The letter made its instructions clear. Parents are to drop their children off at X location at Y time, in order to make Z as easy as possible for all of ϴ.
“You should consider yourself very lucky,” they said. “We pulled a lot of strings to get you into this high school, and you are going to make us proud.”
The child waited in the chair, alone, as instructed. The parents left after a brief and dispassionate kiss, which left a dry spot on the forehead still a minute after they’d gone.
“Ah yes! Hello, here you are. Can’t hide from me, now can you?”
The child said nothing as the administrator entered the room, but the man seemed to be waiting for an answer. “I cannot hide,” the child eventually said.
“That’s right! I see why we let you in here.” The man’s jocular smile shifted away as he got down to business. “Academically, you have done well. We feel confident that you will fit right in at St. Ringo’s. However, for your needs, we’re going to ask you a few questions, so you can get optimized attention for your individual learning style. Shall we begin?”
The child nodded, though the man did not look up from his paperwork to notice. “First off, name and gender.”
“Leslie Douglas. Female.”
The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I have here. We’re going to go with Douglas Leslie, male. Next, what are your sexual preferences?”
The child sputtered a moment before repeating, “I’d like to be female, if that’s okay.”
“Very good. ‘Forced Feminization.’ That’s more common than you might think. But I’m afraid I’m going to need more details. Top or bottom?”
The child said words, and accepted the approval they invoked, one by one. There were no wrong answers. He took his seat in a classroom designed just for him and felt proud to be accepted for all his perversions and hangups, designed just for him.