A Learning Experience Ch. 04

Once again, it seemed my youthful naiveté had kept me ignorant of reality. My fears once again blossomed into hate as I thought 'is everyone humping everyone around here, can I trust no-one?' But after looking into Dolores' eyes, I had a strange reaction, one that I can still feel to this day, the love in her eyes easily pushed away my fear and hatred. In fact, it was hard not to be happy for her, as she seemed genuinely happy in this situation. Also once again, the Doctor's, or Howard's, voice was coming from the door.

"That's good to hear." The Doctor said, "Joscelyn... Joscelyn, how can we re-earn your trust? Andy has told me, at least some, of what happened, and he's just devastated at what he did. I only want to help, won't you please tell us what we can do?"

I now began to think a little more clearly, "The only person that warned me... and I ignored her, was Cindy. I need to talk to her, and I need Mel, please bring them back here and then maybe... maybe things can move forward."

"I think I still have a card from that place..." Dolores was searching through her jeans for cards again, "Ah! Found it..."

She jumped over to where the phone was and quickly punched the number into the lighted princess phone. After a few seconds someone answered, even from across the room I could tell it was Sherrie's high-pitched voice.

"Hi Sher, its Dolores," she said, "I don't know if you... oh great! Yes... yeah I need to speak with Cindy, can she come to the phone? I'm afraid it's very important... Thanks!"

"Hi! Cindy?" Dolores continued, "We have a serious problem that's occurred. Apparently Andy has tried to sexually attack Joscelyn when he was driving her back here today. Yes... Yep, I'm afraid so. Joscelyn has locked herself... well, I'm with her, but anyway... she's locked herself in her room and will only come out after she can talk with you and Mel in person. Mmm-mm. Do you have anyway to get back here? Oh... alright then great... see you then!"

"Ok Joscelyn!" Dolores declared, "Sherrie's bringing them back right now, they should be here in about 10-15 minutes honey!"

For some reason everything seemed even scarier than it had before, whether this was due to my own internal fears or something that Andy's attack triggered that's new for me to deal with, I just could not stop shaking.

I watched with Dolores out my room window, as we waited for Sher to bring the girls back to me. My head was pounding as I tried to figure out what it all might mean, right now I didn't have the patience to think it through. Once I could be with Mel, I knew I could make it through the next step, and then if I could get Cindy to tell me what she really meant with her warning to me about Andy last night.

Finally the car pulled in and I could see both girls get out, Mel looked very much like a lioness that had lost her cub that I had seen on an episode of Wild Kingdom a couple weekends ago. I once again felt her protective presence near to me.

"Ok Joscelyn, how do you want to work this?" Dolores asked.

"I want to stop thinking about protecting myself," I muttered feebly, "... and thanks to you, and now Mel, I think maybe I can."

I then got up and went over to the barricade at the door, and with Dolores' help, we pushed everything out of the way, and then I unlocked the door, and pushed it open. As it swung around, I found myself face to face with the Doctor. At first I was very confused by the stunned look he had on his face, then remembered that he had yet to see me 'en femme'. Even though he knew I cross-dressed, I don't think he was prepared to see me as I was right now.

"Doctor... I-I'm sorry, I just didn't know how to protect myself for a little while, and I guess I just kinda..." I was rambling at this point.

"My Goodness!" he exclaimed, "Joscelyn? This... is this, I can't believe the difference!"

Now that he'd recovered a bit, he walked into the bedroom and held me gently by my shoulders, looking me up and down, laughing, and looking over to Dolores for some type of confirmation that it really was me, and then returned his eyes to gaze at me.

"Joscelyn..." he repeated shaking his head, then continued, "You are so beautiful, I understood you had gone to a beauty salon, but I never expected SUCH a change... my dear, you are simply electrifying... truly magnificent!"

All during his wonderfully complimentary words, I was swooning with such praise from a man of such eminence, but once he'd finished, both of our minds seemed re-focused on what had brought me up here to a barricaded bedroom. As he thought of this I could see his eyes drop along with his arms.

"Joscelyn..." he said softly, "please accept my apologies for Andy's behavior, and understand that we will get to the bottom of what hap..."

Just then Mel and Cindy got up to the second floor and the bedroom, Mel grabbed hold of me so hard that I was quite sure she would become a permanent appendage, we went over to the bed and sat down together. We kissed and hugged for few minutes, and then she wanted details. In the meantime the Doctor, Dolores and Cindy were conferencing out in the hallway in low voices.

Somewhere in our conversation, Mel indicated that Andy was on some kind of medication to help with a psychological problem that creates the type of situation that had occurred this afternoon. Not long after she explained this to me, my mind was reeling within an overwhelming bunch of seemingly non-related facts, but they were starting to add up fast!

"Wait... wait – wait – WAIT!" I exclaimed as suddenly things literally fell into place.

I jumped up from the bed, with Mel attached to me of course, and made it out into the hall where Cindy and the Doc were still talking.

"So listen!" I nearly screamed, "I just found out Andy's been on a regular medication that helps prevent these attacks, is that right?"

The Doctor just turned and stared for a moment, then said, "Yes... yes that's correct Joscelyn, but wha..."

"Last night," I interrupted, "Cindy gave us something to enhance our skin sensitivity or something, you remember, don't you Cindy?"

"Umm... yeah, but it was just..." she began.

"It doesn't matter," I continued, "because just after he took it, he was falling asleep, so it was having an interaction of some kind, and if his meds were interacting in such a way as to make him so sleepy, couldn't it also have made his meds ineffective?"

"Cindy, what was it?" the Doctor was asking.

"It was just some Spanish Fly," Cindy explained, "I've used it many times in the past, and never had any problems... Oh my God!"

"Cindy, it wasn't your fault, it was nobody's fault, ok?" the Doctor said calmly.

"Do we know where Andy is right now?" I asked.

"He's in his room, I saw him go in there when we came upstairs." replied the Doctor.

I looked at Cindy, and nothing more needed to be said, she spun on her heel and ran down to Andy's room. After a short scream, she was running back to us.

"He's not there! My God where could he be?" Cindy cried.

Somehow I knew, I tried to explain how I knew for a long while afterwards, but no one ever really believed me.

I instantly began running downstairs saying only two words, "the pharmacy!"

I was running on 6 inch platforms and it just didn't matter, no one was able to run past me as we all flew downstairs, Mel was still keeping up with me, at least within an arm's length somehow, and everyone else was strung out behind us! As I rounded the corner that led down the main hallway of the office extension, I heard someone on a metal ladder, and recognized the sound from when the Doctor had gotten me my meds yesterday. Sure enough, as I got close, the light from the pharmacy shown into the darkened hallway. As I turned into the pharmacy, I saw Andy stuffing something into his pants pockets, and he then shoved his fist into a large jar of pills, and was pulling it out when he finally noticed me walking up to him.

"Stop!" Andy cried, holding his hand filled with tablets in front of his mouth.

Now the rest of our little group came stumbling in behind Mel and I, including the Doctor, who was completely blown away that somehow his youngest son had figured out the room's electronic combination lock.

"Andy, don't!" I said carefully, "This isn't the way, nothing about this was anything you could have helped"

"No more... I-I can't keep fighting against my own body..." Andy responded.

"Andy... ", I began, "don't you think I know what you're going through? Hmm? Don't you! My body has been a traitor to me every day of my life, every stinking day I wake up and I'm still male! Do I look male to you right now? DO I?"

Andy's eyes told me he saw the parallels between us as he smiled a bit and said, "No... not at all."

"NO! I'm not," I said, "but that image is only a partial fix, I still don't have a female's body, but gradually I think I can at least find a way to 'deal with it', ya know? Just like you've found a way to 'deal with' the reality you find yourself in every day Andy"

"And it not a 'perfect' fix," I continued, "and things will go wrong! Like last night when Cindy gave us both some 'Spanish Fly' to improve our sexual performance. It just happened to interact with your medication Andy, no one could have foreseen the result, nobody, including yourself! So basically you had no medication helping you this afternoon when you were confronted by a situation that kept you from handling it as you should have, and ended up causing the awful scene we were involved with!"

Slowly I could see him working it out, he really didn't want to let go of his 'solution' though, and I knew where that came from. I had carefully set up my own solution at one point when I was dealing with a particularly terrible time of 'sissy' taunts and felt I just had no other way out. But gradually he saw the logic of it, and at despite his usually lazy attitude, Andy was a very smart guy. Suddenly he took the fist-full of tablets and shoved them back into the jar. He sighed dejectedly and reached into his jeans pocket, taking out his first fist-full of tablets, and again shoved them back into the jar, then screwed the cap on to it. At this point his knees buckled, and the tears came hard and heavy. I turned to his father and he was there next to him instantly, as was Cindy and Dolores as well. At that point I knew he was in good hands. Mel and I turned to go back upstairs.

"Joscelyn... p-please wait..." Andy pleaded, "I, at least, need to say I'm sorry for what happened to me, and how it affected you."

I turned back and walked over to him, the tears still flowing for us both, I hugged him as tightly as I could, and then pulled back to say, "As it turns out Bro', there just ain't nobody to blame, so sorrys really don't make much sense do they?"

I smiled at Andy and when I used 'bro' that really seemed to dispel the awful pain that I had seen in his eyes, then I added, "brothers forever and always, right?"

"Forever and always, Bro!" Andy replied, "Thanks man... er... um, well whatever!"

"No problemo dude!" I shot back, cracking up one and all, including Andy!

We all learned a lot from this I think, Cindy was a lot more careful about when, and to whom, she gave her Spanish Fly concoction. The Doctor went out and got a state-of-the-art fingerprint access lock for his pharmacy. Andy found that, due to his medical issues he was going to have to depend on his friends and others a lot more in life, whether he wanted to or not. And of course I learned that I could become a woman, mostly by believing it myself. Actually there was a lot more that I learned that day and later that night... but that... will have to wait until next time!