Lanterns on Lake Pontchartrain
An Acadiana Transgender Story

-5-
Bunny Girls Do not live in Bookstores!

Amazon is the premier bazaar of the internet. Like Paypal is the premier bank of the internet. I learned you could buy anything you wanted on Amazon, including a used copy of 'Bunny Girls do not live in Bookstores' which was in Japanese. I did not read, nor did I understand Japanese. And so it's safe to say I did not buy it. The cost would have been around two thousand yen.. and shipping and handling would have been another two thousand yen. I do not know the value of the yen or the exchange rates from yen to dollars nor do I care to know. Though a quick google search showed me that it would be  around forty dollars.

But what I could gather from a quick online search was that 'Bunny Girls do not live in Bookstores' was the first volume in an eighteen volume series of light novels that center on the misadventures of a would be cosplay model who happens to begin her cosplaying career by cosplaying as a bunny girl and prancing around her neighborhood bookstore.

What does that have to do with me? Well, on a whim, I started to look up fanart that many of the loyal fans of 'Bunny Girls Do not live in Bookstores' have done of the main character, Sakura Oda. From what I could gather, Sakura Oda is a petite Japanese girl with long, straight black hair and deep, blue eyes, eyes that are so blue they look like the sea. At first I was enchanted with her looks, until I looked in the mirror and then a feeling of, well I have to use a British word here, gobsmacked came over me. When I looked into the mirror that hangs above the sink in my bathroom basin I noticed that I was the splitting image of Sakura Oda. The only difference was my hair needed to be trimmed and shaped up a little, and she had breasts and I did not. But other than that, we looked like two peas in a pod.

“So that's why they wanted me to model her.” I muttered as I applied a thick layer of shaving foam to my chin that morning and once more dragged a razor across my face. I made a mental note to buy razor blades to the ever growing  shopping list. Today was Saturday, and less than twelve hours ago I was given the news that had turned my world upside down. It seemed because I had called my cousin during a very important meeting that I would be required to cosplay as a bunny girl for a promotional stunt her manga publishing company was putting on. Second, I was now officially entered into my town's first Womanless Beauty Pageant under the name Isabella “Belle” Maria Fisherman. 

All of this had taken place in a short twelve hour span.

“I need a holiday.” I muttered as I splashed some hot water on my face to wash away some of the shaving foam. “A long holiday on some tropical island, with a tropical drink in my hand.” As soon as I said that I froze. Instead of being a guy, wearing say swimming trunks, I pictured myself a girl, one that was laid out on a white beach chair, lounging under the cooling shade of a sunbrella. On one hand a trashy romance novel, and on the other an ice cold margarita.

In my daydream I was wearing the skimpiest bikini I could find and surrounded by dozens of well developed, muscular guys, all wearing black swim trunks that fitted them well. I could feel myself starting to blush as my hand started to tremble. Because I knew that as soon as the sun set, I would change into the shortest dress I owned and wear the tallest pair of heels I owned and dance the night away with the guys, and one by one all of them would ride me like bucking bronco.

“Oh GOD!” I yelled loud enough to cause the cat that was digging around in the trash can just under the bathroom window to meow loudly before knocking the can over and running away. “I'm still a virgin!” I muttered as I shuttered. 

At that moment I questioned if it was normal for a nineteen year old male, transgender or not to still be a virgin. Now before you ask, I had never really had a girlfriend in my nineteen years of walking the huge piece of rock that was spinning through space. I knew, most of the boy's I'd grown up with had bragged about having sex as soon as they hit puberty. And as cringe worthy as this is, I knew my cousin Jared and Jay, the macho men of the Addams family line, my mother had been an Adam's before she had married my father who was a Fisherman, had bragged at one family reunion of getting their first taste of pussy at age twelve and thirteen respectfully. 

And yet here I was, age nineteen, and still a virgin, dreaming of getting my world rocked, by sun drenched, blond haired, blue eyed guys who had more muscles than brains but were well endowed and knew how to use it. And had the experience, the drive and the motivation to do all the work, while I just sat back and enjoyed the ride on the meat rocket to mars. And that all that mattered.

I blushed and sighed and then I stepped into the shower. It was Saturday and I had a rare Saturday and Sunday off. It was also one week till I needed to be in Baton Rouge for that cosplay photo shoot and two weeks till that weird pageant thing.  Yesterday being Friday, and Friday being the traditional day wages were given out, I found myself flushed with cash money. So it seemed some shopping was in order for the day.

As the shower head sprayed me with warm water, lifting sleep from my eyes and awaking my body. I started to mentally plot the day. I figured the first order of business would be to get some breakfast for me, thankfully there was a little cafe just down the street from where I lived. I'd never eaten there, but according to all the locals the food was second to none. Then again sit down in places where they offered breakfast were rarer than Hen's teeth.

Once breakfast was done, I would go get a haircut, then go shopping for basic items that I would need  both for my forthcoming adventure into the world of crossplay and for the pageant. Then a weird idea popped into my head. I would like some sleeping clothes too, and a bathrobe. I mean I normally slept in just a lost, formless shirt and a pair of white boxers. But that seemed so.. so not me.. I would need a nightdress or something. Something that would make me feel feminine. And then the truth came out of hiding and smashed me upside the head and took my breath away.

I wanted to feel feminine because I knew that deep inside I was feminine. Something I had wrestled with for years was starting to break the surface. And then it became clear to me, too clear in fact. It seemed at that moment, either God or the Devil himself had seen it fit to impart some divine or demonic nugget of wisdom that had been withheld from me for most of my life.

I was a girl inside.. a girl was struggling to get out.

That thought had just popped into my head. And again I felt my breath being taken away. It all made sense to me now. Puberty had been hell on me, because I had felt my body becoming something that did not line up with what my brain wanted, no scratch that shit, my body was not lining up with what my soul knew it should have been. And only the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, which my mom had belonged to, which my dad had converted too to marry my mom, of whom I had taken in since birth along with the milk from my mothers tits. Had kept me from tying a looped piece of rope around my neck and jumping from a bar room stool. Or running a butcher's knife through my chest, or cutting my own throat open with a letter opener. Or swallowing a handful of sleeping pills, or just putting my dad's .357 Magnum to my head and squeezing the trigger. I'm sure the 158 grains of half-jacketed alloy traveling the speed of light and sound would have scattered my few remaining brain cells to hell and back. 

“FUCK!” I yelled as loud as I could.

It all made sense now, I was still a virgin because I'd never had the desire to enter into a woman. I never craved sex, my sex drive was none, zero, zilch! And while I had played football one year, my freshman year, that had only been because my dad and pressure me into it. My heart was never in it, I hated it and had only gained a broken knee from the venture.

“FUCK IT!” I yelled again as I turned my head toward the heavens. “God! You better have a reason for putting me through this bullshit!” I yelled loud enough to cause the neighbor across the street to pause and shout at the top of his lungs.

“I'm going to call the law on you!” Whatever Mr. Tom Anderson senior. Call the law, see if I care. 

And with that finally out of my system I settled down to my computer. I had some online shopping to do. And I did not feel like getting out. The weather forecast for today was supposed to be around a hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade. That forty six point eleven degrees Celsius in case any of my readers are from across the pond. In short it was too hot for anything besides trying to stay cool. Thank God for the internet and Netflix and Amazon! And with my debit card in hand and a new Prime feature to test out I dove into the bazaar of the internet.

Going on Amazon was the first mistake of the morning. Because it was a good way to kill three and a half hours. Once I was done with online shopping. I'd racked up around three or four hundred dollars in stuff. Stuff that I guessed I needed. Like a suitcase, because I did not own a suitcase, a hairbrush, a collection of hairbands, hair clips, and even some nail polish. Also I picked up some stuff for the flat, like a new pillow, a new blanket, and some new sheets, my current sheets had turned yellow. 

Beside that I also ordered some bleach cause you know the trash cans under the window needed to bleach them out. The city had fallen behind on its trash collection, so the mountains of discharged garbage. Empty beer bottles, old pizza boxes, empty drink bottles, old boots, old shoes, used diapers, and the list goes on and on were just piled up around the old, weather beaten cans. And the only way to kill that smell was to pour a gallon or two of bleach on it.

All that came to around a hundred dollars. The other three hundred dollars was spent on other odds and ends. I even treated myself and went and bought myself a mine fridge with a freezer on top. I would really moving on up in the world if I could have a mini fridge with a freezer on top! I could finally keep ice cream around! Up till now, I'd been keeping most of my perishables in an old ice chest that I hawked from the side of the road.

After my little shopping spree I decided to settle down and spend the rest of my day catching up on the stories I was following on Big Closet. I saw that one of my favorite authors, Emma Anne Tate, had uploaded a story. It was always a joy to see another piece of fiction by Emma Anne Tate! Another one of my favorite authors Rasefelle had uploaded something so that was a double yay!

But I was a bit crestfallen that Shiraz and Snowfall had not added another installment of the wonderful Tammy Crossover Saga. Shiraz was one of the writers that I most wanted to be like. She had a wonderful sense of humor. And Emma Anne Tate was charming and witty! And Rasefelle was a treasure.

As I read through those stories, I started to think about my own story I wanted to write about, I'd written stories before. But they had been trash, pure and simple trash. Most of my stories were Deviantart Trash. Then again since its change over, most of the stories on Deviantart were indeed trash! And that's how I finished my Saturday off. Reading TG fiction and wondering what my future held.

I had a lot to think about. About maybe being Transgender, about still being a virgin, about my possible retail career? About maybe getting into some kind of college or even attending a trade school? And well, the characters in these stories gave me inspiration. I had Jasmine to guide me, yes, but in a roundabout way, Snowfall, Shiraz, Rasefelle, and Emma Anne Tate were voices of reason and hope. Their creations were blueprints for me to pattern my life after. Something to hope and aspire too.

And that is where I leave this chapter off.