Chapter 6

Things got easier in some ways. The school administration kept the thing under wraps as far as teachers were concerned, but Lois was Lois. Bathrooms and locker rooms were an issue in some minds, but Lois merely promised to be discreet; since she'd apparently been going to the wrong places all along, there wasn't much more to be said. Besides, Mr. Johnston honestly didn't know what Lois was packing in the way of genitalia, due to the hermaphroditism ruse...

The squad was safe from Mike, too -- but he didn't know it. Ed wasn't -- and Ed was so embroiled at this point that there just didn't seem to be any way out... Lois didn't bother to tell Mike that he couldn't hurt her any more -- largely because she needed to be there for poor Ed...

Mike's father now appeared regularly at Mike's 'parties'. In fact, Mike's father's friends had started trickling in, drawn by the smell of fresh meat, apparently. They were sharks -- heartless predators who used both Ed and Lois mercilessly -- largely because Mike and his father got a kick out of it. Mike or his father went out and bought some things to make their evenings more entertaining; Lois found herself in red corsets and black stockings and four-inch heels. Oral and anal sex were things she learned to enjoy -- or at least appear to -- with just about anyone, under any circumstances.

Everything they did to her made her stronger, it seemed like -- but Ed was in deep trouble. His appetites and the need to keep them a secret led him down the slippery slope deeper and deeper into depravity; that he was blaming himself for Lois' situation helped not at all.

Football season drew to a close and Ed actually took her to the Homecoming Dance as herself; the girls made her up and piled her hair atop her head in a style that was like nothing Lou could possibly wear and the pair stayed out of the limelight, so they weren't noticed. The dress was backless, but covered her minimalist cleavage; Ed declared her to be beautiful, which got him a kiss.

The night with Coach Karen had opened up new vistas for Lois; she drifted slowly into being affectionate, especially with Ed. At first, he was seriously uncomfortable -- but they were thrown together and abused and they coupled sexually on a regular basis -- and, ultimately, she was 'his girl', so he got past it. After that, things got very emotional, very fast... Once, Ed would show up and they would go up to Lou's room and talk and raise Hell and watch videos -- maybe jerk off. Now, they carefully locked the door and engaged in heavy petting. They never had sex at Lois' house, and seldom anywhere else, except for Mike's 'parties', which always seemed to feature 'the jock fucking the transvestite' -- but they'd fallen in love... Ed was uncomfortable with Lois in her Lou clothing; Lois tended to wear panties or a thong under the Lou getup whenever Ed was coming, and would get out of her pants or shorts at the first opportunity. A top was a top, but tighty-whiteys didn't cut it...

At home, there was another phenomenon -- the mother-daughter shopping trip. Arlene took her new daughter out to clothing stores and did the usual carping about clothing that was too revealing or invited male rioting -- and discovered that she was generally enjoying herself. Lois' wardrobe blossomed. Arlene didn't ask whether Lois was sexually active; she really didn't want to hear the answer. She made assumptions -- which were correct in general but came nowhere close to the sometimes ugly reality. She granted Lois all of the freedom she could, knowing that living a lie at home wasn't fun for her.

When basketball season started, Lois changed up and went out on the floor at games as herself -- and no one noticed, apparently, despite the bright lights in the gym. A simple change of hairstyle and some makeup did wonders -- and nobody seemed interested in discovering who the 'new girl' was... Coach Cartwright sweated it for two games, then forgot about it.

Somewhere in there, Mike's father brought his new woman into the scene. Lois never got her name; the woman called her 'Honey, ' with a sneer, despite the fact that she seemed to end up with a cock in all three of her orifices at almost every party and seemed to get even less consideration from Mike's father and his friends than Lois did. Mike's dad seemed to just call her 'Slut' -- which clearly described the woman. He got a big kick out of filling her holes with semen from a bunch of guys, then having Lois felch it out... Ed wasn't allowed to fuck the woman -- he wasn't 'good enough' for her -- but Mike did, regularly -- usually while his father was using a different hole. "She's a pig, anyway," Ed wrote it off. Lois wished that he could have at least gotten the experience. There was apparently no end in sight; Ed didn't do basketball, so he had more free time than Lois -- free time to be used and abused and led deeper and deeper...

The crash came in late March. One of Mike's father's crooked business dealings led local law enforcement to tap his phone -- and then to get warrants, and then conduct a raid... The list of charges went on for page after page. Mike tried to escape by playing the innocent victim -- and failed miserably; recordings of him abusing and taunting Ed incriminated him. But he took Ed down with him, mostly out of spite, making charges that Ed did this and that -- charges that had to be investigated...

Lois got splattered, too, but she could -- and did -- handle it. Ed, on the other hand, was ruined in his own mind...

He called her, from jail; they spoke for quite a while, Ed spending the time blaming himself for the mess they were in and Lois trying to keep him above water. But the telephone didn't cuddle him and he was too far gone -- and nobody realized that he was a suicide risk...

It was absolutely horrible. Lois got transfixed in the media spotlight; her father, blaming Arlene for shielding her and keeping him in the dark, moved out. And Ed, her friend and lover, was dead, hung in his cell from a twisted bedsheet. Lois wasn't even allowed to go to the funeral; the family blamed her, not realizing that she'd been his only grip on sanity. It was too easy to blame the 'pervert'... Lois moved out; eventually, her dad came home, once she was gone...

College was four states away. Lois kept her head down and worked hard outside school to pay for her tuition and living expenses -- there would be nothing from her father. She went to a psychiatrist and a psychologist and a sex therapist -- and finally to a couple of surgeons who specialized in making adjustments for certain mistakes by Mother Nature... Her psychiatrist hadn't cleared her for the final surgery -- he wanted another eighteen months in her current stat and, preferably, a stable relationship -- but she no longer had her tiny sources of testosterone (snip, snip) and after a few hormone injections, her metabolism had pretty much shifted gears, generating breasts that were more than an 'A' cup, if less than a 'B', widening her ass, and making a few other changes in her center of gravity. She was getting more female by the day, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Relationships were another issue. She had work and she had girlfriends -- a select few of whom knew her secret -- but men... What was fair? When was the right time to tell a man that you're just a little different? Lois hadn't found it yet. Holding out hadn't helped at all -- that she didn't have all of her female parts was 'The Big Lie' as far as anyone who had known her for a while and might be getting serious was concerned -- yet you didn't start conversations in bars with, "Hi, I still have a dick -- is that a problem?" There didn't seem to be any happy medium... It had been almost two years since she'd been with a guy...

Mike Webber stood there in the door, confused, while the babe standing there in the hall regarded him with sad eyes. She'd said, "Are you sure you set everything right? I REALLY don't want to surprise you. I... might not quite measure up to expectation..." What could be wrong? "Do you want to look?" he asked.

Lois thought about it. If she went in this guy's room, and he'd screwed up, things could get ugly -- and escaping unscathed might not be possible. On the other hand, he might know EXACTLY what he was doing -- and that could be a trap! Oh, why had she wasted her money on this place? Hotel security was reported to be excellent, but when you're under a guy's hands... And, irony of ironies, his name was Mike...

'She's absolutely scared to death!' Mike realized. 'Well, I'm a little freaked, myself... ' "Uh, I guess I could be some kind of freak or asshole, but I assure you I'm not. We could leave the door open..."

"It closes automatically," Lois said tonelessly.

"Right." Mike cast about. "I could jam a coat hanger in the hinge..."

"That... might work..." Lois hazarded cautiously.

Mike made it work; the hotel staff was going to be pissed, probably, when they saw what it did to the hanger. The door closure was pretty robust; it snapped the hanger on the first pass. Mike used both pieces to make it work. "How's that?"

Lois eyed it and nodded. "It will last long enough, I think. This might only take a minute." She bit her lip, waiting. Mike figured it out and backed into the room.

Lois followed cautiously. "I should see your setup..."

"It's over there," Mike gestured. "Has someone hurt you or something?"

"Ha!" Lois snorted in derision, then got a grip. "Repeatedly. You have no idea." Her eyes said, 'And you may be next!' She stepped over to the console and examined the settings, drilling down. "Mike? You may want to look at this..."

Mike came over to stand beside her and looked at his selections; in particular, Lois was waving the mouse pointer at the checked box for Transgender. "You did this?" she asked.

"I must have..." The light dawned. "You're a guy?"

"No," Lois replied, "But I'm leaving..."

"Hold it -- if you're not a guy, why are you leaving? How would you know I'd checked that? And why would it matter?" Mike was massively confused.

"What?" Lois was upset and irritated -- and it headed toward anger. "How dense are you? If you hadn't clicked that, I wouldn't be here! And what matters is that you OBVIOUSLY didn't know, so I'm in the wrong room!"

Mike shook his head to clear it. "You want to BE a guy? Why dress like that, then?"

"What ARE you talking about? No, I don't want to be a guy..." Lois started to cry. "I have to leave."

"No." Mike put himself between Lois and the door. "You owe me an explanation. You're leaving and I don't understand why -- and I'm pretty sure I've come out with all of the permutations and combinations..."

"The door is open for a reason," Lois' voice shook. "I'll scream!"

"Please don't!" Mike begged. "Just -- I don't know -- sit or something, relax, and tell me what I've done wrong!"

"You haven't done anything wrong, yet," Lois said dully, "but you don't want me."

"I don't?"

"If you did, you'd have clicked that box on purpose."

"The transgender box..."

"Yes."

"Transgenders are guys who dress like girls or girls who dress like guys, right?"

Lois smiled sadly. "There are a lot of definitions. That's a basic one, and maybe it even applies, sort of. For some people, it's probably a great joke, putting on the wrong clothing and fooling everybody -- putting it over on 'The Man.' But it isn't always that simple. Clothing can be the least of it. What is the seat of sexuality?"

Mike suddenly realized that he was in deep water. Guys that dressed up like chicks squicked him -- but this... person... who had basically just admitted to doing it, was saying that the clothing thing was irrelevant... "Clothes make the man..."

Lois smiled crookedly. "Maybe, at a job interview. They CERTAINLY make the woman. I've flunked this interview -- let me go."

Mike frowned, looking at the floor. "I haven't answered your question. Maybe, before I do, you can answer one more for me. Please describe yourself."