TG Story: "Alice

ALICE

by Lisa Fox

I must admit that I was a bit skeptical when Harold first came to live with me. I was his only surviving relative, so I really couldn't refuse the poor little orphan, but I am well into middle age, and though I raised two children of my own, I had no experience with boys, especially boisterous, rampaging, girl-crazy adolescent boys like Harold. Still, I had an obligation to my dear, departed sister, so I agreed to take him under my wing and do what I could for him, despite my doubts, doubts that it later turned out were very well founded.

Such concerns were put aside initially, when Harold first arrived escorted by a social worker from the county. He looked so young and innocent, with his long, brown hair dangling in front of his sad, frightened eyes; he reminded me of a mistreated puppy yearning for affection. My heart went out to him at once, and I rushed forward to take him in my arms and hug him fiercely. He seemed embarrassed and uncomfortable for a moment, and then he melted in my arms and began to cry. I comforted him as best I could, but the weight of his grief overwhelmed him, and it took several minutes for him to hold back his tears and settle down again.

As I held him and felt him crying on my shoulder, I realized what a tremendous responsibility I had taken on, but I also resolved to handle that responsibility as best I could. This poor child had lost his parents to a senseless accident, and I was their only real surrogate. I couldn't just abandon him to the care of the county orphanage without doing whatever I could to help him first. If it proved too difficult for me on my own, I could hire a live-in governess or something, but turning the boy away could only be considered as a last resort. If he proved to be completely incorrigible, only then could I let him go with a clear conscience, but otherwise, he was my child now.

Once his crying had subsided, I took him inside for some milk and cookies, which he gratefully consumed in record time. I wondered how he could stay so thin with such an appetite, but I had yet to learn how much energy he could burn up in a day. After a quick tour of the house, I sat at the kitchen table with the social worker and signed some formal adoption papers as Harold dragged his bulging suitcase down the hall to the bedroom that was now his. The woman agreed to accept a cup of coffee before leaving, and we had a pleasant chat about my nephew, who was now my legal ward, as she gazed out at the ocean view offered by the front bay window.

My late husband had built the house himself, soon after we were first married, and both my daughters had grown up within its walls. The place itself was no mansion: just three bedrooms, two baths, a spacious living room, a dining room and a kitchen, about average in dimensions and construction, nothing very fancy or expensive, but it was the property that made the house so special, for it was situated right on the crest of a large sand dune overlooking the public beach. The land and the special foundation required to build on it had taken so much of our funds, we had barely enough money left to complete construction of a rather simple ranch house, but though it wasn't much to look at, the tax assessors had estimated its value at well over half a million dollars, simply because of where it was.

It wasn't just the view, although three sides of the house did offer splendid panoramic vistas of the Atlantic Ocean and the New Jersey coast; the property was also conveniently situated in the heart of the beach community within easy walking distance of stores, schools, bars restaurants and the fabulous mile-long boardwalk with ail its amusements and tourist attractions. Yet despite its proximity to these centers of activity, it was also somewhat isolated, for no other structure stood within throwing distance. Soon after my husband had hammered in the last nail and brushed on the last lick of paint, the town council put a ban on further development along that tract of land, so ours was the first and only private residence built on the dune line. To the south, the boardwalk began about a quarter of a mile away, and to the north a series of hotels went clear to the horizon, the closest being less than half a mile off, but ours was the only house this close to the beach, making it unique and therefore more valuable.

When times were hard, especially after the death of my husband ten years ago, I considered selling the place. For the sale price of this house, I could easily have afforded two houses of similar dimensions on the land ward side of the dune line, but so many memories have been tied to this simple dwelling that I couldn't really leave it willingly even though I could now afford to live in a place ten times as opulent, due to death benefits awarded by my insurance company. It was just a rustic little ranch house, but to me it could outshine the Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace for the wonder of its simple beauty.

I knew Harold was going to love living there. It was so close to the beach that you could see the entire stretch of sand and everyone on it from the front porch but it was elevated more than a hundred feet above sea level on the crest of a huge dune, so the clamor of voices and activity coming from below was actually hardly noticeable above the continual thundering of the surf against the jetties. Both my daughters had loved growing up in that house. Daria, being the shy and quiet type, loved the isolation and the peaceful atmosphere, while my firstborn, Lara, enjoyed the easy access to beach parties and strolls along the boardwalk which contributed to making her so popular, especially with the boys. Whether he preferred restful quiet and solitude, like Daria, or a hectic social life, like Lara, I was sure Harold would adapt easily to his new surroundings.

When Harold returned to the kitchen with his belongings now packed away in his new bedroom, the social worker bid him a slightly tearful farewell before shaking my hand and taking her leave. My new ward and I stood on the back porch together and watched as she carefully made he- way down the long flight of wooden stairs to the parking area below, and we waved good-bye in unison as the woman go- into her car and drove away heading west back toward the town where Harold had lived with my sister and her husband. The boy seemed concerned as he watched her go, as if he longed to go with her, but the life he had lived there was gone, and his new home was with me. To help him understand and accept this, I placed my hand gently on his shoulder to guide him back inside as I asked him if he wanted to have lunch yet.

To my surprise, he was not only hungry, he was famished, and he seemed to inhale everything r put in front of him. At the time, I assumed that the Country authorities hadn't been feeding him properly during his stay with them, but within a few days I realized that his appetite was simply huge. Once he'd eaten, I followed him down the hall to inspect his bedroom. When offered the choice earlier, he'd chosen the empty room next to the master bedroom, as I'd expected. It was by far the smaller and the less attractive of the two rooms, since it had no view, unlike the larger room, which had a wide bay window facing north, but both rooms had been preserved very much as my daughters had left them, and Daria's room, much like Daria herself, was very plain and unadorned, so there was little to indicate that anyone had ever lived in it before.

Lara's room was an entirely different story, however. Being the oldest, she was given the room with the view, and being a typically fluff-headed, boy-crazy teenage girl, she had decorated and equipped her room accordingly. Beyond the presence of a vanity table covered with Cosmetics, a full length mirror on every wall and a closet full of colorful teenage fashions, the lavender curtains and matching shag carpeting combined with the light pink wallpaper to announce that this was without a doubt the bedroom of a girl. I knew that the moment Harold saw it he'd refuse to accept the idea of moving in there, especially since Daria's much plainer room was also available to him. Lara's room might be larger and offer a great view, but the room he chose was less insulting to his growing manly pride.

Once I'd finished a brief inspection of his room and found his unpacking to be satisfactory, I offered to take him on a tour of the boardwalk, and he readily agreed. I went to my room to change for the outing as Harold stripped off his traveling clothes in preference for something cooler and more comfortable. He was already waiting for me in the living room when I emerged wearing my simplest summer dress and light make-up, and the moment I saw him I felt a touch of concern. Clad in a tank-top, shorts and sandals, his long, brown hair tied back in a simple ponytail, and a dark pair of sunglasses perched on his nose, he looked somehow older than his fourteen years. In fact, he reminded me of the teenage surfers who bummed their way up and down the beach all summer. Perhaps it was a premonition, but somehow I knew that his attempt to look "cool" was just a facet of his desire to be "cool", a desire that could lead to all kinds of trouble in the days ahead.

The summer season hadn't actually started, but the weather had been warm and sunny lately, so the hotels were already filling up with tourists and the "sometimers" were arriving early to ready their summer homes for occupancy. As a result, the beach was unusually crowded for May, and the sand below us as we looked down from the front porch was speckled with the colors of bathing suits, beach blankets and sun umbrellas. There was activity almost everywhere: children playing, couples frolicking in the waves, boys playing Frisbee, girls moving slowly in packs like a team of commentators... the beach was awash with humans involved in the art of recreation.

Harold was anxious to see the sights, so without further delay, I let him lead the way down the long, straight stairway that sloped gently down from the broad wooden deck at the side of our house to the very edge of the beach at the foot of the dune below. A set of volley ball nets had been erected by the township near the bottom of the stairs, and Harold stood by watching a game in progress as he waited for me to catch up with him. As I continued down the stairs, I noted with mixed feelings that one of the young men involved in the game had turned to Harold and invited him to play. I was glad to see an opportunity for Harold to make new-friends arise so quickly, since I didn't want him to be lonely, but I immediately recognized this young man as part of a group of "surf freaks," wild, irresponsible teenagers, most of whom were high school dropouts. The girls were foul-mouthed and lewd, and it was common knowledge they were "easy," while it was rumored that the guys, all long-haired, hippie types, were involved with drug peddling, so I felt somewhat relieved when Harold politely declined the young man's invitation.

When I finally stepped beside the boy, we both took off our sandals to walk barefoot in the warm sand as we made our way south along the beach toward the boardwalk. The sun felt good, and there was a warm breeze blowing off the ocean, rich with the smell of brine. We talked pleasantly about his interests and the friends he'd left behind. I was surprised to hear that he'd had a steady girlfriend, since I thought him too young for serious relationships, but times have certainly changed since I was a girl, so I guess I should’ve expected that boys would be interested in girls at a younger age than in my time or even in my daughters' time.

When he talked about her, however, I did notice a very juvenile attitude toward their relationship. She was not his partner or his companion, she was his "squeeze," and the sole benefit he seemed to derive from her friendship was physical. She had "great knockers" and "cute buns" and her lips always tasted sweet, "like strawberries," but he never made any reference to her as a person. I began to see another possible problem in Harold's attitude toward girls, an egotistical delusion which all boys go through, and which some men never outgrow... the age-old belief in male superiority and the basically subservient nature of females. I would have to help Harold discover the true equality of the sexes somehow. He had to learn that girls were not sex objects, but people, with thoughts and emotions and concerns that mattered.

When we arrived at the boardwalk, however, I realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me, for the boy's eyes flashed from one female figure to the next, always judging appearances and leering at those girlish shapes which most pleased him. His comments were like the remarks of a judge at a beauty contest, evaluating this girl's breasts and that girl's legs, but never once did he indicate that he was talking about human beings. Their interests and activities were of no consequence to him. They were possible sex partners, to be rated and valued by their looks alone, and that was that.

I knew he'd inherited this attitude from his father. My brother-in-law could be a real ass sometimes. I could see why my sister loved him; he was a good provider and a caring parent, and according to her he was terrific in bed. I'd seen the male chauvinist lurking beneath the surface, however and in his son it had emerged full blown. All the boy really needed was a little guidance, I decided, and perhaps he could use some help finding the right girl. Little did I suspect then the drastic measures to which I would one day resort, not just to cure him of his sexist attitudes, but for reasons of a more desperate nature.

We strolled casually from one end of the boardwalk to the other, taking in all the booths and attractions we could. There were betting wheels and ball tosses and stalls for pitching coins into jars or throwing darts at balloons, all of which offered prizes ranging from silly to substantial. There were arcade centers with pinball and video games, miniature golf courses, trampolines, kiddy rides and two roller coasters. There were snack bars and pizza shops and cotton candy venders, as well as the larger burger shops, steak joints and full-size restaurants, offering among them a wide variety of comestibles. Besides the booths, along the main runway there were art exhibits and portrait painters, crafts shows and acting troupes, jugglers and clowns and acrobats, all performing for the amusement of passers-by and the occasional coin tossed into an overturned hat.

Throughout it all, Harold was fascinated and eager to try anything. The only establishments we strictly avoided were the bars and adult shows that cropped up about every hundred yards or so, and the boy seemed to understand without asking that he was too young to enter such places. We were there for hours, and it was almost dark when we finally reached the southernmost end of the boardwalk and turned back. I was almost out of cash, and Harold was looking tired anyway, so we retraced our steps with a quicker pace and hardly stopped at all until we reached our starting point. With a promise that he could return at any time, Harold reluctantly agreed that it was time to head home for dinner.

On our return trip, I noticed that the tide was out, so instead of staying on the raised walkway that continued north along the dunes to the fisherman's pier where the boardwalk physically terminated, we went down a different set of wooden stairs to the beach and passed between the massive wooden pylons that supported the elevated planks of the tall platform overhead. It was darker under the pier, but the twilight was sufficient for us to find our way, and we were just nearing the far end when I heard a sound coming from farther back under the pier where the shadows were thickest. At first I feared it might be muggers or a gang of thugs; the beach was not entirely safe at night, especially for a woman and a boy. As I listened more closely, however, I realized it was a couple, no, two couples, and the moment I recognized the sounds they were making, I hurried Harold along in front of me.

The boy also recognized the sounds of passion, and he chuckled to himself as he strained his neck to look back. Obviously the sand beneath the pier had become a kind of lovers' rendezvous, at least during low tide, and the lack of complete privacy didn't seem to bother those involved one bit. I suppose that if the presence of another couple making love a few yards away didn't disturb them, then the occasional passers-by, like Harold and I, weren't about to cramp their style either. Despite Harold's amusement, I found the encounter quite distasteful, and I wondered with a mother's concern if my beloved Lara had ever let a young man have his way with her in those same dark, secretive shadows.

Back at the house, I fixed a quick dinner, and once again Harold gulped it down like a vacuum cleaner. He excused himself to watch television while I washed the dishes and tidied up, and then I joined him in the living room for a game of Scrabble before suggesting that we call it a day. Once he'd changed into his Batman pajamas, I tucked him in under the covers of his new bed and kissed him lightly on the forehead before saying goodnight.

"Aunt Milly," he said softly as I reached for the light switch. "Thanks for lettin' me stay here. I didn't wanna go to that orphanage."

"You’re welcome, Harold." I replied. "I hope you like it here. Sleep tight."

I felt a tear in my eye as I turned off the light.

That night I was startled awake by a strange but easily recognizable sound. It was so soft and subdued that I had to get out of bed and put my ear to the wall separating our rooms to be certain I'd heard it, but then it came again, and I was sure. The poor boy was crying into his pillow. My heart went out to him, but I restrained the impulse to rush in and comfort him. This was private grief, the kind of grief I knew only too well from personal experience, and so I waited, listening, until he cried himself back to sleep. Then, with tears of sympathy still drying on my cheeks, I finally returned to bed and let sleep take me again.

The next morning, I greeted my new ward with a big hug and a kiss as he entered the kitchen still clad in his pajamas.

"How's my little angel today?"

"Fine," he shrugged. "What's for breakfast?"

I served him up some pancakes and bacon, which he devoured in minutes, and after draining his glass of orange juice, he asked to be excused.

"Do you want to help me clean up and do the dishes? That way I can get done faster, and we can go down to the beach before it gets too crowded."

"Nah," he replied, getting up from the table. "That's women's work."

"Who told you that?" I objected, knowing the answer full well.

"My dad," he explained. "Mom sometimes asked him to do stuff like that, but he never would, 'cause he said it was..."

He hesitated, so I finished the sentence for him.

"Women's work."

"Yeah," he nodded, as if that explained everything, and without another word he headed off into the living room to watch cartoons on television.

I was starting to see "my little angel" in a different light already, but this was nothing compared to the trouble that lay ahead.

Before I'd even finished the dishes, Harold had switched off the television and gone to his room to change so that by the time I was through drying up, he was dressed and ready to go. I was not pleased to see that his "cool" look was back. He wore only a bathing suit with his sandals, while his eyes were completely hidden behind dark sunglasses, and his long hair was once again pulled back into a simple "surfer's tail," so common among the teenage delinquents that seemed to live on the beach.

"You're not going out like that, are you?"

"Sure," he insisted. "Why not?"

"Well... For one thing, you should wear a shirt."

"What for?"

"In case you want to go to the boardwalk. You're not supposed to go there without a shirt."

"That's okay; I figure I'll just hang out at the beach for a while."

"Then why don't you let me take you for a haircut first? You're long overdue, and there's a good barber shop..."

"I don't have to cut my hair," he interrupted. "Lots of guys here have hair longer than mine."

"Only the surfers," I noted, "and they're just too lazy to get it cut."

He shrugged, as if dismissing the entire conversation. "I like it this way."

I knew better than to argue with him. I'd learned from my many encounters with Lara that teenagers can be very willful and will generally do want they want, no matter how many times you forbid it. A confrontation would only lead to a breakdown in communication. I had to try to convince the boy to change his behavior on his own. That always worked with Lara, at least until that fateful summer.

For now it was best that I simply continue to observe and analyze the situation. Once I had enough information to make an educated decision, I could put some sort of plan into action. Of course, I had no idea at the time how desperate I would become, or how drastic my measures would be, when I finally took steps to set Harold straight.

He started for the door with a wave, saying, "See ya later, Aunt Milly."

I was insulted. "Aren't you going to wait for me? It'll just take me a few minutes to change."

He looked irritated and impatient. "I'll meet you down there. I wanna make some friends today."

"That's fine, but..." I knew what he was thinking. He didn't want his old aunt tagging along, getting in the way. I actually didn't mind; I was young once, too. What worried me was the kind of "friends" he might make, if I wasn't there to advise him, but there was no sense putting the cart before the horse, so with a sigh I agreed to let him go off on his own, trusting to his better judgment. What a mistake that was!

Instead of changing and going down the beach, I sat on the front porch drinking tea and keeping my eye on Harold. Just as I'd feared, the moment he was within hailing distance of the volley ball nets, the surfers were inviting him to join their game, and he instantly accepted. They were quite a bit older than he was, although I think some of those girls were probably a lot younger than they acted, but the young men seemed to encourage and joke with Harold as if he were a younger brother, while a few of the girls appeared to take a different kind of interest in the boy.

"It's just a volley ball game," I told myself, but I was already starting to worry about where this might lead.

When the last in a series of games ended in victory for Harold's team, the boy was escorted from the court amid the praise and support of his new "friends" who led him over to their encampment for that day. Each morning the teenagers would erect a semi-circular wall of surfboards stuck into the sand like pickets in a fence, and thus shielded from prying eyes, they could engage in all kinds of shenanigans. Just what they were up to with Harold behind that barricade was becoming a major concern to me, and I even considered changing quickly into my bathing suit and investigating the scene firsthand, but before too long the boy appeared running toward the surf with one of the young ladies in hot pursuit. Both were laughing and stumbling as they ran, and it seemed that Harold had somehow teased her into a fit of false outrage, and she seemed bent on exacting some petty revenge.

At first the encounter looked harmless enough. Harold had stopped short and turned around at the edge of the breakers, but the moment she was close enough, the girl tackled him around the waist and tumbled with him into the crashing waves. They emerged drenched and sputtering, but still laughing heartily. Then the girl began to splash water into Harold's face, and he quickly submerged out of sight. The girl looked worried for a moment and then screamed comically as her feet were pulled out from under her and she went under. I smiled to see Harold having so much fun, knowing that he needed such foolishness to forget his grief and get back to enjoying life as quickly as he could. It had taken me three painful losses to finally understand the fact that life must go on.

My concerns were awakened once again, however, as the two teenagers emerged from the water, for they were now holding one another in a very close embrace, and it looked as if she was kissing him on the lips. His hands wandered over her backside, occasionally pausing on her shapely, almost naked rear end, and she didn't seem to mind at all her own hands being busily engaged in similar activities. This was a bit too much for me, and I knew I'd have to have a serious talk with the boy very soon about how to conduct himself with the opposite sex.

When Harold and his pretty new girlfriend returned to the surfers' enclave, he once again vanished from my sight for a time, but came back into view shortly after in the carpet! "company of several older boys. It was a few moments before I realized they were headed directly south, toward the boardwalk, and apparently Harold had no intention of letting me know what he was up to. He never even glanced in my direction. I was sorely tempted to rush down those stairs dressed in my house-robe and chase them down, but I knew that such a display of parental discipline, especially coming from me, his surrogate mother, at this sensitive point in our relationship would surely backfire and drive him further from my guidance, if it didn't alienate him completely. No, I had to find a way to educate him, to make him realize the t errors of his ways on his own. That's the only way to truly change someone's behavior.

I spent the entire day thinking about how I would begin Harold's education, but I still hadn't reached any decisions when he eventually came striding confidently up the stairs from the beach just before sunset. He looked a little tired, but very pleased with himself, and he was already starting to acquire a noticeable tan. He was carrying a portable video game in his hands, and much to my amazement I saw a bulge in the side of his bathing shorts that seemed about the exact dimensions of a pack of cigarettes, complete with matches.

Slumping clumsily onto a kitchen chair, he offered a rather insincere apology for missing lunch, explaining that his new friends had bought him a hamburger and fries at the boardwalk. When I reminded him that he wasn't supposed to go there without a shirt, he just shrugged and said that his friends let him borrow one, but his tan showed no sleeve or collar lines at all. When I asked him about the game he'd brought back, he said he'd won it, but his voice carried little conviction, and I began to suspect that he'd actually stolen it, or one of his "friends" had stolen it for him. I didn't ask about the cigarettes, if that's what they were, knowing that it could only lead to an argument, and I was still trying to avoid that at all costs, since in the end I would probably have to ground him, perhaps for the whole summer, and there'd be little hope of saving our relationship after that. There had to be a better way, and I was determined to find it.

So, that evening I said nothing, simply pointing out that he was still covered with sand and reminding him that he should rinse himself off with the outdoor shower before entering the house after going to the beach. He complied readily enough, but didn't bother to dry himself afterward and tracked puddles of water through the house as he made his way to his bedroom.

"Harold!" I scolded him. "Look what you're doing to my carpet!"

"Don't call me that!" he snapped back. "I wanna be called 'Harry' from now on."

I swallowed my temper and simply nodded as he turned away and continued toward the hallway. The situation was rapidly becoming intolerable, and my determination to change it grew stronger. I could hear my brazen young nephew changing in his room, and I assumed that he was getting into his pajamas for the night, but when he returned he was dressed in some of his best casual clothes as if planning an evening out on the town.

"Why're you dressed like that?" I asked.

"I have a date," he smiled. "I'm meetin' Suzy at the boardwalk."

"Suzy?"

"Yeah, she's my new girlfriend. You should see her in a bikini. Man, is she built!"

"I see." I was at a total loss for words. Events were quickly getting beyond my control, and I didn’t like it one bit. Still, I decided to hold my tongue for now. Boys Harold's age did go out on dates with girls nowadays, and there wasn't necessarily any harm in it. It might be good for him. Perhaps Suzy could prove to him that girls were people and not just sex objects, although I assumed it was the same girl I'd seen him with that morning, so that seemed unlikely. Still, I had no definite plan in mind as yet, so I thought it best to just let matters continue to take their course and see what happened. If Harold was determined to get himself into trouble, all I had to do was give him enough rope to hang himself. Then it would be my turn.

We ate in silence that evening, Harold stuffing himself quickly and then asking to be excused. He paused before leaving to come around the table and kiss me on the cheek with a sincere "Thanks for dinner, Aunt Milly," which made me feel somewhat more encouraged, and then he hurried off into the night to meet his alluring companion for their first date. I watched him go with a lingering sense of concern, hoping I was wrong about the trouble I saw brewing and then I set about cleaning up the kitchen once more.

After watching a little television, I settled down with a good book for a few hours waiting for Harold's return, but when midnight came and went with still no sign of him really began to worry in earnest. It was nearly two in the morning when he finally wandered in, looking a little bleary-eyed and unsteady on his feet. He had smears of lipstick on his shirt, and his clothes were rumpled and disorderly, as if he'd dressed in a great hurry and hadn't bothered to straighten himself out again.

He offered no explanation, just a friendly smile as he stumbled past me toward his bedroom. It was obvious that his new girlfriend was every bit as "easy" as her looks proclaimed, and I though at first that he might've been drinking as well, the way he looked, but as he passed me to step into the hall, I caught a scent of something clinging to his clothes, something terribly familiar. It took a moment for it to sink in, and then I remembered...

Marihuana! How many times had I smelled that same horrid, acrid stench on Lara's clothes, even in her hair?! And here it was again! Invading my household once more, threatening another of my- children! I managed to control my temper, but inside I was boiling mad. Shoplifting, girl chasing, drinking beer, disobedience and even defiance were behaviors that would eventually need to be addressed, but using illegal drugs was something else. I had to do something about this right away, but what?

Once I knew that he'd settled into bed, I stopped by his room to tuck him in. That awful aroma was there to greet me as I entered coming from the clothes he'd thrown on the floor and the long hair surrounding his face on the pillow. I tried to ignore the smell as I sat beside him on the mattress and gently brushed stray strands of hair from his eyes. I could see that he was too far gone to remember any of this in the morning, so I decided to save the lecture I'd planned to give him until breakfast. With a light kiss on the forward, I wished him a good night's sleep and retired to my bedroom to turn in.

Harold didn't get up for breakfast the next morning. He slept until almost noon, and when he finally dragged himself out of bed he still looked sleepy. I waited for him to finish his daily bathroom ritual, then prepared him a sandwich and some soup for lunch. His appetite was in no way diminished by his groggy state of mind, and he polished off the meal in record time, although he did eat in silence for a change. When he'd finished, instead of excusing him from the table, I sat beside him and gently took his hand into mine. It was time to start his education.

"Harold, do you...?"

"Harry," he insisted.

"All right, Harry." I paused to steel myself once more; it was not an easy subject for me to discuss. "Do you remember your cousin Lara?"

"Sure, she was real pretty. Dad said she was built like a brick..."

"Never mind what your father thought," I interrupted. "Do you remember what happened to her?"

"She died."

"Do you remember how she died?"

"Uh..."

"She took an overdose of cocaine," I said, and it took quite an effort to keep my voice from trembling.

"She did?"

I nodded sadly. "And do you know how she got hooked on drugs in the first place?"

He shook his head, obviously becoming more interested.

"Marijuana," I told him bluntly. "She started out just smoking a little pot with her friends, but before long she was using harder stuff, and then it was too late."

He just sat there thinking about it, and I let the notion sink in before I went on to the next step.

"Do you remember Daria?"

He nodded again, still thoughtfully silent.

"Do you remember how she died?"

"In a car crash," he replied, his voice now a bit subdued.

"She had just gotten her driving permit," I explained," and her car was hit from the side by a truck that ran a red light. The police said the driver had been smoking marijuana."

I could see the light growing in his eyes as he made the connection, so I went to step three.

"I know you don't remember your Uncle Burt, because he died when you were just a baby, but drugs killed him, too. He was taking sleeping pills and had too much to drink, and the combination caused him to have a heart attack."

Again I paused to let the words sink in.

"You see, Harold, I've lost my whole family to drugs, all of them taken from me in senseless tragedies that could have been avoided. Now, I'm not suggesting that you've been experimenting with drugs or accusing you of anything." As I spoke, he lowered his eyes looking a bit guilty. "I just wanted to warn you about the danger, in case some of your new friends don't understand. I know they wouldn't want to hurt you by making you do something that's dangerous, but sometimes teenagers don't know as much as they think they do. you see what I mean?"

He nodded again, and I could see that my words had had an impact on him. I could imagine him already thinking up excuses not to join his friends in their illegal activities, and I felt more than gratified. This was only the first lesson in Harold's education, but it was an encouraging success.

My confidence began to waver, however, when the boy returned from changing in his room, for I noted with displeasure that he still insisted on imitating the "surfer" look of his trendy "friends," and once again he was not wearing a shirt. I held my tongue as before, not wanting to cause friction between us, now that I might've gotten on the scoreboard for the first time. I just smiled and wished him a nice day as he went out.

I gave him enough time to reach the beach, then stepped out onto the front porch to observe his behavior. Just as I'd feared, he headed straight for the surf freaks, who greeted him warmly and welcomed him into their midst. He no longer seemed the least bit concerned with the subject of our talk, and much to my astonishment, just before he vanished behind their wall of surfboards, I saw him actually accept a can of beer from one of them. That in itself wasn't too bad, actually. If an occasional beer was the limit of his indulgence, I could tolerate that. Coming so soon after my lecture, however, it was a very bad omen indeed.

My curiosity was growing unbearable. Was he goring to stand up to these older boys and girls and refuse to participate in taking any drugs, or would he surrender to peer pressure and do as they did just to be accepted by them? I simply had to know, and so began my career as a spy.

I didn't take my attempts at secret surveillance too seriously at first. It was just a half-hearted effort to satisfy my curiosity, so I didn't give it much thought or preparation. I simply changed into my swimsuit, sandals and beach robe, put on dark sunglasses and a sun hat, and I assumed that I'd be relatively inconspicuous on the beach. My only real concern was that Harold might recognize me and be upset that I was checking up on him, so my disguise didn't need to be too elaborate, just good enough to let me watch him more closely without being noticed by him.

Once I was ready, instead of going down the stairway from our side deck, I walked down to the parking lot, went a at few blocks north to the nearest visitors' parking area, and took the stairs there over the dunes and down to the beach, t quite a bit up the coast from where Harold was. I then followed the waterline south again until I was close to the surfers' enclave, and there I sat down in the wet sand to cool myself. Since I was now nearer the ocean than they were, I could see directly into their semicircular wall of surfboards, but I kept the brim of my hat pulled low and looked sidelong at them through my dark sunglasses, so there was no reason for them to suspect that I was watching them.

Harold was far too busy with Suzy to notice me. He was lying face down on a beach towel while the girl patiently spread suntan oil on his back, arms and legs. Her movements were quite sensual and suggestive, even more so when she finally had the boy turn over to do his front. The fact that there were a dozen or so teenagers standing around drinking and laughing only a few feet away didn't seem to q bother either Harold or his new girlfriend. They were in a world of their own.

After a while, one of the boys seemed to notice me, so to avoid suspicion, I turned over as though trying to even out my tan, and didn't even try to peek at them for a good ten minutes. When I finally thought it safe to look over . there again, everything had changed. Some of the surfboards had been uprooted and removed, and most of the teenagers were gone, including Harold and his girlfriend. I looked around in surprise, trying not to be too obvious about it, and finally found the object of my search walking away from me, headed south toward the boardwalk in the company of three other couples, his arm wrapped securely about Suzy's waist.

I followed them as discreetly as I could, moving in a wide arc designed to intercept them near the stairway to the pier, but my quarry continued to move along the coastline, making their way between the pylons beneath the wooden platform, apparently headed for the stairway on the far side, so I went cautiously after them. As I entered the dark shadows beneath the pier, I could only make out their silhouettes preceding me in the gloom, but I immediately became aware that something was wrong. My suspicion was confirmed the moment the group stepped out into the light on the far side of the pier, for there were definitely only six of them left.

I was just beginning to wonder which two were missing and where they had gone when I heard a familiar groan of pleasure coming from nearby. Deep in the shadows, far up under the pier, I could vaguely make out the shape of a young couple engaged in a passionate embrace. They hadn't noticed me, so I intended to slip past them quietly and continue my observations of Harold, but as I passed within a few feet of the shallow depression in which they laid, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.

"Careful!" the girl complained. "You're getting sand in my pussy!"

"I'm sorry," the boy replied, and the moment I heard his voice I knew it was Harold!

I remained rooted to the spot in stunned disbelief as I heard the two teenagers grunt and sigh in mutual satisfaction, knowing full well what they were doing in the shadows, and it wasn't until I heard the girl begin to moan with ecstasy that I finally recovered enough to slip away unnoticed and hide behind a nearby pylon. From this vantage point I waited until the teenagers had completed their coupling, redressed and hurried off hand in hand to catch up with their companions.

I was more cautious in following them this time, after my close call under the pier, and I almost lost them once or twice by taking too many precautions, but better that than being caught in the act. As I suspected, Harold made no attempt to conform to the rule regarding shirts on the boardwalk. He and his male cronies sauntered about bare chested in flagrant violation of the statute, and no one had the courage to stand up to them; even the police seemed reluctant to do more than offer a vague warning that was obviously ignored. It was just another facet of their total disrespect for authority, and I worried about the effect it was having on Harold.

There actually occurred two incidents that day which I found rather shocking and quite discouraging. The first only involved Harold indirectly. One of the guys was trying to win a stuffed doll for his girlfriend at the rifle range, but apparently he had run out of money without winning enough tickets for the prize she wanted. Almost on cue, Harold's girlfriend moved to the far end of the booth and leaned over the counter, as if looking to place a bet, and with one hand behind her back, she quickly undid the bow holding her top together. With a mock scream of surprise and alarm, she stood up just as her bikini top fell off to reveal a pair of very healthy, very female breasts.

Naturally, every male within view, including the attendant running the booth, turned his eyes in that direction and held them there until long after Harold had helped her put her top on again. Every male, that is, except the guy at the other end of the booth, who was apparently expecting this. While everyone else was distracted, he took an air rifle by the barrel and used it like an extension rod to reach up and knock one of the big prizes down into his girlfriend's waiting arms. The entire crime took less than five seconds to pull off, and no one seemed to notice it, except me. The smooth, practiced efficiency of it demonstrated that these teenagers had acquired such skills over time, and this was not at all the first time they'd succeeded in such a stunt.

What bothered me most was that Harold seemed to be impressed by their illegal chicanery, for he was obviously plying his girlfriend with compliments, both for the splendid proportions of her upper anatomy and for the acting ability she'd displayed in pretending to be embarrassed by her suddenly topless appearance. She just winked at him, as if to imply that he hadn't seen anything yet. My concerns over this incident, great though they might've seemed at the time, however, were quickly dwarfed by what happened next.

The entire group of eight teenagers, four boys and four girls, moved slowly north again to gather at the entrance to the fishing pier. They-hung around engaged in pointless conversation for some time, and I soon realized they were waiting for something. The moment I thought of it, the wait was over, for the tallest of the boys, a dark-haired young man whom I'd once heard Harold call "J.J.," stepped forward to greet an approaching figure, an older man with an untrimmed beard dressed in ragged clothing. The two talked for a brief moment, exchanged something, then parted company again, all with the shifty-eyed manner common to those who are breaking the law and know it quite well.

It didn't take long for me to find out what they were up to, for the moment J.J. returned to his friends, the whole group hurried out the end of the pier and huddled together in a circle. I couldn't see what they were doing at first, and I dared not go any closer without alarming them, but the moment I saw the reddish glow of a match among them and the thick cloud of smoke that rose from their midst, I understood it all quite well. The raggedy, bearded man was their drug supplier, and they were now happily enjoying the marijuana they'd just purchased. And Harold was with them!

I had no doubt that he was indulging himself right along with them. I could hear him coughing every now and then, followed by the jeers and taunts of his older friends. This was serious! He didn't appear the least bit restrained in his behavior, as though the talk we'd had that morning never occurred at all. Could he really be so insensitive? Was he that desperate to be accepted by these surfers? could see at once that solving this problem was going to take a lot more than just talking about it.

It was only about noon, and there was plenty of time left in the day to take some action, so I gave up my surveillance for the moment and went back to the house, where I quickly changed into a light summer dress and hurried down to the car to drive to the library downtown. I needed facts at my disposal, weapons I could use in the battle for Harold's mind, and the only way to get them was research, so the instant I arrived at the library I began looking up everything I could about marijuana and related drugs, gathering an arsenal of information in preparation for the next stage in my personal war against dope, at least as far as Harold was concerned anyway.

Finally, when I thought there was nothing more to be gained by research, I checked out books and photocopied articles and assembled the best presentation of data I could manage. Then I took it all home and began to study every fact I'd gathered, until I was a walking encyclopedia on the subject. By the time Harold wandered in for dinner, a little after sunset, I had listed fifty- five reasons why he shouldn't smoke pot, but the moment I saw his reddened eyes and blank expression, I knew another lecture, no matter how well informed, would go right over his head. I needed another way to get to him, one that wouldn't automatically raise his defenses and shut down the lines of communication.

I got my opportunity as he sat in the living room watching television while he waited for me to finish dinner. Taking a break from cooking, I sat at the dining table and leafed through the articles I'd copied. Harold was flipping idly through the channels, not really engaged in watching anything in particular, so I seized my chance.

"You might find this interesting, Harold."

"Harry."

"Yes, of course. I meant 'Harry'."

"What's interesting?"

"Well, remember what I was saying this morning about how dangerous drugs can be? Here's an article in Newsweek that lists over fifty reasons why marijuana is dangerous. Can you believe that? Fifty reasons!"

His curiosity was engaged, and he lowered the volume on the television a little.

"What kinds of reasons?"

"Quite a wide variety, actually. Would you like to hear some of them?"

He pretended to be only mildly interested. "Sure."

I began to read from the list I'd compiled, pretending that the source was actually the magazine that I held in my hand, and Harold seemed completely fooled by the deception I had hoped that some of the more serious side effects of A marijuana smoking, like potential sterility and loss of memory, would frighten him into avoiding the drug at all cost, but as I read down the list the only item on it that seemed to really hit home with him was a recent medical report indicating that prolonged usage of marijuana could lead to breast development in males.

"What was that?" he interrupted.

I read the notation again, then translated it into simpler language to make sure he understood. "If a boy smokes pot, he might grow breasts, like a girl."

"Breasts?" He actually looked concerned for the first a time. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely," I assured him, and suddenly I had a brilliant idea. If the fear of growing breasts was the only leverage I could get on him, then that's what I'd use, but the simple truth might not be strong enough to do the job unaided, so I decided to help it with a few embellishments of my own. I have a very good imagination, and work at once.

"In fact," I continued, pretending to refer back to the magazine, "it says here that breast development is just the first stage in a total conversion process. The author of this article calls it the 'X-factor.' Do you know what genes and chromosomes are?"

"Kind of," he confessed doubtfully.

"Well, it all has to do with DNA; that's like the blueprint or instruction manual for making a living creature. When you were conceived, for example, your mom's DNA mixed with your dad's DNA to make your DNA, so you inherited some characteristics from each of them, but you're not exactly like either one of them."

He nodded, "People always say I look more like my mom, even though I'm a guy, like my dad."

"Good example. Things like hair color, body size and intelligence get passed on mostly by luck when we're first created, and one of the first things to be determined is our sex or gender. If the sex chromosome has four segments joined together," I continued, using a piece of notebook paper to draw four perpendicular lines combining to create an "X" shape, "then the baby is born a girl, like Suzy, your mom and me." I showed him the drawing and then placed my hand over the lower right-hand segment to change it from an "X" to a By" shape. "If only three segments of the chromosomes link up, then the baby is born a boy, like you and your dad."

"So you mean I coulda been born a... girl?"

"Definitely, and I could've been born a boy. It was a matter of luck that things turned out the way they did."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then grew puzzled. "So what does any of this have to do with smoking pot?"

"Well, according to this scientist, there's a chemical in marijuana called THC that's released when the pot is burned, and that's what makes people feel 'high' when they smoke it. But the chemical does other things, too. It prevents memories from forming, it distorts perception, but most important for a boy your age, it can replace the missing segment in your sex chromosomes, gradually changing all your 'Y' chromosomes into 'X' chromosomes. That's why it's called the 'X' factor."

"So I might grow breasts?" he gasped.

"You would, if you were smoking pot, but don't worry, sweetheart. It only effects people who use marijuana."

He tried to look relieved, but did a poor acting job. I could see that part of his mind was working furiously to absorb all this new information while the other part was looking for ways to refute my assertions.

"How come none of the guys down at the beach have breasts?" he wondered. "They smoke pot all the time."

"They do?" I said with feigned surprise.

"Well, not the guys I hang around with," he hedged, "but some of their friends, y'know. They're real potheads, and they don't look like they're growing breasts."

"The article does say that the 'X-factor' effects males differently, depending on their age, hormone count, height and weight, things like that. Small, thin boys of about fourteen through sixteen face the highest risk, so you see you're in the category most likely to be effected. It's very likely that if you started smoking pot, you'd be growing breasts soon afterward." .

He grunted as the conclusion settled on his mind.

"Pretty hard to believe," he answered, and then he turned up the volume on the television again, but I noticed that every now and then he'd glance down at his chest or touch his boyish pectorals critically, as if assessing their current size and weight.

It wasn't much, but the seed had been planted. All I had to do was find a way to exploit the fear I'd seen in him, and the rest would be easy. His fear of losing his precious masculinity, as immature as it was, would be enough to make him stay away from pot, but he'd have to believe with all his heart that there were no other choices.

After dinner, he excused himself and went out for the evening once more, this time without a "thank you" or a kiss on the cheek. While he was gone I continued to let my imagination work on the problem, and before long I had the answer. It was a bit far- fetched and not easily arranged but the instant I thought of it I knew it would work.

As I've mentioned before, the passing of my husband and t both my children has left me rather wealthy due to the $. insurance settlements awarded me after their deaths. I'd ::2 been just sitting on my money for years, letting it collect interest as I tried to imagine ways to spend it. My life was very comfortable, however, and since I had no desire to make major changes in my lifestyle, the money just continued to sit there, piling up. Now, however, I finally saw a use for some of those funds. My family had perished due to drugs, so what could be more fitting than to use their death benefits to help someone else escape a similar fate?

Once the plan was firmly set down in my mind, I made a phone call to an old friend from high school. We hadn't seen each other for years, not since Daria's funeral, but I knew he wouldn't let me down. Albert was one of my all-time closest friends, and I knew he wouldn't refuse to help me now, even if my scheme did involve a little illegality and risk. And it was for a good cause, after all.

As I expected, he was overjoyed to hear from me and very sympathetic when I mentioned my sister's death. He listened carefully as I described the situation with Harold and agreed whole-heartedly with my conclusions, until I got to my proposal. He balked a bit at first, explaining how much trouble we could both get into, but between my friendly pressure on one side and my generous contribution to his medical research on the other, he just couldn't say no. We agreed on the procedure, arranged our schedules and made an appointment for Harold to come to his office the very next day.

Harold complained loudly about having to give up his afternoon at the beach to go see a doctor when there was nothing wrong with him, but I explained that a current physical was needed to get him enrolled in school for the fall, and he eventually conceded the necessity of going. It was a long drive inland to the township where my old friend had located his practice, and Harold grew suspicious when he realized how far we were going, but I simply explained that I'd been going to this same doctor for years and trusted him, so it worth the drive, and that silenced him.

When I introduced Harold, or "Harry," to Dr. Morton, the boy acted put out and was barely civil to the man, while the doctor couldn't help looking at his new, unsuspecting patient with a curiously amused expression he found impossible to hide. Harold was sent to an examining room to remove his clothes as the doctor and I conferred in his office. He asked me once more to give up my "crazy notion," but I was adamant and insisted that he proceed as planned, so with a final shrug of resignation, the man left to see his patient.

I knew that a full exam would be performed, just to make things look authentic to Harold, so I was prepared for a bit of a wait. I thumbed through magazines in the waiting room, noting some of the new summer fashions, and then I managed to engage the doctor's nurse in a conversation, when she wasn't too busy, so the time passed pleasantly, and before I knew it Harold had reappeared escorted by the doctor. The boy looked annoyed as he stood there rubbing the band-aid on his upper arm, and without a word of thanks or farewell he left the office to go wait in the car.

I thanked my old friend with a hug and a kiss and promised to keep him informed of developments, both physical and behavioral, and then went out to the car, where Harold sat sulking in the passenger seat.

"You didn't tell me I had to get a shot," he complained. "It hurt."

"I didn't know," I pretended. "I thought all you needed was a medical exam. What did the doctor say the shot

"I don't know," he grumbled, "some kinda booster shot."

"Well, I'm sure it was necessary, or the doctor wouldn't have done it."

"Here," he said, handing me a crumpled piece of paper.

"What's this?"

"It's a prescription for some special vitamins the guy recommended. I told him I was gonna learn to surf, and he said surfing makes you real tired real fast, so I should take these 'mega-vitamins' to keep up my strength."

"Well, wasn't that nice of him?" I said, knowing full well what the prescription was really for and admiring the doctor's cunning. "We'll pick them up on the way home."

At the pharmacy, Harold wandered over to the large condom display as I approached the druggist in the back The man in the white lab coat gazed at me curiously for a moment, then smiled and went to fill the order. He probably assumed I was in menopause and needed a little help getting through it. I'm sure he never suspected that the prescription was really for my nephew.

"Here you are, Harry," I said as I handed him the bottle of pills. "They were very expensive, so don't forget to take them regularly."

"I'll remember," he nodded. "Thanks, Aunt Milly."

"No need to thank me," I smiled. "I'm just doing what's best for you."

And so it began.

PART TWO

In the weeks that followed, Harold became more and more of a discipline problem. He started taking everything for granted, never offering either thanks or apologies when due, and in front of his surfer friends, whom he sometimes brought over for a quick visit, he was downright rude to me. He was indeed learning to surf, but he was still a beginner, and he sometimes hurt himself, but whenever I expressed any concern over his safety, he'd virtually ignore me. one day he suggested getting a tattoo, and when I forbid it, he came home instead sporting a pierced ear with a small, gold ring in it, just like the surfers had. He started cursing in the house, he stopped asking to be excused from the table, and he began locking his bedroom door whenever he was in there, either alone or with a friend. I'm sure I heard him in there making it with Suzy more than once. Throughout it all however, I kept silent and waited for my plan to grow to fruition.

It was well into summer by the time Harold began to notice the changes taking place in his body. I'd seen signs of his development after the first two weeks, when his nipples began to swell and his weight started increasing. He took the "mega- vitamins" daily, sometimes twice a day, and I even managed to get him back to the doctor's office to give his "booster shot" a booster shot, so the changes in his blood chemistry were just about complete and simply needed time in which to work their miracles. That monstrous appetite of his continued unabated, which greatly speeded things up, for instead of just burning up those calories, his newly acquired female hormones had other uses for them in producing new stored fat cells. The process was so gradual that it was barely noticeable to me, so it wasn't surprising that Harold took so long to recognize the changes.

When he did notice something was happening, he seemed to be denying the obvious at first. I'd catch him standing in front of the mirror examining the slightly sagging flesh on his chest, where so many stored fat cells had recently been distributed, or studying the accumulated fatty deposits that were slowly making his hips and bottom look wider and rounder, but instead of changing his delinquent behavior, he thought to overcome the effects with exercise and weight lifting, so he started spending time working out.

Needless to say, his exercise program did nothing to slow the development of his now obvious female secondary sex characteristics, and before long he was no longer able to deny what was happening. He tried to hide his shame under baggy clothing, and I even caught him wrapping a stretch bandage around his chest to compress the small mounds growing there, though he claimed he'd simply hurt himself surfing again. I knew it wouldn't be long now, so I just bided my time and let the inevitable happen.

The proverbial last straw came for Harold almost halfway into summer. I was in the kitchen cleaning up a mess he'd left after making himself a sandwich for lunch, and suddenly I was startled to hear him cry out in dismay. I rushed to his bedroom where I found him sitting naked on the floor amid a mass of clothing strewn everywhere about the room. He held his head in his hands and sobbed gently, not even looking up as I entered.

"Harry," I gasped, looking around in bewilderment, "what's the matter?"

He made no attempt to respond and didn't seem at all embarrassed by his nudity, so I sat on the bed close beside him and comforted him until he finally recovered enough to whisper his confession to me, and when it came, it was everything I'd hoped for and more. He apologized for lying to me and admitted that he had been smoking pot... almost every day since he'd arrived. He hadn't really believed all that stuff about the "X-factor" before, but now...

"Look!" he sobbed, cupping each of the small swellings on his chest. "I'm growing boobs!"

"I thought you were putting on weight in strange places," I pretended to admit. "But it's not the end of the world. All you have to do is stop smoking pot."

"I will," he promised. "I swear it."

"Good," I assured him. "Once you've gotten that drug out of your system, your body will change back. Then everything will be right as rain again."

He looked up, a glimmer of hope in his watery eyes. "It's not permanent?"

"No, of course not. Your breasts are just a warning. You're only in the early stages of change, so the process can still be reversed, but if you keep smoking pot..."

"I won't," he insisted. "Never again."

"Fine. Then all you have to do is wait, and everything will change back to normal."

"But..." He sobbed again, his sad eyes wandering over the articles of clothing scattered about him. "What do I do in the meantime? None of my clothes fit me anymore!"

"Well, we could bandage your chest, like you did before, remember?"

"I don't mean my shirts," he said impatiently. "Look!"

As I looked on, doing my best not to laugh, Harold rose from the bed and picked up a bathing suit from the floor. He stepped into the trunks with his back to me and pulled them up quickly, but before they'd gone halfway up his thighs the leg bands were stretched to capacity. I could see that there was no way he was going to get that little boy's bathing suit over that big, girlish bottom he now had.

"Nothing fits!" he cried, and then he collapsed onto the bed in a burst of tears. "What am I gonna do?"

"It's all right," I said in a soothing tone as I leaned over to stroke his long hair. "I'll buy you some new clothes, ones that'll fit, and you can wear them until your old clothes fit again. Okay?"

His sniffling stopped and he looked up with renewed hope once more. "You will?"

"Of course, Harry. You're my nephew, and I love you. I don't want to see you upset like this. We'll get through this, together. All right?"

"Thanks, Aunt Milly," he said, brushing away his tears.

"Just make sure you don't make things any worse. No more pot. Is that understood?"

"Understood," he agreed, nodding readily. "No more."

"Good." I gave him a final pat on the head and started for the door. "I'll get my tape measure and we'll figure out what size clothes to buy. I'll just be a minute,

"Aunt Milly," he sighed, making me pause at the door. "You don't have to call me 'Harry' anymore."

I smiled. "All right, Harold."

I felt so proud, for both of us. My plan was working perfectly, and Harold was responding just as I'd hoped. His arrogant manner was humbled, and his behavior became much more cooperative and manageable. He continued to hang around with his surfer friends, which I didn't like, but didn't object to openly, though I was glad to see that he stopped seeing Suzy, presumably because he was afraid of what she might discover on one of their dates under the pier. I knew she was wrong for him, and now he was free to meet someone else.

For a few days, everything seemed to be going as expected. As they were no longer needed, I threw away Harold's female hormone pills "accidentally," and he didn't seem to mind not having his daily "mega-vitamin," since surfing was out for a while, until his boyish figure returned. We spent more time together and renewed our faded relationship, and we may even have grown closer than ever before. But these happy times were not to last.

I began to suspect the truth one night when Harold came home late from partying with his surfer friends. I couldn't be sure, since the aroma was so faint, but as he passed me heading toward the hallway, I thought I smelled a whiff of pot, and my hackles were up at once. He wouldn't! Not after all we'd been through! He promised me!

I said nothing at the time, but once I knew he'd settled under the covers and gone to sleep, I snuck into his room without turning on the light and searched his belongings. Sure enough, when I held his shirt to my nose, I could detect a lingering trace of marijuana fumes. I was stunned, and I found it so hard to believe that I suddenly felt a moment of doubt. Perhaps it was just something that smelled like pot.

Not knowing what I was looking for, I began to search the pockets of his shirt and trousers. When I first discovered the strangely shaped rock, I wasn't sure what it was but it only took a brief inspection to find the hole drilled through its center and the words "ROACH STONE" printed on the top, and after that it easy enough to deduce its purpose. I had heard of "roach clips," tweezer-like pincers that were used to gold a marijuana cigarette while it burned down to the end, and I could imagine how the "roach stone" was similarly used. What I couldn't imagine was why Harold had it in his pocket.

Perhaps his fear of the "X-factor" was wearing off, and he thought it safe to indulge in the drug every now and then, or perhaps he'd learned the truth somewhere. It was a fact that using marijuana had led to manor breast development in some males, but the rest of that stuff about converting chromosomes from male to female was just the product of my own imagination, and it wouldn't be hard to disprove, once its accuracy was questioned. Or perhaps Harold had realized the actual ingredients in his "mega-vitamins" and put the whole picture together. Had he figured out what I was really up to?

This was a crucial moment. He was testing me, I was sure of it. Now that the hormone pills were gone, his body would begin to change back to normal, so if he secretly went back to smoking pot and his figure still returned to its proper boyish proportions... I couldn't take a chance on that happening. All my credibility with the boy would be lost, and he'd be smoking dope again. No, I had to do something drastic. Desperate situations call for desperate measures, as the saying goes, and I was desperate not to lose this battle. There was too much at stake. Harold had to believe that the "X-factor" was real, at any cost.

I sat at the kitchen table for hours thinking it over but in the end I decided to go with my first instinct and press my bet. I'd gambled everything on the imaginary "X-factor" and it was too late to back down now. All or nothing, go for broke, it was a do or die situation, so with a growing determination in my heart, I picked up the phone and called my old friend the doctor at home.

He wasn't pleased about being woken out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night, and he was even less pleased by my latest scheme for helping Harold kick drugs but a little badgering and a lot of money can go a long way and after ten minutes and ten thousand dollars of persuasion he was ready to see things my way.

The doctor arrived in an ambulance just before dawn and the orderly assisting him had been well briefed beforehand, so things went smoothly. They snuck into Harold's room and administered anesthesia while he slept, then bundled him onto a stretcher and carried him down to the waiting ambulance. As the sun arose I stood on the side deck watching the vehicle begin its Song journey back to the doctor's medical center, wondering if I was really doing the right thing.

The ambulance returned forty-eight hours later, with Harold still lying sedated on the stretcher, looking just as he had two days before, but I knew he was not the same boy who'd been taken away, for some drastic changes had been made, and he was in for some big surprises. The doctor and the orderly carefully carried the stretcher up the stairs and into the house, where they returned Harold to his bed as though nothing had happened. I pulled the covers over him, tucked him in and gave him a kiss on the forehead before joining the doctor in the kitchen to give him my thanks, my check for ten thousand dollars and a friendly farewell.

Once the ambulance had driven out of sight again, I felt safe and certain that my scheme would work. There was no sign that anyone had been here and no way for Harold to know he'd been anywhere. He was never sure of what day of the week it was, so I knew he'd never notice those missing two days. In a few hours, he'd wake up thinking it was the morning of the following day, and then we'd see what our little smart-aleck thought about breaking his promise.

It was getting late, and I was just beginning to wonder if the doctor had timed the sedative correctly, when I was startled out of my seat by a terrified scream coming from Harold's room. I rushed down the hall and burst into his room to find him standing on the bed covers which he'd hi thrown to the floor, facing the room's only wall mirror with a look of pure horror on his face. The buttons of his pajama top had been torn off, and the rest of his pajamas were gathered around his ankles, leaving him basically naked, and it was obvious at a glance why he was so upset.

I knew what to expect as I entered the room, but it was still quite a shock to actually see the changes in Harold's body. His developing manhood had shrunk so small I could hardly see it. His testicles had withdrawn into his body, leaving an empty, deflated scrotum, and his penis had likewise dwindled in length, until only the tip of its bulbous head extended beyond his brown patch of pubic hair. The size of his hips had almost doubled, and his rear end as full and round as any woman's I've ever seen. These enlargements seemed even more noticeable when contrasted with the boy's thinner waist and flatter stomach, but what if really knocked my eyes out were the twin globes of soft, jiggling flesh that now grew from Harold's chest. His breasts looked perfectly formed with large, fat nipples pointing slightly upward, no longer the immature mounds of a developing girl, but a luscious pair of boobs any woman would envy.

It was difficult for me to believe that all these changes could be reversed, as the doctor had assured me, now that I saw just how drastic the transformation really was, but it was too late to question his professional opinion at this point. It was also too late to start questioning the wisdom of my actions, so I swallowed my doubts and redoubled my determination to see this through, for Harold's sake.

I hardly needed to pretend to be surprised. I just stood there in the doorway with my mouth hanging open, staring at his reflection in the mirror. As his frightened eyes met mine, it was obvious that he suspected nothing, and I couldn't help feeling sorry for the boy as shock and confusion gave way to fear and shame, and tears of humiliation began to trickle down his cheeks. His trembling hands reached up to grasp the soft spheres on his chest, as t51 though hoping to tear them off, but the moment his fingers came into contact with that smooth, feminine flesh, he t stopped and gasped, unable to deny the unexpected feeling of t gave him. and his cheeks blushed even brighter.

"Oh my God!" he said, and then quickly covered his mouth with both hands, for it was not his voice that had spoken, but the high-pitched voice of a teenage girl.

"Oh, Harold," I sighed. "What've you done?"

He collapsed with a sob onto the floor and began to cry loudly, almost hysterically, so I knelt to take him in my arms and comfort him, whispering assurances in soothing tones, but I don't think he heard me. He just cried and cried until it was a wonder that he had any tears left. Then as he began to quiet down, I spoke to him again, and this time he attempted to answer, though his girlish voice cracked now and then with sobs.

"I didn't smoke any more pot," he insisted. "I swear it, Aunt Hilly."

"Then why are you still changing into a girl?"

"I don't know," he pleaded. "Honest! The guys were all smoking, but I said I didn't want any. I never even took a puff."

"Where was this?"

"In J.J.'s car. The guys always smoke out listening to his tape deck."

"Did they have the windows closed?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Suddenly part of the mystery was resolved. Harold had smelled of marijuana when he came home because it had been smoked in his presence, and I believed him when he said he didn't smoke any of it directly, but the die had already been cast, and there was no way to back out now, so I used the information to support what I'd done.

"Then you were still smoking, if you were in that car I explained. "Haven't you ever heard of secondary smokers?"

"Isn't that what they call people who breathe in other's people cigarette smoke?"

"Or pot smoke," I added. "You might as well have been puffing on that 'reefer' with them."

"But I didn't breathe in that much smoke," he argued.

I looked down at the female flesh protruding from his chest with a frown. "It was obviously enough to trigger the 'X-factor,' with a vengeance! Why, your breasts are bigger than mine now!"

This caused another bout of crying. I hadn't yet determined why he'd had that roach stone in his pocket, but it no longer seemed to matter. Perhaps he was just carrying it for a friend, or perhaps it was a keepsake from his days of pot smoking, but whatever the reason I felt sure now that it was justified somehow. Holding the sobbing boy in my arms, I began to feel guilty for over-reacting, but what was done was done, and all I could do was to make Harold's punishment worthwhile. After this, I doubted if he'd ever even say the word "marijuana" again, let alone get near the stuff. All we had to do now was to ride it out together, and soon my nephew would be drug-free and happy once more.

"What am I gonna do?" he sighed, burying his face in my shoulder. "I can't let anyone see me like this!"

"Yes," I agreed, "it would be hard to explain what's happened to you, and there's no way we'll ever hide those boobs of yours under a shirt, no matter how baggy it is."

"I'll just have to stay inside," he sobbed, "all summer, or as long as it takes."

"Don't be ridiculous," I objected. "You can't become a hermit. Your friends will come around asking for you, and even if you never leave the house, someone will see you eventually... a passer-by, a delivery driver, the postman. No, I'm afraid your problem has become much too obvious for us to try to hide it anymore."

"But what'll I do?" he pleaded. "I couldn't bear to be seen like this!"

"Not like this, exactly," I hedged. "We'll need to make a few modifications here and there, but I think we can fool people easily enough, and then no one will ever find out what's really going on."

"I don't understand," he sniffled, sensing some hope in my veiled suggestion. "How can we fool people?"

I helped him to his feet and then finished stripping off his pajamas. He just stood there trembling and naked,

"Until your body recovers from the 'X-factor,"' I replied. "A few weeks, a few months, whatever it takes."

His eyes were wide with fear and helplessness, and his girlish voice sounded terrified. "What if I won't do it?"

I shrugged and pointed toward the door. "You’re free to leave my house whenever you like."

"Like this!?" he gasped, looking down at his obviously female form. "I can't go anywhere looking like this!"

"Then I'd suggest you do as you're told... Alice."

The sound of his new name dealt him a reeling blow, Just as I d hoped it would, and he was too startled to reply as I laid down the law.

"Either you become my pretty young niece and play your part as best you can, or. I'll get that social worker, Miss What s-her- face, on the phone and tell her to come and get you. You'll look mighty silly arriving at the boys' orphanage with a figure like that, but if that's what you want..."

"You wouldn't! You couldn't!"

"I can send you packing anytime," I explained. "All I need is a reason, and I don't think I'd have any trouble convincing the authorities that you've been smoking pot, not when the evidence of your crime is so apparent to the eye."

He looked as if he was about to say something, but there were no words he could use to express his fear and frustration, so he simply started to cry again. I gave him a few minutes to get it out of his system, and then I led him into the bathroom adjoining Lara's bedroom.

"Don't worry, Alice," I assured him, "everything's going to be just fine. You'll see."

Like her bedroom, Lara's bathroom was quite feminine in decor, with lavender shag on the floor, as well as the seat and lid of the toilet, translucent pink shower curtains and matching tiles of coral pink engraved with pictures of angel fish and sea horses on every wall. Harold moved to stand before the large wall mirror over the sink, his eyes and hands continuing their reluctant yet fascinated examination of his altered body, while I ran water in the tub and then took a container from the array of tubes and bottles on the counter to add a capful of perfumed bubble bath with skin conditioner to the steaming water that slowly filled the large, pink basin.

Harold was reluctant to get in, of course, but I took his arm and helped him forward to remind him that he had no choice, and he complied willingly enough. Settling down amid the pink bubbles, he just sat there with his arms above the water, like a child afraid of getting wet, until I urged him to sit back and relax. He started to lean back and lower his arms as instructed, but just as his shoulders submerged, he noticed the buoyancy of his new breasts as they strained upward, their nipples standing like little volcanoes on twin island of smooth, pink sand, and he sat upright again with a gasp.

"I guess you're going to have to get used to them," I smiled. "Most girls do. At least the lucky ones."

He leaned back again, and as before his weight alone was not enough to drag his floating bosom beneath the surface of the water, so he simply put his head back and drifted like someone wearing a life jacket, for like many women he did in fact have his own built-in "May West," as flotation vests are sometimes called. His boobs were a bit larger than most and I think the silicon injected under his skin was slightly more buoyant than flesh, but on the whole his breasts looked as natural as mine, though younger, fuller and more vivacious, and each time he breathed in they would rise quivering through the pink foam to proudly point their nipples skyward.

I let him soak for a while, giving the bath oils time to work, and then I had him wash himself thoroughly before I set about shampooing and rinsing his long hair. I was glad now that he'd resisted my suggestion to have it cut, for his mane was now as long and thick as a girl's, and it would be easy to set and style it in an appropriately feminine fashion. After applying a generous amount of cream rinse with extra body-building ingredients, I piled his hair on top of his head like some futuristic hair-do and let the formula set as I drained the water from the tub and helped Harold to his feet.

Cream rinse kept getting in his eyes whenever he tried to see what I was doing, so he couldn't watch as I took another tube from the counter and began spreading its foul smelling contents over the boy's legs. I continued up his torso, applying a rich amount of the paste to his crotch and underarms as he voiced questions and protests that I largely ignored. With a final dab on each of his fuzzy sideburns, I completed the task of covering every hair on his young body, except for his eyes and scalp. Unable to see and instructed not to move, he soon complained that the paste was starting to burn his skin, but I assured him that there was nothing to be afraid of, and he timidly stood there waiting as I timed his exposure to the feminizing solution.

When I finally allowed him to rinse off in the warm spray of the shower, he was startled to see how much more smooth and girlish his skin looked without any body hair, for the depilatory paste had done its job well, and his arms and legs were now as sleek and sexy as any young woman's. He objected that I was going too far, but I reminded him that I knew what was best, and he offered no further protests as I helped him out of the tub and dried him off.

I then had him sit on the stool with his back to the sink and proceeded to rinse his hair again. He assumed I was going to wash it again, so I let him think what he would as I applied the lightening agent and bleached his hair a platinum blond. Once the dye had set, I trimmed off the split ends, evened the length and created bangs over his forehead before rolling it all up into curlers, small ones along the bottom and larger ones elsewhere. The permanent wave solution I applied soaked into his hair like water into a sponge, and then all it needed was time to dry.

While I had Harold in such a conveniently supine position, I took advantage of his helplessness to work on his face and nails. With orders to sit perfectly still and silent, he could do nothing but moan and sigh as I took up a pair of tweezers and carefully plucked away the lower halves of his eyebrows, leaving only a thin, arcing line high above each eye. The change seemed to make his eyes look larger, like the eyes of a little child, and I couldn't help feeling sorry for the boy as he gazed up at me with those sad, baby blues.

I was determined to continue, however, so without delay I gathered the necessary accouterments and bent to the task of giving my nephew a complete manicure and pedicure. After applying extensions to his fingernails and filing them down into long ovals, I polished them a dazzling pink and then colored his toenails with the same shade. The second coat went on smoothly and easily, and then I hurried the drying of his hair and nails with a blow-drier as he sat back against the sink staring disconsolately at the ceiling.

I intentionally blocked his view of the mirror as I helped him to his feet again, and he was too distracted by the sight of his feminized and glamorized hands to notice. He kept holding his arms out before him and staring at the long, pink fingernails as he moved his hands this way and that, as if unable to recognize them as his own. When he reached up to touch his breasts, the sight and feel of his girlish fingers on those sensitive, sensual spheres caused his nipples to grow and harden visibly, and he took his hands away as if he'd gotten an electric shock.

As I led him back into the bedroom, he tried to catch a glimpse of his reflection in one of the wall mirrors, but again I intervened and took him straight to the vanity table, where he was made to sit with his back to the looking glass. As I sorted through the cosmetics standing on the tabletop, he sat as still and silent as though I were a doctor preparing some medical treatment he needed but didn’t want, and once I set to work he became as stiff as a statue, perhaps afraid of what might happen if he were to interfere with my efforts.

I kept it simple, just some water-proof eyeliner and mascara around his eyes and some smudge-proof lipstick in a bright pink shade to match his nail polish. He hated the eyeliner brush and the mascara wand, but when I made him pucker up and sit still while I applied the pink coloring to his lips he blushed so fiercely even the tops of his breasts were a little flushed. Once I'd finished, I found myself staring in wonder at the lovely girl whose face I'd just created, and I had to force myself to look away, because I could see that I was beginning to scare the boy.

Moving around behind him, I checked to see that his hair was dry, then started removing the rollers and brushing out his now shiny blond hair. The extra body made his long tresses softer and fluffier, so that he actually appeared to have more hair than before, and once I'd brushed it into place, the permanent wave held it beautifully. The bangs turned out perfectly, reaching just to the tops of his thin, arching eyebrows, while the sides and back fell in a gentle sweep that curled inward at the bottom just as it brushed his shoulders. Stepping around to the front again, I was struck once more by the boy's uncanny resemblance to a girl, a very beautiful girl, and this time I did scare him.

"Why're you looking at me like that?" he asked.

"Nothing," I smiled reassuringly. "You look even better than I'd expected, that's all."

He tried to turn around and look in the vanity mirror, but I made him wait, taking him instead to stand in a part of the room where he couldn't see his reflection it any of the mirrors. As he waited, nervously looking at his long fingernails, I rummaged through Lara's dresser and quickly found what I was looking for. The moment he saw me approaching and recognized what I carried in my hands, he started to shake his head and back away, as though I held a pair of cobras ready to strike.

"I'm not wearing that!" he insisted, his eyes wide as he stared at the pink string bikini.

"Don't be silly, Alice," I chided, holding the top out before me. "You'll look wonderful in this. Trust me."

"But it's a bikini!" he argued. as if that explained everything.

"Lots of girls wear bikinis," I countered. "Suzy does, doesn't she?"

Once again, words failed him, and he could do nothing more than stand helplessly by as I draped the tiny top over his bulging breasts to position each of the small pink triangles over one of his plump nipples. Once the material what little there was, had been properly placed, I pulled the strings back, one pair over his shoulders, another pair around his sides, and tied the four strands together into a pretty pink bow in the center of his back.

While he was still in shock, glaring at the utterly feminine garment wrapped about his chest, I had him hold the back part of the bikini bottom against his girlish butt as I slipped the front part between his legs, and once both inverted triangles were in position, I laced each pair of strings together just above the hip to hold the pink material in place. These two triangles were much larger than the others, and the one in back was easily twice the size of the one in front, yet they still offered almost no protection from prying eyes, leaving the boy's hips and thighs completely exposed and covering less than half the surface area of his pretty rear end.

What remained of his maleness was hardly visible beneath the front of the bikini bottom; just a tiny bulge at the crotch about the size of a bottle cap, and this was easily disguised as well. Harold stood obediently in place as I went into the bathroom to get something from the cabinet, and he just looked on in wide-eyed wonder as returned carrying a small swatch of spongy material and slipped it inside the front of his bikini bottom. The panty liner was designed to be discreet, its flared edges virtually invisible beneath the pink fabric, and its smooth contours effectively hid the small bulge of his shrunken penis, making his crotch appear as flat and featureless as a little girl's.

He offered one final protest when I presented him with a dainty pair of medium-heeled sandals from Lara's closet, complaining that he'd break his neck if he tried to walk in them, but I insisted, and he reluctantly sat on the edge of the bed and allowed me to slip the girlish footwear in place. Once the delicate, pink straps had been secured across his instep and around his ankle, I helped him stand and offered him support as he took his first, tentative steps in heels. It wasn't long before he was walking almost naturally in girls' sandals, although they did make his cute bottom wiggle sexily with each tiny step.

When I finally stepped back to take in the full effect of Harold's transformation, I must say I was in awe of my accomplishment. It would not only be impossible for anyone to recognize him anymore, I doubted if anyone would ever suspect even for a moment that this gorgeous, sexy creature could possibly be a boy. His hair and make-up were flawless, and his face as pretty as an angel's. His hands and feet looked delicate and dainty with their bright pink nails, and his figure was outrageous, a perfect hourglass form above a pair of sleek, shapely legs. Somehow his pert, young breasts and his bulging fanny seemed even more naked and sexy under the minimal protection of his swim wear, but as I'd suspected, Alice looked absolutely fantastic in a bikini.

"Yes, all right," I nodded, taking his hand to lead him over to the mirrors, "but I think you'd better prepare yourself for a surprise."

The way the wall mirrors had been hung, it was possible to stand in one part of the room and see three reflected images from three different directions at once, and as Harold was brought to stand in that spot, three reflections of the gorgeous girl he'd become came into his view. For a moment he just gaped at her in disbelief, and then he began to tremble with fright.

"Oh my God!" his girlish voice squeaked as his pretty hands reached up to touch his face and hair. "That can't be me!"

"It’s you all right, Alice. You’re even prettier as a girl than I thought you'd be. In fact, you're quite beautiful."

"My hair! You dyed my hair blond!"

"Of course " I smiled. "It helps with your disguise. Why, no one could ever recognize you now, could they?"

He continued to stare in horrified fascination at his new appearance, unable to take his eyes from the voluptuous girl in the mirrors. His pink lips tried to form words, but no sound would come, and twin streams began to trickle down from his lovely eyes to wet his blushing cheeks and drip teardrops onto his almost naked breasts. Then he seemed to collapse inward, covering his face with his hands and dropping to his knees with a terrified shudder.

"Oh, God!" he gasped, lowering his head in shame. "Please don't make me do this! Please don't make me look like this! Please!"

"But, Alice..." I rushed to his side and knelt down to put my arms around him. "You look wonderful, honey. I mean, you're beautiful. No kidding."

"But I don't want to be beautiful!" He sobbed deeply, and his breasts jiggled within his bikini top. "I don't want to be a girl!"

"Well, that's just the way it is, Alice. Girls don't choose to be girls instead of boys. It just happens, and you don't get any say about it. All you can do is make the best of what you have, and sweetheart, you have everything a girl could want: a gorgeous face, a perfect figure..."

"I'm so ashamed," he confessed, curling up into a little ball in my arms. "If my dad could see me now..."

"I'm glad he's dead," he cried, sobbing again. "I wish I was dead, too."

"Now, young lady, that's enough of that talk," I said, suddenly angry. "There's certainly nothing wrong with looking like a girl, or being female either, for that matter. I happen to be very proud of being a woman, and I'll hear no more of that sexist crap from you. If you have to be a girl for a while, well, that's what you get for using drugs, so try to act like an adult and take your punishment without all this childish whining."

My criticism was unexpected, and it hit him hard. At first he turned his pretty, tear-filled eyes up at me with a look of hurt and betrayal, as if I should have been more Sympathetic but then he lowered his long, dark lashes again and slowly nodded his agreement.

"All right, Aunt Milly," he said, hardly speaking above a whisper "I'll try."

"That's my girl," I smiled, giving him a big hug. I helped him to his feet and faced him toward the nearest mirror. "Maybe you won't like being Alice very much, but it’s only temporary, and if you have to be a girl, at least You're a very pretty one. That's something, isn't it?"

He stared at his reflection once more. then lowered his head and nodded reluctantly. "I guess so."

"Good." I put my arm around him and walked with him down the hallway to the living room. "Now you go outside on the deck and get some sun while I make us some lunch."

"Outside!?" he gasped, his terror reborn. "Like this!? Someone will see me!?"

"That was the whole idea behind the disguise, remember? Now that you've become Alice, we don't have to worry about anyone seeing you."

"But, I can't!" he insisted. "I won't!"

Rather than get angry, I spoke in a cool, confident tone of voice that seemed to calm him. "You have to, honey. Look at your tan. You have a boy's tan. It makes you look like you've been sunbathing topless wearing only a pair of shorts, but it might also make someone suspicious, and we can't afford that, now can we? You don't want anyone figuring out that you're really a boy, do you?"

He closed his long lashed eyes and bit his lower lip in frustration, but there was nothing he could say, except to shake his head and sigh.

"Of course not." I agreed, "so you go out there and get some sun. That's why you put on your bikini in the first place."

With great reluctance, like a condemned prisoner entering the gas chamber, Harold walked slowly over to the side door and opened it to peer outside into the bright sunshine. There didn't seem to be anyone nearby, so step by hesitant step he carried himself across the threshold and placed his sandaled feet on the decking beyond. With a final pleading glance back in my direction, he stepped away from the door and let it close behind him.

I tried to imagine what he was feeling, completely disguised as a beautiful girl, dressed in nothing but a tiny, sexy pink bikini and trapped outside where anyone might see him. The male ego being very fragile, I knew this would be quite a humbling experience for him, but recalling all the sexist remarks he'd made since he arrived, I also knew that this could be very good for him. What better way to teach him that girls are people too than to make him be a girl for the summer?

Let's see how he likes being nothing more than a pretty face, big breasts and a cute behind, I thought, laughing to myself. He'll be singing a different tune in the fall, no doubt.

And the best part was that he'd stay drug free. I was sure he'd never touch marijuana again, not after this, and without that springboard into harder drugs, he'd probably be safe for the rest of his life. I knew that my methods were strange and difficult for the boy to endure, but they were working, and that's what counted. If saving Harold's life meant forcing him to be Alice for a few months, that seemed a small price to pay, and if he ever discovered I was responsible, and not the imaginary "X-factor," well, he'd probably thank me someday. At least, I hoped so.

I let him get a good two hours of sun before I called him inside for lunch, and I could tell at a glance that his old tan lines were fading quickly. The pale skin around his lower torso, where his boys' bathing suit had once protected him from the sun, was eating up the bright sunlight and already looked almost as dark as the skin above and below, and when I lifted up the strings of his bikini to check, I found that new tan lines were starting to form, in a pattern more appropriate for the body of a pretty girl. Another few hours of sun and my nephew would look perfect in his new role, though it would always be obvious to anyone who saw Alice naked above the waist that she'd done a bit of topless sunbathing, as well.

After lunch, which the poor, miserable boy hardly touched, I sent him back outside for more sun while I got ready to join him. I changed into my own bathing suit and put everything I thought we might need into my beach bag, then went out onto the deck, where Alice had apparently fallen asleep in a cushy recliner.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," I said, nudging his sandaled foot with mine. "I'm all ready to go."

His pretty eyes blinked open, and for a moment he looked calm and rested, as if waking from a terrible nightmare he was glad to be rid of, but then his eyes dropped to stare in disappointment at his feminized body and the skimpy bikini he wore, and he sighed loudly.

"Go?" he asked, still blinking sleep from his eyes. "What do you mean? Where are you going?"

"To the beach," I replied. "Come on, we'll catch a little more sun and then go for a swim before it gets dark."

"No way!" he objected. "I can't go down there!"

"You can and will," I said sternly. "While you're a guest in my house you'll behave like a proper young lady and not some kind of anti-social hermit hiding out up here. I'm going to the beach, and I'll be greatly insulted if you refuse to accompany me. Now let's go."

I didn't wait for an argument; I just turned around and started down the stairs. If Harold didn't follow, he'd pay the consequences later, but it didn't surprise me in the least when I glanced back and found my pretty house guest coming reluctantly after me, his frightened eyes scanning the scene below as though it was a battlefield littered with dead. I'm not sure whether he was more afraid of the girls, who might detect that he wasn't really one of them, or the guys, who might eagerly accept him for what he appeared to be, but of all the people at the beach that day, he obviously feared the surfers most. His old friends might recognize him, or worse, they might not, and as much as Harold liked hanging around with that crowd, it was plain to see that Alice didn't share his taste in friends, for she looked terrified of them.

It was impossible for the poor dear to escape their attention, however. Long before he'd reached the bottom of the stairs, the young men had noticed Alice's arrival, and their hormones were bubbling. They stared with undisguised interest at the shapely figure descending the stairs, breasts jiggling and bottom wiggling like an advertisement for sex. The lovely young woman appeared to be ignoring her newfound admirers, averting her eyes and trying to look uninterested, but I was sure Harold heard every comment and noted every invitation spoken in his direction, and doubted that he would ever forget the way those boys looked at him.

Once he'd joined me at the bottom of the stairs we started out together across the sand to a nice, open area, where I laid down our beach towels side by side. Harold quickly sat down with his back to the surfers, but he couldn't seem to help glancing over his shoulder every now and then just to see if the guys were still staring at him, which of course they were. Now that we were sitting close together, I could see goosebumps on the smooth, hairless skin of the boy's naked arms and legs, and I noticed that his lower lip was trembling slightly.

Sure enough, his fears proved justified, for before long one of the surfers had gathered the courage to cross the sandy stretch between their encampment and our beach towels. I recognized the long-haired young man as J.J., the leader of the group and the one who encouraged Harold to join them. His eyes were literally bulging from his head as he got a closer and closer view of Alice, and he was obviously not the least bit disappointed by what he saw.

"Afternoon," he smiled warmly, addressing both Harold and me, though his gaze lingered on Alice. "Nice day."

Harold glanced up and muttered a barely audible, "Hi."

It was obvious by his manner that Harold wanted nothing more than for J.J. to go away, but the young man was the persistent sort, the kind that usually gets what he wants, and apparently he wanted Alice very badly. He settled down on the sand next to Harold's beach towel and offered Alice his hand with a wide grin.

"My name's Jason," he said, "but my friends just call J.J."

Harold looked at the young man's hand as if it were a lobster about to snap at him, and he said nothing in response to J.J.'s introduction, concentrating instead on tracing the pattern of his beach towel with a long, pink fingernail. Not surprisingly, the young man looked hurt and offended, and when he glanced in my direction, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, so I stepped into my role as Alice's aunt and took exception.

"Alice, you're being impolite to the gentleman." There was no mistaking the tone of my voice, and Harold looked up at me pleadingly for a moment, then bowed his head and nodded with a deep sigh.

"I'm Alice," Harold said in his sweet soprano, and he reached out his girlish hand to accept J.J.'s handshake. He swallowed nervously as the young man's hand clasped his slender fingers with their long, pink nails, and he blushed in embarrassment as their handshake caused his almost naked breasts to jiggle inside his bikini top.

"Alice just broke up with her boyfriend," I said in the hopes of explaining Harold's unsociable behavior, "and she's a little depressed right now."

The suggestion of having a boyfriend made Harold wince, but he saw that I was trying to make excuses for him, so he just accepted it in stride. He also did nothing to try to remove his hand from J.J.'s grip as the young man continued or to caress the boy's manicured fingers.

"I'm sorry to hear that," J.J. said sincerely, then added as he turned to face Alice with a half smile, "I mean, I’m sorry to hear that you're depressed. I honestly can't say I'm sorry to hear that you broke up with your boyfriend."

Harold didn't know how to handle the compliment, so he just shrugged, and then blushed again when his breasts bounced a little on his chest.

Watching his embarrassment, I suddenly had an irresistible urge to put my nephew through his paces. I could see his girlfriend Suzy over by the other surfers, some of whom were observing J.J.'s attempt to "score" with Alice, and I felt the time had come for my little chauvinist to learn how the other half lives. It was a purely emotional and impulsive decision on my part, and later I wondered if it was really very wise, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

"Alice just came to stay with me," I told J.J., "and she doesn't know anyone around here, so she gets pretty lonely. I guess an old woman like me isn't very good company for a pretty young thing like Alice."

Harold looked worried, as if he had guessed what I was up to, but there was nothing he could do, for J.J. took the bait hook, line and sinker.

"Hey, I know everybody," he announced proudly. "I introduce you to lots of people our age."

"Oh," Harold insisted, "that's not necessary, realty."

"No problem at all," the young man said, climbing to his feet and tugging on Alice's hand to help a reluctant Harold stand beside him. "In fact, it's my pleasure."

"How very nice of you," I smiled, answering Harold's silent plea for help with complete indifference. "You two have fun now."

I watched my frightened, feminized nephew being led away toward the crowd of teenagers he once knew as friends, his dainty hand imprisoned in J.J.'s possessive grip, his girlish buns wiggling sexily behind him, his pretty face casting pleading glances at me over his shoulder, and began to have my first serious feelings of doubt. Little did I suspect that I had set in motion a course of events which would eventually and permanently end Harold's life as a male and sentence him, without hope of parole, to the life of a pretty girl named Alice.

Having realized that the day might come when I'd want to spy on Harold again, and knowing from experience how difficult it was to observe him unnoticed, I'd already taken steps by this time to adopt a more effective and less risky method of surveillance. Removing a sophisticated pair of multi-lens binoculars from a hiding place in the bottom of my beach bag, I gazed through the forward viewer and focused on a large ship far out to sea as my reference point. Then with a subtle turn of the azimuth knob, I angled the lenses to the side, turning the viewer almost ninety degrees right, until I had the surfer's enclave in sight. To the casual observer, I appeared to be looking out to sea, probably watching that distant ship, but once I'd refocused the swiveled lenses, I had a perfect view of Harold and his companions.

I found my nephew standing bashfully in the midst of several young men, all of whom seemed quite interested in getting to know pretty Alice a lot better. J.J. was making the introductions, and I noticed that he still had Harold's hand clutched tightly in his, as if he'd already laid some claim on this newcomer. J.J.'s girlfriend was glaring at Alice with undisguised contempt, while her friends were pointedly ignoring the new girl's arrival, but the guys were quite anxious to make her feel welcome. A few of them started showing off, flexing their muscles and slap-fighting each other, but poor Harold looked more intimidated than impressed, so J.J. took the opportunity to place his arm protectively around Alice's shoulders and act as a shield.

The boy did seem grateful for the way J.J. had intervened, but his lovely eyes kept glancing nervously at the young man's hand caressing his smooth upper arm. He made no move to escape from J.J.'s grasp, but he didn't look very pleased by the young man's growing familiarity. For the first time in his life, instead of pawing at some pretty girl, he was the one getting touched and fondled, but unlike most girls, Alice had no idea how to fend off an aggressive male pursuer, so Harold could do nothing more than stand there and pretend he didn't mind.

Once I had the scene properly focused, I paused to take the earplug from its recess and insert it into my ear before activating the uni-directional microphone mounted between the lenses. The mike was remarkably sensitive but it would receive sound only from the direction in which the viewer was aimed, so instead of picking up crowd noise or the booming of the surf, all I heard through the earplug were the sounds of Harold and the surfers, amplified many times. With the binoculars enlarging my view and the microphone detecting every noise they made, I suddenly felt as if I was right beside them.

"Want a beer?" J.J. asked the boy, and much to my surprise, Harold said he did. I suppose he thought a little alcohol might help settle his nerves, but I was worried about what might happen if he became too light-headed. I realized that I'd have to go rescue him if he shoved any signs of getting drunk. My little Alice was vulnerable enough without losing her wits.

I couldn't see as well when Harold and his companion moved into the semi-circular wall of surfboards, but since some of the surfers were out using their boards, there were large gaps in the fence which gave me an adequate view. Opening the ice chest that the teenagers always had with them, J.J. retrieved two beers and opened one with his teeth before handing it to Harold, who tipped the bottle and drained off a good portion with one gulp. The cool liquid seemed to satisfy his thirst, but his look of contentment kindled into blushing embarrassment when a loud burp suddenly burst past his pretty, pink lips. It wasn't a very ladylike thing to do, but J.J. didn't seem to mind one bit. He just laughed at Alice's timid apology, then opened his own beer, took a similar draught and let loose a deep, rumbling belch that I could hear even without the earplug.

Harold started to laugh, a free and honest laugh, not dampened by fear or shame, and I saw Alice smile, really smile, for the first time. Even I was astounded at how sweet and beautiful my young ward looked when wearing that big, winning smile, so it's no wonder that J.J. almost melted on the spot. His eyes, which at first had Focused hungrily on the girl's jiggling breasts as she laughed, grew soft and warm as he looked up into her bright, smiling face. I'd seen that look before, not often, but often enough to recognize it, and I suddenly realized that J.J. was falling in love.

Harold must've sensed the significance of that look as well, for he started to look a little worried again and cast his eyes down at the sand with a nervous swallow. Without hesitation, J.J. reached out to take Alice by the hand, and sitting down on the lid of the ice chest, he pulled the boy onto his lap. Harold looked frightened as his plump, girlish rump plopped down onto J.J.'s hairy thighs and the young man's arms encircled him in an affectionate embrace. He began to relax a little as they continued to talk apparently relieved that J.J. planned no further attempts at familiarity for the moment, but the tension in his face returned when he felt the young man's hands wandering over his almost naked backside.

They sat and talked for a while before J.J. helped Harold to his feet and led him over to where several of the teenagers had spread out their beach towels. The boy sat beside him as the surfer rummaged through someone's beach bag to produce a container of suntan lotion. He applied the liquid generously to his arms and legs, and then spread some on his hairy chest, rubbing it in vigorously. I Couldn't help admiring the way his muscles rippled as he moved, but I was surprised to find my nephew gazing at him with the same sort-of approval. What was Harold thinking? Was he really seeing J.J. for the first time the way a girl might see him?

Once his task was nearly completed, the young man stopped to hand the lotion to Alice, who accepted it reluctantly. My pretty house guest was even more reluctant to comply with J.J.'s request to have his unprotected back covered in lotion, but with a barely audible sigh Harold slid over to where the young man was lying face down on a beach towel and began to apply suntan lotion to the surfer's broad, muscular back. He must have felt quite peculiar watching his slender, feminine hands with their long, pink fingernails glide smoothly over J.J.'s firm, manly flesh, and I'm sure it didn't help matters when the young man began to moan softly with contentment.

Harold finished up as quickly as he could and seemed relieved when the chore was completed, but then J.J. insisted that he be allowed to return the favor, and Alice was gently coerced into lying back on the beach towel as the surfer carefully, painstakingly applied the warm, oily lotion to every inch of exposed skin. He started at Harold's toes and slowly worked his way up the boy's sleek, sexy legs, past smooth thighs and wide hips, onto his flat stomach and then, with the care and delicacy of an artist, up the sides of each breast, from the foot of each soft, pink mound to the edges of the little pink triangle that hid the boy's nipple.

Even at that distance, even through the pink material of his bikini top, I could see Harold's nipples growing larger, getting harder, responding to erotic stimulation of his breasts just as any other girl would, and from the dazed and glassy look in his eyes as he gazed skyward, it was obvious that Harold was experiencing some strange and unexpected form of pleasure. The boy was breathing heavily, his breasts rising and falling rhythmically, when J.J. finally finished and moved on to apply the lotion to Harold's neck and face.

He dabbed a little of the oily solution onto his fingertips and spread it carefully over Alice's forehead, down the cute, button nose, around the blushing cheeks and onto the soft, smooth chin. As he worked, he leaned over closer and closer to his canvas, until he was hovering over the boy, his face only inches away. Harold looked up at him in growing fear, his long, dark eyelashes blinking nervously, his shiny, pink lips starting to tremble, but it was obvious that he had no idea what to do or say to escape what we all knew was coming.

Adding one last drop of lotion on the tip of Alice's nose, J.J. smiled and bent down to place a firm, demanding kiss on Harold's girlish lips. The boy froze with alarm as the young man tasted the flavor of his lipstick, caressing his sweet, feminine mouth with strong, passionate lips. For a moment he could do nothing but lie there, his pretty hands hanging limp at his sides, but his moment of panic passed quickly, and Harold soon began to struggle against his male aggressor. He lacked the strength to push the young man away, but he did manage to turn his head enough to avoid another kiss.

J.J. sat up again with a broad smile on his face, and Harold took the opportunity to roll over onto his stomach, hoping to prevent any further such incidents, but the surfer was one step ahead of him. As soon as the boy had settled down onto the soft cushions of his breasts, he felt J.J.'s hands on the bow that bound together the strings of his bikini top, and before he could even think about reacting, the fastening came undone and the strings fell loosely over his sides and shoulders. With a gasp, he started to turn over and sit up, but then laid back down quickly when he realized that his bikini top was not coming with him. His eyes were wide with fear at the thought that he was now effectively topless.

Once again he was helpless to resist as J.J. began to spread suntan lotion onto the smooth skin of Harold's naked back. The young man paused to do the boy's arms before moving down his spine and up onto the soft, tender mounds of his girlish butt cheeks. His bikini bottom hardly covered the wide expanse of feminine flesh he now carried behind him, and J.J. took great pleasure in massaging lotion into every exposed pore. The touch of the young man's hands on his big, round bottom had Harold blushing furiously once more, and I could see goosebumps forming on his arms and legs, but as before he could do nothing to prevent the unwanted stimulation of his feminized form, so he just closed his beautiful eyes and lowered his head in shame.

Eventually, J.J. worked his way down each of Alice's gorgeous legs until he got to the slim,, shapely ankles. With an evil grin, he began to tickle the bottoms of Harold's feet, and despite his fear and embarrassment, the boy started to laugh. He squirmed and wriggled on the beach towel, begging J.J. to stop, but he couldn't rise from his prone position without losing his unfastened bikini top and revealing his naked breasts, so all he could do was kick and scream and wait for it to end.

After a while, J.J. got tired of teasing his pretty companion, and offered to retie the strings of Alice's bikini top, an offer which Harold readily accepted. As the young man gathered the pink cords into a bow behind the boy's back, Harold used his girlish fingers to position the tiny pink triangles over his nipples, so that once the strings were retied his bikini top again provided the minimal amount of protection it was designed for.

For the next hour or so, Alice and J.J. laid on their sides facing each other, talking about all manner of things, from rock music to high school, and it was amusing to hear Harold making up answers to suit his female role. Instead of talking about his success on the gridiron as a running back. he claimed to have been a cheerleader. Instead Of building model planes and collecting baseball cards, he said his hobbies were sewing and collecting Barbi dolls. Instead of bragging about his many conquests with the weaker sex, he confessed that he hadn't dated many boys and didn't want to get involved with anyone right now. J.J. seemed to hang on Alice's every word, and when Harold admitted that he'd had little past experience with men, the young male nodded knowingly, as if he'd already guessed as much.

The two of them talked and joked like old friends, which in a way they were, although J.J. had never really met Alice before. When the young man asked Harold if he could surf, the boy shook his head, although he had already learned the basics weeks earlier. I think he was hoping to avoid making a spectacle of himself, since the sight of cute little Alice in her sexy bikini out there riding the waves would attract quite a lot of attention, especially male attention. I'm sure he also preferred to avoid such strenuous physical activity, since he felt so conscious of his new body and so unfamiliar with its ramifications.

J.J. wasn't disappointed, however. He jumped up and took down one the surfboards from the already incomplete enclosure, then laid it on the beach and dug out the sand around the fin, leaving the board balanced on its keel. He then held out his hand to Harold and insisted that the boy begin his first lesson at once. Reluctantly, my nephew stood and walked to his side, where the young man took hold of his small, slender hand and helped him step up onto the surfboard. As Alice practiced balancing, J.J. coached his student, occasionally offering support by placing his hands around the newcomer's slim waist or wide hips.

Harold seemed to be having a harder time than I'd expected, and I wondered if he was faking it, until realized that he really did need to practice keeping his balance all over again, since his body weight was now distributed differently. Now that he had the figure of a girl, he had to learn to surf like a girl, and the stance he eventually adopted to center his weight made him look quite cute and feminine. Bending his knees in a half-squat emphasized his girlish bottom, while keeping his head up and his arms outstretched accented the curves of his shapely breasts. Once he'd gained a little confidence in his new sense of balance and no longer needed J.J.'s support, Harold actually looked quite remarkable, poised on a pedestal, like a beautiful goddess

J.J. stood beside his pupil gazing at the gorgeous creature in admiration, and then his eyes lit up with a wicked gleam. Unseen by Alice, he reached over with his foot and placed a little weight on one side of the surfboard, disturbing its delicate balance and with a wide eyed yell Harold tipped over backwards, failing unexpectedly into a waiting pair of arms. At first, the boy sighed in relief, glad to find himself supported instead of falling flat on his backside, but as J.J.'s strong arms continued to hold him close, he began to look a little concerned. He tried to get his feet under him again and straighten up, but all he succeeded in doing was wrapping his arms around the young man's neck for additional support.

There was a brief pause as the two teenagers gazed into each other's eyes, each wondering what would happen next, and then J.J. took his chance. I heard Harold start to protest as the young man's face descended onto his, but his words were quickly muffled by a deeply passionate kiss. The boy's arms released J.J.'s neck, and his pretty hands tried in vain to push the surfer away, but he lacked the strength and leverage, and eventually he just accepted the helplessness of his situation and let his arms hang limp at his sides. When their lips finally parted again, J.J. was smiling broadly, while Harold was doing his best not to look upset, though his cheeks were blushing brightly.

Still supporting the boy with one arm, J.J. suddenly reached around to tickle Harold below the ribs. There was a high-pitched scream, followed by hysterical laughter, and my nephew began to wriggle and thrash about in the young man's arms. The surfer chuckled and tickled the boy again, pleased at the way Harold's breasts seemed to dance within the string bikini as he struggled to get free. Twisting and squirming, his long, blonde hair whipping back and forth through the air, Harold eventually broke loose and tumbled to the sand, still gasping with residual laughter.

The moment he saw J.J. coming closer, that evil grin still on his face, his hands outstretched with the promise of more tickling, Harold climbed unsteadily to his feet and started to run. The surfer could easily have caught him, since Harold found it impossible to run normally due to the bouncing of his breasts. His mincing little steps were no match for J.J.'s long strides, and the young man cut him off in moments, herding the pretty, little thing toward the water, just as a sheep-dog might've turned a stray lamb.

With nowhere left to run, Harold charged into the surf, then turned, trying to wade parallel to the shore, but his brief flight was over. J.J., caught him easily and dragged him down under a crashing wave in a tangled mass of arms and legs. When the two teenagers emerged, Harold was cradled in J.J.'s arms like a child, his slender arms encircling the young man's shoulders, his lovely legs dangling in the air. He was powerless to avoid another kiss as J.J. leaned over him to place his warm, masculine mouth over Alice's pink, pouting lips, and I'm sure I saw a glimpse of the young man's tongue slipping in for a quick French kiss as well.

There was a whole crowd of teenagers gathered around the ice chest when the surfer carried Harold back up the beach, despite the boy's insistence that he preferred to walk, and as they took their places in the circle of friends, it was obvious from the way they talked and acted that everyone now thought of J.J. and Alice as a couple. Even the surfer's ex-girlfriend seemed to accept the inevitability of the situation and appeared to no longer hold a grudge against her former rival. The only one who continued to look uncomfortable with the arrangement was poor Harold, who sat curled up on the sand leaning back against J.J.'s hairy chest with the young man's muscular arms enfolding him possessively.

No one else could read the expression on his girlish face the way I could, and I knew my nephew was not enjoying his new role as a sex object. He would gaze longingly at Suzy when no one was watching, then stare nervously at J.J.'s hand as it stroked his naked upper arm, occasionally brushing against the side of his soft, sensitive breast. Whenever he caught one of the other young men looking at him, he'd avert his gaze and blush with embarrassment, which naturally served to attract the male's attention even more. I'm sure he didn't realize it, but he was inadvertently flirting with every one of those boys, and quite successfully, judging by the number of horny guys and irate girlfriends I observed.

It was decided as a group that everyone would go to the boardwalk for the afternoon, except for one couple that would have to stay behind with the surfboards and other valuables. When Harold's offer to stay and watch their things was politely declined, he began to point over in my direction, insisting that he couldn't leave without telling me, so without a word J.J. started running over to where I was sitting, leaving a baffled Alice staring after him in surprise. As the young man approached, I placed my binoculars back in their hiding place and tried to look distracted. Once he'd spotted me, the surfer rushed over and squatted next to me just long enough to ask if Alice could go to the boardwalk, and the moment I'd informed him "She can if she wants to" and handed him the sandals Harold had worn, he was off again, churning sand in his wake as he hurried back to tell his new girlfriend the good news.

I suppose I should've said no, but I thought this experience was really teaching Harold something. so I wanted it to continue for a while. I figured I'd just follow them, like last time, to make sure my nephew stayed out of trouble. I certainly didn't see any real harm in it, so I kept telling myself that it was for the boy's own good and hoped for the best.

Once I'd picked up my binoculars again, I resumed my surveillance and noted with a slight smile the barely suppressed surprise in Harold's eyes when J.J. handed over the sandals and informed Alice that "Aunt Milly says it's okay." Not knowing what else to do, the boy allowed himself to be guided by the strong arm around his shoulders and accompanied the other teenagers south along the beach toward the fishing pier. I watched them from where I was for a time, noting that they were dividing into two groups, one heading for the nearest stairway, the other moving closer to the surf with the intention of going underneath the pier. It looked like Harold was in the second group, but I wasn't sure, so I got my things together and hurried after them.

By the time I reached the shade beneath the pier two couples were emerging into the sunlight on the far side and Harold wasn't among them, but using my binoculars and special microphone, I was able to identify the missing couple that had remained in the shadows to make love as Suzy and her new boyfriend, so Alice and J.J. must've gone with the other group. I knew I'd have no trouble finding them again, and sure enough the two couples I was following met the other group at the edge of the boardwalk.

Harold and J.J. were standing a little apart from the others as they all hung around for a while, and using my binoculars I was surprised to see my nephew leaning close to the young man who held him so intimately, his slender index finger extended and running its pink, oval-shaped tip in circles through the dense patch of hair on J.J.'s chest. I was only able to hear the end of their conversation, but I gathered that Alice was using some feminine wiles to persuade the surfer to change his mind about something, and the attempt was obviously successful, for the young man was nodding and saying "Okay, gorgeous," and then they kissed. It wasn't just J.J. kissing Alice this time, either, for much to my amazement Harold was actually kissing back a little bit, as if he really was that grateful.

It all made sense to me the minute the drug peddler showed up. Instead of conferencing with the others, J.J. and Alice excused themselves and started off down the boardwalk ahead of his friends. The drug connection was made, but Harold was no where near it at the time, for he'd managed to convince J.J. to keep him out of it. It was amusing how quickly my nephew had discovered a female's power to manipulate a male, and though I'm certain he exercised that power with the greatest reluctance, he was really quite good at it, and with a bit of practice might someday be able to wrap a man around his little finger like a real femme fatal. Alice definitely had all the right ingredients to make a devilishly sexy little coquette, a fact which Harold was apparently starting to realize, much to his shame and regret, I'm sure.

But what was important was that Harold had wanted to avoid contact with the drug so desperately he was even willing to employ Alice's girlish charms in his effort to persuade his escort not to participate in the transaction. The ease with which he succeeded probably gratified him, making him feel that it was worth the embarrassment, but it also probably troubled him to realize how alluring he could be as a girl if he really tried. He'd only been walking in Alice's high-heeled sandals for a little while, but already I he had a boyfriend who'd do almost anything for a kiss. In time he could have every boy on the boardwalk eating out of his hands; all he had to do was flirt with them.

As they proceeded along the boardwalk, J.J. took every opportunity to show off and win prizes for Alice, whether Harold really wanted them or not. All the attractions that had engaged my nephew on his first trip to the boardwalk were revisited, but this time it was J.J. not Harold, who attempted the tests of skill and luck, while Alice stood by trying to be supportive, just as Suzy might've done. Each time he won a prize for his companion, the surfer would demand a kiss in return, and as Harold's arms began to fill up with stuffed animals and other sundries, he found it more and more difficult to refuse, even though the young man's tokens of affection were growing longer and more passionate. All he could do was stand there, arms full, as J.J. hugged him close and planted kiss after kiss on his pretty, pink lips.

The surfer's aggressive and domineering behavior didn't change when the other teenagers caught up with them. either. In fact, J.J. seemed to be eager to demonstrate at every opportunity that he could kiss Alice any time he wanted to and hold her as intimately as he liked, and poor Harold was at a complete loss with no idea how to respond, so he just stood there passively and let the young man kiss him and touch him as he pleased, at least as long as it remained relatively harmless. I'm sure that if J.J. even looked like he was going to reach into the front of Alice's bikini bottom, Harold would find some way to prevent it, but he offered no resistance at all when the surfer placed his hand over the boy's almost naked rear, or led him around by the waist, or held him close to kiss him on the lips. As long as his secret remained safe, Harold seemed willing to tolerate almost anything, simply because he had no idea how to react, and as a result he appeared to be enjoying J.J.'s advances in a rather timid way.

When they reached the next gambling wheel, the girls decided to try their luck, and naturally Alice was included. Purses and prizes were turned over to boyfriends, and a twenty dollar bill was handed to the attendant, who evenly distributed quarters to all the girls in the group, including Harold. At first, the boy merely participated as a concession to the others, but soon he was actually enjoying the tense excitement as much as the other girls watching the pegs click past the needle as the wheel slowed to a stop, and once, when he won a double, he started bouncing on his high heels just like his female companions were doing, his own breasts and bottom jiggling along with theirs. Before long, Alice seemed to blend into the gaggle of girls as though born female, not just because Harold looked exactly like a beautiful young woman, but because he was actually starting to act like one.

The poor boy was taken completely by surprise when some of his male companions decided to use him as a diversion while they stole a few prizes. He was raising his pretty hands with a girlish shout of victory when suddenly the bow on his back came undone, and the pink bikini top fell onto the counter in front of him. He was so startled that he couldn't move or speak for a moment. He just stood there glaring down at his naked breasts with his mouth hanging open.

The laughter and crude remarks offered by the male observers soon brought him to his senses, but all he could do was to cover himself with his hands, pressing his palms flat against his bare nipples and cupping his breasts protectively. Far from making him feel more secure, the sight of his girlish hands caressing the globes of flesh on his chest only deepened his sense of humiliation. As a boy he'd smirked at the regulation regarding shirts and tops at the boardwalk and walked around bare-chested like his male friends, but now that he was Alice, being topless was a much more serious matter.

He turned from the counter, prepared to run all the way back to my house, I assume, but before he could take a single step, J.J. was at his side, comforting him and apologizing for the antics of his friends. Harold looked skeptical at first, as if he suspected that J.J. had been in on the gag, but the surfer was so sincere in his concerns and so angry with his friends that the boy eventually believed him. He offered no resistance as the young man took him in his arms and hugged him close, helping to conceal his nudity as much as possible. There they waited, locked in a tight embrace, while one of J.J.'s friends ran next door to the gift shop on his instructions. When he returned, the apologetic friend handed over the t-shirt he'd been sent to get, and J.J. carefully lowered it over Alice's head. Slipping his arms through the proper openings as instructed. Harold let the young man pull the garment onto his upper torso, past his soft breasts with their hard nipples and down past his flat stomach and pink bikini bottom. The shirt was much too big for him, but somehow that only made Alice look that much cuter in it.

With his girlish modesty intact once more, Harold obviously felt a great sense of relief and a true measure of gratitude toward J.J. for rescuing him, for the smile he beamed up at the young man was as sincere as the kiss he planted on the surfer's grinning lips. His knight in shining armor looked proud and confident as they walked hand in hand along the boardwalk, each with armload of prizes, and neither of the teenagers seemed to notice as their friends bid them farewell. Exchanging glances and smiles, squeezing hands and gently bumping their hips together, Alice and J.J. looked perfectly content as they made their way back toward the pier and the beach beyond, as if they were just an ordinary pair of lovers out for was hard for me to remember that it was Harold at, and I think he was beginning to forget he a girl, too. His actions were still spontaneous, but they were becoming utterly nature, as if looking like a girl and acting like a being accepted as a girl had forced him to start thing like a girl as well.

The most startling thing about it was that it had happened so quickly. Harold had been transformed into Alice only a few hours earlier, and yet already he had a boyfriend, he'd been kissed and he was starting to act naturally feminine. I saw reason for concern in the possible results if my nephew were to continue in his role as my niece. Would he eventually become so feminine that he could never be a boy again? Was I ruining the development of his male ego by forcing him to be a young woman? If he could change so much in so short a time, what would he be like by the end of summer? Would he become gay? Saddled with gnawing pangs of guilt and concern, I packed up my binoculars and headed home, knowing that J.J. would be escorting Alice there quite soon.

I was busy preparing dinner when I heard the teenage couple mounting the stairway outside together. Harold's timid, little voice was too soft to hear at first, but I could hear J.J.'s loud baritone from halfway up the dune. and I was certain Alice was with him from the clicking of high-heels on the wooden stairs that accompanied his voice.

"You live here?" he was saying, as if he just realized where they were going. "A friend of mine named Harry lives here too, doesn't he?"

I couldn't hear Alice's reply, though I strained my ears at the window, but it was easy to imagine the response.

"I hope he gets better soon," the surfer said, his voice getting louder as they neared the dune-top. "On the other hand, if you're only staying until he comes back, then I hope he stays away a long, long time."

I greeted them at the side door with a pleasant smile and remarking on the many prizes they carried, asked if they'd had a nice time at the boardwalk, to which Harold replied that J.J. had been very nice to him. I pretended to notice that Alice wasn't wearing a bikini top under the new t-shirt and asked what happened to it, but when the boy hesitated looking at the bundle of pink strings in his hand, J.J volunteered the explanation.

"Some of my friends are pretty immature," he said. "One of them untied Alice's top as a joke, but she didn't think it was very funny, and neither did I, especially when I saw how upset she got, so I helped her cover up while I had somebody buy her this t- shirt to wear home."

"Well, that was quite gallant of you, young man," I smiled. "Alice is lucky to have made such a good friend so quickly."

"I'm the lucky one, M'am," he grinned. "Your niece is quite a girl."

"You don't know the half of it," I agreed, causing my nephew to blush.

"Thanks again, J.J.," Harold said, trying to change the subject. "I guess I owe you one."

"Is that so?" he quipped. "Well, then you can pay me back by going out with me tonight."

"You mean," Harold swallowed nervously, "a date?"

"Nothing fancy," he said, "just a casual night out."

"That sounds like fun." I said, interrupting my nephew's attempt to decline the invitation. "What time do you want to pick her up?"

J.J. and I finished making the arrangements, including Alice's ten o'clock curfew, as Harold stood there staring at me with poorly disguised anger. The surfer and I exchanged parting pleasantries, and then I excused myself to go inside and finish cooking dinner. I could still see them through the screen door from where I stood, and I paused in my cooking to watch as the young man took Harold into his arms and kissed him good-bye. Once again, the boy was too timid to object and simply allowed it to happen, until he noticed that I could see him, and then he quickly pulled free. Following Alice's gaze, J.J. found me watching them and offered me a final wave farewell before running off.

PART THREE

Harold was blushing brightly when he entered, his arms loaded with toys and stuffed animals, but before he'd taken two steps I took the prizes and his sandals from him and turned him around again, sending him to the outdoor shower to get the sand off. He had to wear his new t-shirt. since his bikini top had become a tangled mess of string as he'd carried it home, and of course he couldn't go topless anymore. He might as well have been topless, however, once that t-shirt got wet, for the white material became translucent and started clinging to Harold's body like a coat of paint. Every detail of his female form was revealed, except for what remained hidden beneath the bikini bottom, and his pert, young breasts looked soft and sensuous with large, firm nipples pointing out and up. I had seen some of the wet t-shirt contests held on the boardwalk each year, and from what I'd Seen of Harold, I was certain my nephew could win this year's contest hands down.

There was activity on the stairway, the pounding of many bare feet and loud voices, all young and male, and I knew from experience that another group of boys had decided to take a shortcut over the dunes by trespassing on our property. They only did it occasionally, not enough to make a nuisance of themselves, so I never bothered to complain or report them, and normally they'd be gone down the other side of the dune within seconds anyway. This time, however, they reached the top of the stairs and stopped in their tracks, their eyes wide with interest as they glared with undisguised lust at the beautiful girl in the wet t- shirt. The comments started at once, followed by wolf whistles and poorly veiled suggestions, and a moment later Harold came rushing through the kitchen, still dripping wet, a look of torment on his face as he hurried past me to his bedroom, which was still locked, and then continued down the hall to Lara's room.

I chased the boys away with a threatened call to the police, then followed my nephew's wet footprints to the bedroom at the end of the hall. I found him lying on the bed, his face buried in a pink satin pillow, crying his heart out. I sat beside him and tried to comfort him, but he really needed a good cry to get it out of his system, so I waited patiently until he started to settle down. He was as pliant as a doll when I finally helped him to his feet and stripped off his wet t-shirt and bikini bottom. For the time being I just wrapped him in a fuzzy, pink bathrobe and put a matching pair of slippers on his feet. He had plenty of time to get ready for his date, and I wanted him to relax a little first.

We had a quiet dinner, which Harold hardly touched, and then I convinced him to help me clean up the kitchen, "like a good niece should." He cleared the table while collected the dishes in the sink, and then I washed while he dried. It went much faster and easier with his help, and I decided that Alice would be taking over many more chores in the days to come. In fact, the cute, little thing would be quite a homemaker when I was done. Having a niece instead of a nephew was going to have some attractive side benefits.

As soon as we were done, I glanced at the time and realized it time to start getting Harold ready for his date with J.J., so I marched him back down the hall trying to sound enthusiastic about the good time he was going to have, but the look on his face made me feel more like a warden bringing a prisoner back to his cell. Still, I persisted in my belief that this would be a good lesson for him and ignored all his pleas as I stripped off his robe and slippers and led him to the bathroom once more.

I had him soak in bath oils again as I washed the salt from his hair, and then I dried him off thoroughly before sprinkling baby powder on his skin and rubbing it in gently. I used the blow drier on his hair, and I was relieved to see that the permanent wave held beautifully. Even stark naked, my nephew looked more like an Alice than a Harold by a long shot, especially if you ignored that tiny thing between his legs. Once I had him all dolled up, even my departed sister wouldn't know him.

Back in the bedroom, I sat him down at the vanity and redid his cosmetics for him, but this time I made him watch and learn everything I did, insisting that he'd have to start doing his own make-up very soon now. He observed the entire process like a helpless captive watching a mad scientist at work on some diabolical experiment, and at each stage, as his face became more and more the face of a gorgeous young woman, his eyes grew wider and more frightened.

I began with his complexion, smoothing out the minor blemishes and imperfections with a light layer of evening wear make-up. I highlighted his thin, arching brows with a brown pencil and doubled the application of eyeliner and mascara around his eyes, giving them an ultra-feminine look, which I then enhanced with eye shadow in the same bright blue as his eyes. A little blush made his cheeks look rosy, while highlighter brought out his high cheekbones to make his face look thinner and more heart-shaped. After tracing the outline of his mouth with lip liner, I colored it in with the same dazzling pink lipstick as before, but then added a layer of lip gloss that gave the color a gleaming, shiny look, as if his lips were wet and glistening in the light. Once I'd brushed his hair into place, Harold looked perfect.

While he sat at the vanity staring in awe at his reflection, I decided to add a little more authenticity to Alice's image. He'd already pierced one of his ears to be like his friends, so when he wasn't expecting it, I pierced the other one for him. He was angry and horrified, since one pierce was acceptably stylish on a guy, while only girls pierced both ears, but I reminded him how important it was to look authentic and avoid suspicion, and since I couldn't remove the pierce he already had, he had to get the other one done too. He was still grumbling about it as I removed the small ring he'd worn in his ear and replaced it with a large, dangling earring, very ornate, like a set of hoops within hoops, then put the matching one in his other ear. He looked very displeased with the way they felt, constantly tugging at his earlobes as they swung back and forth, tinkling gently each time they struck his cheek, but refused to let him remove them, saying they would go well with his outfit.

I had already decided what he would wear. I'd seen it on Lara many times, and I knew it would still be in fashion. J.J. would love it, and Harold would get his final taste of being a sex object before I let him off the hook.

I had him stand in the middle of the room facing one of the full-length mirrors, and the moment he saw his reflection, he realized that his body looked different. I'd noticed right away, as soon as his T-shirt and bikini bottom had been removed, but the new tan lines had escaped his attention until now, and he stared at the after-image of the girls' swimsuit he'd worn etched into his skin. His old tan lines were still visible, but starting to fade already, especially around his lower torso, where skin had been exposed to sunlight for the first time. There was hardly any indication left that he'd ever worn anything but a string bikini to the beach, although if you looked closely it was still obvious that Alice had done some topless sunbathing at one time.

When Harold complained that he'd still have bikini tan lines in the fall, when school started, I simply assured him that once his body started changing back to normal, he could start changing his tan lines back again, too. I think he knew I was being overly optimistic and suspected that some remnant of his girlish tan would still be visible in the fall, no matter what he did to hide it. Even after only one day in the sun, his bikini lines were already so obvious that it was hard to imagine them gone by summer's end, and if he wore nothing but girls' swim wear day after day, there'd be no way to remove those tan lines before winter. He didn't argue with me, however, so I let it drop for now.

I started dressing him for his date by helping him into an adorable bra and panties set with ruffled edges and peek-a-boo lace. The panties fit him snugly and securely, in a way his boy under-shorts no longer could, and their sexy design left almost as much bare skin exposed as his bikini bottom had. As I helped him with his bra, I could see the mixed feelings in his eyes, since part of him liked the way his breasts were supported, much more so than in the bikini top he'd worn earlier, but part of him hated the idea that he actually needed such support now. His expanded chest filled the lacy cups to capacity and then some, for Harold was actually a little bit bustier than Lara now, and it must've felt strange to the boy to see his own breasts overflowing such a feminine undergarment with the shadow of cleavage clearly visible between them. If possible, he looked even sexier in bra and panties than he had naked.

I decided to give Harold some assistance in controlling J.J. that night by slipping a panty liner into the front of his panties to help disguise his crotch and by letting him wear pantyhose. Gartered stockings or bare legs might've been just too much of a turn-on for Alice's date, and I knew he'd already have trouble keeping his hands off my nephew as it was, so why tempt fate? The pantyhose were only slightly darker than Harold's legs, but the silky fabric gave a glimmering sheen to his smooth skin, and instead of offering some protection for his legs, the pantyhose actually made them seem more vulnerable somehow. What mattered most, however, was that Harold's crotch was a little more inaccessible to groping hands, and that extra protection might be needed before the night was over.

When I finally showed him the dress I'd chosen for him, he looked a little faint and asked to make his own selection, and though I enjoyed the thought of watching him pick out a dress for himself from Lara's wardrobe, I knew she also had slacks and shorts in there, and Harold was sure to resist wearing a skirt if he knew there was an acceptable alternative, so I decided he'd wear whatever I gave him without argument, and I wanted him to wear a dress. I knew the combined freedom and vulnerability of a skirt would increase his empathy for girls while it enhanced his role as a sex object. Alice had great legs, so why not show them off?

He held his arms up as I lowered the dress on him, the sleek satin skirt gliding smoothly over his breasts, past his slim waist and down around his wide hips as the rest of the material slid into place over his feminized form. As I zipped up the back, the dress seemed to mold itself to Harold’s new figure, somehow hanging loose with the skirt swinging freely, yet at the same time hugging every girlish curve as closely as a second skin. The dress was a work of art, a shimmering masterpiece in pink satin, superbly cut to fit the ideal shape of a young woman, and Harold had the perfect figure for it.

Beneath the narrow straps that went over his shoulders the low-cut bodice of the dress revealed the tops of his abundant breasts and gave a glimpse of the deep cleavage separating them. The design of the garment emphasized his tiny waistline and flaring hips, while leaving lots of room in back for his full, womanly behind. On another girl it might have been just a simple sheath of satin to drape around her figure, but on Alice that dress seemed to come alive, as if it had become a part of her somehow, and the way it drew attention to those jiggling breasts and swaying hops was almost magical. Even though Harold would technically be fully clothed, he might as well have been naked considering how little that dress left to the imagination. I almost considered changing his outfit to something less seductive, but it was just for one night, so I decided I'd really let the boy feel what it was like to be the kind of girl Harold had found attractive. I knew he wouldn't like it one bit, but that in itself would teach him a powerful lesson about the equality of the sexes, so it was worth it.

He'd already been walking successfully in high heels, so it wasn't hard to convince him to put on a pink pair of open-toed pumps to go with his dress, but it was difficult to make him keep them on, once he'd tried standing in them. Unlike the sandals, which had one-inch heels and lots of side support, the pumps had thin, stiletto heels almost three inches long and their sides were extremely low cut, leaving little more than the heel, the sole and a band of pink satin across the instep. With Harold's pink toenails visible through the tips of his pantyhose, his feet looked extremely attractive and sexy in the feminine footwear, but he did seem to have trouble walking in them, as he said.

I was firm in my selection, however, and after a brief session of coaching and drilling, he was able to negotiate the room without wobbling or looking unsteady. The stride he eventually adopted to cope with those feminine pumps was much like a model's walk, heel to toe, heel to toe, with hips swiveling and rear end gyrating sexily. I'm sure he would've preferred a different gait, but Harold was forced to assume the same seductive sashay used by women since high heels were created, and within minutes he was mincing daintily about in his pumps as easily as Lara might've done.

As he practiced walking like a girl, I tried to explain the paradox of high heels and feminine clothing in general: "High heels make your legs look sexy and attractive to men which is good, but those same heels also make it hard for you to keep your balance or move quickly, so that fighting or running away would be out of the question, if one of those men should get too turned on, and of course that's very bad, since it could lead to rape. Being both alluring and defenseless has a tendency to make girls more docile and cooperative with their boyfriends, since a horny male could probably take what he wants from you, if you won't give it up willingly. If you succeed in getting him worked up, and you can't fight him or run away, then you'd better do what he wants, right?"

The boy just stared at me in horror as his imagination detailed the scene for him in his mind's eye.

"I'm surprised it's never occurred to you before," I continued. "Most clothing made for women was originally designed for the convenience and pleasure of men. Take your skirt, for example. It'd be quite easy for J.J. to reach up under your dress tonight and touch you between your legs any time he felt like it."

The truth of my statement hit him hard, and he unconsciously pressed his skirt protectively against his crotch with both girlish hands, as if J.J. was even now threatening to get inside Alice's pretty pink panties. Since his lacy panties didn't contain the female orifice the young man would be looking for, Harold didn't actually have to worry about being raped, but if J.J. ever discovered what was really hidden inside Alice's sexy panties, the consequences could be even worse, so I had no doubt that my nephew would be defending his girlish virtue as vigorously as any female might.

I finished off Harold's outfit with a necklace of linked rings and a bracelet of wire hoops, both of which matched his earrings quite nicely. A girls' ring on his pinkie finger and a girls' watch on his wrist completed the accessories, and with a final spritz or two of Lara's favorite perfume, Alice was ready for her first date.

We'd cut it close, but it was still early, and J.J. wasn't due for another few minutes. Harold spent the entire time in front of the mirrors, staring at himself in embarrassed disbelief, as I lectured him on what every girl should know about boys. I expected him to argue that he already knew about boys because he was one, but he said nothing and appeared to be listening to every word, so I continued under the assumption that I was speaking for the benefit of Alice, not Harold. Harold knew all about what went on inside the head of the average boy, but now he needed to know what girls knew about boys, how J.J. might behave and what Alice could do about it if the young man was too aggressive, so he listened and learned just like the pretty young woman he appeared to be.

When the doorbell rang promptly at the expected hour, I thought Harold would literally jump out of his skin. He turned his terrified gaze on me and begged me to make up some excuse to get him out of this date, but after all the effort I'd put into Alice's appearance, I wasn't about to let him get out of this. Every boy should go out on a date as a girl at least once, I reasoned, just to know what it's like, so whether he appreciated the experience or not, Harold was going on that date with J.J. for his own good.

I instructed the boy to wait in the bedroom for a few minutes before coming out, advising him that a girl should always keep her boyfriend waiting a little before making an entrance. I'm sure such feminine logic made no sense to him at the time, but he was beyond caring about trivial matters and simply nodded absently as he continued to stare at himself in the mirrors. I planted a motherly kiss on his cheek before starting down the hall, and as I left the room, I offered a parting remarked on what a lucky young man J.J. was to have such a beautiful companion for the evening.

J.J. was waiting at the side door with a wide smile. His usually tangled hair had been combed back and tied with a black bandanna, and even though he still wore sandals, his ever-present swimming trunks had been replaced with a stylish outfit of black trousers, white t-shirt and gray sports jacket, giving him a kind of "casually formal" look that suited him well. He entered with a polite nod as I held the door open for him, and his eyes immediately began scanning the room for some sign of his date, barely concealing his eagerness, but as soon as I told him Alice was still getting ready, he smiled knowingly and took the seat on the coach that I offered him with no further signs of impatience, obviously quite willing to wait as long as it might take.

When enough time had passed, and Harold had still not made his appearance, I realized that he was stalling, so without raising my voice louder than necessary, I called down the hall to announce that Alice's "boyfriend" had arrived. I could just imagine the grimace on his face as he heard J.J. described as his boyfriend, but a few moments later he had successfully managed to gather his courage and I open the bedroom door. The certainty that I would come and get him if I had to was probably what motivated him to comply, since the situation could only get more embarrassing if he tried to resist and failed.

J.J. turned his head expectantly as the tap-tap-tapping of high heels sounded in the hallway, and rising to his feet, he swallowed nervously with growing anticipation. The moment Harold walked into the room, his sleek, shapely legs propelling him smoothly across the floor with the grace of a ballerina, J.J.'s eyes began to glow with admiration and desire. With each mincing step he took in his shiny, pink pumps, the boy's light blonde hair would bounce on his naked shoulders, his earrings and bracelet would tinkle melodically his bountiful breasts would quiver in the cups Of his bra as his well-rounded rear swished side to side with the jiggling gyrations of a sexy girl who knows how to strut her stuff. It was all quite unintentional on Harold's part, I was sure. He was simply trying to walk gracefully and look confident in his appearance to avoid suspicion, but the results were more impressive than most real girls could have achieved no matter how hard they tried.

J.J. was certainly impressed. He just stood there gaping in wonder at the vision of loveliness before him, too stunned to move or speak. Harold began to look nervous under such intense scrutiny, and he clasped his pretty hands together at his waist in a modest pose as his long-lashed eyes dropped in embarrassment. I could see that neither of the teenagers was prepared to break the awkward silence, so I helped them out.

"Well, what do you think, J.J.?" I asked. "Doesn't she look just wonderful?"

"You bet," he mumbled, still staring at the gorgeous blonde in the pink mini dress, but slowly the spell Alice had cast on him began to lift, and the glow that had lit his eyes now brightened his smile. "She looks fantastic!"

"Thank you," Harold replied nervously, trying to return the young man's smile. "You look nice too."

The boy looked uncertain as J.J. stepped closer and reached out to take his feminine hand, but he didn't pull away. He nodded once when asked if he was ready to leave and followed along submissively as J.J. led him toward the side exit. They paused once at the doorway, the surfer glancing back to wave goodnight to me as Harold cast one final pleading look in my direction, and then they were gone, walking off into the night on their first date together and Alice's first date as a girl.

I wasn't about to miss this, so the moment they started down the stairway toward the parking lot, I gathered my surveillance equipment, slipped into an appropriately sinister outfit of trench coat and wide-brimmed hat, then went after them. It wasn't necessary for me to follow them very closely. I knew where they were going, since I'd overheard J.J. telling Alice his plans for the evening, and I knew that Harold wouldn't be able to walk on the beach in his pantyhose and pumps, so they'd have to take the sidewalk on the inland side of the dunes. Knowing their route and destination made it all too easy to spy on them, especially with my high-tech equipment.

At first, they walked along holding hands and chatting about teenage concerns: which rock album was topping the charts, which television comedy was funniest, and on the local scene which girl was "making it" with which guy, It was amusing to watch Harold mincing daintily along in his high heels beside his "boyfriend" with his girlish rear end swishing sexily as he tried to hold up Alice's end of the conversation. He was only giving the young man a portion of his attention, the rest being concentrated on walking, talking and acting like a girl or occasionally being distracted by interested male observers who whistled or made comments about J.J.'s "girlfriend." As a result, Harold almost gave himself away when he casually agreed with the surfer that Suzy was "a nymphomaniac," but luckily he managed to cover himself by adding, "At least, that's what the other girls told me."

The dance club was already packed with teenagers when the couple finally arrived. Young men and women were meeting in small social clusters outside, and the music blaring from inside could be heard all over the boardwalk. It was the most popular gathering spot for young people in the area, and I remember Harold telling me about it the day after he took Suzy there. His favorite attraction at the time had been watching all the "dynamite babes" flaunting it out on the dance floor, especially Suzy who really knew how to "shake it loose," whatever that means. I had a feeling. however, that tonight's trip to the local hot spot was going to be quite different for Harold.

I think he realized it too, for long before he and J.J. had even reached the entrance, male admirers were watching his every move while their girlfriends looked on with jealousy. A group of obvious bachelors hanging out in front stopped their conversation to stare in silent awe when Alice sauntered passed them, and the young man checking admission at the door almost fell off his stool as he noticed the gorgeous figure dressed in hot pink approaching him. Some of the guys tried to be discreet in their interest, but most of them stared shamelessly, analyzing every curve, enjoying every wiggle and no doubt imagining what they would do to this little sexpot if they could. The fact that Alice seemed put off by all this male attention only made the guys more interested, for sexy girls like this, who dressed to catch a man's eye, weren't usually so timid or so bashful, so modest or so feminine. In a way, Alice combined the shy reserve of a "good" girl with the blatant sexuality of a "bad" girl, and most guys seemed to find that quite erotic.

I lost sight of the couple for a time after they went inside. I didn't want to attract attention to myself by trying to mingle with these teenagers in order to get closer, so I found an appropriate spot from where I could see much of the interior of the club without being noticeable, and there I put my binoculars to work again. There was too much noise around them for the special microphone to be effective, so I just watched and tried to imagine what they were saying to each other.

It was clear from the way he braced his high-heeled feet and tried to hold back as J.J. literally dragged him onto the dance floor, that Harold was more than reluctant to accept the young man's invitation to dance, but his strength was no match for the older boy's, and the surfer hardly even noticed Alice's resistance as he pulled his pretty date toward the center of the room. Once committed to the situation, Harold tried to smile and look relaxed as he and J.J. began to dance.

Like the other couples, they wriggled and jumped in time to the hectic rhythm, standing almost face to face, but hardly touching. I could tell by the nervous glances he was casting about the room that my nephew was making a quick study of the girls dancing around him, and little by little he began to mimic their actions, swiveling his hips and rotating his rear end as he shimmied his shoulders to make his breasts sway sexily. The encouragement he received from his date, as well as several other interested spectators, must have inspired the boy, for he was soon bouncing and flouncing with the best of the teenyboppers, and almost every male in the place was looking on with appreciation. While I watched, I began to understand what Harold had meant by the expression "shake it loose" as every part of Alice's sexy body was set into motion, and I doubted Suzy herself Could've done it better.

After an hour or so, Alice and J.J. rested and talked outside for a while, then returned to the dance floor for some more wiggling and jiggling. The evening was winding down, and couples were starting to leave, but Harold and his date stayed on a while longer. When finally a slow, romantic song started to play, many teenagers left the dance floor, and my nephew turned to join them, but J.J. was not about to let this opportunity slip by, and without a word he stepped closer to take the boy in his arms. They assumed the classic dancing pose, with Harold's right hand firmly captured in J.J.'s left and the young man's arm slung securely about his slim, girlish waist, and then they began to move together, gently rocking back and forth as they turned slowly clockwise. They were not great dancers, and Harold was very stiff and unresponsive at first, but as the dance went on and J.J. continued to whisper sweet nothings into his date's ear, the boy started to loosen up and let himself be guided by his domineering partner.

About halfway through the song, J.J. released Harold's hand and used both his arms to pull the unresisting boy closer, until Alice's soft breasts were nestled up against his manly chest. I was surprised by Harold reaction, for instead of struggling to get free or asking J.J. to stop he simply laid his pretty head down on the young man's shoulder and slipped his slender arms around his waist, as though accepting this inescapable consequence of dancing as a girl with another boy. He wasn't quite ready, however, when J.J. leaned over to plant a delicate kiss on his cheek, and he blushed once more in embarrassment, but he said nothing and offered no resistance when the young man kissed him again, and then again and again. He just closed his eyes and sighed with a dreamy look on his face, as if he was somehow enjoying all this attention despite himself.

When the song ended, Harold lifted his head and smiled appreciatively at his date, but rather than release the captive boy, J.J. wrapped his strong arms even tighter around his back and pulled him even tighter around his back and pulling him even closer. squeezing Alice's breasts sensuously against his chest as he caught Harold off guard and forced a long, passionate kiss on him. The boy's initial shock made him rigid with fear, and I'm sure the thought of being kissed by a boy in front of his peers was quite humiliating for him, but after a few moments Harold was able to relax a little, and then a little more until he finally just melted into J.J.'s arms, hanging onto the young man's shoulders for support as his knees refused to hold him up anymore. Apparently the helplessness of his situation was affecting him, making him feel docile and pliant. so that with each passing moment he began to react more and more like the girl he appeared to be. Forced into the female role, he was finding it harder and harder to resist feeling feminine, especially with J.J. so secure in the male role, expressing his masculine interest in Alice's slim, shapely body.

Harold meekly accepted being led off the dance floor as J.J. wrapped a possessive arm about Alice's waist and started for the exit, and the boy even made the concession of slipping his own slender arm around his date in return. Side by side they stepped out into the warm night air and started off down the boardwalk at a leisurely pace, Harold's high heels tapping and his sexy bottom swaying with each step. They walked away from the noise and the lights to find a secluded spot near some closed concession stands, and there they settled down onto a public bench overlooking the sea to talk and cuddle under the moonlight.

I couldn't see them too well from where I was, so I nonchalantly moved down the stairs onto the beach and took up a better position on the deserted stretch of sand. Slipping an infrared filter over the lenses, I activated the special microphone and then raised the binoculars to my eyes once more. I almost gasped out loud when I realized what I was seeing, had to stare long and hard for several moments before I could believe my eyes.

The teenagers were seated quite close together, and J.J. was leaning over his pretty date, his arms encircling Harold in an irresistible embrace as he planted kiss after kiss on the boy's soft, painted lips. What amazed me was the total lack of resistance my nephew was showing. I would've thought he'd be pleading and squirming to get free, but instead he passively accepted the young man's kisses, and sometimes he was even kissing back a little. I suppose it was easier to simply give J.J. what he wanted rather than start a scene, and from the look on Harold's face it wasn't such a terrible ordeal anyway. There were moments when he even looked as though he might be enjoying himself.

Things quickly got out of hand, however, and it wasn't long before J.J. was demanding more from Alice than Harold was willing to give. His hands kept wandering over the boy's small, sexy body, stroking smooth, nylon-clad thighs, squeezing full, round ass cheeks and caressing soft, voluptuous breasts, all without ever suspecting that it was really Harold he was fondling so passionately. My nephew did his best to keep J.J.'s hands from getting too familiar, but the young man was persistent and quite a bit stronger, so there wasn't much the boy could do, besides sit there and be man-handled by this more dominant male.

There was a look of horror in Harold's eyes when J.J. eventually reached down to grasp his pretty hand and place it gently over the front of his trousers where a frightened Alice undoubtedly felt the hardening flesh of an erection straining against its confinement. The young man moved Harold's hand up and down in his lap, showing his "girlfriend" what he wanted, and reluctantly the boy began to comply, rubbing his slender fingers with their pink, oval tips over the firm, manly bar of flesh through the material of J.J.'s shorts and trousers. This continued for a few minutes, with Harold obediently stimulating the surfer's manhood as his date drank kiss after kiss from his pretty, pink lips, but before long things got much more serious.

Eventually J.J.'s free hand moved to Harold's breasts once more, but this time he concentrated on squeezing and rubbing the hardened nipples, drawing a gasp of surprise and intense pleasure from the boy in his arms. Harold closed his eyes as the surfer kissed him and stimulated his sensitive breasts, and I imagine he began to feel more feminine that he ever would have thought possible. I could, hear him sigh girlishly each time their lips parted, and I realized he was getting sexually aroused, not as a boy, but as a girl. He kept trying to keep his dainty hand in motions massaging J.J.'s erection, but the erotic sensations were overwhelming him, and he lost concentration over and over again.

During one of these mental lapses, when Alice was simply putty in his hands, J.J. took the opportunity to lower the zipper in front of his trousers and remove his rigid member from imprisonment. It sprang up and out quickly, like a love-starved puppy eager for more attention, and once it was free, J.J. wasted no time in recapturing Alice's hand and returning it to his lap. Still dazed from the stimulation of his breasts, the boy hardly seemed aware that his girlish fingers had been wrapped around the firm flesh of the young man's aroused organ, but gradually, as J.J. began to move Harold's hand up and down in a series of stroking motions, my nephew came to his senses again, and the realization of what J.J. had him doing startled him into wide-eyed awareness, The surfer was too busy kissing Alice's sweet, pink lips and enjoying the touch of his girlfriend's slender fingers around his stiffened manhood to notice the sudden fear and repulsion in Harold's eyes as he continued to stroke the young man's erection, not knowing what else to do.

It was obvious by J.J.'s deep breathing and occasional moans of pleasure that little Alice was quite skilled at giving hand- jobs, but that wasn't really surprising, since Harold had been pulling on hard-ons of his own for years and knew just what to do from "first-hand" experience. I was certain he'd never touched another boy's penis before, and I knew he wasn't enjoying touching one now, but the undertaking was much the same as masturbation, though not as pleasurable, I'm sure, since it wasn't his own organ he was fondling. In a way it must have been like jerking off without being able to enjoy it; strange, yet also familiar.

What J.J. eventually wanted from Alice, however, was far from anything Harold had ever experienced before, and as he felt the young man's hand on the back of his neck urging Alice's blonde head down toward the surfer's lap, the boy finally rebelled. He tried to straighten up, but J.J. was too strong, and as the head of the swollen erection bobbed nearer and nearer in front of his nose, Harold started to panic.

"No!" he pleaded. "Stop it! I don't want to do this!"

"No, please!" the boy said, still struggling to get up, "I've never done this before!"

"Don't worry, Alice. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it before long. Now come on, it's startin' to get soft again."

"But I don't wa... Mmmmph!!" Harold's objection was muffled as his head was suddenly forced downward and J.J.'s male organ thrust its way into his open mouth. His lips and tongue instinctively closed around the meaty shaft as it jabbed the back of his throat, and for the first time in his life, Harold knew what a man really tasted like. He gagged at first and tried to keep his mouth from touching the young mantes pole as much as possible, but J.J. began to raise and lower the boy's head in a rhythmic motion, and my poor nephew was forced to take the rock hard organ between his pretty pink lips and service it like some cock sucking little whore.

This was far beyond the level of humiliation I had planned for Harold, and I was incensed by J.J.'s outrageous behavior; so much so, that I almost threw down my binoculars and charged over there to save my abused young ward, but the moment I thought of it I knew I couldn't interfere. The only thing that might make Harold's ordeal even worse would he knowing that I had witnessed it. As it was, only J.J. could know what Harold had done, and since he thought Alice Was a girl, the shame was much less than it would be if anyone were to observe him, knowing that he was just a boy meekly sucking off another boy. No matter how much I wanted to help my nephew escape from this humiliating torment, I could do nothing but watch and sympathize.

I think after a few minutes Harold began to realize that this atrocious act would continue until J.J. got what he wanted, and he must've decided to get it over with as quickly as possible, for he seemed to steel himself against the shame and disgust he'd felt earlier, and little by little Alice took charge of things.

When he felt the boy's head begin to move on its own, J.J. released his captive and leaned back on the bench to enjoy himself. It was obvious from the gasps and groans he emitted that Harold was doing a wonderful job.

"That's it, baby," he whispered. "More tongue. Yeah, do it, girl. Lick that popsicle."

Alice responded to his encouragement by working more and more furiously at kissing, licking and sucking the young man's penis. Apparently Harold wanted this to end, no matter what it took, so he was doing his all to give his date the satisfaction demanded.

"Oh, sweetheart, that's great!" the surfer moaned. "Oooo, yeah, you're the best, Alice, the best I've ever known. I can't take it anymore... I'm gonna..."

I could tell by the way he rolled his eyes and leaned back that J.J. had reached his climax and was ejaculating into Alice's waiting mouth, and like an obedient girlfriend, Harold used his lips and tongue to suck down every drop of sperm, nursing on the spent organ until it was small and limp in his mouth. Only then did he carefully return J.J.'s manhood to its home inside the young man's trousers and pull the zipper shut with his girlish fingers.

"Was it all right?" Harold asked timidly as he sat up once more. "Did I do it right?"

"Oh, baby," the surfer sighed, taking the boy in his arms to kiss him passionately on the lips again. "That was incredible!"

The two teenagers continued to sit there in silence for a while, just kissing and caressing each other the way young lovers do, and I soon realized that Harold had somehow forgiven J.J. for what he'd just done. There was no anger in his girlish voice as he whispered the surfer's name and no hesitation in the way he accepted the young man's kisses. It was as if Harold had come to accept his role as a sex object and no longer resisted his strange fate. Perhaps he'd decided that being treated like a girl was inevitable so why fight it? As he settled his head against his boyfriend's chest with a dreamy sigh, I saw sadness and regret in my nephew's eyes, but there was also an expression I'd never seen on Harold's face before, a look of peace and contentment, and I was worried about what it might mean, for it seemed to me that it was the look of a pretty girl who'd resigned herself to being just what she was.

When it came close to curfew time, I took one last look at the cute young couple before packing up and hurrying off toward home. It wouldn't do to have Harold and his boyfriend get to the house before I did, so I made tracks and stepped through the door with ten minutes to spare. After a quick change into my nightgown I puttered around in the kitchen and tried to make the living room looked a little messy, as if I'd been home all night. Then I settled down in front of the television to watch a romantic comedy on cable until Harold's date brought him home.

It was a long wait, for curfew came and went, and still there was no sign of the teenagers. It was almost an hour later that I heard Alice's high heels on the stairs, and I was so annoyed by the lateness of the hour, that I planned to give both him and his date a stern lecture on the rules and regulations concerning Alice and boyfriends, but as he reached the top of the stairs, I realized that Harold was alone, and by the rapid clicking of his heels as he crossed the side deck, I could tell that he was in a hurry. Something was wrong.

My fears were confirmed when my nephew came rushing through the doorway looking terribly upset. There were tears in his pretty girl's eyes, and his lower lip was trembling with repressed sobs. He paused only a moment to look at me, but when he tried to speak, no words would come, and he ended up putting his head in his hands and turning away to stumble down the hall toward his room. I could hear his crying start in earnest as I hurried after him, urging him to stop and tell me what was wrong, but he ignored me and locked himself in the little, pink bathroom, where he continued to ball his head off, pretending not to hear me as I pleaded with him to let me in.

After a few minutes he began to calm down a little, and 3 was able to talk to him through the closed door. He insisted that nothing was wrong, he just wanted to be left alone. I asked why he was crying, but all he would say was that something had happened on his date with J.J. to make him upset, and he didn't want to talk about it. I immediately assumed the cause of his outburst to be the scene I had witnessed on the boardwalk, when Harold had been forced to sexually satisfy his date with a blow-job, and I decided to back off a little. Forcing him to tell me about it would probably only make it worse, and he was so obviously disturbed by the ordeal that I was afraid reliving it might give him a nervous breakdown or something, so I fissured him that I'd be patient and not ask any more questions until he decided he was ready to talk about it.

With that promise, he opened the door and allowed me to help him get ready for bed. He basically just stood in the middle of the bedroom sniffling and sobbing gently as removed his dress and heels, his jewelry, his pantyhose, and finally his lacy bra and panties. His long-lashed eyes remained downcast, and tears continued to trickle down his blushing cheeks while I assembled a bedtime outfit for him to wear, and he hardly seemed to notice as I dressed him in a dainty babydoll nightie made of a silky, lavender material that did little to hide his girlish charms. His thoughts were a million miles away, but he seemed much calmer and quieter now, so I tucked him into bed and sat with him for a while, stroking his long, blonde hair and humming a gentle lullaby. Speaking in a soft whisper, like a mother comforting a frightened little girl, I apologized for making him go out on a date with another boy, and I promised that he would never have to do anything like that again, but he made no response, and I wasn't sure if he'd even heard me, so I said nothing more and just sat with him.

At first, the boy looked too wound up to sleep, his eyes fixed unseeing on some point beyond the ceiling, his tears still flowing, but as I soothed him, he began to relax and soon his eyes were blinking closed, his breathing became deep and regular, and the worry lines faded from his angelic face. I stayed with him a little longer, wishing he really were my pretty niece, Alice, and not just an unruly boy who needed discipline. Life would be so much simpler that way, for both of us.

With a sigh of regret, I started to rise, bending down to plant a final goodnight kiss on Harold's forehead, but the moment I came close to his face, I was startled to discover a strange aroma on the boy's breath. I sniffed again as the sleeping figure exhaled, and this time recognized the odor... Marijuana!!

I was horrified! How!? Why!? What was he thinking!? Had he lost his mind!? After all the trouble and expense I d been through to get him away from that stuff, he was STILL smoking it! There was no doubt about it this time! This was not from secondary smoking! Only concentrated smoke inhaled directly into his lungs could account for the smell on his breath! Was there no threat, no consequence that could frighten him into quitting!? Was he really willing to risk becoming a real girl for life, just for a few more puffs!? Could he have become that severely addicted at so young an age!?

I was beside myself with worry and frustration. I was disappointed in my nephew for his weakness, and I was angry with myself for foolishly relying on the imaginary "X-factor" to solve all our problems. Harold's drug use was obviously beyond his control, and instead of turning him into a girl, I should’ve been getting him psychiatric help. Now, in addition to his drug addiction, he might also suffer a sexual identity crisis, so in a way, I'd only made things worse. If I could, I would've gone back in time and handled the whole problem much differently, but of course I was stuck with the reality of the situation.

For better or worse, I'd already chosen the road that Harold and I would travel, and it was far too late to turn back now. I was committed to follow through on this, like it or not, for the only way out was to confess to my nephew that there was no "X- factor," and that I'd been responsible for his feminization all along, which I just couldn't bring myself to do. I know I should've drawn the line right there and then, if not sooner, and admitted to Harold what I'd been up to, but I just couldn't find the courage to admit my mistakes, so I found my thoughts moving in the opposite direction. Harold knew what the consequences might be when he puffed on that marijuana, and in order to protect my credibility, I'd have to insure that those consequences were realized. I eased my guilty conscience with a reminder that he'd brought this on himself, and I was just an agent of fate, responding to the decision he'd freely made.

I sat at the kitchen table sipping cup after cup of coffee, gathering the strength to do what had to be done, and sometime around two in the morning I finally picked up fine phone and called my friend again. The doctor was even more upset with me for waking him this time, and when I told him of my intentions, he flatly refused to cooperate. In addition to a gigantic donation to his clinic and a promise never to call him again, I had to resort to threats, reminding him of the illegal activities he'd already engaged in and pointing out how easily I could ruin his career by reporting him to the local medical review board. In the end, he saw things my way, and long before the day had drowned another ambulance had arrived to take Harold back to m e clinic for the last time.

He was gone for almost two months this time, and summer was nearly over when I finally received a call from the clinic that the convalescent period was over and my ward would be returning home very soon. Several weeks earlier, however, I happened to learn about the circumstances surrounding Harold's last encounter with drugs, and the facts were not as I'd assumed. In fact, once I knew what had really happened that night, I felt sick at heart and very guilty for having jumped to conclusions and acting so hastily, especially since the consequences of my mistake were so drastic for my nephew. So it was with some trepidation that I anticipated welcoming my adopted child flack home.

I learned the truth of the matter one afternoon while I was sunbathing on the side deck. Much to my surprise, I was paid a visit by none other than young J.J., who mounted the steps from the beach with hunched shoulders and a hang-dog expression, looking much like Harold had looked when I'd forced him to go out on a date as a girl. As he approached me with a polite greeting, he seemed to have trouble meeting my gaze, which was not particularly friendly, I admit. I just kept recalling poor Alice forced to service this young stud's manhood, and the memory put me in a disagreeable mood, so I rather abruptly asked him what he wanted.

He hesitated a moment, looking nervously at his hands, and it was then that I noticed how tired and upset he looked. His eyes were red and puffy, as though he'd been crying a long time, and he seemed so weak and unsteady that I wondered how long it had been since he'd gotten any sleep.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he started, his eyes still downcast. "I just wanted to ask you... well... I heard from somebody... I mean..."

"Get to the point," I said impatiently.

"Is it true?" he asked, looking up sadly. "I mean... about Alice going to the hospital?"

I nodded, my cover story all ready. "She's in very serious condition, I'm afraid. I doubt if she'll be released from the hospital for at least several more weeks."

The news seemed to take the young man's breath away and he stumbled back to settle clumsily onto a nearby chair and when I asked if he was all right, he simply let his head fall into his hands and started to cry.

"It's all my fault!" he confessed, choking on his sobs. "She warned me what might happen, but I didn't listen! Oh Alice! Please forgive me! I'm so sorry!"

I rose from my chair to glare down at him. "What did you do?"

It came out slowly, in bits and pieces, but eventually I was able to put together the whole story. It seems that after I left the beach that night, J.J. began escorting Alice home as I'd expected, but when they ran into an older friend of J.J.'s who wanted to show off his new car, the teenagers ended up cruising around for more than an hour before they finally dropped Alice off, which of course is why Harold was so late getting home that night. The real issue, however, involved what they were doing during that hour, for J.J. reluctantly confessed that his friend had lit up some pot and the two of them had been smoking heavily much of the time, despite Alice's protests.

Apparently, poor Harold had been trapped between these two burly guys in the front seat, and when they started puffing on a joint, the boy had tried desperately to avoid the smoke, claiming that he was allergic to the drug and would have a bad reaction, but the young men just teased him, not believing a word of it. Even after Alice tried to climb over J.J.'s lap and jump from the moving car, they still wouldn't take Harold seriously, and at one point J.J was so sure his date was overreacting, he actually put the joint in his mouth backwards and: blew a thick stream of smoke directly into Harold's mouth as the boy continued to complain. The dense, pungent cloud caught him off guard and much of the smoke was inhaled, which J.J. noticed seemed to disturb Alice greatly. He said that the girl started coughing and gagging as though poisoned, and afterward it took a long time before he could get his date to stop crying and settle down again. When they finally dropped Harold off at the bottom of the stairs, the boy got out of the car without a word and rushed up the stairs, ignoring the halfhearted apology J.J. called after him.

As the facts emerged, I felt a growing sense of dread. Harold had been innocent. He'd tried his best to stay away from pot, but in his role as Alice he was too timid to stand up to the bigger, stronger males who dominated him, so he could no more have resisted breathing in that smoke than he could've refused to give J.J. head on the boardwalk. A wave of guilt-crashed over me, and I had a sudden impulse to rush to the phone and call the clinic, but I knew it was already too late. The surgery had been performed days earlier, and Harold would've been in recovery about then, still unconscious as he would remain until the day he returned home. There was no way to undo what I'd done, so whether or not Harold deserved it, his fate was sealed.

I comforted J.J. as best I could and promised that he could come and visit Alice as soon as "she" got out of the hospital. It was surprising how upset and concerned he was, and I began to realize that this young man really cared for the girl Harold had become. I'd seen boys in this state before, and there was no mistaking the signs. J.J. was in love. I wondered how he might feel if I told him that pretty Alice was really a boy, a boy named Harold, the new kid he'd taught to surf, but the strength of his concern for Alice was so intense, I wasn't sure that telling him would make any difference. At this point, even learning Harold's true identity might not be enough to change J.J.'s feelings. He might just continue loving Alice anyway.

I promised him that "my niece" would be all right again and should be coming home to stay in a few weeks, and for whatever it was worth I told him that I forgave him for what he'd done, which did seem to help him a little. I watched him trudge sadly down the stairs and waved once as he looked back, then went inside to collect my thoughts. My guilt was bothering me terribly, so I had to justify what I'd done, and it really wasn't too hard. Whether Harold had wanted to smoke pot or not, that's what he'd done, so the consequences should be the same, even if he doesn't deserve them. Let him blame J.J. for what's happened, I thought. After all, how was I to know that Harold had been forced to smoke?

By the time the ambulance arrived weeks later and my still sleeping ward was returned to Lara's bed, I'd managed to overcome my guilt and accept responsibility for what I'd done with a clear conscience. Once the doctor and the ambulance driver had left, I stood over the bed looking down at that lovely face, the face of an angel, so peaceful and content in slumber, and I reassured myself that everything would work out for the best. I would miss Harold, a little, but there was no bringing him back now. My nephew was gone for good, and now there was only Alice.

I'd been told that the patient would continue to sleep through the night, so I went to bed myself before too long, but early the next morning I was startled awake by a scream. I'd heard Harold cry out in anguish before, when he awoke to discover his girlish figure, but this was a horrifying, blood-chilling shriek of sheer terror, and my heart was pounding with fright as I rushed down the hall and threw open the door to Lara's room.

I found Alice sitting on the edge of the bed with the panties to her babydoll nightie draped around her ankles one hand lifting up the hem of her top, and the other clasped tightly over her gaping mouth as she started in agonized disbelief at her reflection in the mirror. Her smooth, pretty legs were spread wide apart, offering a clear view of the pink, hairless, slightly pouting pussy that had replaced Harold's shrunken manhood, and I could tell at once, even from a distance, that the doctor had done a superb job on the boy, for the girl's vagina looked absolutely perfect. In fact, there was no longer a single sign anywhere on her body that Alice had ever been male, and anyone who saw her would automatically assume that she'd been born female.

As before, I acted surprised, and it wasn't too difficult to be convincing. Hearing my entrance, the beautiful girl turned and gazed into my eyes in desperation as though pleading with me to confide that it was just a bad dream, but all I could do was to stare in fascination at the t naked slit between Alice's legs, marveling at its flawless appearance. She started to say something, then turned back to the mirror and glared at her crotch once more in speechless terror. Her pink-nailed fingers were trembling] as she took her hand from her open mouth and slowly reached down to touch herself at the core of her female sex. she delicately inspected the soft, tender lips surrounding her new orifice, then cautiously inserted one finger into the gap between them to confirm the truth of her horrifying transformation into a real girl. A tiny gasp escaped her throat as her finger slipped easily past the parted lips and into the warm. moist cavity beyond, and then her pretty eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed on mattress, unconscious.

Rushing to her side, I gently removed her finger from the recess in which she'd buried it, then raised her legs onto the mattress and moved her into a comfortable position. I checked her eyes and pulse and was relieved to see no indication of shock. She'd merely fainted. It seemed a properly feminine way for Alice to acknowledge her new role as a girl, and the appropriateness of her response made me smile. If this was any indication, Alice was going to do well as a female.

When she regained consciousness, I held her in my arms and comforted her as she cried and cried. I listened, as if hearing it for the first time, as she described her date with J.J. and the awful scene in his friend's car, which she assumed had just happened last night. It was much later that I told Alice she'd been in a coma for weeks, but for now I let her go on believing that her transformation had occurred overnight. I sympathized with her as she told me how hard she'd tried to get out of the car when the boys had started smoking, and how helpless and frightened she'd been when J.J. blew smoke right into her mouth, forcing her to breath it in. she hadn't told me about it when she got home, because she'd hoped that she hadn't breathed in enough smoke to trigger the "X-factor," but the evidence was there between her pretty thighs when she woke up, so there was no denying it; Alice's conversion into a girl was complete, and she’d remain female for the rest of her life.

It took hours for her to cry most of her shame and despair out of her system, but finally I coaxed her into getting out of bed and getting dressed for the day. I went to make us some lunch while she changed, and I must admit I was feeling pretty good about myself. Things hadn't worked out so badly after all. Harold was gone, but his beautiful sister Alice had come to stay with me permanently, and I was looking forward in the days and months ahead to teaching her all she'd need to know about how to be a woman. I was sure we'd become very close, much closer than Harold and I ever could've gotten, and once she'd had a taste of being a girl, a real girl, I knew she wouldn't want to be a boy again even if she could.

While I was puttering in the kitchen, there was a knock on the side door, and when I went to answer it, I was surprised to find a clean-shaven young man in swim trunks with closely cropped hair bowing politely and holding a bouquet of roses in his hand. It took me a few moments to recognize J.J., he looked so different, but once I knew who he was, I must say I was delighted by the improvement in his appearance and immediately told him so. He smiled and thanked me for the compliment, then asked if it was true that Alice had come home. I explained that the ambulance had just dropped her off last night, so she was probably too weak to have visitors, and he nodded his understanding asking instead if I would give the flowers to Alice with his sincere apologies.

I took the bouquet from him and was about to say good-bye when I was surprised to hear Alice's high-heeled shoes come clicking down the hall into the living room behind me. I saw a gleam light up in J.J.'s eyes and turned to find Alice, fully dressed and made-up, looking absolutely ravishing in her tiniest string bikini and her sexiest highheeled sandals, mincing coquettishly toward us, her lovely eyes trained on the young man at my side. Instead of screaming at him and demanding that he leave at once, as I'd expected, Alice smiled timidly and asked if the flowers were for her. I gave the bouquet back to J.J. so that he could present the roses to her himself, which he eagerly did, and then he fell to his knees before her in a sincere and rather touching plea for forgiveness.

My pretty niece seemed to consider his request for a moment in silence, and then she smiled again, a kind of sad, ironic smile full of regret, but a smile that spoke more Clearly than any words might've done. The instant he saw it, J.J. knew he'd been forgiven, and he swept her into his arms to kiss her passionately, right there in front of me. I glanced away for a few moments, then cleared my throat, and reluctantly the young man relaxed his embrace to let niece step free, but we were both surprised when the girl made no move to stand clear, and instead slipped her arm possessively around her boyfriend's waist and pulled him even closer. J.J. looked like he was in heaven as his pretty girlfriend smiled up at him and asked him to take her to the boardwalk for the day, and he readily agreed, after pausing first to ask my permission, which I thought was very considerate of him. I was starting to like this boy.

It was obvious that Alice already liked him a lot, and she seemed to have decided rather quickly that if she had to awe a girl, she wanted to be J.J.'s girl. The doctor had given her a clean bill of health when he released her from the clinic, so I wasn't worried about Alice's recovery, and it seemed like a good idea for her to get out there and start living life as a female as soon as she felt ready for it, so since she appeared to be ready now, I took the bouquet from her and gave her permission to go out and have fun with her boyfriend.

After saying their good-byes, they started down the stairs toward the beach together, holding hands and talking intimately like lovers who've been apart too long. I watched them until they were about halfway down, and then I rushed inside to change and get my surveillance gear together. It was Alice's first day as a real girl, and I wasn't about to just sit around the house worrying about her, wondering how she was handling life as a female, not when I could easily satisfy my curiosity by spying on her, as I'd done with Harold. Sure, it was an invasion of privacy, but I'd invested so much time and money and emotion into Alice's life, I felt I was owed a closer look. After all, if it hadn't been for me, Alice wouldn't even exist.

It took me a little longer than I'd expected to get organized so by the time I got to the beach there was no sign of my niece and her boyfriend anywhere, but I knew where they were going, so without delay I turned south and headed for the boardwalk. I chose the less conspicuous route under the pier, and as I entered the shadows I could see a teenage couple walking away along the sunny beach on the far side, so I hurried to catch up, assuming it was them, but as I passed beneath the fishing pier I was startled to hear a familiar voice coming from out of the darkness on my right, and I froze in my tracks.

"Oh, Alice..." J.J. was saying, apparently between kisses, "Alice... I was so worried... I was afraid you... Oh, it's so good to hold you in my arms again."

Moving quietly, I stepped away and hid behind a pylon then carefully set up my binoculars with infrared lenses before engaging the microphone. The scene came into clear focus before me, and I could hear every pant and sigh as they clutched at each other and kissed passionately. J.J looked like a man receiving his innermost heart's desire as he kissed and licked and caressed the object of his affections, while Alice seemed to surrender herself to him reluctantly, like a young woman unable to resist her own passion, yet surrender herself she did, returning his kisses and wrapping her arms around his broad back as she allowed him to explore her sexy body as he wished.

I found it hard to believe that my niece was letting this happen, especially so soon after the shock of becoming female, but it seemed that little Alice had no more resistance to offer, since she no longer had any manhood to defend or recapture, so if fate had decreed that she must be a girl, she was going to know what being a girl was really like, and at the rate they were going at it, she was going to know quite soon.

J.J. had removed her bikini and was sucking and fondling her sensitive breasts like a man possessed, driving the young woman wild with tingling pleasure. She writhed and moaned in his arms, running her pretty, manicured fingers through his short hair and wrapping her naked legs about him possessively. Her eyes opened with surprise as she felt his kisses moving down from her breasts to her stomach and then farther down, but she spread her legs wide in compliance as the young man's mouth sought to kiss the delicate lips between her thighs. She wriggled and gasped the look of surprise on her face turning to one of astonishment as she felt him inside her, and then she clasped her legs together, capturing her lover's face between clenched thighs as if unwilling to let him stop what he was doing. Her girlish hands went to her breasts to increase her sense of female arousal as the young man grasped her soft bottom cheeks with both hands and caressed her yielding, feminine flesh with a gentle firmness that excited her even more.

When J.J. finally paused to sit up and remove his bathing trunks, the erection that came springing up in front of him was enormous, and I think Alice began to reconsider her position when she saw it, for her girlish eyes went wide with concern. She'd seen the young man's penis before; she'd even held it, stroked it, kissed it and sucked on it until she'd tasted its creamy filling, but he must not have been fully aroused at the time, for now his organ seemed much larger. In fact, it looked as if it had swollen to its maximum possible dimensions, and I realized that J.J. was about as turned on as he could ever get. It was quite possible that this was the biggest erection he'd ever gotten in his life, but however it might have rated, it was definitely big enough to give Alice second thoughts, and she swallowed nervously as the young man moved closer to kneel between her naked legs.

Sensing her tension, J.J. smiled down at her reassuringly and produced a packet of condoms from his discarded swim trunks. Tearing open the package, he removed the lubricated, rolled up sheath from its container, then tossed the empty package aside with a confident nonchalance. lie looked down, and for a moment it appeared that he was going to roll the condom onto his straining erection himself, but then he paused, smiled and handed the plastic disc to Alice, who reached up to take it from him with the greatest reluctance. Sitting up, she leaned forward and carefully took J.J.'s penis in her hands. She seemed to stare at it strangely for a moment with something like nostalgia, as if thinking back to when Harold had a penis and Alice didn't exist, and then she bent down to gently solace a kiss onto its mushroom- like tip. Like a dutiful wife, she carefully placed the condom over the head of her lover's penis and lovingly rolled it down and around the rigid bar of flesh until it reached the bottom. She continued to stare at it and caress it tenderly, as though becoming more familiar with the instrument about to deflower her, and then she laid back down with a nervous sigh.

"Please be careful, J.J.," she whispered in a remarkably feminine voice. "Don't get sand in my pussy."

MY pussy, she said. How strange it must have felt for her to say those words and to think the thoughts that went with them. Not long ago my ward was a handsome boy making love to his girlfriend on the beach, but so much had changed so quickly, and now Harold was Alice, lying back on the sand and opening her shapely legs as she waited nervously for a young man to make love to her for the first time.

She didn’t have to wait very long, for as soon as his girlfriend resumed her prone position, J.J. was on top of her, lowering his hairy chest down onto her soft, sensitive breasts, then taking her in his arms to kiss her once more. She was trembling as she felt his manhood at the entrance to her female cavity, but she took a deep breath and held it, closing her eyes tightly, her tiny fists balled up at her sides. And then he took her. she squealed a little as his erection slipped easily past the lips of her pussy to invade her innermost depths, and there was a look of stunned disbelief on her pretty face as she felt a man inside her for the first time.

J.J. moved slowly, gently, holding back his passion to avoid hurting the girl unnecessarily, for he could probably tell that she was a virgin, or had been until today. It wasn't long, however, before Alice's pain and surprise had given way to a totally new feeling for her, and soon she was moaning with ecstasy as her first female orgasm exploded inside her. she began to claw at the man on top her, wrapping her legs around his back as she thrust her hips up at him to drive his probe even deeper into her loins. She was a woman now, all woman, and she accepted her lover as only a woman can, receiving him, caressing him, loving him, until finally his need for her was fulfilled.

With a gasp and a groan of delight, the young man shuddered on top of her, and I could tell at once that he'd released his load deep inside her. I wondered what my niece was thinking as she felt his warm sperm spraying against the walls of her vagina, knowing that she had satisfied this 0 young man as Harold never could. What further proof of her 4 female sex could she need than feeling she was experiencing right now, the warm afterglow that lit up every cell in her body. A man had made love to her, and she had satisfied him. She could still feel his deflated member inside her, growing a little softer and smaller with each passing second, but still inside her, reminding her that she was a real girl now and would remain female forever.

As the lovers cuddled and kissed in their post-coital bliss, I saw my niece running her girlish fingers across J.J.'s muscular back and heard her whisper in an incredibly feminine voice the words that made me realize for the first time that she would be all right.

"Thanks, J.J.," she sighed in a dreamy voice. "That was wonderful."

"It was better than that," the young man replied, and then he kissed her again, a long, lingering kiss that looked like it might never end. When he finally took his lips from hers, J.J. met her gaze with a look of great sincerity.

"I know we haven't know each other very long," he started, speaking slowly and very seriously, "but I've never felt anything like this before, and... well, I'm falling in love with you, Alice."

The girl said nothing for moment, as though deep in thought, and then she lifted her face to kiss him tenderly on the lips.

"It's all right," she said softly.

"I think I love you, too."

1 left the young lovers to continue their sexual antics in private, certain in the knowledge that Alice was going to be all right. There would still be difficult adjustments to make, especially if she got any more serious about J.J. I'm sure that Harold never gave a moment's thought to what it might be like to become a man's wife, but that might be something Alice was going to have to start considering. The moment I thought of that I imagined my beautiful niece coming down the aisle wearing a gorgeous wedding gown, the envy of every other female in church, her handsome groom eagerly awaiting her at the altar, and I couldn't wait for the day to arrive, for I was quite sure that someday, perhaps very soon, my pretty Alice was going to make a stunning bride.

--THE END--