Be a girl

As soon as I got home, I booted up my PC and searched for the game that Oscar had recommended and let it download in the background. The file size was quite large, so I expected that it wouldn’t be done for a while. In the meantime, I added both him and Jaxon on Discord and we began a voice call.

The other two explained the basics of the game while we waited for my download to complete, but it wasn’t long before I had to answer the door as mum arrived to drop off James. I excused myself and went to answer it. I walked past dad in the lounge room as I headed toward the front door, and I had to wonder when dad would finally tell mum that he’d quit his job, or if he would even decide to let her know. But for now, it wasn’t my place to divulge that information.

James looked as dull as ever wearing his school dress. I wasn’t sure I could get used to seeing my little brother so down in the dumps so often. He quickly ran off to his room to change back into his boy clothes, while I returned to my room to resume my call with Oscar and Jaxon.

When I got back to my computer, the download had finished, and I booted up the game, having already gone through the annoying sign up process. “Sorry about that,” I said, putting my headset back on, “Had to answer the door. Mum was dropping off my little brother.”

“No worries,” Oscar said, “Couldn’t she have just like, opened the door herself though?”

Oh right. I hadn’t told them about my parents’ situation. If I was gonna be sticking round these guys for any longer, they’d eventually find out anyway. Might as well tell them now. Leaving out some key details of course. “Oh, um, my parents are split up. Weekdays we’re at dad’s, weekends with mum.”

“Why doesn’t your dad just pick your little bro up then?” Oscar pushed. Ok, time to change the topic. This was all too complicated to explain.

“Can we like, focus on the game? I’d rather not talk about this.”

“Alright.” Thankfully, he dropped it there.

I opened the character creator and was met with a screen to choose my character’s race and gender. I was a little surprised that the game didn’t have the standard fantasy races like I expected. There were no elves or dwarves or whatnot. Instead, the options were human (can’t not have humans after all), human but bigger, a furry, cat-like creature with horns, some goblin looking creature with huge floppy ears, and humanoid plants.

Being the boring person that I was, I picked human. I was suddenly met with a rush of anxiety as I had to choose my character’s gender. For some reason, I really wanted to pick female. But I was worried. How would the others react if I picked a female character? They’d probably think I was some weirdo freak and not want to play with me anymore. I didn’t want to risk a potential friendship with not one, but two people, so I picked male. Even though I really wanted to play a female character.

I wasn’t allowed to, though. It wasn’t right. I was a boy, so I should really play a male character. It didn’t matter that I really wanted to play a female character. I’d be breaking an unspoken rule.

I rushed through the rest of the character creation, not really caring too much about what the character looked like. Hard to really care about something to which I had no attachment. I was dropped into a quick tutorial level that took about five minutes to finish, then I met up with the other two in game.

Oscar’s character was one of those furry beasts; large and threatening, with gigantic teeth and even bigger horns. Jaxon was playing as… a girl. Was that allowed? It shouldn’t be. Yet here he was. And Oscar hadn’t said anything about it? Could he really just do that? Could I do that?

He appeared to be playing the race that was basically just humans but bigger, at least based on the fact that his character was about a metre taller than mine. It was somewhat representative of our real life sizes though, if a bit exaggerated.

“Wait, Jaxon, you’re playing as a girl?” I asked tentatively.

“Mhmm,” he hummed contentedly, “Why?”

“I mean, you’re a guy right, you should be playing as a guy.”

“Eh, I always preferred playing as girls. It just feels right. Dunno why.”

“Pfft, we both know why you do it, Jax,” Oscar said.

“Huh? Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s very simple,” Oscar stated, “Jax on, Jax off.”

What? Was that supposed to mean something?

“Excuse me,” Jaxon retorted, “First off: no, I don’t. Second of all: gross, I’m not like that.”

Jaxon’s rebuttal did nothing to dissuade Oscar from cackling. “C’mon man, you know that was a good pun.”

“Fine, I’ll concede that.” He didn’t sound too happy about it though.

Meanwhile I still didn’t know what these two were talking about. I really didn’t understand what the pun was supposed to be. Perhaps it was some silly little inside joke, in which case it would be rude of me to intrude, no matter how left out I might have felt. I didn’t want to come off as desperate to be their friends. I mean, I was desperate, but I couldn’t let them know that.

“Anyway…” Jaxon said, elongating each of the vowels, “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re not playing as a girl, Ben.”

I felt my breath catch in my throat. Why would he think that!? Was it something I did? Or said? I didn’t think I gave off that sort of impression, especially to someone whom I’d only met a day ago.

“I, um… Why?” I said, my voice sounding really shaky all of a sudden. My mouth was rather dry at the moment. Uncomfortably so.

“Well, cause you… ya know.”

“I what?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Oh, I was definitely going to worry about it. What was he talking about? What was he implying about me? He didn’t seem to be in the mood to explain it, so I doubted that pushing him would get him to tell me.

An awkward silence broke out between the three of us in the voice call. I didn’t dare speak a word.

“So, what’s happening?” Oscar finally said, ending the agonising quiet.

“Did you want to play as a girl, Ben?” Jaxon asked tentatively.

My heart was hammering in my chest. My palms became sweaty and my breathing shaky. Nervously, I asked, “Is… that allowed?” I swallowed what little saliva remained in my mouth, awaiting an answer. This surely couldn’t be allowed, could it? They’d all think I was some weirdo freak.

Although, Jaxon was already playing as a girl. It would seem a bit hypocritical if he were to judge me for doing the same. Conflicted emotions washed over me. I wanted to play as a girl, so badly, but the part of me that said no was screaming oh so loudly. It was only trying to protect me from myself. From my disgusting desires.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Jaxon replied.

“I um… you won’t think I’m weird or something?”

“Why would we think that? I’d say it’d be pretty normal for you to want to play as a girl.”

“Only an asshole would give a shit about something like that,” Oscar said.

“Oh.” I paused for a moment to collect myself. I took some deep breaths, letting all my anxieties flow out of me. I really wanted to play as a girl, and these two were giving me the ok. I felt… relieved, in a way that I couldn’t possibly put into words. My own self defence mechanism didn’t need to overreact. It wasn’t protecting me, because there wasn’t anything from which I needed protecting. It was now only hindering me. I let it go, just this once, and let my desires take hold, and a whirl of both excitement and nervousness rushed through me. Was I really going to do this?

“Is it ok if I make a new character?” I didn’t want to bother them by running off and wasting their time, but I figured I’d check to see if they were ok with it anyway.

“Of course.”

Oh. Ok. I was really doing this. “I’ll um… be back in a bit.”

For some definition of ‘a bit’. I spent significantly longer making my new, female character than that old one which I immediately deleted. I had to make sure this character was perfect. She would be my virtual representation in the game world, after all, she needed to look good. I matched her appearance to how I imagined I would look if I were born as a girl… or how I would look if my stupid power worked on me. Why did it only work on others? I’d much rather it only worked on me, then there wouldn’t be any issues in my family, I’d feel much more comfortable in my own skin, and I wouldn’t need to keep wearing those stupid gloves all the time when I left the house.

Anyway, about half an hour later, I was finally done. I’d once again picked a boring old human, but I felt much much better about this character than the previous. Part of me still told me it was wrong, that I was a disgusting freak for doing this. But Jaxon and Oscar had said it was ok, so for once I ignored it, and I didn’t feel bad for doing so. I smashed out the tutorial level in no time, having already completed it once before, then finally met up with the others again.

I apologised for taking so long, but Jaxon assured me it was ok. The two of them had just been chatting with each other the whole time. I hadn’t even realised. I was so engrossed in making the character that it was like my brain shut off the part that processed speech.

Oscar was more than excited to finally be able to get going, running off out of the safe zone and into the open world of the game. I smiled and followed after him, also excited to finally be doing what we gathered here for in the first place.

***

The game was fun. Especially when playing with other people. Though, even without the other two, I probably would still have been having fun. It was just a good game.

I, of course, had to pick the really hard character class that died really easily, but Jaxon and Oscar were always there to pick me back up whenever that happened. I didn’t care though. My character was cute and that was most important. I felt represented by her, like she was actually me. And that alone made all the difference.

The class I’d chosen had four times the number of weapon skills as the others, owing purely to the fact that attacks were based on four elements that the player freely switched between, making the class much harder to play for a beginner such as myself. Whoops.

And of course, Jaxon had a pun lined up for each of the elements. When I killed an enemy with the earth element, I “grounded them to dust”. When I tried using water to damage enemies, he asked me exasperatingly, “Water you doing?”. I wasn’t attacking enemies with the air element, no, I was just “airing out my grievances” with them. And when I started burning the enemies with fire, I was “burning them into ash… ford.” Yeah, that one was particularly bad. Definitely not one of Jaxon’s finest. The name puns were always the worst. Especially when they were forced.

I groaned at every single pun Jaxon made, which only caused Oscar to laugh at my misery. He told me in no uncertain terms that I’d get used to it in no time. Although he did groan at the pun involving my last name, after Jaxon explained it to him of course.

Jaxon didn’t seem to care whether his puns were any good or not. He simply threw them out there, good or bad, and hoped they landed. If not, he just moved on and tried again later. There was always a later. In my earnest opinion, they were all terrible and groan worthy, but my reaction only served to spur him on further.

A while into our gaming session, my little brother came into my room.

“I’m boooorrreeeddd,” he whined exasperatingly in that way only little kids could manage. I turned to look at him quickly, but I also didn’t want to take my eyes off the screen for too long, so it was really more of a glance, before turning my attention back to the game.  In that time, he cocked his head at me upon seeing the game I was playing. “What’s that?”

“It’s a new game some people from my school showed me,” I said.

“Can I watch?”

“Sure.”

“Yay!”

He rushed up to me and clambered onto my lap. I let out an oof as he sat down. He was getting heavy now, and it was a bit uncomfortable. Not to mention that his head level was almost at mine with him getting a boost from sitting on top of my legs. I had to look over his shoulder to see the screen.  “You might be getting a bit big for this now,” I commented.

“Nuh-uh,” he teased, sticking his tongue out at me, eliciting a small chuckle from me.

“Oi Ben, is that your little bro?” Oscar asked.

“Yeah, he’s sitting on my lap.”

“How old is he lol?”

“Ten.”

Jaxon whistled. “Damn, that’s quite the age gap there.”

“Who are you talking to?” James asked curiously, tilting his head awkwardly to look at me. Right. I had my headset on; he couldn’t hear the people talking to me. Seemed they could hear James just fine though.

“I’m talking to my friends,” I replied. I didn’t really want to explain to him that I’d met these people only very recently, so I didn’t actually consider them friends yet. But it was easier calling them friends than it was to explain that to him. Kids called people they met ten minutes ago friends, didn’t they? He probably wouldn’t understand why I’d be hesitant to label them as such. “Hold on, I’ll switch to speakers so you can hear them too.”

I quickly minimised the game, and adjusted the computer’s sound settings so that sound came out of the speakers. Then I reached behind my monitor to actually turn on the speakers. I removed the headset and hung it round my neck so that the microphone was still near my mouth, but also so that I could hear the sound through the speakers more clearly.

“There we go, you should be able to hear my friends now.”

Jaxon was the first to speak. “Hello Ben’s little brother, what’s your name?”

“James.”

“Nice to meet you, James. I’m Jaxon.”

“Can we get back to playing now?” Oscar asked with a twinge of annoyance in his voice. I didn’t know what his problem was. We’d only stopped for a couple minutes. He was much more patient before. Or maybe he wasn’t and I just didn’t notice because I wasn’t paying attention while I was engrossed in character creation.

“Sure,” Jaxon replied, and we all got back to playing the game. Having a child sitting on my lap certainly didn’t make it easy to play the game, but I managed it.

Only a minute into playing and James spoke up, “Ben, are you playing as a girl?”

“Um, yeah,” I replied sheepishly.

“Why?”

“I, um, wanted to?”

He turned his head to look at me, his face all scrunched up. “Why would you want to play as a girl?”

Oh god, how was I supposed to answer that? This was an obvious sore spot for him. I didn’t even know the answer myself; I just felt compelled to do it. The reasons were beyond me. It simply felt right, and I couldn’t explain why. I felt so terrible that I wanted to be a girl, when it caused my brother so much pain. What was wrong with me? It didn’t help that James wouldn’t even be in this situation if it weren’t for me.

Jaxon noticed my hesitancy in answering, so he decided to answer James’ question in my stead, with a question of his own, “What’s wrong with playing as a girl?”

“Girls suck!” James exclaimed, quite loudly, right in my ear.

“That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?” Jaxon said calmly. “What would your mum think if she heard you say that?”

“She’s the suckiest girl of them all!”

“Harsh words,” Oscar said.

“Not really,” I interjected, “Our mum has been rather awful as of late.”

“Still, judging all women over the actions of one is hardly appropriate,” Jaxon said. A fair assessment. But it wasn’t like we could tell him the real reason James didn’t like girls. “Besides, no one is forcing you to be a girl.”

Uh oh, this conversation needed to end. Fast. Oscar and Jaxon had no context for what James was going through, and I didn’t want them to have any. If they knew, then there was no doubt that they’d think me a freak and not want to spend time with me. And I was very much enjoying the time I was spending with them.

I pre-emptively slammed the mute button on my headset, knowing that James would react poorly to Jaxon’s words.

It was a good thing I reacted quickly, as James roared right into the microphone, “Mum is, and I hate it!” That was a close call.

With my brother’s outburst over, I unmuted myself. “I think I’m going to call it a night,” I said, quickly pressing the disconnect button on the voice call before anyone could respond. I then closed the program itself and just as quickly exited the game, cutting off all communication with my two classmates.

“Huh? Why’d you close the game?” James asked.

I sighed. “You remember how we said not to tell anyone about… you know…”

He gasped, suddenly realising what he’d said just moments prior. “I’m so sorry Ben! I didn’t mean to!”

“Hey, it’s ok,” I said softly and reassuringly, “I muted the microphone before you revealed anything. My friends didn’t hear you at all.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew.”

“Now, you have to remember to be more careful in the future, ok? I’d prefer it if my friends saw you as a regular boy. Wouldn’t you prefer that too?”

James nodded vigorously, “Yep!”

I ruffled his hair. “Alright, how about we go do something else.”

“Ok! What do you want to do?”

I rubbed at my chin pensively. That was a good question. “Why don’t you tell me about your day at school?”

James frowned and crossed his arms over his chest with a harumph. Oof. Wrong question. “School sucks! Everyone keeps calling me Chloe because the teacher does. But when I tried to tell her my name is actually James, she told me it was a boys’ name and then I said, ‘I am a boy!’ and she didn’t believe me! And today I wanted to play chasey with the other boys, but they told me they didn’t want to play with a girl but I’m not a girl! But they said that only girls wear dresses, and I said that I don’t want to wear dresses! But they didn’t care!”

He was huffing and puffing for breath after his short diatribe, having worked himself all up in his anger. I couldn’t blame him; he really did have it rough. How mum could possibly think this was best for him, I hadn’t the faintest idea. James had never expressed such distaste towards school before.

“I’m sorry, James,” I said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

He rested his chin in his hand, pouting frustratingly. “It’s all mum’s fault.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean you should have to deal with this.”

He responded only with an exasperated sigh.

Dad called out from the other end of the house, announcing that dinner was ready, and we both made our way over to the kitchen. “How about we play some games together after dinner,” I suggested. “Have some fun after an awful day.”

“Ok.”