

"This is Shkipper," said Andie. "My soon-to-be niece, or maybe sister-in-law?" Andie laughed, remembering the confusion in the Mann household as to wheter Kelly were Barbie's sister or daughter. "Shkippy, this is Melissa Klemencic, Melissa meet Shkipper Drew."

"Don't call me, Skippy!" protested Kelly.

Melissa laughed. "That's right, tell her. She keeps forgetting that my last name is Wiest, now."

"That's right," said Andie. "You got married, how is the groom holding up?"

"Davey is fine." Melissa put her hand out to Kelly, not vertically like a man would for a handshake, but with the fingers pointing down, a feminine gesture of reaching out. "Did you come here for a makeover?"

Kelly took the hand and let her give his a gentle squeeze, only half-noticing how small his hand looked in hers. "Yes, ma'am. I'm staying with Andie for a few days and she wanted to play with giving me a new look."

The women both laughed. "You're a real cutie," Melissa told Kelly. "Did I hear you say you're twelve?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yes," Kelly said firmly. "I'm twelve and I'll be starting seventh grade in just a few weeks."

Melissa nodded. "Okay. Do the other girls at school tease you about looking so young?"

"Uh," Kelly got derailed thinking about the implication of 'other girls at school.' He made a face. "Not so much?" he finally hazarded.

"What school do you go to?" she asked, sitting on one of the tall stools in the piercing booth so Kelly wouldn't have to look up at her.

"She'll be going to Corona del Mar," said Andie.

"That's great!" Melissa seemed pleased. "I work there, I'm in the admin office; the Dean of Girls is my boss. Have you met Dean Wilson yet?"

"No, ma'am," Kelly said, not even bothering to glare at Andie for the assumption that he would be moving in permanently with the Manns. Living on the Penninsula in Barbie's apartment as he had been, he would normally attend Ensign Middle School.

"Beautiful and polite," said Melissa smiling. "I bet your mother is very proud of you, young lady."

Kelly closed his eyes and sighed. He certainly hoped that she could still be proud of him when she saw how far he had let Andie go toward turning the little misunderstanding into a big masquerade.

* * *

After two hours of running around in the afternoon sun, the boys were taking a break. Richard, sitting in the stands with Sarah, waved at his brother Pete and held up a bottle of the blue athletic drink he knew Pete preferred. Pete waved him to bring it down and Richard held Sarah's hand as they negotiated the steep rungs of the bleachers. She felt the day had been going very well indeed and frequently had to restrain herself from ebullient giggling or squealing.

Pete took the drink and drained it in one long gulp before saying anything. Sweat stained his jersey and ran off the powerful muscles of his neck and arms. Even his red hair had turned dark from being soaked.

"And you wonder that I don't want to go out for football this year," remarked Richard.

"Huh? What's that mean? Hi, Sarah, isn't it?" Pete grinned at the diminutive girl with her hand still curled around Richard's forearm. She nodded and smothered another attack of giggles. Pete had a powerful presence and a devastating grin; an older, even larger version of Richard.

"Look at you, all hot and sweaty and smelly," Richard said. "Girls don't like that, right, Sarah?"

"Uh? I guess so?" she answered, a bit confused and feeling even smaller than usual, standing beside the two.

The boys laughed and confused her more, had she said something funny? But now she couldn't stop the giggles, whatever had caused it, the Mann brothers' amusement was contagious.

Pete smiled at her again, "Richard likes little girls," he told her. "What grade are you in?"

"Ninth!" she squeaked. At Corona, with all the grades from sixth to twelfth in one school last year, she had become defensive about being short. But the thought that Richard might be more attracted to her by her size gave her a funny feeling, a sort of emabarrassed satisfaction.

"Another munchkin," said Pete to Richard.

"Hey," Richard responded mildly and put a hand around Sarah's shoulders.

This had been the best day all summer, Sarah thought. She'd been with Richard almost all afternoon and every time he touched her it thrilled her again.

"Yeah," mused Pete, "my little brother likes his girlfriends tiny. You should see him mooning over Kelly." The boys traded lazy mock punches and insults while Sarah wondered, who's Kelly and why do I already hate her?

* * *

"Are you here to get piercings or a tattoo?" Kelly asked.

Melissa laughed and shook her head, "No, Davey would skin me; I'm just here 'cause Andie is the best hairdresser in town for me."

"Huh?"

Andie lifted Kelly out of the salon chair and sat him on the floor. "Mel has some shpecial needs and I'm kind of an expert in that sort of thing."

That still didn't mean anything to Kelly who automatically straightened his dress and checked his appearance in a mirror, thereby startling himself again when he saw the pretty little blonde in the polka dots. Maybe it would stop surprising him if he saw her often enough.

Melissa took her seat in the big salon chair, "Um, yeah, sort of...." She looked a question at Andie and they both watched Kelly for a minute.

I'm primping, thought Kelly. He blushed and made a strange face, trying not to giggle.

Melissa smiled and Andie chuckled. "The three of us are short of all members of the same club," said Andie mysteriously.

"Huh?" both Kelly and Melissa responded.

Andie reached under Melissa's hair in back and then lifted off her wig. Startled, Melissa reached a hand up to hold it on but too late. Kelly stared. Without the fluffy dark locks, Mellisa had short, light brown hair and a hairline that receded farther than Harold Mann's.

* * *

There are trailer parks, mobile home estates and modular villages. Amanda Drew Constable Williams Pearson lived in one of the middle types, in Arlington Heights, a neighborhood of Riverside, forty miles from Barbie and Kelly and the Manns in Newport Beach. The double-wide mobile home measured sixty by twenty-four feet, large enough for a family and positively empty with no one living there but Amanda and her cat, Flooper.

Only forty-two years old, Amanda could easily pass for thirty, despite years of steady drinking and rough handling. Not quite five-feet tall, she wrapped her still lush body in tight-fitting slacks and plunging necklines and dyed her mousy hair a brilliant shade of copper. But she also wore the same green eyes, pert nose and slightly pointed chin as Barbie and Kelly.

Lying on the couch, not really watching some old movie, she petted the Siamese crossbreed and glanced frequently at the clock. Her current bargain with herself allowed her one drink before five p.m. if she didn't have it before three. The clock seemed frozen at 2:45 for the last half hour. She sighed, and Flooper flexed his claws into her thigh to show his displeasure at being breathed on.

"Stupid cat," she said mildly and tapped him gently on the skull. "You know mommy doesn't want to have to go to church tomorrow." Flooper purred. That was her bargain, if she violated her self-imposed drinking schedule she would go to church. She'd been good lately, and hadn't seen the inside of a sanctuary in almost five months. This is going to work, she told herself. I'm not going to drink....

The phone ringing interrupted her thought. Flooper hopped down, knowing she would get up to answer the phone. Whoever it might be would be a better distraction for the next fifteen minutes than watching Tony Curtis fool half the Canadian navy.

"Hello," she said, ready to hang-up if it turned out to be a telemarketer.

"Mandy," said a voice.

"Who's this?"

"Mandy, it's me, Phillip. I'm out. Where are you living now?"

"God," she breathed. "Phil? Where are you?"

"Train station in San Berdoo, just got in from up north. Come get me?"

"Phil," her voice quivered. "Phil, you've been gone for--a long time, I got married again. Twice."

Pause.

"You ain't married now?"

"N-no, my last husband died. Two years ago." She twisted the phone cord around her wrist, near the scars.

"How'd you do it?" A chuckle.

She gasped. "Damn it, Phil, you've got no right!" Her hands shook, she stared at the cabinet where she kept the liquor. Jack Daniels. She made herself drink the good stuff nowadays; she'd got her weight down and she would never touch beer again. "I'm done with you, Phil. We're not married, anymore. I testified against you, fer cr-crying out loud!"

Another pause.

"Barbie living with you?"

Amanda shook her head and then said softly, "No."

"All right then," said Phillip Constable. "You don't want me bothering you, just tell me where Barbie lives now."

She told him.

And then she poured herself a drink, even though it was only 2:55.

  

  

  

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