Despite my trust in my older brother, Pierre, I still remember it being
a fitful night of sleep, not least because Maman wanted me to wear a
corset tomorrow as well and insisted that I keep it on that night. I
ought to have simply refused, but I saw that Maman felt terrible about
messing up our arrangements. I also saw that Nicole, flushed with her
new masculine strength and energy, was taking care of browbeating mother
quite well on her own without me joining in. And Maman was just so
invested in the appearance of me, her "daughter". She felt bad enough.
I acquiesced. So, I lay there stiff as a board in my consticting corset
amid all the feminine finery of Nicole's room trying to reassure myself
that there was no need to worry and that I'd surely be Antoine again in
just a day or so.
I woke with a slap, a hard slap to my girl's rear just below my corset.
"Hey!" I called back over my shoulder in my now expected soprano.
"Get up, wide girl!" It was Nicole my once sister now brother. She was
in an exuberant mood, grinning and kidding me at the beginning of what
she expected to be her last full day as the handsome, slender and quite
athletic 14 year old boy who had bounced onto my bed.
"I'm not that wide, just wider than you," I said giving a playful slap
to her round boy's rear.
"Huh? What a change of perspective for you!"
"What about you?"
"The same thing's happened to me. These narrow hips are starting to
seem normal to me now and you seem excessively fleshy. But our re-
education will begin either late this evening or tomorrow. I wanted to
ask you a question, though, about this" said Nicole patting her penis
beneath he shorts. "At the reception, I was just standing there at one
point. Just standing there. I wasn't having a lascivious thought
toward anyone or anything and I didn't touch ... it. But out of the
blue, it-it became erect. It was hard as ever, pushing up against my
belt and I swear I gave it no cause!"
I chuckled. "It didn't become erect. You did. It's part of you.
Anyway. That happens sometimes to boys in their early teens. I was
told it seldom happened to anyone older."
"It's not likely to happen again as we walk down from the airplane at
the airport in New York is it?"
"No, it's not likely. It only happened to me once or twice."
Nicole smiled. "Good. I-I don't want you to make too much of this, but
even with ridiculous characteristics such as that, this ..." she
gestured at her whole 14 year old boy's body, "isn't all bad-"
"Ahahahahahahahaha!"
"-I mean, the feeling of energy and spring in my step is kind of fun. I
don't want this thing between my legs anymore but it's tolerable for
short periods."
"And it didn't even make you evil, did it?"
Nicole conceded no with a laugh and we both got dressed, she in her
boy's suit, I in the best dress I had. We were in good spirits We
packed a small bag, each, too and waited in the study for a phone call
from Pierre at the airport. We were both ebullient. This would
definitely work. We'd looked so much alike growing up, she was the
female version of me. I was the male version of her. Our faces were so
alike. This would fool everyone. I couldn't wait for call from Pierre
to go to the airport so that I could get that weirdly bound book in my
hands and recite the correct spell.
At 10 am it came. I was closest to the phone and answered. It was
Pierre. I was immediately worried because he spoke haltingly.
"Get your sibling on the line. Hold the phone between you if
necessary."
"Okay. But what is it Pierre?" I asked while waving Nicole over to
stand next to me and turning the receiver so that we could both hear.
Across the room from us, mother watched.
"Are you both there?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Is mother there with you?"
"Yes."
"Can she hear what I'm saying?"
"No."
"Allright. I-I'm sorry to tell you this but there are no seats
available on the few flights there are to New York. I tried everything.
Everything. No matter the bribe I could not get a ticket. There's
already a waiting list of American and Canadian servicemen who have
priority. There's a huge number of them being shipped home right now."
"So-so we have to stay like this?" Nicole gasped
"Yes. I'm sorry. Really I am. But the spell book went on ahead of us
to New York and-"
"What about Hawaii?" I asked.
"Well, Antoine," Pierre began despite the voice he heard being the
soprano of the two on our end of the line. "The same goes for Hawaii.
I-I think our first chance to meet up will be in Rio in two weeks time
but even that ..."
"Even that what?!" Nicole interrupted frantically in her midrange boy's
voice.
"Well, the workers at the airport here are all saying that there's about
to be a general strike and that no one will be flying out of France
except for Allied servicemen for a few weeks."
"So ... I have to stay like this till you get back?" I gasped, suddenly
noticing the constriction of my corset and how the stays holding my
nylons were rubbing on my thickened thighs and how uncomfortable my
shoes were and, well, just every damn thing about being a girl.
"I-I'm afraid so, Antoine."
I put my hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Nicole and let out a big
sigh. "Look. This is their honeymoon!" I whispered furiously. "We
can't ruin this for them. We can't! It's our fault. We have to tell
them to go ahead and have fun."
Nicole let out a tremendous pained sigh. She closed her handsome boy's
eyes and nodded.
"Hey, it's no big deal, Pierre," Nicole said amazingly convincingly.
"I'm getting pretty used to this and I'll see you in a month."
"Are-are you sure you're okay?" asked Pierre.
"My sister's the one in the corset," said Nicole, realizing mother had
moved closer. After saying this, Nicole moved away from the phone
because she could not keep her composure.
"How about you, Antoine?"
"It's no big deal, Pierre," I said holding the phone to my ear now to
speak away from Maman who was consoling Nicole. "Everyone tells me I'm
beautiful like this. I can certainly stand that for a while more. Just
have a great time, you and Winnie!"
"You're sure?"
"Jeez, Pierre. This is almost insulting that you think I'll go to
pieces or something. How girlish do you think I am, big brother? Go
on! Have a wonderful time you two deserve it! That's all I'm going to
say. Now au revoir!"
"Au-au revoir, Antoine."
I hung up the phone and went to pieces. Oh, I added in enough fake
bleeting about wanting to see New York that mother didn't realize to
what I was really reacting to and Nicole followed suit. I went back up
to "my" room and had a big girlish cry face down on the bed. I didn't
even try and be a stoic boy. I cried and cried.
God damn it! A blasted girl for another month! I don't know if it had
been acceptance, knowing I'd soon be a boy again, or if it was
increasing familiarity but my beautiful girl's body hadn't seemed so
terrible that morning. Now I positively hated it again. This wide ass!
These damn jiggling breasts! Breasts! And a girl's sex! A wet hole
where my boy's equipment should be! Another month! Damn! Another
month of being leered at lusted after, of being pinched and pawed at and
just sitting around in the estate house with Maman and taking the
occasional walk in the garden. Another month of not being able to be
with my friends!
I cried and pounded my little fists into the mattress and kicked my
legs, too. Mon Dieu! Enough! I want to be Antoine again, to be a 15
year old boy again! I screwed up. I was foolish. How much do I have
to be punished for it?!
I didn't come down till after lunch time. It wouldn't have mattered
much anyway. With the blasted corset on I would've ended up feeling
full after a couple mouthfuls anyway. And when I did, I found the day's
newspaper on the table in the foyer. There, on the front page was a
picture of me. It was the picture of me, the beautiful 5 foot 7, 117
pound girl in that new 2 piece swimsuit, the bikini. The picture had
apparently gone all over France and it identified the lovely minx in the
photo as me or at least who I was for the next month. Damn! What the
hell was I going to do for a month, like this? People would see me and
point at the girl who wore that new swimsuit. The men would all leer,
leer at me, Antoine, Antoine Richard. Nope. I wasn't going to go
through that. I thought maybe I could read some of the collection of
classics in the library walls of Pierre's study, but only Ovid's
Metamorphoses seemed relevant at the moment.
What a terrible day that was. A large part of my composure at my
ridiculous condition had been the knowledge that it was to be short
lived. I looked down at my bosom and then over my shoulder at my young
woman's derriere. I would have to endure this for four times as long as
I already had. Empty days with nothing to do but stew over the
humiliating metamorphosis I'd undergone loomed before me.
But Maman already had plans for filling my time besides a new devotion
to literature. It was the same plan she had outlined at the wedding
reception after that damn bouquet had dropped right into my bosom. I'd
forgotten about it with my focus on trying to be changed back into a
boy. The conveyor belt of suitors would be dropping off boys in front
of me and not Nicole. Ugh. I, Antoine Richard, would have to go on
dates with boys. If being pawed at by my pals at the wedding reception
wasn't already enough for me never to be able to breathe a word of this
afterwards, going on a series of dates with boys would certainly ensure
my later silence.
In addition, I was to spend hours with Maman sewing. Maman regarded
this as a basic feminine ability. Nicole had skillfully evaded doing
much of it. I somehow couldn't manage to avoid it. So, for much of the
next month, I, Antoine, was conscripted into sewing things for my
brother Pierre and Nicole, now, in Maman's eyes, her son Antoine. Oh,
you'll come to love it, Nicole! You can give the men the benefit of
your feminine capabilities just as they give you the benefit of their
masculine ones. I admit that I liked doing things to help Pierre. I
always looked up to my older brother. But I wasn't excited about the
idea of fixing his shirts, sewing buttons and making repairs to any of
his suits or other clothes that had the slightest defect. What's more,
I had to endure Maman's constant corrections and instructions on my
work, down to the most basic elements. For iinstance, in the first five
minutes of my new sewing apprenticeship, she gave me thread to sew
buttons on one of Pierre's shirts. I took the needle, wet the thread
and tried to push it through the narrow hole at the end of the needle.
Maman, watching me, shook her head and reproached me.
"You're doing it wrong, Nicole! You move the eye of the needle over the
thread. You don't try to push the thread through the hole. Where did
you get such an idea?!"
I pleaded that it seemed more natural. She looked at me like I had two
heads or something for arbitrarily doing such a little thing
differently. I could see it would be a long feminine month, a fact
reinforced by her sudden declaration an hour later.
"Tomorrow, Claude Reynaud will be here at noon to take you to lunch.
Wednesday, I have Antoine's friend Phillipe Poincard lined up for you
and ... "
Mother continued and outlined another 10 boys. She had spoken to their
mothers at the wedding reception and just needed to make calls to
confirm times. I tried to talk Maman out of it but she thought I simply
wanted to wallow in my disappointment over not going to New York. She
thought she was helping me with these horrible arrangements by giving me
something to do. Thanks a lot Maman.
"A handsome, energetic boy will be just the thing you need," she told
me. I looked away so that she couldn't see the expression of extreme
distaste on my gorgeous face. I wracked my brain trying to think of a
way to get out of this but couldn't come up with a way to do it short of
explaining to her that I was, in fact, her son Antoine, made gorgeously
female by a spell book that she probably regarded as an instrument of
the devil.
Again, I limply acquiesced. Maman was all bubbly assurances that I
would looooooove being courted by these boys, hugging me and fairly
running to the phone to call the mothers of the first two boys. I went
into the study where Nicole sat disconsolately.
"I overheard. Mother is lining up boys for you to date?"
I could only muster a slight nod.
Nicole dropped her head to the desk. "I know it was the right thing to
do. You and I deserve punishment and Pierre and Winnie deserve to have
a wonderful, carefree honeymoon but, oh god. I wanted to be my real
self again, not you ... no offense."
"None taken. Can-can we at least agree to help each other get through
this? There's no Pierre around to save us from being foolish. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
We sealed our compact with a hug but after that just sat there sullenly
in Pierre's magnificent study for the better part of the afternoon.
Our sibling rivalry had been foolish and it had backfired on the both of
us as we deserved. But knew enough not to keep acting foolish. The
Richard estate had been kept whole by children not fighting. When we
were just 8 and 7 respectively, Papa had explained that one of the
misconceptions of the French Revolution is that it took the property
away from the aristocrats and broke up the huge estates. It didn't.
What broke up most all the big estates was a simple law, a law in the
years that followed which ended primogeniture, the custom that the first
born son inherited the entire estate. A clever lawmaker of the second
republic attacked the wealthiest families and the biggest estates by
getting a law passed which legally ended this practice. Regional
dynasties imploded as brothers and sisters feuded and refused to
cooperate fracturing magnificent estates into pieces that were
frequently sold off making them nearly impossible to ever reconstitute.
But, Jean Paul Richard made his children pledge that, they would act in
concert. No matter what the legal ownership of the land was, all would
be considered one. For five generations, the Richards followed this
rule. The Marquis did not technically own all the land but was allowed
to pursue our economic interests as if he did. And through the wise
stewardship of each successive Marquis, the Richards grew richer and
richer and that wealth was divided fairly with siblings. It wasn't
until the beginning of this century that we were able to create a legal
entity, a trust, to hold all the lands. But even with that legal
instrument, it isn't necessarily certain that each Marquis would be
voted authority to manage the trust's assets. The Richards always gave
the Marquis that authority. And we were lucky enough to have talented
and wise men like my father and now Pierre running things. So, Nicole
and I seeing our common interests was much more in keeping with Richard
family practice than the foolish rivalry that had turned each of us into
a beautiful example of the opposite sex.
But there was nothing that Nicole could do to help me through the series
of engagements mother arranged for me because of that damned bouquet.
At first, I was simply very reserved with these suitors who showed up at
our door day after day. Maman would answer and shepherd some handsome
boy in his late teens into our estate house and have him wait by the
door, whereupon I would come down the stairway in a beautiful dress.
Half of them stared with their mouths open. One drooled on himself. It
was oddly unsettling, this powerful reaction I, 15 year old Antoine, was
creating in every male I encountered. But I had to face it. My new
body was real. I really had the round girl's derriere that they all
stared at as they let me walk ahead of them to their automobiles or into
restaurants or theaters. It was my long, smooth and lovely legs that
their eyes lingered on as they pretended to glances casually along the
floor. It was my cleavage, the very real and visible dewy soft skin of
my melon sized breasts that their eyes migrated to as they professed to
be speaking to me. As beautiful as my girl's face was, and I couldn't
deny that I was now gorgeous, many of my suitors were more fascinated by
my breasts.
It was quite a lesson to the 15 year old boy that I still considered
myself to be. I realized that on more than one occasion, I had stared
at the breasts of a pretty girl even while speaking to her, rudely
treating her as just the sum of a few attractive body parts. Now, I was
getting my own rudeness back a hundred fold.
I, for my part, had no idea where my eyes should be. Though I was a
near duplicate of the Daughter of Reason statue by the front gate of the
estate, I was not a daughter of the Richards on the inside. I puzzled
at the way these suitors behaved. At times, I think they were trying to
present themselves to best advantage, sort of posing for my supposedly
feminine eyes. But they looked ridiculous. At times I mostly averted
my eyes, not wanting to look at whichever boy it was, thinking this
would lessen his ardor for me. But quite the opposite would result.
Nicole later told me that this was signalling to the boy that I was
"playing hard to get". The boy would only pursue me more fervently,
grab my hand, put a hand about my waist or speak in an even more luridly
romantic way about what a beauty I was. A few times I almost punched
the boy. I felt like a boy was grabbing me, Antoine Richard. But those
moments faded quickly. I was obviously not a boy.
And they were almost all bigger than me, their hands so much larger than
mine with my dainty digits, their shoulders so much wider and stronger
than mine, and they were not encumbered by breasts or fleshy hips like
mine. To put it in its starkest terms, most of them could have
overpowered me and-and had their way with me. The situation was such
that it wouldn't happen. They were dating a daughter of the Richards,
after all, but it was an underpinning of the whole farcical
circumstance. I was the, ugh, damsel in distress. They were the
rescuing princes. Though, not all were inclined to rescue me.
A particularly odious date occured a week after the wedding. I
remembered that I was supposed to be taken to a movie by a Gaston or a
Gaetan something or other. Sigh. The 8th boy I, Antoine Richard was to
have dated. Reading between the lines of Maman's brief description, he
sounded like sort of a bookworm. That was a bit of a relief. At least
he was less likely to be so aggressive. Less attempt at a goodnight
kiss was certainly welcome. It was an uncomfortably warm day. I picked
out a long, sort of high-waisted dress with a very loose fit to it.
Beneath it, I wore a pair of Nicole's panties. Winnie's had not come
back from the wash yet. I didn't think it would be so bad. But Nicole
evidently didn't have the fullness to her derriere that Winnie and I
had, that Daughter of Reason shaped roundness of the hips despite their
not being wide. I had not taken ten steps from my room but they were
creeping up into the split of my expanded rear. I tugged at them. But
they were simply inadequate to cover my new dimensions. No matter I
thought. No one will know.
And then, only as I descended the stairs, did Maman tell me that Gaston
or Gaetan or whoever would not be coming that day. He was ill in some
way. But, not to worry, said Maman. She had run into another boy's
mother and he would take whoever's place. I stopped at a middle step.
I saw that it was Louis LeClerc. And then I felt sort of ill. Louis
LeClerc. The smirking trickster who had vowed to screw Nicole Richard.
Ugh.
And now I was Nicole, or so he thought. I imagined him laughing at me
in front of a group of boys after I'd returned to being Antoine and
telling them all how he'd screwed me, how Antoine had had a pair of
boobs like melons. Laughter. And Antoine had a round ass like a young
whore. More laughter. And that he, LeClerc had screwed Antoine, had
jammed his giant thing, or so he would represent it, into Antoine's soft
wet pussy. The crowd of boys falls down laughing at me because I had a
girl's sex and LeClerc was within it. I could almost hear the gales of
laughter. Finally, I regained my composure by the bottom step but could
not have looked very happy at seeing him.
Yet, he smiled innocently and spoke in the most harmless tones in front
of Maman. I scarcely knew who this person was. Damn, he was slick. It
was like meeting a completely different person than the guy I had spoken
to in back rooms at family gatherings. He was smooth as could be all
the way on the drive into the city. He was glib and charming with only
the slightest tinge of off color attitude to anything he said. And he
was so perfectly nonchalant in the way he put a hand to my hip helping
me into the car. The guy felt up my rear so deftly that I wouldn't have
known it myself had I not been absolutely sure he would. And as we
talked in the car, I looked down to find my hand in his without
remembering his ever having taken it. He must have done it while we
were both laughing at one of his jokes. Mon Dieu! He was smooth. It
continued in the theater. He bought tickets for a comedy, one that
turned out to be pretty good. And by the end of the feature, he had
somehow wrapped one arm around my shoulders and taken both my hands in
his other hand. I didn't realize it until the lights went on and I
tried to stand up. He was amazing. He could have been a master
pickpocket. He even had the fingers of his other hand lightly touching
the side of the left cup of my brassiere.
With some effort I got up.
"So quickly?" he smiled jovially.
"The film's over," I said and rose to my feet against mild resistance.
But then he removed his hands and followed close behind me out of the
theater. He did manage, again, to get a hand on my ass, only the cotton
fabric of my dress between me and his digits.
"That's enough of that!" I told him. He kept trying to reassert a mood
of light comedy. He even suggested that we go to the nearby apartment
of a friend of his who might be out of town. Might? Ha! It's doubtful
that the other guy even existed. I declined. I asked him to just take
me home and we had a few cross words. He started leading me back to the
car by a slightly different route than we'd gone to the theater. I
thought nothing of it nor the way he seemed to smirk perhaps a bit more
as we approached an overpass that went over train tracks. I could hear
the train coming even over the noise of the construction site across the
street.
Again, he was very smooth, and I didn't even notice how he steered me to
walk over a metal grate with a lattice pattern of small openings that
covered an air shaft leading down to the train tracks below. The heel
of first my one shoe then the other stuck in the small gaps in the metal
grate.
"Help me out of this, you!" I demanded but he only smirked at me and a
moment later, with the approach of a train below, hot air was forced up
the air shaft. To my humiliation, my dress was blown up around my head
revealing me as nearly naked below the waist for Nicole's panties had
become a thong. I frantically tried to push down my dress but the
upward air pressure was strong and it kept slipping through my fingers.
My exposure was noted by more than just the smirking LeClerc. In
addition to his laughter I heard a score of whistles, catcalls and
shouts from the construction site. My bare girl's ass was facing dozens
of construction workers. I was offered connubial bliss and even
marraige by the workers at the site of the new building. I couldn't
wait for the damned train to go by and stop my dress from flying up but
it was a long train and I must have been exposed for a whole minute. I
tried to bend down to free myself from the grate but LeClerc had my left
hand and would not let go. All I could do was press my right hand down
to my girl's sex and hold the dress there. I was completely humiliated.
I nearly cried on the spot which shocked me, Antoine. But I held back.
When the train had gone by, LeClerc let go of my hand and with the hem
of my dress circling my feet I pried my heels free. He spoke as though
I should just forget about it but I wouldn't walk a step further with
him. I stormed off to a nearby hotel's lobby with construction workers
hooting and hollering every step of the way about what they wanted to do
to me. I felt about as tall as the heels of my shoes. I called the
estate and Dimitri drove out and brought me home.
I recounted these events to Nicole that night and my once sister vowed
to punch LeClerc's lights out if she saw him while still pretending to
be me, and maybe even if she was back to being herself. After this
uncomfortable experience, I got Maman to temporarily stop the conveyor
belt of suitors. I spent a day in the kingdom of flowers as I termed it
speaking to Nicole. Maman's reading room. The garden. My, formerly
Nicole's bedroom. All was pink and flowers. And Maman had the most
boring books for me to read. Jane Austen and Colette. I wanted to
finsh some more of my Rafael Sabatini stories of adventure. But what
would Maman have thought. So, I, Antoine sat there reading Pride and
Prejudice and carried it with me about our garden.
But, though many of my tastes hadn't changed, books for example, I was
nearly three weeks a female at this point and though I didn't admit it
to Nicole, I couldn't remember what it felt like to be a boy. My ...
thing between my legs? Just a concept. I couldn't recall what that
felt like. It was like trying to think of one song while the band in
the room is playing another. And the band never stopped playing this
damned female song.
The other effect of my forgetting masculinity was that femininity didn't
seem so foreign or odd at all. I remembered finding my hips to be
gargantuan after I'd first been transformed by the spell book. But they
didn't feel that way now, after three weeks that way. Oh, I was more
full in shape, better rounded than almost any other girl, save perhaps
for Winnie and the Daughter of Reason at our gates. But I didn't feel
wide, not anymore. My shape felt perfectly normal and, in fact,
wonderful. My breasts felt not foreign but just right, large but firm
and pert. I walked along the paved path from the estate house to the
front gates now positively enjoying my new body. That I went along with
a certain sway to my gait didn't bother me at all any more. I was
becoming accustomed to being the beautiful girl everyone saw. It was
certainly easier now that I didn't have to wear a corset. I wore mid
length dresses of Winnie's, mostly, they all fit like a glove, as if
they'd been made for me. And I wore heels but not the high ones that
Maman had me wear with my bridesmaid's dress. And though I would never
have confessed it to Nicole, the textures of my girl's clothes were much
softer, much finer, more pleasing than the things I'd worn as Antoine.
Yes, I was adjusting to circumstance. I still had two more weeks like
this before Pierre and Winnie returned from their honeymoon. Though I
felt gradual shifts in my thoughts and attitudes taking place, nothing
much worried me. And that sentiment was bolstered when, on my walk, I
reached the front gate of the estate. There was the name, RICHARD, in a
proud arc of iron across the roadway. And there were the Son and
Daughter of Reason statues to either side. I glanced at her. I was so
much like her now, distinguished only by different hair and a slightly
different face. And yet, I remembered great grandmother's words. That
beautiful girl had been Jean Paul Richard, the legendary 13th Marquis
who had done so much to build the estate. My circumstance, bizarre as
it was, was not even original. I would return to being a young man just
as he had. There was precedent for it being no particular problem. I
sighed contentedly. The oddity of my circumstance was always raising
worries in my mind. It was nice to feel a certainty in my fate being
positive. I sighed again. The statue was still magnificent in its
detail. Though more than 150 years old and kept outside, it was
periodically covered with some sort of glaze which protected it from the
elements.
I glanced over to see how the Son of Reason was doing then inspected her
further before casting another glance at her marble brother. I sighed
with a frown.
When I went by the gates as a boy, either in a car or on foot, I always
used to fixate on her, on the statue of the Daughter of Reason. She was
the female, the exotic other, that I didn't understand and didn't see,
certainly not naked like that! Of course, there was probably an element
of the Son of Reason being such a magnificent slender athlete with that
huge organ dangling between his legs that I wanted to avoid comparison.
That was certainly part of it. But I was more drawn to her than
avoiding him.
I glanced at him again, now, before turning back to the Daughter of
Reason with an angry sigh. I tried to focus my eyes on her, to keep
them there. But I couldn't. No matter how I tried my gaze returned to
the nude figure on the other side of the entrance roadway. He was now
the exotic one, the one I could not identify with. What did it feel
like to have .... that? What was it like to be so athletic? Fine, I
decided and walked over to stand several feet from him. I marveled at
his wonderful physique. According to great grandmother, the Son of
Reason was an exact copy of Jean Paul Richard after he'd been
transformed back into a young man. And what a young man! He must have
been six foot one with fine, strong shoulders that tapered down to a
small waist, perhaps only 30 inches, with hips no wider yet a
fantastically muscular rear and long, toned legs, between which was ...
Hmmph. I sighed, unsure what I should be thinking of a man's organ.
But it wasn't as though we never talked about them or compared them as
boys. Gilles, Guy, Robert and I did from time to time. Pierre and I,
too. Pierre, in fact, from age 13 on, possessed in flesh what the Son
of Reason had in marble. I remember the two of us going to the pond by
the north end of the estate, the one with the brook flowing into it from
a waterfall. I'd even said to Pierre as we undressed. "Mon dieu, you
look like the Son of Reason!". He just shrugged. I hadn't thought of
it at the time but it was what great grandmother had said, wasn't it?
She'd said he'd come to look just like the Son of Reason. And he had.
My older brother parted his hair differently and his face was slightly
different but otherwise he was just like the magnificent statue. He
even had ... that. I stared at it. And then a thought occurred to me.
I quickly pressed both hands to my dress below my waist. I shook my
head. No. Never. I wouldn't allow it. Of course not! But ... was it
even possible with someone such as the Son of Reason? I glanced from
his organ down to myself. It would be even longer and thicker in the
heat of passion. That?! Inside me!?! No! Never!!
It was at that moment, with my thoughts completely distracted, that a
small coupe roared up to the gates and stopped beside me. It was
Victor. I stepped back from the embarassing location immediately in
front of the nude young man in marble but also felt relief that it was
him.
"Would you like a ride, Antoine?"
My girl's body went rigid. I slowly turned toward him. "What-what are
you talking about?"
He chuckled. "Don't worry. Your brother told me what foolishness you
and your sister did."
"He did?"
Victor nodded. I felt no anger at this. Victor was a great guy, my
brother's best friend all his life even though he was a negro with skin
not just brown but dark as coal. And, suddenly, something else occurred
to me as I walked around his car to accept his offer of a ride.
"You're a child of the spell book, too, aren't you?" I said as I got in.
How had I not seen it before? He was almost a physical duplicate of
Pierre except for his skin, hair and face. Even, I glanced hesitantly
at the wool of his pants below his belt, even ... that.
Victor nodded. "It's true."
"But how did it get into your family?"
"Well, the story that I have heard is that one of my anscestors, a good
friend of him," he pointed to the Son of Reason statue through the
windshield, and spoke in his wonderful deep bass voice, "of Jean Paul
Richard, became sick and the medicine of the time could do nothing for
him. As my predecessor was on his death bed, Jean Paul Richard had
everyone leave the room and had the dying man read the spell to turn the
speaker into a man such as the Son of Reason. Perhaps because it was
not a complete change, it was not the change of sex that you and Nicole
have undergone, my anscestor was able to endure it and it healed
whatever had been ailing him. It also made him look just like that,
though as a negro. And this was propagated through my family for
several generations before passing over a few and then showing up again
in me, just as it did in your family with Pierre."
"Did you always know this?"
Victor shook his head. "An aged grandmother told me the legend around
the same time that Pierre found out. We told each other. It all made
sense. That's why, from the neck down, he and I are exactly the same
except for the color of our skin. We were shaped this way by the same
spell. But you are not so thankful for the spell books, effects, eh?
You wish to be free of the spell's effects, don't you?"
I nodded.
"Well, it will apparently just be a few more weeks, Antoine. In the
meantime, make the best of it and if you need any help, just call on
me."
He bave me a hug about my delicate shoulders. I exhaled contentedly. I
could count on Victor.
Besides Victor, I had another ally in the house, our abyssinian cat,
Cleopatra. Mother had gotten her in 1939. She'd had the misconception
that Abyssinia was Egypt and, so, named the amazing little creature
Cleopatra. She was a very intelligent and very social little feline.
But she had absolutely clear favorites. She tolerated my mother but
would follow my father or Pierre around the house with the devotion one
expected of a trained dog. I, too, was one of her favorites though not
to the same degree as Pierre. The demarcation of who was and was not in
Cleopatra's favor was quite clear. She would growl or brandish five
claws or hiss and use them if someone other than her favorites tried to
pick her up. They were not worthy of the furry little queen. But even
though I was now a beautiful girl, Cleopatra would come to me and sit on
my lap purring. And to mother's amazement, the cat brandished her claws
when the boy Maman thought was Antoine tried to pet her. I delighted in
this. My identity further confirmed, if only by the cat.
But no one else knew that the gorgeous girl they saw was anything but
she appeared. And because Maman didn't know and couldn't be told the
conveyor belt of suitors kept running, every day or two dropping another
smiling young man in front of me who would take my hand and smile at the
beautiful girl he wanted to screw. They all did. Every one. Oh, there
was perhaps one homosexual boy in there, very handsome, too, who made my
time much less stressful. But the others! Even as my feelings of being
Antoine were diminishing day by day I roused myself, my masculinity for
each of these dates Maman sent me on. I would go along with the rest of
my feminine treatment. But I was Antoine! No young man would have his
way with me no matter how gorgeous I was. Even though I had come to
completely accept my beautiful female body, even though masculinity was
just a concept I vaguely recalled, I still felt like 15 year old Antoine
reacting to how these suitors treated me. I regarded all their
blandishments, all their flattery about how pretty I was with a
skeptical eye. After the repeated declarations to myself that I was
Antoine that I made before each date, these words seemed like such
calculated cajolery. And yet, oddly, whenever I saw one of the boys
squiring me about look at another girl with interested appraisal, I got
furious inside. I'm made this way by supernatural power and I'm not
good enough for him?!? This incredible girl's ass is not good enough
for him?!?! He has me in front of him and he casts a glance at that
strumpet of a waitress?!?
One boy, a tall thin one who I thought was quite handsome, though with
flaws I immediately noted, was a certain Poincard. He was whispered to
me by a girlfriend of Nicole's as being quite the casanova. The
Poincards were also quite rich, perhaps even richer than we Richards.
It did not matter to me but it perhaps played a part in the amazing
egotism of this boy. Yes, he had wonderful blue eyes and fine chestnut
colored hair as well as a pleasing taper of shoulders to a small waist.
But his lips were very thin and the bridge of his nose was too weak. I
immediately catalogued these faults upon perceiving his tremendous
pleasure in his own appearance. Oh, you're beautiful too, are you? I
don't think so. For instance ....
I kept my words to myself, of course, but they were never far from my
lovely lips, for he was so overbearing. We saw a Rene Clair movie that
he chose which was rather disappointing, surprising for Clair. Then we
went to a restaurant and no sooner had we sat down than he started to
talk, half jokingly, about how a merger of the Poincards and Richards
would be very advantageous to all, Though, of course, he said, the
Poincards would be the controlling party. And even as he spoke of this
seemingly matrimonial union of corporations, he was glancing about the
room at the pretty waitresses serving other tables. I could well
imagine what sort of merger he imagined with them. He went on about
this imagined union of families and added that his father, of course,
would be the leader. We couldn't have a leader who was a, haha, ballet
dancer, he chuckled.
My anger was barely controllable. Insulting Pierre now?!
He got up to use the men's room as some people at the next table also
got up. I don't know what possessed me but I don't regret what I did,
in retrospect. I leaned forward and stuck one leg between two people
now standing at the next table. No one saw it, including Poincard who
tripped on my foot and went flying onto a table for 8 across the aisle
just covered with food hot from the kitchen. With a smash and a chorus
of shouts, he first descended, with arms outstretched, onto all their
entrees then overturned the table and the entrees all descended onto him
as the entire restaurant turned to watch the angry diners sputter at the
young man whose hair was no longer chestnut but now Chicken Kiev.
Just as voices were finally quieting down I got up and strode past him.
"You're an embarassment to me, Poincard! We Richards have standards and
you do not meet them. How many drinks did you have? I won't spend
another minute with you!"
I called Victor from the phone at the maitre de's station and wouldn't
let Poincard talk to me. When he began to plead his case I asked the
maitre de to keep him from me and the large, tuxedoed man pushed him off
toward the door. He pleaded from there and I let him have it.
"Please. You are an embarassment, Poincard! As if I would be with a
boy of such common appearance. Your lips are barely visible, your nose
weak and you should better coordinate things with your tailor because
the seat of your pants should be ironed flat before you put them on, not
afterward as seems to have been done. You make fun of Pierre for having
been in the ballet but he was also in the resistance. There are quite
different whispers about you Poincards!"
I told Victor exactly what had happened and he laughed.
Poincard took his humiliation and walked away, but there was a whole
spectrum of reactions to my rejections. Every boy I was meeting was
being turned down, of course. I was Antoine Richard. I was not about
to become bride of another boy. At first, I would not give any of these
boys so much as a kiss. They could hold my dainty little hand but that
was it. I didn't care how much my supernaturally produced beauty
inflamed them, my lips were not for them. But gradually, this came to
seem too harsh. And some of them were rather handsome. I started to
relent. A simple kiss wasn't too much. A beautiful girl such as I
temporarily was, would be hated if she didn't give out at least a
goodbye kiss. And so I started to become comfortable with boys having a
hand around my shoulders at the movies, perhaps an arm around my waist
as we walked and the favor of a kiss goodbye. Some of them were so
handsome. As the days wore on, Maman seemed to be doing a much better
job of picking more and more handsome boys as possible suitors. I don't
know why she'd chosen all the less enticing ones to go first but it
certainly seemed that way. The later ones were all quite handsome. It
wasn't too much to give them a chaste kiss.
But, eventually Maman had found a cad for whom that wasn't enough. A
certain Valois took me to a museum and dinner at a fine restaurant. He
was quite handsome and we had a good enough conversation. I certainly
felt safer with a boy who made such a cultured choice as to take me to a
museum. We chatted amiably about each painting or sculpture, though, I
had several uncomfortable moments in front of the nude statues of young
gods. But dinner went well and then he brought me home. As we
approached the door, I muttered a thank you but added that I think this
would be goodbye and not au revoir. He smirked at me, sort of an angry
smirk.
"You're the type of girl who doesn't know what she really wants," he
said.
I sputtered the beginnings of a response but was perplexed at this
Valois putting his middle finger in his mouth and grinning at me.
Before I knew what happened, he'd taken me in his arms and was kissing
me. Or perhaps I should say he'd taken me in his arm. For his one hand
was about my shoulders, the other I felt reaching under my dress.
"Ohh!"
And then, his hand pulled my panties down and, to my shock, that wetted
finger was plunged into my girl's sex.
Mmmmmfff!
I tried to cry out but found his lips perfectly covering mine. At last
I turned my head sufficiently to half shout, "Let me go!"
But he was so much stronger than me that I couldn't affect a release
from his grasp on my own and a moment later his lips were back over
mine, his tongue in my mouth and I gasped. For, shocking things were
happening at my sex, things I had not known could occur. He was rubbing
at a single location within me, rubbing a rhythmic pattern that was
making me feel a warmth, a delicious tingle and warmth not just down
there but perceptibly now in my whole body. I'm sure I went a bit limp
with this feeling before having a resurgence of my feeling of being
Antoine.
"No! I'm-" Mmmmmfff!
I was about to shout out that I was Antoine when he got his lips over
mine again, while, down below, it continued, this brute bringing me
pleasure. I don't know what would have happened but thankfully, without
the outside light turning on I heard the door to the estate house swing
open. A hand pushed at Valois's shoulder separating him from me and
then a fist flashed right in front of me connecting with his nose
knocking him down off the steps onto the topiary. He groaned and
grasped at his nose with both hands from a seated position.
"Get out of here now!" shouted Nicole my vengeful apparent brother.
"Get out now and never come back!"
He did.
The next few minutes were a blur. I was both grateful and ashamed,
Nicole, my knight in shining armor, led me into the house. Maman got
very upset even without my recounting of things including what Valois
had done to my girl's sex. And then I became progressively more upset,
finally running into my pink and white room and flopping down on the bed
and crying. For I realized that I had become the damsel in distress and
Nicole was now the masculine rescuer. And it was all so natural. I
wasn't masculine Antoine at all. My gender, my identity, was just
arbitrary. And it was a vicious cycle of emotion, because my ever
increasing femininity made me cry so readily which only fed my feelings
of insecurity about how I was changing which made me cry some more which
....
Eventually, I regained my composure and sat up on the bed. I was
Antoine. I was Antoine and would return to being Antoine in less than
two weeks. Any boy would feel like this in my circumstance. I-I wasn't
less of a boy it was simply an overwhelming circumstance. I nodded.
This was the right formulation. It wasn't a question of my masculinity.
I was truly a boy, of course. Of that there could be no doubt. I was
simply stuck in an outrageous circumstance.
Still, I could not help but wonder.
Doubt crept into my mind again that very evening, when I thought, again,
of what Valois had done to me, what he'd done with his finger in my
girl's sex. Lying there amid my covers, I wet one finger and reached in
... there. I'd been extremely reluctant to even look ... there, since
the spell had transformed me. I didn't want to think a moment longer
than necessary about the loss of my penis and its replacement with,
well, that. I didn't even want to think about how this girl's sex was
mine now.
But that Valois, had known something. He'd known what pleased a girl.
Against my will it had been a delicious warm tingle that was spreading
through me before Nicole had saved me. I reached for the spot I
remembered him touching and rubbed lightly.
Yes.
A tingle began in my sex and as I kept rubbing and pressing my fingertip
back and forth across that nub of flesh in my girl's sex, warmth filled
my whole body. I realized I was rubbing my nipples with my other hand
and both my breasts were becoming hard. I rubbed and rubbed, eventually
gasping for air and trembling with delight, so overcome was I by my
pleasuring of myself. Finally, I cried out "Mon Dieu!" as I felt a sort
of release. As I lay there catching my breath, I considered this
incredible experience. I felt sort of moist in my sex but, of course, I
didn't shoot a fluid or my seed at climax as I did when I was Antoine.
And as my heart finally stopped racing I considered something else about
it. It felt better than when I'd pleasured myself as Antoine. Better.
This notion filtered into my head as I fell asleep.
My feminization continued apace. Occasionally it really bothered me and
I was desperate to return to being Antoine. I went into my old room one
morning after Nicole had gone out for a day's work with the woodsmen and
tried on my old clothes. I'm not sure what I expected to feel or what I
wanted to feel. But there I was with a white dress shirt on and my
black dress pants pulled most of the way up looking at myself in the
mirror. I tried to picture my old self looking back at me. I could
just barely conjure up an image of my slender, dark haired boy self, the
boy I'd been. He would never have believed this could be done to him, I
thought looking at myself as I was now. I looked ridiculous. The shirt
was big in the shoulders but completely lacking in the chest as my firm,
melon sized breasts pressed against the white fabric, my nipples making
two dark circles beneath the cotton. But the pants were even worse. My
thighs weren't fat. Far from it. I was wonderfully toned just like the
Daughter of Reason statue. But I could only pull my former, boy's pants
halfway up my thighs. They were too thick for those boy's pants. It
was just as well. My full, round rear would have burst the seams of
those pants had I ever pulled them up all the way. I stared at the
ridiculous image in the mirror. The most beautiful girl I'd ever seen
trying to wear a boy's clothes. I thought again at how I would have
laughed if anyone had said, "Antoine, a magic spell is going to turn you
into a girl so beautiful that every boy lusts after you." He would not
have believed anything like this could be done to him. But it had.
And each day I felt like I lost a little more of that boy who would not
have believed this. One day around midday, I was in the tub taking a
hot bath. I'd gone for a walk that morning out the front gates of the
estate. I'd had a look at the Son and Daughter of Reason, well, mostly
him. The heat was so strong even that early in the day that I built up
a sweat just walking back to the estate house. Maman insisted that I
take a bath and sprinkled in the water some expensive oils that she'd
bought in Paris. I never took baths after age 6 as a boy. Baths were
for little boys and women. But my father took showers as did Pierre.
But almost four weeks into being a girl, I had adjusted to the leisurely
pleasures of baths. It was almost a vanity about my new female beauty
that I had completely surrendered to. I sat in the giant tub in the
bathroom next to Maman's room for quite a while caressing my bosom and
running fingertips down the length of my legs. My tactile reveries were
only interrupted when I thought I heard a loud laugh somewhere outside
the second story window. I listened and could perhaps detect voices but
could not tell whose they were.
My reveries interrupted, I stepped out of the bath, pulled the stopper
and dried off. From there I went to Winnie's room. Do girls always
want to try on each other's clothes? Perhaps that was what motivated
me. I can't say. But I went into Winnie's drawers and found a pair of
the softest, most wonderful nylons. What a pleasure to pull them up the
dewy soft skin of my legs! And then I found and pulled on a bustier and
attached garters to my nylons. Winnie's lingerie fit me perfectly. And
it felt wonderful. I sighed contentedly at how these things felt and
how I looked in the mirror.
And there was the laugh again. Unlike the bathroom window, Winnie's was
open. There was that deep bass laugh. It was Victor's. And there was
another voice, not so deep but laughing raucously. It was Nicole,
transformed into a stupendously handsome, slender but quite athletic boy
by the spell book. Both wore swimsuits, black stretchy things about the
size of briefs as was the fashion of the day. I peeked at them from the
edge of the window. Nicole, the 14 year old boy, was laughing and
roughhousing with Victor. They were having great fun, pushing and
shoving, wrestling and pushing one another into the pool, and racing
each other across its surface and then underwater from side to side. It
looked like great fun. And it used to be the sort of fun that I had.
All of a sudden, I glanced in the mirror at my luscious girl self and
felt much less happy about my nylons and bustier. I was supposed to be
the one roughhousing with Victor. I was supposed to be the one racing
across the pool. But there I was, a Venus in lingerie, while Nicole had
a boy's fun.
And, as I said, this was nearly four weeks after I'd first become this
luscious beauty of a girl. Having always been a boy, I was not in the
habit of thinking of my body in four week cycles, so what happened a few
days later took me completely by surprise. At first, I thought I was
just unusually perceptive of my weight and the width of my girl's ass
again for some mysterious reason. I woke up one day feeling heavy. I
remember pressing my little hand to my convex girl's abdomen wondering
if my shape had always been so ... full. I just sighed in frustration
and figured that it was from a late night dessert the previous day,
nothing more. I had to be careful about my weight in this humiliating
new body. I couldn't just eat anything the way Antoine -I mean Nicole!-
the way Nicole could now that she had a boy's express train metabolism.
I was also in a very foul mood but that, too, was quite understandable.
Here I was, a 15 year old boy now at the end of my 4th week of being a
beautiful girl, not by my choice. I snapped at Nicole as we were having
breakfast and confess that I threw back at her resentments stored since
this ordeal began.
"Why can't you ask for all those things at once? Is that too difficult?
Butter, salt and jam all at once. That's not too hard is it?" I snapped
with rising voice
"It's not that big a deal, is it?"
"No it's not except you casually interrupt my breakfast three times
every morning when it could be just once! Why?!"
"Antoine? What is it?"
"It's nothing! It's just like you ruining my reputation with the
huntsmen and the woodsmen and everyone else on the estate by being too
good to put out effort in every other way!"
"Antoine!"
"You ruin my reputation that I had worked so hard to build and all I can
do is sit here in the estate house, fat as a battleship as it happens"
"Antoine. I thought you were over the whole fat thing. Don't you ..."
Nicole cut off her own words with a gasp. "Oh my god ..."
"What?! What is it? Can you make that effort? Is that also too much
to ask of you that you tell me what's spinning around in that boyish
brain of yours?"
"Never mind," said Nicole and she walked away from the table.
I went upstairs and changed for my next date and went downstairs. God
what a foul mood I was in. I snapped at mother once and could have
exploded at her several times. I was barely in control of myself as I
waited for that day's boy. It was Lucien DeGrasse, a tallish, slender,
red haired 19 year old ballet dancer who had been a colleague of
Pierre's. He wore a three piece suit much like Pierre favored. Hmmph,
I wondered, cynically, if he thought this choice would impress me
because I was Pierre's "sister". I must have been horrible company for
him because I tried not to say anything, so certain was I that I would
say one hurtful thing to him and release a flood of caustic remarks on
this unsuspecting boy. He was actually quite polite and, well, very
handsome, extremely handsome. He had very stong facial features, bright
red hair and bright blue eyes. He was really much more a young man than
a boy. As he walked beside me leading me to the restaurant where we
were to have lunch, I detected a lot of spring in his step.
We were seated and had just ordered when I felt a disgusting sensation
at my crotch. Oh no! What's this now? What fresh humiliation is
this?!
I reached hesitantly under my dress. My fingertips were wet. I grabbed
a paper napkin off the table and stuffed it against my sex before
excusing myself and walking to the women's room with very small steps.
There, I removed the napkin and confirmed my fears. It was bloody. I-I
was having my period. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh. A period. Was I officially a
girl now or what? No wonder I felt bloated and was in such a bad mood.
Nicole had guessed it, too, hadn't she?
I took a long slow breath. Okay. Enough dramatics. How do I deal with
this? How do I deal with this? Damn, what are those little things that
Nicole had? What are they called? I couldn't remember the term. I
knew what they were generally supposed to do, to soak up the blood. I
took a couple napkins from the counter in the women's bathroom and
inserted part of one ... within me and set the other against the opening
of my sex, hiking up my panties behind me to try and help hold it there.
I inspected my dress and found only a single red spot that, quite
fortuitously, looked as though it was part of the flowered pattern of my
dress.
The ballet dancer, Lucien, was very understanding and accomodating.
When I cut our date short pleading "feminine troubles" and asked him to
take me home I actually felt reluctant because this wonderfully good
looking boy had been so nice about things.
I was excused from going out or seeing anyone for the next two days
though I only bled that day and a little bit the next day. I apologized
to Nicole and she was very fair about it. She didn't make fun of me at
all, though it would have been so easy, me, Antoine, having a period!
We were just a week away from the return of Pierre and Winnie and the
spell book I so desperately wanted to get my hands on. In the meantime,
I wanted to stop seeing a new boy each day. Being courted by fawning
boy after fawning boy was becoming too much to deal with. Plus it just
created more chances for a Valois or a Louis LeClerc to treat me badly.
This wonderful looking boy had been very kind to me. I figured I could
go on a few more dates with him and then regretfully tell him that we
were not a true match, whereupon I would read the spell to turn myself
back into a boy. I would mislead this boy for a week but no more than
that. I told mother that I would like to see Lucien DeGrasse again.
But first I told Nicole what I was going to say. Because she was going
to be seen as having interest in young Monsieur DeGrasse.
"Why now?" asked Nicole
"I-I've just had enough and he was very kind about things when I had my
... period"
Nicole giggled.
I sighed angrily.
"It's so funny to hear you talk about your period, Antoine."
"Oh yeah. Well-well how did you like your wet dream last night? I saw
you in the hallway in the middle of the night"
Nicole groaned. "So messy. How did you ever deal with it?"
"Pleasure yourself now and then it won't happen."
"Really? Then how did you ever have a wet dream, with the frequency
that you ... ?" she smirked
I mock slapped at her.
"Never mind the jokes. That's what will prevent it from happening
again."
"But I'm reluctant to become too engrossed in the pleasures of being a
boy."
"And I'm reluctant to become too engrossed in the pleasures of being a
girl but Maman is forcing me to go on dates."
"Fair enough. But, what do you know about him?"
"Not all that much."
"How tall is he?"
"Six feet and a half inch, perhaps six foot one."
"Weight?"
"Oh, one hundred sixty five, one hundred sixty seven."
"What's he look like again?"
I smiled. "Very very handsome. Red hair, strong cheekbones, just a few
freckles, a strong nose but not too large, just perfect and a good jaw.
A small waist, long legged and a r- ... what?"
She was staring at me so oddly.
I continued despite her odd look and searched for a way to describe the
impressively round little behind at which his dress pants hinted. "and,
well, he's a ballet dancer. He used to be a colleague of Pierre's."
"Oh, but you didn't notice much about him?"
"Well I-I-I was I was thinking that I should pay attention in case I,
um, stuck you with one of these boys."
"Uh huh."
"Well, I suppose it stuck with me because Lucien DeGrasse was very kind
about my ... problems. I hesitate to think what some of those other
boys would have done."
Nicole gave her blessing that this boy should be one with whom she is
seen going out for a second time. So, we did, three days later. I
wanted it to be just a perfunctory sort of evening. I wanted to be just
friendly enough to him that another date would be at least possible so
that Maman wouldn't simply send the next boy forward. That really was
all I intended. But he was so clever and charming, so glib.
Sigh.
I found myself laughing my little soprano titter at joke after joke. It
was a warm evening, so he left his coat in his car. I'm sure I would
have felt annoyed if he had taken my hand in his large hand but he
explicitly asked me to hold my hand so it didn't bother me and then it
seemed quite comfortable having my dainty hand encircled by his as we
walked along and laughed. He seemed so strong and my feeling of
ridiculous weakness seemed to disappear, somehow, with his strength to
protect me.
This Lucien was quite an intelligent boy and, as I glanced up at his
face, I realized he was even more handsome than I'd described him as
being to Nicole. She would really like this Lucien. I was sure of it.
And with each quality that I noticed in him and found appealing I told
myself that Nicole will appreciate this or that. He seems so ...
athletic. She'll like that. Damn, what wide shoulders for that little
waist. Nicole will love that. And when he stooped to pick up a ball
that a little boy had dropped on the sidewalk, I noted how the seat of
his dress pants hinted at an athletic rear ... but only for Nicole, of
course. Girls loved that sort of thing, athletic rear ends. That's
what I told myself. I was just scouting for Nicole I told myself with
professed detachment. Nicole's friends had certainly spoken of boys'
rears in enthusiastic terms. Nicole would certainly like a terrific ass
like that one flexing beneath his dress pants with each step up a
stairway.
We walked along and decided to see "Children of Paradise", a critically
acclaimed movie playing at the theater just ahead of us that neither of
us had seen though it had first come out the previous year. It was
wonderful. I found my eyes tearing over like the girl I appeared to be
and Lucien reached around and pulled my head onto his muscular shoulder.
I didn't resist. It seemed perfectly natural to let my emotions be
protected by his strength. I watched the remainder of the movie from
there. I think I had perhaps a moment of wondering about how completely
emotional my behavior was but quickly fell back under the spell of the
wonderful film Only as the credits announced "Fin" did I realize the
situation. I was sighing contentedly with my perfumed cheek resting on
his warm, protecting muscle. I hurriedly lifted my head off him. I'm
sure my eyes must have gone wide with shock.
What was I doing?!.
What the hell?!
I looked around nervously hoping that no one had seen me, Antoine,
resting my head on a boy like that, but quickly realized that I was
Nicole to any witness and nothing would be thought to be awry.
I took a deep breath. Without a word, Lucien dabbed very softly with
one long finger at the remaining tear on my face. Had he done anything
more, the Antoine in me, the 14 year old boy trapped in that body, would
have been furious. I would have pushed him away with my delicate little
arms. But he didn't. He only smiled softly at me remarking about what
a fine film it was and led me out of the theater. He didn't speak again
until I had finally calmed down and chose to a few blocks away. I was
actively looking for a reason to fight with him. The Antoine in me was
welling up in protest at my comfort with this boy, my acceptance of his
sheltering strength. The Antoine in me wanted a scene right then and
there. A word, any word, even one, would have turned me against him but
he was very perceptive, Lucien DeGrasse.
I wanted to dislike him at that point so I started asking about ballet
thinking that ridiculous occupation would surely make it easy to
distance myself from him. Unlike my brother Pierre I had never taken
ballet class. In fact, I'd never seen Pierre dance. I only attended
one ballet, a few years before the war, perhaps 1937. Maman brought me,
Pierre, Nicole and my friend Gilles whose mother also attended. Gilles
and I burst out laughing at one point. The guys looked so ridiculous in
tights. And they made the most ridiculous theatrical faces in the
course of their tepid prancing about the stage. Gilles made a joke
about one and we both burst out laughing. Maman banished us to the
hallway outside for the rest of the performance. Pierre said that the
next, more brief dance had been much more athletic and that he'd said it
looked like fun. Maman immediately enrolled him in ballet classes. And
it was this base of experience, his couple years taking ballet classes
before the war that made Pierre able to join a troupe after the
occupation by the bosche and travel with them working all the while for
the resistance. Still, even though I knew Pierre had danced ballet, I
could not shake the stereotype that my friends and I had of it, that it
was filled almost entirely with sissies and that men looked comically
ridiculous en