Based on the characters and situations presented in "Seasons of Change" by Joel Lawrence, Copyright 1989. This story is archived in its entirety at Fictionmania (go to search by authors and select Joel Lawrence).

This story takes place approximately one year to a year and a half after the conclusion of "Tales of the Season: Darla's Story" in the branch of the "Seasons of Change" Universe that I started with "A Losing Season", also archived at Fictionmania.

Of course, this is a play on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", the entire text of which can be found at: http://www.stormfax.com/dickens.htm

 

Season's Greetings: A Carol Christmas

by Tigger
© 2000, all rights reserved

 

Prologue

Darla, or as her junior colleague was wont to call her, Darley, is a boy: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The certificate of his birth was signed by the delivering physician, the hospital administrator, and the local county attorney. Young Darley is as masculine as rats and snails and puppy dog tails.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly masculine about rats or snails or the tail appendages of juvenile canines. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard the masculine nature of any of those particular creatures to be disputable, as I have, in my experience, had the acquaintance of female dogs and rats. And while I am not certain how one would ascertain the gender of a snail, I am convinced that there must be at least some of the creatures that are female. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile and I shall not dispute it. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Darley is, most definitely, as masculine as rats and snails and puppy dog tails.

Did her young colleague know she was male? Of course he did not. How could it be otherwise? Darley's partners in this enterprise decreed and ensured that this would remain unknown to the new student. Even as they imposed the same masking of his masculinity upon him as had been earlier been imposed upon Darley... that is, upon Darla.

The mention of Darla's masquerade brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Darley was and is male. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

 

Once upon a time, three people sat down to table in order to break their fast...

The First of the Final Confrontations:

*It's as if she's decided this one is a lost cause,* the petite blonde girl thought bleakly as she picked without much interest at her own breakfast. *Lord, she gives me a harder time about such things when there is no one but the two of us here and I'm not really her student anymore.*

Jane Thompson, an elegantly handsome woman, sat at the head of the dining table, her eyes fixed on the third diner, another blonde whose attention was fixed on the huge plate of food in front of her to the exclusion of anyone or anything else. A look that was half disgust, half some other emotion crossed the older woman's face as she regarded the silent student.

*She isn't even calling the twit on that abominable display of poor table manners,* Darla thought. *My God, I guess we really have failed this one.*

Surreptitiously, the shortest of the three figures at the table glanced at the object of Jane Thompson's annoyance. Carol Morris was tall, an attribute that Darla envied greatly, and she was almost pretty - she *would* have been pretty had her makeup been more subtly and appropriately applied. *Not that it truly is poorly applied,* Darla mused, *Actually, it is a superb job if one is going out clubbing or trolling for guys, or even if this was a scene from some theatrical play that necessitated such high color, but I am certain was precisely her intention. One thing Carol has learned here is how to apply cosmetics skillfully, but she just refuses to wear it appropriately because she knows that showing up for breakfast made up that. . . blatantly always pisses Jane off.*

Darla stifled a sigh. Jane's little cadre had had such high hopes for this student. In fact, the generally accepted opinion was that if one had set out to create the ideal model for a successful Jane Thompson project-student, Carl Morris would have matched that profile almost perfectly.

Physically, Carl was ideal for Jane's forced feminization treatments and subsequent training. Tall, leggy, slender and relatively narrow-shouldered for a male, and possessed of high cheekbones and eyelashes a super-model would covet, he'd been passable soon after his arrival, unlike the previous student who was not really suited to the masquerade. Jane had expected to be able to pull out all the stops with this one, putting him in situations where preserving the secret of his masculine gender would force him to behave like the sweet, obedient and submissive girl Jane intended he become in every way possible short of surgery.

Secondly, Carl Morris was an egotistical, super-macho asshole whose overblown self image should have crumbled like chalk before Jane's scathing tongue and iron will. He had been sent to Seasons House after having been suspended twice and finally expelled from his suburban high school for sexual harassment - escaping civil charges only through the offices of his uncle, a powerful congressional staffer. He had an extremely insolent attitude towards women and felt no compunction about expressing his offensive opinions about the feminine sex loudly and vulgarly - often in public. The last two times he'd been in trouble at school, he'd gone beyond talk and had physically intimidated two girls. *Without that damned uncle of his, he'd have been charged with threatened assault, and put in a reform school!* Darla thought darkly.

The damned fool had even made an overt and offensive pass at the frill-bedecked Darla on the train platform, and when Jane had reprimanded him for his behavior, had told her to get the hell out of his face. When she'd agreed to take on the role of mentor/secret informer for this student in Jane's program, Darla had expected to feel sorry for her little 'sister' during those first admittedly brutal hours in Jane Thompson's keeping, but she hadn't felt the smallest tinge of sympathy - not for this one. Not after Carl's first greeting to her had been a lewd comment on her lips and completely obscene suggestion about where he thought those lips might do him the most good. Oh, Darla had positively salivated at the prospect of watching Carl Morris' first days at Seasons House.

Except the expected breakthrough, or rather, the expected breakdown had never occurred. Somehow, this chauvinistic idiot had managed to take Jane's best shots without so much as denting his overweening masculine pride or his even bigger ego. A not insignificant accomplishment, Darla had to acknowledge. Even Kenneth, who had amazed Jane, Marie and Darla with his incredible self control and composure under fire had paid a heavy price physically and emotionally in doing so, and he'd only had to keep that up for a few days until Jane found out he'd been sent to her under false charges. Carl had been with Jane for almost six months, all the while following her orders precisely, just as he had promised, but never showing the slightest indication he was weakening.

And Jane had tried everything, including some tricks she'd sworn off following Michael/Michelle's attempted suicide. She'd used the long-duration, high color cosmetics on him and then taken him to a Providence shopping mall in effeminate, at best androgynous clothes as a boy. He'd laughed off the masculine derision the teenaged contingent hanging out there had tried to heap on him. Then Jane had turned Sandy and Caro loose on him, in particular releasing any constraints she had placed on Sandra's dark side, again to no avail. The cross dressed punk had actually laughed at his reflection in Caro's mirror at the end of his first trip to Marisha Chalet. Naturally, that reaction had put paid Jane's plan to have him be the model for Caro's Wednesday afternoon cosmetics class for the local teenaged girls. He'd even managed to spill hot tea on Evelyn White, ruining a favorite antique- laced outfit. Only quick action by Jane had saved the society matron from a trip to the emergency room burn center. Not surprisingly, Carol had not been honored with invitations to any of the society events that the redoubtable Mrs. White controlled.

Worse yet, none of Jane's disciplines or punishments had elicited the expected results from this student, either. Not once, in the six months he'd been here, had Jane been able to reduce Carl to tears. On the plus side, he hadn't evidenced any violent tendencies either, and except for his request for oral gratification on the train platform, had not harassed Darla further. However, their continued failure to unearth any softer, gentler emotions in her charge had upset and frustrated Jane, Marie and Darla.

*It's as if he is marking time, for some reason, waiting for something to happen that only he knows about,* Darla thought, not for the first time. *Odd, too, that after all these months, I still think of him in the masculine tense. It takes real effort to remember to use feminine pronouns in relation to this one. Guess that is the true measure of just how badly we've missed the mark.*

At that moment, Carol wiped her mouth on her napkin and deposited it in the middle of her plate. "Well, that does me. Excuse me, Ms. Thompson, and I will go get ready for whatever games you want to play today."

Darla watched as Jane simply stared at the smirking, girlishly dressed boy for nearly a minute. "I think, Carol, that we will dispense with any further lessons. Obviously, they aren't doing you any benefit as you are still the same obnoxious, ill-mannered immature little boy you were when you first arrived in my home. Since this is Christmas Eve, I think we all would enjoy our holiday fare more if you were to take your meals in your rooms."

"Nothing else has worked so we're going to try solitary confinement on bread and water, eh?" was the snide reply. "What's next? Harsh lights and rubber hoses?"

"You will treated with the same courtesy and concern for your health and physical well-being as you have enjoyed since your arrival," Jane replied in as cold a voice as Darla had ever heard from her. "You will find the accommodations in your room will be unchanged and that you will be fed the same food that Marie will serve in the dining room. You simply will no longer be tolerated at table. That way, you may behave as disgustingly as you please without ruining anyone else's appetite for Marie's holiday cuisine. As to confinement, we've already discussed that issue, have we not? You will continue to behave yourself in accordance with your promises to me, or I shall be forced to call Deputy Beale again."

Carol glared at Jane for she recalled, all too vividly, the evening when she'd overstepped herself in baiting this old bat and her blonde lackey. The deputy who had responded to Thompson's call had promised that the next time Morris went too far, the cop would happily toss his ass - panties, petticoats, ribbons, makeup and all - into the overnight holding cell with all the drunks and petty crooks waiting for morning bail court. "And since you and I both know you're a boy underneath all that pretty girl stuff, well, I'd just have to toss you into the male holding cell."

"All right, MS Thompson," the femininely dressed boy retorted, putting heavily sarcastic emphasis on the 'Ms.', "I shall remove myself from your august presence and wish you... an oh-so-VERY joyous Christmas Eve. Let me know, won't you, if you exercise your womanly prerogatives and decide you actually do want to play some more? Far be it from me to deprive you of your little pleasures - it being the holidays and all."

With that, he stood and strode from the room using a masculine gait that Darla would have thought impossible in the three inch- heeled mules Carol had worn to breakfast. Darla turned to see Jane gazing into the now empty passage as well, a look of fatigued sadness on her face.

Finally, Darla could no longer deal with the oppressive silence. "No more exercises, or just no more until after the holidays?"

Marie had told Darla that Jane tended to 'ease up' on her students around the Christmas holidays. Actually, what she did was find a reason to fade into the background and let Marie play Mother Christmas with the beskirted boys while Jane watched from a distance in secrecy, enjoying their pleasure vicariously. This ensured that her authority and the boys' fear of her remained largely intact while permitting them to enjoy the holidays. It also, Marie told Darla, provided her boys with contrasting experiences that made the rigorous re-establishment of Thompson's Law all the more effective after the short, but very welcome respite.

"No more, period," Jane said softly as she filled her cup from the silver coffee pot. Darla thought she could see Jane's hands tremble slightly as she poured. "There isn't any point in carrying this farce any further. I don't know what more I could do with *him* anyway. Admittedly, I remain baffled by his continued lack of response to what should be emotionally traumatic experiences, but that just makes me even less capable of helping him. I cannot safely deal with a personality I don't understand. Perhaps a public unmasking might get his attention, but even so, it is a step I cannot, in good conscience, take with him. That could follow him the rest of his life and affect him in ways I am not willing to take the responsibility for causing. Besides, based on his reactions to date, I'm not sure that would have any more effect on him than any of the scenarios I have used with him."

"Even you can't remember to speak of him in the feminine tense," Darla thought aloud.

"Because he isn't feminine, for all he can be as lovely as any student I have ever taught. With all my other boys, they reached a point where their feminine selves began to shine through the emotional walls they built around themselves - I can't describe it better than that, but I could always clearly see in them the balance of the feminine with the masculine coming into alignment; the feminine tempering and gentling the masculine even as it fulfilled the integrated personality. As perfectly as he has learned every nuance of looking and acting like a young woman, there is none of the truly feminine with this one. The skirts, the cosmetics, even the body language are nothing more than a disposable masquerade for Carl."

"It's hard to believe that someone can disdain women that much and do so well with the trappings," Darla replied.

"All part of his male arrogance," Jane sighed. "I asked him about that recently, and he told me that he did it because his father impressed upon him that he always had to be the best at anything he did. So he excels to prove that, being a real man, he could do all this womanly bull... well, you get the idea, and do it better than you or I do it, and that the doing does not really affect him in any intrinsic way. Essentially, he strives for perfection because doing less offends his pride. I just wish I knew why he's never truly feared being unmasked in public. Clearly, he doesn't see that as a threat."

"So, now what do we do with him?"

Jane shook her head, making her shoulder length, silver-shot auburn tresses dance about her face. "He's not a court-referred case, so he doesn't have reform school hanging over his head. It was probably a mistake on his uncle's part to settle that civil court case before it went to trial. Maybe if we'd had a court judgment against him as primary punishment and our program as the alternative, we might have made progress with him, but we didn't have that leverage. So, we send him back to his uncle who will, I am sure, send him to that harsh military boarding school."

"When?"

Jane laughed, but it was a sad, mirthless sound. "I'd send him back today if I could, but I wasn't able to make reliable travel connections to get him expeditiously back to Washington until two days after Christmas. I tried trains, buses, planes - I even tried to charter a limousine - without any success. The only option would be for one of us to drive him there and I refuse to let him ruin our holiday more than he already has."

"You going to let him go back into guy stuff, then?"

"And let him know he's beaten me? Hell no!" Jane snarled, shocking her foster child with both the words and her ferocity. "I have failed with him, but that little snot failed right along with me. He never even tried. I will be damned if I am going to change him back one second before absolutely necessary. And don't think I haven't given a good deal of thought to packing him onto that train dressed like Raggedy Anne. However, that is unworthy of me and what I try to accomplish here, so Sandy will be here two hours before we have to leave for the station to do the tear down. I just hope the process is at least moderately painful for him."

"You never did try using the letters you showed me when we were first trying to figure out why he wasn't reacting the way we expected," Darla reminded her mentor. "Surely those would make an impression on him."

Jane shrugged. "I considered it, but he never gave me the slightest indication that he might be open-minded enough to understand what they say. I have discussed his case generally with Eric, and specifically about those letters. He reluctantly agreed with me. In that boy's state of mind, he'd conclude that those letter were just one more of my schemes."

"What are your plans for the rest of the day, then?"

Somehow, Jane's visage became sadder still. "Allie's surgery is scheduled for later today. I don't want the child to be alone so I will go to the hospital to stand in for the parents."

"No luck on getting them home?"

"None," Jane sighed. "They're afraid that if they request humanitarian leave, they will be given humanitarian discharges for the convenience of the service. Then they'd be out of work on top of everything else."

"That's unbelievable!" Darla raged.

"But within the realm of possibility. The services continue to downsize. Soldiers who cannot go where they are needed take up quota numbers that could be filled by soldiers who can. I checked and found that the numbers bear out what they told me. Their commanding officer is on their side, but the bean-counters who would make the final determination are evidently taking a very hard line on this type of thing."

"That really sucks," Darryl's voice growled. "Oops, sorry, Aunt Jane."

Jane stood and walked over to put a hand on her ward's shoulder. She squeezed gently. "That's all right, this time, dear," she said bending over to plant a kiss on Darla's forehead. "In this case, your assessment was nothing but the sad, stupid truth. Will you be okay here today? With him?"

Darla snorted. "Of course. That punk only thinks he's tough. I'll be fine, Aunt Jane."

"I'll be back in time for dinner, dear. They've scheduled the anesthesia for four o'clock."

 

 

 

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© 2002 by Tigger. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.