Encrypted-20

Chapter 20

*Before…

I look at it and it’s her smartphone and she has music files on it. And I’m wearing sunglasses that are muting out a lot of the neon and the flashing screens everywhere too…I press play and I smile as music from the Lord of the rings starts to play…*Concerning Hobbits* from The Fellowship movie the music as you’re just seeing The Shire.
I exhale tension with the sounds of the music and she looks at me with this I love you Pi smile.
“You did this for me?”
“Yeah…and it’s all the fun and calm stuff nothing all aggro either.”
The time and the sheer fact that she took that time doing it for me and had all this ready for me and my moments it.
It…
I am really close to crying.
She takes my free hand and laces her fingers into mine. “C’mon lady love I’ll teach you home to twirl.”

*And Now…

Lady love.

Not something that I thought that I’d ever really thought that would be me.

It’d not me being transgender either it’s everything else. My things about me my OPD and Social anxiety stuff all wound in and a part of me being somewhere in the Aut/Aspy parts of myself.

I never thought that I’d get anyone that would see me as being someone that they could love.

I’ll be very honest we’re a lot of work.

And while most people aren’t necessarily mean or nasty it takes a lot of strength to be with someone that doesn’t have a visible illness.

Oh I know condition, or it’s not “An Illness.” And sometimes it’s not but sometimes it feels like it really is.

Some people just forget that WE know what we’re like and sometimes we hate it even more than those around us do. Only there’s nothing that we can do about it really.

So Brandy not just getting me but actually really getting the stuff that I’m vulnerable too and still loving me because of that in a very amazing thing to me.

Sunglasses, soothing music and her hand along with kind and loving words.

So far so very good as Brandy leads me into this maze of shops and so very, very many people.

“I’m not very good at this; I’m not really built for shopping and crowds.”

“I know Maddy and if it gets to be too much let me know okay?”

“Okay.”

Just the way she makes me feel safe is important.

Safe’s a pretty big deal for people like me…I’m holding her hand pretty tightly as we head further and further inside the mall.

I might be making a bigger deal out of this than it is but I’ve never been good at too much aggressive stimulation.

Brandy’s certainly making it a lot easier though.

I take a breath as we go from the main part of the mall into a store called Forever Twenty-one.

I’m slowing down as I’m just processing the name even and Brandy looks back at me.

“Maddy?”

“Oh I’m…I’m okay I’m just trying to figure out why they would give this store such a name really.”

“I think it’s because they want to appeal to the twenty something crowds and maybe older ones by saying that the stuff here will make them young and trendy.”

“Trendy? Why would someone want to be trendy?”

She’s looking at me questioningly. “What’s wrong with trendy?”

“I’m not sure…people say that being sheep is wrong but isn’t being trendy taken from following something that is currently trending and therefore those people that want to be trendy be like those people that are the ones that people see as being sheep?”

She looks at me and nods as I’m talking and smiles when she’s done with that smile that I think is the one she uses when I do something cute.

“Try and think of it as cultural bonding or something so you don’t stand out so much.”

“Okay, this is why we are shopping partly I have nothing really that is mine that I need for living as my real self. My old clothes would not fit who I’m becoming.”

Brandy nods. “Exactly and the clothes here are kind of cute as well and there’s nothing wrong with cute clothes.”

“Good I can learn about what’s cute.” I look around and then look at her. “Brandy?”

“Yes love?”

“Is there a scale of cuteness?”

“Uhm…I don’t know?

“Maybe there should be, it would be easier.”

She looks thoughtful. “Maybe, but I like the mixture of exploration and discovery.”

I think about that.

If you were to put things into a scale or in a science then discovering something “Cute” would be like solving an equation based on personal identity.

“Maddy?”

I blink. “Sorry I was tangenting.”

“I know.” She leans over and gives me a light sweet kiss and then another thoughtful look. “C’mon lets go solve for X.”

“………………”

She got what I was thinking?

Our linkage?

I take her hand feeing very happy and pleased.

But I go there to that space in me like opening up my tab app for “The Encryption.” I can see the semi-flow of data between us as we’re holding hands. Tactile, but more than that the emotional signals going between us…the literal facts of us holding each other’s hands what we feel is information too.

Touch matters.

It actually means a lot to me.

And beyond the intimate normal meaning of intimate just human contact, when you’ve been denied human contact for so long it becomes something more, something we need and I never really had much of it and somehow I had concluded that it was something that I just didn’t need.

I was very wrong.

I flick back to seeing things normally and we shop. Well I look and try and estimate things and such but brandy is well versed in shopping and looking for things and I get some very nice things for home and for not at work or for meetings.

And there’s the advantage of having enough credit to pretty much do the shopping that we want and we share a change booth too which helps and thankfully there’s no cameras in the one here.

Our driver though is actually ahead of us and he went off while we were trying things on and got a large shopping cart I think that may have come from a grocery store here and he carefully arranges our bags like a porter might do.

We go from store to store buying things but also making lists of things for when we get home because other than a few things for make up here and there we’re not picking up things like scrunchies and bobby pins.

I have to look up bobby pins, is it a slang term or are they actually named for someone?

We go to all these places and a lot of it’s just looking and such we do get things that we really want…and some of what I need too.

Business clothes which are ladies suits and skirts and jackets and shoes and even hats and handbags and even stopping at a couple of places that sell luggage types of things to get bags and briefcases.

I’m buying for Brandy too while we’re getting these things for me and she’s pretty shy about anything like this. I can see her looking at some of the dress clothes with this expression of doubt.

“You’ll look fine in these.”

“But it’s not me, Maddy I’m a dancer…I do tranny stage stripper stuff.”

“So? That does not mean you can’t dress like this if you want to. I think you are one of the most beautiful and most able people that I have ever met.”

“Really?”

“Yes really and what you do to make money doesn’t have any impact really on your character and you should not let them.”

“It…it would be nice to have nice things for important things if they come up and stuff.”

“Yes, being prepared is always good.”

“Okay…I try them.”

I will say that it’s a good look for her, better than she thought it would be I think. I’m no expert on transgenderism or even normal things but given the things I know and the things I see with Brandy she’s very confident in the world she thinks that she belongs in.

Still part of where she was raised too.

There are some looks I am going to assume are racist in those tiny little ways at first in a few places when we go inside. It’s angering me more than I thought since I don’t often get what I think angry usually is but this…just those few times.

When they have the knee jerk reaction to Brandy being black and then there’s our driver with our things and the credit card comes out and they change their behaviors.

It’s not part of my experiences in the everyday…but it’s Brandy’s everyday isn’t it?

She tries and she sort of does blow it off because she garnered a small gesture of immunity from it just because of a lifetimes’ exposure but still.

I see her act differently in these places and act less free and more restrained. Oh that I know well…the I don’t fit so I can’t give them an excuse way of being.

Most of high school was like that and I can see it with Brandy too even if she’s trying to be “cool”.

But it occurs to me to maybe kiss her some more in these places and times and to maybe show off the credit cards a bit more and let the people know that I think she’s more than worth it. And sometimes the looks shift from Brandy being who she is to us being who we are.

She’s worth so much more really.

And a lot of places do have staff that are perfectly nice though. And those people are pretty easy to deal with including some that offer a range of “Looks” for me to try because of the things I do at the university and the presentations that I may have to give or go to.

Them taking me seriously and being kind is very soothing since the Mall environment isn’t.

The music helps and the sunglasses really help especially with the video displays and all the flashing multiples and stuff and brandy helps me with the crowds. My only issue is still things like smells.

I kind of get triggered by smells, especially here…it’s not like the Sikhs and Indians and such are the worst but some of them are included in my triggers but it’s anyone with too much scented product.

The food courts smells kind of make my nauseous and that’s mostly from the mixtures of smells together but I can actually smell old fryer grease/oil and I can smell it wafting off the food prepared in it.

It’s a food meets hot plastic scent and it niggles at my gag reflex.

But the people with too much product are worse because it makes me want to sneeze but I can’t and that in something for someone like me very aggravating and then there’s some that I can actually taste in the air.

It would almost be an interesting thing if I thought about evolutionary biology and reptiles and other animal that taste the air if it didn’t seem that the product leaves this film on my tongue.

It reminds me of home and spring and summer when the black flies and mosquitoes were so bad that you got coated in bug spray just not to get mauled going outside.

Yes, it’s very much that bug spray taste.

And that triggers me and I want to get out of there and makes me want to wave my arms but that would be too strange so it makes me want to count on my fingers to myself.

And every time Brandy gets it, she sees me starting to trigger and she’s hold me in a hug, that’s such a in a good…good solid there way for me and she will hold me there like that if we can’t move off to another place.

That’s just so.

I know I keep repeating it but to be there when I trigger, when someone like me triggers and to know what to do and to do it and not get upset, and not get frustrated with me because it keeps happening is really, really wonderful.

It’s like someone that has trigger issues being outside and being in crowds both having their S.O. use their person and their personal space to be your enclosed safe place.

And once I get through those moments I can deal, I can feel safe enough that I can go on and not have to go home and hide and recover.

Though there are times…a few times when it is a close thing for me wanting to leave. Like when there’s someone in a place we’re in and it’s crowded and they’re being loud and rude.

And I triggered and brandy’s taking care of me and we’re getting looked at or rather I’m getting looked at because they notice my oddness and they stare.

I hate the stares; yes I know I’m strange.

But we get everything that we might ever really need and a lot of things that we likely don’t need and we were there for four hours not counting the driving times.

I have never been in a public setting like this for that long in my life before, it’s completely blown any other times that I’ve done this out of the water as it were.

I feel happy and I feel actually like I’ve grown a lot just by getting past something like this.

We get settled in and we hug our driver and he even helps carry our bags with the porter to our rooms and say our goodbyes for the night as he leaves us his personal card for us to call him if we need him again.

That could be a definite thing.

I have a shower and get everything off of me from being out there…no I’m not a germiphobe but it just feels good to wash the day off.

I think that I might have stress sweated slightly.

Brandy’s looking at room service and I’m going over the things that I bought her from The Apple Store mostly some good programs and my info when I tap into the system and use it to go back home and to check my e-mails and the security on my work space which is fine and then take a peak into the bio-lab where I sent the hair to.

It’s been run using this element spectrometer and other things but basically it measures all the different things in the sample and compares them to other samples all over the world. It’s actually very accurate.

No one’s checked it yet though to send me the findings.

Xigaze, Tibet…?