“Hello, you must be Kenneth’s new friend. I’m Linda, is he upstairs?”
The girl struggled to gather herself. She closed her mouth and stood up, wiping her fingers on her shorts. The gesture was hauntingly familiar to Linda.
“No,” she said, “He isn’t.”
The girl’s voice was well modulated, but although definitely higher in pitch than Kenneth’s, there was, once again, a similarity.
Linda stopped, frowning, as her brain told her one thing and her reasoning told her that it was impossible.
“Where is he, then?” she asked, still playing the denial game.
“You really are blind, aren’t you? I mean, I get more sympathy and understanding from complete strangers than my own mother.”
“Kenneth?” she asked, uncertainly.
“No, of course I’m not Kenneth. How daft would that be?”
Linda felt relief flood her whole being. The relief was mingled with confusion as she sought to make sense of what the girl said. Her relief was short-lived.
“I can’t call myself Kenneth with tits like these, can I? I call myself Keira when I’m a girl.”
With that, she lifted her tee-shirt, showing Linda that she was one hundred percent girl underneath.
Linda’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slid soundlessly to the floor.
“Oh, bugger it!” said Keira, finishing her toast.
When Linda opened her eyes, she was lying on the sitting room sofa. Kenneth, yes, it was Kenneth, and he was sitting in the chair next to her doing some homework. He looked up to see she was awake.
“You okay?” he asked.
She frowned, trying to remember what had happened. Then she did, and gave a little shriek. Such was her uncertainty that she doubted her own memory.
“Kenneth?”
“Duh; who else would I be?”
“Oh God, it must be the stress. I thought you were a girl. I must have imagined it.”
“No, you didn’t imagine anything. I am a girl.”
She stared at him.
“No, you’re not!”
“We’ve talked about this, mum. I am a girl; but at the moment, I’m in the body you gave birth to.”
“Huh?”
Kenneth; and she could see by the complete absence of breasts that it was her son and not the girl she had seen in the kitchen, Kenneth sighed and rolled his eyes.
“I never meant for you to see the real me, but I wasn’t expecting you so early,” he said. “I knew you’d freak out.”
“The real you?”
“Oh, you are so thick sometimes, mum. I’m a girl, so as you guys made me a boy I have to be a boy when I’m around you and at school. The rest of the time I revert to who I should be – and that’s Keira.”
“Keira; isn’t that the name of your friend?”
“No, it’s me. I met them from next door and didn’t think you’d want them gossiping about me being a girl, would you?”
Linda was confused.
“But you are a boy!”
“Not all the time. And, once I leave home, I will never be again.”
Linda snorted. It was partly disbelief and partly disgust at the very thought.
Kenneth put his pen down and fiddled with his collar. Linda couldn’t see what he did.
She sat up and looked at her watch. She realised she was going to be late with her assignation with Yvonne. However, when she next looked at her son, she gasped, for the girl was back.
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Mind over matter. It’s what I’ve always wanted, so I’ve made it happen,” Keira lied.
“That’s impossible!” Linda declared.
The girl laughed at her.
“Yeah, of course it is. Just because you don’t understand something, or don’t want that something to be true, you state it’s impossible. Well, I’ve got news for you; not only is it clearly possible, but very soon I will be attending school officially as a girl.”
Linda stared at her, all thoughts of meeting her lover dissipated.
“You what?”
On the advice of the headmaster, I met a doctor today who has taken me on and is referring to a gender specialist. Clearly, they are not aware that I can actually change my gender, but I will play at going down that road so I can be legitimated in the eyes of the law. As you can clearly see, I won’t need surgery, but I plan to reveal that I must be inter-sexed after a little while, so they can get me all legal very quickly.”
Linda sat there, too shocked to say anything.
“So, I shall be a boy for some of the time, but mainly I will be a girl, certainly at home.”
“Over my dead body! You will not...”
“Well, I see I will have to inform the local press about the love affair between two prominent tennis ladies, and, oh yes, some photographs taken after last summer’s BBQ might be fun. You never checked to see if I was at home, did you?”
Keira took out two forms from her bag.
“These are medical consent forms. They allow me to start along the road, so to speak. Strictly I won’t need them in a few months, but I don’t feel like waiting. You will sign these now, and I will guarantee that those photographs will not be shown to anyone.”
“This is blackmail!”
“No, actually blackmail is making unwarranted or illegal demands with menaces. My demands are both legal and reasonable, and the menaces are purely my duty as an honest person drawing attention to the dishonesty and lack of morals of a supposedly respectable, married woman.”
Linda gaped at her.
“Now, mother dear,” she said, handing her a pen. “Sign!”
Linda signed the forms without reading them.
Keira checked the signatures and then nodded.
“Thanks. Now, as our lives have to coincide from time to time, we need to clarify a few things. Firstly, our relationship is going to undergo a subtle change. Although I am your child, I have noted that you are about as pleased to have me as a child as I am to have you two as parents. Why you ever bothered having me, I have no idea, but as you clearly have, and then failed to uphold the basic responsibilities of decent parents, I think I am within my rights to declare my independence clearly as from this moment.
“With that in mind, I am no longer at your beck and call to be ordered about and forced to comply with your social requirements so as to boost your standing and self-esteem. I will no longer attend any family functions or be present when you bring clients here to impress them with your lovely home unless I choose to do so, and I will decide whether to attend as Keira or Kenneth.
“Two, although I live here, supposedly under your tender care, please note that for the last eight months, I have done my own washing and made most of my own meals. Those ready meals you buy from various supermarkets you happen to be passing are, quite frankly, crap! So, I will continue to get my own food, and I will not eat anything you provide. While I have to attend school and am legally not an adult, then I accept that I have to, by law remain under parental supervision. I will keep to my room, and those shared areas of habitation, like the kitchen and sitting room. I won’t make a fuss if you bring your lesbian lover home, so I do not expect you to make a fuss if I bring home any friends, be they male or female.
“Third, you can forget about the old ideas of bedtimes and telling you where I am going. You do your thing and I do mine, okay?”
“Your father will have something to say about this!” Linda said.
“No, he won’t, for the same reason you will just accept the new status quo. Dad has been shagging Stephanie for so long; I’m surprised that there is anyone left who doesn’t know what he’s up to. Why can’t you two just accept your marriage is a sham; you’re crap parents, and both go and shack up with your real partners and live in some semblance of contentment instead of being professional miseries living a pretend life in a pretend world?”
Linda opened and closed her mouth a few times, resembling a goldfish. No words came out.
“Now, I need some clothes and some makeup, so I’m meeting Connie and we’re going by bus to Maidenhead. I suppose you’ll be at Yvonne’s when I get back; is her husband still in Canada?”