“Okay, who’s hungry?” Cindy said cheerfully after closing the door on Kim’s only route home.

 

Kim turned ashen. Gone... Ben’s gone... I’m not getting out of this. I’m Kimberly Glass for real. Kim began to hyperventilate. Her mother turned in time to see Kim sway on her feet. Her complexion, which was already pale (the family referred to her complexion as ‘soft’), was now absolutely white.

 

“I’m a girl!” Kim blurted out.

 

Cindy stood, one arm slung over Kim’s back, rubbing her back for comfort. Cindy’s face clouded with confusion at the odd statement, “Yes Hon,” Cindy replied softly, almost flatly, “you were born a girl. You’ve been one for a while now.”

 

It started low in Kim’s belly. If you could have asked her to describe it, she might have said it felt a bit the way one might imagine a large Victorian machine might sound like when it failed. One of those large Orwellian monstrosities, with great brass gears and shiny steel cogs and flywheels, leather drive belts and brightly painted parts; all spinning in magnificent, scientific unison, humming to some higher mechanical heart beat. When all at once, you might feel a Thud or hear a gear crack with a subtle metallic TINK and know that something in the belly of the beast was no longer quite on. The timing of the great beast had changed and while you couldn’t hear it yet, you could still sense that something had gone disastrously askew.

 

This is how that heavy feeling of doom settled into her body. We’ve all known it at one time or another in our lives. For some it comes with a phone call at 2:00 am where there should be only restful sleep. For still others, we find it on that odd morning with that peculiar silence from once talkative and friendly coworkers. We may not always know what it is, but we know that it’s there just the same.

 

Tonight Kim felt a mild Flip deep inside her, near body parts she didn’t want to think about having. Something rumbled inside her or perhaps it was more of a gurgle, we may never know. What she did know however is something else that all of us known at one point or another. We’ve all experienced it, but just the same, its birth is dreadful and almost always takes us by surprise when it comes to life.

 

It came to Kim, this idea, in a moment of such crystal clarity, it struck her that this was how Einstein had come to the knowledge that the theory of relativity would actually work. He must have known all at once and absolutely, without doubt, before the first calculation was even conceived. She understood above all other things that only one certainty lay in her future. This thing was going to happen with savage, pre-determined single-mindedness, just as the people of the earth could count on the sun rising in the morning.

 

No, it was not death or taxes. Neither would have been much of a surprise at the moment, though Kim found herself wishing desperately for the former. And while death couldn’t be stopped, it could be forestalled and taxes differed. There was nothing that could stop this particular out of control locomotive from barreling its way into her future.

 

It was the undeniable certainty that… I’m gonna ralph!

 

Cindy turned to talk to her about Ben and the incident up in her room. Kim could see she was not pleased but for some reason could not find the motivation to care. The young teen surprised herself by issuing horribly wretched belch. The surprise and revulsion appropriate to such an atrocity was well reflected on her face afterward.

 

The vapors however, to which Kim was thankfully immune, caused her mother’s eyes to water and her brother’s nostrils to begin to smoke. “Aw,” Robert cried. His brain temporarily short circuited and became unable to communicate beyond an occasional grunt or whine. He shook his head instinctively trying to find breathable air while his crippled brain tried to work out the details of an escape route. But he found escape was blocked by his sister and a growing toxic cloud. He was trapped between the closed door in the foyer and his family.

 

“Kimberly?” Cindy said wiping her eyes so she could see.

 

“Uhhhhhhh,” Kim moaned clutching her mouth with one hand and folding her other arm around her stomach. “Sick!” she uttered from behind her hand and broke her mother’s grip and dashed for the half bathroom just six paces away. Kim vanished through the open door of the lower floor’s half-bath. The sound of retching was loud and clear from the open door way.

 

Kim’s thoughts were a parade of images and fears that were stacked up one behind the other in a great queue waiting to greet their new Queen. The first of these thoughts came to her as she hurled the contents of her stomach into the bowl she knelt before. That’s pizza! Funny, I don’t remember eating that! she thought, looking into the bowl between flashes, I must have had pizza this afternoon. It’s almost like she’s been living in the background waiting for me to come and fill her up.

 

Soundlessly, her mother appeared at the open door of the bathroom. Cindy knelt behind her daughter and gently stroked her back and soothed her. “It’s Okay, Baby... let it out,” she cooed to her daughter in that way that mother’s do when their children are sick. Kim began to cry from not only the force of each convulsive retch, but also from the taste, smell and just plain embarrassment of doing this in front of people she felt she no longer knew. Somewhere in what was still Tim’s memory was the idea that girls don’t throw up. Yeah, whatever, her mind told her, they don’t fart either... wake up and smell the vomit. You’re still human aren’t you? Not some mythical enchanted beast.

 

When at last Kim seemed empty she collapsed against the wall in the narrow half bath. She rested the side of her face on the cold tiles on the wall. She closed her eyes and tried to float back to the life she had been born to. Instead her mind filled with a memory from Kim’s life or what she would come to know as a ‘Kimmeory’. It was a time when she had been a little girl of five or six. God, I can remember when I was a little girl... Oh God, help me... I don’t want to remember this.

 

She had been sailing with her family on vacation in Crescent Beach, Florida, when Bobby decided to toss the boat’s large heavy anchor over the side for kicks. Kim had been sitting on the port rail, her foot nestled snugly in the coil of rope the anchor was attached to. As the anchor descended, the rope had tightened around her foot and had dragged her over the side. In just a few seconds she was in over thirty feet of water. It had been her father that had dove in to rescue her. Now, weary from being sick, much as she had been after being rescued, she could still feel the safety and security of being carried off the boat after making port at the marina. She could remember she had been still shaking and upset, but safe in her father’s strong and loving arms. How she had screamed and clung to his neck when the ambulance attendant had tried to take her from him.

 

Kim wept where she sat. She cried soft and slow tears. Even here she knew she missed her father. He was not with them in their house. Even with this indignity, being forced into the body of a female counterpart, she did not have her father with her.

 

Well, we seem to have something in common after all! She thought on Tim’s behalf.

 

At the door, somewhat recovered, Robert poked his head in the door, “You want some water Kim?” Robert asked trying now to be supportive. Kim just shook her head no. “Is there something I can do then?”

 

Yeah, make me your... she had wanted to finish that thought with baby brother again, the concept of the thought was there, she could recognize it, just not formulate the thought into words. It seemed that as long as she was female, she would be unable to acknowledge anything to the contrary. So she shook her head again. No one could help her right now. She was trapped in this reality until tomorrow when they could get together and could Ben take this stupid mask from her face.

 

The unspoken possibilities sparked a whole new round of retching again, but this time there was nothing left to come up and poor Kim was left dry heaving over the bowl. Robert fled the sounds of his sister flashing and returned a moment later with a cold glass of ginger ale.

 

Once again, sitting on the floor, Kim this time took the drink gratefully and sipped it. Cindy had gathered a wet washcloth and was dabbing her forehead when she finally spoke. “Maybe you’d better stay home tomorrow,” and at first Kim nodded her agreement grateful that she could count on tomorrow as a day of rest. Then suddenly her eyes snapped open and she began to protest.

 

“NO!” she practically shouted. “I... I can’t stay home.”

 

“Kim?”

 

“Mom... I have to go to school tomorrow.” Kim acted as if someone had told her she was going to be handed over to Child Welfare Services in the morning.

 

“Honey, you’re sick. Don’t you think it―” Cindy started but Kim cut her off.

 

“No I don’t! I want to go to school tomorrow?” insisted Kim.

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you’re coming down with something, then I think I would rather have you at home.

 

“Mom!”

 

“Think about it Kim, first that weird headache, now vomiting. No, I think we may even plan a trip to the doctor, make sure everything is Okay.” Robert rolled his eyes, but only because his mother couldn’t see him do it. Kim did however and understood immediately her mother was over-reacting. This is what she does with me. I’m the one she wanted all along, a girl, a daughter. With that realization she also understood that she was the kind of kid that had been prone to getting hurt. Cindy was fiercely protective of her. Great, wonderful, that should make getting out of here a whole lot easier. I’m screwed.

 

I can take the day off tomorrow, and I can watch over you and make you peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crust cut off, just like I used to.” Kim’s mind reeled. If she stayed at home her opportunity to get free of this girls body would be lost for another day, maybe until following the weekend.

 

Kim started to get up and it was Cindy that placed a hand on her arm and eased her back down. “Kim, I’m worried about you. You’ve been acting very strange tonight. I want you to stay home tomorrow. You can lie in bed all day, snuggle up with your bears and get as much sleep as you need.”

 

She was now becoming a prisoner of circumstance. Not going to school tomorrow meant her access to Ben and her only means of return were once again beyond her reach.

 

Hold on girlfriend, relax, Kim reassured herself, He’s right next door remember, so what if you have to wait a few extra hours? That was the thing though. Because she and Ben had not thought this through, she was trapped as Kim Glass for the night when she didn’t want to be. She felt sure it would be one thing to sleep through the night in this body, if I can sleep at all her conscious self added. It would be yet an entirely different thing to have to spend seven or eight hours like this wide awake with her engine running.

 

This however didn’t seem to be the greatest cause of concern, yet she couldn’t quite put her finger on exactly what it was she should be so worried about. Not knowing why however, did nothing to allay the idea that she should be frightened, very frightened.

 

Don’t stop insisting! Get to school and get out of this, do it! Her brain urged her unceasingly. But when she consciously sought the answer as to why, all she received in return was ignorant silence and that same empty sense of urgency.

 

Vagueness shrouded her mind. Her recollections seemed… Blended with experiences she could no longer identify as genuine or imagined. Things she felt she should know fell under a long black shadow of doubt. Places she’d seen, things she knew she’d done felt ambiguous or altogether lost completely. Kim felt the first inkling of the dread Ben had felt after the door had closed on him. There’s more to this than just me. I’m not the only thing that’s changed am I?

 

There was no definitive answer forthcoming. The truth was, she didn’t know.

 

She could see bits and pieces of her past as Kim, but not all of it, not all at once. Not like before as Tim where she could recall it all at will if she had wanted to. Like the memory of her overboard excursion, it had come only with a link, a bridge if you will, something that helped her put it in context with something else. Worse, Kim sensed there were great gaps in the information, pieces that would require some other association to bring it all back to her.

 

It was entirely possible Ben’s previous life had changed as well. Perhaps that was what was so gray about that thought. A very small span of that gap was filled by the very act of exploring that gray field. It came to her in a weak and incomplete news flash.

 

Ben doesn’t have a car. There was more there, but she couldn’t bring it out into the light to look at it. Whatever was there however was worrisome. Kim hoped they wouldn’t need Ben’s missing transportation, or that the Kimmory was a false one. If it turned out they would need it, especially to get this thing off her, then they were essentially screwed.

 

Kim dismissed the issue of Ben’s car. If she was able to get to school, they might not need it. If it wasn’t there now, it would miraculously be so again after their worlds shifted back on whatever axis they had been jerked out of. Either way, Kim could not fix that problem without Ben. He was the cornerstone of all things now. The fucking sun and planets orbited Ben as far as she was concerned.

 

The more she thought, the more overpoweringly complex the scenarios became until she felt she could no longer withstand the deviating pressure of the gloom that followed with them.

 

She felt she was slowly being isolated from the one person that could change her back. All the doors that had once stood open when she had been Tim, were rapidly closing behind in the back draft of a double standard. Even if she was forced to wait until afternoon when Ben returned from school, Ben would clearly need something that would make him want to remove the mask. Kim had no idea what kind of an incentive plan she could offer that would keep her dignity, her piece of mind and anything else she had, intact.

 

His assertion that the mask had become stuck was a clear indication of Ben’s true intent as far as she was concerned. She refused to believe this claim for obvious reasons. For Kim, it was inconceivable that Ben had not been able to remove the mask. It had to be a ploy on Ben’s part to keep her as she was a prisoner, dependent on Ben for release. Had this been what the old man was talking about when he suggested she was the more responsible of the two? Was possible though, that Ben was lying? Would he attempt to extort her into doing something she didn’t want to do in exchange for being released.

 

Part of this belief lie in her understanding of what motivated Ben. Consequently, there was hope. Kim was well versed in spotting an Ackerman lie. She’d seen them thousands of times before. Initially, Ben had been lying. Toward the end though, he had seemed as puzzled as she could ever remember having seen him.

 

And therein lie the brick wall her reasoning kept smashing into. Part of her refusal to believe was also the belief that it couldn’t be that simple to have everything taken away, replaced. One stupid, seemingly innocent mistake and she found herself in a house of strangers who thought she was someone she wasn’t. Please, please, please, that can’t be true.

 

Ben wanted sex. He wanted it more than he wanted to breathe. In the back of her mind she couldn’t help thinking that Ben saw her as an opportunity and not a friend. If this were the case, then he could conceivably refuse to take the mask off until she rewarded him. If he were able to force her into that, why should he ever take the mask off? Until an endless string of demands were met?

 

Kim clutched her head to try to stop the cyclonic spinning of thoughts in her brain. All of that was simply speculation. She had no reason to believe this was some sort of cosmic conspiracy to permanently keep her here as Kim.

 

School would offer her one advantage over all these things. In that environment Ben’s mind set would be, not on his pride or his desire, but mired in a logical framework. Years of making the transition from the outside world to the academic environment had become engrained habit. The foundation of which was virtually unshakeable. When Ben walked onto the campus grounds of school, the logic switch came on and he became a critical thinker. He could not stop that from happening. She needed that advantage now.

 

With that in mind, Kim pressed the issue, desperate to leave her female counterpart’s life and get her old one back, “Please Mom, I have to...”

 

“Tell me why then Kim.” Her mother’s tone had changed from understanding to inquisitive.

 

If this isn’t the most bas-ackwards thing, I want to go to school and Mom ISN’T LETTING ME! Kim opened her mouth to explain why. The word, “I―”, fell out and then her mouth snapped it shut again. There wasn’t a reason, not one, her mother would ever understand anyway. FUCK! She screamed silently to herself. “I just want to go.”

 

“Kim, you haven’t WANTED to go to school since that time you had a crush on Tommy Watson. Kim almost recoiled in horror. Holy shit, where’d that bridge come from? There it was again, a link, a bridge to yet another memory from Kim’s past. It was as bright and shiny as the day it had been made, in focus and large as life. She could remember Tommy. She had gone to school with Tom in the sixth grade and he had been the first boy she had ever wondered about how he might look naked…

 

Kim flinched as the idea popped into her head. Her arms too jerked to ward off the vile thought, NO! NO! I don’t want to hear that... I can’t see it either, I don’t want to see that, Na Na Na Na Na Naaaaaaaa I’m not listening... I’m not listening to that!

 

“Kim,” Cindy said softly, “I want you to tell me the truth now,” Kim looked at her with large frightened blue eyes. “Are you taking drugs?”

 

“No.” Kim answered in a matter of fact way, and then the surprise of the accusation hit her. She did a double take at her mother, her face crinkled into a mask of shock and disgust, and she insisted, “NO!” She waited for a sign on her mother’s face, and then looked to her brother who was still there at the doorway, now with a look of deep anger and concern on his face. “I’m telling you,” she insisted, “I’m not taking drugs...”

 

“Kimmy,” Robert said in his authority way, “If I catch you doing something like that...”

 

“Bobby... I’m not!”

 

“I won’t stand for that Kim...” Robert emphasized sternly, like a parent.

 

“Robert!” Cindy said, “I can handle this. It isn’t your problem. I’m the parent here, remember?”

 

“She’s my sister isn’t she?” Robert bellowed with overprotective, brotherly bravado.

 

“Yes, and I’m her mother and I think this is what parents are supposed to do. So if you please Robert.”

 

“Okay, but I swear, if I catch her with as much as a joi―”

 

“Robert Lee!” Cindy finally barked, reaching the limit of her patience with her son.

 

“Fine… whatever,” her brother said sulking and walked off someplace where Kim could no longer see him.

 

Kim turned her attention back to the more pressing situation, “Mom,” Kim protested, “It’s not a problem at all. I’m not taking drugs... I’m just having a very unusual day. All I want to do is go to school, my friends are there. I would have thought you’d be happy about my WANTING to go.”

 

“I think I would have been happier to see you want to go when you weren’t acting so strangely Kim.” Kim did her best to remain calm. Her own panicked behavior was part of the reason her mother wanted more control of her. That much was clear, but why? Before putting this mask on, she had been able to do and go pretty much anywhere that she pleased.

 

She seemed to be at an impasse in her resistance and she knew she was close to being restricted to the house. If she pressed her mother much harder, then it would become a reality and she WOULD be trapped like this perhaps until next week. As it stood now, that outcome was only a possibility.

 

The thing to do now was to act as Kim was expected to act, as they had come to know their daughter and sister, disarm them. That meant settling in to Kim’s life as Kimberly. There was nothing she could do otherwise. As long as she was locked in Kim’s body, that’s who she was. Kim drew in a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh and began the dance, “If you want me to stay home tomorrow, then I guess I will. I don’t want to, but I don’t seem to have much choice in it.”

 

“Now you want to stay home?” Cindy said.

 

“Oh Mom... please! Do you want me to stay home or not? I’ll do whatever you want.” Kim groaned.

 

Cindy was now completely confused if not a bit skeptical, “You’re sure you’re Okay?”

 

“Well, I don’t feel like eating supper if that’s Okay with you. But otherwise, I guess I feel alright.” Kim admitted.

 

Cindy looked at Kim who stared back and shook her head.

 

Robert reappeared, sticking his face in around the jamb of the door. His large, goofy grin had always made Tim smile. The current situation, it seemed, had done nothing to alter that for Kim. She was glad that his feelings didn’t appear to be hurt from the admonishment her mother had given him only moments ago. “Hi.” She said with the first genuine smile she had worn since becoming Kim.

 

“Hi yourself; how-ya-doin?” He asked as if it were one word.

 

“Sa-right,” she answered in a fake, feminine, Latino voice and then giggled at her own impression. “I feel much better really. I guess the lunchroom pizza was bad today.”

 

“You didn’t?” Robert asked.

 

Kim pointed to the bowl, “Have a look for your self.”

 

“No thanks,” he said grimacing, “Tell me, was it green when they served it?” Robert asked.

 

“Ewe….” Kim squealed and frowned.

 

“Should have warned ya,” he said, “That stuff was bad yesterday, it’ll be bad tomorrow, next year, next decade.”

 

Cindy cringed at the mental image. Trying to change the subject, she turned to Kim and asked, “If you’re feeling all right in the morning then you can go to school, how’s that?”

 

“It’s your call Mom. I think I would just like to go to bed right now, if that’s Okay?” Life was moving on now, dragging her with it whether she wanted to go or not. Kim stuck out her hand, “Help me up?” she asked, and Robert pulled her up effortlessly.

 

“Thanks Bobby.” Robert grinned a soft loving grin and then enveloped Kim in his huge arms. He squeezed tightly cutting off Kim’s ability to draw air in for only a moment and then released her.

 

“Sleep well Kimmy.” Kim smiled a genuine smile borne of love. She thought to herself, I bet I don’t have much to worry about with Bobby standing guard over me. Not much freedom in that, but there’s a truckload of security. It made her feel unbelievably good in this uncertain time. She made a mental note that when she returned to her real life, to try to remember how that felt.

 

Cindy leaned into her, bent at the waist and hugged Kim’s neck. “Night Baby...”

 

“Night Mom,” Kim offered, hugging back. She could feel the eyes of her family on her as she trudged up the stairs. They were familiar people, but were they really her family? She reasoned that, no, they were not, mostly because she was not supposed to be here, not like this. Being born Kimberly had changed them some time ago. Her birth as a girl had influenced who they had become at this point in time. They were not the people she had once known as Tim. They never would be. They were, in essence, familiar strangers.

 

She turned the corner at the upstairs landing and caught them both, looking up after her as she did. She waived; appearing to be casual about it, said, “ga-night,” one more time and was around the corner. Once out of sight, she did the one thing she had not been able to do since all this happened. She broke down.

 

She got as close to the door to her bedroom as her legs would carry her until the blackness and weight of uncertainty finally pushed her to the ground. She was only inches from her door way. She covered her mouth to keep the sobs of fear strangled within her chest. The tears came harsh and salty; stinging her eyes and now, with all this emotion out, the true terror could grip her.

 

She kneeled, her right hand on the guardrail of the landing. Her body convulsed with the force of the sobs. Kim’s mind turned to Ben and what he had done to her. She agonized over why Ben had left her like this. Surely he must understand this is not what she wanted. Everything the old man had told them had been true, God damn him. He had been less than completely honest about what would happen when the mask was put on. The mask had done more than make her appear to someone different! However, the magic had been real enough, that was for sure. She was a living testament to that fact.

The notion that she may have lost everything in the misadventure of a single moment caused her to reel. What if that were true? What if she were stuck, stuck for all time! Destined to be a girl, a woman, a wife, a mother?

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, her mind lashed out at her. You have not done this to me… Tell me you have not fucked my entire life over some kind of stupid magic trick, you stupid mother-fucker, you stupid BITCH! Don’t you dare tell me that I’m stuck like this? Because I’ll fucking kill myself if that’s the case.

 

She bent completely over with sorrow in to a ball on the floor and put her forehead on the floor and shook and silently wept.

 

When the first of many of these waves of grief and fear passed, she knelt there in the short hallway between the bedrooms of the house feeling sorry for herself. The “what ifs” started running through her mind, increasing the level of her anxiety. What if Ben couldn’t take it off now? The thought tortured her. She had been so close to backing out of this. She had never trusted the old man and his claims about magic. She had felt something else was at the core of his insistence. But how could she have known that something like this would happen.

 

She kept trying to send her mind backward in time, to grasp the moment of decision and change it, to warn herself as Tim to run, to throw the mask in the trash compactor, to slam it onto Ben’s face instead and hold him hostage for a while. With each passing second she could feel herself floating further from that moment in time, a drift on a raft christened Kimberly.

 

Surly something like this had to have some sort of safety control to it. Some sort of dead-man switch in case the engineer died of a heart attack with the throttle open. If Ben wasn’t around or, as Ben claimed now, what if he lost control over the mask? That couldn’t mean that she was simply trapped would it? Nothing that dangerous could be sold to the general public. There were regulations, safeguards, there was the Good Housekeeping Seal of America for Christ’s sake! You can’t just go around changing teenage boys to teenage girls without a way to change them back! Who would make something that treacherous? Nothing is made now-a-days without safety releases and built in redundant systems in case of emergency, right? What if Ben got hit by a bus, surely she wouldn’t have to pay the price of that mistake with what her life had once been, would she?

 

That might be true with machinery... but ask yourself one question...

 

“No.” Kim mumbled weakly.

 

Okay then, I’ll ask. Her mind responded, Have you ever heard of anything like this before? Did you have any expectation that this would really turn out to be real? And if you’re not convinced, then why not drop those cute flower embroidered jeans and take a peek and see? This mess you’re in doesn’t conform to normal life experience, boys becoming girls... come on Kim, what makes you think for a second that the rules have to conform to the rules of normal life? Haven’t those already flown out the window?

 

Kim’s stomach began to roll once more with dread of the idea that now, based on what had just happened outside, she might have to live the rest of her life like this. Kim placed her hand on her stomach to try to settle the rebellion that was taking place in her body. It didn’t help, as she knelt, one hand on the floor and one on her stomach she could feel the weight of her breasts as gravity pulled on them and the restraint against gravity the bra she wore offered. That was real. Her slight frame, the hair hanging past her face, those things were real. The absolute knowledge that she had experienced the bits and pieces of a past she could not quite put together were REAL! Soon, all the memories would return in vivid living Technicolor as they used to say. She didn’t have to look beneath the clothing to understand that, in this world, she had inherited more from her mother than her father.

Her mind turned helplessly to what she could have done to have prevented this from happening. It was an exercise in futility she couldn’t help engage in. But her mind groped for a way to the past, a way to prevent the present from becoming what it had. But it was done. All visages of who she had been before were gone from everyone’s memory except Ben’s and her own. “Shit like this just doesn’t happen,” she muttered in an unfamiliar voice. Whispering low she said, “Just wake up― it’s all a bad dream, you’re not...” she struggled to say, ‘Not a girl.’ What came out was “... not a boy.” She moaned a deep low groan in her lungs, a moan that was the signature of someone suffering in the mind.

 

Kim groaned again, finally pulling herself into her room. Panic gripped her heart anew with the overwhelming enormity of what had happened. The icons of teenage girlhood surrounded her here. Tim’s prized chemistry set and her volume of ‘Fox Fire’ books were nowhere to be found. There had once been boxes of comic books stacked on wall near her bed and a scattered collection of video games on the floor beneath her T.V. All of these were now gone. This included Tim’s television, a stereo had taken its place.

 

She stomped her feet on the floor several times in frustration, her fists clinched, teeth grinding, hoping beyond hope that pure desire would counteract the “magic”. Her body was unconsciously trying to burn off the excess adrenaline flooding her system. This tantrum changed nothing however and that only fueled her panic more.

 

On the heels of her admission was the knowledge that what she wanted or didn’t want was no longer relevant. She was stuck in the reality where she WAS a girl, where everyone knew her as a girl and where she had always been a girl. Her face began to become numb as she tried once more to rip the mask from her face.

 

“Kim,” it was her mother, probably at the foot of the stairs, “You Okay?”

 

CRAP! They heard me. She took just a second to suck up her fear, then answered, “Yeah, why?”

 

“Sounds like a herd of elephants stomping around up there.” Cindy called up.

 

Oh crap. Just leave me alone whoever you are! Let me be mad, let me be afraid for God’s sake, but don’t ask me to just step in your daughter’s shoes like it’s my fucking job!

 

That was what she wanted to scream down the stairs. The temptation was almost irresistible. The words wouldn’t have come, even if she’d let go with a tirade. It would have come out as gibberish. Instead, what she said was, “Gee thanks. Are you saying that you think I’m fat!”

 

“Oh for goodness sake,” Kim could hear her mother mutter exasperatedly as she returned to where she’d come from. “Go to bed Kim.”

 

Defeated, she could only circle her limited reality inside the confines of a much different mind than the one she had recently traded in. She could not help brooding on the changes, on the possibilities. She had no answers except one. She could not change this by herself. If it ended up just her, then the game was over and Tim had ceased to exist unexpectedly.

 

What she desired now was something to clutch. Perhaps it would distract her, keep her from thinking about the unanswered questions. Her eyes wandered over Kim’s collection of Teddy Bears. She chose a glittery white bear, reached out and pulled it close and enfolded it in her long delicate arms. Kim buried her face in the bear’s belly and wept loudly, letting the bear’s ticking muffle her cries.

 

As she cried she would intermittently struggle with her face to get the unseen mask off. These attempts would only end in frustration and pillow-muffled screeches of anguish with each failed attempt. Still, she could not resist try after try. Failure after failure only enforced the feeling of being entombed she desperately wanted to be free of. The scene was not unlike that of an animal that might chew its own limb off out of desperation to be liberated.

 

Some minutes later, the sobs were starting to subside a little. Her face felt hot and itchy and she was certain that her eyes were puffy. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this. That would only raise more questions. Kim understood she had to maintain a semblance of normalcy as her mother understood it (whatever that meant to her) while she was here.

 

She didn’t want anyone coming up here on the off chance that her mother or Bobby might come and check up on her and see her this way. She decided to retreat to the bathroom for a short while, pretend she was ‘indisposed’, and do what she could to straighten out her appearance.

 

Not long after she closed and locked the door, she heard Robert calling her from somewhere in her room. “Kimmy?”

 

She acknowledged that person this was her brother, but he was acting so damned sappy around her. It almost wanted to make her gag with revulsion. “Yeah Bobby, I’m in here.”

 

“Oh, sorry.” He said sounding startled and genuinely embarrassed. Girls don’t use the bathroom on this planet Bobby? Relax... I’m your ever loving baby sister remember? Just one big happy family. I wonder just how different life for you is, living in a life-raft in the middle of the estrogen sea O’ brother of mine?

 

“Naw... it’s Okay. Just takin’ a crap!” she lied and almost silently giggled herself aneurism.

 

“That’s gross Kimmy.” Robert sounded truly disgusted at that idea. She could just imagine her brother on the other side of the door, helplessly trying to fend off the mental image of his sister taking a dump that must have popped into his head. I guess girls don’t use the bathroom here. That’s gonna be uncomfortable.

 

“Sorry, I was just kidding,” she said helping him off the etiquette hook. “Say, why are you skulking about in my room?”

 

“I’m not skulking... shit Kimmy. I was just bringing you another ginger-ale and a little dessert... if you wanted it.”

 

She instantly felt bad, but not bad enough to keep from acting on a perfectly evil idea. “I’m sorry Bobby. I’m just not feeling like myself tonight. Thanks for thinking about me. I’d give you a hug... but... whew... I can’t reach the fan switch and it’s pretty stinky in here.”

 

“KIM!” Robert barked, alarmed. “That’s gross! Stop it please...” Bobby, cried sounding completely aghast.

 

She had to cover her mouth to help stifle the gale of giggles. She pressed her legs together and bent at the waist, flexing her knees to prevent an accident. Finally when she got the giggles under control she couldn’t help but press it joke just a little further, “Okay, fine. I’m opening the door.”

 

“Nooooooo!” Robert yelled, but there was humor in his voice this time and that was comforting. She could hear him running out of the room laughing the whole way. Just the sight of it made her giggle again. She didn’t dare wait any longer to relieve herself. For a frightening few minutes she thought she would not be able to get out of her jeans in time to use the toilet. She tried to unzip them but there was no zipper on the front, only a suede string that was permanently tied to the lacings. There appeared to be no way to open them and they were too tight and too narrow at the waist to slide over her flared hips. T hen her hands found something on the back, a zipper tab and button on the waistband and she managed to unzip the back fighting now, to keep from peeing too soon.

 

Once she got her pants pulled down, Kim’s instinct kicked in and she spun and squatted. Realizing too late that the seat was still up she fell halfway in before she was able to stop herself. Her skinny frame not was nearly wide enough to seat the bowl and she squealed as her cheeks just dipped just below the waterline. The cold of the toilet water set her own water works into motion and she was helpless to do anything but hold herself up by the sides of the bowl until she finished.

 

The dampness on her backside afterward was a distasteful sensation and she had to stand partially hang her fanny over the bowl until she could get some paper with which to wipe.

 

She thought of all the times she’d left the seat up in the night, and the fitful crabbing she’d endured as Tim from his mother about the seat being left down. She muttered, “If all this was just so I could appreciate that Mom needs the seat down, then fine, I get it...” she mumbled as she dabbed herself dry. “I hope Bobby’s been better trained. That sucked!”

 

Gross! She felt dirty, physically dirty. Once dry enough to avoid dripping she stepped from the puddle of her clothing piled around her legs, grabbed a wash cloth and some soap and began to delicately sponge herself clean. Consumed by this, she didn’t once take time to appraise her assets.

 

When she stood to pull up her underwear and jeans however, she was halted by the image across the bathroom reflected in the mirror. “Jesus...” she whispered in a small girlish voice as she approached the mirror. In an almost dream like state, she moved slowly to the reflection of herself. She reached out with her right hand, as if to touch the two dimensional image to confirm its existence. At the last second she let her arm drop by her side.

 

There, the half-nude image of a young girl; slim but well proportioned for her size, greeted her eyes. She was maybe a little over five feet tall. Her hair was a little longer than shoulder length and beautifully wavy. The color was incredible and matched that of her eyebrows, and she realized the platinum color was natural.

 

A Kimmory bridge appeared before her mind’s eye and she traversed its span. My hair is always this light, except in the winter when it gets just a shade darker. That’s because I’m missing just a little pigment in my body. I can’t stay in the sun too long in summer until I get a good tan going. There was that time we all went to the beach and I burned so badly when I was seven. That’s when we found out…

 

* FLASH *

 

The image of the moment came to life all at once, full and complete. This was a disturbing first for her. She could now see part of Kim’s life as Kim had lived it, through her eyes, standing just behind the vision, an integrated participant. It was her memory now and she knew with dreadful certainty she would never be able to scower it from her mind as long as she remained Kimberly. The power of the memory damn near rocked her off her feet.

 

She could still remember the smell of the beach with the faint hint of salt, the occasional dead fish, suntan oil and sun heated coco butter slathered bodies. Before her, mild surf crashed gently on the sand and she had been able to see first the sea retreat from the shore and then the water the sand absorbed retreat. It had left a surface as smooth as virgin peanut butter, firm and fresh. When she had scored it with her foot, it had left a flawlessly crisp impression behind.

 

Fascinated, that is where she had staked a claim to her section of beach.

 

It had not taken long to roast under the hot Florida sun. She could clearly remember being burned, but not until it was far too late to do anything about it. In years past, her mother had always insisted she wear a shirt over her suit. That year had been different. All of the other girls on the beach had bikinis. She was older now and she had wanted nothing more than to be like other girls. It had been bad enough having to wear a one-piece. She had refused to wear anything over it. She felt like a big enough dork as it was.

 

The sun had felt good and Kim had loved the feel of its deceptively gentle morning warmth on her back and shoulders, until her shoulders had started to itch madly. When she scratched them, the blisters that had boiled up on them as she sat in the sand playing had burst.

 

No one had noticed... they had only been there for only a little longer than an hour or so. Her father raced to her when he heard the crying thinking she’d perhaps been pinched by a crab or bitten by a sand flea. But he’d been shocked to see that her shoulders had turned as red as a boiled lobster, her father had wrapped her in a blanket and charged for the car to get his daughter out of the sun. That spelled the end of her day at the beach. The rest of her vacation had been spent in the hospital and at home two days later with sun poisoning.

 

After several follow up visits, the Doctor had called the family to schedule an appointment to discuss the results of tests taken in the weeks prior to find out why she had burned so severely in such a short period of time.

 

“I don’t want to go to the doctor!” She was remembering a conversation she’d had with her father about that very visit. Kim could remember the sweet little girl’s voice as if she had spoken the words herself.

 

“Don’t worry cupcake, they just want to talk to us about what happened at the beach. That’s all.” This was the voice of a man she saw so clearly that it was almost enough to start the tears flowing again.

 

Her father looked the same as he had in her life as Tim, but her memory of that moment, of him at that time was so different than anything she had ever experienced before.

 

She could remember being in awe of this handsome man as he drove their car to the family doctor’s office. She sat next to him, so small... and she loved him so much that powerful emotions threatened to sweep her away.

 

If he said all the doctor would do is talk, she believed him unconditionally. Still, the fear of pain, of an injection forced her to ask the one question most children her age must ask.

 

“Is he going to give me a shot?”

 

“I don’t think so cupcake. But if he thinks he needs to, what do we do? Do you remember?”

 

Little Kimberly smiled a scared smile, “Just hold on to you as hard as I can.”

 

“And?” her father asked.

 

“And... it will only hurt for a second.” Kim answered doubtfully. “But I still don’t want him to give me a shot.”

 

“I’ll tell him that sweetie. Okay?”

 

“Okay, Daddy.”

 

Then another Kimmory rocked her, different, but inexorably connected to the first.

 

*FLASH *

 

The doctor had helped Kim up onto an examination table. Kim had eyed her father worriedly expecting the doctor to magically produce a syringe from his sleeve, like some malevolent magic trick. Instead he began speaking, “Well Mr. Glass... the tests we conducted over the last few days has revealed a very small problem in your daughter’s ability to produce melanin.”

 

“Produce melons?” Kim had seen the doctor almost laugh at her father’s question, but didn’t really understand why. “What’s that supposed to mean?” her father had asked. Kim had nodded her agreement with the question. She felt little risk of an injection from such a question so she agreed.

 

“Mel ·a ·nin“ The doctor pronounced carefully. He took his glasses off, closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. “In laymen’s terms she’s suffering from a slight lack of pigmentation. It’s the substance produced by the skin that allows exposure to the sun’s rays without burning. Now, a girl Kim’s age would probably have burned anyway without a good sunscreen of some sort. And girls tend to burn more readily than boys do, softer skin.” The Doctor added. “But the fact that Kim burned as badly as she did with sunscreen applied is worrisome. I suggest that she remain covered in some way when she’s out in the sun. T-shirt, light pants and some good strong sun block. It won’t mean she can’t have bare arms and legs outside, but you should limit her exposure until her skin can produce enough melanin in the course of a season to prevent most of the burning. Even then, there’s going to be some risk for a serious burn I’m afraid and an elevated risk of skin cancer. The good news is that it hasn’t seemed to have affected her eyesight. ”

Her father had looked at Kim concerned about what she might be thinking at the mention of the big “C”. Kim had not really understood the words “elevated risk” and had mostly dismissed what the doctor had said. So Tom had pressed the next nagging question. “Are you telling me she’s an albino?” Her father asked.

 

“A rhino?” Kim had asked terrified. She had not wanted to become some ugly spike nosed creature.

 

Tom had smiled in spite of her concern, “No Baby, Albino. Don’t worry about it,” He had said, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand, “I’ll explain on the way home.”

 

“No, not a true albino,” The doctor responded, “I estimate there’s only about a 15 to 25% degradation of melanin production. It’s hard to say though, because everyone’s level of melanin production is different. It’s based mostly on heritage. In Kim’s case, it seems to be enough to cause significant problems with UV exposure.”

 

Kim sat on the examination table in her yellow nit top and lime green clam-diggers listening with a worried look on her face. “Is keeping her covered in the summer the only answer for this you have?”

 

“There are some medications, topical treatments mostly, meant to treat a condition called vitiligo that can stimulate melanin production and cause repigmentation. There are also a few drugs…”

 

“You said no shots!” she had cried to her father, gripping his hand and bristling at the mention of drugs.

 

The doctor had smiled to Kim, “No Kim, no shots, not today. The present day Kimberly Glass could still recall the sense of relief she’d felt when the doctor had reassuringly ruffled her hair.

 

Her Daddy took the conversation again, “Why wasn’t this caught before Doctor Novak?”

 

Novak responded, “Well, Kim’s case is very mild, as I’ve already pointed out. There usually has to be some sort of trigger to let us know that something’s wrong. In this case, she burned very quickly. Over exposure to bright sunlight, causes her skin to react faster than you could expect from a child with normal pigment levels. And part of it is because she’s young. Now in her younger years, she may have a tendency to get sicker than some girls her age from over exposure. In time, some of this should correct itself as she grows older...”

 

The memory slowly faded out... When Kim came back to the real world, she was staring into a pair of light blue eyes framed by platinum hair and a soft feminine face.

 

Kim’s eyes danced over the reflection of the slim, creamy skinned girl in the mirror. She gasped as she now saw for the first time, the gentle rise of two, superbly formed young and eager breasts. Their areoles staring back like large brown owl’s eyes. She followed the image down to the subtle inward slope of her body at the pubis. The pronounced flare of feminine hips, the small patch of hair was also very light in color. It was a rich golden blonde. Something else she wasn’t used to seeing was a gap between the union of her legs. There, just visible through the light hair was the top of the cleft of her genitals which she quickly covered with one hand as if embarrassed to see it.

 

She turned her back on the image as a tear forced its way out of the corner of her eye. She fought to keep further tears back, afraid of losing control again. She slipped the panties up and hoisted her jeans back up, zipped and buttoned them and returned to her room.

 

On the night-stand next to the bed was a sparkling, golden glass of ginger-ale and a small piece of what looked like her mother’s chocolate pudding cake. The sight of that cake was enough to tear down the dam she had so carefully built to hold back the tears. Everything in this life was the same... except her.

 

Next to her Kimberly could hear the hissssssss of the bubbles of carbonation dancing on the surface of the liquid. She saw the micro-splash in the light of her bedside lamp thrown up by the bursting bubbles. They sparkled like small fireworks in a microcosm universe. A celebration in miniature meant to welcome her to this world with brightness and sparkle.

 

She quietly loathed the tiny pyro-technicians for this jubilee in the face of her gloom. She picked up the glass, returned to the bathroom and flushed the celebration where she felt it belonged. Something in her mind however, told her to save the chocolate cake. When she questioned this, her brain simply answered, Just in case… Just in case. So, she let the chocolate cake sit there… just in case.

 

Frightened and upset, she laid down and curled up with on of her many stuffed bears and wept bitterly.

 

 

Next morning, Kim woke all at once. There was no transition from one state to the other this bright clear late spring morning. Worry and dread, consumed her. She sat bolt upright, still dressed in the clothes she had worn the day before. Everything was strange and familiar all at once. As soon as she identified one item after another the confusion passed. These were her things and the fear of whatever had followed her up from the dream world had once again retreated back to whence it came. Slowly she relaxed.

 

Just the same, the paranoia did not abate. The fear that a plot was a foot to take her prisoner, steal her things, hurt her, murder her… and a dozen other unspeakable horrors would not leave her. Kim lay back down, staring up, considering these thoughts. She crept to the edge of her canopy bed, and reluctantly peered over it. Kim half expected a scaled, green claw to appear from beneath, grab her and drag her screaming, underneath the mysterious, evil underworld beneath her bed. Nothing, however, grabbed her.

 

Laying back and brushing the hair from her face, she wondered, What’s wrong with me? It wasn’t a cogent question, more an abstract wandering, a curiosity in the scheme of everything she was thinking. She felt detached and out of place.

 

Her head turned and caught sight of her reflection from the side in her vanity mirror. It was the out of perspective likeness that jolted her back to an upright seated stance, like an overcharged defibrillation unit. Her body convulsed briefly with a deluge of information, dumped in her head like so much rotting garbage at a landfill.

 

A low moan began deep in her amply breasted torso. Limp, she fell back to the mattress, her head crash landing safely on her pillows. The memories came from both lives. The sudden recollection of all that had happened in the last twelve hours left her mouth tasting like copper. The moment when she ceased to exist as she had been born and had become the girl that now looked back from her vanity mirror racked her with heart palpitations and immobilized her on her bed where she lay. She was trapped in a taffy puller.

 

Soon the sound of footfalls on the stairs getting louder, coming her way, “Kim?” It was her mother.

 

She squeezed her eyes tight and wished for all of this to go away. She feared that if that door opened and she was recognized again as Kimberly, she would not be able to control what came out of her mouth.

 

“Kim? Are you Okay?” There was deep concern in Cindy’s voice.

 

Kim clutched at her blankets for a moment and then forced herself to relax a bit. The anxiety eased some. She was still here, and still Kim but she was also still alive and remarkably, she had to admit, feeling physically good; well, not sick at any rate. The fear of being left as Kim was still present. Her desire to end this masquerade was manifesting itself as a need now, a dire need.

 

Find Ben.

 

She forced a response from her lips, mindful that time was passing, “Fine Mom, just stubbed my toe on the leg of my bed,” she called out as matter-of-factly as she could manage. Yep, I remember that voice… she thought, That’s me. I’ll be glad when it’s not.

 

What she wanted now more than anything was as little contact with Kim’s family as possible. She feared if she began to acknowledge she loved them as she suspected that Kim did, she’d find herself on the road to permanent exile on the Island of Kim. She tried once again to leverage some control over her situation by trying to deny what she had become. I’m not gu… And again, failed. CRAP!

 

“You sure you’re Okay?” her mother called out.

 

Kim wondered, Why isn’t she coming in? Her brain shot an answer back almost as fast as the question had arisen, Don’t look a fucking miracle in the mouth, stupid.

 

“Yeah, fine Mom. I’ll be out in a minute.” There was an unusually long pause before her mother answered.

 

“Take your time Sweetie. No hurry,” then the sound of footfalls fading away. Kim didn’t have time to feel grateful. The feeling of waking up aware that being in this body could even remotely seem normal had been a true wake up call. Clearly Kim’s experiences were starting overshadow to Tim’s now. Kim’s identity, her personality was becoming more deeply engrained as Tim’s got further from having ever existed. The longer she stayed this way, Kim also guessed, the harder it would be to assimilate back into her true identity.

 

Get the mask off! All other considerations before that were secondary.

 

Once out of bed, she set about in a business like fashion to prepare for school. That was where redemption and salvation would be found. There was no time and no room for negative possibilities, she would not entertain them.

 

She was intent on taking a fast shower, redressing and waiting for her ride with Ben. After a moment however, the shakes were back. The revelations of last night began to dog-pile on one another again. Ben doesn’t have a car, remember? “Ride the bus then,” she coached herself out loud. “Get to school, find him and get the hell out of this mess.”

 

Soon, she forced herself to stop before the mirror and beg, “Please make it go away, please. I can’t do this. I want a vote, I want a choice in this and I don’t choose this!”

 

It, all of It, didn’t go away, It remained firmly attached to her and she knew It was threatening to stay right where it was for as long as it could. It and It’s partners in crime, left mammary, right mammary, labia, ovaries, uterus and a host of equally diabolical criminals were holding her hostage. Most terrifying was that they wanted no ransom. They were not negotiating for release, they had simply taken her prisoner and now it seemed, they planned to keep her.

 

Kim proceeded to strip her clothes off. She then raced to the bathroom and removed her shirt and bra. She showered a in bare two minutes, trying hard to ignore and avoid her new configuration reflected so keenly before her in the bathroom mirror. Kim dried and returned to her room only to find her mother standing there.

 

“Morning Sweetie.” There was an odd, almost repentant tone in her voice. While this was a concern, Kim had only a brief amount of time to get ready and get the bus. It came much earlier than Ben would have picked her up because of all the stops it had to make between here and school.

 

“Hi Mom,” Kim said, waving with a nervous flip of her hand, a towel wrapped around her torso. “What’s up? Oh wait, let me guess. I am.” Kim danced a goofy, clumsy little dance in response to her own joke and moved toward her closet.

 

“Ha, ha.” Cindy groaned sarcastically. “I wanted to talk to you.”

 

Kim vanished inside her walk in closet and began searching for something, anything to wear. Beyond, Cindy could hear hangers being dragged over the hanger rail as her daughter pushed the clothes around. Kim called out from inside, “Okay, talk.”

 

“No, I think you should come out here.”

 

“What? I didn’t hear you. Can’t this wait? I have to get going or I’m gonna be really late.”

 

“Kim. Come out here for a minute.” Cindy said nervously.

 

Kim however did not respond directly. Perhaps it was because she didn’t hear, or didn’t want to hear. Either way, she simply rambled on, as Kim had a habit of doing, “If I miss the bus then I’ll miss my first period class. Mr. Mika makes us do the last days assignment plus the homework that―”

 

The frantic search for something appropriate to wear continued in the recesses of Kim’s closet as Cindy nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Kimmy.” Cindy repeated.

 

“―we missed and it’s all due back the next day. I don’t know about most kids, but I’ve got waaaaay too much homework to do and…

 

“KIM.” Cindy almost barked.

 

Kim slowly stuck her head out of the closet and asked tentatively, “Mom?”

 

Kim then fell quiet and Cindy took the opportunity to speak, “I… I felt bad about last night Kim, you know about your being sick and then all but suggesting that you might be using drugs, and well… So this morning when I came in here to wake you up, you were sleeping so peacefully…”

 

Cindy glanced at the alarm clock that sat on the bed side table to the right of Kim’s canopy bed. Kim offered a look of confusion when the significance of the quality of the bright sunlight, the birds singing outside and the warmth offered by the rays of sunlight streaming into the room clicked together to paint a coherent picture for Kim. Kim’s eyes flew open wide, her face went slack and her mouth dropped open, “Don’t be mad at me Kim.”

 

“Mommmmm, No!” Kim raced from her closet to the table and fumbled with the clock. After what seemed like an eternity, she steadied the clock and read the red digital face, 10:49 a.m. The switch of the alarm was set to ‘Off’. Kim spun on pads of her feet, “Why Mom?” The reaction was harsh, probably too harsh.

 

Cindy was surprise by the angry response, even after last night’s conversation about her insistence to go to class, Cindy felt that once the deed was done, Kim would be grateful to have a day off and rest. In the past, Kim had often faked being sick, and in extreme moments, begged to stay home and have a “vacation” of sorts from the drudgery of school. This about face was most unfamiliar and uncharacteristic for her daughter. It was so atypical in fact, it only served to stir the flame of concern about her daughter once more. To this Cindy had no real answer.

 

Kim’s face became a mask of determination. She tossed the clock back on the night stand and announced, “Well, I’m going anyway.” Kim moved back to her closet and once more began the task of finding something to clothe herself with.

 

“Kim, I want you to stay home today and rest. There isn’t anything at school that won’t wait until tomorrow.” Cindy insisted, now with a tone of, I’m your mother and you’ll do what I say, in her voice. It was a test, a mother’s test to see if Kim was willing to let go of whatever it was she seemed so insistently drawn to. If it ended here, Cindy felt she could relax. If it didn’t, she didn’t know what she would be able to do.

 

Once more, Kim popped her head out of the closet. This time however, the sweet look of the compliant daughter had been replaced by a rebellious visage Cindy was unfamiliar with. “My whole life you’ve wanted me to get ‘positive about school’ and now that I have you want me to stay home? I don’t want to stay home; I’m not going to stay home!”

 

There was something in the quality of Kim’s voice Cindy detected but couldn’t quite identify, something disturbing. “I’m not driving you Kim.” Cindy announced.

 

“Then I’ll walk.” Kim rebutted.

 

“No Kim, you won’t. If you’re not up to something, you sure have a funny way of proving it to me.” Kim’s eyes popped open in disbelief, “Well, what am I supposed to think? You want me to give you time, that everything is just fine and you’re working out some sort of abstract life issue? But Kim, everything you’re doing tells me there is no time. If you were me, what would you be thinking at this very moment? You are not going to school today.”

 

Kim could see that her desperation had pushed her mother to the point of desperate action. Kim quietly slipped into a pair of panties and shouldered a bra, unfastened in the back and humbly stepped out of the closet, hanging her towel on the knob of the door as she came back into her room. She faced her mother and then symbolically lowered her eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry Mom.”

 

“No Miss Ma’am. I’m not buying it. Something’s up and I want to know what it is, and I want to know right now.” Cindy insisted.

 

Kim hung her head, her impatience had cost her, she knew this now. If there wasn’t a way to fix it who knew what was going to happen to her and her access to Ben. Somehow, this thing had become a confused mess quickly and for the life of her she couldn’t find a way to diffuse the problem.

 

“I said last night that if you wanted me to stay home, I would. I’m not having a breakdown or anything like that.”

 

“I wonder about that Kim.” Cindy said, encouraged that her daughter was calm again, but guarded about what might bring on the next hysterical reaction. “You’ll stay home today, maybe go back tomorrow.”

 

“Maybe?”

 

“Maybe Kim, This morning I fully expected to find my same sweet baby girl, like most American kids, grateful to have a day off from school. What do I find? You’re going to walk? It’s fifteen miles to school Kim. Even if you walked, it would take you all day to get there and all night to get back!” Kimberly bit her lower lip in embarrassment and found she could not look her mother in the face. Instead she stared at her pink polished toes.

 

Cindy held up her hand indicating she had more to say, “You were insistent to the point of argument and hysteria that you were going to school with or without my blessing.”

 

“I need your blessing to go to school? Blessing? Are you listening to what you’re saying Mom? Insistent on going to school? I’m sorry, I’m confused. And I was not hysterical. I was disappointed.” Kim said, being sure to remain calm.

 

“Okay, fine, why do you want to go to school so badly then, what’s at school that’s so important that you would get upset–”

 

“Disappointed…” Kim corrected.

 

“Right, disappointed, what would be so important that you would rebuke a free pass from school? Can you tell me that Kim?”

 

Kim was cornered. There wasn’t an excuse she would be able to come up with in short order to cover her tracks with such limited and sporadic memory about her life as Kim.

 

Kim tried diversion instead, “I would rather not say anything about that right now if I could.”

 

“You don’t have that option.” Kim could only stare with large doe eyes at her mother. After a measure of time, Cindy finally said, “I’ll call and have your work packaged. Robert can swing by and pick it up. You’ll do it here tomorrow. I’ll turn it in for you.”

 

“WHAT?”

 

“This erratic behavior is scaring me. If I’m going to continue to trust what you say then I have to know what it is that IS going on.”

 

“Please Mom…”

 

Cindy stood and walked toward the door, “You aren’t leaving a lot of options here Kim. We’ve never had a problem communicating except when you’re trying to hide something from me. To me, that’s what’s happening right now.”

 

“Mom, I’m not―” Kim started and was oddly grateful when her mother cut her off. She had no idea what she would have said if her mother had let her continue.

 

“Not now Kimberly! When you’re ready to tell me what you ARE into then let me know. Until then I’m going to call the school and let them know you’re not going to be there until further notice unless I find out what’s going on.”

 

“Why?” Kim pleaded, trying to push back the panic of how far out of control this was getting.

 

“Because if you are involved with something that’s going to put you at risk, it’s at school, I think that much is pretty clear. I’m not going to continue to knowingly put you in an environment that is going to turn you into some kind of tramp or drug addict.”

 

“MOM!” Kim was shocked that her mother would even think such a thing.

 

“I have calls to make Kimberly Lynn, you sit right here and think about what I’m talking about. When you’re ready to talk, you know where you can find me.”

 

Cindy turned her back on Kim and walked calmly out of her room, closing the door behind her. Half dressed, Kim eased herself down, sitting on the edge of the bed and tried to figure out at what point things had gone so wrong.

 

“…until further notice…”

 

“Oh shit,” she muttered covering her mouth, her eyes wide with shock, as she turned those words over in her mind again and again.