Christopher Weaver was a young urban professional of the least professional sort. A consulting detective, what he didn’t know, he could find out. Now what he didn’t know was small secret his parents had neglected to inform him about his birth, the joys and hardships of leaving the city and how dangerous a cup of coffee could really be.

The General’s Daughter by The Last Boy Scout.

Chapter 1

He was a little fireplug of a man.

Back in the bad old days when every pound counted, the Air Force made sure that its brave pilots tear-assing though the heavens were under a certain height and weight limit. Despite what the recruiting poster would have you believe; in the beginning and the culture was maintained to this day, the best Air Force pilots were short, wiry, types who could be counted on to be worth their weight in jet fuel. His face was haggard and weather beaten, the result of too may hours spent in the high atmosphere, the sun attacking sensitive skin. He would never win any beauty pageants but I could tell from across the room that this was a man who had seen the elephant so to speak and probably had it stuffed and mounted on his wall.

He was also scared to bloody death, you could see it in his eyes.

Being as the man probably had the authority to release nuclear weapons I wasn’t at all comfortable with his facial expression. We were meeting at the Scooters coffee shop, the original if you must know. Most clandestine meeting prefacing epic acts of derring do are supposed to meet in dreary smoke filled bars but I never really cared for beer and since the cancer Nazi’s took power they had banned smoking in all public buildings and it really took the fun out of the ambiance. Besides, a man needs his espresso. There was blood in my caffeine stream.

“General Ryan,” I said as I nodded to the man and sat down.

“Mr. Weaver,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for coming.”

“It’s a lovely day and your nickel, you did bring it with you I hope?”

“$5,000 as requested,” he replied placing a think envelope upon the table. “Now the mission…”

“Find your daughter.”

“Yes… how did you?”

“It’s why I deserve my munificent fee. I find things out, An Air Force three star gets in contact with someone like me. He’s got a problem, a problem all the weight and force of the United States Military Industrial Complex cannot solve. Likely because it is not allowed to be brought forth, that means personal. You’ve got one of the most sensitive jobs there is so you had to pass a heapashitton of security clearances that means any skeletons would have been long since unearthed so the personal is yours personally but probably a family member. Your spouse is the very model of a modern general’s wife and judging by her spending habits is not participating in any extra-curricular activities though I would have a serious talk to her if I were you about her shoe addiction. Your parents are dead your siblings are all respectable middle class plebes and your son Jonathan is safely ensconced in the warm bosom of his family and shows none of the classic warning signs of teen distress. Your daughter Amanda however has maxed out her credit cards both the one you co-signed for her and the five she got in her own name. She has not been seen in any of her classes for five weeks, but has not formally dropped out of school. Her ATM records and credit card cash advances are at certain, ‘inner city’ locations that a nice co-ed should not be anywhere near, which leads me to suspect she is purchasing something she couldn’t get a prescription for. Which is a crime sufficiently embarrassing for man who is in contention for the joint chiefs but is nowhere near the crime of charging 45% interest on a cash advance. Her phone records stopped not long ago after she had forgotten to pay the bill for the third month in a row and you are no doubt worried about that she will show up in a ditch somewhere on CNN and ruin your chances.”

“You do love hearing yourself talk don’t you Mr. Weaver?” asked the General visibly angry.

“It’s a character flaw, I’m listening to some self help audio books in the car… so far not working.”

“Do you have children?”

“I have not yet been blessed, something about most women not ‘getting’ me.”

“Then all due respect, go fuck yourself your opinion this is about MY reputation. She’s my little girl, and she’s in trouble if I knew where she was I’d get her myself and screw my forth star I’ve got my pension. But I DON’T know where she is, can you find out? The police are no help, they say there is no sign of FOUL PLAY”

The man had a point, perhaps, I had lippy mouth and an ingrained hostility to Air Force brass so I knew I wasn’t giving him all due benefit of the doubt. I tried to imagine myself in his shoes but that would presuppose that I would have let my child get herself so messed up in the first place.

“I can find her, but then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose I find her, the bottom bitch of some Chicago wannabe gangsta. She’s nineteen years old, even in Nebraska that makes her an adult. I don’t do kidnapping for hire, no matter what Sgt. Grimes may have told you. If she doesn’t want to come back here I’m not dragging a young lady against her will across state lines, the FBI have got a thing about that.”

He looked at me while I sipped my drink as if the very possibility that she wouldn’t want to come back was something he had never considered. This was the guy who made sure our satellites didn’t crash into one another and he didn’t know that sometimes a teenage girl could have daddy issues.

“If you find her, and you can’t convince her to come back with you. Then call me, I’ll come right to you day or night. All I would ask is that you stay with her while you wait for me.”

“And if she doesn’t want to come back with you either?”

“Then that would be my problem, and not yours, your job would be done.”

“Fair enough… storm the castle, save the girl. I’m gonna need a reasonable amount of data to start off with not everything is available electronically. I’ll need as much dead tree info on Amanda that you can get me.”

“I anticipated your needs,” the general said indicating a banker’s box on the chair next to us. “This is Amanda’s box, her mother has been adding to it since we took her home from the hospital in Germany.”

I took the top off the box, and started glancing though the files it was about what could be expected from a military wife’s organizational skills, very meticulous and well ordered.

“I somewhat doubt her 5th grade report card will be the key to tracking her down but you never can tell.” I said as I placed the paper back in the box and sealed it shut. “I’ve got your contact information, I’ll let you know when I know.”

“Please be careful with the box, if my daughter is d…. If… it’s the only copies we have you see. Particularly the photos. It might be all we have left.”

I took a moment to digest that, much as I might have liked to I couldn’t make light of a man who said something like that. Said something like that AND meant it.

“I understand, I’ll be very careful… with both your treasures.”

“Before you go, after I got your name from my aide who knows someone who’s a friend of a friend I put it though our search engines. Military, FBI, CIA, local, state police you’d never been part of any of them. And I checked the places people don’t usually check. Where did you learn to do what you do?”

“Library school.”

“Really,” he replied clearly perplexed.

“Yup, what can I say, librarians. What we don’t know, we can find out.”

Chapter 2.

I called myself a consulting detective, or when I was being really snooty a private enquiry agent. Partially because it sounded cool and that’s what Sherlock Holmes called himself, but mostly because the regulation and licensing to become an actual private detective involved so much paperwork that I couldn’t be bothered with it.

You see boys and girls, I was, and still remain to this day a fundamentally curious person. It took me a considerable amount of time to finish college. I just couldn’t seem to stay focused when there was so many good books to read. Somewhere round year seven of my four year degree mommy and daddy pulled the plug and I had to finance my own life for a change. Having been a professional student for my whole life I turned my financial efforts naturally to that which came easily to me, research. There was a substantial number of young low forehead types who were more than willing to slip me $50 to do the heavy lifting on the research papers, and quite a few of the cute 4.0 muffins who found themselves over extended. I never went so far as to actually write the papers for them but I did leave much more time in their schedule for drinking and partying the activities college was truly meant for.

I summoned enough initiative to finish off and get my piece of parchment and when forced to actually go out in the world and get a real job I naturally did my best to avoid that and immediacy signed up for graduate school. My parents, being the sneaky sort that they were, began to wonder where I was getting my money from so I took a part time job at the Omaha Public Library. It provided enough of an income on a w-2 for my accountant father to see I wasn’t robbing banks to pay the rent and I made enough off the books to keep myself in the lifestyle I had become accustomed too and I banked the rest.

Somewhere down the line I gradually moved over from academic research to more colorful pursuits. Instead of asking me to dig up the particulars on a typical 3rd century Roman legionary camp I was being asked to find out where a football players girlfriend was spending her free time that should have been spent with said football player.

It kind of snowballed from there, soon enough I was getting referrals from people who had heard about me from people who had heard about me. The work was anything but steady, so I kept the part time gig at the Library but it was always interesting and occasionally like the case of the general’s daughter lucrative. Ten grand to find some coked up muffin who had no real training in disappearing was gonna be easy money. Or so I hoped anyway.

Amanda Ryan, had been a bit of a wild girl in the three High Schools she had served in. Her disciplinary record was almost as thick as some people’s medical history. It was probably a mistake for the General to allow his daughter to attend university so far away from home. On base she had always been the General’s daughter and a certain amount of watching over was done as a matter of course all her life. Living on a post 9/11 military base as a teenager was a protective bubble probably nowhere greater. And when the umbilical cord was cut Amanda’s natural tendencies went out of control.

On paper, and with the benefit of hindsight it was a sad thing to piece together. It has started off with missed classes on Monday. Probably a little bit too much partying on the weekend. A significant increase in withdrawals soon followed by several dubious student health visits painted a bleak picture. The Chicago police had arrested the girl on three separate occasion but her age race and gender and the not so subtle presence of dear old daddy got her off with minimal punishment. A good place to start would be to have a little talk to the people who shared the dubious honor of the same charge.

19 year old co-eds did not have known associates they had friends, God help me I was going back to campus.

Chapter 3

“Um…why?” asked the walking blonde stereotype behind the half open dorm room door.

“Because she hasn’t gone to classes or talked to her parents in five weeks,” I replied trying to be the picture of charm and patience.

“Yeah but, why should I care?”

“Because a young girl such as yourself could be in danger, and me and my friend Mr. Franklin are very concerned,” I replied slipping a hundred dollar bill though the crack in the door.

“Why didn’t you just say so in the first place, and what has that little bitch gone and done to herself now?”

“That was rather what I had hoped you could tell me about.”

“The last time I saw her she was balls deep into this black guy while some towny guys were taking bets on how long it would take her to pass out.”

“How becoming, did the black gentleman have a name?”

“Sam called him T-Bone but every other black guy in Chicago is called T-bone so that’s probably no help. I do know that he wasn’t a student because he had to pay full rate to get into the movie. And he had on more jewelry than three of my girlfriends combined.”

“Anything else?”

“Yea uh, he was wearing a hat for the evil empire.”

“He was a Star Wars fan?”

“What, huh, no it was a Starbucks hat. Do you think he might work there?”

***

There are almost a hundred Starbucks in the Chicagoland area quite a few of whom employ young gentlemen from a socioeconomic background that would produce a name like T-Bone. Filtering out by race and likely age and restricting the search to locations close enough to campus that the two could have met and employees with names beginning with T yielded only a dozen likely candidates. Two days of bad leads and broken promises brought me to one Tyler Donovan and his one bedroom apartment in the historic part of Chicago that did not burn down in the great fire and probably should have.

What I did next was not strictly legal and was a good reason I would never get an actual license to do this sort of thing or keep it long if I ever should. The apartment next door was vacant and a quick honorarium to the super’s retirement fund yielded the key. Judging by the bunk, unwashed bloody sheets and tell tale smell of illicit substances this wasn’t the first time said worthy had done a short term rental. The walls in these pre-fire building are hardly worthy of the name and it was the matter of a quick couple of holes drilled and some off the rack radio shack goodness and I knew basically everything that was going on next door.

I didn’t have one of those CIA telescoping video camera’s you see on TV but they were wired for sound. I heard two separate male voices and the occasional unrecognizable female moan from the far side. Several hours of conversation told me enough to risk further investigation. The two male voices referred to my possible target. Such conversational gems as, “wake the white bitch up,” “get that cunt over here and let her earn her keep.” Apparently said girl was taking a vacation day as should could not be woken. Eventually the gentlemen gave up and I heard the clear sound of both of them leaving the room for likelier pleasures.

Now I wish I could say that I picked that lock like a pro but the simple truth is that I have never had the patience to learn that particular skills. Fortunately my old friend the crowbar was good enough to get the job done and a quick application of brute force was enough to jam the door open. Not very subtle but if this wasn’t the right place I would not be around long enough for them to notice and when they did notice I just didn’t care.

She was a little firecracker of a redhead. Used hard and hung up wet she was asleep like a brick on the couch and was only a few scores short of a fatal overdose if she hadn’t got there already. The needle still sticking in her left arm was, I must admit, a bad sign. It was her lucky day however. She both still had a pulse and a father who cared enough to send a part time librarian looking for her.

I carefully removed the needle from her arm and released the tourniquet. I opened her eye lids and her irises were so dilated as to be almost totally black. Her breathing was not steady and I was not at all sure she would stay breathing at all.

“Well, shit.” I said to myself, as no one else was awake to hear me.

***

Twenty minutes later I was barreling west bound and down interstate 80 a still comatose girl in the backseat. I had taken just enough time to gather up the pitifully small positions I had taken to be hers, carefully making sure that all the drugs were removed and flushed down the toilet. The site of a man carrying a girl down three flights of stairs and down four blocks and into the backseat of a car might have been unusual but not enough for me to be stopped by any concerned citizens, probably because they are an endangered species.

It was eight hours to Offutt AFB and I was halfway there somewhere in Iowa when she woke. Not being a heartless bastard, at least on Tuesdays, I pulled off at the nearest gas station where she could start throwing up and reentering the human race. It was sometime before her third hurl and shortly after her first mug of coffee that she asked me who I was. I thought it was a pretty good sign that she did not ask me who SHE was.

“Christopher James Thomas Aloicius Weaver at your service Ma’am” I replied with as much of a bow I could manage while kneeling on concrete and holding her hair out of the toilet.

“And what is a Christopher James whatever whatever? And where is T-Bone?

“I… am knight errant saving the damsel in undress, though the less said about your maidenhood the better. T-Bone or whatever his mother actually named him is probably back in Chicago looking for a new fuck puppet.”

“Where am I?”

“Physically? The men’s room of a interstate truck stop which you may have seen before. Medically about 12-20 hours away from a REALLY bad case of detox. Spiritually I’m not equipped to say… your father sent me.”

“Daddy, my God wha…”

Amanda then began to retch again. I was always amazed in college when I saw girls do this. It just seemed anatomically and physically impossible for them vomit that much. If the CERN boys took a couple dozen hot co-ed’s and put them in a room with a some kegs and cases of vodka they would soon be able to disprove the law of the conservation of energy.

“Your father will know only what I tell him. And I intend to tell him as little as possible. There are some things that fathers with their finger on the button should never have to find out about one of our larger cities. He paid me a lot of money to find you and bring you back to the warm embrace of your family and no matter what you may believe it is a warm embrace. Three Star Generals don’t send people like me unless they care a whole hell of a lot.”

“Then why didn’t he come himself, or was he too BUSY?” she said with the deepest scorn in her voice.

“Save the daddy issues for the moment Amanda, he would have come if he knew where you were but he didn’t. You had after all not answered your phone or been to your dorm room in five weeks.”

“Five weeks, wha…what day is it?”

“Tuesday April 7th , do you need me to tell you the year?”

“April how can it be April, oh my head,” she said as she clutched her skull and likely would have screwed it off her body if she had been able. “T-bone…. He had my stuff, do you have my stuff?”

“If by stuff you mean, your empty purse and pink book bag then yes, if by ‘stuff’ you mean drugs than no, I flushed everything illegal I could find.”

“WHAT! How could you, do you have any idea what that stuff is worth, or what T-bone is gonna do to you when he finds out. And what am I gonna do for a fix?”

“In order, easy just press down the little metal thing, No, I could care less, and methadone at detox clinic in Omaha.”

“Home, I can’t go home.”

“Sure you can, now do you need to make anything come out the other end or are you good?”

“Huh,”

“Never mind, if you wet your panties I’ll just add the car detailing to your fathers bill. Come on we’re burning daylight.”

Chapter 4

We were somewhere past Des Moines on the edge of a cornfield when the drugs began to lose hold. She was in that fortunate if temporary green zone of lucidity between taking the drugs and before the withdrawal kicked in. She had been sleeping in fits and drabs for the last 50 miles or so and now was awake enough to be a pain in my ass.

“You can’t do this, this is kidnapping!”

“That’s a legitimate fear of mine, I won’t lie to you. I was half tempted to leave you in that place and if you had been awake enough at the time I would have and just called your father. But being unconscious and even now you are under what the legal scholars refer to as ‘reduced capacity.’ As your parents representative I could make a case that returning you to their care until you are able to care for yourself is my duty. Now quiet down we will be there in 90 minutes.”

‘Stop here please,” she said as a road sign came into view

“Whatever for?”

“I need to tinkle”

“Nineteen year old girls do not need to tinkle, they need to use the facilities and you had your chance at the last stop, where almost there.”

“I really REALLY need to go.”

“I have a bucket in the backseat.”

“Ewww gross!...pleasssssse”

There is something ingrained in the male mind; some leftover vestigial survival trait to insure the perpetuation of the species. When a female batts her eyes and puts that look on her face there is very little we can do to deny her. This was the reason cave men used to get eaten by the local wildlife and probably explained the whole 20th century. I put on my turn signal and eased on down the road.

“This is only because I need more coffee. Your feminine whiles need a shower.”

“Ewwww gross.”

“My point exactly.”

As I pulled up to the front door I made sure the door was locked, unbuckled my seatbelt and turned to face Amanda. “Look at me now, are you paying attention? So far you haven’t done anything to deny your right to basic human dignity I am willing to let you use a proper bathroom, I will even buy you a coffee and a danish if you’re a good little girl. But if you scream kidnap or rape or any other cry for help I will calmly handcuff you and show any concerned citizens a very real looking badge. As I am in a nice suit with a calm white bread manner and you are in next to nothing and obviously suffering the ill effects of several different pharmacopeia I don’t think too many people will take your side. If you try to run I will catch you. If you even could run more than ten steps without falling down and heaving your guts out. Heading back to mother, father and a first rate medical facility is not the worst of evils. Not all the world will weep for you. Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

***

Fortunately for her, it was a one room ladies with only one entrance and no convenient window to shimmy out of so I was able to allow her a little privacy while I filled up my travel mug. Gas station coffee is never good coffee, but it usually has a high enough level of caffeine and that’s all that matters 20 hours since the last bed time. Amanda finished her business and came to the coffee station to join me. I was pleasantly surprised when she asked me if I needed cream or sugar, but declined, as she added some into her own. We picked up a few donuts that may have been fresh at some point in recent memory but for now would be good enough to counter act the acid from the coffee and I paid for our purchases and we left the station. Opening the door with my car keys and my precious cargo was a bit cumbersome and Amanda extended her hand to take some of the load. After unlocked we both entered my old jeep and she handed me my coffee which I soon half emptied.

It was twenty miles and the rest of the mug later when she told me I had been poisoned.

“With what?” I asked incredulously her daddy may have been the type but I doubt she had access to some obscure esoteric poison at the drop of a hat in an Iowa gas station

“Ecstasy, you should be feeling the effects of it any minute now, you need to pull over and let me out and then get yourself to a hospital when I was in the bathroom I crushed like 30 of them up into powder and dropped it into your coffee. You’re a big guy but you need to get yourself to the hospital. Just let me off here I can walk to the nearest town. “

“Say I don’t believe you,”

“Then you go bat shit crazy and crash the car and I get out and walk to the nearest town. Either way works for me.”

“We’re going 75 miles an hour you crazy bitch if it gets that far we’d probably both die.”

“Then you had better slow down and let me out, you got a cell phone right, I promise to call an ambulance.”

“Where did you get the stuff?”

“The pill case in my book bag, you really didn’t search it very well.”

“Huh, I hope I don’t grow breasts,” I replied with a philosophical tone.

“Wait… what?”

“Give me some credit Amanda I know what ecstasy looks like even if you’re not quite dialed in enough to tell the difference. There was the slimmest chance that you were being supplied the drugs against your will. It’s a favorite for a certain breed of sexual predator. So I set a little trap for you, I replaced the ecstasy pills with some birth control pills I found in that shitholes bathroom. If you didn’t go for the trap I could tell the General that it wasn’t something you could help, being all drugged up in there. And if you did try for it, well…better safe than mommy.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“I am indeed, my mother is quite the thing, now birth control pills are nothing but glorified female hormones which may indeed start me PMSing in a big way thank you very much but won’t drive me any more crazy than the average women. Still and all, you had better buckle up. You know what they say about female drivers.”

“Fucker!” she screamed at me.

“Not until after the shower and some blood tests.”

“Fucker!”

Chapter 5

The general was kind enough to provide a drive on pass for the Base and with only the minimal amount of hassle at the gatehouse I was able to pull up to the white pillared Generals house that could have been a stand in from Gone With the Wind. It was about 2:pm. General Ryan had been called just after I crossed the river and he was still in his class two uniform when I knocked on the door. Mrs. Ryan didn’t even wait for a proper introduction before almost knocking me down in her rush to my car and her waiting child. A few minutes later I was sitting in the Generals study with a nice glass of scotch while mother and daughter were trying to put themselves back together in the upstairs bathroom.

I was feeling magnanimous, the General had brought out the good stuff. A certain type of Johnny Walker that was forbidden to be exported out of Scotland and had probably made the transatlantic passage in an F-16.

“There’s a few things you need to know,” I said after taking my second sip. “and I few things that you don’t ever want to know. For the time being trust my judgment if it turns out you need more you have my number ok?”

“OK,” Ryan replied visibly shaken.

“Point the first, she’s a pretty bad druggie. How it started I can’t say but at the end she was actively seeking it out. She needs to enter a detox clinic soonest.”

“I’ve got brochures on several of them, I’m taking some personal days and I’ll drive her to the best one.”

“Make sure it’s got a decent lab attached to it, threes no easy way to say this but she was used sexually, willingly or unwillingly by multiple men. She will need to be tested for the whole range of STD’s”

That last statement would have broken lesser men, it’s a testament to our nations screening process that he took it on the chin and kept going.

“I assumed as much Mr. Weaver, the Base clinic will begin the tests tonight and I’ll alert her doctors at the detox center. “

“You’re gonna need several kinds of doctors too, I don’t know if it was just the drugs or if the drugs just made it easier but your daughter displayed some sociopathic tendencies. While on the road she attempted to kill me, and likely herself. She thought she was spiking my coffee with an overdose of ecstasy which would have been an interesting experience full speed on the highway.”

“She thought she did, how did you trick her?”

“I switched her stash out with birth control pills.”

“I hope you don’t grow breasts.”

“That’s what I said,” and we both shared a smile at the gallows humor. “I believe it was her prescription that I switched out. If that’s the case…. Well you’ve seen those little pink circles of plastic I’m sure. This one was full, none had been taken yet. Which means if she was as gone for as long as we think she was the effects from her last dose would have been out of her system and she could have been fertile while she was…. Under someone else’s care.”

There was silence for about 30 seconds, I sipped the rest of my scotch as the General digested the last piece of information.

“Thank you Mr. Weaver, one would follow the other, I guessed as much. It will be one more test her doctor will perform tonight. Now I don’t mean to be rude, I’ll always be grateful for what you have done but I should really get upstairs.”

“I understand, good luck, all of you.”

“I’ll have the rest of the money wired to your bank in the morning. And someday, and that day may never come you’ll need a favor from an old Eagle driver. I want you to know that I will be there for you if you need me, as you have been for me.”

“Thank you General, I’ll keep that in mind.”

***

It was three months later, when my life changed forever. I kept plugging away at the Public Library, plugging away at my graduate degree, I did my occasional side jobs but none of them took me out of town and none were very interesting. The Generals wire transfer came in as promised and I dutifully transferred it to my Ameritrade brokerage account where it had been steadily losing value since. Fucking bankers.

I was three days into a stomach bug, but if I kept missing work for a little indigestion my boss would be less than friendly when it came time for me to take my little unplanned vacations. So I manned up and went in for the day and was regretting it heartily by 2 PM. Time was, I could have gotten away with slinking into the backroom for the rest of my shift, but we were 3 people under establishment for our branch, figures that were calculated when we were 20% less busy so every man or in the case of librarians, mostly women, down was not something easily overcome.

I’m not really a Librarian per se, it’s an actual rank, not a job description, the manager was a Librarian II, a department head Librarian III and so on. I was a modest P/T Library Specialist which put me a mere 2 promotions up from the very bottom of the rung. I wasn’t really worried about the bureaucracy of it, as I was making more on my sidelines than the director himself but the title would have been nice. Who after all in the general public had heard of a “library specialist?”

I had just finished dealing with a rather objectionable gentleman who seemed affronted that he would have to pay late fines when after all his tax dollars paid for the library already. If he had better taste in books I might have been willing to give him a waiver but keeping ANY Glen Beck book much less four of them for two months is two months too many. I staggered back into the break room and entered the staff toilet for what was sure to be round five of my daily dump.

I was not disappointed, I let loose with a very satisfying load and was in the process of wiping when the toilet paper came back positively drenched in blood. Which while not being an expert on the subject of gastrointestinal distress was I thought, not a good sign.

“Well… shit” I said to myself still holding the crimson paper.

***

With a face the color of a mime, and with a rather embarrassing…and still growing red stain on the back of my pants it was not difficult to convince my boss that I needed the rest of the day off. More difficult was convincing her I didn’t need an ambulance. I’m self insured, and while hardly cut rate it was not all inclusive, an ambulance ride half a mile to the Methodist Hospital would have cost me 500 bucks I would rather have spent on video games so under the rational that I hadn’t died yet I convinced her to hold off on the meat wagon but not from her driving me herself just to make sure I got their reasonably intact.

I’ve been sick all over the world, and however much you want to trash the American health care system in a genuine emergency they mostly due the right thing. I was admitted and most of the paperwork filled out just in time for me to pass out from the blood loss.

***

Man did that suuuuuuck.

Even now, years later, I remember barely remembering anything but pain. When the world focused back in on itself it was most of a week later and my mother was in the chair next to my hospital bed grading papers.

My mother, oh let me count the ways.

I may have mentioned earlier that I didn’t like Air Force brass. This was because dearest Sharon Weaver was a full bird Colonel when she retired and settled in to teach at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She was a good officer, all of her colleagues told her so, but she just didn’t have the lips to make General. Flag rank required a certain amount of ass kissing that members of my family seem physically incapable of. Growing up till age 16 I got my ass dragged from one end of this godforsaken world to the other. I can never be President, as she had the ill manners to give birth off base while posted to Lakenheath AFB in England. But hey I can’t be King either as the act of settlement bars it from Catholics so I guess I shouldn’t be to bitter.

I guess

It would have been so much easier if she had been a bad mother, an estrogen driven version of the Great Santini, but there was really no one great thing I could hold against her accept serving her country and denying me the whole all American dream picket fence yada-yada. In most every ways she was a kind and caring individual who kissed my scraped knees when I fell and made sure I never wanted for anything all the while keeping the world safe for democracy. If I hadn’t been so by the gods damned stubborn to back down from the after affects of all that teenage angst we would have had a fine relationship.

I guess

“Hey Chris,” she said with a slight smile when she noticed I was awake.

“Hey mom, … say, what are the chances of a mocha latte or something with enough caffeine to drown my sorrows. I feel like shit.”

“Language! Christopher.”

“Ma, I’m 24 years old, I’m allowed to say shit when I’ve got machines attached to me that I don’t even know what they do. It’s in the Constitution somewhere I promise.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I need a cup of coffee if I don’t get it soon I’m gonna start pressing charges for interfering with my civil rights.”

“I’ll get the doctor, doctors. They need to talk to you, and there are some things we need to discuss.”

“Allright, “I replied now getting slightly worried. The last time she had given me that look was when she thought I was gay, I wasn’t, I just was more interested in reading my books than getting involved in all the sexual drama. What can I say, librarians are born not made.

She returned about ten minutes later with a group of people in white coats. The oldest and most distinguished looking one was the first to speak.

“Well Chris, I’m Doctor Reed and first off I want to say that we have fixed the immediate problem and barring some unforeseen circumstance you will live a long and healthy life. When we were digging around inside however we found out that you are a very interesting young…person.”

The slight hesitation he put on the world I hoped he would say was man sounded ominous

I was right.

***

“It was quickly obvious that the discharge was a result of internal bleeding and the blood was flowing out the nearest convenient orifice. In a way you were lucky the pressure was enough to burst though to the intestinal tract and create bloody stool. Or else you likely would have died of blood poisoning before we knew any different. The first tear was easy enough to locate and repair the issue arose when we determined the source of the blood. Chris there may be easier ways to break this to a young man but in my thirty years practicing medicine I have never had to do it so I’m just going to lay it out on the line. We determined that the discharge was the used lining from your reproductive tract. It was menstrual blood,” finished Doctor Reed as if he was pronouncing a death sentence. Which in a very real sense he was.

“Menstrual blood? I may have not spent 8 years in medical school but in 6th grade they taught me that only girls menstruate.”

“That is correct, Chris, menstruation is the result of a healthy female reproductive system. “

“Has it failed to come to the attention of your medical minds that I have a penis doctor?”

“Yes Chris, we noticed, the fact of the matter is that you are what used to be called a hermaphrodite and what we now usually refer to as inter-sexed, an individual with both male and female characteristics. We had trouble finding your records until your mother was able to supply us with the original case notes from England. We have a different standard of care now than we did back in the 80’s at the time though you presented as mostly male so the decision was to raise you as a boy.”

He let that lie for a moment, and I let him. It’s not every day that you are told your whole life has been a lie.

“Mother,” I said my voice slightly raised. “You got some splainin to do!”

Chapter 6

“I’m sorry Chris, we only did what we and the doctors thought was best for you. When you were born you had a penis and a va…vagina. But they said that it was only partially formed and that it was much more likely for your healthy development that you were male. They sewed up the opening when you were 6 months old and we watched, when you got though puberty we thought we were proven right.

“I’m 24, puberty should have happened half my lifetime ago. Why the hell am I having my first period now?”

A large African American in a lab coat stepped forward. “Chris I’m doctor Niles an endocrinologist. Hormones and what not,” he explained with a smile. “As near as we can tell your testes and ovaries were both somewhat underdeveloped and in competition with one another. I’m quite at a loss as to how this has not been noticed before. Likely as a result of your constantly on the move as a child, no one pediatrician or general practitioner saw you for long enough to detect a trend. And we can’t seem to find any medical records for you at all over the last 8 years. “

“Probably because I don’t have any, anything that couldn’t be covered by student health I just went to a doc in the box for a shot of antibiotics. There wasn’t much opportunity for anyone to inspect my wedding tackle.”

“Yes, but surely you should have noticed your own development. Your penis is , um, rather small.”

“It may surprise you to know Doctor but I haven’t had much opportunity to inspect other men’s junk to compare sizes. I knew I wasn’t going to be a porn star but I didn’t think it was really that out of line, sex never held much interest for me anyway.”

“That’s likely a result of the hormones, or lack thereof, tell me when was the last time you had an erection?”

“Doctor,” I said with as much scolding in my voice as I could manage. “Doctor leaving aside that there are a bunch of strangers privy to this discussion I hope you will have noticed that my mother is in the room.”

“Yes of course, Doctor Reed, I think we can dispense with the gaggle of medical students for now.”

“I’d like to stay if I may Chris?” My mother asked with as much curtsey as she could manage. I gave her a nod and she resumed her seat at the side of my bed.

“To answer your question Doctor, I can’t really recall, I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. “ I answered.

“When was the last time you engaged in intercourse then?”

“Hmmm umm,” I grunted. “I’ll thank you sir not to spread this sort of thing around but I have not yet had the pleasure.”

“Chris was never very interested in girls…or boys for that matter.”

“Yes, thank you mother that will be enough.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Doctor Niles said with a soothing smile. “It’s nice to see a young person not risking their health willy nilly. Have you ever managed to ejaculate?”

“Of course!”

“When was the last time you masturbated then, and how often would you say you do?”

“I don’t know every once in a while, not like back when I was 14 though I used to do it once or twice a month then.”

“Chris, I know 14 year old boys who think that once or twice an HOUR is normal.”

“Look so I’m not a sexual stallion, thank you very much for the ego boost but what say we just cut though all the bullshit and get to the news you were really wanting to tell me.”

“Well,” said Doctor Reed. “I guess that’s where I renter the conversation. While your male organs are under developed and underutilized it would appear that your female ones are intact and something has caused them to mature. Though were still not sure what it was that has caused this.”

“A few months back, I was accidently dosed with about a months supply of birth control pills, a girl was trying to poison me. “

“A girl?” My mother asked. “What girl.”

“No one you would approve of, I’m quite sure.” I answered her.

“A full month you say, “Doctor Reed continued. “Yes that might do it, the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak that kick started the ovaries into maturity. I’m of the opinions that you have actually been going through a mild cycle for years and it was just reabsorbed into your body. But the most recent round what caused your bloody stool.”

“Well why not just yank em out, a hysterectomy or whatever you call removing the ovaries. Or have you done that already.”

“We have not, though that remains an option once you have made an informed decision. I never like making a patient sterile without giving them the option first.”

“Sterile?” I asked

“Yes Chris, we’ve been taking samples and poking around since you came in last week. And while you have stated that you can infrequently function sexually as a male. A sample of your seminal fluid did not yield any sperm whatsoever. Your testicles are functioning only intermittently at producing testosterone and not at all in its primary function. Indeed I’m worried that they have atrophied enough to become cancerous and we may need to operate to remove them. It’s not at all, unusual in intersexed individuals to be totally sterile. For you though that is not the case. Both ovaries are intact and we harvested about a dozen ovum for testing and they were viable. Under the emergency conditions we removed the obstruction that caused your rupture. In this case undoing the work done when you were a toddler. Once clear we found underneath a reasonably intact vaginal canal, a cervix, a womb and I believe that you could conceive and bear a child to term if you were so inclined. Though before that I would recommend corrective surgery similar to the sexual reassignment surgery Male to female transsexuals undergo.

“Doctor, are you saying you gave me a vagina? What about my penis and my balls?”

“Not exactly, you currently have an opening, a vaginal canal to provide an avenue for the womb lining to be removed during your cycle. You wouldn’t have a real vagina until we surgically create one. Manufacture a clitoris and labia and the rest; currently the hole, so to speak is just south of your scrotum which is still there. And your penis which is also present though I have to say is never likely to be more than convenient way to discharge urine.”

“So what you’re saying is I have to decide whether I want to go all the way and become a woman or stay half a real man?”

“Chris, this is obviously a complicated state of affairs, the emergent situation has passed and you will have some time and the help of psychologists to decide what your course of action should be. But medically you have it reversed. You have to decide whether to become a man or remain a woman. Your female system is intact and maturing, your male is not. And while the technology was not readily available back in the 80’s its somewhat simpler now. A chromosome scan was done a few days ago and came back with unambiguous results. Your 23rd chromosome is XX not XY. Medically and even legally speaking you are a female, and always have been.

***

Understandably, I wanted to be alone after that. I banished the doctors from my room and sent my lady mother on a quest to find some coffee that wouldn’t kill me. I had some thinking drinking to do and I needed to get my synapses firing. I didn’t have a convenient mirror to look at my appearance but I knew my body well enough to do a mental inventory. I was never the model of masculine virility. There were no hard edges, no bulging muscles. I had always assumed that was more a result of carrying thirty pounds more than I should be and never exercising longer than it took to walk from my car to my apartment. I never had much body hair, and it made a whole lot more sense now the reason why I never had to shave my face more than once a week or so.

I brought my hand to my neck and felt my windpipe but not anything that could really be called an Adams apple. My hair was short, the same style I had worn for almost 20m years. Short but thick. I had seven male cousins and I was the only one that still had a full head of hair, some of them had started loosing to their foreheads as early as 18 and I was always pleased that I was the only one never to succumb to male pattern baldness and now I knew why.

What the hell was I going to do, I had never been a great success as a man, but had no guarantee I would set the world on fire as a paid up member of the fairer sex. I tried to imagine what I would look like, if I went the whole way. Gradually my body would feminize but I had the sneaking suspicion that chromosome XX or no I would never look like anything else but a dude in a dress.

“I’m sorry Chris,” my mother said as she reentered the room baring a Scooters cup.

“You’ve said that before,” I answered deadpan.

“And I’ll say it again, we thought we were doing the right thing, your father and I. We already had a daughter and the doctors said you were more male than female. The only issue would be at puberty and while you were… androgynous, you seemed a healthy enough boy so we saw no reason to add to the usual teenage drama.”

“That may have been well enough a decade ago but I stopped being a child some time now, I’m sure there was a memo.”

“Look at it from our point of view Chris, please.”

“I know what it looked like from your point of view, still and all I would have liked to have known. It would have made high school a whole lot easier.”

“What do you intend to do Chris? The doctors say your producing a normal amount of female hormones now, without enough testosterone to counteract it. Unless you remove those organs you will gradually feminize. On the other hand, you can hardly function as a male… Chris, why did you never tell me, it wasn’t normal for young man to be a monk.”

“It’s not the sort of thing a young man speaks to his mother about, as long as I wasn’t knocking up some girl or getting AIDS I imagined you were happy.”

“Oh Chris, I wanted YOU to be happy.”

“Noted,” I replied bitterly.

***

I let the medicos poke and prod me for another two days, took a metric ton of paperwork and informational brochures and pulled the plug on my hospital stay. Things were still pretty rough and unready ‘down there’ but there was only so much that could done before I was ready to decide which way to go. And I was nowhere near ready enough to make that decision. I retreated to my apartment in midtown and hobbited up for the next 5 days. I did what I do best, research. Friend, let me tell you there is some sick and twisted stuff out there on this internet of ours. And even the more mundane and respected databases left me confused and alarmed. With the benefit of hindsight I know I went a little crazy. And I soon decided that I needed a little space between myself and all my worries.

My good, and pretty much only friend is Richard Caniglia, we had met freshman year in the dorms had some of the same classes and I had made the mistake of keeping a well stocked fridge and pantry and he never seemed to move out. He was a real moocher, but I was pleased enough to have at least some company that I didn’t mind. He’d moved on, got married, a house, a job with the public schools the whole deal but we still tended to hang out one or two times a week. I told him everything… sometimes he can be a real dick.

“Can I see it?” Rick asked curiously.

“Only if you buy me dinner first, “I replied with as much levity as I could manage. “And besides you bought the cow, you can see a real one any time you want to at home.”

“Yea but I’ve seen that one before; I mean, you’re really a girl?”

“Half a girl, maybe three quarters depending upon where you stand. Anyway that’s something I have to all sort out. I’m leaving town for a bit. Need to get some perspective on this whole thing.”

“I bet.”

“Here a thousand bucks,” I said handing over an envelope. “And my apartment key. I’m paid up till the 31st and I’ve stopped next month’s rent. Take anything you want to your house I know you been making eyes at my sound system. The rest, hire two men and a truck to move it out to a storage locker somewhere and if I’m not back before the money runs out send me an email and I’ll wire some more.”

“It sounds like you plan on being gone a while,” said Rick concern in his voice for one of the first times I had ever known him.

“And I may never come back, least not as you knew me. From all I’ve read this “transition” takes some time and I just can’t stand the idea of being some halfway between freak that people will point and stare at. Particularly around people that know me. If I decide to go all the way the process is gonna be done away from people that I need to respect me later in life.”

“Yeah, I can kind of see that… I’d still respect you Chris. You know that right, a man, er… a friend of mine shouldn’t have to go through something like this on their own. You want to pull a disappearing act until your finished cooking your more than welcome to do it at my place. We got two extra bedrooms youd have your own bathroom we could play X-Box to the wee hours of the morning, watch all the movies my wife never likes to watch. I know Annie would get a real kick out of teaching you how to be a girl.

“Thanks man, I mean that. But no I would feel just as embarrassed in front of you, you know me better than my own parents. And besides remember that last time that we lived together?”

“Oh come on Chris, I said I was sorry like ten times!”

“And yet, I still have not received your half of the damage deposit.”

***

I’ve got me an android, one of those five hundred dollar phones you can get for $29 as long as you sign a three year contract and your first born child away. I like it a lot, it’s got a qwerty keyboard and full internet access and is linked to my email. I prepared a short message and addressed it to everyone in my address book. Friends, family, coworkers people who I’d done the occasional job for. I laid everything out on the line, and finished with.

“Gone west, if I’m not back in two years it’s because I’m dead or not coming back.”

C.J.T.A. Weaver

Chapter 7

Go west young man, westward into the setting sun, the land of promise and possibility to make your fortune. Interstate 80 is like the main circuit cable of the State of Nebraska. About 90% of the population lives within 20 miles of that highway, from Omaha on one end to Ogallala on the other. Following the route of the Union Pacific Railroad which followed the route the old fur traders use to take on the Platte River. It’s just about the most uninteresting drive God has seen fit to place on his Earth. Before central pivot irrigation and the deep wells into the groundwater this had been called the Great American Desert now it was green crops for as far as the eye could see. I’d been born in England, lived there, Japan, Germany, Texas, California back to England, back to California and finally ending up in Nebraska where my Mother arraigned terminal leave so she could settle where her extended family was. Nebraska is a fine state; don’t let anyone tell you different. And if you see a Big 12 referee please shoot him for me and I’ll make sure you’re suitably rewarded, just as you will be in heaven.

A flat state though, can’t deny it, not very good terrain for introspection. I missed the mountains, and trees as far as the eye could see. Only trees in Nebraska were the ones the settlers planted themselves. We even made an entire holiday to celebrate it, Arbor Day. I had found a likely opportunity going through old real estate records. Farming has always been a boom or bust business often both at the same time. And there’s not one of them from the mythical family farmer all the way up to the agricultural giants that don’t live on loans until harvest comes. Sometimes harvests aren’t good, Sometimes harvests aren’t good and the banks aren’t giving free credit like they used too.

Fucking banks

Farmer Brown, No shit, of Lexington Nebraska was holding on, while several of his neighbors were not. But he had been trying to sell his hunting cabin for going on 4 years now and he had finally pulled the listing sometime after his real estate agent had sent him his last bill for her 30th “viewing” which again had not resulted in a sale. I’m worth about $70,000 on paper and half again that my uncle Samuel doesn’t know about. A fine meal, fifty grand in cash and a handshake later I held the deed to a nice little three room cabin in the mountains northeast of Steamboat Springs Colorado.

Steamboat springs was a resort town, if not quite as famous as Vail or Aspen. Off season population was less than 10,000. My place was three miles from the nearest paved road four thousand feet above the town and nowhere near a ski slope which probably explained why in a depressed real estate market it was not selling. It had a well, a pump, a septic system, gas and electricity. And dear farmer Brown had even built a small wind turbine and solar generator. Probably more for the tax write off than anything else. Farmers were more than pleased to take free federal money to go green.

I intended to winter there… It wasn’t a good idea.

I maybe didn’t care at that point.

The maintenance records were meticulous, and showed a constant battle every spring to make the place livable after the winter which no one had tried to live though since great grand farmer Brown had built the place in the 30’s. The cabin was connected to the power grid of the town by I kid you not, old school wire stapled to the pine trees heading down the mountain to the nearest switch. Every year like clockwork there would be at least one break in the wire and sometimes several. Digging and laying underground cable was never easy in this part of the world and doing so would have cost about what I paid for the whole place. A few trips into town and I was the proud owner of several more solar panels and two more twenty foot tall wind turbines. The screwball was I also had to rig up about 10 yacht batteries and a monster inverter to store the electricity when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing and to live off of when mother nature was not obliging. If my figures were correct I should be just fine running most everything electrical I had for up to 70 hours of no sun or wind. And if nature was so un-obliging it probably meant the world was about to end and I needn’t worry about it anyway.

What I was worried about was the water system. The pump was fine and had a good head of groundwater, certainly more than one man could ever exhaust and while I had heard stories about longer showers and such I was pretty sure it was good enough for one woman too. The trouble was the maintenance logs were very clear, the pipes had all been winterized before leaving for the season. They had always been emptied out while no one was there because if the water in the pipes would freeze, and it god damn cold in them thar hills, then the expanding ice would burst the pipes. A couple of pallets of bottled water and a rig to purify snowmelt would make sure I wouldn’t die of thirst till the thaw. But it would be a pain in the ass, particularly as it meant NO hot shower. I eventually rigged up an old mountain man expedient in that eventuality but it wasn’t going to win any awards from better homes and gardens.

The reason the western slope of the Rockies is where all the cherry ski resorts are is because the weather patterns of warm wet air dumped literally feet of snow on the ground when it hit those tall cold mountains. So much so, that the eastern slope of the Rockies is STILL a big damn Great American Desert. Most of the moisture is trapped before it can get over the hump. I had no illusions that after the first big storm I would be able to take my Jeep, four wheel drive though it is past the unpaved road and down the mountain to civilization. First snow, and that was IT for maybe five months.

I kind of liked the idea, idiot that I was.

The septic system I could probably be fine with, it was dug deep enough, and if it did foul up, pun intended, the old outhouse was still there and could fulfill its purpose the pit still had a good 10 feet before it would need to be re-dug. I didn’t relish the idea of freezing my new privates off if it should ever come to that so I purchased a chemical toilet and accessories from a camping store. It would be a hell of a trash run come spring if it came to that, but at least my ass was covered three ways from Sunday, pun also intended.

High speed internet would be presuming too much upon a merciful creator but a satellite hookup and a truly outrageous monthly subscription made sure I would not suffer too much web withdrawal. I wasn’t going to be downloading too many large files but I could still get streaming video with Netflix and Hulu so I knew I wouldn’t get too much cabin fever.

Cooking and hot water was a propane system with a big gotta love masculine overcompensation 1,000 gallon tank outside that I made sure was topped off. I had a wood burning fireplace as well as a Dutch oven and Franklin stove if temperatures ever got really nasty. What I didn’t have was a decent supply of firewood. The previous owners had never really bothered with it for several years and having been a Boy Scout, I believed in being prepared. Don’t laugh, I know it’s funny. Boy Scout.

So I began chopping firewood old school, axe, saw, axe, sharpening stone, repeat as needed. I started on my woodpile mid August, I was still working on it when the first snow hit sometime in October. I wasn’t quite sure of the date really, I’d kind of gone a little bughouse nuts at that point. It was just nice to not have to think. Swing, stack wood, carry wood, swing, stack and so on. My “first” period or at least the first I was awake for happened a week into it, and that just kind of reinforced my obsession with ignoring everything but the woodpile. I had laid in provisions since I knew it was coming and had inserted both a tampon and a maxi pad being a belt and suspenders man. But I soon had to rely only on the tampon though and live with the occasional spotting as the geography down there wasn’t really suited toward my bits surplus to requirements.

The flush of new hormones probably didn’t help my sanity, I’m sure if I had been back home and seeing the head shrinkers and actual doctors on a regular basis they could have helped me through it much better than my own pigheaded stubbornness. But that’s what a rational mind would say and I wasn’t really there if you get my meaning. The trees were there though, so I kept chopping, and stacking. When I was hungry I ate, when I was thirsty I drank. When I needed to go to the bathroom I would, and every time I did I was faced with my situation and would tear off back into the forest to forget.

I shed weight like it was water from a spring. I’d always been a bit padded, so I could stand to lose it. The combination of physical exercise and lack of appetite and access to fast foods was quite the diet regime. If I could convince California housewives to go off the deep end like I did and market it sufficiently I’m sure my fortune would have been made. I developed some muscles, more than I had ever really had, but despite that I wasn’t getting hard bodied. I was getting softer, day by day no matter how hard I fought it I was losing that last bit of manhood I could claim.

Chapter 8

First week of November I think is when I hung up the axe for good and started spending most of the waking hours indoors. It was getting cold, and my skin was thinner, I couldn’t take it as well as I used too. I started reading, back to my old friends books. A couple of stacks later it was around December 1st when I ran out of books I hadn’t read yet. I guess without anything else to distract me I had underestimated how fast I would go though them. I went back to the well, and started to reread some of my old favorites I’d dragged with me from the apartment book of Space Opera and High Fantasy. While I was doing it though, I began subconsciously thinking about the stories from the female protagonist’s point of view. It was as if my old friends had suddenly changed on me when I started looking at the distaff side of things. Quite frankly some of those Sci-Fi writers are hard core sexist bastards.

I used to like that about them.

Irony huh.

I’d had aches and pains on a more or less constant basis since this all began. I wasn’t really cut out for the frontiersman’s life when it started and the physical exertion paid its toll on my body. I welcomed it as it made the oblivion of sleep easier. My chest was particularly aching during all the chopping and lifting. It was a few weeks after the sedentary lifestyle began indoors and the aches had not gone away that I realized my breasts had started growing. It was difficult to tell really, being a bit overweight to start with I had been carrying around some slight “manboobs” for many years. As I lost weight however my belly got tighter but the excess fat of my chest didn’t go away with it.

They also began to itch like hell, particularly the nipples. One particularly painful day I even noticed that the left one had started bleeding, which I took as a bad sign. My first aide training came in a bit useful and I bandaged them both up and that seemed to help a bit, along with wearing only the softest of shirts. I should have purchased some training bra’s when I was getting ready for winter but I wouldn’t have known where to begin even if I had had the courage or foresight to do so. It’s not the sort of thing well brought up young men are taught by their mothers. It was at that point I kind of wished she was with me. I’d isolated myself just about as well as a fella could but it was still the 21t century. There was a major tourist trap only a few miles away and when I checked I had two bars on my cell phone and about 300 unheard messages.

I called my mommy.

***

“Hi mom, it’s Chris,” I said shocked at the sound of my own voice. It had been a very long time since I had heard that sound and it was probably my imagination but it seemed higher in tone that what I remembered. I’d never been a basso-profundo but it surely hadn’t been that squeaky.

“Hello Chris,” my mother answered after some hesitation. “Are you well?”

“Well enough,” I lied just to keep the conversation going. “I’ve been doing some thinking last little while.”

“I’m sure you have, where are you? You seem to have fallen completely off the grid, your father and I have been searching since you left and we couldn’t find a trace of you anywhere, we thought… we thought you might have gone and done something foolish.”

“I wasn’t about to go kill myself mother, then or now, there are still too many good books to read out there.”

“Well, thank the Lord for that.”

“I didn’t want to be found, I’ve been using cash and a few extra legal tricks I just needed some time alone.”

“Well, you’ve certainly had that,” my mother replied with the tone in her voice I have come to know and not love. “When are you coming home, our house is always your home you know, I found out that you gave up your apartment.”

“Not for a few months yet, I’m kind of cut off from civilization till the thaw.”

“I can send a helicopter for you anywhere in the world Chris, I still have friends in low places.”

“Ha!” I laughed much as I might have wished to stop myself. “I just bet you do. But I’m not ready to leave just yet.”

“When WILL you be ready?”

“When the time is right, when it’s all done, my…my breasts have begun to bud, I had to put bandages over my nipples to prevent them from being torn to shreds.”

“Oh Chris… please tell me where you are, If you won’t come home I’ll come to you. A mother should be with her daughter when this happens.”

“Is that what I am then? Your daughter?

“You’re my child, and I love you, no matter what you choose to be, but you shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

“I’ve made my decision, I just, I was just hoping you had some advice… about the irritated nipples I mean.”

“Well, if you were anywhere near civilization I would recommend you buy some creams or ointments but something tells me that you are not.”

“No.”

“And you probably did some damn fool male thing like not buy a proper bra.”

“Yes,”

“Well, then until you can solve one or both those problems just make sure to wear the softest clothing you can and reduce as much as possible any friction. Take some Advil for the pain if needed and make sure that you keep everything clean. An infection could be very dangerous under the circumstances.”

“I’m aware, and I’m doing that.”

“I won’t repeat myself and ask questions you won’t answer, I will however reiterate that we love you and it’s safe to come home. Your father is not home at the moment but I’m sure he would like to speak to you as well. And you sister down in Texas is the same. Can you call their cell phones, do you know the numbers.”

“Yes, and yes.”

“I’m glad we’re talking again Chris, we’ll get though this I promise.”

“I know…one way or another. If it’s all right can I just, just listen to you for a while. It’s been a while since I’ve heard another human voice. Could you just… talk for a bit about how things of been. Carefully editing out my lack of maternal concern of course.”

“Of course Chris, Well,…”

Chapter 9

It was an incident a few days later that was the tipping point in my mental health. It was sometime round o’dark early when the pressure in my bladder had forced me awake and out of the comfortably warm cocoon of my bed to relieve myself. I staggered up to the toilet bowl and attempted to do what had been second nature for several decades and relieve myself standing up. The trouble was in my sleep addled brain I was having a hard time with fine motor control and before I knew exactly what was happening I was letting go without my hand being able to take proper “aim.” Once started, it was impossible to stop, and I ended up dripping and splashing all over my bathroom and soaked my sleep pants.

I fell down on the cold hard tile floor of that bathroom in a pool of my own urine and started to cry. To weep like I hadn’t done since I was five years old and my big sister had told me that Santa Claus wasn’t going to be able to find us in Okinawa as the Japanese didn’t believe in Christmas. Everything just came crashing down on me, and I cried so much that a few minutes later my top was so wet from my tear stains that it was rivaling my bottom in dampness.

My penis had never been large, even when erect and raring to go. It had been months since that had last happened and now it was mostly the head and less than in inch in length. So shrunken that when it came time for me to urinate it had got caught in the folds of useless erectile tissue and started spewing all over the place. It had been months since I had felt anything like pleasure from that part of my body right now All I wanted to do was have it over and done with. I had heard stories of the cathartic power of a good cry from several of my female acquaintances. And now I understood exactly what they meant.

I was never going to be a man.

I’d run and hid from my problems like a scared little kid. But even if I had stayed and fought all the research I had done was conclusive. There was very little that could be done to make me a “real” man. And while I was positively terrified of seeing thing to its proper conclusion and embracing my femininity it was fear of the unknown more than anything that was holding me back.

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.

I completely undressed from my soiled cloths, used a towel to clean up as much as possible bundled the whole lot up and dumped it in the cabins primitive washing machine with three times as much detergent as was strictly necessary just so that I could be sure the end result was clean. It was cold in this part of the cabin and as I walked back to the bathroom my nipples were extended as far as I had ever seen them. I could feel twin centers of stiffness and it was slightly pleasurable and I was oddly pleased with that.

I stepped into the shower and turned up the heat as much as I could tolerate. The hot water tank was only 50 gallons and before I was all done I had used all of it. When the water coming out was starting to chill rather than warm I turned off the tap and stepped out into the world again. The bathroom was like a Turkish bathhouse, the cold ambient temperature of the cabin combined with all the hot water had created a very thick atmosphere of steam. I placed my hand on the fogged over mirror and wiped clear and small section so that I could take a good look at myself. I looked at my face for a long while, from the neck up, taken objectively it could be a man or a woman, except for one or two things. I couldn’t remember when the last time I had shaved. It hadn’t really been necessary for some time but I could see that there was indeed a few hairs sprouting here and there.

I lathered up and dug my razorblade out of archives and I took my time about it, slow and steady and removed all the hairs from my face. It might have been my imagination, or simply that I was out of practice and causing more damage that in times past but my skin seemed unusually sensitive. When I was done I rubbed my hand over and was indeed smooth as a baby’s behind. I tried to imagine what that freshly shaved face would look like with some lipstick and makeup. And the mental image was not unflattering, but of course mental pictures always were.

I rubbed some more fog from the mirror and looked south. My breasts were not anything to write home about yet, while no expert on the subject of course, I doubted they were even an A cup and no doubt there were 12 year old girls who could look down their noses at me. The shape of things to come was clearly there though, marring the picture were the scattered chest hairs that I had somehow managed to grow. It would be one thing if I had a flat chest then they would look at home on my body but the dark hairs right next and even on my developing breasts seemed fundamentally wrong. I had used barely any of my six months supply of shaving cream at that point, but I put a dent into it that night.

I shaved my chest, when that was done I did my best on my back though I hardly found much back there to take care of. Once committed to dilapidation, I didn’t believe in half measures so I shaved my arms. I had no idea if real girls shaved their arms or if the body hair was fine enough not to be noticed but I did mine anyway. With slow steady motions I covered almost every square inch of my body in cream and went about removing hair until the first rays of sunlight were passing through the windows when I had just finished with my legs and feet,

At this point the heat from my scalding shower had long since worn off and I was freezing, it might have been my imagination but freshly shorn of what fur I had it seemed the effect of the cold air was amplified. I padded over to the fire dumped another few logs on the hot coals and started to dress in my now quite loose cloths. Even with sweats and underwear on I was stile freezing I jumped back into my bed under three layers of covers and sought the warm embrace of sleep.

***

I awoke around midday, in my tossing and turning my sweatpants had fallen and were bunched up halfway down my legs, my waist wasn’t what it once was and did not hold up very well any garment that did not have a belt I could tighten. I kicked the pants the rest of the way off and rubbed my now smooth legs together. It was novel and pleasurable experience and it made me feel the first stirrings of happiness I had felt for some time. I sat up in bed and in the full light of day inspected my handiwork. I had butchered myself a bit it must be admitted. There were several scratches and coagulated blood and razor burn over vast swaths of my body but the final objective was met. If I was going to make a habit of it I knew I would probably need to buy a woman’s razor along with the usual assortment of lotions and moisturizers.

I pulled on some jeans, and a fleece jacket and walked to the second bedroom/ office where my desktop computer was set up. I had barely turned it on since I came to the cabin, this despite that outrageous monthly fee for the internet hookup. It was primarily a window to the outside word and I had subconsciously avoided it for just that reason. I turned it on, and it may have been my imagination but I thought I heard a purr of gratitude when the Dell booted up. I dipped my toes in the water by getting a snapshot at my financial situation. I had few bills to pay, and most of those were automatically taken care of electronically. There were a few though that I was several months behind in and I sorted that out right away.

I was pleasantly surprised that my small portfolio had actually gone UP 11% since I last saw it. I wasn’t gonna be able to live without working ever again but my window of opportunity while I recovered was a little bigger now and that emboldened me to go forward. I had dropped out of my graduate classes before leaving town but it was coming up on spring semester starting second week in January. UNO had a great distance education plan and while I still had power and my little dish I would be able to attend classes online. I signed up for 4 classes in the Spring it would be nice to have a little distraction, from my distraction.

I got quite a surprise when I logged into my medical insurance website. My bill from my hospital stay in August had been vast, and I, not wanting to dilute my capital had arraigned a payment plan over the next 12 months. I checked to make sure that everything was running smoothing when I saw that I was at a zero balance. After some investigation I found out that the insurance company had been sending paper statements as well as email and one had been forwarded to my parent’s house when I had stopped the mail at my apartment. My father, violating several federal laws I’m sure had simply paid the full amount when he found out.

My father was a certified public accountant, or chartered accountant depending upon which continent he was on at the time. And was well respected as an adversary by both Inland Revenue and the IRS. He was VERY minor aristocracy the second son of a long line of second sons the original ancestor was a duke with a dreary county seat somewhere in the wilds of Devonshire. But half of Burke’s Peerage would have to be knocked off before I saw a title, more than that rather, as I now could no longer take advantage of male preference primogeniture. My grandparents had squeezed enough out of their own means to send him to Eton but I believe they were secretly pleased when he went on to Sandhurst and the remainder of his upkeep and education would be supplied by Her Majesties Government. My parents had both met when they were on staff to separate generals at NATO headquarters in Belgium.

They had courted, married and spent only the next six months of their first 4 years of married life on the same continent. Somewhere in their they managed to have my sister and acquire enough seniority to be posted to the same general area of East Anglia just in time for me to come round. My first five years were spent in England and I can still put on a very convincing accent when I have the mind. Then my mother was ordered by SAC to take charge of a K-135 Squadron in Okinawa where the British had no interests my father could pull strings to be posted too. The Cold War was winding down at the point and the Ministry of Defense was more than willing to accept his early retirement. He put in his papers signed up for several continuing education classes and was quite pleased by all appearances to be an Air force wife.

Having been an accountant for the Royal Army with millions of pounds under his care to keep out of the sticky fingers of soldiers who considered it a moral right to pilfer as much as possible, he was able to make use of his experience and transfer to the civilian side of things rather easily. He built up a substantial if somewhat scattered practice of clients all over the world, Air Force personnel and their families who may be posted in a dozen different countries and have official residence in any of the 50 states. I’ll never understand much more than the basics but he was and remains to this day a wizard with managing tax avoidance, not tax evasion, which every true American considered his god given right, military personnel or no. Since mom pulled the trigger on her own retirement and settled in Omaha he had got an office and staff and gradually expanded to cover a not insignificant market share while still servicing his long term clients all over the world via email and teleconference. It was almost all done electronically these days. Very little actually paperwork was involved and as long as William Weaver had a laptop and a net connection he was good to make money anytime anywhere.

Which didn’t mean that I was willing to take it.

I used one of my hidden accounts and transferred in the whole amount of my bill to his public one. I had the account and routing numbers memorized after long years of sending him monthly payments. A small matter of having to pay him back for a wrecked car, that was really NOT MY FAULT AT ALL. Now that were talking again on a regular basis I’m sure I would get an earful about this but he had no idea where he could send the money back to so he would have to lump it.

Next I took the big step.

After a quick phone call to Doctor Reed and some studious searching of medical articles I settled upon one Doctor Thomas Millard in Denver. After some haggling with his gatekeeper secretary I was finally able to get said worthy on the phone.

“Good afternoon Doctor Millard,” I said with as much false cheerfulness as I could manage. “I’m Chris Weaver, I’m so pleased to be able to finally talk to you.”

“Well Hello, Miss Weaver, or is it Miss Weaver my secretary neglected to inform me of the particulars and I’m sure you aware due to the nature of my practice that it’s never safe to assume. It’s one of the reasons I always like to do my first consultations in person rather than over the phone. I’m impressed you managed to convince that old dragon to put you through.”

“I have my little ways, and that’s rather what I was contacting you about. I was referred to you by Doctor Reed in Omaha. As far as a face to face consultation if you have a webcam on your end I can fire mine up for a nice chat?”

“I do have some such device; my son made sure that I had all the latest features when he came back from college it will be somewhat of a miracle though if I can remember how to turn it on.”

“I can walk you through it if you need help, really they make it as doctor proof as possible, do you have MSN on that box?”

“I think I do, let me poke around…” Dr Millard and I spent the next five minutes back and forth setting him up and when it was completed I felt we both gave a sigh of relief, and that my own good deed for the day was done.

“I promise Dr. It will be much easier the second time.”

“Most things are,” the distinguished Doctor said with a chuckle as he looked at his own screen. “Now young…Chris, suppose you tell me a bit about yourself and how you came to your situation.”

“Well, I’m a genetic female intersexed, with partially functioning male genitalia. The decision was made after I was born to raise me as a boy but things rather came out into the open so to speak when I began my period back in August. I wish to undertake corrective surgery to… make me more resemble a normal female.”

“You don’t sound so sure of that”

“Because I am not, but I’ve been thinking on it for almost half a year and it’s the decision I have come too. The alternatives are not really appealing; I’m told I can never really function as a man and certainly never father children whereas they seem to think I have a fair shot at conceiving.”

“If you are undergoing a cycle there’s a chance of that yes, though we’ll probably need to root around and create the necessary fixtures first.”

“Quite, I’m sending you a rather large file. I’ve digitized all of my medical records going back to the beginning. I’m sure it will make interesting reading. I am in a remote location currently which necessitated this video conference but I should be available for the operation sometime in April.”

“You may be available, Miss Weaver, but you won’t be ready. This is the rest of your life we are talking about after all. If I performed a major operation on you with nothing but some paperwork and seeing your face on the computer screen, pretty as it might be, my license would be revoked, shortly after the AMA had me shot.”

“Yes of course, I, that is…”

“I’m also going to be referring you to a psychologist that specializing in gender issues. Since all she needs is access to your head that can be done via webcam so I’m sure she can deal with your “remote location.”

“I’m not crazy; this is just about correcting a birth defect.”

“Miss, that’s exactly what transsexuals say almost word for word. The situation would be different if you were still a child but you have grown to adulthood as a member of the opposite gender, trust me you’ll have a lot of baggage about that even if you are not aware of it.”

“Oh I’m aware,” I said emphatically, thinking about the lengths that I had recently gone though.

“There you see, it never hurts to talk things out. At any rate, the standards of care require me to have a baseline before I undertake this type of surgery and if it’s done before you’re out of isolation then we can move from a quick series of physical exams to the main event.”

“Will it be difficult?”

“It will be both, more difficult and much easier. Which I’m sure males you feel all sorts of better. Most of the work I do on adults is correcting genetic males who have been raised as girls. Usually as a result of some damn sawbones screw-up mangling the penis at birth. So while I don’t have as much experience going the opposite way, it is actually much easier to dig a hole then build a pole if you’ll pardon the joke. My adult patients in general are also only a minority of my work. For obvious reasons much of the corrective surgery is done on children and even infants. Though there is considerable scandal at the moment as to a parent’s moral right to decide the gender of their child, as I’m sure you can relate to.”

“Indeed,” I grimaced delicately.

“It’s extremely delicate work detaching and attaching some of the most sensitive organs in the human body. And to be brutally honest most of the work I do is with those organs 1/8 the size to be found in a normal adult. So while I won’t have to be so magnifying class and tweezers about it will be an adjustment.”

“You’re filling me with all sorts of confidence doctor.”

“I’m trying to be honest with you, you strike me as the very capable type of young person who prefers the straight goods. It’s all a moot point until you are available for a physical exam anyway but I wanted you to be aware of the situation. Even in miniscule portion of the population that is intersexed you have beaten the odds significantly. For whatever boost that is to your ego. I also may be bringing in help. There’s a man down in the desert near Flagstaff who is doing some truly remarkable work on this side of things. I may bring him in on this depending on how things go. He is also one of the single most arrogant individuals god has seen fit to place on this Earth so I’ll do my best to see that you don’t interact too much but in his case I must admit the arrogance is justified. He’s one of the best.”

“He sounds expensive,” I replied sarcastically.

“He is that, as are we all in this field, specialists of the most special sort. I sometimes loath to ask this question of young people who don’t seem to take it seriously, but do you have adequate health insurance?”

“Coventry of Nebraska, their individual plan.”

“Yes, I’ve dealt with them before. You moved to them I suspect after leaving your parents coverage?”

“Yes.”

“Well it may all work out for the best, but this sort of thing is almost the definition of both “pre-existing condition” and “experimental surgery.” I’m sorry if I sound bitter but my opinion is justified I assure you.”

“If Coventry doesn’t come though, or doesn’t come through with it all, how much will it cost?”

“All in? depending upon how many tests we do, If I need that prick in Arizona and your own hospital recovery time it could be in the $40-50,000 range, but assuming you have anything near decent credit my office can arrange a payment plan.”

“And how would you “repossess” if I fall behind?”

“Oh we have our little ways,” Doctor Millard grinned.

“I can pay the amount up front, it will hurt but I can pay it. I’d much rather not have a debt hanging over my head,” or my father getting the bills.

“Prudent financial planning, I wish my own children were so wise. They’ve taken all these preapproved credit card offers and now they have racked up more than even my wife ever has. When they max out one they move on to another.”

“Fucking bankers.”

“My thoughts exactly, I’m pleased to see we share so many of the same viewpoints it always makes these things easier. Now I see that this file has finished downloading, and you weren’t lying about its size, I’m going to email you the contact information for the psychologist as well as several dozen superfluous consent forms and what not. Can you sign them and fax them back?”

“No, but I can scan them and email them back.”

“Ah, yes that will do too. I’ll look over these records and we should have another ‘face to face’ sometime next month. Call the dragon lady to make an appointment.”

“I’ll do that, and thank you Doctor, this has been much less fearsome than I thought it would be.”

“Just doing my job Ma’am” he answered tipping an imaginary ten gallon hat as he reached to turn off the webcam.

***

I re-entered the world. Cyber though it might have been. I started working on the truly gargantuan backlog in my inboxes. I started with business fist. I had alienated quite a few of my ‘regulars’ by dropping off the face of their earth. But there were still quite a few investigators, academics, both students and teachers as well as a small clan of fiction writers who wanted me back or couldn’t live with their replacement. I had too limit my cases to just cyber digging, I wasn’t going to be doing any fieldwork for the foreseeable future. But the small monthly retainers for answering some hack thriller writers questions on the makeup of the Israeli Air Force, which could easily have been found on Wikipedia, filtered into my PayPal account and should keep my in dresses and makeup when the time came. I rather missed some of the more esoteric stuff, and wondered what it would be like traipsing though North Omaha in a skirt and high heels. Well, hopefully I would have sense enough to do so armed.

My family correspondence was more difficult, and I never so had the desire to “right click delete all” than I did at that point. Particularly upsetting I thought would be my father’s parents, stiff upper lips and all that. I resolved to write something of a newsletter with a subscription to all my family and few friends. Rather than answer dozens of ‘yes I’m all right, I’m taking an extended vacation, I’ve decided to become a girl.” I just wrote one and sent it off like an artillery strike. I was obviously more popular than I thought I was as it almost immediately resulted in several responses asking for follow-up information. My little cousin Megan even wanted a current picture so that she could find “just the right cute top for me.” For Christmas

Ugg

The newsletter quickly became a weekly event every Friday and I quickly grew to rather look forward to it. I was thankful for that creative writing class in college though. There was only so many permutations of I sat around inside a snowbound cabin all day that I could make interesting. The great Weaver/Thornton collective feminine squeal event occurred however when one Fridays newsletter reveled that there was now a man in my life.

Chapter 10

Time didn’t mean a whole heck of a lot when your snowbound, and If you can do all your work from the comfort of home in your underwear at 3AM if you wanted their really was no reason not to sleep in. I was woken by the sound of knocking on my front door. It took several repeated attempts before I fully understood what was happening so novel was the experience. I was in my sleep pants but only had one of my soft T-shirts on to prevent chafing up top when I pulled back the blinds to look at who was out front.

It was a tall man of mixed race, dressed in what passed for around these parts and winter formalwear. A tight camo snowsuit with heavy gloves and a Nanuk of the North hat, he had obviously arrived on the device behind him some sort of snowmobile ATV that had both skis and tracks. I was staring at him for a good 10 seconds when he saw me at the window and greeted me with a “howdy”

I opened the door, hesitantly and greeted him. Something about the way he carried himself led me to believe he wasn’t the sort wishful thinking would make go away.

“Good Morning,” I said trying to keep my curiosity in check.

“Good afternoon Miss,” the man corrected me. “May I come in; I’d hate to let all your heat out.”

HE THOUGHT I WAS A GIRL, had I changed that much, a looked down to do a quick inventory and it was apparent that the cold was a legitimate concern, My nipples had extended out further than I had ever seen them nicely drawing attention to my budding breasts though the t-Shirts thin material. This coupled with my recent dilapidation and lack of a haircut for five months could well lead a man to suspect that I was female regardless of what was still in my pants. Well… he seemed well mannered enough so far that I could do him the kindness of inviting me in. After all If he was intent on rape he was in for a nasty surprise when he saw my gun…both of them.

“Yes, certainly Mr…” I prompted as I stepped aside to admit him to the warmth of my cabin.

“Ranger actually, Ranger Anthony Wiggins, United States Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Division.” He said as he removed his gloves and showed me an official looking badge from his parka.

“My that’s a mouthful,” I replied grinning wryly.

“Yes Indeed Ma’am. But if I say USFSLEID no one knows what I’m talking about.”

“Kind of like what those boys on NCIS have to put up with.”

“Only on the TV show, the real agents don’t have that problem since it came out on TV. It’s enough to make a man start drinking. They get the top rated show on TV we get Ranger Rick and that bumbling oaf on Yogi the Bear.”

I couldn’t help myself, I laughed a little bit at that. I hoped it didn’t sound too feminine but it was probably in vain.

“Well then I can probably do without this then, it would be downright inhospitable to shoot a man who make me laugh, it’s been months since that happened.” I said as I removed my pistol from my back waistband and placed it on the kitchen table. “Would you like some coffee Ranger Tony? The beans aren’t fresh but I can promise its hot?”

“I’ve never turned down free coffee yet miss…?”

“Oh, Weaver, how do you do?” I said extending my hand to shake his.

“Well enough, once I get something warm in me.” He smiled at me, but since I had unveiled my weapon his smile no longer reached his eyes as it had when he first walked through the door.

I spent some time knocking pots together while Wiggens took the opportunity to take off his coat and sit down. While I was feeling sufficiently domestic and since this was rather after a special occasion I dug out some of my carefully hoarded non dehydrated food and started in on lunch.

“Sugar? creamer?” I asked as the coffee maker was almost finished with two cups worth.

“Black is how I like it.”

“Me too, it’s a good thing too I’m not sure I could have found any for you anyway.”

“Lucky we both have good taste then… mighty fine.” He said after he took a sip.

“It’s nothing of the sort, the original blend is from Scooters, a local place I love back in Omaha but I’m afraid it’s suffered something from age up here on the mountain… I was just about to start on lunch if you’d like some I’m sure you must have worked up an appetite on your way up here.”

“I wouldn’t turn you down, but don’t go though any extra effort on my account.”

“Nothing extra, it’s easy enough to cook for two as for one. And I could use the company. I’m sorry to say I’ve been a great hermit the last few months. You’re the first human face I’ve seen that hasn’t come off a computer screen since October.”

“Well now that’s rather what I’m here all about. I’ve worked this area for a few years now and it was rather a surprise when I crested yonder hill and saw chimney smoke coming from the old Brown place. It’s never been used in the winter and I made a mental note to check the place out when I came back if the occupant was still there. This morning I saw that you were and decided to drop in and check in on things. You’ve got a rather isolated place out here miss and even a team of hardened mountain men could get themselves in trouble let alone a young lady on her own.”

“I’m well provisioned,” I replied slightly annoyed at his condescension.

“Yes I can see that,” grinning with a smile that DID reach his eyes pointing to the stacks of boxes piled floor to ceiling on the west wall. I was wondering what he found so funny about a few months of food when I saw that his eyes were on the Costco size CRATE of Tampons. I had bought in bulk and being something of a slob when there was no one around to clean up for there was still a few single tampons hanging slightly out of one of the open packages. I quickly jumped up from my chair stuffed them back in the box and used one of the dish towels to drape over large pile of embarrassment knowing full well it was of no practical use. When I returned to the table my face was blushing positively crimson I’m sure.

“No need to get upset, I’ve had girlfriends I’m familiar what all it’s for. I’ve just never seen so large a stack before is all.”

“Well I’m wintering up here and didn’t want to get caught out. Always be prepared, I learned that in the boy scouts. “

“I somehow suspect the BSA didn’t have that particular contingency in mind when they made the motto. And when was a nice girl like you in the boy scouts?”

“Um,” I hesitated trying to think on my feet. “I’m an Air Force brat, spent most of my developmental years overseas on base. There were never enough kids to form a real Girl Scout troop so any girls that were so inclined got lumped in with the boys. It was fun, and we always had parents with us.”

“Improvise, overcome, adapt, I learned that in the Marines. After Boy Scouts, there I made it to Eagle.”

“I would have made it to Eagle, cept for, um, you know.”

“I can guess.” He chuckled again.

“I really am fine, I’ve got power, propane and enough food to last till summer if need be. The well hasn’t frozen yet and if it does there all that snow and enough firewood to melt it till doomsday.”

“Yes, I saw the woodpile, rather large. Some young buck was overcompensating a bit.”

“Um,” I said face blushing again. “That was me, I needed the wood and the chopping was very calming and let me do some heavy thinking.”

“You must have needed to think pretty badly, that wood pile is almost bigger than your whole cabin and that’s after using some of it.”

“Rather a lot of thinking yes, I came up here to get away from it all.”

“Well you’ve succeeded in that, and you do seem to have things relatively under control. May I?” he asked indicating my gun.

“Sure, just be careful the safety is on but it’s loaded.”

“Wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t” said Wiggins appreciatively.

“It’s a Les Baer 1911 .45 caliber.”

“He custom makes them right, over in Iowa?”

“That’s right.”

“Rather an awful lot of gun for someone of your size. No offense.”

I know I should have taken offense but I didn’t, the thing was too big for me back when I was 40 pounds heavier. I had never used it in the field and only ever fired it on the range, even then it had left my wrist much the worse for wear.

“It gets the job done, my granddaddy always told me never depend upon a caliber starting with less than 4. Living out here one hears stories of Bears acclimated too much to humans. If push came to shove it’s not an elephant gun but 9 shots of hollow point and even a grizzly will know its been kissed.”

“Indeed it would, and I’ve heard some of the same stories, which is one of the reasons I go out on these show the flag missions. Your place hear abuts the national forest and we all like to make sure nothing hinky is going on.”

“Hinky, that’s not a word I have heard much before.”

“Its gets the point across though, not that I would ever think someone like you would do it, but we’ve had some nasty cases of bear baiting around these parts. Locals know better but some of these college kids up on break can cause some damage. It’s been a hard winter and a drought before that. In a few weeks some of the local wildlife is gonna be in a man eating mood, so you keep your powder dry and use that Boy Scout training to good use understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Now, official federal scolding having been issued it smells like lunch might be getting ready…”

***

“Did you have sexual thoughts about him?” My therapist asked looking up into her webcam.

“Doctor!” I gasped embarrassed all to hell. “The thought never even entered my mind.”

“After your transition then, do you intend to live as a lesbian?”

“You’re worse than my mother…and my grandmother, which takes some doing.”

“I’ve been accused of that before, and you’re still evading the question Chris.”

This was our fourth session; we had agreed to meet three times a week for an hour at a time. Cynthia O’Neill PH.D MD. Was a distinguished looking woman in her fifth decade. And the classic curve of her face let you know that she had been a great beauty in her day and that day was not long ago, but her smile also let you know she wasn’t too concerned at the passing.

“I was never sexually active before all this, once it’s done I honestly don’t know. Biologically I suppose I’ll be hardwired to want other men but I have spent two decades being cultured to see women as potential mates. So again, short answer, I’m not sure.” I finished waiving my arms up in a gesture of exasperation.

“That’s fair enough, and a healthy answer at this stage, I would be more concerned if you had tossed off those decades of socialization and been ready to jump his bones. Still two things that I would like to point out and have you go back too, you say he treated you like a women from the first and this would be the first time then that has happened to you. And second when you talked about your orientation you said ‘hardwired to want other men.’ Subconsciously I don’t think your stated objective of transitioning female and your own mind are reconciled quite yet.”

“It was a slip of the tongue, I’ve been male a long time now it’s going to take me a while to get used to the pronoun shift.”

“That may be true, and I’ll let it pass for now pending your own consideration. It’s my experience though that slips of the tough can be very revealing, now tell me how it felt to interact for the first time as a perceived female.”

“I don’t know, I… I felt embarrassed, particularly when he saw the tampons. I practically died of blood loss from the sudden shift to my cheeks.”

“Yes, you mentioned that several times, you really must learn to keep them under the bathroom sink dear. Men have such delicate sensibilities about such things. “

“My mother never taught me that growing up, and its not like I was expecting visitors.”

“Fair enough, how else did you feel?”

“What do you want me to say, he was the first real live person I’d seen in months I would have been edgy nervous and embarrassed even if I wasn’t going through my plumbing problems. Oh God, this is gonna take forever isn’t it? If you had a way to get to me I would be on the way to the rubber room wouldn’t I?”

“I actually don’t have the authority to have you committed any more dear, we need a court order for that.”

“Very comforting thank you.’

“Your self-imposed exile is not as troubling as you seem to think it is, medically speaking. It is actually a sign that you were thinking healthy thoughts. When literally your whole life was changed and the foundations of your individuality were shaken you didn’t go on a killing spree, a drinking binge or attempt some drastic self mutilation or suicide. You heading for a cabin in the woods for some quiet moments of introspection, very Thoroue on Walden Pond. You catalogued in our first session the preparations you made for the winter, the power plant, the provisioning, the planning. These are not the acts of a disordered mind Chris.”

“I spent three months doing nothing but chopping wood, how crazy is that!”

“My dear, I knit when I need to think for a while I know it is an unsuitably domestic activity for a liberated woman and urban professional, but it’s very soothing. We all have our little things to do when we need to zone out. At the end of all that you had a wood pile you get some used out of where as all of the nieces and nephews I’m knitting little booties for are now driving their own cars.”

“What do you do with them all then?’ I asked with a smile I couldn’t keep off my face.

“Oh, I wait until I have a box full and then give it to the local children’s hospital. They can tell I’ve had a bad year if I deliver my Christmas presents in July. Now back to the matter at hand. You say you made this handsome ranger coffee cooked him lunch, these are things woman do for their mates or potential mates. Are you saying the thought really never entered your mind that he was a man and you were a woman and what that might potentially lead too?”

“I also showed him my big damn hand cannon, if that wasn’t male preening what is? And I never said he was handsome!”

“He’s a tall ranger visiting a young lady in a snowbound mountain cabin at Christmastime That he was handsome is inferred, or else years of romance paperback covers have been lying to me.”

“Could you tilt the webcam to your wall I want to get a closer look at those diplomas.”

“You’re using your humor again to deflect the important questions Chris, I don’t mind too much as it is your money being wasted and it makes these sessions go by faster. It will not however improve you situation.”

Damn the woman, but she had no business being so smart, didn’t she know that therapists were supposed to be head in the sky ivory tower quacks.

“Yes, the thought did enter my mind, during and after,” I admitted sighing and closing my eyes.

“And?”

“And, I was terrified about it.”

“Why?”

“Why, because I’ve still got my boy bits and if he found out the hillbilly redneck mountain man would probably drag me behind his snowmobile.”

“Worrying about the discovery of your condition is a rational fear. But that’s not all is it.”

“No,”

“No what?”

“No Ma’am?”

“Chris!”

“The whole Idea skeeves me out ok doc, that some guy would stick his…thing, into my…thingy it’s just unsettling.”

“Is this an issue of dominance then, would the idea of sticking your thing into some girls “thingy,” make you feel more comfortable?’

“eww,”

“I thought as much, Chris this isn’t all in your head, it’s your hormones that are more screwed up than anything. You had two immature sets at war with another and despite those testosterone shots and HGH they gave you as a teen you never really got past the grade school level of girls have cooties did you.”

“I… guess, I mean I could make the right noises, and say what was expected of me, but I just didn’t FEEL it ya know.”

“I think I do, we’re entering some interesting ground here and I would write it up in the scholarly journals but I don’t think you would ever give me permission. “

“You got that right!”

“You’re an adult, independent on your own, all grown up intellectually, financially and what not. But your body is telling you that you are a pubescent girl. Chris, its ok for it to be confusing because it IS. I do think though you need to come out of your shell a bit, even before the snow melts. Invite that nice Ranger boy over for tea, get used to socializing and interacting with people as your perceived gender.”

“You want me to go on a DATE!”

“I want you to invite another human being over to talk, as you have gone to ground that human being will need a snowmobile and handily enough you have already met someone who has one. “

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do it.”

“I’m sure you will do fine dear, some things are genetic just use your instincts and maybe bat an eyelash or two just for show.”

“Oh look! Our times up.”

“Yes Chris, I expect to hear from you Thursday, have a good evening.”

“Happy knitting.”

Chapter 11

The Omaha Police Department was having a tough time of it back home. We’d had our 50th murder of the year and as a % of population our little city on the river was rivaling some of the most dangerous big cities in the country. Very few of those murder cases were being solved. Most were gang related and almost all of those had to do with the drug trade. At the beginning of the year I had ingratiated myself into a narcotics lieutenants heart by delivering him five marijuana grow houses. I’d cross referenced unusual power demands with tax records, criminal records and purchases at local home and garden stores. It added up to some interesting coincidences and since all but that last datum were public records, put all together it was enough to justify a warrant which yielded some healthy returns.

The same lieutenant was now a captain on one of the innumerable task forces the Mayor and Police Chief had set up to stem the tide of crime. He got the message of my being back in the information retrieval business and was happy to sic me on the gangs. You wouldn’t think they would have the inclination or even the balls to do so but Omaha gangs had gotten into the social network, YouTube and what not in a big way. They were posting all sorts of interesting and potentially incriminating information online but the OPD didn’t have anyone with the training or inclination to track it all. There are only so many Facebook status updates a 50 year old 300 pound veteran can be expected to read before he asks for a transfer to the impound lot.

I was commissioned to take all the data, do that voodoo I do, and write up an intelligence report. Narcotics and the gang task force have all sorts of asset seizure money they can spend off the books as long as it even showed the merest hint of credibility. And I meant to deliver. It was Christmas Eve and I was working at my desk on the report amid a never ending conference call with my scattered relations when I heard the sound of an approaching snowmobile. I got up, brushed lengthening hair from my forehead and looked out the front window. It was Ranger Tony on his ride, with another for some reason towed behind it. I opened the door just as he got off and welcomed him inside. He quickly made a beeline for my roaring fire.

“Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas and all that,” Wiggins shouted as he removed his gloves to warm his hands over the fire.

“Merry Christmas Tony, but don’t you have a family to bother of your own.”

“Chris…Chris who’s that,” My mother’s voice came from my cell’s speakerphone still active on my desk. “Do you have a man there; I thought you were on your own?”

“I have a visitor ma, I’ll call ya back.” I said as I quickly ended the call AND turned off the power knowing I would almost certainly get a call right back.

“I do have a family and they are all enjoying themselves with Christmas cheer back in Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn, “I said surprised. “I never figured you for a city boy.”

“It takes all kinds in his excellencies forestry service. I come bearing gifts” Tony said removing a small package from his parka’s pocket.

“Thanks Tony, I um…”

“Go ahead and open it.”

I did, and never in my life was I more prepared to “jump a man’s bones” than I was at that moment. It was a pound package of Kona coffee. For those of you who don’t know what Kona coffee is… it’s KONA coffee. The good stuff, the caffeine equivalent of a 300 year old Bordeaux. Grown only on certain mountain slopes in Hawaii it has a very short shelf life before it loses its famous flavor so its seldom seen out of the islands and when It is, its ridiculously expensive.

“Thanks, Tony,” I said as I smelled it. “It smells fresh how did you manage this?”

“I’ve got a buddy, works the forest on the big island. He put it in an interoffice mail envelope along with some reports I actually needed, so it wasn’t a complete waste of your tax money. I knew you were a coffee snob but I couldn’t find any of my myriad friends who lived near a “scooters” so this is what you get as a consolation prize.”

“Thank you again, Will you share a cup with me?”

“I certainly wouldn’t turn it down, I’ve never had any myself I want to see if it lives up to its reputation. “

“I feel bad though, I didn’t get anything for you.”

“Well, I didn’t think you got much shopping in, as it turns out I have the perfect return present you can give me.”

“What’s that then.”

“A check for $500.”

“Um,” I hesitated a bit put off by his boldness. “I know Kona coffee is worth a lot but I don’t think it’s that much and I never liked giving money as a present it always seemed like a bit of a cheat.”

“That’s too bad you would have been doing me a favor,” he frowned lowering his head in shame. “You see that second snowcat behind mine?”

“Yes,” I answered uncertainly.

“Well you see it used to be government property but it’s what the bookkeepers in Washington refer to as ‘surplus to requirements.’ my office should be six rangers larger than it is right now. Budget cutbacks don’t cha know. So we found ourselves with quite a bit of equipment we don’t ever have the manpower to use, even leaving some aside for spares. So that fine piece of American workmanship was sold at auction three days ago. And I was the winning bidder, knowing that both, you need to get the hell out of this cabin and you couldn’t be at the auction yourself I ah, took certain liberties. So really If you don’t buy it off me I’m out five hundred bucks and they don’t pay us Rangers for beans.”

“A rig like that has to be worth $10,000 even used, how did you get it for 500, does it have a hole in the gas tank about to cause an explosion.”

“Naw, I did a full check on it before and after, everything’s fine. Its more than adequate enough to get into town and back up the mountain. I wouldn’t go cross country with it but the gravel roads and even some of the game trails will be just fine, It’s even got a full tank of gas. And don’t worry about the poor taxpayers its government surplus and they were lucky to get a nickel on the dollar and they now it. So… what do you say?”

“Will you take cash?” I asked thinking about it for only a moment.

***

He got his cash, and I got a short check ride. Afterwards we went in for that coffee and I even offered to make him the finest Christmas dinner that was within my limited means. He countered with a suggestion that we go into town for some of the dainties a winter resort could offer. I hemmed and hawed and fell back upon the feminine bulwark of “but I have nothing to wear” which had the virtue of being true. Sensing perhaps that I was uncomfortable with the subject he let it drop and we went about preparing dinner together. It was a pleasant evening and he was even kind when I described my work as freelance cyberbum for hire. He knew I was hiding something, and was out here in the wilderness because I was running from probably the same thing but he was too much of a gentleman to insist. He left before the night got too cold and I was both relieved and sad to see him go.

I finished my gang report just before New Years, it ended up being just over 100,000 words and I was quite pleased with it. So was my friend the captain, and in addition to initial pay he wanted to put me on retainer to keep tabs on the bangers updates. I said yes, cus no work is more steady than government work, but my heart wasn’t really into it. My isolation was getting to me, It was one thing when I knew it was trapped but now that I had adequate transportation I was bouncing off the walls.

My new paycheck was burning a hole in my account I wanted to spend it before the tax man came around to take the lions share. Having your own corporation to funnel ‘legitimate business expenses’ through, was something everyone in their twenties should have. It’s not illegal, it’s not even immoral, if it’s good enough for presidents its good enough for me.

The snowcat had a closed cabin for which I was grateful, it even had a heating system, though I suspect the reason this one was sold as surplus was because it wasn’t quite up to standard. It was a good twenty minutes and most of the way down the mountain before it was a comfortable temperature inside. Once on the main highway it was a quick couple of minutes into the city center and the large parking area alongside where the out of towners were fleeced of their money by every type of shop that stood a decent chance of it. Once into the town proper The streets had been cleaned of snow and I was worried that the tracks would do some serious damage to the concrete. But since I noticed every other asshole and their brother had snow tires on I resolved not to worry about it.

What was worrisome was not being able to find a parking spot. The Snowcat was wide enough to take up two full parking spaces and finding even ONE empty one at the height of the ski season was proving a problem. So where does the three ton half track park in the middle of a crowded resort town?

Anywhere it wants too.

I drove to the edge of the lot next to a quant three story brownstone and then drove up the hill till I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle. The weight of my snowcat, and the traction provided by the industrial size steel tracks meant I didn’t even have to put the parking brake on. I made sure I grabbed all the essentials and carefully exited the vehicle via the rear hatch. When I hit the ground and left the snow bank for the terra firma of parking lot asphalt I noticed there were several tourists openly gaping at me. Not knowing anything better to say, I offered to a chagrined couple

“Fuel efficiency is a bitch, but it handles like a dream.”

***

I had no real plan of attack for my shopping expedition. Complicating matters of course was that this was a tofu eating clove smoking hippie town and the merest hint of something like a Wal-Mart brought out the torches and pitchforks. No way was I going to be able to get everything in one trip so I took the expedient of shopping in a clockwise rotation around the shopping center. Looking at myself in the glass window of the first store I knew clothing would need to be a priority. I would say with my general bedraggled appearance and the five month lack of haircut I looked like the wild woman of the west slope. But the truth was wearing the now quite baggy winter clothes of one gender and 44 pounds ago I was suitability ambiguous.

One way or another that was something I wanted to try to fix today. The first shop was a ski store, one of about a dozen ski shops per square mile the town could boast. All the hot preppy muffins about town seemed to be wearing these tall boots that rose a foot or so over their jeans which were handily tucked into them. If I was in England I would call them Wellingtons but I’m not sure what the proper name for them over here was. I also didn’t know what my shoe size was. Woman’s shoes were slightly different than men’s so even though my feet had not changed to any significant degree I had no idea where to start. I took upon the brilliant, if I say so myself, improvisation of putting on my semi-fake received pronunciation British accent and asking a helpful shop girl to help fit me as I was used to the “European sizing.” She looked down her nose at me but a sale was a sale and she went to work and was pleased when I paid cash for three pairs two of which had rather more fur than I was really comfortable with.

The other corners of the store were devoted to myriad forms of breaking limbs on mountains but also some decent jackets. I found one heavy coat. That was more suited to my new size in a unisex blue and black color and then I purchased two new fleeces, one of which was pink so help me God. It was an interesting experience wearing tight fitting jackets as a man particularly on the heavier side I had always gone for the baggier the better. I still didn’t have anything worth flaunting but the hint of things to come was there. I saw the snow pants, some of them I felt a playboy bunny wouldn’t be caught in and some of which I could tolerate if I gritted my teeth. I had picked the tops by the expedient of pulling off my old jacket and trying on the new one with my t-shirt underneath. I had no idea of what size my woman’s pants would be and shimmying in and out of them in the store would be putting on a show I was not ready for.

I grabbed five different sizes based on my best guess of two different styles that would match with my fleece’s and headed to the changing room. I had a moment’s hesitation when it came time to pick sides but showing no fear, I hope, I blazingly entered the woman’s changing room and found an empty stall as quick as possible. I hung my packages on the hanger attached to the door. Unlaced my boots and pulled down my men’s jeans. I had owned these jeans for many years; they were an old friend that I had been around the world twice in. I’d sowed several tears ignored several permanent stains and used a knife of late to cut fresh notches in my belt so that they would fit. With my boxers barely hanging on above my freshly shorn legs it was a rather comedic sight in the full length mirror.

I didn’t have an hourglass figure, but my hips had started to budge out. And while my waist had gotten smaller than I had seen it since I was 15 or so my ass was still as big if not bigger. It seemed while I was loosing fat, it was also redistributing itself. It was wise for me to select so many sized to try on, I won’t tell you the exact measurements, a lady must have her secrets but it was the 7th one I tried out of five samples. At this point I was neither fish nor fowl. I found one set that was fine on length and screwy on waist, and one that fit both waist and length but was way too large on my hips. Eventually after some compare and contrast I picked the best of a bad lot and hoped that I would “grow” into them.

Leaving the discards behind in the dressing room with a silent prayer I would be out of the building before the shop girls found out what they had to refold and restock I put my new outerwear carefully collecting the tags and went to the central bank of cashiers to pay for my clothing purchases. Leaving the ski store I had a decent collection of bags and boxes and I headed back to the snowcat with my first round of purchases, since it was just around the corner. Fortunately enough, my armored vehicle had a rear hatch so I didn’t half to climb up the hill to gain access. I sat down on the rear fender and took stock of myself and made comparisons to other women I saw walking around the town square. With my white snow pants tucked into my self-titled “cute boots” and my form fitting pink fleece I knew that people would spend considerably less time now wondering about my gender, though no doubt all these preppy bitches would consider me a butch lesbian from hell. I hadn’t a speck of makeup on and my hair while now just past my ears and what was considered longish for males was washed clean but nothing a fashion conscious girl would be caught dead sporting.

The city fathers of Steamboat Springs, or mothers too, I shouldn’t be prejudice, had been kind enough to provide free maps for prospective lambs to the slaughter that listed all the various shops and the easiest way to get to them. On the back side of the map was a chamber of commerce selection of advertisements for local businesses and I had to look twice when I saw that there was a listing for “Ice Cream Delivery.” Only in America could someone start a business and THRIVE delivering overpriced ice cream to punters just after a day of freezing their backsides off falling down snow covered mountains.

I found what I was looking for listed under “Beauty and Spa” I had never had a serious girlfriend, My sister would never have dreamed of dragging her looser brother to such a place and whenever it came time for my mother to get a haircut it was a quick in and out conforming to the Air Force grooming standards. I had seen such places on TV and had a vague idea what happened inside them but when I stepped inside the Beauty parlor it was truly “Terra Incognita.”

“Hello, welcome to Pam’s!” said a blonde teenage girl who must be on SOMETHING to be that chipper in the morning. “I’m Brittany, how can I help you.”

“Hello Brittany,” I said forcing a smile on my face. “I’m Chris…tine Weaver. I do not have an appointment.” I said holding out a hundred dollar bill with my raised right hand.

“Well! fortunately we’ve JUST had a cancelation.” She said as she slipped the bill into her right pocket. Tanya is free in about five minutes can I get you some tea, coffee, hot chocolate or cider?”

“Coffee please,” I answered as I took a seat. When I did so I noticed that I had instinctually folded my right leg at the knee and placed it atop my left leg at a 90 degree angle. A necessary anatomically feature to protect what was in a male’s nether regions. I noticed however that the other women were all either folding their legs in a feminine manner sidesaddle style or had both feet on the ground legs pressed firmly together. I didn’t have much to speak of downstairs anymore certainly nothing that was visible under the snow pants and as an experiment I tried folding my legs like the women next to me. It was an unusual posture for me, but not, quite, uncomfortable. I was a few minutes into inspecting the thousands of different shampoo’s body wash, and several other types of liquid I could not identify when the previously mentioned Tanya appeared.

“Hello Christine, I’m Tanya, wont you please come back.” Tanya was a woman in her forties but she took care of herself. I was no expert on the subject but I think she was a bottle blonde. The roots were only just beginning to show, but it could have been my imagination. She was poised, well made up and was about to be make a killing even if she didn’t know it.

“Tanya,” I said holding out a sheaf of five $100 bills. There are very few of life’s problems that can’t be solved with a sufficient influx of cash. I hope this isn’t one of them?”

“Honey, for that much money you can get me to striptease on top of a gondola.”

“Nothing quite so, extreme I assure you, May I have a private moment with you in that small room over there.”

“The tanning booth… sure, I guess.”

We both entered and it was quite obvious there was a substantial amount of curiosity and not a little concern on her face. To alleviate that I handed over the small stack of bills and she quickly made it disappear after shutting the door behind her I sat down on the side of the tanning bed and looked up directly in her eyes.

“I know your profession is not held, generally, in high esteem but is there any sort of doctor patient confidentiality when it comes to beauticians and their clients?”

“Honey, I wouldn’t stay employed long if I couldn’t keep a secret, the first old biddy knows I let slip she colors her hair and I couldn’t find work for three states in any direction. As long as you’re not planning on robbing any banks or kidnapping the president anything having to do with your body is between you and me.”

“Thank you, that’s what I had hoped for and I promise to not let slip anything about my criminal master plans, and ask that if you refuse to treat me you keep the money in exchange for your silence.”

“Honey, now you’re starting to worry me, have you got some sort of tattoo of Adolph Hitler on your left butt cheek or something.”

“No,” I answered smiling despite myself.

“I’m… a woman…”

“Well of course you are sweetie not many men have got those on their chests though they could do with some support, there nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m a woman… but I was raised for the first 24 years of my life as a boy.”

I had clearly shocked her and I allowed her a few moments to collect herself while her mouth hanged open.

“I’m sure you didn’t expect a Jerry Springer guest to walk into your Salon but the truth is that I am intersexed. I was born with both boy and girl bits. My parents made the decision to raise me a boy but my ovaries finally kicked in and I started my Menstrual cycle a few months ago and it rather set my world upside down. After a few months of soul searching I have made the decision to transition to female and will soon have corrective surgery to remove the useless organs. I have no experience being a girl, It’s not something mothers teach their sons you understand. I do however have several rather ugly pictures of my friend Benjamin Franklin and I was hoping you could give me “the works’ and a short girl 101 lesson. If you don’t want to of course I will understand.”

She gave me a long hard look, and I felt I was being examined right down to the molecular level. The inspection lasted just a moment too long and I was beggining to tear up when she finally spoke again. Damn hormones.

“Oh now, don’t cry sweetie, I was just trying to see it is all, I don’t often see ladies without any war paint on but If you hadn’t pointed it out I wouldn’t have been ever able to tell you were once a man. And hell, if you bleed like the rest of us your hardly one of them, poor fools. Of course I’ll help you. Your kind enough to take my own feelings into consideration and you know how to pay a worker her due,” said Tanya as she padded her pocket containing the $500. “Which in my book, puts you at ten times a real woman as some of the catty bitches I’ve had to grit my teeth and smile for.”

She held out her arms and was obviously offering to hug me, it was a new experience for me, men just weren’t as touchy feely but it was part and parcel of womanhood it seemed. I got up and returned her hug, particularly odd was the sense of BOTH our breasts being crushed into each other.

“Now put your fears at rest. I have two clients who are cross dressers and none of the other clients have ever twigged. I even helped a transgender lady a few years back and I get quite a nice Christmas card from her and her new husband. So I’ve had a bit of experience at this and you needn’t worry about a thing. Now first things first I need to know what I’m working with, can you please take off your clothes.

I hesitated for a moment, but if push came to shove I was bigger than she was and I could probably overpower her. I began by taking off my fleece and unbuckling my fanny pack.

“Honey, one of the first things you’re going to need is a purse, you’re gonna draw some looks carrying that thing.”

“Why, I’ve seen women wearing them?”

“On the ski slopes maybe or the hiking trails but on a shopping trip in town it looks damn odd. Go on, with the rest.” She prompted with a waive. “I’ve seen it all before, both sets.

My boots were off, and then my new snow pants and finally I was standing there in my t-shirt and boxer shorts.

“You really do need girl lessons; you look like you just stole your boyfriends clothes so you could do your walk of shame, take them off too.”

“Um,…”

“Strip, listen to your teacher girl.”

I complied and pulled my t-shirt off and only had to tug slightly and my boxers fell right off to collect at my legs I kicked them onto the pile with the rest of my clothes and stood in front of a total stranger totally naked. If I thought her first inspection was excruciating this one was worse she rubbed my skin felt my cheeks and even did a minor breast exam. She even stuck her head down south and looked long and hard at what I had, and didn’t have.

“Well, we’ve got some work to do girl, and that’s no lie. Since you’re hacking it off anyway I hope you won’t be offended when I say that’s the smallest I have ever seen which is pretty good news as it means that we won’t have to hide hardly anything. Up top you look a lot like my 13 year old. They’ve just started growing, haven’t they? I can tell by the nipples.”

I nodded that she was correct.

“Well good for you, quite a few women wish theirs were still growing. Imagine, having puberty when you have enough money to spend on yourself. Speaking of, you got any more of those bills with you. “

“Quite a few”

“Well then,” said Tanya as she opened the door a crack and shouted. “Britney, get me an intern And the measuring tape stat!” Then closed the door. “I figure we can get away with three bills.

I reached into my pack and pulled the necessary funds from my wallet and handed it over. There was a knock on the door, and Tanya cracked the door open again and was handed a long yellow measuring tape and she told the young girl to wait there. She then told me to stand up and preceded to measure me every way she could and several I didn’t think were possible all the while writing down numbers on her scratch pad and making as much small talk as possible. When she was done she took the $300 and the list and cracked the door again.

“Take this, head over to Cheryl’s and buy five of both In different colors, oh and get a basic leather purse, if your back in half an hour there’s a bonus in it for you. Save the receipts!” she said as she slammed the door closed again.

“What did I just buy?” I asked smiling as demurely as I could.

“Honey you’re out of the training bra stage you’re a full A cup now working your way to B. it may not feel like it, them being as fresh and perky as a teenagers but you’re going to need support. Gravity gets to us all. Those boxers are just…well, unbecoming. You have the hips to pull of the panties and hardly any budge to speak of. I’d buy more than five pairs but your still developing so your just gonna have to do your washing more often. You do know how to do washing don’t you, I won’t have to teach you EVERYTHING will I?”

“I live on my own I know how to wash… cook and clean even.”

“Good on you, your two steps ahead of my daughter. Now while we wait for new girl, I forget her name, to come back. put your cloths back on and we’ll start on your hair. There isn’t a whole lot to work with but there enough to create a decent female style.

***

Tanya almost killed me, and then she started to work on me. I was plucked, poked, prodded waxed and sandblasted and half an hour into it I decided the best course of action was just to lie back and think of England. I entered a sort of zen meditative state. I felt so relaxed and calm; I must have, because I found myself telling my hairstylist more than I had told my therapist so far. Every once and a while she would stop, to dig deeper usually accompanied by “Oh sweetie that’s so sad,” Man I tell ya, if the CIA cent beauticians out to infiltrate other countries we would be ruling the world right now. Somewhere between the haircut and highlighting and my wax the intern came back with a several discrete bags and one small black purse. I was offered one of the tanning booths again and Tanya gave me a short lesson on how to hook up my Bra.

The less said about that experience the better. So… moving right along.

The panties felt very very snug on me, and I was scared to death that my miniscule budge would be visible. Once I had my pants back on no one could tell a thing. Or so I was constantly told. Once my legs were done she started in on a pedicure, initially asking me how I wanted it done and what color, probably out of muscle memory before she remembered this was my first time and used her own judgment. The color was red, she had about 200 different kinds of red and if my life depended upon it I could not tell you what type, I just called it red.

There was quite a bit of tut tuting over my fingernails but Tanya had worked better miracles and after much shaping and only a little bit of blood all twenty digits matched. She then, committed what I’m sure is a beautician war crime on my behalf and destroyed her own work of art. Telling and showing me how to go about removing the polish and then we both began to reapply it. She wasn’t happy with my best efforts and we removed and reapplied several more times before she was reasonably happy I would be able to fend for myself in the wild.

Then she took me over to the makeup station.

Fellas, if there are any fellas still reading by now, at this point you may want to leave the room. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back I promise. It took over two hours and I was getting damn hungry before it was done but she showed me the rudiments of makeup and the proper care and feeding of the female face. At the end of the initial application she turned the chair to face the mirror and I got a good look at myself for the first time since I entered this den of iniquity.

I was beautiful.

My hair had been brown, nothing too becoming about it. But now somehow without using any dye It was now a stunning brunette with the auburn highlights curtsey of my Irish grandmother brought out to revel in its Celtic glory. My eyelashes were long and sultry, my cheeks delicately painted and the lipstick was a perfect match to my rather complex completion.

And then that bitch, hit me with a hot towel, told me to wipe it all off, and do it on my own.

Needless to say, this first time I did it on my own I looked like Ronald McDonald and a raccoon had a wild night in Vegas and I was their lovechild. We tried it again, and then we tried it again. Eventually, just like with my nails she acknowledged that I had the fundamentals down, and she returned me to my former glory.

It’s safe to return now boys, there’s some emergency testosterone pills in the medkit.

When it was all done, she made me swear to keep an appointment in two weeks and then uttered the most dangerous words a beautician can utter, just ask any husband going over the credit card bill.

“Can I offer you any product?” Asked Tanya with a cheerful tone.

“Um… I’ll take six months of everything.”

“Everything as in…’

“Everything as in everything, shampoo, conditioner, polish, makeup. Every bit of cosmetics or beauty product I own I’m currently wearing. So just pick out what you would need if you were trapped on a desert island with Fabio for six months.”

“Christine, you do know right that I get a commission on any product I sell you.”

“Is it enough, to take me to lunch? I’ve worked up quite an appetite and I don’t know any of the good local places.”

“It’s a date!”

***

In the end it took no less than Tanya and I and TWO interns to carry all my purchases to the Snowcat. The girls were suitably impressed with my ride and I promised the young one that I would take her for a spin some day. Once the packages were safely inside my tank we heading east towards a nice only sort of fake Italian restaurant. We talked some more and I learned about her husband who was the manager of one of the timeshare/condo units next to the ski lifts and her two children one boy and a teenage girl that would be lucky to make it to 20 alive. When we were done it was 3:15 and Tanya having made more today than she would normally make in a week felt comfortable taking the rest of the day off and she offered to help me expand my wardrobe.

She took me to all the places the locals use, and got me kitted out much cheaper than the tourists traps would offer. I now had about a dozen basic outfits and would be reasonable set until summer came. She even took me to get my ears pierced and pointed out several studs that would suit my new purchases. Around 6pm well after it had gotten dark and most of the shops were closing I locked up the last clothing purchase and looking into my new purse and gasped.

“What?” Tanya asked concerned.

“I took a full brick of hundred dollar bills with me this morning.” I said showing her the broken band with $100 written all over it. “This is all that’s left. I’ve just spent $10,000 getting girlified. I know countries that can fight a small war for less.”

“Honey, most women space out these purchases, it just seems like a bunch because it’s all at once. You’ve bought a whole lot, and aside from the absolutely terrible earmuffs you insisted on everything you got is worth the money I promise. Some things are worth it, look at yourself in the mirror and tell me it’s not.”

I did and I couldn’t

My last stop of the day was to the grocery store. I loaded up on fresh fruit and vegetables, and other perishables. I had vitamin supplements so I wasn’t really in danger of scurvy but so long without so much as an apple or an orange was not doing my mental health any good. I even bought half a gallon of Ice cream though I hated myself for it afterwards. I was on my way back fully laden to the almost empty parking lot when I saw a man try to break into my Snowcat.

I carefully and quietly set my packages down on the concrete and pulled my .45 out of my new purse. I’m sure Tanya would have been shocked at my accessorizing but sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do. The man had his face pressed against the glass of the rear hatch and he was scoping out all the bags of purchases.

“Freeze!” Trying to put as much authority into my voice as I could manage without going too low in pitch. “Hands behind your head….turn around slowly.”

He was well over six feet and 250 pounds very little of it was fat. I was prudent that I had him put his hands behind his head because when he turned around I saw that he had a holstered semi-automatic under his left jacket.

He also had a tin star on his right jacket breast that said “Sherriff.”

“Um,” I said, gun clearly hesitating. “I have a good explanation for pulling a gun on you Sherriff if you have a good explanation for trying to break into my car.”

“Fair enough,” he answered with a deep voice and an accent that could not be very long outside West Virginia. “I wasn’t breaking in; I was just about to write a citation ticket.”

“For what!” I said incredulously as I put the 45 back in my purse.

“Illegally parking, “he said without a trace of sarcasm.

Ok, he had me there.

Chapter 12

I have to hand it to him; he went on and wrote that ticket, without once losing his professionalism. I guess hillbillies must have guns pointed at them all the time back home. He hesitated for a bit looking in his book on what to finally charge me with, since while the snow cat was technically a motor vehicle it was more in the realm of ATV’s like four-wheelers and had a whole different set of rules. Particularly upsetting to him I think judging by his half raised eyebrow was that he could not in fact cite an ATV for parking on a hill. Eventually he dinged me for “unsafe driving” when I admitted I was the one who got it up the hill in the first place and he seemed reasonable happy to finally pigeon hole me. He was going to make an issue over my gun but I showed him my Nebraska concealed carry permit and he seemed satisfied I wasn’t a pistol wielding maniac. I thought there might be some issue when he looked at my Driver’s License, I felt certain he would see the big fat M next to gender but he didn’t seem to hesitate and only seemed concerned in writing down my number and then zapping the barcode with a handheld scanner. Once done, he gave a terse goodbye and tipped his hat to me in farewell.

I collected my last shopping, loaded it up on top of several layers of previous purchases and started my war machine up for the long climb back up my mountain. It was much harder driving in the dark and the damn heater of course was not working any better at night than it did in the morning. It was 11pm before I was back in my cabin and all the important stuff was cleared and stowed away. I tore off my boots set my Jacket on the office chair and jumped into my bed under the covers to sleep the sleep of the just.

***

I awoke to a strange woman sleeping in my bed.

To this day I’ll never know what possessed me to charge off into the unknown like that. A fit of temporary insanity perhaps, like the Viking berserkers who revved themselves so up on the battlefield they cut through whole armies without feeling a thing. What woke me was a slight discomfort in my neck that I was later to realize was the stud of one of my new earrings. I opened my eyes and in front of me was a female hand, nails shaped and painted red. Not ever having woken up with a woman in my bed I gave a slight gasp as I jumped up. The accompanying jiggle on my new chest safely contained by a constricting bra rather brought it all back to me and I calmed down.

I was then that I made the second discovery of the day. Women need to take off their makeup before going to bed. My pillowcase looked like a modern art masterpiece, caked with various powders and smears. My sheets were none the worse for wear but the pillowcase I immediately removed and dropped it into the washer along with several other dirty clothes that had been waiting and started the cycle. I went to my bathroom and did my best to remove what my tossing and turning had not. Since I wasn’t going anywhere today I elected not to go though the worry of reapplying the makeup but I did spend probably more time on my hair than I had done in the preceding two years combined.

I tried valiantly to reproduce what Tanya had the previous day but I eventually gave up. I was working against ingrained habit. My previous life I had always worn a short military style haircut that was all straight lines and even edges. This new “do” was supposed to be a sophisticated bit of organized chaos that I could not quite reconcile with myself. I decided I was going to need to hair and beauty tips to my next several days research.

I spent the rest of the morning getting sorted, cutting tags off clothes and stowing various product wherever I could squeeze it in. When my new tops were hanging up in the closet next to my old men’s clothes it just looks so out of place. I hadn’t really worn much of any of these for some time now and in a fit of domestic industry I went about cleaning out the old junk. If I hadn’t thought about it in three months I packed it away. Once committed, and much to my own mothers shock I’m quite sure, I went about cleaning the cabin. It had suffered something the worse for wear the last little while. I had done only the barest minimum of maintenance to prevent stuff growing on the kitchen floor. The browns had left behind a well stocked utility closet, most of which I knew, in theory at least, how to use, so I went about cleaning my little place from top to bottom.

Around 4PM I was thoroughly pooped, and smelling like a mix between a professional wrestler and a chemical factory. Having felt virtuous at a long days work I went to the bathroom for a long shower and field testing of some of my new acquisitions. Half of them seemed to be bath salts, which was a pity since I didn’t have a bath. The woman on the cover of one of the bath thingys looked to be rather enjoying herself, so I resolved to see what I could do to rectify that problem in my architecture come spring.

Apparently the female side of the species also didn’t believe in something as esoteric as bar soap. I had instead a tube of strawberry smelling body wash that I was to pour into a “luffah,” which was some sort of sponge like collection of folded cloth the size of a small basketball. Once wet I began washing and the effect was a bit disconcerting as it seemed like I was scraping off skin. I remember Tanya saying this was called “exfoliating” and the effect was not totally unpleasant.

I washed my hair, then conditioned, then washed again. I had heard what conditioner was of course but had never had cause to use it before. And even though the directions on my men’s shampoo bottles had said rinse and repeat for years I had been of the opinion that one and done was enough. I had no blow-dryer so vigorously towel dried my hair and then tugged and pulled it into a reasonable style. I still looked like a butch lesbian but I hoped at least now I wasn’t a butch lesbian from hell.

Putting on my new peach color panties and bra I was in a pair of female jeans and a black v-neck long-sleeved top just in time for my afternoon appointment with Cynthia. She noticed right way.

“You did your hair,” said Dr. O’Neill smiling graciously.

I couldn’t help myself and waged my fingers in front of the webcam by way of reinforcement.

“And you’re nails, my what brought this on, I wouldn’t even think you had fingernail polish in your cabin, or does Ranger rick have a secret?”

“No secret but he did arrange for me to buy a government surplus snowcat so I went into town yesterday and did my part to help bring the country out of recession. I’m now considerably poorer than I was yesterday so I hope your rates don’t go up.”

“What all did you buy?”

I couldn’t exactly show her everything but I thought the point was got across when I angled the webcam to look at the wall with a good sized mountain of empty shopping bags and boxes.

“Oh my,” Dr. O’Neill said trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. “But you did go to town, didn’t you.”

“I’ve got about two weeks worth of female clothes, winter clothes I should say, including my first bra. I’d show you but that would probably be violating some obscure FCC regulation. Also my weight in health and beauty supplies only 10% of which I can identify.”

“You did this all on your own?”

“I hired a friendly beautician to be my native guide. Her name was Tanya, she did me up and then took me shopping. She’s a nice woman in her 40’s I think she got a hell of a kick out of outfitting a young woman like her own daughter without actually having to pay for it. I’m going back in two weeks for another appointment and she’s going to teach me the basics of what I need to know.”

“Did, you have a good time?”

“I… did, I actually did. I was scared to death before during and after but it was …nice.”

“So, the hermit of the hill, left her splendid isolation and returned from the ball a Cinderella?”

“You’re mixing your metaphors there doc,” I said smiling a waving a scolding finger at the camera.

“Where there any problems with your condition?”

“No problems there, I really don’t have much there to bring to anyone’s attention anymore and as long as I don’t wear a skin tight cat suit or fuck me jeans I should be ok. I did have a problem when I left for the day the county sheriff almost arrested me for illegally parking. I almost pied my new panties when I had to show him my driver’s license. There I was all dolled up and my ID said MALE.

“I’m surprised you didn’t run into trouble with a first name like Christopher.”

“My ID just has my four initials and my last name. The curse of having two rather large extended families there were too many relatives for my parents to honor and there’s not enough room on the ID to write them unless I use initials.”

“Well that was fortunate. As we go forward Chris it will be necessary though to have your documents and legal identity amended. These circumstances are rather complex and I can put you in touch with some legal experts who specialize in this sort of thing if you would like.”

“I’ve my own workman’s-like understanding of what all it entails and a lawyer back in Omaha who owes me a favor or three. I can get it sorted out but I figure I’ll hold off until after the operation.”

“That’s your right of course, and I understand your reasons. But I would get in touch with Thomas. While you were in isolation it hardly mattered but if you are going to be out and about dressed as a woman you may be caught out. He can provide a standard letter explaining your medical condition and the fact that you are transitioning. We wouldn’t want you arrested for impersonation or driving on a fake ID. And Chris… you must be careful, a woman in this day and age can get away with dressing in male clothes but society does not accept it when I man dresses as a woman. And despite the medical evidence to the contrary the uninformed uniformed could misinterpret you and there would be consequences.”

“I know doc, I’m a freak, don’t let a man get a good look at what is in my knickers.”

“Chris you’re not a freak!” O’Neill said raising her voice for the first time in our acquaintance. “And I wont have anyone saying you are, certainly not yourself. Now I hadn’t anticipated going this far so soon, but you seem to be able to handle it. I’m going to email you some information on what we transgender specialists refer to as the real life test. Pay special attention to the safety tips. Are you still carrying that wrist breaker?”

“Yes, though fitting it into the purse is a bit of a chore.”

“You don’t have to overcompensate any more dear, find something smaller there are several .38’s that will get the job done I assure you. I have a lady colt myself though I’m told I should shelve it as a collector’s item. “

“Why Doctor O’Neill, you are a woman of many depths.”

“God created man, Thomas Jefferson said they were created equal and Sam Colt made it true. And PARTICULALRY true for women. Susan B. Anthony and Seneca Falls is all well and good but good old Sam did more for women’s rights than anyone else in my opinion. A 98 pound wilting wallflower no longer needs to be afraid of the 300 pound doped up linebacker.”

“You sound like your speaking from experience.”

“I keep in practice dear, and so must you.”

***

Winter…passed. I kept busy. Motivated to replenish my funds I worked my magic and gradually was back to where I started and even a bit ahead. I kept in touch with my doctors and family. Did my coursework, I went to town once a fortnight and Tony visited me on a more or less regular basis. The first time he came after my expedition I could see he was clearly shocked but pleasantly so. He made several comments about my appearance that if I had a touch more self confidence I might have preceded on. But he soon enough began to realize that I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing and we gradually fell into a quiet friendship with only the merest hint of sexual undertones. I was a convenient stop on his rounds, a place where he could be assured a hot cup of coffee and a friendly shoulder to cry on. It was in March just before my birthday and amid the thaw when the whole world turns to mud and he was telling me of his most recent issues.

“DC wants to grant mineral exploitation rights to the forest,” Tony said as he sipped my thankfully fresh coffee.

“I bet the greens are all sorts of happy about that.”

“Yes and no, these boys are being smarter than the average bear. They promised to section off 10% of the revenue into a trust fund to replenish the forest once they are done with it.”

“What did they find?”

“Oil, God help us, or rather not oil they discovered but oil shale, big damn rocks of it. You have to strip mine it, superheat it, boil it off, refine it, refine it again and then you get gasoline. Expensive as hell but with the price of oil what it is they think they make money at it. And of course it’s HERE and not going to some Arab fundamentalists or their 70,000 princes.”

“Strip mining? And ruin my view… I’m not sure I approve.”

“I know I don’t, but I wasn’t asked either. For my sins I have been assigned to ride herd on their geologists and tame environmental impact experts.”

“Don’t bring them around here; my coffee is only for human beings.”

“Noted… something else. The black Bears are coming out of hibernation, and they are going to have a tough time of it. Mama bears just gave birth to their cubs and are gonna be extra special nasty so I want you to be careful. You’re need to sort out that trash dump outside, it’s like holding out a welcome mat that says here I am eat me.”

“Understood, you be careful out there yourself.”

“I always am.”

***

The first time it rained instead of snowed, I knew I couldn’t put it off much longer, so I made preparations to head into Denver for my first physical examination with Dr. Millard. I packed a bag with three days of clothes and other essentials and when I was done the bag was the same size as what I used to carry for a full week. Starting the Jeep was a bit of a chore, the battery had to be reinstalled and charged. Being out in the snow all winter had not done the exterior any good but the engine was sound enough to get me where I needed to go. It wasn’t much of a car but I’d had it since I was 16. Bought and paid for out of my own funds when the birthday present my parents gave me met an early death my second day with a license. It was a 94 and looked like an 84. But I was never ashamed to drive it. I always wanted a bit of power under the hood and still did even if my hormones were changing.

I got mud positively EVERYWHERE driving down that mountain. When I reached the highway and got up to speed it started flaking off and I displeased quite a few of the drivers behind me. If you are driving into Denver from the west the city kind of jumps up out of nowhere. One minute your winding up and down a steep mountain track carved right out of the granite and then suddenly you’re in the valley and a major metropolitan area. Omaha wasn’t that much of a smaller city but it had been six months since I had done any real driving and it may have been my imagination but Denver drivers seemed crazier than they strictly speaking had to be. I felt like I was in some sort of Mad Max demolition derby. Turn signals were for the weak and the speed limit was only a suggestion and you got honked at if you followed it.

If it hadn’t been for my dashboard GPS I’m sure I would have turned around and lived to fight another day but that insistent pestering bitch’s voice kept giving me directions and course corrections when I made a slip or missed a turn. I had planned to be early but ended up pulling into the parking lot of my doctor’s office only just on time. I felt like I needed a stiff drink, but self control got the better of me. I wasn’t going to impress the man responsible for changing my life if I showed up tipsy.

The dragon lady only sounded like she was a 100 years old. In reality she looked a very well preserved 90. Probably she had been installed in the office when the miners struck silver and no one had been able to pry her out since. She seemed a little surprised when I told her who I was, no doubt she was expecting someone who looked like a Denver Bronco not a thin 5’10 girl in a respectable ensemble.

“You’re late!” she said, by way of greeting.

“By exactly two minutes, traffic you know…”

“That’s still late, take a seat and fill out these forms and I’ll find out if the doctor will still see you.”

The civilian medical profession in America ran on paperwork more than pharmaceuticals. It was, with some justification, scared to death of having their pants sued off them and wouldn’t so much as pass out an aspirin until it was covered legally. I had signed and sent most of these forms before but it seemed they wanted more. I was starting to get a real cramp in my writing hand before it was done. But was satisfied with the end result when dragon lady accepted them with a mild Hmph! And took me to the examination room and told me to undress.

Doctor Millard was a kind older man in person and I was only slightly embarrassed to be seen by him in my hospital gown. “Good day Miss Weaver, how are we feeling today?”

“Rather, what I was here to find out Doctor,” I replied a half smile.

“Well let’s be about it, I promise to be as gentle as possible. Would you like me to have a female nurse step in for you?”

“I think that would make me feel rather more uncomfortable than less actually.”

“Very well, but if you change your mind let me know.”

He took enough blood to make a vampire happy for a week. Then had me disrobe completely and after a lengthy breast exam I was asked to sit down in the most obscene instrument of torture I had ever seen. My feet were up high in stirrups and my legs wide open I felt more vulnerable than I had in my entire life. He stuck a positively freezing instrument into the hole they had made back in Omaha and then LEFT it there for minutes while he was down there with a headset merrily taking note the whole time. He spent an awfully long time on my scrotum too and my heart was about to rupture my chest when he came back with a needle that had to be big enough to put down a horse. It seemed he wanted to collect a sample. He took some time out to be concerned enough over my reaction that he offered me a sedative but I took several deep breaths and told him to proceed. This wasn’t going to be any better drugged up, better to have it done sooner than later.

After the sample was collected I put the gown back on and I was led to another room for an ultrasound and an MRI. If you have never been in an MRI you lie down in a tight metal coffin like tube and are slowly rolled back into a cave where you are told to STAY STILL for quite a long time. I don’t mind saying I was a twitching nervous wreck when I got out and that’s when Dr. Millard INSISTED on the sedative after he assured me I would be able to drive to my hotel while under its influence. I returned to my first exam room and collected my clothes once dressed I was led into his main office and we went over the initial results.

“I can see how they diagnosed you as inter-sexed of course but how they could ever have decided you were more male is beyond me. Ultra sounds were available back then they could have seen your internal plumbing.”

“It was Britain, my father is minor aristocracy wanting a son and heir is what’s expected, perhaps the Doctors were practicing wishful thinking.”

“Wishful drinking more like, it was monstrous if they were just terminal optimists, but one hears so many horror stories in my profession. You shouldn’t blame your father though Chris, there were things the doctors told your parents and things that their handwritten notes means they did NOT tell them. Who by the way is “Lord North,” he was mentioned several times in some of the oddest places.”

“My great grandfather, he died back in 02.”

“He apparently stuck his hand in where it didn’t belong. It sounds like a bad melodrama but reading between the lines your first doctors were paid off to come out with the results they did. Once you were started down that path your later doctors just followed in their footsteps.”

“He didn’t want a FREAK, in the family!”

“Chris we don’t know exactly what was said and done, it could just have been an honest medical mistake though the fact that this North showed up in the handwritten notes is damn odd. I found this all out shortly after you sent me the file, or rather my overworked interns did. When I did I sent off a nasty letter to the British national medical regulation agency but both men had retired and are no longer practicing so there is very little they can do. One has died and but the other is still alive. I would be willing to act as a witness in any malpractice suit you wish to proceed with, though I’m not sure what it would all involve in a different country. Particularly as I gather they worked for the Royal Air Force at the time. “

“Yes, we were stationed at Lakenheath, support personnel were provided by the RAF.”

“At any rate, this is the sort of thing I positively loath about fellow members of my profession. Moving on to happier news my initial medical opinion agrees with your Doctors back in Omaha and that you are a wonderful candidate for corrective surgery, pending Doctor O’Neill’s final check off and the results of today’s tests I see no reason why we cannot proceeded with the major body and fender work sometime next month.”

“That’s wonderful news Doctor, will you be needing the objectionable man down in Flagstaff?”

“I think we do without his presence at this time, good news for both of us,” he said letting out a hearty belly laugh. “Now I’ll see you in two days with your results, go to your hotel, order room service or better yet enjoy a night on the town, a face like yours, looks much better smiling than frowning and that is my considered medical opinion.”

Chapter 13

When I got to my hotel I checked in under my own name and it was necessary to provide my doctors note which was slightly embarrassing to say the least. Once safely ensconced in my room I pulled out my net book, and dug out the digital copy of my records. I found the damning handwritten notes in a PDF file Millard had indicated attached it along with a copy of Dr. Millard’s note to the British into an email to my father.

The text of the email’s message box was simply, “How do you wish to proceed?” And I sent it on its way.

At this point I figured it was 50/50 I would ever speak to him again.

***

I slept, but I did not rest, my dreams were plagued with shadows and phantoms. Every bully and mean spirit I had ever encountered in my life seemed to make a surprise appearance. I had nightmares of events that happened long ago and far away and nightmares about events that had never happened. I was beat up a lot in JR High, being a brainy bastard, heavy AND effeminate had not been conducive to a happy teen social life. The worst dream was an event I had suffered in San Antonio when John McCay son of a Major in B-52’s had gone all alpha male and beat me up for not showing due deference to his testosterone. In real life it had happened behind the gym within 200 yards of an SP security shack which probably explained why he was failing the 8th grade.

In my dream I was in a dress, and he was raping me, and there was no one there to save me.

I woke around 8:30pm, and it was dark outside, I knew that my little nap would interfere with my sleep patterns for some time so I ordered some overpriced Hilton room service and generally did a repeat of my hobbit hole act from last year. I had brought three days worth of female clothes with me including a VERY comfortable silk nightgown but none of them got worn. It was my time to go back to the Doctors office and I was still wearing the clothes, and underclothes I had worn driving down the mountain.

Needless to say a zombie showed up for her doctor’s visit that day. That’s when he told me I had probably had testicular cancer.

I hadn’t really noticed it before; I spent as little time down there as possible but in the last few months my “boys” had rather turned to mush. It was caught early, before it had even really started to grow but cancer is still the Big Casino and it got my full and rapt attention for the first time in days.

“We’ll need to operate right away, today if I can find an OR. An oncologist will do the heavy lifting and I’ll make things look presentable afterwards.”

“Why not just go all the way now then?”

“We’re not there Chris, this is just an emergency surgery the rest will have to wait. As far as the cancers to get though this one is the best kind. Its early days yet and you were going to remove it eventually anyway. It shouldn’t affect your later life in anyway. It was however very dangerous young lady to wait so long to come in. We could have seen this as much as three months ago if you had been under care instead of on that mountain.”

“Yes doctor, but what’s done is done, moving on please.”

“You can wait here will I call in favors for an operating room. I really think you should contact your family though. They would want to be here for you and you could use the support.”

“I’m not quite so sure of that myself Doctor.”

“If you were my daughter-“

“if I was your daughter,” I interrupted him suddenly. “You wouldn’t be operating on my TESTICLES!”

***

I went back to the Hilton and took a long shower, put on fresh clothes and packed my bag. I checked out of a fine hotel and checked in to a finer hospital. I somewhat doubted the food would be better though. I was prepped for surgery doped up and under the knife in less than three hours. The surgery was a success and the patient lived. I woke gradually in my bed and there was no pain, weather it was the result of a good job or fine drugs I couldn’t say. The scrotum is, sometimes incontinently, located outside the main body, something about regulating the temperature of the little soldiers. As far as its effect on my health it qualified as a minor surgery and my insurance company made sure I was turned out with only a days recovery time. I filled a prescription for several pain relievers anti-inflammatory, antibiotics and something I’m not quite sure what was for and retired from the field of battle.

I was in no shape to drive all the way back home so I tried to find a hotel for the night. The Hilton was booked as was the Embassy Suits and several other of the finer establishments. I settled on a Holiday Inn express near the airport that if not as swanky at least had the virtue of being clean and cheap and not asking any questions about my gender. They offered a free breakfast but nothing else, no restaurant or room service. I was not ready to go out in a strange city dressed “en femme” particularly walking as bowlegged as I was. I put in a call and had a pizza delivered to my room and sat back on top of the covers of my king sized bed watching television while I waited. The pizza never DID come, something about there being four Holiday Inns Express’s in the city and Pizza Hut’s new driver. What was delivered to my door with a hard knock an hour after I made the phone call was my mother and father.

She was wearing a sharp light blue colored skirt suit. You can take the woman out of the Air Force but…well. Laurence Weaver did not, nor has he ever, worn a bowler hat but take him across the water and he could gain entrance to any of London’s more exclusive clubs without so much as a raised eyebrow. He was the very picture of a modern silver haired city gent. I stood there at the door looking at them both for the first time in months. We had talked of course but I had insisted on audio only. They had never seen a picture of the new me. I was determined not to be seen as a freak in their eyes. I would be a man or a woman but not something in between. I stared at them silently for a good five seconds then instinct took over and I slammed the door shut and bolted the latch.

They knocked on the door patiently again.

And again.

And again.

Then they lost their patience.

“Christine Jane Theresa Anne WEAVER, you will open this door at once young lady!” my mother shouted in a tone that hardened fighter pilots had been known to duck and cover from.

It was spite more than anything that caused me to unlatch and open the door. “That’s not my NAME.” I shouted bitterly to the two of them standing in the hallway.

My father reached into his briefcase and handed me an official looking stack of papers with little sticky notes scattered about.

“Sign this luv,” my father said handing me his sterling silver pen. “And it will be…and initial, mustn’t forget the initials this bloody country would sink into the sea if you left the initials off.”

I stood there stunned holding the folder and pen and pushed the door open admitting them to my hotel room. I sat down back on the bed my back to the baseboard my father pulled up the chair from the little desk the Holiday Inn corporation provides it’s business guests and my mother got into bed with me… but not in a sexual way. God you people have dirty minds

It was from the Douglas County Courthouse and was an official request for a name change and a change so that my birth certificate and relevant documents would show female rather than Male. It seemed all I need do was scribble a few times and as far as the world at large would know my penis would never have existed. Doing all this without my knowledge or permission was probably illegal as hell. I felt the guiding hand of my father’s golfing buddy the County commissioner in all this… still, it looked real enough. Or perhaps the Nebraska supreme court judge, hell he had the commander of the 8th Air Force as a client. There was plenty of juice to go around.

I looked at my mother and father, and they looked at me, and I let them. What did they see I wondered. My hair was down almost to my shoulders, certainly longer than they had ever seen it. I didn’t have any makeup on but I still had my tasteful earrings in. I was expecting a stranger to see me and I still had my pride so I made sure I was respectably dressed for the pizza boy. I had on a red jacket with a white blouse and red skirt. Nylons encased my legs and I wore sensible black shoes with no heel since I wasn’t quite THAT crazy yet. The skirt was pretty tight but nothing illicit showed the bandages handled that nicely actually. And the blouse was thin enough that my bra was barely visible and said bra was not stuffed with socks. If actions spoke louder than words, I supposed what they were seeing was their daughter. Even If I didn’t see myself as that yet.

I signed the documents with my male name. Probably the last time I would do it.

I closed the folder after making sure to initial, and handed it over to my father.

“How did you find me?” I asked hormones about to induce tears.

“You’re not as smart as you think you are young lady, or maybe you are you’ve just had a lot your mind,” said my father taking the folder and returning it to his briefcase. “I got the email, nasty bugger, my grandfather was he not? And the accompanying scolding letter I’m sure my old friends will not be pleased to see. There are not so many Doctor Mallards after all, particular who specialize in your sort of thing. And doctors keep quite a bit less confidentially from their bookkeepers than they think they do. I found out about your operation. By the time we got to the hospital you were gone.”

“Why didn’t you tell us Chris?” my mother interrupted her hands embracing my and wrapping me in a cocoon of love.

“I hoped you wouldn’t be quite so bloody daft as to drive back to whatever undisclosed location you have been keeping yourself the same day you were kicked out of a hospital bed, and I’m going to be having words with your insurance company don’t you worry about THAT!” my father harrumphed in full pater familias mode. “Another day, we’ll talk about the dodgy shell corporation you founded and thought I didn’t know about. Your company credit card was used here to secure against incidental charges and since we had a location it was a simple enough matter to ask the rather bored night clerk downstairs what room you were in, and here we are.”

“Scotland Yard missed out when you emigrated.” I said, smiling despite myself.

“You’re not the only investigator in the family young lady.”

“Do you know everything?”

“Most everything, who do you think gave Sgt Grimes your name two years ago, deskbound policeman grandfathers don’t often hear about upstart college students with rather too much time on their hands.”

“I thought you would disapprove.”

“I do rather, but there was so very much more I could have disapproved of… and your rather good at it you see.”

“General Ryan at Offutt called me about you,” said my mother brushing my bangs out of my eyes. “He wanted to thank you again for helping Amanda. She is out of rehab and so far still clean. She gave birth to a boy with no damage thank the lord.”

“With all the right bits I hope?” I asked.

“With all the right bits,” my mother replied.

“Good for her, I’m glad. Is she keeping the baby?”

“The Ryan’s as a whole are keeping the baby. From what I hear the whole family is pitching in while Amanda gets well. She’s at UNO now, I saw her in the hall’s last week. She looked well considering…you look very nice too Chris.”

“Considering?” I replied looking up at her and then away.

“Yes,” she answered. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect when we opened that door but my beautiful daughter was what I was most hoping for, and I was right.”

“Ah, ma. Don’t get so sappy DoD hears about that there gonna pull your reserve commission… conduct unbecoming and all that. I don’t even have any make up on. I’ve been reading books about it and there is some in my case but I was just too tired.”

“Luv, if you had been worried about makeup hours after being discharged from a hospital I would be more worried about you than I am.” said my father with his formal crisp accent.

“And what are you worried about dearest father, the same thing your grandfather was?’

“Christine I do not deserve that, and if you continue on in that way 25 years old or not you’ll discover your not too old to be bend over my knee for a good going over.”

“For which I would deserve,” I admitted with a small smile.

“To answer your unstated question I’m bloody well pissed off at him, If the poxy sod wasn’t already dead I would shoot him myself. It’s not so terrible a thing to have daughters, HE had three. And for the other part, here.” He said as he handed me a second folder from his briefcase.

It was a lawsuit, drawn on my behalf by a firm of solicitors even I had heard of. It sought damages from the doctors, the doctor’s estate, the hospital the RAF and probably the Queen herself god help us.

“It hasn’t been filed yet, that would have been presuming too much on my part but the cannons have been primed and sighted in all you have to say is fire.”

“I may want to go back to old blighty one day, having my personal bossiness splashed hither and yon particularly on the front page of the Sun would not make it a pleasant visit.”

“You know your mind best of course, but your mother and I stand behind you completely. If you want this, that’s what we want too… now I haven’t eaten in 12 hours and 400 miles and you look like you could use a little bit of nosh yourself.”

“I ordered a pizza a few hours ago, but it must have got lost in the ether.”

“I have the rental, I’ll drive around and fine some monument to American ingenuity in clotting their arteries and call you on your mobile to tell you want I find and ask what you’d like to order. You’re mother will stay here with you and I’ll be back soon as I can for a delayed birthday party. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.”

***

My father is a great man, no greater testament was the fact that in less than 20 minutes he was back with dinner, a birthday cake AND candles. admittedly the birthday cake was a chocolate hostess cake from the local gas station but style points must be given. We talked the three of us, like we had never really done before. I said a little about how I had spent the last few months, how my treatment was progressing but they senesced my hesitation and had the good manners to change the subject. They instead did most of the talking, telling me all the trials and tribulations I had missed back home.

My sister had gotten married a few years back. To a Texan…

From a fine family.

As Texan’s count such things…

East Texas landed nobility from way back they were lawyers and doctors and sundry other professionals but the family seat was 3,000 acres of woodland they told the IRS was a pine tree farm for paper production but was really an excuse to write off a private hunting reserve and its sundry toys on their taxes. My brother-in-law had been experimenting with trying to get rid of his nasty wild boar problem by setting traps and had instead managed to get himself trapped in one for the whole night until he was found by his father the next morning. I tried not to laugh, I did not, I must admit, try very hard.

My little niece was walking and talking and dropping “y’all” in every other sentence. And my sister was now expecting again they have been told it’s a boy, I was pleased for her. And I knew he would be happy too, but I didn’t hold that against him. The due date was sometime in November if everything worked out all right he would never know that he had an uncle. We talked until everyone was very tired and my father slipped out to walk downstairs and get a room. The Holiday Inn Express being somewhat easier to get a booking that the Hilton he had no trouble and came back with the key to a room three doors down. He then carried both their suitcases up to the room and by the time he was back I had dressed in the nightgown I hadn’t the energy to wear before. I took a few seconds to stare but fair credit too him he didn’t flinch. My mother offered to share the bed with me, and I was sorely tempted which was one last crash of my masculine ego, but I declined. We would all sleep in and meet downstairs for breakfast at 9AM

***

My mother can be a pushy bitch.

I pushed right back. It’s helps to have a role model.

My parents flat out refused to leave me in my tender condition, and it was only with the greatest familial battles and only a slight overuse of newly acquired feminine whiles on my father that I convinced them I could not as yet return home. They said they supported me and that my fears were unfounded, but even at this extended point in my transition I was not ready to go back home and face friends and family. The idea of being seen in their eyes as some halfway in-between monster just out me off the whole idea completely. We spent another day in Denver and it was only with the faintest of twinges that I let my mother drive my jeep and we formed a small convoy toward my undisclosed mountain hideout.

The drive was as pleasant as April could be in this part of the world and we only had to threaten to kill two drivers on the way out of town. Several hours later when we pulled off the gravel road into my cabins dirt lot I felt a large innate sense of relief to be home. The cabin had been my sanctuary, my security blanket. And even if it was being invaded by parental units for a few days it was good to be back. My lady mother, being my mother, immediately scolded my on my housekeeping and after a quick inspection of my cabinets immediately requisitioned my jeep to go into down for what im sure would be military standard disinfectants.

My father, being a father, didn’t care quite so much about accumulated dust that REALLY WASN’T THAT MUCH AT ALL and once he was satisfied that my power would stay flowing and my propane tanks was not about to explode made sure I was safely ensconced at my desk with a recuperating cup of tea and then went to the small lake outside my front door to see if he could convince any rainbow trout that it would be a great idea to bite down on that fly lure. My mother came back several hours later and saw him lazed laid back the shore in my borrowed folding chair and then went and laid into him. Laurence Weaver answered by the simple expedient of giving his wife of thirty-three years a kiss and patting her on the backside. Lesser mortals would have burst into flames.

We had dinner that night slightly more civilized than the takeout boxes of the previous evening I didn’t exactly have exhibition quality flatware but no one commented on the Wal-mart special plates for which they, and my sanity should be grateful. We talked; we talked like we hadn’t talked in years. Ever in some cases. It was a very refreshing experience… after a week of it I was ready to slit their throats.

Fortunately enough for the both of us the go ahead was given by the several chief high medical mukety mucks and it was time for THE BIG ONE, the operation or rather operations for my outside to resemble my inside. To say that I was as nervous as a virgin in a brothel besieged by marines would be almost the literal truth. The hospital charged more than even the most high end cat house and it came up in conversation with my military parents that Dr Millard had started life a young member of the 1st Marine Division.

The less said about my sexual exploits the better, even if I was only going to be male for another minute I was still self-conscious of not having done it by the quarter century mark.

Chapter 14

Codeine is a hell of a drug.

In certain less developed parts of the United States where the criminal syndicates wouldn’t be caught dead away from a place that couldn’t dry-clean their 1,000 dollar suits it is referred to as “hillbilly heroin.” It was addicting as hell makes you feel great and all you needed was some just out of medical school child to scribble on a piece of paper and you could even get the government to buy it for you. Day three of the recovery I knew what all the fuss was about. There I was, a gaping hole in my private parts where there shouldn’t have been one. A rather unsightly nurse needed to every four hours stuff cotton up there to both stop the bleeding and prevent said hole from closing up again, a personal life that was, to say the least interesting, and I didn’t have a care in the world. I spent most of those first three days alternating between bouts of near comatose sleep and watching my hand move.

They eventually dropped the dosages a little bit and my limb movement became gradually less captivating. They rotorootered, pulled me inside out and then they started to work on me. I was only just beginning to recover from the main event when they started in on the extras. Much as I might have wished my life to become one of those fantasy stories I read there was no one magic wand that was going to go boom and make me a beautiful girl. Testosterone had had its way with me for much of my life and even though I had functioning ovaries now I had been under estrogenized… yea, I think that’s a word… for many years. They shaved some of my trachea to give me a more pleasant alto voice, then several facile feminizations. My hips and backside were starting to get reasonable padded but for my height I was pretty flat. Modern medical science had enabled that no young lady need go though life without the rack of her choice and I had decided on a rather benign C Cup. There was a probability that as the hormones kept working on me I would not need them and indeed require their removal but that process would take years and I was never good at waiting.

It was most of two weeks later when they wheeled me out of there. My father had settled the bill while I was still under the influence, which I considered to be cheating. But I got him back by buying first class tickets to Omaha. First class on an hour flight wasn’t exactly in the same ballpark but it was the principle of the thing. Denver traffic and mild aches in several sensitive places later and I was in no mood to drive up my mountain and see my trash scattered for hundreds of yards in every direction. The claw marks were evidence that large land mammal had been about in my absence and the wind had taken care of the rest. My trash dump was supposed to be bear proof in-between periodic removal but it appeared my antagonist was smarter than the average bear. Since some of that stuff had been festering for months I hope the silly bugger got food poisoning.

Less kind hearted individuals would call it OCD behavior after major surgery. I’m sure I was a sight. Limp, limp, lean over to pick up trash, wince at the pull on still healing muscles. Limp, limp, lean, and repeat ad nasusm. True it did spoil my view but it was pure self preservation. The tofu eating, clove smoking hippies that ran this part of Colorado had a real hard on against littering. And that’s not to factor in the stuff that blew into the national forest that I’m sure some pencil neck in DC would blame on me.

“Uh humph,” said a distinctly masculine voice behind me. “I uh, see you had some work done while you were away.”

I turned around to see, Tony sans winter uniform and looking far too pleased for a man stepping in what I hope he hadn’t noticed he was stepping in.

“Yes,” I said with a flick of my wrist in to emphasize the point. “Post modern sanitation chic is ALL the rage these days didn’t you know.”

“I was actually referring to your two new more personal acquisitions though now that the words are out of my mouth perhaps that wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing to say.”

He had the good grace to blush slightly but it didn’t hold a candle I’m sure to what my face must have shown. There are marked disadvantages to a mostly northern European heritage no matter what the NAACP tells you.

“Yes, well.” I stammered looking down. “I was getting tired for puberty to kick in. and it’s not like I really went overboard.”

“Indeed not, they quite become you if I might be so bold.”

“Thank you, I think, now my good man what do you federal fellows intend to do about this bear problem it’s got so that a woman isn’t safe alone in the deep forest at night anymore. Can’t you get your spokesman Smokey to tell his family that Montana is really the happing place for their kind?

“Smokey the bear only prevents wildfires not littering and I’m sure his relations think he been too citified. Now didn’t I tell you to sort out your dump?”

“You did, and I did, or at least I thought I did, I hired a guy to take care of it while I was away but obviously I shouldn’t of paid him in advance.”

“What guy?”

“A guy who had his ad in the paper for ‘rural trash removal’, right next to guy who said he could perform ice cream delivery within an hour anywhere in a 20 miles radius of town. I figure if modern science has progressed to that level it was possible to get a trash hauler up my road,” as I stabbed yet another cardboard box and shoved it into my sack.

“Possible yes, probable no, Tom Martin takes care of the big money snow bunnies and the old time locals first, getting around to carpetbaggers such as us only afterwards. You would have been better off ordering a couple dozen gallons of rocky road and telling the delivery boy to take a sack down the mountain each time on his way back.”

“I’ll note that for next time.”

“Want some help?”

“I’m thinking of taking off and nukeing the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”

“I believe the town passed an ordinance or some such against that. But I would have to check to be certain.”

“Curses, foiled again.”

***

If my life was a romance paperback, this is the part where the newly fully functional and sex starved heroine would be ravaged by the buff forest ranger. Well even if both us had been willing which I most certainly was not the plumbing wouldn’t be ready for servicing for another few months yet. Instead Tony unloaded to me his troubles over dinner followed shortly after a very much required and quite separate I assure you shower. It was easier I think talking to me, as a friend and fellow outsider and as someone not enmeshed in the bureaucracy.

The mineral survey was going well, too well. The damn Oil shale was everywhere, and worse, easier to get to than almost anywhere else on the continent. The geologists were hitting pay dirt, pun intended and the oversight couldn’t rubber stamp it fast enough. All the save the spotted owl and don’t murder the dolphin crowd developed a certain moral flexibility when gas broke $4.00 a gallon.

One of them a week after my return, had the ill grace to get himself lost in my woods and then DEMANDED that I give him a ride back into town. Didn’t I, after all, know who he was? Colorado is still the West, no matter that it had lately been overrun by economic refugees from the Peoples Republic of California. My mountain hideaway was still protected under old fashioned castle laws that basically let me use anything up to and including an Abrahams tank to defend my home. I looked at the man in my kitchen returned 30 seconds later from my office with a printout of the relevant section of state code and after a not so judicious flash of my little friend from Iowa on my hip I went back into my office. I didn’t hear him leave but he was kind enough to lock the door on his way out. Tony grinned from ear to ear when I told him, and we were both thankful the mook wasn’t able to retrace his steps when he went crying to the local sheriff who probably knew who I was anyway, but since I was still a free woman likely did not give much credence to the city slicker’s stories of the wild witch woman of the west.

Life carried on for the next few months, seldom with interruptions as interesting as that. Spring and Summer were the busy season for forest rangers. It’s when most of the unprepared folks from sheltered upbringings get in trouble. I saw less and less of Tony but it was probably for the best as he would have seen less and less of me. I still wasn’t ready to head back to Omaha but a girl needs to eat so I was wrapped up in project after project, not to mention my several classes through distance education. I was the last week in June when the snow was FINALY starting to leave the taller peaks when I got the phone call from my lord Father. It having been a few months since he and my mother had seen me and damn near a year since anyone else in the family had done so my glorious presence was requested and required for a long weekend at the lake house in celebration of the War of American Rebellion, his words. I packed my bags with everything I thought I needed for a Fourth of July weekend and headed down my mountain.

My Grandfather Jim had been a bit too young to participate in the Second War of European Aggression. But he had been in prime condition just in time for Jesus Christ in his second coming his Holiness MacAurthur to use him as a human popsicle stick at the Chosin Reservoir. He is one of the most gentle men I know if not precisely a gentleman. He never could stand anyone who let their prejudices get the better of them and was one of the first Nebraska ranchers to pay his migrant workers well and give them a fair shake instead of the more traditional shaft. Still and all, the smell of Chinese food makes him physically ill… some things you never forget or get over. I’m told he didn’t personally hold back the entire ChiCom army but he gave it his very best. And the only reason he had a Silver Star instead of the Congressional Medal of Honor was because there wasn’t a handy officer around to see him do it. They were all safe and warm in the rear area at the time.

Once back home, he married the first vertical female he saw that was of approximately the same age and not a close relation and proceeded to have himself eleven children of which my mother was third from the top. Well, grandma had the kids; I guess he just had most of the fun. That little sexual dynamic is something I will have to reassess now that I’m on the other side of the skirt. Cherry County Nebraska in the 1950’s wasn’t all that much better than Cherry County in the 1930’s or the 1850’s for that matter. The great Eisenhower Era of good feeling mostly pasted the rural areas by. He got home to a debt his own grandfather had racked up and 2000 acres of almost useless semiarid rangeland. I don’t know how much he’s worth now, you always get the feeling he would disinherit any of his descendents that gets too nosy but through fifty years of blood, sweat, but no tears because no true Nebraska would shed them in honest toil, he managed to hand over to my uncle a few years back when he was finally drug into retirement a working ranch of 26,000 acres. That’s bigger than some countries, micro nations on some Pacific atoll sure, but still… countries.

Take me home country roads.

Chapter 15

Most people, from a wetter climate, wouldn’t call it a proper lake, half a mile across at its widest north to south and 3/4th a mile east to west it didn’t even have a name except “the lake.” Its deepest part was only about 15 feet and in the dry years, and it had been dry a lot in the last few, a man could walk across it without getting his chest wet. Way back when it had just been a little depression in the prairie fed by a creek that was reliable enough to water cattle in the wet months, in the dry months we had to pound sand, literally. The rest of the state particularly the agricultural regions to the south were being damned and reservoirs being filled but while Cherry County was the biggest county in the entire state land wise, its entire population wouldn’t fill even a small town in the eastern portion. Even today it was less than 6,000 souls.

Grandpa, had one day in the 60’s after culling what could have been a fine cow looked up to see that his spread was going to get a reservoir someday after the 6th of never, and got a few of his friends together who just so happened to be in the engineer battalion of the national guard and built himself a dam. The Sandhills region didn’t exactly run to steep valley walls, and the soils didn’t help much a great heap of the water just melted into the ground to join the Ogallala aquifer, the largest collection of groundwater in the world, but deep down and expensive to get at. That didn’t stop him though. The ranchers and few farmers downstream put up a bit of a fight, one of them even went so far as to set charges to several of the earth moving machinery and threatened to blow. That delayed him to be sure, but didn’t stop him, not even when he had to go on trial for arson, something to do with a certain farmer’s barn. Technically speaking he needed permission from the government and he dutifully asked for it, but the lake had been 10 years built before they finally gave it.

He brought water to the desert. That’s the kind of man he was.

The long and winding road led me and my jeep three miles off the state highway. The very second thing the family had done after the shoreline was reasonably stable was to plant trees. It was a psychological thing. Miles and miles, of miles and miles needs to be interrupted, else a body would think he was about to fall off into the sky. The fruit orchards were enough to keep us in fresh pies and applejack but truth be told we let 90% of it fall to the ground. It provided enticement for the local dear and other wild game to come down with a terminal case of optimism. As I rolled up and parked on the gravel in front of the house I could see that several of my younger cousins and probably a few of the ones old enough to know better had already been hard at it increasing our trade deficit with China. The black scorch marks on the grass was a testament to some small amount of fireworks at play, the fact that the whole valley had not gone up proof of a kind and loving God.

I was a bit nervous as I grabbed my bag out of the trunk. This would be the first time my extended family had seen me and I wasn’t exactly dressed to the nines. The Fourth of July at the lake was not an occasion to slather on the war paint and slip into an evening gown. I debated wearing a skirt just to put the issue out front of people but it was impractical in the extreme so I settled on a pair of kaki shorts, with a baby blue polo shirt as my top. It was practical sure, but gender neutral. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of, my family seeing me as a girl for the first time or taking a look at me and not being able to tell the difference. I set my bag on the wooden deck just in front of the back door and prepared to entire the holiest of holies, my Grandmothers kitchen.

***

It was a trap.

There were two of them.

When my mother was 18 she had a knock down drag out, ‘this continent isn’t big enough for the both of us’ fight with her mother, subsequently joined the Air Force, and headed off into the wild and wide. Seeing the both of them together it was easy enough to see why, opposites attract and all that but two particles of the same charge respell and baby, I’m not kidding. I suppose I should be pleased that I stood a good chance to come out ahead in the genetic lottery.

My mother’s mother was just short of her 8th decade and looked good for half again more. I found them both holding court in the kitchen where I knew at least my Grandmother would be. The proper care and feeding of the small army that was her family would have driven lesser woman mad. Certainly at her age and economic status she didn’t NEED to do anything more strenuous than raising a pinky to the hired help but the day she let some stranger take charge of her kitchen was the day after her funeral. The day OF her funeral she probably would have the menu planned.

“Hello grandma,” I said hesitantly.

“Christine,” she replied without hesitation as she nodded at me while stirring what looked to be an absolutely scrumptious fruit salad. “You’re mother was just telling me that you have been seeing a forest ranger from Colorado,” she said ‘Colorado’, like it was some foreign country, which to her it probably was.

“When are you inviting him to dinner?”

“MOTHER!!” I screamed in exasperation.

***

The first day was tenuous, but I gradually remembered why it was a rather liked my family. My uncles and assorted male relations started off treating me like I was a defector, a traitor to the cause. My aunts and the distaff side were equally wary, like I was an enemy infiltrator, here to find out all their secrets and report back to the other side. Eventually though when the men realized I wasn’t going to perform a striptease in front of them and shock their delicate Nebraska sensibilities, and the woman understood that I wasn’t going or even able to switch sides again the situation normalized. Of course 8 year olds think just about anything is normal.

“So did you keep it after they cut it off, I’d keep mine,” my cousin Brian asked while tugging on my sleeve.

“Didn’t you hear Aunt Elaine, he never had one to begin with,” interrupted my other cousin Susan.

“SHE, never had,” added cousin Amy.

“I still want to know if you kept it?”

“I’m afraid not, Brian.” I replied trying not to break out into a grin. “It got tossed out with the medical waste by the time I thought to ask about it.”

“Couldn’t you have just, looked through the trash? I did that when mom threw out my favorite shirt.”

“No, medical waste is a biohazard it’s dangerous to go dumpster diving through that.”

“Your dingus was hazardous…cool.”

“Brian, here is my second favorite lighter, go blow up something expensive.” I said, handing over a Zippo which perhaps proves that I should think long and hard of having children of my own. I wasn’t totally without moral judgment as I knew that the fireworks were stockpiled in the barn under the eye of my youngest Uncle Bryon. Having only just left adolescence himself he was familiar enough with the theory not to get himself in trouble, and his wife’s tolerant presence had educated him enough not to do something stupid.

“You are going to have to learn some other method Chris, when they get older not every male can be distracted by explosions,” My sister said as she approached from the driveway.

“Julie!” I shouted as I stood up from the deck chair to give her a big huh. Our two sets of breasts pressing against each other was an odd, but not unpleasant experience. “When did you get in, sit down, sit down. And I happen to know that men never lose their interest in things that go boom. Why our own grandfather sterling citizen and hero that he is did not four hours ago steal across the border into South Dakota and bring back almost a thousand dollars of contraband.”

“Did you get your usual order in?”

“I’ll have you know I have grown past such childish things, such masculine endeavors and I still have half a gross of bottle rockets left over from last year in my part of the storage unit on the east bank.”

“That’s good to know, “Julie smiled as she gave me another hug before sitting down. “You look good Chris.”

“You look better,” I replied, meaning it my sister was a real beauty.

“Yes, well I’ve had more practice, and pregnancy bestows a certain glow on a woman, it ought too all the other things we have to deal with.”

“You’re hardly showing, are you sure it’s just not indigestion from all that spicy Texican food.”

“Fairly certain, my husband strutting around like a prime peacock is a better indication than any pregnancy test I know, there he is now. Bobby! Over here, come over here and say hello to your new sister-in-law.”

“Claudia is with your grandmother in the kitchen, “my brother in law reported, once he got closer. “I have to go finish unloading the car.”

“Oh, that can wait,” Julie insisted with a wave. “It’s not every day you get to meet a new relation for the second time.”

“Hello, Chris…um…Christine, um ma’am. “ He finally nodded in my general direction. “I have to go unload the car then I promised to talk to your grandfather about his Douglas firs. I’ll see yall tonight.” He finished beating an indecent retreat in the general direction of the driveway.

“He’s a little weirded out by me isn’t he sis?” I asked once he was safely out of earshot.

“He just needs a little time to adjust, Chris this isn’t the sort of thing good Methodists talk about.”

“Mom was saying you had to fight him tooth and nail to drag him up here this year. Being that he always seemed to enjoy himself and you went to his family last Fourth I suppose I wouldn’t be the major reason why would I?”

“I never lied to you Chris, well, never over anything important, yes he’s mentioned that you make him uncomfortable. We talked about almost nothing else for the last three days.”

“Maybe I should just leave now that I’ve made an appearance, people can get on talking about me behind my back.”

“Now Chris, don’t get all teenage hormonal on me,” Julie said with a giggle.

“If he says or does anything about it to me I’ll…”

“And don’t get all MALE on me either. He’s my husband and you’re my sister and I won’t choose between you. Even if I have to knock both of you unconscious to do it.”

“He and I never got on.”

“Oh Chrissie, I’m too old, too fat and not able to get drunk enough to put up with this sort of angst when it’s this hot out. Since we can solve only one of those problems I vote we get in our suits and hit the water.”

“Um…”

“You did bring a suit right?”

“Um…”

“One that’s designed for your current hardware I hope,” she said with a subtle wave in my chests general direction.

“Um…”

“Develop a vocabulary Christine, its unbecoming. “ Interrupted my mother as she walked around the corner of the deck. “Come up to my room you may borrow one of mine.”

“Ah…”

***

My Uncle Edward lived in Lincoln and worked as a middle manager in the Kawasaki Factory. He had procured for the family four Jet skis that had literally fallen off the back of a truck and the company had deemed too damaged to be sold to an unsuspecting public. He and his friends were able to rebuild them and while they seemed safe enough the memory of their origin as I was blasting past the shore at 50+ MPH added a little something more to the experience. For those of you unfortunate enough never to have experienced the joy of a jet ski I could only describe it as a motorcycle without the benefit of brakes, that requires no license to operate and the added bonus of not being able to see any of the obstructions that may been on the “road” in front of you.

The ranch hands had done their best over the years to mark any shallow areas where rock crops up or submerged trees might have been inundated. But the water level rose and sank so much and so often that it was difficult to stay on top of things. So I guess I shouldn’t be too terribly angry at them that as a result of my own hot-dogging to close to the dock I hit something and was ejected rather forcefully from my conveyance.

I guess.

Fortunately enough I had slowed down at that point and was only going about 10 MPH at the time so instead of a fiery ball of flame I was only sent, after a sharp impact on the jet ski’s console, barreling end over end into the water. There was a strap tied to me and to the watercrafts engine that when pulled off cut the forward momentum so my ride just meekly slowed and stopped while it was me that had all the work of swimming back to it. The wind had picked up a bit and proof that some higher being did in fact have it in for me it was blowing my ride further away from me.

I had been smart enough to wear my lifejacket. The whole family had their own, Grandmother insisted. Mine however, had been fitted to me when I was 50 pounds heavier and rather flatter up top if you understand my meaning. In my haste to get on the jet ski before my wayward relations bogarted it out from under me I had just thrown on the jacket without adjusting all the several dozen straps so while It had served it’s primary function in keeping me floating on the water after my crash the force of my insertion had also pulled it off of me and taking with it my never to be sufficiently damned mother induced bikini top with it.

So there I was.

Not so middle of the lake, jet ski in front of me, life jacket behind and what I assumed at this point my whole family watching me make a damned fool of myself, which, when I thought about it, wasn’t the first time but certainly the first time I had done so while violating public indecency laws. Laws, which are strictly enforced in this part of the state; a fact my Uncle the Sherriff was oh so happy to point out to me later that night at dinner. I did the only thing I could think of, I put my hands over my chest, treaded water with my feet and hoped the earth would fall into the sun before I had to show my face on shore again.

“Some things never change Chris!” shouted my Mom as she approached on her own jet ski. “I think you hit that very same rock the summer we came out here when you were 15.”

“Some things do change,” I shouted back. “I lost my top somewhere. I waved with my hand toward my floating lifejacket realized I had removed one of my hands from a strategic spot and quickly put it back.

“Well, it’s a small lake it can’t be that hard to find.”

“Mom!”

“You know I really should be getting back, a woman of my age… all this sun. I shouldn’t be riding a Jet ski at all really.”

“You were going faster than I was!”

“It will be dark in a few hours, you’ll be fine.”

“Mom!” I shouted at her, but she didn’t hear me over the hum of her Jet ski’s engine powering up as she charged away at high speed. I was only halfway through the list of curses I knew in several languages when I saw that she was turning around. In what I’m sure was a fit of maternal concern she slowed down enough to reach over and snag my jacket out of the water and bring it over to me. Once I had the important bits covered by a few inches of thick of flotation device I grabbed her aft section and she motored us toward my own ride.

You have to try real hard to flip the damn things, even harder to sink em. The SS idiotmobile was still floating and right side up but climbing on board without any convenient foothold or ladder is a bit of an endeavor. My mother had to hold both our vehicles steady while I climbed on board and I only sort of on purpose accidently knocked her off and into the lake herself. I was however a lady and waited for her to climb back on before tear assing off for home.

***

Most of you have probably never been fortunate enough to have seen a barbeque. Oh, you may have think you have, but unless you had the good sense to be born on a working ranch or get to one as soon as you could it’s probably not the real thing. Back in Omaha, I was invited to a cook out on the river by my manager and her husband. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he was, in his several thousand dollar, coal fired, imported from NEW YORK CITY smoker, cooking over a 35 pounds of meat in one go.

Later that night freshly showered and clothed, including a new bra that was probably latched to me a little too tight, I looked down by the shoreline to see a pig on a spit. Hung four feet above a six foot fire pit was roasting a prize hog that I think weighed in at 400 pounds. It had been going all day and parts of yesterday and I’m sure the smell would have caused the peasants to revolt if the hands were not already invited. One of my Uncle Ted’s boys, who I assume was responsible for the black scorch marks out front was turning the spit by hand. There was a motor to do it for us, we weren’t complete barbarians, but I could see that it had been at some point disconnected. Grandpa had sort of a rule, God invented children to help their parents with the chores. He had mellowed somewhat in his old age that we youngsters didn’t HAVE to milk the cows or catch the eggs at all hours of the day and left that up to the folks that were paid for it. But one of us stepped out of line and you could be sure he’d find something for us to do.

As I watched the boy stopped only long enough to sneak a hand into his pocket and attempt to pull out one of the electronic devices his age group is surgically attached too. He managed to get two whole fingers on the device before a strong stentorian voice shouted “Punishment detail has not finished Kevin.” And he yanked his hand out like it was on fire. The pig itself was looking pretty fine, the pork was about to fall off, which is just the right time to serve it, the juice dripping fatty goodness and slashing into the coals with little burst of flame as the heat set off the flammable drippings. By itself it would make a fine meal and anyone, barring religious objections, who turned it down had to be out of their mind nuts.

And this was just the appetizer.

The main event was two halves from a freshly slaughtered cow. You could barbeque a cow whole but it was usually more trouble than it was worth so here we had another two fire pits set up one with a wayward relation one on a regular mechanical turner. Bessie well, probably a steer, so bertie, was most likely a thousand pounds while he was eating grass a few days ago but after slaughter, dressing, cooking and carving we were probably looking at only 300 pounds of dinner. Which divided among 75 odd family and friends meant we all had a long hard night of work ahead of us and that’s no lie.

As I looked at my meal cooking I pondered, a steer for those of you who don’t know is a male that has been castrated for his own good. A cow is the female, a bull the male. Cows are where milk comes from, not your neighborhood grocery. A bull is what a cow needs to make more cows and bulls. But you only REALLY need about one bull for every 20 cows, the rest of them just get in the way their hormones causing them to but their heads into any and everything. Cattle have the same gender divide as humans do. A female can be put to work producing milk, and when she’s all dried up is then sent to slaughter. The Bull is a busy fellow servicing the needs of his harem until one thing or another gives out and then it’s off to the market. A steer now, has his balls off before he really knows what they are there for and spends the rest of his, in comparison to the cow or bull, short life, being fattened up on corn, feed lot version of junk food, before the former male is taken off to fill the bellies and or pocketbooks of his masters.

As a metaphor for my current situation I didn’t much care for it.

Wasn’t gonna stop me from enjoying dinner though. No indeed.

“Christine, stop raping that meat with your eyes and come over here and help me with the salad. You shouldn’t eat all that much beef anyway; you need to start watching your figure.”

“Ah, ma…”

***

The next day was the Fourth of July proper, and if people had thought they had heard fireworks so far they knew they had done so by the end of the day. The ranch’s fire truck was only needed once and little Kevin was going to be spending the rest up the trip putting an icepack on his burned hand and his tanned backside. I was on the deck overhanging the water playing with my little niece Claudia, we had only spent a few weeks in each other’s presence during her short life as she came north or I held my nose and went south. She was at that very adaptable age that meant the idea of her Uncle becoming her Aunt was not so hard to understand. And aside from asking for her present to somehow celebrate, even though it was to me it happened, it was firm in her two year old mind that she deserved a present. Once an ice cream was provided she never brought up the subject again. I was sitting lotus style facing her trying to teach her that the words you and all were in fact separate, when her father came into view.

“Claudia!” my brother-in-law Bobby shouted. “Get away from him.”

“I beg your pardon Bobby,” I said trying to maintain my calm as I stood up. “Have I somehow offended you?”

“I saw you looking straight up her dress!”

“I’m not a pedophile Mr. Blaine, incestuous or otherwise. And I’ll thank you not to insult me like that again.”

“I saw what I saw,” he said as he grabbed my niece and placed his body between us.

“Bobby,” my aunt Suzie said. “I was here the whole time, nothing happened they were just playing on the deck.”

“He was looking right at her panties!”

“She, Mr. Blain,” I retorted. “I have the medical records to prove it, that is assuming you would not insist upon a personal examination. And I wasn’t looking at anything of the sort, we were sitting without chairs, your daughter does not yet have a well developed sense of modesty and she was wearing a dress. Grown women have been known to forget to close their knees.”

“Just stay away from my daughter you little freak,” he shouted again with a push.

Now after the fact, once heads had cooled I have to say what happened next wasn’t 100% his fault. I was still new to this female gig and in an effort to establish my case had worn a somewhat impractical pair of sandals with a four inch heel. Still getting used to my set of stilts/ torture implements with that one little shove I lost my balance, tipped over and on my way down managed to hit my head on the side of the picnic table. There are a lot of major blood vessels up there. Head wounds are bloody, whether it’s a little cut or a gaping hole. I was just unlucky.

I couldn’t really even blame him much for the push. I don’t have children of my own of course but I can infer some of the thoughts of parenthood. One of their personal hells, particularly of late must be the idea that one of their children would be abused. I was technically a sexual deviant. If you, as many do, confuse sex with gender. If someone had done anything nasty with one of my kids they would have found pieces of the guy who did it in three counties. Human beings are not real rational when it comes to their offspring.

My Grandfather is slow to anger; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And he shows emotion maybe when Nebraska is in a bowl game and only if it’s one of the important ones. He rose up from his chair and began walking toward me. My Aunt and Grandmother were already at my side, screaming at Bobby while I held a dishrag to my bleeding head. Grandpa came over moved my hands out of the way so he could get a good look and when he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to bleed to death on the spot stood to face Bobby. Grandpa had lost an inch or two since his prime and he took slow and steady movements because a lifetime of abuse on his frame had caused everything he did to hurt him a bit somewhere.

Not a lot of fat on him though, even these many years since he put himself out to pasture. He was 82 years old, bald, rather ugly, about as far away from a Hollywood hero as it was possible to be. Without saying a word he grabbed my brother-in-law by the belt with his right hand, grabbed his shirt collar with his left and hoisted him in the air over his shoulder, over the railing of the deck and into the lake below. Bobby was splashing and cursing, I had met his mother once, and I think she would blush to learn what her son had to say for himself. Eventually Bobby walked himself over to the stair leading to the dock and grabbed hold of the top rail just in time to see my grandfathers boot step a few inches away from his fingers. Bobby stopped cold and looked up.

“Robert,” he said in a strong voice looking down. “I came close to killing a Texan once when I was younger. It pains me that I didn’t, but some opportunities you can’t get back.”

“Sir, I…” Bobby stuttered.

“Will apologize to my granddaughter,” he finished for him. “And let us never speak of this again.”

“Yes Sir.”

To be continued in part 2.

***