Images 23

Chapter 23

It takes us awhile before we’re ready to go. Taylor and I went back to staying in the dark and I just very slowly and very tenderly kissed him while we waited for his migraine to fade away.

My heart is so full right now because he’s willing to do everything they need him to do despite everything he feels about the treatments and the tests and this place.

I’m not sure how long we’re there but Angie comes in to check on us and to actually wake us up. Dad and Hunter are there with her and both are quiet but smiling. I lean down and give Taylor a long deep sweet kiss. He slowly stirs and he’s kissing me back before he’s really even awake. I can tell just by kissing him that he’s feeling better. Then there’s those mountain blue eyes opening and that only Taylor smile.

He sits up and Dad passes each of us a coffee off a tray from Tim’s they’re both small and double-doubles (2 creamers, 2 sugars.) I just take mine white and Tay black but right now they’re both welcome and honestly we’re not that fussy. Actually it’s hot and wet so it kind of tastes good right now.

Dad looks at us. “So, what’s the prognosis?”

I smile after my sip of coffee and look at my Dad. “Dr. Clarke and Dr. Hendricks said they’re electing to go with this venom-chemo-therapy technique and will follow it up with small point radiation therapy and stem cell treatments. I’m going to try to get the specifics on the stuff they’re going to do before we have to get back.”

Dad looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “Stem cells? Are they allowed to do that?”

“There’s a lot more leeway with this being a research hospital and the Canadian government is a lot less paranoid about these things than the USA and some other countries.”

“So when are they going to get started?”

“This coming Monday they said but likely they want Taylor here overnight of Sunday from what they were sounding like the last time we talked to them.”

“That soon?”

“Yeah, like they said there’s really no point in waiting.”

“So what’s the plan and on the agenda for you two until then?”

“Well I’d like to fill everyone in and everything but I think most of the girls and all that were headed home today weren’t they?”

Dad nods. “A lot of them just couldn’t stay and there’s still a few of them up here but we got everything cleaned up and packed so they’re likely at the motel now.”

Taylor looks at me, still looking frazzled and bleary eyed. “Honestly Jen, I just want to go home.”

I lean over and kiss him. Long and slowly and deeply and he returns it and does that hold my face kissing me like we’re in the movies kind of kiss back. I love it that he does that to me. I instantly feel beautiful and special whenever he kisses me like that.

I smile after the kiss and lick my lips. “Yeah, I think that going home would be a great idea myself.”

We get up and gather my things and Hunter looks at us with this long wistful sigh. I smile and ruffle her hair and she squeaks and bats away at my hands. On our way out it’s a quick stop over at the ward clerk for the clinic to get the information packet that the doctors had left for us.

It’s a short drive home and yet when I see it I’m more than glad to be home. With everything that was going on with the wedding and everything it just feels like it’s been too long since I’ve been home. We get out and grab our things and then out of nowhere Taylor scoops me up into his arms. I squeal “Tay!” Then I realize that he’s carrying me across the threshold of our home. I can’t help but smile at the fact he thought of this and I didn’t and just how romantic it is. I wrap my arms around his neck as he carries me like I’m light as a feather which I’m not but it’s still really nice to feel like it though.

We go inside then up the stairs to our apartment and all the way to our bed where he lays me down into and intimate kiss. “Welcome home Mrs. Winters.”

“Mmmn, Y’know I’m glad that we are home.”

“You are? No regrets about not having our honeymoon?”

“Nope, having a honeymoon requires traveling and I’d rather have things over and done with and see where everything’s going to go with your treatments before we make any serious plans to travel anywhere else.”

“I hate that this is going to make us put our lives on hold.”

“Taylor…look at me. It’s not, this who thing is Us taking a huge step forwards, I’d rather have you alive and well and better than not be here at all or have something happen while we were away.”

“Okay then but once I’m better…”

I kiss him long and slow and deeply. “I love the sound of that.”

“What?”

“That you’re going to get better, that you said that.”

“Okay, I’m glad you’re easy to please.” He grins and kisses me, his hands cupping my breasts. I love that too, so much. I love the feeling of his hands on my breasts, so much more satisfying than my own touch. I mean you get this confirmation when you can touch yourself and feel how it’s just…right.

But…There is nothing like being touched like that by another person, a lover, someone that you love takes it to a whole other level. It might just be something in my head but it’s so different in the best way. Then again, I feel the same way about being married. I mean I’m a transgendered girl that has her breasts being lovingly kissed, nuzzled, nibbled and suckled by her husband.

It so takes things to this other level at least emotionally.

Things just kind of naturally start to get more intense, I’m tugging his clothes off. He’s pulling off my shirt and runs his hands over my lace cupped breasts and slowly teases me, playing with my bra straps, easing them off my shoulders while he cups me, tastes me.

Seconds or a beautiful eternity later I’m schooching my bum off the bed so he can undo my jeans and inch them off of my hips. It gets more fun after that and just so…I love the feeling of my husband, my Taylor inside of me. We make love, long and slow in our own bed it’s amazing and it’s tender and sweet and yes I get there but even as amazing as it is I still feel that need, that kind of ache in my lower waist that he should be inside of me in a totally different way, the way that he should be inside of me. It doesn’t hurt me inside as bad as it used to that need, that ache to be complete but it’s still there, it’s always there. But being made love too, being actually held and loved makes it a lot more bearable.

God…To go through this without him, without that love and support that Taylor gives me. I’m not sure if I’d be strong enough to go through it. That year and a half on my own, alone and still even in transition and living as a girl. It was hell; it is hell for so many of us. You sit there…anywhere and you see real females just being themselves and they just look so…them, complete. Even if they’re not really the best looking of women they still get to be who they are. They get the entire package for good and for bad.

We, I wanted and want that so bad. Even as good as my life has turned around. I feel incomplete. I want the cramps; I want the mood swings and the bloating and all of it. I’ve no actual idea of what it feels like but I can sometimes even feel my insides are wrong.

There are days even now, I ache to have a womb and tubes and ovaries. Its hell…and only other Trans people can really feel that suffering.

I doze and it’s a little fitfully, I’m worried actually about my own stuff for a change. There’s horrible stories of surgeries going wrong and then others on some of the sites I’m a member of that talk about women who’ve transitioned and they still don’t feel right, that it changed nothing for them really, then there’s the ones who regret even having it done.

I don’t sleep that well, I’m scared that that might end up being me. But like I said, being miserable like this is bearable. I must have been doing something because I’m woken a little by Taylor nuzzling into my neck, then kissing me right by my ear. His strong very well muscled arms wrap around me to hold me tighter and pull me against him a little more as he spoons with me. He whispers in my ear. “Jen? Honey, are you alright?”

I love that, I love being called honey, I love that he noticed this even as we were sleeping. I love that he is asking me. That… him just holding me like this makes it bearable, survivable.

“No, not really. It’s nothing bad it’s just me thinking too much about things.”

“Like what?”

“Me, what might happen when I go under the knife. Not the surgery, well some of it is but the fact that I might not actually feel any more like the girl that I’m supposed to be than I do now.”

“Oh…What brought this on?”

“Us making love.”

“Oh….why?” He sounds concerned, a little confused and hurt.

“Tay, no it’s nothing that you’re doing. It’s me. I really can’t help but think about how much I want you inside me the right way….Y’know like the other girls.”

“Jen, you know that doesn’t matter to me.”
I roll over in his arms so I can look at him. “Taylor it’s not like that, it’s a me thing, it’s something that I want, need so badly Taylor it gets to me that I’m not the person my mind is saying that I am.”

“So it’s nothing that I did?”

“No silly, it’s just something that people like me go through.”

“Girls.”

“What?”

“Girls like you. You said people.”

“Girls are people.”

“Jenna…You know what you meant, I know what you meant, please don’t do this to yourself. It hurts when you run yourself down.”

I look down and actually rest my forehead on his chest. I can’t help but shake a little. I’m feeling kind of fragile and exposed. “Sorry Tay, I know it shouldn’t be like this, I’m sorry.”

He tilts my head up by my chin and looks at me. “Do you go through this stuff all the time?” I shake my head. I love that he made the distinction between going through this when there’s a lot of people that’d have said “Doing this.” That helps me open up that hurt place inside, look him in the eyes.

“No, not all the time but It happens. I can’t not go there sometimes…”

“It get’s pretty bad doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…” My throat’s tight with emotion and there’s tears. I never thought that we’d talk about this.

“You were in this kind of headspace when all that stuff happened the day of the accident right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You know I love you right?”

“Yeah, and Taylor I’d never get through this without that love you know.”

“The fact that you say that scares the hell out of me Jenna.”

“Sorry…”

“No, don’t…This is who you are and you’d never be this amazing person and amazing girl. Without being who you really are, who you used to be, and everything that you’ve gone through and are going through.”

I look at him and he’s looking at me with those mountain blue eyes of his. His gaze is searching, looking for something in me. God love him he’s really trying to get this. How did I get so lucky?

“You really want to know about this?”

“Of course I do. I love you Jenna, I love you and this is something really hard that you’ve been going through for a long time. You’ve been there and you know the stuff going on with me and my stuff. I want to know this stuff, what’s hurting you sometimes and getting it. I need to get all of the stuff going on with you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah I do, You’re my wife. The love of my life, we’re in this for real beautiful. For Better or Worse right?”

“Okay…”

We actually get up and take a shower together and it’s actually only just after midnight. There’s the usual kissing, and touching, washing each other but we don’t really get physical. Taylor goes to our kitchen and downstairs as I get online and I start going through several of the sites getting things ready for him.

***
Taylor’s Bit….

It’s been a long week and an even longer day. I hated every second in the hospital, I hated the tests and the machines and all of that stuff to go with it. I look down at my painted toenails and smile. It looks ridiculous, especially on my feet.

Jen was right though, I was embarrassed long enough to get through that damned machine. I really don’t have the words to express just how much her being there means to me.

I’m so in love with this girl. It’s not the looks even though she is beautiful if not a bit too skinny still, I’m working on that. She’s got strong shoulders but not like you’d expect if you knew she used to play football. Long legs, god I love those long go on forever legs of hers. Beautiful eyes and a thousand watt smile. I miss her long hair though; I think that we both do.

It’s her heart though that tells me who she is though. It’s that girl’s heart that’s the reason I married her. She is so much more loving, and compassionate and romantic than anyone I’ve ever met. She looked past the stuff going on with me and everything and she still dared to actually love me. I’ve seen her be a big sister, a friend to other girls, a daughter, a grand daughter, a loving niece even. Jenna’s heart is so big it amazes me. Even after all the horrible stuff she’s been through that she still has her faith in God, just says so much about her.

But tonight this stuff going on in her head its stuff I’ve kind of knew that was there but at the same time I’ve never really thought about it. I mean what she’s had to go through and some of the things that her friends that came to the wedding have and are going through.

I love her; so I need to know these things. The stuff about her that’s weighing on her mind on her heart. I need to get it, so tonight I’m asking.

I make her one of my special coffees in a big mug. Two sugar cubes with a few drops of chicory extract on them, then a shot of Teachers highland cream whisky, then some black coffee and just at the end of it I float a bit of heavy cream on top of it. There’s sometimes nothing like a good Irish coffee. Actually I think teacher's is a Scots whisky so I think Technically it's a Gaelic Coffee but it's still good. Besides I'm from North America we tend to call putting booze in anything is Irishing it up.

I grab a bowl and fill it with some cookies and head into where she’s sitting in our big chair in our bedroom with her laptop on her lap. I take a minute just to drink in the sight of her and how beautiful she is. No make-up, her hair is short but it’s kind of doing that random spiky thing, and she’s in these beat up old red Roots brand track pants and one of my black t-shirts that’s miles too big on her.

That’s another girl thing, if she looks good wearing one of your shirts she can’t be anything but a girl. I don’t care if the plumbing’s messed up it’s one of those universal truth things.

I kiss her and pass her a coffee and she sips it and smiles at me. “It’s the first time I’ve ever had one of these.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah, tonight it’s good. Not something I’d go for too often but yeah Tay, tonight it’s just right.” She kisses me with this Irish coffee flavored kiss and takes a cookie. “Thank you baby.” She get’s up and we move across the hall to or living room and sit of the sofa together. “Here Tay, read some of these.”

I sit and sip my coffee and start to read the different things that she brings up from all these different sites. The most I learn is from the various blogs from all these people that are just like the girls that she invited to our wedding and the stuff in there is…

I honestly had no idea of the amount of pain and the suffering that people like Jen are going through. But also the other stuff that goes with them coming out or transitioning if they’re able too.

The stories, the blogs of these people show me this side of my wife that I never knew existed. There’s knowing but then there’s finding this kind of stuff out. Like how passing is the least of it. That even if you get the surgery and everything that’s no guarantee of being happy. The ostrization from once friends and family, spouses, children even and that’s if things turn out medically alright. Then there’s those that the surgeries go wrong, and cancer and the risks from taking hormones, and still even those psychological issues of still not feeling really female despite everything.

I’m actually reading these pages, and pages and pages of stuff for hours. The amount of people that aren’t with us anymore. There’s memorials for some of those people but there’s just as many with just a footnote on one page or another, and honestly there must be ten times those that never have their voices heard or have lost anyone who would speak for them.

I look at all of this and it hits me like a ton of bricks just really how close I’ve come to losing Jenna, from that night I first met her to her running heartbroken into the traffic and getting hit…I turn to look at her and she’s staring at me…smiling even though I’m crying. I can’t help it, I’ve seen those feels on her face more than once, I’ve seen that expression of her trying to deal with that pain and that deep hurt that she carries inside of her so often really. I get it so much more than I ever thought I would. I’m scared, I’m scared of losing her. What if something does happen, what if something goes wrong, what if she…

“Jen…I had…I didn’t…”

She kisses me, she kisses me then straddles my lap and she kisses me and she’s wiping the tears away from my face with her thumbs and she smiles that beautiful angel like smile for me.

“I love you Taylor Winters, I love you and I’m not going to leave you no matter what.”

This is what love is…

I’m finally learning that this is what love is.