Camp Sissy Curls (Second Summer)--part72
Tuesday, after lunch, I headed back to the nursery to say good bye to Bernice. Departure for me was at one o'clock.
It would be tough saying good bye to her. She was certainly the only person I'd miss from Camp Sissy Curls.
With a tear in my eye, and one in her's as well, I hugged her. "Thank you Bernice, I couldn't have gotten through the past two summers without you. You're the only one who showed me any compassion. And you're the only one I'll miss from here!"
And she smiled and wiped a tear. "I'll miss you too Stephen, very much. Though I'm glad I'll never see you here at Camp Sissy Curls again!"
At one o'clock on the dot, I climbed into the back seat of my parent's van and buckled up.
"Oh poop, where's Stephie???" Laura complained, looking back at me from the front seat.
"Stephie's dead, you little twit!" I snarled back at her. "Where's my Father?" I asked my stepmother, as she turned on the ignition.
"He's out of town on business all week." She curtly replied.
As we drove, my stepmother angrily said to me, "how could you do what you did on Sunday?"
I thought a moment, and took a deep breath and replied, "how could you and my Father do what you did to me???"
We said little more on the ride back to Grandma's.
My stepmother and Laura spent the rest of the afternoon at Grandma's and left just before dinner. I holed up in my bedroom, not even saying good bye to them.
Grandma took me out to dinner to celebrate my homecoming. And being Stephen again! She made it very clear how pleased she was that I was back again. And a boy again!
That evening, as she read the newspaper in her chair in the living room, I decided to press my luck and ask her, "why Camp Sissy Curls Grandma?"
"What do you mean by 'why', Stephie?" And she apologized and corrected herself. "Sorry....I mean Stephen. I'll have to get used to that again."
"Why did you send my Father to Camp Sissy Curls all those years ago? That's why I wound up there like him!" I said.
She folded up her newspaper and set it down and took off her reading glasses. "Well, have a seat, it's not quite that simple Stephen." And she took a deep breath. "I don't know what your father has told you. Probably something about being sent there to toughen him up and make him stronger and so on."
"Yeah, a 'boy named Sue' thing, he told me."
"Well, there's more to it than that Stephen." And Grandma looked at me very seriously and said. "You have to promise that you'll never, EVER repeat this to ANYONE!"
"Okay Grandma, I promise, I won't!"
She sighed deeply. "Your father wanted to go to Camp Sissy Curls. He asked to be sent there!"
"No way!!!" I cried.
"Yup, I'm afraid he did!"
"But why???" I couldn't believe it.
"Right from the time he was little, your father was always a bit on the 'sissy side', I guess you could say. He tended toward girls' things---dolls, sewing, playing house....nothing that was rough and tumble. He liked the kinds of girlish toys and games and activities that his older sisters, your two aunts, did."
"So why Camp Sissy Curls?" I interrupted.
"Hmmm....you promise you'll never say anything Stephen???" Grandma asked again.
"Yes Grandma....I swear I won't!!!"
"One Spring day after school, when he was around eleven of twelve, your Aunt Sarah caught him in his room dressed in her clothes---a skirt, blouse, panties and bra. She walked in on him while he was putting her lipstick on. Confronted with it by me and his sisters, he was quite ashamed and embarrassed. But he admitted that he wanted to be like his sisters!"
"But Grandma, why Camp Sis....."
"Let me finish Stephen!" She cut me off. "He had heard about Camp Sissy Curls and he asked, actually almost begged, me to send him there for the summer."
"He was a Wannabee!" I exclaimed.
"Be quiet Stephen!" She scolded. "Anyway....I thought long and hard about it and I decided to let him try it, in the hope that he'd get all the girlish nonsense out of his system, after an entire summer of being a girl. I hoped he realize that being a girl really wasn't all that great."
"Did he?" I asked.
She thought a moment, with a very pensive look on her face. "To be honest Stephen, I don't really know. And, I guess, maybe I don't really want to know....But after camp, he never exhibited any girlish tendencies ever again, to me or his sisters at least. But I'm sure it all has haunted him to this day."
"But that still doesn't explain why he and my stepmother sent me to camp and everything else!!!" I argued.
"Be honest Stephen, because I've been very honest with you." Grandma pointed out, and then asked. "Did you ever want to, or actually try on any of your stepmother's or Laura's things?"
"Hell no!!!!!" I couldn't believe she'd asked me that.
"Well...I only know what I told you Stephen. I don't have any answers beyond that. I guess you need to ask your dad that!"
"No, that'll never happen." I replied.
"Never say never Stephen!" And we left it at that.
And I got up to head for my room. "Well, I gotta call Penny and tell her that I got home okay."
"Are you okay Stephen???" She asked.
I smiled at her. "Yeah Grandma....I'm a whole lot more okay than I've been in a long, long time!"
"Okay enough to give your old grandma a hug???"
"Of course!" And I hugged her.