Part 8 Caitlyn Breaks and the Puzzle Fits

A knock on his door brought Darryl out of a lovely daydream. He'd been thinking about college, and more importantly, college girls. One problem with being schooled at home and living as Darla in order to help Aunt Jane with her program was the lack of *real* girls in *Darryl's* life. The few times he had been out among girls as a guy, he'd done rather well, even if he did say so himself. Jane's program had given him a very unique view of the feminine outlook and the ladies seemed to sense that about him . . . and to *like* it about him . . . a LOT!

So, he was not in a particularly good mood when, after checking his appearance in the mirror to ensure that Darla looked adequately 'winsome', she opened her door to "Caitlyn?"

"Hi, Darla," Caitlyn said quietly. "I am sorry to bother you, but I need some help and I don't know where else to turn."

"What can I do for you, Caitlyn?"

"I want to work on walking in heels some more. Maybe if I can do that, Ms. Thompson will give me more time to get past the make up thing, but I know I will need help to do it without killing myself."

*Uh oh.* "Ummm, why not ask Jane? She'd be tickled that you were willing to try without being told to do it."

Caitlyn shook her head sadly. "No, because of the two times when Marie was hurt, she thinks I am faking this." Suspiciously glittering eyes looked up into Darla's own. "I'm not, though. HONEST, Darla. I don't want to go to that prison for underage males."

*Lord, why do I want to believe her?* Darla silently lamented. *No, it's more than that - I *do* believe her. The question is, why do I actually believe her?* Sighing at her own gullibility, Darla began to open her door when she remembered the sports pages strewn all across Darla's bed. *Ooops.*

"How about we do it in your room, Caitlyn? Then we can try all your shoes and see if a particular style makes any difference." *Don't know why it would, but hey, try anything in a crisis.*

"Oh, thank you, Darla!" That blinding smile was back. "Can we do it right now?"

Shrugging, Darla smiled in return. "Sure. Let's do it and surprise the heck out of Aunt Jane for a change."

~---------------~

"So, you have deceived the parents in all this?" Diana asked in a very flat voice.

"Strictly speaking, I suppose you can say that. We, that is, Ruth and I, just did not explicitly tell them what my program really entailed. We've had problems before with . . . non-voluntary parents in the past. They have a tendency to show up at awkward times in the boy's rehabilitation, interfering in the program, and in general, making a difficult job much harder. In one case, one woman loudly chastised me in front of the child. Such nonsense encourages a child who is already inclined to be rebellious to continue fighting me. The mother who chewed me out in front of her son finally had to be put on a restraining order to keep her away from my home. The next time she contacted her child without my express permission, the boy was to have been dispatched to juvenile lockup until his eighteenth birthday. And at that, her interference literally cost the boy almost half a year. Ultimately, I had to keep him in skirts for over a year before we achieved a turnaround with him."

"So, you don't believe in your own program strongly enough to be able to sell it to parents who are already in a situation where they are willing to accept almost anything to avoid court ordered incarceration?" Diana asked in sardonic tones. "Please, Jane, don't take me for a fool. We both know that's not why you've elected to keep the parents in the dark about the specifics of what it is you do to these boys."

"Well, what is your opinion on why *I* do something *I* know works, Doctor." Every word dripped in ice that belied the angry fire in Jane's eyes.

Diana shrugged. "You just said it, dear. You know it works. It is easier for you to do it this way. Not easier for the parents, especially for caring parents, but you get off more easily."

Stung by those words, and not wanting to admit their validity, Jane struck back. "I can't risk my other students. If those parents don't already have a stake in keeping my secret, how can I entrust my other boys' lives and reputations to them? And what about the boy in question, eh? At least my way, it is his choice to tell his parents what happened here with me and why it happened, but *only* after he has graduated and understands what the experiences did for him as a person."

"Your other boys are safe, Jane. Ruth can easily protect them by forcing a pre-indoctrination agreement on the prospective participants. They simply have to sign a contract never to reveal anything about the program, regardless of whether they accept the deal or not. If they refuse to sign, they aren't told anything substantive about the program and their little darling goes behind the metaphoric cold steel bars of juvy. As for the current boy, your argument is valid *if* the boy graduates, but suppose you fail, as you seem to think you will with Caitlyn. *Then* what do you do? Explain to his parents that your program consists of a very heavy dose of petticoat discipline and all that entails? Even worse, that your best efforts did not work with their boy?" Diana's voice became low, gravelly-rough and stereotypically redneck male in tone, "Well, o'course my *boy* didn't get nothin' outta your stupid program, you idjit woman. My boy is a *man*. Damn fool stupid females."

"Diana!"

Diana resumed her normal light alto voice. "And in that case, you *won't* be able to protect your other boys or Judge Ruth or anyone else who has ever been involved with you because you have no legal or emotional hold on the boy or his parents."

Jane went very still as she digested Diana's words. "I have never thought of it like that before."

"You've never had to deal with court directed psychological therapies. Trust me, we head shrinkers have learned these lessons the hard way."

"So what do I do tomorrow with Mrs. Jeffries?" Jane asked wearily.

"I go with you, as Art, and let my sheepskin and research experience support you. We argue for more time with the boy, and then, we do whatever it takes to get that probation officer off your back for at least another three months."

"Oh, I don't know, Diana. Short of lying, I don't know what I could do to keep him."

"So lie," Diana said with ringing conviction. "Your first responsibility is to the child. Do you believe that the alternative is better for that boy than what you do here?" Jane hesitated, uncertain how to respond. Her personal ethics and legal responsibilities warring inside her. "Do you really believe that, Jane?" Diana repeated very gently.

Taking a deep, heaving breath, Jane shook her head. "No," she replied in a barely audible voice. "That sweet child would wither and die in that place."

"So what are you going to do?"

Jane walked back over to Diana and weakly hugged her, resting her head against her lover's shoulder. "I guess I'll lie."

~-----------~

Darla was doing her level best not to scream out her frustration at Caitlyn. For the past hour, they had been trying to find a pair of heels the girl could walk in. Now, she was standing by watching Caitlyn lace up a pair of high heeled calf-length boots that Darla had loaned to her.

*If I hadn't seen her walking - hell - *running* in those heels when Marie acted like she was hurt, there is no way I would believe this person could ever walk in these things.*

"Ready?" She asked, trying to keep the resignation out of her voice.

"I. . .I think so." Caitlyn answered with a quaver. "Here goes." She pushed herself off the bed with her hands and struggled momentarily for balance.

Darla waited for Caitlyn to manage the two steps to where she was standing so that they could try one more time.

Caitlyn never made it. The heel of her right foot went out from under her as she made that crucial second step, sending her toppling over backward. Darla was just a step too far away to catch her and Caitlyn crashed the back of her head against the edge of her mattress.

Momentarily stunned, it took Caitlyn a few moments to clear her head sufficiently to realize that Darla was yelling at her. "I'm o. ..okay," she managed to get out. "Just hit my head on the mattress is all."

Relief washed over Darla like a cold shower. Slowly she stepped back, intending to offer Caitlyn a hand up and saw her position. Caitlyn was sprawled on the floor, her back resting against the bed, her legs spread-eagled on the floor with the pointed toes of the high heeled shoes pointing to the stars. Darla thought she looked for all the world like some character out of a children's cartoon. All that was missing were images of stars and planets spinning about her head. The combination of adrenalin-drop, the situation and her own terror did Darla in. She began to laugh, almost hysterically, in her relief that her friend was actually unhurt.

"What are you laughing at?!?" Caitlyn yelled. Darla couldn't seem to stop and could only gesture helplessly. "ME? You are laughing at ME??" Caitlyn began scrambling to her knees, her face a mask of fury and hurt. "Damn you! Stop laughing at me! I thought *you* at least my friend! Ms. Thompson said other people would laugh at the boy in skirts, but I thought *you* were different. I thought you, at least, cared about me! DAMN YOU!!"

An open hand slap to her cheek rocked Darla back on her haunches. Suddenly, she was being pelted by flying missiles as Caitlyn launched lipsticks, powder pots and bottles of all sizes at her adversary, all the time screaming for her friend to stop laughing at her.

Not knowing what else to do, Darla launched herself at Caitlyn to try and restrain her, grateful for the fact that she, at least, was in flats. She just wished she had paid more attention when Kenneth, or rather Kendra as she was known in Jane's house, had offered to teach her the basics of that martial art thing that Kendra had once used to restrain an enraged Darla.

~------------~

"JANE!! DIANA!! HELP ME!"

Instantly recognizing both the terror and the fact that it was Darryl, not Darla who was calling, Jane was heading for the stairs before the words had finished reverberating about the house. *Oh, God, not another one. Not another Michael* she prayed as she ran.

Diana reached the bedroom door just behind Jane. There was Darla, her arms and legs wrapped around a wildly struggling Caitlyn from behind. "Help me. I can't calm her down and she's damnably strong."

Almost immediately, Diana left the doorway and ran down the hall. Jane moved towards the bed, oblivious to the brass and broken bits of ceramic and crystal that littered the floor. "Easy, Caitlyn," She said, trying to relax the girl. "It's all right now."

Before she could say anything else, Diana returned to the room and pushed in front of Jane. In swift, practiced movements, she daubed Caitlyn's arm with an aromatic pad and then plunged a hypodermic needle into the just sanitized skin.

"What was that?" Jane asked as Caitlyn seemed to begin relaxing almost instantly.

"Sedative. We use it with some of our more violent penal system patients when they lose it for some reason during therapy. Very fast acting with no side or after effects." Diana told her briskly. "You can let her go now, Darla. Here, let me help you get her up onto the bed."

"What happened?" Jane finally asked. Tearfully, Darla reviewed the events leading up to Caitlyn's break.

"So, it was the laughter that set her off?" Diana asked.

Darla nodded shakily. "It was like an electrical switch got thrown."

"Okay. Jane? One of the effects of that drug in some folks is that they become very suggestable - almost like sodium pentothal.

"You mean truth serum?" Darla asked, her eyes wide.

Smiling gently, Diana replied, "Not quite, but she might answer some of the questions that are bothering us if we can phrase them properly for her almost sleeping mind. Now, you two, get out of here. The fewer things to distract her right now, the better."

Darla went, but Jane hesitated, not wanting to leave her boy like this. "I will take very good care of her for you, Janey, I promise. You can watch in your study, but this is something I should do alone."

Finally, Jane nodded, and without another word, left the room.

~--------------~

An hour later, Diana came into Jane's study and walked straight to the bar. She poured herself a brandy before turning and silently offering up the decanter to Jane. "I'll take one, too, dear," Jane said softly.

"Well," Diana said after a bracing sip of the fiery liquid. "I would say that our visit with Mrs. Jeffries just became critically important."

"Oh? Why? I could hear you, but I could barely make out what it was that Caitlyn said to you."

"His mother is why he dropped out of ballet the first time."

"WHAT?"

"Evidently he decided that he was hurting her by continuing to go to dance class. It seems that the dance teacher began paying a lot of attention to him at some point in time, and he saw his mother appear to react negatively to that attention a few times. He also has convinced himself that her reaction had to do with dance movements that he was capable of performing that his mother no longer could."

"You think he quit because he believed he was hurting her feelings?"

"That's part of it. Unfortunately, he fell completely asleep before I could get all of it out of him, and what I did get is a little confused. Jane? According to your investigator, what parts did Carlton dance?"

"Hmmm. ..let me see." Jane rummaged around for the faxed copies of Reggie's reports. She ruffled through them until she found what she was looking for. "Well, it doesn't really say for the period when he was dancing with his Mother. When he went to the Y, the report is that he worked at the male parts, but wasn't strong enough physically to partner as a soloist. Oh yes, and it says that he refused to participate in performances anyway."

Diana sat down and closed her eyes in deep thought. "There is something there that I am just not seeing."

"Yes, I know what you mean. It is strange though, that the earlier dance teacher at the dedicated studio thought so highly of him when the second one at a club at the Y said he wasn't strong enough."

Diana's eyes went wide. "Oh. . My. . .God."

"What is it??" Jane demanded.

"He thought his performance was hurting his mother's feelings. Why would he think that? A male dancer is not a threat to a ballerina."

"Oh, Diana, you aren't thinking that he was dancing . ."

"Female roles?" Diana asked, certainty growing by the instant. "Yes, I think that is it. That would explain why the boy is so proficient en pointe when boys are never taught to go on tiptoe."

"Heels?"

"Remind him subconsciously of going on toe point. Vivid cosmetics remind him of stage make up. Short hair can't be styled into a dancer's knot."

"He's protecting his Mother? But what about the fighting? The ball bat and his reaction to laughter?"

"I am not sure about those. They may not be entirely related. I mean, look at the way the boy moves normally."

"Like a dancer," Jane said flatly.

"Like a very good dancer. That's instinctual - it is how his muscles know how to move. It certainly isn't the ponderous tread of the testosterone poisoned adolescent male animal. He'd stand out, be different. He's also small in stature and naturally quiet. He'd be, as your investigator friend put it so succinctly, easy meat for the bullies of the world."

"Sometimes you have to fight when you're a man," Jane quoted.

"Just so," Diana added, then caught the pensive look in her friend's face. "Is that significant?"

"Might be." Jane replied before she related the discussion she'd had with her student during her impromptu massage.

"Parental pressure to defend himself? That fits. He's trying to please them even when it is against his own desires and feelings."

"What was that? I don't understand."

"Look at all the evidence, Jane. Except for the very specific activities that might relate to or remind him of dance, how does he behave?"

"Very well. Caitlyn is quite the perfect lady."

"Exactly. I have watched her. She is happy doing the little feminine rituals you impose on your students. She cooks wonderfully, presents food like a chef, doesn't mind cleaning up and loves mothering Marie. Have you tried her on any feminine crafts?"

Jane nodded. "Water colors and embroidery. She thoroughly enjoyed them. That's why I stopped doing those. They relaxed her and I needed her to feel stressed."

Diana chuckled softly. "Which you will probably never achieve with that one. Girls don't get stressed out doing girl things, Janey."

"But he's *not* really a girl," Jane retorted. Diana said nothing. "Oh, no, Diana. I have had transvestites - that is, fetishistic crossdressers - before and the act of dressing up excited them. Carlton hasn't had a single nocturnal emission since he arrived. Marie checks."

"I did not say transvestite, nor have I mentioned anything related to fetishism, Jane. I said 'girl'. Except when you've stepped on the dance landmine, every time I have seen that girl she's been happy."

"But . . .but. ."

"But nothing. This is only a working hypothesis, Jane. That's why we need to talk to Mom tomorrow. She can help us reach some conclusions about what to do next. One thing I am sure of, Jane, is that there is *no* way that child belongs in a juvenile detention institution. It must have taken a helluva lot to push him or her over the edge like that. It *had* to be self defense."

"All right. I can accept that. Now, what about Caitlyn for now?"

"Darla is sitting with her. She wants to be there when the sedative wears off so that she can apologize. That's okay - Darla needs the closure, but in reality, the whole incident has been fortuitous. At least now, we have some idea of what is driving that child. Now, we can begin to help her confront and deal with the real problems in her life."

"And if you are right, those problems are huge."

"Depends on how Mom reacts. A loving family can help smooth many a rough road. Based on how she chewed on you yesterday, I am inclined to think this Mom is quite the bulldozer." Diana rose and held out her hand to Jane. "C'mon. Let's go help Marie with dinner. Caitlyn will have all three of our collective asses if we let her beloved Ms. Marie overdo because we were wasting time fretting over Caitlyn and not over Marie."