A little morsel I dreamed up this afternoon.

Spider
by
Angharad
I smacked my hand on the keyboard, I had lost again at Spider Solitaire. I had worked out long ago that it was rigged to cheat, it withheld cards I needed and also knew what cards it was going to play. This was the third game in a row where I had lost because there was no flipping red jack or a black five, the game knew I couldn't clear the suit and so thwarted me yet again. Occasionally, I thought about revenging myself on the man who wrote the program for all the frustrations I felt because of it. At times it felt personal and so I was going to be personal back, leaving him in a maze rigged with antipersonnel mines or tied up in a garage when I locked him in and set fire to it. It was evil of me, but then he was evil too, to have written that program.

I toyed with my long hair, I had stopped sucking it when I discovered so many girls need treatment to get the hair out of their stomachs, but I'm not a girl, let me rephrase that, I'm a boy but I know I'm really a girl. How do I know? It's because I've always known, well, since I discovered boy and girls were different I've aligned myself with the girls. I told my mum that I was really a girl and thankfully she didn't freak out but told me to be careful. We came to an arrangement, she allows me to dress as a girl in the house and I don't do so outside in public on my own. It's nearly as frustrating as Spider, but I love her and don't want to upset her, she's a good mum.

Perhaps I should tell you about us: as you can gather I live with my mum. She's thirty-eight and looks after herself very well, so she understands a bit about how I feel in presenting myself as a girl. I'm good at my makeup, my hair is down to my shoulders, it was longer but I had to have it trimmed to get rid of split ends and it was cut like a girl's, so it will have a nice shape before long. I have had pierced ears for about five years and usually wear studs in them when I'm in school but I have quite a collection of jewellery including earrings of all sorts of shapes and sizes. I can only wear them at home though.

Recently we went on holiday where no one knows us and Mum let me dress as a girl while we were away, it was fabulous and nobody knew I was really a boy under the skirts and makeup. I saw that I attracted the attention of boys quite a lot, and that was nice if a little scary, sort of nice scary.

I've been taking various herbal tablets for about five years, they mimic hormones and I have small mounds on my chest and my hips are bigger than a normal boy, but then I'm not a boy am I?

I keep trying to persuade my mum to take me to the doctor's to get a referral to a gender clinic but she chicken's out every time, once I am sixteen, I can speak to the doctor myself. Once he knows, I'm sure my mum will come on board. There is only the two of us, my dad apparently ran off with his secretary just after I was born. Mum was very upset and disliked men for quite a while but she made an exception for me, so that isn't why I'm like I am, that was just nature's mistake.

When I got my hair cut, I went as a girl. Mum took me to a salon in a town several miles away, I got dressed in a skirt and top and did my makeup, and just wore studs in my ears because, with dangly earrings, they just get in the hairdresser's way. We had lunch out as well and even did a little shopping. It was about two weeks before we went on holiday. I even bought a bikini, which I wore on holiday, taping myself up wasn't very pleasant and I had to wear padding in the bra to make my boobs look big enough, but with a shirt with a button-up front, it looked okay. I couldn't go in the sea but that didn't worry me, besides, I'd rather swim in a pool in my one-piece costume, I can just tuck myself for that..

So here I am, all dressed up with nowhere to go. It's the Easter holidays from school, mum is in work, she's a solicitor, and I've been doing the laundry. Our garden is secluded, so I hung the washing on the line, then I made my lunch, which was when I played Spider and lost three games. I don't really want to kill anyone, just win it more often, and girls aren't like that really, are they? Though I know one or two in school who are as bad as the boys for violence and nastiness, however, those I tend to mix with are really quite nice and see me as an honorary girl anyway.

My initials are M.A., so they nicknamed me Emma, which has sort of stuck, and even the bullies tend to call me that these days, though not in a friendly way, but they leave me alone most of the time, especially when I'm with a pack of girls. They treat me with some contempt as they see me as effeminate and letting the side down, I just see myself as a girl, so I am, I suppose, a bit feminine, but I don't care, I'm just being myself.

Perhaps one day she'll agree for me to attend a gender clinic, I even know which dress I'd wear, depending on the weather of course, it's going to rain tomorrow, which is why I did the laundry today. The place is pretty clean and tidy and I've done all my homework, so I might do some embroidery later although Stephanie said she might come round this afternoon, she's one of my closest friends. They used to live next door but they moved a couple of years ago to a bigger house, she has two brothers and another sister who is quite a bit younger, so she has to do lots of babysitting and isn't free that often.

So that's me, hoping my friend will visit but I've got lots to do and I'll never finish this sampler if I keep putting it down, things could be better but they could also be worse.

I did used to get bullied, but they seem to have found other targets and like I said, the girls protect me as one of their own for which I'm very thankful. Some of my best friends are allowed to come to my house and see me as a girl, but they understand why I can't go out, even in a pack of girls, though I've been working on it and Mum is starting to waiver, so one day perhaps I will go out with my friends to our local shops instead of very occasional outings with my mum to a distant town, where they don't know me.