Paying My Dues

"You were born prematurely with low birth weight. Shortly after you were born, you were diagnosed with cryptorchidism. We had no clue what that was but we are very familiar with it now. Cryptorchidism is the medical term for an undescended testicle. In your case, it was both. Yours were shown to be fairly high up inside you. The doctors suggested we wait a couple of months to let you gain some weight and strength but also to see if one or both of your testicles would descend naturally. They didn't. Reluctantly, we gave permission for you to have corrective surgery to put everything where it belonged. We never told you of this because we had no clue at the time about your other situation. While the doctors were inside you to correct your gonad placements, they discovered a small remnant of an ovary that had not fully formed. Although they successfully relocated your testicles, we were told that they were not fully formed either. The doctors explained that this may result in you having a very small penis after puberty. We also learned that you may be sterile as a result, and may experience gender dysphoria or gender confusion as you aged. They were unable to tell us which gender you might gravitate toward naturally as you aged."

This was shocking news to me. I was stunned. "Why was I never told of this? Why did you or dad never say anything about it?"

"I'm getting to that Quinn. Your father always wanted a boy. That's why he gave Brandon his name. I, in turn, always wanted a girl. In essence, we felt the doctors were telling us that you could go either way. Not knowing what your natural inclination would be, your father and I argued extensively but he finally agreed to let me try raising you as the daughter I always wanted. As a result of complications from your birth, I ended up having a hysterectomy which ended our prospects of any more children. You were my only hope for a daughter."

"Daughter?" I murmured in shocking disbelief.

"That's right Quinn. You may not recall the memories of your early years as my daughter. Your name fits perfectly with the narrative. We have always avoided the use of the words son or daughter with you after you chose the role of male for yourself but in the beginning, you were the daughter I always wanted. I happily dressed you in the cutest dresses and feminine baby gowns. You were the most adorable daughter I could imagine. When you were being potty-trained, we encouraged you not to soil your big girl panties."

Vague, repressed memories began to trickle their way to the surface in my mind.

"You seemed to love your new panties, and I reveled at your acceptance. We purchased many Barbie dolls, Ken dolls, and tons of Barbie accessories that were left lying around the house. You and I played with them often during that time. Barbie and Ken dolls are sitting on that shelf over there here in your room to this very day."

"But you always told me they were decorative and I wasn't allowed to throw them away."

"I wanted them to remain as a reminder in case you ever gravitated back to that side of yourself. You were such a joy back then, proudly wearing dresses everywhere we went. Up until you were five years old. It was then I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was in a hurry one evening and for the first time, put you and Brandon in the tub together for your baths. It was the very first time that he had ever seen you stark naked. You both ran around the house together in nothing but your underwear for hours on end for several years, but he never questioned his sister wearing panties while he wore little boy briefs. However, in the bathtub that day, when he saw you had the same boy parts as he did, then he began to ask everyone, especially you why you dressed as a little girl and he, a boy. Brandon was relentless and told everyone around that you were the same as him but you wore girl's dresses anyway. Your father tried to stop him. He punished your brother multiple times to get him to quit."

Brandon rubbed his ass with his hand, "It still stings to this day," he chuckled.

"Anyway, the damage had been done. You suddenly rejected everything feminine. You had the most beautiful long hair I'd ever seen on a child. You took a pair of scissors and nearly skinned your head bald to get rid of it. It killed me to see your long beautiful locks gone. I'd dress you in panties and a dress, and you'd strip, and run around the house naked instead. You demanded boy clothes like your brother. For some reason, you wanted to be just like him, rather than the daughter I longed for you to be. Even in public. If I ever took you out dressed as a girl, you'd strip, and embarrass me in front of anyone regardless of the circumstances. I realized I was losing the battle. I finally compromised by buying you girls' clothing that resembled boy clothes. The boys' fruit of the loom underwear was real enough but the pants you wore to school every day were always girl's pants without flowery prints. Your shirts consisted of plain girl's blouses. I always buttoned them up for you so you'd never realize they buttoned backward from your brother's shirts. I let you wear colorful t-shirts during the summer. That's the way it went up until the fifth grade. I always insisted on keeping dresses in your closet and girls' panties in your underwear drawer. I wanted them continuously available to you even if you only dressed in them in the privacy of your own room."

"But you told me those dresses and underwear were kept in my room just in case one of our visiting cousins had an accident and needed a change of clothes," I recalled.

"I know I told you that Quinn but the truth was they were yours. They were always yours. You never noticed, I'm sure but you didn't realize that, as you grew, so did those dresses in your closet and panty sizes in your drawer. Regardless of how old you were, every dress in that closet and piece of girl's underwear in your drawer would always fit you perfectly. I saw to that personally. Oh, you'd push the dresses to the side or to the back of your closet but every afternoon when you returned home from school, there they were, front and center, back where they belonged. But it was when you were ten years old in fourth grade that I took another shot at getting you back as my daughter."

"I don't remember anything like that happening in the fourth grade. What are you talking about?" I inquired.

"I could tell that you were in the beginning stages of puberty. I wanted to grab onto any chance that I could to reclaim you as my daughter. I had a very close friend, my former college roommate, Dr. Edith Bentley, who is a well-respected psychiatrist/therapist. She was in a position to prescribe the regimen that I sought for you, and she is also very inclined to help those who desire to transition. I talked her into subjecting you to a single interview. I gave her a list of three and only three questions to ask you. She looked them over and told me that if you honestly answered yes to all three, then she would accommodate my request as your parent who knew you better than anyone and had your best interest at heart. She told me that she was probably the only psychiatrist in the country that would do this for me but after all, she trusted me implicitly. Her one objection that I was unable to overcome, was my being there. I was not permitted to be in the room when she questioned you. She did not want my presence to impact the candor of your responses in any way."

I was puzzled, "I'm not sure I remember meeting her. What were the questions?"

"I remember them well because I wrote them for her to use, and she agreed that your responses would be sufficient to warrant receiving her backing. The questions were, #1-Quinn, please answer yes or no, nothing else. Answer honestly and truthfully. Have you worn girls' dresses and panties for multiple years? #2-Did you play Barbie and Ken dolls with your mother for multiple years? #3-Right now, at this very moment, are there girls' dresses in your bedroom closet, girls' underwear in your bedroom dresser, and at least one set of Barbie and Ken dolls in your bedroom, the one you sleep in?"

"And I said yes to all three, didn't I?" I asked sheepishly.

"Yes, you did, Quinn. Even though you hadn't worn dresses or played with dolls in years, you remembered going through that period for multiple years in your past. I was so happy you were completely honest with her but she later told me what sealed the deal for her was your clothing. When you went into her office, you were wearing a girl's blouse and girl's pants. She was certain of it because her daughter had the exact same outfit. She diagnosed you with gender dysphoria as a confused male who secretly desired to transition into a female. Because you weren't of age, your father and I had to consent to your medical treatment. Dr. Bentley prescribed puberty blockers as annual implants under your skin to suppress your body's release of testosterone."

"After two months on the puberty blockers, she prescribed pills for your estrogen treatment which is a feminizing hormone that blocks the action of testosterone. It prevented voice deepening, limited the growth of your genitalia, gave you the start of breasts, likely rendered you permanently infertile, gave you softer, less oily skin, smaller testicles, also called testicular atrophy, reduced muscle mass, more body fat which resulted in weight gain, and less facial and body hair, all of which happened between 3 months to 3 years of you being on the program."

"You WHAT?!" I remembered, and caught myself, trying to contain my rage. "You put me on puberty blockers, chemically castrated me, and fed me estrogen without my knowledge or consent? I can't believe this! How could you do that to your own son? I never saw shithead Brandon get any makeovers. Why me? Why didn't you ever talk to me or tell me? Why was this all done behind my back? Does every member of my family hate me that much?"

"You've got it all wrong, Quinn. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are LOVED beyond measure. Don't you see? Everything we did was out of pure love for you in hopes of you becoming all that you were meant to be. We were merely trying to help jump-start the process. If Brandon hadn't screwed everything up, you'd be outside in the backyard now with all of the family, happily living your role as our daughter with a wonderful life ahead of you. But despite everything we tried to do to help you, you fought us at every turn. By the middle of your junior high school years, we finally gave up on the treatments or surgical considerations. All they seemed to do, besides the obvious physical changes, was make you irritable and temperamental."

"Mrs. Davenport, I'm sure you meant well and had nothing but the best motivation for everything you did. I hated every moment of it but all that's in the past. How in the world does any of this have anything to do with my backstabbing slut wife and asshole ex-brother?"

"I wish you would stop calling them horrible names, Quinn. It's not very becoming, and it doesn't accomplish a thing. I don't want to have to ask Faye to silence you again, nor do I think it would be helpful."

"I understand, Mrs. Davenport. Please accept my apology. Faye and Brandon are nothing less than the purest Disciples of the Bible. I bet they walk on water every day. We should all be worshipping at their feet. Please continue to regale the myriad of ways they have improved my life." I said with dripping sarcasm.

"Your sardonic wit, though intended to cut, is closer to the truth than you think, Quinn. There's even more that you don't yet know. I'm sorry, what you're about to learn may hurt the most," my concerned mother continued.

I couldn't imagine how anything else could hurt me worse than everything I now knew. All I know is that I wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible. I realized that talking with them only slows things down.

"Just get it over with, whatever it is," I appealed.

"Sweetie, I know that you didn't want to meet with your beautiful wife, Faye, or your brother, Brandon, any time soon. But we figured that it would be best for you in the long run if we just ripped the Band-Aid off in one go. Once you hear the rest, you'll understand. Again I say, Quinn, everyone in this room loves you more than you could ever know. By the time you finished junior high school, I had given up on the prospect of you embracing your role as my daughter. Your recalcitrance was relentless, so our focus turned to help you achieve happiness as the male you seemed determined to become. We felt we had to look out for you even more as the fairer of our two children. You had no idea that you had taken puberty blockers or estrogen supplements for years. You thought I was giving you vitamins every day. You may have had the mindset of a male but you had most of the body of a female."

Chapter-5

Mom continued, "It was too late to turn you back physically. We had to work with what you had become. We strove to protect you and encourage you to be mindful of your delicate condition, the condition of which you were emotionally unaware. When you reached high school and began dating Jenny, we thought she was a nice girl but we were unsure if we could control her. After numerous conversations your father and I had with her over the time you dated her, we concluded that she was too much of a wild card to become your wife. She might have caused you more harm than good. Then when we became aware of your imminent proposal, we knew we had to do something to make you set her aside. That's where Brandon came in. We asked him to seduce her. Our plan was to have her fall in love with him and break up with you herself but it was a stroke of luck that you caught them when you did. When you caught them at that club, that wasn't the first time they were together but it was the first time you caught them. Your brother truly liked and respected Jenny but he loved you more, and seduced her as we asked, solely for your long-term benefit. Of course, he dropped her right after you broke it off with her."

I sat there stoically and silently. A tear ran down my cheek as I realized how deep and pervasive all of my family had repeatedly betrayed me. Jenny, I truly loved that girl. They set her up to ruin her for me simply because she was on my side and not theirs.

"After you graduated, we sent you to Grandview Community College in hopes of you adopting a career more suitable to your inferior male body than working at the plant. We tried our best to steer you into a feminine career that we knew you could handle. We allowed you to take engineering courses against our better judgment. We wanted above all, for you to be happy, Quinn. In hindsight, had you listened to us and gone with the Dental Hygiene program, you'd be making the same or more than your wife does instead of her becoming the primary breadwinner. You refused to listen to reason, so we allowed you to work at the plant. As you can see, that hasn't taken you very far in a career even after all these years."

"During the summer after you graduated high school, while you were at your grandpa's farm, your brother met and dated Faye. We fell in love with her quickly after he brought her here for us to meet. It was then that we had a brainstorm. What if you met her innocently through GCC, fell in love, married, had a child with her, and lived many happy years as a man and wife? Faye and your brother had already fallen in love before you ever met her but they both could appreciate the bigger picture. Brandon felt so guilty for robbing me of my daughter, he was willing to make nearly any sacrifice for you, to make it up to us both. He decided he'd share Faye with you, and let you live your dream as a male. You never would have landed a beauty like her but we made that happen for you. You were sterile, so you never could have fathered a child, so your brother stepped in and gave you a baby to call your own."

"Yes, they were in love; they still are. They have been very discrete with their numerous trysts. You were never supposed to discover what was happening behind the scenes. Faye told her employer that she had disabling migraine headaches at fairly regular intervals. She applied for FMLA leave so that she could fake migraines, call into work, take half days off, never get fired for it, and meet her lover, Brandon as often as he could arrange to be away from the plant. After nearly a year and a half into your marriage, it became obvious that you were unable to make a baby, so Brandon stopped using condoms. That's when Tamara came into your life. The look on your face the first time you held your daughter made us all realize it was worth everything we had done to achieve your happiness."

More tears ran down my face as I realized that my entire pathetic existence had been carefully mapped out by puppet masters.

"Quinn, you may wonder why Faye agreed to do this. We offered her a million dollars to get her to persuade you to marry her, then another million to successfully pass off Tamara as your child, followed by a third million to remain married to you until Tamara turned 18 and became an adult. Faye could then divorce you with our blessing and marry Brandon. Tamara would then always be your daughter. Then Faye would have three million dollars banked waiting for her the day Tamara turned 18. We wanted you to have a wife you knew loved you, and wanted to be with you no matter what deficiencies you may have as a man. During her marriage to you, her role was to ensure that you were the happiest husband alive. Her only stipulation was to always be able to be with Brandon every time it was feasible for them to come together, which averaged three times a week. However, she couldn't help but fall head-over-heels in love with you after living with you intimately every day. Faye agrees that you have a heart as big as the sky. She is completely committed to you in every way as your wife but she also loves Brandon, perhaps a bit more because she belonged to him first, and he is the one who put a baby in her. Don't you see? All four of us did everything for you, for YOU, Quinn, out of pure love!"

Mom took a big breath after rendering my pathetic life story. "It all boils down to this, Quinn. The way we see it, right now you have three options. Number one is to forgive and forget. Return to your home where you belong with Faye and Tamara until Tamara turns 18. Yes, Faye and your brother will remain intimate as always but it will never be flaunted in your face. They will always be super discrete. That is the overall best option for you.

Option number two is to move back home here with me and your father. You can become the daughter you were always meant to be. If you look inside your closet this very moment, you'll still find dresses that will fit you perfectly, and ladies' undies in your drawer to make you look exquisite. Just think, we could all go shopping together and buy all the nice things that ladies such as yourself like to have. If you choose this option, you will never have to work another day of your life. You will be taken care of in every way, living here with us. When your father and I pass on, we will leave you this house, paid for, as well as enough funds to last you to a ripe old age. Option number two is MY personal favorite," she giggled.

"Then there's option number three. None of the four of us wants that for you, Quinn. If you insist on divorcing Faye, the three of us will help her fight tooth and nail for full custody of Tamara. She'll let you keep your puny little house to live in abject misery for the rest of your life, cut off from all of us as your lifelines. None of us will support you in any other way. If you end up in poverty, so be it. It would be a result of the life you chose for yourself. You'd have no one to blame for your misery but you. Well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Does anyone else have anything to add?" Mom asked.