[WomenMoveMe]

I am not certain my age when, in the privacy of my room, I became "John Jerry" (what a dork I was as I thought this a very dashing and jaunty name). Through ’John Jerry’, I was a swashbuckling man of mystery, devilishly handsome, and most charming pirate. I had a plastic sword strapped to my waist that I would brandish as I leapt upon the deck of my ship (bed). I would fence with the bedpost, uttering 'ha-ha's' and 'take that's' as I quickly vanquished my enemies. I had no real damsel in distress to ravish when inevitably victorious. However, I did have a rather large stuffed bunny I would suavely swoop under my arm and hold safe as I nimbly disembarked from the ship’s deck. Miranda (the bunny, and the name given to all my pretend women back then), the spoils of my victory, and the reason I was in the business of enemy vanquishing in the first place, would show her appreciation by rolling around with me on the floor, ultimately finding her place beneath me as she succumbed to my masculine charms. I would kiss her, stroke her hair, tell her I loved her, and demand she know she was beholden to me and therefore belonged only to me. I vowed to protect her and keep her safe from all others that might do her harm. It never occurred to me then, that this was who I was to become. I was but a little butch in the making.

At nine I went to summer camp. Her name was Francis and she was an older woman. All of twelve when we 'married'. We went to her room for our 'honeymoon'. We got under the covers and began kissing. She climbed on top of me and I let her know this did not work for me. I made her switch positions and even though it was so long ago, I remember the comfort I felt being on 'top'. How right it felt. I do not know what Francis expected when she asked me to marry her. Perhaps she was of the mindset I would be some mousy little yes-man that would bend to her every beck and call. Perhaps she saw that within this little nine year old, lurked a courageous, brazen, and dominating little butch waiting to break free. Now do not get me wrong. Even at the age of nine I knew my place. I somehow knew I was to be governed by the wants and desires of this girl. Yet is was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to please her, do everything for her. I made certain she wanted for nothing. I protected and watched over her. I peppered her cheeks with little kisses, held her hand, told her she was pretty. In return, she fiercely defended me to her friends. She freely chose to be with me rather than anyone else. She wrote me poems and letters. She was devoted and allowed me be me without ridicule or question. She was wonderful and remains one of my favorite memories and was yet another step for me in who I was to become.

I did not know I was a little butch in the making. I knew I hated wearing the dresses in which my mother and her friends thought I looked so ‘precious’. In fact, both she and my father tell tales of when I was only five, day in and day out, having to follow my trail of discarded frilly little panties, slips, and dresses in effort to find me. I would most often be found naked, grimy and muddy, erecting some sort of mud castle or wading through whatever water source I could find. Girl things were uncomfortable for me, even then. This of course, did not prevent my mother from trying to make a girl out of me. It just didn’t take.

It was not until I was a few years older, perhaps nine or ten, she began to compromise a bit. While still having to don the feminine trappings of the day, my mother gave in to one of my tantrums and bought me a bag of those little plastic GI Joe men. I was in heaven! I staged great battles. I maimed some of my little soldiers in my little sister’s easy-bake oven so I would know which had suffered personal sacrifice defending their position. My mother came to realize it was a waste of money to buy dolls and make-up kits for me. The dolls went unloved and the kits used only to draw pictures of menacing looking creatures or to paint facial hair on those unloved dolls. However, still she could not bring herself to give up completely. You had to admire her resolve. She clung to hope. She continued buying purses I used only to tote around my GI Joe men, marbles, frogs, bugs, and other, what my mother termed, ‘undesirables’. Clothes shopping was never pleasant for either of us. I pitched public fits and she resorted to covertly pinching me to control my behavior. Throughout my young years, I would imagine few portions of my body did not suffer some degree of clothes-shopping induced black and blue.

It was during my early teenage years I began to become more social and did what kids and teenagers do. One of these normal activities was the attendance of slumber parties. I loved slumber parties! I was always the ’boy’ and did a lot of sleeping bag hopping as the girls seemingly all wanted to kiss on me. This kind of thing was never discussed the next day, or ever for that matter. It was my role and one I was more than happy to fulfill. I ’slumbered’ with the cheerleaders, the jocks, the nerds, the smart girls, the popular girls, the not-so-popular girls. It seemed there was not a slumber party to which I was not invited. I was viewed as ‘pretty’. I was tall, thin, blonde, blue-eyed, and impossibly clear-skinned and can not count the times I was called ‘the All-American girl next door’. While I did not like it, it did work for me as somehow being pretty seemed to make it acceptable to make out with me. As if it made me harmless or some such thing. The ‘pretty’ thing always bothered me, but it afforded me access to a lot of discovery. I did not want to be pretty. I wanted to be handsome, dashing, and debonair. I wanted to be the ‘John Jerry’ I knew myself to be in my heart. I knew there was some sort of energy about me. An aura of sorts that burst from within me and moved these girls to unspeakable and taboo behaviors. Girls seemed to develop mad crushes on me. I began to realize my presence and demeanor silently demanded they recognize the masculine energy that perhaps not particularly evident on the outside, coursed through my being. Although I was getting closer, I was still just a little butch in the making.

We moved to small town Kentucky. This was where I was to spend my high school years. I developed a huge crush on the head cheerleader. I don’t remember how it happened, but we became close friends. She was two years older, and to me, she was all that was right with the world. It was a dry county and we were at some random place outside of city limits celebrating the graduating class. She was across the party from me talking with some of her classmates when the police rolled up. Chaos ensued as everyone scrambled. As people scattered in all directions, I ran to her, grabbed her hand, and led her off. She followed without question or hesitation. We ran until we reached a barbed wire fence. I stomped down on the bottom wire and held the middle wire up to allow her to pass through safely. I found the post and swung all in one motion over the fence. She was calling to me from behind the safety of a large tree. It was pitch-black and with only the softness of her call was I able to find her. Standing there, so close to her as we hid behind the tree, I asked if she were alright. She managed to find my hand and put her soft lips to it. It was the first time I truly felt desire whoosh throughout the entirety of my body. I started to speak but found I was unable. Thankful she could not see me for the dark, I stood there paralyzed. She whispered to me. She told me I was handsome. She told me she felt safe with me. She told me she thought of me in ways girls weren’t supposed to think of each other. Still unable to move, she told me this would be a good time to kiss her. I so wanted not to fumble about, but I was shaking uncontrollably and worried that in the total darkness my lips would not find hers. This was the moment I had so longed for. I was handsome! I was desired not in spite of who and what I was, but because of it. Her acceptance and understanding of me allowing me the liberty to just be. The shaking stopped. My body once again under my own control. I pushed her gently against the tree and my lips found hers. As I kissed her, I felt her body surrender. It seemed to sigh and accept all that mine wanted to offer as I pressed against her. Holding her captive between my body and the tree, my hand entwined in her hair, I pulled her to me. It was that moment I was no longer a little butch in the making, I was realized.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. I do know it was not long enough. Her friends were calling for her. The coast was clear. Time to return to the party. Seems the cops came just to check on things and drink a quick beer. Such is small town Kentucky law enforcement. Flashlights beamed unwanted shards of light in our direction. We parted before they found us in a position neither of us was prepared to explain. She thanked me for leading her to safety. I offered a simple ‘my pleasure’. And with that said, I led her back to the party, to her classmates, to her ‘normal’ life. All the while, knowing mine had changed forever.

She was to leave two days later to spend the summer with out of state family. When she returned, I was away and did not see her before she left for college. I was to see her only once again and we did not speak of the night I became ‘handsome’. Although I spent a weekend with her, and the man she would eventually marry, we did not speak of how that night, her words changed my world. From time to time I would catch her smiling at me, sort of a odd little smile that summoned in me the fond memories of how she made me feel. I never did tell her what she had done for me that night. I regret that, but it seemed it was something she chose to remember in her own way. I never thanked her. I never told her that in just a few minutes time, she had taken years of a little butch in the making, and made her whole.