Encrypted

I’ve never fit.
I mean nowhere.
Not in the “Real world” at least.

My parents were afraid of me. Ever since I was a little kid. I’m strange, I’ve always known I was strange…different than the other kids. I was what they called smart, really smart, smarter than most people. I know that I sound like I’m bragging but I’m not. I’m not really able to. You need to really get social nuances to be able to create a real falsehood. Being smarter than your parents, and not able to get the social nuances. I know what they meant by them expressing their love to me, but it’s so hard on you as a child when you can’t read the nuances of the people around you.

My mother left us when I was seven. She just up and left as far as I knew for years. When I turned 14 I found a note she left my father. She wasn’t able to “Deal” with a child who doesn’t love her back. Who thought more of math than of her love.

That hurt me. I feel hurt like everyone else it’s just sometimes I can’t get those feelings out right. All my contexts feel just so wrong and off. They always have felt this way

They say I’ve got Aspergers syndrome. I’m like that, but at the same time I’m not so sure. See I know when I’m being socially awkward but when I try to be social It goes blank, and it’s me not knowing what to do, how I feel …It’s like this. I can see a situation and I know how I should act, I know what’s socially acceptable but and needed but it’s not always so clear.

I have trouble with who I am. I always have known I wasn’t right. It’s nothing I’ve been able to pin down either. It’s like being a computer genius and knowing there’s something wrong in this program that’s me but I’m looking for lines of code in a programming language I don’t know.

I think my father was relieved when I moved out and started college at U of T (University of Toronto.) He was always there but he treated me very indifferently, he kept me always at a distance. He made the fact I knew I was different, that I wasn’t like anyone else almost a quantum state. That Mathew Grant, me and the way I am was a law of physics.
My flawed, strange self was a literal fact. This and the fact I was so…unliked, unwanted and even unseen in my home life and my time in school, all just exacerbated the entire situation of…who I am, Me having a really bad stutter never helped one bit. I felt so out of place, It got to where I though I was an alien.

I’m a mathematician, and an engineer as well as a computer programmer I went in studying for a triple degree. My work was really my life. My first set of degrees in my bachelors of sciences took me three years. I minored in music and dance. There’s math and physics in both to such an elegant way…I could lose myself in both.
I was just starting into my master’s degrees when the movie The Matrix came out. It fundamentally changed my life….The second and interlocking part was figuring out that I was transgendered.

My softwear wasn’t compatible to my hardware.

So how did I figure it out. I was at a faculty mixer. I would go as a guest to the professors that taught things that I was studying, they tried to include me in these events to court me to take a position as a gifted student into their departments. I was very uncomfortable in this position. I was uncomfortable in social situations like this.

Someone spiked my drink, I only had one drink it was purely a social convention I learned put those around me at ease but it overtook me really strongly. I left the party and needed some air. I ended up somehow down on Church Street in the rain and I remember hearing footsteps behind me. I didn’t register the danger cues. Not until I got shove in an alley from behind. A plastic grocery bag was pulled over my head tightly and I was beginning to suffocate. I didn’t do well with the stress of the moment. It was so out of my social norms that I panicked and had what I’ve been told is like an Autistic fit. I don’t have other way other way to describe just being so shaken your entire psyche goes offline. Actually getting really badly beaten shocked me out of it. I remember hearing.
“Jesus you were right he’s really a freak ain’t he.”
“Yeah, freak’s right off his nut. A smart freak.”
“Holy fuck look at the cash he’s got!”
“Yeah, yeah lets have some fun with him.”
That’s when they stripped me naked. I fought, That was a mistake because they pulled on the bag and choked me out. I freaked out again. I wet myself, and passed out.

I woke when hands touched me and I freaked out again. They took the bag off of my head and I could breathe again. I don’t know why I couldn’t take it off myself, I still don’t…I can’t touch plastic grocery bags anymore. Sometimes I can’t handle certain textures.

My rescuer looked at me during the pouring down rain. She was…beautiful and different. I mean very different. Beautiful women never came close to me. I’m never what they sought out in a mate. “Hey, hey can you talk?”
I nod. I don’t talk because I stutter so much.
“Are you alright?”
I shake my head no.
“I though you could talk?”
“Sssss,….Ssss…Ssus…Sorry.” I don’t look at her, I know that look will be there. Being naked and beaten and shivering wasn’t helping me. She lifted my chin and she looked at me. There was this look of…warmth? Compassion in her very pretty coffee eyes. It worked well with her wavy tumbly brown hair and her coffee and cream skin. Beautifully made up face. It was that kindness that made her beautiful.
“Shhush Baby, it’s okay…I get it.” She pulls off her long red raincoat and she wraps it around and over me shielding me from the rain. Her hair, clothes and make-up getting ruined and she doesn’t care. “C’mon honey can you walk?”
I nod yes again. She helps me up and starts to walk me out of the alley and down the street to her car. It’s a metallic blue Chevette that’s seen better days.
“I’m Brandy by the way.”
“Mmm…Mmmm…Mmuh…Mathew.” I hate doing that. If it was something technical, something not personal and I couldn’t see them it didn’t happen so much. This much personal stuff, this much one on one interaction was very anxiety inducing.

She opens my door first and get’s me inside. And then she gets in the drivers side. She turns the car on and heater up to full. We’re both shivering but she’s smiling and I don’t understand why.

She start to drive and she’s careful but I’m still scared. I don’t leave campus much…ever, routine in my friend. I have an apartment right near campus in a basement and I take the bus. I’m afraid of cars. I seen a car accident at nine and the destruction and the chaos and the blood just never left me. I’m barely able to keep it together, I’m counting my fingers one handed but I’m doing it with both hands. She’s going to hate me, I’m going to make her feel bad for being around me.

She…fiddles with the radio and turns it on and fiddles through it until I hear some classical music. I love this stuff, like I said I love music, it helps, it stops my hands. Brandy looks over and smiles at me. I smile back I’m not sure why she’s smiling but I know it’s better to just return it instead of doing nothing. Just a little one, too much smiling is bad. I’ve been told I was creepy.

She bites her lower lip. Is it a tick? “Mathew?, Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” I can’t, too many people. I shake my head no.
“The police station?” again I shake my head no.
“You’re place?” I nod.
I write my address in the fog on the window.
Brandy drives me home.
She’s nice enough to turn the music up.

When I get there she helps me. I don’t have my keys and that throws me into pacing and counting my fingers again. Brandy pressed the superintendents button until she woke him up. He was angry with me, he was more angry when he saw me and how I was dressed and looked at Brandy and called her a Tranny? And a Faggot? He wasn’t happy that he had to let me into my…the door swung open.

I’d been robbed.

They broke into my home, my apartment that was my place. It was the one place that was were I could be safe. I could be strange as I was and it was okay. If there’s anyone like me, then there’s this…this way I need things to be. It all grounds me and insulates me.

They took everything.
My computers, My instruments, my CD’s, DVD’s, My records., They took so much more.
They took everything.
What they didn’t they destroyed.

I’m not sure what’s going on when I come out of it. I vaguely remember rocking back and forth on the floor. The police are there and they ask me things. They keep asking me things hard and fast and it’s too much. Brandy gets me out of there after talking to them.

I lost track of time again. I don’t have my watch. I don’t have my watch. That’s bad.
She’s driving and not even the music helps.

We’re stopped and she helps me out of her car. She takes me into this small house. It’s small closed in but nice, orderly in a female way. She smiles at me. “Back with me?”
I nod.
“I’m so sorry honey, there wasn’t anything left.”
I nod but tears run out of my eyes. I’m wiping some of them away and she’s wiping others away. It’s very soothing.
“You said you didn’t have anybody to call.”
I nod. I don’t remember doing that though but considering everything that happened to me but I don’t understand why.
“You can stay with me until you get back on your feet.”
I try a smile.
“I hope you uhm don’t mind rooming with someone like me.”
I really didn’t understand but nodded. Brandy was probably the nicest human being that I’ve ever known.

The big big smile was a nice reward. People are put off by me, She wasn’t. It was a strange experience.

“You’re still freezing and hurting here I’ll show you where you can get a hot bath or a shower.”

She takes me into a very female decorated bedroom and to the bathroom that’s part of that. “Make yourself at home, I’ll get some clothes to for you and something hot to drink.” I let her take away the raincoat and I’m nervous for awhile until the furnace kicks in. The mechanical blowing sound is soothing to me then so is the music that starts playing in the main part of the home.

I opt for the bath. I like baths as hot as I can get them even in the summertime. I love sliding underwater and this place has an old claw footed bathtub. Brandy must enjoy baths too. I slide in and soak, I cry a little at the heat touching my bruises and just soak for awhile before soaping up my smooth skin. Yes I keep myself free of hair and I’ve never really had much on my face but body hair is distracting, it’s a texture thing so I’ve used various creams and stuff to delete it from my body. I finish by shampooing my hair I’m lucky that I see she has Head & Shoulders there… I have a thing about using only certain things too sometimes. In high-school they used to call me “K-mart Sucks” and “Counting Cards” and “Jenny” I’m not retarded, I’ve seen Rain-Man and Forest Gump. I’m not saying that I understood the nuances of the stories like everyone else. But I got what my tormentors meant.

I use Brandy’s hairdryer and she comes into the bathroom. “Uhm, I don’t really have any guys clothes anymore. I’m sorry but it’s all I have.” She’s looking down. The clothes she’s offering are women’s clothes. I’m upset or more truthfully unbalanced by it. I pace in the bathroom and look at her, pace some more and look at her. Brandy isn’t looking at me. “I’m sorry Mathew but these are the least girly things I have.”
I don’t get the nuances of people but I know my own expression on her face.
She’s afraid of not being accepted.
I take the clothes. “Iiiiiit’s Okaaay, bb..Bb..Beggars can’t be Ch..Choosers.” I try a smile, just a small one. “Yyyy…You’re C..C..Cold Tt..Too.” frustrated I gesture at the bathtub.
“Yes I need a hot shower. There’s a kettle of hot water on the stove, there’s teabags and instant coffee in the cupboards.”
I nod.
Then because it’s supposed to be nice give I give her a light kiss on the cheek. Brandy gives me that smile again. I give her a small smile back then head out into the bedroom.

I’ve never put on women’s clothes before and I pull the panties over my legs and every neuron in my skin lights up. The satiny silkiness on me…is just so…The tightness over my hips and the way they pull everything snugly together in…Snug is good, tight spaces is good to me, I…I had a weighted blanket that I’ve had bought from a site for things that sooth autistic kids. It soothed me too. This is too. The top is a strange kind of tank top and the pants are like an odd gym pant but the material is softer for both. They fit because I’m skinny, I..I have a thing about food textures too. I live on peanut butter, I like crunchy like in vegetables There’s a scent to them I like. I use the brush at her table, dresser with the mirror. I smell that good scent from a bottle and smell the contents. I dab some onto my finger sniff it then put a little on under my shirt. It’s vanilla like, soothing and pleasing to my senses.

I slip into the kitchen and find the things she told me about. I make a mug of hot chocolate, two one for each of us. Large marshmallow in first then some milk or coffee cream, she has this hazelnut flavored stuff. I finger count to decide or rather until I decide. I’m sorry I have habits. I pour a little over the marshmallow. Then I use a third mug to mix the powdered hot chocolate with the water, it’s not right if you can’t pour hot chocolate over the milk and marshmallow. I know…I’m…I just can’t do it any other way.

I have to wash up the cup and the three spoons I used to make it. Yes I Have to use a different spoon for each cup. I just do.

I take mine after I cover her’s with a saucer so it will stay hot and I walk around looking at Brandy’s home. I can’t judge because I don’t know but it’s a bit run down. And very female? But not really having been around many females to this extent I am really just guessing. It tugs at the memories of my mother I think and I find it soothing. I like that it’s small. I think the word may be cozy.

But there’s also something else…walking around like this, smelling like this, and everything has gotten me aroused. I can feel it starting, I think. I’ve never really had that much experience with arousal.

I’m kind of swaying to the music and really loving the shift and movement of my panties as I’m dancing, or sort of. I know how I’m a good dancer. I do that for awhile with my eyes closed. I don’t bump into things because I know where everything is. I have good memory, and I have to know it that well, I just do.

“Mmm, this is really good Mathew, thank you.”
“It’s okay…you’re welcome.”
“You’re not stuttering?”
“I’m…I’m, not…”
“No…? You’re not…” She walks over close to me. “Wow…”
“Wow…?”
“You look pretty, very feminine.”
“I do…?”
There’s no urge to finger count, I don’t need to pace or rock. Okay I feel my fingers twitchy like I really want to but I can fight it off. Brandy takes me by the hand to the bedroom and to her dresser. “See?” she gestures at the mirror.

I do look like a female.

And it started, right there and then. It was like my hardware was starting to match my software. I felt less not me. The more I looked the more solid? The more me I looked.
And the more aroused I was getting. Brandy didn’t say anything about it and she took combs and brushes. And worked at my hair. The sheer soothingness of her doing that made fresh tears spill out. She wiped them away. I saw her aroused through her thin robe. Her breasts had pointed nipples and she too had a aroused penis.
“You have a penis?”
“Yes…I…I though you knew, your landlord called me a tranny.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“How?”
“How? If someone doesn’t know something then they don’t know it. Is it slang?”
“Uhm, yeah.”
“Oh…I have problems with slang, I sometimes don’t understand it.”
“It means Transvestite or it can mean transsexual or transgendered.”
“Oh…Oh…Are you transsexual or transgendered.”
“I’m Transgendered but borderline transsexual.”
“Oh this explains why you have breasts. Was it surgery?”
She nods, but she’s looking at my face like she’s searching for something.
“Mathew, why aren’t you freaked out by this?”
“It’s who you are, if it’s really who you are then it’s you. I assume that it is because you’ve gone through surgery to make yourself look like a female. I cannot fault anyone for being who they are.”
“A lot of people do.”
I look her in the eyes. “I know.”
She smiles a little at me. “Yeah you do.”
“You are a nice person Brandy, I know that you are the best person I’ve ever met.”
She blushes, it’s really comely with her complexion. “Really…” she whispered it kind in a hushed tone. Two tears slide down her cheeks. I wipe them away.

She takes me by the hand and leads me to the bed and lays me down. Brandy gives me my very first kiss. I think I understand what the fuss is about. “That was my first kiss. Thank you.” Brandy blinks at me. “I was you’re first kiss?”
I nod.
“Ever?”
“Yes, ever I have a very good memory, I don’t forget things. It was my first kiss or at least since I was three.”
“Your Mother didn’t even kiss you?”
“Not since I was three. I scared her because I was different, she left when I was seven.”
“Oh Mathew.”
“Yes?”
I don’t get why she, he…no she; because it is who she is…..I don’t get why she’s shaking her head and smiling at me as she leans in and kisses me. I am starting to like this kissing thing. In between the kisses she has her hand down my panties and her hand is stroking me, her fingers play with my testes. I’m stunned at how good it feels, how impossibly good this feels and she asks me. “So why aren’t you stuttering, I’ve known guys who stutter, and there’s usually very little that can be done outside of speech therapy.”
“It is all of this…the clothes, they’re doing something that…oh…Brandy…feels more right to me than I’ve ever known before…I’m different…I’m not a normal person and…and…this makes me feel normal…oh Brandy I’ve never felt normal before!”

I explode in her hands and in my heart…I…I’ve had fits, I cried but it’s never been like this. Not like this, just like everyone else and the pleasure from my first orgasm just knocked ant walls that might have been there. I curl over onto my side and cry, I bawl like a baby for a long time. I’ve got twenty eight years of tears that I didn’t know how to get out right coming out. Crying like that in bed shouldn’t be something a woman would want in her bed. But Brandy pulls me to her breasts and rocks me and holds me and she sings to me. I could not have stopped myself from falling in love with her if I tried.

I never would have thought to try.
I didn’t understand people most of the time.
I never thought I would find someone who doesn’t seem the be afraid of me.
My weirdness.
I never though I’d find somebody to love.

I slowly look at Brandy. “I love you.”
She looks at me. Oh…oh..no, I said something wrong…….
“What…?” he voice is small, quiet.
“I…I…I…Ll..lll…Luv…you.” I’m scared now the stutters back and it hurts, It hurts worse than my bruises. It’s like I’ve been kicked in my heart.
Brandy looks at me, then moves and straddles me and takes my face in her hands a her hair tumbles down around be like a lovely curtain. “You love me?” She’s really intense right now. “Yes.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“No, I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“No, I don’t understand people, all the things they do or why they do them enough to lie.”
“…..” There’s tears falling down her face, her nose onto mine. “You love me…really love me, like you are in love with me.”
“Yes…” I turn my face away from hers and I’m crying again.
Brandy reaches out and turns my head so I’m facing her again. “Mathew? What’s wrong.”
“I love you…but…but…I’m not normal, I’m strange, people avoid me, don’t like me, I’m…a freak…I love you but…once you…you start to know me you’ll…hate me…”
I can’t hold back the tears, and sobs come out and I can’t help but close my eyes to the tears that pour out of me.

Brandy wipes those tears away… “Mathew…Mathew…Mattie? I love you too. I’m falling in love with you too….”
“Really…?”
“Yeah, really. Do you care that I’m transgendered?”
“No.”
“Do you care that I’ve got the same equipment as you?”
“You do? I can finish my work here?!”
She laughs but not hurtfully. “I mean sexually.”
“You don’t, I don’t have breasts.”
She laughs again, kisses me again. “You know what I mean.”
I don’t, or rather I’m not sure about it until I think about it. “No, I fell in love with you, you are you so how can I have a problem with it.”
That earned me another kiss.
“You don’t care that I’m black?”
“You’re black? I though with you’re complexion you would be mixed ethnic.”
“It’s the same thing to a lot of people.”
“Not to me, ethnicity doesn’t matter.”
Another kiss and she leaks a few tears. I wipe them away.
“Then Mattie, Dear heart if you can accept these things about me then I can love you not matter what.”
“Promise…?”
“I promise.”

Brandy kisses me then she slides down my body and gets me aroused again. She gives me my first introduction to oral sex. Then slides back up once she revived my arousal and lowered herself onto me….I like sex, I like sex a lot even when she used a lubricant on me and entered me. I enjoyed that far more than I though I would too. It made things clearer to me and she was very tender. I’m sorry if I could not get graphic about this, I don’t know how to explain it right without getting to technical. I don’t want to make it seem mechanical. it wasn’t, it was beautiful, it was freeing and uniting and organic in this real way.

I still was very sore and very tired. I loved, loved this spooning thing. I love being held. Physical security is soothing to me, very soothing to me. I loved being curled up in her arms her breasts pressed against me. “Mathew…I love you.” Brandy whispered into my ear. “Call me Madison……Brandy?”
“Yes beloved?”
“I think I might be transgendered too.”
“I think you might be too love.”
“Is that okay?”
“I love you no matter what Madison.”
“Good…G’night.”

And that’s how I figured out that I am transgendered. But what does that have to do with The Matrix? It clicked that night when I was sound asleep and my brain just kept processing something. It was the zero and one thing that is the basics of how computers work. Really it’s how the universe could work. Everything, everything sub-atomic is just programming strings of equations bound together to create the…to create…everything.

It was morning and I’d been awake for about an hour smiling…I had love and I had figure something really big out. Huge and scary. But very, very amazing. In my hand I created in my hand this tiny space where I was making this tiny little electric spark jump out of my palm by turning off all the energy pathways in my hand except for two and this little bit of my own electrical field was jumping from one point to another.

My whole universe just opened up to become this whole infinite thing.
It’s all there underneath it all.
It’s all Encrypted.