Jason E. Dean: {Fe}male, [the Lady Prince book 1]

Chapter 1 - There once was a girl called Dude

Copyright © 2012 by J.S. Antrobus

Chapter 1 - There once was a girl called Dude

They forget to tell you about the turbulence. Oh, they explain how long it takes. They give you statistics about there being more fatalities in cars than there are in planes. They give you smiles and tell you that it's going to be alright, even though you are as paranoid as sin, but they always fail to tell you about the bloody turbulence.

I sat, terrified beyond belief in the airplane. It jerked suddenly and my heart stopped for a second. A feeling that I was, sad to say, getting all too familiar with since I boarded the plane. I heard the giggling sound of teenaged girls to the left of me. Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I turned my head slowly to their direction.

Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. They were both pretty with long hair and colourful eyes.

"Hi." I said softly. The plain jerked again and my eyes closed down. I wasn't sure how people enjoyed flying because as far as I was concerned, the experience was on my worst things ever list.

"H-hi. I'm... um... I'm Liz a-and this is R-R...Roxanna." The blonde girl stammered. I stared at her then closed my eyes with a long, deep sigh. It was the same as usual. The reason why this girl was losing her mind was because of me. In layman’s terms: she thought I was male.

The first thing I need to get off of my chest was that I was a girl. One hundred per cent oestrogen. Personally, I never deemed myself as someone who was able to command the attention of everyone around me by my looks alone. I was not a dog, but at the same time, my female friends tended to be of even greater beauty. I was fairly average, having I my opinion, reasonably attractive looks. I was never as curvy as my friends, nor did I have as much boobs as they did, so attraction towards me from males was rare. Attraction from females, on the other hand, that was another story.

You see I never really liked dressing like a girl, since male clothes were always so much more comfortable and they never contained frills. I don’t really remember why I developed the infatuation to dress like a boy but I do believe that it started at a rather young age. What I do remember clearly, however, was the first time I was mistaken for one.

I was seven and at a friend’s birthday party. Three girls walked up to me while I was sitting alone and nearly freaked me out.

“Hi,” the blonde one had said to me smiling. I looked up at her and smiled at her, responding hi back. I was partially okay with the interaction. That was until she and her friends started giggling nervously and smiling at me. When I asked her what was the matter the three of them looked at me and the brunette asked,

“Do you want to be my boyfriend, Jason?” Then I stared at her and ran.

I guess my male persona was not the only thing to be blamed for my… excess attention. My name may or may not have played a role in my little problem.

My mother was a diehard feminist and my father wanted a son, so the moment I was born they both had my name set out. Jason Evan Dean. The beginning of the end for me.

“W-what’s your name?” The brunette, Roxanna, asked me, knocking me back into reality. I stared at her, hoping to keep my breakfast down. I looked back at the girls who were blushing slightly at me.

“Jason.” I responded softly. They giggled and I sighed. Whether they believed that I was a girl or not was undermined by my mother’s feministic views that I be named Jason.

Thank you, mommy. Note the sarcasm.

“That’s a cool name, Jason.” Liz said. I stared at her with one eye open.

“I think I’m going to sleep now.” I told her. She smiled and nodded.

“You do look a bit sick.” She said. Her friend nodded in agreement and they left me to brood in peace.

I closed my eyes remembering what Gene used to tell me. It was somewhere during the beginning of secondary school when the girls were all trying to flirt with me. I was overwhelmed by the attention since I didn’t have hormonal primary school girls chasing after me in comparison to the number of secondary school ones that were attacking now. Gene had pulled me away from them and told me it was because I had an exotic beauty. She said that I was pretty as a girl, but gorgeous as a guy. As my best friend, and go to guide for honest and open opinions, I had to believe her. So, to avoid the female fanfare, I became a loner.

“Jason.” I heard someone whisper in my ear. I opened my eyes slowly.

“Umm.” I groaned out.

“We’ve landed.” The brunette girl said and I nodded and stood quickly. I grabbed my single carryon bag and I ran out of the plane as fast as I could, while waving to the girls.

It might have seemed rude, but I didn’t want to stay on the metal death trap for any longer than necessary.

I felt both nauseous and fatigued, even though I slept through most of the flight. Walking towards the area where the flight attendant had directed me to collect my bags, I started to feel the increasing need to throw up. I hustled through the American airport hoping and praying that my luggage hadn’t been lost. Thirty-seven minutes, one and a half coca cola’s and only one girl hitting on me again, later, I was sitting in the waiting area of the airport on the Chandler family.

“Hey, again.” Someone said to the left of me. I turned and waved slightly.

“Hey.” I said. It was one of the girls from the plane. The brunette one. What was her name again?

“You look better.” She said.

“I am.” I responded.

“I love your voice.” She said suddenly, then her eyes widened and she started to stutter, “Ugh… I’m sorry. I didn’t m-mean it l-like that. N-no… umm… I… ugh” I shook my head and smiled at her, hopefully calming her down a bit. I didn’t have a deep voice but that didn’t mean that I had a shrill one either. No, my tone, in my opinion, was simply flat. Dead. Plain. Non-existent. Which when added to the fact that I was Italian nurtured and had grown in Britain meant, in girl terms, that I was a ‘sex symbol’.  Gene and the rest of the girls, however, don’t think so. They always say that it was ‘exotic’. A word that they tended to use a lot whenever they spoke of me.

“It’s ok.” I told her. She nodded but kept her gaze on her hands. I didn’t want her to feel badly, but at the same time, I knew what happened whenever I was partially concerned for a girl that wasn’t one of The Dolls, and I really wasn’t in the mood, or had the proper stomach movements, to deal with any of that so I ignored her, as much as I could have in any case.

“So, Jason,” The blonde girl said. I didn’t even know she was here, far less for sitting so close to me. She flipped her hair and fluttered her eyelashes making herself look like a possessed walrus. I stared at her, worried about the poor veins and muscles that were affected by her neck spasms.

“Umm?” I asked.

“Do you want to hang out with us sometime?” she asked me. My mind was spinning and I was feeling frantic, not to mention the fact that I still had the urge to throw up everything that I had eaten for the past year.

“Jason?” Someone called out. I turned to the voice to see the man who I presumed was Mr Chandler.

“Yes.” I said. The man grinned at me.

“Man, you’ve grown up.” He said giving me a once over. He turned to the girls on either side of me. “Sorry ladies, but I must be taking Jason with me.” I picked up my two bags, allowing Mr Chandler to carry the other two.

“Bye.” A feminine voice said from behind me, but I ignored it, walking out of the airport into my new life. It didn’t matter what I left behind, all that mattered was what I came here for and nothing else.