Seasons Greetings A Carol Christmas

Prelude and the First of the Final Confrontations

by Tigger

Darla, or as her junior colleague was wont to call her, Darley,
is a boy: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
The certificate of his birth was signed by the delivering
physician, the hospital administrator, and the local county
attorney. Young Darley is as masculine as rats and snails and
puppy dog tails.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what
there is particularly masculine about rats or snails or the tail
appendages of juvenile canines. I might have been inclined,
myself, to regard the masculine nature of any of those particular
creatures to be disputable, as I have, in my experience, had the
acquaintance of female dogs and rats. And while I am not certain
how one would ascertain the gender of a snail, I am convinced
that there must be at least some of the creatures that are
female. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile and I
shall not dispute it. You will therefore permit me to repeat,
emphatically, that Darley is, most definitely, as masculine as
rats and snails and puppy dog tails.

Did her young colleague know she was male? Of course he did not.
How could it be otherwise? Darley's partners in this enterprise
decreed and ensured that this would remain unknown to the new
student. Even as they imposed the same masking of his
masculinity upon him as had been earlier been imposed upon
Darley. . . that is, upon Darla.

The mention of Darla's masquerade brings me back to the point I
started from. There is no doubt that Darley was and is male.
This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come
of the story I am going to relate.

Once upon a time, three people sat down to table in order to
break their fast. . .

The First of the Final Confrontations:

*It's as if she's decided this one is a lost cause,* the petite
blonde girl thought bleakly as she picked without much interest
at her own breakfast. *Lord, she gives me a harder time about
such things when there is no one but the two of us here and I'm
not really her student anymore.*

Jane Thompson, an elegantly handsome woman, sat at the head of
the dining table, her eyes fixed on the third diner, another
blonde whose attention was fixed on the huge plate of food in
front of her to the exclusion of anyone or anything else. A look
that was half disgust, half some other emotion crossed the older
woman's face as she regarded the silent student.

*She isn't even calling the twit on that abominable display of
poor table manners,* Darla thought. *My god, I guess we really
have failed this one.*

Surreptitiously, the shortest of the three figures at the table
glanced at the object of Jane Thompson's annoyance. Carol Morris
was tall, an attribute that Darla envied greatly, and she was
almost pretty - she *would* have been pretty had her makeup been
more subtly and appropriately applied. *Not that it truly is
poorly applied,* Darla mused, *Actually, it is a superb job if
one is going out clubbing or trolling for guys, or even if this
was a scene from some theatrical play that necessitated such high
color which I am certain was precisely her intention. One thing
Carol has learned here is how to apply cosmetics skillfully, but
she just refuses to wear it appropriately because she knows that
showing up for breakfast made up that. . . blatantly pisses Jane
off.*

Darla stifled a sigh. Jane's little cadre had had such great
hopes for this student. In fact, there had been the generally
accepted opinion that if someone had set out to create the ideal
model for a successful Jane Thompson project-student, Carl Morris
would have matched that profile almost perfectly.

Physically, Carl was ideal for Jane's forced feminization
treatments and subsequent training. Tall, leggy, slender and
relatively narrow-shouldered for a male, and possessed of high
cheekbones and eyelashes a supermodel would covet, he'd been
passable soon after his arrival, unlike the previous student who
was not really suited to the masquerade. Jane had expected to be
able to pull out all the stops with this one, putting him in
situations where preserving the secret of his masculine gender
would force him to behave like the sweet, obedient and submissive
girl Jane intended he become in every way possible short of
surgery.

Secondly, Carl Morris was an egotistical, super-macho asshole
whose overblown self image should have crumbled like chalk before
Jane's scathing tongue and iron will. He had been sent to
Seasons House after having been suspended twice and finally
expelled from his suburban high school for sexual harassment -
escaping civil charges only through the offices of his uncle, a
powerful congressional staffer. He had an extremely insolent
attitude towards women and felt no compunction about expressing
his offensive opinions about the feminine sex loudly and vulgarly
- often in public. The last two times he'd been in trouble at
school, he'd gone beyond talk and had physically intimidated two
girls. *Without that damned uncle of his, he'd have been charged
with threatened assault, and put in a reform school!* Darla
thought darkly.

The damned fool had even made an overt and offensive pass at the
frill-bedecked Darla on the train platform, and when Jane had
reprimanded him for his behavior, had told her to get the hell
out of his face. When she'd agreed to take on the role of
mentor/secret informer for this student in Jane's program, Darla
had expected to feel sorry for her little 'sister' during those
first admittedly brutal hours in Jane Thompson's keeping, but she
hadn't felt the smallest tinge of sympathy - not for this one.
Not after Carl's first greeting to her had been a lewd comment on
her lips and completely obscene suggestion about where he thought
those lips might do him the most good. Oh, Darla had positively
salivated at the prospect of watching Carl Morris' first days at
Seasons House.

Except the expected breakthrough, or rather, the expected
breakdown had never occurred. Somehow, this chauvinistic idiot
had managed to take Jane's best shots without so much as denting
his overweening masculine pride or his even bigger ego. A not
insignificant accomplishment, Darla had to acknowledge. Even
Kenneth, who had amazed Jane, Marie and Darla with his incredible
self control and composure under fire had paid a heavy price
physically and emotionally in doing so, and he'd only had to keep
that up for a few days until Jane found out he'd been sent to her
under false charges. Carl had been with Jane for almost six
months, all the while following her orders precisely, just as he
had promised, but never showing the slightest indication he was
weakening.

And Jane had tried everything, including some tricks she'd sworn
off following Michael/Michelle's attempted suicide. She'd used
the long-duration, high color cosmetics on him and then taken him
to a Providence shopping mall in effeminate, at best androgynous
clothes as a boy. He'd laughed off the masculine derision the
teenaged contingent hanging out there had tried to heap on him.
Then Jane had turned Sandy and Caro loose on him, in particular
releasing any constraints she had placed on Sandra's dark side,
again to no avail. The cross dressed punk had actually laughed
at his reflection in Caro's mirror at the end of his first trip
to Marisha Chalet. Naturally, that reaction had put paid Jane's
plan to have him be the model for Caro's Wednesday afternoon
cosmetics class for the local teenaged girls. He'd even managed
to spill hot tea on Evelyn White, ruining a favorite antique-
laced outfit. Only quick action by Jane had saved the society
matron from a trip to the emergency room burn center. Not
surprisingly, Carol had not been honored with invitations to any
of the society events that the redoubtable Mrs. White controlled.

Worse yet, none of Jane's disciplines or punishments had elicited
the expected results from this student, either. Not once, in the
six months he'd been here, had Jane been able to reduce Carl to
tears. On the plus side, he hadn't evidenced any violent
tendencies either, and except for his request for oral
gratification on the train platform, had not harassed Darla
further. However, their continued failure to unearth any softer,
gentler emotions in her charge had upset and frustrated Jane,
Marie and Darla.

*It's as if he is marking time, for some reason, waiting for
something to happen that only he knows about,* Darla thought, not
for the first time. *Odd, too, that after all these months, I
still think of him in the masculine tense. It takes real effort
to remember to use feminine pronouns in relation to this one.
Guess that is the true measure of just how badly we've missed the
mark.*

At that moment, Carol wiped her mouth on her napkin and deposited
it in the middle of her plate. "Well, that does me. Excuse me,
Ms. Thompson, and I will go get ready for whatever games you want
to play today."

Darla watched as Jane simply stared at the smirking, girlishly
dressed boy for nearly a minute. "I think, Carol, that we will
dispense with any further lessons. Obviously, they aren't doing
you any benefit as you are still the same obnoxious, ill-mannered
immature little boy you were when you first arrived in my home.
Since this is Christmas Eve, I think we all would enjoy our
holiday fare more if you were to take your meals in your rooms."

"Nothing else has worked so we're going to try solitary
confinement on bread and water, eh?" was the snide reply. "What's
next? Harsh lights and rubber hoses?"

"You will treated with the same courtesy and concern for your
health and physical well-being as you have enjoyed since your
arrival," Jane replied in as cold a voice as Darla had ever heard
from her. "You will find the accommodations in your room will be
unchanged and that you will be fed the same food that Marie will
serve in the dining room. You simply will no longer be tolerated
at table. That way, you may behave as disgustingly as you please
without ruining anyone else's appetite for Marie's holiday
cuisine. As to confinement, we've already discussed that issue,
have we not? You will continue to behave yourself in accordance
with your promises to me, or I shall be forced to call Deputy
Beale again."

Carol glared at Jane for she recalled, all too vividly, the
evening when she'd overstepped herself in baiting this old bat
and her blonde lackey. The deputy who had responded to
Thompson's call had promised that the next time Morris went too
far, the cop would happily toss his ass - panties, petticoats,
ribbons, makeup and all - into the overnight holding cell with
all the drunks and petty crooks waiting for morning bail court.
"And since you and I both know you're a boy underneath all that
pretty girl stuff, well, I'd just have to toss you into the male
holding cell."

"All right, MS Thompson," the femininely dressed boy retorted,
putting heavily sarcastic emphasis on the 'Ms.', "I shall remove
myself from your august presence and wish you. . . an oh-so-VERY
joyous Christmas Eve. Let me know, won't you, if you exercise
your womanly prerogatives and decide you actually do want to play
some more? Far be it from me to deprive you of your little
pleasures - it being the holidays and all."

With that, he stood and strode from the room using a masculine
gait that Darla would have thought impossible in the three inch-
heeled mules Carol had worn to breakfast. Darla turned to see
Jane gazing into the now empty passage as well, a look of
fatigued sadness on her face.

Finally, Darla could no longer deal with the oppressive silence.
"No more exercises, or just no more until after the holidays?"

Marie had told Darla that Jane tended to 'ease up' on her
students around the Christmas holidays. Actually, what she did
was find a reason to fade into the background and let Marie play
Mother Christmas with the beskirted boys while Jane watched from
a distance in secrecy, enjoying their pleasure vicariously. This
ensured that her authority and the boys' fear of her remained
largely intact while permitting them to enjoy the holidays. It
also, Marie told Darla, provided her boys with contrasting
experiences that made the rigorous re-establishment of Thompson's
Law all the more effective after the short, but very welcome
respite.

"No more, period," Jane said softly as she filled her cup from
the silver coffee pot. Darla thought she could see Jane's hands
tremble slightly as she poured. "There isn't any point in
carrying this farce any further. I don't know what more I could
do with *him* anyway. Admittedly, I remain baffled by his
continued lack of response to what should be emotionally
traumatic experiences, but that just makes me even less capable
of helping him. I cannot safely deal with a personality I don't
understand. Perhaps a public unmasking might get his attention,
but even so, it is a step I cannot, in good conscience, take with
him. That could follow him the rest of his life and affect him
in ways I am not willing to take the responsibility for causing.
Besides, based on his reactions to date, I'm not sure that would
have any more effect on him than any of the scenarios I have used
with him."

"Even you can't remember to speak of him in the feminine tense,"
Darla thought aloud.

"Because he isn't feminine, for all he can be as lovely as any
student I have ever taught. With all my other boys, they reached
a point where their feminine selves began to shine through the
emotional walls they built around themselves - I can't describe
it better than that, but I could always clearly see in them the
balance of the feminine with the masculine coming into alignment;
the feminine tempering and gentling the masculine even as it
fulfilled the integrated personality. As perfectly as he has
learned every nuance of looking and acting like a young woman,
there is none of the truly feminine with this one. The skirts,
the cosmetics, even the body language are nothing more than a
disposable masquerade for Carl."

"It's hard to believe that someone can disdain women that much
and do so well with the trappings," Darla replied.

"All part of his male arrogance," Jane sighed. "I asked him
about that recently, and he told me that he did it because his
father impressed upon him that he always had to be the best at
anything he did. So he excels to prove that, being a real man,
he could do all this womanly bull. . well, you get the idea, and
do it better than you or I do it, and that the doing does not
really affect him in any intrinsic way. Essentially, he strives
for perfection because doing less offends his pride. I just wish
I knew why he's never truly feared being unmasked in public.
Clearly, he doesn't see that as a threat."

"So, now what do we do with him?"

Jane shook her head, making her shoulder length, silver-shot
auburn tresses dance about her face. "He's not a court-referred
case, so he doesn't have reform school hanging over his head. It
was probably a mistake on his uncle's part to settle that civil
court case before it went to trial. Maybe if we'd had a court
judgment against him as primary punishment and our program as the
alternative, we might have made progress with him, but we didn't
have that leverage. So, we send him back to his uncle who will,
I am sure, send him to that harsh military boarding school."

"When?"

Jane laughed, but it was a sad, mirthless sound. "I'd send him
back today if I could, but I wasn't able to make reliable travel
connections to get him expeditiously back to Washington until two
days after Christmas. I tried trains, buses, planes - I even
tried to charter a limousine - without any success. The only
option would be for one of us to drive him there and I refuse to
let him ruin our holiday more than he already has."

"You going to let him go back into guy stuff, then?"

"And let him know he's beaten me? Hell no!" Jane snarled,
shocking her foster child with both the words and her ferocity.
"I have failed with him, but that little snot failed right along
with me. He never even tried. I will be damned if I am going to
change him back one second before absolutely necessary. And
don't think I haven't given a good deal of thought to packing him
onto that train dressed like Raggedy Anne. However, that is
unworthy of me and what I try to accomplish here, so Sandy will
be here two hours before we have to leave for the station to do
the tear down. I just hope the process is at least moderately
painful for him."

"You never did try using the letters you showed me when we were
first trying to figure out why he wasn't reacting the way we
expected," Darla reminded her mentor. "Surely those would make
an impression on him."

Jane shrugged. "I considered it, but he never gave me the
slightest indication that he might be open-minded enough to
understand what they say. I have discussed his case generally
with Eric, and specifically about those letters. He reluctantly
agreed with me. In that boy's state of mind, he'd conclude that
those letter were just one more of my schemes."

"What are your plans for the rest of the day, then?"

Somehow, Jane's visage became sadder still. "Allie's surgery is
scheduled for later today. I don't want the child to be alone so
I will go to the hospital to stand in for the parents."

"No luck on getting them home?"

"None," Jane sighed. "They're afraid that if they request
humanitarian leave, they will be given humanitarian discharges
for the convenience of the service. Then they'd be out of work
on top of everything else."

"That's unbelievable!" Darla raged.

"But within the realm of possibility. The services continue to
downsize. Soldiers who cannot go where they are needed take up
quota numbers that could be filled by soldiers who can. I
checked and found that the numbers bear out what they told me.
Their commanding officer is on their side, but the bean-counters
who would make the final determination are evidently taking a
very hard line on this type of thing."

"That really sucks," Darryl's voice growled. "Oops, sorry, Aunt
Jane."

Jane stood and walked over to put a hand on her ward's shoulder.
She squeezed gently. "That's all right, this time, dear," she
said bending over to plant a kiss on Darla's forehead. "In this
case, your assessment was nothing but the sad, stupid truth.
Will you be okay here today? With him?"

Darla snorted. "Of course. That punk only thinks he's tough.
I'll be fine, Aunt Jane."

"I'll be back in time for dinner, dear. They've scheduled the
anaesthesia for four o'clock."