Jem… Chapter 78
 

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Author's Note: Picture used with permission from *lavonia on deviantart.

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Chapter 78
 

Chapter 78

You know sometimes it’s really nice when someone else takes over things. I don’t mean like totally but I’ve been so kind of cautious and in control of things home and as Jace trying to get by and even now as Angel…well me I still do that try and do my best and do the right thing.

So when Rayne insisted on us going out to celebrate despite us spending a large chunk of money it was nice to just let go. It was really nice to just get taken out on a date.

I’m smiling just at the thought. Me…I’m getting taken out on a date.

That’s once again so different than where I thought that I’d be in my life. Then again I didn’t really have the remotest idea that my love for the way my mom’s room felt and smelled was part of the whole key to the transgendered me.

And this whole me becoming me well Angel me is like I’m not holding a breath that I didn’t know I was holding.

Well not counting all the stuff with Adam and Summer.

Rayne drives awhile and she occasionally looks at me and I smile at her and she smiles back at me and I can tell she’s trying to figure out where to go. It’s kind of funny too since I’m the one she asked out and she pulls into A&W.

“This okay?”

“Definitely.” It is I like the food here except their chicken.

We order and she gets drive through and asked them to have it double bagged and she drives us down to the lakeside actually at one of the little bends in the road that’s right by the water and she parks the van.

“Okay, this is kind of cool I’ve never eaten here before.” I like it there’s no beach here and it’s like just the corner that’s just some grass and the shoulder of the road and the guard rail but the waters like less that twelve feet away and it opens right up so it’s a really nice view.

“I haven’t either but it’s one of those pretty places you see that you always say that you should so everything’s different now so I am…”

I smile and bite my lips a little in that happy way and she parks and idles and she sets up the radio with her I-pod with some nice music and opens the side sliding door to the van. It’s more that cool when she takes one of the sleeping bags from in there and undoes it all the way like a great big picnic blanket and we lay together on our sides and smiling and eating our food together with that view all to ourselves.

It’s not even that busy a stretch so it’s just us and no one bothering us. It’s just really, really nice to slip away from everything and have it be just the two of us and nobody else.

She smiles and she kisses me really deeply. “Wait here I want to do something.”

“Okay…”

Rayne takes some thing from a Rubbermaid tote and goes outside taking the sleeping bag with her and closing the side door on me. “No peeking okay?”

“Okay.” I’m kind of amused but actually happy, she’s up to something romantic and I’m really liking the idea of that and the idea of someone being romantic for me.

She’s not gone long before she slides inside and messes with her i-pod and then she opens the side door and kisses me. “Close your eyes and take off your shoes.”

“My shoes?’

“Please.”

I close my eyes and slip off my shoes and smile she put down the sleeping bag for us to walk on like padding.

“Open your eyes.”

It’s not a huge thing actually it is really but not? It’s still amazing and it made my heart skip a beat. It’s gotten darker out and she took some of the emergency candles from the tote and she’s put them on the posts of the guard rail all around us and it’s lighting up our little spot and even shining out on the water.

A lake, candles, a sleeping bag some drive through fast food and I’m as happy as if she took me anywhere five star or famous…actually more I’m not that kind of girl.

A soft dance floor and my beautiful girl taking me into her hands and kissing me over and over then going from there into holding me and dancing as one of the most romantic songs I know starts to play.

It's late in the evening
She's wondering what clothes to wear
She puts on her make up
And brushes her long blonde hair
And then she asks me
Do I look alright
And I say yes, you look wonderful tonight

We go to a party
And everyone turns to see
This beautiful lady
That's walking around with me
And then she asks me
Do you feel alright
And I say yes, I feel wonderful tonight

I feel wonderful
Because I see the love light in your eyes
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don't realize
How much I love you

It's time to go home now
And I've got an aching head
So I give her the car keys
She helps me to bed
And then I tell her
As I turn out the light
I say my darling, you were wonderful tonight
Oh my darling, you were wonderful tonight

I kiss Rayne as the song winds down and our arms are around each other and hands settled into the small of each other’s backs. “Mmm…this was perfect you can never go wrong with Clapton.”

She smiles. “Well you can but this song is awesome and it fits you so really, really well.”

“Mmmm…okay keep going there beautiful I’m definitely liking this.”

“Oh good well you’ll like this too.” She kisses me but breaks it to kiss along my jaw and behind my ear and then she kiss sort of bites and very likely giving me a hickie thing right now and it feels so good and it feels so right it might as well be a Meatloaf song.

I get my chance playing vampire on her neck when. *Have I told you lately* By Rod Stewart comes up.

And we’re dancing really close and tight to. *Holding back the years.* By Simply Red plays.

She looks down at me and smiles and softly kisses me a few times through. *Thunderbird* by Quiet Riot before she starts to serenade me along with Bad English to their… *When I see you smile.*

Sigh…those lyrics with her voice that Luba/Jan Arden soft and sultry it’s just perfect. This whole night’s been pretty perfect and while we could keep going we might run out of gas and I…

“Hey, take me home Rayne. I want to snuggle closer.”

“Absolutely Angel.” She gives me another kiss and she walks me backwards to the van and she helps me get into the seat then closes my door all gentlewomanly.

Yes gentlewomanly and I like that.

I like being taken care of; it’s so nice to just actually know that you have someone there, that you have someone that you are someone’s.

Rayne packs up everything and we head home and the romantic songs are still playing and we’re smiling and we’re happy and it really doesn’t take long for us to get home and everyone’s out of it and sleeping as we head inside and we go right into the long kissing as we head up the stairs to my room and we’re getting all warm and turned on and then we’re sitting on the edge of my bed and we’re undressing each other and we get down to our panties and just kiss and kiss and kiss as we slide into bed and snuggle close face to face and actually fall asleep kissing slower and slower until we can’t really kiss anymore and we’re drifting off.

What a nice way to drift off really…Rayne actually went under first and the last thing I saw myself was he face in that so peaceful sexy and lovely asleep look that women get and I snuggle in closer and tuck my head under her chin and rest my head on her chest and drift away listening to her heartbeat.

Good dreams, odd dreams. I was in Rod Stewarts video for *Rhythm of my heart.* and in another we were playing that Oktoberfest thing they had in Strange Brew and I was in a red dress and singing *Ninety-Nine Red balloons* completely in German.

Rayne wakes me with a deep kiss and coffee and I can’t remember the last parts of dreams but they came with this feeling that’s scary and a little freaky and almost made me want to cry too.

“Angel? Hey…what’s wrong?”

“I had a really weird dream but I can’t remember all of it and it left me feeling a little strange.”

“Okay but upset strange?”

I nod and sip my coffee and pull my legs up. “Yeah…”

“So what was it?”

“Phantom pains.”

“Phantom pains? Like when you’ve lost a limb?”

“Yeah but like just before you woke me it was like I really sort of felt or dreamed that I was me. Y’know like the real me with all my stuff in the right places and even the feeling of feeling right inside…but like physically.”

“Oh…wow…are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, no…I don’t know. Heck Rayne I don’t even know if this is TG normal or this is me just being extra crazy.”

She hugs me and she smells really good like her going to work smell she has with the soap and shampoo and stuff. “I think that’s completely normal Angel and that it’s maybe like your mind still processing all of this and still trying to deal with being transgendered?”

The hug feels good and it’s something I needed even though my brain is still processing the dreams or the nightmare depending on how’d you look at it.

I get up and I head downstairs with her grabbing my robe and putting my hair up for the moment in a scrunchie and I must look a sight really but Rayne’s holding me and kissing me anyways and that helps so much because I’m not so sure I could do this without her.

And I feel sort of mental too. Like I feel ugly and unfinished and she’s kissing me and it’s feeling just…it’s good but part of me want’s to tell her to stop because the girl she’s kissing doesn’t exist.

It’s that bad day right on the edges of saying the wrong thing because you feel like crap and some demented part of you wants to earn that feeling or make it worse…and you know I am smart enough to know without her it’s be a million times worse.

God if other girls like me have to go through this alone…or treated like shit for it when they feel like shit as it is…how the fuck do they cope?

We still say our kisses and share a long kiss goodbye and I don’t sit on the stoop this morning instead I go into the bathroom and I climb into the shower and by the time I’ve got my panties slid off just what’s there and all of the way I’m feeling I end up just being in there and crying my eyes out.

The water goes lukewarm and I force myself to get up and actually finish showering and shampooing before the water gets too cold. I’m still shivering enough that it’s sort of okay…well distracting and I make another coffee and go and sit down in front of the computer and start looking at the fan stuff and the accounts but also some of the TG fiction sites and while I’m not sure about the content on some of them a few are really icky to me some aren’t.

And there’s people to talk to there going through the same thing as me…some of them for decades even.

It does help…it does and as it turns out the phantom feelings especially coming from dreams…I’m not nuts and it’s actually kind of common.

And I’m on one sort of more an older almost defunct one except for the chat boards and who’s name do I see up there but.

JENNAWINTER…

Oh…

[Jenna?]

[Yes?]

{Jenna from Edmonton, Jenna Powers?]

[Yes, who is this?]

[Angel Benton….uhm your cousin.]

[Really Cool beans, we’re watching you right now.]

[OMG really? Do you have Skype?]

[Yes, switch over?]

[Sure what’s your number?]

She gives me her Skype number and she asks for mine and I dial her up and the screen on one of the other laptops flickers over and she appears on the screen with some not so healthy looking girl with a shaved head.

“Hi!” I say smiling and waving at them both.

My first thoughts are wow. She looks amazing. She’s actually close to my age but she’s actually in transition and just…wow. I mean if you’re nit-picking and being an ass Jenna’s got a sort of…only sort of semi-masculine look but in a super feminine way. Think a really pretty blonde haired and blue eyed female boxer or one of those fitness model girls that was all big and cut but stopped and has started to go back to normal.

“Heya Angel how are my boys behaving?”

“Oh god good, really good Davey’s a little scary but Billy’s really nice once you get past the.”

Jenna does this stiffen up and square her shoulders and tries to talk like him and fails I might add. “Once you get past the big tough biker guy.”

Okay I needed that because that’s kind of funny and that’s the way he seems. All biker Eastwood until you get to the soft sweet center. I’m laughing and I’m giggling and I notice her friend looking at me and looking at Jenna and she sit back in the chair she’s sharing with Jenna. “Unfuckingbelievable…”

Okay I’m missing something and so is Jenna who turns around and gives her a look before turning to me and shrugging.

I shrug back. “I dunno either?”

The girl looks at both of us. “Really, really just how in the heck can you too look this good and not be genetic women? I mean it’s not fair?”

I blink. “Uhm excuse me but me…this, it’s all fake it’s bullshit.”

I’m actually kind of hurt and offended or I’m just really feeling everything the wrong way today.

Jenna looks at be and she punches her friend in the arm. “Iggy shut it. You know that because some of use got really lucky, doesn’t mean that it’s easy.”

I sniffle not meaning too but it’s just coming out and stuff. “Yeah at least you have everything in the right places.”

“And it’s killing me too.”

“W..what…?” (Sniffle.)

Jenna actually hugs her friend. “Ovarian cancer she’s really sick and it’s kind of making her a bitch.”

I’m…I’m shocked because uhm…I mean…she has cancer who talks to a cancer patient like that?

Her friend this Iggy rolls her eyes. “Sheesh you think?” Then she narrows her eyes at Jenna. “Hey was that good kinda or a bad kinda?”

Jenna kisses her on the cheek. “Good kinda, you always were a bitch now you’re just not censoring yourself.”
“No point life’s too short.”

“No…life’s what you make of it.”

I watch but sort of knees pulled up sort of smiling. Jenna stops and she looks at me. “Oh…okay so what’s up, you look like your best friend died.”

“I…I dunno it’s just…it’s getting hard I guess.”

She looks at me and she nods. “It does, I wish I can say that it get’s better but even as much as I’m me there’s still times when I get hit too.”

“Hit too?”

“TG-PMS.”

“What!? I can’t do that I don’t have the y’know and I’m not even on hormones yet for like the mood swings.”

“You don’t really need either Angel, we’re trans girls with real girl brains in bodies that don’t match and that’s a really shitty deal even as lucky as we are. It builds up on you especially when it gets to be awhile that you’ve known.”

“Really?”

“Yes and there other stuff too…seeing GG’s just getting to do things and be themselves without the same stuff we have to deal with. Then there’s you and the fact you’re getting a super dose of that living with three girls.”

“Yeah but I don’t want to say anything to hurt them or anything…I love them they’re my best friends and my sisters.”

“It’s okay…just tell them, they’ll get it if they really love you.”

“But calling it that?”

“Hey I know but it really is what it is and TG or not this seems to come at a cycle sometimes when it gets really hard or emotional or depressing once in awhile.”

“So I’m not being or going crazy?”

Her friend leans over. “Trust me I’m a lesbian, you’re crazy and going to get even worse…women are nuts.”

I smile despite her kind of being a bitch she’s kind of funny in a rough kind of way.

“I know, but I still love my Raven anyway.”

“Good girl! Boy’s are icky.”

Jenna rolls her eyes. “Maybe to some I happen to like my guy a whole lot and I happen to think guys are actually pretty decent or most of them at least.”

I nod. “I think I was kind of into a guy at one point before I knew I was in love with my girl. And some of them really aren’t that bad but some of them are…”

All three of are just nodding and Jenna hugs her friend again who sort of snuggles into it this time.

I bite my lip looking at Jenna. “So…this is normal?”

She gives me this big sister sort of smile even though we’re not that many years apart. “Yeah it’s normal. Just think of it this way you’re a girl except for few unwelcome tweaks. But inside you’re a girl, your brain knows it’s a girl’s brain so you are actually going through a messed up cycle.”

“Okay…I guess that makes me feel better…sort of?”

“Look did you go through some of these black dog days when you were in guy mode?”

“Maybe, it was kind of hard to tell.”

“Just think about it now, even as a boy were there days when it just got worse?”

I think about it for a few minutes sipping at my coffee then nod. “Yeah I have to say I did.”

“Yup, see even then, even if you didn’t know your brain and your body did.”

“Oh…so how do I shake it off?”

Jenna smiles at me. “Do some really girly stuff, throw your heart into it and use it all to be that girl…though I highly recommend chocolate, it’s a serious helper for me at least.”

Iggy says. “Try some Midol, it can’t hurt and it is for the some of the symptoms besides you might get a sort of psycho-so-whatever thing going on.”

Jenna adds in. “Exercise helps me getting my endorphins up helps my mood.”

I’m smiling a bit more. “Thanks, I’ll try some of those but just talking to someone who gets it really helps…despite her company.”

Iggy gives me the finger.

We all laugh at that and I look at them and smile. “I really wish that I could hug the both of you right now.”

Jenna smiles and leans over and hugs the screen. “Best I can do until I get out your way for my op.”

“Thanks, you’ll come this way?”

“Definitely and if you’re not in school then we’ll definitely hang out together.”

“I’m not in school now.”

She looks at me. “Get your butt back in school missy one way or another.”

Ingrid looks at her. “You’re not.”

She smiles. “I will be. I’m going for my GED and then I’m going to go right from there to culinary school.”

“Really, I’m thinking about business school.”

“Good!”

“Jenna?”

“Yeah Ange?”

“Can I get your recipe for those cinnamon rolls?”

She bursts out laughing and she then smiles at me thoughtfully. “Actually yeah sure. It’ll be a family thing.”

“Really?”

“Yes but you share too okay and one condition.”

“Uhm okay…”

“Take the laptop into the kitchen and I’ll call you back we’re going to do this right now.”

“Really! Thank you, thank you, than you!”

I get up and we set back up in the kitchen and Jenna’s there as well as her baby girl Giselle who really is her and Iggy’s baby but it’s…
We’re both sharing and cooking and getting emotional because we’re cooking together…so far apart but Jenna’s giving me something I utterly missed. The whole cooking with my mom thing as her daughter. It’s not the same but it’s still like cooking as two girls together that are family.

And I’m feeling tons better by the time she has to go and help out with stuff at the diner. I mean getting something like this just filled a hole I couldn’t find inside. I needed this, I really needed this.

And I’m happy crying when she has to go and says. “I’ll see you later okay?”

(Sniffle-smile.) “Okay…promise?”

Jenna looks at me and she reaches over and rests her curved baby finger on the screen.

“Promise.”

I hold my own up and press it to her’s.

“Thanks…big sis.” (Sniffly-sobby-smiles.)

“You’re welcome little sister, love you.”

She goes off line and I’m absolutely no good for at least ten minutes crying and hugging myself and smiling and going through a small mountain of tissues.

By the time I’ve stopped bawling I feel cleaner inside and I feel like getting a guitar and playing.

We’ve got The Amsterdam tonight and I’m looking forward to it.