ambiguous genitalia

Charley’s Tale Part 6

Marzell was back in ten minutes.  “I don’t guess I can go.  Mom said we didn’t move the fishing poles and tackle box.

“That’s okay,” Charley reassured her.  “We’ve got plenty.  Sometimes we all go.  If Ginny catches us, she’ll have to tag along, so we’ll take an extra for her.  You can dig a few worms while I fetch the gear.  Don’t run off squealing.”

“I’ll be fine.  I eat worms for breakfast!”  Marzell quipped.

Charley ran in just long enough to get some pants on  and yell to Cora.  “Cora,  I’m going fishing.  Tell Ginny to come on down if she wants to.”

“Okay, but don’t be late for supper.  Here’s a couple of apples to hold you over.”

“Better make it three, Cora.  A friend is with me.” Charley told her.  Cora smiled to herself, glad to know Charley had a companion.  It had been a long time.  Ginny burst in the back door, banging her books on the kitchen table.  “Ginny, I ‘m going fishing.  Come on down to the creek if you want to.”

“Okay!” Ginny answered as she grabbed a couple of cookies.

The girls dropped their lines off a five foot embankment into to sandy-bottomed creek.  Small sunfish were tempted by the worms dangling before them, but were too small to get the bait n their mouths.  Occasionally, a nice white perch took interest and was added to the stringer.  Eventually, seven white perch and a catfish hung in the cool water.  “I’d better get home for supper,” Marzell announced, starting to get things together.

“Can you stay for supper?” Charley asked.  “Cora always cooks my fish for me.”

“I’ll have to ask Mother.” Marzell replied.

As soon as they got back to Charley’s, Charley told Cora they had fish to cook.  “I thought you might.” Cora laughed.  I’m just about to put some chicken on to fry.  Bring me them fish as soon as they cleaned and I’ll fry them up for you.  Marzell, call your mama and ask if it’s okay for you to stay to supper.”

Cora set an extra place for Marzell and set a sizzling platter of fried chicken and fish In front of Charles and the girls.  “Dr. Charles, you can thank the girls for this nice mess of fish.  Charley, you know catfish is my favorite, so I am taking that one home for my supper.  Next time, you’d better catch two if you want one.  You girls don’t forget to clear away and I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”

Charles was delighted Charley had a guest, but was careful not to make much of it.  “I thank you girls for the fish.  I could each fish every night.  Maybe you’d better go every day.”

“I’d a heap rather fish very day than go to school,” Charley answered.

“Me, too!” said Marzell.  “School can be a pain.”

Charley’s Tale Chapter One

Ellen Pendergrass led a charmed life till the day her daughter, Charlotte, was born in 1938. At Ellen’s birth, her parents celebrated the long hoped-for arrival of a perfect daughter born ten years after the last of their six sons. Ellen was all any parent could have imagined, dainty, feminine, and delightful. She was all the more welcome, since her mother had despaired of ever having a daughter. Both parents doted on her and were well-able to indulge her since her father was from a long line of bankers.
A high-minded young woman, well-aware of her importance, Ellen studied music and art at a notable Southern Women’s College, though she’d never need to earn her own way. No one was surprised when she accepted the proposal of a wealthy plantation owner’s son. It was the wedding of the decade. The father of the bride built the young couple a Victorian mansion in the finest part of town and Ellen’s husband, a doctor, spent his time between his practice and his father’s plantation. His practice grew so quickly, he had to hire a farm manager when he inherited upon his father’s death. Ellen, like her mother before her, gave birth to boys, though she yearned for a daughter to follow her in society.
At thirty-nine, Ellen feared she was entering menopause, when to her great joy, she realized she was pregnant. Surely, she’d have a daughter this time. Her husband attended the home birth, of course. Ellen was relieved to hear a healthy squall at delivery, but Charles didn’t meet her eyes as he handed the swaddled infant to Cora, the maid. “It looks like a healthy girl.” In minutes, Cora diapered and swaddled the babe and passed her to Ellen to nurse.
Ellen counted all the little fingers and toes as she admired her little one. “I do believe this is the prettiest one yet.”
Charles answered, “You always say that,” then whisked the infant away immediately instead of leaving her with her mother, as he had at all the other births. “Get some rest.”
Ellen was glad to rest, but was a little concerned that Charles had taken the baby.
“Cora, was everything alright with the baby?” she quizzed Cora.
“That baby looked plenty healthy to me,” Cora turned her back as she tidied things up. “Shore had a fine set of lungs on her. You ain’t as young as you was. Git you some rest while you can.”
Miffed at the reference to her age, Ellen snapped at Cora. “I am plenty young enough to tend my baby, thank you. I have the finest skin of any of my friends.”
“Yes’m,” Cora answered.

To be continued

Charley’s Tale Introduction

This is the first episode in a serial I posted several years ago. I am dusting it off, Charley tugs at my heart, reminding me,”Don’t shut me out! I have a story to tell.”

The outsider looking in could have been forgiven for assuming Charley was born to a life of ease. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out that simply. True, she was the much-hoped for daughter born to a prominent couple, her father a doctor and mother a wealthy socialite. She knew the joy of two adoring older brothers, an admiring little sister, a doting grandmother, and a cousin who left her a valuable estate.
Given that mix, the fates dusted in a bit of trouble to complicate the life to which she was destined. At birth, the father who delivered her, noted an oversized clitoris which he snipped before presenting her to her mother, thinking he’d spared her a life of confusion. Unfortunately, it had just the opposite result. Gender identification goes a lot deeper than outward appearances, as he learned over time.

Not only that, Ellen, Charley’s narcissistic mother was repulsed by her perceived imperfection of her child. Ellen and Charley never bonded due to her mother’s rejection. Little Charley was cherished by the rest of the family and nurtured by Cora, the family’s maid. Her grandmother and Cousin Jean adored her. Early on Grandmother Geneva and Cousin Jean recognized the child’s nature and allowed her the freedom to express it.

Charley’s nebulous connection to her mother was severed on the occasion of her baby sister’s birth. Ellen developed post-partum psychosis, attempted murder, and lived out the short period of her remaining life in a state hospital. Unresolved psychic trauma was to follow Charley from that point on.

Life has never been easy for an intersexed child. It was likely for a well-meaning surgeon to assign the child a female identity, if anything at all was done. Unfortunately, this was as apt as not to be wrong. So it was for Charley. The child who would have been celebrated as a robust little boy was expected to behave as a dainty little girl. The confusion was overwhelming. From the time Charley’s mother went into the asylum, Cora and Grandmother Geneva assumed maternal roles with both girls. Geneva and the children passed the long summer weeks at the farm and the lake house where Geneva encouraged Charley’s relationship with the Washington family who maintained the farm, knowing they’d likely be in her life for years. They were good people.

Josie, the girl who’d helped cared for the girls since Ginny’s birth had married Bobby Washington who’d grown up working the farm along with his father Robert. Since the dairy barn was no longer in use, Geneva gave Robert permission to tear it down and salvage the materials to build a cabin for the newlyweds on the land Cousin Jean left him. They worked evenings till a tin-roofed three-room shotgun house stood proudly under a pecan tree with the requisite toilet about one hundred feet down the hill. It was close enough Bobby and Josie could share the older folk’s well. It was a fine thing for a young couple to start out with a house on eighty acres they could look forward to inheriting one day.

Life was a succession of peaceful days till school attendance required Charleys to spend her days at her father’s house. Cora was devoted to both girls, spending a great deal of time with them, serving as a buffer to Ellen. Geneva lived just a few blocks over, so they frequented her home as well. Charley enjoyed several years of relative peace till she reached the age of cruelty.

Charley’s Tale Part 13

I started this serial months ago and finally got back to it.

It starts with Charley’s birth.  https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2017/04/11/charleys-tale/

It continues with Charley’s coming of age.  https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2017/06/03/crazy-charlsie/

 

Charley had never been invited to Marzell’s home or called her on the phone, so he went by to let her know he was going to spend the summer at the farm.  Stepfather Melvin met him at the door.  “What do you want?  You ain’t lost nothin’ here.”

“I just wanted to let Marzell know I’m going to my farm for the summer.”

“Oh, so you’re the morphodite that little tramp’s been running around with.  She ain’t having nothing else to do with you.  Get lost!” As the hateful man turned to slam the door, he shoved Marzell roughly to the floor.

Enraged, but mindless of his recent surgery, Charley tried to shove his way in to Marzell, Melvin burst out, pummeling him with his beefy fists.  A few well-placed blows reduced Charles to a crumpled heap on the porch.  “I’ll kill you if I ever see you close to her again, you freaky dyke!”  With a final kick to the ribs, Charles landed on the bottom step.

It took Charles several humiliating minutes to work his way to his feet as the pain in his left side held him in its twisted grip.  With one eye swollen shut and front teeth loose, his battered nose dripped blood down his shirt.  Charles’s first challenge to his manhood had left him suffering the second and most cruel emasculation of his young life.

As he struggled homeward, the sordid scene played over and over in his head. His surgical wound had eviscerated, leaking blood and serum.  He barely made it to his front porch before collapsing.  Thankfully, the dog’s barking alerted his father.

Charley’s Tale Part 3

School become a hostile place for Charley. When boys and girls started pairing off, Charley found herself on the outside. Finding no particular boy attractive, she was confused to hear girls continuously chatter “Johnny, David, or Mark is cute.” None of them were cute to her. They were just boys, no different than last month or last year. Wanting to fit in, she offered up the observation, “Robert is cute.” The snide group burst into laughter, ridiculing her and Robert. Apparent, the skinny red-headed lad hadn’t made the standard cute list. Sing-song shouts of “Charley loves Robert” rang to the treetops. Bashful Robert was humiliated to find himself the focus of the girls’ ridicule and fled the crowd. From then on he avoided Charley like the plague. Shame and rejection darkened her perception of herself. She withdrew, feeling it was as though she had a target on her back. The meaner of her tormentors them resurrected stories about her mother’s madness and labeled her “Crazy Charlsie!” The torment was relentless.

The Barnes children from next door were as familiar to Charley as breathing, a bright spot in her desert. The twin boys were a year older and Julia a year younger. They’d played cops and robbers, ball, ridden bicycles and built a treehouse together. When the darkness descended at school, she depended even more on their friendship. They were always able to take her mind off the confusing changes she faced. With Charley approaching puberty, Mrs. Barnes sought to put some distance between Charley and the boys. She forbade horseplay and physical contact, fearing it would awaken young sexuality. This abrupt change confused Charley further. One morning after a sleepover, Mrs. Barnes went in to wake the girls for breakfast and found Charlie’s arm draped cozily Julia, signaling the end of their close friendship.

One morning Charley didn’t come down when Cora called her for breakfast. Cora found her in the bathroom staring dully at her bloodstained panties. “I’m dying, Cora. Why is this happening to me? You’d better call my father.” She spoke in a monotone.

“Aw Lawdy, Honey. You ain’t dying. You just got the curse. That means you can have a baby now. Don’t you let no boys be kissing you. You gonna bleed a few days ever’ twenty-eight days now till you ’bout forty. You’ll git used to it. I meant to talk to you ‘fore it happened an’ it done slipped up on us. Let me get you a pad and belt an’ I’ll show you what to do.” Cora thought she was comforting Charlie.

Charley was appalled at this unwelcome news. “I don’t want to be a woman. What if somebody finds out about this? I ain’t going to school. Everybody already laughs at me. I wish I could just run off somewhere and live by myself. I can’t stand this!” Charley wailed.

“Yes, you can! Won’t nobody know if you don’t tell ’em. Ain’t no way nobody would as long as you keep your pad changed an’ don’t slip up an’ soil yourself. You need keep a spare pad in your purse. If you start at school, you can get one from the gym teacher.” Cora continued her talk. “You can’t swim, take a bath, ner wash you hair during your period or you might make it stop. Be real careful not to go out barefooted with dew on the ground, neither. That’s the worst. I had a friend once that done all that an’ once she finally had chillun’ ever’ one of ’em had fits. You know what fits is, don’t you? You wouldn’t want to do nuthin’ to make yore pore little chillun’ have fits, would you?” Cora waxed colorful in her warnings as Charley’s spirits hit the dirt.

“Cora, I never carried a purse in my life. Can you imagine all the laughing if if start dragging a purse a few days a month? There ain’t no way I could ask the gym teacher for nothing. She hates me. How can I go to school if I can’t take a bath? I’ll just stay home if I get another curse and you don’t need to worry about me kissing a boy! I’d sooner kiss a pig than that mean bunch up at school. I ain’t gonna marry so there ain’t gonna be no kids to have fits.” Charley was working up a good mad as though Cora was responsible for the insult of her menstrual cycle.

“Charley, ain’t no use in carrying on so over God’s doing. Now you just git yourself ready an’ git on to school. Take a pad with you an’ you’ll do fine. You can put it in your lunch bag an’ leave it in your locker to change after lunch. Now, scoot!”

With a miserable scowl, Charley collected her things and stomped out the back door furious at Cora, herself, and the world.

Charley’s Tale Introduction

This is the first episode in a serial I posted several years ago. I am dusting it off, Charley tugs at my heart, reminding me,”Don’t shut me out! I have a story to tell.”

The outsider looking in could have been forgiven for assuming Charley was born to a life of ease. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out that simply. True, she was the much-hoped for daughter born to a prominent couple, her father a doctor and mother a wealthy socialite. She knew the joy of two adoring older brothers, an admiring little sister, a doting grandmother, and a cousin who left her a valuable estate.
Given that mix, the fates dusted in a bit of trouble to complicate the life to which she was destined. At birth, the father who delivered her, noted an oversized clitoris which he snipped before presenting her to her mother, thinking he’d spared her a life of confusion. Unfortunately, it had just the opposite result. Gender identification goes a lot deeper than outward appearances, as he learned over time.

Not only that, Ellen, Charley’s narcissistic mother was repulsed by her perceived imperfection of her child. Ellen and Charley never bonded due to her mother’s rejection. Little Charley was cherished by the rest of the family and nurtured by Cora, the family’s maid. Her grandmother and Cousin Jean adored her. Early on Grandmother Geneva and Cousin Jean recognized the child’s nature and allowed her the freedom to express it.

Charley’s nebulous connection to her mother was severed on the occasion of her baby sister’s birth. Ellen developed post-partum psychosis, attempted murder, and lived out the short period of her remaining life in a state hospital. Unresolved psychic trauma was to follow Charley from that point on.

Life has never been easy for an intersexed child. It was likely for a well-meaning surgeon to assign the child a female identity, if anything at all was done. Unfortunately, this was as apt as not to be wrong. So it was for Charley. The child who would have been celebrated as a robust little boy was expected to behave as a dainty little girl. The confusion was overwhelming. From the time Charley’s mother went into the asylum, Cora and Grandmother Geneva assumed maternal roles with both girls. Geneva and the children passed the long summer weeks at the farm and the lake house where Geneva encouraged Charley’s relationship with the Washington family who maintained the farm, knowing they’d likely be in her life for years. They were good people.

Josie, the girl who’d helped cared for the girls since Ginny’s birth had married Bobby Washington who’d grown up working the farm along with his father Robert. Since the dairy barn was no longer in use, Geneva gave Robert permission to tear it down and salvage the materials to build a cabin for the newlyweds on the land Cousin Jean left him. They worked evenings till a tin-roofed three-room shotgun house stood proudly under a pecan tree with the requisite toilet about one hundred feet down the hill. It was close enough Bobby and Josie could share the older folk’s well. It was a fine thing for a young couple to start out with a house on eighty acres they could look forward to inheriting one day.

Life was a succession of peaceful days till school attendance required Charleys to spend her days at her father’s house. Cora was devoted to both girls, spending a great deal of time with them, serving as a buffer to Ellen. Geneva lived just a few blocks over, so they frequented her home as well. Charley enjoyed several years of relative peace till she reached the age of cruelty.

Charley’s Tale Part 3

They named the baby Charlotte for her father. Though Ellen made a bit of an effort when Charles was around, she didn’t bond with the little girl as she had her two boys. Cora had had to bathe and change her. Refusing to nurse her, Cora assumed bottle-feedings, angrily muttering it just wasn’t right for a woman to worry about her figure over her baby. Though unhappy, Charles indulged her, dismissing her revulsion as baby-blues, as postpartum depression was known then. He consoled himself, convincing himself she’d come around in a few days, trying to suppress his concerns for the infant.
Her own mother, Geneva, came to stay for a few days and recognized Charlotte’s ambiguous genitalia immediately, having given birth to four girls. Ellen was infuriated when Geneva expressed her concerns.” Charles said he had to a little growth off her bottom, but she’s fine now. He said if she has any trouble when she gets older, we will take her to a specialist then. Charles doesn’t ever want her to know. I can’t talk any more about it, it gets me so upset,” clenching her fists, Ellen broke off crying raggedly.
“Ellen, this might be more than that. My cousin, Jean……….” Ellen cut her mother off sharply.

“Stop it, Mother! I won’t listen to your nonsense! Charles is a doctor. Don”t you think he knows a little more than you! He says there’s no need borrowing trouble. He’s not going tand tonico like it if we discuss this any more. Please don’t mention Jean ever again, especially to Charles.” Ellen was clearly agitated at the mention of Jean.

“Ellen, I am not about to go around telling your business, but I am going to talk to Charles about this. There might be a specialist she can see now. If money is a problem…………….”

“Mother, stay out of this! Money is definitely NOT a problem. Don’t you think Charles would move Heaven and Earth if he thought she needed to see another doctor? How could you bring Jean up to me? You know, I can’t abide her! My head is just throbbing. You and Cora will just have to manage while I rest. Please tell Charles I am going to take something for my headache and will see him when I get up.” Waving dismissively at her mother, she called out to Cora.

“Cora, bring up my tonic and pull the curtains for me. I feel like I am dying of headache. Dust a little talcum on my sheets and bring me that silk throw before you go. Take that squalling baby downstairs and keep the boys quiet. Maybe you better take the baby out in carriage and walk the boys over to play with Mrs. Barnes boys, but don’t you dare let anybody else change her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miz Ellen. I knows how to take care of things. You git some rest.” Cora hurried the baby out of Ellen’s way, taking her bassinet to the kitchen with her. Charlotte never slept in her parent’s room again. Cora had seen lots of headaches and tonic since the baby was born. Ellen had always been haughty and demanding, but now Cora dreaded her imperious demands. All was not well.