Chapter 42

Laying in the bathtub with her hair pulled up not to get wet and a washcloth over her eyes Leah relaxed in the hot lavender and vanilla scented bathwater. It had been a long day between the hospital, music lessons and cooking a balanced healthy dinner for daddy and herself. It had been days since she had been told just one part of the punishment for what she did, but it hadn’t been mentioned once since then or what else was on the horizon. The first part filled her with dread, but waiting for the other shoe to drop was agonizing. All she could do was be on her best behavior to keep Miss Megan in a good mood and hope things didn’t get much worse.

The dinner tonight had taken a little bit of time, but the squash stuffed shells came out really well. Leah had almost clapped with how excited she was when her brother said how good it was. It made all the work feel worth it, and praise from him seemed to come much rarer than it once did. She went over everything she did to try and remember it exactly to be able to recreate the meal. Chop up the squash into little cubes before roasting them, then make the sauce by blending cashews, water, lemon juice, diced garlic with a little bit of salt and pepper. With that to the side, saute spinach, making sure to get rid of any extra water, mixing it with crumbled tofu, oregano, lemon zest, red pepper flakes and just a cup of the cream she just made. Boil the shells, then stuff them with everything and bake it all together for just under twenty minutes.

It was good and thought it was perfect to be considered one of the meals she had to master. Miss Megan made it clear that it was important for a girl to master four dishes, two having to be dinner. She didn’t say when it had to be done by, but right away Leah asked her pretend father to bring her to the store to buy things for the house. At first he balked at the grocery cost, but she hoped he would change his mind if she made a few more things like she had tonight. With the way he had been acting it was starting to feel lonelier and lonelier in her own house.

A little water splashed up as Leah pulled the folded washcloth from her eyes. Tomorrow she needed to do yoga and clean the house before Candi and Bailey picked her up in the afternoon to head to Jeremy’s place for his birthday. For his birthday they had gotten him a few tickets to a minor league baseball team called the Aviators, a team she had heard Jeremy mention going to with his father before. Tickets were cheap, less than twenty a piece, but still daddy was none too happy to be handing over money for her to buy something for her boyfriend. It was more than annoying to have to justify asking for twenty dollars, she was cleaning the house and he wasn’t lifting a finger, that and it was for a ticket to a baseball game. She would have thought he would have been happy, it wasn't like she was asking him to take her dress shopping. Not that she would need him to with how many dresses were in her closet now and thanks to a wild idea the girls had, Candi she was pretty sure. Another outfit would be joining the closet full of dresses, a cheerleading outfit, something she had once ogled many a girl in would be her outfit for the birthday party. The three would be practicing a cheer to say happy birthday and already she felt embarrassed for her future self.

Shifting in the water Leah ran her fingers across one of her legs as she lifted it out of the water, resting it on the rim of the white soaking tub. Her legs were still smooth, and didn’t need to be shaved tonight. The smooth hairless legs looked completely different, felt differed not that long ago. The normal looking legs werne’ really normal at all and the oddity of that struck Leah. Here she was… he was. He was a grown man with hairless legs that any red blooded man would check out when he walked around with them perched in high heels. It wasn’t normal, yet he never really thought about it, he never didn’t consider the oddity it was to paint his face and keep it up through the day, or how he pursed his lips and get just the right angle to take a selfie. Those were not normal, nor were the perky C cup breasts on his chest.

With that thought he ran the washcloth over and between his breasts, feeling it's rough texture over the smooth skin. He shouldn’t have cleavage, he shouldn’t be thinking about wearing the red pushup bra for the party. Liam knew he shouldn’t be thinking like a girl or thinking about himself as a girl, but his own mind always seemed to rebel against him. Even now as he thought he wasn’t a girl parts of her… his motto ran through his mind telling him he was a good girl and proud. It wasn’t some magic or hypnosis, it was just his mind trying to protect him. Liam would have gone to jail, while Leah just has to be a teenage girl. So long as Liam was Leah there was safety. It didn’t mean she… he had to like it or Jeremy and his stupid perfect smile. Liam grumbled a little thinking about the stupid grin on his face after they had kissed good night. Thoughts of him made Liam glance over at his phone where an audio file lived of Jeremy singing the entire song of Walking on Sunshine. It was clear he really liked Leah, and it made him feel happy to be wanted, it made him happy to be Leah.

Thoughts of the song brought a smile to her face, so Leah reached out of the tub to try one hand off on a towel to open the phone and find the song, and hit play. Hearing Jeremy’s smooth tenor voice brought a small sense of contentment, knowing the song was sung for her. This shy person was able to build up confidence because of her. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t something that would last, but at least all of this helped him. Leah thought as the feminized man’s thoughts shifted back to using female pronouns.

Grabbing the pink ball loofah, Leah started to actually start to clean herself instead of just relaxing in the water, moving it up her leg still out of the water, noticing for the first time something that might have been different about her foot. It looked like on both of her feet her pinky toe was now naturally pushing under the toe next to it. It seemed odd, but she went on cleaning, dismissing it after not being able to come up with a reason it would look like that now and not before. It wasn’t like she paid any real attention to her feet before she started to get pedicures. Besides she had bigger issues to think about like meeting Jeremy’s dad for the first time tomorrow. His mom already liked her, and it shouldn’t matter if either of them liked her, but still she wanted to make a good impression.

The old attitude of not caring what people thought was one way to go through life, but smiling and acting cheerful got her smiles in return, along with compliments. Lately it felt like the whole world was just plain nicer. It could be just because they all saw a teenage girl, but still it was nice to feel appreciated and much more welcome in day to day life.