“Happy birthday dear teenager…” Mum yells in my ear, startling me into awakeness as the sun streams through my bedroom window. “Happy birthday to you!”

“Mum!” I tiredly moan into my pillow. “What time is it?”

“8am,” mum says. “Which means that you’ve only been thirteen for 8 hours and already you’re acting like a stereotypical teenaged girl!” I chuckle as mum whips the covers off of my nightie-covered body and dumps a LOT of presents besides my hairless legs.

“Stop crying!” The middle-aged man barks as the electric clippers shear my head clean of the hair I’d been growing over the last twelve months. I gulp and blink my eyes, but as lock after lock of light blonde hair tumbles in front of my face, I can’t control my emotions. My life, just my hair, is tumbling down in front of me.

Once the haircut is complete, I look at myself in the mirror and I want to scream. Looking back at me is undoubtedly the face of a pre-teen boy. A pre-teen boy with a cute face, but a boy nonetheless.

Swishy in Satin: A TG Mixed Tape

A sextet of stories from six very different authors. Hit play on July’s Mixed Tape flash fiction collection for sea-creatures, sexy transformations, an interview with Amy Komori AND MORE!

“Project more!” Mrs. Ingram urges me. “We want to be able to hear you all the way at the back of the class!”

“I will never let you manipulate me into taking a stand against my own father!” I say in a loud, forceful voice to the girl stood opposite me. “No matter how much you threaten me!”

Jessica stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac at Charles De Gaulle airport with an ache in her feet from standing in high heels all day, and an ache in her head from dealing with needy, insulting passengers all day. She longed for nothing more than to strip out of her painful shoes, her tight skirt and her restrictive corset and lay in a warm bath for the next 24 hours, but as she changed back into her sleek black dress to head home, she knew that wasn't an option.

“I hope you’ve all enjoyed your first term,” Mrs. Houghton announces to the whole of the year as the bell rings, signifying not only the end of the school day, but the end of school entirely for the next two and a half weeks. “I hope you all have a happy Christmas, and I look forward to seeing you back here in January, refreshed and raring to go for another term!” With the assembly ‘dismissed’, we all file out of the hall in neat columns, though once we reach the car park outside the school, we become a lot LESS orderly!

“Jamie?” The young man asks with confusion as he answers his front door. “What are you doing here this early?”

Dammit woman…just do it! I’m yelling mentally at myself and it’s still scary hard but almost like I can’t help it and I end up nodding yes.
Ryan smiles but y’know there’s something else there too, it’s in his eyes that he kind of gets it.
And that’s nice…it helps a lot as he comes around and gets my door and we head to the movie place and we start checking out what’s playing and where to go and there’s a lot of stuff playing and just for fun he takes me to go see “Muppets Most Wanted.”

Out and just for fun with a big thing of popcorn to share and a medium root beer and doing this.
Fun’s been a long time from now.
And when they’re opening almost right away with a musical I’m already smiling.
I missed fun.

“I dunno man,” Keith moans as we fight together on a virtual battlefield. “I just feel that I should be there, you know? I mean, it is MY child…”

“It’s your decision,” I say. “You know Charlotte would love to have you there, it’s just whether or not you could stand being in the same room as her for a prolonged period of time…”

“You know, it’s funny,” Keith sighs. “For all she did… I do still love her.”

“PLEASE tell me you’re not going to crawling back to her…” I moan as I take a swig of my full-fat coke.

Walk on the Wild Side: A TG Mixed Tape

A young superhero obtains a mysterious cassette. In the near future high school students will be required to spend time as the opposite sex. A trans woman and a transformed man share lunch. Hit play on this month’s sweet and steamy TG Mixed Tape for all these stories, an interview with DAW, author of Battle for Earth and the Ragnarok Rising trilogy, AND MORE! [Also includes contributions from Amy Komori, Tmc and Jenny North]