It was only seconds after Elise withdrew her lips that Sierra nearly threw herself onto Elise. It was then Elise’s turn to give out a surprised look before joining in on another make out session.

Sierra wasn’t sure what was happening but she loved it. She wanted more. She didn’t know how much but she wanted more.

Every other time that she and Elise had made out in the past, there had always been some kind of underlying discomfort. She had definitely liked kissing her before, but there was always something that held her back from truly loving it.

That was gone now.

There was nothing to hold her back anymore. And Sierra couldn’t get enough of it. She completely lost track of time, losing herself in the moment, exactly like Elise wanted her to.

The two proceeded to make out on the couch for minutes on end.

***

“Okay…” Elise grinned as she slowly pulled herself away from Sierra. “I think that’s enough kisses for now.”

Sierra frowned, which only made Elise laugh. “Aww, you’re so cute when you pout.”

Blushing, Sierra pulled Elise into a hug, laying her head on her shoulder and embracing her in a cuddle.

“I love you too.” Elise said.

***

After a few more minutes of cuddling, Elise ended the embrace and stood up from the couch.

“I’m sorry but I’m actually getting pretty hungry. I’d really like some breakfast.”

Sierra was at first disappointed to see Elise end their cuddling session and she even gave out another pout.

Elise laughed. “Do you know how adorable you are?”

Sierra blushed. “Alright, we can-”, she suddenly stopped talking when she heard her voice. That ugly, deep, masculine voice.

“Is everything okay?” Elise asked with concern.

“Yeah… Yeah of course.” Devin replied. “Umm… I was saying we can cook together… if you’d like.”

“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea!” Elise exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see your kitchen skills!”

Elise practically sprinted to the kitchen while Devin just stayed there in the living room, sitting on the couch.

It was his voice. It was always his voice. Every single time he fell into Sierra, he’d go right back as soon as he heard his voice. His very low, very male voice that he hated so much.

Why hadn’t he started voice training yet? When it came to the hormones, the pixie cut, and even the electrolysis session, he was very persistent. He had of course pretended at the time that “Sierra” was forcing him to do those things, but that didn’t change his determination to get them done. So what was different now? He wasn’t nearly as obsessed with getting the voice training done as he believed he’d be.

Perhaps it was just the amount of work and commitment that voice training required. He’d need to keep at it every day for months to see any results at all. It was such a daunting task.

To make matters worse, he had three months of summer vacation before the next year of high school, and that meant he had to make a decision quickly. If he wanted to sound passable at all as a girl, he needed to start voice training now. All the bullying and harassment he’d get would no doubt be much worse if he still sounded like a guy.

Hell, whether or not he’d go to school as Sierra next year was a massive decision in it of itself. And it was one that would require a lot of work if he went through with it. He’d need to tell his parents, get them to agree, get a bunch of paperwork sorted out, shop for a new clothing selection, and do the voice training all on top of that. It was so much to handle, and Devin didn’t even want to think about it, but he knew that eventually, he’d have to.

It wasn’t like the other decision was much better either. Try to get through his last year of high school as a guy, while Elise knew him as a girl and he still had to take another gym credit, forcing him into a locker room. It would be damn near impossible to hide his changes there. A bunch of young teenage males aren’t just not going to notice when a guy in a locker room takes off his shirt and reveals an obvious pair of breasts and a bra. And even if he is somehow able to change in a room other than the locker room, the gym clothes he’d be changing into would leave his breasts visible to everyone. It seemed like Devin was stuck in a corner. No matter what option he chose, he was fucked.

Devin laid his head on his hand. Of course, all of this was assuming he could even sort himself out. Honestly sometimes Devin didn’t even understand himself. He had no qualms with transgender people, and he supported them whenever he could, but whenever the idea that he himself was transgender came up in his mind, he immediately shot it down. For some reason the very idea of being transgender was appalling to him. He desperately did not want to be “one of them”, no matter what. He’d rather be a guy with a genderbending fetish, something he was still deeply ashamed of, than a trans girl.

And at the same time, if he was being honest, he was starting to warm up to Sierra. It was becoming clear he was just having more fun as her, and the idea of giving into her completely didn’t sound quite as awful and terrifying as it used to.

There was a hell of a lot wrong with him, that was for sure. It would definitely confuse the average person.

“Hey, are you coming?” Elise asked from the kitchen

“Oh, yeah… sorry.” Devin shook himself out of his deep contemplations and went to join Elise.

***

“Okay, so I looked through your cabinets and refrigerator. Sorry, by the way. But I found all the ingredients for pancake mix. We could definitely make some killer pancakes, from scratch. What do you think?”

“Umm… yeah. That sounds good.” Devin responded.

Elise tilted her head to the side. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay. Just thinking things over.”

“Oh? What things?”

Devin sighed. It seemed he had already given away too much information. At this point he might as well say everything. After all, he had promised to her that he would no longer be keeping secrets… kind of, at least.

“I was just thinking about school next year. Whether I’m going to be going as Devin or… Sierra, or whatever. And whether I’m going to start voice training… And whether I can even figure everything out. That kind of stuff. It’s just so much. I… I don’t know what I can do. It’s like no matter what I do, things are going to be bad.”

“Well.” Elise started. “No one ever said life would be easy.” She gave out a light chuckle. “I mean I guess in your case it is pretty hard, but I just want you to know that… I’ll- I’ll always be there for you, if you need support. I know I’ll never completely understand what you’re going through, but… we’re going to get through this together. I promise.”

Devin smiled at that. It was a corny, clichéd response, but it worked. And it better had to, he read TG stories after all.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Now, do you want to make some pancakes?” Elise asked.

“Yeah, that sounds great.” Devin answered.

***

To his surprise, Devin was actually having a lot of fun cooking with Elise. He hadn't really put much thought into that suggestion when he first made it, but he was still glad that the idea came to his mind. He might even do this with her again some time.

“And now Emma’s actually going to join the cheerleading squad all because I told her she wasn’t a cheerleader. I didn’t even say she’d be bad at it, I just pointed out that she wasn’t a cheerleader to try and get her to shut up about her boyfriend being a football player. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s signing up for. She’s going to get her neck broken or something.” Elise said as Devin poured another pancake on the griddle.

“Well, you’ve never been a cheerleader, have you? So why are you judging her?” Devin asked.

“I’m not trying to judge her, but… it’s just the truth! Cheerleading is really dangerous! I heard there’s at least one death per year from it. And Emma is no gymnast.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that. You know, I never really understood cheerleading. To me it just seems like making a bunch of girls do incredibly dangerous stunts in revealing outfits all just to cheer on the male sports players. Is this really something we want to continue? In our ‘modern progressive’ age? Seems pretty backwards.”

Elise gave out a light groan. “Oh geez Devin, do you really need to be like that? I know some of the girls on the cheerleading squad, and they’re all really hard workers. They love doing what they do. And they understand the danger. Would you really say what you just did to one of them?”

“No, I just have some problems with the sport, that’s all.”

“How would you fix it?”

Devin parted his lips. “Hmm, I’m not sure. I might have to get back to you on that.”

***

“You know, there were quite a few early 2000s pop songs about Superman.” Devin said. “I guess there’s not enough to call it a trend. Maybe a mini trend or something? I don’t know. But look, you had ‘Kryptonite’ by 3 Doors Down, ‘Superwoman’ by Lil Mo and Fabolous, ‘Superman It’s Not Easy’ by Five for Fighting, and ‘Superman’ by Eminem. And hell, if you want to go even further, there was ‘Hero’ by Enrique Iglesias and ‘Hero’ by Chad Kroeger. I really wonder, what was going on back then?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they knew that one day people would be going on random tangents about it.” Elise grinned.

Devin scoffed.

***

The pancakes were good. Really good. No bitter spots, and only a few ended up burnt.

“Whipped cream?” Elise asked.

“It’s more for presentation purposes.” Devin said as he shaked the bottle.

“Can I have some?”

“Yeah, just wait.”

Devin sprayed some whipped cream on his pancakes before giving the bottle to Elise.

“Thank you.”

Devin watched as Elise sprayed the whipped cream. “So.” He started. “Are your parents really going to let you stay all day?”

“Pretty much. Though they insist I come home before nightfall. Remember, they still don’t know your parents aren’t here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah… I’ve been meaning to ask you, how did you convince your parents to let you stay home by yourself for a whole week?”

“Well.” Devin answered. “I think it’s mainly about earning trust. So far I haven’t done anything illegal, I have a part time job, and I’ve shown I can keep the house clean. With all that, it becomes a lot easier to make your case. Also the fact that my extended relatives are, well, let’s just say ‘not with the times’ helps.”

Elise gave him a knowing nod. “I know how you feel. Like, my grandparents are very backwards these days. I heard my dad say they might be QAnon nuts. I believe him honestly. Apparently they’re going over today to talk to them about it. It probably won’t go well.”

“You should at least have some hope.” Devin told her.

“Yeah but we should also be realistic about these things. This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to talk to them. It didn’t work then so why do they think it’ll work now?”

“Again, hope. They probably have a lot of it.”

“What good is hope if it’s unrealistic?” Elise said. “And besides, my grandparents are also wildly racist, why are they the victims here?”

Devin swallowed a bite of his pancake. “I actually agree with you there. Like, I remember one time when I was six spending the night at my grandparent’s house, and my grandfather told me he’d ‘beat the shit out of me’ if I turned out to be a ‘faggot’. I didn’t even know what a ‘faggot’ was at the time. I still remember the look on my parents’ faces when I told them about it.” Devin took another bite. “Honestly that’s probably the main reason why they let me stay here and didn’t force me to go to Florida for a week. So I wouldn’t have to deal with my grandfather.”

Elise’s eyes widened after Devin told his story. “Wow, that’s… that’s insane. He really said that?”

Devin nodded.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, it’s crazy what some older relatives will say. But like, the point I’m trying to make is that my grandfather isn’t the victim here. He’s not just a poor victim of homophobic propaganda, he has agency of his own.” Devin chewed and swallowed another bite of pancake. “You know, I keep hearing people say stuff about the white working class and how they’re tricked into being racist and stuff like that, and like, I kind of understand what they’re trying to say. You look back at history and you see politicians divert those peoples’ anger toward immigrants and minorities and it usually works pretty well. I mean hell, just look at Trump. That was basically like half of his entire campaign. But… these people… they have agency. Being poor isn’t an excuse to join the KKK, you know? And what about the working class people of color? They’re even worse off and they’re the ones that have to deal with all the racism. I’m just… tired of hearing about how I should feel sorry for people like my grandfather. I’m afraid I can only have so much sympathy for them.”

“Yeah, I… I don’t think I could’ve explained it better.”

***

The two teens, being as hungry as they were, finished all of the pancakes they had made. This amounted to them eating eight pancakes each, easily filling up their stomachs.

Elise groaned. “I think I may have eaten too much.”

“Me too.”

They both sat on a recliner together, cuddling and looking out the window, admiring the summer view.

“There anything else you want to do today?” Devin asked.

“I’d like to read more of that story of yours.”

Devin’s face quickly turned pale. “Umm… you mean ‘For a Girl’?”

“Yeah, of course. It may not be ‘your’ story but you know what I mean.”

Devin gulped, his face remaining its pale color.

“Something wrong?” Elise asked.

Devin wasn’t sure what to say. After the long talk on the couch and the cooking session he had completely forgotten about the next chapter of “For a Girl”. The chapter where the creepy, perverted principal strips Stephanie half naked, forces her on his lap, and spanks her with a paddle while not even trying to contain his blatant arousal.

What was he supposed to say? He didn’t want to let Elise down as she was probably looking forward to reading the story with him. But he was still afraid of what her reaction would be at the chapter. Would she hate him and think he was gross? Would she break up with him and never see him again?

Devin rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath. “No”, he ordered himself. He already went over this. He was not going to think the worst of his girlfriend. She was a good person. He had already promised himself that he would expect the best of her, and it was time to make good on that promise. He needed to calm down, stop imagining insane scenarios in his head and just explain it to her. Who knows, maybe this wasn’t even that big of a deal anyway, and Devin was just insanely overreacting.

And besides, she already knows the story exists. She can very easily read it on her own and find out that way. So it was better to rip the band-aid off now.

“Seriously Devin, what’s wrong.”

Devin closed his eyes and prepared himself for what he was about to say. “Listen, Elise, there’s something I need to tell you about that story.”

“Okay?”

“Remember when I said that story was problematic and hasn’t aged well in a lot of ways?”

“Yeah?”

“Well… the next chapter is about Stephanie getting stripped down half naked by the principal, and then getting spanked by him in what is supposed to be an erotic scene. The rest of the story goes on as if this was not sexual assault.” Devin blurted out the words quickly, but they were still understandable.

There was silence among the two for a while. Elise undoubtedly needed time to process what was just said to her.

“Are you serious?” She asked.

“Completely.”

“Damn. I… don’t know what to say. I just- wow. I absolutely need to see this.”

Devin, puzzled and not quite expecting that reaction, simply asked “why?”

“Because I seriously can not believe the author would actually put that into the story. I need to see if it’s real.”

“But Elise…” Devin said desperately. “It’s gross. It’s sexist. Wouldn’t it just show that all TG fiction is gross? That I’m… gross?”

“What? Why would I think you’re gross?”

“Because… you know, what’s in the chapter.”

Elise groaned. “Oh god Devin do you have to turn everything into a crisis? Of course I’m not going to think you’re gross. You didn’t even write the damn story. Hell, I asked you about it, not the other way around. And if what you’re saying is true, well, then yes, it would be sexist and gross, but one tasteless scene in one story is not going to make me write off all… ‘TG fiction’ or whatever as bad and gross. Listen, when I was in my tweens I read so many fucked up fanfictions with disgusting and offensive shit. Whatever this is, I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

“So… you’re not mad at me?”

Elise took Devin’s hand. “Of course not, and you need to stop worrying so much over nothing. Just relax, okay?”

Devin sank back into the recliner as he felt a large weight lifted off his shoulders. To his relief he had just been overreacting again. “Thank you.” He told Elise.

“No problem. So, you want to go up to your room and read that next chapter?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Devin and Elise got up from the recliner and stretched themselves out. As they did, a thought occurred to Devin. It was such a nice day out. Why waste it being inside reading the story on a computer?

“Do you want to read it outside on my phone?” Devin asked.

“Sure.”