Chapter 1

People around here say I can fix anything. They boast about it, as if that was something for me to be proud of. I mean, I don't mind being able to fix things and I am proud of it, don't get me wrong, but I can't fix everything. No matter what folks tell you. But maybe I'd better start a little closer to the beginning.

I grew up the only girl in a house with seven men, my daddy and my six older brothers. My mom left us when I was pretty small. I guess she had issues with testosterone, since the person she ran off with was an exotic dancer named Suzy. That's pretty much when my life changed dramatically, but I was only four years old so any change was bound to be dramatic. I suppose my dad was a little upset about losing his wife to another woman. That would be sort of hard to deal with, especially for a manly man like Daddy. Lou Diamond Philips sent Daddy a post card, but I don't think it helped much. I know the guys around town gave him a hard time about it, just like my brothers got it at school. It wasn't like it was much of a secret in a town with one stop light.

They only turned that stoplight on during Christmas so it flashed green and red, by the way. But the third year they did that, a guy passing through hit Old Man Davidson's truck. So, they don't turn it on at all anymore. It just hangs there. And that, I reckon, symbolizes our town and lives better than most words might. I sympathize with that stoplight sometimes, and I think I should climb up one of the poles it's tethered to and cut it down. But then what? It's just a stoplight.

I think sometimes I should do something about myself too. But I'm just a girl.

Back to fixing stuff ... No. Back to my big change. Gosh it's hard to find the beginning of things sometimes, isn't it? Like I say, my mom ran off with the only exotic dancer in town, so that was big news. A lesbian, for most people around here, was like a foreign film. They'd heard about 'em, but never seen one. Never wanted to, for the most part ... It might require some thinking. My Daddy is like that and when I was four he decided I wasn't going to be running off with no lesbian strippers. I dressed in boys clothes, old hand me downs from my six brothers. That earned me the nickname 'Patches' in the neighborhood, and worse 'Raggedy Ann' when I was in the second grade.

That's my name, by the way, Ann, so it wasn't much of a stretch even for an inbred like Tommy Wirtengale. His brother married my cousin Janey, so I see him every now and again. He still calls me 'Raggedy Ann' but I think it's more a term of endearment for him. He calls his wife 'The Heifer' and I really wish I could say she had a tattoo on her ass that said 'USDA Approved' but she doesn't, so far as I know. We don't like each other much, The Heifer and me, mostly because she looks like a cow. I was Miss Dairy once precisely because I don't.

Boasting is for fools though. I just want to make it clear that I never did let Tommy in my panties, no matter what it says in the men's room at our local tavern, The Junction...

There once was a woman named Annie
Who liked big dicks up her fanny
But I snuck into her twat
And I came quite a lot
So I think she'll be needin' a nanny!

I happen to know he wrote that stupid limerick himself. Just for the record, I did have a bit of a reputation once upon a time. Not really the bad sort, just the kind a girl living in a small town gets when she's ... Different. It could have been much, much worse, believe me. I'm not pregnant, either. Momma didn't raise no fool. In fact my momma didn't raise me at all, so ... Where was I?

Oh, I was dressing as a boy mostly and Daddy would cut my hair short, like my brothers had to wear theirs. The only time he allowed me to dress up was on Sundays for church, otherwise Daddy kept all my girl clothes locked up in the cedar chest, along with my dolls and my jewelry and the little things I'd collected, you know. I didn't have any real jewelry, of course, it was all just plastic mostly, and cut glass that sparkled. I sort of had a ring that was real. It had belonged to my Grandmother, and Daddy said it was going to be mine when I was old enough. It was gold and had a little diamond in it. Not a very big one, but it was real. I got to look at it sometimes.

Now, my dad is a mechanic. He owns his own garage and that was the place all my brothers worked every summer and after school the rest of the year. Naturally enough, I spent most of my time there too. I learned just about everything there is to know about cars. We even built more than a bunch of 'em, including that '68 Firebird convertible parked out front. That was my 16th birthday present from my brothers and it wasn't always a convertible, but that's the sort of thing we do to cars. They told me we were rebuilding it for some collector in Seattle. If I'd known it was really for me I'd have painted it candy apple red instead of midnight blue. My brother's hate painting, that's why I do it mostly. I hate welding, personally. If I ever hear the words, 'It's gotta look like a roll of nickels!' again, I'm going to puke. Only another hot head knows what that means, the rest of you ... Count yourselves lucky. It's worse than learning to play the piano and I know because I did that too.

Of course, there aren't always a lot of cars that need fixing in a little town like ours, even though people bring us cars from as far away as Boise and Portland. We took a Lexus that belonged to Ichiro and made it into a low rider with a Maybach V12 under the hood. It was a gift for the Emperor or Brittany Spears, or somebody. He sent us a picture of him cruising with it in Tokyo. But even with the out of town work, there was still a lot of time on our hands. So, we got used to fixing anything that a person could break and bring by. We fixed washing machines, televisions, bicycles, lawn mowers, boats, ceiling fans, milking machines ... Heck, I even fixed an airplane once.

Fella landed out by Four Tires, which is where four tires are nailed to an old dead tree and everybody goes out there for keggers. He had a little Cessna and we didn't have a manual or anything, but a bad fuel pump is a bad fuel pump. He was just lucky he didn't die! You'd never get me up in one of those things! Of course it was big news, having an airplane land on the county road and all. A reporter came all the way from Spokane, since I guess nothing ever happens there even though they have five or six stoplights probably. They took my picture, smiling and covered with grease, holding that bad old fuel pump like it was an Olympic Medal. That was the reporter's idea, not mine.

SQUINOSHA GIRL SAVES THE DAY

That's what the headline said, because our town is named Squinosha after some local Indian tribe that was run out of the county back when they thought there was silver here. I think they went to the peninsula and opened a casino. Anyway, I didn't save the day. I just changed out the fuel pump and we billed that guy up the yin-yang for it too! I mean, his airplane was sitting in the middle of the road! What was he going to do? Barter? He tried it though. That's why my Daddy has a Rolex now, Oyster Perpetual, whatever that means. It's nice, I guess.

The article in the paper was sort of nice too. It said:

"... 16 year old Ann Russet was last month's Homecoming Queen for Squinosha-Edmons-Wilverness High School. When she isn't busy fixing airplanes, the Academic All-American enjoys football, hunting, and rock climbing. Donald Eversman, the Mayor of Squinosha Township explained, "Ann was Miss Washington Dairy last summer and we're hoping she'll enter the Miss Teen Washington Pageant next spring. That girl can do most anything she puts her mind to; fixing airplanes or baking up a fresh Washington Apple Pie, it all comes natural to our Annie." Natural indeed. As this reporter found out, there's nothing shy about Miss Russet. When asked about the incident, the rural beauty queen replied, "Hell, it was just a bleepin' fuel pump. I yanked that bleep-bleeper out by the bleeps, twisted some wires and bleeped it like a 3 dollar bleep. The whole bleepin' thing was done by noon. I even threw in a bleep-bleep cause the guy was so bleepin' cute." It seems Miss Russet certainly has a way with words, as well as airplanes. The plane's owner, Mr. George Timley of Coeur D'Alene, married and the father of two, could not be reached for comment regarding the incident... '

The Mayor was doing his best to hide the fact that I was anything but natural, and trying to sell me as just a cute little homemaker with a wrench in her apron sort of aggravated me. But that's what folks do in a small town, you know? Anyway, I got in a little trouble because of all my swearing, but honestly! I'd been tired, menstruating, and tits deep in a 1958 International Harvester combine when that reporter came around. I really didn't think they'd print it, even using bleeps instead of words!

"Well, I guess you can forget about being Miss Teen Washington!" Henry, my 5th oldest brother, laughed.

"Shut up, Henry!" David, my 4th oldest brother, said. "Daddy's back from the liquor store. You ready to play, Annie?"

I gave him a dirty look, "Yeah. So what." I took some sand paper to the sparkplug I was holding, filing it like I would my fingernails if I had any, very gently.

"Annie?" I heard Daddy calling for me. "Come on out here girl, we need to talk."

"Talk hell!" Henry giggled softly. "Yes Daddy!" he called out in a high pitched falsetto and I punched him in the arm as I walked by.

"Right now, girl!" Daddy always called me girl. Like he needed to remind me or something.

"Just a bleepin' minute, Daddy!" Henry called again and then he was running out the other way, with David laughing close behind.

I frowned and rubbed my ass through my coveralls. I didn't have much padding back there, being small all around really. Narrow hips, small round butt. My boobs were nice sized, if you like that kind of thing. I mostly thought they were just big enough to get me in trouble and I seriously considered getting a boob job, a reduction I should say. I'd be happy with no tits at all. But that wasn't really on my mind right then. I knew what Daddy was going to do, all of us kids did. It was a game we grew up with.

"Annie, I'm gonna teach you a new game..." he'd said once.

I think I was about six or so, that time he'd caught me playing finger puppets with Marilee Hoskins. She was my older cousin, almost 16 then, and she knew a lot of good tricks. It didn't really feel good for me at the time, but she swore that when I got older, I'd thank her for showing them to me.

"What game is that, Daddy?" I'd asked, trying to pull up my trousers real quick.

"You get on home, Marilee." Daddy looked at the girl as she got her panties up in a hurry! I remember thinking how lucky she was that her Daddy let her dress like a girl. "This game is called Trip to the Woodshed, Annie."

That's what we were going to play now, ten years later, all because that stupid reporter from Spokane had quoted me word for bleepin' word. Well, technically we didn't have a woodshed, so it should have been called 'Trip to the Generator Shack' but woodshed sounded better somehow.

"Yeah, Daddy?" I wiped my hands on a rag, figuring I'd stuff it in my back pocket. Every little bit helps, believe me.

"Did you see this?" He held up the newspaper from Spokane.

Larry, the druggist who owned the liquor store, had gotten 30 copies and was selling them for two dollars each, even though they were only 70 cents in Spokane. It sort of explained why he was selling beer now, instead of Viagra. The big Wal-Mart had opened up over in Beaverton and most folks went there for their prescription stuff. All the rest, like combs and film and condoms, Larry sold right there at the counter next to little airline bottles of vodka.

If life has taught me nothing else, it's that all a town really needs to survive is a gas station, a liquor store, and a 7-11. A bar don't hurt none either, unless it has lesbian dancers. The Junction lost a little business for awhile there, but then the Kelroyce sisters, Emma and Geena, came back from the war and it picked up again. They're twins and that explains a lot probably.

Now, you're probably thinking this is the part where I tell you how my Daddy put me over his knee, pulled my britches down and paddled my bare butt until it was red. How I was biting back my tears and promising never to say bleep again! You might think I'm going to tell you how he always rubs my bare little behind afterwards, massaging it with his big calloused hand until it starts feeling better again, so much better I have to spread my legs just a little so he can rub a little lower too. Perhaps Daddy even likes it when I tell him how sorry I am for making him spank me like that. How I turn around on his lap, letting him feel my young female form against his strong manly chest, since I know he hasn't been with a woman since momma left us. Daddy's manhood is pressing up against me, all swollen from spanking the prettiest girl in three counties, his very own daughter. A blonde haired, blue eyed, 16 year old grease monkey who would one day have dirty poems written about her on men's bathroom walls. Yep, I bet you think I'm gonna tell you all about that stuff, huh?

What do they call that? Oh ... Middle-aged male sexual angst? Thanks.

Where was I? Ah, now you might think growing up as a boy would be a strange thing. Well, let me tell you ... It was. By the time I turned eight, I'd pretty much given up on wearing dresses, even on Sundays. It just felt too weird, you know? I'd put on my little pink panties, a white dress, or maybe my blue one sometimes. Little white lacy ankle socks and little black shoes. My hair was short like a boy's, cut above my ears, so I'd wear a little hat mostly, with a ribbon around it to match my dress. It didn't look as bad as it sounds. But it felt ... Wrong.

I was a boy, I was pretty sure, although I didn't know exactly why I didn't have a thing down there like my brothers did. When I got my first period though, I finally got over my denial and that was hard. Probably harder for me than for any of the other girls in town. I got really mad at my body. Anyway, in a small house in Squinosha Washington there just isn't a whole lot of room for modesty. I shared my room with my two youngest brothers. Greg is a year older than me and Henry is about ten months older than him. My four other brothers shared two other bedrooms, but we all shared the one hallway bathroom. Being naked around a bunch of boys wasn't any big deal for me then and it still isn't today.

This causes problems for other kids though. When I was 14 and got to Middle School, in the eighth grade, I tried out for football. For most of the kids at school I was just another guy, although a lot of them treated me strangely. But nobody gave me a hard time, mostly because I wasn't afraid to get in a fight, you know? I felt like that guy in that song 'A Boy Named Sue' except I wasn't really a boy and my name's Ann. My brothers didn't mind a good fight either and we practiced a lot at home, of course. So generally speaking, if somebody wanted to fight one of the Russet boys, me included, he'd better be bringing his whole freakin' family, you know? Because we did.

One good thing though is that I can fix anything, or so people like to say, and my brothers mostly just fixed stuff for girls, or their friends, so lots of guys I didn't even know would be nice to me and ask me to help them do a brake job, or maybe roll back the odometer on their dad's cars. Fixing stuff was my ticket to acceptance. Some kids are the class clowns, you know? I was the class mechanic. Those guys didn't hit on me or anything. I usually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, with that short hair and no make-up at all. They just called me buddy mostly, or dude, and we'd hang out. Somebody would swipe some beers, another guy would have a few cigarettes, and we'd be like any other bunch of teenage boys.

"Hey, check it out!" John Relton always had something for us to check out. "I found it in my old man's tool box."

I was under Kyle's car, fixing his oil pan because he'd tried to change the oil himself and had stripped the drain plug. I could hear the guys giggling and whispering and that was sort of strange. We were all 14 or 15, except Kyle, he'd just turned 16, and the only reason we ever whispered was if somebody's parents were around. I crawled out from under the car and looked up at the guys sitting on the hood.

"What you got?" I started getting up, wiping my hands on my jeans. They were looking at a magazine, John and my three best friends, Kyle Glass, Matthew Lickler, who had the worst name in school obviously, and Lance Finley.

"Uh, nothing." John tried to hide it and all the guys sort of looked away from me.

"What?" I grabbed the warm Buckhorn beer I'd been drinking and took a swig. "You better show me, dude!" I laughed at them because they looked so guilty. We were at Kyle's house, in his garage, and his parents were always working so mostly we hung out there.

"Yeah, just show her," Kyle shrugged and grabbed the magazine from behind John's back and opened it up in his lap. It was a Penthouse, dog eared and old. I leaned against the car next to Kyle, looking down at it.

"What do ya think, Annie?" Matt asked me. He seemed a little nervous, I thought, and I didn't know why exactly. I'd grown up with these guys.

Kyle had opened it up to the Pet of the Month picture spread and the girl was bare ass naked, showing everything, even her shaved pussy. "She's got no hair!" I laughed and we stared at it for a long minute. "That's pretty cool though. Turn the page already."

He turned the page and there she was on her hands and knees, facing away from the camera, but looking over her shoulder and smiling like it was her birthday.

"Holy crap!" Lance breathed.

"That's a big butt!" I stared at the picture.

All the guys were sort of quiet as we crowded around Kyle, turning pages slowly, back and forth, looking through all the spreads. "I bet she's the most beautiful woman in the world!" John said.

We were looking at one of the other girls, a blonde woman wearing some kind of leather bikini and she had a dog collar around her neck.

"No way," Kyle shook his head. "This chick's hotter." He flipped it back to the Pet of the Month on her knees, having marked that page with his thumb.

"I like the other one," Matt said. "The one John said."

"Nah," Lance agreed with Kyle. "That one in the middle is totally intense, dude!" He was practically drooling.

"Yeah," I nodded. "That one. She needs a tune-up bad!" I giggled, but I felt sort of weird too. Like hot inside and I wasn't sure why. It seemed like my boobs were trying to grow or something. I thought maybe it was that crappy beer, because the pictures weren't nearly as exciting to me as seeing my friends' reactions to them.