Tales of the Season: Kendra's Story         by: Tigger       © 1999, All Rights Reserved

 

Part 5

Kenneth, now Kendra after his last interview with the Thompson woman, lay clean-faced on his bed, wearing only the light cotton panties and training bra he'd been directed to wear constantly. It had been an enlightening day. He was now convinced he knew why he'd been sent here. Knowing that, he had to decide whether he wanted to stay here and put up with that ex-schoolmistress and her vile little lessons, or whether it was time to bail and go to that damned delinquent's home.

He'd probably elect to stay on here, despite her so-called "petticoat discipline" program. It was dead certain that the physical amenities at this prison would beat the ones at the home all to hell. The bed was comfortable, the food was great and the bath water was always hot. Heck, even the clothes were always clean, even if they weren't his first choice in attire.

Besides, something in the way Jane Thompson had promised him that no physical harm would come to him while he stayed with her made him want to believe her. There was no doubt in his mind that no one at that boys' home could or would make a similar commitment to him.

Not that her other little games weren't effective. She could probably give his Mother lessons and Kenneth had always thought she had such pointed little torments perfected. Jane had definitely reached him on numerous occasions that day. He'd almost snapped back at her after one too many of her unrelenting and condescending compliments.

Except he'd managed, by the barest of margins, to control his temper each time and that was when he saw the first signs of frustration in the woman. He'd correctly deduced that her intention was to make him angry, to make him stop thinking. Which made him all the more determined to keep a cool head and a rational outlook.

That, however, was far more easily said than done. As much as he knew everything he'd faced that day was all just a setup, as much as he knew there was nothing he could do, one way or another, to ever satisfy the woman, *not being able to do so* still made him feel like a failure. . .made him feel somehow inadequate.

Which was just plain stupid, but that was how he felt.

His instep, toes and ankles still ached a bit from his forced perambulations about the study in those damned heels. That was another sore spot since his ineptitude in the damn things had provided Ms. Thompson with plenty of opportunities to denigrate his performance. That patently unfair attack had nearly made him lose it, but he'd almost fallen on his face when he'd tried to spin around to confront his tormenter. Just as well he'd been in the heels, he mused, catching himself had given him the break he needed to bolster his control. The fact that Jane had been truly concerned for him until she saw he was mostly all right had also helped.

That was something totally unexpected since Kenneth knew this woman was his Mother's friend. Maybe Jane Thompson wasn't quite the bitch he wanted to believe she was. He'd have to think on that one, too.

The trip outside had been another kettle of fish altogether. There were other people outside. That was very scary, but he'd given his word so he'd gone along. Kenneth had come as close to a panic attack as he had in his life with that Darla female had maneuvered them over to where that old gardener and his helper were digging in those flowerbeds. Only the girl's surprisingly strong grip on Kenneth's elbow had kept him from heading for the hills. It immediately became clear that little detour was intentional, and that for whatever reason, Darla was going to force the issue of introducing him to those men.

At that point, Kenneth concluded that the gardeners where either aware of what was happening to him or that they too were unwitting pawns in Ms. Thompson's little game of chess. He'd introduced himself as Ken deliberately. If the men knew about the masquerade, he expected that they'd be very surprised to hear him use a male name. If they weren't aware of what was going on, their reactions would have been completely different.

In fact, Darla had jumped in with her little diversion, insisting that Kendra stop that tomboy nonsense and start using her 'real' name. That, along with the forced confrontation with the men, while clearly protecting Kendra's male identity, also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Darla was in on Jane's little conspiracy. She was not an innocent dupe as Kenneth had originally thought. Nope, that stunt of forcing the introductions put dear, sweet little Darla squarely on the side of the gals in the black hats in Jane Thompson's little melodrama.

Which seemed odd now that Kenneth had time to consider that. Why would Jane use a young girl in this escapade? Everything he knew about girls his own and this Darla's age was that they had a very difficult time keeping secrets from other girls their age. Which did not fit the facts as he knew them at all. Kenneth was fairly certain that not many folks knew what was going on here. For one thing, security was just too good. They were miles from the nearest neighbor and there had not been any visitors. That might not matter all that much, given that he'd only been here two days, but he'd watch for that in the future.

The second thing was that he found it hard to believe that a "program" like the Thompson woman ran could last any length of time if the general populace knew about it. Too many macho-guy-crazies and religious right-wingers would go right over the edge if they had even a glimmer of what she did here. She'd be lucky not to be run out of town on a rail after those groups got done with her.

So either Darla was an unusually good secret keeper for a girl her age or Jane Thompson had something on her that guaranteed her silence. Kenneth wondered what that something could be as he scratched the tender skin on his shoulder that had been irritated by that damned bra strap.

A thought occurred to him and Kenneth's hand stopped in mid-scratch. *Could that be it?* he asked himself as he craned his head to look directly at the brassiere. Could it really be that simple, that Machiavellian? It would all make sense if Darla wasn't a girl at all, but was just another, further along victim/student of Jane Thompson's charm school for wayward males. Good old Darla had to zealously guard Kenneth's secret because it was her secret, too. Very interesting. That also meant he was not quite as alone as he had initially thought he was in this house.

Kenneth quickly reviewed his few direct interactions with the girl. In the end, he was forced to admit that nothing in her looks or behavior disproved her apparent gender, one way or the other. However, at least now he knew to look, carefully, for any anomaly that pointed to Darla's real sex. At least that would be no particular hardship. Girl or cross-dressed guy, the lovely Darla was eminently watchable.

Even if he was wrong, just concentrating and thinking about what was going on had helped calm him, helped him regain his control. *Now, if I can just hold out a little longer. Maybe she'll run out of dirty tricks*

*Suuurrrre she will," Kenneth sighed *NOT!*

~----------~

"So, you've been unable to contact either woman?" Marie asked.

"No. Only the investigator got back to me. He'll be in Kenneth's hometown late tomorrow afternoon and will start making his inquiries as long as the public buildings remain open. I don't know what has happened to Sheila so I've asked the investigator to check on her whereabouts in case something has happened to her. As for Ruth, she won't be back until after tomorrow, which raises the question of what do we do next."

"How so?"

"Normally, our little miss-to-be would be completely cowed by now - willing to accept my program without question in order to avoid being revealed publicly as a sissy-boy, or worse, as a boy masquerading as a girl. Whatever Kenneth is feeling right now, cowed he isn't. His male pride is not broken. . . it's not even showing any cracks. In some particularly tough cases, when the boy was resisting me fiercely, we'd get out the long wearing cosmetics, curl his hair, put him in some very feminine slacks and a blouse and take him off to the mall. Let the young rowdies of the town come down on him for his sissy looks and manner."

"But you don't think that would work on him, either?"

"He's not resisting, Marie. He's not demanding his boy clothes back. He's just going along with whatever we tell him to do and not letting it bother him, somehow, or acting like it doesn't bother him. I've seen this in boys before, but usually only after they've been here long enough to start getting comfortable the masquerade and begin to feel safe here around the house. Then they think they can out-patient me without making any real changes in themselves. Again, we put those boys in a public situation as very effeminate sissy-boys."

"What are our options, then? Write him off as a lost cause and send him to that house-thing?"

"I am not yet considering that, not when I have at least two other options. One is that we do nothing until we talk to his Mother and Ruth. The incredible disconnect - between the way he behaves and what those records say about him - is beginning to seriously bother me. Couple that with the fact that Ruth has *never* been unavailable during a student's first week and *that* feels very wrong to me. Waiting until we can talk with those two has the advantage of resolving our uncertainty about his observed behavior versus his recorded behavior. Unfortunately, that solution means we don't do much in the way of effective training tomorrow which means a lost day during that normally critical first week of the program."

"As you just pointed out, it's not as if he's into the swing of things, Jane." Marie scoffed. "The first week is only critical if we are accomplishing anything. We aren't. What is the other alternative?"

"Try another tactic to break him down. Obviously he feels safe and in control here. He willingly introduced himself to old Tom. All I can think of is to take him out of this apparently safe haven and try again. I am thinking of taking him to the Chalet tomorrow and turning Caro and Sandy loose on him. *Really* turning them loose on him. He needs hair anyway. Wigs don't give him any practice with hair care and it will be months before he has any of his own to play with. Let Sandy have her little hand restraints ready to go if she needs them and really attack his male self image."

"That could be very dangerous, Jane, if he really is as prone to violence as those records say he is."

"I know. That's why I said for Sandy could use the restraints on him. If we go, we'll start before normal working hours and I'll explain everything to Caro and Sandy first so that they can bow out if they feel they can't be involved with something like this. Besides, *nothing* we've seen so far shows anything like that kind of violent behavior."

"Caro and Sandy were both quite devastated over Michael's suicide attempt immediately after they had given him such a hard time that first visit. Besides, if he does lose it, you are going to have to free him eventually. Its not like we can keep him tied in that chair for the next five months." Marie reminded Jane who did not really need the warning. "I am not at all sure Caro will want to help with something like this. Sandy maybe, but I don't think Caro will like it very much."

"Lord, Marie, *I* don't like it very much, but I just can't quit trying - that's not fair to the boy or to me. Waiting a day before doing anything is *certain* to accomplish nothing. At least this has a chance, however minimal that chance may appear given what we have seen of Kenneth, of accomplishing something." Jane wound down and saw Marie's highly skeptical frown. "Look, I am going to call Caro and talk to her. If she says no as I suspect she very well might once she knows the situation, then I will wait until Ruth gets back before doing anything new with him. We can keep him busy doing the clothes/make up drill again, but we won't press him beyond that. How does that sound?"

"Like you had best take your canister of pepper spray in your purse if you take him to the Chalet tomorrow."

"Think I might need it, Marie?"

"I don't know and that is what bothers me. Anything is possible with his one, Jane. At least until we can begin to predict what he'll do next with any degree of success we need to be prepared."

Jane sat quietly for several moments, not saying anything more. Finally she stirred and reached for the phone. "Well, we won't know until we ask. As I recall, this is Caro's night to work late at the shop." she said as she began to type in a number."

"Jane, wait." Marie called. "Isn't there anything else we can do? Anyone we can call to at least partially confirm or refute that file?"

"The only people I know in that town are Ruth and Sheila. I have no other official contacts in that town that would be willing to discuss a juvenile's case with me over the phone. Calling the investigator is all of I can think of on that score. Now the question is whether we should go forward with the salon visit or should we wait until we have a definitive answer?"

Marie shrugged. "That's up to you and Caro, Jane. You two will be the ones on the hot seat if everything he's shown us to this point is an act. If it isn't an act and those records aren't true, what would be the danger of doing the salon trip?"

"If the records are false? After what we've already done to him today with those inch long fingernails and those ridiculously high heels? In that case, we will have put an innocent young man through our program, which a court of law might mistakenly call abusive. Oh well, I can't see that we'd be any more open to legal action than we already are. Being sued is being sued. If it comes to that, I can probably protect Caro and Sandy."

"They need to know the truth, Jane, and the possible dangers before they agree to take him on."

Nodding her agreement, Jane picked the phone back up and pecked out a number.

"Marisha Chalet, Carolyn Beale speaking. How may I help you?"

~--------------~

As was her habit, Jane knocked on Kendra's (*have to keep reminding myself to use that name now. It has never been this difficult to remember that before.*) room and walked in before being given leave to enter. She'd almost argued herself out of this evening exercise period since she was now planning a salon trip for the next day. Jane still wasn't sure that her planned session was all that good an idea. There was no reason to think it would work tonight any better than it had during their morning session. On the other hand, he, or rather *she* would be all the more susceptible to Sandy's caustic tongue and Caro's devastating compliments if he was already tired, edgy and irritable when he walked through the door.

She found her student lying sprawled on top of her bedspread, attired only in bra and panties, staring at the top of her bed's canopy. "Do you think that your attire is appropriate, Kendra?" Jane demanded sharply.

Kendra turned to face Jane as if realizing for the first time that she was no longer alone and slowly rose from the bed. Without a word, she walked over to the vanity and picked up the robe that hung neatly across the back of the elegant little chair and donned it. "I was not expecting visitors, Ms. Thompson, and I thought that I would have time to put on the robe before anyone who knocked would actually enter the room."

Jane had to admire the austerely polite, chilly tone the girl affected to let her obviously unwelcome visitor know she had invaded Kendra's privacy without permission. *Well, Sheila was the Mistress of the cutting set down. It's not too surprising that her child should also have developed the technique. Sad, since it means she has seen and perhaps been on the receiving end of her mother's ire, but not too surprising. I wonder if dealing with Sheila is at the heart of her unusual maturity and control? Still, I can't let her get away with that kind of behavior.*

"Be that as it may, Kendra, you are not some rough boy to lie about in your underwear. Underwear is only to be seen in transition in my home, that is, while taking off one outfit and putting on another. Otherwise, you will be appropriately covered at all other times. Do you understand?"

"I see." Kendra said. "I had thought I was in compliance with your direction to always wear the brassiere."

"Don't get snippy with me, young miss!" Jane snapped. "You *know* that my intentions are for you to live and behave as a proper young lady at *all* times. Lying about in your unmentionables is not proper, regardless of the circumstances. Making such fine distinctions that follow only the absolute letter of a law or direction while ignoring their intent is a large part of why you find yourself here under my tuition."

The unfairness of it all finally began to reach the girlishly dressed boy. "But I have done everything you told me to do." he flared back.

*At last* Jane thought. "NO. . . YOU . . . HAVE . . . NOT!!" she said in a loud, commanding voice. "You have only done those things that you were specifically ordered to do in blunt terms, but you have not done what you know I wanted done."

Shock at her tone flashed across the girl's make up-free face, followed by anger and then the return of that unbelievably mature control. "Then perhaps, Ms. Thompson," she replied in incredibly soft, demanding tones, "You could more clearly layout your wishes and directions, so that my poor male intelligence can grasp them."

Jane glared at her student for several long heartbeats, waiting for her to flinch away. *But you won't, will you?* she mused. *What is the matter with your face, Kendra? What am I seeing or not seeing?*

Shaking off the question, Jane returned to the attack. "I want you to become a sweet, biddable, courteous young woman. You've proven you cannot behave like a gentleman, so your only chance to avoid the delinquents' home is to comply with my wishes, young miss - not just the letter of them, but what you know to be their intent, as well. Your lack of the most basic courtesy, manners and deportment must be remedied or else; and I see the constraint of skirts, petticoats, lingerie and feminine behaviors and rituals to be the only path to that goal."

Jane saw a deep disgust pervade the girl-boy that not even Kenneth could control, and yet, she knew in some way beyond the norm, that it was not self-disgust. When he spoke, his voice cracked from the emotion he was trying almost successfully to repress. "You say, Ms. Thompson, that I have to become more courteous. . that my deportment needs improvement. Tell me, please," he asked with heavy sarcasm, "what I have failed to do properly since I have arrived. How have I been in any way impolite? To you, whom I have every reason to detest, or to your housekeeper. . . . . . " Kendra decided to take a chance, "or to your other skirted sissy-boy out there?"

Jane's momentary speechlessness gave Kendra the answer she had expected. "What. . .what ever. . .What other skirted sissy-boy?"

"Darla." Kendra said in flat conviction. "It is the only thing that makes any sense. You could not do what you are doing to me with a real girl in the house. Too complicated."

Jane's mind raced, trying to figure out some way to convince Kendra otherwise, but she couldn't. No other boy had ever figured out the truth about his big sister before Jane was ready for him to know it. She had no pre-existing plan for this contingency. "Believe what you will, Kendra, it makes no difference to your own situation. As to your behavior since your arrival here, it has been adequate - barely. You will improve in all areas of your new feminine existence - behavior, mannerisms and conversation, deportment, personal presentation in both fashion and in make up."

"You will comply with my standards, Kenneth." Jane added in a much quieter, almost conciliatory but no less commanding voice. "You will become what I make you. You will do it perfectly *and* you will enjoy doing it or you won't leave. Except to go to that home, and let me warn you, Kendra. If I decide you are beyond redemption in my program, when you leave here, you will leave here as you are right now. You will face all those young toughs with shaved legs, red fingernails and fine plucked and shaped brows. Think on that one for awhile."

For several long moments, the two antagonists stood there, staring at each other. Finally, Kendra spoke and in a hard, very male voice. "Then I will be here until I am 18 years old when you and my mother cannot keep me here any longer. Then god help you both *and* that judge friend of yours. Until then, I will do my best to be what you *intend* me to become."

Jane stared at the robed figure in front of her, and came to a decision. She had to keep pressing this one. She simply had to do something to reach the fragile, vulnerable spirit everything she'd learned in the past twenty years told her was hiding beneath the surface.

"Very well, if that is your plan, then we may as well get started. Go to your vanity, young miss. I want to see you reproduce the "afternoon high tea" make up job that Marie showed you today." Jane ordered as she went to the armoire and rummaged about its base. When she stood, Kenneth saw the three-inch open-toed heels in her hands, and groaned inwardly. "When you're finished, put these on and report to my study."

Jane stopped to watch her student's surprisingly deft movements with brush, pad and tube. He was starting to make up his eyes when Jane suddenly realized what she has seen wrong in his face earlier. Without making another comment, Jane slipped from his room and went to her study.

Sitting down at her desk, Jane considered the ramifications of what she'd just seen. Kendra's eyes had been red-rimmed, and the only thing that did that to a young person's eyes was a bout of tears. Lots of tears. Jane had not noticed that redness before was because this was the first time today that she'd seen the girl in anything less than full make up.

But when had she cried? She certainly hadn't cried in Jane's presence, and Marie would have remarked upon it if she had seen the girl in tears.

That meant that Kendra had been crying when Jane was not there to see it, that she *had* in fact reduced the girl to tears, and not just once or twice by the look of those eyes. One of her girl-boys crying was not unusual; in fact, it was one of the reactions Jane strove to evoke, particularly in these early days of a student's tuition with her. Crying meant that the boy had been forced to find some way, other than violence, to deal with his more negative emotions. That was one reason she tried to provoke her boys to near violence early in the program so that she could brutally put down that response, thus leaving her emotionally charged subjects with virtually no other release except tears.

Kendra had been crying - not in front of witnesses - but she had been crying. That *really* did not fit the profile. Kendra should have needed to be slapped down hard for attempting something physical in retaliation before she should have broken into tears. Perhaps she'd gone after Marie or Darla? No, that didn't make sense - either of them would have told Jane if she had.

That meant Kendra was dealing with her dark side nonviolently, that she had been doing so since the moment she'd stepped off the train, despite everything Jane had done in her attempt to provoke her to violence. Not only that, Jane knew from long experience that once a boy began to cry for her, he almost never responded with physical violence again.

*This is,* Jane told herself grimly, *just one more thing that flies in the face of everything in that damned file. Could someone, somehow have mixed up Kenneth's records with someone else?* That made no sense, either, especially since so many of those records had his name on them. Jane shook her head in frustration. She could either believe the evidence of her own eyes and conclude that sending him here had been a dreadful mistake; or she could believe the evidence of the records, and conclude that his behavior here had been an Oscar-winning performance.

*No* one is that good an actor, and how could he have known to cry as part of his "role"? Something was seriously wrong with this whole scenario and *none* of the people who could help her untangle things was available to her.

A rap on the door stopped her circular mind chase. "Enter." she called sternly, and then watched as Kendra minced into the room, still fighting the heels, but much improved since earlier that day. *I am going to press him harder* she decided. *I will keep on him until late and then wake him up early for tomorrow's day at the mall. A little sleep deprivation should help bring the *real* Kenneth Roberts just a little closer to the surface. Whoever that real person really is.*

Jane made a note to warn Caro and Sandy that Kendra would be very tired tomorrow, and to take special care when really pushing hard on her buttons.

"Get your dictionary, Kendra. Your performance this morning was unacceptably graceless. We will spend a few profitable hours helping you learn to move properly in your pretty heels."

*A few hours?!?* Kenneth thought appalled. *It's already after nine p.m., and she wants to practice for a few more hours? Oh, my feet will never recover.*

"Yes, Ms. Thompson." Kenneth replied dully as he made his slow, painful way over to the bookshelf.

~--------------~

It was after midnight when Jane had finally called a halt to what Kenneth had titled high heeled extreme powerwalking. He hoped he'd be able to walk - period - in the morning. *God* he prayed, *Please let me make it to my room with the door closed before I collapse. Just not in front of _her_!*

For her part, Jane knew that the boy was in severe discomfort, (*more likely she's in real pain, Jane Thompson, for all your high minded promises to the contrary*) and thoroughly exhausted but not once had he whined or complained. Jane certainly would have complained by this point in time.

Jane walked over to her charge and put a gentle hand on his cheek. He flinched but did not pull away. "I will win in the end, Kenneth. You will make your time with me so much easier on yourself if you just give me my way. Life here can be almost pleasant if you will just let yourself relax and try to enjoy the experience, but it can also be hell on earth. The choice is yours."

She waited for the boy to respond in some way, but he said nothing. He simply stood there, letting her touch him, but refusing to even look at her. Jane sighed wearily. "Very well. As you wish it. Go to your room, clean off your make up and go to bed. I need you to be up at 6:45 tomorrow morning so that Marie can prepare you for the day. We will be going into town to have you fitted with a semi-permanent hairpiece to replace what you destroyed. I expect you to be on your best behavior and to give me no cause to think I am the wrong person to help you. Now, go to bed. It will be a very tiring day for you. Good night, Kendra."

For a long moment, Jane wondered if he would refuse to do her the courtesy of returning her good wishes, but finally he stepped back breaking contact with her hand and looked up at her. "Good night, Ms. Thompson. I will see you in the morning then."

Jane watched her turn, and then slowly, deliberately make her way to the study door. For a moment, Jane thought to follow, but at the last minute did not. If the boy wanted to take those heels off in the hall, she would not be out there to stop him.

Kenneth/Kendra had performed magnificently for Jane tonight and Jane would not lessen that performance by looking for any more reason to berate the girl.

As she'd thought before she'd embarked on this night's exercises. Those records simply did not describe the young man Jane had in her home.

~------------~

 

Part 6

Jane normally ran errands or pampered herself with a salon treatment of her own while her girls were safely being terrorized by Carolyn and Sandra. This time she did neither, instead taking a seat in the waiting room as close as she could manage to where Sandy would be working her evil ways with Kendra. Self consciously, she felt in the pocket of her suit jacket for the pepper spray, praying all the while that she wouldn't need it.

From the start, Jane had done her best to treat this excursion the same as she had for all of her previous students' first trip to the Marisha Chalet. She'd "oo-ed" and "ah-ed" over Kendra's outfit, complimenting her profusely on her dainty good looks and had received a quiet, gracious "thank you" in each instance. When she'd warned him that as long as he behaved himself properly no one would see the boy for the lovely young girl his response had been a complete and utter lack of concern.

The biggest worry, besides the one that had caused her to bring the pepper spray, was that they were making this excursion much earlier in the program than was normally advisable. Kendra had not had the days of repetitious training that would change her gestures, mannerisms, even her gait, from masculine to those expected from and appropriate for a girl of her apparent age. Of course she'd made her usual threat to expose him loudly as a sissy who just loved wearing girl clothes if he failed to act properly while in the salon. Not that she could or would do that to him - it would destroy her whole program of instruction and would endanger everyone who had ever been her student or had helped her.

Not that it mattered in any case since her threat had apparently fallen on deaf ears. She might as well have threatened to take away his broccoli (when he didn't like broccoli) for all the response she elicited.

She'd been on guard for the least sign that Kendra was being "read", but that incredible composure of hers saw her through. True confidence shows, and for whatever reason, Kendra moved confidently, if somewhat gingerly on her sore feet and calves, through the early morning pedestrians as if walking out in public wearing a dress was something she'd done all her life.

WHY WASN'T THE GIRL TERRIFIED OF BEING DISCOVERED??!?

Sandra came over, spoke to Kendra and then led her into the closed in cubicle located in the rear of the shop that she preferred when dealing with a potentially obstreperous boy-girl. Once she had him in the chair, Sandy removed the wig and gawked. The nearly white stubble was less than a quarter inch long, and still did not show even a hint of his real black hair color. "Jesus, hon, what did you do to yourself?" she breathed.

A very tired grin lit Kendra's face. "I liked it better this way than I liked it after an unfortunate incident with some hair coloring."

Sandy took a few seconds to digest that, but regained her equilibrium quickly. She didn't care how "different" Jane thought this one was. He was just another overblown, adolescent male ego that needed a good puncturing, and Sandy was just the lady to do it.

"Well, Jane wants you to have hair, sweetie, so that you can learn to take care of it. Good little girls just *love* playing with their hair and we wouldn't want you to be deprived." Sandy told her as she rolled a working cart over beside Kendra. "This is similar to what that hair club does, hon, only they use a stronger bonding agent. Once I've woven this in, it'll be like your own hair until I use the solvent to dissolve the adhesive. Why, you'll be able to shampoo it, style it, get permanents - even go swimming in it although such a pretty little girly boy like you should wear a bathing cap. Won't that be fun, sissy?"

Kendra almost smiled at that, too tired for any more reaction. She could have predicted something like this. Naturally the women who ran this place were in on the scheme. They had to be because they were experts on women and their grooming. They'd spot a boy in girl's clothing right away.

Frustrated by the lack of reaction, Sandy got down to ear level. "You better start playing with me, fag-boy, or the whole shop is going to know I have a pretty little wimp-ass boy in my chair, all decked out in pretty skirts. And you'd better start smiling, too, because girls just love being at the beauty salon. Start loving it, femmy boy!"

The boy with the girl's face only looked up into Sandy's smirking eyes. Kendra saw the disdain that Sandy rarely bothered to hide from her young victims.

"I told you to smile, cutie, or else. Don't think I won't tell everybody within earshot that I have a sweet, little femmy boy here getting his hair nice and curled up."

"Kendra!" Jane's voice sounded from just outside the cubicle. "Remember our agreement, Miss. This is part of what you've agreed to do, so do it well if you don't wish to face the alternative."

*She wants a smile?* Kendra thought darkly, *I'll show her a smile*

The smile Sandy got from the boy in her chair might have been seen on a hungry shark just before it took that first bite. Her own smile faltered just a little, but only a little.

"I'm glad you learn quickly, hon, but I think we will have to work on that smile." Sandy chucked Kendra under the chin as if she were a little child. "Now cutie, you just act as sweet as you look, and maybe you and I won't have any problems," she teased.

The weaving of the hair piece was time consuming and just painful enough to keep her awake in the salon chair. Since Kendra had no hair of her own to speak of, Sandy had to glue anchors to her scalp. As the amount of hair in the weave increased, the harder it was to add yet more which meant Sandy had to pull harder. Once, she pulled hard enough to wring a pained squeak out of Kendra.

Jane's senses went on full alert since this was the first time the girl had actually been hurt since coming to Jane's home. Would she try to retaliate, give pain for pain? It would not be an unexpected reaction given what she had been told the boy was capable of doing.

"Could you take it just a little easier, please." Kendra asked softly. "It feels like you almost tore my scalp the last time."

"Stop whining, sweet-thing." Sandy said jovially, "I am almost done with this part." But she did try to be a little gentler as she finished with the last sheaf of hair.

Kendra attempted to relax while Sandy moved that cart away and moved another into it's place. Then Sandra asked Caroline over to Kendra's chair. She joined them shortly with a large magazine, like a catalogue. Caroline leaned over the motionless boy and spread the book out on his lap prepared to follow through with a time proven double team. "Here, Kenneth....", she said in a low voice, which she immediately corrected with a gleam in her eye, "I mean *Kendra*. We need you to tell us which style you'd like for your permanent."

Kenneth stared at the magazine, trying to focus his bleary eyes on the pictures. Was he was really expected to make this choice on his own? Why wasn't the Thompson woman over here making her wishes known? This was her scene, not his. Fixing the hungry shark smile back on his face, Kenneth stared back up at the two women. "I am sure Ms. Thompson has something in mind for me, ma'am." he replied softly to Carolyn. "She was the one who told me I needed my hair done to her standards."

Actually, Jane hadn't said anything specifically about this outing. However, just last night she had said he would be doing things her way for as long as he stayed with her so it wasn't actually a lie, either. Expectantly, he waited for one of the women to leave the cubicle and ask Jane for her desires on the matter.

But they didn't. Instead, Carolyn bent down to eye level with Kendra, grasped her face in both hands and turned her head from side to side as if carefully checking the shape of her head and the lay of her hair. What she was really doing was getting into Kendra's face, whispering, "This is fun for girls, Kendra. Girls always want to choose their own hair style and they never defer to an older woman unless they are forced to do so. You'd better start acting like a girl or I won't even have to announce the fact that we have a boy back here hiding in skirts. They will know it because you *aren't* playing the game."

Sandy chimed in, a little too loudly for Jane's taste although no one else seemed to hear her. "I know you have a girl hiding inside you, Kendra-dear", she added, her voice now full of teasing enthusiasm, "She had better start enjoying her trip to the beauty parlor."

Kenneth shook his face free of Carolyn's grip and considered his options and capitulated. He was too tired to fight them, and besides, nothing they did to him here would really matter in the long run, anyway. With a casual lack of concern that surprised both women, he opened the glossy photo-book to a random page, and without hesitation, positively gushed, "*This* one - definitely. It even leaves most of my hair in place in case we decide later it doesn't work for me. I think it is perfect, don't you?"

Caroline grinned wickedly for effect at the boy in Sandy's chair. She knew his choice was made unwillingly, but no one else, especially those not in on Jane's secret, would ever have taken his response as anything out of the ordinary for a young girl at the beauty shop. At least this one had the wit to hold up his fair share of the masquerade. She also noted that he was correct in his assessment of the permanent. The shoulder length style would soften his strong facial features, while the blonde curls would frame his olive complexion and grey eyes.

"Excellent." Carolyn said as she closed the book, and turned to walk away. Looking over her shoulder at him, she loudly added, "I'm sure everyone here will want to see how it turns out!"

Things seemed to be progressing quite well, Caro mused as she headed out of the cubicle, and yet, Jane had told her to be careful with this one. Moreover, Jane was hovering like a mother hen with a sick chick when she usually had nothing to do with the boys once she'd turned them over to Sandra and her.

More concerned now, Carolyn stopped to take one last look at the boy in the chair before returning to her own client. What she saw made her cringe inwardly. Every boy in her experience had been rigid with dread at this point in the process, once they'd sentenced themselves to one of the overdone, hideously girly styles from that permanent catalogue (there weren't any other kind in that book which was why only Caro's 'Jane customers' would ever be caught dead in any of them). This one looked perfectly relaxed - actually more than relaxed. He looked like he was about to take a nap in Sandy's chair while she worked on him.

Grimly, she gestured to Sandy, her face showing her unease. Sandy's answer was a slight shrug followed by pointing to the hidden velcro restraints secreted on that particular chair. Carolyn nodded and left to find Jane.

Sandra then began her work. In the mirror, Kendra idly followed the process with some interest. Clearly, the woman was highly skilled at her craft. Meticulous, too, if he was any judge, and very efficient. In short order, she had most of his new hair wrapped up into a variety of different sized rollers and then soaked with the foul smelling liquid.

He was sitting in the chair, half dozing, when she softly spoke again. "You're not smiling again, sissyboy. I told you to keep smiling. Piss me off and you really won't like the consequences. Got that, Cutie-Kendra?"

Kendra's smile looked completely unforced, as if she knew a secret that no one else did. Sandy frowned, but still she relentlessly continued. "Its really too bad you messed up your real hair. This stuff is okay, but you'll be amazed at what I can do with hair like that picture of you Jane showed me. I have this great new hair color treatment that can make even the darkest hair in a lovely strawberry blonde. You'll just love it. Best of all, it won't wash out. Only way to get rid of it is to cut off all your hair."

Surprisingly, that earned the startled stylist a giggle from her current subject. "Nothing new, ma'am." Kendra said lightly. "Been there, done that."

Sandra could only shake her head and concentrate on getting the curling done quickly.

Kendra had often sat in a hair stylists chair and listened to the idle banter they made. His mother had always dragged him along when she went for her beauty treatments. This was different. They were doing this to him and trying to force him to go along with the gag.

Sandy finished setting his hair and set a small electronic timer before going to work on his nails. Kendra was just about ready to get the hell out of this place. The sarcastic, nasty little comments were starting to annoy him, as were Sandy's repeated threats to expose him to the other clients as a boy dressed in girl's clothes. More because she kept waking him up than for any other reason.

As the minutes dragged, his mind kept slipping back to those constant threats of Sandra's. There was something wrong about that. . .something that did not quite ring true, but his sleep fogged mind could not quite work it out.

Why did she keep harping on it? Perhaps because the threat was all she had and she needed him to fear it? A quick look over his shoulder revealed a fairly full house now that the shop had opened for regular business. He considered for a moment what would happen to this small town business if what Jane and her friends were doing became generally known. They'd become infamous, that's what.

How would that affect their business? Probably poorly. If this place were in a big city and the story hit of how they did this crap to young guys, why, they'd probably overrun with guys who wanted that type of help. But here? In Smallville USA in the heart of Puritan New England? Kendra would lay down long odds that they'd be out of work in a week's time.

Sandra moved over to work on his other hand when Caro came in with a make up kit and started testing color combinations on him and making small notes in a small green book. The two women made a good effort to keep zinging him, commenting about his swishiness, the impossibility that anyone could ever have seen him as being masculine and so forth.

*When in doubt, smile. The bad guys or girls won't know what you're thinking and it'll confuse the hell out of them,* the crossdressed boy thought. Kendra's smile grew wider and brighter with each barb and slur. About half way through the exercise, Caro's grin left her face and she grew very quiet. Finally, she finished her spot checking and hurried back to finish her own customer's procedures.

Kendra wondered how Darla was doing. He couldn't see her, or as he was now positive, see him because of the wall panels surrounding this station.

The bell sounded on the small clock and Sandy moved back to work at his hair. She washed his fake hair as she removed each roller before hand drying the sodden mass. Finally, with a look of triumph on her face, Sandy spun the chair back around so that Kendra could see the full impact of Sandra's art.

Neither of them spoke for several heartbeats. Sandy, because she wanted Kendra to say something she could twist against him. Kendra, because she was watching Sandy. In very short order, Sandy couldn't stand it any longer and was about to order him to say something. It was then that Kendra struck back.

"Hmmmm, Yasss. Nice. . . not quite a perfect match to the catalogue, but then, I suspect *that* model's hair was done by the best in the business. One should take such things into account when evaluating the performance of . . .other technicians." Kendra was doing his level best to mimic his Mother's "lady of the manor to the serf" voice and by the look of Sandy's face, he wasn't doing badly. "Yasss. .. quite adequate. You may tell Jane that we are pleased and that we have said that you deserve a tip for your efforts. I take it I am now to go to Caro's chair?"

Sandy was so shocked she couldn't speak and instead just nodded her head in dumbfounded amazement. Kendra stood, gave Sandy an imperious nod of her head, and sauntered off in the direction of the main salon.

Kendra saw Caro in deep conversation with Jane and wondered what that was all about. He approached them, still wearing the cape Sandy had put on him when she'd started messing with his 'hair'.

". . . and that's final, Jane. I'll finish the appointment, but I am not doing the rest of it. Not this time. Not with this one."

At that point, Jane saw her protege and her eyes went wide. Caro turned and saw who was standing there and flushed bright red. Then she pointed in the direction of one of the chairs and ordered Kendra over to it.

Jane watched in confused fascination as Caro worked her cosmetic magic on Kendra. The new hairdo was extremely attractive on the boy. . .unusual for a first permanent for one of her girls, but then, most of them did not have enough hair for that kind of style. An almost hysterical giggle nearly slipped past her stern schoolmistressly reserve as she realized that the only reason Kendra had enough hair was because she essentially had no hair.

The conversation that Kendra had nearly overheard was yet one more setback in this student's program. Carolyn had flatly refused to use him as the model in her Wednesday afternoon cosmetics class for local teenaged girls.

"I just can't risk it, Jane. You yourself warned me that he has a history of problems with girls, and while we've done this with bad actors in the past, we've already had those guys utterly broken down into submission. This one is not at all broken. I won't have him around the girls until you have him in hand better than he is now."

Jane had not been able to give a counter argument and had finally given in to the inevitable. From her seat in the waiting room, she saw that same dispassionately interested look on Kendra's fine features. As if this were all some research project where she and her friends were the experimental subjects and Kendra was the principal investigator.

As she sat there, Darla joined her after having finished her own ministrations. "How's it going?" she whispered into Jane's ear.

"It's not, dear. Not at all. She's just taken every trick in Caro's and Sandy's repertoire in stride. I wonder if there is any purpose at this point to going over to MiLady's Closet."

"I don't know, Aunt Jane. Miss Franson is pretty frightening in her own right, but in all honesty, Sandy is your big gun. If she hasn't reached him . . ."

Jane nodded, her own fatigue weighing heavily on her shoulders. "Then I guess we will just go home as soon as Caro finishes with her." She shook her head. "I had hopes when I realized that she had not been quite so indifferent to my lessons as I had first believed. Her crying seemed very encouraging, but so far today, I haven't seen any of that surrender in her. So far I have failed with this one, Darla, and lord help me, I just don't know what else we can do to reach her."

Darla reached over to rest a comforting hand on Jane's own tightly clenched fists, and waited for this morning to end.

Caro was rushing to finish her work on Kendra, having at least two reasons to finish making Jane's new student up as quickly as possible. The most pressing reason was that her cosmetics class was due at the Chalet any minute. Caro had planned to use Kendra as demonstration model and so she had scheduled the start of the meeting to overlap the end of Kendra's appointment. Caro did not need a dozen unsupervised teenaged girls bouncing around the shop when she had to keep her full attention on finishing Kendra.

Her other reason was the root cause of the first problem. She did not want Kendra interacting with that group in any way when she wasn't sure how the girl would react to them.

She finished up and gave her work a critical assessment. Not bad, Caro thought. Not her best by any stretch of the imagination, but not bad. Certainly better than when she came in the door. "Okay, Kendra. You're done for this time. Be a good girl for Jane and no one will have to know who you really are under those lovely curls and sweet dress."

Carolyn had made that last crack almost out of habit, but she very quickly realized that the boy-girl was once again not reacting as she expected.

Finally fed up with these stupid games, Kendra decided it was time to turn the tables on the proprietors of Marisha Chalet. She recalled watching one of the young girls at her Mother's salon who'd been particularly pleased with the results of her appointment. Smiling broadly, Kendra went up on tiptoe and planted a very dainty kiss on the older woman's cheek before pulling her into a hug.

"You and I both know you can't unmask me, Carolyn." Kendra whispered into Carolyn's ear as she held the hug. "Your business would never survive in this burg if your little sideline came out to these fine upstanding people. How about we call a truce? I don't unmask *you* and you and Sandy cut out the Don Rickles routine when you have me in your salon chair. Okay?"

Then she went back down off her toes, waved to a frowning Sandra and walked over to where Jane and Darla waited. Five minutes later the trio was back in Jane's car, heading toward the big house.

~-----------~

Since Jane had tentatively planned on spending the afternoon at Milady's Closet, there was very little to do once they'd gotten back home. Which was just as well, Jane admitted to herself, because she was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Yet another phone call to Sheila had gotten her damnable answering machine. Jane had told the woman that she had to be available to Jane during these critical first days and she had promised Jane that she would be. Well, that last one had been Jane's fourth call in the last eighteen hours and still no return call.

Marie slipped into Jane's office with a steaming tea pot and a bottle of cordial. "Sorry about lunch, Jane." she offered as she poured the tea and the cordial and set both on her friend's desk.

"I should have called. I knew an hour before we left the Chalet that I wasn't going to go dress shopping. There just wasn't any point in it. Kendra, or rather Kenneth for that is who we are still dealing with, wouldn't have gotten anything out of the shopping trip. He'd just have tried on the clothes as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that damnable composure wrapped around him like armor, not bothered by it at all."

Marie took a healthy sip of her own drink. "At least he didn't lose his temper and try to hurt anyone - even if he did threaten Caro's business."

"He did WHAT??!?" Jane yelled coming out of her chair in dismay.

Frowning, Marie sighed. "Caro called just before you arrived home. Evidently Kendra decided that it would do the Chalet far more harm if they exposed him than it would to him. He told her he'd keep their little secret if they'd lay off their comments and teasing when he was in there in the future."

Jane slowly, almost painfully sank down into her chair. "If there is a future for him here. Sad to say, he's right about Caro and Sandy as you and I have discussed before. Do you know that's his second leap of insight since his arrival? Last night he told me that he figured that Darla was probably also a crossdressed male which severely limits her usefulness in the future. Now, he's effectively declawed Caro, Sandy and Betty Franson."

"What do you mean by "if there is a future"?" Marie asked softly. "It's not as if he is resisting you or defying you."

"I almost wish he was fighting me. I know how to deal with the ones who fight me tooth and nail. I don't know how to deal with what little reaction this one gives me. Marie?" And Jane turned haunted eyes at her best friend, "I am beginning to think that there is nothing I can do for this one."

"So what now?"

"Nothing for now. At least until I can talk with Judge Ruth and decide what the best course of action which probably means that we ship him back home."

"Isn't it a little early for that? I mean, he hasn't done anything bad."

A sad smile flickered in Jane's tired eyes. "He hasn't done anything we expected him to do, either. Not once since he arrived. Oh, I know I told you that I believe he's been crying in what privacy he can manage, but that's based on his eyes being red. For all I know, he may be slightly allergic to something - perhaps eye make up. The fact remains that he has not truly broken down under any of my lessons. Since the very first day, he has consistently blunted most of the impact of each of my thrusts."

"I still don't like giving up on him, Jane. Not this early."

"You know as well as I that the first forty eight hours under feminine control are the most critical hours in the program." Jane continued, "It's somewhat like setting the explosive charges that make one of those old buildings collapse in on itself so that something new and stronger can be built in its place. Well, this morning, I just twisted the plunger on the detonator and instead of a boom, I got a barely audible pop. I am not omnipotent, Marie. I have always known there were boys I could not help. Kenneth appears that he may be one of those boys."

"If that's true, I think it is very sad." Marie said as she refilled their glasses.

Jane could only agree.

~--------------~

 

Part 7

Darla and Kendra were walking outside, both of them having changed into more casual clothes. Darla had suggested the walk, primarily because she wanted to find out what was going on inside her "little sister's" head. She had hopes that if she could get Kendra to talk, the resulting information might help Aunt Jane help this guy.

"You've really surprised Aunt Jane, you know." Darla said as the rounded the house and headed off into the large back lawn.

"Really?" was Kendra's noncommittal answer.

"Really. I mean, nothing seems to get to you. Take today. You just walked from the car to the salon, bold as anything, as if nothing mattered."

"Nothing of that did matter," the other girl-boy answered with an unconcerned shrug.

Amazed, Darla could only gape at her companion. "But, you could have been exposed as a boy. People would have laughed at you, called you a sissy. Doesn't that matter??"

Kendra laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. "The people here, laughing or otherwise, would not have mattered to me. Listen Darla, regardless of what your aunt does to me, whether she keeps me or sends me off to that bargain basement Boys Town, in less than three years it all ends and I get the money my father left me. Then I tell your aunt, that judge friend of hers and my damned mother to go straight to hell so that I can get on with my life. If I have to, I can stand on my head for that long if that is what it takes to get out from under those damned women."

Darla let the last comment pass. "But how can you just go out there, dressed like a girl and have it not matter to you?" She had to get this guy to say something that Jane could use.

A sly look came across the beautifully made up face. "How do *you* do it, Darla?" Kendra asked very softly.

"M. . . m . . .ME?!? What can you possibly mean by that?" Darla sputtered in surprise at the unexpected attack.

"Oh, I bet if I tossed your skirts up and had a close look under your pretty panties, I am sure that I would find you are definitely an "outie" and not an "innie", and I am not talking about navels, either."

As Jane had the night before, Darla tried to come up with some way to protect his disguise, but he lacked Jane's experience and her self-possession to carry it off. "How did you guess?" he finally asked, depressed.

"I just figured that if you were a real girl, you'd be in real danger from a guy like those records say I supposedly am. One thing I have figured out about our Ms. Thompson - she is not a lady to take too many unnecessary or dangerous chances. She's a control freak and she makes sure she is well in control of the situation before she puts anyone else into it."

Darla gave a very unladylike snort. "That's Aunt Jane," he said affectionately. "Right down to her always perfectly shined designer shoes."

The pair continued their walk, a companionable silence growing between them. As they made the final turn along the path back towards the house, Darla thought of another question. "Why do you refuse to acknowledge what you did to get sent here? I mean, it's not as we don't have the goods on you in that file."

Anger flashed in grey eyes and Darla instinctively took a step back. "Because everything in that damned file is a dirty rotten lie, made up by my mother because I refused to play along with her damnable schemes."

"But Judge Ruth concurred . . . she set it up so you could come here. . .the records. . .?"

Kendra came to a dead stop in the lush green back lawn. "Listen, blondie, listen *really* good. Everything in that damned file, with the exception of my name, my social security number and my birth date are out and out lies. As for the esteemed Judge Ruth, she is just like my mother, a goddamned no good liar. I believe that your aunt honestly believes that pack of lies because she trusts that Judge. Which makes Judge Ruth *much* worse than your Aunt, even worse than my damned mother, because she abuses her office and the trust of the people she is supposed to protect as an officer of the court."

Darryl, and it was *definitely* Darryl, saw red. "You can't say that about Judge Ruth." He growled. "Not in my presence and get away with it."

"Why not? It's true. Everything in that record, including the so-called court documents are fakes and lies. So, she has falsified government records on top of everything else. Trust me on this one, Blondie. The first thing I do when I get my freedom in three years is to cut my bitch of a mother off from the income off the principal of my inheritance. The second thing I am going to do is take that damn judge down and drag her through the mud. What is in that file is sufficient to get her sorry ass impeached and convicted. And once she is not Judge Ruth, but rather Citizen Ruth? I will sue her until she has to live another lifetime just to pay off the interest on the debt. I will destroy her career, her reputation and her financial security. And God help your Aunt if I find out she was a knowing conspirator in all of this because then I will go after her next. If that means my little sojourn in skirts becomes public knowledge, so be it. I'll be wealthy enough to ride through that storm, but Ms. Jane Thompson's little torture chamber gets shutdown forever."

Fourteen years of living on the streets and running with gangs snapped to the fore as Darryl's temper burst forth like an erupting volcano. Without any warning, the enraged teen was on the other boy, trying to beat his brains in. "God damn you, bitch. You're going to leave Jane and Ruth alone!" Every syllable was punctuated by a punch or a kick, or even a couple of bites. "They helped me, *saved* me, you sorry bastard, when no one else would or could. I'd be in the state prison right now if not for them."

Caught unaware by the suddenness and the savagery of Darla's attack, Kendra was momentarily unable to defend herself, but years of training with her father kicked in. She parried several blows and kicks until she got into the position she wanted and then neatly hip-tossed Darla to the ground. Darla landed hard on her chest, knocking the wind out of her. Kendra did not give her a chance to recover and was on her immediately, tying up the other girl-boy's arms and legs with his own.

"Calm down, Darla. I've got leverage on you. You're only going to hurt yourself." Her voice was soft, but Darla continued to struggle and to curse at Kendra until she eventually began to tire. "Now, I will say this once more since I have no reason to lie to you. The records are false. I didn't do any of that stuff."

Darla started to draw breath to respond but never got the chance.

"What is the meaning of this?" a coldly angry voice demanded.

*oh shit* Kendra thought bleakly. The jig was up. Maybe they'd let him have his own things back before they sent him off to Boys Town's Basement.

"I *asked* a question, ladies, I *expect* an answer."

"Just a friendly little debate, Ms. Thompson, that got a little too heated for Darla here. Everything is fine now." Kendra answered.

"Oh, is. . . it. . . really? Kendra, I want you in your room, NOW! Marie will lock you in until we decide what to do with you. If you are not in there when I come for you, I will call the police, have them pick you up and put you on the next plane home. AS . . . YOU . . . ARE! Now get out of my sight."

Kendra momentarily thought about arguing with her. After all, all he'd been doing was defending himself. And he hadn't even tried to hurt the guy. But then again, why should he expect to be given a fair shake in this place? Very deliberately, he released his grip on the no longer struggling Darla, stood slowly and headed off into the house with Marie following close behind.

"Are you all right, dear?" Jane asked as she helped her ward to his feet before pulling him into a hard hug. "I am very sorry you got hurt. I should never have relaxed my guard. I *knew* he had a history of violence, but he hasn't shown it here and now you are the one to suffer." Jane's eyes and voice both went hard and dark. "That's it. He's through. He is out of here as soon as I can arrange it with Judge Ruth in the morning."

"No . . .Jane. . ." Darla was still trying to get her breath back as Jane slowly walked her back to the house. "Not his fault. . .at least, not directly. I jumped him first. Lost my temper when he started telling me what he'd do to you and Ruth after he reached eighteen."

"He threatened us with violence?" Jane asked quietly, fear clutching at her guts.

Darla shook her head. "No. No violence. He still claims those records are fakes, forgeries of government documents and he says he is going to come after you by revealing what you do to the world. Judge Ruth he wants impeached for falsifying those legal records and then he will sue her into the poor house."

"I see. Well that explains how the fight got started, but I still will not tolerate him hurting you."

Darla winced and then knew she had to tell the truth. "He didn't try to hurt me, Aunt Jane. He just tossed me to the ground and then held me there until I exhausted myself. He never threw a single punch."

"That's it?" Jane was dumbfounded.

Nodding her head, Darla managed a weak smile. "All he did was try to control me so I did not hurt him. That and say that he was not guilty one more time. That is what he was doing when you came on the scene."

Once inside the house, Jane headed for the peace and isolation of her office with Darla trailing behind her. *None of this makes any sense at all*, Jane thought yet one more time. Darla had attacked first. Kendra had been given a free shot, so to speak, and her new student hadn't taken it.

"Aunt Jane?" Darla's voice broke into Jane's thoughts. She looked at her ward, standing in the doorway to Jane's office, grinning sheepishly. "I . . . ah. . . think I am really starting to believe Kendra, Jane. . . at least part-ways. I know I said this before, but something is definitely wrong here. I don't know what it is, but most everything that's happened since Kenneth arrived just does not jive with the person we were told to expect."

*It is just all too much,* Jane fumed to herself. "I will agree about nothing making sense, dear. Look, I need to think. Why don't you go see if Marie needs some help with the evening meal? Please close the door on your way out. Thank you, Darla."

~-----------~

Much later that evening, Jane sat alone in her front parlor, watching a fire dance and flash in the old Victorian hearth. The night was a little warm for a fire, but Jane found the chaotic movement of the brightly colored flames relaxing. Besides, what was the point of being wealthy if you couldn't crank up the air conditioning when circumstances warranted?

None of this made sense she told herself yet one more time since Darla's revelations of the afternoon. Who *was* Kenneth Roberts? How could he be both the person in that record and the one she'd been living with for the past three days?

An egotist without any apparent ego? A violent young man who fights not to harm his attacker, but rather, only to protect himself and then contain his opponent? An overly macho boy who releases emotion through tears in the privacy of his room? A resentful young man who plots retribution, not revenge, and who thinks not in terms of violent acts, but in terms of justice? A hothead who thinks calmly and rationally enough under stress to deduce some of Jane's most closely guarded secrets in less that three days?

And until the fight this afternoon, Kenneth had not displayed a single one of the dangerously antisocial, ill mannered or boorish behaviors so painstakingly and lavishly documented in those records. Jane could almost believe that the records *were* fakes. Darla said she was certainly beginning to believe that. If you accepted that premise, everything else that had happened in the past three days made sense. . .somewhat anyway.

But that meant that Judge Ruth, one of the few people that Jane Thompson believed without question had betrayed not only Jane's trust, but that of her constituency as well.

None of it made any sense at all. Still, she had the evidence of her own eyes when it came to Kendra. Particularly after the incident with Darla, Jane was ready to believe that Kenneth was *not* aggressively violent and that his courtliness and polite behavior were *not* an act.

Ruth was due back tomorrow, Jane mused. Tomorrow, she'd get to the bottom of this, once and for all.

~------------~

Kendra sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. There had been no sleep the previous night. Odd how *Kenneth* had begun thinking of himself as Kendra at least part of the time so quickly. A great deal of that was probably the clothes. Kenneth's boy clothes were still not in evidence, so Kendra had slipped on one of the long, granny-gown nighties Jane had provided.

A grim smile crossed the lightly made up lips. She was also wearing the bra, panties and light cosmetics that Jane had ordered her to wear at all times unless given specific directions to the contrary. That was probably pretty pointless since there was no doubt in her mind that her hours at Jane's house were rapidly coming to an end. It was pointless except that Kenneth *had* given Jane his word to be Kendra, and a bra was a big part of how Jane defined Kendra.

*Probably ought to stash some cold cream and nail polish remover in my purse just in case Jane does carry out her little threat, although where I'll get boy clothes I have no idea.*

The turning of the deadbolt drew his attention to the door. *Probably Marie with breakfast.*

A very stern, tight-lipped Marie had brought Kendra's dinner the evening before. She'd walked in, set the tray on the vanity and had walked right back out - without so much as a word or a second look. At least the meal had been as good as every other meal here had been. He'd half-expected to be put on bread and water - or worse.

Maybe it had been Marie's idea of the condemned man's last meal.

The door swung open to admit a very disheveled Jane Thompson. Kendra couldn't help himself. . .he stared at the older woman carrying a cloth napkin-covered tray into his room. She looked positively unkempt. This was the first time in his admittedly short residence, but he'd never before seen her without some makeup or with her hair uncombed.

Jane settled the tray down and took off the napkin. Kendra was surprised to see two cups, two juice glasses and two covered plates. Jane busied herself setting out the food and then pulled the chair she and Marie used during their "lessons" on grooming and makeup. "Come, Kenneth." she said quietly. "Eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

"Kenneth, Ms. Thompson?" he asked carefully. "I thought I was only to answer to Kendra while I am under your tuition?"

Jane watched the femininely attired figure carefully sit on the vanity's stool and take the napkin she offered. She took a fortifying sip of Marie's dark, rich coffee before turning her attention to her student. "And so I did. However, one way or another, Kenneth, you will most likely cease being my student by noon today."

Kenneth reached behind his back and unfastened the bra that was digging into his back. He slipped the straps over his shoulders through the sleeves of his gown before pulling it out and flipping it towards the hamper. "I guess in that case I no longer need to wear that thing."

"No, I guess you don't." Jane agreed as she buttered a warm croissant.

"You said one way or another, Ms. Thompson. I thought there was only one way out of this for me. You and your friend the Judge, what's-her-name, are going to send me off to that delinquent boys' home?"

"Eat your breakfast, Kenneth, and I will tell you what I have decided to do. I spent the whole night reviewing everything I was told about you and everything I have observed about you."

"And you concluded?"

"You are either the most accomplished actor I have ever met or a very serious mistake was made in sending you to me. If the former is true, then you are even worse than that record says, and there is nothing I can do to help you. You just don't respond to my treatments in a way I can predict or deal with effectively. If that is the case, then yes, I will send you to the boys' home. Today, in fact, on the four o'clock flight out of Providence."

"You said there was another possible answer - that a serious mistake had been made. If that is your final conclusion, what happens then?"

"I won't know that until I know how the mistake was made. Until I do and can decide what is best for you, you will live with me as Kenneth. Marie will be up after breakfast with your bags and other male things."

"How are you going to find out what the truth is?"

"I have two lines of investigation planned. I've called an investigator friend. . . a former student of mine, in fact. He is heading to your hometown even as we speak. He will talk to the police and to your teachers directly, while I carry out my own investigations over the phone. If that file is a fake, then someone I trust has lied to me and might very well continue lying to me about this. In that event, then my investigator will surely find contradictory evidence to that effect. He may even be able to identify the person responsible for that "mistake"."

Kenneth sat, quietly eating, waiting for Jane to continue. "Judge Ruth is scheduled to be in her office by nine a.m. her time, ten a.m. our time. We are going to call her and ask her to explain what is happening."

"*We* are?" Kenneth asked in surprise.

"We are." Jane confirmed. "You will be there in my office when I call her. We'll all hear what she has to say in response to my questions over my speaker phone."

"Why would you let me out of here if you don't know if I am that person in those files yet or not? Why not just keep me safely locked away in this bedroom until you do know?"

Jane dabbed her mouth with her napkin and pushed away her still-untouched breakfast. "Because you did not hurt Darryl when you had the chance and the excuse of self defense."

"Darryl? Oh! Is that Darla's real name?"

"Yes it is. He is my ward and former student. You twigged to that disguise quickly enough. Anyway, you obviously have some martial arts training and you could have hurt him badly when he tried to attack you. You didn't do that. Every instinct tells me you don't belong here because you don't *need* the type of therapy I provide. So I am going to let you face your accuser, so to speak."

"Darla, I mean Darryl is all right? I tried not to take him down too hard, but it's hard to judge such things."

"She and he are fine, Kenneth. Now," Jane sat up and became the steely-eyed woman of power he'd seen so many times since his arrival. "Do you have any idea why you were sent here in the first place?"

Momentarily nonplused by the question, Kenneth only stared at Jane for several long moments. "You want to know that? You mean, you are actually willing to listen to me?"

The incredulity in the boy's voice stabbed at Jane. "Yes, Kenneth." she said steadily. "I definitely want to here what you have to say about what is going on here."

Jane watched as emotions flashed across the boy's face as he considered what to do next, and then, finally, Kenneth slowly nodded and began to speak.

~-----------~

"This is Judge Ruth, may I help you?"

"Ruth, it's Jane. . .Jane Thompson." Jane said in the loud tones people tend to use when using a speakerphone.

"Jane!" the tinny voice grew several degrees warmer. "How are you, my dear? And to what do I owe the pleasure of you calling me so early this fine rainy day?"

Jane chuckled. "Well, it is bright and sunny here, Ruth. As to why I called, well, I am having a great deal of difficulty correlating the behavior the young man you sent to me with the records you sent me. If he is really as bad as your file says he is, my experiences with him lead me to believe that he is beyond my help and we will need to vacate his sentence to the boys' home."

The phone line went completely silent for several seconds before, "Jane, I haven't had my second cup of morning coffee yet, and I can't handle strange humor in this condition. Just what the hell are you talking about?"

Jane shot a look to Marie and Darryl before fixing her gaze on the now boyishly attired Kenneth. "Why, I am talking about Kenneth Roberts. You know, Sheila's boy - you remember our sorority sister Sheila Martini, now Sheila Roberts?"

Again, silence answered Jane's question. "Jane." the Judge said with an air of great control. "I have not sent you any boy since Darryl. Yes, I remember Sheila, but I have not talked to her since our last college reunion two years ago."

"Damn." Jane said under her breath. "Ruth? I have a problem and I am going to need your help. I have been had, and the person who did this to me and to Kenneth did it using your bone fides. More than that, she provided me with a file of records to document his problems and bad behavior. Some of the most damning of those records are printed on your letterhead."

"WHAT!?!?" hot anger rolled through the phone lines. "You are telling me someone conspired to put this boy under your program and used *my* office to do it?"

"That's what it looks like, Ruth."

"Fax me the pertinent documents, Jane. Use my private fax line, not the office one. I have got two hearings scheduled for this morning, but I will be free this afternoon. I will look into it myself and get back to you."

"Thank you, Ruth."

"I hope you have that young man out of skirts, Jane. As an officer of the court, I hereby inform you that boy. .. what's his first name again, Jane?"

"Kenneth, Ruth. Kenneth Roberts."

"Yes. All right. I hereby inform you that Kenneth Roberts is not under any court directed program originating in this office and that you have no legal authority originating from this office to discipline him. Do you need that in writing, Jane?"

"Understood, Ruth, but I have already taken him out of the program. He's sitting here right now, Ruth, listening in on my speaker phone while exquisitely turned in a ragged Chicago Bears t-shirt, a pair of threadbare bluejeans and as decrepit a pair of running shoes as I have ever seen in my life. The pinnacle of male teenage haute couture as I'm sure you'll agree. And no, I bloody well *don't* need it in writing, your Honor."

A warm chuckle rippled from the speaker box. "All right, Jane. Obviously, you've had time to figure out something wasn't right and stopped what you were doing."

*not nearly soon enough* Jane told herself, *I knew something wasn't right before I took him to Caro and Sandy, but didn't believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears.*

"Since you've had time to figure out something wasn't kosher, have you come up with any idea of just what the hell is going on here and more importantly *why*??"

Jane sighed. "Yes, I think we do. Let me give you the quick version of it and you can get the long version after you've finished your hearings."

~-------------~

 

Part 8

Jane and Marie sat in side-by-side lounge chairs watching the two boys frolic in the swimming pool. It seemed so strange she reflected as she sipped Marie's tart lemonade, to see someone in a boy's swimsuit cavorting in her pool, let alone *two* such someones.

"So, Sheila's behind this?" Marie asked softly.

"She has to be. She is the one who first introduced me to the concept of Victorian petticoat discipline all those years ago when we were sorority sisters."

Jane winced as Kenneth pounced on Darryl and both of them disappeared under the surface wrestling. Boys were just so. . so . so . . . boyish. Except for that mop of hair Kenneth was trying to keep out of his face. She reminded herself to get Sandy to come over and undo the long blond mane she'd given him and then dye his remaining hair black again. She'd been right about the blond hair and his dark coloring, though - striking and very attractive.

Sighing at the thought of not having any of her girls in residence, Jane turned back to Marie. "She had all the Victorian erotica classics on the subject . . ."Gynecocracy", "Miss High Heels", "The Petticoat Dominant" and a few others I can't remember anymore." Jane gave a self-deprecating smile. "The first boy I ever petticoated was her boyfriend after she'd talked him into going to a costume party as a girl. I think she kept him in skirts on and off for the rest of their time together."

"Is he the one she married? Did she keep him in skirts after the wedding?"

"No. By all accounts, Sheila went a little wild after she graduated. I heard that she even worked as a professional dominatrix in California for a while. Care to guess what her specialty was?"

"Boys into girls?" Marie asked with a hint of resignation in her soft voice.

"Yes indeed. As I understand what happened, she went too far a couple of times and put a resistant client into the hospital with her "encouragements". The last one almost landed her in jail. That's when her father stepped in and basically ordered her to marry his handpicked successor unless she wanted to cut off from his financial support. One of those patriarchal "do it or else" type marriages of convenience. Evidently, she didn't really give up her little hobby - just didn't charge for it and kept her liaisons very discreet."

Jane sipped at her glass before continuing. "Still, she lucked out. He was a very good man, from what I saw and heard of him. Masculine, yet refined - by all accounts a gentleman who was truly a gentle man. Now that I am no longer prejudiced against Kenneth by that damnable file, I see a lot of the father in the son. Both of them have very clear pictures of themselves as men. Very unusual for a young man Kenneth's age."

Marie smiled. "He does seem to be quite a fellow. I find it hard to believe he wasn't overwhelmed by his treatment here. I don't imagine there are very many young men his age, bad boy or not, who would not have been fully under your power by now."

"I know what you mean." Jane said as she relaxed in the sun. It felt so good to let herself go limp for a change - something she hadn't been able to do that since she'd begun to have reservations about her treatment of Kenneth. "He was determined not to surrender to me because that is how he has learned to deal with his mother. Sheila evidently sees every crack in his composure or control as an opportunity to attack. He's learned that incredible self-control as a self defense mechanism. If he didn't give in to her, she couldn't hurt him further, I guess."

"Well, it was certainly effective against us. I still can't believe he wouldn't let what we did or threatened to do matter to him. Maybe what is really amazing is that he went along with us at all."

"As I said, he understands himself very well. He did not want to go to that home, decided I was the lesser of the two evils he had to choose between and did what was necessary to stay. But it was very obvious we weren't getting the responses we wanted and expected from him. He couldn't have understood that part of the program because that is not why he thought his mother sent him here."

"His mother is really the beginning of the Jane Thompson Winsome Girls Home for Wayward Boys?" Marie asked, using the joking, private name the pair of them had come up with to describe the school.

"Well, she and her boyfriend certainly fired my curiosity about that type of thing, although I will admit that it was more the intense thrill of dominating and feminizing a male that interested me at first. Then, during my senior year I took a course in behavioral psychology given by this ardent feminist. It may be hard to believe in the times we live in now, but back in the mid to late seventies, this professor's course and her views were considered pretty radical. Anyway, one of her course requirements was to do a study/research project on some type of behavioral modification process. In passing, I mentioned Victorian petticoat discipline to the woman. To my utter surprise, she positively loved the concept and told me I should get right on it."

"I always wondered where you had gotten the basis of your program. It was just too clearly designed to attack the boys' psyches to have been something you stumbled on by chance."

"Believe it or not, there are still organizations in England that train governesses to use that type of discipline with their male charges. It is not something they advertise, but it is not much of a secret in various circles, particularly among the women of the old aristocracy. My professor put me in contact with one such organization. I spent my semester break studying with the Head Training Mistress of that Governess Training School."

"They really do that? Like we do here now?"

"Not entirely like you and I do. I brought back what they taught their governess students, which was mostly technique, but their goals for using petticoating were much more limited than what we try to achieve. In their view, petticoating was a particularly intense, very humiliating punishment for rowdy boys - classic negative reinforcement. If you were bad, you went into skirts until you behaved properly, but I saw potential in using those methods in a different way. I spent the whole semester working on that project, combining the techniques and methods I had learned in England with bits and pieces from other psychological theories, primarily Skinner's operant conditioning theory. The resulting paper was actually the first draft of the blueprint for much of what we do here."

Jane stole another glance at the two boys who, evidently having exhausted one another, were sitting by the pool sipping their own lemonade, talking quietly - completely relaxed. Maybe she'd have to make sure her girls got some type of intense exercise in the future if that utter calm was a result. She had always made them study dance, but that wasn't intended so much as exercise, but rather as feminine reinforcement.

A picture began to take shape in Jane's mind. Some high impact aerobics, perhaps, in skintight exercise leotards, with other real girls their age and led by a particularly demanding instructor. Even better if she could find an instructor she could trust enough to bring into her little conspiracy. The possibilities of what that woman could do to work the girl-boys over mentally, emotionally and physically were very intriguing.

Jane Thompson smiled at the short movie playing before her mind's eye - it was a smile that more than fifty young men would recognize instantly and probably still shudder slightly on seeing it. Jane Thompson concocting yet another way to terrorize her wayward would-be lasses. The poor dears would feel utterly exposed, completely inept and if she chose her instructor well, thoroughly exhausted by the end of that first session.

It offered tremendous potential for sissy humiliation (*you couldn't keep up with the other girls? How tough does that make you, miss? Better learn to be more graceful or the _real_ girls in the class will figure out you are a boy beneath that lovely tutu.*) while they burned off some of that excess adrenalin and aggression. Multiple birds with one stone. What a delightful concept.

Very happy with that little innovation, Jane returned her attention back to Marie and her story. "I actually got to try out my entire program while I was at Eastmore. The old Head Mistress had died early in one fall term and I was appointed to her position. It was then that I found out that several of my "girl" students had really been petticoated boys, sent to Eastmore for a variety of reasons. The reasons are the same ones we most often deal with here and now - for being too aggressive, too violent, too disrespectful of their primary female care-giver. To make a long story very short, I contacted the parents and guardians of the boys involved and found out what their goals were for the boys. I took over their program personally, seeing it as an opportunity to test my own theories."

"Those poor boys." Marie smiled, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Those poor boys, indeed." Jane replied with a soft chuckle. "I wasn't as laid back then as I am now nor did I fully understand just hard I truly was pushing them. I am afraid their year at Eastmore was emotionally and mentally devastating for them. I kept them on for "summer school" at the end of term, and that's when I put them back together. That's also when I realized that I could not be both the "bad guy" and the "good guy" in the equation. The school nurse stepped in and filled that role, but it was not as successful as what we do right now. She was still an adult and someone who worked for me."

"Just like when we don't have a senior student and I have to step into that role? Those students seem to take longer to figure things out even though I try very hard to help them along."

"Precisely." Jane affirmed. "And besides, I need you to do all the really evil transformation stuff so that I can be the terrible Inquisitor who judges their performance and finds it wanting." Jane's overblown, pompous tones set them both giggling.

Regaining her control, Jane continued. "For a while, I thought about using one or two of the real girls as my little darling's mentors, but discarded that idea. Girls that age don't understand and are often not fully in control of their power as females. There were just too many possible problems and I didn't have as strong a lever to keep the girls in line as I did my sissies. All it would take is choosing the wrong girl for the job, and it would be all over for me and my program."

"So that is the origin of the "big sister" concept?" Marie asked.

Jane nodded. "As it happened, one of my darling young men did not perform well enough to graduate back into his trousers and had to repeat his year in an Eastmore uniform. Since he knew what I was doing, I ordered him into the "good cop" role as a condition of his own ultimate release. Not knowing he was also a be-skirted boy, the same as they were, my poor prissy darlings flocked to him when the awful Mistress Thompson abused them so basely and so sorely."

"It was a great success." Jane continued. "As you just noted, the boys learned the masquerade much faster with his help so they could begin to learn the other lessons that can only commence after they could pass adequately. Most boys finished the program in the allotted one school year and went back to their homes much better for the experience, but there were always those who did not get the message the first time. In my time at Eastmore, I always had at least one big sister in residence."

"If it was working so well, why did you leave?"

"The restrictions placed on me as Head Mistress that had nothing at all to do with school, but that affected the rest of my life very negatively. The school board chairperson was a woman who could have been Edith White's more conservative older sister. She delighted in lecturing me on my responsibility to always be the ultimate paragon of feminine virtue and morality one too many times. I *was* a good role model for the girls, but I wasn't going to live like some saintly, cloistered nun just to suit that sanctimonious old bat. I left the school and started my consulting business. That got boring after a while and I started looking for something else. One of my clients, a woman, was having problems with her son. We got a little drunk together one night and I told her about the skirted boys of Eastmore. Despite the alcoholic haze, she remembered that conversation the next time her son got into trouble."

"And the rest is history."

"I suppose, but things have certainly not been going according to plan of late."

The harsh, electronic tone of the portable phone Jane had set down on her side table ended the conversation. Jane picked it up and greeted her caller.

"Jane? Ruth here. There are no records here that in any way resemble the ones you faxed to me. Not on file anyway. Of course, none of the clerks would admit doing something like that since it is a criminal act to falsify such records and court orders."

"So we don't have anyone we can use to bring Sheila into line?"

"Not right now. We could confront her, but if I recall her well, she's a cool customer. I don't think she'd break unless we really leaned on her hard, and right now, I am not sure we have enough evidence to be able to do even that much."

"I see." Jane said wearily. "Well, where does that leave us?"

"The only paper in that whole damn file that is in any way legitimate is the one she signed giving you custody of her son until such time as you deem him to have satisfactorily completed your program. Regardless for her reason for making that guardianship change, that particular record is a completely legal and binding document."

"So, I could keep him here with me until we can decide what to do about Sheila?"

"Or until his eighteenth birthday, Jane, if that is what it takes. That would put a real crimp in your activities with other students, but it would keep him out of that bitch's hands."

"True. Unlike Darryl, I don't believe Kenneth could or would play the female while I break in a new student."

"Or you can just send him home. I can try putting the fear of God in her."

"No, she is sufficiently well off financially that she would simply move out of your jurisdiction. No, Ruth. I will keep him. It will take some getting used to, having a boy running around the place. Blast!," Jane burst out. "That means I will probably have to redecorate his room, but there is no way I am going to let that bitch have him back. She tried to use me and my program for her own perverse purposes, Judge, potentially endangering my boys' reputations and quality of life at the same time if things had gone badly wrong here. I am not going to let her win or get away with it. Somehow, someway, I am going to fix her."

"So long as it isn't too illegal, dear, I will be right there with you. Remember, she's soiled my reputation too. I didn't get to be a judge by letting people wipe their feet on me like a doormat. Hey, I have got to run. I will call you if I hear anything or think of anything."

"Same here, Ruth. And thanks."

Jane broke the connection and set down the phone. For several minutes she simply sat there, watching the boys and mulling over what she knew for the thousandth time. Finally, she turned her eyes back to Marie who'd been watching her longtime friend very intently. "Well, Marie-dear." Jane said lightly. "How do you feel about raising a couple of boys for the next few years?"

Marie set down her lemonade and stood. She watched the boys for a few moments and then bent over to kiss Jane on the cheek. "Just fine, cherie. I think we will both like it just fine. Maybe, as you said earlier, we have been in the petticoating business a bit too long, or maybe just for too long without a real break. This will give us a time out of our own."

"*I* don't really think we've been doing it too long, Marie, but I will agree with you on one thing. With those boys over there? We will do just fine."

Marie nodded before standing back up. "I will go start dinner. Tell those two heathens that I don't feed anybody who isn't properly dressed for the evening meal. Just because they are out of skirts doesn't mean they can forsake good manners and behavior."

"I know." Jane laughed. "Or we'll put 'em both back into the Shirley Temple line."

"Right!" Marie asserted with a high five to Jane before heading into the house to start meal preparations.

~---------------~

Darryl was laying down in his bed staring up at the frilly canopy, thoroughly pissed off at what Kenneth's Mother had tried to do to her own son. Not an asshole type son who might actually deserve it, but her own very nice, very well behaved, very gentlemanly son. That a mother could do such a thing to her own child infuriated him.

Intuitively, Darryl knew this feeling of rage derived from his own mother trying so hard before she'd died to make things better for her younger son. Moms were supposed to be special! *This* one did not *deserve* to be called Mom. She just happened to be a female someone who got pregnant and then did not bother to get an abortion.

Christ, he fumed before remembering what Jane would do if she heard that epithet slip out in normal conversation. Still, sometimes even the best-behaved, most well mannered guy in the world had to curse - it was the only way of expressing the anger and fury he was feeling.

Christ, that bitch is like Stephanie's father. Only worse. Kenneth's mother was doing this because she got her rocks off on seeing males publicly humiliated by wearing women's clothing and maybe getting caught. At least Stephanie's father thought he was doing the right thing by his son, rescuing him from his Mother's and Aunt Jane's program.

Well, at least they'd fixed Stephanie's father's wagon. He'd been so shocked to see that old guy's grandson in full female regalia he'd acquiesced without much of a fight. It had been great.

Too bad they couldn't do the same to Kenneth's mother.

An idea began to flicker in Darryl's mind.

Maybe they could at that.

Quickly, the young man jumped to his feet and headed out to find Aunt Jane. She'd know how to make this work if anyone could. And there was very little doubt in Darryl's mind that Jane would be motivated to find a way to make his idea work.

Although she might prefer to phrase it more delicately, Darryl knew that Jane was thoroughly pissed off, too.

~------------------~

As his guardian thought over his idea, Darryl took the rare opportunity to look around Jane's private sitting room. He'd bet that few if any of Jane's young men had ever been admitted to this special place. It was clear to Darryl that this was where Jane went to get away from the prison of her own making, if only for a little while. Even the furniture in this room was markedly different than anywhere else in the Victorian mansion. The furnishings in this haven of Jane's were overstuffed, broken in to the point of being shabby and most of all, comfortable. In Darryl's experience, very little of the furniture in the rest of the house had been selected for comfort and in many cases, the selection criteria seemed to be just the opposite. If it was uncomfortable, overly showy and difficult to sit upon gracefully, Jane had probably used it to decorate the students' quarters and the public rooms.

Lord, he thought amazed, Jane was practically sprawling on that lazyboy recliner, her left leg dangling over one of the arms, her right leg tucked up under her bottom. She wasn't even wearing her trademark blouse. Instead, she sported a faded, hole-worn Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirt. And, *omigod* Darryl goggled, *are those really BLUE JEANS she is wearing??? Aunt Jane???*

He knew he'd never seen her in those before. A smile flitted across his face as he made a quick mental list of every little comment Jane would direct at a student who she found in a similar position of inelegant repose.

"What do you think you're smilin' at, mister?" a softly amused voice cut through his ruminations.

She even talks differently in here, Darryl thought amazed. "Umm. . .I was looking at . . .at . " he stumbled for something other than what he was actually looking at, "your chair." he blurted out.

"Uh huh. Sure you were, Darryl, sure you were." Jane's familiar wicked smile coupled with her change to a more dignified position brought bright color to her ward's face. "All I will say, dear, is that for the first time since your arrival here, you are really in my home. Before this, you were merely in my house."

"I think I had already figured that out, Aunt Jane." he said with some pride at the obvious honor she was giving him. "So, what do you think about my idea?"

"It would be very difficult to pull off, dear." Jane said carefully. "First of all, we'd need to have everyone, us, Sheila, Ruth all in the same place at the same time, and it would be best if we could be in Ruth's jurisdiction when we do it."

Her ward nodded his understanding. "But all that means is that we have to go to her. Ruth already lives in the area."

"True, but don't think for a minute that Sheila is going to willingly put herself in the same room with both Ruth and me since she has been using each of us to manipulate the other. I might decide to ask Ruth more about Kenneth's case and that would ruin all of her plans."

"But it could work, couldn't it?"

"It might. We would need some specialized electronics so that we can constantly monitor her interactions with Kenneth, particularly when she is alone with him. Remember, she is still avoiding me. I don't think she wants to talk with me about her son for fear I will figure out her nasty little game."

Jane became silent again, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as she worked through the possible scenarios in her mind. "No, we will need something to smoke her out, and there's only one lure that is certain to work. That would also solve the other big problem, too, but. . ."

"Well, let's go do it." Darryl enthused, his anger about what Sheila had done to her son still burning hot and hard.

"We can't make that decision, dear." Jane said reprovingly, "Because we are not the person most affected by it. You and I are both outraged, and I promise you, I will make that bitch pay. Someday, some how, she *will* pay both for what she tried to do to Kenneth and for using me to try to do it. But to make her pay now, using your plan, we'd need Kenneth's active participation which he may not want to give. If he refuses, or is even reluctant, we can't press him on this."

"But I don't get it. I've talked to him, Aunt Jane. He is even more pis. ." Darryl's face flamed bright red again as he caught himself, "I mean, upset about what his mother did than I am. Why wouldn't he want to take part in this."

Jane chuckled at his discomfort and said easily, "I've heard and said 'pissed off' before, Darryl, and although I try not to use such a phrase in polite company, I agree that it fits here. I am indeed, pissed off." She shrugged. "As to why Kenneth might balk at my plan? Think about it, dear. I am sure it will come to you."

He did, for several long moments and then he saw the problem. "Oh shi... I mean, darn. You mean . . .?"

"Quite so." Jane chuckled. "Go to bed, Darryl. Let's think about this over a good night's sleep. Maybe we will think of something else that will work. If not, we will put the idea to Kenneth *and* we will abide by his decision."

Darryl didn't much like that. Why couldn't Aunt Jane be . . well, _Jane_ about this and make it happen. Sighing, he rose and gave Jane a kiss on the cheek before leaving for his own room.

Jane sat unmoving for another half hour working the plan over in her mind. "Well," she finally said aloud. "I think it will work if Kenneth will go along with it. Now, I just have to figure out how to market the concept to him. Good thing I have a lot of experience selling things that people don't think they want or need to buy anything.

Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep herself with Darryl's concept nagging at her, Jane went down to the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea. Soon, she was settled in her study, furiously scratching notes onto a yellow legal tablet.

Two hours later, the half full pot of tea now cold, Jane reread what she'd just written for the third time. It could work, she thought. All she needed now was Kenneth's complete and willing cooperation, and Ruth's go ahead.

~-------------~

**brrrrrrinnnnnnng! brrrrriinnnng!**

A hand emerged from the covers, and blindly fumbled for the source of the penetrating noise. Finding the alarm clock, the hand bashed the snooze button several times to no effect. The noise continued.

Unable to sleep through the unremitting clatter, Judge Ruth finally roused enough to realize it was her phone and not her clock. Moreover it was her "home line" instead of the business line ringing. *If this is some cop who's somehow gotten my private number and wants a warrant approved, it had damned well be for some heinous capital crime like a mass murder or I may just kill him.*

"This is the Judge," she growled into the phone.

"Ruth? It's Jane."

Her eyes really open now, Ruth glanced down at the brightly lighted numerals on her clock. "Jesus, Jane, do you know what time it is?"

"Of course I do, Ruth," was the tart reply, "It's an hour later here and I have not been to sleep myself yet."

"What's the matter? Is something going on with that boy, Kenneth?"

"Yes and no, Ruth. Look, I think I may have a way to do something about Sheila that won't hurt Kenneth, but I am going to need your help and his to pull it off. Before I take it to him, I need to know if you can and will help. It's not quite illegal, but it definitely falls under the category of unethical."

"I promise nothing." was the very lawyerly reply. "But if it does something to and about that bitch, well, lets just say that I am disposed to help you already."

"Okay, this is what we are going to do. . ."

~-----------------~

Kenneth, Darryl and Marie sat around the small coffee table looking expectantly at Jane. Each of them had a cup of tea and had helped themselves to pastries and snacks from the low tea Marie had prepared at Jane's direction. Finally, Jane cleared her throat and looked directly at Kenneth.

"Kenneth, Ruth and I have been looking into what action can be taken against your mother in retribution for her crimes against you and me. Clearly, we have a solid case of falsifying documents and making a false sworn statement. Unfortunately, if we do take her to court for that, it means everything comes out in the open. What I do here, but more importantly, what happened to you and all my other young men here. In recent months, I have had to face the possibility of public exposure at least twice. I would regret that, because I honestly believe that I can help certain young men turn their lives around."

"We know we've helped the boys who have been here before you, Kenneth." Marie chimed it. "Jane has the files to prove it."

Jane waved that off. "Be that as it may. As I said, I would regret the end of my program, but I have had to prepare myself for that eventuality and I am quite certain that I would be able to get on with new things in my life once the furor died down. The real reason we cannot take her to court is you."

"Me? How so, Aunt Jane?"

The familial name on Kenneth's lips warmed her. He'd begun using that name instead of his extremely formal "Ms. Thompson" once he had been absolutely sure she was on the level - before he'd even gotten his boy-clothes back. Jane's willingness to finally listen to him, and more importantly, to believe him enough to unlock the bedroom door that morning had gone a long way towards bridging any gap that remained between the pair. Trust and affection had quickly followed.

"Because you will become a media _thing_. A thing of pity for some, a thing of revulsion for others, but in all cases a thing and not a person. You won't have a life. Every time you turn around, someone will expect to see you swish, or they'll check you for panties when you go to the gym. I, Ruth. . ._none of us_ want that for you."

"So she just gets away with it? This isn't the first time she's done something like this. Before I learned I could stand up to her, it was girl costumes for every Halloween, or girl parts in plays at the local theater. She once even found this summer camp for boys who want to play at being girls and tried to send me there. Fortunately, the ladies who ran that camp insisted that the boys had to want to be there. As soon as any boy decided he'd had enough of skirts and dolls, he was allowed to go home." Kenneth's face flashed a dark smile at the memory. "I was home thirty minutes after my mother dropped me off for the first day."

"Yes, Kenneth, she gets away with it unless we can do something outside the law. Ruth and I have come up with a plan, but we are going to need your help to pull it off."

Kenneth studied the look on his temporary guardian's face. She was hesitating, he realized, and Jane Thompson never hesitated about *anything*. What on earth, he asked himself, could involve him in such a manner as to make this forthright, self-confident woman hesitate?

Then he knew. "You want me to face her as Kendra." he said flatly. "Okay, explain the plan to me, Aunt Jane, and be sure not to leave out the part about why it can't be done as Kenneth."

 

(continued)

 

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