Chapter 8 – Between Boy and Girl

“Yep. Although, I was a kid so like the difference between boys and girls was like....there was this one girl in that grade named Tracy and she had this idea that boys were just girls who like got hit with the ‘dumb stick’. And if you acted a certain way or did such and such too much then a girl got turned into a boy and everyone forgot you were once a girl. And like vice a versa if boys hung out around us too long. It was kind of like putting on the wrong clothes back then. Till like when I started junior high, or like way too long, I thought boys just had like all the same stuff, it was just kind of twisted around. Like…a folded, corkscrew lump! Oh my gosh, I believed some of the silliest things. I blame having access to...detailed photos of animals. But I knew you were a girl who had some things like a boy.”

If I had any drink in my throat right then, then I would’ve spat it towards my shoulder. “You… You-you know about my aspects… my you and… I’m I’m… I don’t have the words. But that I…I have a penis.” That last bit got so small that it shrunk more than my little stump and I barely felt like I spoke aloud.

She heard me though and immediately nodded. “Mmhmm. I mean, it wasn’t really a thing you talked about in second grade, but I understood you were a certain sort of girl and it didn’t really matter. To anyone. You were just really cute and I had such a huge crush on you.”

Now this was weird. Had I stumbled into a universe where this sort of thing just happened? Where being halfway but more looking a particular way just meant you were that way? If Camille knew and understood, that suggested both my parents likely felt the same way.

I reeled from it all but put together a question, “How… How do you feel now?”

She returned to gazing at the safety of my hands while a hint of red passed along her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “Like I may need a quick trip to the restroom to collect my own thoughts. Maybe. But there are things where words are difficult for me too, in kind of quiet, little ways. Of course, I’m also processing the huge questions you’ve given me and all the stuff we’ve talked about, but I’d love to talk even more, maybe text, and share some more time together when we aren’t too busy. I’d like that a lot and maybe we can help each other figure out all the weird stuff… Together?”

That was blunt and certain enough that even my dum-dum brain could figure it out. I felt honored, a little bit turned on, and vaguely happy that her feelings were so potent, especially after I had basically laid waste to plausible normalcy. My answer had to be YES with full vehemence. Screw figuring out the rules of how the world worked now. I had someone to hopefully share it all with.

“Sounds good.” And I slapped a lid on my voice and my thoughts right there. No burying her in the supernatural/science-fictional possibilities of parallel universes. No weighing her down with my issues. Just accept her kindness and follow through on her thesis that we can figure this out later.

We both seemed relieved with that. And, by this point, any sense of intoxication had either been drowned in water or sweated out. Soon, she did head off to the restroom and we had our leftovers and my margarita packed up. It was an odd goop by now but the tacos still looked really good. I had plans to tuck them into the fridge as soon as I got home.

Lingering thoughts stayed with me like spider webs as tough as gum. I liked the thought of being considered a girl, especially with how I’d been changed today. However, it plagued me that it wasn’t a biological reality. It was an aesthetic one. I had the appearance of a girl, the size, even the butt, and I felt softer. But it was an appearance, one that I had no agency in any more than the one I bore yesterday. And I’d gotten off to it.

At the end of the day, could I just be an odd guy with a jumbled…mistaken sexuality? Didn’t someone once say sex was between the legs and everything else is between the ears? So, what did all this make me?

Was I prepared for the kind of sentiment Camille professed, for the rest of my life? Maybe it was a blessing that some parts still anchored me to yesterday. I could slip on a cute hoodie with oversized sleeves as my long red hair twisted away in the wind and just feel simply pleasant. No new biology under the hood with disconcerting muscles and intimidating requirements. At least, as I imagined it.

When Camille returned, she had a quick smirk for me as she gathered up the lion's share of the dishes to go. “A buck-fifty for your thoughts?”

I held my sloshy Margarita steady and raised my eyebrows. She commented, “Inflation and demand are pushing the price.” I gave a light chuckle.

Some thoughts fluttered around my head, but this wasn’t really the venue for them yet and they didn’t feel ready. I told her as much, noting, “Still figuring stuff out, especially the right words.”

Camille expressed anticipation, but I did my best to defuse hype that I’d have anything exciting to say.

I wanted to say something cool but interesting things only seemed to reside as half-forgotten fragments in my mind which only organized coherently hours and days later. Nothing settled to the surface of my thoughts as we walked out to our cars. Once she put away her leftovers, Camille faced me and asked, “You mind if I stop by your place for a sec?”

Before the horror of how poorly prepared the house was for company could settle in, Camille qualified that by adding, “Just to see where it is and like chill on the porch for a minute.”

Even then, I wasn’t keen on the idea because plenty outside still needed to be broomed and power washed. However, that seemed like a reasonable request that I couldn’t find any rejection for. I texted her the address and she opted to follow me as close behind as the early evening traffic would permit.

I retraced my way around the Target once we got back into town and I shot a look in the direction of that mysterious new shopping center, beyond the plains of the nearer housing tracts. When we arrived, I pulled in along the side driveway as far as I could go but not so far it would be stressful for me to pull out. It was only then that I realized dad‘s old car was missing.

When his condition worsened several years ago, I got it listed as non-operational. Its tires deflated over time and its battery drained away. That was on my list of things to resolve someday. The cushions and the backseat festered with such concentrated dustiness, like it had drawn in the desert itself, that even a few minutes of working on it left me gagging.

But now it was gone. Likely because dad had either taken care of it himself, it had been sold by one of us in the intervening years, or perhaps he never even owned it in this version of reality. None of the possibilities really mattered but it did bother me that I hadn’t noticed the difference until this point. If such things could slip past me undetected, then what else might occur without my knowledge or could’ve already occurred and I’d never realize it? Was it worth even worrying about it?

I met up with Camille by the fence. The fence was also different. When my mom first got sick, she tried to play it off by acting like everything was normal and she wasn’t impaired. She scraped the side of one of our old cars pulling out. That dented the fence and kept it from being used ever since. Now, it looked fine, though a little dirty with spider webs and old pollen.

Camille‘s attention was on the immense fruitless mulberry that dwarfed the house.

It laughed in the face of every drought season. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any differences with it. It did have a rough last time when I had to prune it away from the house. Since then, that almost seemed like a challenge, since it was more vibrant and fuller without any dead branches.

“Wow! I’ve always wanted a tree like that. Growing up, it was nothing but new ones with flimsy limbs. Amazing!” She tried to hop onto the center section where there was a little bit of a spot to climb up, but I tried that lots of times without success. Granted, she quickly made more progress than me but this tree didn’t really line itself up for climbing. The guy who came to prune it back did have a ladder that got him up to a section, but you had to get around the central nook. Camille was persistent but ultimately just balanced herself awkwardly on a limb for a few seconds before I helped her hop down. I told her the one in the back was the one I always used for climbing, but it wasn’t quite as impressive.

She swiftly asked me to show it to her. The backyard hadn’t gotten as much attention lately and the gate on the side had several loose stones, but I resolved I’d just have to deal with that. Where dad tidied up earlier, it actually looked pretty nice.

To my surprise, he’d actually managed to work on quite a bit of the backyard. Not everything, but the picnic bench had some spots cleared away that looked nice enough to sit down on. I always used to like the two-seater bench right next to the knob that turned on the sprinklers. With so many unrelenting droughts, I couldn’t remember the last time I turned them on. Some in the front had broken off and led to gushing water spouts, but that wasn’t true of the back.

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The old doghouse sat off to the side near a few, skeletal wood remains of the peach tree. A few years ago I first realized there was practically an entire forest along the side of the house further up that no one had pruned back in a long time. Almost felt like a side entrance to Narnia.

Camille just went for the little slot in the central part of the tree. She soon had to brush away a minefield of spider webs but I got to watch her as she found a comfortable spot to sit, the same spot that I discovered so long ago. With my smaller size, I suspected I would be able to fit too, but I didn’t try it.

Twisting sideways, she had enough space to spread out across one of the central limbs while setting her legs on top of it. Her back was supported by a narrow, hand shape of branches. I didn’t trust it enough to sleep in but it was low to the ground.

“This is really cool”, she delighted with a chuckle. “This is exactly the kind of tree I wish I had growing up. If you throw a blanket on it, it would be perfect. It would be really cool if you could find a way to build a treehouse in the big one though. It has so much space. And then like you could put a rope bridge or… what’s it called? You know, where people cross a river in some wilderness area and it sends them dangling to the other side? Only it would be to transfer between tree houses in the front and back. That could get really complicated fast though, especially when you can fall on the roof. But that would be really fun!”

I agreed, it was the kind of thing I often played with in my head as a thought experiment, along with putting more rooms in the house or changing the rooms or adding a basement or a second story. All sorts of fun stuff I resolved that either would not be worth it to do realistically or impossible. But they provided plenty of material for my imagination.

At the very least, a treehouse in the front yard sounded like fun, even though I suspected everyone in the neighborhood would probably complain about it. Camille used a side branch to support her as she shuffled along one of the side sections pointing towards the garage. She straddled that branch easily, without needing to hold onto anything nearby to anchor herself.

Gradually, she managed to stand up on the limb without it shaking. Even though she was only about six feet up, my heart rate quickened with concern. She stood there like a gymnast on a very unbalanced beam. I had to clap for her, while making sure if she could get down. There were a couple of ladders inside I could bring out if she needed them, but she gripped the wood and carefully plopped herself down.

I had a few thoughts, that I really couldn’t give voice to. However, one in particular popped to the surface and vaulted out of my mouth. “I was thinking. You refer to me as a girl, but really a dickgirl is more accurate.”

Oh god oh god oh god oh god. My brain was screaming. It felt like the stray remains of something I gave a 1% chance of thinking about before, but it just dropped down in front of the two of us. Fortunately, Camille‘s first reaction was to start giggling, before asking, “Is that so? Guess it’s true. Although, calling me a pussygirl is accurate too.”

I appreciated her teasing smile, while my brain wanted to melt. I lightly raced by the fact that the words were probably too blunt and may be offensive. She cut my thought and countered, “Doesn’t bother me. Are you more comfortable with me calling you a dickgirl?”

As I thought about it, my feeling settled into a confident shake of the head. “ I prefer just ‘girl’, although I don’t know… Everything I said. I don’t have a lot of experience with how I am today and feeling comfortable with stuff. In my imagination, someone just calling me a girl puts the feeling of a smile inside me. I don’t know if that’s healthy or emotionally correct or rather self-indulgent. I don’t want to force my screwed-up, confused life and feelings on people. They got their own shit. But it would be nice to feel a little touch of happiness, just relaxing in myself. In what feels like myself.” I turned up my hands and gave about half of a shrug.

After a quick chuckle, she commented, “I think you totally stress yourself out about this too much. Like words are words. Whatever four letter words you want me to use… that make you smile, that’s cool. That’s how I see it.”

I appreciated that and it was the sort of thing I wanted to smack my brain with. Getting too serious or feeling melodramatic about the smallest thing.

Despite my concerns, there really was no way I could avoid inviting her into the house for a minute. I did my best not to dwell on her reactions and just bring my leftovers to the fridge. I kinda wanted to down the alcoholic remains of my margarita right then.

She didn’t really say anything but helped me with some small things such as bagging up the recyclables. Fortunately, mom had taken care of most of the dishes and the clutter along the drainboard. I threw a blizzard of gratitude on her for every little thing.

Camille didn’t stay long and she made sure to clarify that it wasn’t because of the house being dusty but rather, “To give you thinking time.”

She wrapped me up in a hug that emphasized the fact that she felt a little bit like a big sister, despite our ages. And despite our meager differences, she also felt like my superior. We promised each other to text, with her specifying that she would not start texting until she arrived home. The ruinous silence of the house that followed her departure wormed its way into the cracks and crevices of my thoughts.

I was alone with myself, my greatest enemy. If I had the creative wherewithal, turbulent doubts would be fuel for a bitter back-and-forth. Just pop out a personal, vindictive doppelgänger who was either a consummate man or the perfect lady. Someone for self-scrutiny.

But I didn’t feel the energy or the disappointment to bother. Instead of yelling at myself, I just sat in a soup of sticky, acidic uncertainty. It was an insidious blob that couldn’t be reasoned with and which I didn’t want to shake off. When the stress, support, and words of others walked away, this is what I had left in the shadows.

Instead of wallowing in all that, for the moment at least, I grabbed the clothes out of my car and put them in the laundry room for their first wash. From there, I wiped things down and cleaned where it still needed it.

Which provided me enough of a quiet space for my mind to actually wander.

“I thought I was just supposed to be an insidious, nefarious pile of goo…”

Woman me stood in the doorway with her arms folded under her bust. She had the same top on but a pendulous mountain range pressed against the material. It practically risked splitting a hole. She didn’t have a bra on underneath or apparently didn’t need one. I could see not only the vivid outline of her breasts, in their immense teardrop shape, but also the fabric silhouettes of her erect nipples. Vivid, normal words fled from me as I grappled for terms like “pin art”, a word like "impression" while more subtle than “bulge”, and “pointy”.

She didn’t flinch from my own scrutiny as she raised an eyebrow. Her hair was trimmed slightly shorter than mine, but her other features more than made up for it. I cleared my throat.

Her voice was several times higher than my normal speaking one without sounding childishly squeaky or unnatural. She was me but finished. I leaned on the table. Naturally, I ogled her in my mind’s eye.

She retrieved a document page from her person and used a small pen to make a note. While she was me and a part of my imagination, I played along and asked her, “What is that?”

“Proof of my womanhood. It’s notarized.” She turned the paper to show me. “A detailed account of every man glancing down at my tits, leaning over my shoulder, or lingering too close. It includes creeper males when I was a little girl and mistakenly thought nothing in the world could harm me. But it goes into special detail once puberty kicks in.” Before I could comment that it wasn’t that long, she shook it out and it unspooled like a dropped roll of toilet paper. The script was a compact but still-legible mass.

She continued, “All the looks that they thought went unnoticed. And all the ass pinches in high school lines. All the catcalls called out from burly, unapologetic men. As Hollywood taught me, men who are highly attracted to women are secretly gay and covering up that fact most vocally. This document is the ovulations and tribulations of my sex. Where is yours?”

I let out a long sigh through my nose. It occurred to me that this was a dicklessness measuring contest. Despite this amusement, my doppelgänger didn’t waiver. She was solidly there, despite all my efforts to defuse her.