Tales of the Season - Ken's Barbie

by Tigger
Copyright 2002

 

Chapter 21: At Home with Judge Ruth

Barbara Anne watched as the short, plump white haired woman reached up to hug the towering blonde in the killer heels. Her Honor, Judge Ruth Walinkiewicz looked very different here, in front of her neat little house with it's prettily gardened lawn than she had the last time the Braithwaites had seen her. Then, she'd looked so large and powerful seated there on her elevated station, especially when she had pronounced sentence on her brother - the vengeful harpy or so Adrian had named her. Now, she looked, well, the only word that seemed to fit was softer - like someone's grandmother - a person to whom you could cuddle up and tell all your troubles. *Lord,* Skipper thought as the two women softly cried together, *All that's missing is tea and homemade cookies.*

At that moment, the pair broke apart, and Skipper could tell the moment Ruth remembered she was there. "Ms. Braithwaite," she said in cool tones that barely hinted at her Eastern European heritage. "Welcome to my home. Won't you come in? I have a light tea prepared. I will fill you both in on the plans while you refresh yourselves."

"If you'll make yourselves comfortable," Ruth said as she ushered them into her parlor, "I'll just be a moment."

Skipper was again surprised as she found the inside of the house was as pretty (there was no other word for it) as the outside - and just as eclectic. Judge Ruth obviously selected her furniture for comfort, but did not feel wedded to any particular style or decorative fad. Overstuffed, almost shabby chairs sat side-by-side with antique tables and modern brass lamps. The latest Apple laptop computer rested on a Chippendale desk, surrounded by an lovely old-style Waterford crystal decanter and Disney character statues. In spite of herself, Skipper smiled at the wonderful chaos of the room.

She strolled over to the large brick hearth that dominated the room to look at the multitude of framed photographs that lined the slate shelf above the fireplace. Skipper smiled as she looked at pictures - obviously family given the judge's strong resemblance to the father in one photo and to the mother in another. There was a graying group picture, of about twenty young women huddled together in front of what appeared to be a college dormitory, or perhaps a sorority house. It took the young blonde a few moments to realize that a very young Ruth Walinkiewicz stood in the front row giving a "Peace Sign" while another woman held the two fingered 'rabbit' sign above her head. *MY GOD, is that JANE THOMPSON?!?!*

Before that near shock of that recognition could quite pass, her eyes locked on the double-framed picture set that held court at the center of the hearth. The two facing photos were teenagers barely into their adolescence - a sober-faced black-haired boy and a blonde girl with laughing, mischievous eyes. *Such a solemn young man,* Skipper thought to herself, *And such a contrast to the girl - talk about a flirt. Brother and sister, perhaps? There is a resemblance - rather pronounced when you look closely. The boy looks, somehow familiar. . . *

And then shock hit her for the second time in moments. "That's YOU!" she yelped, turning accusatory eyes on the quietly watching Barbie. "BOTH of those are you."

"And you're the first to ever recognize that relationship, Miss Braithwaite," Ruth put in, as she walked in carrying a laden tray. "Few have ever met both my boy and his feminine alter-ego - you're the first in over six years, in fact - so we've always been able to pass Kendra off as a lost sister or cousin. It has also helped explain why he lived with me and not his Mother because we'd hint that he was an orphan." Ruth's face went white as she realized what she'd just inferred, and that her boy was now, in fact, an orphan. "Oh, Kenny, I'm sorry."

A sweet sad smile suffused Barbie's face as she hurried over to embrace and comfort the suddenly distraught older woman. "Momma-Ruth," she crooned down into the cap of steel-gray curls, "I haven't been motherless since you and Momma-Jane took me on. Heavens, how many guys OR girls can claim TWO mothers like that? And I'm not even married!"

"But she's dead!" Ruth said on a half sob, half whisper.

"And I will always regret that she was as she was," was the firm reply, "but I know who my Mothers were and are, and she's not in that company."

The soft smile that lit the lovely face made Skipper's heart rhythm syncopate.

~---------~

"The time has come, the walrus said to speak of many things," Barbie quoted some time later, her dark eyes fixed on the older woman.

Ruth didn't so much as raise an eyebrow, simply stared back at the tall blonde and said, "Which means, in this context, anyway?"

"What happened, Momma Ruth?" Kenneth's voice sounded discordantly on their ears, adding impact to the softly worded question. "You have been conspicuously vague about the facts behind Sheila's death while Momma Jane would, in her oh so subtle way, change the subject whenever I asked her. Thus far, I've let it slide. Now, I need to know so that I don't do something stupid."

"What makes you think there's anything to know?" she evaded.

"Because I know YOU too well not to know when there's something you don't want to tell me."

Ruth gave Skipper a pointed look before facing Barbie. "We'll discuss it later, dear."

"Momma-Ruth, if it's something like that, don't tell me, either because I can't promise you I won't discuss it with her later. I know she's here for me, and I've already trusted her with a great deal."

"And of course, you'll trust her again, won't you?" Ruth sighed.

Skipper saw the Judge's shoulders momentarily slump, but only momentarily. When the older woman faced Barbie this time, something in her eyes, something in her very posture reminded Skipper of the woman who had been on the Bench at Adrian's trial. The 'power', whatever that entailed, was back. "All right, then. What I am about to tell you is not to be discussed anywhere but here with me, or perhaps with Jane. I am technically abusing my judicial privileges by disclosing information from what is technically an open homicide investigation. Do you both agree to those conditions?"

Both blondes agreed, and Ruth took a deep, cleansing breath. "After your Mother completed the terms of our agreement? Following the showdown with you and Jane?" Barbie nodded. "Part of that was transferring trusteeship of the legacy from your father to me. That meant she no longer had access to your money and had to live off the monthly allowance he'd provided for her in his will."

"That was not an insignificant amount of money. You made sure I saw the will. Dad was more than generous."

"It was insufficient to her perceived needs," Ruth refuted. "She decided to . . . go into business."

Skipper saw her tall friend's brows come together in concentration. "You're talking about her dominatrix/dungeon thing, aren't you?"

"You know about that?" Ruth was surprised now. "I thought Jane and I had kept that bit of nastiness from you."

"Sheila made sure I knew. She even sent me copies of the ads she ran in the alternative press."

Surprised recognition nearly had Skipper dropping her teacup. *Oh my God,* she thought, *He's. . she's, I mean, THAT'S Kenneth! He still looks like some dynamite blonde fantasy come to life, but that rigidity - that intense control - that is what I saw that first time we met when he tried to talk me out of my lawsuit against Jane.*

"I should have guessed. . . DAMN that Bitch!" Ruth shook her head sadly. "In any case, she turned the sizable fetish wardrobe and toy collection she'd acquired over the years into a business. Did quite well by all accounts and for the most part, played fair with her clients. She was known for hard edged sessions and for forced feminizations."

The older woman took a bracing sip of her tea and seemed to gather herself. "Unfortunately for her, needing a paycheck . . . cramped her style. Working with men - older men who could afford her exorbitant fees - did little to satisfy her own sick, twisted needs."

"Boys? Or unwilling victims? I can't believe she'd be satisfied with an adult man who actually wanted what she had to offer, especially not enough to be willing to pay for it."

"Both, of course," Ruth sighed. "However, she had learned a thing or two from her . . . confrontation with us all those years ago."

"Us?" Skipper asked, unable to control her curiosity.

"Jane, Kenneth - then as Kendra - and I," Ruth answered.

"Don't forget Darryl. He was manning the recording equipment," Kenneth added, lifting one fine-boned, red-nailed hand to flick errant curls from his face.

Skipper couldn't help herself and simply gaped at Barbie. That simple motion had been so completely and unthinkingly feminine that it jarred her perceptions of the blonde before her. Kenneth's voice and . . . intensity had been so compelling that the visual image of a statuesque woman had become almost irrelevant, but that graceful gesture had resurrected Barbie from Kenneth for a shocking instant. *Of course,* Skipper thought to herself, *Kenneth doesn't have a motion to sweep hair out of his face - his is fashionably short for a male - so when that became necessary, _Barbie_ did it FOR him. Lord, if it weren't for the control he's showing, I'd worry about a split personality or something. But it's clear she, um, he is just calling on skills as needed while his mind wrestles with this problem.*

"Darryl, too, although Sheila never knew of his part in that little drama."

"What did she learn, Mom?" Kenneth demanded softly.

"That she couldn't really play her damned games with minors, dear, at least, she couldn't without unacceptable risk to her own freedom and comfort. She also figured out that she didn't dare go to the extremes that she wanted to go with you. So, she would roam the alternative lifestyle clubs find likely boys, excuse me, not boys - young men barely over the age of consent who LOOKED like boys - and test them. . . test them for what she called 'compatibility'."

"And when one passed?"

"Do you really want to know all of this, Kenneth?" Ruth asked, her eyes beginning to well up with tears. At his single mechanical nod, she blew her nose into a paper napkin and forced herself to continue. "She kept him as her. . .as her slave. She called it 'pro boning' as a slam against our - yours and my - profession, I suppose. In any case, the poor fool lived in a feminized hell for as long as he could stand her sadism or as long as Sheila wanted him - whichever was shorter. From what the police have gathered from her diaries, it was almost always Sheila who broke things off, but only after her slave performed one last little task for her. She had him seduce his replacement. Sheila would take videos of it to use as blackmail leverage if she needed it. In the end, that led to her own death."

"Her killer was one of her victims?"

A cold frisson of dread ran down Anne's spine on hearing the almost physical intensity with which her tall friend imbued the words of that simple question.

"Yes. This particular young man refused to be a party to her ploy to ensnare a new consort. He simply wouldn't be a party to blackmailing another as he himself had been blackmailed. He left her, never intending to go back, calling her bluff of exposure. It should have been a safe bet, but. . ."

"But it wasn't." Kenneth finished for the judge. "I assume that Sheila went into one of her rages?"

"Exactly. She lost it completely - sent copies of very . . . well, nasty photos and videos of him to his family and to the press. His father is a local politician - a state senator who had, up until that point in time, had his eye on a Congressional seat. Unfortunately, one of the photos got into the hands of a . . . less than honorable person who unduly flatters herself to be a journalist. The whole sordid mess made quite a splash in the local tabloids and talk radio circuits. Needless to say, dear old dad's political aspirations are a thing of the past. He blamed his son and disowned him in a rather loud, public and well-publicized confrontation. To make a short story even shorter, twenty-four hours later, the boy used a key he'd stolen from Sheila to sneak into her house. He shot her when she arrived home, then turned the gun on himself."

Skipper watched as the tall blonde simply sat there, eyes closed, brows tightly knitted, her hands slowly clenching and unclenching. Then she took a deep breath before turning, to face the wall opposite from where Ruth sat. "DAMN HER! God DAMN her!" she said with quiet vehemence, the words all the more powerful for the utter lack of volume in her tone. "Sheila never knew when to quit. NEVER knew when to back off. Always - ALWAYS - it was what SHE wanted and if you didn't want the same thing? Well, that was just too damned bad - for you."

Barbie's fist clenched, cocked and lashed out at the wall, only to suddenly stop just short of blasting a hand sized hole in the drywall's surface. A glance at the taller girl's face showed her pensively considering the still fisted hand - almost as if she were trying to understand how it could possibly even consider doing something so rash and uncontrolled.

Gathering herself, Ruth rose and moved to stand beside Barbie, putting a comforting hand on the focused blonde's shoulder. Dry-eyed, Barbie turned and put her arms around the older woman, finally uncoiling sufficiently to rest her chin on the now quietly crying Ruth's gray haired head.

"I should have testified," she finally murmured. "At least then Sheila'd have been out of circulation, locked up in a cage. Who knows, maybe if she'd been forced to get treatment - undergo some type of state-mandated rehabilitation program, none of this would have happened."

"Kenneth," Ruth chided gently, her hand coming up to bat away her own tears. "That's water under the bridge. Besides, it was my decision, not yours, and one to which Jane heartily agreed. You were a minor, but old enough to have been called to the stand which we couldn't afford to risk at that time. Had you given evidence, your testimony would have been subject to a brutal cross examination. There's no telling what would have happened. We, and you, did the best that we could with what we had to work with. Don't forget that we also wanted to protect Jane's other boys at the same time."

"So, another died, Momma Ruth. The woman couldn't even die without it hurting someone else."

"No, she couldn't, but that has nothing to do with you."

Barbie broke the embrace. With a careful precision of movement totally at odds with anything Anne had seen since first 'meeting' Kendra, the statuesque woman reached for the light jacket she'd been wearing when they'd arrived. "I'm going for a walk, Mom," she said over her shoulder. "I need to think - be alone."

Warning alarms went to red alert in Skipper's brain, and she moved quickly to intercept Barbie by interposing her own body between her friend and the door. "Don't even think about going outside, tall socks," she said sternly. "You're in no shape to carry off that masquerade in public right now. You're slipping between Kenneth and Barbie on almost every other word. You need to get yourself under control again - decide which face you're going to show the world before you try to face the world."

"Do I really?" There was an almost amused quality to the question that Skipper didn't understand, but she nodded and stood firm anyway.

"Kenneth?" Ruth said. "Your room downstairs - it's as you left it. In fact, I had the local sporting goods store inspect it just last month."

For a moment, the tall blonde seemed intent on pushing past Skipper and heading outdoors, but finally shrugged. "I'll see you both later," something akin to Barbie's voice said.

The other two women watched as she strode toward the kitchen, only to slip through another door and head down into the cellar. "I think," Ruth said sadly, "That control is going to be the least of our problems, Ms. Braithwaite. Come along with me, please. I will show you to your room. I'm sure you will want to freshen up after your trip."

~-~

Jane walked into her private apartment, where she found Art - now Diana - staring intently at the closed circuit television monitor above her desk.

"You could have stayed as Art until tomorrow, darling," Jane said as she bent down to kiss her mate, "since I don't expect to need Diana's help before then."

"Can't be too careful," Diana's husky alto replied. "You're pushing this one hard and into unexplored country. I don't want to be searching for my hair if something goes down tonight."

Jane came instantly alert, her head swiveling to watch the screen. "You think something could go badly wrong tonight? Has she been behaving strangely?"

Diana shook her head. "Pretty much what I'd have expected. She's tried to clean her face, only to find that the stuff won't come off. I think she's peeled about ten layers of skin off in the attempt, too."

"Determined, eh?" the Mistress of Seasons House asked, as she watched her pupil working at her vanity table. "What's she doing now?"

"Trying to cover over the deep-dye makeup with less blatant colors."

"Well, even if she succeeds, that will only suit my purposes better, because that will come clean when she removes the grease paint, making the long-duration cosmetics all the more obvious."

Diana watched Adrienne visibly shrug in defeat before ruthlessly scrubbing her face clean of her own cosmetic efforts. Moments later, she was in bed with the lights out. "You give her the bad news tomorrow?"

"That's the plan, luv. Ready for bed?"

Diana's painted mouth split into an inviting smile. "Well that's a silly question," she purred as she stood to pirouette for Jane's delectation. "Do you think I get dolled up like this without bed in mind?"

"There goes my beauty sleep," Jane pouted as she stepped into her spouses arms.

 

 

Chapter 22: Kenneth's Retreat

"It's a bit of a climb," the older woman said by way of an apology as they climbed up into the cottage's loft, "But, the room's comfortable for all it's a bit cramped here under the eaves. I converted it from an attic when Kenneth came to stay with me as he needed some privacy and a place to study - sort of a den if you take my meaning."

Wordlessly, Anne carried her bag into and set it down beside the hide-a-bed sofa. The room was indeed cramped, she thought, especially with that large glass-covered display table taking up most of the center of the room.

Curiosity won out on two fronts. "Will she be all right?" she asked as she made her way over to the table.

"Who? Kenneth? I mean, Kendra?" Ruth asked. At the younger woman's nod, she continued "Nothing to worry about. She just needs to burn off some of the emotion that is clogging her insides just now."

"She was furious," Anne said thoughtfully. "You'd hardly know it by simply looking at her, but somehow it was like I could almost feel pure rage rolling off her like a wave."

"Oh?" was all Ruth said as her guest's eyes took in the sand-table display beneath the glass top. Two armies of small toy-soldiers - one gray within a fortified city, one blue laying siege - faced each other across carefully sculpted terrain, complete with very realistic trees and a river. Odd shapes, almost like 'bumps' prowled the river, their large, turret-mounted guns aimed in the direction of the gray army's positions. Above the table, several large volumes, including several volumes entitled "The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant", shared shelf space with an old-fashioned red-yarn-haired rag-doll.

Anne suddenly realized she was all but snooping about Kenneth's private space and blushingly tore her eyes away from the image of a young girl's doll guarding a president's war reminiscences. "Well," she coughed, clearing her throat with an effort, "Barbie has been, ah, well rather different about things. . . since I met HER, that is. Just now, she was really upset, but instead of dealing with that she stoppered it all up."

"You see a great deal, don't you?" Ruth asked, her voice soft yet intense.

"I saw that," Skipper answered, noticing a cork-board above the student desk on the other side of the room. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

Ruth saw the moment Anne's eyes went wide. "As I said, you notice a great deal, and you've unerringly found the things in this room that most clearly speak to the complex person who is my Kenneth, my Kendra."

Anne looked up sharply, only to find Ruth smiling at her gently. The older woman strolled over to the desk and took down the object that had caught the blonde girl's attention. "The organization and mental discipline to perfectly recreate, right down to using bonsai trees, the strategic and tactical layout of the Battle of Vicksburg in that sand table, and this," she offered Anne the white satin opera glove, "are both critical elements of the person who is even now trying use exercise to exorcize some very private and terrible demons."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Anne asked again.

The older woman shook her head. "No, at least, I've never found anything. She'll work it out on her own - at least, she, or in this case, he always has in the past."

"He? I know why _I_ keep losing track and shifting pronouns - I'm still not used to these multiple identity games, but why aren't you consistently using the feminine tense? I mean, she's here as Barbie, as a female? Why the he - she thing? I mean, it's almost like, oh, I don't know. . .almost like YOU think of Kenneth and Barbie as two different people."

For several long moments, only silence and a cold stare filled the space between the two women. She waved Anne to sit down on the sofa. "I almost told you that it wasn't any of your business, but then I reminded myself that you're here, voluntarily, to help my child. And since you may be alone with him when something like this happens again, perhaps if you understand. . .certain things better, you might be better able to give that help. Look, Jane told me that you know something of Kenneth's youth? About how that bitch who birthed him made his life pure hell?"

"Yes."

Ruth nodded, and reached up to gather Raggeddy Annie down from her perch. "Jane never does things by halves," she observed, almost to herself. "Still, I suspect she simply told you, in direct terms to be sure, what she felt you needed to know. Am I right?"

Anne looked at the older woman with a growing curiosity, but controlled herself. "She was rather passionate . . ."

"Jane is never anything other than passionate where her boys are concerned, but I'm sure she simply stated the facts and left it at that, regardless of how her eyes might have flashed when she did it, right?"

A slight grin crossed Anne's face at the memory. "Ummm, just so," she said, mimicking Jane Thompson's favorite rejoinder, eliciting a matching grin from Ruth.

"I am a lawyer, and more used to letting stories state my case. Perhaps it would help if you understood how Raggedy Annie here," Ruth held the doll up for her guest's inspection, "and this glove came to hold court in this room, alongside Civil War battle fields and hand-carved chessmen."

"If it wouldn't upset Barbie. . .Ken. . . too much," Anne said hesitantly, although she found herself very much wanting to hear those stories.

Now Judge Ruth smiled broadly. "It's a mother's prerogative to tell pretty girls stories that embarrass their sons, just a little. Keeps the little darlings' egos in check and promotes female solidarity. Besides, I don't think Kendra will mind my telling you . . .some of her secrets." The smile became slyly mysterious. "No, I don't think she'll mind at all."

~-~

"Emotions were a weakness - or maybe an opening - that bitch would exploit in her campaign to subjugate that boy. So young Ken learned, early in his life, to suppress any outward sign of what he was really feeling. He controlled his reactions, his facial expressions, hell, even his breathing."

"And that somehow saved him?"

"Sheila pounced whenever he gave the slightest indication one of her nasty tricks had reached him, so he taught himself not to ever give her what she wanted from him. Taught himself to always at least appear to be calm and controlled."

"I still don't understand how that would have stopped the woman, not if she was as. . . depraved as Ms. Thompson indicated."

"What she wanted to do to him was so far over the line that she couldn't take the chance that the authorities might take him seriously. She needed him to appear out of control, irrational, an overly emotional adolescent that the police might ignore. He never gave her that, but there was a price. Those behaviors became second nature to Kenneth, and that control carried over into the rest of his life."

"That's not an entirely bad thing, your honor," Skipper said quietly, "As I have good reason to know."

"Adrian?" At the younger woman's nod, Ruth smiled. "I know, and truth to tell, those behaviors went a long way towards making him into the very formidable man he is today. Summa cum laude as an undergraduate, top of his class in law school while finishing each program in half the usual time."

"I suppose," Barbara Anne said speculatively, "But that still doesn't explain that doll."

Ruth chuckled. "You know about the trap Darryl came up with? The one that used Kendra as bait to set up Sheila once and for all?"

"Yes. . ."

"Kenneth fell for Jane and became best friends - brothers, actually, with Darryl, and the feelings were mutual. Only problem was Jane had a steady flow of students through her Winsome Girls' School for Wayward Boys. The only way for Kenneth to visit was as Kendra."

"And he agreed to that?"

"Quite readily. You see, Kendra could let go and have fun . . . could be a kid, albeit a girl-kid."

"At THAT place? With students around?" Barbara Anne asked skeptically.

"Oh, indeed. Trust me, a great deal is possible when one Miss Darla Thompson-Phillips gets on a roll. She decided she wasn't going to stand for the Great Stone Face routine and was constantly on the lookout for ways to tease Kendra out of it. Which leads me to the story of the great dolly tea party."

~-~

"Adrienne, one of the causes I support is the local children's hospital. Every year, my students and I participate in a show as part of a festival that not only entertains the children, but raises money for research and to help poorer families with the cost associated with treatment."

Still smarting from Anne refusing to speak on the phone, and unnerved by being 'locked' into a feminine appearance by Mrs. Beale's 'adult cosmetics', Adrienne decided to proceed with a bit more caution than in recent days. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"I've decided that you will participate, and have arranged for you to be trained as a mime. Are you familiar with the art?"

Jane watched her student concentrate, and was pleased. A few days ago, this same student might have simply ignored her question. "I'm not sure," the boy-girl said finally. "Is that the people who wear the funny socks, suspender pants and paint their faces white? Kind of like clowns only they don't talk?"

"A fair description. This book," and Jane handed her student a small biography of Marcel Marceau, "Will give you a more complete description. Now, you will start classes with other children at the local Y tomorrow. It is a mixed class - boys and girls - so you will not be out of place attending."

"I'm to attend as Adrienne?"

"I thought, young lady, that we had agreed that you were Adrienne until I said otherwise," Jane said sternly. She saw the short flare of resentment, but again was pleased as her pupil tamped that back and nodded her agreement. "However, if you wish, you may attend class as a male. You will, however, still be required to fulfill your word to me and present a well groomed and attractive feminine appearance and persona at all other times."

For a moment, Adrienne thought about her experiments with hiding the adult cosmetics with the practice makeup Jane provided. It might work. "Could I have some of the mime makeup? And maybe some pictures of what they look like? That way, I could practice ahead of time. I'll need the extra practice if I'm going to do this for real in a show."

"I will see what can be done. Just don't wear it for too long a period at a time. Your young skin needs to breathe and that greasepaint might clog your pores. Very bad for your complexion. That is why you, and the other children, will be expected to clean off the greasepaint at the end of every session. Can't have you developing terminal acne, can we?"

The disappointed look on Adrienne's face told her precisely what had occurred to her devious little student. *Blocked that one, didn't I, dear?* Jane thought smugly. *You ride to and from class dressed and made up as you decide, but you won't be wearing the whiteface except at class itself. Now, let's see what you do.*

~-~

"They just walked into the women's locker room?!?"

"Smug as you please," Ruth smirked, mischievous pride twinkling in her eyes. "Showed up at the place rigged out in headbands, exercise tights and leotards - then convinced the manager that they were considering taking memberships at the club. He assigned one of their female trainers to give the two of them a tour - of ALL the facilities."

Skipper was wide-eyed. "All? As in, um, everywhere?"

"You wouldn't ask that question if you knew Darla better. I do mean EVERYwhere. The locker room, the tanning booths - including those for ladies who do not want tanlines - the sauna and the steam room. Oh, and let us not forget the showers."

"My god. Did they get caught? As boys, I mean? Is that why they were punished?"

"Of course they weren't caught - not in the way you mean, in any case. They were caught, but only by Jane, and only because Darla intended them to be caught."

"I'm sure that makes sense to you, but . . ."

"Again, dear, you have to know our Darla. She wanted Kendra to be on the receiving ends of one of Jane's little disciplines, as she'd concluded that her sister was getting a bit too serious. Darla filled out the membership application and used Jane's name in the 'parent or guardian approval required' block. The club called Jane, she figured out what happened, and confronted the two miscreants. Kendra caved instantly as she's as honest as honest can be."

"And Darla planned it that way? Didn't she get punished, too?"

"Of course she did, but she intended it that way, since she wanted to ensure that Kendra, ah, loosened up properly. The pair of them were sentenced to a week in the nursery, dressed as good little Victorian six-year olds at all times, playing like good little Victorian six-year old girls."

"Oh, my. .. "

"As Darla tells it, her sister simply didn't know how to play with the dollies, so Darla had to teach her."

A vision of the petite, prissy little boy-girl, patiently teaching Kendra how to hold dolly, how to feed dolly and how to change dolly flitted across the mind's eye of the tall blonde.

And she lost what little control she had, laughing out loud. "Oh God, I can just hear her - 'Now, Ken-dwa,'" she said, in a pointed imitation of the Darla she knew, "'you have to support her head pwopawly when you feed Dolly her bottle.'" and Skipper laughed even harder.

"That's about right," a now-smiling Ruth agreed. "In fact, I think Kendra's . . .inability? Yes, inability to get with the program got their sentence extended twice. I think even Darla was getting tired of the game at that point. According to Jane, she finally lost patience with Kendra and told her to 'just have fun, sister! Now, play with the damn dolly!' An action which ALSO led to an extension their sentence. Evidently, Kendra did just that."

There was something here, Skipper thought. "Don't leave me in the dark, for goodness sake!"

Ruth feigned refusing, but then grinned. "It's too good a story not to share. According to Jane, after the second extension for 'non-cooperation' and Darla's outburst, our Kendra became. . .quietly annoyed."

"She does that well," Skipper observed.

"Yes, indeed, and so. . ."

~-~

"Now, Kendwa, you have to play NICE, or Auntie Jane isn't going to let us grow up!" It was a measure of just how annoyed the little bleached blonde was, that she forgot to lisp. "You have to feed and diaper Dolly! It's the rules!"

A glint lit in the other blonde's dark eyes, and her lips twitched before her face relaxed. "It's YOUR fault," she retaliated, "You teached me wrong!"

"No I DIDN'T!" Darla yelled back, getting into the spirit of the 'game'. A little venting was just what this situation required, she thought. Maybe then, Kendra would figure out Jane's plan and go with the flow. It was one thing to help her sister unwind, but this was beginning to cut into her study time. "You go fill the bottle and I will show you - just one more time!" she ordered.

"Oh, aw wight!" Kendra pouted dramatically, before flouncing off, bottle in hand, to the bathroom.

~-~

Screeches of "THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" and "IS SO!" brought Jane hurrying back to the nursery. She flung open the heavy oak door to see the two petti'ed, pigtailed and pinafored blondes squaring with a doll laying on the floor between them.

"GIRLS! What is the MEANING of this!"

"Dolly needs her diaper," Kendra fumed, "And Darla isn't teaching me right. Dolly's diaper keeps falling off!"

"I am so teaching right! You aren't PINNING her right!"

"AM SO!"

"ARE NOT!"

"AM. ."

"QUIET!" Jane bellowed, and was immediately embarrassed. "I will teach you, Kendra, and then we will have no MORE of this unseemly behavior. Is that UNDERSTOOD?!"

"Yes, Auntie Jane," the two now angelic blondes cooed.

Jane quickly and efficiently demonstrated the proper method of diapering, including a couple of hints on how to keep the garment tight. "There. See how it done, dear?"

At the affirmative reply, Jane rose to leave. "But, Auntie Jane," Kendra protested, "you have to hold her. It's the rule. Babies get held after diapering. Isn't that right, Darley?"

"It's the rule," the other imp agreed. "Auntie Marie said so."

"Oh, very well," Jane replied, happy to see the pair of them getting into the spirit of the play for a change. With that, she scooped up the baby-sized bundle, settled it on her shoulder for a burping. . .

And found herself drenched from the waist down.

"What the hell?" Jane spluttered.

"Dolly went number one all over Auntie Jane, and she used a BAD word!" Kendra crowed, giggling.

Before Jane could quite formulate a response to that, she realized something else. "What is that reek?!?" Another sniff told her. "ROSE WATER?"

"Smells nicer than Number One, Auntie Jane," a nearly hysterical Darla put in.

"I'm SO glad you think so, dear, as you will be bathing in it shortly," Jane said darkly, "As will you, Miss Smarty!"

~-~

"Hoist with her petard, eh?"

"Yes. Actually, I think what truly annoyed Jane was that they'd gotten a curse word out of her. Anyway, after that particular visit, Kenneth came home with that doll, and it has held court in his room ever since. I think it reminded him of . . . I don't know . . . more relaxed times?"

"So, despite the disciplines, Darla and Jane helped her let go of that control?"

Ruth nodded. "If only for a short time," she admitted with a sigh, "And unfortunately, they only managed it when Kendra was in Jane's girlish masquerade."

"That Darla must be something special, then," Skipper obsserved.

"Oh, our Darla can be quite the minx, and she taught Kendra all she knows. I gather that Jane had her hands full with that pair a time or two, but through it all, they had fun together - Jane most particularly, I think. And yet, whenever he came back here afterwards, he reverted to being the Kenneth I knew. Then, he hit that growth spurt. Sprouted a bunch of inches but didn't put on pounds to match. Skinny as a rail. Being Kenneth, he studied up on strength training and began a program to muscle up. Thought he was going to be a body builder for a while, until he backed off on that to what he is now. However, that put paid to his little trips to Seasons House as Kendra."

"No more outlet?"

"Except for the exercise room," Ruth admitted sadly.

~-~

Marie knocked on Adrienne's door, and then entered without waiting for permission. She was surprised to see the student seated at the vanity, the girl's attention fixed on the mirror before her.

"And what are you up to, ma'amselle?" she asked, setting down her laundry basket. She was further surprised when Adrienne jumped at her greeting. "I did knock, petite," Marie pointed out, just a hint of apology in her tone.

Sighing, the girl spun about to face the little housekeeper. "MON Dieu! What have you DONE to your FACE? Has Jane given you some type of experimental face-pack to try out? Your face, it is all white! Tres white!!"

Of course, Marie had been told what to expect by Jane, but she'd been dealing with Jane's girl-boys for nearly twenty years herself, and she knew how to play a role.

"It's grease paint, Miss Marie," was the quiet response. "For the class Miss Thompson has signed me up for."

"I believe, petite, that Miss Jane would prefer for you to say 'the class Miss Thompson has arranged for me to attend.' English is such a strange language, but I seem to recall that the word 'for' is not for ending sentences. So, you are to attend the clown school, eh?"

"Mime, like that French guy, Marcel something or other."

"Marcel Marseau, Adrienne. So, you are practicing with the make up. Jane will, I'm sure, applaud such planning and commitment."

Marie would have sworn she could see the child blushing beneath the white-painted mask. This was followed by a deep breath, a foot shuffle, and a floor-stare before the student met Marie's eyes. "That's not it - not really."

"Oh, and what is it, then?"

"Miss Thompson said I could attend as a boy, only. . . "

"Only what? Miss Jane does not make promises she is unwilling to keep. Do you need clothing suited to a boy? We might have something appropriate in storage."

"No, that's not it. It's these adult cosmetics Mrs. Beale put on me. . .they're always there and I look. . .I look. . " for a moment Marie thought she would have a crying child on her hands, "Like a girl!"

"Ah, I see."

"Well, I thought that, I mean, if cosmetics can make me look like a girl, maybe they can un-make me, you know? I thought I'd put a little foundation over the cheeks to hide the color there and around my eyes. Use a more naturally-colored lip cover to hide the lipstick, maybe thicken my eyebrows with the eyebrow pencils."

"A worthy plan," Marie said while thinking, *albeit hopeless.* "And what have you learned?"

 

"Well, I haven't really tried it all the way, yet," Adrienne said, choosing her words carefully. "I was afraid that the greasepaint might react with the makeup in some strange way. Give me green lips, or become impossible to get off. Part of the agreement with Miss Thompson was that I'd continue as Adrienne here at Seasons House."

Marie barely managed to contain a burble of laughter. "Ah, yes, I see where you, having been raised a boy, would worry about such things, but put it from you mind. You have nothing to worry about."

"I don't?"

"Mais non, ma petite. The base of the modern greasepaint is like cold cream - so that it easy to remove. As for the cosmetics you wish to use beneath the paint, well, you know what other use we have for cold cream, eh?"

"To remove makeup," Adrienne answered, shoulders drooping in defeat.

"Oui."

"Shi. . . ummm, sugar!"

 

 

 

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