The Football Player
I guess you'd like to know when it all started. Maybe it was when I was eight. I had a bit part in a school play that my sister was in. She was in high school, but there were a couple of scenes that required a little girl. Even though I was a boy, I guess I was the only younger relative of anyone in the cast who fit the costume--a frilly little girl's dress.
I don't remember wearing a girl's costume again till I was twelve. My mother's sister, Aunt Phoebe's, husband died unexpectedly, and for some reason that meant a bunch of her stuff got left in our attic while she went and did whatever she had to do. One day, while looking for some old stuff of mine that was up there, I found one of her petticoats from the 1950s. It had three or four layers, each a different color. I was wearing shorts at the time, so I decided to try it on. I took it off immediately, afraid I'd be caught, but I found myself going up to the attic to "look for something" every few days.
As I got older, I found myself at home alone more and more, at least when football season was over. During football, I played cornerback mostly, and found that if I got one or two interceptions a game, it didn't matter if I screwed up otherwise, so I didn't bother learning too many plays or showing too much enthusiasm for the game. At least it made it appear that I liked to be a boy, but I secretly wished for the day that I wouldn't be playing football ever again. But how that happened is the rest of this story.
My junior year, I made the varsity and played cornerback, returning an interception for a touchdown in my first game and getting four more interceptions during the first five games. We played a few teams in the middle of the season that passed the ball very little, however, so my stats consisted mainly of a couple of assists on tackles by linebackers and linemen. I felt kind of useless, but we won the games, so I didn't feel too bad.
My next to last game as a junior was an important one, however. We had lost our first league game, and needed a win here to be assured of a trip to state. If we lost, we would go into some sort of screwy tiebreaker that involved point differential, and our chances of advancing would be slim. I had two first-half interceptions, but the offense wasn't able to convert either into a touchdown. We were behind 6-0 in the fourth quarter when I had my chance at a third interception, but it bounced out of my hands and into those of the wide receiver, giving the other team a 13-0 lead, which wound up being the final score. I felt bad, but the coaches gave the rest of the team hell, reminding them that the offense had only gained 80 yards the whole night, and that I had intercepted two passes already in the game.
I had one more interception in our last game, but played only the first half. Since we were definitely out of the playoff picture, the coaches chose to play the sophomores in the second half. They figured some varsity experience would be good for them. We lost the game 22-7. I was undecided about playing as a senior, but some of the coaches told me I could get a college scholarship if I had a senior season like my junior.
With football over, and my parents out of town to visit one of my dad's brothers, who was in prison for embezzlement, I thought I had a lot of opportunities to get into Aunt Phoebe's clothes. She had some dresses that also seemed to be out of the '50s. One day I found a couple that could be worn over the multicolored petticoat I had tried on a few years earlier. (The petticoat had some sort of adjustment string around the waist, so it still fit.) I had tried on the first dress and was putting on the second when Aunt Phoebe surprised me. "That looks cute on you," was all she said. I nearly fainted.
"Your parents wanted me to keep an eye on you while they were out of town, so they left the house key with me." I desperately tried to remove the dress, but couldn't. "Leave it on," she said. "I like it on you."
I won't go into the details, but within half an hour I was fully dolled up, completely in women's clothing, including stockings and garters, and made up to look like a girl. Aunt Phoebe dressed in another '50s outfit, and we went out for a ride in her car in the country. We even stopped at a roadside diner where the waitress wore '50s clothes, though not a frilly petticoat. I was surprised that no one realized I was a high-school football player in drag, but I let Aunt Phoebe do all the talking so that my voice wouldn't give me away.
This happened a few more times over the coming months. Early in the summer, I had just received my papers to go to football camp when Aunt Phoebe came by in her "new" van. I got all dressed up, as usual, since Mom and Dad (who still didn't know about my "other" life) were on another visit to his brother, now in prison in another state. Aunt Phoebe and I would go for another ride in the country.
The light turned green just before Aunt Phoebe's van began its turn onto the highway. She never saw the truck that ran a red light and struck us on the right side. I only remember waking up hours later in the hospital with no feeling in my legs. I saw Mom and Dad. Dad was muttering something about killing Phoebe. I mumbled, "She had a green light. It wasn't her fault," before I went back to sleep.
I woke up again with some feeling in my left leg. I tried to move, but couldn't. "How's Aunt Phoebe?" I asked.
"She's fine," Mom said. "Your dad's still angry with her, though."
"I wasn't her fault. The light was--"
"It's not the accident. It's the other thing," Mom said. I lay in bed for a while before the words sunk in. Oh, crap, I thought. They didn't know, did they?
"I'm sorry, Mom, but I found her stuff in the attic. I promise I won't do it anymore."
"Look, just rest. We'll talk about it later." I didn't know what she meant, but a nurse came in with a sedative and I went back to sleep.
Hours later, I woke up alone. It was nighttime. I could feel my left leg pretty well, but my right leg had an odd, tingling sensation somewhere between numbness and pain. My groin felt the same way. I thought I could hear arguing out in the hall. "Who in the hell..?" shouted a voice that I thought was my dad's.
The next morning, I lifted up the sheet to try and see what was making my right leg hurt. The fact that it ended above my knee shook me up, and I had to be given some medicine to help me go back to sleep. As I drifted off to sleep, I found myself thinking that Dad must be awfully mad that my leg had to be cut off.
In the days to come, I found out why my dad was so upset. He was angry with Aunt Phoebe and the doctors not because of the accident, or even the fact my leg was cut off. No, what really made him mad was that the accident had caused a lot of damage to my groin area. The doctors could have restored the damage to my penis, leaving it somewhat smaller than what it had been. Instead, they tidied up the mess by turning my penis into a girl's vagina. One testicle was badly damaged and had to be removed, while the other was made into a kind of fake ovary. The docs told Dad they might not have changed me into a girl if I hadn't been wearing a dress when I was brought in.
Aunt Phoebe came in a wheelchair to my room the next day, her right foot in a bandage. She said that one of her toes had had to be cut off. She visited for a while, then left before Mom and Dad came back. When I told Dad Aunt Phoebe's toe had been cut off, he fumed for a while, then left.
A few weeks later, I left the hospital, this time wearing a jean dress with my JV football jersey on over it. I was on crutches, but able to walk without too much trouble otherwise. Dad and Mom were almost used to me now being a girl on crutches, but Dad still wouldn't talk to Aunt Phoebe. She had a new car, and she let Mom drive us to football practice a few days later. I wasn't all that eager to go, but I figured if I saw the team before the start of school, I might be able to go back to classes a bit more easily.
I wore a T-shirt and a long denim skirt. It looked like it had originally been a pair of jeans. It thought it wouldn't be too obvious that I was wearing girls' clothes. Nevertheless, a couple of the guys were a bit shaken up to see me. So was one of the coaches. "Danny," said Tony, who had been my best friend, "great to see you again!" I felt a bit of relief. Tony was solid as a rock. It would be strange going back to school in a few weeks, but I would have one friend. A bit later, Gus, our place kicker, came over to talk to me.
Anders, an exchange student from Denmark, rather quickly understood what had happened. "Ya, my uncle became a woman two years ago." I later learned they had a world-famous sex-change clinic in Copenhagen. (Now I think about sex changes every time I see a can of Copenhagen® chewing tobacco.)
Danny said, "You should be a stat for us. You could keep track of tackles and assists."
One of the assistant coaches called me over and showed me how to do it. "You'd be good. You wouldn't be spending all of your time looking at the players' butts like the girls do."
"Well, you never know..." I said.
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