Heart ofthe Beholden.

The Parchment Chapter 1

I fall onto the hotel bed and I let out a big sigh and a squee and hug the pillow. I’m here at my first Con and I’m super excited. More than excited because I can really be me here and I’m free from the shitty stuff in my life.

I’m adopted and while that’s not a bad thing and my folks are kind of cool they’re just really kind of normal and my hometown is really, really kind of normal and I am not.

Super not.

Well for one I’m Chinese. Yes I’m one of those adopted out of China babies. Two I’m a girl. Well I’m a girl on the inside.

Where nobody knows.

I know, I know what’s the deal. I’m an adopted out Chinese boy and don’t they keep the boys?

Well usually they do but I just happen to be half white.

Yeah from the little bit that I learned from my folks that was the deal all these people wanted girls and I was sort of left behind because no one around in China wanted a half white kid. Especially who’s birth information came with a police stamp.

We’re not sure but we think that there’s a bad story with my birth mom and stuff and how I came about and that’s why I was put up for adoption. There’s not a lot of information to go on really unless you literally went over there and you’d still be chasing down leads through mountains of red tape.

Okay that’s kind of the stuff about me.

Well that and the I am really a girl thing.

Which is soooo not done home.

Or is being gay or lesbian but lesbian is better than gay but I’ve done the gay stuff.

Well there’s two guys… that had me doing the girl stuff sort of. Well one of them.

Troy Miller who I think he thinks I’d make a cute girl but in that I’m Asian and I’m cute for a boy and he wants me to blow him all the time….or buttsex. I’ve said no all the time too and he still doesn’t get the picture.

He hasn’t though and it’s very, very eeeew because he’s such a goddamned pig about it.

Then there’s Johnny Baxter…our school’s top scorer in basketball and he’s a big tall guy and he’s kinda good looking and he doesn’t force me or try to force me and stuff but sometimes when we’re alone sometimes he will flirt? And he’s slid a hand here and there sometimes passing by in like cramped quarters.

And maybe, maybe him if his girlfriend Tasha wouldn’t like totally kick my ass. She’s a big chick and she lifts weights too.

And well I’d have to be out too.

Sigh…

Oh well I’m free of the Xenostencial Emo Asian in a small town bullshit I’m in Boston and on my own at a Con.

I’m at a Con and a serious Con too!

Squee!

Now I know why’s alone a big deal?

I’m sixteen.

Mom was against it and dad was for it because and I quote. “Frank’s a good kid, he doesn’t cause shit and he’s going to be with a whole bunch of those other kids and stuff it’ll be fine.”

You could almost hear mom giving him the stink eye. “He’s too young.”

“He’s shut in here all the time online or talking on his cellphone or on his computer or with the other geek’s kids around town doing the same thing. This way he’ll get out for a few days and that’ll be good for him. I mean the most trouble he’ll get into is hell buy a sword or something.”

And it went on like that but essentially I’m a really quiet kid and a gamer and a geek and a comic nerd and all those things combined. And they knew it and I knew it or well know it and usually with be actually being alone I can indulge in my biggest secret and I can actually live for like five whole days with me being myself.

Girl me and without anyone that knows me and judging and all the stuff that like goes on in this whole small town and stuff that I come from.

I gotta get started.

I roll off the bed and I dig out my bags and stuff and start to lay out my costumes and clothes and stuff all skillfully hidden in layers and such except for a few things that my parents know about….though I’m not sure that they’re thrilled with me doing a cosplay as a girl.

But actually all my cosplay will be as a girl and I start getting things out and quickly head off to the shower to get everything that was Franklin scrubbed away and Jade can come out, I can come out finally.

OMG…

The bathroom is Awesome!

I’m like at The Sheraton and the event is actually here and stuff but I have a really decent room and there’s one of those whirlpool tubs and a separate shower stall.

And a ladies set up make-up mirror! I have a make-up mirror!

“Yeeeeeee!”

I get my things and like head into the shower and get it nice and hot and I give myself a wash with my favorite scented Dove soap and absolutely love the feeling as it gets into my skin and the greet tea scented goodness is making me feel so amazing and I start to talk about everything I’m doing in an English accent.

I’ve been doing this accent for like a year just for my costume. I’m going to be Psylocke and Betsy Braddock is an Englishwoman inside that body.

Gosh I want to have a body like that after I transition.

Yep, I’m serious about wanting to be a girl. I mean I have the other stuff and all that but I am soooo not a guy.

I’m not even sure that I fake it really well.

I mean I think that there’s a bunch of kids that think that I might be gay but I’m not.

Well maybe there’s sometimes I think I kinda like girls. I actually think that I might even be able to do the bi-girl thing.

I use my razors and I shave my legs and other areas for the first time like completely. I’ve always sort of flirted around with it and stuff but I didn’t want mom freaking out too much. The guys in gym class? Well I’m Chinese, the only Chinese person in town so I can actually lie and say it’s an Asian thing. OMG the feeling of really smooth feels so right; just…I’m glad that I shaved first because my hands are shaking.

Next is my hair and I dye it. I’m black haired anyways but I want that blue black for my time here and the stuff stinks but I don’t care I do and with the conditioner pack that comes with it I’m silky and glossy looking after I get all done and dried.

I tuck myself and slip on my gaff. I got it online and my dad thinks it’s some kind of fancy jock and thankfully he’s never really been interested in finding out any different.

Don’t get me wrong I love my dad and stuff but people can really get weird and worse about the Trans thing so right now I’m flying under the radar.

Honestly I think I have my folks stumped since it’s either gay or straight in their experiences and in between…I’m so not sure that they know much about in between.

So, so far my being me kinda sucks really but given my small town and stuff it’s be stealth and sort of suffer in silence.

Then panties…oh wow they feel good. And yeah sexy good because I bought sexy panties.

Boobs next…

Okay they’re silicone falsies and I actually got them when I went to Halifax on my way here. I got then in the mall and I don’t have like glue and stuff from the stories I do have my bran and double sided sticky tape.

It takes some finagling to get into my bra and things settled and balanced and looking good and I stand there and I look at myself in the mirror.

My hand flies to my face and covers my mouth and I’m hit with me looking like me for the first time and all the happy shaky sobs.

(Sniffle-sob.) “Hey Jade…”

I already know that changing back will really suck.

I sit on the toilet seat and cry, I cry because it’s just me and I’m allowed to so I can get it all out. And then it’s a cold towel over my face until the swelling goes down from around my eyes and I’m less blotchy.

I and using the thigh high stay ups to boost the boots I have and I have a black racer back top and sort bikini bottom bathing suit that will definitely do. Then the make-up and the costume make up and the sash and I might have just a plastic sword but I still look cool. Oh and the sash sort of covers that it’s a two piece suit. I think she might do the same but then comic characters and costumes never seem to take bathrooms into account.

“I sooo have the boobs down.” I’m skinny and slender and I wear a size zero in girls clothes and while my butt and hips aren’t that great the B-cup inserts look big on me so now I’m an endowed girl. Not like huge boobs but really nice one, one’s that I’d love to have. That I ache to have.

I get my little purse and my shoulder bag and I head down to the big event rooms where the Con is going on at and I pay my fee for the entire time all at once and get my passes and head inside.

Even with my boy’s ID they only give me a bit of a look since I’m in cosplay which is kinda cool and I head inside fixing my pass for the con to my sash and once I’m inside I can’t help but to smile.

I take a deep breath of the air of the gamer and comic book and all around coolness that is being in a place with all your fellow geeks and people that just get it. Okay they might not get the Trans thing but some might but being a geekette can be small town lonely especially when it’s super blue collar and stuff like that’s seen by a lot of people as a waste of time.

Guys like that I can almost get with the grunt work hard play hard drink beer and blah, blah ick things that seems to be what home is about. Being a geek has no purpose towards money and stuff you can get to look more manly and stuff and have the money to get the girls.

But girls…I just don’t get other than there’s that whole comics don’t do stuff for us thing. Well I love then and all of that other stuff that goes with it and if there was more girls that were into it then it might change.

Way too many girls in my school at least seem to be focused on being popular and stuff even if they’re not popular they are with those that see hobbies like this as a waste of time and money.

Hey I like clothes as much as the next girl but following and buying stuff because it’s trendy and everyone else has it or is doing it…no thanks.

Here it’s like a bastion of my own kind.

I spend at least two hours just wandering and making eyes at stuff before I even can think of the stuff that I want to do first.

Okay its cool even doing that and I end up talking to a lot of the others in Cosplay costumes and especially the x-man ones. I even get asked to pose in a few pictures of the groups that don’t have a Psylocke and about a dozen selfies of other people usually other x-men geekettes.

Which gets me taking out my phone and doing the same thing. Hey these will like be some of maybe my only memories of something like this. I want proof that this was something that happened.

I end up buying stuff first between looking all the event’s over and everything. I get some comics especially the new stuff that is like set for release at the Con’s because it’s cheap or free and it can become like valuable.

And I’m buying Magic Cards because I play and there’s several tournaments including the sorceress tournament with all the cards for each player being female creature and person cards. Okay well the ones that you don’t know the sex of are included but no like dude cards. It’s a thing they’re doing to hopefully get some more girls playing.

I’m just about to go and get something to eat and take in one of the movies so I head to the bathroom and I’m a lot nervous but it turns out to be pretty anti-climactic.

But I’m in there washing up and retouching my make up when I see some girls come in and they’re dressed in costumes with this whole fairy tale thing going on and Cinderella has this tube thing made of like vinyl that she tosses into the garbage and this Rapunzel looking one with her asks.

“What was that?”

Cinderella rolls her eyes. “I don’t know? It’s something from Alex.”

“Who’s Alex?”

“He’s the geeky dude from my school I got to pay my way in. He’s got like a thing for me.”

Rapunzel nods in that waaay blonde way. “Wait what? Why are you here for then?”

“Uhm hello just like you, I’m hawt and I figure I can like get pictures done and stuff and like get some modeling stuff. I mean these freaks and geeks really will do anything to be even hanging around a girl like me. I mean I saw some of these like girls on Alex’s Facebook page that do these things and some of these girls are making like good coin getting asked to show to these things.”

Rapunzel was touching up her hair. “I thought I was the only one actually seeing it like modeling.”

Cinderella… “Yeah well Alex isn’t just like a nerd he’s like just…a guy like that like most of them here the most he’s going to add up to is like running one of those booths out there. I’m fucking worth more than that.”

Both of them laugh and leave and I’m…

I’m so sick with anger that it hurts.

Both of them are gorgeous with the hair and the eyes and the small waists and nice boobs and every one of those things that I would give anything for…just…you get to be pretty, you get to be a girl…what are you doing choosing to be so mean!?

I’m so upset and I actually cry and wreck my make-up touch up and I have to do it all over again after use a face cloth from my purse and some hot water to make myself feel better.

I’m not an aggressive person; I don’t really get how people can be mean like guy or girl.

I almost get to the door when my heart pulls me back and my whole sense of fair play kicks in. I reach down and I pick up the tube and it’s made up to look like a scroll case and I put it in my shoulder bag and I head out from the Con to my room and get changed into some regular just hanging out lounging clothes and I order some room service.

Then I’m just sitting there in my Hello Kitty sweatpants and my Gungrave tee-shirt with my cards and comics looking at the scroll case.

Should I open it?