AUTHOR'S NOTE: There are multiple cautions listed above. I do not personally feel that this goes beyond the mature rating. I do, however, skirt the edge. There is a scene at the end of the chapter that is religious in nature. This is not something I have ever put in my writing before, I hope that you forgive me.
Well, the warnings are there. I hope I don't offend too many people.
Two roads diverged in a wood.
Most of you, I’m sure will have heard the poem by Frost at least once in your life. If you haven’t you should read it. I’ll wait. No really. I’m not going to say anything here that you will miss while you go read the poem.
While they’re all gone, I just wanted to say that I deplore the waste that the education…
Just kidding. I’ve always wanted to do something like that. This, however, is distracting from my story. The two roads, however, is all about my story.
There are choices that each one of us is given to make in our lives. Do we go left, do we go right. Do we have that extra piece of bacon in the morning or go for the bran muffin instead. Do we stay home or go out. Do we kiss the boy or do we take him up to our room for something else.
Do we were the sneakers or the black pumps. Makeup or no makeup.
Then there are the really tough questions. Am I a boy or a girl? Do I want to continue to live? Should I continue taking birth control while I am sexually active.
To a certain degree, the big decisions are made for us. Who we are is defined by all of the action we take in our lives and those actions define a course that lead us through the big decisions as if they were just another little decision.
We still have a choice, and not matter how small, all of our decisions have consequences.
Some people think that consequences are all bad. Consequences are a neutral term. The problem is that we have been told for years we should be able to make the decision and avoid the consequences. That’s impossible, you see, because all that does is change the consequences.
Whether or not you keep the baby to term and give her up for adoption or keep her you live with those consequences. If you have an abortion, that comes with its own set of consequences.
Even killing yourself has consequences. You may not have to live with them, since you are dead, but all the people around you do. I use live with in the literal sense. If there is a life after this one, then you will have the consequence of suicide continue along with you.
This decision was about none of these. I made a decision to leave Sam alone with people I didn’t know. You can’t protect people all of the time. It just isn’t possible. You are a single individual, and as such are limited in the way that any one individual is limited.
You can only be truly alert for about 16 out of 24 hours. You can only be in one place at any given time. Your mind prioritises input in order to provide you with a meaningful datastream, which unfortunately can result in a phenomena called ‘change blindness.’
No one person can fully protect the life of another from all harm. That doesn’t stop us from feeling guilty when someone we care for is hurt and we think that we could have prevented it from happening in the first place.
I was out of the car even before he came to a complete stop. The first thing I heard was the screaming. Both of my girls were screaming; Rose was screaming in fear and Sam in a mixture of fear and pain.
I was through the door and into the guestroom where Sam had moved without ever even slowing down. Dimly I realized that the door had been locked and I’d actually passed through the remains of the door, but that wasn’t important for now.
A part of my mind was analyzing the two twins even as I launched myself at them. The superficial similarity of the facial features of the Bran twins was limited to their faces. Their bodies were markedly different, from their skin tone to their muscle distribution. Even their skeletal structures were different. Where Brandon was broad shouldered, Brandy had a much narrower build.
It wasn’t just because Brandy was a woman, either, since it was obvious that she hadn’t been born female. She was...pulling out when I burst through the door. The three of them were naked. Sam was tied to the bed and screaming and crying telling them to stop. I kicked him...her...Brandy in the balls as...Brandy was the closest of the two. Brandon made a move for me and I dodged out of the way leaving him holding onto my dress. I continued moving, but he held still. My dress stayed with him.
I’ve never been one to take a slight sitting down. In junior high I would have a tendency to strike out at people who in any way physically assaulted me. I would punch them until they went down or someone pulled me off them.
That same uncontrollable anger swept through me the moment I felt my dress, my brand new dress, tear free of my body. I turned and grabbed a handful of his manhood and yanked for all I was work. I felt something tear and he went down screaming out in pain. Brandy was just getting up, awkwardly and still in obvious pain, when Tom came through the door.
“Call the police,” he yelled, and I complied. I ran from the room and went to my purse, which I’d dropped the moment I entered the door, and called the police. After I called them I went back to see what was happening, as it had grown quiet.
Brandon was still moaning in the corner. Tom was tying Brandy up in the remains of my dress. He looked up at me and stopped what he was doing in shock. Then a slow smile crossed his features and he finished the last knot.
“I guess I did get to see your underwear tonight.”
I looked down and myself and realized I was basically naked and tried to cover myself with my hands.
“Maybe you should go get dressed while we wait for the police.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that,” i said and then stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed and I went to go get a new outfit. When I returned he had untied Sam and was holding her in his arms as she shook.
“Sam, are you okay?” I asked and immediately regretted it. Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d been raped.
She didn’t respond to me other than to begin to sob into Tom’s shoulder. I went to comfort my daughter who was still screaming in her room. What do you say to a little girl who’s had her entire world upended? Everything’s going to be okay?
How do you say something like that when you don’t even believe it yourself?
The police came and pounded on the door after about fifteen minutes and I went and let them in and lead them to Sam’s room. Rose was holding onto my leg the entire time. I would have carried her, but I was physically weaker than I had been, and I just didn’t have the strength to do so.
The officers called for an ambulance for Brandon and Sam. Sam so she could get an SAE kit taken and her general health ensured and Brandon because I’d actually separated his scrotum from his body a bit, and I might have crushed one of his testicles.
This is me not crying at all.
“Tom, do you need to go?” I asked as the police and EMTs left with their cargo. They’d refused to allow me to ride along. I wasn’t family after all. I couldn’t prove to them I was with the police there. I didn’t want to spend the time to make everyone believe...that and the fact that I was afraid the police would arrest me for using someone else’s ID.
“I’m staying here with you,” Tom said with a nice smile.
“Are you going to be my new Daddy?” Rose asked.
“Only if I’m becoming a Mommy,” I said with a smile.
Tom laughed but Rose just looked at me strangely. She had this look that always cane to her face when she couldn’t understand something. She didn’t ever say she didn’t understand, but that’s what happens when you grow up in a household of adults who treat you just like another adult.
“But, you’re my Daddy.”
“Honey, I know. I was your Daddy. But I’m a girl.”
“And girl’s can’t be Daddies?”
There were so many nuances to that statement, that don’t exactly fit. Unfortunately, sometimes as a parent you have to give your kids the easy answers for right now and hope they learn the rest of it all later.
“Girl are mommies and boys are daddies.”
“But I want you to be my Daddy.”
“Honey, I’m still your Daddy. When you need me to be, I’ll always be your Daddy, but I’m one of your Mommies now.”
“I have two Mommies?” she said, her face splitting into a grin, “just like Hannah?”
“Just like your sister, Hannah...although I think that technically Hanna currently has three Mommies.”
“Hannah?” Tom asked.
“My first daughter,” I said.
“This is so weird,” Tom said, “I’m talking to a woman, a biological woman as far as I can tell, who has fathered children.”
“This is weird for you, huh?” I said with a quirked eyebrow.
“Oh, it’s weird for you as well,” he said taking me into his arms and kiving me a quick kiss on the lips.
“So, are you a new Daddy then,” Rose asked.
“I don’t know yet...”
I just stared at him, the bottom falling out of my stomach. How could he possibly say that? Why did I feel this way? I’d known Tom for less than a week, but it felt as if he’d been part of my life for so much longer. He’d told me that he felt this from the moment he first saw me, but was that what was making me feel I owed him something?
Did that change how I felt just because he poured his soul out to me?
“...because that’s not my decision.”
I blinked and looked over at him. He was smiling at me. No, he can’t possibly be doing this, not now. Not this soon. It wasn’t long enough. I’d waited longer before proposing to my first wife and look how long that lasted. I shook my head slightly and felt myself disconnect from reality a bit. I felt as if I was hot and cold all over. I felt as though I were a million miles away, and yet in the same room, the same heartbeat, as Tom.
Trying to forestall the inevitable, I asked, “What’s wrong with your mother? She seemed perfectly fine.”
“Multiple Sclerosis. You may have noticed how she only ever used her left hand.”
I’d imagined so many things, but this...wasn’t one of them. My heart went out to this woman who had this hanging over her head.
“She didn’t appear sick,” I said quietly.
“Who’s sick,” rose asked.
“Tom’s Mommy.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe she should take the purple medicine. I always feel better after I take the purple medicine.”
Tom looked at me with a question in his eyes. “Children’s Tylenol,” I said.
“Ah,” he replied with a chuckle. “No, Rose, that won’t help my mom get better.”
“Is she going to die?”
“Yes, but we don’t know when and it should be a while before that happens.”
Internally I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d deflected his moment, his totally wonderfully inappropriate moment and hopefully I could keep putting it off.
Tom was whispering something in Rose’s ear while I smiled at the two of them. Tom was a good guy, something I was only really beginning to notice. He really cared about people, which I would have noticed earlier if he hadn’t been so uncomfortable being attracted to me.
Rose gave a definitive nod and said, “Uh huh.” which as any parent knows means yes in a mostemphatic way.
“What are you two conspiring about?”
“Nothing. We’re not con..spea…”
“Conspiring means plotting or planning. Usually in secret.”
“Oh, then we were conspinning.”
“Conspiring, Rose,” I said with a smile. My daughter hates when someone thinks she doesn’t know anything. It’s taken me five years, but I’ve learned the best way to teach her is to react as if she was never wrong, and to toss a definition in with a pronunciation. She hasn’t figured out yet I’m onto her little game. I really hope she’s graduated from high school before she does.
“Exactly,” she responded.
Tom and I laughed and Rose grinned at the two of us.
“Do you want to ask her,” Tom asked Rose.
“No, is your conspiring.”
I laughed even harder and Rose smiled a huge happy smile.
“I don’t have a ring…”
“We can’t...you can’t…”
“I can tell you like me,” Tom said.
“It’s not that,” I began.
“But you’re the only woman…”
“Please, don’t,” I said beginning to cry.
“Why not, Cosette? Why shouldn’t I ask what’s in my heart?”
“Because I’m damaged goods. I’m not worthy of this. Maybe, if we’d been together longer, I could convince myself it doesn’t matter, but I was born a guy.”
“I can’t believe you were ever a guy,” Tom said.
“I have baby pictures to prove it.”
“Contrary to popular opinion it takes more than being male to be a guy.”
“How...I never…”
“You know what I would have done if I suddenly lost my masculinity? At the very least I would have locked myself in my room, neither eating nor washing. I’d never go back to work. I wouldn’t wear a bra, I can tell you that much. There is no way in hell I would wear a skirt, let alone a dress.”
“What’s wrong with dresses?”
“My point exactly.”
“I don’t understand...”
“You’re not going blonde on me are you?”
Rose giggled at this and Tom spent a moment tickling her.
“Just because I wear dresses…”
“And skirts and bras and love me does mean you’re more girl than you were ever a man.”
“I’m a woman.”
“See,” he said with a smile, “you didn’t contradict me.”
“About what?”
“Being in love with me,” he said softly taking my hand.
“You didn’t say…”
“I never said ‘I love you,’ even if I do. I love you, Cosette. I said you loved me.”
When he said the words, it was as if something opened up for me in my heart. It wasn’t like I imagined it to be. It wasn’t like it was when I was infatuated with my first wife, or the deep and growing love that I felt for my second.
This was different. It was a delicate thing that just fluttered in my chest. It was sunshine through the trees and it was an ‘ah-ha’ moment. I wasn’t the sort to walk slowly into a relationship. I loved jumping in headfirst and to hell with the consequences.
That wasn’t what destroyed my first marriage, and besides that, I was not my first wife. I wasn’t looking for any excuse to leave mommy and daddy’s house.
It could be considered a character flaw, but the romantic in me loved love. I loved being in love, and heaven help me but I had fallen head over three inch heels in love with Tom.
“I love you, Tom.”
“I know.” he said with a little smirk. I slapped him on the arm.
“How often do you get to say that line and mean it?” Tom said.
“Hopefully just the once,” I said.
Rose was beginning to get exasperated. “He want’s to marry you, Mommy.”
I knew it was coming and still I blushed and felt a flush of excitement run through me. Then reality came crashing down on my ears.
“What about Sam?” I said.
“What does Sam...she’s in the hospital,” he said.
“We need to be there to get her,” I said.
I felt so sluggish and slow in my thoughts. I collapsed a bit when I stood up and Tom was there to catch me. I couldn’t understand what he was doing. “What are you doing?” I said, my words were slurring just a bit.
He helped me to the couch and lay me down.
“We have to get Sam.” I said.
“We have to worry about you right now. I’ll go get her for you. You stay here.”
“I need to go, please,” I said as my world began feeling like it broke apart again. I wanted to be forceful, but I was pleading with him instead. I didn’t have the energy to fight him and when he lifted me off the couch and took me to my bed I simply held onto him.
Rose climbed up on the bed with me and I just wrapped my arms around her. For once she was not the squirmy five year old and just snuggled into my arms. I quickly fell asleep.
I awoke with the sunlight streaming through the window and Rose snoring softly still lying in my arms. I kissed the top of her head and smiled. She might not have grown within me, but this little girl lived in my heart.
A father only really takes part in the conception. Sure, we get to help raise the child, but for the first few years they have a much more intimate relationship with their mothers than with their fathers. They have a place for daddy, but it isn’t the same as mommy’s place.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved being Dad to my girls, but if I could be a mom…
Then my thoughts came back around to the events of last night. My mind refused to focus on those events. It refused to focus on my inability to protect the ones I loved. That, however, I thought about. I blamed myself for the fact that Sam was raped. Sure, I didn’t actually do that to her, but I was the cause.
I was sobbing softly into my daughter’s hair.
“Is there something wrong?”
“Sam?”
“Hey, Andi. How are my favorite girls?”
“Sam? Why are you...smiling?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Those two...they…”
“What two?”
“Brandon and Brandy?”
“They left last night.”
I was looking at her, incredulous.
“Although someone else stayed the night. I’m happy for you, Andi.”
“Tom?”
“Yes, Tom,” said Tom coming in through the door.
“Tom, I think there’s something wrong with Sam. She doesn’t remember what happened last night.”
“Sam?”
“Nothing happened,” she said getting a bit confused.
“Do you remember me picking you up at the hospital?”
“I was at the hospital?”
I looked at Tom for a moment and he watched Sam. I opened my mouth, but then Tom shook his head. It was time to let this drop. I had no idea what was going on with her, but I’d let it all go.
“Don’t worry about it. You were tired. If it’s important, you’ll remember it later,” I said with a smile.
“But I can’t remember,” she said getting a little worried.
“You’re okay now,” Tom said, “It is a side effect of what happened. They said you were fine to come home, and there is no worry about this in the future.”
Tom walked with her out of the room.
“I fixed mommy,” a sleepy Rose said.
“What?”
“I took last night from mommy.”
“What are you talking about, Rose?”
“The...memory. I took Mommy’s bad memory.”
I looked at my little girl. She’d always had a vivid imagination, but somehow I didn’t think this was her fantasy. She called me home from Tom’s house last night. What was she?”
“Honey, how did you take Mommy’s bad thought?”
“I felt Mommy’s hurt last night. In my dreams. Darkness in Mommy’s dream self. I just pushed out the darkness.”
“Dream self?”
“You know, Mommy. The night time dream-self. When you dream?”
I thought that I had some idea of what she was saying, but I had to be sure.
“Did you see my dream-self?”
“Yes, I saw you, when you were my Daddy. At night you dreamed you were a girl like Rose and Mommy.”
I felt myself go cold. “What did you do for Daddy?” I said quietly. Suddenly I was truly terrified that I knew the answer.
“I made your dream-self your awake-self.”
If it hadn’t happened to me, there is no way that I would have believed it. My fear was a cold hard ball in my stomach now. How do you tell a five year old they made a mistake like this?”
“Honey...why did you do that?”
“Because I love girls. I love that you’re a girl now Mommy.”
It killed me to open my mouth and say what I had to next, but it was necessary. “Honey, you have to make me your Daddy again.”
“Why?”
“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” I said, tears in my eyes.
“But, you are happy as my Mommy.”
“More than anything.” I said, openly crying now.
“They why are you sad?” she said patting my cheek.
“Because I have to go back. This isn’t right.”
“Mommy…”
“Rose! I need you to turn me back into your Daddy!”
She cringed when I yelled and I felt like such a terrible person. She leapt from my arms and ran away. I began to cry uncontrollably, sobbing into my pillows. Tom came and sat down on my bed and began rubbing my back.
“Cosette? What’s wrong?”
“I have to go back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My daughter made me into a girl, and I want her to make me back into a boy.”
“Are you sleeping still?”
“Tom, you did my exam. Both of them. You know that on Tuesday I was a man and on Thursday I was a woman.”
“Yes, but…”
“Somehow my daughter is behind this. I yelled at her to change me back and she got scared and ran away.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you tell her to do something like that?”
“What?”
“Cosette, you are a woman.”
“I know, I look like…”
“No, you are a woman. You know it and I know it. I somehow picked up on it on Tuesday.”
“But I have to be a man. If I’d been a man then Sam wouldn’t have gotten raped,” I said, crying again. “I would have married you,” I said really quietly. I hoped he wouldn’t hear.
He crawled into bed with me and just held me for hours. I heard Sam and Rose playing in the other room. I wanted to be a woman. I wanted so many things that would have made my life worth...something.
If all went according to plan, then tomorrow or soon I would be a man again, back to my life, back to everything I was beginning to hate about myself.
“Tom?”
“Yes?”
“Will you make love to me?”
“Cosette…”
“I want, just once, before all of this ends, to be a woman with her man. I want for you to have me today and tonight.”
“I’m not…”
“Please? I’m not sure how I can go on, but I have to, and maybe the memory…”
“Cosette, please, you can’t do this.”
I kissed him deeply, trying to take his shirt off, but he grabbed my hands and pushed me back. “Get out,” I hissed at him.
“Cosette,”
“Get Out!” I screamed with as much hate as I could muster. I was spitting and yelling and saying things that even now I can’t bear to write. I wanted to claw at him, tear him to pieces. He just turned me around and held me until my shaking ceased and I began to calm down. I relaxed into his grip and fell asleep again.
I awoke with Tom’s hand on my breast. My body was warm, and my breathing was shallow. I could feel a wetness between my legs and I shifted a bit. As I began to feel Tom harden I rubbed against him. He began to massage my breast and a wave washed through me. I let out a soft moan and he rolled me over to face him.
I looked into his eyes, seeing a question there. With everything in my being, every part of my soul, in that moment I was his.
“I will marry you,” I said quietly and heart felt.
He kissed me, and I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see my tears. He wouldn’t see the lie that I was hiding there. If I were to remain a woman, I would definitely marry him, but that wasn’t going to happen. I needed this punishment to make up for everything that Sam had been through.
The rest of what happened was beautiful and private. It was everything I’d dreamed and more. It showed me the depth of our love and it tore out my heart afterward knowing I would never have anything like this again.
“Are you alright?” Tom said with a concerned voice. There was blood on the sheet.
“I’m a little sore. Apparently I was a virgin.”
He laughed a little and I snuggled into him. He put his arms around me and we fell asleep.
I awoke alone in the darkness. There was a figure of some sort at the foot of the bed. Rose was standing at the edge of the room and looked like she was drawing something in the air with her finger.
“Rose, what are you doing?”
“Trying to make you a Daddy again, Mommy.” She was crying a bit as she said it. I realized that the figure she was trying to draw in the air was me, or at least her impression of me.
“How did you do this before?”
“You were the Mommy in here. I just opened the door so you could get out.”
I smiled at my girl and held her in my arms and tried to help guide her into fixing me.
A strong presence entered the room with us. “Rose, child, what are you doing?” A voice said from the darkness. It was indescribable. The only thing I can truly remember of that voice, the only thing that stuck with me, was the love that was infused in every word.
“I’m trying to make Mommy back into my Daddy.”
“Cosette, how dare you do this to your child.” There was no malice in the words, but they cut me to the core. I felt ashamed at what I’d asked Rose to do, but my response left my lips before I even thought.
“Excuse me?”
“You have hurt her deeply. You have refused a gift that few will ever experience, a gift given from her heart. She saw an imbalance and fixed it. You should be happy that she loves you as much as she does.”
“But Sam was raped…”
“That is not your fault. Some events are set into motion that can’t be stopped, no matter the choices we make. There is one inviolate thing in this universe that can’t be circumscribed. That is freedom to choose. Even I can’t remove that freedom.”
“Not everyone has freedom in this world,” I said a little haughtily.
“Really? Even those in bondage can choose to call out to their father in their need. You choose the person you will be, and if they break you, know this that even that has been felt by one who loves you and your debt is paid.”
I sat there quietly in the dark room, trying to shut out that voice full of love.
“But I’ve sinned…” I began.
“Yes, I know. You lied and you had sex. If those are the worst things you do today, then I’ll count myself happy.”
“What?”
“While I do not condone your actions, I know your heart.”
“Go and sin no more, is that it?”
“It has been said before.”
“Who are you?”
“You believe you know. I will neither confirm nor deny your supposition.”
“But...I don’t believe in magic.”
“Who said anything about magic? There are times that certain people are given a miracle. Accept yours and be happy.”
“What of Rose?”
“Rose has a truly active imagination, much like her mother when she was a little boy. She simply found a way to pass that imagination on to others.”
“Mommy wants to be a boy again,” Rose called out into the darkness.
“Rose, child, sometimes what we want we can’t have. I will not punish the innocent for the desires of another.”
“What are you saying,” I asked.
“I will not allow this power to be used to kill,” the voice said and then we were alone.
“Mommy, I don’t think I can change you back,” she said as she faded.
I stared into the darkness as this dream faded into another. “I think you’re right,” I replied to myself and fell into a much deeper sleep.
Comments
I suspect that Cosette was
I suspect that Cosette was gunned down on the first salvo....
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Not Sure What You Mean...
Unless I really missed something, no shots, literally or figuratively, seem to have been fired. Do you mean that Bill died from the illness that opens the story?
Eric
Bibliophage's comment...
...was a euphemism, and yes you know you're absolutely correct.
I wasn't being blatantly obvious about it, but it is there. All will become more clear in the next installment :)
He entered the hall to get warm. She left it two hundred years later.
Faeriemage
Just as dark as I expected
Just as dark as I expected this chapter to be... and I look forward to finding out more about this miracle business. :)
Xx
Amy
Hmmm....
What I'm getting from this is Cosette can't go back because she's pregnant now. Sorry if this is a spoiler and correct. So looking forward to the next installment hon. Loving Hugs, Taarpa