I wasn’t exactly thrilled to change schools for my junior year. That meant that I would try to fit in a school with already established groupings. Awkward. To make things even more awkward I was the only new student in junior year apart from the more notorious one. A transgender girl started at the same time as I.

I tried out for the football team and I got a place in it, as a spare. Not a back, full, half or quarter. While I’m a nice specimen of the American male I’m not very aggressive. As a matter of fact I hate violence. Yes, I know that football is considered to be a violent game. I had learnt to live with that and personally tried to avoid that as much as possible. After all the point of the game is to get the ball to the right place, not to quash your fellow beings. I loved the pace of the game, the intricacies of the game, the camaraderie, the choreography. I also loved classical ballet choreography. That was something my fellow students had hard to understand.

It was in ballet class I got to know my notorious fellow new student. Apparently she had only started to live as a girl fairly recently and wanted to immerse herself in everything feminine. She was not bad at all at ballet. Not as good as some of the others in the class though. We had more experience, especially Carmen who was a great dancer, but she progressed quickly. She certainly had a very good control of her body. While not exactly beautiful she was kind of cute. Since we both were new we spent some time together. She was fun and smart. She was also much more mature than most of the girls so I asked her out. We had a nice date so we started to date in a low intensity way. Polly, as she had chosen to call herself spent a lot of time with her new BFF, Carmen. Carmen lived on the other side of the tracks in a huge mansion. There were some rumors that her father was involved in crime. I didn’t believe that. He seemed a nice guy. I thought it was just stereotyping since they came from South America.

Before Polly arrived Carmen had been rather lonely because of those rumors. Add to that that her father was very protective of her when it came to boys. He never approved of any boys that wanted to date her. Actually I was the only boy ever to spend time with Carmen. Since Polly and Carmen were such good friends Polly and I quite often included her in our activities. Her father approved of me. I think he considered me to be gay since I dated Polly and took ballet together with his daughter and Polly.

He was not the only one to have that attitude. Me taking ballet just “confirmed” that in the mind of all too many students at school. I was taunted for that. Strangely enough I was bullied for dating Polly while Polly wasn’t bullied at all (well, nearly not at all). Well, I could live with that. Polly was worth it. Strangely enough those that bullied me most started to have a tendency to get beaten up when walking alone in the night. Even the ones that were really good fighters. I vehemently denied that I had anything to do with that. In vain I tried to explain that I hate violence. On the other hand the bullying stopped.

In short, my junior year went much better than I had feared. While I still only got to play football very occasionally I felt that the training had made me improve significantly. I had great expectations for my senior year. Studies went reasonably well. Polly and I enjoyed the company of each other. Polly steadily got more feminine and my lover for her grew steadily deeper. Together with Carmen we had established a firm friendship group. I even got to visit Carmen’s home. The first boy ever to do so. It was an amazing place. I wished I some day would make enough money to get me a place like that. I asked Polly to the Junior Prom. She accepted. I was exhilarated. Then a week before the Junior Prom things came crashing down.

Walking home late at night alone I suddenly was confronted by two thugs. Since I hate violence, I had never learnt how to fight. Being strong and agile is of no use in a fight if you don’t know how to use it.

I was surprised to notice that I was brought to Carmen’s house. Not to her nice rooms but into the basement or, on second thought, it would be better call it dungeon. I was tied to a chair and roughed up. Then Carmen’s father came in and started to interrogate me.

He sure was mixed up. As it turned out he really was a big time drug lord. Somehow he had got into his head that I was a DEA undercover agent that skillfully had inveigled myself into his house by the devious ways I had courted Carmen’s best friend. Of course, he should have understood that no boy could be so depraved that he’d really like an unnatural freak like Polly. He only accepted Polly as Carmen’s friend because It was a safe companion for her. He was also on the look-out for fed infiltrators. He congratulated me to be very devious. I had completely fooled him by my circuitous ways. It was only a tip-off from one of his sources that DEA would try insert an agent as a teen student that had got him suspicious. In his mind that also explained the beaten up bullies. Now he wanted me to tell him everything I knew.

After a very unpleasant hour he decided that he had better things to do and left it to his minions to soften me up for his next session with me.

I have to admit that I have spent more pleasant nights.

The next day Carmen’s father came down again and started to question me. At that stage I was willing, well actually EAGER, to tell him anything he wanted. I started babbling.

At that point the door was flung open and a whirlwind took out the three minions in less than a minute leaving them unconscious. Carmen’s father got out a nasty knife and held it to my throat. The whirlwind, i.e. Polly, grabbed a gun and without hesitation put a bullet between Carmen’s father’s eyes. Then she dropped the gun and run to me. I suppose she hugged me but by then I had lost consciousness.

I woke up many hours later. I discovered I had had some surgery to take care of the damage done to me. Polly was there anxiously waiting for me to wake up. Together with her was man that was the embodiment of a high-level law enforcement officer as seen on TV. After the initial questions and assurances Pollly’s companion, he only gave the name Frank, gave me an update and strong orders. Polly was a male federal agent working undercover. Apparently he wasn’t even transgender but used that as a cover. A very efficient one. Frank was also pleased that I had proven to be such a good extra cover for “Polly”. He was less pleased with the fact that I now knew too much. He swore me to silence. He was also less than pleased that “Polly” had shot Carmen’s father. She had been very professional up to that point. Apart from losing the intelligence source the killing by itself would cause problems. He didn’t specify how. Then he left me and “Polly” alone for a while.

“So Polly, this is where you tell me that you are a 25 year old guy and you’re sorry that you led me on. And killing Carmen’s father, how unprofessional”

Yes,I was a bit bitter and disappointed. I had LOVED Polly and now I was told it was all a sham.

“James, I could have taken out Carmen’s father without killing him but only with a 92% probability of him not killing you first. I couldn¨t risk those odds. Not when it came to you. Despite that I have used you shamelessly I do care for you in a way. And no, I’m not 25. I really am 16. I have this weird father that trained me since I was four to be a teen super-agent. Don’t tell Frank that I told you. That’s part of what makes things “complicated". Farewell James”.

Polly had left school when I got out of hospital. So had Carmen. That left me very alone in an environment rife with rumors. Amazingly some of them even wilder than what had actually happened. My sexuality was among favorite themes to speculate about. I didn’t go to the Junior Prom.

Next year I got a starting position in the football team. I continued to take ballet classes. However, I also started to take karate classes. I hate violence but I figured that I needed to know how to defend myself if necessary. Before the first karate class while waiting for the teacher I ran into some guys that clearly had heard some of the more extreme rumors about my sexuality. They decided that I wasn’t fit to be in this class that they heard was awesome and was to be taught by a bad-ass former FBI agent. If I didn’t leave “voluntarily” they’d make me see the errors of my ways after class.

“Sorry guys. My girlfriend wouldn’t like that”
“Oh! Your girlfriend wouldn’t like that! How scared we are!”
“You should be. There she is.”

I nodded my head in the direction of Polly entering the Dojo to start teaching her class.

As Frank and Polly had expected the fecal matter had really hit the fan. All kept very hush-hush of course. “Polly” had been dropped like a hot potato and FBI distanced themselves from him (Polly had been part of a joint operation). The young man known as Polly had gone through a crisis following killing a man. That crisis had made him to reconsider many, many things in life. As a result an emancipated Polly had returned to my school for senior year. This time really transitioning. Frank et al had not been too happy about Polly going back to “the scene of crime” but Polly had insisted and threatened to tell all to media if they tried to stop her.

My parents were very happy. They believed that I would be good for her and she would d be good for me. I would provide stability and normalcy and her assertiveness would rub off a bit on me. They kept insisting that they’d look forward to a pas-de-deux at the ballet recital. Besides, when we were out late at night, they felt secure in the knowledge that she'd bring me home safely.