Can I have some Brown Sugar for my Damper? Chapter 6.

Chapter 6

It’s funny how fast things go. I mean especially if you are having a decent time of things and I’d been getting the house straightened around and sorted and the guys have been working pretty darned hard with things all week and I was getting used to being here.

I’ve still been cooking for the guys but like the third day in I asked Rudy if he could build up a proper BBQ pit are and I had the money or rather I had the credit to get the things that we needed and wanted or rather that I wanted.

So I’m the proud new owner of this long BBQ pit made of cinder blocks but covered on the outside with masonry stone. Like that nice looking stuff outside of those wishing wells. It’s got a over box built into it that Rudy had made actually taken from an old wood fired oven that he had known where to get it from. And he sort of built it around that. It’s not really an oven now but it’s more of a place to keep things warm. I still like it though and the oven door has this old look and finish that goes “Right well.” With the stone.

And I knew about grills but I hadn’t known about how they also used a steel plate for cooking on kind of like the whole planche grills that I’ve seen. I’ve got my grill set up that I can move the grates and the flat iron around as I need to. And the whole thing has a hood on it like a regular BBQ might set on hinges but made from a cleaned and polished the painted on the outside half a steel drum. I really love it and I’m going to enjoy cooking out here a lot.

Unless you had a place way on the outskirts of the city or a special business license you couldn’t use wood fired anything in Montreal. I think only a handful of the old places are even allowed to, like the old bagel places.

Rudy’s got the house raised up and the concrete’s is coming today. Him and the guys had dug out all the stuff for the basement and all the funky much and stuff and then they had tamped it solid the brought in sand then gravel to fill up the hole that was left there and more sand and then tamped it all down with this thing that was like a jackhammer if a jackhammer was like a foot.

I’ve gotten Matt’s jeep ready to drive and I’ve an appointment next week to get my license. And I’ll be heading into The Mater soon to start my orienteering soon and stuff. Otherwise I’ve still been mostly bust here at home getting things fixed up. I’m going to redo the interior at least painting wise and maybe a few other things and I want some gardening done. I’d like to have some flowers out front and some it the back yard nothing really high maintenance but just a little bit of pretty.

I’ve got a bunch of other things that I’m going to try and get done while Rudy is still around like a clothesline. I might be really old fashioned and stuff but my grandmother and my mother both have clotheslines out back of their houses and I want one.

And some of this stuff I’m doing on my own being a handy girl. I get a few looks and smiles when I’ll gather some of the building and reconstruction rubbish or junk but they call it rubbish and I’ll get it out of the way of all of us and haul it away to the dumpster in the driveway.

I’m starting to use “Orright.” Instead of alright but I’ve been playing with them too by slipping in “ay or eh” on purpose and I’ve caught Rudy doing it. But I’m saying “Yeh.” A lot too.

Oh and beer is grog and wine is Plonk?

When they guys talk like that I want to giggle sometimes and go Aargh matey…only matey…mate…it really wouldn’t be as funny to them as I find it.

The days are getting better too more getting done and things sort of becoming sort of normal? I mean it’s me and my life and there are sometimes where just being a trans-woman I feel like an alien.

God sometimes it’s so lonely.

And honestly Rudy…

He’s so darned good looking and tanned and has this really muscled body that has me…

And he looks, he checks me out. I think he does but…do I do anything? Would he be even interested in a girl like me?

Would any decent person? Or am I going to just…attract the people that just want me for ex or the tranny thing.

Is he keeping this just professional?

I really need to get driving, like any metro-city there’s a lot of ground to cover when I need things and while they’ve got good public transit here I still have to take cabs and cabs are expensive. Well not too expensive compare to some but it adds up.

………………………….. Another long lonely night. I cried a bit curled around my pillows. Missing my brother and crying over my ex. Yeah…she was a bad person in the end of it but it was a long relationship. Even with it being better for me now. I still miss being touched, held and being with someone. God it’s not even about the sex. It’s…I miss those little things like an arm being draped over me in bed.

It doesn’t help that I’m still learning to be me…and I’m hitting one of those emotional and hormonal walls. It really sucks.

I get up and take my pills and make my coffee and feeling like this…I have a horrible breakfast before the guys show go Ice cream…yep, coffee and Streets double chocolate magnum bars on a stick…I need the chocolate. Some what sedated from the suck I head up stairs and shower then get dressed in my good panties and a nice bra and I slip into my scrubs, fight through my hair and make up. I try to do a decent professional look but I need some new things as my stuff here isn’t make for the weather or whatever. I’m off to the Mater today for the start of my orienteering.

I have lots of time really but I just want to get in and deal with HR and all the other stuff.

I call a cab and have another coffee a large one in my travel mug. It’s a Tim Horton’s (Coffee chain) super sized mug from home. I drink it black and I can drink coffee cold if I have too.

Rudy pulls in and he smiles at me and I try to smile back and I’m actually saved by the cab from the look on his face. He had that look like he wanted to ask me what was wrong. The way I feel this morning I’d likely break down into tears and I honestly can’t handle him being that nice guy that he is right now.

No, that doesn’t make sense I know.

I lose myself in thought and try to pay attention to where we’re headed. Thankfully we’re taking roads I can understand. Come off the Pacific highway…sorry motorway then onto Stanley street. Oh…good a car park. And handy to work.

God almighty this place is huge. It’s not even a campus really, I mean really huge it’d eat McGill university back home in Montreal. I have to ask a few staff coming and going what building I want to go to for HR and head off.

I have to ask three times before I get there.

I’m not clocked at all as being a tranny so that’s a blessing and I’m thankfully not late. They’re late and busy already. Of course at a place this size it would be.

The lady that I see is friendly and nice and a bit forward. She sort of made my day a bit when she looked at me and the file and said. “You’re quite a big of a looker aren’t you? Crickey I wish I’d look half as good as you yeh?”

Home she couldn’t say that because of fear of sexual harassment and stuff here it’s just being friendly.

It was a nice interview and they’re really trying to be a TG friendly place now. We talk about my plans to transition and yes I am planning on getting it all done because really what’d be the point of everything that I’ve been through? Usually I don’t hate my little friend, he’s going to be a much more intimate part of me but today, I’m just wanting it gone, done and over with.

My life would be simpler right?

Maybe.

I honestly don’t think that I could be with someone and not tell them.

The busy morning has me getting out of my damn head and focusing on things. Like getting to go on tour of radiology and getting an intro to the staff and the department head and get a schedule set up to where I can learn the place and know where things are and get used to the computers. Most hospitals have their own private networks or intranets is what we called them home and they have one here that I have to learn.

The rest of the time is talking shop and finding out the differences in the way we do things here as opposed to home and get to see our department doing all the different stuff that we do. Radiology does a whole lot more than just x-rays these days.

About half one in the afternoon I take a break and walk over to Princess Plaza and check things out there a bit. They have an IGA there which actually makes me smile. Home they only exist still down in the Maritimes as far as I know. I get some lunch at the Plaza Deck and after skipping a real breakfast go for the fish and chips.

Great fish…actually in a beer batter and they do decent chips too and I relax and have iced tea to go with it. I know I’m not being that adventurous but given the day and how I’m feeling.

Then it’s back to work and I make a point to have stopped and gotten a big box of bakery goods for oncology and orthopedics both when I go and introduce myself around and get a feel for how they work. These are the two closest departments in terms of where we work together. We do stuff for everyone but we really do work with these two departments more than others.

I’ll have to also get some more goodies too for housekeeping as they do our janitorial stuff and the porters. It’s really, really a good idea to stay on their good sides because if you treat those two departments well then they’ll help you out in a pinch.

Honestly too, the support staff doesn’t get the respect they deserve half the time in any medical facility. And I get that, home a lot of the time some of the doctors treat us like mall photographers. Yeah they can read the stuff we send them but I’d like to see them run a CAT-scanner.

I’m there until nearly seven having spent the bulk of the day there and I’m pretty sure I’ve got the general idea of how to get around my building. I’m tired and still feeling blah? And not looking forward to going home. No one’s there when I do get home and out of the cab.

I get a shower and slip into just panties and a tee-shirt and go to my bedroom and watch some television. I drift in and out of sleep with the TV tending to put me to sleep like this. My cell phone rings about half eight and I look at who’s calling.

Rudy…

Should I answer it?

Yeah, he’s done nothing wrong.

“Hello?”

“Morgan?”

“Hi Rudy, how’d the day go?”

“Off actually, kind of out of sorts really not having you about.”

“Rudy…please don’t…” My throat tightens and I’m in tears, not about to cry just crying straight off.

“Morgan what’s wrong, I don’t like seeing you like this morning or hearing you like this now.”

“Nothing…just hormones, and just feeling the house being so empty at night.”

“Homesick?”

“No, no real home left to be homesick over.”

“Orright, I’ll be over in a bit. You eat did yeh?”

“Lunch…just wasn’t hungry when I got home.”

“Right then I’ll take care of that too.”

“Rudy…”

He hung up on me.

I fall back on the bed and rub my face, and the tears away and then go find some yoga pants to put on and wash my face. It’s not that long before I hear him pull up and the doorbell rings.

I head down and open the door ad he’s got take out bags in one hand and this little four, five year old in his arms and the little guy’s blinking bleary at me while holding onto his dad and he’s got some action figure clutched in his hand.

“Hey, can we come in?”

“Uhm…okay…”

He comes in and puts the little guy on my couch and covers him up, and kisses his forehead.

“Rudy, you shouldn’t have come over and woke him up and everything…I’d be…”

I’m stopped by him kissing me…he just walked up and tilted my chin up and kissed me with the most romantic, longest best kiss of my entire life.

“I wasn’t leaving you like the way you were, I’m a single dad Morgan.. He’s used to it…see he’s already back to dreaming. Got anything to drink?”

The little guy’s conked out already and he’s snuggled into one of my sweatshirts that was left on the couch and my heart does this thing…and I feel this feeling in my insides that makes me want to smiley-cry.

“Sure I’ve some red in the fridge.”

It’s the first time I’ve had Chicken Treat…better than KFC, I like the pineapple fritters that came with the food and good fries. I’m not sure that red wine goes with take away chicken but…it’s all I had in the house.

I get some plates and he lit some of my scented candles and we sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.

I’ve never really had this before…I’m not sure what to do next.