9
After all of that, things did settle that evening.
My parents were, obviously, glad to see me.
And I found out that on the way from the airport, Mom and Dad had stopped at the flat, where Byron met them, and that Mom had actually been the one to pack up everything, with special attention to a flat black case.
It was all in Byron's safe, and the flat black case that had a gem studded, I guess it is a clutch that Mom thinks is actually real colored stones.
The clutch is covered with a rainbow pattern in small set stones, each stone in a unique setting.
Mom thinks that it is more than it appears.
Anyway, my privacy was maintained, except with my mother, and everything is safe.
Dad and Byron are doing the full evaluation of the gifts so that I know what tax liability I have and what the replacement value is for insurance purposes.
Dad said that I have stuff back home in the States that also needs to be insured, like a satin dress and a wedding gown…
Dad is really smart; have I ever told you that?
But seriously, guys, my father is thinking outside of the box.
His expertise is contract law, and that includes a lot of high income entertainers and sports figures.
But it extends far beyond that. However, it does not include having your son publicly seen as your daughter and becoming one of those high income people that he represents.
That is outside of normality for any father.
Yet, remember this: it was my father, got that, my father, who told me to stop being stupid and get implants, as in boobs, kids, boobs.
Dad found out that I was going to leave some four to five million on the table of potential earnings if I did not have my own boobs.
Now why? OK, for casual fashion, you need to do summer and swim.
For summer and swim, you need a certain size boob.
And to be brutally honest, no glue on silicone torture devices can withstand the cameras used in the fashion industry.
Fashion is a small business, as in a catalog, or a huge business, as in the side of a building.
The range of where a photograph can be used is immense.
And that means that the cameras used are high to extreme definition, and for the highest definition, we seriously use 16x24 transparency film.
And those photographs show every tiny detail.
So, if you are going to show my boobs on a billboard in Miami, it had damn well be a perfect boob.
Whoever shoots the big images also shoots the tiny 1x1 images shown on some phones.
An ad campaign includes all image sizes.
And without my own boobs, I was not going to be able to do the full campaign for KK Brands.
When Dad found out that this was because I was not willing to consider implants, he took things into his own hands, sat me down, and convinced me that I was being a total asshole.
Implants are removable, especially the smaller ones that top models would have.
I am currently inflated to a solid B cup, and for swim, that will be professionally increased to a C cup, but that is as big as I can go and would ever need to go.
And those implants, the inflatable types, can be removed in an afternoon.
But the size can be adjusted in about fifteen minutes for both.
Yes, modern implants are inflatable balloons, nothing more.
But back to my point, how many fathers would tell their sons to man up and get the damn implants?
Mine did.
My father totally accepts and understands what I am doing in my life, doing with my life, and every implication of those decisions.
And I cannot, I repeat, I cannot even begin to guess how many fathers would encourage this behavior or lifestyle.
But really, my father understands the sacrifices that you make for certain career choices.
An NBA baseball player does not get to decide what clothes they wear, where they travel to, how many nights are spent on the road, and what medical care their conditioning requires.
The team decides that your elbow needs surgery; if you say no, you are gone.
No second chances. A ball player sells their body to the team that holds their contract.
And why should the career of modeling be any different?
So the next morning, the three of us were taken by my faithful Walter.
Now you talk about one hell of a boring job.
The poor guy works longer hours than I do, but he has to sit with the bloody car all day waiting for me.
I hope that he really likes to read. I understand that in England, a lot of drivers are actually PhD students who do their research while driving. And that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, really, think about this. They sit there in a luxury automobile for endless hours doing their research and get paid the entire time. Win win in my book.
But Mom was back in the studio and telling Lowri even more secrets. Hell, there is going to be nothing for us to talk about after Mom leaves. Lowri will be totally bored with me.
However, at lunch, Mom informed me that Lowri has a permanent room at the stone farmhouse and that she is going to work with Mom on the breeding program, which Mom has been ignoring.
I guess they actually like each other, OK.
Maybe if Mom adopts another daughter, then I can be her son again at times?
Nay, I don’t think so.
But seriously, I do miss being boy Shannon; however, besides the boobs thing, I could not handle going back and forth.
Being Shannon can be hard. But flipping back and forth?
No, absolutely no. And far beyond absolutely no when I am working and modeling.
I need to be not in character; I need to be character 24/7.
I need to know I am female in order to fool the camera into thinking I am female.
I get that, and it matches the advice I have received from the other male bodied femme models; not one of them flips back and forth.
It simply does not work. To model as a woman, you have to live as a woman.
And no one wants to pay me money to model as a man.
Not that I blame them, actually; as a man, I was not exactly attractive.
Let’s be honest for a minute. I was a PB, or a pretty boy, in today's lingo. A pretty boy is generally gay and not handsome, but genuinely pretty or even beautiful. And that love, is pure genetics. Nothing else is at play here. You do not become a PB; it is recognized that you are a PB.
And PBs are not every male model. PBs are also not football players. Nor do they play basketball. Nor are they boxers. Sometimes they are in the martial arts, but that is because of the need for some level of self protection.
PBs are all around you, and almost all are highly discriminated against by the red neck crowd. You know, the old beat up pickup driving beer chugging good ole boys?
They don't like pretty boys. And yes, why do you think I hung with my sisters and their friends on the farm?
I really don't like admitting a lot of this truth.
Some things are easy to own up to, but other parts of your life?
Well, not as much. But I never did fit into the normal expectations of male life.
I was tall, but thin boned. Too damned skinny for any real sports, I know; I did try.
And when I did compete, the coaches were not encouraging; they thought that they feared broken bones more than anything.
I looked delicate. Hell, I was delicate.
I could ride, and so that is what I did.
Mom raised two breeds of horses, Arabians for riding, and Norwegian Forest Horses for show.
Show horses are where the big money is. Yes, you can ride them; in fact, you have to ride them to show them.
But you ride them like they are made out of spun glass. Not exactly fun.
So Mom finally got me an Appaloosa that I had had for a number of years. Appaloosas are Indian ponies, well, small horses actually, but the tribe calls all small horses ponies. And only draft animals are true horses in their system.
But I was able to really ride my Appaloosa; he, a gelding, was named Thom.
I kid you not, someone named this horse Thom, and that was the only name he would respond to.
Thom was about eighteen when I got him, and he had been a ring horse his entire life.
That means he was trained and rode in the ring for competition, specifically for barrel racing.
So with 4 H, I learned to race. And I did decent.
But after about six years, well, Thom was put out to pasture, his riding days over. He will finish his life on the farm, a cherished pet in a world of commercial fillies.
My sisters were happy with just riding, and the Arabians are perfect for that. Trail riding on one of these animals is fantastic. But they are not capable of handling the conditions in the ring; they are too delicate.
Now, why am I telling you all of this? Because my mommy decided at lunch on Thursday, that is the second day she was at the shoot with Lowri and myself, to tell me that she had three appaloosas coming in a few weeks.
Mom’s appaloosas are a trio of fillies, bred and trained together, that, like a lot of mares, pack bred, are difficult to separate.
And the breeder or trainer was looking for a single buyer.
The horses were really good ones, three and a half to four years of age, and had never been separated.
So these were going to one home, if he could find one home.
And Mom, well, she had a Forest Horse that was two that he was interested in. The Forest Horse was an intact stallion, and Mom wanted mares. But kept this stallion intact so that it could be bred; the lineage was good enough.
One Forest Horse, three young mares already trained as appaloosa.
Notice I said three?
By the way, Carmine can barely ride… but Lowri?
Now, before you get any ideas, Lowri is hard core heterosexual, and she prefers the really big, over muscled body types.
I do not qualify. Besides, I am taken. I am engaged, remember?
I wear her diamond. I want Carmine, and I am not, do you understand that word?
Not interested in another woman. Besides, I have an entire sorority already making demands that they are next in line.
For them, it is all about access to clothes. And now the Porsche.
So it was an outstanding day.
And now, I was seriously looking forward to these two weeks being over and flying back for the two weeks before I hit New York next.
That evening, of course, we had a hell of a lot to talk about.
The most important was the estimated tax value of the gifts.
The cars, well, that is easy, in Pennsylvania, the purchase price of all cars is listed on the paperwork you file for a license.
So we knew that tax included, the two cars bought in New York ended up at $427,842.95.
That was fixed in stone. I could pay taxes on that amount, or sell the cars and then pay taxes on what I could resell the cars for, and of course, that would be less than Prestige paid for the cars. Some things are just like that.
The gown. It was just under $200,000 in Dubai, but the same style and fabric gown would be closer to $125,000 in New York, and that was set as the evaluation.
You cannot sell a gown for what you buy it for.
The fox was about $33,000 in New York, expensive but about right.
The shoes were about $1600, the most expensive pair of shoes I've owned, but they are literally covered with the fabric used in the gown itself.
The handbag or clutch. Well, we were partially right, the bag is covered with faceted stones set in white gold, then set on a bag covered in the same fabric as the gown and the shoes.
But the stones are artificial sapphires and rubies in a full rainbow of colors.
The rainbow bands are diagonal, and every line that goes completely around the bag is a different shade from the original line.
The effect is a full rainbow of colored gemstones.
Being artificial means that the stones and colors are perfect.
But substantially reduces the price. The clutch is worth about $25,000 if purchased in New York, and it was custom made with the silver lame as a base. Definitely made for this dress.
And finally, the platinum set, roughly 1.2 million in New York.
And that all adds up to a substantial tax hit if I keep it all.
Guess what. I am keeping it all. I have enough in the bank to cover agency fees and taxes.
Once I pay Ellen her cut and pay the taxes, I have enough left for a cup of coffee. And if I were paying my business manager, then I would have to borrow the money for the coffee.
Now, that is a rather huge letdown.
However, if I were to donate to some charity… such as Rho House for scholarships? That would mitigate some of the taxes.
Look, I wanted to keep the crap, OK. In this entire process, I have had very few decisions.
I mean, yes, I had options, but this is different; this is removing want from need.
I do not need to do the UAE work; I want to do it.
And since that is an extra demand on me, I get to decide what I do with the money.
I want the gifts. I want something feminine.
Me. I said it, I want the jewelry. I want to be married in it.
I want the clutch. And the cars, OK, this is boy Shannon now; there is not a twenty year old alive who does not want a Porsche 911 with a full blown performance package installed at the factory, in silver no less.
Yes, I want a boy toy. OK, a boy toy. I am confirming that publicly: girl Shannon still wants at least one boy toy in her life.
And yes, YOU reader definitely have a filthy mind. The sexual preference part has NOT changed, OK?
However, I will admit, I do not know if there ever will be another one.