The Ranch

A novel by Erin G

Chapter 1 - Prelude

I turned away from the window at the same instant that the bullet smacked into the wall behind me, making me aware for the first time of the gunman’s existence. The belated recognition of my danger made me throw myself across the room. Fortunately for me, the timing of the shot had meant it missed me completely. How had my place of refuge been discovered so quickly? That was the first thought that flashed through my head although it should not have been my immediate concern. Finding safety was of paramount importance.

I hit the floor hard, which winded me, and I lay gasping for a couple of seconds. When I regained my breath, I crawled across the linoleum toward the washroom, keeping below the line of sight. As I did so I noticed vaguely that the windowpane, through which I’d been gazing into the parking lot only moments before, now bore a neat circular hole from which jagged cracks radiated. Together with the hole in the plaster opposite it provided a clue as to where the shooter had been stationed; he, she or they must be somewhere out there, along that line. The knowledge was of little use to me just then, but it did serve to tell me that the danger was out front.

I reached upwards cautiously and opened the bathroom door. Then, keeping as low as possible, I wriggled inside. When I’d first arrived 48 hours earlier, I’d mapped out a potential escape route from my quarters leading from the bathroom window into the woods behind the motel. The point of exit was screened by bushes which gave good cover. It had become a habit with me to take this sort of precaution whenever I changed my place of refuge, and I was thankful I hadn’t deviated from the practice this time. In a matter of seconds, I was hidden in the undergrowth which surrounded the rear of the building. The leafiness of the grounds bordering what had formerly been a stable block worked in my favour, plus its masonry was old and covered in creepers. The luxuriance of the surrounding foliage made concealment so much easier.

I could see nothing from my hiding place so stood as still as a statue, hardly daring to breathe, until, after some minutes thus, the desire to know where my would-be assassin was positioned became irresistible. I peered out gingerly, scanning for any telltale movements which might betray their whereabouts, but there was nothing to be seen. In an agony of suspense, I searched again. The anxious question “Where are they?” beat like a pulse in my brain.

My endeavours turned out to be fruitless. Moments later, out of my line of vision, a car door slammed and an engine started. I resisted the temptation to indulge the feeling of relief that swept over me, telling myself I couldn’t be sure that what I’d heard was ‘them’. Instead, I ran to the corner of the building and peeped around just in time to see a green and white Plymouth make a hurried departure. Tyres squealed as the driver stepped on the gas and a fleeting glimpse of the man only sufficed to let me see that he wore a white homburg hat. So that was my attacker! I couldn’t be certain, however, and scolding myself for my incaution, I ducked back under cover. I waited and waited some more while the minutes dragged by. No further sound disturbed the stillness of the day. In the end I plucked up courage and hesitantly retraced my steps to my room. I listened outside for some time to check that my violated refuge was indeed empty before climbing in to regain the doubtful sanctuary it provided.

I had no idea who my assailant had actually been, but that was immaterial. What had been made abundantly clear to me was that the defensive cloak of ‘witness protection’ which had supposedly been covering me had been torn aside. I was exposed and vulnerable once more. Self-preservation demanded that I do something and fast. But what? My mind a complete blank, I gazed at the image in the bathroom mirror in total despair.

The peril which I now faced had first arisen in my life two years before, in the course of what should have been a happy family vacation to the coast. At the end of the holiday, my wife and I could see that our six-year-old daughter was having a wonderful time, and we decided to prolong the stay by some extra days, a decision that we would come to regret bitterly. While I drove into the seaside town for some additional supplies Rachel and Georgie went to spend the morning on the beach. I had completed my chore and was loading up the station-wagon with my purchases when the incident took place that was to threaten my very existence. There was a squeal of brakes, a squad car drew up opposite where I stood, and a cop alighted. Then all hell broke loose.

The officer had started to walk purposefully towards a drugstore across the road when its door flew open and a masked figure emerged. He was wielding an automatic in one hand and clutching a canvas holdall and in the other. I was only yards away from the action and when I saw the gun, I simply froze. It was as if I was paralysed, too shocked to react. I watched what followed as if in a dream.

The lawman made a run and sprang towards the gunman and collared him. His quarry put up a fierce resistance. In the course of the struggle the law-enforcement officer was thrown to the ground, but as he fell he tore the mask aside. Cue for the bad guy to make his escape! He’d taken no more than two steps before the cop picked himself up and yelled for him to stop, at the same time going for his own sidearm. Before he’d got as far as unbuttoning his holster, however, the sound of a shot shattered the air and the policeman went down again.

I’d recovered the use of my wits by the time the gun went off and ducked behind a parked car, desperate to get out of sight. From my place of concealment, I saw the hoodlum coolly saunter over to the wounded man and grin down at him. I’ll never forget the look of pure evil on that face. I could only watch helplessly as the gunman coldly put a second bullet between the patrolman’s eyes. Then he ran to a waiting car and seconds later was gone. It was over, leaving me stunned and shocked by what I’d seen.

It took a full minute before I was recovered sufficiently to take some hesitating steps towards the place where the cop had fallen. A crowd had already begun to gather, from nowhere it seemed, but it was too late for anyone to do anything. The lawman was dead. I waited around until the authorities showed up but then, following a base instinct which told me not to get involved, I hung back. The following day the news was all over the papers and on the radio. A local gang were suspected of perpetrating the crime. Though the police were appealing for witnesses, the word was that no-one had seen anything. I knew different, however. Unfortunately for me I’d seen it all!

By the next day I’d made up my mind about what I had to do, after an agony of indecision. I knew I had to go in and tell the police what I’d witnessed. I told Rachel what I intended, and she said not a word in opposition. We were both aware it might involve some risk, although how much we didn’t then appreciate, but it was the only justifiable choice. The cop had left a wife and two small children, and they deserved better. At police HQ I picked out the gunman’s face from a book of mugshots easily enough and did so again some days later from a line-up. At the trial my testimony sealed the conviction and put the man on death row. That was a fair and fitting outcome, but it proved far from being the end of my involvement in the whole tragic affair.

It seemed that the gang to which the shooter had belonged was known on the street as the Persuaders, by reputation a sinister outfit, and their form of persuading often tended to be terminal! Though some of the individual members were well known to the law, so far none had been nailed for any of their crimes. This particular mobster was apparently small fry, but nevertheless the organisation, firmly believing in the value of deterrence, vowed revenge for my fingering the man. Nowhere was I safe. Like a veritable giant squid of crime, its tentacles were believed to have spread throughout the whole state as well as across the surrounding ones. To give me a slender lifeline I was put into the witness protection programme during the trial and, with my endangerment in no way diminished, I continued there afterwards.

Life in witness protection really sucked. Rachel and I could no longer be a family while ever the gang were looking for the man whose testimony had sent one of their number down. If we remained together my dear ones would also share in my risks, so we had to separate. I was given a new identity and was moved from safe house to safe house. At first, I had hopes that I could build a new life somewhere and Rachel and Georgie might be with me again, but as time went by it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Now that I could no longer trust this latest refuge, there seemed to be no escape.

What in heaven was I to do? Short of emigration, I reflected bitterly, the only viable means of changing my identity that remained would be facial surgery… and that cynical thought gave me an idea.

Before I had entered the protection scheme, when the apparent inevitability of our separation loomed like a spectre in our path, Rachel and I had desperately mooted possible alternatives. One plan that we’d explored and rejected had been the ruse that I should disguise myself as a woman. As a means of us staying together, however, it simply didn’t cut any ice. Any attempt on my part to pose as female would easily be seen through if I were still to associate with my family. Now, however, that objection was no longer valid. All connection with Rachel and Georgie had been severed, so I was now forced to admit that adopting a feminine persona could be an answer to my present predicament.

You might be forgiven for reckoning that for the average man, any attempt to pass himself off as female would likely be doomed to failure, and in the ordinary course of events that view would be correct, but there was nothing ordinary about my case. The circumstance which removed my doubts about whether I could carry off such a deception was this; from my early teens until my early twenties, I had lived life fulltime as a woman!

That state of affairs had come about as a result of a regime of intense feminisation which I’d been subjected to at the hands of my mother, rest her soul. Her motivation for exposing her eldest son to this method of discipline during his formative years had been ‘to prevent you turning out like that no-good son of a gun, your father’, as she was wont to remind me at every opportunity. My male parent had run off some years before. Such a drastic course of treatment was justified in her view as a remedy for any unruly behaviour I exhibited, though I don’t suppose I was that much worse than many kids who were similarly placed. I found myself transformed from bad boy to good girl in short order and any resistance I attempted turned out to be futile.

Mom’s regimen was rigorously applied throughout my high school years and outwardly achieved a complete transformation. By the time my college graduation came around I found myself to be the reluctant owner of as feminine a body shape as many genetic girls of my age possessed plus the skills and mannerisms to accompany it.

My major qualification at college was one in skin therapy, a new and uncommon discipline at that time. In the job market, I found that, though career opportunities were in short supply, my altered appearance counted in my favour. I had no trouble in gaining employment in a fashionable beauty parlour. After some time, I was able to supplement my income by occasional work as a photographic model, surprisingly. It wasn’t the lifestyle I would have chosen, but financially I was well able to support myself.

One redeeming event graced my existence around that time; marriage to my childhood heartthrob, Rachel. Several years my elder, what she saw in my feminised self is beyond conjecture, but hey, I wasn’t grumbling! Fortunately, despite the onslaught of hormones to which my body had been subjected over the years, we were able to consummate our union and give life to a beautiful baby daughter, Georgie. My mom’s last illness began some months before her arrival, so it was a matter of great relief to me that she survived just long enough to meet her only grandchild. It was a blessing to get Mom’s unqualified approval for something I had done before her life came to an end.

Things went along happily enough for some time. Rachel didn’t seem to mind too much the complications caused by her husband looking more like a younger sister, but I was less easily satisfied and when our child was a year old, came to a decision. For some time, I had been feeling that Georgie needed a male role model in her life. My wife wasn’t sold on the idea, but after lengthy debate we agreed that I should try and revive the male persona I’d been born with and start to dress and live as a man. To my way of thinking this alteration in lifestyle was long overdue, in spite of a number of serious obstacles which needed to be overcome. They were to tax my determination sorely.

First of all, it wasn’t easy to get my body shape to less resemble that of a woman. Owing to years of strict waist-training and the rigorous figure-forming exercises which had been my constant practice, the effects of the radical hormone therapy I had endured were extreme. I had the true hourglass figure so fashionable in the sixties. To attempt to minimise my overly developed chest I took to wearing a tight singlet instead of a bra, while loose tops and kaftans helped hide the slenderness of my midriff.

The next hurdle to overcome was the sound my voice, which had never actually broken. It was hard to lower it to a deeper register and still more to sound natural, but I got better as time went on. Long hair had become fashionable for guys ever since the mid-sixties, and was now the norm, so I did not need to change anything there.

A bigger issue that remained was that my facial features were far too delicate. However, Rachel came up with a solution. Beards were very à la mode just then and would serve to disguise that particular problem. When I made the objection that I had never had to shave, she countered that attaching a realistic set of false whiskers ought to be child’s play for someone with my training and experience. Once ‘my’ facial hair was in place, the resumption of the male identity I’d been born with became a practical reality.

Now I could begin to enjoy those pursuits which had been denied me and as a man, and I took full advantage. As Georgie grew, we spent father daughter time together. I took her camping and fishing and oftentimes to the ball game. I hope I showed her how a man should behave towards the other sex. In short, I relished every opportunity to be the male of the family. It was fulfilling.

After I had become used to living my life as a male for some years, I was ready to explore what it would take to make more permanent changes. I was still dissatisfied with my body shape and wanted to retrieve the masculine one I’d never had. Instead of finicky salads I indulged in eating the ‘wrong’ kind of stuff and put a few pounds on. However, the extra tissue seemed to accumulate on my butt and thighs and even on my chest and this was despite having ended my intake of feminising hormones! In desperation I underwent a series of consultations with a medical specialist, the conclusion from which was that I would need surgery. What was involved would be drastic and expensive, but its benefit would be that I could finally say a lasting goodbye to the femme persona which had been inflicted on me for so many years. Jennifer would be out of my life forever!

After weighing the matter for some time and with Rachel’s acquiescence, the decision was made to go ahead, but before any of this work could begin, fate intervened. It was then that we took that fateful vacation and what ought to have affirmed the new direction of my life was forever put on hold.