Kristi

By: Cindilee

Kristi woke with the alarm. She hated school days, especially after the nights she endured. She dragged herself out of her cot, in the basement of her “Auntie’s” house.

She was sixteen, and had been out of her parent’s house for two years. She had problems that they didn’t want to deal with, and she didn’t want to abide by their wishes, so she left. No looking back. It was too painful. She wondered where it had all gone wrong.

Kristi was transgendered. She had known this for her entire life and after all the things that she suffered to this point; she knew there was no going back. Her parents had seen to that. She no longer had any feelings for them whatsoever, and had been emancipated at fifteen.

She padded gingerly to the bathroom. She sat very carefully on the seat, as it was cold, but her bottom was extremely sore. After she finished, with her business, she knew that there would be blood on the paper. There was, and a lot of it. She buried her head in her hands.

Why did she do this? Was anything, anything worth this? She hadn’t gone through puberty yet, so she didn’t need the blockers that other early transitioners needed, but the estrogen was expensive, and most of the jobs she could get were minimum wage at best. Her ID said female, but if anyone checked, they would find out she had been born Kyle. That tended to put a lot of people off.

Kristi knew she was attractive for a t girl. Those looks made her a natural for the sex trade. She had gotten involved with some unsavory characters in the LA underworld who put her in contact with people who were looking for girls with “something extra” as they had put it.

She got up slowly from the toilet. The man who had used her last night was disappointed her male equipment didn’t work, and had used her rather forcefully in some sort of sick payback. She was frightened he was going to do worse, but he seemed satisfied by her cries and whimpers. She supposed what she had gone through wasn’t rape. She knew going in what was going to happen and had taken the man’s money at the end of the “date”.

She showered in her little unheated bathroom. At least she had somewhere to stay. Other girls she knew weren’t that lucky. Her “auntie” was for all intents and purposes her madam, but she didn’t take everything Kristi made.

As she washed herself carefully, she cried, her tears melding with the water trickling down her face. It was getting to be too much. Other girls like her wouldn’t believe she was trans, and she felt like an outsider with genetic girls. So, she just kept to herself.

She never accepted dates, although there were a few persistent boys in her high school that kept asking. She was never tempted to date anyone, however. The men that used her night after night had spoiled her from ever having anything to do with a man again. The thought sickened her.

Her shower finished, she wrapped herself in her threadbare towel and used bathrobe. There were old bloodstains on the material where her bottom was. There would be new ones today. She dried her long dark hair, and brushed it till it shone. It went down to the middle of her back, and was her crowning glory. She loved her hair. Not because it was beautiful, which it was, but because she could hide behind it during the day if she felt like crying. And she felt like that a lot.

Why was just being who she was so difficult? Why couldn’t society just let her get rid of her problems and let her be a respectable member? That’s all she wanted. No, she had to skulk around the fringes, dealing with closeted perverts and child molesters who only wanted to get their rocks off. At least she had protection, or she could have been another statistic in the war on street crime.

She put a pad in her panties then took a couple of Tylenol. She couldn’t wear jeans to school today. She was way too sore for that. So, she found a nice pleated navy skirt, not too short, and paired it with white tights and a blouse with a sweater. She found flats that worked and was as comfortable as she was going to be.

She collected her books with a sigh, and caught sight of the box cutter. The blade shone off the bare bulb in her room. She grabbed it without a thought and put it in her backpack, in a hidden compartment. She kept it for self defense, not knowing what she would face everyday. Life on the streets had made her paranoid.

She caught her bus and found her seat towards the front. She never looked around, and never talked to anyone on the bus. It had worked the entire year, and while she was desperately lonely, she didn’t dare engage anyone on the bus. It was too painful. She was nothing more than a street whore, and these kids either wouldn’t understand, or care why she did what she did, if ever they were to find out. No, it was better that they never knew her or anything about her.

She was buried in a book, reading her assignment when a new student sat next to her. He was very outgoing, and other kids seemed to know him, calling out, “hey John” a couple of times.

“Hi, cutie! I’m new to this bus. You probably know me. John Winters”

“No, I-I’m sorry, I-I d-don’t know you” She had a tendency to stutter when she was nervous, and she hated it.

“I’ve seen you before. Kristi, right?”

She nodded.

“Not much for conversation, are you?”

“No, I-I just have some schoolwork to catch up on. Late night”

“Ahh, don’t sweat it. Look, you’re kinda cute, you know that? I’m really in to the whole schoolgirl thing. Would you like to meet up with me after school for something to eat?”

She really wanted to. The offer of a meal sounded wonderful to her as she was quite hungry. She didn’t have a lot of money to spare, as she was saving up for her SRS surgery, so she tended to neglect things like eating to save money. Besides, being waifish helped business.

She blushed “I’d l-love to, John, but I just can’t. I-I have a lot of stuff to do after school”

“Please just go away” was all she could think. What would this boy do to her if he found out she had the same equipment he had. Her boobs were still tiny, no more than an A cup. She truthfully looked no more than thirteen. So she lied.

She whispered, to avoid him having to go through any embarrassment. “I-I’m s-sorry, but I’m really only thirteen. You’re too old for me, and my daddy won’t let me go out with boys”

That put him off the trail. “Okayyy, I’ll be going now” He went back to the back of the bus, defeated.

She hated to lie to the boy, but the truth was far worse. “I’m sorry, but I’m a transsexual whore. I can date you, but you’ll need to come up with five hundred dollars” She hadn’t bothered to put on makeup, because most days she just ended up crying it off.

The question kept nagging her. Why put up with this? The next question echoed ever louder in the last few weeks. “Just end it. You’ll be an angel in heaven”

Something in her mind wouldn’t let her do it, but that voice was getting progressively weaker. Every trick she turned killed her spirit a little more every day.

She got off the bus, and John, the nice guy, came up behind her and gave her a huge swat on the behind. Her very sore behind. She stifled a scream and collapsed to her knees. She felt like she had been stabbed with a poker. All she could do was sob.

“That’s for lying to me, bitch. Stuart says you’re a junior. Have fun!”

Kristi just stayed on her knees, trying to get past the pain. “I had that coming” She thought. “I deserved that for lying”

No one helped her up, but she did get to her feet and walked gingerly to her locker. She had finally had enough. Tonight, she would end it. Two little cuts to her wrists, and her pain would be over. Nothing was worth this pain. Not becoming a girl, not being who she was on the inside. This had to stop. No one would miss her anyway.

She opened her locker, and a pink envelope fell out. She looked at the outside and it was addressed “To Kristi”.

She looked at it, and then around to see if someone was watching her. Everyone seemed to be going about their business. She opened the envelope, and it was a card. The outside was a still life of flowers and it read “For Someone Special”.

Kristi’s eyes began to dampen. It was difficult to see the inside. Someone had written a note.

“Dear Kristi:

We’ve seen you around, and notice how lonely you seem. We’ve tried a few times to get to know you, and for whatever reason, you haven’t let us in. That’s okay. You will when you are ready. We want you to know that you are a very special girl, and we see that. When you are ready, we want you to know that we will be there to support you and love you, because you are loved”

It was signed Amber, Dana and Josie. She knew these girls. They were outcasts like her, openly gay in Amber’s case, and in Dana and Josie’s case, activists who didn’t conform. They cared enough to do something.

Kristi was crying behind her shield of hair. She was loved. Maybe she could go on. Maybe she had a friend.

Maybe she didn’t have to end it.