Everybody needs Somebody, Sometime

Tanner and I spent the rest of the day relaxing. He gave everyone today off with tomorrow as our finishing day and we made a point of letting some of the girls see us go into his room together... and locking the door.

 © 2010 by Lilith Langtree & Rénae Dáºmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the work’s Owner (copyright holder), with the exception of the private and non-commercial viewing by the reader who is also the end purchaser. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. Any and all images which may be shown within this work are taken through license under Corel with the exception of the title image which is Photo Credit to Irina Sheik. No affiliations, involvement or gender assignations through the use of these or any images of the subject or subjects contained within those posted images is to be implied, intended or inferred.
An Aldoennetti & Langtree Original.

I spent short periods now and then trying to draw the hurt out of his poor face but I’m afraid the only cure I will be able to offer him tomorrow is a little make up to hide the bruising. I didn’t realise I could slap that hard. I managed about four hours of good sleep so I was feeling much better by early afternoon. We even made a point of showing for supper when everyone else was likely to be there. Again we positively reinforced everyone’s impression that we were, once again, the love birds we were supposed to be.

I’m happy, ‘my boyfriend’s back’ even though I spent that night sharing the room with Pam once again. She congratulates me even though she says, “I’m glad you have Tanner back, I just wish the opportunity to try to net him had gone my way. It isn’t often that a girl can lose and win back her boy friend without some serious repercussions. You obviously know how to play him.”

“We just have mutual interests and concerns, Pam. I think I’ll turn in. That way I may pack most everything in the morning before we leave to finish the shoot. Then I shall be ready when we depart early the following morning unlike when we left St. Petersburg. Good night Pam, and thank you for being such a good friend.”

We give each other a hug before I go clean up, removing the makeup I had actually placed on my own face, finally having gained some confidence under Irina’s tutelage. It isn’t too long before I’m ready for bed. The next two or three hours are spent tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep. It isn’t that I spent too much time asleep today. It’s just that my mind is playing with me again.

Pam went to bed about an hour after myself but here I am still thinking and tossing. When Tanner gave me my engagement ring back I felt it was a victory. I was as pleased as any woman could be. That’s why I can’t sleep. I slept while in Tanner’s room. It was comforting to be laying next to him sometimes cuddling and sometimes comforting him where I wrongfully slapped him. I never thought I was perfect.

Precisely what has me worried is exactly the fact I am pleased with how things turned out. Exactly how should I feel about it as a male? I suppose I should be glad it was a job well done, but why can’t I be male and accomplish things? Back to the same problems I’ve had all my life. I’m male, but I look like a female. I have many of the physical attributes externally and internally, but not enough to become a woman and have children. So... What about as a male? That’s even a shorter stick. I have very little that is male except the most important thing, X Y chromosomes. And, just as I am as a female, as a male I’m sterile.

So what does this mean to me really? I’m an X Y ‘IT’ just like Dad was always saying? The only difference is he thought pounding me could turn me completely male. I’ll never forgive him for that. His uneducated hypocrisy and bigotry came close to killing me more than once. And the dear Reverend... Another who needs to be sterilized or more. There has to be a way I could get them both. I just need to think. Yeah, think. What the hell do I think I’m doing but thinking. Yeah, wise guy... except you’re thinking the wrong thoughts. You need to make some decisions about your life.

Okay then, what’s the first thing I need to do? Make an outline of things I need to decide and to accomplish. Start small Mac. Start small.

I suppose one of the first issues I need to decide is whether I should become male or should become female. Okay that seems like a reasonable thing to need to decide. What else?

Well... I suppose I should need to make that change soon or at least begin it. Also important are going to be friends. As Mac or as Katrina I will need friends. People on whom I can rely and who will accept me whichever way I go.

I need a job to support myself and I need all this to occur nearly simultaneously.

Right. Start small. Who am I kidding? Well, I have a small outline. Now all I need to do is decide how to execute it.

“Thought you could get away from me did you? I told you what I’d do if I caught you wearing girl’s clothes again.” I awaken even as I feel the first bone snap.

Tears are streaming down my face as I recall the worst of Dad’s beatings and I could swear I can feel the pain of the broken bones again as well as the shame of even thinking about being a girl. The bed rocks as someone lands on it next to me and I scream and try to get away even as Pam wraps me in a bear hug.

“It’s a dream, Katrina. She’s gone. It’s a dream.”

“No... It’s him. It’s him, he’s found me again. He’s going to kill me.” I babble, still in the twilight zone between sleep and consciousness. “Dad’s going to kill me this time.”

Pam is rightfully taken aback at this point but jumps back in with both feet, I really don’t deserve a friend like her.

“It’s all right, Kat. It’s all right. He’s gone. You’re safe baby.”

“Noo... He’s there... He’s there.” pointing across the room which frightens Pam as she tries to put me between her and the location at which I’ve pointed. She finally manages to turn on a light which helps to assuage her momentary fear by revealing no one in the room other than ourselves. I’m still stuck in the twilight zone.

“How did he know I’m a girl again? How did he find me?” I’m still trying to crawl out of my bed and over toward her’s but I’m tangled in the covers which are contributing to my fear by preventing me from moving much.

“You’re safe baby. You’re safe. Your father’s not here. Relax, Katrina.”

“Katrina?” I manage to question.

“Then what is your name?”

“Mac. When it’s Mac, Dad doesn’t try to kill me, just hurt me.”

“All right then. You’re safe, ‘Mac’. Come on, wake up. You’re safe.”

I reach up to my neck where I can still feel his hands trying to choke me.

“Here let me help. Your gown is up and twisted all around your neck. You’ve been having a nightmare.”

She assists me in restoring order and then I cling to her. She finally manages to break away and go to the phone, “Tan? It’s Pam. Kat’s had a pretty vicious nightmare. Something about her father. I think she’s still lost in it. Could you come down and help her? Thanks.”

“Kat, you’re okay honey. Tanner will be here is just a moment and he’ll help. Wow, you really made a mess of your bed, covers and blankets everywhere. You need to do something about those dreams of yours.”

There is a knock at the door and I nearly claw my way across Pam to try to get away from it. “It’s Dad, don’t let him in.”

Pam goes to the door and admits Tanner, “She’s still lost in it. She thought you were her Dad when you knocked.”

At this point my mind has finally settled on who these people are and Tan in particular. In moments I’m wrapped around him still babbling about my Dad.

“He broke my ribs again and said he would finish me this time. I’ll bet that bitch told him where I am.”

“Bitch? Which Bitch?”

“That... Elaine bitch.”

“It’s okay, Kat. She didn’t tell him and she isn’t here. Neither is he.”

I look around half expecting to see him crawl out from under one of the beds or burst out of a closet to come finish his job. My ribs hurt and when I rub my hand across them I can still feel pain. Not as sharp/ dull as when he broke them when I was only ten but still they hurt.

“My ribs hurt. It was so real.”

Pam returns with a cool washcloth and begins to wipe my face to remove the evidence of the tears and to sooth me a bit.

“Tanner. Who’s Mac?”

“Mac? I don’t... Oh, he was an assistant before Kat came along.”

Pam searches her mind, “Oh, I remember him. He didn’t stay very long and then suddenly Kat was... Ohmygosh.”

I’m still so out of it I haven’t yet put two and two together. I’m not yet convinced Dad isn’t going to pop out of the bathroom, he could have been hiding in the shower while Pam was in there.

“Tan, is Mac now Kat?”

“Pam, will you sit down and let me explain?” Tanner replies.

Pam latches onto me even though I’m latched onto Tanner, “Kat? You were a boy? Wow, you look so good. You’re a terrific girl. Are you going to stay this way? God, you should. You look great. I won’t tell a soul. Please tell me you’re going to stay like this. I can’t BELIEVE I didn’t see it. You’re beautiful. You’ll go far as a model.”

She finally puts the events of the two nightmare nights together and the half coherent conversation we had just a little earlier, “You tried to be yourself when you were little didn’t you? And your father beat you for it. I’m glad you survived, you make a beautiful girl. Can we still be girlfriends?”

Something she said finally breaks through my self imposed barrier of fear and I suddenly explode in her direction wrapping myself around her and sobbing again on her shoulder.

She recoiled for a moment and gave a small shriek as my move was so sudden but when she realised I wasn’t attacking her but instead was thankful she was supportive she relaxed once more. I’m still not certain what ‘supportive’ means to me. As I am an equal opportunity crybaby I just as quickly am back to Tanner’s shoulder sharing my tears on him as well. Pam goes and rinses the wash cloth returning to gently wipe my face.

Glancing at Tanner she does a double take, “Ohmigosh Tanner. When we get up in the morning you need to come here first thing so we may put some make-up on that. Or maybe you better call Irina in to do it. He could probably make it look more natural.”

I have finally returned from my adventure in never ever land and lean back to look at Tanner. The side of his face is already turning lightly black and blue with hints that it will go even deeper, and he has the most marvelous beginnings of a black eye. I’m surprised he gave me my ring back after I did that to him.

“Tan. I’m so sorry.” I kiss it to make it better as softly as I can because I know it must hurt, “I should have killed that bitch. I’m so sorry, honey.” I kiss him again.

“Just remember your penance. Kisses until it’s all better... Which I hope will take days, except for the pain. Maybe that could go away quickly.”

I let Pam see my, “men” stare and then lean back to Tanner once more, gently kissing his face.

“All right you two lovebirds, if you want me to be alert in the morning then you better decide if you, Tan, are going back to your room so we may sleep. Or perhaps you’re both going to his room so I may sleep.”

We quickly make our decisions and I grab what I need for morning and go with Tanner to sleep where I may be comforted quickly if Dad rears his ugly head again. Almost instantly after we leave I hear Pam shut off the room light.

The next morning while I’m getting dressed I realise there is one more person now who knows about me. I am working on my outline and collecting friends, REAL friends.

~O~

Most of the day goes just fine with we four girls doing our thing modeling some of the clothing we have modeled before in addition to that which is added at the new locations. Paris will be a change of pace since it will be a runway show as well as the location shoots. We are saying goodbye to Sasha who is remaining in Russia. She’s nearly a part of the family by now. Pam and Laura spoke with me a couple of days earlier and we each pooled some of our money then yesterday while they were playing tourist and I was playing nursemaid they purchased a parting gift which we gave to her today before we parted ways. My curiosity at our having been joined by a Russian model was quite subdued when she first arrived. I was surprised to learn she was one of Emerson’s. I guess his tentacles reach almost everywhere. I followed the lead of Pam and Laura and give Sasha a hug as we leave her behind. Remembering to do things like say goodbye as a girl doesn’t come all that easily.

Fortunately it wasn’t until we were on the plane to Paris that another of my self realizations came to me... What if I wasn’t a freaky boy but I was a freaky girl? I mean, what if maybe the chromosomes and this outside equipment were the mistake and not the girl body of which they were a small part???

That serves to confuse me very nicely, thank you. All my life I’ve thought I was a boy with a screwed up body and Dad kept drilling into me that I was a boy because I have a penis but... Well, we all know how screwed up Dad happens to be. How he could go from calm to outright berserker in less than a second always told me his marbles were a bit less than one hundred percent, probably a lot less than that. Then add in the Reverend’s rants and Dad operating like a parrot and you wind up with a certifiable nutcase. Did he turn me into one too?

God... How could I be so messed up? Look at me. I’ve spent my whole life living as a boy even though the few times I came close to dressing like a girl I was much happier but with the wrong equipment and with Dad’s ongoing rants I knew any thoughts I had about being one were pretty much imagination. But... what if he was wrong?

A child is supposed to be able to trust their parents, but... All these years and because my Dad is such an uneducated bigot I’m messed up. If I could have been a girl all my life where would I be now? Well... not here for one. I might have been a girl, but just another of many others. I might even have wound up pregnant from... no that couldn’t happen. So what would I have been? Someone who the boys would kiss and tell? Probably a whore on the streets. Dad didn’t want pansy girls, he needed he-boys to help at the business. Another reason he picked on me so much. I couldn’t help at the business since I was a ‘pansy’. How did Sis get treated so well then? Mom must have stared Dad down when it came to Sis. She usually could control him except when he went nuts. And my condition really sent him into the outer orbits.

Boy, Girl. Who cares? I’m me and I look like a girl. If I’d been allowed to grow up as a girl then all those injuries might have been avoided. I could have shown him at a much earlier age that I could take care of the books just like Mom. At least his beatings subsided a little when he learned I was good at that. No, they didn’t stop. Beating me had become a part of his life by then. Like giving a dog a chew toy and then expecting him not to chew it... doesn’t happen.

By the time I was twelve I don’t believe he even thought of me as his child any more. There was nothing I could do which would make him proud of me. I was just a freak, to be pounded until I became human or wound up six feet under. Preferably the latter.

I wonder how I would have responded to love? Real love? I think part of the pain was growing up in a house where no one loved me. If I ever have kids somehow, they will be loved. Even if I’m the only one who can do it, they will be loved. Especially the girls. Why not the boys? I guess I can thank Dad for that. It’s very difficult for me to feel a nurturing emotion for a boy. But what of Tanner? I feel something for him, especially for what I did to him. Then too there is the satisfaction and pride I felt... feel, in having him as my fiancee.

Oh hell, who am I trying to kid? This is just a show to keep Emerson out of my panties so he won’t kill me. If I really were a girl Tanner and I would have played post office while we were in his room. If he even thought of me as a girl he would probably have tried to get me to act the part and let him have his way with me either orally or in my butt... excuse me, I guess a girl would say derriere. Jeez, now that I think about it, even when I see myself in a mirror my whole body screams girl if you discount those bits hanging down below. Fine. All this is serving to make me think I should be a girl but what about the seventeen years I’ve spent as a boy. They’re worth something. My mannerisms are... Well... both I guess. Okay, so there isn’t much about me which screams boy but still seventeen years are worth a lot. I mean , like, that’s all my life. I can’t just flick a switch and walk away from it suddenly saying girl. I mean how I look isn’t the whole story. How I was raised counts for a lot too.

But what if I was raised wrong just because Dad wanted boys to help do the heavy work in the business? I can’t even begin to think about that yet. I wasn’t any good at that part of the business anyway.

The noise in the cabin suddenly becomes louder and I open my eyes to discover we are landing, “Pam. What’s wrong?”

She looks at me funny, “We’re landing.”

“I know that, but why?”

She shrugs, “We’re at Paris. Did you have a nice nap?”

NAP? I didn’t even know my eyes were closed. Paris? We couldn’t have been flying for hours... could we? I’ve got so much more to think about now.
~O~

We couldn’t walk to our hotel this time so it takes us nearly two hours to get everything collected with a call about the missing bus which was supposed to meet us. Turns out it’s over at the freight terminal waiting for our stuff which has instead come within the same plane as did we. The bus finally arrives and everything is loaded then we are off to the hotel and tomorrow we will begin again. This evening we meet three more of Emerson’s models who will be with us for the four days we are in Paris. The three of them speak English as well as French and will act as interpreters for the rest of our group. Days one and two are spent on location with day three playing walking clothes racks on a runway most of the afternoon. We had the morning free. The last day is spent basically touring and taking a lot of impromptu photos. I happily join in since this fits in well for my scrapbook.

By now Pam has joined me in acting like a camera bug. She doesn’t have a computer though so we wind up downloading her photos to my computer and she and I spend a couple of hours together looking at and editing our photos before we get out our things to wear in the morning then pack everything else so we will be ready to depart promptly. We store her photos in a folder under her name and a subfolder labeled Paris. There aren’t enough photos in her folder to come close to being more than just noticeable on a CD so I convince her to wait until she has more then we may offload them all onto one disk. I must be more of a shutterbug than she happens to be. Well... It’s fun and if I don’t like some of the photos I can just erase them. Besides, Tan wants most of them so I’m taking a lot for him. Rationalization, isn’t it great?

Looking at the photos I think about how we obtained them and how we really don’t know anything about those things we photographed. I’ve always thought about the models traveling to exotic foreign locations and then spending nearly all their time on tours learning about the city they are in. This trip has taught me that very little time is available for that pastime and most of it is spent working. I really haven’t learned much about any of the cities which we have visited nor even had time for a tour. I probably learned more through the InterNet or from books available to tourists, than the models do who are actually being there. The only time I was even near a landmark was when Tan was snapping pictures of us. If I got withing fifty feet of actually touching something historic it was a miracle. It’s all a bit disappointing.

When we arrived back at our hotel, Pam and I download our pictures to the computer and I bring up Irfanview to quickly check them. They all seem to be okay. Nothing glaring and... wait a minute.

Okay, something’s not quite right here. Pam’s photos are about 2 Megs each with “.jpg” behind them. My photos are around thirty Megs each with “.crq.ccr.oj” behind them. Her hundred or so photos came close to filling her memory card, mine... who knows?

Okay, I need to talk with Tanner again. I borrow her camera and examine it alongside mine and can’t see any major differences. They look the same to me. Mine is maybe a little heavier, not a lot. I take the batteries out and check the weight again. Okay, now my camera is obviously heavier. Her batteries are Lithium and mine are Lithium — they seem to weigh about the same. I put in a call for Tanner again.

“Pam, may I borrow your camera for a little while? I’d like to show Tanner something about our cameras.”

“Well, I don’t know. I might want to take some pictures while I”m sleeping. Of course you can borrow it, would you remember to put the batteries on charge when you get back?”

“Sure. Mine need charging too so that will remind me. Thank you.”

“Certainly. See you in the morning and you and Tanner behave yourselves.” Then her face changes as she realises what she said just before her face turns red.

“We will. I know what you mean, Pam. Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Tanner and I get together about twenty minutes later and I’m demonstrating the differences in our cameras.

“I still think I have the wrong camera. Couldn’t you please check with them just for my own peace of mind?”

“Okay, Kat. It seems like a waste of time to me but I’ll run it past Tony. When they say you have the right camera will you give it a rest after that?”

“If they confirm my camera isn’t something from out of a James Bond movie then, yes, I’ll stop pestering you about it.”

I returned to my room and placed the batteries on charge before preparing for bed. Pam was already out like a light but she’s an early morning person while I’m more of a nine or ten o’clock type.

Our time in Paris draws to a close and we say good bye to the girls who joined us here. We also lose Laura who is flying home for another couple of shoots she has scheduled before she takes off for another semester of college which begins only a week later. Smart girl, she’s using the modeling to pay for her education so when she graduates she won’t have umpteen hundred student loans to pay off.

At our next stop, Milan, we are joined by six girls who will be with us during the five days both here and in Rome. These girls are all Emerson’s with one having been ‘interviewed’ several times ending only a week earlier. That clues us that Emerson was ‘around’ but just not in our immediate vicinity. That means there are now eight of us and this time we spent a day on the runway and a day on location in each city. Pam and I managed somehow to actually go on a couple of tours. I wish we could have done that while in Paris. Anyway we got a lot of great photos. The runway lessons my coach drilled into me mercilessly for those four days back home paid off and I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. Enough so that those six beauties didn’t question my abilities. One of them acted a bit like Bianca but at least she wasn’t doing drugs.

We still haven’t seen Emerson during the tour but expect he will pop up sometime soon since the hints of his presence have placed him all around our periphery. After Milan and Rome there were only two more cities. If he shows up at all it will probably be in London since we will be there for five days versus Madrid being only three.

Tanner and I have been spending a little more time together since Moscow just to keep up appearances. Usually we look at the super detail images both from his camera and mine. His camera’s images put mine to shame and they have that same funny suffix following their picture names. His files are about twice the size of mine. That still has me wondering about my camera since he tells me his professional model “costs around $8500 or so.” About a quarter of the photos I’ve taken have been ‘suggestions’ given by him in the form of mild gestures hidden away from nearly everyone else. I don’t know why he wants them but he seems happy with the results. I suppose this means I’m being a spy. One of the tours Pam and I took in Milan was set up by Tanner and there were five of us on it including the tour guide. The only instructions Tanner gave to me were, “take a lot of photos. If you can, shoot everything and come back with your memory card full or your batteries dead, as if that’s possible.”

I continue to bug him for the answer from Tony concerning my camera.

The tour lasted nearly an hour and a half. I was shooting three or four photos a minute so when I returned to move the photos from the camera to the computer the count was nearly four hundred. That’s a bit confusing since my memory card is only supposed to be able to hold slightly over a hundred and fifty or so. I suppose the faceless ones back in the states ‘sold’ me a memory card that is a bit more than it seems, just like my camera. I wonder if they know how confusing their little games are?

I’m worried about these images being damaged a bit like what happens when the film doesn’t advance and you wind up taking photos on top of each other. They all looked just fine though and the random half dozen Tanner looked at more closely show no sign of any problems. In fact he is really happy with several of the one’s I took as we drove by some University. I shot three of the whole area and three, zoomed in, of the buildings far down the avenue about two blocks away.

He tries not to seem overly excited about them but I could tell he is pleased. They just looked like interesting buildings. The tour guide didn’t say much about them except that they were some University of some kind. I learned later that it wasn’t the University which attracted Tanner’s attention but the Russian consulate which was shown clearly in my zoomed shots with all those funny antenna thingies and the big boxes sitting on the roof.

Tanner looked at Pam’s images too and there are a few things she caught on ‘film’ which I missed. Tanner simply says, “I think I’ll send both of you to a short class which will help you decide what to shoot and also help you learn how to compose your shots a little better. Your scrapbooks might wind up looking more professional than that of the average tourist. We might even make photographers out of the both of you.”

I’m not opposed to this. It could be fun. Pam might enjoy it too. As a reward I lean into Tanner and give him a kiss... Yes, on the lips, I am his fiancee after all. Got to keep up appearances, you know, and I like the expressions I get from him sometimes when I do this. Beside that, he says his face is still a bit sore although his colour looks to be returning slowly to normal.

to be continued