Sweet Dreams-39 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 39

I’m nervous as heck as April and I go into the hospital. I’m also a little impressed April has pull or maybe her money does as we’re semi ushered into the area for my tests and honestly I never thought that they had places where they took you aside and get you ready.

And not one but two nurses hanging around for stuff. I don’t even get the paper dress thing but patient scrubs?

“I guess it’s different with money right?” I’m not being snitty about it I’m too out of my element for that.

“I won’t say that it’s not Hunter but this is more of a personal thing dealing with your gender and sexual issues. I’m paying a bit more for the special services but there’s other factors.”

“Like?”

“Well, there was a lot of interest with the specialists and you being intersexed but also there’s the things that they’ve seen you been through Hunter so there’s a bit of a personal stake in this for some of the staff.”

“There is?”

“I’ve worked with a lot of health care workers honey, the hospitals might want to make money but the people that work here still want to help people at the end of the day. They’ve seen abuse before honey, and besides if you were into this you think you’d be a nurse or doctor?”

“Maybe, why?”

“Then it’s not too far fetched that there’s people here that grew up going through abuse too.”

I know it’s lame. But I think there was part of me that sort of divided the haves and the have nots into the people that grew up in shitty lives like me. I know other people have had it hard but…

“Yeah that makes sense, just getting caught up in my head.”

“They’re you feeling Hunter, you’re allowed. You’ve kept too much in for too long.”

“I can’t help it, it’s sort of a conditioned response.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was a boy, or supposed to be. The steps hit made sure that if I was going to cry then I’d have something to cry about.”

“Jesus…”

“Wasn’t present in that household trust me.”

“What happened?”

“Too much April, literally too much to get into.”

“You can tell me Hunter, it’s okay.”

“Does Adam tell you about his homelife being utter shit too?”

“No…it was?”

“Yeah, poor neighborhood, cops kid, big family…trust me I’ve seen it and worse. Cop can’t take it out on the job so he drinks, and once he’s boozed up it’s open season on the family.”

“How’d you know that was what happened to Adam?”

“His eyes, he survived, got out and it cost him. Alex let a few things passed too but he doesn’t know much. But yeah…you can tell.”

“I never, I thought it was with his wife…”

“That too, just she was his childhood girlfriend, she likely pushed him to do all the stuff to get out but she didn’t know how to live in your world any more than he did and she slipped back into who she might have been back there only here it was a bigger failure than there and it killed her and she nearly took them all with her.”

“He never said.”

“He never will, you don’t talk about stuff like that April you just deal.”

“Like you do.”

“It’s just the way we’ve been built, you can’t take a beat up Firebird and expect it to be a Honda, you can fit it up and trick it out but it’s still a Firebird. Getting stuff out can be good sometimes but it’s always better to use what you’ve got the best you can. Life’s built Adam and I differently than you and yours April no offence.”

“No, none taken it’s just given me a lot to think about with Adam. I want to be there for him and show him it’s okay, that he’s okay.”

“Good…he needs that he hasn’t had that in a long time.”

“I’m glad that we can talk like this.”

“Me too, it’s really helping take my mind off things.”

It really isn’t that long before we start and we go for the lab stuff first. And it’s not just a few vials drawn it’s like a dozen or a dozen and a half. I’m not squeamish but it’s still a combination of ow and eww. I didn’t get why they took them from different spots either I thought they sort of stuck you and kept swapping out vials.

Then X-rays, and MRI’s and CAT-Scans drinking that bad Tang kind of crap before going into the doughnut. “It’s a good thing I don’t have ovaries and stuff with all these scans and radiation and stuff.”

April blinks and helps me off the sliding table thingy. “Why honey, this stuff’s safe?”

“Yeah, sure…but as many rads as I’ve had today I’d be giving birth to The Hulk.”

Okay….there’s a lot of blank stares. The orderly grinned though.

There’s a lot of looking and talking and more looking and talking and I’m trying to follow what they’re saying as their talking about what they’re going to do about me and my condition.

My condition.

Kind of sounds like I’m a pregnant teen.

Congratulations! It’s a penis!

Okay seriously from what I get the idea is to remove the tissue and then to close off the blood vessels and hopefully after they open me up there’ll be some plastic surgery stuff done with making labia and in theory I guess the sealed off blood vessels once my body gets the idea of hey there’s nothing here will send the blood slowly elsewhere hopefully guided by the hormones that I’ll be on.

It’s actually a long day really and there’s a fasting involved as well as more post fast blood work then a thing called a stress test with me in a mask and treadmill and stuff. And they even test out the anesthesia on my just to be sure I’m not going to have a bad reaction to that and how I’ll respond after having it.

I’m really starved, semi sick from the glow juice and the anesthesia tests and actually curl up into the back seat on the way home.

April wakes me up and I rub my eyes and get out and hug her. Alex isn’t home yet so I actually head upstairs and take a shower to sort of wash the hands that’ve been all over me all day and just sort of fall into bed. It takes effort to make myself move enough to set the clock alarm for an hour from now.

But between the nap on the way home and the shower and an hour of dead solid sleep I feel actually human by the time I’m done washing my face. That and I’m hungry too. I’m figuring Alex has practice and the girls might be over. I’ll be ambitious and I’ll make a lasagna.

I look through stuff and I don’t really have the stuff I think for lasagna so I look around and decide to try my hand at making meatballs. We have hamburger and I know we have sausage so I put both in a bowl and take the sausage out of the skins or whatever. The rest is garlic, eggs, chili flakes…just a bit of those and fennel seeds because that goes in Italian sausage oh yeah bread crumbs.

No bread crumbs. I use cornflakes tossed in the food processor. I mix them up and I put them it a frying pan or two to brown off while I make the sauce. This I know…canned tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, food processed onions, and some dried oregano. I think I just let it cook down and I get the stuff for the spaghetti ready.

Once the meatballs are really browned all over and good and dark I settle them in the sauce and put everything on simmer.

I take out my phone and call Jennifer.

“Hey.”

“Hey…(pant)…how’d it go?”

“Pin-cushiony which sucked really bad and then blood loss and poisoned and irradiated the super powers should kick in any day now.”

“Huh?”

“It was a seriously long shitty, stressful dad Jen.”

“Shit, I knew I should’ve gone with.”

“No, it’s cool. I had April there.”

“Yeah but friends y’know?”

“Yeah I know.”

“So you called me wadda ya need?”

“I was just wondering it you and Cindy wee going to show for supper?”

“I wasn’t planning on it but you want us too?”

“Uhm actually I was just trying to figure how much to make for the pasta and salad.”

“Well…I kind of had plans with Cindy.”

“That’s cool, how’s that working out?”

“Iffy, apparently we’re too hot to be lezzies and we’re too cheer for most of the L crowd.”

“Well I’m not sure if lesbian is supposed to come with a pre-setting I meant you’re cheer girls, lesbian cheer girls that’s a whole genre of porn right there.”

She laughs. “No, it hasn’t been bad just a bunch of disbelief and some more intense PDA watching from some of the staff. It’ll be really fun in about fifteen minutes.”

“Why?”

“Cheer practice will be over with and we’ll be hitting the showers.”

“Oh…wait…are you jogging while talking to me?”

“Yeah, why?”

“And you’re not panting like crazy?”

“No?”

“Bitch…the damned stress test nearly killed me.”

And of course that leads to her cracking up over the phone. “I gotta go Hunter, I’ll call you later.”

We hang up and I’m smiling because as much as I like the girls and it’s really a big deal to me the way that they’ve stood by me like they have this means that I get Alex to myself tonight. And the thought of that is a real pick me up. I cook a whole bag of spaghetti, Alex will destroy most of it actually and there’ll be plenty for me. I get the blankets set out on the couch for later and I set the TV and stuff up for us to cuddle after we find something on Netflix. I think he likes watching movies with me because I’ve actually missed out on that kind of stuff.

Stir the meatballs and the sauce. I’ve eaten way too much burnt crap from Mom being too stoned to care.

I look at the clock. He should be out of the showers and stuff by now.

“Hey…”

“Hey beautiful, how was everything at the hospital?”

“Scary, sucky, different.”

“Oh?”

“Needles, way to many needles. I’m honestly surprised that I hadn’t freaked out.”

“Why?”

“Stepshit had a thing for safety pins.”

“What….”

“The whole you wanna cry, I’ll give you something to cry about stuff.”

“……..fucking asshole…I ever fucking find him…”

“Alex, Alex chill it’s okay…I’ve got you…It’s better.”

“Better yes, okay never….I meet Clifford they’ll never find the body Hunter.”

“No…you see him ever just call the cops.”

“I can handle him.”

“Yeah, you can but you’ve never been in a street fight, or a knife fight and there’s a good chance he’d have a gun.”

“Still…”

“No…..no buts, no stills. He’s got three strikes plus going on that means they’ll send his ass away likely for good. You don’t need to get Cliff staining your life.”

“Fine…”

You know how girls say “fine.” and it’s not really fine this was one of those. I let it go…hopefully if it ever happens I’ll be with Alex. I still remember him punching and denting the fire door at the back of the school bus. He’s really strong and Alex has a dark side in him, that broody rage from life’s steel toe boots. If I’m not there he’d likely try to beat the hell out of Cliff or worse.

He doesn’t need that or jail. And like I said, Alex has no idea what Cliff is. I mean yeah he’s a piece of shit but he’s been in gangs, been in the joint and he carries knives and guns.

Deep breath. “Anyway, can you pick up some sub buns and some provolone cheese on the way home?”

“Sure what are you making?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs, but I was thinking we’d take meatball subs to school tomorrow.”

“You’re coming back to classes tomorrow?”

“Yeah they just did the tests they haven’t given me a date yet to come in so back to lie as usual. But if I roll over tonight and crush you it’s because of all the rads I had and I hulked out on you.”

“Hulked out?”

“Yeah Hulk big green guy, stuff like that.”

“Well that wouldn’t be that bad there’s a girl hulk right?”

“Hey…yeah and at that size I’d have boobs.”

“Breasts are that important Hunter.”

“Say’s you I want mine, I’m over due.”

He laughs that little half laugh of his. I like making him laugh. “Maybe we’ll go for implants like as big as you want.”

“No…no implants, just because I’m going through this doesn’t mean I’m going through any other kind of surgery.”

“Okay, okay anything else I need to pick up?”

I check the fridge. “We’re low on eggs and we better get more milk too.” Seriously we usually have three half gallon containers in the house and Alex really kills them….I’m so not used to that but he’s like a growing boy and shit.

“We need more cow goo too. (Cottage cheese.) and maybe something for dessert?”

“Like what?”

“Something we’ve never had before, surprise me.”

“Okay…Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“I Love You.”

I’m blushing on the phone and cradling it. “I love you too, I’ll see you soon.”

My god I’m smiling and happy and holding the phone even after he’s hung up and stuff. I’m right on the edge of girly happy crying and stuff and I’m not even on hormones yet. And in away that actually scares me almost more than the surgery. I’ve a pretty tight handle on me and the stuff I’ve been through and the idea of what I’ve read hormones can do to you. Okay some’s fiction and overblown but still.

But I’m still kind of enjoying the girly moment.

I recover enough to actually slip into the bedroom and make our bed and turn down the sheets then a bit of perfume, bra with my inserts and matching nice panties and I slip into one of his dress shirts that actually almost fits like a mini dress.

It was so worth it as I was getting the plates out and set on the island/counter/bar thing we have that separates the kitchen from the living room. Alex comes in his arms with the groceries and he take me in staring at me.

“What……?” I ask.

He just drops the bags on the floor, well set them down but it was fast and he walks right over and he takes my head…my face into his hands and holds me there/pulls me into this amazing kiss.

That amazing I did that girl thing, leg raising off the floor thing, skin tingling brain on fire, ow my heart kind of kiss. You know that scene in TV or the movies when he hasn’t seen you forever and the only…and the first thing he wants to do is to kiss you…

Oh my that boy can kiss.

We kissed that way for several long minutes but how long? Well the milk was getting warm and the spaghetti was overcooked. I was going to drain it but well we got busy.

It was still good though. I know there’s pasta and food snobs out there but it was still loose, it strained okay and it tasted okay. Honestly I only know it was over done by common sense. I’ve never really had good pasta so it was a lot, a lot better than canned spaghetti.

Alex ate three plates of it and apparently he loves pasta and not just for training but apparently he likes it even with just some butter, and some salt lots of fresh pepper and some grated parmesan. Heck I can make that. I’m a bit more dubious about the left over pasta chopped and dumped into scrambled eggs as being as good as he says it is but I’d still eat it.

I’ve eaten worse, but also I’ve never tried so many things either that I want to. Honestly, there are tons of kids in this country, hell this city that eating like a normal family is as foreign to as much as if we were from a third world country.

I’m an inner city immigrant.

Dessert was Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls…Oh…Alex put them in a buttered balking dish, put some more butter on them and he added some more sugar and cinnamon. I was still kind of full until the smell of them baking hit me and I nearly drooled. He took some cream and icing sugar and cream cheese and made icing and drowned them in it as made us coffee.

I got to feed him and he fed me them cuddled up on the couch, mostly making out as we watched The 300...that whole we are Sparta thing. I liked it, from what we seen of it and Alex geeks out a little bit telling me it’s based off a graphic novel more than history. I like it because it was like watching a Greek myth story.

But the action on the couch was still better than the movie was. Then he hit’s the books lying on the floor and I sit on his back and massage him while he’s studying. I more that love doing this and it’s fascinating. I mean the whole intersexed thing explains a lot of stuff like the differences between us and the fact he really is like some other species. I love the way his body feels, under me, under my hands and with him just done practice there’s a few times I hit just the right spot and he’ll winch groan. I even went and got some of that gel stuff he uses on his aches and gently rub it into his bruises.

It’s a great way to spend an hour really and after we clean up the kitchen and stuff we head off to bed…I’m more than ready and eager for bed and so it Alex. And yes it’s pretty early so we have time to make love and to really sleep because our days start pretty early.

And still no, I don’t go jogging with Alex.

I enjoy the sleep and the time to shower and do our wash and make our lunches. I might not know good Italian food but I’ve eaten my share of subs and I like a meatball sub as much as the next girl.

I’m a cheese-steak girl if given a choice with lots of onions and green peppers but Meatball is a serious second choice for me.

Where I come from coffee with cream and sugar is a breakfast and ketchup and tomato sauce counts as a vegetable.

I hear Alex coming up and inside. “Okay, I’ll try your spaghetti and eggs.”

“I haven’t made that in years.”

Not Alex but Adam.

“Oh….” I kind of jumped. “Coffee?”

“Always.”

I pour him some of Alex’s blend. “Cinnamon bun?”

“Yes please.” He takes both and hands me a folder he was carrying.

I open it slowly not really knowing what to expect but inside is some newsprint and a printed off city map with a graveyard…circled on it.

“He’s there in a city plot.”

“Oh…”

Dad….

Memories that were those cloudy sort of bits all are being pushed clear into reality now. It’s like that way things get when something bad happens but you mind or your memories make it fuzzy and detached…his picture is in the obituary and it just drives it all home.

I can help but to stroke the newsprint as tears are starting to fall. Daddy…

My Daddy…

My Daddy’s dead….. (Choking Sobs.)