A new beginning, a new hope, and a party.

Charlie

I sat by the side of the bed, watching Sean for hours as she went through some obviously painful memories. From time to time I heard a heart wrenching scream and watched as her newly made body spasmed in the grip of horror. I knew from what she screamed what was running through her mind for the first while, but things trailed off into territory I didn’t know after a while. I heard her grieving, weeping fit to tear my heart out. I heard her say things that made my blood run cold.

I really didn’t know what to make of it. I knew one thing though, and that was that my darling had been through more shit than she had ever shared with me. Some of it brought to the surface things that I had suspected, but that she had never talked about and had always deflected attention from.

I wept over her bed as she writhed in her own internal hell, because I had some vague idea what was going on inside her head. She was reliving the horrible things that had happened that had happened to her, every last one of them. I knew that many of those memories had been repressed, I had seen the emotional weight of them piling up on her over the years and often marveled at the sheer determination required to keep the horror at bay, to keep her from just going completely crazy.

I somehow knew that at last the dams of her mind had broken, and she was being scoured clean by the torrent released.

What I didn’t know was how to help or what to do about it, and that helpless feeling nearly tore me apart. I had to draw on all of my training as a therapist just to keep myself together in the face of this, what was I going to do to help her?

In a quiet moment of fatalism, between her outpourings of tears and grief and rage, what could I do? I didn’t even know how to help myself. All I could do was hold her and wipe the tears from her cheeks as she wept, get out of reach while she raged, and hold her some more while she grieved.

I think I slept sometime in those two days. Gradually I heard the tempest of grief subside into a murmer, the raging hurricane of anger die down to a thunderstorm. The torrent of tears slowed down to trickle, and suddenly she opened her eyes.

She still had the same eye color, but somehow more vibrant, even though they were bloodshot from crying. A deep amber color with brilliant flecks of green. I gazed into those eyes as I saw her focus on me and knew that my love was back from whatever chamber of horrible memory she had inhabited for the past 2 days. I thought my heart was going to burst as I held her tightly, never wanting to let go.

“You ok?” I asked as she blinked slowly and smiled at me.
“Yeah baby, I think I’m ok. Something snapped and I relived all of it, all the shit I repressed. I think maybe I’m better than I’ve been in a very long time.” She sighed and tried to stretch, to be yanked short by her restraints. “What the fuck is this?”

“Well, you had to be restrained to keep you from hurting yourself or somebody else, you were pretty violent for a little while there. I can let you loose if you promise you’re going to be good and not kill any of the nurses.” I saw a little smirk steal across her face, overjoyed to see the same old Sean having a bit of fun.

“So I can eat em live?” The smirk changed to another look, one not nearly so funny, more like ravenous. “Seriously, I think I’d eat a horse if somebody led one in here, to hell with the nurses!” As if to lend testimony to that statement, her stomach growled loudly. “And I like horses!”

Just at that moment a couple of nurses trooped into the room, one of them carrying a tray piled high with food. We quickly busied ourselves with stuffing our faces as both of them bustled around doing things we were engrossed in eating to notice.

They gave us a little while to finfish off the food before they lead Sean off to undergo more testing, to determine just what had occurred. I told them, but they wouldn’t listen to me. I knew the she had just undergone the ultimate in cathartic experience, truly reliving all that had happened to her.

Sean

I opened my eyes slowly. Somehow, I felt better than I had in many years. I instantly knew the gaze that held my own, even though it was mounted on a very different face and the eyes were a different color. It was Charlie! I tried to yawn and stretch, and was more than a little irritated when I discovered that I was strapped to the bed, but that calmed down quickly and I was soon just lost in his, no make that her, eyes, barely able to look away as we both tore into meals fit to feed Mr. Universe while a couple of nurses bustled around us doing nursely things.

Sooner than I wanted, they dragged me off for testing. After what seemed like forever, we were told we had a month before we were due to report in for training, and I found myself driving us to my sister’s house. I wondered as we drove just what exactly she would think.

I had told her long ago about my need to be a woman, and had shared with her my sorrow at realizing just how unrealistic it was. If anyone knew me on that level it was her. I wondered how she would react to the new me.

Sooner than seemed possible, we were winding through her subdivision, pulling up in front of the house she and her husband had lived in these past thirty some years, where she had raised her son and her stepson, two of the better men I was proud to call both nephews and friends. I was terribly nervous as I noted that both of their cars were there.

How would they react to the fact that their beloved uncle was now their aunt? I almost got a case of the shakes, only calming myself down with some deep breathing exercises. I looked over to note that Charlie was in almost the same shape as I was. The petite blue eyed blonde that had been my guiding star pretty much my entire adult life was wiping sweaty palms on her dark blue slacks and trying to calm down a little before we got out.

We held each other’s eyes for a moment, then almost as one we opened our doors and stepped out into the fading brilliance of a late Florida afternoon. I guessed that none of the kids were there, as the house seemed quiet. We nervously walked up to the door and I rang the doorbell.

My sister opened the door, dressed as befitted the dignified matron she had become. She waved us into the foyer with hardly a word as I wondered just why everything was so quiet.

“Happy Birthday!” rang out around us the door clicked shut behind us and it seemed like everyone either Charlie or I knew sprang from behind furniture or around corners to the accompaniment of noisemakers and much yelling. I know I went weak in the knees, and Charlie blanched and damn near bolted back through the door.

To make it worse, Sarah ripped of her matron wear to expose a Marilyn Monroe getup and started doing her “Happy Birthday Mr., I mean Mrs. President” bit. I swear I thought I was just going to die from embarrassment. I was surrounded by colleagues, friends, relatives (both blood and through marriage to Charlie) and a couple of dogs who seemed determined to add their happy yips to the din.

I was truly stunned. Charlie and I were whirled off in different directions, both surrounded by amazed crowds of well wishers who kept assuring us that we both looked beautiful. I didn’t even know what to think and the first thing I did as soon as I was able to struggle free from the crowd was head for the bar. Miraculously, Charlie was there, surrounded by a somewhat predatory crowd of my colleagues who seemed determined to get into her pants.

I grabbed her and we somehow escaped onto the patio. Soon after, my sister led her husband out, with him pulling his blind man tapping with the cane bit. I knew perfectly well that he couldn’t see, but I also knew that he had some sort of gadget that let him know exactly where he was and what was around him, so the blind man bit was mostly a canard.

All the same, I felt a bit guilty ambushing him with a hug fit for a family. I still wasn’t any too steady on my feet with the new center of gravity I had recently acquired, so the hug wound up with him sprawling on top of me as we fell to the floor. I knew he wasn’t hurt, but he did take a moment to groan and moan before I got us disentangled and back on our feet.

The evening progressed in more or less the same fashion. I for one was truly amazed, as my sister had always been a bit of a prude. She was actually hosting the type of party Charlie and I usually had, including copious supplies of pot and liquor. It was well into the wee hours of the morning before things wound down and the last taxi took the last of the guests back to their hotels.

Both of our respective mates had gone to bed as my sister and I sat on the patio. She actually shared a joint with me, for the first time in almost 30 years. We sat and talked until the sun came up and both of us were unable to walk, then helped each other into the living room, giggling madly the entire time.

I went to sleep wishing we had been able to share this part of our lives when we were younger. The last thing I remember was her saying “I love you, little sissss…” just before she started to snore. I know I wanted to get up and go to our bed, to share with my love, but I couldn’t really move very well, so….