Surprise!

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Synopsis:

A story about the wages of betrayal, inspired by a story written by Jezzi Belle Stewart. WARNING: Contains excessive cruelty and unintended consequences, which are both far less amusing in real life than you might think -- and way less entertaining in a work of fiction than public humiliation.

Story:

Surprise!
by Randalynn

Doug,

Hey, man! I wish I was sending this just to say hi. Actually, I wish you were at a base nearby instead of in the Gulf, so you could just come by and fix things the way you used to. I know you're good at it, man. Always was. And things here are pretty messed up, and have been for a while.

But by the time you get this, it'll be all over anyway, one way or another. So I guess I ain't getting no rescue this time. No "nick of time" shit for Donny boy, no, sir.

And damn if part of me doesn't think it’s past due.

As I'm lying here writing this, all I keep thinking is, this is what it comes down to. I guess it's no big surprise. When you're all alone, no friends, no family, where the hell do you think you'll wind up? The Taj Mahal? Las Freakin' Vegas? Three months ago, I never expected I'd wind up here, like this. But I guess life's full of little surprises, and some big ones.

And that's what's gonna kill me, in the end. Surprise. That's how it all started, and that's how it's gonna end.

See, there I was, a suburb boy with a posse of friends and a sweet life, more or less. You remember the neighborhood, man. I thought things would never change. Then suddenly my little brother decides to become a girl. Get this — his girlfriend talks him into it, and he LIKES it. Surprise!

So now my friends are on my case about it, as if somehow it's MY fault he's gone nuts. So I figure I'll lean on him a little bit, get him to see it's not all fun and games being an oddball. He just shrugs it off, like what I'm saying doesn't matter. So I try harder, get nastier. And nastier. Hell, I figure he can't keep ignoring me forever. But when Mom and Dad catch me at it, they read me the riot act. Turns out they LIKE the joker in dresses! Surprise!

So finally, I did something seriously stupid. I really didn't want to hurt the twerp, but a guy gets tired of being ignored, and I knew "she" couldn't ignore a fall. So I tripped "her" as she walked down the stairs. Well, she did manage to get hurt, but she still ignored me. And the 'rents didn't believe my lame excuse for why she fell.

The next day I grab a bottle of Coke from the fridge after school and chug it down. And suddenly, everything gets REAL slow and kinda fuzzy. Mom and the twerp's girlfriend Brandy are pulling me along to the guest room, and taking off my clothes, and I'm trying to push them off me but I can't seem to get focused. I fall down on the bed and things start to spin, and they're doing things to me, but I can't tell what. Before I can get them to stop they're pulling me up off the bed and making me sit, putting stuff on my face and in my hair, and dragging me out of the bedroom towards the front door.

The twerp is out there, all dressed in leather and looking like he's freakin' Catwoman, and as things start to steady down some in my head, I begin to notice stuff. Like the fluffy dress I'm wearin', and the shiny slippery shoes and the lacey socks. And as it hits me what they've done to me, I realize I'm wearing a diaper and plastic pants with little ruffles across the ass. And I'm out in the street and everybody in the neighborhood can see me!

Surprise!

I want to run but I can't seem to make myself move. Can't do much of anything but stand here wobbling. There's this ringing in my ears and a big blank spot in the middle of my brain. Drugged, part of me whispers. They drugged you, man. Shit.

But if that's not bad enough, my friends drive by in Richie's car, and THEY all see me like this, and start pointin' and laughin'. There's a flash of light, and suddenly everything's spinning again and I fall back on my padded ass. The rest of me keeps going and the back of my head hits the driveway, and I'm out.

A few hours later, I woke up in my room. I'm still in the dress, and my head hurts like ten hangovers rolled into one, but it's nothin' compared to what I feel like inside. It aches, and feels empty at the same time. Like somebody ripped a big chunk of my heart out and didn't bother filling in the space they left behind.

The rest of them, Mom, Dad, the twerp and the girlfriend -- I could hear 'em downstairs, laughing and talkin' together. Like they were celebrating a job well done. And I suddenly realized what the feeling was inside.

Betrayal. My family had set me up! They drugged me and dressed me up and threw me out in the street, so everybody could make fun of the big sissy baby. And my friends — I felt the tears fall, and didn’t try to stop 'em. Hell, I was dressed like a baby, I thought at the time. Might as well cry like one.

It hurt. A lot. I always thought family meant people who would stand by you, no matter what. Sure I was hard on the twerp. I thought I had to be. He just didn't listen. You got a problem, we talk it out, right? But he didn't talk. He just blew me off. Even after Mom and Dad sided with him, I still believed the people you could always count on was your family. Even the twerp, I thought, woulda stood by me in a crunch, if push came to shove.

Then they do something like this. And they were still laughin', hours later.

Listenin' to them downstairs, I knew I had nobody. Nobody. I was totally alone. Worse. I was surrounded by enemies now. At home and — oh, God, at school. They did this to me.

I was .... alone. Totally alone. And too mad to realize just how bad that could be.

I cut the dress off with my Swiss Army knife. I couldn't reach the damned zipper down the back, and it wasn't like I wanted to save the damned thing anyway. I ripped the shoes and stockings off. I pulled the diaper and plastic pants down and kicked 'em across the room. I got dressed — boxers, jeans, sweatshirt, sneaks. The same clothes they stripped off me ... before.

There were ribbons and bows all over my head. So I took the knife and cut 'em off, one by one, along with hunks of hair. Let 'em fall, like the pieces of my life. Left 'em on the dresser. I knew my face was still made up, so I opened my door, walked across to the bathroom and scrubbed my face until it was raw.

With my ragged hair and the haunted look in my eyes, a stranger stared back at me from the bathroom mirror. He looked like he'd just been through a war ... and lost.

I walked slowly down the stairs to the kitchen. They sat around the table, drinking coffee and laughing. All of 'em, even Dad. But they shut up quick when they saw me there, the smiles still frozen on their faces.

"Well, son," Dad started to say, and I pointed a finger at him and said "Shut it. Just shut it." He stopped, stunned.

"What the hell was that?" I said, in a voice that sounded scary, even to me. "What the hell did you just do to me?"

Then Mom tried to speak. "We —"

"What, Mom? Drugged me? Dressed me like a baby and TOOK ME FOR A WALK — IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD? Made me look like some kind of sissy IN FRONT OF MY FRIENDS? What? WHAT?"

They just sat there, stone quiet. "What the HELL was that supposed to accomplish?" I raved. "Was that supposed to show me I was WRONG? I already KNEW I shouldn't have tripped the twerp. And I KNEW nobody liked me calling him names — not that he really cared. He just BLEW me off. I just wanted him to LISTEN to me. I tripped him to get his FUCKING attention, okay?"

"Donny! Language!" Mom looked horrified. I wheeled around and focused all of my attention on her. She cringed.

"LANGUAGE? You really wanna try to take the moral high ground here, 'Mom?' You DRUGGED me! All those years of listening to that 'just say no' crap, and you fill me with enough shit to chill a bull elephant — just to put me on DISPLAY. I'm surprised I'm not fuckin' brain damaged, but after what you people did to me today, a coma would be a blessing!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Brandy stand up slowly. I turned to her.

"And just what are YOU gonna do to me, huh? Beat me up? Like you could hurt me any more than I've already been hurt." My hands became fists. "But go ahead, take your best shot. You're only going to be the first in a long line of people wanting to beat the shit out of the 'big baby.' Starting with my former friends. Hell, go ahead and KILL me now if you want. What's left of my life is gonna be hell anyway, so kill me -- right here, right now. I'd ask you not to bury me in that damned dress, but I don't trust any of you farther than I can spit." She just stood there, looking at me. "Come ON, damn you! You stole my family, ruined my life. So fuckin' KILL ME already! I'm halfway dead now."

She just shook her head. "No," she said softly. "I did what I wanted to do."

"And what was that, exactly?"

"Show you what it's like to be ridiculed and bullied," Brandy replied, raising her chin.

"Oh, give me a fuckin' break," I snapped. "That hasn't even STARTED yet. That comes at school tomorrow — or later today if I'm stupid enough to get caught out in the street. You think I don't have ENEMIES? You think I'm still gonna have FRIENDS after today?"

"If you explain —" The twerp began, but I cut him short.

"Don't tell me it'll be all right," I growled. "Don't you dare. I know 'em. You don't. I'll be lucky to get away with one beating a day. And NO ONE is going to forget 'baby Donna.' Not in MY lifetime. This town is WAY to small for that to happen." I turned to him. "For thirteen years, I was a damned good brother. I taught you how to play b-ball, kept the Randazzos off your back when you were ten, and everybody knew to keep their hands off you, because you were my brother and I'd take it personal. Well, now you've got her to watch your back, and I know just how much those thirteen years really meant to you. I'm on my own, from now on. I GET that, okay? Even here, I'm alone."

I stormed over to the back door, and turned, one hand on the knob. "I'm going out there now, even though it's only gonna mean the torture starts early. But you know why I'm leaving? Because I feel safer OUT THERE than I do here with you. I know what to expect out there. But here? I trusted you, and you betrayed me and ruined my life without a thought. Who knows WHAT fun little scheme you'll come up with next?"

I smiled, but it was empty, like my insides. "You wanted to teach me a lesson? Well, here it is. Don't trust anybody -- especially family."

I slammed the door hard when I left.

It was worse than I thought it was gonna be, Doug. Lots worse. Everywhere I went, they knew. My 'friends' copied the pictures they took and put them up all over the school, in case anyone missed the 'big event.' Overnight, I became the practice target for everybody. And the people I thought were my friends turned out to be the worst. I had always been good at fighting, but even I couldn't handle five-to-one odds -- every freakin' day.

The coach wouldn't let me be on any of the sports teams anymore, not after he saw those pictures. Without the 'rents, I didn't have anyone left on my side to help me make him. And gym class? The one time I tried to shower afterwards, I came back to find all my clothes had been stolen and big baby girl clothes had been left in their place. The whole damned class held me down and dressed me up. Then they threw me out into the halls and held the locker room door shut, laughing the whole time. Everyone in the hall got a free show, and I got another shot of humiliation.

So I waddled to the main office in my party dress and saggy diaper, and complained. When I got back, everyone else was gone and my clothes were back in my locker. And what did the principal do? Gave me detention for disobeying the dress code and lying to him, and all my old 'friends' walked.

"If you want to dress like that, do it on your own time, Dawny," he sniffed. "Don't bring your perversions to school."

I stopped going to gym class after that. Nobody seemed to care.

After the first month, I got used to most of it. The fights, the insults ... and being alone. I took my loneliness and wrapped it around me. Like armor. Like a blanket to dull the pain.

My life got very small. I went to school and back to the house where I lived, and in between I hid in my room. When anybody in the house tried to talk to me, I was like stone. Even if they wanted to say "I'm sorry," I didn't want to hear it. The damage had been done. Apologies wouldn't fix anything, except to make them feel better. And I didn't WANT that. If they felt bad about what they did to me, I wanted them to die from it.

Eventually, they all just left me alone, which suited me fine. Well, I hated it, but what the hell else was I gonna do, Doug? I couldn't bring myself to trust them again. What kind of an idiot would I be to do that, after what they did?

It went on this way for a while, and I thought I might be able to tough it out ... until a few days ago, anyway. I was walking home ... alone, as usual. Suddenly I heard an engine, and a big van pulled up. Somebody yanked me through the open door on the side and I was gone. Surprise!

Three days later, they finally got tired of me. So they threw me on the front lawn in a dirty diaper and an oversized tee shirt with 'Hello Kitty' on the front. "See you next week, baby!" I heard one of them say, and they all laughed as they drove off. I was bleeding pretty much anywhere you wanted to look -- and some places you didn’t. I couldn't call for help — my throat was too raw, and I'll just leave you to figure out why.

Every muscle ached, and I crawled to the door, looking just like a baby girl would if somebody had used her for a football. It made me smile through the pain. Imagine that — me, back out front dressed like a baby. Huh.

I dragged the key out from under the mat, and let myself in. Nobody home, I thought bitterly. Not like they would care anyway. I just lay there in my baby outfit, bleeding into the diaper, and let the cold of the tile in the entranceway seep into my muscles. Felt good, Doug.

I thought about calling the police, or maybe a hospital, but a little voice in the back of my head whispered, "why bother? What makes you think they'll care, either?"

"Amen, brother," I said out loud. It came out a harsh croak. Nobody's gonna care about the big baby. I know that now. They'd throw me out in the street for wastin' their time. I'd have to crawl home. Huh.

As I lay there, I remembered. The jerks in the van said "see you next week." That meant they'd be coming back. I'd have to do this weekend again. And again. No backup. No help.

I'd join the Army or the Marines, but I'm only sixteen. Besides, the local recruiters knows all about "Donna." They'd laugh me out of the office. I'd run away but where the hell would I go? Where would I live? And how would I get a job? And I'd still be alone. Time to face the fact. I HATED being alone.

I almost started crying, but I caught myself. "I need to take charge," I croaked, and laughed at the thought of it instead. "I need to get a handle on this. Get on top of it. I can do that. Just got to figure out what I got to work with."

So I lay there on the tile, and I thought about it and thought about it, and finally came up with a plan. You would've been proud of me, Doug. I was finally taking charge. I'd take away their punching bag for good and all, and when the jerks came back next week for round two, I just wouldn't be here.

Like I said, you would have been proud.

So, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put this in an envelope addressed to you, and stick it in the stack of stamped mail Dad still hasn't dropped at the post office. Hopefully, he won’t notice an extra letter, and you'll get this in a week or two. So somebody will know what I went through.

Then, I'm gonna go crawl into the bathtub with Mom's bottle of Valium, a fifth of Dad's Jack, and my good old Swiss Army knife. I'm gonna wash down the pills with the booze, and then slit my wrists deep -- just as soon as I get too doped up to care.

And when they get home from wherever they are, they'll find me there, in the tub, in the pink "Hello Kitty" tee-shirt and the soaked diaper and the pool of blood, with a sign on my chest that pretty much sums it all up.

"SURPRISE."

Peace out, Doug. And thanks for listening.

Your bud,

Don

© 2006, all rights reserved. Posted with permission of the author.

Casual cruelty for entertainment's sake always makes me burn. And even though I tried not to respond to Jezzi's little tale with one of my own, keeping my anger in just made Don's story bubble up to the surface. I know it hurts, people. Or at least it should hurt -- it hurt me enough just writing it. But I've sort of been in Don's position before, both betrayed and ostracized. So it loses its entertainment value for me -- not that cruelty has much to begin with, for me.

Sorry for any pain I may have caused ... if you felt it. -- Randalynn

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Comments

speechless

Violence of a magnitude similar to this but not for the same reason visited me. This violence is a social ill that needs curing. There is no fun in causing pain to others. It takes great courage and strength to arise from this violence. The calling that comes to its victims is release and escape. There is a better life awaiting on the other side. Leave now painlessly. This calling sometimes never leaves the victims even after they are able to function again. It stays lurking in the background picking at you every now and then.

To glorify this violence and laugh as its inflicted on others is unthinkable to any civilized person. What was done in Jezzi's story is horrible. A family doing that to one of its own. Im speechless.

22 years later that calling lurks inside me still. Fear grips me often for no reason. It has harmed my ability in having relationships because of the trauma I went through. Is this the kind of pain that you glorify in your story jezzi ? Are the results really worth laughing about? Or for any author or reader for that matter? I know its a story. Its a story device. But I do not understand those that get a kick to enjoy reading about it. Randalynn's outcome is very probable for Don. I might have imagined running away much earlier and probable suicide should that have failed to produce a better result in life for Don. Family DID matter to him. He did choose to stay and brave it. IT overwhelmed him and took him in the end.

Pain shouldnt be glorified in the way it was. Its my opinion and belief. It may not be of others. But please understand situations we find ourselves in are not always of our choosing and events beyond our control sometimes visit us. It is not worth it to humiliate or invite violence to anyone even a teen or child in the manner of Jezzi's "Darling Dainty Donna." At least if you use that form of humiliation/torture, try to think through its consequences and understand it isnt something to get a "kick" out of reading. It should be a tool to learn from.

Peace

Sephrena Miller

i felt the pain

their lack of understanding of the likely consequences of what they did was beyond insensitive, at best. I truly wish he could have found another way out though. Could have gone to the police? a social worker, somebody? By his giving up, they won.

"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"

dorothycolleen

DogSig.png

aarrgghhh!

GET EVEN TWERP !!!
DESTROI THEM MUTULATE THEM WHATEVER

This story is too scary in

This story is too scary in the fact that it is totally plausible. We are all a few bad decisions away from total personal destruction.

There may just have to be a

There may just have to be a sequel to this one about how his death is received by his family. Though in reality they would probably struggle to divert blame away from their own responsibility. I gotta tell you this story really impacted me. Many times in my life I have lost hope but never to the degree that this guy did.

I can see why this story was

I can see why this story was necessary. I too always hated stories with public humiliation. Sure if you're some kind of masochist who gets off on being humiliated that may be fun, but most readers here will probably only get impression of bullying they've been subjected too.
I think you're totally right with how the "community" would respond. People just love to band together and hurt someone who they think deserves it. I guess it is an instinct, but that doesn't make it less sad that people are so prone to enjoy hurting others.

Another outcome of this story might have been him getting the weapons of his father and starting a school shooting, killing everyone who laughed about him. I don't think that public humiliation is a solution for anything. It's one of the worst punishments possible - there is a reason that there are no more pillory sentences.
Public humiliation is something one can never really recover from and in this case it was done by his family. If they really wanted to punish him they should have done it indoors or actually thought of something reasonable.

Well I hope they enjoy reaping the results of their acts. Their arrgoance has been dearly paid for by their child or brother.
This was sad, but quite realistic and well written.

thank you for writing,
Beyogi

please

ad a chapter with at realy terrible revenge
a revenge with jail time for the drugs
a revenge with a lawsuit withs leves them all penniless and out on the street for the rest of there lives
a revenge witch will get then om the sexoffenders list so they can not get a normal job for the rest of there lives

please please please please

and maby after the kid grows up [if he lives] he can pik them of the Streets and ''invite'' them to live in his cellar
and make some money out of youtoube movie,s he makes of them

erik je

Jezzi's story

Could someone point to Jezzi's story that started this? I've been trying to find it with no luck yet.

The damnable thing of it is I

The damnable thing of it is I know exactly what that is like. I went through probably 9 years of that kind of hell where I simply was scared every minute at school. At least he knew why, I didn't.

Have just found this

Have just found this today.

Have read some of the comments. Please. It is only a story. Very well written, and could quite easily happen/have happened. The human race has delighted in finding new ways to hurt people for as long as the human race has been here. If you have met unspeakable physical and psychological torture from your own family as a teenager, then you KNOW. If not, you don't.

Don't blame the writer for holding a mirror to our imperfections.

Great stories, Randalynn. I am working through them, slowly, to savour your wonderful word-skills.

Kindest regards,

Kate

Kate

Deep

All I can say is good horror story and I'm sad to a realistic one

in my darkest thoughts...

I didn't see quite the picture you have given. Thank you for putting a point on the consequenses of uneven extreme treatment to anyone.

Sad but true

Randalynn, you paint an all-too-realistic picture in your story. It scared me as I read it, and I can't say that I enjoyed it. But then, that's it's purpose.

I've always avoided stories of the type that provoked this tale, for this reason as well as others. You've given a better voice to that reason than I have been able to, for that you should be congratulated. But this is going to provoke a schism in the ranks, I'm afraid. I wonder at what the final result will be.

That story and others of the type under the broad umbrella of "Forced Feminization" and related catagories have always been popular. You've done a much better job of expressing the outrage some (like me) feel about these than I ever could, and as a result I suspect you will serve as a lightning rod for those who like that type of TG fiction. You have my support, and I wish you luck.

Karen J.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

pain for fun!!??

kristina l s's picture
Is there anyone here that celebrates pain or humiliation? Finds such amusing perhaps? Many stories will touch it. Look at it. Taste it. Try to sense the reality and perhaps the reasoning. Even those that seem to thrive on subtle or not so subtle humiliation probably have a more self mocking take than actually laughing at. I suspect they've been there done that. More an exorcism? 'Pain' can work at you in funny ways at times. This one paints a very bleak, extreme view of a humiliating experience. Deserved? Maybe, up to a point. But then it doesn't stop and no one says a word. Red Neck Heaven. Is it possible? Maybe. I am quite sure many here have tasted pain and humiliation one way or another so perhaps 'feel' it more than might otherwise be the case. Any that have looked at the darkness and considered... will know where Don is, possibly understand it. But applaud it... I don't think so. A little too bleak maybe Randalynn, but you do get the message across Kristina

Very Dark

A little too dark but very truthful. Could there be worse betrayal? Yes and many are suffering through it at the moment. The child that is suffering abuse or some one that is different and gets treated badly by those around them.

The Darkness in humanity

I've seen the darkness in humanity's heart and i've felt it in every taunt and every bullies shove i like others though of death but unlike some i had not the strenght of will to carry it out so when i read stories where the vitim is abused by thoses they should be able to relie on it always get me angry so angry.I'm not angry at this storie because it shows the results of the unthough out actions of others be they friends or family.

A mirror with two surfaces

I am so very torn on this one.

I have already commented on Jezzi's tale, supporting its theme on the general principle that a story is a story. And has to be judged as that.

Cruelty and tragedy abound in life. And many are the scars they leave. And many the wounds that do not heal.

Randalynn has produced a most powerful tale which sears the page with pain. Without her sensitivity to, and awareness of, such pain I suspect she could never have achieved such quality. Integrity and anguish shine through it.

So it makes me feel guilty and reconsider. Which I suppose is why she wrote it. That and her own pain.

But perhaps not ultimately change my mind.

I don't believe with Sephrina that "Pain shouldnt be glorified in the way it was." In fact I do not believe Jezzi's story does glorify it. But even if it did I hold dear to the idea that life is a fit subject for literature.

Life in all its aspects. Even if those aspects hurt, appal, horrify, open wounds. Otherwise no one would write tragedies.

And perhaps well written 'dark' tales have the value of bringing home to the more fortunate the pain suffered by the less so. Which is, I think, akin to what poe suggests.

There is admittedly literature that is exploitive in this situation and that I would not wish to defend. I just feel that it becomes difficult to decide and that condemnatiion can be too wholesale. So much depends on individual reader's own experiences and suffering.

I get lost in my own internal argument as I see possibilities and exceptions strtch infinitely before me.

I just, perhaps defensively, return to this gut feeling that nothing, but nothing in life, or indeed in the imagination, is not a fit subject for literature. And that the reverse side of the coin is that good literature can also perhaps ennoble that which is base in life.

And of course there is always the sanction of not reading that which you don't like.

So I don't really support Karen's view that Randalynn's tale will 'provoke a schism in the ranks'. Well it shouldn't do anyway but people being people she is sadly probably right and it will.

Just an additional incidental thought. That the better the writer the more effective, or appalling depending on one's viewpoint, the impact of a dark tale will be. The more one will upset, the more pain one will cause. One just can't win!

I admire both writer's tremandously. And I have enjoyed both stories. But then I am lucky in never having suffered. At least never felt as much pain as I detect in some contributors. That, and of course being an insensitive bastard, helps one to maintain a dispassionate stance.

Fleurie

Fleurie

I suppose ...

... what made me burn the most was the sheer injustice of the punishment in Jezzi's tale. It was almost like punishing a baby for touching the stove after being told "NO" by burning off their fingers with a blowtorch.

But in Jezzi's tale, nobody even told Don "no." The only indication that Don's verbal abuse was not welcomed was in a single statement:

"Mom was getting fed up and even Dad rebuked him."

There was no discussion at all of reasons or motives. No intermediate punishments. Nothing. In my house, when people don't get along, you put them together in a room and you try to figure out why, so you can fix it. But in Don's house, you just let it slide and wait until somebody gets violent. THEN you publicly humilate them by drugging them stupid and putting them on display in a frilly dress and a diaper.

I must have missed something in parenting class, because i don't see what that kind of treatment buys you. I mean, what did they hope to gain by that? I don't know of any reason to do that to anyone -- except to hurt them. And I can't think of any Mom I've ever met who punishes her kids just because she wants to see them suffer.

*sigh* I'm sorry for all the darkness, folks. You can't believe how I agonized before posting this story. And how many times I tried to find a way out for Don, and failed. Suicide is NEVER a good choice, because it takes away all your options. But Don was in a corner, and just couldn't fight anymore.

Randalynn

I never

...meant that authors should not write dark stories. Every author should write whatever they want. What I was saying was from an ethical standpoint of reading gratification. You should not enjoy a work that glorifies or puts a postive light on tourture, humiliation and condoned violence. You should enjoy the creativity the author puts inot the story flow and presentation. But to "enjoy" reading about that and laughing at it, just disturbs me. That is why I said readers should use the violence presented "as a tool" to learn from. My opinion is only my opinion. I wont name call any author or jump on a bandwagon because I don't like a story. I can choose not to read it. However, I do choose to comment. Since the story evoked something inside me, I wrote down what I wanted. Jezzi writes good stories and is a good author. I just happen to NOT like the content of that particular story. The style is well done. Big difference! Im not putting Jezzi down.

I happen to cherish and love the freedom of speech and assembly we enjoy. I will stand up for any author to write whatever they want.

Sephrena Miller

A powerful Surprise

Breanna Ramsey's picture

I had to think a good bit before commenting on this. I passed it by several times before reading it, but your synopisis was very effective at bringing me back.

Yes it was a very dark, frightening piece, but Randalynn you did a fantastic job in wringing out the anguish Don felt. There are so many stories in TG fiction that glorify humiliation as punishment -punishment that goes way beyond fitting the crime. Thank you for showing that there are consequences to every thing we do, even if it was painful for us to see.

I am struck by something else, and maybe this would be better said in a comment on Jezzi's story, but these two seem very intricately linked. I am in no way trying to denegrate Jezzi in any way with this either, it's just an observation. Jezzi has often spoken against 'identity death' in other stories - an erring man is transformed against his will and ends up not only in a new body but with a whole new mind, his identity replaced by another and his old self erased. It is also a common theme in many TG stories.

Isn't what happened to Don another form of the same thing? True, he didn't forget who he had been, but that identity was surely stolen, killed by the punishment he received. His identity in the eyes of others was most definitely destroyed. His friends could never see him as the same person again. Even if this wasn't true in his mind it was, and he could never see himself that way again.

This story brings to mind words I read from someone very dear to me, the last words she ever wrote. She said, "I don't want to die, I want to live. I want to love and get married and have children. But more than that, I just want the pain to stop."

You're very right, Randalynn, suicide is NEVER a good choice. We that are left try to find answers and want to know why our loved one wanted to die, but suicide isn't about death, it's about hurting. Don was hurt and betrayed by those he should have been able to depend on. Was he wrong for what he did? Of course he was, but instead of seeing that his anger was quite likely rooted in confusion and trying to help him understand, his family betrayed him and stole his identity, and in the end, his life. You know what's really remarkable? I pity them - they have to try and live with what they did now.

Thank you, Randalynn. I'll remember this one for a long time. Maybe the next time someone does something and I think, "They should be punished for that", I'll remember Don.

Sincerely,
Scott

Bree

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy

http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph

Casual cruelty for entertainment's sake ...

Jezzi Stewart's picture

... always makes me burn., too, Randalynn. And I have written many comments with endings similar to yours for stories where the punishment was not deserved. What the parents did in my story was not cruel, nor casual, nor for entertainment's sake. If the Donny I wrote was the Donny you wrote, I would agree with you in what you write, but he is not. You write of a Donny who was nice to his brother in the past and only trying to warn him of the dangers of his course of action now and is upset because his brother doesn't seem to listen. here is the brother I wrote:

** He did not take my change well, and his harassment of me grew more and more savage, and "fairy" and "sissy" were terms of endearment by comparison with some of the language he used. **

My Danny was not trying to reason with his brother, like yours. Would you listen to someone who was heaping verbal abuse on you calling you much worse things than the two I have indicated, or would you have tuned him out? Also, does my Donny sound like a brother who would have been nice to his brother in the past?

** Mom was getting fed up and even Dad rebuked him. **

You indicate mom and dad had not tried to do anything about Donnys behavior prior to the incident, yet I clearly write that dad had rebuked him.

** However, up to last week, his harassment had remained verbal. Then last Saturday things turned physical. As I started down the stairs, he tripped me, and laughed as I fell. **

You write your Donny writing, "So finally, I did something seriously stupid. I really didn't want to hurt the twerp,..." Did your Donny laugh as his brother fell? Mine did; HE committed "Casual cruelty for entertainment's sake "

** He tried to pass it off as me tripping because of unfamiliar high heels. When dad didn't buy it, he said - and I can quote because I was listening in - "You're not gonna take the word of that little fairy queen over your real son's are you." **

When my Donny's lie didn't work, he compounds it with the above statement. No mention of that for your Donny.

My Donny is a male Patty McCormick "bad seed" brother. Yours is a misunderstood helpful brother. Casual cruelty in my Donny's case would be to continue to allow him to practice his own brand of cruelty.

** I at first didn't recognized her; then it hit and I doubled over laughing (That's when Mom took this pic.) **

Yes, I have him laughing at Donny. Donny had been insulting him for his choice for days and had maliciously done him bodily harm and laughed about it. I think he's entitled to laugh at Donny's present state. I don't show the parents laughing, and the pic would be taken by mom as a reminder. Given my dad's comments about not liking bullies or liars, I imagine they were unhappy that their son had turned out as he had and that there appeared a need for so radical a punishment.

In other words, I admit your Donny doesn't deserve what happens. Mine does. He's the one dispensing casual cruelty for entertainment value. What happens to him is better than jail and he does have a way out. Be a man. Go before the school and say, "I have been a macho asshole and a shit to my brother for a long time. I tried to really hurt him. My parents punished me by dressing me as the baby I was acting like; if they hadn't drugged me to do it, I would have hurt them. I deserved it and I've learned my lesson." Then stand tall and say with a smile, "And, hey, I was kinda cute, wasn't I."

The above may sound unrealistic, but I was in the guys washroom of a tollway oasis one time at about 1:00am in the middle of changing from me back to Bob, when several tough looking guys walked in and stared at me. I looked at them, shrugged, and said, "Everybody's gotta have a hobby." They considered that and then went about their business. As they left, one gave me a thumbs up and said in a friendly voice, "You go, girl!" The attitude with which you approach challenges sometimes makes a great deal of difference. I often wonder what would have happened if I had acted embarrassed or scared.

BE a lady!

Some times it is a matter of

Some times it is a matter of perception. I can see both donnies being the same person. The consequences in the stories are quite different. In 'surprise' neither of the donnies would have deserved those consequences.

We don't really know anything ...

... about your Donny's past, but I made the extrapolation that the verbally abusive behavior only began to happen after his brother's choice to embrace his "inner girl." I made a lot of choices for Donny based on the idea that he hadn't always been a jerk -- or even if he had, not a particularly awful one.

My Donny used abuse to try and get his brother's attention -- to show him what he could expect out there in the real world without his girlfriend to protect him. I'm not sure exactly what your Donny was using the abuse for, so i created a reason that would explain why someone who hadn't been a jerk before would start behaving like one. Your Donny's reason might have been entirely intolerance, but if so, that's something that could have be dealt with more constructively by his parents than with a bout of drug overdosing and public humiliation.

I did note the "Mom was getting fed up and even Dad rebuked him" line in a later post, but that's hardly enough to stop him. How about grounding him? How about finding out where the anger and abuse is coming from? My point is, they didn't do ANYTHING really to stop this other than words -- and then they go ALL the way out in the "Twilight Zone," drug him, and dress him as a baby girl for public edification.

I did address his comment after the fall with the line -- "And the 'rents didn't believe my lame excuse for why she fell." I did try to be consistent with your narrative, Jezzi, honest.

But the ultimate question, both from your response AND from your story, is this -- what exactly was the "lesson" he was supposed to have learned from this little exercise? Don't go out after being force fed a handful of Valium in baby girl clothes? How does this help him deal with his brother's choice? How does this address anything at all, other than his Mom's weird desire to humilate him in front of his peers with the help of her 'daughter's" girlfriend?

The only lesson he learns from this, even if he's 100% YOUR Donny and not the one I created, is that he can't trust his parents. And if his friends are as bad as he is, he can't trust them to be kind OR understanding the next time he sees them.

So it's a lose-lose situation for Donny -- mine ... or yours.

I think if you wanted this to be anything more than a "let's humiliate Donny for revenge" story, you would have given us more. You would have told us what Donnie's problem was, and how this would have fixed it.

As it is, there's just enough information to condemn your Donny as a jerk, and not enough to make us believe this "exercise" will do anything but hurt him for the sakeof hurting him. No lessons learned, no real value at all. And there's nothing in your story that indicates he won't go down the same road MY Donny did.

Sorry, Jezzi hon, but that's just how it looks from the cheap seats. *hugs*

Randalynn

Ok You Two

Jezzi, How about You and Randalynn try a collaborative piece: either each author doing afew paragraphs at a go and alternate them, or have each do a character and between you two mesh them into a story you both like. make it a dark story and see how the process of writing it between you two goes ? You might learn something about each other and life as you get through it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Sephrena Miller

Awww, don't stop

We haven't had a good knock down, drag out steel cage tg writer match in a while! Let it go on!!!!

A last gasp...

The Big Closet is a very unique site that allows its readers the opportunity to read well written and meaningful stories. That means you don't get the crap you find at Fictionmania and the very humiliating and torturous stories at Betty's Pub that the readers there love more than anything else!

When a story such as Jezzi's latest graces this site and to a lesser degree snippets out of other good stories are singled out for such responses and comments, I have to laugh and cry.

Extremes are always the answer in the replies, comments and then a few people find a balance. (Sometimes they post that balanced reply and at other times no balance is ever achieved)

I'm very glad Jezzi wrote that story. The story made as a response was done as an extreme and I can see several ways to change the suicide ending with more realistic ones. I think most of you can as well.

I wrote a very dark story about a little boy publicly humiliated by his stepmother with his fathers approval of sorts. No suicide in this one, just that the child withdrew within himself and stayed there. It's called "Where No Boy Has Gone Before" and it has more than a little reality and truth about it. I was publicly humiliated by the local press when I was little and this caused everyone in town to react, many negatively. My only answer (my choosing) was to withdraw within myself and I stayed catatonic for months.

What would have happened if I never came out of that state? That is what that story is about and how a child of any age can easily get there. Many children and adults are right now in catatonic states. The causes are many, but the cures are few. Go to any mental health hospital, (government run) and you will find these people.

They will be the ones bedridden, slowly shriveling limbs and shrinking bodies. They will be fed by a tube going directly into their stomachs, the tube linked to a machine slowly giving their bodies the nourishment it needs to survive just that much longer. The ones that do come out of catatonia are surrounded by family and friends that love them, really love them! They could have been the cause, but they will also be the cure! Only through persistence and that unselfish giving of their love do these catatonic souls come back. I know, I've lived through it and can tell you it was the unselfish all powerful love that broke through and allowed me to return to the land of unpleasant reality.

On the other hand, in reality here I sit typing away a response that many will flame and others will jump on the bandwagon to defend the others responses. I don't care, post away, just make sense OK!

I lived through catatonia, thoughts of suicide, but I lived! I chose to go on living. I had help of course, and so could have the boy in that very dark response. Nothing is as dark as portrayed by others because they only have a part of the story! They have what they read and interpret within their own minds and life's experiences. They interject the between the lines unwritten revelations of the story with their own words and their own experiences. I applaud that, but without any balance it is a selfish one sided answer.

I am what I am today thanks to all I have gone through in my past. The joys, the heartaches, the illnesses, the pains, the betrayals, the love, and that is what makes the response so wrong. There is no love by anyone! Not even by the antagonist boy. He showed no love for his little brother and did not seek to understand him one bit. He only thought of his own selfish needs and his own reputation. So too was the humiliating way the family responded.

I say to one and all, you are who you are. What you are today has a lot of what you lived through in all of your yesterdays. It is not enough to just remember your past, but to understand your past is what is important! Those understandings and the realizations this brings you also change as you go on living and experiencing life in a real way. To begin to understand others can only be achieved correctly when you understand yourself.

Huggles All
Angel

PS. If you wish me to see your response to this comment of mine, then email me or post a private message to me. Thanks

Be yourself, so easy to say, so hard to live.

You can find my stories by going to. http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/taxonomy/term/39

The ones I deleted from this site are here. (Well, most of them anyway.)

http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/weblink/go

"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"

Maybe

...dark stories do have a therapeutic value. They stirred up deep emotions inside me that had caused me to open up and respond. Twice on this web site it has gotten me to get out of my system a skeleton of my past. It does help to release ones inner demons in a constructive way. Angel, I understand what you went through. I am so glad you chose the path you did to. Your stories touch us all and to deprive us of that WOULD be... unimaginable.

I will take a look at your story angel.

Sephrena

Suicide Prevention

I think enough has been said about the merits of the "two stories." I just wanted to suggest to anyone in that very dark and lonely place that they seek help.

There is help out there. There are people who care. Anyone reading this can do a simple google search for "suicide prevention". I just performed such a search and google came back with over 18,900,000 results. You have to take the first step.

I'd also like to thank Randa for sharing this very important tale.

Always,
Darla...

This was funny!

Randalynn,
Now this was funny! I curtsy too you! I really appreciate parody and you reached almost "Swiftian" levels of that! I can't really comment upon a nonexistent plot but most of us have none as the desire to get into our skirts and be naughty just sweeps us away. Still, the family should have gotten him pregnant (somehow) while thay were at it and then he should have eaten the baby. That would have been turelly Swiftian, but just "a modest proposal" on my part.

I liked the concept though, the "feminized" brother controlled by an unexplained girlfriend? Hmmm, the family in "da hood" siding with that is just silly but, the "gang dude", now he has a problem?

A better and more uplifting story would be how "gang dude" and his unexplained "girlfriend" help the girlie/brother survive? That would have been a cool and thoughtful story. Can you imagine how hard that might be? People have afflictions but they make choices, in my mind you have a wonderful concept here, you just choose to let your own issues sweep away the opportunity to flesh it out.

I loved the "concept" and hated the story and if you don't write it I will! No diapers necessary! :)

Gwen

Gwen Lavyril

Gwen Lavyril

I had a professor once ...

... in college who insisted that Hamlet had actually been written as a comedy and not a tragedy. Now I have you here, seemingly insisting that Surprise is a comedy and not a tragedy -- that it's somehow ... over the top?

Well, it's a continuation of Jezzi's "Donna" story (although I'm pretty sure you KNEW THAT, you minx! *grins*), but if you want to see it as a comedy ... to each her own! *hugs*

Randalynn

Powerful

Thanks for writing this cautionary tale.

I was right there with that poor teenager. I feel his rage, the sickness at his betrayal. There is no excuse for the parents' behavior - none. It's the other side of the coin where reality hits home.

I can stand stories about little boys who should have been girls, but I've never agreed with petticoat punishment - and the public variety is simply child abuse. Every once in a while we need reactionary tales: Ty Slothrop's Angel series; The Stark series.

I even wrote a short story satire when I thought that stories about little boys being injured and turned, more or less, seamlessly into little girls were getting out of hand.

A Day in the Life at Thomas Grover Elementary

Aardvark

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

Mahatma Gandhi

Much Appreciated...

Thanks, Randalynn, for writing this. (And nice to see that the gratuitous weekly abduction/rape in Raised in SLC-9 bothered someone besides me.)

Eric

The Comment Thread that Wouldn't Die

If nothing else, Randalynn certainly has stirred up some emotions. I have to agree with her side of the issue because of how we both think. But I also understand Jezzi's tale was supposed to be a jest. A jest that crossed a line of family bonds and was a little too much for the incident. Granted, the photo was funny looking and I can see that teeny tale around it. But, to place that story in real life and reading it just tears me apart inside. I'm sorry, but it does. I would feel just as bad if the parents had begun lacing Don's food with female hormones with it chemically castrating and altering his body. Not that world could do without violent jerks, just I feel some sort of chance to repent should have been offered before totally devastating someones life like that. Again, Jezzi's Tale was good even though I dislike the content of Don's treatment. And Randalynn's story reply made me dislike the content of her story just as much. A tragedy to a tragedy.

Sephrena Miller

Vampire Comments! ROTFL!

Randalynn,
Please excuse, and not meaning to rain upon your comment parade but Sephrena you touch upon the issue. What was it "supposed " to mean? Publishing a story is like throwing a football, three things can happen and two of them are bad! Oh, I know that because as a young woman I was a cheerleader, and when I did the high kicks, well those boys? Oh, that was a story I wrote, darn? :)

Randalynn, I don't mean to be rude but you are not Shakespeare and I am not an English professor. But, Falstaff was one of the Bard's central charachter's and in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" vengeful women dressed him as a woman (he did it for the same reason as Biff and Eddie) and then for fun put him in a basket that was beaten to show that no one was in there. No one was actually after him he was just a silly coward and they took advantage of that. Am I clarifying anything?

I did not mean to offend, you come from some very interesting positions as do Ty,Jezz,Angel,Angela,Erin, et. al!

I just mean to write and hopefully publish here for what I am and how I feel. I respect everyone's willingness to do the same. Whether we agree is not as important as whether we do it.

Hugs Randalynn,
Gwen

Gwen Lavyril

Gwen Lavyril

Never said I was ...

... Shakespeare, hon, but I do understand where you're coming from. Your clarification is apparently meant to assure me that even Shakespeare used similar devices for comedic purposes. But there are comedians out there today that use harsh treatment for comedic value, and for me there is a point when something stops being funny and just becomes cruel.

That's just me, though. It's how I feel, and I'm not expecting the rest of the world to follow along. In fact, I probably should have kept my mouth shut (or my fingers off the keys, if you prefer. *grins*).

I know you'll write what you want, and I know my issues have no bearing on your creative work. My sensitivity shouldn't -- and won't, I hope -- stop you from writing what you will and publishing here at BC. I think you're a terrific writer -- after all, you make me care enough to get upset, right? *grins*

I will try to keep my concerns to myself in the future. I know I've said that before, but it's a hard promise to keep for someone who feels too much. *smile* I will, however, endeavour to keep it. This time. *hugs*

I just need to remind myself that sometimes, letting people know how I feel really serves no purpose, and ultimately isn't worth the sturm und drang.

Keep writing, Gwen! *squeeze*

Randalynn

Darn! It's laugh or Cry.

Dear Randalynn,
Are you threatening me with silence? Now that is cruel, don't you think? What if we all took that position, oh yeah Simon and Garfunckle already defined that, ok trying to seem original let me say this.

I am not into silencing contrary opinions and your remarks are even more valuable for being that. Every comment positive or negative makes one think and both sorts often lead to changes of perspective. I quickly wrote the "Education of Danny Bloom" to see if I could get a better balance. You got me to do that hon, change is small but it happens.

Oh, I will always have something absurd and hyperbolic lurking within but you reinforced my notion that just "Spewing" my feelings isn't really writing and so maybe I will get better. You may say what you want, but if you say nothing I won't forgive you!

Gwennie

Gwen Lavyril

Gwen Lavyril

Violence and venom

I am always appalled and repulsed by the stories that use the absolute lowest level of depravity in not defining, but somehow encouraging and taking pleasure in, the basest cruelty of which we are capable. I think that I understand what Randalynn was trying to say and show by publishing her work. Whenever I come upon that sort of work, I discontinue reading it, and look for stories that appeal to the gentler pallet, and I never read another story by that author. That is not the case with this story by Randalynn, by which I believe she was attempting to make a statement and make a stand. I will continue to read her stories. I am deeply opposed to the death penalty, and sometimes I would make statements to its supporters, that if they are so fond of it, why don't we either televise it for their base pleasure, and get right to the heart of it by having Budweiser and Ed McMahon host a drawing and quartering the condemned to really give them something to cheer about. This, of course, was pure hyperbole, and an attempt to draw their attention to the suffering and pain, and hopefully give them pause to think.

I had absolutely no intention of either encouraging it, or suggesting that it be so. I abhor violence, cruelty, abuse, and murder, but I do not think that anything is gained by the taking of another's life. I often say that the only difference between us and the Neanderthals is that our weapons are tipped with nuclear capabilites, instead of wood or flint. Other than that, I unfortunately often come to the conclusion, that we are not even their equals. They behaved and did as they did for survival. What is our excuse?

If a story, such as 'Lord of the Flies' is written to expose the nature of a being or society, then there is a higher purpose to it; however, if it is written only to titillate and provide some sort of vicarious thrill to the reader basest instincts, I find it to reinforce the basest of behaviors and human nature: one might as well read 'Mein Kampf."

I understand our frailties and failures in rising from the primordial ooze, but we should endeavor to learn how to rise from it rather than to desire to frolic and seek deeper into it. There is a difference between fighting and sometimes killing to protect others or ourselves, and the abhorrent notion that we should do so for pleasure or revenges sake.

I, for one, have too much to do to improve myself and become a better keeper of my sisters and brothers. I am very spiritual, but not religious. I have read much of the great writers, poets, theologians, and philosphers, though I make no claim to be anything more than a novice, and I ultimately make not judgements. There are so many things I cannot understand or comprehend.

We should be opening, not closing, dialogues with each other. I thought that is the purpose of forums such as this, and we need to reach out to each other and walk that mile in each other's shoes.

I have spent over 54 years dealing with dealing with gender dysphoria, and the ignorance evidenced by the prejudices, hatred, and violence to be able to tolerate the infighting amongst those of us who are in one way or another affected by it. I may not agree with what others have to say, but I defend their right to say it, and I hope that somehow they may find enlightment along the way, as I hope for myself.

This is in no way a condemnation of anyone, just random thoughts. I know that we have the transsexual, transgendered, cross-dressers, fetishists, and people who just enjoy the stories among us, and all should be welcomed and respected. We also have the right to take issue and make a statement, as the author has, if they open themselves for reply, as long as we do so respectfully with the intent of making a viable statement. I think that Randalynn's story was written in that light, maybe out of frustration, or with the hope of enlightenment. May we all have that courage within us.

Love to all,
Michele

Miss Amelia