Season of Terror
by Tigger
Copyright 2002, All Rights Reserved

Chapter 21: A Time to Fight

Jane cut the engine of the Lincoln and then turned a cocked brow to the girl seated beside her.  "I believe I win our little impromptu wager?" she asked.  "Safely parked with no damage to either my car or the other two cars.  So YOU have the entire cleanup tonight after dinner.  I'll ask Marie to make sure it is something sticky that requires all the pans in the kitchen."

Victoria smiled sheepishly.  "Don't know how you got this huge boat of a car into that little bittie space, but you did it, Aunt Jane."

Jane smiled approvingly at her senior student.  While she normally squelched such games, the touch of humor eased the almost stifling tension that had pervaded the car since their departure from Seasons House.  She was more than a little anxious about this outing and Victoria's "No way you're going to get this monster in that parking space," followed by her mischievous "Wanna bet, Aunt Jane?" had helped.  A quick check in the rearview mirror revealed that even Penny was a little less grim. *Or is that wishful thinking on your part, Thompson?"

"All right, I'll be back in a few minutes.  I just have to drop these papers by at my attorney's office.  Victoria, you will introduce Penny to the ladies," she ordered before turning to face Penny directly.  "You will obey Carolyn and Sandra as you do me.  I have already given them their instructions and I will be back in no more than an hour."

"Yes, Ms. Thompson," the tall junior student murmured, refusing to meet Jane's eyes.

"Come on, Penny," Victoria chirped.  "Or we'll be late for our appointments."

Jane watched from the curb as the new boy-girl not-quite-gracefully followed her diminutive big sister into the Marisha Chalet. The two inch tall heels of her new shoes were still challenging for Penny, but with her already impressive height, Jane did not think public outings wearing anything more extreme would be very likely. 

She sighed to herself as they slipped inside the ornate storefront door.  Jane was sorely tempted to wait on going to the attorney's office, and be there in the shop for this entire session, but that would put a very large deal she'd been working on for months at risk.  For herself, Jane didn't much care, but the Pediatric Oncology Clinic at Children's Hospital would benefit greatly from the outcome of this particular deal. 

Sighing, she restarted the engine, signaled her intention to pull back into the line of traffic, and checked behind her. *Besides, you've already talked to Caro about the special care and feeding needed for this one.  Maybe, if she gets through this appointment and then one next week without incident, we can get back to a more 'normal' salon routine.  Please.*

~----------~

Victoria greeted Carolyn Beale with a big smile and a quick hug, much to the surprise of the taller brunette.  "Well, hello there," she said, returning the hug.  "And how are you, today, Miss Denato?"

"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Beale," Victoria returned pertly.  "Are you and Sandy ready for us?"

"Sure are," Caro replied.  "We cleared the decks for your two and are ready to work our fingers to the bone.  Sandy?" 

The yellow-haired, voluptuous-to-almost-the-point-of-being-considered-plump stylist came out of a cubicle in the rear of the shop, wearing smock that was emblazoned with the Chalet's highly stylized trademark.  "Yes, Carolyn?"

"Are you ready for Miss Penny, here?  I'm going to TRY to do something with THIS one,"

Sandy gave a bark of laughter that sent chills down Victoria's spine. "Sure, send her back.  I've been looking forward to this."

~----------~

Victoria listened to Caro's stream of chatter with only half an ear - the true focus of her attention was squarely on what was going on in the next cubicle where Sandy was in the process of creating a hair weave for Penny.  Jane wanted the new student to be able to dispense with the wigs.

~-----------~

"Oh, my, your hair is going to be *sooo* pretty when I get done with you.  I just love deep, dark hair, and you're going to look like you dipped your head in ink.  It's going to swirl around you like a dark cloud, mysterious and eye-catching."
"Umm, thank you, umm, Sandy, is it?"

"That's my name, Penny.  And when I'm done with you, you're going to remember it, too!  Now, hold still while I get this weave set."

~----------~

There was really very little to be done for Victoria which gave Carolyn the freedom to take care of some other shop business while Sandy worked on Penny.  Thus, Caro had been in and out of the cubicle several times, in response to the ringing of the door bell or to answer the phone.  This gave Victoria the chance to concentrate fully on what was going on with Penny and Sandy.

~-------------~

The work on Penny's head essentially complete, Sandy lifted the cape that draped her client and looked at the body beneath.  Penny's new outfit was relatively simple - a white cotton blouse under a sleeveless cotton sweater in dark red with a matching kilt-cut skirt that was hemmed to show about five inches of thigh on the very tall girl.

"My goodness, sweet-cheeks, but you have such loonnngg legs.  They are definitely your best feature, though they are a bit bony.  We're going to have to have Jane get you some tighter, tinier skirts to show off those legs.  Boys just go crazy for the leggy types.  Why, it almost makes me jealous."

"I . . .I never thought about it. . .that way."

"Well, start thinking about it, girl!  When you're stalking the male of the species, you have to have your weapons ready!  Tell you what!  I'm going to treat you to a leg waxing, right now! Good thing you didn't wear stockings."

~------------~

Victoria frowned at that last exchange, particularly at the hitch she'd heard in Penny's voice.  Sandy was starting to really get to the taller girl and the senior student was beginning to worry. *I really wish Jane was here,* she thought unhappily. *I know she talked to these two about Penny, but I just don't trust Sandy.  She likes playing the ball-busting bitch too much and dammit, Penny is still too fragile for that stuff!  Where IS Jane?  Her hour was up twenty minutes ago!*

~------------~

The leg waxing had been hard on the young person in the salon chair in more ways than just the sensation of hair being jerked out by the roots, and Sandy was feeling very good about herself.  Lifting the girl's skirt to get "all the way to the bikini line," had been a stroke of genius, if she did say so herself. Talk about threat of exposure. Now, however, it was time to break the really bad news to Jane's newest pupil.

Sandy's smile became feral, and Penny felt herself recoil at the sight.  "Well, sissyboy, we're ready to work on your face.  That *will* be a challenge."

~-----------~

Both stylist and unwilling client went silent, and for the first time in her life, Victoria understood the concept of things being 'too quiet'.  If her ears had designed with muscles, she would have strained them trying to hear what was going to happen next. *JANE!* her mind screamed, *This feels wrong - VERY wrong and I have no idea what to do!!*

~-----------~

"C'mon, sit still and act like a woman.  Plucking eyebrows doesn't hurt *that* much.  Stop those silly tears or you'll ruin your mascara and THEN I'll have to do it all over again!" 

With a look of utter disgust, Sandy threw the tweezers down onto her work shelf. "I just don't know what I'm going to be able to do with you, sweetcakes," Sandy said in saccharin-sweet tones. 

"Ma'am?" Penny asked, her choked-back tears suddenly clogging her throat.

"Usually," the stylist said, taking Penny's chin in one overly firm hand and twisting her face side to side, as if examining her client's feature in profile, "You *boys* that come in here like this USUALLY have SOME redeeming features that I can embellish, but I just don't know about you.  I don't think Mary Kay herself could make you pretty."

"B. . .boy? I. .I . . I'm not a . . "

A raised hand cut her off in mid-denial and the smile Penny got was as frightening as anything that had happened to him since his parents had turned that Thompson woman loose on him.  "Oh, I know what you are under those silkies and frillies, sissyboy.  You think I didn't notice your, ah, sudden growth when I did that waxing?  Too bad you're so small there and so big everywhere else.  Guess that's why you want to be a girl, eh?
"I don't want to. . "

"I don't care what you want, sissypoo.  Now you look here, okay?  YOU came into my salon and sat down in MY chair.  That means YOU get the full girl treatment, even if it won't do you much good. HOWEVER, girls LIKE being pampered, sissy. Unless you start smiling, I might just have to let the rest of my shop know what a pervie little boy I have in my chair.  Start looking happy!"

"I. . .I.. don't understand," Penny all but whimpered.

"I will be happy to explain it to you, pussyboy! You're not the first girly boy I've had in here. Unfortunately, it's my job to make you look pretty and worse, I think it is going to take all my considerable skill to get YOU to the level of wolf-ugly."

"Wolf. . .ugly?"

"Yeah, that's where if a guy wakes up and finds you sleeping on his arm, he'll gnaw it off at the shoulder to escape." Pleased with that shot, Sandy turned her back on the girl so she missed seeing the full impact of her next barb.  "God, it's a good thing you aren't a girl - you'd die a bloody virgin because no man and certainly no woman would want the likes of you!"

~---------~

Victoria heard the first sob and then Penny's complete emotional breakdown.  The anguished outpouring was overlaid by Sandy's hissed out threats and curses, but all that did was increase Penny's volume and distress.  Without another thought, Victoria was out of her chair and into Sandy's cubicle.  One look told her all she needed to know.

~--------~

Jane hurried into the shop and came up short as the shouting from the back of the stylish salon registered.

"I don't care what you think, Sandy, you come one step closer and I will put you on your as. . backside."

"Get out of my way, you silly little bitch!  That's my chair and Jane told me to take care of your playmate.  You won't like it if I have to let everyone out in the waiting room on your little secret."

"What, you're going to tell them that I am really a boy under this little disguise?  Go right ahead, but you're not laying another hand on Penny until Aunt Jane gets here, now BACK THE HELL OFF!"

"Come on, Victoria," Caro's softer, more reasonable voice cajoled.  "You know Sandy.  Just let her do her job."

"Like she's done already?  No way, Caro!  I've spent over a week trying to help Jane get this girl ready and I am NOT going to let that blond bit. . that blond partner of yours destroy what we worked so hard to accomplish because she wants to play 'Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS' in a salon smock!"

Now afraid, Jane rushed to the back cubicle and was stunned to see Victoria, one hand behind her back holding a starkly pale Penny's hand.  Sandy was trying to push her way past the small brunette to get to her chair while Caro was literally wringing her hands as she looked on in wide-eyed disbelief.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!"

"Jane," all three unseated women said with varying degrees of relief and victory. Sandy moved in first.  "Get this stupid little fool of a girl the hell out of my way, Jane.  She's interfering with my program for Penny."

"Victoria?" Jane asked, very quietly.

"Sandy browbeat her into break down, Aunt Jane.  I don't know precisely what she said that did it, but there was a scream and then Penny was crying really, really hard. I came running in and she looked like she was going to be sick."

"Oh for god's sake, Jane," Sandy fumed.  "You know what we do, and you know how we do it. What's the big deal with this one?  So she started blubbering a little.  Didn't you tell me that learning to cry was part of the deal for your students?  Penny's learned to cry, okay? Get little Miss Florence Nightingale out of my way so I can finish what I've started!"

"Don't leave me, Victoria," Penny begged, nearly hysterical, her grip making Victoria wince, "Please don't leave me."

Jane watched as Victoria reached around her back with hand to pat the Penny's clutching hand.  "I won't, Penny," the senior girl promised softly yet firmly, all the while keeping her level glare locked on Sandy.  

Jane also saw the abject terror that lined her junior pupil's face, and worse, the renewed haunted look in her eyes that had not been so much in evidence the past few days. *I should have been here,* she railed at herself.  "Sandra, I would like to speak with you in the back, please.  Carolyn, if you would clean Penny up for me, we will be leaving as soon as I've had a few words with Sandra."

"Jane!" Sandy all but whined.

"In the BACK, SANDRA!" Jane bit out each word and even the aggressive blonde knew she'd gone too far.  "I'll only be a moment, Victoria."

Carolyn checked to see how far Sandy had gotten and nodded. "Not much to clean up.  I'll just brush out her hair and she can get out of the chair," she told Victoria who still held her little sister's icy hand in hers.

"Guess I really let the cat out of the bag," Victoria said so softly only Caro heard her. "Announcing to all your customers and helpers that I'm really a boy, but it was the only thing I could think of to convince Sandy I was serious and willing to go to the mat on this one."

"If there had been any of those here, you would have," Caro whispered back as she finished the brush-out and removed the protective cape from Penny's shoulders, "but we opened early for you two, and none of my other customers or helpers are here yet.  Just the four of us and Jane.  Jane warned us that Penny was fragile.  I guess I didn't realize how fragile."

"And Sandy didn't care," Victoria finished sourly as she helped a stiff and shaking Penny down from the salon chair.

Just then, the door to the back room burst open and a rigid-spined, stone-faced Jane Thompson burst from the room followed by a now-weeping Sandra.  "We're leaving now," she said quietly.  "Victoria, please help Penny to the car.  Carolyn, I will call you later." And then she followed the two students out the door without a backward glance or another word.

"Oh god, Carolyn, I knew that one was like Michael," Sandy sobbed.  "I knew he was suicidal, but I thought that telling him he wouldn't be a pretty girl would *help* in the end, not hurt!  I mean, all those other guys Jane brought in here would rather have *died* than have their masculinity questioned by saying they look pretty.  How was I supposed to know that was *exactly* what bothered him?" 

Unable to think of anything else to do, Carolyn Beale took her longtime partner and friend into her arms and let her cry.

~-----------~
"How is she?" Victoria asked when Jane and the nurse from the storefront clinic came down the stairs.  Jane had called the woman on her cell-phone during the drive back from the beauty salon.

"Asleep.  Nora gave her a mild sedative and Marie is with her."

"I have to get back to the hospital, Jane.  I think you'd better call in your experts now because that child is going to need some serious help.  Michael's closest, but if Eric Davis can get free, I think you should consider asking him in on this one.  Crisis intervention is his specialty."

"Michael's on his way," Jane said, rubbing sharp knuckles into her temples.  "Thanks for coming, Nora.  I'll keep you informed."

Jane saw her friend to the door and then returned to the sitting room where she found Victoria laying out a simple meal of tea, sandwiches and fruit.  She wasn't hungry, but knew she should eat, if only to keep her blood sugar in the normal range.

"You did very well today, Victor," Jane said finally, drawing a startled look from her student.  "You put yourself between another and a fate truly worse than death, and sacrificed your greatest secret to protect her."

"No one was there to hear," the weary teen retorted.

"You didn't know that," Jane smiled gently.  "Caro made sure I knew that - that and to check on Penny is why she called. "I've never had a boy sacrifice the masquerade for another before.  That was incredibly brave of you."

"It's not really my greatest secret, you know," Victoria replied before she quite realized what she was saying.

"Oh?  How unusual.  One of the key assumptions of my program is that a boy will do almost anything to keep from giving himself away while dressed as a girl.  If you don't mind my asking, what is a bigger secret than that? You don't have to answer, by the way.  As far as I'm concerned, you graduated with flying colors today, my lad."

"How strange to hear myself described in the masculine tense again," the boy-in-girl's clothing said. Carefully made up eyes looking up into suddenly gentle ones owned by Aunt Jane.  "My great secret?  You already know it.  I'm a coward - Victor is a coward."

"I thought that Wilma, I mean, William had helped you get past that bit of self-compartmentalization.  I have not thought you a coward since the day you asked, no, DEMANDED to give blood.  Since then, you have at times displayed more courage than good sense, but you are NO coward.  Unless. . ."

"Unless what?"

"Unless you decide remain Victoria for the sole purpose that you can hide in her skirts."

"Guess I can't very well do that, can I?"

"Oh, you could, but it would mean a great deal of sacrifice - sacrifices I don't think you should make because, unlike another of my students, you don't really want to be a girl.  So, my lad, show some courage.  Be a man, in the finest sense of that word."

Victoria/Victor considered that.  "I'll try. What happens now?"

"We get Penny professional help and go from there.  I don't think we can safely proceed with what I had planned now.  Not until the experts say she is out of danger.  DAMN Sandy.  Damn me for not being there."

"Aunt Jane?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I don't know how you handle. . . well, graduation?  But if there's any chance I can help?  With Penny, that is?  I'd like to stay.  I could continue my lessons here.  I'd like to move into a more science-oriented program, or at least, find out if I have what it takes to do that.  I figure I can do that here as well as back home.  Probably better because you're a better teacher than anyone I've had before."

"Why, thank you, dear.  As to graduation, I usually send the senior student off when the junior is ready to become a big sister.  Because of the delicate nature of things with Penny, I was considering sending you home tomorrow - as soon as Michael arrives to give us added support here in the house.  You want to stay?"

Victor/Victoria shrugged, and felt the thick mass of dark hair dance about her face and shoulders. *Odd that it feels so strange now.* "Yes, Ma'am.  She's. . .he's my little sister, you know?"

Jane smiled at that.  "She is indeed that, even if she does tower over you by half a foot.  All right, if Michael and Eric agree, we'll keep you on, for a while longer at least.  And you want a tougher science curriculum, eh? Now what ever for?"  Victoria blushed deeply, eliciting a tired grin from Jane.  "All right, give.  Why the change in attitude about school work?"

"The horses," Victoria told her.  "I, ah, umm,. . "

"What have I told you about speaking clearly and succinctly, Miss Denato?" Jane demanded in a fair imitation of her usual brusk acerbity. 

"I want to go pre-vet in college and become a large-animal veterinarian," she got out in a rush.

Pleased, Jane put her hand out to run her fingers down her student's cheek.  "Excellent choice.  And I just happen to have some influence with the best private high school in the country.  When it is time for you to leave here, I should be able see you provided for at Saint Andrews Academy.  Assuming you do as well as I know you will, we will have no trouble getting you into a first class pre-vet program.  It will be my pleasure."

"You mean that, don't you?" and there was wonder in those words.

"I never say anything I don't mean.  You should know that by now."