I suppose it all began when I was eight. That was the first time I had looked up a woman's skirt and seen floral-print panties and the lacy edge of a slip. It had happened at school, when a new librarian—I forget her name, as she wasn't there very long—squatted down to pick up a book.

A couple of years later, I saw Mom putting on one of her nicer dresses, and I noticed she was wearing a slip underneath. I didn't see any panties, and the slip had a plain hem—no lace. But it still intrigued me.

One day, Mom and Dad were gone from home when I got home from school. I was a little scared at first, but I knew where the key was hidden behind the mailbox on our front porch and let myself in. In the mail was a lingerie catalog, and I soon found myself looking through it, then through my mother's underwear drawer. It was not neatly arranged, so I realized that I could peak through it any time I got the chance and nobody would know the difference. Mom and Dad got home soon, however, so I didn't get to do too much.

A month or two later, they told me that they were going to be late getting home and that I should go over to the Bertolinis after school. The Bertolinis were friends of Dad, but I didn't like them very much. Mom and Dad insisted, so I went, knowing that if I didn't, Dad would beat me. Apparently, though, Dad had not told them of our plans, since no one was home when I arrived. I saw one of their neighbors in the yard, and asked him if he knew where they were. He shouted, "No!" I walked back home and let myself in as I had done before.

Dad was angry when he and Mom found me home alone, but a call to the Bertolinis proved me right. "I think Danny is big enough to be home by himself," Mom said. "As unreliable as the Bertolinis are, I trust everyone else around here even less to take care of him. He'll be fine by himself." Dad growled but said nothing.

As the weeks passed, I found myself at home alone after school more and more of the time. Dad and Mom usually didn't get home before 7:00, so I had three or four hours to myself whenever they were gone. One day, I went into Mom's lingerie drawer and tried on her panties, a bra and a full slip. The bra was too big, but I found I could fit into the slip and panties without any trouble. I spent three all-too-short hours in seventh heaven in Mom's underclothes.

A month later, I again got to try out her clothes. This time, I tried on one of her sundresses, which she had packed away for the winter. It was in a suitcase in the back of her closet, and I figured I could play around with the stuff there without getting into trouble so long as I arranged stuff neatly before she went back to it in the spring.

Mom and Dad were away for two whole nights one weekend in early December. The Bertolinis were gone again, too, so I was instructed to lock the front and back doors securely and stay in the house while they were gone. They made sure that I had enough food, so there would be no need to venture outside. As soon as I got home from school on Friday, I was in Mom's room trying on her intriguing clothes. Soon I was wearing a slip, panties, pantyhose, a bra, and a dress. I made sure of where everything was so that I would not have to answer any embarrassing questions when they got back.

It was about six months later that I came home from school one day and found Mom and Dad unexpectedly missing. I was a bit surprised, but this had happened before, so I saw it simply as an opportunity to dress, which I had not done in a couple of weeks. My feet were now nearly as big as Mom's, so I tried on her high heels along with a long, tight skirt that I had seen her wear once or twice. I was going to wear pantyhose, but decided to try knee-highs instead, and soon found myself looking in the mirror at a passable teenage girl. Mom was standing behind her. I almost fainted. "Don't ever let your dad catch you like this," was all she said.

A week or so later, Mom and I were alone in my room when she explained: "I always noticed that my things seemed to be more neatly arranged than they were when I left them. I thought you must be up to something. I'm sorry I surprised you. But don't ever let your dad catch you dressed like this. Ever."

Mom began to secretly give me some of her old clothes, all of which were in good condition, and many of which had been worn only once or twice. I knew we were not rich, yet Mom and Dad always seemed to be well-dressed. I never asked any questions, figuring I would not really understand the answer. I soon found out our family's secret, however.

I woke up one morning with Mom in bed with me. She was covered with bruises. That meant she and Dad had had a fight. When she woke up, I asked her about the bruises. "Your father hit me very badly last night. He thought I was flirting with another man." She pulled off the blankets to reveal a short, tight sleeveless dress. "He bought this for me, made me wear it, then accused me of dressing like a whore!"

A few weeks later, Dad was away when Mom came to my room. She was carrying a couple of new dresses on her arm. She asked me to put them on, one by one. I did as I was told, a bit unsure of why I was being asked to do this but still finding the experience quite plesaurable.

The next day, Mom came into my room and sat down on my bed. "We need to talk. Your father is an evil man. About a year after we got married, shortly before you were born, I found out he was a Mafioso."

"We're not Italian—" I started to say.

"I know, but we're connected just the same. Look, that's not the important thing. I have reason to believe your Dad wants to kill me."

"What! Why?"

"I believe certain people in my family work undercover for the FBI or some other government agencies. I believe your father married me to find out who those people were. I think he knows, and no longer needs me. He has been meaner and meaner to me lately. I think he's trying to create the idea that he would be justified in killing me. Both of us, in fact."

I was shocked. It was true that Dad and I had never been close, but could Dad be a Mafioso who wanted to kill us? I couldn't believe it.

The next day, Mom and I got in her car and left to spend a few days with relatives in a neighboring state. On the TV at their place, we learned of a major crime bust involving people Mom said were friends of Dad.

Mom left the relatives' house a couple of days after we had arrived, but assured me she would be back soon. Early the next morning, she came and got me and we left before anyone else was awake. I was confused but didn't ask any questions.

Mom kept repeating some numbers—"3-1-0-7"—as she drove along. We eventually stopped outside a house with the number 7013 painted on the curb. "This is the right place," she assured me.

A man named Mr. Harris and another man who wore dark glasses but said nothing sat with Mom and me. Mr. Harris asked Mom a bunch of questions about Dad, and Mom told him a lot of stuff that seemed very interesting to him. After a while, the other man brought me some sports magazines to look at. I thanked him and he nodded his head.

As we got into the car, Mom said, "We are going into a witness-protection program. Your dad or some of his friends may try to kill us. We will have to change our identities completely."

I said, "Okay, I guess."

Mom went to a store and bought a dark wig with curly hair. From the front, her face was still plainly recognizable, but from the side and back, she did indeed look like a different woman. Her long straight hair that I had grown accustomed to no longer distinguished her. I guessed that was what she meant by completely changing our identities. I was only partly right.

I enrolled in a new school under a different name. The witness-protection program had provided the school a fabricated transcript of my grades and credits from my previous school, so no one asked me any questions about my past. Eventually, Mom testified in court about Dad, and I got to watch the first day of the sometimes tough questioning. Mom wore her curly wig, apparently to make Dad and his friends think she had tried to change her identity simply by curling her hair. I wore a dark suit and tie. I don't know if Dad saw me, but I'm sure his friends did.

The next day, Mom had me try on one of the dresses she had bought for me. If fit nicely. Then she had me put on a half slip, girls' panties, and pantyhose. Finally, she had me put on a pair of low-heeled pumps.

"In a few weeks, I may have to testify again," she said. "I want you to come to court dressed like this and see if you're recognized. You will come alone, or with a group of some other girls. Not with me."

Over the next few days, I occasionally went out dressed as a girl. It was a city where women in skirts and dresses were not unusual, so I was able to go out alone without attracting undue attention. Normally, I only went shopping for groceries or a few odds and ends when I went out, though I once went to a movie.

Mom's second day of testimony came, and I put on the clothes she had bought for me. I took a taxi to the courthouse, then went in with a group of older men and women who were also following the case. I sat in the back, almost instinctively smoothing my dress out as I sat down. I only hoped I wasn't too conspicuous about doing so.

As Mom completed her testimony, which lasted less than an hour, Dad jumped up from where he was sitting and tried to lunge at her. I jumped up, ready to rush down and defend her, but before I could move, I was restrained by another spectator. I heard the judge bang his gavel and call for order. I then looked around and saw a few other people on their feet, though most of them were dressed like policemen. I quickly sat down, realizing that my actions might have given me away.

Mom drove herself away from the courthouse in a car she had bought and registered under her new name. I went to a restaurant and ate lunch, taking a taxi home some hours later. Mom was not there when I arrived, so I began warming up some leftovers for dinner. When she came in a few minutes later, she was no longer wearing the dark curly wig. Instead, she had dark blonde hair, cut a bit shorter than it had been when I last saw her.

"Hello, dear—oh, you didn't change!" Mom said. She had changed—from the dress she wore in court to a dark green jumpsuit.

I laughed. "You're wearing pants, I'm wearing a dress. This is a bit weird, isn't it?"

Mom looked at me for a few moments. "Would you like to be a girl—forever?"

I looked at Mom for a bit. "I can pass as one for a little while. I don't have to take any more P.E. at school, so I wouldn't have to change my clothes or worry about things like that anymore, now, would I?"

"If you could live as a girl for one year, and you liked it, you could have surgery to make yourself into a girl, forever. You would grow up and live the rest of your life as a woman. I believe you would be safe from your father and his friends."

A few weeks later, I went out in public for the last time as a boy. I went to a park, and watched women and girls, trying to pick up as many mannerisms and behaviors as I could. The next day, I put on an old denim skirt that Mom had given me and went shopping for dresses and panties at nearby department store. I even bought a couple of slips and some bras and several pairs of knee-highs (pantyhose were too tight for my taste). Although I enjoyed all of the clothes, I found some old long skirts at a thrift store that were most comfortable, as I could wear them almost anywhere that I wanted to be casual.

I had the first of several operations a year and a half later, and legally became a woman a year after that. Dad got paroled in exchange for testifying against several of his former acquaintances, and was himself placed in a protection program. I got married and adopted a couple of children who had been orphaned by Dad's friends. My husband knows little of my past, although he does know I was born a boy. His attitude toward the whole business: "At least I don't have to deal with PMS!"