Chapter 1 “All Aboard!”

Sheldon was happy the day he opened his mail to find the bomb his mother had sent. He had gained a good First in chemistry and had enjoyed his time at university. He was at a crossroads in his life but had not truly thought beyond the end of his study.

His tutors all thought he should go on to take further studies as they all had the idea that he could end up as a professor. Many of his fellow dramatic society friends had gone on a bigger stage and had made names for them-selves. Others, in the University rowing club, were in training to represent the country in the next Commonwealth Games. He could, given the desire, have taken any of these options but he had a niggling feeling that there must be something else in life so did absolutely nothing.

It was into this void that his mother, Jean, dropped her bomb. She sent him a registered letter to his digs in Cambridge. Inside was a ticket for a Mediterranean cruise, leaving Southampton the following week. There was also a note telling him that it was her present to him for being so clever. She wrote that because the ship would be sailing in warmer places, he didn’t need to pack much. He would be able to buy what he needed from the shops on board.

The thing that tempted him was that she hinted that she had a contact in Avian Industries, one of the biggest chemical laboratories around, who would consider him for employment when he got back home but not before. The note ended that she would explain further when she saw him next.

He made the decision that day that he needed a break from everything he was doing. He arranged to move out of his digs, told his girlfriend that he was taking some time off, and packed his old suitcase for a cruise. He didn’t have a lot as he had spent much of his normal time in a tee-shirt and jeans. All the party gear that he had worn over the past five years had come from the dramatic society wardrobe and the rowing kit didn’t take up a lot of room.

Two days before boarding he made his way south to a hotel near the Southampton docks and just wandered around the town while he waited. He was, for the first time, in a strange place, alone, and with nothing else to do so he just window-shopped, took in some of the tourist traps and cleared his mind of his past responsibilities. There were no classes, no experiments, no plays, no rowing and no girlfriend to please.

By the morning he was to set sail, he felt refreshed and free, ready to take in new experiences. In the taxi to the docks he wondered if he may even find himself a female companion who would be the icing on the cake. Perhaps he may start to live a normal life, unlike his childhood that had brought him to where he was now.

His father, Bradley Temple, had fathered three children during bouts of intense love-making after his more harrowing assignments as a career soldier. Two were twin girls, Angela and Maureen. The third was born some years later. Sheldon was, to Bradley, a disappointment.

Sheldon was not a chip off the old block, much to his father’s disgust. No, Sheldon was short, slim and blonde. Bradley sometimes wondered if the boy was not his until he looked into the cornflower blue eyes that matched his own. He did his best for his son, enrolling him in martial arts classes as soon as he was able and made sure that the sensei kept him up to date with the boy’s progress.

He had a surprise as time went on. Sheldon was a good student and slowly moved up, a belt at a time. The sensei reported that Sheldon had a very fluid movement that made for a difficult opponent. What Bradley didn’t know was that this was a result of the dance classes that his wife had also enrolled her son in.

Something neither of them knew was that the two girls, presented with a baby in the home when they turned seven, had thought that it was like having a live doll to play with.

Jean, his mother, was a well-respected psychiatrist, and worked in the field of older children and young adults with a special interest in gender problems. She had a very motherly manner with her clients and had helped many a teenager find their “true” selves.

She was a very busy woman, and was happy that her daughters volunteered to look after their baby brother while she worked in her study in the evenings. When the girls gave him back to be put down in his cot, he was always clean and smelled nice.

By the time the girls had turned thirteen and had found out about boys, young Sheldon had been dressed in bigger and bigger doll outfits most nights and, at the age of six, felt abandoned when left to his own devices in the evenings. As he grew older he had played along with his sisters and became the doll they had dressed him as. It was about this time that his two classes began, each complementing the other even if they were diametrically opposite.

Colonel Temple was sent to Syria to fight ISIS and had the misfortune to be captured in a fire-fight with them. Wounded, he was ceremonially beheaded and his head was paraded to the “true believers” on the end of the sword that had ended his life. Unfortunately for those believers, such a gathering could not be missed by the satellites and the drone that was close enough to send a missile into their midst, rather spoiling their party.

Sheldon was twelve when his father died and his sisters were nineteen. They were off at University in Portsmouth while he was in high school. Sheldon had grown to a reasonable height but had never added much to his physique. He looked like ‘bully-bait’ and had done all his school life. Anyone who picked on him, however, found out that he was not the cowardly boy he appeared.

By the time he was in fourth year he had seen off all those who would like to take advantage of him, and had also found out about girls. He was in much demand at social events because, by now, he was an accomplished dancer. That, and his inoffensive appearance, was his passport to a constant stream of casual girlfriends. He was a good person to be seen with, a good student, a pleasant companion and an accomplished actor.

The last was a by-product of his early childhood. He could put on any costume offered and become that person with uncanny effect. By the time he had been accepted for University he had a long acting CV and a glowing recommendation from his Drama Master. His dance teacher wanted him to continue professionally and the aging sensei pleaded with him to take up competition fighting.

Sheldon accepted a place at Cambridge to study chemistry. It was handy for him as it was a long way from either of his sisters, both now married, and also some distance from his mother. Sheldon had slowly come to the belief that his mother was a little way ‘off the rails’ since his father had died. His sisters hadn’t seen it because they were, by this time, living their own lives, but Sheldon had stayed with his mother for the six years until he left home.

He had been happy to be well looked after, fed, clothed and loved but sometimes his mother had been a little too clinging. He had taken it as her loneliness and had put up with her coming to every performance of every play he appeared in. He didn’t mind that she would interrogate every girl he dated. One thing that did upset him were the times his mother would take him shopping and he had to wait while she tried on outfits and she would always ask him for his opinion. At that, he discovered, he was quite good.

Jean was not happy when her pride and joy flew the nest. It had been a wrench to see her two girls go but, at least, they didn’t go too far once they married and she was on good terms with both their husbands, as well as their husband’s families.

In the five years her son was in Cambridge he had not come home, explaining that he had work experience during the holidays. They kept in touch by email. He was reasonably good with his communications and sent pictures every now and again. He had taken up rowing and was in a boat that he called a ‘coxless-four’ which she found hilarious. He was also well received in the drama group and took his parts in the various reviews they put on. Many of those parts were character or female roles, as he was so good in them.

One day she showed some of the pictures to Angela. She was visiting to show off her first-born. Angela then recounted all the times that she and Maureen had dressed Sheldon in dolls outfits and played with him as you would a living doll.

This brought out the psychiatrist in Jean and she started thinking about Sheldon as if he was a client. She had a standard check-list for gauging transgender boys and, when she looked at it, she discovered that he fitted most criteria.

He was slim; he was a good dancer; he was the right height for a girl but short for a boy; he never added muscle, no matter how hard he tried. He could imitate many of her women friends, getting their mannerisms and attitudes to a tee. She had pictures of him in various plays, almost from the time her husband had died, and he was often cast in effeminate roles and she now realised that he had been very good in all of them.

The thing that tipped her over the edge was a photo, sent by his latest girlfriend, of her Sheldon at a party. The text said it was a ‘Turnaround’ party and her son stood next to a guy while looking happy with the man’s arm over the shoulders of his cocktail dress, his blonde hair making him look like an actress with the very good make-up making Jean wonder if the picture wasn’t the girlfriend after all and it was a big joke.

Jean waited by the gangway to the ship with a great deal of patience and a little excitement. She was going to see her Sheldon for the first time in years and wondered about how much he may have changed. She fully expected to see a somewhat androgynous figure come on board but did not expect to see the slim, blonde and very good-looking person who approached her. When he saw her waiting he stopped dead.

“Mother, dear. How nice of you to come and see me off. I have to thank you for the ticket, I didn’t realise just how much I needed a holiday.”

“Sheldon, my son, I’m not seeing you off. I’m on the cruise with you. I know that you’ve deliberately stayed away but I thought that I just had to have some time with you. My contact at Avian Industries is looking forward to meeting you when we get back and she will be picking us up when we disembark here in six weeks. I’m sure you’re just what she’s looking for in her laboratory, the salary she mentioned was almost enough to make my eyes water.”

“I hope that you aren’t here to smother me. I’ve decided that I would have fun on this cruise before I went back to study. It’s the only way I can hide from all the people trying to get me to do things. I had an offer to train for the British Rowing Team and have an open invitation to join a television series as well as another to be on some dance show. I have to tell you that I’m not happy that you’re here but I’ll have to put up with it, seeing that you gave me the ticket. When I checked in at the office here they took it away. They gave me this strange pink folder.”

“That folder is your passport to shipboard fun. It contains all the information you need for the next six weeks. It should include a necklace tag which logs all the things you have done while you’re on board and the person who has had most fun gets their fare reimbursed. Come along, we can check in with the officer over there and then we can find our cabins. I booked for two alongside each other.”

She gave him a light hug and then turned to approach a ships officer holding a clipboard. She could sense Sheldon behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. When they stood in front of the officer he smiled. “Welcome aboard the Lillipilli. Your names?”

Doctor J. Temple and S. Temple.”

“Doctor Temple, I’m glad to see you aboard the Lillipilli today. Our admin girls saw your name and one of them remembered that you’ve sent us a lot of custom over the years. Head office ordered us to upgrade you and your companion. Instead of two cabins we have you now on ‘B’ Deck in one of our two- bedroom staterooms with thanks from the shipping line. I have your new key-cards and pendants here, if you’ll give me the ones from your pack, please. Sally will escort you to your rooms, Welcome aboard and enjoy the cruise.”

They exchanged the cards and pendants and then Sheldon almost swooned when a stunning blonde came over when beckoned. If this was the crew, what on earth would the passengers be like!

He saw his mother squint, and then smile.

“Sally, how lovely it is to see you again. How many years is it now?”

“Nearly four, Doctor Temple, after the cruise you prescribed for me I loved it so much I signed on as a crew member. Now, if you will follow me I’ll take you to the ‘B’ Deck rooms. They’re lovely, balcony included, and there are only six each side on ‘B’ Deck. There’re only a few occupied this cruise so, by the time you get back here, you’ll be friends with all the others around you, I’ve seen it happen a lot of times.”

Sheldon followed his mother and a very enticing pair of shorts on top of legs to die for and wondered just how his mother knew this girl. At ‘B’ Deck they were shown to the door and his mother swiped her card to open it. Sally followed them inside and pointed out all of the amenities. Sheldon took it all in and thought that there were guys in the university who would never leave a room like this. With its entertainment, computer connection, bar, coffee machine and huge, pink settee. The bedroom was very pink, he noticed, but didn’t worry as you only sleep there.

His bag was already on the bed and he left it there to wander out onto the balcony and gaze over the water to the hills on the other side. He heard his mother come out and she had two glasses of white wine. He sat on one sunbed and she handed him a glass before she sat on the other. He waited for the explanation he expected to come.

She sat and looked at the view and he finally broke.

“Mother, this is a complete mystery to me. I want to know why you’ve lured me onto this boat and how you even know one of the crew. I have one clue and that is the fact that all around I see pink.”

“Sheldon, I want to ask you some questions and I want you to give me the first things you think of and then I will explain everything.” When he nodded she took him through the standard questions one would give a ‘gender fluid’ boy of the type she saw almost every day. He knew that if he didn’t go through with this he would never know the full truth and answered as best he could. When she finished asking the questions she nodded and sighed.

“Your answers to those questions were not exactly as I expected. I’ve spoken to your sisters and they admitted to dressing you as a doll until you were six. I went to all of the school plays you were in and you often played a female role and very well, I must say. Your girlfriend sent me this picture a few months ago and I have to say that you look entirely at home in that dress with that guy with arm around your shoulder. I expected your answers to have been more towards a female gender bias but you didn’t answer them in a genuine male bias, either.”

He looked at the picture on her phone and snorted. “Mother, I make anything I wear look good. That’s how I’ve had so many good reviews. It doesn’t take me long to get into a female role, just give me a name and a dress and I can vamp with the rest of them. The guy in that photo is, I’m sorry to tell you, a girl called Jacquie who is a total lesbian and she loves these ‘turnaround’ parties because it allows her to exhibit her ‘bloke’ look.”

“Oh, my! I appear to have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Now, it’s time for your explanation. This particular cruise line has a range of small ships like this which specialise in ‘experience cruises’. There’s jazz ones, rock and roll ones, classical ones. There’re some that go to ports and they take you to museums or gardens, art galleries or adventure sports.”

“This one, the Lillipilli, has one cruise like this every year and it’s for women only. Sally, who I notice you drooled over, was one of my clients and this ship is one I use a lot as the final hurdle for my ‘girls’. It offers six weeks of total femininity. There are beauty classes, dressmaking classes, deportment classes, and, yes, even sex classes on how to please a man. When we hit port there are busses to dress shops, lingerie shops, jewellery shops, bazaars. In my office we call it the Lollipop because every wannabe girl we send on it comes back thinking they’re Shirley Temple. In fact, you’re on the passenger list as Shelly Temple.”

Sheldon started to laugh and it took him a while to stop. The thing that did make him stop was the fact that they were now moving and he realised that his chance of escape had disappeared.

“So what do you want me to do, Mum? Will this be a six-week stint playing a woman or do I get off at the first stop and go back to my girlfriend in Cambridge?”

“It would be a pity to waste the cruise, Shelly. We both have tickets which get us into all of the classes and all of the shore activities. I prepaid a thousand pounds onto both our accounts so we can shop until we drop. I have credit cards that we can use when we’re on shore and shopping. All our food and drink is included and we now have this wonderful suite to live in. What would you do in Cambridge that’s better than this?”

“Mum, I have to admit that this is heaven to where I normally live. If I can get through it I’ll probably be able to play the female roles even better than before. It’s just clothes and an attitude. If I’m Shelly for six weeks then so be it. As long as you don’t expect me to be your daughter when we dock again I can do it. I suppose we’d better get something nice for the first meal, I didn’t bring anything to wear!”

Marianne Gregory © 2022