Sweet Dreams…I’ll never have them.

Okay yes that’s one hell of a depressing statement. But it’s true. Hey…My given name’s William Hunter, I get Will or Bill or Billy but the thing is I’m none of those. I don’t have a clue who I really am but tell me one teenager that does.

Monday September 20th, 2010.

I wake up cold. I live out on the outskirts of Detroit. It’s a bad neighborhood full of run down buildings and boarded up stores and just trash and stuff everywhere. There’s no heat in the apartment. The land lord doesn’t turn it on until like late November. There’s no use complaining because my step-dad’ll just tell me to shut the fuck up and put on a sweater. I pick myself up off my mattress on the floor and pad my way through the apartment until I get to the bathroom.

The place is a wreck again with beer cans everywhere (His) and wine bottles (Mom’s) and there cigarette butts on the floor, the coffee table, in a few cups and dishes. It stinks in here that sweet burned sugar stink mixed with menthol and licorice. The smell of Methe and Weed my parents drugs of choice when they can get them.

I check the fridge and there’s three day old cold pizza just starting to curl in on itself.
I’m still trying to see if it’s edible when I try a sip of the milk…yeah…ugh, it’s nearly cheese. I take a cold shower, eat the pizza and make myself an instant coffee with cold water. My stomach’s already screaming in rebellion.

I walk to school.

I hate school, the press of the crowds of kids and nobody really gives a shit that I am here. Well there are a few people. I hang with almost nobody and I’m cool with that. There’s a lot of gangs here, not little ones either. I’m fifteen and in grade nine. I’m skinny because there’s no food in our house like ever. Why buy food when you can smoke it, or inject it or drink it. I should be outta here because I’m “So Smart.” But apparently I’m not that smart because they haven’t pushed me ahead. No the Admin wants me here and a few of the other brains because we bring up the shitty GPA.

I’m cornered by Maxx Logan once I’m in the stairwell where security is laxer. I don’t try to talk him and his buddies out of it. They run their own gang of a sort and have been after me all year last year and this year. I just run, or I try to run. The fucker hasn’t liked me since I won’t pay him his protection money. I don’t have any money, there’s shit for jobs that a fifteen year old can do that aren’t illegal. I’m not running drugs for him. I’m not. Its bad enough I have to live through that shit at home.

Anyway he and his buddies catch me and they start to thump on me. I got a kick to my balls then I’m slammed into the wall by Maxx and I lose count of the times he wails on me. Always to the body. See it looks like abuse right? If I say shit to the cops or the faculty then it gets spread around that I’m in an abusive home (I am). They get charged and both of them have priors so there’s the 3rd strike rule. They go to prison for bull shit and I’ll get thrown into foster care or a group home.

And given the way I look I’d be made someone’s bitch really quick. I’m five foot six, one hundred and nineteen pounds and maybe still growing. My mom’s a short chick and I take after her. A German and Irish mutt I’m as blonde as can be but I‘ve got dad‘s green eyes. I hide it with a goth-punker style. I’ve dyed the last five inches of my hair blood red, I’ve got some ink, nothing real. Three earrings in each ear.

I wear what I can but being completely broke my clothes are shit, threadbare and if I’m lucky from thrift stores. Today it’s a black knit hat, a really old Ramones T-shirt over a girls black skater long sleeve sweater you know with the built in glove thing over the middle two fingers. Black combat fatigues and old red keds and Goth knee high stockings. I’ve got a really old jean jacket that was so threadbare I crazy glued a black hoody into it as a liner.

Twice a year I used to get money from an imaginary grandfather. I had forty bucks each time until the step-shit got a hold of it. He beat the cash out of me for drugs. Instead of defending me Mom stopped him and befriended me and conned me into showing her where everything I’d saved saying that with it we could get out and away from him. Once she got the cash she ranted about that being it. I betrayed them over that.

My real dad was a bartender at a Mick(Irish) bar who got gunned down by a drive-by when I was three. I still remember it, I was there. I’m skinny too that comes from I guess living the way I do. I might be better off elsewhere…Bullshit. I’m literally the fucking definition of white trash. Not worth helping. Mom’s a Nord (An Old White gang German& Polish.),She a wanna-be Aryan really; she's got German cross tattoos and shit. She and Step-shit are Aryan nation hangers on. Still they’ll pin those beliefs on me, I’ll get saddled with the rep.

I’m saved from a really severe beating by this burst of yelling just down the hall followed by the very definitive pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop…of gunfire tearing through the place, the walls and one of Maxx’s boy’s takes a stray round.. He goes down and the rest of us split.

I end up taking off out of school in the confusion and hiding out on one of the buses. I don’t know why they’re there but I don’t care. It’s warm in there with the sun coming through the windows and that combined with a crappy breakfast and the beating I drift off into sleep curled up in the backseat of the bus.

I wake up to the sound of voices. I look around and I see a whole bunch of really well off white kids in the jackets of various schools I’ve never heard of. Lots of jocks and lots of varsity and letterman jackets. Great…Fucking jocks and me a prime goon target. I wall of muscle lands on me just throwing himself into the seat.

He’s fucking huge. Six and a half feet maybe more, three hundred pounds of muscle. His arms are huge, like bigger than anything I’ve seen in person. He’s more that able to palm my face through the window or the metal of the bus itself. He’s got long brown hair and brown eyes. He’s one of those magazine cover pretty boys with the world at his feet.

The more I look at him the more pissed I get. Designer jeans, polo shirt, Varsity jacket, expensive aftershave and all that stuff.

“Hey!”
“Whoa, shit!’
He jumps a bit at the shout I made. Then turns and looks at me. “Uhm, yeah sorry I didn’t see you there you’re kinda small.”
“Gee, you mean you just thought you could just throw yourself wherever you wanted.”
“Uhm, yeah.” He ducks his head and blushes..?
WTF?
“I’m sorry did I hurt you.”
Yes, fuck he landed on some of my bruises from earlier today.
“Yeah a little.”
“Oh my god, shit, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m kinda getting that there big guy.”
“Alex.’
“What?’
“My name it’s Alex.”
“Okay…I’m Hunter.” He doesn’t really know me and I’ve always wanted to be called by my last name. He nods. “I like it.”
“Okay, it doesn’t matter what you think about my name, it’s there. I don’t really need you to like it.’
“Hey I said I’m sorry okay?”
“Sorry, I’m not used to your types, being like human to me and stuff.”
“My Types?”
“Jocks’”
“Oh and you think that all us Jocks are all the same?”
“Yeah, and you already proved it, throwing your ass here like you own the fucking place. Your just another fucking over grown, over indulged goon. You’re all the fucking same you know…”

He’s ignoring me as I see a whole flock of super hot super model looking girls in cheerleader uniforms strut onto the bus. I’ve never seen anyone strut on a bus. They give off this air of superiority. The one in the lead is so hot she could melt steel, a literally perfect blonde…blue eyes, big DD firm breasts and narrow waist and everything just perfect. The kind of girl who’s sicced her boys to pound someone like me just because I was there or looking at her or some other fucking whim.

I hear him breathe out a quiet. “Shit…I..really don’t need this…”
She’s almost on top of us when he pulls off my knit cap and pulls me into a kiss so fast it shakes my hair loose.
WTF?
I’m being kissed by a guy.
I’m not gay.
I’m…this…this is my first kiss. His hands slides into my jacket, to my sides and…I’m too numb to feel the pain from my bruises just then and his hands slide down and cup my bottom.
I’m not gay.
Why does this feel like this…?
“Alex? Just who the fuck is she?” The words are filled with venom, and anger and the desire to hurt me or worse. WTF? Waitafuckingminute! Waddashemeanshe?

Alex breaks the kiss but he’s still holding me…“Oh Hi, Jennifer, This is Hunter. Hunter this is my EX Jennifer.” I still kind of stunned, everyone on the bus is watching the show.
Her look get’s even more dark and angry. If she was home she’d have pulled a piece.
“Alex, don’t be stupid. What do you think you’re doing with this thing. I mean just look at her.” She starts to laugh which causes her sheeple to laugh. I really hate people like her. She doesn’t know fuck all about me and she thinks she’s got me pegged. I look street, I could act that way and knock her block off but I really try to never hit women.

Instead I go for that bitchy, real goth chick cool and blink at her slowly after they’re done laughing. Like she’s nothing, like they’re nothing. “Whatever.” and I turn from looking at her and kiss Alex. I’m kissing a guy of my own choice, of my own free will. It’s out of spite for her and everything she represents. Jennifer boils with fury at me dismissing her. “You’re dead you here me, nobody messes with Jennifer Morrison.”

I ignore her again and keep kissing Alex. A teacher or a coach or something comes onto the bus and the others take their seats. Alex slides in behind me putting his back to the windows and the lounges with his legs up on the seat. I was going to protest but he pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me. I’m getting tons of stares and a lot of them jealous ones from the girls. Alex tilts my head back again and kisses me.

There’s a part of me inside screaming. I should be freaking out at this. I should be feeling revolted. This is gay, I’m being such a fag.

Then there’s something just enjoying it? I don’t understand. I’m smart like I said really smart. Not understanding doesn’t sit well with my brain.

Alex wraps his arms around me and puts his chin on my shoulder. It feels good, really…good, too good…No one has held me since my dad was gunned down. Then I’m hurting…that buried down pain comes bubbling up and I’m drowning in unshed tears. I don’t cry. I nearly cry…I get so close I get a headache from it. The parents taught me not to cry. You can’t pound on a little kid, Mom would try to slap me to be quiet, sometimes when she was high or drunk she didn’t need a reason. The step-shit would hold me still and put stick pins in me…deep, and they look like bug bites. In my neighborhood nobody gives a fuck.

My head’s throbbing when one of the cheer whores passes me a tissue. “Hunter, right? You’ve got a nose bleed.” Jennifer turns and with a bitchy look. “Oh looks like someone had too much coke this morning.” I dab away at the familiar trickle of blood. Some of them look freaked, Jennifer and her sheeple are laughing.

I’m myself in this at least and pull in further and deeper into myself.

We leave of the bus and head back from the place they were at. It turns out the bus company moves around buses when they’re not going back and forth from their usual routes. The one I hid in and fell asleep in was sent to pick up a bunch of kids from a field trip. At least after this I can get off at the city depot.

My nose under control I lean my head back and kiss Alex. “You owe me big time.”
“Yeah I know, I’m kinda sorry about this, the hitting on you and stuff.”
“Kinda sorry?”
“Yeah, I really like holding you. Kissing you, I can get used to this you know.”
It hurts, I feel angry that this isn’t…I don’t know why I’m so hurt and pissed.
I reach up run my fingers through that hair…pull his head down closer.
“Alex, are you a fag?” like I said, I’m hurt and I want to hurt someone else.
He stiffens like I hit him. His voice is a very quiet angry hiss. “No, I’m not why?”
His hands dig into my sides as he’s holding me, right over my bruises.
“Because Alex, I’m not a girl.”
He’s quiet, I’m waiting for the explosion. The self justified anger, the beatings from him and the others…
He’s quiet dead quiet the rest of the ride back to his school. I feel his chest heave twice, like he might cry? He breathes it out through his nose.
“You kissed me you know.”
Nothing.
“You didn’t even ask me to help.”
Nothing.
“So are you just waiting to freak on me without witnesses.”
Nothing.
“This is you fucking fault, I didn’t trick you.”
Nothing.
I’m running out of steam without him saying shit that I can use against him. He’s still holding me and I swear I can feel something wrong, there’s something hurting in him.
Hurting I know.
You know you’d never think Mr. Alpha male, Mr. perfect would know that life could be shitty.
I go quiet myself.
We pull into their school.
Ooh, it’s all pretty and shiny.
Fuckers.
The campus is clean. They’ve got grass and trees and picnic tables and everyone’s got nice cars, clothes, lives…I feel like the dirty little thing that I am. Kids start getting up to leave. Jennifer and her crew cutting us off.
Alex was the last to get up.
Jennifer give me a shove back into Alex. “Oh no, you don’t get out this that easy you little cunt. I’m going to teach your little coked up ass a lesson.”
“I don’t do drugs.’
“Bullshit.”
“No, I don’t, my Mom’s a fucking Methe head I’ve seen how fucked up you really get on it Jennifer. And this is what happens when you don’t deal with the dealers.”
I lift my shirts a bit and show some of my bruises.
It got quiet again.
I stare at Jennifer, she stares at me, then my bruises and then me. “I don’t give a shit what you do to me Jennifer, there’s nothing you can dream up that isn’t my everyday.”
I feel the headache again and feel a little warm trickle.
I dab some more blood away from my nose.
Alex opens the doors at the back of the bus setting off the alarms and he pulls me off the bus after he jumps down.
“Alex?, Alex!” Jennifer calls after/at him.
He spins on his heel and punches his fist into the door so hard it dents and slams shut and the safety glass windows shatter… “Jennifer!, Fuck off!”
He turns on his heels again and walks away normally he’s really…he puts his hand to the small of my back and guides me away from them all the teacher’s having a freak but other football players are talking bullshit to him covering for their boy.
Alex’s hand is really fucked up…no…it isn’t?
Martial arts?, he’s a really big guy and they usually don’t study that stuff. It happened so fast I didn’t really see what he did. He leads me over to a car. It’s a bright shiny new dodge charger. He is fucking rich. He…he opens the door for me. I get in and he closes the door. He starts to drive. I look it over, leather everything, he’s from a whole other world.

He drives me back to my neighborhood. I just quietly give him directions. He still hasn’t said anything. I tell him to stop at a mini-mall a couple of blocks from home. He comes around to open my door and I get out on my own.
“Jesus Alex I told you I’m not a fucking girl!, I’m not a fa…”
He kisses me, like the guy does to the girl in the movies. My head tilted back, him kissing me so sweetly…I want to pull away, I want to push him away, I want to scream faggot at him/me? I can’t, I’m totally swept away by the kiss.

I’m still in shock when he pulls away from kissing me. He takes out his wallet with a card in it. Of course all of them carry cards. He also takes all of the cash out of his wallet and stuffs in into my front pocket.

He looks at me and I hurt him. I really fucking hurt him, and I can see it in his eyes.
I broke something in there, or rebroke it.

He walks away and just before he gets in his car he pulls my black knit cap onto his head. It looks good on him.

I just watch him pull away and take off down the streets out of sight. I’m hugging myself and my fingers are touching my lips. I’m stunned, in shock and freaking out inside. I walk to the local Taco bell. I live on it sometimes. You can get a decent amount of food for cheap. I pull out his money. He had $117 dollars…a whole other fucking world…of difference.

I eat, I eat slowly and take my time. I’m…I’m more lost and messed up then when I started today. I hurt inside and out. I buy some junk food at the Circle K, candy and Tang two cans of chili that I dent. To look cheaper. I treat myself to a chocolate bar, I like 5th avenue bars and a chocolate milk. I head to my security box place. I stole money from the Step-shit to first get it. $23.50 per month I hide all my money I can scrimp and save together there. It’s private and I have the only keys besides the people that run the place. I keep one really hidden in my building. The other is duct taped under the sole liner in my sneaker. I’ve put eighty in there.

It’s well after dark when I get home. I toss the bag of stuff on the couch and sit in one of the chairs. Step-shits drinking some rot-gut gin. “Where’d you git the stuff.” I reach over and take mom’s pack of smokes off of the coffee table. I take one out and light it. It burns a little too hot, they’ve been sitting out and have dried out. I exhale, I needed this. “I stole a twenty from a teacher’s wallet.”
“Where’s the fucking change.”
“Spent it, mostly.”
“On what?”
“Taco-bell.”
“Got any change left?”
“Couple of bucks.”
“Git the fuck outta here.”

I lucked out tonight he’s drinking gin. Slow gin and he’s been smoking pot. It makes him shit worthless but at least he’s more zoned out of it. He could be drinking rum, or whiskey, or tweaking. He’d have most likely have kicked the shit out of me for something to do.

Mom’s dancing in her bedroom tripping out on something. I smell weed, good weed she must have turned a couple of tricks for that. I open the padlock on my room door and take the lock and lock myself into my room.

I undress wincing and hurting and crawl/fall into bed. I start to break into tears off and on as I try to choke it back. Over and over and over…a few hours later I hear them screaming at each other and smacking each other around and I fall asleep to that curled around my pillow and listening to the distant pops of gunfire.

Sweet Dreams…I’ll never have them-2

…..uh.
……uh
…….uh
There’s the swirl of his tongue and mine. Alex’s strong hands gripping me, hard yet soft. Almost synonymous with his massive cock.
Pressing into my stomach…I want him. I want it so bad I cramp in aching need.
Alex breaks the kiss and squeezes my breast.

Tuesday, September 21rst, 2010.

I wake up from the nightmare, wet, red hot sex dream and I’m cumming pressed into the ratty old mattress I sleep on. I swear I can feel his touch…I’m not gay!, I’m no faggot!
But as I’m laying there and the cum is getting cold becoming the wet spot…his touch or his dream touch fades from me and I’m not sure if I’m crying in relief or bereavement.
But then again it's more of an anguished moan into the mattress. I don't cry, I can't.

Then my day starts as usual but I feel even worse than usual. I fucking hate what’s going on in my head. I unlock my room and step out. It fucking stinks, drugs, burnt food, sex and vomit. I move through the apartment and Mom’s passed out on the floor of the living room, she’s naked with a blanket thrown on her and there’s three of the Step-shits loser buddies around her. Way to lead by example mom. A Monday night gang bang. Bottles are everywhere as are bags with weed in them and pill bottles with prescription meds like Oxy and Dilauded. They’ve been crushing them up and snorting them or shooting them up. There’s puke in the garbage cans. I clean a few things up, I do it quietly letting the hurt and betrayal of this being my life trickle away like tears on the inside.

I’m cleaning up because it’ll be a smack if I don’t. Any excuse to make themselves feel better by beating the shit out of me.

The Step-shit’s not here he must have took off because the living room window to the fire escape is wide open.

No food again...

Mom and her fuck buddies ate everything while stoned, burned shit too. I’m dumping dark brown fries into the trash and rock hard over cooked chicken nuggets. I crunch on some of those as I do the dishes. Sort the empties, I wash them so they don’t leave the leftover booze smell through the place. It’s just a bit of soap and hot water, but It’s something I do to cope.

I’m not going to school today.
I hurt too much.
Plus the cops will be there.

I look for some clean or semi clean clothes. I don’t have much. I walk into Mom’s room and look through her old stuff. She doesn’t wear half of the stuff she used to own. She can’t fit into them. She used to be a tiny little thing but the booze and everything slaps on the pounds. Plus all the junkie friendly foods they eat.

I stare at some of it. I take a few things and go and shower. Ice fucking cold again. I’m still really bruised from the beating they gave me. I stare at myself in the mirror, I’m trying to see what’s there. Why did Alex kiss me? What did he see?

I go through my little mental dance as I see the razor blades there at the bathroom counter. There’s a part of me that almost quivers at the thought of this just ending. Of my wrists cut or slicing the artery in my throat or in my leg. I have the crazy urge to cut my dick off…That makes me throw up and so much for my fucked up chicken nuggets. I curl up for awhile in the shower stall shaking.

I’m not going to cry, I’m not, I’m not!, It never solves anything it never makes anything better. I take the razorblade and take my time cutting little lines into my upper arms and on my thighs adding to the scars I’ve already got on myself.

I get this tiny little high as the blade parts my skin. I like the pain, the pain is real, it forces my head from the thoughts that never stop, never stop rushing through it. I sit there like that for awhile then look for some aspirin. I see them and some of the stuff that mom has. I look at the pills they gave her when the ripped her ovaries out. Hormones…If I was taking them than it might have made sense being what I seem to be, or am going through.

I take three aspirin and leave going to get dressed in my room.

My clothes. One of mom’s t-shirts, a pair of black stockings and pull on my boxer briefs over that. My jeans, and an old well worn red and black plaid shirt that’s too big for me and a matching homemade bandanna I made from it’s brother shirt that I’ve gotten from a thrift store. Wool socks and my sneakers and my jacket. I dress in layers because I’m always fucking cold. I stuff all of my clothes into my hockey bag even my sheets.

I leave taking a couple of packs of smokes with me and half a joint and take off. I’m not running away. I’m not gonna be one of those homeless street kids. No three more years and I’ll get a scholarship. I’ll get the fuck out of here and away from all of this. No, I need to do laundry. I stop by my safety box and take out some money.

The money that Alex gave me. I hit the Circle-K and buy some shit and get on the bus. I know where there’s a out of the way Laundromat away from my shitty neighborhood and mom and the step-shit.

I sit and eat a bit of the stuff I got. A pre-packed sandwich from the cooler section, a bottle of V-8 Splash and a pack of cookies. I fall asleep for a bit from being full and kind of safe it’s a public bus so it’s safer than most places. I mostly look out the windows. It's strangely meditative for me.

Detroit is a messed up city. I guess it’s getting better unless you’re trash like me. All this urban renewal is going on and it’s slowly displacing the older shitty neighborhoods like the ones that I live in. I take in the sights of home. Burned out buildings or places with boarded up windows. Old factories with the grasses overgrown and the windows all knocked out of them. Yards filled with rusting machines. There’s some places still lucky to be hanging on. A few dozen cars in the parking lot that used to hold maybe a thousand. Concrete slaps that mark where people used to make a decent living dotting the area like giant gravestones.

It’s depressing and yet there’s a stark beauty of it. Like every once in awhile you’ll see piles of stuff left shrine like in memory of somebody that’s been lost. Gang violence is everywhere lately. The city has been stained with blood ever since the race riots. There are still places from then where too many people died back then where they still leave flowers and things.

I stay on the bus for a few hours. I stare and hate those from the nicer areas of the city. I hate the places they live at, I hate them and their pretty little lives. These people get on and off the bus most don’t see me, don’t want to see me. Those that do look at me like the piece of trash that I am. Sometimes I close my eyes to them and drift off into sleep. In those short dreams I see Alex, touch Alex, taste Alex, have Alex inside of me.

I can’t help but look around just to keep safe. I check out the women, I check out the men trying to figure out which I’m more attracted too. I’d have sex with some of the women on here for sure. The men don’t interest me at all.

It’s around lunch by the time I get off the bus and carry my things down the street to the Laundromat and start to wash literally everything I own. I actually run down the street to this local drug store and grab a few things and whatever detergent is on sale. I’m not paying for the stuff out of the machines there.

I use it to kill the day, I read a few magazines left there by other people. I sit in the window, in the warm sunlight. Mostly I think and like some messed up cat I lay down on top of the washers with my jacket behind my head. I think and think and I stew about my life, about myself, about Alex and stare at his card and stare. I go for a walk after I’ve put my stuff in the dryer. Nobody’s going to touch my stuff, It’s not really worth taking.

My feet or something takes me in front of an adult bookstore & boutique. I go inside and there’s this guy behind the cash he looks about seventeen so I’m not too worried about getting ID’d. He’s got goth make up on and his hair is long and dyed silvery. He’s wearing jeans, sandals and a black t-shirt with a choker. I observed a lot? I couldn’t help it…I was as hard as a rock within moments of looking at him. I’m so confused, I really wish I understood.

I look through the place there’s everything from magazines to all sorts of sex toys and freaky stuff. There’s things that I’m feeling from awe to disgust to this ache? Do I really want to…?
“Can I help you find something?”
It’s the hawt silvery boy from the cash.
“Uhm, no I don’t think so.”
“So what are you looking for?”
“Truth.” I say it kind of bitterly.
“The truth can hurt.”
“I’m used to pain.”
“I can tell.” He kisses me and my brain goes WTF? Then he drops to his knees. I’m in shock unable to really do anything other then watch as he pulls out my dick and begins to make me shake and quiver as his mouth engulfs my rod…It feels so good it hurts. It’s my first blowjob. My first sexual experience in going to be with a guy.

I’m such a fag, I hate myself, he’s…he….he’s not Alex….no..no.. “No.” I try it again “No!” and I push his face off of me. “No, please I can’t….I can’t” The guy looks at me, pissed, sad, hurt…. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m sorry…I’m sor…” My apology is cut short by a backhand to my face.
“I said get the fuck out!” he screamed it at me.
I pull my pants up and fasten them as I leave there as fast as I can. I get to the end of the building then I’m puking in the alley. I wipe my mouth and leave, I stagger back to the Laundromat where I curl up again on the bench hurting.

I sit there past the point of my stuff being done, actually I go to the bathroom and change and toss the stuff I had been wearing in the wash. I step out side and go to the drugstore freezing without my usual layers. I get some chocolate milk, a couple of 5th avenue bars and a loaf of sliced bread and a small thing of peanut butter. I carry it back to the Laundromat and eat and drink my fill. I even wash my hockey bag. That makes me go back to the drug store and buy some Mr. Clean and some paper towels and some of that Febreeze stuff.

I have a couple of smokes waiting for the bus once I’m packed back up. I smoke that half a joint I took too. Yeah, I’ll smoke pot once in awhile. It takes me away a little, messes with me thinking too much like I always do. It helps with the headaches I get.

I ride the bus, a little stoned and numb to the world. I like looking out the windows at the lights and stuff. I stay on the bus all the way until last ride. I get off at my stop hours later. It’s quiet when I go home. They’re watching TV and ignore me. I hit my room and lock myself in then take out cleaning stuff. I open my windows and I tilt up my mattress. I stomp out three cockroaches hiding under it. I toss them out the window. I’m pissed and hurting over where I live, how I live and what happened at the porn store. I go on a cleaning jag. I scrub the mattress first so it’ll be dry first I spray it heavily with Febreeze. Then I scrub my floor, then my walls.

It takes me awhile to get it all done and my things put away. My bed made. I put my bread and milk and peanut butter in my hockey bag and hang it in my closet to keep it from the stuff that might get at it. I’ll have to, no I finish the chocolate milk right now. I make another peanut butter sandwich too and go to sleep full for the first time in a long time. I sleep in a baggy old t-shirt and track pants, It’s cold here and I don’t have many blankets.

Wednesday September 22nd 2010

I wake up to the sounds of the Step-shit and mom screaming at each other. I pull the pillow over my head as they’re screaming and fighting over money, food, the place looking like a shithole. Things start getting thrown, smashed.

This morning though there’s a gunshot.

In the apartment.

I run to my door, fight and fumble with the padlock. There’s screaming and shouting.
I get the lock off the door and run out, down the hall and see mom lying on the floor, she’s been smashed around there’s glass everywhere.

The Step-shit has a small 9mm in his hand, not his choice of piece plus he’s the one who’s bleeding. She caught him in the shoulder right in the meat.

He spins and shoves the gun in my face and I here the first click of the guns action as the barrel is pressed into my forehead. “Drop the knife you little bastard.”

I feel the carpet knife in my hand that I didn’t realize I had.

I feel the gun barrel kissing my skull.

It could be over, it could be…I stare at him and push my forehead against the gun harder, and harder. “Just at what point did you think me dying wouldn’t be a fucking improvement Cliff?” I know it’s crazy, I even know I’ve lost it really I’m not all the way there. He seems to know it too but them he’s so fucked up it doesn’t really phase him.

Just to make everything worse I cut him. I lash out and cut him acrossed the chest. He screams. “Jesus fucking Christ!” and He lashes out hitting me with the gun to my temple. I go down. Dazed he kicks me three, four, five times. I feel my ribs break, something in my arm as I tried to cut his leg. Then he’s ontop of me. It goes into blurry sights and sounds of slow motion as I feel his fist hit my skull. Then my skull hit the floor.

My head bounces.
Again and again and again.
My vision is out of focus.
Oddly the things my eyes can focus on are the drops of my blood in the air.

My mother, my mommy pulls him off of me.
“Cliff, Cliff stop it he’s not fucking worth it!, He’s not worth the murder rap. Just stop it.”
“He fucking cut me.”
“I know baby, I know….”
She’s holding him soothingly, lovingly not me….why…why…mommy why?
“I should fucking kill him you know.”
“I know, it’s his fault all this happened.?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, the little bastard smells and so does his room. He’s been holding out, stealing from us again Cliff, that’s why we didn’t have enough stuff. It’s his fault we’re going nuts with the shakes and everything.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m telling you the truth, I bet you he’s got change, got some money in his room.”
That’s my mom.
That’s the person I ran out into gunfire to save.
That’s her blaming the entire fucking thing on me….
Why?

Cliff literally drags me off and down the hall by my ankle. I can’t resist, I can’t really do much other than breathe. I almost just want that to stop too. My hate actually is saving me at this point. I’m going to live because I hate them.

They tear my place apart looking for my money. I have the food and detergents and $8.40 in the hockey bag. It gets taken by Cliff who kicks me one more time and leaves. My mom’s going through withdrawals and she starts to scream at me. Hitting me, telling me I’ve got to have more money. Screaming that I have to have more money, that she’s gonna have to pull a few tricks because I’m not giving her, her money. She goes off on a Methe freak and I remember her fingers in my hair and her beating my head into the drywall until I black out.

Thursday September 23rd 2010

I can’t see my eyes are that swollen.
My room door is open.
They’re partying.

I try to crawl to the bathroom a few times.

My Mom comes in just as high as high gets, drunk and slurring her words and NOW she’s the good mom? She takes care of me. She does help me too the bathroom. It’s hard to breathe. I get given a joint to smoke to kill my pain, some whiskey that tastes like fermented cat-piss. I manage a half slice of crappy pizza.

That’s it... I’m unconscious the rest of the day or stoned.

I remember her in my room crying and babbling at night coming into sit on my mattress with one of those big scented candles.
I think she was trying to apologize….
I couldn’t stop giggling over this, like losing my mind giggling at her. I can’t help it, I can’t really talk either. Her trying to apologize to me as she’s so high and drunk and fucked up out of her mind…It doesn’t help she’s got me high too.

She screams at me doing her instant 180 she does when her life doesn’t agree with her. Mom splashes me with hot wax as get gets up to leave. It just drives me further into my laughing giggling fit. Until the drugs, the injuries and everything fade me to black.

“Life it seems will fade away.”
“Drifting further everyday.”
“Getting lost within myself.”
“Nothing matters no one else.”

“I have lost the will to live.”
“Simply nothing more to give.”
“There is nothing more for me.”
“Need the end to set me free.”

“Things not what they used to be.’
“Missing one inside of me.”
“Deathly loss this can’t be real.”
“Can’t stand this hell I feel.”

“Emptiness is filling me.”
“To the point of agony.’
“Growing darkness taking dawn”
“I was me, but now me’s gone.”

“No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late.”
“Now I can’t think why, why I should even try.”

“Yesterday seems as though it never existed.”
“Death greets me warm, Now I will just say good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

Friday September 24th 2010.

I wake up alone. It’s quiet in the apartment.
I literally crawl to the bathroom. Sit on the toilet to use it, crawl into the shower.
Crawl out finally able to stand, sort of.
Look at myself in the mirror, sort of.
My eyes are all puffy and stuff.
I take the razor blade and cut myself, blood runs out relieving the pressure like you’d do for a boxer.
I head to the kitchen, almost literally the only thing there is my jar of peanut butter. It’s nearly gone.
I look around the apartment. There’s almost nothing left. The trash, the furniture but the TV, the toaster, the toaster oven ect. Are all gone. I look in their room. Mom’s shit’s gone for the most part. She left her furniture because they didn’t want to bother taking it.
But anything of value is gone.
They left me.
I’m alone.
Part of me is relieved, more than relieved.
But I’m alone, more alone than ever.
I crash sleeping in her bed. It stinks, it smells of sweat and bad sex but it’s easier to get off of than my mattress on the floor.

I looked but they took my fucking cleaning stuff.
I put up with the smell.
After awhile I stop smelling the funk.
I could get more but I’m not in the shape to walk to my box.

I eat my peanut butter and fall asleep in little fits and bursts. I dream a bit of the violence and the gay guy in the porn shop.

I dream of Alex again.
Alex…
Why…Why can’t I get you out of my head?
I spend the day sleeping, dreaming and looking at his card he gave me, at his phone number.

I can’t stay here. If I can pay the rent, they might find out and I wouldn’t put it passed Cliff or mom to not break in and take everything I have or will have. They would especially if they’re desperate for a fix.

I fall asleep exhausted. I know I’m sleeping too much but it takes so much out of me to heal from my injuries. I feel like shit. I’m hot and I know it. Infection…? Maybe…

It takes a lot of effort to move to get dressed and down to my box and get some money, to get a payphone. I take out the number and dial.

It rings, and rings, and rings, and rings then I get his voicemail….I nearly hang up…
“Alex…It’s Hunter. I’m…I’m…I need you…1391 Tunney Park apartments…”
I hang up and trudge home.
I barely make it home.

Saturday September 25th 2010

I wake up and I’m warm, and it’s dark and I’m moving?
I open my eyes and I see Alex driving his car. It’s dark out. Night time and I’m in a warm fuzzy blanket curled into the corner spot of where the car door meets the seat. He’s got the heater on.
It feels so good to be warm.
The clock on the car say’s 1:37 AM Alex is partly changed with the eye black still on and his football jersey still on, tape still on his hands and he’s got sweatpants on instead of his football pants and sneakers. He smells like sweat but not sweat I know, this is clean sweat? His hair’s a mess and I have the strongest urge to smell him, to tidy his hair with my fingers….Why…Why does he make me feel like this? Why did he come to save me?
“Alex…”
“Yeah?” God his voice, it so…But it’s quiet too. I hurt him. I know I hurt him.
“I’m sorry…”

My voice chokes up on me, I…I want to cry…I do but I can’t…I flashback on the stick pins, stick pins from Cliff until I shut up. Putting out his smokes on me.
The fist hitting my head, my head hitting the floor, the gun to my forehead…

I’m rocking in the seat, hyperventilating and losing it holding myself as tight as I can. I rock back and forth and each time there’s the whack of my head hitting the window for the door.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Sweet Dreams…I’ll Never have them.-3

Saturday September 25th 2010

It takes me I don’t know how long before I come down from my freaking out and having a breakdown. Alex has his arms around me and I’m warm for the firs time in I don’t know how long but I really hurt. I know the life I’ve grown up in I should be used to being hurt but the Step-shit had really done a number on me and so did my mom.

I just lay there with him holding me and try to soak in his body heat. He’s huge compared to me. I’m a skinny under fed mutt. I’m not all that short but thin, hell I look like I’m anorexic or on something. Alex well he must be a little over six and a half feet tall. He’s really broad acrossed the shoulders and is massively muscled. He’s almost another species. I can hear his heart beating and I swear I can feel it under all that skin and bone beating. He kinda smells and he kinda doesn’t. I think I got him out of football practice or a game or just after because he’s not fully changed and…that smell…it isn’t so bad. I hurt too much to have my usual freak out about this making me feel like some kind of faggot.

“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Hunter?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re really hurt I should take you to the hospital.”
“No…No…No hospitals…” I start coughing, oh dammit that hurts!
“You should…” I can’t really talk so I’m hitting him and shaking my head. Hitting him kind of hurts my fists a little.
“No!, no, no…I can’t they’ll call the cops1, they’ll call the social worker and they’ll throw my ass in a foster place or a group home!”
“Hunter lots of kids live in both.”
“Yeah and lots of people are still having to deal with the shit done to them in there.”
“Point taken…But you’re really hurt.”
“Yeah well I’ve lived through this before.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah…”
He hugs me.

I mean this wasn’t him holding me when I was freaking and he needed to but this was…I don’t know? It was a hug, it felt nice but…like any other time I got some thing like this it came with strings. I honestly don’t know what to do, how to respond, or what he wants from me…

I know I’m not doing this hugging thing right. I’m stiff and guarded. He let’s go of the hug and kind of gives me this look, then whatever that look was it’s gone. “Okay, no hospital but you’re staying with me.”
“Alex…”
“You got anywhere else to go?”
“No…” I’m kind of scared, it’s almost something that a pimp would say to a desperate trick, I’m ashamed too.
“Fine then it’s settled.” Then he starts the car up and starts driving.

We end up driving through the nicer areas of the city. I look out at places and this whole other world that’s stores and movie theatres and malls and all these things that I’ve never really had the cash to go to. Heck I never really left my side of town except to stay away from everyone and everything on the city buses. But I never got off at any of these places. I mean people would take one look at me and see me for the white trash piece of shit that I am.

I mean it’s kinda like visiting the moon really. I’ve seen it all my life but it’s really alien to me.

Even more so as we pull into this swank area called Roslyn Road and through there aways before he pulled into this brick driveway with the whole round about and the big two car garage and everything to go with it…it’s a five or six bedroom house with this almost Swiss or German look to it and there’s flowers along the windows and huge side yards that hint of a bigger back yard…one of those million dollar plus homes even in today’s shitty housing markets.

I’m scared, because if I didn’t belong in the other neighborhood I really don’t belong here. He touched something on the dash to open the garage doors and seeing it live was even just…

People with cars like this and remote stuff they live on the other side of the TV for me.

Alex pulls in a turns the car off and get’s out. He comes around the other side and opens the car door for me and gently scoops me into his arms. “Alex I can walk.”
“Hrmph, barely.”
“What are your parents going to say?”
“Nothing, they both work all the time and aren’t hardly ever here.”
“Oh, so you don’t really see them.”
“As little as possible.”
“Oh…” I’ve got no idea as to what to say to something like that so I kind of just shut my mouth.

He carries me up these stairs inside the garage and holds me in one arm…I feel this…I don’t know. It’s scary but thrilling…warming…it makes me look into his eyes for few seconds…he open it up and left me into this garage loft apartment. It’s bigger than the one I used to live in. It’s gorgeous with the room I’m in being this living room with a big couch, and two chairs, end tables and a coffee table all in from of this bookshelf/entertainment unit and it’s got hardwood floors…and it smells nice, it smells clean, it looks clean and it makes me feel grungy and dirty…I feel like I’m going to stain the place.
He carried me past all of that and this little galley kitchen and a bathroom into his bedroom…He sets me on the bed. “I’ll be back.”
He leaves me there and I look around. I’ve never been on a bed like this, big and weird it’s some kind of sinking foam thingy with a big soft comforter thing over it and big pillows. And it’s all clean…I’m not used to clean.

There’s a drafting table and stuff around it for drawing or designing and there’s a desk with a really expensive and really awesome looking computer on it. Okay they don’t have anything like this even at the office at my school.

There’s a couple of dressers and there’s a Bow-Flex thing in a corner, and he’s got mostly paintings and real art on the walls in his place instead of posters and stuff. There’s a closet too and another room like a small utility room that…it’s a room for painting…there’s canvas’s and paints and pots and brushes everywhere and all these paintings just standing and drying. There’s one on the rack…

And it’s me?, or at least my hair matches hers. I…I barely can recognize myself in the picture. Her eyes are hypnotic, then I’m… her…she’s painted like she’s lying on the floor wearing nothing but a simple white sheet. There’s nothing painted there to say it’s a woman, no breasts just the look, the thinness of my body and the way I’m drawn.

It hurts, It hurt to look at and I don’t know why.
That’s me.
But she’s a me I’ll never be.
She…she’s beautiful…My beatings, my scars, my life just suddenly weighs tons and drags me down to the floor and I can’t help but cry.
I’m never going to be her!
I’m never going to be beautiful like her!
Why!?
Why does that hurt me!?
Why?!
Why am I even thinking these things!?
FAGGOT!!!
My mind screams at me.
It’s WRONG!, You’re WRONG!, The Step-shits, voice, mom’s joining in with mine.
FREAK, FREAK, PERVERT, FAGGOT!

I’m bawling my eyes out on the floor when Alex comes in. He dropped my things on the floor and he came over and scooped me off the floor. You ever see someone scream-cry, like at the hospital when someone they love dies? Yeah, That’s me. I screaming straight from my soul.

I hate myself.
I hate myself.
I fucking hate myself.
I hate Alex.
I hate what he makes me feel.
I hate he’s taking care of me.
I hate that I need him so much.
I hate that I want him.
I’m scared.
I’m not supposed to be this way.

There is this part of me hanging onto Alex for dear life as I freak out again, twice in one night. I honestly don’t know that part of myself. Being held, being taken care of is alien to me.

Then there’s this part of me that’s fucking with me. Most of my life I was raise with those psychos and they’re twisted tweeker culture brought together by the Aryan bullshit they treated like a religion. In my head, my brain tells me it’s all bullshit, the stuff about blacks and Jews and other races. About being a faggot, about feeling gay. It’s programming but it doesn’t change the voices in my head the shame or the guilt.

I fall asleep in Alex’s arms.

I’ve never had something like this. I’m not sure how to describe waking up. Well for one I’m undressed…and Alex has gotten to see me in panties…I’m under the sheets, oh god these are clean sheets and I’m sunken into the weird foam of the mattress. I’m not used to soft anymore than I am clean. The sheets are wrapped around me and so are his arms…I’m on my side pulled against his massive frame and I can feel his body against mine through the sheets…all that muscle and heat and his…oh shit…oh shit he’s got a hard on. Then again so do I and my nipples hurt…Then everything else starts to hurt. I’m not sure how long I lay there before falling asleep again.

This time I woke up without him there and I’m still not sure of anything…but I’m not…part of me wanted him there. Needed him there. I smell something…Food, my stomach takes a bite out of me and I sit up and gather the sheets around me. I’m…I’m actually warm too. Alex actually has working heat.

I see him in the little kitchen and he’s in his…boxer briefs and….I..like what I’m seeing and I know I like the way he looks. It just kind of makes me sad, it hurts…I don’t want to be gay. I don’t want to be some fag but…I can’t help but stare at him. Huge, with muscles and that killer tanned body and …he shines, no his skin is like those guys in the body builder magazines. Alex kind of shines…and I hate noticing it. He turns and looks at me, there’s kind of a smile there. Kind of…

God it’s like he wants to but can’t.
I hate that.
I want to make it better.
I don’t know why.

“The bathrooms free. Dinner won’t be done for another 40 minutes or so.”
“Okay…?”

I kind of walk away and find the bathroom. It’s small but really clean and I see a tub…I’ve never had a tub.
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Can…Can I take a bath?”
He comes into the bathroom. “That’s actually a good idea with your bruises and all.” He takes out a canister and passes it to me. “These will help with them too, they help me after bad games or practices.” He held up another one. “Rub some of this into your bruises it helps with mine.”
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks…”
“It’s okay, I want to help Hunter…I want to make it better.”
“Why?” My voice is really small.
“I don’t know…But I need to.”
Then he kisses me.
I…
He’s kissing me…
…..
…..
I like it.

Sweet Dreams…I’ll never have them 4

Chapter 4

Sunday? September 26th.

I cannot believe it and my brain is going right back into overload. I’m being kissed by a guy and I’m liking it….naked in the bath and…I can’t, I can’t like this can’t …can I…

I push Alex away, the size of him I’d never move him so he’s being a good…I’m so fucking scared. He stares at me oddly for a second, a slight nod? I don’t get him so much its giving me a headache.

He leaves the bathroom and I pull the shower curtain acrossed the tub enclosure. It’s all clean, and the water is hot and I can’t help but break down and cry again. I was kissed by Alex again and I liked it. I was kissed by a boy, again and I liked it. I’m hearing and feeling all that bullshit, all that fag hating stuff and racist stuff in my head, I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
I’m not like that.
There’s about nine more times I chant that to myself, hitting the tiles inside the bath enclosure. It hurts, it hurts my hand and my ribs but I’m clearing my head. Pain cuts through the bullshit, pain makes you real.

I slowly start to just be.
When you come from were I’m from it so easier said than done.
How do you find anywhere to balance inside your head when the things you’re feeling are things you’ve been raised and taught to hate all of your life?
Even just being is hard; trying keeping yourself together when you’re taking your first bath in…I don’t remember ever taking a bath before.
It’s hard not to cry just because I’m feeling heat and warmth soaking into my body and I swear I’m going into shock because of it. Hot, water, a real bath, soap that isn’t dollar store crap…I’ve never head of Shea butter before but it feels good, it smells really good. I wash my hair with Alex’s Pert and slowly get out of the tub. I…I…Jesus, I left a film…Okay it’s mostly dead skin but I’ve never soaked before…I’m shivering and kind of feeling…sick that I left that.
I take a few towels and start drying off, lower lip shaking looking at my…mess. It’s like this…evidence I’m fucking white trash.
Alex’s knock makes me jump with a squeak.
“Hunter…”
“Y...yeah…”
“I’ve got some things can I pass them in?”
“Yeah…I mean...please.”
Alex passes a laundry basket in that’s got…sweats and stuff in it. And underpants, Ladies underpants that aren’t the panties that are mine. These look expensive and are in a fancy container rather than the packages of cheap stuff that I’ve been used to…there’s lotion and girls stuff like deodorant and stuff.

“Alex?”
“Yeah, Hunter is everything okay?”
“Did you have all of this stuff?”
“Uhm, no its Aprils stuff but she’ll never miss it.”
“April?”
“My Step-mother.”
“Oh…”
“I just thought that with uhm the way you dress that this stuff’d be okay.”
“Oh…uhm…yeah..?”
“Okay Supper’s nearly done.”

I mean I could argue the point, but he had undressed me and yeah half of my clothes were girls stuff. I bought some because of my Goth look and the gend-bend stuff that goes with it but some because there are some girl’s clothes that are warm, like the leggings and stuff.
And some of it was just because all I had was hand me downs from mom. Even if the step-shit Cliff’s stuff fit me, I wouldn’t wear it, I think…but it never came up. There was no money past the drugs and stuff, they barely ate. Mom buying clothes for me…yeah right. With mom all I was, was her reason for getting a welfare check. I’ll be sixteen in a few weeks and that’s when things’d change with the welfare people, I wouldn’t need to live at home…no check no reason to keep around me anymore.

Could I get the check now? Maybe? I don’t know but I’d be evicted before then and shelters…group homes and stuff…homeless, used…I’d be on the edge of that right now if it wasn’t for Alex.

I slide the satiny slithery, soft panties on, gooseflesh that has little to do with my being right out of the bath forms on my legs. That kind of bite your lower lip nice. I shouldn’t like this. I shouldn’t. But like I just said, biting my lower lip nice.

I look in the mirror as I’m drying off. Skinny, I look more like my mom than my dad I think. He’s just a blur to me now. I don’t even have any pictures of him. I just stare for awhile, trying to see the person, that girl in the painting. I sort of see it but how come I can’t see the beauty that I see in the picture in the mirror. I guess because it’s not there.

I avoid the mirror from that point; just kind of going there hurts. I look through the stuff and there’s track pants or sweat pants of some kind there, again not his probably hers. But the sweatshirt is his; it’s for the Fairview Lions and is white and blue. It’s literally miles to big on my and if I wanted to I could probably slip out of the neck of the thing. As it is it hangs down a good four or six inches past my butt, the sleeves are six inches too long on my arms and it keeps sliding off of one shoulder.

I look for something to clean out the tub with and find some of that scrubbing bubbles spray stuff and give the shower and tub a good going over until I’ve got it clean again.

Yeah, I’m procrastinating.
I slowly take the basket and the dirty/wet towels out with me.
I look around trying to find Alex.
He’s got some sort of machine and he’s making fresh? Orange juice? It’s coming out frothy looking and weird. Then again I’ve never had fresh squeezed or juiced OJ before so maybe it looks like this.
He’s into it actually getting this rhythm going and it takes awhile before he notices me.
I can’t help but notice him.
He’s over six and a half feet tall; he must be close to three hundred pounds of rippling muscles. His shirt’s off so yeah I mean rippling, I can see his abs really defined and he’s not even flexing. In fact all he is wearing is these really loose around the legs black track pants, they’re fastened strangely at the waist tight but not. He fills them out so, so… incredibly…dammit.
I close my eyes.
I’m fighting tears, my throats hurts from it clenching up like it is.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not gay.
Crying doesn’t help anything.
I’m not gay.
I’m not going to cry.
I’m not gay.
I’m not some faggot!
I’m not gay…please…please… make it stop.
“Coffee…”
He’s got this quiet voice, soothing.
“Yes please I’d love a cup.”

Coffee, yes coffee. I’ll freely admit it I’m a coffee junkie, it’s one of the few things that’s kept me going over the years. I’ll drink it anyway but there are…were…will be days where the sugar and cream in it was the largest part of my diet because they were free.

I open my eyes when he sets the weird pot? With a plunger in front of me on a tray with a bowl of sugar cubes and a carton of cream. He sets down a large white ceramic bowl mug and he then moves the pitcher of juice over too. I watch as he dumps the stuff from the juicer basket into a kitchen bowl full of batter then gives it a stir then puts in his fridge…holy shit, it’s full of food.

Of course Mr. Perfect life, Mr. Rich boy wouldn’t know what it’s like to starve, to have nothing, and when you get that finger hold on your life some asshole like Cliff smiles at you and takes what’s yours as he steps on your fingers.

I’m hurt by the sight of a full fridge. I’m hurt by the sheer fact of him having all of this.
Why?
Why did he get to have this life and not me?
Why does Alex get to be normal and not a freak like me?
It makes me angry.
Alex…
Fucking Alex...

He takes out a platter with piled high scrambled eggs on it, toast and bacon and sets it between us and get’s us out some plates, knives, forks and spoons and stuff as he takes out a few bottles of jam and stuff out of his fridge. There’s no table instead we’re eating at this island-counter thing and we don’t really talk.

He’s so fucking quiet it’s eerie.
But then I remember the shit I’ve said.
I remember that look in him on the bus.

The first time we ran into me on the bus there was this kind of sparkle there in him in his eyes. It wasn’t something I’ve ever been used to seeing in people. Then he confused me, he scared me, his world scared me and I had to open up my fucking mouth and say all that shit…It’s like I didn’t just hurt him or broke something in him it’s still broken…

He’s not looking or saying anything really like he’s scared.
Him scared, of what?
What the hell does he have to be scared of?
He’s still hurt by what I said and did…but he still came for me.
Why?
He’s hugged me once, held me lots, he’s seen me lose my mind and have a nervous breakdown.
He says he doesn’t know why he’s helping me.
He’s kissed me…more than once.
He drew her.
She’s not even really a she in that drawing but she is and she looks like me and…I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to anything in my life…I still don’t get it.

I’m lost in these thoughts and if he’s thinking the same kind of stuff it’s no wonder we’re eating in quiet silence. He hides his face behind his hair a lot. He keeps it long; he has it hanging loose right now. His eyes are brown but there’s this amber or almost golden color in there too.

I’m noticing stuff about Alex I shouldn’t. Just like that guy at the porn shop only I’m not all freaky turned on and sitting here with a boner. No if there’s a feeling it’s more on the inside. I so don’t understand it…I just, fucking hate not getting things. The caffeine is sweet, it does wonders nearly instantly.

The coffee is excellent. “The coffee’s good.”
“Thanks, it’s Kona, Pea bean French roasted.”
“That’s?”
“I got it from work; it’s a really good bean from Hawaii.”
“Oh, and the perc’s neat.”
“It’s something they call a French press, no one was using it in the house so I adopted it.”
“You do that a lot?”
“April thinks the kitchen in the house is where the house keepers live and the caterers gather.”
“You don’t sound like her biggest fan?”
He shrugs “I didn’t marry her. He did.”
Alex said He not Dad, which says something. What I’m not sure but apparently he and his parents don’t get along. He doesn’t get that things could be so much worse…he’s had it easy.

I leave it alone. The last thing I need is to get caught up in some Dawson’s creek family BS.

The food was great, better than great, the eggs tasted really good, better than I’m used to. The bacon was okay, well alright, I don’t get to eat stuff like this often so it’s all good. Except for the juice, it tasted funny and Alex puts cottage cheese on his toast with his jam. Okay so I’ve never even seen the icky looking stuff before let alone taste it. I know I won’t like it just by the look of it. It’s slimy.

Alex had made more than enough and he takes away the dirty dishes and he puts them into the sink and he begins to wash the dishes. It’s awkward just sitting here in the quiet just doing nothing. I get up and go over to where he’s at. “Here, I’ll wash you can dry or whatever since you know where everything goes.” Alex just slides sideways without a sound and starts to dry the dishes off and stack them away. It feels so strange to be doing this with anyone. Mom never did, her idea of washing a dish was to let the mold eat it or to let the stuff dry on until it just gives up and falls off. Cliff…Cliff had me doing the dishes as soon as I could stand on something to reach the sink. He’d hit me if I didn’t, he’d hit me if the water was scalding hot and I cried, he hit me if I broke a dish.

I can’t help it when just thinking about it makes my hands shake, I break a saucer by dropping it. Alex turns, I flinch away. He gives me that look again I don’t know and he kneels down and picks up the pieces, he just dumps them in the trash can. The one for the glass, he recycles. I go back to washing and still looking for that hit to come at me out of the blue…and I wait and I wait.

I just wish he’d hit me instead of making me wait for it and keeping me scared of when it’s going to happen. How messed up is that? I want to be hit…like being a cutter isn’t bad enough…Alex moves! I flinch again. He slips in behind me. “Hunter, here…you’re shaking.” Then his torso is against my back and his arms come around me and he helps me wash the dishes. It’s four hands working together in this strange unison dance and he’ll take a dirty dish with one hand and put it in the water, hold it as I wash it off, we take turns rinsing and racking them to dry.

It’s so rhythmic and soothing to me, it’s this strange partnership, this two people as a team thing. I find myself leaning against Alex by the end of it. This feels so good, he’s so warm and muscled…It’s not a sex thing either this…whatever this is…It’…romantic?

I’m not even sure of exactly when I stopped shaking but my eyelids are drooping from the heat, the food and the way I just can’t help but too there’s Alex feeling so good, so different and so safe compared to anything I’ve ever known. And me still recovering from the beating the Step-shit gave me is still keeping me on the edge of exhaustion.

Alex’s hands settle onto my shoulders and he steers me away from the sink. “Here.” And he guides me out of the kitchen to his couch and sits me down and pulls my legs off the floor. I’m blinking at him and he…just gives me that look, that quiet and just off look..like there’s whole conversations in there. He just quietly pick a comforter at the end of the couch and covers me with it. Another look…”I’ll finish up, please get some rest.” He moves off into the kitchen again. For a few minutes It’s hard to breathe, it’s Alex…and I want to cry but I don’t get why? My fatigue and warmth lull me to sleep regardless hearing Alex putting away the dishes.

My dreams aren’t dreams but they’re these nightmares of being home. Of Cliffs hands holding my hands over the electric stove element, holding my foot and using his lighter. Mum telling me “Here baby yum.” when I was like three?, four? And me not knowing as she put her cigarette out in my mouth…I remember her giggles about that. The step-shit’s torturing me and him always saying. “Wadda I give a fuck for? The little shits not mine.”
No I met his sisters kids, her lovely little Nazi freaks. He was proud of them, he loved them. He bought them things and he loved them. They were little sociopaths but he loved them. I tried to be like them. I’m just not built like that. It all come together that first Christmas when I was four after dad got gunned down.

It was cold, there were cracks in my bedroom window. Cliff had beat me for…? I actually don’t remember why but…yeah mom took her first Overdose and I kept trying to wake her up on the couch and started crying because I thought she was dead. I remember ornament glass in me because he threw me into the last Christmas tree we ever had.
I can remember looking up at my bedroom window frosted over and white from the streetlamp behind it. I thought I was looking at something like that heaven place. I remember being able to see my breath as I was pulling slivers of that glass out of me.
I remember looking up at that window.
“Daddy…I’m sorry, I’ll be good…Please daddy, I doan like it here, I hate it here, I wanna be wif you….I miss you daddy, I miss you…Please daddy can I die too?”

Sweet Dreams I’ll Never have them-5

Chapter 5

Monday?

It hurt, dreaming had hurt. It had been awhile since I had dreamt about my dad. It had been as much as about him as it had been about my childhood. Yeah I know I’m not really that old.
But I really feel old.
I know, that I shouldn’t be but.
There’s just got to be a point where you just can’t take it anymore.

I’ve been crying again, I hate crying, I really hate crying because it doesn’t help anything. It never solves anything. It just let’s them know that whatever made you cry is something they can use to hurt you with.

I’m in Alex’s bedroom…I move fast, fast enough to hurt and really regret it. Alex wasn’t in the bed with me. And once more I’m a little more than confused in a scary way because I’m not sure if I’m relieved or if I’m disappointed.
My pain makes me lay back down.
I’m in a real bed, with clean sheets and covered up by this really nice and clean smelling fluffy comforter. I fall asleep for awhile and my bladder wakes me up. I almost don’t want to get out of the covers. But while it’s cooler than under the sheets it’s actually got heat running through the vents. The floor is warm. And clean. I just can’t over how clean and new everything is here.

It’s about 2 in the afternoon I see by the clock on the wall and its still Sunday. I slip into the bathroom and stand there for a minute, just in the panties I’m wearing and that’s the thing. I’m a guy, in panties. It’s not like I’d fit in anything he’s got but…do I like this? Am I some kind of faggot, or am I just nuts trying to not be me and having mommy issues. Gawd wouldn’t that just be too gay. A gay boy with issues with his mother. How Cliché.

I don’t even really stand like a guy. I try but it’s really not working, I can’t stand like a block. It’s not even comfortable, I need to sit in myself, be loose not rigid. And trying to look all tough guy is next to impossible in satiny nylon panties.

I look like one of those too skinny chicks you see on TV. Thin, gangly, hugging herself. My bladder calls again and I sit and pee. Yeah, I just sat to pee.

I have a headache now and lean my head against the cool porcelain of the sink.
I pull off some Tp and wipe or rather dab. I do this as much as I can I hate having drips in my underwear. I pull them up and wash my hands and then look at myself in the mirror again. I study my face. That picture was me and it wasn’t me, I’m trying to see that person in the mirror. I see me, and it’s the same sight I’ve always seen. Loser, freak, faggot…I don’t see whatever the hell that Alex saw.

That really bothers me you know. I really, really hate not getting things, not understanding stuff.

I pad out and watch him in the living room he’s sitting on the floor his back against the couch. He’s got a pile or two of textbooks on his coffee table and his laptop open…of course he’s got two computers. He’s doing some writing on a yellow notepad and he’s watching a football game on the laptop. It’s no pro-game; he’s probably studying another team.

His books are all stuff like AP English and Math and I see some books titled Wordsworth and Emerson and Kerouac. I never thought that a guy like him would even try to read stuff like that, much less be taking all those advanced classes. It looks like he’s doing trig equations. He looks…He’s just wearing a pair of black worn jeans and is barefoot and bare...chested. I’m looking, I know I’m looking in a way I shouldn’t be looking but, I can’t help it. I feel now all hot and hard or turned on and want him to fuck me or something but it’s kind of a Jane Goodall thing where I’m very quietly studying an species so much like me but I don’t understand.

He’s tanned and he just seems to be made of muscle, over his muscle and there are these deep scars partly on his sides and his back, thick, whitish lines in his tanned skin. I know scars and these were really bad, like he could have died bad and they’re old too. Just seeing them make the tips of my fingers itch. Part of me wants to touch them. I didn’t see his back when we were in the kitchenette earlier. The messy in his face half the time long brown hair hiding his face half the time. He tucks the hair back every once in awhile but not often, and it too makes me want to touch him.

Then there’s the quiet. I’m not used to people being quiet beyond myself. There’s a lot of people who can’t be just quiet even when they’re alone. Alex is spookily quiet. I’m not sure if he’s being quiet because I’m here or not. But there is this beautiful intensity about him. I slip away kind of feeling…I’m not sure.

I just admitted that there was something beautiful about him. I’m so confused I just want to freak out and have somekind of breakdown because I’m a faggot. It won’t change anything to freak out and cry. Instead I’ve got this headache. I actually go back to the bed and slip back into it and pull the covers up around me and stare at that picture. All over again. It, she shakes me every time I look at her. She stares right at me, into me…her face is just so delicate, lovely and those eyes seem to burn into me.

I fall asleep again mostly from just trying to close my eyes from the headache. I dream again but it’s more disjointed. The stuff at home but one of Cliff and Mom’s boozer and druggie parties. I can almost taste the second hand smoke of the cigarettes and the crack cocaine and Methe all mixed up with the smoke from so much weed. I can remember the over my head to waist level clouds of the stuff and the contact highs…the headaches and…This is the shit I grew up in. is it no wonder my brain’s all messed up. Between that and their fucking abuse. It’s no wonder that I’m all messed up. School…School had been my way out, a scholarship…even with Maxx and the gangs and the shitty neighborhoods…Now I don’t really have that…I can’t go into the system.
It’s not a pleasant sleep, not really. It goes from all that to the silver haired cute guy at the porn store, and what he was doing to me. In mid dream it changes, we change positions and I’m the one kneeling…like my mother did for guy after guy…then he becomes Alex…
Alex…
Alex…
“Alex….” And I make a mess out of the sheets in his bed waking myself up as I whisper/whine his name. It takes a minute before it starts to sink in what I did…My body shakes, and I’m drowning in it, panic because of what I did…shame because of what I did…I feel like one of those underfed mangy mutts that doesn’t belong anywhere… I feel like I just shit on the floor of what might have been someone who might have given a shit if I hadn’t been such a disgusting freak.

I’d be put down for sure at the pound.

“I hate me; I should just do myself and the world a favor and just die.”
“You do that and they win.”
I barely look towards him, I stay curled up. I’m scared though, really scared. He could so easily hate me, hurt me, turn on me…treat me like everything else has in my life. But he came for me.
He’s hugged me with no pain coming after that.
Alex has kissed me before.
I liked it, I don’t get how or why it felt good. Even remembering it, his butter suede soft lips on mine, and the smell of him. It get’s me aching in a way I don’t get.
“Alex…?”
“Yeah?”
“Why?”
“Why what?” He comes closer but doesn’t sit on the bed, but on the floor beside the bed and leans against it. He passes me his big can of red bull; I take it and have a drink.
“Why’d you kiss me on the bus?”
“I had broken up with Jennifer over the summer and she thinks that because she didn’t say we were broken up that it never happened. She hasn’t stopped putting the pressure on me to get back with her.”
“So why me? I mean you could have anyone you want.”
“Jennifer scares off most people around here, I thought she’d have no idea who you were and I’m right, or was right. I’ve heard she’s been going out of her tree trying to find out who you are.”
For some perverse reason the thought of that kind of makes me smile. Hunter’s not my real name and she knows nothing about me. There’s that and she’ll never look in my neighborhood.
“So, can I ask why you two broke up?”
“I couldn’t love her, didn’t love her.”
“And that matters?”
He tenses… “Yeah, it matters to me.”
“Never mattered in my life, that kind of stuff is just stuff in cheap romance novels and on TV.”
His head turned towards mine.
“I can’t live like that Hunter, I just can’t. I grew up like that.” his voice gets a little thick…full of pain.
“So she didn’t love you…” I prompt hoping he’ll keep going; I need to know where I stand. I take another sip of his Red Bull and I’ll admit it’s clearing out the cobwebs even if it tastes like battery acid.
“Jennifer wants the trophy husband, the athlete and the football hero so she can social climb to the top of the high school food chain. We’re in our freshman year and she can’t take not being on top considering we’re in a new school and she was at the top of the food chain when we left our old school….It’s just one day she’s just talking and it hit me, she was jabbering away and had all of high school planned out for me, and everything else and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. Not her or her friends…any of it. So I dumped her in the second week of August and she still hasn’t taken the hint.”
I actually roll over onto my belly to look at him.
“That’s Stalking you know that right?”
“Yeah, and who’s going to believe me? I tried to talk to the people I thought were my friends about it and they’re like boo hoo you got it so hard Alex……Yeah, I’ve got a real great life…”
He kind of hunches, broodingly. It’s that wanting to pull your legs to your chest kind of hurt. I can see the side of his face now, or could if it wasn’t for his hair hanging down again.
“A lot of people’d think so with the stuff you’ve got, the way you live.”
“Every…single…thing….” his hands clench and unclench…”Every…single thing Hunter, all of it, it all comes with a price or with strings….Adam makes sure that his kid has to be perfect, great grades, football, get the scholarship but not because you need it no, because you have to, have to win, have to have the prestige of it….” Alex’s breath is ragged and near the end of it he was hitting the floor with his fists like it was punctuating his statements.
“Why don’t you leave?”
“I did, he sent people after me.”
“Cops.”
“They were some of the people he sent.”
“That’s not legal is it?”
“He’d find a way, he a really good lawyer, just a fucking shitty human being.”
“Have you thought about getting emancipated?”
“He’d still send people.”
“To do what?”
“Mess with my job, my apartment, my landlord and super…he’d love it too. It’d be one of his life lessons.”
“Oh….”
“So you’re stuck?”
“No…I get my scholarship and then I’ll get away, he can’t do as much then once I’m out on my own.”
“I know exactly the feeling; it was going to be my way out of hell too.”
He turns and looks at me. Fuck he’s gorgeous, that tan, that gym rat shiny skin and that long brown hair still kind of in his face. Those brown eyes that seem to have these little golden flecks in him. They are so intense and so soulful; I’ve never seen soulful smoky sultry eyes before…

Have you ever ached in a way, you didn’t get…like inside but not inside, It’s like this ache inside that’s not really a physical thing.

“Was?”
“Uhm, yeah…It’s not like I can go back there, I can’t afford a place on my own unless I started dealing drugs or hooking.”
“No, You’re not doing either of those.” He said it kind of quickly.
“I’m not but, I can’t go back there to school, I’m not going into the system. I actually don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You can stay here; I’ve got the room and My Parents (He air quotes with his fingers.) don’t bother me here, there’s no rent..”
“Okay...” I interrupt him.
“Okay?”
“Yeah…okay…I’d be uhm stupid not to.”
“Uhm...yeah.”
“You sound confused.”
“I was kind of expecting a fight.”
“Alex..?”
“Yeah?”
“Why’d you draw me?” I point at the picture, my hand shakes. God I’m scared of the answer.
“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the bus.”
“But…I’m a guy…Please don’t get pissed…Are you gay?”
“No…I don’t know, I just…I don’t think of you as a boy?”
“You think I’m a girl?”
“Yes…, No…I just think of you, of Hunter and Hunter was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life….and…”
“And What?”
“And you made me laugh.”
“What, what did I do to make you laugh? Act like a girl?”
“No, it was the way you went off on me for being one of them, a jock and all of that. You’re smart and you’re funny and I can really talk to you…like now.”
“Well given you where dating Jennifer I’m surprised you never killed yourself or her. That must have been like dating the entire cast of Desperate housewives playing in the next Bring it on movie.”
He laughs.
It changes him, he shines when he laughs.
It felt really good to make him do that, to make him smile.
“Alex..?”
“Yes Hunter.”
“What did I do before? I mean I hurt you. I know I did. I’m sorry but…What did I do?”
And with that I ruin the mood.
He gets quiet on me again.
“You didn’t trust me, you thought I was up to something and pretty much said it…and there it was…me being compared to my dad…like a user and with me making that deal with you and everything else it just felt like it was becoming true…that I was becoming just like him.”
His head is down, and his shoulders are slumped and there’s part of him that’s still hurting, still smarting over it. How the hell would I feel if I got compared to my Mom or worse Cliff?
And I’m doing it before I even know I’m doing it. I’m sliding acrossed the two and a half feet between us on the bed and I wrap my arms around his neck and I kiss him.
Yeah…..
I kissed him.
I kissed a boy and I liked it and I have no idea what the hell any of it means but I’m liking it. I’m really liking it. And I’m selfish for doing it. Because for some fucked up reason I believe him and just like he did. I’m not kissing a boy; it’s not a gay thing. Instead I’m kissing Alex.

He smells so good, it’s like this drug I’m inhaling that’s blessing me out as we kiss. I swear I can feel happy curling around my brainstem. He tastes good too. Although that’s kind of muted by the tasted of the Red Bull I’ve been drinking and him too.

But…sigh…
I so don’t know what this is.
It shifts into I don’t care what this is as his hand comes up and his fingers slide through my hair gently and he kisses me back.
And I kiss him back.
Then he kisses me back.
We’re both kind of shivering at this point and my head is spinning and he breaks the kiss first. And he lets out this very, very cute shaky breath. “You kissed me.”
“Uh huh, I figured it was my turn and I…I couldn’t help it, you looked like somebody…like…you looked like a puppy I had kicked Alex. I…I wanted you to…I wanted to make you feel better.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I like you…I think.”
“You like me?”
“Yeah, A lot actually.” I feel the heat in my face as I’m seriously blushing. God I’ve never felt like this. I’ve never been this close with anybody.
“Hunter…Nobody, nobody’s ever cared about what I’ve ever felt before…”
“Me too Alex, I never dreamt that anyone would actually give a shit enough to save me…even when I called you and passed out, I …I thought I was just meant to suffer…y’know because I’m such a freak and I…I thought that I was gonna die…I thought I was going to die alone.”
“You’re not alone anymore Hunter, I don’t got a clue to what’s going on with us, but you’re not gonna be alone anymore, I won’t leave you behind…You’ve…you’ve got me for as long as you want me.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise…I’ve never felt like this about anybody before.”
“Me neither…Alex, I’m…I’m scared of this.”
“Me too.”
“But whatever this is…I want it.”
“Me too.”

Alex wrapped those massive arms around me and slid me off the bed and into his lap and we just sat there and held each other for awhile. It had to be the nicest feeling that I’ve ever had in my life. I new that we both shook for awhile and I calmed down after I’m not sure how long but it was awhile after he stopped shaking himself.

“You should get dressed.” He murmured.
“Why?”
“I need to go out and get some things at the store.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“You’d rather stay here alone?”
“Okay, I’ll get dressed.”

I got up and noticed him staring at me…or rather the wet stain on my panties. I blushed, I mean really blushed, like not just my head but I could feel the burning heat of it on my chest and shoulders. I looked at him. “It’s your fault.”
“My fault?” he asked kind of in a surprised way.
“Yeah, your fault.”
It was really cute the way that he suddenly blushed.

I went to the wash basket that had my freshly washed things in it and took some things and headed off to the bathroom. I hopped into a quick shower and again just about died from the pleasure of a really nice, hot shower. I shampooed and conditioned and ever used the blow dryer. I’ve never had one of those before. I styled my hair a bit and slid into a clean pair of panties and then put on my black tights and a pink scoop necked breast cancer t-shirt and then my faded denim skirt, my big grey wool socks and my Keds, then did my make up. Yeah I look and dress like a girl, I’m broke and had to steal Mom’s stuff but there’s also the fact I’ve done this for like three years or so when they just stopped paying for stuff. I like the skirt even if I couldn’t wear it around cliff because it’d be faggy and he’d kick my ass. I thought I’d look punker and stuff but really, looking at myself I look like a girl, even more now than ever and I just don’t get why I have to dress like this, how I just don’t look right all guy tough and butched up.

I look like a girl, albeit a really too thin and kind of anorexic one but yeah, I look a lot more like a chick than a dude. I take my old brown plaid shirt and put it on over top of everything and that adds a bit of butch to my look. I top the look off with a spiked choker, and some cheap gothy and ganger like necklaces and my heavy flat chain bracelet. Yeah I look very punker, kind of a mix between goth and grunge really.

Alex smiles at me and passes me this really big fleecy white and blue zip front hoody to wear with his name on it. “It’s cold out you might want to wear this.”
“And in case we run into Jennifer?”
“Uhm, yeah really if you don’t mind.”
“Mind, Alex…we just moved in together why would I mind?” I ask playfully in my best cute voice.
“Here.” He passes me a drink of water and a Tylenol. I take it gratefully. He grabs his jacket and my knit black cap and pulls it on over his head. It still looks good on him. And I like that I’m wearing something of his and he’s wearing something of mine.

He gets in the car and opens the garage door and warms it up for me before we leave. It’s all sorts of strange and nice like him opening my car door. I slide in the seat legs together twist sliding my but into place. Alex smiles. “Are you sure, you’re not a girl?”
“Alex, I’ve no idea what I am.”

Sweet Dream I’ll Never have them…6

Alex pulls out of his garage and presses the button to close the doors. I’m still not really used to any of this. I think the seats are real leather. There’s this smell to them. Actually there’s a smell to everything here. The homes are old and have been updated and renovated and the entire neighborhood is nice and clean with these big wide sidewalks that are edged in bricks and there’s trees and green lawn like spaces between the sidewalk and the street. The houses have small but neat lawns in the front and flowers and other stuff planted there and…god I feel so out of place here.

I mean it’s not like I don’t know what these things are. I’ve just never lived anywhere like this. I’ve never really been in a nice neighborhood. I’ve drive past them on the bus but this is a deep look from a different view.

There’s kids out playing, doing yard stuff, lighting grills and all the normal stuff that you’d see the great American dream household do on a Sunday afternoon. It all kind of hurts to look at. There’s little kids doing things with parents that actually seem to give a shit that I’ll never get to do. I’ve only ever played ball in gym class back at my old school and I sucked enough at it and all other sports related stuff that the coach/teacher just let me sit it out on the bleachers with the other non-participants. I couldn’t have really played much of anything anyway…my body was just too empty. And I’m anti-social anyway. The only kids I knew outside of school were the little psycho-kids that were my “cousins” through the step-shits skinhead friends. School was just another exercise in survival.

But like I said it hurts, it’s this dull kind of hating someone just because they’ve got to have a better life than I did. I know it’s a shitty thing to feel about people I don’t know but…Look at me, I’m white trash’s white trash. If I had grown up in a trailer park it would’ve been about a dozen steps up.

Alex is quiet as he drives and instead of being one of those guys with a muscle car and just giving it the gas and being all macho-jock he drives carefully, eyes on the road and looking for stuff that might happen. It’s kinda nice. Calming even.

We take a few turns and side streets before pulling out onto one of the main streets and
Then drive for awhile and head out towards the airport and pull into a Stop and Save. I’ve never been in a big supermarket type of store before. It’s a new experience as we get a cart and start walking through the sections? Did you actually know they have people in these places that offer up samples of stuff? I didn’t. Alex hit’s the produce area and he buys a lot of stuff, bags on bags of citrus like four bags of oranges and some grapefruit but lemons and limes, plastic boxes of berries and bananas and the veggies, three things of carrots and celery each and you name it he was getting it. There was more food than I’ve ever seen. Frozen stuff too. I’ve never really seen or had hominy, okra, or edamame?

Alex buys other stuff too like sauces and lentils? And chickpeas? Beans, beans I know but I never had them in a bag and not out of a can. I’ve never had the fresh green beans or the peas or things like those not fresh. The cart fills up so fast and the meat he buys and orders. I’ve never seen tuna not in a can before. I can’t actually remember the last time there was meat in the apartment that they save me any of. Seven months ago I think, and it was take out fried chicken? I can remember Cliff made chilli one time and he used baked beans and packs of hot sauce and ketchup with a can of stag chilli and a can of Alpo.

Actually there were times we ate a lot of dog food. Everything home was for their next fix, everything. Everything I had too. Even the food stamps went to the dealers. But you know there’s a lot of kids who have eaten a lot of dog food. Even cat food, Mmmn yummy tuna fish sandwiches a la Friskies. The times I could get myself some peanut butter and ramen noodles I was in heaven.

Yeah there are food banks and that’d be okay but they want information. Cliff was in so many breaches of his parole that we’d never go. I couldn’t go because it’d get social services on our backs. Mom got her welfare check but it never went to stuff that we’d actually need. Check day was binge day and they’d party and stuff until it was all gone then we’d be barely scraping by.

Yeah…seeing Alex just loading the cart with whatever he wanted was a shock to me. It brings me to tears a few times as we’re getting things. I look at him. “How can you afford all of this?” He looks at me. “Adam doesn’t do the shopping thing, he’ll get what he wants on the rare occasion but neither one of them cook, it’s all pre-made stuff and going out to the restaurants. He just gave me a store credit card for the chain and a few others and he pays it off and I feed myself, he’d rather deal with me that way.” He gets this stormy kind of broody look to. “But like I said Hunter it all comes with strings. Good grades, the football team and all of that. He likes holding the purse strings, he loves the control. And he loves never letting me forget it.”

I get it; his old man is a fucking douche bag as far as I’m concerned. I’m getting he’s all about himself and the only thing that he care about Alex for is the way that Alex reflects on him.

I get having shitty fucking douche bag parents.

We head to the check out and everything gets rung through and he pays for it with his card. There’s an ID check because he’s not old enough to have a card but it’s just the girl at the cash doing her job. The manager checked his ID and that was that. Alex has a whole bunch of different credit cards in his name in his wallet. He’s also got another wad of cash. It’s so weird seeing all that cash. It’s also king of neat that they hold our groceries putting them into plastic bins on rollers and giving us this numbered ticket then Alex pulled the car up and two teenagers about our age load the groceries into the trunk of the car for us. He tips each one some money and we drive off. I’ve never heard of or seen anything like that before in my life. Okay…that might not be a bad job if people tipped fairly regularly. I’ll have to keep that in mind just in case.

Alex pulls out and we start driving again heading through streets I’m not all that familiar with until we get to the Eastland Center Mall. I look at Alex. “What are we doing here?”
“Shopping we need to get you a few things.”
“Alex, you can’t spend money on me.”
“Hunter, you have next to nothing, if you’re going to find a way to go to school and stuff then you’re going to need a bunch of stuff and I don’t mean nothing bad by saying this but you don’t have anything.”
“Yeah. Alex I know I’m broke and stuff but you just can’t just go blowing money on me and stuff, it’s not right.”
“Hunter guys get stuff for their girlfriends all the time; in my world it’s kind of expected.”
“But I’m not a girl?”
“Well if you’re not and you’re a guy then. Sometimes two guys in a relationship will have one spoil the other.”

I rub my forehead, I just feel really confused about this. I’m not sure just what the hell I am. Am I his girlfriend? His boyfriend? The thing is Alex is sitting next to me and he looks jut as confused as I do. I look at him, the more he looks like he’s trying to figure this stuff out the broodier he gets. I sigh and reach over and rub his arm…wow…it’s so hard and muscular…he looks at me and I smile at him, he still looks good in my knit cap.
“Okay, okay I mean I do need…well lots of stuff but there’s a few conditions.”
“Alright what?”
“We keep the option of me paying you back on the table. I might not ever be able to but I want to keep that option open.”
“Okay, that’s not a problem, what else?”
“Secondly, you have to spend as much on yourself as you do on me. And I get to help you pick some of it out. I mean if I’m going to be seen with you and stuff then you gotta stop looking like your football coach dressed you.”
“Okay…” He was smiling at me. It was one of those I’ve got something going on in here smiles. I smile back and then kind of realize that I’ve been touching his arm and stroking it the whole time.
He get’s out of the car and is over and helping me out of the car before I can get out of it myself. I’ve worn skirts before but I’m not used to getting out of a car and leather seats are slipperier than I thought they’d be.
He does the manners and gentleman thing for me. Well I am dressed the way that I’m dressed.

We go inside the mall and the first place we went into was the Burlington Coat Factory. Alex got me this really nice leather jacket in this deep grey like a biker’s jacket made by some Steve Madden guy I helped him shop for a nice one too that’d kind of go with the Dodge Charger he drives. It’s even a little big on him and both would have cost a bundle but it was all like 40% off so that was pretty cool. We both got some sweaters and a couple of hoodies there too.

From there we went into the main part of the mall and hit both footlocker places the guys and the girls versions of both and then over to payless shoes. I got some real footwear and yeah, I bought some girl shoes. I didn’t buy and thing with heels, I went for some flats and some almost guy looking dress shoes and some ballet slipper shoe things they looked like black bandages and had skulls on the top of them, they fit my Goth like look. I tried not to go too girly. It was harder than I thought. The guys stuff didn’t fit me right my feet are too damned small, and I was getting a lot of funny looks from the staff at regular footlocker. Alex bought some more sneakers these special ones that are supposed to work you out even as you’re walking or something. I bought a pair of the girl ones on a lark…well he gave me this kind of I dare you look.

It was kind of getting fun. And that was really kind of weird.

We hit the Bath and Bodyworks place and a few of the in promenade stalls. I got a bunch of stuff there at those things. I’m a sucker for the cheap jewelry stuff like bangles and earrings and rings and the kind of like I said dark and gothy kind of stuff.

I was eating a snack at this pretzel place taking a break from shopping and Alex was off using the bathroom when I heard the clic, clic, clic of angry heels. I turned around to see Jennifer right up in my grill. She looks at me wearing Alex’s hoodie and then at the bags of stuff. “If it isn’t the little fucking coke whore…what the fuck are you doing here wearing my hoodie?”
“It’s not yours Jennifer it’s got Alex’s name on it and he gave it to me to wear because it’s cold out.”
“Its mine you little cunt, and so’s Alex. You stay the hell away from him.”
“That’ll be hard considering I’m living with him.”

Jennifer purpled with rage.

Then she leaned down into my face. “Look you little skank, I don’t know where you’re from or who the fuck you are but you’re fucking finished you here me. I’m going to make your life a living hell and when I’m done with you, you’ll want to climb back under whatever rock you hauled your miserable ass out from under.”

I think it might be the food and the blood-sugar thing…y’know actually having something running through my system and some real sleep and everything. And I didn’t mean to but I burst out laughing in her face.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Jennifer, but compared to the hell I’ve lived through…(giggle) you threatening me…(giggle) is like getting threatened by a toy poodle…(Bwah..hah..hah!)
“You fucking Cunt!”
She screamed and then she swung at me.
There’s a part of me, that won’t hit a girl, even if I look the way that I do. Jennifer’s swing is wide and sweeping more like she’s trying to slap me with a closed fist. I’m not a fighter, but I’m from a tough neighborhood, I’ve lived a tough life. I step into the hit and tilt my head taking it on my skull rather than my face. Yeah I just take the punch. Them I look at her the same way that I looked at Cliff when he put the gun to my forehead. My dead stare through my bangs and smile at her. Then I get up out of my seat. She takes a step back, suddenly scared of me. Some of her entourage step back too. One of the other cheer-types Cynthia I think her name is pulls on her arm. “Jen, Jen…come on, don’t do this.” She even shoots me a sorry look. I blink and smile at her a little, I’m still not used to someone like her being nice to me. I take my tray and bus it. Putting the stuff in the trash when I hear a ‘look out!” from the girl. I turn to see another swing coming out of the corner of my eye. I duck this time. Jennifer swings wide and I dipped under it and side stepped but left a leg in her way to trip her. She trips from her swing and her shoes, you don’t fist fight in heels, you just don’t. Jennifer goes head first into the trashcan with a bewildered scream of anger. Her kicking sends a pump flying and tips the trashcan over.

While she’s doing that and cussing like a gang member I grab my bags and wince as I pulled something a little or something…It’s my fault, I thought I was safe…I’m not gonna cry, crying doesn’t help, it doesn’t solve anything. I’m not gonna cry…I feel the start of another headache coming on.

Of course this is when Alex shows back up and he’s looking pissed at them, at Jennifer then he looks at me. That angry look turns to this I’m so sorry look and he comes over to me and holds me. I can’t help it. My first reaction is flinching. He takes The bags and leads me away. Jennifer’s up by now. “Alex!, Alex!, is it true? You moved that little bitch in? What about me Alex? We’re supposed to be together Alex!, How could you do this to me?” He rounds on her. “This, this is why we’re not together. You’re mental Jennifer, hell I don’t even really matter to you. If I didn’t have the cash or the cars or being on the team you wouldn’t care…We’re done, we totally and utterly done got that. You know why? It it’s because Hunter’s got something you’ll never have.”

She looks like he slapped her and she looks me up and down and at me like I was dogshit that she stepped in…It hurt, it drove the pain from her attacking me deeper home and wrecking my tiny little patch of calm and safety. You ever get looked at with so much contempt you want to crawl into a hole and die? It was just like she could see everything wrong with me… “What could THAT have that I don’t?”

He looked at her and then turned and looked at me with this sweet smile. I never seen him have that look before, I never had anyone look at me like this before. That smile went as deep into him as I could see. “Heart Jennifer, Hunter has real Heart, you’ll never have that, not now and not ever.” He wrapped and arm around my shoulders and led me away and out of the food court.

I want to leave, I really wanted to leave but at the same time I’ve never been more stunned?, Shocked?, Surprised? Nobody has ever stood up for me in my life. Nobody has said anything like that about me in my….ever…we get maybe five minutes of walking through the mall before it really hits me and kicks in.
“Hunter?”
“huh…”
“Are you okay?”
“huh…”
Alex get the bags set on a nearby bench and turns me to face him. He’s looking at me…he said…he protected… “Hunter, c’mon you’re scaring me a little, are you okay?”
I look at him. He’s got this look, this concern in his voice, written over his face. I step up and go up on my tip toes and kiss him. I’ve kisses him before but this was different. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never felt like this…I break the kiss after like three or four real minutes. I’m breathless, so’s Alex.
“Alex?”
“Y….yeah?”
“Thank you?, Nobody has ever said stuff like that before, nobody has ever given a shit before…Just…thank you.”

Alex steps up and pulls me into his arms and there’s a moment where I’m expecting the kiss but instead I feel those huge arms wrap around me and it’s like he’s folding himself around me and shielding my from…nothing, everything…he’s just doing it. Holding me and letting me feel safe.

Safe is something that’s so rare and so beautiful…It’s like I’m breathing it in as Alex is holding me and I can feel my body shaking at first like one of those abused animals you see on animal planet…my throat get’s thick with emotions and I’m getting a bit of a headache from these feelings bubbling up inside too fast, so…and he holds me. He sways back and forth like we’re dancing or something. I’m actually allowed to just be…he just does that, holds me, sways and lets me just soak in him, in the safety he’s letting me have.
I can literally feel myself calming down. I keep my head to his chest and try to slow myself to his slow steady heartbeat. Goddamned he smells good…I’ve never felt, or smelled guys that smelled like he does or that heady just hinting of giddy in a strange way that I’m feeling now.

I take a deep breath and look up at him. Alex kisses me back then. His eyes are so…I feel warm, warmer the awake, too awake the there’s this wave as the kiss goes into like minute three and I can’t help it, I didn’t do it…it just happened like a reflex, all on it’s own…I swear. My left leg lifted off the ground just a foot or so off the floor…just like I was some girl.

After the way he’s just been.
I’m not sure I care just what I am right now.
I just feel good, better than good actually, better than I’ve ever felt in my life.

The rest of the shopping is a blur and really quick, We just go to Macy’s and We both buy jeans and underwear and some track wear and stuff like that. I get a bunch of make up that I’m going to like to wear for my goth look and Alex talked to the cosmetics girl and showed her something on a folded up paper. He ends up buying a bunch of stuff she picked out and a bunch of other package deal stuff like L’Oreal or Este Lauder and stuff like that. It’s closer to closing and supper when we leave and drive home?
It oddly feel more like home than when we left this afternoon. I put our stuff in the wash because you never know who handled your stuff in the store and Alex puts away the food and cooks us some supper.
It’s not fancy but it’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Loose cooked up hamburger and onions, cooked macaroni and a can of tomato soup in it and stirred up. Homemade hamburger helper?
I ate like five whole ladles of it. Like two and a half bowls of it and a slice of bread and butter. He made me a tea and we actually curled up together on his couch to watch TV something called Criminal Minds?
I got about  ½ my tea down and twenty minutes of the show before drifting off. Alex actually behind me one arm draped over my side. It was feeling him breathing against my back that knocked me out.
I woke up with a bit of a panicky jolt/flinch as Alex lifts me into his arms and carries me to the bedroom. The wall clock says 10:23 PM it was eight something when I crashed. I calm down when I realize what he’s doing.
I kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks Alex but I’ve gotta uhm get ready for bed and use the bathroom and stuff.” He smiles a bit and sets me down. “You want a night-cap? Maybe a hot chocolate?”
“Thanks, I’d love one.”

He smiles a little bit again and I grab a clean pair of panties and dig my fleece PJ’s out of the dryer I like them they’re got Snoopy as a pilot and Woodstock on them too. I take a bath again. I love that, I love being clean, I love being warm, I love that I can soak my hurts away
.
My scalp burns a bit when I sink under the water and when I use the shampoo and stuff. I’ve got a small cut in my scalp from Jennifer’s rings. I’m used to much worse…I kind of relive the whole thing and you know after what happened, I wouldn’t have changed anything, I can’t help but smile as I relive Alex yelling at her…defending me…holding me.
It’s keeping the fact she shattered that I was starting to feel safe, if only for just awhile.

I climb out and dry off and get dressed and blow dry out my hair. I love my PJ’s.
I’m passed a mug of hot chocolate once I’m out and headed to the dryer to fold up the clothes. I’m sipping it and folding the clothes after I tossed them on the bed. Alex comes over and smiles at me.
“Hunter, can I do something?”
“What…?”
“It’s a surprise…”
“Will it hurt?” I’m a little nervous.
“No, it’s just something I need to show you.”
About a hundred things run through my head and I nod.
“Close your eyes.”
I do, and there, these feelings of him touching my face, brushing it with things, using eyeliner and mascara on my and even lip paint…He’s putting make up on me?
“I know what you’re doing Alex, you better not make me look like a clown, I just got out of the bath. The response I got was “Shuuuuush.” and then a few moments later. “No, not a clown…All finished.” He kisses me like he did at the mall. “Goodnight Hunter.” I heard him leave the bedroom and actually opened my eyes and just caught him walking out and down the hall to the living room.
I get up and go to see the damage.
I look in the mirror and my breath catches in my chest….I’m…I…I look like the way that he drew me, that girl, that Me more than I’ve ever been me.
I’m the girl in the picture.
…………………………
…………………………

Sweet Dreams I’ll Never Have Them…7

Chapter 7

Alex left and that leaves me staring at that girl in the mirror. That girl from the picture he drew of me that he said was what he seen. I’m sitting there for a long time actually. I can’t get it out of my head for like hours. It just kind of sits there inside of that mess of me that’s me but, I’ve no idea exactly how I really feel.

Actually I kind of do. I know, I really have a real strong knowledge of being all fucked up.

This, feeling this blankness about this. You wanna know what I feel like? I feel like a fucking time bomb. I don’t know what’d I do if I actually had a gun.

I get out of the bed about quarter to four in the morning and pad to the bathroom and very hesitantly start to remove my make-up job. Part of me really doesn’t want to. Part of me really wants to stay?

It does come off, so easily gone it hurts me in a way I don’t get. I hear Alex out in the living room. I quietly pad out to where he’s sleeping on the couch. Well you can’t really call it sleeping. He’s tossing and turning and having a nightmare…I hear him whine, it’s the heart wrenching sound of a really scared, little kid. It tears at my heart and there’s some feeling this ache like getting hit in the gut from hearing it.

*** (Alex’s Nightmare.)

Part of me knows this isn’t real anymore.
Anymore....

But it did happen, I keep reliving it, even though people don’t think I remember…
But I do…I’ll never forget it.

I’m four years old and I’m playing in the laundry room because daddy don’t wanna see me playing anywheres I might make a mess. I’m playing with my Hot Wheels cars and I hears ‘em fighting again. Dad’s mad about stuff a lot. Like why can’t she get off her bum and keep house right. I don’t get it, I though all girls were good at playing house?

Dad’s mad an calls her a pig, and a cow and yells at her that he’s embarrassed to have her around him when he’s trying to impress his bosses and she looks like that. Like what? Mommy looks like mommy? He yells at her, telling her that she’s worthless, ugly, stooped. I get mad at him and run out of the laundry room and tell him to leave momma alone. He yells at me too for talking back to him. He yells at me for not being ready for 5th street. It’s my before pre-school thing.

Mom’s crying at the kitchen table, when we leave. I wanna hug her and make it better but he yanks me away.

It happens a lot. Dad’s angry a lot, he’s never home and mom’s lonely.
Mom’s sad.
She’s sad a lot.

Sometimes she have wine for breakfast when dad’s already gone. Sometimes she smokes these things that look like funny colored rock salt? She’s happy for awhile after that. But then later she’s sad, really sad.

Sometimes she’ll just stay in bed a lot.

Then there was the morning dad found her rocks, found her empty wine bottles and they fight. Mom really doesn’t want him to throw away her things. She yells at him, which just gets dad more mad than ever. They both scream about divorce, he yells something about a pre-up? She screams about supporting him trough college? He lefted to go to work, he was goin way on the airplane.

I remember Mom having wine and smoking a lot of her special medicine…I remember her looking at me with her great big happy smiles even though she was crying. “C’mon Alex, let’s go take you to daycare.” It’s not really daycare, daycare’s for babies it’s b’fore kiddergarder. Mom’s happy, but she’s still crying. We even sing in the SUV as we go. Then it happens. We turn off the street and down the overpass. I remember seeing the sign that said wrong way.

I remember it was weird, we was going into the part of the road where the cars was comin at us. I remember her driving then turning to me this huge smile on her face, tears running down her face and her letting go of the steering wheel to touch my face. “It’s gonna be alright now baby, it’s going to be alright, Momma promises.” Even as she said it her foot hit the gas.

I remember the first car hit the front of our truck, another hit the back as we were spinning, that sent us right into the path of the freightliner….

*** (Back to Hunter.)

He was making that sound and tossing and turning and Then he actually Spasmed like…I don’t know? Please, please don’t let this be drugs. He falls off the couch and I think I heard him cry out Mom?

I want to go to him but I’m scared. Alex is face down on the floor and his breathing is ragged. I just watch his fingers curling in clawing at the hardwood flooring. It’s heartbroken pain he’s dealing with, I know it so well I can almost smell it. “Alex…?”
I see this wave was over him, knowing he’s not alone and I see everything in him tensing up. “Alex…is everything okay?”

He s shivering, shaking trying to get in control of himself. “Yeah, Hunter…It was just my Wes Crave alarm clock going off again.” He’s picking himself slowly off the floor. I get out of the chair and help him. I’m almost too scared to touch him. I’ve been lashed out at too much. He looks at me once I’ve got him sitting back on the couch. His eye’s are red from crying. My gut twists again and I bite my lip and sit on him and straddle his lap and pull up the sleeves of my PJ top showing him my scars and the few healing marks there.

“It’s okay Alex, I get having nightmares, I get being fucked up inside, Whatever’s going on in here and here I’ll get.” I touched his head then his heart. He’s staring at me and he’s still shaking, and really trying not to. He’s fighting a war inside himself, we all are but maybe that’s what being there for/with someone’s about? Armistice, We can get into the way of the shit we’re at war within ourselves. Maybe, that’s it.

I lean in on him and I hug him, I wrap myself against him and hold him putting my head on his massive shoulders and hold him. God, I’m even awkward about it. Scared, I just sit there feeling him shivering and shaking like a scared animal. It takes a few minutes before his ripped arms surround me and he’s holding me or holding onto me…it feels good, it feel better, right even as it seems to be calming him down. Helping him, through this being there like this for him like he was there defending me at the mall is such a good feeling, a clean feeling.

You ever just had such a time where every fucking thing in your life is just shit? Like just to the point of your everyday is trying to drown you slowly like an inch everyday, just wearing you down, never stopping until misery and depression is your norm? This was like that. Like living alone in this dirty old shitty wreck of a house then finding surprisingly that in one room, somebody swept and wash the windows letting the sunlight in.

It’s like that, it’s like knowing you’re not alone in the place and that there’s light out there in the world still.

I like it when he seems to got to hanging onto me to holding me. I liked the hanging onto me too. It made me feel strong? But like…fuck it, I felt like a girl, getting to really be there for her guy. To be that kind of strong for him when something happens that he can’t take. And I liked feeling like that, I liked that I…Me…that I could be that strong.

I like running my fingers soothingly through his hair, I liked rocking him from side to side humming. I like it when he lift his head off my shoulder to look at me, I lift mine off his to. There’s this moment like at the mall where there’s something in his eyes. The he kisses me. It’s soft and slow and deep? It’s not like one of those tongue kisses but it’s like there’s this intensity I can feel off him, as he’s kissing me that he’s trying to kiss as deep into who I am as he can. I’ve never really known this kind of sweet and tender. I really can’t bring up any resistance to kissing him back. That new strength and that clean feeling in me keeping my inner Nazi skinhead quiet.

I can feel Alex getting aroused his hard on thickening underneath me and the fact it’s happening is turning me on too. I can’t help that, Alex has already crossed himself over into my dreams and I’m aching in a way I’ve never known, even getting as hard as I am feels different than when I’d get turned on by girls. Yeah, I like girls. Not all of them, not anyone who reminds me of my mom.

Alex has turned the universe as I’ve ever known it on it’s head. Oh..I like it when his hands slide over my body. God I’m getting girls a bit better. The strength in him, in his hands is intoxicating. I really like those hands running down my back. I love the way he rubs my lower back. I love how he rubs up and down soothingly, I like the way that he gently kneads right on either side of my spine, I love his hand going up my top just to rub my back more.

I relax into it, I kind of grind into him.

Kind of because It started on it’s own, subconsciously, but part of me really likes the feeling that he’s turned on, that he wants me. I kind of really like the taboo of it. I lower my head to his shoulder again and adjust my arms to hold him better, even return the soothing massage he’s giving me. I kiss his shoulder, his collar bone, his neck.

I really might be gay you know, or something.

I like the taste of just his skin, nothing freaky kinky like that. I like the smell of him. There’s something soothing about inhaling his scent. It’s a guy smell, but not the ones you read about. Alex smells like skin, there’s a slight…almost meaty scent from him? It’s like actually smelling Umami, that weird Japanese 5th taste/flavor. Whatever it is it’s mixed in with the scent of his skin itself and the faintest whiff of the soap from the shower he’d taken before he went to bed. I like all of that stuff way more than I should. I like his hardness, I like the small furnace of body heat he gives off. I love the ripple of him under his skin as my hands wander. I love kissing and sucking on his neck…I can’t help but smile thinking about the reactions as I start to really suck on his neck, making a seal with my mouth, negative pressure drawing blood to the surface and grazing him over and over again with my teeth, over and over again.

Maybe Jennifer seeing all the hickie I’ve just gave him will make her head pop like an aneurism. The thought oddly makes me smile. I feel Alex returning the favor…I feel his hands slide from under the back of my top to under the front of it. His hands go up my sides and to my chest. It feels good. Not in the fact I’ve got breasts or anything weird like that, but in that way that someone else touching you feels compared to just touching yourself. He does knead the flesh there ever though there’s really nothing there, that really feels good, really good…Then he touches my nipples, first with just sliding fingers then playing with them. I think my reaction to that was a inhalation gasp/whisper of “Ohfuck.”

I was so close to boiling over or something when his cell phone starts blazing out a tune. I don’t really know it but there’s this old rock sound to it…there’s a really good bit or whatever guitar they call the opening bit. Then this kinda high pitched kinda scratchy sounding guy starts belting out.

“Woke up this morning.”
“My dog was dead.”
“Someone disliked him.”
“And shot him through the head.”

There’s more of it but I can’t help but think with his life, my life it’s a really perfect something to wake up to. I can’t help the smile that comes across my face, it’s not what I’d guess that he’d listen too. He rests his head on mine. “I gotta get up. There’s a bunch of stuff I gotta do.” I look at the clock, it’s five AM in the morning. “This early?”
“I’m in training.” He slips out from underneath me.
“For what the army?”
“Football but I’ve though about going military to get out of here.”
“Okay…” I don’t even like the thought of that, I’m not a hater of the stuff going on but I just had a vision of Alex getting killed or coming back all fucked up with missing pieces. Okay yeah I have a beef with the US military but more the government.

There are too many of those guys that came back, fucked up. In the head and missing pieces and stuff left to fend in the shitty neighborhoods I came from. I guess we all get to see the official policy on loyalty.

Alex’s pulled on his sweats and he’s drinking a shake from a can and snags a bottle of water. “I’m going for my run, you wanna come?”
“How far?”
“Ten miles, five out, five back.”
“At five in the morning, NFW, what do you eat for breakfast?”
“NFW?”
“No Fucking Way.”
“Oh, Uhm cereal, a smoothie, scrambled eggs, stuff like that, it’s my really big meal plus I pack a lunch.”
“Whaddaya take, I usually take the rest of my smoothie, a salad, a couple of power bars.”
“Okay, you go and I’ll handle that stuff.”
“Really?” He smiled a bit surprised.
“Yes, really.” I smile back, I give him a kiss from my tip toes, he kisses me back.
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Mmmn, Yeah…” I push him away out the door. “Go.”
He leaves and I watch him leave and run down the street, He’s fast.

I turn on his stereo and go into the kitchen and pour him some granola in a bowl, some for myself too. I make some toast, dig out the jam and his (Blech) cottage cheese. I make up the scrambled eggs in a bowl for both of us and put some bacon in the frying pan and cut up a small onion and two potatoes into slices. I turn the pan on it’s lowest setting and go take a shower.

My shower is my first one here and it’s really nice, hot, lots of water pressure. I use some of the body wash that I/we/he bought yesterday and I lather up and borrow his razor and do my legs and my pits. I don’t really have hair anywhere else. I don’t know when it started, me shaving. I suppose when I started wearing tights and hose. My underarms just followed. I shampoo and condition and lotion my body up without drying off. I just use a cucumber/aloe stuff with green tea I like. I love feeling silky smooth. I feel icky if I don’t get to do it every few days. God it’s so nice to be clean and warm and to have fresh towels and a hair dryer.

I go and check on the bacon, give it a flip and head in the bedroom and get dressed. My new panties and a camisole top both in red. A pair of my new skinny jeans out of the dryer and slide into them and tuck myself away for comfort before zipping up and I look through his dressers and his closet before fining one of those meshed football jersey’s on over top of it. I brush my hair out straight so it just hangs shining and I Curl the ends so they flare out.

Back out to the kitchen, take off the bacon and put it on some paper towel and fry the potatoes in the bacon fat. I put on a little salt and pepper and then a pot of coffee. He’s just coming in as I turn the machine on.

I get this weird little rush as he smiles and inhales, he gives me this look, it one of those good looks. “That smells amazing Hunter.” He takes off his running shoes and he pulls out a work out machine thing called a bow flex from under the couch and moves the coffee table out of the way. He’s fast in setting it up and soon he’s working out doing all sorts of things. I buzz up soymilk, with some almond milk and some yogurt and a banana, and two oranges. I try it. I’ve had worse and it’s bound to be good for me. I pour him some and take it over to him. He stops and smiles. “Thanks Hunter, this is really good. You look good.” I blush a little. He fingers the jersey and looks at me.
“Hey I’m your “girl” remember, besides I thought I’d meet you for lunch at your school.”
“Why not just come?’
“I’ve gotta get my ID’s and stuff situated around and stuff. I’m gonna need a drive downtown if it’s not too much trouble.’
“No, not a problem.”
“Thanks Alex.”
“Hey, what are boyfriends for?”
I blush again.

I slip back into the kitchen, munch on some toast as I flip the potatoes and then dice the onion up and dump it in over the hash browns.

Back to the bedroom, blue the curled tips of my hair at least the last four inches and put on some of my makeup. Just the stuff around my eyes, a touch of liquid powder. I’ll save the lipstick for later.

Back out to the kitchen, Take the potato-hash off, and in the oven. I dump the scrambled egg mix into the still hot pan and start doing the dishes really quickly so there’s none hanging around. It’s really, nice just being able to do that and keep it clean. Neat freak yeah kinda, I know what it’s like to have bed bugs, and what it feels like to have cockroaches crawling over you or to have rats try and take a nibble out of you. I’m not going back to that. I’ll die first…I mean it. Yeah there’s the hint of the headache coming back, the wanting to cry. I don’t, I can’t, crying…I can feel this memory of my numerous cigarette burn scars hurting in the hot water. I get myself a hot coffee, I use it’s taste and the heat to break up the funk of bad memories.

I watch Alex work out as I sip my coffee. He’s in a better mood, it’s probably the endorphins from the run and stuff. He’s got his shirt off now and he’s getting this sweaty sheen over himself as he goes through all these different exercises. You ever see the commercial for these things. He does all of the different things, he’s fast and pushes himself really hard. I could watch this for a long time, I really don’t want to do it but. I’m really attracted to Alex. Yeah I can admit it. Fuck, I love the way his muscles are standing out right now. I’m straining against my confinement but there’s also this kind of faint achy, hollow feeling in me. It’s scary as hell and alluring to me all at the same time. I think I want him inside of me…I’m not going to act on it. But there’s a big stunned “oh” in my brain right now that if Alex wanted me, I’d go for it. I think.

He took twenty five minutes to run, worked out for another thirty minutes really hard, if he does this everyday I can see why he’s put together the way that he is. He smiles at me and heads off to shower.

I gather his stuff and mine and even slip into the bathroom. “Hey I’m gonna start the laundry so just take your towels to the piles I’ve set out.”
“Okay, thanks Hunter.”
I don’t have different baskets for stuff yet so Yeah it’s piles.

I slip into the kitchen and dig through his fridge and sacrifice a slice of bacon and toast for his salad, cube a bit of cheese and chop up some cucumber, celery and tomato with his lettuce. I bag it all in sandwich bags separately so it doesn’t get slimy and put it all into a zip lock baggy and I find one of those thermoses and I toss in a splash of OJ and ice into it before putting in the rest of his smoothie. There’s nylon lunch bag on the counter so I put it all in there with three energy bars and three bottles of water.

Wow, holy male model body builder he looks so hot when he comes out drying his hair and just with a towel around his waist. He moves so, looks so. Even with the scars, he’s beautiful.

He comes out dressed and ready for his day. Nice tee-shirt, zip front hoody, jeans, high end sneakers. Everything’s ready, and we sit down to eat. I’m rather pleased ay how it turned out. I eat my granola still getting used to even eating it. I think I like it, not really sweet, but tastes good and crunchy. I like crunchy stuff sometimes. I have some of the scrambled eggs and bacon and three good sized bit of potato hash. I ate maybe a quarter of what I made and Alex completely ate the rest. I loved watching him eat and make these faces, like he really liked it faces. There’s this part of me really happy that he likes it. We clean off the breakfast dishes and he puts the clothes in bags. “We’ll do those tonight, after we’ve got the day’s stuff to do.”
“Sounds good to me.”

Alex tosses on his varsity jacket and my black knit cap again, I put on my fingerless gloves and my leather jacket. I might be wearing his jersey and stuff but I’m still me, I put on my favorite new thing, these calf high black leather boots with that whole haute culture boot if it got mugged by a set of biker and army boots. Lots of buckles and laces and they really gang my look up. I finally put on my lipstick a dark blue color. Yeah I feel great. I grab my old beat up backpack with the stuff in it I’m going to need. Alex is looking at me and smiling. I look good; but I look like me. I’ve no bra, no chest but the way I’m dressed, the way I look. The lack of really girly curve but my long legs. You really can’t fucking tell what I am. That throws people, I love that.

There’s another car, in the garage beside his when we come downstairs. There’s a man dressed in one of those really understated really dark $3000.00 suits sipping a coffee. He’s built, tall, lean. Clean shaven with dark hair with no grays in it.

“So this is the new girlfriend Alex?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, but I just thought Jennifer was…More your speed.”
“Jennifer’s just out for Jennifer.”
“They all are Alex, they all are…with Jennifer you knew where you stood.”
“You like her so much you can have her.”
He just stared at Alex coldly and sipped his coffee. It leads to a moment of awkward silence. I take Alex’s arm. “Hey C’mon, I’ve got things to do to day.”
“Yeah…”
His father turns to walk in the house. “Have a good day, Alex…Hunter.” he closes the door behind him. He knows my name. Alex never introduced us. Oh I’m thinking already this isn’t good.

Alex drives me downtown, I’m a little freaked out and paranoid after this morning. I’m just tripping or think I am when there’s a very undercover cop looking car three cars behind us. I get him to drop me off at the Ren-Cen. He gets out and gives me a funny look. “What do you need here?”
“I think your dad hired someone, we’ve been tailed all the way since we left your street."
“We have?” he was going to look around until I pull him into a kiss. I whisper into his ear. “Don’t look just go. I can handle this.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it’s not like the can arrest me, and I’m used to dodging cops from back home, I’ve been doing it all my life.”
“You have?”
“Yeah, talk later.”
He kisses me again and breaks it. “You need some cash?” he asks openly.
“Yes please.”
He takes all but two twenties from his wallet and passes it to me. There’s this sparkle in his eyes. He knows this will bait them to me. I smile and kiss him again. “I’ll see you later at lunch.”
He gets in the car and pulls off and I count the cash once he’s gone then put it away and head to Starbucks. Yeah their in the reflection there. They look like ex-cops. I get one of those fancy coffees and lots of whipped cream on it. Sprinkles and all the other stuff. I pay a girl $30 bucks to borrow her cell phone and get two normal coffees on a tray.
I walk outside again and right over to the car their in an older grey Pontiac sunfire and stand in front of the passenger side window. These guys by instinct don’t like to have their covers blown even if they’re just tailing someone. Me getting right up to them gets them freaked. They’ve been made and they know it. There’s a look of resignation on the guys face as he powers down the window. I pass them the tray with the two coffees on it. They take them.
Flash…flash…I take their pictures. Then look at them in my best pissed bitch voice. “Tell him never to ever fucking try this shit again, never again.” They might have started to say something but I step back and biff the preppy creamy coffee all over their windshield. I step back more.
Flash…flash …license plates. They get out of the car looking pissed, like they might do something…“Uh…uh…uh…fellas…Unless you’re gonna shoot me this’ll be loaded to You tube before you can do anything.”

Yeah these guys know shit about the internet and stuff ant the thought’s scaring the piss out of them and they look scared. Getting public’s not good for business for these guys.
I smile like a real bitch, as I walk backwards into Starbucks. They’re not long in taking off. I download the pics and the video to my e-mail account and pass the girl back her phone.

What A lovely way to start the day.

You’d think I’d be scared, But I’m not. Cliff’s terrorized me to where it just doesn’t faze me. With the life I’ve lived…He might escalate things or not. All I know is I don’t like him. I’m not leaving Alex there. He won’t stop, trying to get to Alex, trying to break him.
He’s one of those guys who needs it like breathing.

Alex needs my protection.

Sweet Dreams I’ll Never Have Them…8

Chapter 8

I’m actually shaking by the time I get out of the Starbucks and through the other set of doors and into The Renaissance Center, it’s kind of this high end mall kind of place that’s been around forever. I even knew about this place living in my neighborhood. It kind of went through this slump when most of downtown did too but has come back into it’s own with that whole push to revitalize old Detroit.

I move through the mall until I get close to the bus stop and get on. It’s a survival thing in the city, that invaluable skill of mastering the transfer pass. I get on and keep to myself but still going over everything in my head while I’m looking out for anyone following me. After an hour and two buses later I’m sure it was just the two bozos hired to follow Alex.

I end up heading to The Secretary of State offices over on west grand and make my way inside and over to the reception area. There’s a already bored looking civil servant sitting behind the glass putting people through and sending on their way to whatever other place they need to be. I wait patiently until my turn and I ask for the forms to get a replacement social insurance card and birth certificate. She looks at me in that doesn’t really see me doesn’t really care kind of way. She gives me a stack of forms and tells me where to go.

I’m never working in a place like this unless I absolutely have to. These poor people huddled behind the plexi-glass just looked so…boxed in. Washed out by the shitty lighting and told how to dress, sit, take a shit more than likely. It kind of gives me the creeps. It just seems kind of soul crushing. I’m not getting out of my old hell of a life to do this for a living…I guess though if you have to, you have too. No offense to those who do it but not me.

Besides filling out the damned forms and waiting in the endless lines of what has to be the secret republican tax. I say republican because they’re not my favorite people, I’m not stupid, I watch the news, I can read a newspaper. Yeah it’s a republican plot, the designed inefficiency of any government offices all to tax us out of all those minutes we lose waiting in lines. Why else do those guys live so frigging long right?

Okay, yeah I’m weird, and I’m joking about all of that. Your mind goes to funny places when you’re standing in line for so long. Then to be told to fill this out and going to another line.

By the time I get to the right clerk with the right paperwork I’m kind of leaning to one side weight shifted on my right hip and my arms crossed. I’m not even putting it on either, I just look stupid trying to stand like a “dude” I’ve tried to be butch and to man up a lot during my life. The fact that I was/am this weird whatever the hell I am just seemed to push the steps hit Cliff’s skinhead anti-fag buttons sometimes. I honestly think that somewhere in my head something said if “He’s” what a guy is then no fucking way.

But I have learned a lot about scams of all kinds from him and mom and all their buddies. It’s close to lunch, and this guy will be wanting to get out of here. Civil Servants are if anything predictable.

I look at the clerk and give him my papers and he takes them and starts typing away at his computer. He stops, frowns and looks at me. I pop my gum. Hey, I look like a chick right? What’s going to be more annoying than a bored teenaged girl dressed with a bit of a goth punk look to a buero-twit.

“It says here you’re a home birth?”

“Yeah, Mom wasn’t big on hospitals with all the track marks and all. As it was she was stoned when she got me registered.” I pass him my old social security card and my birth certificate. He eyes them…then me, then them.

“So what should this actually be?”

“It’s backwards, My name’s actually Hunter Williams, not William Hunter.”

“I see, and the sex.”

“I’m assuming that the clerk who did it just filled it in automatically and heck I didn’t even know about it until I got out of there to move in with my boyfriend.”

“So you’re not a boy?”

Instead of freaking out I give him my best bitchy glare…cross my arms across my breasts like I’m hiding my obvious flatness and purse my lips in an…I am not amused pout. “No.” I say it with as much ice in the tone as I can manage.

He looks at me and sighs with a roll of his eyes. He wants me out of there as fast as he can at this point so he starts typing and asking me all the basic questions. I make myself a year older by saying my birthdate is actually is the eighth of February actually instead of the second of August. I give him my mother’s real maiden name, she’s always been a flake even when…when…dad was alive.

Anyway she’s got a record of heavy drug abuse and two strikes already and toss the steps hit in and at a glance everything makes sense. I even give him my dad’s name too. It doesn’t have to last forever, not even that long really just long enough that I can turn actually sixteen and then get emancipated and actually be on my own and legally change my name.

He doesn’t even question it as he just types it all in. He even gets faster as I pop and snap my gum. And just like that, I’m legal aged. He prints off a sheet for my birth certificate and it’s got a tear out sheet that I can get laminated to actually be my birth certificate card. As that’s printing out there’s a temporary card clacking out for my new social security card on a plastic blank.

He gets me to sign a few things and then passes me my things. “That’s just a temporary card your other card should arrive in the mail at the end of the week or the first of next week, just mail back the temporary card in the enclosed envelope. Your number’s still the same, I just changed all the stuff that was wrong. There’s a laminator down in the lobby at the news stand. That’ll be twenty-five dollars.”

I go to pay him. And he gets irate with me telling me to take one of the papers he’s given me and what counter to pay it at. I try to say sorry that I didn’t know that you didn’t pay here but he cuts me off with a loud. “Next!”

A quick trip to the accounting desk and that news stand then I’m Hunter Williams, a sixteen year old teenaged girl from Detroit Michigan. It’s actually kind of scary I was able to do this so easily.

But people only ever see what they think and what they want to see. I’m just another face in the crowd here where the place is filled with other people here for other things and right now the way things are it’s full of people here for their unemployment claims and there is a feeling of desperation in those lines and depression too. They’re not too concerned about a way too skinny sixteen year old “girl” who was just in to get her ID fixed. The notes in my voice when saying the few things about my mom were real, mom could have easily done what I said she did.

I feel lighter actually better as I leave the place and get on the bus and head over to meet and find Alex at Western International High School. I get there about quarter to one and go to the office. It’s a nice school and clean and well taken care of and very white. I mean it’s a public school in Detroit and there is a lot of school including my old one where white is the minority. I found myself in the inner city the step-kid of a skinhead and a hooker where nearly all the white kids were criminals of one kind or another. Seeing a school like this is a kind of a shock to my reality.

There’s professional looking bunch of women in the office center as well as what I’m going to assume are a few students. I wait until one of them looks my way.

“Uhm Hello?”

“Yes miss can I help you?”

“I’m here, to see Alex…” Shit..shit, shit, shit I don’t even know his last name. Wait the name on his jersey said…

“Oh you’re here to see Alex Donovan? You must be Hunter?” this is coming from one of the student girls. She’s looking at me with the intense interest of a school busybody, in my neighborhood we’d have called her a rat. But here she’s just some preppy girl kissing up to the office people and stuff, heck her name tag even says Mindy.

I give her a half smile. “Uhn-huh, that’s me. I was looking to have lunch with Alex but I don’t know his schedule yet.”

“Oh, that’s no problem let me look it up for you and get you a copy.”

She sits down and starts typing away and I’m catching looks from the other girls and even the women. Yeah I know I don’t exactly fit in here like the other “girls” that are here, but I kind of like not quite fitting in. Besides being weird is a good way for them not to notice I’m not a real girl. Like today, blue lipstick, frosted blue tips on my hair, his Jersey, skinny jeans and a leather jacket and kickass leather boots and fingerless gloves. Skater, biker, sporty, goth? There’s a bit of whispers that I can’t hear but I’m sure they’re about me.

Mindy prints off a sheet or two and hands them to me along with a visitors pass. “Alex will be eating lunch in a few minutes or so. His lunch break’s at one o’clock. So are you like goin g to be like auditing classes here?”

“Actually yes, I’d love to go to school here. But it might take me awhile to get my school transcripts and stuff so I can transfer here.”

“Rilly?, like that be so kinda cool Hunter.” she lowers her voice and leans in to me. “Any one who put that bitch Jennifer in her place is like pretty cool with like some of us.”

“Uhm, Mindy..? Please don’t take this the wrong way but you kinda seem like the valley girl type who’d be part of her crowd?”

“Oh…Oh well, uhm kinda. I’m on the cheer squad but not from like the same school as she came from. We never really got into this whole holier than other people stuff yanno. There’s a whole bunch of us just in it because it’s fun and good for like college and stuff but her and her clique’s kinda like not made it worth it yanno.”

“Shit, okay yeah I get where you’re coming from. For what it’s worth Mindy I think you and your friends sound like the kind of people I’d have loved to have gone to school with.”

I swear her face beamed like I gave her a hundred bucks or something. Yeah she’s a preppy type but not like the image she was giving off. I’ll admit not the sharpest knife in the drawer but she seems okay. A definite case of don’t judge the book by it’s cover. I offer her a handshake over the counter. She takes my hand a grins like it’s a novelty. I know “Girls” hug and stuff but don’t they shake hands too?

I’m going to have to learn these things about being a girl if I’m goin g to actually start over disguised as one. I mean before people just kind of assumed or just didn’t know.

“Hey, I’ll see you later. I’d better get going if I’m going to catch up with Alex.”

“Oh yeah like cool. Hey I’ll get Todd to take you to the cafeteria.” Mindy calls over a kid with acne about my age with a vest on. Like he’s a school messenger or runner or something.

“Hi Todd?” He nods very quietly, shy a bit of a nerd really. If I grew up around here I might have ended up like him. As much as he’s kind of non-descript and kind of lethally shy, his life would have likely been a blessing compared to mine.

No scratch that. Alex’s life’s no picnic and Mindy wasn’t at all like the way she looked.

I extend my hand to him too. “Hi I’m Hunter, thanks for showing me to the cafeteria.” He takes my hand nervously and shakes it. Kind of mumbling out a shy, quiet. “Uhm, yeah n..nn..no problem.”

I’m actually really glad for the guide and it takes a few minutes to get there but there was enough twists and turns that yeah, I’d have gotten turned around. We’re just about there when the bell rings and the hall fill with kids heading to their lunch break. Todd takes me into the cafeteria and I look around and see Alex coming in with his lunch bag and some of his friends, fellow football jocks. There’s a bunch of cheerleader types with them and Jennifer too. Todd mumbles something and books away from them and the way he’s moving I can practically hear the “danger Will Robinson!” going off in his head for the football jocks. I don’t blame him a bit. These guys often deserve the rep they get for being bulling asshats. I’m trying not to judge but I think Todd took off for a reason.

Alex see’s me and comes over and gives me a kiss. It was kinda cool because Jennifer was starting to stalk over my way and Alex walked passed her then swerved in front of her cutting her off.

My world goes through this kind of pleasant shift as Alex kisses me. I’ve been enjoying this more than I should. There’s a part of me still that is not good with me kissing some other guy like some fag. But lately it’s been…different, really different. Alex knows exactly who or what I am, well sort of. I mean I’m just saying he knows, but as to what I really am? I don’t even know.

But I am kind of able to enjoy this because right now. I’m Hunter, not Billy and Hunter is a whole new and different person and Hunter…

I’m the girl in the picture, or I can be, I’m going to be.

I let myself be kissed, held in Alex’s hands. I kiss back. We break the kiss and I wrap my arms around the small of his back.

Jennifer is glaring at me. She looks like she wants to do something and can’t because she’s in public. Then I kind of notice the lull in things and the looks being sent our way. Oh me ousting Jennifer is something here…there’s a lot of people taking notice.

I break the kiss. “Hey you…I got my stuff done, want some company for dinner?”

Alex smiles at me. “Yeah that’d be good Let’s get a table.” We walk over to a table and we’re kind of being followed by a small pack of the football, cheer prep-squad. They join us and there’s this cut-throat thing going on with the girls and the seating like they’re trying to keep Jennifer from sitting with what’s obviously her social group. I can see her eyes looking for a place to sit here, and a way to not lose anymore status with her group.

Oh God, It’d be so easy to be a bitch right now.

I can’t believe I’m going to do this.

“Hey Jen?, Here’s a place.” I get up and move from my place on the bench. My place right next to Alex. We lock eyes and she really doesn’t trust me anymore then I trust her but I’m not going to be that kind of person. My mom would’ve let her twist in the wind, If I’m going to be living as a girl being one like I’m not going to be like her. There must have been something there that convinced her I wasn’t trying to screw her over. Alex looks at me. “Hey, you sit here I’ll be right back.” He gets up and motions for me to take his place on the bench. I sit and he leaves heading some place. I’m looking at Jennifer then she’s looking at me and nobody’s really saying stuff at the table. The guys just evade the whole awkwardness by stuffing their faces…ugh...I get I’m not much of a guy because watching them, well some of them is grossing me out.

“You know one of them is going to choke if they keep that up.” I say mildly.

“I know we’ve got a forty five minute lunch break and they inhale everything as fast as they can.”

Jennifer says as she opens one of those salads I seen they had made at the grocery place the other day. It just kinda leaves me shaking my head on the inside at least as I see only a few of the girls eating too and most of them are eating stuff like Jennifer is.

The conversation kind of picks up onto the topic of how guys eat and how girls eat and there’s actually introductions being made for me to everyone by Jennifer and we, well mostly they talk about school stuff as Alex comes back with a folding chair.

He grins at us and his face changes from some of that broodiness he usually carries around and he sits at the end or the head of the table actually. He unpacks his lunch and starts to eat. He still eats like a guy but just not like some of those other guys. He actually doesn’t talk as he eats and chews with his mouth closed.

Jennifer looks at his food. “Not your usual Alex.”

He swallows. “No, Hunter made me lunch and breakfast too.”

She looks angry, lips pursing a moment. “That was nice.” she says a little too blandly. “Breakfast huh?”

Alex nods before swallowing. “Yeah it was great, I had time for a full on training run and a work out before classes.”

I’m getting a bunch of mixed looks from the group. Really speculative ones from the guys there even as far as to eye me like a pork chop. The girls with looks ranging from impressed or ticked off to like they couldn’t figure out why I’d even bother.

Cynthia who seems to be Jennifer’s calmer friend looks to her like for permission and then at me. “So you cook?”

I nod and smile. “Yeah, I kind of had to learn to fend for myself a long time ago.” I shrug the rest of it off and sneak a piece of lettuce off of his tray and munch on it. I’m trying not to go there but it hurts, even letting this much out hurts.

Alex finishes eating and takes his tray and kisses my cheek. “Hey C’mon I’ll show you around so you won’t get too turned around here.”

“Okay, just let me go and freshen up.”

I get up and head to the bathroom and I can almost time some of the girls coming in with me. I go into the stall and close the door and sit to pee. I hear someone in the next stall. I hear her doing the same, at least the sound isn’t really that different. I get some tissue to wipe when I hear Jennifer softly talk to me.

“Why’d you let me sit down with you guys?”

“Because I saw the others in your group looking like they were just waiting to get the chance to take you totally out of the group, or to use it to pump themselves up or something Jen. You don’t deserve that. Nobody needs that kind of bullshit.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re a bitch Jennifer, a total cunt and people don’t like you.”

“Wh…What..?”

“Look just because, I wasn’t being a little bitch like that in the caf doesn’t mean I’m looking at you with rose colored glasses. Like I just said, people don’t like you. I’m new here even new to being with Alex and so far all I’ve seen is you being with your crew being the biggest bitch of campus. The same crew that was literally sharpening their claws to tear you down out there. I didn’t do it for you as so much as to stop them from doing it to you.”

“But why? I wouldn’t have done that for you. Hell I’m not sure if I still don’t hate you for taking Alex from me.”

I sigh. “Alex was never yours to begin with Jennifer, you don’t get to own people. Nobody gets to own people. It’s that attitude and thinking that you’re better because you’re family has money and you’re good looking that has people really hating on you.”

“But..I thought they liked me…”

“No you didn’t, you’re not that naíve. You actually think after high school any of this will matter? You might be able to pull it off in college but out in the real world, in real life?”

“But…”

“But nothing Jennifer, you’re a social climber. If you climb a pile of shit it’s still a pile of shit Jen. You want to see life from a different angle, build it, build relationships with people.”

I get up and pull my jeans on and get tucked away comfortably and everything and head over to the sinks. The other few girls are there and Jennifer soon joins me. We was our hands then I retouch my make up from my pockets instead of my purse, I don’t carry a purse. Fix my hair and smile at them all. “Hey it was nice meeting all of you. I’ll see you later Jennifer, you got Alex’s number, call me tonight ‘Kay.”

She looks at me, then nods but passes me her number. “I will or you can call me.”

“I will we really do need to talk.” With that I leave the bathroom to go and meet up with Alex. He takes my hand in his and he starts to give me the grand tour of the place. I’m kind of jealous, this is a really nice school. Mine was a real shithole. He looks at me as we walk around checking things out. “So what happened after I dropped you off? I was worried.”

“Not too much, they were likely ex-cops. They were kind of lazy and thought they were better than they were.”

“So you lost them?”

“No, I confronted them and biffed a coffee at their car and took their pictures.”

“Bet that pissed them off? They try anything?”

“Yeah they were going to but I had them dead to rights, I told them to piss off or they’d be all over You-Tube.”

“They took off?”

“Yeah, but they’re going to tell Adam about this.”

“Fuck…who knows what he’ll do.”

“Nothing yet…I know guys like him. He wants you to crack more than me but he’s not going to let things go. I think he’ll try to get as much dirt on me as he can before he does anything.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Nothing, if we react to much he’ll know he’s getting under our skins.”

“But you said he’s going to look into you?”

“Let him, Alex I’m a ghost. Even with my new ID and stuff he’s going to get at the most stuff about my mom and Cliff. I never had that much down on paper to begin with and that’s a dead end because my name’s changed and even my birthdate. If he finds anything it’ll be a mass of confusion.”

“What if he finds your parents?”

“He won’t, they’re on the run from the law. Cliff’ll go down hard before he lets anyone find him now. Mom’s not on the grid unless she applies for welfare someplace. It’s not likely though, she’s probably turning a trick or stoned out of her head as we speak.”

“So…?”

“So we wait and we keep our eyes and ears open.”

“For what?”

“Evidence, Adam won’t really back off unless we make him or he thinks he can’t control you and then he’ll punish you by wrecking your life as much as he can.”

“You sound like you know the kind of world he lives in.”

“Control’s control Alex, Cliff used to teach me not to cry by putting out smokes on my skin or holding me and shoving stick pins into me until he pretty much trained me to not cry out. Your dad’s not any different just has more money is all. He’d be just another piece of shit running a crew and hurting people back home.”

“I’m sorry Hunter, I never meant to get you into this.”

I wrap my arms around his waist and stick my thumbs into his belt loops and my fingers into his back pockets. I look up into those shimmery coffee/amber eyes of his.

“Alex, whatever is going on you didn’t get me into this. We collided, we happened and we have things in common in the way that we’ve been raised. I care about you. I think that you and me are together because we need each other. The world’s a hard fucking place that’ll eat you alive if you let it. It’s why people get together since the dawn of time Alex. Sometimes you need help, to get out of life alive.”

He takes my face in his hands like in all those movies and soaps you see. It’s hard not to flinch or to flashback on getting my head slammed into a wall. His eyes stare into mine. Searching, gentle, so, so deeply.

“Hunter, I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never met anyone who just isn’t…so full of shit, all that fucking bullshit…whatever is going to happen, why we even happened I don’t care. I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Then he kissed me. Not like some of the other ones but this real kiss that makes everything feel like the world is turning around us like one of those three hundred and sixty degree camera shots. I don’t fight it either, There’s part of me that is but it’s like it’s getting further and further away.

I’m someone different now, I’m Hunter Williams, I’m the girl in the picture. I get to be brave, I get to take a chance to maybe be happy.

I kiss him back even as the bells ring again and the halls fill with other kids. We’re an island of just us even in the hundreds.

Part of me is just saying…Yes.

Sweet Dreams-9...Am I in a daydream?

Kissing Alex while just letting go I guess was kind of like going from drowning in the surf to riding the wave in on an inner tube? I don’t know if that’d be a good metaphor but…

I’m more than liking getting kissed, the scent of his body and cologne is actually nice and there is something that’s so inviting about the crush of his arms and the heat of his body is so soothing and then there’s the feeling of his lips on mine and there’s passion there and his own need for me, for something not…tainted by the other shit in his life and at the same time there’s this feeling of safety.

Being both needed and protected is a really powerful drug when it’s something you’ve been denied all your life.

I enjoy it and kind of just let it be whatever this is. Alex kind of holds me to him still even after he breaks the kiss and he sort of keeps one arm around me while the other one is out a little more from me as we move through the crowds of kids changing classes. It’s not like he’s pushing people out of the way but it’s like he’s got that arm clearing a path for me through the crowd. It’s actually kind of strange but kind of sweet. He even opens and holds the doors open for me as we move through the halls.

It’s the afternoon so there’s just two classes left for him the first being history where they’re actually talking a lot about the great depression and how there is such similarities between things then and the way that they are now but also how much they’re different too. It was so different than a class at my school was. Home you kind of listened while the teachers just kind of regurgitated the lesson plan at you and nobody cared. Here they were actually discussing stuff in class and I think I even got a bit out of it even if I’m not all that into history.

After that was Alex’s last class that was photography and composition. It was an amazing class and all about the artistic sides of photography and mostly them working on their own projects while they had the teacher giving them each instructions and sometimes calling peoples attention to what someone was doing and talking about it.

Alex is actually surprisingly upbeat and talkative in this class. He talks about photographers and people I’ve never heard of and stuff with the teacher and it’s kind of intimidating in a way. He’s really smart when he likes something. He’s an artist and not the guy that everyone thinks he is. Even me a little I guess. I like knowing stuff, I like the fact that I’m smart, it’s kinda my only weapon through life. I’m kind of feeling clueless in this class and I don’t like the feeling.

It kind of reminding me just how out of my league I am here.

I follow him after his classes to football practice and once again I’m lost in another world. I sit on the bleachers, actually they’re fold down seats and their on concrete stands almost like they’d be in a real arena or stadium or whatever. See that’s how much that I don’t know about it. I sit and watch and it’s not long before I’m being sort of joined in the seats by the girlfriends of the other players and they sit and talk and chat about stuff like the upcoming games and the dance this weekend and they introduce themselves to me or get introduced by a few of the girls that were at the table in the Caf at lunch.

Oh I so stand out compared to these girls and I feel really out of place and they don’t really try to include me in their conversations. It’s not really them being bitches to me but it’s also they aren’t going to be welcoming me into the fold either.

Not that that bothers me because listening to some of them “Like” talk they’re so into the same things because “OMG Me Too!!!” seems to be fucking contagious and I’d rather not catch it if at all possible. I sit and watch as they jaw and text and blather on and on and on…make up, sales, shopping, clothes and the dance and of course about their guys and Justin Barfing Beiber.

I do here my name being spoken once or twice in hushed but not so hushed tones and the phrase rebound girl and slumming mentioned. That kind of strikes that nerve that got exposed by my feeling so out of place and it kind of just has enough power to make me wonder if Alex is just going through some kind of phase by having me around and that I might be just the rebound girl after Jennifer or more likely between him getting back with her.

The more that I kind of try and not to think about it and dwell on it and stuff the more it’s there in my head of course and the more it eats away at me until there’s another headache coming on and I feel like crying but I can’t because crying doesn’t help, crying never helps and I’m feeling phantom pain in from the memory of Cliff and the stick pins. I end up with a bit of a stomach ache.

I get up and leave the bunch of girls who are all talking and giggling between the whispers they’re dishing out about me behind my back. I’m really tempted to just leave because they’re right. I really don’t belong here with people like them and as I walk down the stairs for the seats I feel dirty. And I feel all the good stuff that happened almost going away like the footing that I thought that I might have gotten is just sand being wash away by the tide.

I get to the bottom of the steps and I’m feeling like this skinny loser boy dressed in drag and just some faggot loser front the wrong side of town that should be over there turning a trick just like my mother is probably doing right now.

I could go left or right and leave the seating area but instead I keep going down the stairs that leads down to the field. All the guys are there doing all the various odds and ends about football and practices that you’d see on TV. My school had a football team but they were next to useless, my old school was basketball and hockey really even though I don’t think we really ranked high in anything. If running from the police were a sport we’d have Olympic funding.
I’m kind of got my hands in my pockets and I’m sort of hugging myself, it’s not cold but have you ever hurt inside you kind of feel just cold in your soul? Yeah it that kind of cold, like that.

I try and lose myself in watching the game or the practice or whatever. I trance out and just sort of fix my vision on Alex. He’s running plays? And doing pass drills? And I think working more on the guys that are supposed to be his blockers? Like I said I’ve no clue what they’re doing and half of it looks just alien to me.

His aim is true every time though, he let’s that ball lose and it spins just as tight as a bullet. Me? The few times I’ve tossed the ball at things with the step-shit and his psycho nephews it did that pathetic end over end wobble thing.

Alex is big and fast on his feet he avoids the guys trying to take the flag from his belt like he was dancing or something and other times he can and does just shove guys down or out of his way until he’s clear to make a pass or even run the ball himself. I’ve heard those sports caster guys talk about people who were poetry in motion but this is the first time that really makes sense. I mean things are happening so fast out there and he seems so capable, so strong and calm through the entire thing.

I think I might be getting a little fan girl on him or something. And when he takes off his helmet and shakes out his already dark hair all sweat damp it’s as…it’s as sexy as anytime I’ve every seen a girl or a woman take her hair down and shake it free. And there’s those eyes of his all charged up with the endorphins and adrenaline all just so...so...intense. Then to watch him pull off his jersey and all the pads all in one go when he’s done and take a bottle of water and open it and pour it out over his head and his body.

Wow…I mean like….God I’m not supposed to feel this way right it’s like all gay and stuff but I can’t help it. I can’t tear my eyes off of him, the water, the droplets on his skin the rivulets of it running down his body, his ab’s…I’m not hard either it’s something so different like my body is partway asleep? Like pins and needles of awareness, like some kind of electrical current that runs through my body.

Whatthehell? WhatamIfeeling?

I feel warm, flushed even and there’s this strange flutter somewhere in my guts that’s not there but it is and it’s not nerves but it is? Alex walks over to me and out of that intenseness that he’s just giving off like smoke from a fire there’s this bit of that kinda smile that comes out and he kinda hugs me and wraps his arms around me and he leans down and kisses me.

I’m kissing him again, he’s kissing me again and I…I …like it. I like the way that he’s holding me and it’s like he’s washing or chasing all that bullshit from that hen party up in the stands. Fucking cunts, let them cluck away. Actually the thought of them getting all bent out of shape and stuff over me and him kissing kinda makes me all happy in a really petty sort of way. He breaks the kiss. “You couldn’t stand it up there?”

“No, it was kind of really their mission to make me feel as unwanted and out of place as they could. Apparently I’m not good enough.”

“Good enough for what?”

“To be here, to be with you, hell just not good enough for anything.” Just talking about it kinda hurts and brings those feels back enough that I’m kind of staring at my feet.

Alex kind of makes this huff sound like a ticked off Rottweiler would and his hands rub up and down my sides making my skin cascade with all sorts of sensations my brain doesn’t know how to process. Then a hand slides up to my face, I can’t help but to flinch at the first touch which just upsets me further because I flinched when he touched me and I’m right on the edge or past it where my eyes are burning because part of me wants to cry but it’s just not happening. My headaches back a bit and it kind of hurts in my chest like it’s hard to breathe. His hand moves some of my hair away from my face and he looks me in the eyes.

“Hunter, you’re good enough, hell you’re a sight better than they’d ever though of being to people. You’re an amazing person. You’re probably the most amazing person that I’ve ever met.”

“No, I’m not Alex. I’m not. I’m just this fake whatever the hell I am and just some piece of white-trash that blew into your life. They know it and hell I know it.”

“Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

I stare at him and he’s looking at me with those intense coffee/chocolate eyes of his… “Wh...What?”

“I said shut the fuck up. I’m not the kind of guys who is into bullshit remember. And that’s what this is its bullshit. You have survived shit that none of these people can even imagine, they think getting their credit card limit peeled back is a fucking crime. You’ve not just been through more than they have but you came through it a better person than they’ll ever be. I’m not going to let you tear yourself down because they’re threatened by having to look at a decent person. That thing with Jen in the Caf, they’d never have that kind of class and they fucking know it! Stop tearing away at yourself okay, you’re hurting somebody I really care about when you do that.”

He kisses me again and this time I’m kind of hungry for it. I’ve never had some one just stand up and tell me despite everything in my own head and what the crowd is saying about me and stuff…tell me that I matter. I’ve never mattered to anyone before. It feels better than I thought it would. It’s something that my brain is processing that he told me off without tearing me down about me tearing myself down.

Who does that?

He keeps kissing me and folding his arms and himself almost around me like he can shield me from all the hurts and pain in the world. He kisses me with just so much…feeling and care that it’s swamping me, oh fuck it I happily drown in it. He kisses me until the rest of the team starts to shout at us and pelt him with their sweaty towels. “I’ve gotta go shower, are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

I watch him leave and I pull my jacket around me and hug myself. It’s not the cold this time it’s that good hugging? How…I feel that good that I’m grinning and I’m shaking too.
I’m so not used to this. I’m used to being just down, I’m not even sure that I can handle happy. It just seems that I’m up and down and up too much. …I guess it’s not too far a stretch I guess that I’m so fucked up that I’m shaking when I’m this happy. I’m freaked out but I think It’s happy.

I’m there waiting and start to notice the cheer team I see them in their little skirts with the sport panties built into them and the halter top things they wear made out of lycra with what has to be a bra built in. I watch them and they’re so athletic and graceful as they dance and cheer along to music belting out not so much cheers but lines from pop and rock songs all to a mix that’s really good like it was put together by a decent DJ.

I get lost in in with it oddly, well not oddly hypnotic because I’m watching cheerleaders and the way they move and dance and the bounce and jiggle of all the right things in all the right places their bodies getting shiny with a sheen from the efforts they’re putting in. I hurt, my tucked part not really protesting my jeans but…honestly? I’m not sure if it’s the fact these girls are all hot looking and I’ve never though of myself as gay so…or if it’s the fact that I want to be that, be them.

It’s just something that I really identify with, the athletic way they move and glide and sway and dance. I don’t and have never been able to move like a regular guy. It’s like seeing this thing deeply part of you in someone else. I’ll never have the curves they do, but there’s something about the whole thing that stirs something in me. Seeing some of them doing these hard gymnastics that kinda yanks the girly silly vibe out of the whole thing but the femininity is still all there.

I’m actually torn between being attracted to some of them and wanting to be some of them. I’m that keyed up by the thoughts and confusion running through my head so I light up a smoke and get a few glares and looks from some of the other people there watching or doing other things. One of the cheer coaches gives me a frown and stares at me hard before pointing at a non-smoking sign. I stomp out the smoke, Ah well I got a 3rd of it smoked before I had to stop.

Alex comes out a few minutes later looking all…wet hair doing that getting that bit of curl up as it’s drying thing, my black wool knit cap, a big black tee-shirt with this logo on it in a heavy metal style to it saying “Wired” the sleeves have edges done like barbed wire or razor wire as the hems. It clings to him and then there’s the sweet faded jeans he’s wearing and with him carrying his bag of gear over one shoulder and his book bag in the other he looks just so…I feel my tucked part twitch in an ow but good way. I almost go into the confused place but he smiles at me that Alex smile and honestly I think my heart and not my groin just said ow.

He wraps his arms around me even with all the stuff he’s carrying and I turn my head away. “Hunter?”

“Sorry, I just had a smoke and I might have ashtray mouth.”

“Oh, well in that case.”

He drops his bags and then he takes a packet of gum out of his front pocket and there’s this yay thing going through me at the sight…it’s hot in this weird way. Not weird but I don’t get it. He pops a few clear and chews them a bit smiling as he stares at me through his hair and slides the gum back into his front pocket…ow..again. Why the fuck is that so sexy…He pulls me into his arms making me squeak and kisses me with this long, sweet, chilly-cool, minty gum kiss that just floods my mouth with the flavor of peppermint and the cool menthol like feeling combining with the feeling of Alex’s buttery suede soft lips and the fact his tongue is inside of my mouth and doing the tango with mine and his hands slip around my waist and hips and my bum and into my back pockets and massages a bit then squeezes and my brain is bubbling away in this puddle that he’s turned to goo…girly goo with little popping bubbles of yayness.

Yeah it’s that oh fuck I’ve really been kissed kiss.

He breaks the kiss. “I’ve gotta go to work, you coming?”

“Y..yeah, wait you work?”

“Yeah, I have a part time job. Adam thinks it’s good on paper, me I’ve been saving up.”

“For what?”

“For when he pitches a fit and figures out I’m not going to be his bitch.”

“I did that, I hid stuff in a private safety deposit box from Mom and the step-shit.”

“That might be a good idea.”

“It kept me alive, hell it kept me sane even.”

“I should start thinking about that.”

“Yeah we should.”

“Hunter…”

“Yeah, Alex?”

“I liked the We part.”

“Yeah me too.”

I find myself chewing the gum in my mouth instead of his with a silly smile on my face as we head away from the school and put stuff into the trunk of his car and we drive a few blocks away before pulling into this kind of mini-mall kind of place. Called Harrington court. It’s like this four story big place with a Compu-college over it and a De-Vries like vocational school place and some other offices and stuff. The place we end up going to is inside on the ground floor just off the lobby called…”Wired.” of course and it’s a cyber-café but bistro as well. It’s kind of edgy and there’s computers at tables and there’s a coffee counter with baked goods as well as a kitchen.

“I’ll get you a table and a computer.”

“Okay, uhm how longs your shift?”

“Four hours from five until nine plus clean up.”

“Okay.”

He kisses me and I kiss him back and he sets me up with one of the tables and he gives me another kiss before starting to work. I net-surf and look up stuff to get marks transferred over. And actually end up chatting with the old vice principal, Mr. Powers who used to actually teach the computer courses at my school and I tell him about my mix up with my gender and he kind of new my home situation wasn’t good and he thought there was something off about me. I admit to pretending to be a guy at school because it was safer, so when our school made the mistake of calling me William Hunter instead of Hunter Williams I went with it.

“Well kiddo I know the school you’re switching too and it’s a good one. I’ll go into your files and change everything and e-mail your transcripts to the school tonight.”

“Thanks Mr. Powers but you don’t gotta put yourself out.”

“Hey it’s not a problem Hunter, besides it’s saving me from another boring staff meeting and grading projects.”

“Are you sure?”

“No problem and Hunter?”

“Yes Mr. Powers?”

“Even online you sound better, more relaxed and at ease than I’ve ever known you to be.”

“Yeah, thanks Mr. Powers, It’s having a new chance, and getting away from the home situation.”

“I can tell, look you do what you have to do to hang onto that. I’m not supposed to say stuff like this but so few kids from here get out and do anything with their lives. You’re getting out and I’m proud of you kiddo. I’ll get your stuff set up for you and you live Hunter. You grab this chance at something better and don’t let go.”

I get that tearing up a bit feeling and I wish I could hug him through the screen. “Thanks Mr. Powers you’re going to be one of few people that I’m really going to miss.”

“Yeah, yeah just e-mail me photos when you graduate and another one when you get your degree.”

“Deal.”

I’m a bit sad but I’m charged up at the same time. It’s one of those weird moods where I’m saying goodbye a little to stuff in my own life while being excited about the future and at the same time confused by the fact that being Hunter seems to be more real to me and those around me. Maybe part of it’s while I’m not sure who Hunter is I’m not burning off all that energy being William anymore.

The rest of the time I goof off and net surf and watch some stuff on the school website where Alex goes and stuff getting familiar with where I’m going to be going to school.

And I watch Alex. He’s good, he make’s coffee and waits tables and busses them it’s one of those places where all the staff does all the jobs. He makes me a coffee every once in awhile from his tips and I try a few of them. I like the whole milk latte cappuccino without any sugar but just a bit of cinnamon. He gets us supper too with these cheese-steak stuff pitas with lots of green stuff that isn’t lettuce as I know it and a basket of stuff called falafel? That are actually awfully good with this stuff called hummus to dip them in and this sesame peanut butter sauce to put onto it. We share a big veggie smoothie to wash it down with my first with carrots and a bunch of other stuff in it. I’m kind of flying after that and dessert which was this crumbly like nothing I’ve ever had oatcake cookie thing with this lemon glaze ontop of it.

I want to lay down for awhile and just go numb because I’m so stuffed, I actually doze in the booth wrapped up in his big jacket for an hour before I’m off too the ladies room to fix my make up and then outside to have a smoke. Then back inside where he smiles at me and digs into him front pocket again for the gum. God that’s sexy…but I’ve really got to quit smoking.

I wander around the court looking at the place, there’s a comic shop/gaming shop that’s neat looking and I sort of shop but don’t inside just being curious. I’m getting the OMG it’s a gurl! Look from the guys that are there. I only know the broad strokes stuff at all like Spider-man, Superman, Bat-man and stuff like that. There is a section of indie stuff that catches my eyes. Hey I’m a geek but these are local stuff and others trying to do their own thing. I like that. There’s some flyers and a few free comic samples that I get just because and who knows right.

There’s a music store that sells instruments and cd’s as well, again with the vocational school upstairs and stuff they can sell a lot of indie stuff. I see several things I’d love to try including this sweet, and yeah girly Daisy-Rock guitar. I can’t play but seeing her she made my fingers itch…it was expensive? Six hundred dollars and change, I’m not sure if that’s expensive or not.

I check out the hair salon and piercing place and there’s a computer and video game shop called the “Gremlin.” a news stand and a clothing resale shop in the basement. There’s a help wanted sign there.

I take a deep breath and step in and boldly take the sign off the window display and head over to the counter. “Hi, I’m Hunter, I’m here about the job.”

The woman behind the counter looks at me she’s Arabic of middle eastern with the skin and the facial structure giving her away but she’s got this sort of desert goth thing going with her make up and a hijab that’s made of what I think used to be a Guns and Roses tee-shirt and lots of earrings and a few hoops in her eyebrows and a nose ring. I have the nail polish and lipstick she’s wearing a shade called black copper. Black flannel oversized shirt over a camisole but a long skirt in almost a gypsy like way. I look at her and she looks at me and my clothes, there’s Led Zeppelin playing in the background and she crosses her arms under her chest with attitude and a jingle of bangles.

“Fine, when can you work?” She’s got a bit of an accent like she’s liked in the UK for awhile.

“Anytime, I’m in between schools and if I’m gainfully employed then it’ll be easier to set my classes around that.”

“And the Jersey?”

“Boyfriend’s Alex he works up at Wired.”

“Oh, though he was seeing some blonde Steppford something or other.”

“Was.”

“What happened?”

“He’s not so much into the bullshit, he won’t even take mine.”

“Your’s?”

“My EMO shit, he actually gives a shit it’s weird.”

She turns and opens a fridge and passes me a Dr. Pepper and takes one herself. “I’m Halima by the way, but if you’re going to work here you’re going to have to call me Hali okay?”

“Sure, sounds good. When do I start?”

“Day after tomorrow sound good? I basically need just extra hands sorting stuff as it comes in and to put stuff away. From five until nine, Mondays till Wednesdays sound okay?”

“What’s the pay?”

“Seven bucks and hour plus ten percent commission.”

“Sounds good. That way I can travel with Alex most of the time.”

“Yeah that’s kinda the idea, Lets get your paperwork started…”

“Hunter, Hunter Williams.” I extend my hand.

I spend the rest of the time getting stuff filled out and the particulars and stuff as Hali shows me around. I know it seems fast me just walking in and stuff but it’s just clicking with our attitudes and stuff she’s Muslima but as she’s been told not a good one but she’s not going to let the others dictate who she is either.

Born in Iran and lived there until she was seven then her father moved then to northern England to a job up there in the mines till she was ten and then they moved here where he had a job as a crane operator at one of the factories. She’s way cool and she’s so her own person.

“You? Where’re you from Hunter?”

“Oh me I’m a D-D-L girl.”

“DDL?”

“Davison-Dexter-Linwood area.”

“Ooooh, fuck that’s a shitty place to grow up.”

“Yeah, it’s why I got out, I have to.”

“Have to?”

“Yeah, recently.”

“How recently.”

I look at her and lift my shirt enough to let her get a look at the funky colors that are still there but fading. Then pull my shirt down. “I met Alex earlier, and I was probably half dead or dying when he got me out of there.”

“Shit Hunter, you okay?”

“Am now, sort of, a work in progress?”

“Gotcha, y’know I kind of get it. I might have been young but I seen a few thing living in Byker as a kid.”

“Byker?”

“A bit of a rough side neighborhood of Newcastle or it was when I was living there. There’s more than a few bastards idea of child care is the backhand and the bottle.”

“Add in a pair of drug addicts, one a skinhead and one being his whore and just about every drug the couple take and yeah.”

Hali gives me a gentle hug. “Well shit, you’ve got a job here unless you turn out to be a total fuck up. Now, how about a cuppa?”

“A cup of what?”

“Tea? What’d you think I was talking about.”

“Alright sounds good.”

We sat and talked about stuff and she made tea and set out some cookies but she called them biscuits. She mostly talks like she’s from here but she’s slips in some Brit and some Arabic, we talk about stuff growing up like they’re war stories. I was just a little kid when September 11th happened but she and her family hadn’t been in the country that long and she had a brother that got shot by gang members who took out their shit on the foreign families. Neither one of us has had it easy.

Does anyone?

Alex smiles at us when he knocks at the shop doors and smiles and comes in. “Hali how goes it?”

“Good Alex, I just hired our girl here.”

“Good for you, you two Bird should get along right proper then.”

I look at him. Birds?, Right Proper? “You guys know each other?”

He smiles. “We use her Mom’s falafel recipe upstairs. You ready?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the cuppa Hali, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

“Have a good night you two.”

We make our goodnight’s and walk her out to the parking lot and her car just to be careful and then we go back to our place….okay…I just said our place. The lights are off in the main house and both cars are in the lane. It’s about twenty after ten and we put stuff away and we both take turns showering, well I have a bath so while I’m having a bath the washer can do out clothes and stuff.

I’m in my Snoopy Pj’s watching as Alex is making his bed on the couch. Part of me want’s him to sleep in his own bed. Part of me want’s to be asleep him with in the bed and part of me is scared of that. I really should be the one sleeping on the couch.

“Alex…Why don’t I…”

“G’night Hunter.” He cuts me off, looking at me. Like don’t argue with me written all over his face then that bit of a smile. “G’night Hunter.” more softly.

The way he said my name…

“Goodnight Alex.” I pad into his bedroom and curl around the pillow and hug it and myself and stare at the open doorway to the living room where Alex is sleeping until I fall asleep.

Sweet Dreams-10...Am I in a Daydream?

Chapter 10

“Found you ya fucking faggot.” Cliffs hand was wrapped around the back of my neck and was pressing me into the hallways clean gyp-rock wall. I can smell the dirt on him, the unwashed smell of body odor and the releasing of the toxic garbage in his system out through his skin. There’s whiskey on his breath and it mixes with the reeking choking smell of rotting teeth.

Mom’s there stoned and giggling as she goes through my and Alex’s things. She gives me this look like those girls up it the stands today. “Y’know it’s you’re fault Billy, it’s always been your fault, if I hadn’ta had you, you fake little bitch I’d have all of this…this shoulda been mine, mine not yours.”

Then Cliff laughed and punched me hard in the ribs…!

I wake up pain shooting in my side from a cramp in my side right in the deeply still bruised areas of my ribs. I gasp and double over in pain and start to cry from the nightmare. It was real, too real and something that still might happen.

I try to breathe without crying out loud and it’s quiet, too quiet and dark. There’s no angry shouting, not fucked up smells and no pop of gunshots in the dark. I’m in a clean warm bed and in a safe place but it almost feels wrong. I feel like the nightmare is still my life and this, this is something, someplace that I don’t belong.

I’m curled in the sheets that are a complete mess after my nightmare just trying to fight past the bit of fresh hell that came lunging at me like a mugger from the dark spots in my psyche. I huddle a bit in the sheets chilled. It’s not that it’s cold but its nerves I think body memory too. There’s part of me so used to being freezing I think my body thinks that I’m still cold.

I’m there for awhile just barely hanging on when I hear this whine come out of Alex from the front room. It’s faint and muffled. I get up and pad into where he’s sleeping again to find him sitting up awake but on the floor there in the dark. His hair’s a mess and there’s a sheen of sweat on his body and in the gleam of the little light from the appliances I can make out the scars. Biting my lower lip I go over and climb over the back of the couch and straddle sit behind him with my legs on either side of him.

I lean down and hug him and there’s a twitch and that double intake of two sharp breaths as he almost cries. I can feel this unconscious ripple of his body tensing up. I put my head on his shoulder and sigh. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah…” Alex’s voice is husky and rough from just waking up.

“Me too. Cliff and Mom showed up here and it was just like nothing changed, it felt just too fucking real.”

He leans his head slightly so his head’s resting on mine. “I was little again, reliving when my mom used to get hammered on wine before lunchtime and popped enough pills that I couldn’t wake her up.”

I nod but don’t say anything but just end up running my fingers through his hair. We just sit there like that for a good twenty minutes and we watch the clock slowly change from after one until two in the morning.

I yawn, I try not to but it happens anyway. “We should try and get some sleep, C’mon Alex.” I tug on his arms and pull trying to budge him. He exhales but gets up and sits up on the couch and lets out a sigh like he just climbed a hill. I sit beside him well more in front of him on the couch and lean on him then pull up the blanket he was using. This time he doesn’t really protest or argue about it and he slowly wraps his arms around me.

It feels nice to be held right for a change. I actually aren’t sure about the right part but it feels right. It feels good. I vaguely remember they squirmy feeling of us both snuggling down further into more of an actual sleeping position and me rolling over to lay on top of him more or less.

Better than the patter of sleeping when it’s raining out was the mixed sounds and feeling of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and the strong pumping of his heartbeat. I’ve never slept like that in my life.

When his alarm goes off on his phone its pretty much torture. Three and a half hours of the most real sleep I’ve ever had just doesn’t cut it. It’s a headache inducing kind of tease. My one little victory out of it was this whispered mumble of Alex saying. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I can tell he really doesn’t want to move either. I get up careful of where my legs and knees might hit even if by accident and kiss him good morning. I’m not even sure why, It just happened like I was running on auto-pilot.

I pad off to use the bathroom before he does. We pass each other as I leave and head for the kitchen and he’s doing his necessaries. It’s still very not my life as I ever knew it going through the kitchen and digging out the stuff for breakfast. Actually having things is just. It’s really, really cool. I almost get a lift from the caffeine coming off the smell of the coffee beans as they’re grinding.

I make coffee and take out the stuff to make Alex his smoothie and pour myself one too as I get his water bottle out for his morning run. This time it’s the powder stuff, chocolate ice cream and lots of cocoa powder along with this stiff he calls flax seed and some drops of ginseng stuff too. There’s weight gain stuff in it and I need the weight, I know I’m too skinny, but until now nothing else has been an option.

He comes out and takes his smoothie and downs it with a smile and heads out kissing me and grabbing a bottle of water. I sigh and lean against the counter kind of feeling nice, the coffee is kicking in and the chocolate and Alex just kissed me like we’re in a normal life and a normal relationship. There’s this very nice almost sated feeling going on like I’ve got the sneaky feeling that life just might not suck.

I quickly take out a package of hash-browns and bacon and line them both on two cookie sheets and put them in the oven at a decent temperature. I toss some frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts in the microwave with a bit of water and cling film and go and take my shower.

I know I keep bringing this up but it’s So Effing good to stand there under the jet of hot water with a shower puff and nice soap and just be able to wash, and take my time at it. My bruises are fading more each day and the hot water in so soothing. Washing my hair leads to me thinking about Alex as the suds slide down my body in and almost tickling way. I get aroused enough at these erotic flashes of him in the shower with me, that I take matters into my own hands…hand and still with shampoo in my hair I find release whimpering his name and panting. I cry in a mixture of shame and longing as I’m back to being at war with myself. William might not be around so much but he’s going down fighting Hunter all the way. I’m that messed up that the shampoo stinging my eyes overrides my inability to cry. I kind of hang onto the shower caddy and sob for awhile with the water pouring down over my head.

It sounds pretty effed up and like I’m having a shitty morning but once I’m finished my little freak out I feel better. I feel Effing bi-polar actually but better, like I washed some of my nightmare left over’s down the drain.

I actually shave while I’m still in the shower, There’s not a lot to shave, nothing on my face and stuff but I still run my ladies razor over my legs and my pits and just make sure there’s nothing there. Another scrub down to wash off the lather and step out to dry off, slathering baby lotion on myself before the moisture from my shower is wasted. I read about doing this in some magazine a while back and after blow drying my hair and coloring the tips purple and slinking into new panties and a pair of black low cut skinny jeans tucking myself away and slipping on a black lace training bra and a red t-shirt with a Pontiac fire-bird logo on it and the matching ball cap. I’m a proud Detroiter in a lot of ways there’s a shitload wrong with things here and most of the great auto jobs and plants are gone but there’s just something about all of it.

I’m fifteen faking sixteen, a guy who’s always been more of a girl, from a shitty world and a life I wouldn’t have wished on Hitler so me being funny romantic about a heyday of a time I wasn’t really alive for is actually pretty normal. Or as much as I get I guess.

I barefoot it out to the kitchen and I take the bacon and hash-browns out of the oven and make a mess of scrambled eggs and cut up two tomatoes and toss them into the frying pan with butter. Hali kind of mentioned something like this. I add an onion chopped up fine give it a few minutes then flip the tomatoes lightly browned and then add some of the bacon and hash brows and then pour the eyes over it and give in a bit before covering it and taking it off the heat.

I make toast and more juice from a can, and while the stuff’s nearly done I take out the poached chicken breast and chop it into slices or chunks, then chop some lettuce and toss in some olives from the fridge and chunk up a green pepper and a yellow one then to finish it off the chicken and the rest of the bacon and the hash browns and put it in two zip-lock bags and some bread with butter in another one and I pack a pull top can of veggie-soup and two cups. I add in a bag with three cut up apples with cinnamon and sugar and finally several bottles of water enough of both for both of us.

He’s coming in all damply sweaty and I pass him some orange juice. He downs about half of it before sniffing the air. “You cooked breakfast again?” he’s smiling at me, in a much better mood now that his own caffeine and the endorphins from his run have started to kick in.

“Uhm, yeah of course I did. One (I kiss him) you’re my boyfriend and I like doing it. Two I’m living here pretty much free so… (I kiss him again.) Three it frees you up for your run and working out. (Another kiss.)”

Alex kisses me back with all this sexy sweetness on that last kiss. It’s deep and I feel his hands rub up and down my sides and down to my butt and he squeezes me gently. It’s so much better than I though it’d be and there’s the just nothing there that’s saying ”No” right now. It’s really, really nice more than I could have thought it’d be. He even smells good despite how sweaty he is. I push him away gently and smiling. “Don’t you got exercises to do?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to thank you.”

“Well I consider myself thanked.” I smile as I kiss him just a little bit again. He goes to the living room closet and pulls out the mat he uses for padding and the bow flex thingy and peels out of his hoody and his shirt. I can’t really stop myself from looking at him. I’m really nothing like that. He’s broad shouldered and his arms and his torso is just sculpted like…He’s like another species really. Definitely….Yeah…Can there be like a third gender? Because I’m not really a girl but I’ve never been like the other guys. And then there’s this guy that just is so different than I’d ever be that and I find myself enjoying kissing him, being in his arms and just being with him like this…me…Hunter.

Yeah I’m kind of rambling about the whole subject because I’m watching Alex doing things with his shirt off like all these crunches and his ab’s are rippling and unrippling and there’s this kind of sweaty palms thing going on and a feeling like a mild electric tingle running through my skin and my mouth’s kinda dry.

I think Uhm…Yeah; is covering about seventy percent of my available brain power at the moment.

I start to serve things up when he’s in the shower and take the kinda frittata like thing and turn in upside down on a plate and dig out stuff for the toast and was going to check my e-mails but not on Alex’s computer. Adam’s such a control freak I’m sure there’s spyware in there and other things. No. I’ll see if I can use a computer at school.

Alex comes out in a clean set of tartan printed boxers and we sit down to eat and he shovels really big mouthfuls onto his toast after smearing it with cheese-whiz. It’s a nice morning we grab our things and I toss the laundry into the washer and the dishes in the sink, well I wash most of them really quickly while he’s getting his things for school.

It’s just nice. I like nice, I’ve never really had nice. Alex even stops in at Wired and got some brownies and doughnuts in a box and we pull into the school. We get out of the car and there’s I guess the typical groups of teens gathered in the different areas of the school the stoners and nerdy types the goths and the smokers plus the gearheads and a few of the racial clumps, a few black kids and some latinos and some orientals too. It’s weird not having any of these kids looking like their into the gang thing. It’s strange to have the white kids outnumbering everyone else. It’s like 90210 Detroit really and lord help me if I’m not headed over to the tables in the Caf where the princesses and the jocks all hang out.

I completely never ever thought that this’d be the crowd that I’ve ended up hanging out with. I’ve got nothing in common with these people except maybe a coffee addiction. Alex plops down the box of baked goodies and opens the top to the ravening horde. The jocks clearly having no problem stuffing their faces while the cheer girls and the other girls hem and haw over that I don’t wanna get fat inner battle that they’re having. Cynthia smiles and gives me a hug? And I even get a casual nod over her starbucks ten dollar foamy whateverthehell she’s drinking from Jennifer. And that earns me a few looks of the others still not really knowing what kind of box to put me in now that I seem to have this kind of sort of acceptance.

There’s a lot of the crowd from up in the stands from yesterday afternoon there in the princess part of the crowd. Nose jobs, big breasts, designer clothes and make up and jewelry. Then there’s me. Black skinny low cut jeans, old sneakers, Firebird hat and t-shirt in red, a black leather jacket on and the ends of my hear this kind of reddish purple color that I’ve matched up with a reddish brick color lipstick and that’s it. I don’t fit in but I keep getting looks from the girls and the guys seem to like the ball cap and t-shirt which pisses some of the princesses off I think.

Yeah some one should tell them guys don’t care if you’re wearing some designer brand stuff unless it’s slinky-wear. Most guys don’t know or care who Donna Karen is, but they recognize the car type and actually know it’s something that they can comment on.

Oh yeah I’m the new and cool chick and prove that I’m more secure than some of them by boldly taking a brownie and eating it. Actually most of the girls don’t touch it except for the cheerleaders who kill the brownies with me. I need the fat and they’ll burn that off between practices and trying to keep warm.

I see a familiar face and snatch three doughnuts and a brownie and kiss Alex goodbye. “I’m gonna go and get registered, I’ll see you at lunch.” I saunter off but stop at the table with Todd the guy who showed me around the other day. I smile at him and two of his friends he’s talking to at what looks like one of the “Geek” tables, they look like an academic group.
“Uhm hey Todd.”

He looks up and kind of stares at me, the others at the table do too. I feel like the cat that just walked into a room full of unsuspecting mice. They’ve got that we should run look to them. “Y…y..Yes?”

“I just wanted to thank you for showing me around the other day so Alex and grabbed a bunch of stuff from Wired before class and I though I’d snag a few before the goon squad eats them all.” I set a doughnut down for him and each of them. “Hey I’ve gotta go to register and see if my transcripts are in, you know if Mindy’s in the office? I scored her a brownie.”

He nods still shy and quiet like. “Y..yeah, I..I..think she’s d..d..down at the office.”

I smile at them. “Thanks Todd, nice to meet you guys.” I wave at the rest of them as I leave the Caf and head to the office.

Mindy see’s me first and does this girly laugh-squee-giggle thing like seeing me was a shoe sale or something. “Hunter! Good morning, you’re transcripts from your old school came in by fax over night! That’s so cool that you’re gonna be like going to school here! And like everyone is so talking about you and Alex making out in the hall and like on the football field and…Oooh chocolate! Excellent!”

Mindy snatches the brownie I was holding out for her and takes a huge bite and I can’t help but smile at all of it. Her excitement and being glad to see me and stuff. I never thought I’d find myself being friends with someone like Mindy. Before I started over a girl like Mindy wouldn’t really give Will the time of day I think and honestly I would have been contemptuous of her bubbly kinda ditzy ways. Now it’s just…I think I’m actually liking her as a friend.

It’s funny that I’m looking at her so differently. She hauls me behind the office counter and I get introduced to the three girls in the office and then introduced to the school councilor Doctor Briggs. An actual Doctor that seems to know what she’s doing not some cheap yahoo of a teacher who couldn’t hack being a teacher but they couldn’t fire because of tenure.

I liked her almost immediately and she was kind of intense but odd too. A dress jacket over a simple scoop necked top kind of like a t-shirt and pressed dress jeans? But she was intense too, she interacted with us like we were people and even the kids that came up to the counter to get served she helped even if it was just something the secretaries would have done normally instead of feeling it was below her.

It does take me awhile to get my classes figured out. I’m a geek, so I’m looking to actually get into somekind of computer or engineering degree and something that I can go into and still have a job at some point in the future. I want out, really out and I’m not going into debt by going to college just to say hello welcome to MacDonalds.

I end up taking only a morning’s worth of classes, that’s five of them, Math and English are mandatory, I take media arts and computer programming and graphic arts and design. It’ll get me to lunch where I can take off afterwards to work for Hali. Dr. Briggs and I talk about where I’m living and stuff and signs me through and approved for something called a Turner grant where the fees were getting paid for to go here and stuff with like lab fees and stuff like books that parents usually pay for but where I’m on my own and stuff it’s all up to me.

Not having to pay out close to twelve hundred dollars really get’s me in a good mood and I end up getting to go to graphic arts and designs before lunch starts. It’s a brain class and a bit of an art crowd course too but I guess I’ve already been assigned my box that the other kinds try to fit you into. I get lot’s of looks and whispers from the other kids there who seem to think I don’t belong there.

That changes as soon as my fingers hit the keys and the stuff on here I know, I really do know. I don’t ask stupid questions and I really apply myself.

I enjoy the class, I really enjoy the class and I’m really far behind the others and don’t know some of the programs they’ve got access to here and I’m getting shown more and more things by the teacher, like any good teacher Mr. Simpson is as into it as I am and we both lost track of time until there’s a cough and Alex is standing in the doorway. It’s lunchtime and I’m ten minutes late.

I’m given a whole bunch of books and three flash drives to get me up to speed on the programs we’re working with to take home on loan and stuff. I’m smiling as I’m carrying my books and Alex has an arm around me as we walk into the Cafeteria together. I can almost see this oncoming glimpse of what my future might be.

Sweet Dreams-11...Am I in a daydream?

Chapter 11

Adam was being as much a douchebag as I though he was going to be. But I’ll get back to that later. The rest of the day had gone pretty well with me getting out of school and headed over to my job where Hali and I talked and stopped and had a proper cuppa.

Anyway work was actually cool and I actually learned a lot of stuff about fashion but not just the better points of how to put together a look but of what is exactly classic and vintage and the differences of both and how to put things together in a look or an outfit.

Hali also carried a lot of clothing for the Arabic to Indian female sets but not that too old fashioned stuff or too fancy stuff but just kind of that good looking everyday stuff that she had grown up with at home.

She also sold some stuff from small apartment or in home suppliers here in the city and had a lot of great things here like the bangles and cuffs and necklaces all home made and mostly each one were unique.

It wasn’t all wow oh my good cool stuff like learning the sizes and then how to use the cash and point of sales machine and opening boxes of new stock and pricing it. She prices by eye and personal knowledge so I actually ended up bothering her more than I liked. I hate not knowing stuff.

Alex came and brought a snack along with some coffee for the three of us down from wired and we talked about school and my teachers him giving me the dirt on the ones he knew stuff about and me telling him about the stuff I’ve been learning to do here.

I got to look around the music store and comic shop while he was finishing up his shift and we drove home. Home? God that seems strange that I’m living here. No not living here as Adam’s there when we get home and I see him standing out on the front steps of his house and not the garage sipping a coffee and smoking a cigarette while we pull in. he gives us this hard superior stare while he watches us pull in and there’s this slight smirk like he owns the universe and he knows it.

He’s really staring at me.

I stare back remembering.

“So how was school?” He asks. Silky smooth, calm, just this hint of snide. He looks me up and down while he takes a sip of his coffee eyes critical.

Alex just stares at him and does this mumble, tensed up hunch. “Fine…” Then starts to open the trunk and dig out his football bag sling it over his shoulder and shut the car trunk pretty hard. I look at Adam who looks at me.
“Oh school was fine actually, had a great day. But yesterday was off to a rocky start. Alex and I ended up getting tailgated by these two Really, Really stupid guys but it wasn’t really anything. I mean just in case I’ve got their pictures…Just in case y’know they were like going to try something but It was just some random thing I think and I doubt we’d ever run into them again.”

He stares at me again but this time his eyes narrowed. I stare at him back. Yeah Adam you might be some high paid lawyer and you think you’re a badass but you’re not. I’m from worse stuff than you’d ever be able to imagine.

We keep it up for several seconds. He takes a drag off his smoke and another sip of his coffee his eyes never leaving mine. I reach into my jacket and take out a smoke of my own and light up. I don’t break eye contact with him either. It’s that what’s tougher and meaner him being the big bad wolf or me the veteran dogfight pit-bull.

We keep it up until he’s done his smoke and his coffee and doesn’t really have a reason to be outside anymore. He puts the butt into this fake rock like container full of sand the leaves heading inside. “Have a good night Hunter.”

“You too sir.” I use sir, I show that much respect. I’m not going to go all gutter trash on him even if that’s the way that he sees me. There’s no real respect in it though I’m just saying the words. I don’t really put much emotion into them actually.

I butt out me smoke and put it into the fake rock thing. Yeah I could be that paranoid to hide everything and try to not leave DNA around but that’s actually pretty impossible so I’m not going to worry about it. The biggest thing he might get is that I’m a guy so…I’ll deal with that bridge when he decides to throw me off of it.

I go inside and to the bathroom and use some toothpaste and mouthwash. I really should quit smoking. I’m not a heavy smoker but I’ve been doing it for years. It’s an appetite suppressant and it does do something for/to your nerves even if it’s a psychosomatic thing. Smoking has helped me cope with a lot of shit in my life. But y’know on the other hand Alex doesn’t smoke and we’ve been kissing and it kind of makes me feel self conscious about kissing him. Yeah kissing an ashtray would be really sexy, a great turn on.

Wait…I stop brushing…do I really want Alex turned on?
Great I’m right back to that argument with myself in my head.

I get out and Alex is making supper. He’s got a wok out and he’s frying up spices and bits of orange and lemon peel in it then he puts ground chicken and Italian sausage he’s got out of the casing and stirring it up. Then garlic and red onion and parsley and then a can of chic peas finishing it off with something called Bulgar? And rice and Zatar?

We eat it with pitas he rubbed with olive oil and sesame seeds then cut into triangles the baked in the oven. I’m surprised at just how good it is and how much of it I eat, it’s actually kind of light and there’s a salad that’s just cucumber, tomato, and parsley with the juice from an orange squeezed over that. We do our homework as we eat and he’s also cleaning up his padding with some sprays and stuff but his other stuff too. I’m still surprised at how good a student he is. It’s hard to remember he a jock by force.

I’m about to start my stuff on the computer when I remembered that little sneaky thought I had about Adam. I start going through the system and looking in all those places on the hard- drive where you’d install and hide a nasty little piece of spyware. Actually he had several including the ones that record your keystrokes.

Do I tell Alex?
I mean I could just deal with this and let him not stress over this. But no, I want whatever this is to be honest. “Alex?”

“Mmn, yeah?” he’s got his head in one of his Advanced English Lit. books. Uhm…he’s normally very bite my lower lip hot and stuff but wow or maybe even ow…smart is sexy. I close my eyes and take a breath turning back to the screen and cough. He says “Oh sorry just a good page.”

“S’okay but…I found that your dad has a bunch of spyware of your computer.” I look over to him.

He’s looking at me. “Like what and just what does he know?”

“Everything honey….” Oh shit I just called him…

Alex get’s up and grabs the couch and drags it over one handed to use the arm of it to sit beside me. “Everything?” he’s looking at me with this kind of hurt violated look. It hurts to see that kind of hurt and pain in his eyes.

“Yeah, three or four different kinds plus a text logger and even something to look at you through your web-camera.” I give him this I’m sorry look. He closes his eyes and he looks kicked.

“That explains why I keep losing my memberships to the art sites and why I never heard back from any of the schools I’ve e-mailed.” His voice is in that tight I’m not going to cry place.

“Yeah, if he can do this then he can intercept your e-mails too.”

“Fuck…” It’s not even an angry curse it’s worn out hurt. It’s got a lot of why bother in it. I grew up in a cloud of why bother. I look at him and pull him close with one hand and I kiss him. It’s kind of long and it’s deep and there’s the fact that I care about him in there, I hope it’s in there. I want it there so he can feel it.

“I can fix this, I know computers Alex I can fix this.” I’m determined to fix this besides Alex needs me and he ‘s looking at me like no ones ever looked at me before with this hurt little kid being told that it’s going to be alright. It’s that damned look that a puppy or kitten gives you when you take them home from a shelter. It’s melting me and breaking my heart at the same time.

Still me and girly macho I push him away from me in after a kiss. “Go, you got stuff to do and you can make me a pot of coffee okay, this is going to take me awhile.”

He moves the couch back and goes to make me a pot of that French press brewed stuff and I start getting into it. I’m not a hacker, I’m not that good but I’m pretty good with this home computer and sneaky stuff. Plus I’m kind of mad and really determined too. Alex deserves better than this. I’m here and I’m not going to make Adam and his fuck head power games ruin Alex’s life any more than they’re already done so. The sweet look he gives me with each cup of coffee and those little looks he sneaks ay me as he’s doing his homework really make this all worth it.

Really caring about someone and wanting to take care of them and to really want to make their life better is a new thing to me. It’s a really powerful thing too. I’m starting to love the fact that every coffee comes with a long sweet kiss from him. I don’t draw it out either and it’s twenty-five after midnight when I’m finally done. His computer and all his accounts have been purged and I’ve reformatted things and reinstalled his programs and added my own that I’ll be using and put back his accounts on the three art sites he was a member of and farcebook and twitcher all under new names and passwords and new e-mails all with really good password protections on several levels and I actually go over some of the stuff from my computer classes. I make a mental note to talk to some of the guys in class and maybe at the computer store near work and see if I can’t get better done and maybe a few other things.

I’m reading stuff from my classes and leaning on my elbow and blinking at the screen when Alex kisses my neck. “That’s enough, C’mon let’s go to bed.” That sort of wakes me up and I power everything down and unhook the net connection from the port just as a real sure fire way of keeping us from getting hacked. I’m going to do that for awhile when we’re not online just in case. I wouldn’t put it past Adam to hire a specialist if her hired the two jerks the there day.

My paranoia is disturbed by Alex picking me up in his arms and carrying me off to bed. I’m too tired to be freaked out too much by this and I sort of in that sleepy trance get out of my clothes and into the bathroom. Taking off my make up wakes me up and the shower does too for a bit but as soon as I’m in my pajamas, panda bears on a light green bamboo forest print I’m yawning again. I slip into bed and I fall into a deep sleep as Alex’s shower hits me with that effect of falling rain.

I wake a little bit as his weight hits the bed and he slides under the covers with me and we kiss a few more times. I’m embracing Hunter, William’s no longer here anymore…I like kissing Alex. I’m not sure why but I do. I really like it and can’t keep the sigh of just…I don’t know how to call it but it’s the feeling I’m getting when his arms wrap around me and I snuggle into his bare chest and I fall quickly asleep to the sounds of his breathing and his heartbeat.

***
When I wake up in the morning I notice two things. One, if I dreamt or had nightmares last night I can’t remember if I did. And two; is the fact that I can feel Alex’s morning wood pressing into me, sort of against my groin and my lower abdomen.

I’m so not sure of what I should do?

I mean we barely know each other but since when has that ever stopped somebody nowadays. I like kissing him and everything and we’re sharing a bed together…I just kind of lay there and try and think about it. Just who is Hunter and is she straight, gay, bisexual. I know I’ve been attracted to both sexes.

Maybe I’m over thinking this right?

I bite my lip and reach down and slip my hand into his underwear and try to wrap my hand around it. I can’t do that all the way. My god he’s big. I swear he and I are two different species. How the hell can he have something like that? I though that was reserved for like y’know those porn freaks. I start to stroke him, trying to get used to the idea and the feel and it’s really awkward. I’m feeling all this heat from it as his blood is pounding through it and I can feel that too a bit like I can feel his pulse through his…I’m right on the edge of freaking myself out then he moans. He’s still in that sleep fog my brain isn’t working yet state but he moans, in that this feels goo moan and he pushes with his hips, it ramps up the excitement of this more and more. But nothing like hearing that gaspy, thready, needy masculine moan of “Hunter….”

My nipples get hard at that and so did another part of me. And there was like this switch in my brain that went off and I get really into it, into him and I kind of end up dry humping the sheets, grinding into the bed and when he lets loose his…y’know…I’m not that far behind. We both ended up calling out each other’s names and making a mess out of the sheets.

We save water by showering together plus it’s easier for doing the wash. I’ve never been washed by anyone before and we end up doing that again mostly because of soaping each other up and the fact that we just did that in the bedroom and there’s still this excitement to it. I was a little freaked when Alex reached down and stroked me off. It felt good, way better than my own efforts ever did and I didn’t freak out too badly, actually it wasn’t like the hottie from the porn store. After awhile I actually got into what he was doing to me with his hand.

It was till awkward drying off and stuff and looking at each other. He actually kissed me before taking off for his run. “Thank you, you didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to. I did, I was curious but I wanted to.”

“You seemed scared?”

“I was, I am. Alex I don’t know what this is, I don’t know what I am or what I’m feeling or how to make heads or tails out of it.”

“Me too Hunter, I don’t know where you fit into the me that I thought I was. Now I find myself here with you and the fact I love kissing you and being with you and holding you when everything I’ve grown up with says otherwise…I’m scared too.”

“Good, then we can both freak out together?”

“Yeah together. I’m not sure about a lot of this Hunter but I’m sure of a few things.”

“And those are?”

“I need you. I need you in my life and I’ve never let anyone that close. And that I’ve never felt for anyone as much as I feel about you.”

He kissed me and wraps his arms around me and lifts me even off my feet as he does and this is a kiss like you’d see in the movies. I swear the rest of the world does this three sixty camera swing around us. He set’s me down and heads off for that insane run he puts himself through and I’m leaning against the doorway hugging it kind of stunned because.

The thought that if he wanted me…like y’know…I’d probably want him too.

And I’m not sure just what the hell that means about me?

Sweet dreams-12 …Am I in a Daydream.

Chapter 12

Its breakfast and packing real lunches then us heading off to school again. It’s still not routine to me. Actually the whole thing’s kind of special; even dreamlike. I mean we stop and get a box of stuff from Wired and we meet at our regular table and just hanging out together. There’s people that know my name and they treat me like I’m an actual human being and stuff.

Not the street trash kid that I am. Even Jennifer’s actually human to me and some of the cheer types too. I still save a few for the other kids and resolve myself to actually maybe learning how to cook better even bake a bit. Todd still looks startled that I treat him like a human being and the kids he’s friends with too. I save a peanut butter brownie for Mandy at the office and then it’s off to classes.

What can I say about them? I like my classes and I’m seriously behind in a lot of stuff but I push myself and even ask for some of the back assignments. I want to catch up. I hate feeling like I don’t get everything in the course. Bing smart was one of the few things that I sort of had going for me but right now…yeah I’m smart but I’m struggling to keep up.

But the classes too are like nothing I’m used to. Teachers who actually like their jobs for the most part and that make the classes interesting enough that we actually participate and have a real class instead of the few kids trying to get good grades like me hunkering down and trying to steer clear of the inner city bullshit.

Lunch times a huge change in my life like in the mornings and it’s actually not just me stuffing my face, even though I notice I eat more like the rest of the girls than as a guy. Alex and his guys eat these huge mouthfuls and kind of chomp, chomp through their food. I’m taking big bites and mouthfuls too or I thought I was but if you watch the guys too closely it’s kinda eeew.

Which is kind of funny.

And apparently so is my giving Alex a toothbrush because. “I’m not kissing him with all that gunk in his teeth. I’m not that hungry.”

He takes it and says. “Fine but I’m not kissing an ashtray anymore then.” He reaches into my pocket and takes out my smokes and does a nice three point shot into the trash can. I look at him and he looks at me and I nod.

“I’ll try, I need to quit anyway right?”

There some nods around the table and a few smiles and we both go off to brush our teeth. I’m nervous as heck as there’s a little girl entourage with me or ends up going with me. Some brush their teeth too and there’s of course the whole custom of talking about the guys and then there’s a lot of who’s who kind of gossip and I’m not really able to follow much of that even if I was interested. Then there’s reapplying and touching up our make up. Jeeze just doing that and being as minimally as social as possible takes a good ten minutes.

It’s unbelievable how raw some of the topics can be though. I’d be less interested if the topic hadn’t turned to sex. And who liked what and sizes and duration and even tastes and tricks about stuff like that. Apparently there’s certain foots that’ll effect the way a guys stuff tastes. I always thought stuff like that was bullshit. But I’m told that pineapple, changes the way a person tastes once you eat enough of it. Yeah…I wonder how many bushels of it you’d have to eat of it.

I try to stay out of the subject matter but it’s fascinating at the same time. Which is a good way to get noticed and they look at me. “I’ve gotta go, Alex is waiting for me.” And I quickly duck out to shouts of hey! And Hunter! and unfair!

I’m blushing though when I get back to Alex.

I’m feeling so heated up, and aching, wanting to do things and touch things and maybe even taste…? things after I had been sitting off in a quiet corner of the school with him and kissing, really, really kissing and being held for like only maybe fifteen minutes.

But I’ve never been gently held like I’m wanted or that I’m special before and I’ve never kissed with anyone for fifteen minutes before and to do that after all those things that the girls were talking about. I don’t feel like I’m gay, I’m freaked out but I’m not that freaked out and I’m very attracted to him right now plus what we did in the shower together this morning sort of crossed some kind of line.

I don’t even have breasts but it feels good anyway when he’s touching me and massaging my breast…I don’t know what else to call it. It felt like he was massaging my breast. I hate being confused like this. But dammit I thing I like all the other feelings.

It’s enough that I’m biting my lip and thinking about him in these little fits and spurts throughout my afternoon classes. I find myself staring at my computer screen and stuff just listening to the teacher but also thinking of Alex and playing with my hair a little. I talk with some of the guys in the class because there’s only like four girls taking the advance class with us and the rest are guys. Todd’s there and this cute sorta geek not geek guy Michael with short blonde hair that’s on the schools baseball team. I score a bit of a laugh when I started calling Todd, Magee and Michael, Tony and they didn’t really get it until the teacher coughed to get us back to work and I said. “Sorry Gibbs.”

I’m kind of officially Abby now in computer lab. It was more than nice to joke like that.

I end up going to watch his practice and I use his laptop while sitting sort of semi sprawled in the seats, my feet propped up on Alex’s book bag, his varsity jacket under me cushioning me from the hard crappy seats. I’ve got my sunglasses on and I’m tuned into one of the alternative metal and rock online radio stations as I watch while doing my homework and some of the back assignments.

I’m trying to avoid the “football wives” as it were. Y’know the girlfriends that weren’t driven enough to be on the cheer team but hot enough to pick and choose what guys they wanted or rather thought it was like that. The better the played the more they wanted and coveted him and hated with plastic smiles on their faces anyone who was doing “better” than they were. Like really any of that will matter after high school’s finished?

They hate my guts for going out with Alex. If he wasn’t going to be with Jennifer then he was supposed to be theirs I guess. Then this gothy, punky, kinda sorta Biff Naked meets Pink meets Wednesday Addams chick comes along and completely ignores the rules.

Like…Oh My Gawd, Like How Effing Dare I?

I can hear them mumble hissing and clucking about my short comings, mostly about my body and a few comments about some of the cheer team who’ve earned their wrath recently or whatever. I look up and over at them when I hear them bitching about me faking being friends with the geek squads and stuff and one of them sees me and glares at me. I push my sunglasses up further on my nose with my middle finger.

They…are not amused.

Cheered me up immensely though.

I watch some of Alex’s practice but I’m mostly in the groove of getting my stuff done. I’ve actually got today’s stuff done and I’ve sent stuff off for a few of the back assignments to the teacher’s folders. Yeah, you can actually e-mail in your homework at this place. I really want to make a good impression here and for them to actually like me.

It actually matters this time.

That’s so scary actually just in itself. I’m so not used to any of this it feels sometimes like there’s so much on the line, like I’ve still sort of got to hold my breath. My life’s never this good and I’m almost waiting for it to fall apart.

I’m just getting an, I need a smoke sulk self pity thing going when the cheer squad comes out to do their thing. I watch them more than I actually watch the football. It’s actually more interesting to me. Would I join up? Hell no, I’m not that co-ordinated. Plus I’m a stick and oh yeah…I’m a guy.

But after watching them doing their thing and shaking their stuff and moving and gyrating I can’t help but to slip off to fantasy land. There’s this weird strange twisted part of me that’s really interested in them. I get turned on like most guys would at the way they look; the way that they move and it’s giving me this ow way too confined hurt. Confused? Oh hell yes I’m confused because as much as that’s normal and clashing with the fact that I feel about Alex the way that I do…there this other part of me that’s sort of saying, I’d like to look that pretty, I wonder how it’d feel to have breasts like hers or a bottom and hips filled out like that? Do you notice that you wiggle and sway like that when you’ve done that all you’re life?

And the thing is that it’s just as strong and just as mixed up as the way I’m genuinely attracted to some of them. Just like the way I’ve been seriously thinking about going further with Alex. God it’s confusing and kind of stressful and I really, really could use a smoke.

I need to get myself a doctor or something and get on the patch or the gum or something.

I’m quiet and edgy and a bit pissy if truth be told by the time Alex comes out of the showers and we head off to work. He’s got a DVD and a bunch of papers with stuff photocopied on them.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Plays and some video on Halling’s High. We’ve got a game with them next week.”

“Oh, home or away?”

“Away but it’s still here in the city.”

“Oh can I come?”

“Yeah, we’re together so definitely.”

I have the oddest feeling that he wanted to say something else. I let it slide, I don’t want to but I let it go. We get to work and Hali takes one look at me and walks over and guides me to the little side room/larder break room thingy is.

“Oy, shit girl you look like yer ‘avin a right crapper of a day luv. C’mere what the matter huh?”

“I’m confused as shit, I’ve no idea if I’m gay or straight or bi and I think that it’s not just me able to pass for a skinny chick it’s more than that.”

“Shit, here sit let me put the kettle on.”

“’Kay…oh and I quit smoking today at lunch.”

“Here.” She tossed me a package of nicorette. “Chew it a couple times and hold it against the side of your mouth.”

“You’re quitting too?” I pop a piece in and chomp a few times, oh yeah great effing taste; I think I’ll try the patch.

“Yeah, you can’t have a smoke anywhere in this bloody country without sending a bug up someone’s arse.”

“Yeah, Alex said it was like kissing an ashtray.”

“I’ve had that one too, but I’ve quit before so I should be able to help you through it with us going through it together.”

“If you quit why’d you start back up?”

“A wedding reception, I was drinking and so were a bunch of others and they were smoking and there’s nothing like having a smoke while having a pint if you used to smoke and I had one and that was all it took to get me smoking again.”

“Shit, how long’dcha quit for?”

“Three years, it’s been about four months this time around.” Hali passes a cuppa.

I love saying that…cuppa.

She gets hers and looks me over. “So then your thinking about finally getting things sorted.”

“I don’t know? My feelings are all mixed up but this is who I am y’know.”

“I figured you were headed that way. I mean you just take one look at you and you can tell you’ve got something going on.”

“Huh?”

“Hunter, I’m not exactly blind. I can see you’re not exactly the standard parts girl. And I’m cool with that; some of my customers here are sort of like yourself.”

Oh I’m really not with it if I’ve outed myself.

“So you know I’m not a girl?”

“Well luv I’d not go as far as that and all, you certainly don’t strike me as a bloke. For one you really don’t act like it.”

“I didn’t think I was that girly.”

“Oh you’re not one of those girly, girl types I mean you got some of that in you with the number of times I’ve seen you in skirts and stuff but it’s they way that you move, the way that you present yourself, stand, talk it’s all pretty much female. The only real give away is the fact you’re so bleeding skinny and don’t have any curve to you at all.”

“Oh well my mother and the step-shit were a bit more concerned about their next high than the grocery bill.”

“Yeah but even half bloody starved you’d be showing more than what you got now, I mean Kate bloody cocaine Moss has got more curves than you do.”

“But no one’s said anything at school? You think they know?”

“Here in America, land of the bloody most self absorbed teenagers in the world? I’d doubt it, more than likely they’re probably saying you’ve got some kind of eating disorder.”

“I hope you’re right. I really don’t want the hassle.”

I take a few soothing sips of tea. Not too bad this Dharjeely something or other. I’m going to have to learn more about tea too I think, I can make a better than average cuppa according to Hali after she taught me of course.

“So, you’re still on the fence right?” she asks as she takes out a bag of chocolates and offers me some.

“I really don’t know where I’m at in all of this.” I pop one in my mouth and close my eyes and just…I love this dark bitter, but rich better than coffee flavour, it’s finished off by being just perfectly sweet on the back end of it and then the sip of tea that takes it someplace better and me with it for a few seconds.

“Right bloody there love. I’ve never seen that reaction on a fellas face before. Have to face it sometime Hunter, you’re a bloody girl mate.”

“Oh Great more to think about.” I pop the second square in my mouth and enjoy most of it before rudely gulping the dregs of my tea and start getting to work. It’s mostly pricing and sorting and the usual then waiting on a few customers and stuff until Alex shows up.

He didn’t bring stuff from work this time, instead he bring us some Kentucky Fried Chicken and the fixings enough for all of us. I actually make a pig of myself after the first bite. I’ve never actually had it before in my life. I eat two thighs and a drum stick and I end up stealing the skin off of one of his pieces and the next he actually pulled it from the rib section and fed it too me. I like the gravy and the mashed potatoes but not a fan of their coleslaw or of the macaroni salad.

I’m leaning on him stuffed and he wraps his arms around me and we kiss a little. I don’t care right now about him brushing his teeth right now we ate the same thing so…yeah kissing.

I like kissing Alex.

“Thank you for this, it was really great Alex.”

“I’m glad; I could tell that there was something going on past the whole quitting smoking thing.”

“You did?”

“Yeah……..” He kisses me again all sweetly and softly and gently and that and the fact that he actually looks and listens to what’s going on with me and gives a shit. It’s…I’ve never had this.

I ended up walking him upstairs and back to work. I can’t help but kiss him some more when we get there and then It’s back to work and I can’t help but being in a good mood all the rest of my shift. Hali just smiles and we work and just kind of hang out while we’re doing that.

It’s nice to get home though with everything that happened, didn’t happen today and Alex got his stuff done during study hall so we end up actually getting showered and I slip into one of his giant t-shirts and a pair of panties. I think we were going to watch TV but it didn’t take much past a hot shower and just de-stressing to have me falling asleep there on the couch. It wasn’t even ten in the evening before we ended up going to bed.

Together, in the same bed…To fall asleep cuddling up on purpose, with Alex wrapping his arms around me and cuddling with me in this spooning embrace. It feels so good just to be held, to have it be on purpose.

Sweet Dreams-13...Help Pinch Me!

Chapter 13

I wake up, I instantly wake up.

I had gone to bed with Alex and we’d ended up snuggling together and even spooning. It was so nice being held. Way better than I thought it’d ever be to be held. I’ve been sort of scared of that but this, this was nice and he’s a whole lot of very, very cool things. Big and strong which is actually becoming more and more a thing for me to like.

And he’s warm. I’m pretty much cold half the time and I’m almost sure that all the winters in those cheep low rent crack houses I grew up in gave the cold a permanent home in my bones.

But this morning even before the alarm goes off I’m wide awake because Alex is pressed up against me and he’s hot and rock hard pressing against me and I’m completely freaked out. He...he’s so thick; long…hot…I feel it pressed to me. It didn’t seem that big last morning in my hand…okay yeah it was big but this.

Holy crap…Whatdoido?

I laid there for the longest time and even closed my eyes again and there was all this stuff from Cliff yelling at me and calling me things and all the stuff he used to freak out about all that anti-gay stuff is running through my head and it’s all mashing together with everything that’s happened since, how great Alex is and how much I care for him and all the stuff that Hali and I talked about.

So I guess it came down to if I was going to live my life being Hunter or was William coming back.

It seems like it could have been about it just being sex but it’s not about that. It’s about making that choice. I actually pulled his arm around me a bit tighter and push into him and let myself really feel him and try to figure out what exactly it is that I really want and what I’m feeling.

I close my eyes and roll over and wake Alex by pushing him onto his back from his side. I straddle him and kiss him fully awake. His eyes open and it’s so…good...the feeling of just kissing him and feeling my hair falling down over him as I do. The way his hands touch me. I’m small, not really little but terminally skinny and thin, tall a lot of leg length too in that. Alex’s hands are three times the size of mine and being touched, held, felt up like that feels so good.

You ever craved something you really had no clue you were craving madly until after you got a taste of it. Alex’s touch is doing that for me. I feel so hot all of a sudden and it’s like I can’t keep still or get enough of the way that his lips taste, the way his skin tastes. I swear there’s something psychosomatic about this because my nipples feel so hard they hurt, ache I push my non existent chest into his hands and moan around our kissing.

I’ve never wanted to have breasts so much in my life.

Bye Will, it was nice knowing you.

I’m having a better life now.

Then there’s this feeling like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life as Alex’s almost too hot, wet, insistent lips find one of my nipples and kisses it, and rolls his tongue around it and suckles. It makes me gasp and cry out, it makes my eyes roll back in my head and after four or five minutes of that and him going back and forth between them I have the most intense orgasm of my life and make a serious mess out of my panties. To the sounds of me going…. “Uh…uh…ohfuck, Alex, Alex. ‘Lex, ‘Lex, ‘Lex……..”

I nearly faint from it and he’s holding me and he’s kissing me and he’s looking me in my eyes in this really loving way. I look at the clock and then back into his eyes. “Alex…”

“Yes Hunter.” Oh…. He’s never said my name like that. There’s this husky, smoky, silky quality that is just…

“Make love to me….” I bite my lower lip after I said it and I’m scared but this is actually something I want.

“Are you sure?” His eyes are just so…I’m falling into them.

“Hell no, I’m not sure, I’m scared as hell but I want you too and I don’t want to be scared of this any more.” Hey, I’m being honest. I’ll never know if being Hunter is really what I want if I don’t take this giant step.

“If you want me to stop, you tell me to stop.” He tenderly kisses me and rolls me over to my back and then reaches into the nightstand and takes out some condoms and a tube.

“How long have you had that?”

“Awhile.”

“Oh, you were planning on getting lucky with me?”

“No, it was never about that. Jen used to like it a bit wild and she liked it that way.”

“Oh…”

“Sorry Hunter, we can stop if you…” I shut him up by kissing him.

“Good, then you know what you’re doing because I don’t.” I kiss him again and crawl shimmy out of my panties.

He starts with a finger and getting me uhm slippery. The stuff is cold at first. And there’s this intense feeling as the finger goes in and I’m fighting the actual oh fuck ow of it and the ghost of a not dead as far as I know Cliff, the stepshit screaming into my head about how much of a faggot I am. Yeah there’s a degree of me feeling like that, there’s some shame there that is slowly getting wore down as Alex moves his hand and wrist.

It goes from that bad way that I’m sort of perceiving it or been taught to perceive it to…oh…oh…what was that? Then there’s a warm feeling sort of going on, I think it’s friction at first until he removed him pumping finger and my body gives me this signal almost like no…it’s over? Dammit it was just getting good.

Then I feel more lube and this thing, this feeling at my entrance and he pushes into me.

Cry out? You bet I did, it felt like someone was trying to massage my heart through my ass with a baseball bat.

Alex went slowly but there was no real preparation for his sinking into me. It hurt and it hurt and it was running through my head that I was gay, a fag and here was the proof. I was getting fucked by this big strapping football player. There were shame tears in there with the pain and he stopped a few times but I whined… “No, don’t stop…more.”

I needed to know more than how bad it hurt. I’d say that first start took likely ten or fifteen minutes before all ten thick heavy inches of him was inside of me and it felt.

Well besides the pain and feeling full, I could feel my insides screaming WTH at me as the freaked and stretched and fluttered around him. He was still for awhile kissing me and suckling my nipples and the more my body shook and did it’s adjusting the more I felt the hardness in me, his shape and his heat there. Then he started to move. Honestly this is where things changed. After about five minutes the feelings changed from the strangeness and alien like feeling of sex like this to…oh...oh…this is good all the way into him moving in and out of me and the most intense feelings of my entire life.

Did I enjoy it?

I’m not going to get into the details that much but when the time came it felt like he was pushing into me and pushing my cum out of me. It hurt, I mean the stream, the shot hurt it came out that hard and that fast I only had a few seconds of that build up point of no return and everything inside just shot off like a roman candle. Every shot I did squeezed down on him and I cried out all the harder as I felt my insides moulding around Alex.

He went at me harder as I went slack from exhaustion and by the time my body started to catch up to what he was doing to it I was having another one while soft? And the way my body clenched brought him to this cry of… “Hunter..!” it was this sound that came out of him that I only heard once and that was during his nightmare. I felt his shake, I felt him grow a bit, get harder and thicker and there was a swelling in there and more heat which I was sure him filling the condom.

Alex actually fell sort of on top of me and we got sort of sweat stuck together and he was shaking. Not just shaking but he was crying…I was crying too and it went on for a few more seconds before he looked me in the face and there were tears in his eyes and he’s looking at me with this look.

That look said.

Don’t hate me.
Love me.
Don’t leave me.
Please Love me.

Even if I thought the sex wasn’t what i was looking for I could never turn away from Alex, not like that. I wouldn’t care if I never had sex again if he kept looking at me like that.

Yes the sex was good.
Yes I loved it more than my brain was able to handle.
But that look.

People everywhere dream of having somebody look at them like that and it doesn’t matter.

Y’know it really doesn’t fucking matter because gay, straight, lez, bi if you are ever, ever lucky enough to find someone who looks at you like the way Alex looks at me then take a hold of it and never let go of that dream, never let go of it because it’s the most precious thing in the world.

I’m never letting go of my dream.

Alex is looking at me like that and I can’t stop the tears. He can’t either but I kiss him. I kiss him harder and longer and sweeter than I’ve ever kissed anyone.

I love Alex.

Alex is looking at me and right now I don’t feel like I’m gutter trash, or that I’m not good enough but that I’m loved. It’s like when he looks at me he can see something that everyone else I’ve ever know just had never seen before. That he see’s good things in me that I’ve never seen or felt about myself before. That I worth something to someone in a real way and not just because I’m a welfare check. That I’m not just living or going through the motions of it but that….

Alex is looking at me in this way that changes everything. It’s that fundamental change that hits you and I hope I’m explaining this right but it hits you and then you know. When someone looks at you like you’re that special you know without a doubt that you…

That I…

Actually have a soul.

Why?

Because as I’m kissing him and as we’re wiping each other’s tears away we’re seeing the other half of our souls right there.

I’m not sure how long we had done it, or held each other like that and cried and kind of had our love meltdown but it was the alarm clock that broke us out of it and we parted with a kiss. Alex pulled out of me and I felt…I ran to the bathroom my body having…

I’ll spare the gory and embarrassing details. There’s a polite knock of the door. “Hunter? I’m going to give you the bathroom honey; I’ll catch a shower in the house.”

“Uhm…Okay….?” It kind of came out as this messed up freaked out whine. Freaked out?
Oh you betcha. I just had sex like I never even knew was possible. Alex took my cherry pretty much literally. He’s the only person I’ve ever slept with and I’m going through good/bad sexual PTSD.

By good/bad I mean it wasn’t traumatic. I was my idea, I could have told him to stop but I went along with it and I let a guy fuck me. And that really goes against a lot of my internal programming.

Is it fucked up if you know that you’ve been indoctrinated?

The fact that it’s Alex is the only thing that is saving my brain right now.

I get cleaned up as best as I can and take a bath. Ow, ow, shit, ow that hurts. I should have known better. Lube or no lube that hot water stings.

After my bath, I throw up. I’m not like disgusted, but it’s just nerves. I really, really want a smoke, of all times for me to decide to quit.

Mouth wash, brush my teeth twice and I strip the bed and toss everything in the wash and put it on hot with a lot of detergent. I’m walking funny, I’m walking funny and that sends me off into a fit of giggles and that helps. It helps more than anything else and I’m giggling…like a girl might but I just really can’t help it. It might actually be the way I really laugh I don’t know? I’ve never had a reason to laugh beyond the few chuckles and my usual little half smile. I get a hold of myself after my second cup of coffee and I feel good.

I think.

Yeah good.

I don’t make breakfast instead I pack it along with our lunches. I pack up granola mixed with honey nut cherrios into to gladware containers and a quart of milk. I grab a big zip lock bag and the food processor and put that thing on it that slices stuff into well slices and feed carrots, cucumber, and celery into it and just rip up some lettuce and hack up a tomato and rip up the leftovers into it from the three pieces of KFC. I zip it up and shake it up and stow it in our cooler bag. With the rest being bottles of water.

Yeah I’m in a hurry.

I go and get dressed, black lacey bra and panties and tuck myself into black skinny jeans, ankle socks, red sneakers and this stretchy red lacy thing that’s like a camisole but has this kind of corset like look to it too some of the accents are black on it and I add a choker to go with it but I take some red silky nylon ribbon and I tie my hair off in pig tails. Some red lipstick and a few other touches and I look actually pretty hot, punker, but definitely all girl, just and extremely flat one. I just come out as Alex comes in wearing just a towel and he smiles at me and totally smears my lipstick when her kisses me and picks me off of my feet and does a few circles around with me. I get these crazy yummy yay like butterfly feeling running from my heart not my stomach through the rest of me.

If I’m not gay, or trans, then at the very least I’m Alexsexual.

I get him a coffee and hold it/share it while I watch him getting dressed. First off he’s six foot six and a half feet or so and he’s two hundred and thirsty pounds of tanned broad shouldered muscle. He’s got a washboard set of ab’s and a killer tan. Now dress that hot boy up in Haynes black boxer briefs and then a pair of nice designer jeans along with really big Detroit Lions tee-shirt on and his black leather jacket then my black knit pull over hat. He just won’t let me have that back. I don’t care it looks good on him.

We head out into the garage and surprise who’s there but Adam. He’s drinking his cup of coffee and has that I own you I am the shit look on his face. “Alexander, can I have a moment?”

I’m not liking the Alexander thing.

“I suppose.” He’s flat stares at his father.

“I have a dinner tomorrow night; it’s with a client and his family. I need you to come.”

“I might have plans with Hunter.”

He looks at me with this smirk. Like he’s better than me, like I’m not good enough to be around those kinds of people. In those kinds of places. I bite my lip and Alex takes my hand and squeezes it.

“Y’know Dad we would love a night out someplace nice. On the firm’s dime?”

He actually looks surprised.

Not half as much as I am.

WhatthefuckamIgoingtodo?!

“Good then…Hunter, Alex I’ll see you both her to meet the limo at seven thirty tomorrow night?”

He turns and he goes back into the house.

Alex opens my door for me and I slip stunned like into the car.

My mind’s still reeling as we drive to school.

This is not the movies, this isn’t Pretty Woman.

I’m so fucked.

Sweet Dreams 14 … Help Pinch Me!

Chapter 14

I’m kind of numb as Alex is driving us from his place to school. He’s going a little fast for me, I’m a bus girl, it’s what I grew up taking. I’m not used to being in a car much less one that’s going kinda fast.

Oh shit…I just said I’m a girl.
And I’m scared because my boyfriend is driving too fast.
You ever have one of those face-palm moments.

His dad got him pissed. Me I’m freaked because I’m having visions of fancy tables and nice looking people and gorgeous women and I’m just me.

Like I said, this is my life and not pretty woman.

I’m relieved that we arrive in school in one piece and Alex seems to have something still there in control…no that’s not exactly true. Alex is all about control. I’ve help him when he’s cried, I’ve seen him nearly tear the back door off a school bus. No Alex is all about control as he’s with it enough to open my car door for me.

Yeah I know, I’m not going to say it to him ever…ever…but he gets that from his dad.
More to mull and obsess over.
Wonderful.

I still feel really hyper-weird to after Alex and I had made love. I’m sore and in a good way I think…yeah, it’s. God it’s hard to imagine, to even admit to even now that Alex did that to me, took me, and it scares the fuck out of me because it changed me. I’m not the same person that I was before that. I’m not that different but it’s a path I can’t unwalk.

He takes my hand and smiles at me and there’s this look in those dark eyes of his needing this. Needing us…….ME……..That’s what’s really frightening. Just the thought of someone needing me like that.

And I love it.
I want to be loved, I want to be needed.
I just want another soul curled up next to mine in the dark places.

And somehow, by some miracle Alex happened to me.
Where I come from there’s not that many happy endings.
I though I’d just be like the rest of the trash kids.
Just though I’d only have an ending.

I get shaken out of the heavy stuff floating around in my head when we go up the few steps from the parking lot to the quad and Alex wraps me in his huge arms and pulls me back against him and he just holds me tightly. It almost hurts a bit he’s that strong and big, he’s got a foot plus on me and he’s well over twice my weight in muscle and just plain mass.

He’s got his face buried into the back of my head and he’s smelling my hair and he’s breathing the smell of me in. There’s something powerful about that too. Something good.

I lean back into him and instantly kind of feel this bulge of him starting and this reminder of what we did comes back to me again in this really pleasant way. I feel Alex needing me even just to hold onto for awhile and that.

That was there when we were together last night, this morning.

I just stand there and soak it in. The strength in him, the attention, the love. I start to tear up a bit thinking that someone might actually love me and that I don’t have to look that deep inside anymore to know I love Alex too. I was so scared that part of me was broken. I asked that question all my life until now.

We all do I think and whenever we do it hurts.
It cuts deep.
What about me is so fucked up and broken that nobody loves me?

I don’t ask that now.

Nope now I’m just trying to figure out how not to fuck this up and trying to see what Alex see’s in me. It’d be nice to see that for myself.

I smile though at what he’s doing and I put my hands over his. “Mmmm, just a bit harder Alex…”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, I know hurt remember.”

“Yeah…” His voice is husky raw with emotion and he does he squeezes me enough that it does hurt. But life’s full of pain and some of its good. I’ll be able to feel this moment for hours. I’ll trade a little soreness almost kind of bruising for the reminder of sun shine, blue sky and Alex holding me like I’m the most important thing in the world.

It’s only a few minutes but I imprint them into my soul. He relaxes his grip and I turn still in his arms but it’s a sort of shimmy turn. I put my hands into the waistband of his jeans and yank him to me and stand on my tip toes and kiss him. I mean I really kiss him like…like he deserves to be kissed. Hot and deep, long and slow and filled with as much I love you as I can put into things.

He kisses me back and I swear time stands still, the world around me just drops into the background like we’re color but it’s just black and white. His hands slide down to my butt and he caresses them squeezes holding me like each hand is palming a football or something and I sit into it. I rest part of my body weight into his hands and there’s this thrill that sort of shoots up my spine into my brain and I swear kissing him is making me high.

It just sort of goes like that until I’m sitting my body weight entirely in his hands and he’s just holding me there in his hands like I was a feather, it makes me feel…small, but in a good way, protected because Alex is so strong. I’ve gone through so much physical abuse it’s just …..to feel this safe.

He pulls me up even higher and I actually at one point am hanging onto his rock hard biceps and there’s no way I can get my hands around them, it just kind of find purchase in the rock hard curves of tanned muscle feeling the power in those muscles, in him is like this electric thrill that sucks away at my breath while it fizzles in my brain.

God…?
I want to fuck again?!

Oh course that’s when one of the staff comes out and she starts pointedly coughing at us until we break it up.

This is high school remember no long PDA’s allowed. We wouldn’t want the students to have lives of feel like human beings.

Actually part of me is cool with this. I need to cool my brain down and stuff right? Right….
Oh wow…

We go in holding hands, fingers interlocked and there’s this spark back in Alex’s eyes. I still feel high, like there’s just something worth being bouncy over and I’m not sure why and there’s this smile that keeps popping up, then every time I turn to look at him that spark’s there and I’m remembering last night…but differently yet again in this…oh….and the sounds that he’s made….calling my name…him wanting me still, now…it’s all there in his eyes.

It’s almost like bouncing as we hit the quad and the others and apparently there’s some kind of female fucked detector I didn’t know about because there’s all this giggling and I’m getting hugged because apparently it’s obvious to them that I got some last night and they’re including me in this weird kind of ritual like I’m suddenly part of the them.

Just like I’m one of the girls.

~Tonight on National Geographic Explorer we look at the mating rituals and habits of the species known as the North American Yuppie Female, This is Hunter Williams and apparently I’m being taken as one of the tribe.~

It’s a little strange that I’m rescued from the estrogen herd by the queen bee herself. I’m getting a coffee at the counter when Jennifer comes up and gets one too.

“Congratulations.”

“Huh, what?”

“I know that look, the feeling after Alex.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Oh? He tell you?”

“That’s really none of your business Jen.”

“I guess not, not anymore. What can I say Hunter, I’m jealous. I really don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why he’s with you and not me.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I mean, I look the way that I look and you’re…well face it Hunter you look like you should be a few grades behind us.”

“Well maybe it’s a personality thing; I seem to remember telling you you’re quite the bitch Jennifer.”

“No argument here, I am.”

“Then what’s this all about, you coming over here and giving me shit.”

“I didn’t mean to. Honestly…You and Alex have seriously messed up everything I thought my life would be going this year. I’m still kind of…..I’m not used to losing Hunter, not to someone like you.”

“Gee fucking thanks.” I move away trying to get away from her before she’s wearing my coffee and getting expelled.

Of course she follows, typical so self absorbed she doesn’t get the subtle hints to fuck off. I turn to tell her off and she’s just standing there not even looking at me now but looking at Alex who’s talking with the others and even smiling and sort of laughing. He looks at me and smiles for real, one of those make the sunshine come out just for me smiles. I can’t help but to smile back.

“That’s the fucking part of this I hate the most Hunter. Alex has never once looked at me the way that he’s looking at you right now. I almost hate you for that, almost…if you weren’t one of the only people that calls me on my own bullshit I’d be plotting to rip your heart out and use your blood for lipstick.”

“Uhm gee, that was vivid thanks…I think.”

“No, I mean it Hunter. Congratulations, Alex deserved better than me if I’ve got to be totally honest with myself and betters’ turned out to be some mouthy skinny bony assed punker chick. I hate that it went down like this between me and him like the way I caused it too. I am happy for you two…sort of but that just me needing to get over myself.”

I look at her and she’s looking at me and I get it. I get where she seems to be coming from. I know myself, tall, skinny, built like a girl really just without all the curves, scars in places still some faded bruises but nearly gone and then there’s Jennifer.

Tall leggy and so hot you could weld off her body. Full big breasts what are just about perfect, tanned skin, trim waist, curvy hips and a perfect ass and she lost out to me. She comes from a reality where that doesn’t really happen. And yeah she just admitted it was buggy the shit out of her and that we’re weird kind of friends because I don’t take her crap, but I don’t treat her like crap either.

I’ve no fucking idea why the hell I’m even doing this…everything about me and her back home would have been enemies. I’m not sure where the handshake came from but we were shaking hands.

Here I though girls and women didn’t do that but hugged instead. I think they do for the most part, its most of what I’ve seen. This just feels different? Better? Bigger in a way. It’s also nothing like a guys handshake that’s a whole other thing but this was gentle, firm and real.

I can’t even really put it down to what it really meant. Maybe it’s that uncommon it is something nebulous. I’ll have to ask Hali about that. And about maybe some lessons for tomorrow night…

“What’s wrong?” Jennifer’s giving me this very perceptive for a blonde look. I’ll have to watch that. Apparently you can’t have lower than a B average and stay on any teams here. So she’s not exactly the dumb blonde either.

“You want to trade lives tomorrow night?”

“Not really why?”

“Adam ordered but didn’t order us to attend a family dinner with one of his clients.”

“So?” she looking at me; fishing for information. I give her the finger with a sip of my coffee.

“So….I’m not exactly a super model, and I’ve never been to anything like this before in my life.”

“Ever?”

“Never, I’m still getting used to actually having food around to eat Jen. People see poor kids starving in Africa and it’s sad and shit but there’s kids living the American Nightmare instead of the dream less than a half hour drive in any direction.”

“So, you really weren’t bullshitting about some of the things you said then.”

“No…” I don’t know where that came from either but that little word came out hurting and strangled as my throat closed up around all the feelings and my eyes burned.

~Don’t You cry, don’t you fucking cry you little shit, I’ll give you something to cry about!~ It’s him, the step-shit, Cliff’s voice in my head and there’s a memory of pain in my foot as I swear I can feel him sinking the safety pin into the bottom of my foot.

“Hunter?” Jennifer touches me and I shake out of it trembling. “Are you? No you’re really not okay are you?”

“Not remotely but thanks for asking.” I kind of reply lamely. I’m feeling raw and exposed right now and I don’t like the feeling.

“Have you called anyone? Told anyone?” I’m getting the feeling she’s leaning that way.

“No, it doesn’t matter anyway. My Step-shit beat the hell out of me and left my in our place for dead. My mother helped him because she’s a fucking junkie and has been all my life. They took off because he’s got two strikes on him already and who the hell knows where they are. I’m fine; they’re gone and out of my life. Look Jennifer this gets out and wham I’m tossed into the foster care system and that place is just as bad a hell hole as prison is.”

“But they’d take care of you?”

“Like fuck they would. I’m not some kid from around here that had something tragic happen to their folks. I’m a junkie hooker’s kid Jennifer and the system that you’re imagining just tosses us into the hellholes were we belong. I’d rather sleep than have to keep one eye open waiting for one of the kids in there to decide I need to be taught just how things work or the pedophile they got running the place sneaking in for his grope and tickle.”

“But there’s laws against that sort of thing Hunter?”

“Yeah and whole the hell is going to enforce them. I say something and the other kids who are too scared not to platy ball with the shit running the house says that I’m lying and the complaint gets tossed. And I’m reaping payback.”

“This shit really happens?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck…I know she’s one of these sheltered rich kids who think that life’s supposed to work a certain way when in reality life for the most of us is just that harsh and fucked up and cruel and cold.

I’m really fighting the urge to smack her and lose my shit.

On the plus side being pissed has stopped me wanting to cry.

“Look Jen, I’m okay. I’m free and clear. I’m an emancipated minor now and that means legally I can take care of myself. I love that you actually give a damn even though things are the way they are between us over Alex and me.”

“Are you sure?” She actually does look like she gives a shit. Something real on her face actually kind of changes her look. I better watch myself, Jennifer as a real person might just give me some serious competition.

“I’m sure.” I give her a hug.

Dammit, I am turning into one of them. I’m hugging all cliché and stuff. I see her best friend Cynthia come over with this confused and concerned look on her face.

“Is everything…..?”

Jennifer looks at me. “Yeah everything’s Copasetic.”

“Uhm…okay. C’mon you guys we should get ready for class and stuff.”

I have my books, I have my lunch, the bell hasn’t gone yet, but in the world of girl that is secret code for hitting the bathroom and retouching everything. And yes I actually get drug along.

It turns out that I’m actually not that wigged out at being in a bathroom full of hot nubile teenaged girls. I mean I’m still in this place where there are a couple of them are doing things for me and yeah…if I wasn’t in this relationship with Alex I’d be so into that. But then there’s this whole other part of me that just…I want what they have. The curves, the way the walk and the boobs. I’m not wanting something like Jennifer’s those perfect DD’s that’d either end up crippling my back or making me prone to falling over face first front heavy but kind of like some of the more athletic girls have.

It’s not like driving me nuts but there is this part of me that really, really just wants to be Hunter. As they say like fer real.

Y’know some thing though, I’ve been dressing like me for so long in that gender queer, kind of punker boy-girl way for so long actually I’m a lot better with make up then the are for the most part. I’m actually a bit jealous of some of the high end stuff they have and end up doing some touch ups and fixing the look on a few of them including Cynthia. She looks really nice once there was a bit less around the eyes and stuff and not so heavy on things.

I got hugged several times by the girls I helped. (Sigh)

Okay, it kinda sorta feels okay not to quite be the outsider.

We’re heading out as the bell rings and on our way to homerooms for registration when Jennifer looks at me. “The Stepmom.”

“Huh?”

“Talk to the Stepmom. Look she want’s to do right by Alex and he’s never really given her a chance because she’s Adam’s little trophy wife. But that’s a good thing in your case.”

“How’s that? Alex can’t really stand her.”

“Well there is that and she likely knows it too, and no matter how money grubbing she might be it has to hurt after awhile. Her helping you gets a lot of things going for you.”

“Like what?”

“One, you make her the alpha female just by coming to her for help, that’s a point towards you in her books and she has sway on Adam.”

“She does?”

“Oh yeah, as hot as she is yeah she can influence him a lot. And he likes it that way. Anyway…two, you’re giving her a chance to do something nice for Alex through you. Three, they don’t have any other kids, getting her to help you shop and whatnot will be a treat for her, she loved shopping with me. Four, she’ll be grateful because you will come to her and you will say….”I need your help, I don’t know anything about these fancy things like you do and I didn’t want to do or wear anything that’ll mess up your night.” See saying it’s her night makes it all about her. She loves the ego stroke; she’s actually a nice lady Hunter just keep in mind she’s me…in my thirties without you around to kick my ass.”

“It seems awfully manipulative though.”

“Yeah…..Adam won’t be expecting you to play ball in his court, it’ll really mess with his head.” She actually got this gleam in her eyes.

It’s odd, I really hate most people like Jennifer, they are scary human beings but I don’t know. I mean she’s really being an evil manipulative bitch and I still like her. Maybe it’s because she’s sort of my evil manipulative bitch?

“Okay, okay I’ll give that some serious thought okay. It’s better than the blank space in my head about the whole thing.”

Goddamn it! We hug again when we have to go to different classrooms.

***

I actually do think about it for most of the day actually or at least until I get until lunch. I go down to the cafeteria and the quad saying “Hi!” to Todd and his friends joining them in the line getting my coffee. I need my coffee; it’s helping me with the whole quitting smoking thing.

Between the thing sorta fight sorta not with Jennifer this morning and the whole bomb dropped on us by Adam did I ever pick a shitty time to stop smoking.

I meet up with Alex and we leave the quad for the parking lot because it’s not seen as school grounds and that’s I guess sort of where you go when you have an S.O. and want to have some together time. There’s a bunch of us all hanging out around the cars on the grass listening to tunes out of Alex’s car stereo and eating and making out.

Yeah…somehow it got to this point where I’m lying out on that blanket he had wrapped me in the night Alex rescued me but instead of that misery I’m lying on my side and we’re feeding each other food between these kisses.

These really good kisses that make this bubbly boiling happy feeling in me that just. I’m not sure what it is…but it’s that it’s good…better than good. There’s this part of me that just gets to be in this…place, on a real lawn, smelling the grass, the few dandelions and feeling the warm clean sunshine on my skin until it sinks into my bones.

It’s a waste of part of my lunch hour but after a few really good kisses and the food out of the way I put my face into Alex’s chest and god help me I was breathing in the way he smelled like he was this morning with me. Alex smells like…skin, but soap too and musk, male musk but not in that funk that a lot of guys have but in this way, that musk kind of makes things good? Think good leather, coffee, pipe tobacco, sawdust, good fresh earth…guy in all the best of ways and it winds into me, soothing my heart, charming my brain and I fell asleep there waking when he shakes me just before the bell.

It’s just enough time to go with the girls to get straightened up and there’s some teasing amongst all of us and I admit with them eventually. “I did fall asleep smelling Alex. I’ve never really smelled anything like that, like him…I’ve never really been kissed, I’ve never really had anyone that makes me feel that safe.”

I don’t know where that’s coming from. Me opening up with them. I’m not just doing my hair touch ups and make up but I’m touching then up too and…and hugging people and just…It’s not me.

But sitting in computer class I was thinking on all of this stuff as I was working. It’s me, though it really is me. I mean Hunter. I’m allowed this right? I’m allowed to be happy right?

I loved falling asleep like that. I mean it was like just for twenty minutes but it felt like two hours, maybe more? Have you ever slept without stress? Can you picture breathing in that air, him and the outside even breathing in the sunshine and just so loved and safe that all of the bullshit went away. I never had until today.

It’s a good thing that I’m a computer geek. I can do the stuff in front of me and think in the way that most people do other things while listening to the radio. I just kind of hit this zone I slip into and it’s a good thing with everything on my mind.

I’m even still in that good mood as I get out of class and head out to the football field to watch the Friday night practice. There’s a game next Friday and I see them really pulling out all the stops tonight. It’s even more interesting than usual because they’re going over stuff on a bunch of laptops and the AV club’s there recording it and putting stuff up so they can see things as the coaches go over things and tear apart what’s wrong. I actually pay more attention than I usually have.

Alex moves like nothing I’ve never seen. I mean there’s athletic and then there’s seeing him move. He’s so fast and to see him run stairs, or dance through those tires or hit that tackling sled thing with a two hundred pound guy on it and drive it back ten feet in a rush of power…he’s breathtaking.

I swear I can feel my skin, all of it and I’m achy, inside and out and just hot…hot and bothered and turned on. I get the girl into the guy’s thing. There’s this something so….about how primal and powerful Alex is but the way he is with me, the gentleness he has in him.

I don’t really watch the cheerleaders this time.

I wait around after while Alex is in the showers and I talk to a few people while waiting. Like what they’re going to do this weekend and tonight and of all things I’m in a conversation about make up and tattoo’s and piercing when Alex comes out from the showers.

Ow…ow…my heart.

He’s walking out in that big glide that wild animals have and he’s just in faded jeans and a t-shirt but he’s still sorta damp it clings to him like another skin. It’s me, it Hunter…and I can’t help but to find him beautiful.

Oh yeah guys can be beautiful. And not the girly boy model way but, more like the way you’d look at a great big powerful animal or a muscle car….he’s big, buff…oh…and he walks up and pulls me into him by my waist and kisses me.

There is just this thing about being kissed. There’s this softness in him that says, I love you, I treasure you, I’ll protect you and its right there with this intense energy, this vibration or something that says I want you.

He smells like he did at lunch only better, he’s cleanly shaven, and he’s got just a bit of aftershave on. He’s a less is more guy, I can’t taste what he’s wearing as he goes by. No, there was hints of this…citrus, earth and woody tones…and his own scent, shampoo hints and I can feel these big strong hands holding me around my waist and just…he just…Alex just kept kissing me.

“Let’s go out, or do you have to work?”

“No…Hali closes at four on Fridays because she wants to have her weekends….”

Wow, it was hard to formulate that thought…. “Y...Yeah, I could go out…on like a date?”

“Yeah like on a date.”

“Okay…”

***

We get home and Alex goes to go change and I grab some of my things and I hit the shower I slap the cold cream on first to get a start of the make up and shit…shit…shit…this is the first date of my life.

I hop into the shower and get cleaned up, use some Nair and clean away what little amounts of body hair that I do have. Shampoo my hair and condition it then look through my kit I go a little different tonight and I just straighten it and get all the color out of it and try and go for that long straight haired Nordic look. It’s in my bloodline on mom’s side, it turns out to be pretty easy, my hair tends to be straight naturally but I haven’t left it along for years so it’s still a bit of a surprise at how good it looks. I lotion and powder and spritz on a little bit of Glow by J-Lo which I shoplifted awhile back before I met Alex. I slip into this nice black angora sweater that’s too big by a little in just the right way and get into a pair of panties and these black vertical crochet tights on under a black short skirt someone had made from military combat pants.

I’ve got this sort of artsy rebel chique thing going on. I go light on the make up, just a hint of eye shadow in a very light blue non metallic and a good touch with another blue with the eyeliner and just a bit of mascara I really make sure it’s light too I often make sure there’s no clumps and the brush is really clean before I go the mascara route. Lipstick I just go with this nice shape called nude peach that’s kind of just a bit darker in a touch of red way than what they call flesh tones, a little clear coat and I step back and put on a smile.

Who’s looking back at me is so much different than the me that I’d grown used to seeing. I mean I’m still me, still a little punker but so much more Hunter than Will.

I slip on some of my cheap bracelets that’ll go with it and pop in my earrings a little steel stud, a steel small hoop and these little black carbon stone Egyptian cat heads in black. I’ve got three piercings in each ear so that’s why all the earrings, I just kind of want to look good. I add a cheap steel dream-catcher necklace on a black cord I got somewhere.

I guess that’s it. I slip out and I hear Alex go “Hunter?” I look over to him in the kitchenette and he’s got this look on his face.

I blush. “What?” as I’m slipping my feet into my calf high boots.

Us girls are so messed up. Yes I said Us Girls… He’s seen me naked, and here I’m nervous about him liking the way that I look. See? Messed up, you’d think once you see each other naked it’d make some of this stuff easier.

“Wow…you look beautiful.”

There are times when you can just look at someone and know whether or not that a line like that would be bullshit or not. Alex isn’t just looking at me but he’s staring at me like no one has ever looked at me before….no one has told me something like that before.

It’s really nice to have somebody actually thing that you’re not just some waste of space.

He comes over and gets my jacket and holds it open for me to get into and it’s nice but kind of something strange. So much of my life has become like that. Scary, exciting and strange but in a good way. We head downstairs and he opens the car door for me and I slide in and smile at him. Like I said, strange, strange but nice.

We leave the house and take a fair number of side streets I’m not familiar with here in these kinds of neighborhoods. And we get out of most of the early evening traffic and we head into the city itself and we end up at this place called Armstrong’s.

I see a few familiar cars here and stuff. I’m a little nervous because this is kind of looking like one of those teen places, a kind of hang out spot.

Alex parks and get’s out and opens my door for me and helps me even get out, well get up out of the car and we head inside. It’s a big place one of those bowling alley meets roller rink with a separate area for the arcade and a dance floor. There’s some adults and some younger kids there but it’s a lot of kids right around our age group. I see a lot of them from our school and our group.

Wow, I have no idea how to do this? I’ve never actually hung out with people before. Alex leans over. “Hungry?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I’m almost too nervous to eat. He leads us over to these tables that are where everyone else is sitting and we take out jackets off and there’s another round of “Hi’s” and “Hello’s” and I get complimented on my look by the girls that I know and sort of been hanging around with and a few compliments from the guys that we know mostly on the football team and I’m getting stared at buy some of the others like I was the last gazelle in Africa. That doesn’t go over so well with some of the other girls and I get a good chunk of those; Who the fuck is she? looks from some of those ones I don’t know and again there’s a buzzing about me and Alex being together.

I hear a few whispered snippets of them bagging on me either my hair, or my clothes particularly my skirt. More than once I hear… “skinny bitch…” in some of those snippets.

I’m not sure whether to be hurt or amused at the whole thing. I’m not used to the attention though. I’m more than happy once our jackets are off at a table with friends to get up and go with Alex to the take out section for the place and stand in line waiting to get some supper.

Alex wraps his arms around me while we’re waiting in line, of course getting more looks sent our way. “You okay Hunter? We don’t have to be here.”

“No…I mean yeah I’m good it doesn’t really bother me yet.”

“Yet?”

“Mmmn, yeah I expect the more used to life like this the more invested I might get in what people think.”

“You’re not that freaked out?”

“Oh I’m freaked, kinda uncomfortable because I never really done anything like this. Home hanging out was at a street corner either selling drugs or ass or both, and of course there were always the alleys and crack houses.”

“Yeah…sorry.” He hugs me tighter.

“Don’t be, you saved my life and my heart I think.”

“Hunter….” He mumbles this sweet kind of embarrassed guy sound and buries his face in my hair and kisses my neck. God I’m like a cat getting her ear scratched and I lean right into that.

We step up to the counter and order our food I get something called the extra cheesy quarter pounder…never had anything like it…just a big burger all uneven and hand made with some cooked onions on it but two cheese slices of just well regular cheese and one of something called pepper jack? I get everything on it which is mayo, relish, mustard, ketchup and the lettuce, tomato and a pickle….It’s huge. Alex orders two plus we get a basket of fries and onion rings and two strawberry milkshakes.

I’m getting stared at even by the ones that know me and I see a lot of bottles of water and “light” food around a lot of the girls, the cheerleaders are a bit more normal because they really can burn that stuff off but well over three quarters of the girls here are doing that whole weight conscious thing.

I actually can’t keep the smile off my face as I bite into the huge burger and get into this race/fight between me and the burger and the increasing pile of napkins and the juices and stuff running out of it. I get into this thing where Alex and I are taking turns wiping bits of juices and grease off of each other.

***

I Love dancing!

I never really thought I would. I got pulled by Alex out to the dance floor after I played a few video games and firmly establishing myself at least as a partly geeky chic. It was strange at first dancing when I really never did it before but slowly I loosened up and began to just get into this place…I know it because I seen my Mom go there when she was high. She used to dance all the time when she was high. If she hadn’t fell down that hole and became who she is now she’d likely have been a great dancer.

I guess it’s in the genes. I feel that beat hit my skin and sink into me after awhile and I can’t help but to move, shimmy, slide just let the sound of the music wash this huge amount of stress and bullshit I didn’t know was piled on that thick until I’m shaking it off.

And Alex…he’s so smooth, athletic in the way that he moves and as I touch him, bump and grind and shimmy I can feel him doing the same, partnering, touching, so just hot. They say that girls equate dancing to sexy and…and…God I want him to peel me out of my clothes, I want to feel that hard body of his and to receive all that power and grace of movement just focused on me.

I dance until I get sweaty, and drink lots of water and I’m off to the ladies room with a bunch of the other girls. Pee, wash, deal with the make up and shine, helping some of the girls with their make up going “Do Me!” which in our endorphin boosted states has us giggling and yeah I was giggling right along with them.

Third time in there I’m showing some of my moves and learning a few more and Jennifer’s there with Cynthia and there’s a weird surreal moment where we’re showing each other some moves and touching each other and laughing and actually kind of friends? I know it really has a lot of the sheeple confused. I should be, we should be enemies….according to their logic at least.

The place is a lot more fun than I thought and I totally have a good time, even better when I take a dance break Alex and I spend it kissing. I can’t help but have wandering hands feeling the way that I’m feeling…and feeling it more and more as we dance and when were not dancing we’re kissing and talking a bit with friends? Yeah? Friends?

It just get’s to be too…much? I’m kissing Alex deeper and deeper straddling him on his lap when I put my forehead to his and stare into those gorgeous eyes.

“Take me home Alex, please? Take me home and make love to me.”

Sweet Dreams 15 … Alex.

*Alex……….

You ever have a day that just starts out nothing like you could ever dream? I just did, it went from…the best place that I’d ever been to angry and just boiling with rage inside to this…to Hunter wanting for us to go home…asking to go home so we can make love.

Love…..

Somebody…Hunter…somebody actually loves me and that’s something right out of those scarcely dare to dream places in us….

You all know what I’m talking about. Where you dream these dreams of what life could be but just never is….

Where you can’t help not to…but every time the dreams end and fade you’re still in that hell….and it hurts so bad that your soul can’t breathe.

I guess I’d have to explain some stuff first. It hasn’t been that long but at the same time there is so much that’s happened with us so fast.

Hunter, it’s all about Hunter.

I met Hunter when we were getting picked up from an away game. I’d broken up over the summer with Jennifer because…well, we had hooked up the year before and we were the top couple in school. But it was a lot of bullshit, Jen had her moments, there were times she could actually be a decent girl. When she’d let herself. It just came to a head…her…the plans, there were plans she had for me and her and right through our high school years into college and kids and law school…I’m not sure when it happened but I stopped being Alex and started just being hers, or at least in her own head.

Dumping her didn’t go over really well. I’d dated a few times and kept finding either girls were so much like Jen there wasn’t any point in seeing them again. I even just got tired of them putting out. I must sound like an ass right now but I was getting sex without really having to start or really ask for it.

I’m a really good football player, I use it as my pressure valve, you know those guys that are tightly wound, on that edge of being a menace…Me…there’s just a ton of shit and stuff that just builds and builds ….

Anyway…I throw all of that stuff into my game and training so yeah I’m good. I’m also a good student and most importantly with these girls…those girls…I come from money…I’m that guy I guess that’s “the catch” I was getting to the point of honestly starting to hate people, to hate my life, the trap I was born into.

No one knows how many nights I’ve sat up holding my fathers .357 in my hand feeling the weight of it and just that…just one click…and a bang and I’d be free.

I had no idea that when I threw myself into that back bus seat that I’d meet someone like Hunter.

Blonde, blue grey eyes like bright burnished steel with her hair down loose but the ends of her hair dyed blood red, a black knit lace wool cap pulled over making her hair all pushed down. Cheap red running shoes with black laces and this baggy old black Ramones t-shirt like a dress over one of those glovey? Emo sweaters all under an old sexy jean jacket, and she was wearing fatigues.

She’s thin and I mean really thing in this delicate angel like way. Yeah I know Hunter’s a guy but that’s so, so not the case. You know those guys that look like these really pretty girls, almost better than, that’s Hunter…and she’s all this street and she looked so tired it wasn’t make up under her eyes when I saw her.

Normally the way things were going I wouldn’t have bothered, if she’d been like the others I’d have grabbed my shit and split. But unlike anyone I’ve know, Hunter doesn’t act like that, instead she hits me with her attitude and giving me shit.

I’m not used to someone being that unimpressed by me. She called me a jock, okay that I’ve gotten before.

No one has ever called me a goon before though….

No one had hypnotized me, gotten me that hard before, made my brain fire up and working in seconds….Then Jen and her entourage of ass kissers I like to think of as the circle jerk of evil came traipsing up the bus aisle.

I panicked, I was just so not able to deal with her and her entourage…they blitz you, you get hammered on by her and her nearest and dearest and then the rest of them flank you until you can’t think, can’t breathe and haul you down into….

Well into their level…

I pull Hunter into a kiss not knowing that she was a he and there could have been a freak out but Jen got all super-cunt about it and…Hunter through attitude back into Jen’s face and then she kissed me back.

Those were some of the best kisses I’ve ever had. Y’know those first kiss kisses all over again. Like those but better actually…

Then Hunter goes with the whole thing to get Jen off my back but then reveals to me she’s a guy. Asked me if I was gay, said I owed them…other things that sent me reeling.

You know it wasn’t kissing another guy as much as the whole thing should freak me out, no it was this sort of hit to the heart that I just did, I just assumed, I just took and I was just…

I was just fucking like him.

Hunter kept talking and most of it did register but the few times I could see out of the whole I was falling in inside…I saw someone there looking at me who just looked like they kept…losing, then the nosebleed.

I lost it when Jen and them got in our faces, well Hunter’s and I get to see the bruises.

Bruises and me acting like that.

Like him.

Bruises, nosebleed, that look and I just lost my shit, had a sort of mini explosion and got me and Hunter out of there.

She didn’t get me to take her home just to some little strip mall in this shitty, really shitty area of the city. The entire drive I’m fighting with everything going on in my head, and following Hunter’s directions.

I kissed them in the parking lot, then…putting everything I had left in me into it and gave her my card and all the cash in my wallet. Hunter was the most real person I had ever met and considering she’s a he and all those things there was just something in me that needed to try and to show Hunter what kind of guy I am…and there’s just times that words just curl up and die inside of me and I can’t get them out…can’t….

I’m not him Hunter…I can be better than that…Just give me the chance.

Didn’t even know I had her hat until I was just about getting to the car and put it on and pulled off and away.

I drove just not, not able to go home. I just can’t. My home isn’t a home; it’s never been a home. My Father is an obsessive control freak and it’s part of the family thing I guess he got it from his old man and so on and so on. When I was younger I wasn’t really aware of it too much.

I’m sure he wasn’t physically abusive to my mother but she just, just couldn’t deal. They weren’t a good match; I think he had to marry her if you know what I mean. She went straight from high school where she was prom queen to being married to him…she was more or less just stuck in the relationship, no…no divorce wasn’t an option with him. There was a pre-nup or something or just the fact that he won’t let you go until he’s done with you.

She had always been into the bottles of wine as long as I can remember, pills…methe…oh I didn’t know what it was when I was that age but there’s a lot of housewives and mothers from things I’ve read that say there’s a lot of hidden domestic drug use.

That was my childhood as a little kid. Chardonnay in bottles of Welch’s white grape juice, her popping stuff to make everything go away including me…Methe to make herself happy and when He was home I know he knew things, I know he rubbed her nose in it. He wasn’t happy with her or me….

Never was Dad’s little guy. Nothing like that ever passed his lips. No the only times I got any attention was when I’d do something that reflected on him as a father. Sports, school even getting lectures in the park from him about how he never wanted to see me lose again…all because another kid beat me to the ice cream truck.

How he didn’t ever really want me around, or really see me. Every little thing I did wrong was him “correcting me”. He and Mom fought or rather he flooded her daily with why she isn’t good enough and more times that I can even remember he wouldn’t even let me to try to make it better.

Why kind of guy doesn’t let his four year old hug his mom when she’s crying?

Then in the ultimate act of fucked uppedness, my mother strapped me into the car seat. We’re even singing as we drove to what I thought was daycare with her and she is drunk and high…really high and she drives up down the overpass on the freeway the wrong way right into oncoming traffic….

And there’s night’s sometimes even days when I’m there in the wreckage, with her and she’s dead her eyes just staring and I’m trapped in there covered in her blood….

Because she didn’t want to live…and she didn’t want me to turn into a monster like him…

And I can feel it, or I did…Him, and me starting to become like him and I’ve got tears running down my face as I drove around all night literally just one shitty little thing from finding a way to kill myself.

I ended up about three in the morning down walking until dawn on the Riverwalk. I was thankfully left alone for the rest of the night while I stewed in the funk I was in until I dawn came and I watched the sun come up over the waves that were lapping in from the lake. You know what saved me? Hunter’s knit cap, I had taken it off to run my fingers through my hair in frustration at everything and had spent the night walking with it in my hand playing with it like a priest with a rosary.

***

The rest of the day was just a waste; I went to school and my classes not really knowing why. Got a warning instead of a detention because I’m Alex Donovan and we can’t y’know treat the high performing scholarship winning athletes be treated like normal folk now can we?

The one thing was this weird almost relaxing isle of them keeping away from me with them not really getting me and Hunter. I’d gone home and got changed but wore her knit cap all day long and it’s like it was this thing that held them at bay because when you’re in a relationship when you wear something of the other person’s right?

No one knew shit about Hunter which made me miss her, him, her…I was missing someone I barely knew. I spent most of the day worrying too. The nosebleed, the bruises…the fact they didn’t let me drop them off at home.

I just went in a daze through work after practice. I just was pretty much burnt out of it by the time I was done with the whole thing. Everything from yesterday and last night and being up all day. I wasn’t really overly social despite working at a coffee shop. I went home like a zombie pulled into the garage and I just hid away like I usually do, except I dug things out from my art space and turned on some music it’s a random mix of stuff but once I started drawing this poster side drawing of Hunter I was listening to “White flag” by Dido and replayed it over and over as the song somehow just spoke to me of Hunter….

***

The next day was still just kind of more of the same only there were more questions that people weren’t asking and there were more stares from Jen and her crew. I did get bugged a few times from some of the guys that were pretty much pestered into trying to find out about Hunter because no one knew her and it was just fucking killing Jen and her crowd.

Honestly it was going to look ugly if she got really mad. She’s like April my Step mother, a modern girl who gets what she wants because it’s what she wants and fuck whoever is in Jennifer’s way.

I broke up with her and that didn’t give her the option of taking me back or any of the other stuff that goes on through the heads of people like her. I dumped her and that was a no-no. Apparently I haven’t read the rules of how things are supposed to work.

But I’d broken it off with her and wasn’t really interested in getting back with her.

Apparently I’m not supposed to find anyone first after the break up either.

I just kept to myself really, New school going into high school even as a freshman can have it’s perks. There is the fact that those in the classes over you really don’t like or care for the drama going on that much. Jen and I are sort of stand outs but we’re still freshmen and that gives even someone like me a bit of anonymity.

I had just coasted through the day when I got the phone call after practice on my cell phone. It was Hunter and she sounded not too good, not too good at all.

***

I had the address and I thought it might be bad but I never thought it wound been this bad. I mean you know in your head that things like this happen, that these things go on and that there are people that end up living like this but…

The squalor was just…

Entering the building you could taste the air, musty and foul from everything from nasty sex and probably diseases to mold, drugs…oh…oh…fuck I could smell that reek in the place…burnt rubber mixed with burnt sugar, copper and menthol….that smell from when I was little.

The reek of crystal methe, it’s like…no this pretty much was a crack house. I found Hunter on the floor on a carpet so fucked up you really couldn’t tell what it used to be like, there were patches worn to nothing and others that were black and filled with something that resembled tar at this point.

Someone had beaten the living hell out of them, and they seemed to have taken almost anything in the place that might have had the least bit of value.

I checked Hunter out, and she was really hurt, there was swelling everywhere but while things might have been fractured there weren’t any breaks that I could tell. I still took my time getting her to the car and why I didn’t take her right straight away to the hospital I’m not sure but instead I stopped at a pharmacy and did what I could with the stuff I could get there.

Then there was the freak out she had when she woke.

I…I…never seen that before.

Then the freak out about going to the hospital and foster care or a group home and the stuff that…again it’s something you kind of know about. Hunter made it sound like what they said about those places wasn’t just words but something she new with absolute certainty.

I finally agreed or rather decided to take her home.

No, it wasn’t like one of those things that He would have done. This was different, Hunter needed me.

***

I…I …still don’t get the reaction to the poster painting…I mean I do know, I think the more I sort of know about Hunter but I never really expected the breakdown, I mean it could be they were moved by it and add those emotions onto of everything she’d been with. I guess there’s only so much someone can take before breaking.

But I…I just tried to be there to make it better because I’m not really able to express stuff like that…it’s because I’m broken inside somewhere…but I can’t really do anything about that. But Hunter, Hunter feels things and I’m all tied up inside…

I knew she needed me and I knew inside that I needed to help her.

It took me awhile before I started to get just how much I needed her, more than she needed me. Hunter’s the strongest damned person I’ve ever met.

***

The trip to the mall was so different. Hunter was so adamant about me buying things too of equal to the things that she was getting. That if she could she’d pay it back as a loan….girls I knew just wanted, they didn’t want to pay things back, they never cared to see that this was as much about me as it was them….

I guess it was the first time I’d ever gone shopping as a “we” instead of the regular shit I was used to.

I’ll never get over her reaction there and in the grocery store. It was like she’d never been in these kinds of places that I just took for granted. It was a mix of wonder and curiosity but also there was Hunter sort of looking around like she was expecting to get tossed out of these places. There was this shy, really quiet thing going on with her this vulnerability that made…makes me want to hold her and make it all better.

Then she had another showdown with Jen in the food court and I get to see her go from this shy scared lonely person to someone who’s been through so much that the crap that Jen and them were pulling just seemed so petty and so easy for her to face down.

But in my world facing down a clique like that’s something most people can’t bring themselves to have the strength to do.

God I was so pissed at Jen and them and all of the bullshit.

You ever literally see red.

I’m trying so hard not to lose it and I was trying so hard to walk away from all of it with Jennifer screaming my name and ….

“Alex!... Alex!...Is it true? You moved that little bitch in? What about me Alex? We’re supposed to be together Alex! How could you do this to me?”

I swear if I had a gun…as it was I damned near went violent on her, damned near snapped her neck.

I’m not a violent guy, I swear I’m not but there’s times that the world just…

Then I’m not just yelling at her but I’m screaming.

“This! This is why we’re not together! You’re mental Jennifer, Hell I don’t even matter to you! If I didn’t have the cash or the cars or being on the team you wouldn’t care…we’re done, we’re totally and utterly done you got that. You know why? It’s because Hunter has something you’ll never have!”

God the look that Jen had…

I didn’t fucking care. Why because she’s the kind of person who actually says about another person….

“What could THAT have that I don’t?”

Who the fuck does that? What kind of person gets raised to actually say the about another human being?

And this weirdest thing happened. I looked at Jen and then I looked at Hunter and it was like time stopped…and Hunter was looking at me like she was the one who was worried for me?

After the hell she just been through and the fight with Jennifer and…she was looking at me like she was more worried for me than anything that she was going through.

And it was like the red faded to normal in my head and everything changed looking at her like that.

“Heart Jennifer, Hunter has real Heart and you’ll never have that. Not now, not ever.”

I reached out and took our stuff and Hunter and just walked away. It was like nothing I ever knew and I sort of zoned out for a few minutes and then I kind of came back to things and realized Hunter’s been real quiet, really quiet…I get really worried, in that it doesn’t feel good kind of way.

I set our stuff down and turned her to look at me and she wasn’t there a second she was off somewhere inside herself and hers eyes had the shine of tears trapped inside of her from years of abuse from those fucking assholes that she was trapped living with.

It takes a few moments to get her attention. I ask her if she’s okay and then she…thanked me…stood on her tip toes and leaning on me she kisses me. Right there in the mall she kisses me over and over for god like five minutes straight we’re kissing and I can’t help it.

Hunter…I love you…God I’m so fucking scared right now.

Who falls in love this fast.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her, hold her and rock from foot to foot just to keep her there close to me and to make sure she’s real.

I would’ve gone home but there was a few things we still needed to get, that I needed to get and we still sort of were quick about getting done and heading home.

Funny…Home….My place had always just been that My Place but tonight it feels different, it feels like…Home. Hunter makes it feel this way I think.

She does the laundry and puts things away and she’s humming even though she doesn’t seem to notice, she’s almost letting herself sing.

I cook supper, hamburger and macaroni kinda like a goulash but not. It was really something good watching Hunter eat and go back for seconds. I wonder if she’d ever done that before.

We both ended up curled up on the couch together and fell asleep watch TV. I never do that, I never feel safe enough with people to relax enough…alone and I’ve always got my nightmares to keep me company.

I woke and it was late and Hunter woke while I was carrying her to bed. I made her a hot chocolate while she got into these flannel Pj’s with snoopy on them that made her look…I asked her to wait….if I could while she was drinking her hot chocolate and folding our clothes…

I had to take out the bag of make up, use it like my art supplies and try to…

Try to show her who I’ve been seeing there in her, just buried, hiding alone and afraid in plain sight.

It was actually hard to do but fun trying to do that when she was twitching and warning me not to make her look like a clown.

I slipped out letting her see who I see….

***
Everything that night once things had seemed to settle down was actually pretty good. I had settled on the couch and actually fallen asleep.

Then the nightmare came back.

One of the worst ones out of the ones that I have and in it I’m me but I’m four again and even though I feel like I’m four in my head I’m me but the script never changes, the things never change and my Mom’s a housewife wine drunk and a methe head as well as a pill popper.

I remember us singing in the SUV as I though I was going to 5th street daycare. There’s us going down the off ramp and the flash as we pass the sign saying wrong way…

………..the green Impala hitting us and spinning our SUV around. Mom was still smiling as that happened; her nose was broke from her head hitting the headrest while being turned around to face me.

“It’s gonna be alright now baby, it’s going to be alright, Momma promises….”

Wham, in mid spin we’re hit from behind and I’m not sure what that was as it makes us spin right into the path of the big semi truck.

You’d think that’s were I lost consciousness, but I remember the impact the SUC rolling and the smell of gas and the thick red slickness covering me …

I woke up fell off the couch and it took everything I had to hang onto me…not to just loose it. I can’t I just can’t…I try to breathe through it and then Hunter’s there.

This Angel on Snoopy and Woodstock Pj’s.

She helps me sit up and set me on the couch and she’s shaking, she knows that there’s every chance in the world that some guy’ll lash out and hurt her, focus on the him aspect of then just for a reason to pound out their pain.

Instead Hunter faces those fears head on and straddles my lap, wipes away my tears and shares her scars with me.

She tells me she gets it…touches my head, she touches my heart and I had for her a little bit more. There’s been nobody that human that honest and real in my life.

I just about broke when she leans into my chest and she hugged me.

Hunter hugged me then and held me and I was shivering and shaking, there was so much there bottled up inside, coming loose because hunter was there…Hunter was safe. I felt nothing like it when she held me and rocked me back and forth humming to me and her fingers ran through my hair.

God….

As much as I was falling in love it hurt like my heart was breaking…or was it hurting because I finally met someone that made me actually feel again and I’m just now feeling all the pain stored in there.

I can’t help but to kiss her, I can’t help but get aroused by her, because of who she is. I don’t think now that it’d ever matter if she passed at all, she could be older and a trans-girl who’d never pass in public and I’d still be head over heels in love with her.

That picture…I painted that of Hunter from the inside out of her.

I’m touching her, my hands move and roam and we get hotter and hotter as we kiss…I massage her and she touches me and she kisses and bites a little too on my shoulder, my neck…I feel her giving me a hickie, it’s actually my first.

I massage her chest and her…breasts…there’s this girl instant reaction to my fingers as I rub and touch her nipples and roll them under that bit of hardness underneath and behind them…She really seems to like that.

Morning and my phone alarm cut off us getting together, together sooner and I do thing then it was a good thing.

When I got back from my training run and work out the very first thing that greeted me was the smells of a real breakfast and everything that you’d get if you’ve ever had a normal life.

Bacon, eggs, hash browns and coffee amongst other things. I’ve cooked some things but honestly Mom didn’t even like do this. I think that first breakfast hunter made me was the first real home cooked breakfast this entire house had ever seen.

I hope dad fucking got cramps from smelling it cooking.

I know that it was the most normal morning I ever had in my life. I know I made a pig of myself but honestly I swear I could taste love in there. I never had something so good in all of my life.

It was one of those little…huge things that a lot of people never think about.

There’s some of us that do.

I love Hunter and when there’s someone you love who does stuff like this when you’ve never had it before…or think you ever do….

Those people out there who have an S.O. that makes you a meal, or does housework for you or brings you a tea or a coffee just because…it’s because it’s one of those little …huge acts of love.

Treasure those things.

There’s those of us who are alone who just ache, screamingly ache to get that cup of coffee with that casual soft kiss.

God Hunter…I love you so much it’s almost hard to breathe sometimes.

Actually dad might have smelt everything. He was waiting for us when we came downstairs. He was his usual sarcastic ass and I think he was goading me into another one of his “life lessons.” I know he was trying to scare Hunter.

Hunter actually got me out of there.

Hunter spotted the tail that dad had put on me.

How often, how much, just how much does he have to control things that go on in my life?

This kind of would have had me freaking out or doing something stupid but Hunter was so brave…so street smart and fearless. It was like she had sort of stepped from my world back into hers and there was this stainless steel edge in her than was just so…

Angel, Goddess, my heroine….I felt actually better even being followed by the time I was dropping her off at the Ren-Cen. I gave her some cash openly and the dangerous, smart feral look in her eyes made me so turned on.

I still really wish that I could see it, her and what she did then.

I love her for that; I know she wasn’t just defending herself but me as well. I mean she told me what she did but at the same time to close my eyes and see her doing that to them and facing off with the two guys he hired…even the way that she talks me out of this whole what do we do about “Adam” freak out that I might have had. I could just see that between her and Dad the whole dirty pool street smarts thing I’m out of my league but Hunter isn’t.

Never heard the old man referred to in a street way and with this measured contempt too. Like I said Hunter’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.

The way she found out all that stuff that “He’d” had done on my computers and fixed them so that he couldn’t do it again.

But it’s more than that too why I love her. Why I’m in love with her.

***

Like our mornings, her making lunches, the way she actually was almost the way a Christian person is supposed to act when the thing happened with Jen and me and the fact that Jen didn’t have a seat at “Our” table and you could almost see some of that crowd just drooling over the chance to tears to social shreds.

Hunter was bigger than that and she was all kinds of cool about it and she set the whole way that things worked in the whole social scene on its ass.

I love the fact she’s got friends outside of the clique and that she keeps them. I love that she thinks to bring a box of day olds from the café for our friends and others.

Mornings have been changing from that whole almost getting your bearings in the popularity thing to us actually hanging out.

The guys love her because she’s not too, girly? I know it’s not like that. Hunter’s like a friend to them and just that she doesn’t play the usual bullshit games and is just plain cool. The fact she packs lunches and that we’re the way we are? I’ve heard that a lot has from what I can see some of the girls acting differently.

Yeah I know they’re sheeple but it’s more than that. I think they see how people just respond to Hunter. I know some of them want that too.

And Hunter and Jen are just…I’d love to know beyond the rumors of the thing in the girls bathroom or maybe I don’t…all I know is it went bitch to bitch and Hunter’s kung-fu was strong as they say.

I love the fact that she comes to my practices even though she’s not into football but she’s there anyway and she sticks out like a sore thumb and I know she’s catching grief for just being there But it’s Hunter and she sticks it out for me.

Honestly I’m not sure who’s taking care of who or who’s making who’s life better.

I want to be y’know, that guy.
I want to be good enough for her so much.

The dumb bitches up there in the reserved seating tried to make her feel like she wasn’t good enough.

They did get in her head though that first day. I had to sort of pick her up emotionally but not like I ever done…see most guys try to have this mental philter on, there’s a whole host of girls out there that really won’t let you talk straight to them. They speak womanese…that the language of female passive aggressive bullshit, double talk and deception. Don’t get me wrong I like women and girls but they have this whole way about them that’s based on this and over analyzing things that drives us nut.

Most guys learn enough of it that they can do what you want us to do. Like… Can you take out the garbage when you get around to it? Doesn’t mean that….it means do it now. What are you watching can mean everything from change the channel to turn off the TV.

So when a girl is upset the rules generally state that you cheer her up, you say nice things about her.

You don’t tell her to shut up.

Actually what I had said was. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Wh…what?”

“I said shut the fuck up. I’m not the kind of guy that’s into bullshit remember. And that’s what this is it’s bullshit. You have survived shit that none of these people can even imagine. They think that getting their credit card limit is a fucking crime. You’ve not just been through more than they have but you came through it a better person than they’ll ever be. I’m not going to let you tear yourself down because they’re threatened to look at a decent person. That thing with Jen in the Caf, they’d never have that kind of class and they fucking know it!

Stop tearing away at yourself okay, you’re hurting somebody I really care about when you do that.”

It just came out right past all the ingrained blocks of …Wait!...you don’t say that to girls!

I think it all came out because it was all true and I meant it and I care more for her than even those stupid silly unwritten rules that people seem to have.

Of course it either freak out and panic or man up to everything I just said and Kiss her.

So yeah of course I kissed her.

It was the same day a little later I showed her the whole bubble-gum kissing thing. It was kinda to deal with her smoking. She quit y’know, she quit for me. I know it’s better for her but yeah she quit.

It was that night she got to see me at work, and got her own job but it was also the night that we, very, very nearly went to bed together.

I wanted to but I wanted her to want it, be sure of it and I wanted to be sure too…safer.

Safe from me…Jennifer and I had sex, and we’d dozed off together but really sleeping in the same bed being that close for that long with someone scares me. I have nightmares, I had one that morning.

I can sometimes thrash when I’m in them…I can feel the blood sometimes mine and Mom’s but there’s that smell too buried deep inside my brain of gasoline, burning plastic, fresh blood and burning skin.

God, oh god, oh god I don’t want to hurt her…I don’t want to freak her out or scare her off…

It was a hard night getting to sleep after I told her G’night…there was so much bouncing around in my brain that. When I finally did get to sleep I’m jumped by my nightmares again.

I was four or three I don’t know but I was really little and mom had drank enough wine and popped enough pills that I couldn’t wake her up. I tried ad tried and tried but I couldn’t. I could call “Daddy” because that’d make him hate me even more.

Yeah, even that young there was just something I just knew….”Daddy” barely looked at me, he barely gave me the time of day much less hug me or treat me like I was actually his.

I asked once when I was twelve. He showed me the DNA tests. And He said “You’re mine.” But it wasn’t like he was proud, it was like he owned me.

Hunter woke me out of my trip to my lovely past. I’ve…I’ve got scars from when I tried to do stuff myself. Faded and stuff but there.

A three or four year old shouldn’t have to be picking up a broken wine glass off the floor, or fixing his own meals….

She makes that better too.

I remember snuggling into her and holding her tight.
Not her needing me because of her nightmare but me holding her because I really, really needed someone to hold, to hang onto.

You ever need to do that so much that if you don’t you might just hurt and shake so bad you might literally fly apart.

Hunter, made it better.

Saved me.

I think though that US becoming us was/has been a serious part of everything feeling like it’s getting to be better, that things are starting to heal.

I don’t have to slap on my fake face to the world with her. Before Jen…other’s they didn’t care that I’d have had a nightmare and that inside everything was like someone stuffed me full of razorblades. It was shut up Alex, just be the pretty rich boy with the perfect life and smile…do as you’re told…

Hunter I can breathe around, be real around. It’s like everything I knew was black and white and shades of grey and then I met Hunter and fell in love and she brought color into my universe.

***

And that takes us right up to today and why it was a really…..great and why it was kind of really messed up too and back to being amazing…maybe more?

Hunter and I made love.

She and I the day before had a good day if a weird one? We had slept together in our bed and in the shower…we…we took a shower together which was amazing and it had gotten moreso as Hunter touched me, really touched me and she gave me a “hand” that morning…we had just a really good day really and ended it going to bed together.

It was really early in the morning when Hunter woke up and we went there. We made love and she was scared as scared gets of exactly what this all means and there’s stuff going on in her head that had more to do that what we were going to do, or rather what we had done…

Hunter took the lead. I’ve wanted to but I’m scared to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt her.

And yes I’m fully aware of Hunter Not being genetically a girl but…I have never really felt or seen hunter as a guy, even naked and together there’s just nothing really guy about her, it’s not really a gay thing or even I think one of those gender crossing things?

I think this is a heart to heart connection and like I said before…I love Hunter so much that it’d never matter.

Honestly making love to her was the best sex I think I ever had, and I was so scared at first of hurting her because she’s still recovering…still so thin and tiny and to me, the most beautiful gift in the world.

Part of me cried because of that.

Part of me wanted to have never been with anyone before Hunter.

And as much as it was sex it was so much more. It was making love and my sweet, beautiful brave girl took me to the limits of my heart and soul and she pulled me out of them.

She changed me, then in those moments and Alex that had always been the guy, the person that I had thought that I was just stopped…and Alex the guy that she see’s when she looks at me started. The me that I never though I could be took his first breath of air in her arms.

Yeah……..Guy’s….

That’s what the Love of the right woman does for you.

Hunter gathered up all those pieces of my broken soul and made me whole again.

Then “He” just had to stick his nose into a perfect day. Into this perfect morning and he pretty much ordered me to go to this dinner with him and April and some clients. I know he doesn’t think much of Hunter. I know she’s pissed him off by interfering in his plans and the way that he wanted things to go with me.

This isn’t even about me.

No I know “Him” it one of those life lessons that he’s going to run at Hunter’s expense.

I called his bluff though, I said we’d go.

It’s Hunter, she can do this, she can do anything. And I was mad…yeah really mad but at the same time…I want to see her show him, I want to see Hunter just shove his bullshit in his face…

I got madder than I should have. I know I did and it hurt, it hurt that he just sort of trampled over what Hunter and I just shared and had been through.

What happens?

Hunter made it better, we hadn’t even gotten into the Quad when just…just by being her she makes it better.

You know that whole…Hunter letting me hold her and hang onto her thing….she does it again and I get to smell her and breathe in her scent and just decompress. She takes away the anger and the pain and she makes it better, more than better as she turns and she pulls herself to me…and stands on her tip toes and she kisses everything better.

She’s so happy this morning it lifted me up, and she just seemed to shine. I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Hunter has this little half smile, this I’m hiding something I know something you don’t know smile half the time.

This morning she’s got this smile on her face and…. Seeing that smile on her face is like a blind guy seeing the sunrise for the first time.

……………Lunch time was even better. A bit of a picnic and a whole lot of kissing and making out and actually just laying out in the sunshine, kissing and just…I got to hold Hunter in my arms in the sunshine and see that smile stay on her face while she just slept in sunshine.

Even going home, even going home was cool and getting ready and seeing Hunter all dressed up was…

Ow…My heart.

The date was the best date I ever had in my life. I’m not a dancer but I dance with her. I have a good time, great food. Armstrong’s is always a great place to come and hang out rather than ending up at some of the skeevy so called teen dance places.

In between the dancing we sit and drink, talk and more than ever kiss and kiss and make out and touch each other and It all comes to this.

Hunter kissing me and straddling my lap and looking me deeply in my eyes as she kisses me then she puts her forehead to mine and stares into my eyes and says to me in this take my breath away soft intense voice.

“Take me home Alex, please. Take me home and make love to me.”

Again…

Ow…My heart.

Sweet Dreams-16.…A Waking First Breath.

Chapter 16

I was sweaty from dancing, I was almost buzzed from the whole night where it just seems like my life is finally gelling, turning into something real and It’s running through my veins. The music, the food, the dancing…god I love dancing I feel like I shook off years of bullshit out there on the dance floor. The friendship of some of the other girls and even that solid, but fucked up friends thing I have with Jennifer.

But through all of it was Alex….I slid over to hit through the crowds to where he was sitting drinking a bottle of water and looking all….Goddamn he’s sexy as hell and with everything about him…..Ow…My Heart.

I slip onto his lap and straddle him and I actually enjoy sitting there and sinking on his lap and leaning forward all the way over until my forehead touches his and I’m letting my straight blonde hair frame our faces and for scant moments I let myself just fall in and drown in those eyes of his before I start to hungrily kiss him.

Like I said real man type big tough guys can be beautiful….Alex has killer eyes. They’re framed by these dark dense lashes that are long but they’re just full enough and dark enough that he smolders…then I’m looking into these brown eyes…When god made Alex he made those eyes like some old French guy makes wine.

At first glance they’re brown but then you notice these little things there hints of bronze or copper, like these little streaks, amber too, chocolate…His eyes look like brown Chinese silk with sunshine kissing it, his eyes look like someone gave elemental earth a soul.

And those eyes are looking at me like I’ve never been looked at in my life….like I’m real, like I’m special, like I matter and mean something…that he needs me and he loves me.

And just like that…

Just like that.

I’m in Love with Alex.

I’m in Love with Alex.

Love’s actually real….

I’m in Love with Alex.

Ow….My Heart.

“Alex…take me home, take me home and make love to me.”

It wasn’t even scary this time when I said it. I really, really want this. I want more of how close we were last night. I want it more than the actual sex…but I want that too.

God I love the way he looks at me.

There’s this really old movie. “Officer and a gentleman.” where at the end of the movie that Richard Gere guy carries her out of that place in his arms…I never really though that stuff was romantic until that’s the way that Alex carries me out of there and out to his car.

We’re not that far as things go from his place but it feels like forever. We can’t help but to kiss at red lights between there and home and everyone we’re getting horns beeped and blasted at us.

I ask him to make one stop and I stop a drug store and buy a few needed things.

We get back and there must be the dinner party because there’s a midnight blue Cadillac in the garage too. Nice, expensive this years model. And yeah the house is that big we have space to park too plus all the extras.

Alex doesn’t really say anything about that instead he opens my door for me and helps me out of the car like a gentleman and stuff and we kiss against his car for a bit then he takes me by the hand upstairs.

There’s a lot more kissing once we’re inside and we’re peeling each other out of our clothes and that’s kind of fun too. Do you know how hard it is to get a shirt off of a guy as big and as tall as Alex? I can’t help myself, I don’t want to help myself but I kiss and feel his chest, taste his skin and bury my face into his as I take in that smell, that scent that’s just…Alex.

I really, really get when you don’t have your loved one near you or you lose them and you just cling to that scent of them in whatever’s left…

He’s doing the same and this time I relishing the feeling of his great big hands all rough and yet huge and gentle running over my body and my smooth skin. I suck on one of his fingers at one point, he kisses me so passionately he leaves me a little starry eyed and breathless.

We get to our room and it’s really hot and heavy until I break it off. “Alex wait…I want this to be perfect, to be special…I’m going to go get ready…can you do something while I’m…I’m…getting pretty for you?”

“You’re already the most beautiful person I’ve ever met Hunter.”

“Please?”

“Anything for you…I Love You.”

My universe just stopped and I nearly burst into tears right there. I knew, I though I knew but there’s this part of me that didn’t, was still fighting it and in denial and thought those nagging thoughts even since we’ve been together….I still had that something saying You’re not worthy of love.

It wasn’t even that Alex said it.

It was how he said it, the way he looked at me.

Don’t read into this, I’m really in love with Alex for Alex but the last person in my life that told me they loved me like that was my Daddy…(yeah crying now.) Yeah Daddy, the age I lost him that’ll always will be what I’ll call him.

Do you know what it feels like to get that part of your soul back?

“I Love You Too….” I look into his eyes and try to send those words into his soul and there’s a moment where he reaches out and takes my hands and kisses with me, these small tear streams running from his eyes and down his cheeks and we’re kissing and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before…my chest hurts, and it’s not that ow my heart it’s that my soul right now is too big for my body.

………….I’ll leave out the embarrassing use of toiletries as I get clean, really clean for Alex and very, very well lubed…I take another shower and lotion and perfume myself and powder a bit and I slip into a black satin camisole and matching panties…even stockings….I do just a little make up and make sure of everything like three times.

I slip out into the bedroom and Alex has the lights off and there’s candles lit. Everything was just so beautiful. A line from a book I’d read just fit… “In candle light even a hovel’s a palace.” It just so fit the moment and Alex.

I walked, over trying to glide, to move sexy like to him and I love the way he’s smiling at me and the way Alex takes me into his arms and the stereo starts to play that song “Always.” By Bon Jovi. We even start to dance a little in the space on the floor next to the bed.

Then there’s one of those perfect long sweet kisses. I’m still not sure the best way to describe it but it’s like I can feel this flush of heat and I’m hyper aware of my skin. And my nipples actually ache and hurt wanting Alex’s attention and there’s this ache on the inside that I can honestly only say is from me needing him inside of me.

He kisses me as he lay’s me back on the bed and his hands touch my chest from habit or on purpose and he has handfuls of that satin and he’s sliding them over my painful diamond hard nipples and I think it’s going to kill me it hurts so much and feels that good and when he massages them with those handfuls of satin there’s something in my brain that goes off it’s track like a sidewinder and I whine and shiver and cum in my panties.

“Oh Alex, please, please Alex I need you.”

No truer words were ever spoken. He pulls off my sodden panties and tosses them to the floor and he starts with one of his huge fingers. It can’t stay still, I move my hips and wriggle on the bed as the pleasure builds…The finger didn’t hurt I’m that lubed and oh God I feel each knuckle as Alex get’s me ready.

Ready…

Yeah huh….

I feel the helmety shape at my entrance and then he kisses me and there’s that hugely painful stretch that has tears running out of the corners of my eyes as he enters me. It hurts and I whine and I whimper and he stops.

“Alex….no…don’t stop…”

“I’m hurting you…”

“Yeah but I’m still practically a virgin…It’s supposed to…”

He sinks in more slowly feeding me inch by inch and I feel so full, stretched and there’s this heat, his heat inside of me. God it feels weird even to breathe…It’s also strangely so right? Fulfilling? I’m trembling as I feel his pubic hairs settle…my insides are freaking out and twitching like they’re asking me what the hell am I doing?

Part of me that’s gone or just getting smaller and smaller in me would be asking the same thing.

I feel Alex pull out and there’s this sensation that ripples through me. Goosebumps but like they’re on my insides. Then he gets to the head and sinks back into me…I hiss, and bite my lip….so far the out…the outstroke is…

Then he sinks back into me, then out, then into me…I think it’s about stroke seven he’s on the outstroke and I want him in…I wrap my legs around his waist and sort of use them to pull and move to meet him….feeling him sinking into me suddenly becomes this Ooooh feeling and moment as my body suddenly says yes…oh yes and please sir may I have some more. I can’t help the “oh fuck yes…” that comes out of me.

And as scary as it should be, and so much huger Alex is than I am I’m not scared. I look in those eyes as he takes me to worlds of pleasure within myself and I feel loved, treasured, protected and safe.

Everything changes. I get lit on fire inside, I fall deeper and deeper for him and not slowly either…My second orgasm hit’s me as it builds in me like nothing before and it’s like this…I’m flooded with this explosion from inside of myself…like sunshine exploded through my body and I sob it felt so good…better than good, better than before, better than anything.

My skin’s to tight and I need to get out of it, his cock is doing this to me filling me with these waves of heat and light I can’t see and warmth unlike anything I’ve ever know and right now it really feels like I can’t get enough of Alex inside of me and if he stopped making love to me I might just actually die.

My third is more regular like my first and I cry out and arch because I’m Cumming as he’s sinking into me and it just feels like he just used his cock to shove the cum out of my body…Me getting off causes me to clench and seize up around him and Alex cries out my name… “Oh f…God…Hunter!” and I feel him swell inside of me and this really hot force inside of me that’s Alex filling me with his cream and it sends me over the edge right after into my fourth that’s that heat and light and sunshine exploding and flaring through my entire body…

Alex is kissing me and he’s massaging my chest which just takes it higher and higher…you know when you feel the sunshine outside and then a cloud moves or something and you feel the sunshine get brighter and warmer…that’s what Alex playing with my chest does for me…

More when I feel his hot wet mouth take a nipple into his mouth and my brain goes through some kind of crash and a reboot. All of light and warmth and not being to get enough of him. I lose control of my rational self and just become Alex’s lover, become Hunter more and more and more…I have orgasms where nothing come out just this storm of feelings and sensations and tears and love.

There’s one point I’m on top and I’m riding him as wantonly and a deeply passionately as any GG ever could and I swear that I felt god? And she was learning into my ear and saying to me… “Hey…guess what? You’re a girl.”

We’re done almost at the same time. I’m on my who knows how many flood of pleasure and I think it’s his third time that he’s filled me.

I completely pass out and flake out in his arms just too exhausted to move, let alone freak out at the feeling and the cum that’s running out of me….Alex… He rolls me over to his side of our bed and he sleeps in the wet spot…He even pulls off his pillowcase and folds it and slips it to where it’ll catch me leaking and then he wraps those huge arms around my little body and pulls me in tight.

I cry quietly but so, so happily to sleep because of that…I might freak out later but my back to his huge and muscled chest, those huge arms around me and the way he smells all layers over my brain like anesthesia and I drift away smiling bigger than I ever felt in my life…it wasn’t the sex…it was… but it was all that and it was Alex saying “Hunter, I (Sniffle) Love You…” him crying but still saying it and whispering it in my ear as he’d pulled me into him.

…………………. (Just crying…there’s no words…is there.)…………….

***

It’s never felt like this.

I think it was around eleven when I lost my fight with sleep and I wake up without screaming, without Cliff trying to rip my soul apart in my nightmares. For one of the first times in my memory I woke up.

With a smile on my face.

Alex has his arm around me and he’s totally out of it, he has his own nightmares and just how long has he gone without sleeping like a human being…likely before the accident maybe…just some little kid scared to death of mommy not waking up.

His hand is just sort of resting on my stomach and it just feels good to be safe, loved, held. I can’t help but smile…I think anyone would.

I feel the sunshine coming in and it’s not in out eyes yet but it’s warm, it feels clean on my skin. I can’t help but hold my arm out into the beams of it falling on the bed and wiggle my fingers in the sunshine like someone else might do in snow. I’ve never actually taken the time to feel the sun, to really experience it.

More smiles…the clock says; 8:19.

The longest I’ve ever slept in my life with out drugs or being beaten nearly to death.
It’s sad but a happy thing all at the same time. I wonder if I’ll ever not have my life tinged by my past.

I guess there’s a bitter sweetness to my smiles.

I slip out of bed very carefully and as soon as I’m upright the bathroom calls. I’ll spare the details. But I exit cleaned and lotioned and all my usual stuff and I watch Alex sleep for a bit. I slip out to the kitchenette and start making breakfast. Bacon first then I peel an onion and take the box grater and grate it into a bowl then I wash off two large baking potatoes and grate them into the bowl too skins and all. I add salt and pepper and set it aside as I take out some eggs and start making toast.

The eggs go into another pan and as soon as the bacon’s out and draining I pour the grated mixture into the bacon pan for hash browns. I got so into what I was doing I didn’t notice Alex was up until his arms were wrapping around me and he kissed my neck.

I felt like the sun just came into the kitchenette and wrapped me up in light.

“Nothing makes a good as an alarm clock as bacon.” He snuggle murmurs into my neck. Even as sore as I am I lean into him and his arms tighten around me and he smells my hair.

The next bit really has to be one of the best moments of my life. We cook breakfast together. And yeah we’re touchy and feely and all sorts of two people in love but I don’t care. We’re cooking together and kissing and at no point does Alex’s arm leave me. He switches abut more often than not he’s able to just reach in from of me he’s that big and we do things as a team, together as one. I’ll never forget him holding both of my hands with the pan with the hash browns and showing me how to flip it over. It’s all cooked together and brown and crispy and perfect.

Just like our morning is perfect.

Like drinking coffee from the same great big giant mug is perfect.

I’m happy and smiling the whole morning and even kiss Alex at the garage door as he takes off for his morning run.

Adam’s car isn’t in the garage or the driveway but the Cadillac still is. I stand for a few minutes nervous as hell before I press the doorbell.

Sweet dreams-17...Cinderella? Hey Aren’t Glass Shoes for Hookers?

Chapter 17

I’m standing waiting at the front door and I can’t help it I’m nervously leaning back and forth from foot to foot and trying not to be nervous, try to do something with my arms which for some reason seem to be in my way until I end up sort of crossing then and kind of hugging myself. The door opens and I’m looking at this stunningly beautiful blonde.

Yes beautiful, super model like even. I’ve no idea if she’s had work done or not but she’s in work out gear and slightly sweaty and I feel a stirring that I seldom feel below since being with Alex. April is five eight, maybe a hundred and forty pounds, most of that is these firm big perky DD’s and the rest seems to be legs. Blonde hair and these striking blue eyes blue with grey in them that’s so light that her eyes pop with this blue sky and clouds on a sunny day king of thing.

If April was a trophy wife then she’s the academy award of them.

“Hello, Mrs. Donovan….I’m Hunter, I’m Alex’s girlfriend…I need your help.”

She’s looking me up and down then her head tilts to one side than the other.

“You need my help? How can I help you then?”

“I…I…I don’t have the slightest clue to what I’m doing with this fancy dinner thing that we have to go to. I don’t know how to dress or how to act and … and you do…this has never been my world ma’am…”

Yeah I used, ma’am I can use some of the manners that I picked up along the way.

“Hmm, you’re interesting child I’ll give you that. You’re the first one of Alex’s girls that’s ever had the guts to do this.”

“Guts…oh no I’m plenty scared ma’am.”

“Honest too. Well come in and we’ll talk.”

It’s the first time I’ve actually been into the main house…holy crow, I’m almost afraid to look at things. But I do, I can’t help it. The place is huge, I’m actually in a house that has a foyer and the stairs that go upstairs curve and it’s small but it is a chandelier that’s there.

There’s this feeling following her that’s a lot like the way I feel with the cheergirls, that actually feeling attraction to them a little but more than that wondering, wishing even that I could be that way. I’m seriously not a dummy and I know I’ve got gender and sexuality issues all tied up with my PTSD stuff. I’m kind of scared to be a girl, I mean if I could be a real girl…I mean look how my mother had turned out.

There’s a hand on my shoulder and she’s looking at me. “Hunter? You still with me? You were a thousand miles away there.”

“Y..Yeah, I’m sorry I was just thinking about something.”

“Well you look like what you were thinking didn’t agree with you. Come into the kitchen and we’ll talk. Do you like coffee?”

“Oh yes please I practically live on the stuff.”

“I think that’s one thing in the list of stuff we have in common thing.”

I give her a bit of a weak smile at that. God have you ever been in the company of a girl or a woman so beautifully female that you can almost feel the light she’s giving off showing up every single flaw that you have? April’s like that she’s not bubbly but she was one of those bubbly happy naturally beautiful people.

“Alex says you’re not a real fan of the kitchen.”

“He’s right; I’m so not a domestic. I had to take Home economics when I was in school and I said that’s the last time I’d do stuff like that. But who care’s right? I don’t need to cook and all that stuff when I can afford not to.”

That being said she takes me into this very cheffy looking kitchen that’s actually bigger than the Apartment that Alex and I have over the garage. It’s all hardwood and glass and wrought iron with those high end black enameled appliances to match.

There’s some thing about all this black and Adam that kind of makes this feel like Darth Vader’s kitchen.

We got to this part of the counter that got these machines on it and she takes out this coffee packet that looks like it’s a mini ice cream cup and drops one in two machines and puts these black big round bowl styled coffee cups underneath.

I’ve never seen such a fancy home coffee making thingy. I’m feeling right out of my depth here. The coffee is really good though. But April looking at me is still freaking me out.

She finally say’s. “Get up Hunter and let me take a look at what I’m working with.”

“Okay.” I get up. She motion’s at me go and walk around the kitchen and back again. I do and she’s sipping her coffee and watching me.

“You’re really skinny, not a bad thing you certainly have that waif thing going on. You’ve got a really nice little butt though and not bad hips for your size, nothing really going on up top but that’s not unusual for skinny girls like you. I think that we can work with this.”

“Okay…I really have a cute butt? And my hips are okay?” I’m asking because that’s news to me.

“Mmm, definitely and you’ve got great hair too, long and blonde and straight you can do a lot with that and great legs too.”

I’m blushing because…Well I don’t know I guess because I’ve really never had the chance to get used to praise before. And April’s not as bad as I thought, yeah she’s a little superficial but I guess not really as bad as I thought she’d be.

“So you will help me?”

“Sure! It’ll be fun and maybe it’ll score me a few points with Alex.”

“He doesn’t really seem like your biggest fan sometimes.”

“Oh I know but I can live with that even if it still kind of hurts. His Mom had really messed him up and Adam has all his issues too and he was really messing Alex up even more until him and I got married but both of them are a ton of work.”

“How so?” I sit and finish my coffee. It’s kind of weird being one of two women sitting and talking about their guys. But it’s still kind of intimidating sitting and trying to be on an even female state with April who just kind of radiates her sex. Early to mid thirties and she still must attract a huge amount of attention and she’s still in what looks like morning work out wear.

“Well take Adam he was this up and coming driven young lawyer who married his high school sweetheart and she just didn’t get into the drugs and the alcohol but she tried to kill his son. Then there’s the fact she was wiping out their accounts with her habits and he was trying to pay for the house and everything else that they had though that he could afford he still had to prove himself to his family who told him that he was turning his back on the family because he chose to become a “Scum-sucking Lawyer.” Rather than a cop or get a “Decent, honest job.” Like the rest of the family at one of the auto-plants.

“But he’s doing the same thing with Alex. Alex doesn’t want to be a football player; he doesn’t want the same things for his life as his father does.”

“Yeah, I know and I’ve tried to tell them both that but Alex barely stays in the same room as me and Adam say’s it’s none of my business and it’s been that way for a long time. Eight years.”

“Eight years?”

“Yuh-huh, I married Adam when Alex was about eight and between the times between the “accident” and the time he was in recovery and the nannies after that they both had fallen into this rut-slash-war between the each other.”

“It just seems like his dad takes it too far, he had him followed and his computer bugged and who knows what else?”

“He’s trying to protect Alex in his own way. He doesn’t think Alex really has any idea of what he wants other that getting lost in his dreamworld.”

“Dreamworld, Alex is an artist and he’s a damned good one too.”

“Yeah he is but Adam doesn’t call that real work.”

“But that’s…that’s just like what his folks told him about being a lawyer.”

“Yeah but for all of Adam going against the family he’s still raised by Detroit blue and I don’t think his family would think of Alex being an artist as work either.”

That’s making a bit of sense; people around here can be sort of generationally valued. Your family were cops then you’re gonna be a cop, the same thing with the auto-trades and steel workers and stuff like that, the tough guy jobs…even the gangers like Cliff and them have this whole bringing in family as the next generation thing. Don’t get me wrong if you want to be part of something like that…well the cop or family trade thing that’s great but go too far out of the norm and you’re making the family look bad.

We’re raised in our prejudices, we might not follow them but those little reactions and voices are still there. Adam’s deal with Alex is likely part of that. I know that it was a bad marriage now and I’ve lived in enough shitty places that I’ve seen simple family arguments spin out of control. If Alex’s mom was messed up that bad and just about destroyed Adam’s life then almost taking Alex with her…that can mess someone up. Especially if under all the pain and fighting and bullshit he still loved her.

“I’m thinking that, I’m starting to get a picture of what’s going on. God we’re in quite a mess with these two.” I run my fingers through my hair and tuck it back. Aprils looking at me.

“You know Hunter; you’re the first girl who seems like she’s given a shit about Alex and the family. Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do before the party tonight. You’re really clueless about all of this stuff.”

I look her in the eyes. “My Mom was a hooker April and she turned tricks to support her drug habit, I grew up in a really bad part of town and I’ve never even been to this side of town before Alex rescued me.”

Yeah I looked her in the eyes and opened up and told her some of my shit. April’s looking at me as she’s taking our cups. “Rescued?”

I help taking the stuff from her and washing them or rather rinsing them off and putting them into the dishwasher. “I met Alex when I had to hide from some thugs in my old school, I ended up falling asleep and when I woke up the bus company had switched the one I was on to pick up Alex and them from their field trip. I helped Alex out and he gave me some cash and we sort of clicked, sort of not…we actually had a fight or rather I did and yelled at him.”

“Over what?”

“He kissed me a few times to throw Jennifer off and stuff; I had some serious issues with someone like Alex liking me…”

I almost actually get upset; I’m not used to this…opening up. Not to some one like April, Hali’s different, she’s more my kind of people. April’s one of the big scary better than me types…this is like that baring your throat to the wolf thing. She puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Hunter….”

“No…no…I’m okay, it’s just meeting someone like Alex really put back into place who I was and where I came from….” I take a big breath. “Anyway Alex gave me a bunch of money and it lasted a bit with me buying a bit of groceries and stuff but they found out and things went south and…..Alex got me…out of there when I didn’t have anyone else to call. I’ve never….mom didn’t know anything like this and ……”

I shake a bit like a mix of anger and fear and “God I hate this…I’m so scared…”

“Hunter…Hunter relax, take it easy. I’m going to help; I’m going to get you through this.”

Okay, I’m getting that headache again, that wanting to cry, needing to cry but I can’t. I stomp my foot….I can feel the stick pins…hear Cliff’s whisper… “Crying ain’t gonna make me stop…it ain’t gonna bring no one, crying’s nuthin but useless ya little faggit.”

I sink to the floor and she’s helping me breathe. Yup, hyperventilating. “Why…why are you helping me…? (pant…pant…)…I’m not like you…”

“No, no you’re definitely not like me Hunter but that’s not a bad thing. I was a total self serving bitch when I was your age and it took a few lessons with some real users and it made me rethink my life a lot Hunter, It’s why I ended up marrying a widower with a traumatized eight year old boy.”

“You weren’t in it for the money?” (Sniffle, weak laugh.)

“Oh, I knew Adam was heading places but he wasn’t this flush when we got together. And well he was getting to that point where being single again wasn’t going over well with the firm and my parents had money enough to get us started in setting up his own firm so we just sort of happened too. I was looking for a guy that I knew could take care of me don’t get me wrong on that, I’m a spoiled Daddy’s girl and I know it but I wanted a guy that could stand up for himself too.”

I run my fingers through my hair again. “But taking on a widower and a kid like that. That’s a lot of stuff on your plate.”

“Yeah it was but as much as I wanted what I wanted in life, it was just something I couldn’t walk away from. Both Adam and Alex are totally different people when you get to peek past all the walls and defenses.”

“Yeah I saw that in Alex. You’re not as bad as I was dreading. I was expecting an older version of Jennifer.”

“Oh well I guess we’re both cut from the same cloth but different designers. I was Jennifer when I was her age only not as aggressive but that’s got to be the generation or something. It’s likely why I didn’t like her. I knew what was going on in that head of hers.”

“You didn’t like her but she told me that you too got along and went shopping and stuff like that.”

“Keep your friends close and enemies closer Hunter.”

“So what am I?”

“You’re a friend, and a kid who needs some help I’ll be your fairy step-mother there Cinderella.”

“Who?”

She’s looking at me. “You’ve never seen Cinderella? The fairy tale? With Prince Charming and the glass slipper and the fairy godmother?”

“No…the Step-shit didn’t allow stuff like that around it was a waste of money him and mom could blow on other things.”

I’m getting up and she’s helping me to my feet. “Well, that’s just wrong, go get changed something easy to slip in and out of because we’ll be trying on clothes and stuff. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Cinderella.”

“April…the only people I know who wear glass shoes are hookers.”

She looks at me a few minutes and she starts laughing. It’s a tension breaker and I join in a little bit to and she smiles at me then gives me a push. “Go on, I need to get changed too.”

I head out through the garage and up into the apartment and get into the shower. I’m just drying off and slipping into some new clothes an undershirt and a sweater with a skirt and my plain-Jane shoes and making sure I’ve got my money and stuff in my purse. Alex comes in and he’s drinking one of his shake things right out of the blender. “What’s up you’re changing again?”

“I’m going out with April.” I look at him and he stopped drinking his shake.

“My Step-Mother April?” His voice got all somber and serious.

“Yeah, it was kind of Jen’s idea.” He starting to look pissed off. “Wait, Alex wait, Jen was right. If I went about it the right way then she can show me the stuff that I’ll need to know to get ready for this and she might even know where we’re going and stuff so I can prepare in advance.”

He stops and he blinks. “Are you sure, April’s….”

“She’s not that bad as all things go Alex, she is a lot like an older version of Jen, she could be a hell of a lot worse and we both know it.”

“Yeah…I guess you’re right. It’s just …..”

“Her and you never connected and there’s lots of good reasons for that, heck she even knows that Alex. She’s spoiled and rich Alex and she admits to that she’s not really looking at getting in good with you Alex she just kind of wants a truce more than anything.”

“Huh, I didn’t even get her that much credit.”

“Well you were looking for reasons not to like her after your mom and stuff.”

He’s stopped drinking his shake again and he’s staring at me but I’m not going to let him getting upset get to me this time. Alex needs to hear some of this stuff and face some of the stuff in his life.

“Not pulling any punches are you?”

“No, I love you too much for that.”

“So…”

“So…”

“So…what do I do?” He moves and takes a seat on the corner of the bed. He’s looking at me.

“Just let the stuff with your mom go with her, she’s not her, she’s not trying to replace her she’s just kind of trying to do something at least decent with the hand she was dealt.”

“Decent?”

I go over and run my fingers through his hair and lean down and kiss him and put my forehead to his. “Alex, she came into this marriage with a husband who’s a widower and a child who had been through hell and back.”

“Yeah but she was looking for the money…”

“She was but Alex, she could’ve made off with half of everything a long time ago, but she didn’t she stayed.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s not that bad as you’d made her out to be in your head Alex, she’s still what she’s like but there’s some good stuff there too. Part of her honestly gives a shit about both of you Alex and that’s why she stayed.”

“So what do I do?”

“Play their game with our plays? Is that the right football thing?” Alex nods and there’s that ghost of a smile there. “Go to where your Dad’s playing golf and have a game with him or shoot some balls with the bucket thing…”

“Driving range, you’re such a girl.” He’s smiling a little more.

“Shut up, You pay for the balls or whatever.” I slap his arm/shoulder.

“Why would I want to spend time with him?”

“Alex he’s your Dad, you two should try to get along…shit look, just tell him that I’m going shopping with April and that I told you to go and spend time with him.”

“And I’d do that because you asked me?”

He’s got that little smirky smile on his face now and that makes him just so damned cute…he looks like that Tim Riggins guy from that show Friday Night Lights but with about another forty pounds of pure hard muscle on him.

“No……….You’d do that because you love me?” I smile, Blink, blink, blink…I give him my best innocent girl charm exaggerated look.

He get’s up and kisses me. Okay we kiss for awhile; it actually gets into that whole making out stage of things and everything when the apartment phone rings. He picks it up. “Hello? Oh hi April, yeah she’s ready…uhm…thanks for this, I’ll send her right down.”

“She’s ready huh?”

“Yeah. Hunter here, I want you to take this with you.” He passes me a wad of cash.

“Alex…this, this is too much…”

“No…I used my company expense card, I took it out of the ATM but just bring the change back and the receipts. I don’t want him to have an excuse to bitch and moan.”

“Okay…and Alex.”

“Hmmmm?”

“That was nice, thanking her. I’m proud of you.” I smile and I take both my hands and touch his face and give him a long passionate kiss. He kisses me back and he’s blushing after I break the kiss. “I’ll see you later Alex.”

I leave and I’m smiling and heading down the stairs and April’s waiting for me at the door to go outside and she’s staring at me. Her eyes are a little red and shiny. I rub her shoulder and she hugs me.

“What did you say to Alex? He hasn’t talked to me like that in a long time.”

“The truth, I told him that it wasn’t just the money, and that He and his Dad mean something to you…I mean you didn’t leave. A lot of people would have bailed.”

She hugs me again and we step outside and there’s a limousine there waiting for us.

“A limo?”

“Yup, Adam’s booked it for the entire day so I figured the best way to get you started is to get you used to being in one of these things first.”

“Oh, well that makes sense.”

We get into the limo, with April showing me how to and we take off leisurely cruising while she puts in a video into the DVD player. This thing is huge and so very, very posh. I really sort of am feeling out of place yet kind of blown away by the experience. I actually settle down with her as the flat screen TV lowers from the ceiling and I get to watch Disney’s Cinderella for the first time in my life. Okay it’s dated and old even if it’s been redone but my biggest thoughts were….Holy shit, that’s kind of me…

We even sit in the parking lot outside of this mall way out on Michigan Ave called the Fairlane Town center until we’re done the movie and we both head inside after the driver get’s out and opens the door for us and helps us out. April shows me how to do that too and we actually do it three times just to be sure that I’ve got it down.

He comes with us our shadow to carry things. I’m a little Huh and wow do rich people really live in their own universe kind of thing.

Then we start shopping…me I’m mostly looking but so’s April, apparently when you have a lot of stuff you can be picky and don’t have the need to spend money like a drunken sailor.

We check out places like Bath & Beauty Works and The Body Shop and I get a few scented candles at the first one and then we head to a bewildering amount of clothing stores and places and I get two extended hem tops at Forever 21 for a really good price Like seven bucks each and they’re a nice neutral grey color that I can just wear with just about everything. I get a textured grey and black striped one there too for like twenty dollars and a silvery and black striped sequined tank for like another Twenty dollars oh yeah I spent like sixty bucks already and stuff but it’s worth it because I...I’ve never had new clothes before even Hali’s stuff is new.

It feels really good to buy stuff with my own money. We’re there awhile trying on dresses well I’m trying out dresses that we think will look good for a nice night out but a business night out. I get myself their lace back double knit dress it’s sexy, it’s short and great looks great with my legs and I got it for eighteen bucks. It’s not for the party but it could be but I have my very first little black dress.

I’m a little freaked with April just sort of barging in with stuff and either she just hasn’t said anything yet or just hasn’t noticed it becomes a sort of non issue after like the fifth time that she does it.

She buy’s me two nice tank dresses I was looking at one in blue and another one in this brown they call faun and I try to protest.

“I can’t that really too generous, I should pay for my own things.”

“Nonsense, you barely own a thing and if you had your mother would have pawned it off or something, I’d hand you down some things of mine Hunter but anything I own would just hand on you. Think of some of this as housewarming presents okay”

“I don’t know…”

“Please…do you know how long it’s been since I was shopping for clothes like this, in a store like this, not since I was a teenager too. You lose track of the people who you used to hang around with, I really don’t have a whole lot of people to shop with and have a good time like I used to when I was you’re age.”

“Okay…okay… as long as you’re getting something out of this too.”

I end up blowing a hundred dollars there once I buy some new underwear. It was a pretty good deal on the panties and I got three pair of the cheeky kind in just black with lacy trim and two of these black sheer lace bralettes given my lack of anything up top. They look good on my too in that Hunter’s a real girl kind of way.

Okay one ten, I buy myself these Gel Posies basically boob inserts in a flesh tone and they end up giving me more that a little something….okay I’m in the A cup ranges with them but with them in the bralette and the panties…I really don’t look like me and all that awkward body movement and trying to find the right ways to pose or to stand just goes away….no matter which way I turn or move it all screams… Hunter is a Girl!

I’m not even wearing make up right now. April convinces me to wear them out of the store.

I think I’m catching the shopping disease. There’s so many things that I like, that I’d like to have that I feel just mixed up. I hate materialistic people but it’s almost like I’m becoming one. But I know that I don’t really own sweet fuck all really and I can still stuff everything I own into my old army duffle. And I’m hurt and mad at Mom and at Cliff for doing this to me. And I want to not spend a damned cent on my dress for this diner tonight and Adam can see the fact that I don’t give a shit about his money.

Once we’re out of there April comes to my rescue with the suggestion of coffee. I love coffee it’s good to me…But the bad thing about coffee is the fact that if you’re a smoker than coffee goes really well with a smoke. My craving kicks in too, I fidgeting as she’s ordering. “Hunter you okay?”

“I quit smoking for Alex just a couple of days ago; I’m right in the middle of a nic-fit.”

“Oh well here.” She orders me a square a brownie but with this dark chocolate on the top and drizzled caramel and salt? She get’s one too. “I remember when I quit, dark chocolate helps as well as cinnamon and chilies. There’s all three in this.”

I bite into something that I’m pretty sure made my brain burst into a puddle of goo and slid down to tickle my toes and make me giggle. Oh…oh…if you’ve never had salt and chocolate you must…must…must…it’s actually so good it almost gave me the shakes.

Dark chocolate molle caramel brownie….with hazel nuts instead of walnuts.

We’re at it for quite awhile going though Macy’s, Sears, JC Penney, Hot Topic…god I’m in lust with some of the stuff there and a few other places in a bewildering shopping thing. I end up spending another thirty dollars at payless and April gets me two pairs of shoes to go with the dresses she got me. I’m blushing when she does.

“Hunter stop, while it’s really nice getting a dress if you don’t have the shoes to go with it then it’s just not right. It’s like I didn’t get you all of the present besides, I’ve never had a daughter or even a kid sister and you’re kind of both. I’ve never had this much fun with any of Alex’s girlfriends before.”

It’s at Charlotte Russe where we find my dress. It’s a black lightly runched tank dress that’s sleek and clingy and sexy and short but it’s a more elegant sort of little black dress. Yeah short about three quarters of the way above my knees and yet once I’m in it…oh dammit mom…why couldn’t you just not have been so…

And Again… I’m trying to fight tears or maybe it’s fighting to cry and fighting those shadow hurts, Cliff’s voice in my head…it takes awhile before I can get a hold of myself in the changing room.

It’s going to haunt me the rest of my life isn’t it?

Too bad for them, I’m starting a new life, I’m Hunter Williams now not William Hunter. Will died back there in my old apartment when the beat me and then took off leaving him for dead…Alex hauled Hunter out of there.

Fuck you Mom, fuck you Cliff. You couldn’t kill me.

I look in the mirror and take a deep breath and step out to show April. The way she gushes and goes on makes me blush and actually wipes some of the crap away. She’s only met me really today and she’s not really the kind of person that I’d have associated with before but she’s also treated me better than most people have ever treated me.

Out of my pay and the commission I have just enough to buy my dinner dress at a steal being only thirty nine dollars, and after another pair of shoes to go with them these cheap but nice high heels I’ve six dollars left to my name and I feel so good.

I’m broke all over again but I paid for it myself. It feels like I’m standing a little taller and it’s not just the four inch heels.

After that though it’s training time and for my girl lessons April has me in my “for me” little black dress and my heels as we move through the mall. She gets me to stop and sit, get up, move, go up the stairs to the next level and back down but combines it all with our shopping and we even go to one of the better restaurants to have dinner around two in the afternoon and there she shows me all the fancy manners and stuff.

Its fun and it’s not fun at the same time. Its work and more than that. It’s more distance between who I used to be and who I am now. This is me getting a chance to learn something that normally I’d never have a chance to learn. You know when you’re learning about something totally new but it just speaks to you? Yeah I’m having one of those moments coupled with the fact that every time I look at my reflection its Hunter, me, the girl in the picture.

I’m so not used to the attention that I’m getting either, some older guys but most of those are scoping April out and she’s not shy about showing the world she’s smoking hot but at the same time there’s this vibe she’s giving off that she’s in a whole other leaguer than most of the drooling guys.

But I’m getting it too, getting stares and checked out by most of the guys probably from twenty five on down. Heh, if they only knew right? Well for one I’d likely be dead. It’s a heady feeling to catching some of those glances and stuff. It makes me wonder about me in the other dress and Alex’s reaction.

We end the shopping and get back into the limo and there a few more stops for some more coffee which is us going into Starbucks so I can practice more and so we can get refueled.

We ended up at this place some swanky salon place called Eternia. I’m really careful to keep my panties on but it’s not a huge problem but this…this is like you see in the movies, massage and those hot stones, getting slathered in creams and hairs removed and plucked and a manicure with a lot better fake nails and my eye brows done and then some kind of special soap in the shower before I’m put through the tanning machine…I fell asleep in there, it was so toasty warm and stuff.

The final bit was a dress rehearsal in our outfits after they did our hair and our make up. It’s never felt like this to be me. Seriously, I’ve never felt, pretty, or beautiful or even worthwhile for so much of my life and in my diner dress and my heels all made up. It honestly feels like there’s this rusty and crusty stuff on my heart that’s cracking and falling away.

I wasn’t expecting Adam and Alex to be waiting for us outside the salon when we are at our best and spiffiest but I walk outside and they’re there and Alex is wearing this black cotton dress shirt with one of those really sharp looking collarless suit jackets and really nice dress pants and dress shoes he looks so…

………………………...Ow my Heart.

And the way that he’s looking at me right now is the best and purest thing I’ve ever felt in my life except for when we made love.

………………………...Ow my Heart.

Sweet Dreams-18 Alex…………and Adam.

Chapter 18

It was the morning after Hunter and I got together for the second time but really it was more of or first time and it was just fucking amazing. More than amazing it changed me I think maybe.

Maybe…

I was almost mad when she told me that she was going shopping with April and her and Jen had talked this through and then I don’t know…

Hunter is so not like these people and so not full of shit that when she tells me something she tells me something even if it’s something that I’ll hate. She’ll say it.

And she makes me think.

Like just that I might have been not exactly giving April a fair shake? I guess it’s like I might have been calling emotional blitz plays on her for a long time.

Like Hunter said.
She stayed.
She didn’t have to, and still she stayed.

And then there’s Hunter herself, of themselves but it’s more her. I just can’t see or process Hunter as a guy. Even when we made love there was nothing guy about it. I don’t think…I mean I don’t really know much about gay sex and stuff but everything with Hunter is just different.

I’ve had a lot of sex and not just with Jen, I’ve really been around and stuff and there’s been times where the sex was amazing. Where it was like being in love with them but only it wasn’t.

The times that I’ve been with Hunter it’s so unlike anything I’d ever known before and there’s this part of me that knows that I’ll never have this with someone or anyone else. I’ve seen the look of pleasure and orgasmic rapture that I know what it looks like when things are really, really good.

But Hunter…

Once we got passed the first clumsy and passionate parts of being together and making love there was this Joyful expression there in her eyes and right down into her soul.

When have you ever been with someone and they look at you not just with love but with Joy?
I’m still wiping my eyes from feeling that.

It’s why when she asked me to go to the country club and try to spend some time with Adam.

I’m not doing it out of any reason to reconnect with him or any of that I miss my Daddy crap. The fucker wasn’t even there even when he was there. Just as long as I was there to be his trophy kid and make him seem like he was a success.

Yeah I’m still mad and angry and hurting. But I’m still doing this for Hunter.

It’s almost an unfamiliar drive. I’ve long divorced myself from this part of my life and I can feel myself tense up as I drive to the gates and show my I.D. and the guard raises the gate saying. “Great morning Mr. Donavan to play a few holes isn’t it.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice day. You have a good one okay?” Yeah I talk to “The Help” I really don’t like this place. You want a good example of why? I’m driving a 2011 model black Dodge Charger and as I pull up to the club and the valet takes my keys my car is one of the cheapest ones here.

You can almost smell the scent of money here over the over uses cologne and perfume. I’m not really dressed to play either. Black slacks and shoes, and a black t-shirt and my varsity jacket.

The valet calls over a caddy who takes my golf bag and we head to the pro-shop and the actual golf club part of the country club. I’m getting looks and getting stared at and then it happens the Richie-rich- press. People Adam knows and some only by acquaintance are intercepting me in this socially acceptable kind of way and they shake hands with me and they introduce themselves or re-introduce themselves and invariably their wives who are introducing me to their daughters.

Which led to the question I was really happy to answer. “We don’t see you here enough Alex, what brings you here today?”

I smile and say. “Hunter, my girlfriend asked me to come and spend some time with Dad today.”

There’s this bubble bursting moment for some of the girls and their mothers that serves them right. But there’s a few dogged ones holding onto the bone.

“Hunter? Not Jennifer?”

“No not Jennifer, we didn’t click, Jen was just too superficial and Hunter’s way more honest and down to earth, I guess that’s why we’re living together.”

I almost laugh at the looks. “Excuse me everyone I see Dad over at the bar.”

I leave them and head over to where Adam’s having a morning drink with some of the other elites. I belly up to the bar myself catch the bartenders eye. “I’ll have what he’s having.” And nod my head towards Adam. He turns at the sound of my voice. Stares at me then gives his nod to the bartender who pours me a drink. I take a sip of the Jameson’s and look back at him.

“I’m surprised to see you here this morning Alex, you don’t come here anymore.”

“Hunter’s going shopping for tonight with April, she thought that you and I should get together.”

“Really… why?”

“I think she wants us to be closer.”

“Oh so this is her sucking up to me?”

“No, I think she see’s the way we are as something that should be better than what it is.”

“Why?”

“She had a really, shitty homelife.”

“Well, there’s a lot I don’t know about her then isn’t there.”

“You mean you haven’t been able to dig up.”

“You have to be careful Alex, you have to be. I don’t like the fact I know so little about her.”

“Why…Dad, you’re not with her.”

“I don’t know her motives…yet.”

“She doesn’t have any.”

He just shakes his head and then he’s shaking hands with some of the men that just walked up and then he introduces me into the round of shaking hands. Mostly lawyers and I think there’s a city council member and a big named real estate guy.

“So could you gentlemen use a sixth?”

Dad looks at me. “Definitely….we haven’t golfed together and played since you were twelve.” He looks surprised.

“Well then, maybe we should sink a few buckets of balls before we hit the course?” I suggest.

I notice Dad looking at me again. He nods then claps me on my shoulder. “That’s a good idea Alex, you might need to knock some rust off.”

We stare at each other for a few seconds. Then we move to the driving range where were get several buckets of balls all getting picked up and carried by our caddy’s. I really don’t like how servant like the whole thing is or the whole country club thing, the staff just seems like they have to kiss ass just to have a job. I can imagine a person getting fired of they displayed an original thought or didn’t kow-tow just so.

Dad/Adam’s right and I am rusty. I hate the fact that he’s right, and he’s enjoying it. It’s something that you don’t forget that much though and I’m a decent enough athlete that I’m soon sending balls out where I want them drive after drive. I get some pointers from him….normally this is where I’d be leaving….as if this really is him being a father, a dad after all the shit he’s done and pulled.

I’m having a can of coke while waiting for my next turn and take out my phone and look through my pictures on it of me and Hunter. There’s only a couple of them, I want more, I want a lifetimes worth.

“I’m doing this for you…”

I look to see him smoking and watching me, looking at my phone and the picture of me and Hunter together when we were outside on the blanket napping at lunch. Hunter’s sleeping and curled into me sleeping like an angel.

“Our turn?” I ask him. He nods and we get back to it and it takes a lot to be here and get through this but I do, I even take the tips and pointers he shows me and use them, no fighting, no back talking…no remarks and Adam’s having a good time by the time we’re on the course.

I look him and the other gentlemen. I take a page from my girls book or what I think she’d do. Well not here but maybe a pool hall someplace. “Play as partners gentlemen.” There’s general agreement. “Then how about we make it interesting? A hundred dollars a hole?”

There’s some grinning and one of these smug assholes says. “He’s a real go getter Adam a chip off the old block.”

Instead of the comments I could have said I smile. “I’m a Donovan, if there’s no challenge it’s not worth it.” I look at Dad/Adam…. “Right?”

There’s the look in his eyes and he nods. “Absolutely son.”

It’s a tight game, like in pool we’re playing to alternate who’s hitting the ball. Dad’s short game is better than mine but he plays everyday or every other day. I drop the stuff between us and listen to him tips on the course, he’s played it enough he knows all the in’a and outs.

I look at the others while crouched and looking at where I might send the putt and he’s pointing out the lay of the terrain and even the way the grass is going. “So who here are you trying to get goodwill out of.”

“The councilman, he knows several judges. It’d be nice if we didn’t piss him off.”

“Listen it’s cool by me…dad…it’s just changes the game…we’re not playing golf now are we?”

“Like I told you Alex games aren’t games, not even football, they’re tools…opportunities.”

“Yeah I know, go to college and get a scholarship and succeed, succeed, succeed…”

“No, dammit. You’re good at it, talented and have been ever since you touched a football. But this is Michigan, Detroit and people here need a hero, sports gives them that, you take state and the city remembers you, fans remember…you get to college ball and play here…they’ll love you for not leaving. You go NFL and you can write your own ticket.”

“I don’t want to be a football player, this…this is all your idea.”

“See…that’s why I don’t trust her Alex. You’d have been better off with Jennifer, she would have kept you on track. She’d have been greedy enough to…Hunter…I don’t know her game and that’s dangerous…You’re fucking…you’ll have her knocked up if you’re not careful.”

“Hunter stopped your crap and she doesn’t kiss your ass.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust any woman dad.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Not even April?”

“……………………………..............Let’s just do this okay, we’ve got other stuff to do.”

Huh? He changed the subject.

We end up losing the game and dad forks over the bet money to the city councilor and we head home driving each our own separate vehicles and there’s a lot going through my head. He drew the line at April, he more or less laid out my life plan but some of it sounded almost…like he gave a shit about the city? The state?

It’s kept me distracted while getting dressed and I’m still mulling the day over when he calls me and says the limousine is ready.

I’m quiet through the drive and so is dad even though he smokes three cigarettes and has a scotch on our way to pick up the girls.

We’re early or they’re a little late but it was well worth it. I look up at Hunter as she comes out of the salon and she’s breathtaking. A bit of out flare or some thing like that moves her hair from her face, and her face looks perfect, flawless, and I’m drawn to her lips, to her eyes…bluer than blue with hints of grey. I have to take a deep breath just to keep steady.

God I’m getting hard just staring into her eyes…

Modest pumps, short…black dress, great dress…I’ve seen her in short skirts before but the way a dress fit’s a girl and hugs and makes her just so…I see Curves on Hunter that complete the picture of her in my mind that even I couldn’t fully see until now.

There’s a lot of stuff I could think, or do or say but I step up and take her hands and stare at her deeply in the eyes and the first thing that comes out is…

“Ow……………………my heart.”

Sweet Dreams-19...So Snow White; Are you gonna order the apple? Part One

Chapter 19

It’s just getting onto the start of evening and I’m looking down at Alex and he’s standing in front of the limo and the sun’s behind it and him and he’s dressed like that and the wind is blowing his dark hair to one side.

I know I’m just playing the part of a girl, well trying to be a girl now but the way that my heart does this huge heavy thud in my chest at the sight of him it's all girl.

I take my time going down the steps using the railing to help myself glide and I walk towards Alex and Alex walk to me and somewhere between here and there we just slip into each others arms and then we’re kissing.

It’s not a make up smearing kiss by any means but it’s a capital K Kiss rather than a lower case k kiss.

And someway that Kiss makes this feeling like I’m finally really alive flow through me. Add that in with the way he’s holding me, and looking at me and while I’m all calm and stuff on the outside my inside me is naked, holding a bottle of champagne and dancing on the table screaming Girl!, Girl!, Girl!

That’s why when I break the kiss I’m giggling.

He gives me this look and an eyebrow. I beam a silly grin at him. “It’s not my fault; this is my brain on hairspray.”

His face twitches and I almost made him laugh in from of Adam and April. I lean up to kiss him again and as I do I cross my eyes. He kisses me anyway and whispers in my ear. “Stop that. You’re going to make me laugh.” I can’t help but smile at the playful notes there though. He’s hiding it but he’s smiling. Well he’s smiling on the inside.

Alex and his Dad get us both into the limo and I slid in first and do it as graceful as April’s shown me and do this whole slide on my butt and sideways slip my legs in like a lady is supposed to do in a dress. April’s next and she makes it look like she does this all of the time which I figure she has. Then the guys. We drive for a few minutes before Alex smiles at me. “You look amazing Hunter.”

I blush and smile back at him. “Thank you, you look just amazing too Alex I didn’t really know that guys actually could look like that in real life. Mr. Donavan you look perfectly handsome as well.”

He’s looking at me not with the usual look well it’s the usual look but a bit more laid back, kind of a laconic sort of predatory thing going on. “Thank you, you ladies look ravishing tonight we should have a good time. Not to pick Hunter but just so I’m braced just how much did this new look cost my expense account?”

“Dad...” Alex looks like he’s going to get angry or start to head there. I should have known that he’s got it packed away but that’s still there right under the surface.

“Alex, it’s a perfectly good question.” He’s not even looking at Alex instead he’s staring at me.

“Alex it’s alright.” I reach over and take his arm in mine and wind the fingers into Alex’s. “This isn’t a going out having fun night we’re helping your Dad out by filling in space at one of his business events. He’s got a right to know how much that was spent.”

I smile at him and stare him right back into his eyes. “Actually I paid for all of this save the makeover out of my own money.”

April pipes in with. “And the make-over was my treat so you’re expense card is safe honey, you can afford to splurge tonight on our guests.”

Alex looks at me. “I told you, you could have put it all on my expense card.”

I know but I wanted to do this I’ve been broke for so long that it actually felt really nice to buy something brand new for me out of my own money. I hope you and your Dad don’t mind?” I smile at Alex this warm and little sexy…I’m sneaky and I love you smile and I look at Adam and hit him with the triple eyelash hit… blink, blink, blink…

He smiles this slow smile and he lights a smoke. I wonder, no he likely knows that I’m quitting.

Alex looks at him. “Not everyone smokes in this space you know.”

“Oh, sorry that was careless of me.”

He leans forward and puts it out. We’re quiet and the drive takes us to two other houses in even more upscale or equally upscale neighbourhoods of the city and when we stop the guys get out and then let the wives in or in one case definitely girlfriend or mistress even. They start speaking in a mix of languages, I’m pretty sure a lot of it is Italian.

I don’t speak Italian or any other language for that matter other than a smattering of German and Polish and Norwegian. Some of it from Mom but mostly stuff I picked up by growing up in a house with a skinhead Aryan brother for a stepfather.

I’m not sure that it’s on purpose but I’m suddenly in the back of this limo with these people who are all from wealth and likely power and experience, and these lovely and beautiful girls and women who all outshine the little stick wearing a dress. And they’re all talking so fast and so loud in Italian and I’m hearing French and Alex is getting caught up by all the questions they’re asking him and he’s trying to answer them and trying to translate for me and…they’re touching him, his leg and his shoulder and his chest in that flirty I mean it but I don’t European way and leaning over showing off one magnificent set of breasts after another and it hurts.

I want to be that real for him. I want him to be able to see me like that. Not like this…I feel really fake for the first time in awhile and I don’t… can’t follow the conversations and they’re going so fast….

It makes it really obvious that I’m not just stupid but I’m so outclassed really. And they start smoking and drinking and I really….It takes everything I have not to start to cry right now.

You know how amazing I felt when all this started?

I feel like Cinderella must have felt when the clock hit midnight and everything around her turned to crap.

And Adam’s staring at me with this I told you so look.

And I’m Billy Hunter all over again the kid of a methe-head-hooker and a psycho skinhead stepfather pretending to be something I’m not and I’m sitting here in all these girly clothes pretending to be a girl when I just some little cross dressing fag.

Honest to god, I… I was in spot where I could’ve thrown myself out of the car door and into traffic I would have.

Then that hits me as that’s what Alex’s mom had done and how could I even thing of doing something like that to him…I couldn’t, not if I knew how to properly love him.

I feel so sick to my stomach right now.

So of course that’s when we arrive at the RecCen and we get dropped off at the entrance to the elevator and stuff and we go to this place called Andiamo, very Italian looking and very fancy and very expensive.

I don’t belong here.

My head is pounding; I think I’m close to having a panic attack.

We head up to the elevator and it’s crowded and I keep getting someone between me and Alex and I feel my stomach left behind on the ground floor. From there it’s us getting our coats checked and then escorted to the table, the host for the front of the restaurant escorts us there and the men seat us I smile a trembly little smile at Alex….it’s not Alex who pulled out my chair…it’s his father.

He’s staring at me and I’m not sure just how I haven’t tossed my cookies yet and he seats me and leans over and whispers into my ear.

“I know it, you know it.” That’s all he says and he backs off.

But that’s all that he really has to say isn’t it.

The menus arrive and their in Italian with what they are in English but again as the others are ordering I’m out of the loop. I can say it and stuff but not that way it just seems to roll off the tongue with them here. I know that I’m going to sound foolish if I even try.

“Alex…can you order for me? I…I…I don’t know what’s good and what isn’t.”

Alex looks at me and he smiles and says. “Sure thing Hunter.” He leans over closer to me and he’s explaining or trying to explain what a lot of the stuff is and I feel stupid. He’s trying to keep me close and sort of shield me from them and stuff but they’re just sort of steamrolling the conversation and stuff.

It’s all adding up…My head’s killing me and I’ve never really been in any kind of place like this except when April took me out today. I’ve been to a lot of hole in the wall places and dives but rarely in a descent place where the public could see us.

I blanche at the prices of the food, just little plates of stuff is like twenty, twenty five dollars and Adam looks at me every time I say “Okay I’ll try that” is like I’m stealing from him. I’m getting a small salad and soup, then a risotto?, the lamb chops as the courses and they’re small things but I figure just me’s going to cost between eighty and ninety dollars without drinks, desserts or a tip.

I’m terrible with all the stuff. The waiter does that snap napkin thin and that makes me jump and I keep using the wrong cutlery and stuff and even holding things wrong and I drop one of the things from my salad onto my dress and I can’t help but just about burst into tears.

One of the women zips out something in Italian and Adam laughs. I’m looking at her and she’s staring at me like I’m a bug. The she says. “Alex’s tastes has changed much, you’re very….cute…in that sort of pretty woman kind of way.”

I blush some more and I feel the trickle of blood starting down my nose. “Excuse me, I get up and leave the table trying not to run, and trying to find the bathroom.”

I hear her say again as I’m leaving. “It’s a pity she’s not actually like Julia Roberts, but she has the….meretrice…down pat, doesn’t she?”

I run into the bathroom once I find it and try to find the nearest stall.

Sweet Dreams-19.. So Snow White; Are you going to order the apple? Part2

Chapter 19 part 2

* Alex’s Part……

Everything had started off really good and then Dad started in with his snide little remarks in the limo it was really cool seeing her fire right back at him. I was so proud of her for pretty much breaking her entire pay check to pay for all of the things tonight without dipping into anything else.

We ended up picking up some of my dad’s cronies Leon Panichi and his wife and their twin girls, Geoffrey Scanta and his mid life crisis. Then there was Aubrey Zane and his wife Debora, Deb was still someone I knew a little older than Geoff's mid life crisis but only a little. It must be a "thing" really only Mrs. Panichi and April were over thirty, but not over thirty five.

I knew the girls from the early days at the club and they went to a different school than I ended up going to and Scantha’s mid life crisis Anna was likely only around twenty if that I was soon getting barraged by questions and they had said they had spent the summer in Italy and started showing off just how good their Italian was.

The other’s joined in and I was fending off questions about me and Hunter and football and school and…Yeah…I fell for it.

The little look on Debora’s face as Hunter excused herself and left looking for the bathroom and the cutting little remarks. I see there’s these coy and bitchy little smirks between her and the twins.

April gets up and follows and Adam goes to catch her wrist and I reach over at the same time and I grab his jacket sleeve and with a sharp tug I pull him hard enough he misses her.

He shoots me a look and I ignore it instead I’m looking at Debora. As I get up.

“It’s just a spade calling a spade when you’re the one bringing that up Deb. I mean other than Zane’s account balance just what really do you two have in common?”

Her eyes went wide and she looked to Zane like as to say do something and he looks at me and I lean past him as I’m going. “You knew, he told you to tell her what to do so…go ahead Aubrey… give me a reason…please.”

I move towards the bathrooms and look at the twins. “No…You’re just not fucking worth it.”

I get to the bathroom and see Hunter coming out of the bathroom. She gives me this look, she got her make up fixed up and we stop and stare at her eyes and she’s looking at me and I can see a lot of hurt there but determination too. I see the redness on her knuckles instead of just her eyes and they’re skinned until they’re bleeding, not a lot but it’s just I can see the red seeping into the spiderweb of skin around her knuckles. I step up and hold her and she’s tense for a terrifying few minutes… I think when she didn’t feel like she usually did I stopped breathing and when she lets out this little sigh and presses against me I think my heart started back up.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be, you volunteered me for this whole set up.”

“I’m really sorry? I should’ve seen all of it coming.”

“It’s okay; he obviously put a lot of effort into this. Alex, the fact you didn’t clue in’s a good thing. Okay? I like you’re not like him and not into the head games.”

“I still should have kno…” she cuts me off by kissing me long and slow and deeply right there in front of everyone in the place including the ones at our table. She breaks the kiss and I reach into my pocket…

* Hunter’s part……

I run into the ladies room and into a stall past several women and hit the floor on my knees and I can’t help it. I start to hyperventilate a bit and I’m trying to cry but instead of crying I’ve got the super blurry watery eyes…it’s just not the same and drops of blood are dripping from my nose into the bowl and the headache just gets to the point of the lights in the bathroom just seem to get brighter and brighter until they almost flare and it’s like a balloon or something got popped and the little bit of food I’ve already had comes up in a rush.

I really don’t have to get too descriptive there right, just thing a bit of the rice stuff and soup and fancy Italian salad.

The worse is the nosebleed mixed with the water or whatever from nearly crying stuffing me up just as bad as if I was crying. Getting sick and not being able to breathe through your nose is not a great experience.

Then just like on TV or a book and stuff April’s there and she’s holding my head, and has my hair pulled back for me and she’s rubbing my back making these soothing sounds. That has me lose it.

I mean It hits like a heart attack and a migraine…just her doing this being this human to me, being a fucking hundred times the woman my own fucking mother was just by doing this…

I really get upset, and I would be bawling my eyes out if I could and part of me wants to, needs too but it just gets to that point and Cliff’s in my head again and he’s sticking the pins in me, hurting me and telling me.

“You fuckin cry baby, I’ll give you something to cry about!”

I have a flashback right there and then of being seven and I’d been upset, hungry…there wasn’t anything in the house and what was there Cliff ate…he put his foot on my chest and pinned me to the couch and ate the last of our food stoned and laughed at me

And when I cried he tortured me until I stopped. I remember in that haze of PTSD flashback the smell of meth burning as Mom was lying on the couch sparking up a crystal and giving us this goofy she’s not there grin and smiling as Cliff’s shoving a safety pin into the meat of my foot.

“Stop it, stop it, you little fuck, it ain’t going to do you a bit of fuckin good, nobody cares, nobody cares and no one eva will.”

Well fuck you Cliff.
Fuck you Mom.
Fuck You Cliff.

If those ingrained pains are what’s in my head keeping me from feeling then I’ll just have to do better.

I sit up and away from April and haul off and punch the wall of the bathroom stall. It hurts…good…I punch with the other hand one after another not caring that it hurts but caring that it needs to hurt. It’s denting in a couple of places and April’s trying to pull me back and I’m saying it out loud in that sort of hurting raw from being upset so much kind of way.

“Fuck you Cliff, Fuck you Mom, Fuck you Cliff! Fuck you! Fuck You! Fuck you!”

April backs off freaked I think as I hit the wall of the bathroom stall about a dozen times until the pain I’m feeling is even more than the pain that Cliff had inflicted on me and overrides it and the tears start to run and flow down my face and I start crying.

I cover my face with my hands and start sobbing and that’s when April pulls me onto her lap and I cry into her stomach a bit. It doesn’t last that long really and I think that part of it is that I’m just so unused to crying that it stops so fast but I feel like…

I feel like the screws that someone has been turning into my skull all evening have been removed and I can thing and I can breathe.

I look up at April and I give her a smile, or as much of one as I have in me. “Oh I bet you’re regretting saying you’d help me out.”

A couple of these great big tears roll out of her eyes and down her cheeks and more follow as she kisses me on my forehead.

“Not on you’re life kiddo; you wanted my help….well you got it…forever…” She’s all sniffly and everything but she pulls me into a hug and flushes the toilet. “C’mon lets get out of here; I don’t want to be here.”

“No…” I say it and sniffle and rub at my eyes.

“Adam went too far Hunter, I’m really unhappy with his ass and you don’t have to stay here and put up with it.”

“Yeah, I do have to stay April. I have to show him that this…that this is nothing. And it is…” I hold my hands up covered in my own blood. “Adam has no idea of the hell that I’ve already been through.”

April locks eyes with me after she too took a long look at my hands. “You want to talk about it?”

I nod. “Someday, when I’m in a time and a place were I can get it out right. I’m all sorts of fucked up but I know that I’m all sorts of fucked up. I figure at some point I’m going to have to deal but right now I’m still in survival mode.”

“Okay, but the offer’s open.”

“Thanks April, other than Alex you’re probably the person who’s actually done the most for me in my life…ever…”

That makes her cry again and she’s got that look that once in a perfect stone mom would have on her face and that’s that look that most kids get from a parent who cares about their kid.

It’s so bittersweet really.

We take a few minutes just being quiet as I go out to the sinks and the mirrors and wash the blood off my hands. I don’t even feel the sting of the soap. I blow my nose which was really bad and there’s all the stuffy stuff from my crying all mixed in with the blood from my nose bleed.

“That doesn’t look good Hunter.”

“I’m used to it.”

“How long have you had them, the nose bleeds?”

“Probably since I was ten or so, usually when I’m upset.”

“Have you seen a doctor about them?”

I just gave her this look. She actually gets it. “Okay, we’ll have to get you on my insurance.”

“Maybe…I dunno, can we talk about it later?”

“Sure.” She got that look on her face and was smiling without knowing it. I could just not be all into her having a Mom/Big sister moment but really…Her and Adam don’t have kids. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist does it?

I let her fix my face and she has one of those magic stain pen things and she fixes the spot on my dress from where I dropped the bit of salad. While she’s doing that she gave me a toothbrush and paste from her purse to use.

Apparently a lot of girls bring stuff like that when they go out places in their purse. It makes a lot of sense and I won’t be going back to the table with puke breath.

***

I smile a bit relaxing into Alex’s arms as he’s holding me with a lot of people watching us. Yeah I was mad and hurt by what happened but I meant what I said. I’m glad he’s not the kind of guy that would have stuff like this thought out, I like the fact that I’m more the cynical ass in the relationship and even if he’s damaged too he’s Still my Alex and he’s still so sweet.

There’s this little goosepimply moment when he reaches into his pocket after we’re done kissing and yeah I know it’s so very girly kind of cliché but I was even if a little bit expecting a ring or a box for jewellery or something.

But no it’s his phone.

Most people don’t really think how loud the speakers on their phones are and I’ve no idea what he’s doing when he takes it out and set’s it on the table of this couple having supper closest to us saying “Please, excuse me.”

He turns to me and he takes my arms and he holds me, kisses me as these sort of familiar guitar chords start to play. Then right there in front of everyone we start to slow dance as the song… “More than words.” Starts to play from his I-phone.

And…

And sniff…

He’s got his head nuzzled close to mine and he’s singing to me. He's not that good, but he's doing it for me...he's so close off and he's singing to...

To me…

I really, really don’t know how to put how I’m feeling but what’s the complete opposite of every shitty moment of my life called?

Who…?

I means seriously who…?

I’ve got to be a girl because this…him…doing this totally makes up for everything that happened so far tonight…

I’m so in love with him right now it feels like…

If love was light, I’d be shining like the star that shone then night Jesus was born.

Okay… Bring it, I can face anything.

(Chapter 19 to be concluded in part 3.)

Sweet Dreams-19..So Snow White; Are you going to order the apple? Part 3

Chapter 19 part 3

I guess if it hadn’t been such a special thing I might have been a lot more embarrassed than I was. But as we were dancing there was this little ripple of smiles and looks of isn’t that romantic that are buzzing through some of the other patrons and two other couples get up and start dancing too.

It was a very cool moment, probably one of the coolest moments in my life. When the song ended Alex looks over at the couple that let him set his I-phone down on their table and says. “Thank you.”

The guy shakes his hand in that way that you see guys do that are really showing respect to each other? I never could quite get that the way they’re doing it. But it’s like you can feel the respect for each other there like a tangible guy kind of thing.

He say’s. “Our pleasure I’m Bill this is Stacy.” Then it’s my turn and Stacy and I sort of do the little light girl shake of hands but we do that girl hug even if they just me kind of thing. She whisper’s in my ear. “He’s a good one, hang on to him.”

I whisper back. “Yeah, I will. Alex is better than he knows really.”

“They always are honey.”

We head back to our table and I look at the twins first because well they’re staring at me and at Alex and there’s this WTF…I can’t believe it thing written all over their faces their jaws sort of hanging open. I slip past them and softly say to them.

“You two must have had a good time in Italy but you really should watch yourselves, it’s a little…uhm obvious that your mouths are used to that shape.” I smile, bat my lashes and smooth my dress under me as Alex seats me.

I take a long slow sip of my water and smile at them all as Adam signals for the next course to be brought. You can see the light bulb go off in their heads at what I just said well implied. I take another sip before speaking up saying. “I’m sorry everyone, I didn’t mean to hold everyone up.”

April says as she’s sitting down. “It’s nothing Hunter we both had the use the ladies room.”

Deborah is staring at me and she looks angry. I stare right back at her and then ignore her like she’s not there and ask Alex. “So honey how are you coming along with The sound and the Fury, I noticed you started that a couple of days ago.”

He and I start talking about Faulkner and April jumps in as well as Anna the young girlfriend of Mr. Scanta and even Mr. Panichi himself getting involved. As we all start talking about all these classic authors. Alex is taking advanced English and me, well libraries are cheap and I didn’t own anything at home really so I read, I read a lot. Beside like a lot of the bums and homeless it was safe and it was warm and it was cheap to free.

There wasn’t a lot of difference between me and them. The thing is, some of those homeless people regardless of their problems that got them there…A lot of them were really smart people.

Alex looks surprised at April and the amount of stuff that she knows. I can’t help but smile when she says.

“I’ve always been impressed at how good the academic department is at your school Alex; we were just given state minimum syllabus fluff when I was in high school. I never really read a book that actually seemed to say something until my second year at Penn.”

Even Adam get’s the stick out of his butt and starts to join in the conversation talking well actually asking about the university and her time there like it was a new topic for them and it kind of gets into a topic about books and schools and education and stuff that I can actually follow. And even their college days and what we and Alex might very well expect.

It almost starts to be…a good time?

And it has the great bonus of leaving Deborah and the two Panichi twins and more than likely the others not involved in the big conversation completely lost and kind of left to scramble and make up their own conversation to compete with ours…about clothes.

April and I share this kind of a look and a smile at some of their conversation and yeah I like talking about clothes and all that but really? Really?

Huh? I guess this is what it feels like to sit at the big kids table then?

Oh and now that things seemed to be chilling out the food. There was this few dishes of things before the main I ordered the bruchetta which I kind of knew what it was with the toasted bread and the tomatoes and stuff but we all started to share with each other when I offer some of mine to Alex and April offered me some of hers and then it started this whole sharing thing and even the bitches chilled and got into this whole family style if eating. The wines went from bottles to house wines in these really cool pitcher, decanter things and there’s no carding but it’s not about getting bombed.

It was a totally new experience for me to go from people having wine as their meal to wine with the meal. I don’t drink much but I try all of it and even the twins seem to let stuff go as they talk about Italy and the food they had in Naples? And what this stuff is like.

It turns out I like fish more than I though I would, or rather Sea scallops are rather tasty but very rich, and shrimp are okay too but I really liked Aprils fried calamari even after I found out they were squid and that out of these little starters my favorite was actually Alex’s this Caprese salad thing with these really good tomatoes and basil leaves and the best bit of cheese I’ve ever had.

We even all do the communal girls all heading to the ladies room before the main course arrive and use the facilities and then touch up our make up and I don’t say anything but April quietly points out for the ladies to use… “That stall.” In a voice that says do it in a very queen bitch kind of way. I get some stares from them for a few minute when they come out after they seen what I did.

There’s me staring at them and them staring at me and they actually say “Sorry Hunter…” pretty sheepishly and very nervously sort of touch up they’re make up. I take a few minutes fixing my hair and then let out a long sigh.

“It’s okay; it was just some stupid bullshit kind of hazing thing right? Rattle the new girl?”

I know it’s more than that, they know it’s more than that but I really don’t need the enemies, I don’t need the drama and just letting it slide after they’ve gotten a taste of things with them feeling out of the loop squares things. I know, the conversation at the table wasn’t as deliberate as what they were doing but like the saying goes…an eye for an eye eventually leaves everyone blind.

Mina which is one of the twins look at me and she almost doesn’t get it. But her sister Nina nods. “Yeah…I mean we just were joking and we’re sorry it went too far and got like y’know all un-funny and stuff.”

“Hey, it’s cool let’s just pretend the whole thing never happened and just be good with each other. Too many girls get too caught up in the whole mean girl thing. Let’s just have fun for the rest of tonight and leave the dick measuring stuff to the guys okay?”

“Okay!” they both smile and giggle. They’re mother and Anna are smiling and April gives me a hug.

“Proud of you.” She whispers in my ear…and having someone say that to me just…I get this big lump in my throat and I’m getting watery eyed and have to fan at my eyes with my hand. As soon as April moves though I’m being hugged by the rest of the girls/women.

We all leave and are smiling and talking and stuff as we get back to our table and the guys stand for us and help us with our chairs. I notice and so do the other girls that Deborah didn’t join us. She stayed out here with the men and she has this look of being majorly unhappy and she’s quiet barely talking to anyone including her husband Mr. Zane. He’s looking really uncomfortable and I notice he doesn’t look at Alex at all really or Adam either. He’s sitting with her like a guy might from back home who got his ass schooled and she’s not happy because of that and because it’s pretty apparent that she thought she was the shit but just had that reality check tonight that told her hey bitch you ain’t.

I fucking Love karma sometimes.

The main course comes and it’s a bit of the same thing with the other food. The guys get these really nicely cooked but really big hunks of steaks for the most part and chicken seems to be the thing for us girls. I ordered the lamb chops and I’m impressed by the plate and so not at the same time.

It looks beautiful and everything but well…lamb chops are really kind of small say compared to like a pork chop and they only give you like three of them and the plate I ordered was like somewhere close to thirty five dollars.

Yeah yikes! I know families that don’t and can’t spend that much on food for an entire week. Worse even, it turns out I think I don’t like lamb. I’ve never had it before and it tastes funny, or it does to me. I liked the brocolini? That came with it and the potatoes…they were okay. There was just too much gunk added to something that’s just fine just simply done.

Adam has the same look on his face too. We kind of have this moment of staring at each other only he’s not looking at me like he’s going to get me but more like I’m a puzzle he doesn’t get. I reach over and take his plate and slide his potatoes onto my plate and then set my plate in front of Alex who looks at me and him then shrugs and tucks into them like a seventeen year old guy usually would.

I say to Adam. “Bring on dessert?”

He smiles and it’s just like Alex’s, that I’m only going to let so much out kind of smile, not even quite a half a smile but just this really good one third of one.

“You and Alex have the same smile.”

Wow, the look of …constrained shock on Adam’s face was well kind of shocking to me too. He honestly looks at a loss of what to say and even think from me saying that. Alex stopped eating at the boys are staring at each other like too surprised dogs that are studying each other.

I laugh just because of that image but turn to Alex. “That’s not a bad thing Alex, I love your smile.” Then I wipe his lips off from his food with the napkin and give him a kiss. I hear April and see out of the corner of my eye her leaning over and kissing Adam too but saying. “I agree, it’s a very nice smile, and it’s something I just don’t see enough.”

There’s just a little bit of that and the guys look actually embarrassed not so much by the whole PDA thing but the whole PDA in front of each other thing. We do cut it out so as not to make the others too uncomfortable.

The guys are saved by dessert.

Again it turns into this sharing thing and the cakes and stuff are good and Alex has this sticky toffee pudding thing that I didn’t really like but April and I killed her chocolate moose…no mousse. And Adam gave us both half of his Tira Misu?

I’m not sure what I like better. I Love chocolate, good chocolate too not like the discount bars I’m used to getting from back home. But I love coffee; coffee and I have been close friends for a long, long time.

Him sharing his dessert with me and April get’s him another short but on the lips kiss from her and another one and this…

Alex gives him this nod and not quite a smile but a really short nod of approval after Adam motions for the waiter who was bringing Bill and Stacy their chique and waved the off and told them to have a good night. He was taking care of their bill for them. It might have been just for appearances sake but it might not have too.

The rest of the night is kind of a blur of just talking and travel and the twins have mellowed out enough that we’re all just having a real conversation and dropping people off except for the Zane’s.

Aubrey and Deborah seemed to want to take a cab home from the restaurant. She was in a hurry to go I think as she stormed out of the place after getting her things from the coat check.

Things seem to have settled down even once we’re all dropped off at home. Alex and I both hug April and she looks stunned, floored when Alex hugged her. It was a small one and a peck on a cheek and I think he thanked her. Mine was bigger for her and I look at her. “Coffee tomorrow?” she’s trying really hard not to dry and she’s starting to fail as I give her another hug and say. “Thank you…God thank you so much April, you were…You were awesome…” There’s so much more I could have added or said and part of me really wanted to…but it’s just so…soon.

We’re almost going our separate ways when Adam asks me. “Hunter, can I have a few minutes of your time?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer and he just walks outside to the driveway and I hear the flick of his lighter.

Alex looks at me. I rub his chest through his shirt. “I’ll be okay. I want to talk to him too.”

“Just be careful, he’s…” I put my fingers to his lips. “I’ll be fine.” He moves my fingers and purses his lips in a sort of pouty frown. “It’s getting chilly, here.” He takes off his suit jacket and he wraps it over my shoulders. I’m swimming in it and it almost reaches down to the bottom hem of my dress.

I walk outside and over to where he’s at. I love the feeling of the jacket. It’s warm, it smells like him and the gesture was. There’s this part of me that sings a little bit at the whole thing. Yeah, oh Yeah I’m such a girl

I look at him. “Spare me one?”

“I thought you quit.”

“I did but I think I need one tonight.”

Adam passes me a cigarette and he lights it for me too. “Hunter I was really surprised tonight.”

“By?”

“You, you hung in there and hung onto being there with Alex and you came back after you lost it.”

“Oh well that’s easy I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Meaning?”

“I am willing to pay for you to leave, to get your own place out of state and will foot your bills until you’re on your feet.”

“Sorry, won’t.”

“Why, you barely know my son? And I’m not sure that I want you involved with him.”

“I know that, but you know what Adam. Tough shit.”

“What?” He sounds like he’s getting pissed off.

“Did I stutter?” Like I said before…he can bring it.

“Look, I don’t like you being with my son. I want you out of his life. I’m being nic…”

I cut him off by poking him in the chest hard.

“Oh, don’t you fucking think that I don’t know that you don’t want me around Alex. Look you stupid stubborn Mick, I never thought I’d ever be in a place where I’d have ever met someone like your son. He’s a good guy and honestly I think I’m falling for him and I can’t fucking help that. But what I can help is the stuff that I’m going to put up from you.

You think that you’re the shit and you think that you know what’s best for Alex, you got all these dreams about what you want for him and they’re not his.”

“Listen Hunter…. My son is messed up. He’s been so fucked over by women before and hurt nearly killed even so it’s not like he knows what the real world is like so I’m making sure that he does know. I’m Making sure that he makes the right choices and not fall in love with someone like you!”

“You Asshole!, look shit happened, Alex’s mom was just like mine a fucking druggie, I get him more than anyone else would or could. And you want to know something else?! I’m not her!, April isn’t her! She killed herself, she’s fucking dead Adam just let it the fuck go! Let her stay the fuck dead!”

“I can’t fucking let it go!”

“Why?!”

“Because I can see it! He’s fucking falling in love with you!”

“I’m in love with him too!”

“You’ll break his fucking heart!”

“I do that it’ll break mine too!”

“You’re lying!”

“I am not!”

“Bullshit!”

“It’s not fucking bullshit! I get where you’re coming from Adam, I fucking do. You’re this kid from the wrong side of the tracks just like me. And when you were told that you were good enough to marry Alex’s mom you told them the same fucking thing that I’m telling you because you think I’m not good enough and that’s fuck you.

I might not have been some fifth child cop’s kid Adam but I grew up in a lot worse shitholes than you can imagine bucko. You think you were pulled down into some lower middle class pit by your family? Hell, I lived in those fucking horror stories you grew up hearing about from your dad and your brothers!”

I stop yelling but right now we’re face to face and breathing hard and staring right at each other. I take a breath and stare right into his eyes as hard as I can.

“My mom was a whore and a drug addict and my stepfather was a fucking skinhead abusive son of a bitch and I fucking survived them.”

I put my hand on his chest over his heart. And I can feel the hammering beat but the tremble of him being scared run through his flesh. Like touching a feral animal.

“I survived Adam, I survived and instead of you dreading that there’s something that’s going to drag me down like it did her……trust me it won’t, Alex is the first person in my life that’s shown me that life can be more that just a fucking nightmare….”

“I don’t want you’re money, I don’t want anything but…”

“But what?” His voice is harsh, thick, emotional and me I’m actually crying now and I don’t know why it’s coming loose here like it is right now.

“I just want to be safe…I just want someone to actually just…just…Love me….”

I can’t keep the fight up anymore there’s something crumbling down in me and the tears turn to crying then these sobs and once it’s there it’s like a dam coming undone and I try and turn away, try to even run…to where I don’t know just to get out of there away from these feelings…

Adam grabs my wrist and pulls me into him and scoops me into his arms and I have my face into his shoulder and he’s carrying me inside the garage and up the steps to my and Alex’s place.

“You fight fucking dirty Hunter, fucking dirty…You get one fucking chance and you hurt my son and it’ll be fucking on. You got that?”

I nod. Like a bobblehead because I’m still crying too much to talk. He bangs on our door with his foot and Alex opens the door and his Dad passes me to him.

I missed something…?

(Adam mouths to Alex silently. “Don’t you fuck this up.)

I just hear Alex very quietly but really intensely just say. “I won’t.”

Then it’s the sound of the door shutting and Alex caring me to our couch and pulls me even tighter into his arms and he let’s me cry myself to sleep.

*(End of Chapter 19.)

Sweet Dreams-20 … In the Main House.

Chapter 20

He walked back outside after he had handed her off to his son. Adam only paused to grab the pint of Johnny Walker red label out of his golf bag and up capped it and took a swig and lit up another cigarette and paced in the driveway still keyed up and on edge from the heated exchange that the had just had.

He took a sip of the scotch and let it burn slide down his throat as he did he followed it up with a drag of his smoke and another and another until when he exhaled it was vaguely dragon like.

Hunter Williams. His son had brought her into his life from out of the blue and apparently out of nowhere. If she’d been rural or something like that he might get the homebirth and stuff and even maybe in the district where she’d gone to school at was a really shitty neighborhood.

That meant usually a record. Something but Hunter Williams had barely existed and had been raised to stay off the radar. She trashed the spyware he had set up she had found the tail that the private eyes had put on her….and she’s been cocky, kind of smug about the whole thing right back in his face when he tried to intimidate her out of his son’s life.

“It’s like he fucking brought home Veronica flipping Mars.” He said scowling at the upstairs garage apartment.

He sat on one of the large chunks of granite his landscaper had charged him a thousand dollars for and smoked. He stared at the apartment and remembered the night.

He really tried, he pressured some people he had owing him favors and stuff to help make up a dinner party from hell that’s send her packing.

But she didn’t, she fought back.

More than that she had somehow gotten into his Wife’s good graces and that hadn’t happened before with any other of Alex’s girls.

Even at the dinner she was charming, nice and she’d gotten past his guard.

He hated that.

He hated the way that she got right in his face as they had a screaming match right here in the driveway.

Adam took a drag off his smoke and looked at Teddy Wilson who just happened to take the dogs out for a walk about this time. It was one of the times he missed the old neighborhood and the old days when some asshole neighbor would be sent away with a “What the fuck are you looking at huh!?”

It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Fucking girl…

His wife had told her stuff and she had tossed his lower middle classed upbringing and the stuff with his family and well….it just got his Irish up.

Wilson hurried out of there and back home likely so he could spread the gossip to his fugly wife. He killed the rest of the pint and started walking inside only stopping at the door remembering just how raw she had sounded at the end when she broke and cried.

He hated the on the edge of despair he heard in her voice. It scared the hell out of him for his son.

He hated how even though he wasn’t in great shape compared to some Hunter weighed next to nothing in his arms and that close, that close he saw the few scars he could see. He saw the burns left behind on her skin of someone using you for an ashtray.

He went inside the house and it was dark and he leaned on the wall and struggled a bit with his shoes. Drunk the first one is easy, but a shiny leather shoe tends to keep slipping off of dress socks when you’ve had a bit too much.

He sat on the carpeted steps to go to the upstairs of the house and closed his eyes and just breathed until he felt lips on his for the fourth or fifth time tonight and the smell of her perfume and the feeling of her hair cascading down. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

April gave him a smile and she sat down on the carpets despite the cost of her dress and everything. He looked at her as she took his arm and wrapped it in a hug and leaned on him.

“You lost tonight.” She said.

“Yeah, I’m just really hoping that me losing doesn’t mean that Alex is going to lose even more.”

“Alex is seventeen Adam you can’t tell him who to love.”

“No, I can’t and that’s the fucking problem, Hunter is broken, she’s all fucked up inside even if she means well this could end really badly.”

“Hunter’s not Liz, she’s been through hell yes but she’ll make it through just like you did. You know you and her have a lot in common?”

He looked at her snorted and rolled his eyes at her or away from her… “Oh she’s like me; well that’s a great fucking endorsement isn’t it?”

“Hey Mister Listen!” April held him by the chin and made Adam look at him. “I happen to love you okay? You don’t get to go there, not with me around.”

“Why…?” He looked at her and some tears ran down his cheeks in the near dark. “Why the hell would you love someone like me?”

“Love doesn’t need a reason, it just doesn’t that’s why there all these WTF couples out there that just don’t make sense.”

“Liz killed herself because of me…”

“Liz was suffering from post partum and you weren’t there to get her through it so she reached for the thing that you guys grew up with, the bottle.”

“I treated her like shit.”

“Yeah you did and you were working a hundred plus hours a week back then and you’d come home and she’d be high or smashed and who knows what she’d done with Alex or where she left him.”

“I’ve been a shitty father.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“I thought you loved me and you’re agreeing with me about this?” it was a bit of a loud drunken whine.

“Yes, I do love you Adam but you’ve been a shitty father, and yeah you could have done better but look at your own family it’s not like they gave you the tools to be a good dad.”

“Yeah….Dad’s idea of quality time was sending us kids for another beer and telling us how we’d either never amount to anything or what part of the force we’d be good at doing.”

“Yes like I said you and Hunter both have stuff in common, you both had to climb through a mountain of shit to get out of there but you both fought to get out, well she’s still fighting.”

“I hate it when you’re right you know that?” He leaned in and kissed her tiredly.

April kissed him back and put her forehead to his and smiled at him as she looked him in the eyes. “You’re having a bad day, this is twice you’ve lost today.” She kissed him again and Adam fell back against the carpeted stairs.

“Three times, the shoe even beat me.” He held his foot up and wiggled it.

“Poor baby here.” She grabbed his foot and pulled off the offending shoe and then took his hands and pulled him up to his feet. She kissed him and helped him upstairs with a “C’mon.”

They got to their room and he fell onto their bed and slowly fought with his closes while April messed with the stereo.

“Honey, it’s not too late you know.” She said as she slowly started to sway to the music.

“For what?”

“To try and be a good father.”

“No, that ship sailed when he was a kid and everything…he needs direction, he want’s to be an artist for christsakes.”

“You wanted to be some fancy pants lawyer, some ambulance chaser?”

“That’s different.”

“Not one bit and you know it.”

“He could be so much more than some damned hippy.”

“Honey it’s 2010 nobody really calls people damned hippies.”

“An artist, I mean really April an artist…”

“Should I buy you a cheap old lazyboy chair there Mr. Bunker.”

“What…? Oh funny Edith, funny.” April giggled and did a half dance turn and let the strap fall off of her right shoulder with the dress.

“He’ll be fine, he might just want to express the stuff he never talks about it could be healthy y’know.”

“I know but…”

“How about this butt.” She turned away from him and let the rest of the dress fall.

“Oh that’s cheating.” He said as he sat up and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down onto the bed with him.

April giggled and squealed out in imitation. “Ooooh Archie!”

Sweet Dreams-21 … Sunday so Sweet.

Chapter 21

I think I’m in shock or whatever the hell that you’d describe it. I sort of passed out after I had this huge screaming match and fight out in the driveway with and I just lost my control and said things that I shouldn’t have said to him, admitted to him and gave him lots of information to do me some real damage.

Which I think that I partly knew and that pushed me over the edge into nervous fucking breakdown land. It got too much and things got…

Was I imagining things?

Did ADAM…actually carry up the stairs and pass me to Alex?

Of course I’m only really thinking this now that I’m kind of back from the edge, and the crying’s stopping. My head feels kind of spacey and I’m a little bit queasy. I know it’s super messed up but it’s like living with some kind of constant pain all the time and suddenly it’s gone? You almost feel so good that you don’t feel right.

What the hell am I talking about? I’m here a boy but so not a boy like most that I’ve ever known curled up into Alex’s arms and pulled into his chest in a little black dress and bra and panties and stockings all made up and perfumed and… and…

I don’t mind it. I like it, I like being pretty instead of just punker, I like seeing there’s some kind of person here under all the bullshit that I’ve been through.

God I love the way that he’s holding me.

I don’t care if I’m some tranny or some fag but Alex has me pulled into his lap and those huge powerful arms are holding me gently against him just like they’re shielding me from all the stuff in the world that can hurt me.

Who wouldn’t love that?

I do, even just sitting here and breathing in his scent with my eyes closed and just soaking in these moments of safety…real safety. I can feel the powerful emotions running through my and do that little racy sweet pounding heart beat thing that just hurts so good so right inside I almost can’t understand it.

I’m scared of it too after the things that I said, screamed at Adam in our fight.

I’m scared of it because even here there this part of me that’s actually pretty raw, and pretty messed up and pretty sure….pretty sure that I really don’t deserve this, that I really am not good enough for Alex.

I mean when I really take that hard look at myself and just how much he doesn’t know about me. Why in the fuck would I really thing that I deserve to be loved at all.

Happy endings don’t always happen.

Real fucking life they almost never happen.

Girls like me if even that’s what I am don’t get the prince charming happy ending stuff.

We don’t.

We don’t.

I want my happy ending!

I want somebody to please love me!

Please?

Please love me, I’ll be good…I promise….

“Hunter…”

“Hunter….”

Alex’s voice and I fight to see him to open my eyes and stop just stop. I want off this sick fucking ride in my head.

Help me…

I feel his lips touching mine and there’s just nothing in my whole life like being kissed, being kissed by Alex and I feel his lips, they taste like him. I’m serious there’s more to a taste to a kiss past the taste of skin, there’s just something more.

It tastes so good, feels so good that trace of his shaved stubble starting to re-grow he’s so gentle too but demanding…no…seeking, searching when he kisses me like this and I swear the way that my head’s been feeling, the storm of emotions that’s here and trying not to be drowned alive by the quicksand my family left inside…it stops… Alex kissing me made it stop and it’s like that Evanescence song Bring Me to Life…

It does feel like that in away when I open up my eyes and I get to stare into those deep, coffee chocolate silky brown eyes of his. When you get this close to him you can see those little hidden flecks of other colors there, lighter tones almost like amber but kind of like gold.

And then there’s the hair all messy and sexy now hanging down and framing his face and I’m looking and that all I see when I open my eyes and that’s Alex…My Alex.

And I feel that feeling again and I can’t help but lose myself in just…just…him…you know……………………ow…my heart.

I really do feel it as he’s looking at me.

There’s worry there.
No one’s ever given a shit before.

There’s wonder there.
Who has ever had someone look you in the eyes like they’ve seen color for the first time?

I don’t even feel it coming but the way that he’s looking at me makes these huge tears pour out of my eyes and run down my cheeks and I’m almost blind from the water works.

Then he kisses me again and I arch my body needing it up into that kiss just like some one hit me with the paddles and went Clear!

I wasn’t even expecting the words.

“Hunter…Hunter it’s okay…I’ve got you, I Love you.”

Oh we fucking lie to ourselves don’t we?

We say that we don’t need it, that love’s just some bullshit and all the people we see hooked up are just lying.

That we don’t need love.

Lies, just really great big stupid lies.

“Alex….”

“Yeah?”

“Say in again…”

“Hunter…I Love you.”

“Again… just please agai…”

He kisses me cutting me off and it’s long and deep and the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever known in my life. “Hunter I Love You, I Love you, I Love You…” he…he…actually very quietly sang all three of those I Love you’s to me.

……………. (Glomps, sniffle, sobbing...) ……. “Oh Alex I love you too!”

“Thank you…Thank you so much for loving me Hunter.” And I can see there’s tears there in his eyes too and there’s that only Alex kinda sorta smile there and it’s there just for me.

He kisses me again and I kiss him back and it’s fevered, needy, loving and passionate and the more that he kisses me the more of the stuff that’s been trying to pull me under from the fight just goes away and the more that I’m coming to life and feeling better, stronger and more like myself.

More like the me that I’ve always supposed to have been and that’s Hunter, Alex’s girl.

His one and only.

Forever and Always his Hunter.

“Alex…”

“Yeah…”

“Take me to bed…make love to me.”

He smiles at me not the half smile but that hidden real one he keeps hidden away under lock and key, the sweet boy vulnerable smile and I fall a little deeper in love with him and he carries me in his arms like I’m some paper doll and he’s kissing me the whole way.

I won’t get into the nitty ewish parts but I’m still in my stockings and my lingerie but my dress is rumpled on the floor with his clothes and we’re face to face and kissing as he moves my panties aside and Alex sinks into me.

It hurts but less than before and at the same time the look of pleasure and bliss on his face just fills my heart with this feels so right, I’m making him feel like that and the pain lessens and I kind of fall in lust with the feeling as he is deeply inside of me and I’m adjusting to the feeling of Alex inside of me again and that delicious feeling of his body heat invading me.

He moves inside me and it changes slowly but surely from this hurt that’s not a hurt to this sensation that unless you’ve have someone making love to you and moving inside you you’ll never get. And then it’s just plain good and good gets better and before long I’ve wrapped my stocking legs around his waist and I’m moving with him and the pleasure is so good, better, even more…

I feel like I’m melting inside and the pleasure hits my both as this spike of cumming but then this implosion like all the pleasure centers in my body just erupt and start to flood my nervous system and I’m crying out and Alex moves my bra cups and my inserts aside and he takes a nipple in his mouth and it happens all over again but so much more intensely than I thought could happen.

It happens again when I feel him cum inside of me and it feels just beyond perfect, something inside me was aching for Alex to do that.

It’s like when you hear of people just seeing a kid and the woman gets that whole maternal switch flipped in her head. It’s that kind of thing Alex reaching his orgasm in me, with me flipped this switch that just said this was absolutely right.

Every single time it happened.

We did and tried a whole lot of things just caught up in the moment and by the time we were both spent I have never felt sore like that before, or as good or as boneless and naked finally we end up spooning as the birds begin chirping outside in the before dawn thing they do and he pulls me close and slips his arms around me.

I can feel his smile on the back of my neck and the little kisses as he makes his way to my ear.

“I Love You, I Love You, I Love You…”

I think I’m going to like Sundays.

Sweet Dreams-22…Sunday so Sweet.

Chapter 22

I woke I think a few times I think just to be sure that this was real, that this had really happened and there’s the evidence of late last night to just before dawn this morning of me and Alex’s making love. It’s the best and yet weirdest feeling in the world to feel so reassured ay seeing the mixture of our clothes scattered over the room. Then my body catching my brain up to the after effect feelings of making love.

No freaking out, I wanted this, wanted him and it was perfect, it was. I only moved just enough to snuggle back against him and feel his muscular body and all the warmth he gives off. Alex’s response was to reach over me and gather some more of the bedding and pull it around us and gather me up against him in this hug.

Then he said the sweetest thing. “Hunter…guh…bak t’ sleep its Sunday.” It was nice to go back to sleep smiling.

…………………I woke up from this dream, this very deeply very real dream of Alex making love to me only I wasn’t the me that I really am, no in the dream I was a girl. Like a real biological female and stuff.

In the dream part o woke up in Alex had been using his fingers on me. I wake up moving my hips and gasping in the throes of a reach around and see stars I had cum that hard…I wonder if that’s an after effect of last night.

I feel Alex press against me and he’s hard again and he starts to kiss my neck. I’m sore, and I’m sure to be messy and lots of other reasons I guess you could say to not have sex but there’s this ever increasing part of me that wants him but not just on a physical level but that’s actually a factor or at least a little bit.

They say with women it’s all about the feelings and the emotions. And right now I’m feeling that I’d love to spend this morning at least making love like we did before going to sleep.

I find myself pushing back against him and doing some over the shoulder kissing and I feel him with the lube and then he’s sinking into me and as sore as I am its good too. And he’s sweet and slow and letting my body adjust as his hands race gently over my skin, play with my nipples. He cups my breasts not breast at one point just holding me there and kissing and the heat from his hands was so good.

There’s a good twenty minutes before we both achieve lift off and he kisses me then slips out of bed. “I’ll be right back.” He actually pulled me into his warm spot and left. I’m feeling this friction soreness, but this heat or this sort of really perfect melty warms inside of me that seems to be how it feels after Alex makes me implode with pleasure.

He turns on the stereo nothing down loaded just. WCSX, 94.7 FM it’s a classic rock station and one I used to listen too all the time. I like some of the digital stuff too but somehow tuning in where I know there’s someone in the booth makes it better.

I just enjoy the tunes and hug the pillow to my and snuggle into the pocket of warmth his body had left.

Alex comes back showered, in boxer briefs…. Oh…when did guys look that…like that in their underwear….I guess maybe when the contents became a lot more fun?

He gives me a minty kiss and I inhale. He smells like Zest soap, and shampoo, with hints of the soap from his shaving cream and the sharpness of his aftershave and coffee, he brought me a coffee in bed. I kiss him back and run my fingers over him face revelling in actually doing that.

I have someone I can really reach out and touch.

I sit up when he passes me my coffee and smile at him from the cup as I take that first sip. I love coffee but the cheap instant and gas station coffee is nothing like the Kona stuff he fresh grinds and makes in the French press.

I sip at my coffee my legs pulled up to me in the blanket in a good way with my back to the headboard supported with some of our pillows. That’s all kind of new to me. I’ve never slept in a bed with a headboard as far as I know…I’m not counting being passed out in Mom’s hooker nest. The thought of not just having something for myself isn’t as new and strangely thrilling as the whole concept of Ours.

…..Our Pillows…Our Bed…Our place…the thoughts of them are just so….good?

I love the feeling even if it’s mixed in with the post sex stuff. You know what I’m liking about the post sex stuff right now?

The way that Alex is looking at me and smiles at me.

“So what’d you like for breakfast?”

“Anything, surprise me.”

The one bad thing…I had a smoke last night out there with Adam. I really can’t comment on the whole smoking after sex thing because I’m really new to it but dammit I was one of those coffee and a cigarette people…and I’m seriously craving.

“Okay sure…love you.” He kisses me again and still sexy and minty fresh. Then he heads off to the kitchenette and I watch his butt. God it’s so weird. I’m actually watching him, watching his butt and yet there’s no boner for him like that. I sip at my coffee and think a bit about that. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted really to do that kind of stuff with Alex at all. I guess that means I’m the bottom? Huh, I guess I really am the girl. Okay I’m actually kind of good with that.

The thinking lounging thing really can’t last so I finish my coffee and put all my needing a smoke thing into getting the rook cleaned up and getting a bubble bath run, all hot water only and I let it get just right while I get the laundry on and I do both of ours.

I get “Cleaned.” Before I get ready to sink into the tub and I’m wincing into the tub from the heat of the water on well a newly sensitive area and my skinned knuckles.

I imagine Adam’s going to find out about the damage I did to the stall at the restaurant even if April took care of it.

Sigh…

Actually I’m not going to worry about that now.

Alex comes in with a second coffee and this thing…I mean it’s like a waffle if you made it out of like something close to carrot cake and there’s cream cheese on it just kind of like a slice of toast rather than a breakfasty full on thing.

It’s good and I can tell there’s stuff in it that’s good for me and I’m not used to those tastes but I’m hungry and it’s pretty good actually. I’ve been getting hungrier lately like I’ve started to actually build up the strength for my body to be hungry.

I really enjoy the nice long soak, actually the longest soak in my life and I’m all relaxed and wrinkled as I get out and I lotion up after even and do my face with the face cream and my hair and everything. I even do the baby oil thing on my skin to be as soft as I can get too. Kind of the full on girl bit and coming out of the bathroom I can smell frying smells meat, onion, potato?

I make the bed and slip into just some sweat pants of mine and one of his jersey’s and I pad out barefoot to the living room and sit on the couch and watch him getting everything together for well I think we’re having brunch? It’s like twenty to one in the afternoon so…I guess it is brunch.

I could be doing some school work right now because I see he’s got his books out on the coffee table and y’know what. Instead I actually just watch Alex and paint my nails. I love the smiles he sends my way whenever he looks up at me.

Oh and it’s Amazon Teal sort of like a rich green turquoise color. I feel a little naked without my punk me look.

We eat ate our little counter kitchen island thing together and it’s a really nice meal. A nice thick but not big piece of beef tenderloin? Still nice and pink in the center, fried onions with HP steak sauce on them over the steak and a poached egg over that? Hash browns on the side and slices of tomato. Another one of those waffles and there a juice that he made in the juicer. I take a sip and it’s really strange to me. Orange is the only thing I can recognize really and it’s good for me. I drink it down okay I think there’s lots of carrot here too and maybe apple? I’m going to say he put all the pulp into the waffles.

Kind of a good way not to waste stuff, that works for me. I actually eat everything and there’s just something about the way the runny egg mixes with the onions and the steak sauce and the way it goes with the steak and a bit of the tomato or a hash brown.

He’s got a much bigger portion but mine’s plenty and I’m stuffed and we do the dishes together and it takes us awhile to do everything. Eating and just smiling and being close to each other.

Doing the dishes gets put on pause a couple of times as we stop when a song that we like comes on and we just stop and dance to it. We take the rest of the steaks from the package and some other leftovers and stuff and kind of clean out the fridge and we make a pot of stem for the slow cooker. It was actually kind of neat because I’ve never seen a slow cooker before.

It’s actually three in the afternoon when we end up sitting down and working on our homework and everything. We talk and bounce ideas off each other even with the classes that we don’t share and go off on the odd tangent our two.

There’s this beautiful point where I’m using his laptop to type out the notes in his henscratch for him to print out from his flashdrive when he gets to class and the apartment just smells of the stew and the sun’s warmed the place up and Alex set another hot coffee beside me and he kneels/sit’s mostly on his legs and a little on mine and he gives me a massage.

Oh god was it awesome. It’s just almost better than sex in a way. It’s having someone that you love touching you in this way that’s not sexual. But it’s that I love you, I want to touch you just to touch you and make you feel good thing…and there’s no headache this time as the tears at just how good this feels run from my face.

“You okay?” he leans over and kisses my neck and ear area.

“Yeah… (sniffle.) good tears actually.”

“Are you sure?” My heart does this little squeeze thing again because he looks at me and I know that he cares.

Never is a really long time to be without ….care…love… I really can’t help myself and I kiss him and do it with as much love as I can into it and break it with more fresh tears as I’m getting choked up trying to say. “Alex…”

“Yeah…?”

“Thank you.”

“Okay…”

“No…thank you for being sunshine in my soul.” Tears fall and I dip my head and blush because yeah that was just kind of corny as hell.

He takes the point of my chin in his and… and guides me into this kiss like the guys do to the girls in the movies.

“Hunter I think I was falling for you when I first met you…I…saw stuff in your eyes and in you that just speaks to me…spoke to me and I can remember thinking that…the saddest person just always has the most beautiful smile.”

(Good sob, Glomp…) Kissing…oh who the hell says things like…yeah kissing and falling in love even deeper than before. I mean it’s so normal and yet the most romantic place in my life here with him on a few comforters on the living room floor between the coffee table and the couch and we’re doing this…living this moment.

And there’s part of me wondering?

Did Cliff actually kill me?

Is this heaven? My second chance or something?

Am I just beat to hell and this is a dream…The Sweetest Dream I never could have dreamed.

I don’t care…if this is heaven then thank you God, and if I’m dreaming I don’t want to wake up.

Sweet Dreams-23...Holy! F#*K!, Did I just get A Life?

Chapter 23

I’m crying…

I’m crying and it doesn’t hurt, there’s none of that bastard Cliff shouting in my brain. It’s nothing even remotely close to anything bad. It’s good; it’s actually so good that it’s hitting me.

I’m sitting in this pile of comforters and quilts in the sunshine and I’m softly curled into the arms of the most perfect thing in my life. Alex…

And kissing.

It’s this soft sweet kissing and he’s holding me and he’s touching me all over, not that running his hands over me groping like stuff but just these gentle touches. My sides, my face, my arms and hips and even between kisses he’ll reach out and…and do things like run his finger over my cheek, or my lips or my eyebrows…and of course wiping my tears away.

I’ve never kissed like this before. I’ve never felt like this before and there’s so much just love there? I’ve never had this, never even dreamed of this being a possibility in my life.

My own hands are shaking y’know. I’m touching Alex because I can, because there’s somebody there to actually touch and …. You’d have to be in that place I was born in. That place where all you’ve ever known in being alone and hurting and somehow just not right to really get that even after the sex, after all the stuff we’ve already been through to have this. A moment, this afternoon like this, being just loved for a change…and being able to touch him. Just touch him…yeah I’m shaking a bit.

Who the hell wouldn’t?

I’m so falling into being Hunter, well the whole girl thing. I mean the way I’m feeling, the happy way my heart squeezes just right and there’s thing mix that’s stronger than any drug of this wanting to laugh, cry, shake my arms and squee…I’m just freaking out but it’s in the most incredible way.

It’s like I can’t express, really express the love I’m in and feeling and its turning into this energy in my body that’s…that’s…

Okay…

I think I’m having a lovegasm…warm and mushy and melty all mixed in with teenaged girl screaming at her favorite singer. Yeah, melting and vibrating at the same time.

I love it, I love him, I love the feeling of sunshine on my skin even through the windows.

It’s a really weird thing isn’t it that before Alex I never really felt the sun the way that you’re supposed to.

Alex get up and checks on the food while I watch him and he mixes stuff up with butter and flour for something for baking and he puts it into the fridge. Then he comes back to me and I can’t help but to sit up on my knees and meet his kisses and we sink back down to the floor and instead of sitting we end up lying on our sides in the blankets on the floor and we kiss and kiss and kiss.

I always had this thought that you fall in love based on sex and stuff but that’s not the way this is. Not for us. It’s this, I feel so good that it’s like I’m living in a dream. It feels like he’s using those kisses to suck the poison out of my life.

God I don’t know why he does this to me but he touches my non-existent chest and I feel things, It doesn’t take much for my nipples to react, I know that men react too but it just sort of makes me feel more girl like, more female and that’s really starting not to be a bad thing.

It does get my motor running though and soon I’m touching him and stoking his stuff and feeling him hardening over me isn’t terrifying anymore, it’s kind of exciting and gratifying that I do this for him. I kiss him a little more and soon we’re taking off our clothes and as soon as my top’s off Alex’s mouth finds my nipple first one then the other making me whine and try to push my non existent breasts at him.

The naughty boy had the lube in his pocket of his sweatpants. I’m more than good with not having to really stop.

It’s heavenly even the part when Alex is sliding into me and I’m being forced open so much by his size and it still kind of hurts at first but I’m starting to get used to him and there’s other things that I’m starting to love about it.

Like the body heat, I can feel the heat of Alex inside of me. The act of it and the closeness, and it does feel incredibly intimate now. It even get’s better when we get to where I wrap my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck and Alex makes love to me. I think I like face to face better, it feels better, god it feels really good and Hunter me is really bubbling up as we come together and he’s making love to me and he makes me cry out in a good way in a passionate way.

I cry out to him… “Alex…Alex…I’m gonna…”

And when it happens he pulls me up off the blankets and kisses my so passionately and those giant strong arms of his wrap around me and hold me to his body. I can feel his hot cream coating my insides and It takes me over this edge again and I shudder and my body does this involuntary clench around him and there’s this feeling of Alex so hard and huge inside of me that it makes me sob. “Oh god, oh god, of fuck…” and I’m washed away by this tide of pleasure that wells up from somewhere deep inside and it has me panting and feeling so warm and flushed.

He holds me for the longest time and there’s more kissing but these are those French kisses where his tongue is in my mouth and before all of this I would have said eeew to that even with a girl but there’s such a passionate flush of energy through me that I’m eagerly sucking on his tongue.

“I love you Hunter.”

“I Love you too Alex, god I’ve never been happier.”

“Me either, this, this is what I’ve wanted all my life.”

“All seventeen years of it.” I smile and kiss him and nibble actually on the side of his perfect jaw.

“I feel so much older than seventeen, I just felt tired and hurting so much before you Hunter.”

“I know what you mean, my life was an object lesson in the hell people could inflict on a kid. But with you…with you I feel safe, and loved…the safe’s a huge thing Alex.”

“I know, God Hunter I want to make it better. I want to make it up to you.”

“Alex you didn’t do any of it you shouldn’t have to make it up to me.”

“Hunter I love you so damned much I’m looking forward to learning that life doesn’t have to be this dark and depressing place. I’ve seen these looks of pure happy in you sometimes and god help me I want to see so much more of those.”

“God start so far handsome.”

He lays me down and we kiss some more until I feel him thickening again. “Roll over Hunter.” I look at him and he’s smiling but reaching for his backpack for school and takes out some lotion. It’s just stuff he has to keep his hands from getting all messed up from shop class and football. He rolls his eyes cutely. “Just roll over.” I roll over onto my stomach and he passed me the pillow off the couch. “Here get comfy.” I tuck it under my arms in sort of a hug and I feel him position himself and sink back into me.

I love the sigh that he makes as much as Alex being inside of me again. He stays inside of me and then I hear the lotion and he didn’t squirt it on me so he must be warming it with his hands and the he starts. I’m laying there like I’m ready to sleep while Alex is massaging me from my butt all over and up my back and my neck, my shoulders and the entire time he’s sliding just really slowly in and out of me in the slowest most sensual loving sex of my life. I’d fallen asleep if it wasn’t for the sex, the lovemaking. I watch the clock and he varies his speed and his tempo and he makes that slow massaging love to me for close to forty minutes getting me to that rushing swamping flood of pleasure and warmth and heat as I capture him inside me again and he fills me again.

No cries, no big grunting just all these soft breathy satisfied and loving it moans and whispers of sweet things to each other. I really don’t feel remotely boy like. He covers me after with the blankets and then kissing me he lifts me from the floor to the couch and he goes and cleans up and I’m sort of curled up and cuddled into the blankets all blissed out when he comes back and he made me a coffee.

I really love coffee and I really, really love it when he makes me a coffee.

And cooks, which is what he’s gone back to doing. The apartment is flooded with this smell of beef stew. I’ve never had beef stew before. I slip into the kitchen the blankets around me and put my cup into the sink. “I’m going to go and take another long bath and get cleaned up okay?”

He turns and kisses me, and hugs me in this making me feeling small and pretty and girly squeeze. “Okay hon, I’ll take my time with the rest of the stuff.” We kiss again and I’m pouring bubble bath into the water when it just kind of bubbles up in me.

“He just called me hon…”

I sink grate fully into the tub, I’ve already had a bath today but I just feel better and cleaner after sex when I’ve had a bath. I’ve already used my other things to clean the really messy stuff up first.

I’m feeling good, sore but actually not that sore but really good, I can’t really describe it other than languid?

I head into our room.

Hon, our room…god I’m smiling again.

I slip into just a soft silky pair of panties and a pair of yoga pants…god those things are so soft and light and comfortable and I put his jersey back on. I just swim in the thing and could use it for a dress if a really short one and I pad back out to the living room in my bare feet still just not really able to get this so good inside and out feeling out of my system.

I never thought, I never dreamed that I would ever have something like this.

I smile at Alex as he’s taking biscuits out of the oven and the place just blooms with that smell.

We take the food back to the living room and we put it all on the coffee table and we snuggle in together and we eat while watching TV. I think he really does love me because he gave me the remote.

I’ve never really had anything that’s been long simmered and slow cooked before in my life and it’s one of the best things that I’ve ever eaten before. We even feed each other every once in awhile. I even like all the veggies and stuff that he put into it. I’m not fussy not with I grew up with.

It turns out I actually don’t mind pepper when it comes out of a pepper mill. I finally get the big deal over melting butter and hot biscuits another first for me. I ate two bowls and three biscuits and a couple of the little potatoes in his.

We just stay snuggled and relaxed for a few hours and then we did up the dishes together and with Monday morning looming at us we went to bed about eight o’clock.

We didn’t go to sleep right away either, and we didn’t make love but we sorta did? I mean it’s weird for me to think about it this way like it’s making love but since when did making love have to be about the sex?

Nope Alex makes love to me by bringing his laptop to bed and setting it up to play a movie and he wraps his big arms around me and pulls me tight to him and we cuddle together as I watch Disney’s Beauty and The Beast for the first time in my life.

I cried a lot not just because of the movie but just this.

All of them were happy tears and in love tears and being loved tears that had me drifting off to sleep so safe.

Yay…………My Heart.

Sweet Dreams-24...Holy!F#*K, Did I just get A Life?

Chapter 24

My waxed cup of coke and popcorn goes flying all over the place as I jump to my feet screaming. “Omigod!, Alex! Run, go, go, go!”

I’ve seen football on TV and it never clicked, I really thought that it just was my thing even with Alex playing I wasn’t that interested but I don’t know something happened tonight.

We’re at an away game and there a bunch of us in the stands and I’m in leotards under leggings and Alex’s jersey over my…well his hoody and Jennifer and Cynthia and the cheers girls were dancing out a beat trying to work the crowd up. Then I saw the other team coming out first all wound up and all of these guys were just huge.

I mean I’ve seen football players up close especially since I’m with Alex but I dunno there was this disconnect there that I never thought of any other football players than Alex and the other guys of the team.

Actually these guys had a lot of guys bigger than Alex. And I really don’t want to sound racist but there was an awful lot of really big black guys for a school with a lot of pretty much white faces in the crowd.

Not surprising really, schools with the cash likely headhunt like the universities.

The game started and as close as we are the action’s not that far away and the crack of helmets on helmets was like two rams striking each other. I could feel the vibrations from the crashing together of bodies and the violence of it and the power.

The first instant I was hooked was watch these guys coming at my guys like they were going to kill him and Alex dodges one faster than I ever thought he could move and his arms was pulling back to throw and then it was…. I swear I heard a gunshot like sound when he threw.

He got the ball to Kelly who runs the ball twenty three yards.

It was like nothing I had ever seen, watching him made my nipples ache and more it was skill and violence and spur of the moment tactics and pride and money were on the line…school funds, scholarships all of it became real in a few minutes of gameplay.

It’s cold out and steam comes off the guys, sweat drips and bull like breaths skirt the ground and they clash and clash and they tear up the ground and there’s blood and the cheerleaders are almost moving like they’re fighting, moving and dancing, sweating and flipping and being thrown into the air.

It’s like nothing I’ve seen or felt before.

So back to why I’m freaking out and losing my shit….

Two of our defensive guys were out hurt, Jeff with a concussion I think and Paul got his arm broken so Alex was out playing defense and our guys where all over them and their QB fires off a pass and out of nowhere come Alex… He rolled over one guys back right into the path of the pass and stole the ball right out of mid-air.

Interception!!!

Alex is running, He so fast and strong and he’s either dancing through some guys or bashing others down with shoulder blocks and the announcer is screaming out.

“He’s at the forty, the thirty, the twenty oh my god Alex Donovan! What a run!, What a run! Touchdown!”

The games not even over but I’m jumping up and down screaming and losing my shit. The crowds losing it and April and I are hugging and even Adam is up on his feet and there’s this look there that …might just be pride?

It just heats things up even more.

Oh Alex doing that fired our guys up but the guys on the other team…they really wanted to hurt him for that. I see him get tackled hard by two guys soon after and he didn’t have the ball…he hit dirt so hard that he tore through the turf a couple of feet. I think I saw a cheap shot of a hard punch to his ribs.

“Hey, c’mon are you fucking blind ref!” I screamed at the guy who’s obviously blind as a bat. He waves me off with this don’t give a shit kind of attitude.

Alex gets back up and moved like…yeah…like he got punched in the ribs.

“Those sons of bitches.”

You ever be to one of those football games where the ref’s a blind. Yeah it’s turning into one of those and play by play I’m getting wound up and the game get’s so rough, and when our guys hit back yeah the refs are getting on their cases about it.

Half time I slip off to the ladies room and April and I are getting cleaned up when a couple of girls from here leave their school jackets on the counter. I strip fast out of my hoody and jersey and pass them to April. I grab the other girl’s jacket and we take off.

“Hunter, that’s stealing!”

“No, it’s war. I’m infiltrating enemy lines.”

“What?”

“Look the refs are obviously from town here or are favoring these guys over ours.”

“Yeah and?”

“I’m going to even the odds.”

“How?”

I grin at her. “Just watch.” I slip off through the crowds and hit the concession stands I get the biggest drink I can get and three chili dogs with extra mustard, ketchup and sauerkraut.

I get into the crowd at the home team and get close to the action as I can get and it’s not long before the home team does something the refs can’t ignore and have to penalize them for. I scream out at the ref that does it.

“You suck!, are you fucking stupid!?, do your Job asshole!”

Then I hit him with at least a quart of mountain dew in the chest and it splashes all over him. Okay… move through the shocked crowd. Play it up. “It’s not right, he called the wrong play, he didn’t do that to the other players.” I shut it, move up through some bleachers. Turn step in between two lugs. “Good, that guy’s an asshole, he probably has money on the game.” It does take much. “Why the hell isn’t our coach arguing this shit.” before long some of them are actually jumping on the ref calling a play on their guy and start tossing things and turning ugly…I lob the chili dogs, I hit of splatter a few players and one of the staff. They turn and yell at the crowds, it gets a bit uglier. I take off and ditch the jacket grinning.

It might be an away game but we’re still in the “Greater” Detroit area, and just hinting at something not being Kosher of someone messing with us and we get vocal. I’m passed by security and things are calmed down in a few minutes but the damage is done…mindfuck accomplished.

I get back to Adam and April and I’m freezing and gratefully slip into my hoody and jersey.

“Was that you?” April asks her eyes wide. I grin back but shrug. Adam stares at me a moment and there might be a smile there but he reeled it in just as quick.

It so worked, the other team is so off their shit and that ref and the other ref are pissed at how they were treated and start calling on every play on everyone which riles up the crowd more and after our lines change the guys play like crazy. Steven Brighton gets a TD and he pointed the ball at me? Before spiking it and doing his little dance.

We win with a score of 28 to 16 and there’s a lot of cheering and I run down onto the field and Alex picks me up into this huge hug and a spin. He’s holding me in his arms and I pull off his helmet and run my fingers through his sweaty hair and we kiss and kiss and use our tongues. He smiles one of those rare smiles after breaking the kiss.

“You’re fucking awesome you know that?”

“What? Me? Why?”

“I thought I was hearing things when that shit started over there. I swore I heard you screaming. Then Jen said she heard you and seen you over there…God Hunter that was above and beyond.”

He kisses me again and I’m all tingly from the excitement and just…He’s so happy and proud of me and… “God Hunter, I don’t just love you I’m So in love with you.” I’m right about to cry in that happy glomphing way when the guys grab me, spinning me around, there’s kisses on the cheeks and I’m getting told that I’m awesome and loved and cared for and I can’t help but girl squeal and laugh.

The Jen hauls me off to the locker room with the cheerleaders. I’m really devoted to Alex, I’m seriously head over heels in love with him and where at not too long ago I’d have some pretty messed up feelings now watching hot, gorgeous sweaty teen cheerleaders undressing and stuff now…okay there’s a little attraction there but mostly wanting. More and more I want those curves. I want boobs of my own, breasts. I want something more than my little boy breasts…even though I’m sore and stuff from Alex sucking on them and stuff I still love it and it hurts a bit when he cups my chest and kind of pushes my skin and stuff into a tiny sort of boob…it’s not that, that hurts it’s sinking back to flatness after that hurts.

Here in the land of C’s through DD’s it’s a bit like torture, even seeing their lower parts unclad and very often shaven has me wondering a lot too. What if Y’know?

I get asked to go over the whole story and repeat things a stuff and we’re laughing and giggling and it’s so cool if strange that there are the hottest most popular girls in school telling me they wish they could be like me…that they wish they were as brave as me.

Though even as we’re talking and they’re washing and soaping and stuff I notice something.

Cynthia… really quiet but that’s her anyways, yeah I know a hot looking shy quiet teenager? But she is and I notice her extra quiet then one hand holding the top of the stall, and her eyes go half lidded and she’s biting her lower lip. Then she’s quickly stepped back under the water. I think she just rubbed one out?! And she was staring the entire time at Jennifer…her best friend. Oh I’m so getting why Cynthia’s always been her shadow.

Huh?

No one else here seems to have a clue either. The more I watch her drying off getting dressed the shyness and the glances at Jen the more sure I am she’s smitten.

Wow, guess I’m not the only girl here with secrets. I’m not going to say anything. Who knows how that’d go down with her or with me.

I guess I really need to do this then. Start trying to take those steps into becoming the girl I need to be. Maybe I should take April up on her offer and go see a doctor about this. And the headaches and the nosebleeds. I can only imagine what’s wrong with me given the toxic dumps I’ve lived in.

So……………….. Yeah, it’s Friday and yeah a whole it’s been a stellar week. Schools been good I’m finally getting caught up. Working and even hanging with Jennifer and her friends a lot but also with the guys from computer class a bit talking about just stuff. My complete lack of ever having anything lands me in the perfect girl pattern because I’ve never really had the chance to have comics or watch movies or even cable. I am interested though and they’ve been teaching me.

I actually try really hard to talk to anyone that talks to me.

Wednesday night Alex takes me out on a date. Dressed kind of nice and dinner at A&W and I like the root beers and burgers are nice and the onion rings, another first for me. We saw Fast Five and I had really movie theater popcorn and even cried some stuff out some more that night.

We make love more and more, It feels best for him and me to be face to face. It’s hurts less and less as we’re getting better at the foreplay and lube and entry. We’re getting better at it and I’m getting more out of it…he gives me oral some times the kisses feeds it back to me. He’s too big or I’m too small but I’m really not so great at returning the favor. He’s top and I’m bottom and we usually make love before bed, then my morning wake up and then his after workout shower sex.

He takes his supper breaks with me.

Yeah…WTF, this almost feels like a life?

We all troop out to the busses and our cars and we head back for the post game party the official one at the school where we are all treated to hot dogs and burgers and fries and it’s a good time meeting the parents of the other players and cheerleaders and the support staff. Some don’t show, or only one shows…there’s a lot of dysfunction there, some of the rich kids don’t have it any better home wise.

Jen’s mom is there. She’s not blonde but brunette and a carbon copy in high end fashion and expensive bling. I catch a bit. “Why didn’t you try harder Jennifer, you were sloppy out there and what the hell were you thinking? That little slut that took Alex away from you is half of what people where talking about NOT my child who’s supposed to be the head cheerleader not second best at anything ever!”

Little slut? Moi?

I can’t help it and walk over and hug her mom from the side and she looks surprised. “Little slut huh? Look it here you stupid cow. Jen’s better than you, she’s a shitload better because people actually like her and she’s actually starting not to give a shit about what you think.”

“Take you hands off…”

“Shut the fuck up…Jen’s a lot better than me too. I’m a poor kid, from a bad, bad place and if I was you’re daughter I would have beaten you in your sleep….I still might.”

I look her in the eyes. “Jen’s a ten star harassed bitch but she’s my friend. You ever fuck with her again and I will find you in the dark and you’ll find out if those rumors about me in the country club are true.”

“You can’t…”

“I can, she’s my friend, leave her the fuck alone.”

“I’ll…”

“You won’t do fuck all. Ask yourself this, I made Adam back the fuck off, how’d I manage that? And….Do…You…Want…A…Piece…of…It.”

She blanches and she stares at me and then at Jennifer, then at me then pulls away from me. “Jennifer…call your father…” and she stalks sort of kinda runs off.

“So I’m so getting you now.”

Jennifer looks at me and she’s doing that move back and forth in a half circle way trying not to cry. I step up a hug her. She hugs me back and sniffles. “I sh..should fucking hate you… you stuck your damned little pixie nose in my shit again…”

“Hey, nosey bossy, bitchy…I learn from my friends.”

(sniffle laugh.) “Cunt.”

I hug her a bit tighter. “I get you in shit?”

“Yeah, she really will hate you forever.”

“Pfft, she hates me, my Mom and Step-shit hate me, people hate me for being with Alex and being friends with you. She can go fuck off it the corner with the fucking rest of them and wait for me to give a fuck.”

(Sniffle giggle.) “No one’s ever stood up to her before, and never for me…thanks Hunter.”

“Hey, it’s okay so what kind of heat’s this going to bring.”

“She’s told me to call Dad, I’m likely getting kicked out of my house.”

“Bitch!…So what’s the father unit like?”

“Absent, married to a girl about six years older than us.”

“So that’ll suck.”

“Big time. She won’t want me anywhere near the house, or her aka Dad’s money.”

“Okay, get emancipated.”

“Huh?”

“You’re old enough, get legally emancipate and sue them both for child support.”

“But I don’t know how to do that kinda stuff.”

“Lucky for you, I know a lawyer.”

“Who?”

I take her by the hand and haul her over to where April and Adam are at and I stop in front of him. “Mr. Donovan sir…I need your help, a friend of mine needs your help.”

“Oh?” He turns and looks at me. I’m half expecting him to steeple his fingers and go excellent.

“Jen’s mom is kicking her out for her not wanting to be her overachieving conniving little skank clone.” His face twitches, April spit takes her drink.

“And?”

“Her father is Mr. mid-life crisis boy and the sweet young gold digger will raise holy hell with another woman in the house.”

“I see, but what would this possibly have to do with me?”

“She needs a lawyer to help her get emancipated.”

“I don’t do family law, I’m a financial lawyer.”

“But you can do it.”

“I can but why would I?”

I sit beside him and take his hand in mine. There’s a priceless look for a second.

“Because Adam …Jennifer doesn’t want to be her mother. The first time we met you said that you pretty much hated the money grubbing gold digging type by implying that all of us are like that and I’m assuming you’ve learn from last week? She needs your help, she needs that guy that knew that he could do more working in and challenging the legal system than working for it. You can really help her and honestly…”

He’s my coup de gras. “There’s likely no one who would dare to do it but you.”

Adam stares at me a few moments. “Why do you say that?”

“Jen’s Mom and Dad are from the upper crust set, they have contacts and everyone around her goes to the same events, they wouldn’t dare. They’d use that to crush anyone she could afford.”

“And I wouldn’t have difficulties?”

“Sure, maybe. But these are the same kind of people that tried to hold you down as a lawyer because you’re just some blue collar kid. You never let them stop you did you?”

He stares at me again.

Then at Jennifer.

He sigh loudly and rubs his face in his hands and says to Jen. “Give me a dollar.”

“Uhm Okay, why?” She hands him a dollar bill.

“Because I’m now your legal council. Come on I’ll drive you home and we’ll get your things. Hunter you and Alex go and rent a moving truck. We’ll take everything.”

“Sure, no problem.” I get up to leave. He says before we all head off. “Hunter?”

“Yessir?”

“That was quite a passionate argument…if this thing with you and Alex is permanent then maybe I’ll let him take his art classes and put you through law school.”

“If that’s a verbal contract sir than I accept…”

There’s silence for a minute, two, three… “Go, go get that truck.”

I run to go get Alex.

Did he just say what…?

No fucking way….

Sweet Dreams-25...Holy F#*K, Did I just get A Life?

Chapter 25

I run to go get Alex and almost bounce into his arms because…well I think there might be something of this sort of weird truce, respect, like dislike thing with me and Adam.
And while that’s really cool.

He might just actually let Alex go to art school. I’m more happy about that than anything.

I mean if he really meant it.

But me, a lawyer?

Actually, makes sense. I’m pretty mouthy.

Alex smiles that Alex half smile. “Hey…S’up beautiful?”

“We gotta go rent a moving van or u-haul or something. I…I kinda had a moment with Jennifer’s Mom because she was having a major bitch attack.”

“And?”

“She’s kicking Jennifer out we’re pretty sure and your dad and I want to head things off before she does something that’ll take her from being a douche-canoe to being the USS-Mega-Cunt.”

Alex laughs and rests his head on my shoulder.

“Have I told you just how awesome you are Hunter?”

“Yes…..but I’ll take more wanton self esteem boosting comments like that if you’re dishing them out.”

He lifts his head and starts kissing me and walking me backwards to his car. “You’re awesome. And brave (Kiss) And funny (Kiss) And smart (Kiss) And sexy (Kiss) And beautiful….” He pins me sort of to the side of the car while he kisses me and holds me in his hands and there’s what I can only call a girly thrill that feels so good as his hands slide over me.

I mean it’s just arms, shoulders, ribs, waist, hips…..

But.

It’s the way I feel because I’m so thin and small compared to Alex and his huge hands are so big and so warm running over me that not only does it feel great but I’m getting that whole small girly dainty waif thing going on and getting romantically kissed… Sigh…Big Sigh.

He grins breaking the kiss and opens my door for me and he starts to drive to this rental place. I know there’s that whole accident-not-accident thing with his mom as part of this but I like how Alex drives; He drives carefully.

The step-shit when we had a car drove like an idiot. But then again he was always lit when he drove. Alex drives the speed limit but his eyes are always on the road and everything going on around us. It’s soothing really because I’m not used to cars that much. I’m a city bus girl and the town train too.

The guy at the rental place knows Alex and there’s no problem getting a big cube van. “The firm uses this place for its rental cars all the time.” We leave his car there and take the van to Jen’s house…oh this is one of those gated communities and we’re stopped at the gate and Alex is recognized and the guy calls him Mr. Donovan, which has him frowning and sets me off giggling and he starts heading to Jen’s house and he’s mad-mock scowling at me as we drive and I’m grinning until we really hit the neighborhood. Okay Alex’s place was me going to live on the moon. This, this was being in a shuttle and going to Jupiter. I mean you hear about these crazy people and multi-million dollar homes. But this is just…You could put my old apartment building in some of these yards, they have fountains and tennis courts. I’m staring just kind of stunned as Alex drives through this place. Okay Adam lives well but compared to these people he’s just living a pretty simple life. I mean the sidewalks here must be like seven feet wide.

We pull into this small urban palace and there’s a few cars there. Adam’s and there two cars from the local security force and the city’s sheriff’s office and I see Jen on her knees beside this swimming pool quietly fishing her things out with Cynthia and April while that bitch of a mother of her’s is yelling at the sheriff.

“This is my fucking house; I can do whatever I want!”

“Ma’am you can’t, there’s a TRO against you right now and you can’t go near your daughter or her belongings while she is in process of leaving the premises.”

He’s trying to show her this tablet and she’s pushing it out of her face. Saying like she’s still queen of the world. “I don’t care about your silly video game; I want all of you off of my property including that failure over there.”

She points at Jennifer and as she does she see’s me. If looks could kill I’d be a pile of smoldering ashes. Her finger goes from pointing at Jennifer to me.

“I want that little whore off of my property.” Her voice is loud but cold.

“Hunter you go right along and help Jennifer with her things.” Adam says as he walks over to her and the fellow from the Sheriff’s office. “You can’t order her off of the premises Mrs. Hardy, Hunter works for me and I am your daughter’s legal counsel.”

“We’ll see about that Adam.”

She looks all triumphant as this other guy comes over after getting out of a Lexus.

I go over to help Jennifer. “Jezzus Jen, I’m sorry. I never thought that this was going to happen and everything I was just trying to have her mad at me rather than making your life a living hell.”

(Sniffle.) “No…Hunter it’s okay. This has been coming a long long time I guess. Mom only wanted me around so dad had to pay out more money in the divorce and the settlement. Most of my life was this whole series of her and him fighting and then her using me to milk him dry and then him using me to make her jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah…Dad would have me on his days and he’d take me on these big shopping trips and to places like these expensive restaurants and spas and stuff. She’d…she’d be on a total tear for days after that.”

Cynthia brings some stuff over all wrung out. “There’d be jewelry missing too.”

I shake my head. “And here I thought that it was only junkie parents like mine that stole from their kids.”

Jen’s frowning and nearly crying. “I never found any of the stuff that went missing, and she’d just tell me that I should be more careful with my things.”

“Fucking nice, ripping you off because she wasn’t the center of attention and wanting you to go-go-go and be little miss perfect at the same time as an ego stroke.”

“I though that this was kind a shitty sort of way to live Hunter but at the same time I know I’ve been lucky but I just want to get out of here. I can’t hack this place and her bullshit or his…”

Jen’s looking at another car that just pulled up some big high end Beamer. And this guy gets out and he’s all buff and blonde in his mid forties with the khakis on and the polo shirt and this girl with him dressed in stuff that looks very high end like designer everything comes with him and right into the fray that’s going on between the adults.

Oh this has to be her dad and the new little woman. I’m seeing her looking at Jen’s mom like she’s a bug and gave the same look to me and Jen and Cynthia all the while holding her shoulder bag with one of those little toy dogs in it. “Wow…” I start to say and Cynthia finishes with. “He married Paris Hilton.”

April adds in. “With double E’s, those are so implants and she’s definitely got a nose job.”

“Hey don’t knock the boob job…I might just be getting one.” I say, and sort of feel like the little girl of the group for a moment. Everyone here including Jen’s mom is at least a good heavy C-cup.

“You’re just having a slow puberty Hunter.” April says.

“Yeah it’s likely all the crap you lived through.” Jen says.

“I’d worry less about your boobs Hunter and more about the nosebleeds.” Cynthia says.

April looks at me. “You’ve had more of those?”

“Yeah, they’ve stopped though pretty much since Alex.” I shrug. “Stress related?”

“Hunter stress related or not these might be something else. You’re going to see my doctor as soon as we can get an appointment.” April says.

“I don’t have health insurance, I can’t afford it.”

“I’ll put you on mine Hunter, It’s okay.” She says.

I look at her in the eyes and I’m so not used to open and honest caring. I’m not used to seeing than in someone’s eyes when they look at me. I mean who am I really? Why wasn’t I ever good enough for this before.

It hurts like it did but this time it’s a good hurt with this.

“Hunter?” Jen asks looking at me.

“Huh… Yeah?”

“You’re crying.”

“I am?” I raise my hands to my cheeks and there’s tears there. “I’m….sorry guy it’s….”

Jen hugs me then Cynthia and April too. I let out a long choky sob laugh. “Oh this is so bad…I’m the one that supposed to be helping out…not…dammit.”

Cynthia runs her fingers through my hair with this look there that’s her own sort of empathy. I can really guess at how hard she has it hiding, feel the way he does, being who she is…here…in this place where the people here are just….

Jen looks at me too. “Hunter…you don’t have to keep being the tough chick anymore, you don’t have to hold all that stuff back.”

“But I’m the one who’s supposed to be helping you… (Sniffle.)…dammit I hate crying.”

April kisses my forehead. “You’re allowed to cry honey it’s healthy.”

“It doesn’t solve anything.”

Cynthia sniffles a bit too now. “Hunter it’s not meant to solve shit, it keeps us from going crazy.”

“It’s a little late for that.” I make a crazy face and that starts us laughing. And that gets us these glares from the girlfriend and from Jen’s mom and then they notice they’re both doing the same thing and get even more pissed and start glaring at each other again. This of course set us off a little more. I mean it’s funny and not but sort of like laughing at a funeral all the shit from my little emo episode and the drama with all of this and Jen it’s just all coming out as a bad case of the giggles but with the four of us.

And it is sort of funny that us laughing is getting to them.

Jen let’s go first then she sniffles and wipes at her eyes. She must have gotten rid of her make up at some point. “I’m so done with this shit, lets get the fuck out of here.”

………………………………................... It takes a few hours and a few trips. It turns out that while Alex and I got the cube van her mother had come home and went on a rampage throwing out things and taking a pair of clothing sheers to the rest of the stuff.

She was throwing things out Jen’s window into the pool. Not everything made the pool and there was a lot of stuff smashed poolside. She was doing it as Adam, April, Cynthia and Jen had pulled up in the car.

Adam got her in action recorded on his phone and that was e-mailed with the TRO request.

Turns out that there’s always a judge on. And there’s nothing like a clear cut bunch of evidence like video to get the papers signed off on. It also turns out if you open the e-mail they send you about the TRO you’ve been served.

Jen’s mom thought that if she just deleted it the order didn’t count. Stupid cow.

Alex got some of the guys over to help move some of Jen’s furniture. And Adam had gotten into a three way discussion with Jen’s mom’s lawyer and her dad’s lawyer. Until he got it sorted out that Jen’s mom would have to pay restitution and they settled on some amount and her father offered the pool house and Jen was right double E girl pitched a fix say this was Jen helping her mom play her games and she wasn’t going to have Jennifer spying on them.

That led to a near screaming match between the two women I guess.

Well Adam got Jen’s dad to apparently agree to take care of Jen’s rent when she’s settled and the utilities and stuff. I sort of heard Adam told him that supporting Jen would mean less money that he had to pay her mom.

But the bitch wrecked so much of Jen’s things and she even cut up her stuffies. Why? Because she wasn’t going to bask in Jen’s glory, that Jen wasn’t going to be her meal ticket…marry Alex and live off of him going pro or being a big named lawyer?

Reminds me of my mom losing her shit when she didn’t get her drug fix. Jen’s mom’s hooked on status and money. It makes me so fucking sick the amount of parents out there that just don’t love their children.

We’re you’re fucking kids! Just love us! Just….

We never found Jen’s jewelry box. God what a bitch.

Adam’s didn’t say a word as we moved Jen for now into the bedroom in the main house and parked both the cars outside so we could fit Jen’s stuff into the garage. April’s more there than any adult woman I know. She takes care of Jen along with Cynthia while Alex and I went and took back the van and got his car.

We picked up some stuff to eat at this place that has stuff ready made in the supermarket and we all ended up in our apartment except Adam who said he had things to do and get ready for just in case.

I took a shower and got into my Pajama bottoms and one of Alex’s jerseys while Jen was in her cheer sweats and an over sized t-shirt as was Cynthia and April was in these cute cotton but black trimmed pink Pj’s.

We get some movies ordered up on the Netflicks while Alex cooks for all of us making us this roast beef that’s been pre-cooked but he makes fresh fries and onion rings and he makes this great gravy that he dumped the beef into. It’s nothing fancy but he cooked for all of us and it was really, really good because he did it for us.

It felt heart deep better than good when him and I sit on the floor wrapped up in a blanket with his arms around me as we watched some movies. I’ve never seen either “Serendipity” or “A walk to remember.” The last one had all of us girls crying and I got wrapped up even tighter in Alex’s arms and the blanket and he kissed me like I was one of those movie girls…better than if I was one of those movie girls.

Ow………..My heart.

Jen and Cindy, yeah we started to use Cindy there tonight. They headed down stairs and Alex made a hot sandwich for his dad.

I close the door and Alex pulls me into his Arms and he turns me around and leans me against the wall/door jam and kisses me until my brain shuts off everything else and turns to goo. I never knew turning to goo would feel so good.

I jump a little as he picks me up so I can wrap my legs around him and he carries me to our bed….I love this, I love when we’re together and being intimate more and more but there’s just…

I want more, I want to be right for him as much as I guess for myself. I really, really want to be Alex’s girl. Maybe the doctor can help me? I need to try, I need to get started…I want more of this…I want my life.

I want Alex inside, I want him…. “Make love to me Alex…please…I need you…” I’m crying again dammit, choking up…

He kisses me and touches me in those certain ways, those special ways and sinks into me and pulls me off the bed into this loving embrace as he is…and he’s holding me…hugging me to him and…says. “It’s okay Hunter, It’s okay…I’ve got you…I Love You.”

Sweet Dreams-26…Holy F#*K did I just get A Life?

Chapter 26

I love every moment now; I love every second of this now. I can’t even process not feeling that this isn’t something that’s right, deeply and truly right as we make love. I moan in his ear as he sinks into me with long strokes that fill me up with hardness and silk and pleasure and heat.

I love the fact that he makes this almost chirr or a purr as my nails slip scraping over him skin and that we kiss and we kiss and I reach up and run my hands over his rock hard muscles and over his scars and then running my hands through his hair.

I love the fact the we’ll almost stop and we’ll just look at each other…it’s just looking at each other and there no words for the sweet look in those coffee silk deep eyes of his and he smiles then lays me down in our bed and kisses me…starts moving again, long deep hard strokes changing everything about me moment by moment….it does you know, when the one that you’re with really and truly loves you and takes you away from that person you used to be until your soul seems to take flight towards heaven and you get to be in the height of that bliss…

You get to be the person that they see you as…and not that reflection in the twisted mirror of your own life’s experience.

Alex sink’s in deeply and there’s that frission of energy that ripples through his body and he gathers me tightly into his arms and plant’s his face into my shoulder…my collar bone and I feel the hot, thick, juicy spurts going off deep inside. There’s not grunting stuff just that and him leaving the love bite to my shoulder with a kiss and he nuzzles my face and smiles the sweetest shy hurt boy finally showing that lost smile to me, for me just for me.

Ow……..my heart.

The second time it’s so much more powerful and it get’s me loud…it makes me want to cry out because it’s so good, it’s like wild possession…there was William, then Me, then there’s this me that I’m becoming more and more sure that I am really supposed to be and the second time Alex is making love to me she takes over and she…I’m pretty sure leaves a little bit of herself behind every time.

The third time that Alex makes love to me is the best…I know it sounds un-sexy and stuff but it’s just face to face. It’s just this slow and steady gentle loving rhythm that just fits with us having burned our way through that passionate full burn sex.

The first time we are together its love making and foreplay and passion, the second time our blood’s all pumped full of sexual adrenaline and the hormones are flowing and it’s that intense wild sex. But this, the third time Alex is making love to me is just slow.

There’s nothing to be in a hurry about, there’s no desperation in it. The fire’s not raging…and that might sound bad but this is this slow, sweet lovemaking where it’s as much as about taking our time with each other as it is about every touch and every kiss.

This’ll sound off I know but here like this we get to this point where Alex kissing me the way that he does when we’re like this is every bit as powerful and sensual as him sinking into me.

I’m so sure now that the person living here between my ears isn’t a guy. I might not fit in any mold that you’d judge a girl by but I’m sure than I am a girl in my head.

As much as everything’s messed up in my head…just knowing that and being able to admit it even to myself is a relief.

I know so all that unsure self torture shit can start… (I know)…to stop. I hope that makes sense.

And after he holds me and we doze and cuddle just getting the energy to get up so we can take a bath together…

I like doing that.

Alex has a real big tub so to soak away his bumps and bruises and sore muscles after a game or practice and it’s more that big enough for the two of us. And even as late as it is and the day we had he let’s me slip into his dry warm spot while he runs us a bath and then he changes the bed sheets while I slip into the bathroom and do the stuff I sort of need to do after we make love.

It’s just a nice little slice of perfect when we’re in the tub together and he wraps me up in those huge muscular arms of his that feel so good holding me and keeping me safe. I love the feel of being able to just relax and lean against him and feel his muscular chest against my back. I’m literally half the size of him and then some so being held like that really feels good in this I’m a girl kind of feminine way.

There just so many little things now happening for me and I really, really treasure them.

Like having him, and not being alone. And it’s this not alone in my heart thing more than a physical thing.

Mom and the Stepshit were around a lot since neither on had a decent job and there were always lots of their shitty “friends” around too, and there was school but that was just…

I have something now, someone and something real.

Its clean clothes and just stuff like having deodorant and powder, toothpaste and a new toothbrush…being warm and clean.

It’s Alex making the bed with clean sheets after we make love and him being that kind of guy that knows about me and heat and stuff. He put the sheets for a heating spin in the dryer before making the bed.

It’s those arms around me as we settle into bed.

It’s being asleep and us having rolled over and kissed each other finding each others lips in the dark before I wrap my arms around him and settle myself against his chest.

Him kissing the top of my head in his sleep.

Me falling ever deeper into sleep as I listen to his heartbeat.

I really, really think that I’m actually in love.

……………………………………………………Alex is the first time in my life I wake up smiling.

I really love the fact that if I’m really out of it he tries so hard to detangle himself from me and head to the bathroom to get ready for his morning jog. Even on the weekend he trains.

I get it though. As much as he doesn’t really want to play, he wants to play and the training and the whole routine’s likely kept him sane.

I like watching him in the morning too like this. Not that I’m even really moving but I like laying there sort of half face down hugging his pillow breathing in his smell while he’s really trying to be quiet and not wake me.

He gets his things and heads out to do his road-work…it’s what they call all that running to build up stamina and everything. I doze another ten or fifteen minutes before getting up and making the bed and getting our wash ready and they shuffling out in my Pj’s to the kitchen and starting to make breakfast.

I’m getting better at the domestic stuff too. The coffee is perking when there’s a knock at the door and Jennifer and Cindy are there in their sleepwear too.

“Can we eat here? There’s nothing really down there for food.” Jen pleads with me her eyes still not totally out of sleep mode.

“Sure, you girls are up early?”

“Ugh…April’s up already doing pilates. And Adam’s up too so…”

Cindy yawns. “Jen knows Alex has food here and he’s usually up by now so…” she stops looking between us in this oops oh shit thing.

I grin and take down three mugs. “The advantage of being the ex-girlfriend.”

Jen looks a bit sheepish now. “Sorry Hunter if this is just too weird then we can go.”

“No, if it wasn’t a big thing here last night hanging out then it’s not a big deal today okay?” I pour three coffees and take out the various things for it. It’s a good thing too because I’m a three sugars girl and creamer, Cindy does sweetener and half and half and Jennifer uses sweetener and soymilk.

“But you’re here you’re helping.”

“Helping?” Jennifer asks.

“Making breakfast.”

“Uhm…” She actually looks flummoxed. Cindy snerks and smiles at her…oh yeah there’s some more than she’s my best friend in there. “Jen’s really good at ordering over the phone, but she’s never really done the whole domestic stuff before.”

“Hey, me neither. Well not that much and I’m still getting used to it too.”

We start cooking and I’m actually impressing them with my knowledge of scrambled eggs and microwaving bacon and toastmaking which is kinda…sad but actually understandable. It’s the last couple of generations really either the girls don’t cook, or won’t cook. I think that Mom could cook but it just never happened enough. Well that and the fact that most of what we had was just stick it in the oven or heat in on the stove kind of stuff.

Or nuked it in the microwave…when we had a microwave.

I know Adam bought all or most of Alex’s stuff here but it’s more than what I’m used to having.

We’re all kinda ick…about Alex and his thing about liking cottage cheese. And Cindy shoes me this really kind of yummy trick where you swap out the milk that you pour over your granola for yogurt.

I’m not a fan of either things but like the veggie-fruit juice stuff that Alex drinks I eat some and I try it and while it’s not something I’d be all OMG it’s good about it’s not canned dog food sandwiches. So I’m pretty good about eating the healthy stuff. God knows I must be seriously deficient.

It is funny the look on Alex’s face though when he comes in and he see’s his current girlfriend there in the kitchen with his ex-girlfriend. I mean we’re not even really talking about him and stuff but he stopped and was towelling off the sweat and then he stopped with that look.

Huh?...What?...Ohfuck.

He almost gingerly makes his way to the bathroom to get a shower.

Yeah we end up giggling and laughing together. It was just too funny and stuff because I can sort of get where his head’s at and everything. But at the same time I’m seeing I’m so on the pink side of the gender line.

Breakfast is a bit more active and crowded than I’m used to and I do up two paper plates with some scrambled eggs and some toast and a few slices of bacon and slip into the main house while Alex is showering.

Adam’s got his glasses on and is reading from a tablet while standing beside one of those insert the packet dish coffee things. I come in beside him and just set the food on the counter. “Thanks for everything last night, you didn’t have to get involved and you let me talk you into all of this.” I step up on my tip-toes and kiss his cheek.

I’m heading out the door and back upstairs when I hear him say quietly. “It’s been awhile since anyone thought I could make a difference...”

I turn and both he and the plates are gone. I can’t help but to smile a bit from that. It’s a good thing I hope. I know some people don’t like being put into positions like that. Still…I hope that’s a good thing.

Sweet Dreams-28...Oh Crap! WTF?

Chapter 28

The rest of the night is actually really different. I think Alex might have gotten that the doctor thing is scaring me and freaking me out because he keeps close and he slips his arms around me every now and then and we share little nuzzles and kisses.

He surprises me when we don’t retreat to our place but stay in the main house and maybe it’s that the girls are here but we actually stay and Alex digs through some stuff in the hall closet and takes out all these board games.

I’ve seen them before, I’ve played a few of them as a little kid at school and stuff but mostly I’ve never done this before. We dig things out called Sorry, and Trouble, Candyland but also Scrabble and Monopoly.

Adam still not overly friendly abstained right up until I started kicking butt in Scrabble. That’s when he started helping April which was sweet and made Alex take a second look and it was really cute with him leaning over her shoulder and whispering into her ear to help her and her actually surprising him with some good word strategy every now and then and there was some mild flirting between them in that almost fighting way when she tells him all innocently blinking that she actually had to read the odd book or two when she went to Penn state.

It still didn’t stop me from winning. And it got to that point where Adam had taken a seat and April was up and more or less out of the game. I still won.

“Another game?” I asked all Blink, blink, blink.

“How about we play something that we can all play and not just you two well read people.” April says and the others agree. And that’s when Adam nodded and reached into the pile and set down monopoly.

I…there was this intense look there and I couldn’t help but smile at him because it was so on.

Honestly I’ve never had this kind of fun before and it was the perfect almost TV show family like moment but just so good even if Adam and I were like super aggressive playing the game and it did actually go all the way to where he did beat me and I ran out of cash and slowly mortgaging my properties off to keep Adam at bay and Alex got all of us laughing even his dad when he was watching and having another slice of pie this time with cottage cheese on it and a huge glass of milk and he just gestured with his fork saying.

“This game is really out of date Hunter owns the electric company and she’s going broke, what happened to the government bail outs?”

It was a really nice moment and the rest of us actually had more pie once I had lost and headed off to bed.

Oh I so couldn’t sleep with the nerves and the thoughts of what there might be actually going on with me besides being pretty damned positive that I’m transgendered.

I think I slept for three hours and laid there in Alex’s arms until it was time to get up and go to school.

I know I could have begged off going to school but I was going insane with nerves and I didn’t even stay in bed when Alex moved to get up I was up right there with him and already puttering around as soon as I could to get things ready, getting into too much coffee and really fighting with my cravings for a smoke.

Why the fuck did I ever quit smoking?

I’m not just beating eggs for scramble when Alex comes in to the kitchen and hugs me from behind. “I could skip and go with you.”

“No…I’m just scared and being a big wuss.”

“You are not a wuss, not after what you lived through.”

“Yeah but I scared and like you just said after what I’ve been through this is only the Dr.s office.”

“When was the last time you’ve been to a hospital?”

“Never, a free clinic once in a very blue moon.”

“Well there you go. You have a good reason to be scared and nervous?”

“Okay but what if they find out about me and it gets out that I’m not a girl, and people think that you’re gay.”

………………………

There was the sound of a water bottle hitting the floor.

We both looked over and Jennifer is staring at the both of us her face this pale color of just pure shock on her face and then she looks at Alex and then she looks at me and then at Alex and them me again and these great big tears roll and spill out of her eyes and she makes this wet sounding sob and she turns and bolts past Cindy and down the stairs and Alex swears something like “Double-fuck…” and he takes off after her.

Cindy is just looking at me and she picks up the spilled water bottle and she looks at me and she shakes her head kind of almost in sad commiseration. “We make a good pair don’t we.”

“Yeah….” I’m…oh god…oh…I need a drink of something since my mouth has run dry and at the same time I want to hurl…I’d likely hurl if I drank anything right now and I just sort of stare at Cindy at a loss for words. I know she’s got her own thing to deal with and Jennifer’s involved with that too.

She actually looks like a combination of tired and in shock like the rest of us. I took a breath and went back to beating the eggs when I hear Jennifer scream… “BUT SHE’S A FUCKING BOY!”

There is no way that everyone in the house hadn’t heard that.

I’m crying now, trying to beat the eggs and I swear that I can feel everything slipping away from me and the world getting cold and grey around the edges except for the splotches of red that are getting into the eggs.

I hear Cindy’s voice.

“Hunter?”

I’m pretty sure that it’s Cindy’s voice. I turn to look at her and she’s getting up and running to me with a towel and she’s yelling but it sounds like she’s trying to yell at me and I’m just under water.

I’m falling too.

I the lights just go out.

The last thing I hear is Cindy’s voice. “Hunter!”

“SOMEBODY HELP!”

Sweet Dreams-29…Oh Crap! WTF?

Chapter 29

If your life flashes before your eyes I fucking protest. Who said Slipknot could produce the video for my life?

The Drive-By… with my Daddy…I was little and I was on my big wheel just going down the alley and Daddy was there watching my from the bar’s red fire door smoking and talking to these guys that’d come up and they’s like do this secret handshake and stuff.

~Huh…looks like a hand off, seems like Dad was a dealer.~

He was still a good Daddy...Dad as far as I can remember, took care of me and he would play with me and my Happy meal toys and I think that he loved animal crackers.

I remember shot glasses of apple juice with him or milk.

I remember him arguing with these mean looking black guys a lot.

I remember that one pulled a gun and aimed it at me and Mom? She looked so different back then…still like a stripper but healthy? She yanked me inside the bar and she covered me with her body.

I remember not being allowed to look but I ran upstairs anyway and saw Daddy beating the black guy so bad that he couldn’t get up and he took the gun and pointed it at his two friends and telling them to get the eff out of here and to never come back.

It was those two guys in the Black Pontiac with the shotgun…

I remember Daddy turning when we were coming back from the store and him seeing them…they swore…then two shiny black barrels side by side and the biggest boom I ever heard and Daddy dropped to his knees and covered me.

There was so much blood!

Like the blood in the eggs.

I ruined the eggs.

Cliff is going to freak and fucking beat me again.

Cliff…

The stepshit…

Stickpins and cigarette burns, holding my hands in scalding dish water, just out and out punches sometimes and kicks.

“Don’t bother he can wear your old shit, he’s a little fag.”

Fag.

Fag.

Me…

Alex…

Jen screaming and outing me.

Cliff… “Merry Jew-day here want a candy?”

No…it doesn’t taste like candy.

Too smooth, but I was just a little kid.

“Bite…”

“Bite…”

“Bite you little fucker!”

The slap up under my jaw, then one across my face…blood, mouthfuls and mouthfuls of blood.

Mom…

Drunk all the time.

Glass pipe in her mouth all the time.

Laughing, screaming, and swearing as she’s scratching holes in herself.

Her…hot wax, hugging me spooning me, holding me, cuddling with me.

Slamming my head into the floor, or the drywall.

How in the fuck am I still alive?

Maybe I’m better off this way…?

……………………………….”HUNTER!”

“Hunter! C’mon wake up! Come on!”

“Alex?”

“Yes, yes baby it’s me c’mon?”

“You’re real?”

“Yes I’m real, I’m real and I love you!”

“Here.” Stern demanding voice…. “Adam…”

“Dad…”

“Give her to me and shut up and drive.”

“Dad?”

“Now Alexander.”

I feel arms passing me to other arms and my eyes are all blurry and I hear Adam barking orders. He has me in his arms? “April! Take my car and meet us at the hospital!”

I’m trying to see but things are blurry.

I feel that I’m getting into the back seat and that we’re driving really fast.

“Ugh…I hate driving fast.”

“Shush…” Adam telling me to shush.

“I’m sorry…” I whine…”See…”

“See what?”

“You were right…”

“I’m not always right Hunter.”

“You were right about me…”

“I can’t be right about you; I don’t even know you yet.”

“But…but I’m not a girl……oooow!” I’m trying to cry, my body wants to cry but I’m all stuffy and all I can taste is blood and I start gagging.

He rolls me over and I’m horking my guts up in the back driver’s side foot place right behind Alex.

“Oh………God……..I’m sorry…I’m…sorry….”

I’m crying again and there’s more blood dripping into the puke.

“Faster Alex…run those lights.”

I’m almost seeing the accident that I’m imagining that we’re going to be getting into. I feel Adam leaning in beside me.

“You’re not dying…you got that? You’re not, you’ve been staying under my roof, you live under my roof and you have to follow my rules…and you’re not allowed to die. I not fucking finished with you yet.”

“But…but…I’m…I’m not worth it….” I’m sobbing and coughing and still bleeding…retching too….there was something that came out with the last cough through my nose ick, really ick and clotted looking.

There’s the car moving and the screech of tires then we’re stopped and I can hear Alex yelling for help…

Adam leans into me as he’s picking me up to carry me again.

“I don’t know why you came here to us; I don’t know how you do it but….”

(Sniffle-cough-ow.) “B...but?”

“But I’m not letting you go….you mean too much to this family.” He does this quick wipe of tears then scoops me up and carries me inside or rather to where they’ve got the stretcher and all these people in scrubs and stuff and these way too bright phlorescent lights and I’m being put on the stretcher and their running me to someplace and it gets all hectic, busy and dizzy.

They push both Alex and Adam out of the room with all these people. I get jabbed with a needle.

“C’mon Hunter don’t fight us?”

Fuck that they stuck me with a needle! Uncool!

I hit someone.

“Jesus that hurt get her restrained…”

People jump me and I’m back home and in my old school and I fight until another jab and they stay on me until I sag and can’t move…oh…oh..I haven’t felt this stoned in a long time and the way too bright lights get this rainbowy thing around their edges and the people coming in and out of the light are dark and shadowy.

“Shit! What the hell she’s bleeding again…?!”

“What the hell is that…get some more light here.”

“Is that glass? I can’t tell someone call plastics and radiology…lets get her calm and stable…what ever this is it’s digging in when she tenses and her blood pressure spikes.”

“Hunter…”

“Hunter…”

“Uhn…wa…”

“We’re going to take care of you…you’re going to be okay…just relax and breath.”

“Okay…are they okay?”

“I’ll go find out but you really, really need to relax kiddo it’s important.”

“Stress kills right doc?”

“Right now yes…especially for you. I’ll go and check on them but we’re going to have to move you around for tests and stuff.”

“Okay…my face hurts.”

“Yeah I imagine it does. I’ll see you soon.”

He left and the other people are doing the medical stuff that medical people do and after no sleep and this…I think that I actually fell asleep.

Sweet Dreams-30...Oh Crap! WTF?

Chapter 30

*Alex…

Fuck things happened so fast…

Hunter and I were just…we were right in the middle of a moment. We hadn’t thought that the girls had came up the stairs. It’s just we’re not used to having company and never even thought.

When Jen overheard and dropped the water bottle….

She looked from me to Hunter to me….then there were these huge tears that just poured out and she took off at a run. I went after her because she might have told, said something…and there was also the fact.

I’ve known Jen for years and she’s a tough often cold girl…a lot of the kids in my life, where and how we’ve grown up are like that. You have to be to survive. You have to have thick skin.

I’ve never seen her look that just…Hurt…before…not even when she found out her parents were getting divorced.

She took the stairs and I took the air jumping down to catch her and…shit…ow. I twinged something doing that but I got her arm and pulled her back and she spun and Jen hauled off and punched me screaming, just hitting me over and over again and losing her shit until I grabbed her other arm and she screamed.

“Let me go!, Let me go!, Let me fucking go!”

“Jen, Jen stop please stop.”

“Stop! You’re gay!, no wonder we broke up Jesus Alex no wonder you didn’t want me!”

“I’m not gay…Me, Hunter it’s complicated…”

“You’re fucking her…him…whatever.”

“We make love yes, but Hunter’s…she’s special…I love her.”

“BUT SHE’S A FUCKING BOY!” She screams and starts struggling again. “You love her, you love her? She’s a boy!, Why? Why the fuck is she so fucking special!? Why do you love her and not me!? Am I that fucking broken!?”

Adam came out or was there at some point and April soon came out and looked worried…no freaked but worried and after her last cried out question Jen’s sobbing and still struggling and she does that girl legs giving out sliding down my car thing and Adam’s looking at me with this stare.

“Alex…you want to tell me what’s really going on here.”

“Dad, not now.”

“Alex…I’m not asking.”

“Dad….”

“No, I need to know what’s going on…what’s been going on under my roof.”

“Dad…”

Then we heard Cindy scream.

“SOMEBODY HELP!”

I let go of Jen and run up the stairs with scared to death images of Hunter doing something stupid like…mom…and I see Cindy on her knees in the kitchen with a cup towel to Hunters face and there’s blood everywhere and she looks at me eyes wide with panic.

“Alex! Alex she…she just started getting this nosebleed and it…won’t stop she…she looked at me and went pale and…”

I’m checking her breathing and she still alive and I hold her and try to stop the bleeding but every time I get the towel away there’s this second of nothing them the blood starts to run again. Not drips or a slow flow but bleeding…really bleeding. I’m trying, the cup towel, paper towels… “C’mon Hunter…please don’t…please baby don’t do this…for the love of god please don’t leave me…”

I’m start to get scared. “HUNTER!” I shout at her trying desperately to get through to her.

“Hunter C’mon wake up! Come on.”

Her head lolls like she’s drunk. “Alex?”

“Yes baby it’s me c’mon.”

“You’re real?”

“Yes I’m real, I’m real and I love you!”

“Here.” Dad’s beside me.

Hunter tries to move wake up. “Adam…”

She blacks out again going limp.

“Alex, get your keys.” Adam…dad…

“Alexander, get your car keys!” he yelled it and he punches me in my arm snapping me out of it.

“I’ve got them.”

I pick her up and head to the downstairs of the garage to the car and for a minute there’s me not thinking.

“Give her to me Alex.”

“Dad…”

“Give her to me and shut up and drive.”

“Dad?”

“Now Alexander.”

He shouts for Mom to follow in his card with the girls.

Jen looks freaked and is being held by Mom and I hear “hunter…? Hunter?”

The rest of things get blurry with me trying to drive and me trying to keep trying to see if Hunter’s okay but keeping my eyes on the road and not shaking or freaking out.

Yeah freaking out…I had her blood making the steering wheel tacky and I’m driving faster than I ever had and dad’s telling me to run through the lights.

And I don’t hear it all but I hear Dad saying thing that I never thought I heard him say.

We went and we carried her to a gurney? And they run with her to the ER and like on TV we get pushed out of the area and there’s an area where we’re supposed to wait where I’m pacing and pacing…and shaking.

*Jennifer…

Oh my god.

What have I done?

What have I done? I completely freaked out when I found out. There was this hit to something inside of me. And I…I lost it. Her being a guy? Alex choosing her over me? It was like there was something was wrong with me and that little perfectionist bitch Mom clone in me couldn’t handle it.

Couldn’t keep it in.

And I outed her.

Him.

I can’t even see Hunter as a him, there’s just nothing there that says him other than her being a bony, skinny little twat.

Twat…see, even in my head insulting her I can’t shake the herness. Fact is Hunter screams waif.

And even not telling me, even with something this big she’s still that real true blue friend that has always told me as it was…except for that…

And I outed her.

And she’s had another attack…what if it’s her heart? Or a stroke? Or….

God what if I killed her?

Cindy gets me into the car and pulls me into her lap and holds me tight. “I…I…I might of well have shot her.”

“Jen, this isn’t your fault.”

“It is I outed her….” (sniffle-whine.)

“We knew.” Alex’s step-mom says as we’re driving.

“What?” (confused sniffle-whine.)

“We knew, I put things together the night of the dinner party…I’ve known some girls but none like Hunter. Between the supper and the shopping and some little things it was just more and more something I suspected and then Adam found out some things and well we knew…or we were sure of it.”

Cindy asks. “So why have you guys been cool with it? So Alex doesn’t get outed?”

“That was part of it and some other things but Adam…Adam just hasn’t pulled the trigger yet…honestly after everything now…I don’t think that he will.”

I sniffle. “Good…I…I…I really don’t hate Hunter, I don’t.”

We get lots of looks when they get there and Alex is pacing and looking more freaked than I’ve ever seen him especially after his nightmares.

He hasn’t had the after nightmares look in awhile.

He doesn’t look mad at me. He doesn’t look like he hates me…he should this is my fault.

Adam gives me this look as his secretary is here and he’s changing from bloody clothes to clean ones. It’s that look that he’s always had about me except since Hunter helped me and got him to help me.

I’m right back to being the nasty little so and so again. I feel this hurt there growing like I’m losing something important…lost something important?

I just can’t…can’t…

I curl up into one of the love seats and Cindy sits in behind me and hugs me as the bawling starts and I can’t stop it.

*Hunter…

I must have been really sedated because I was out of it really bad when. I’m being moved and it makes me feel extra shitty woozy. “C’mon lets get him to x-ray.”

Him…they said him.

“Her, and do it again and there’ll be trouble.” Adam? Here? Defending me?

WTF?

“Sir you can’t be here unless you’re family.”

“I’m better than family, I’m her power of attorney.”

“Yeah, don’t fuck with my lawyer.”

“Young lady, the Dr. said to keep quiet and calm.”

“Better.” Adam says.

I’m taken to Radiology and they get me on this table, oh when they don’t want you to move but want you on that table the orderlies move you with the sheets.

The thing is uncomfortable as hell.

Adam’s getting into the apron thingy. I look at him. “I wonder how much radiation this thing’s soaked up over the years?”

He gives me one of his looks.

“What?”

“Not funny.”

I stick my tongue out at him a little.

“You’re pretty calm considering everything Hunter.”

“It feels like valium…something else too…”

“Still with everything that’s happened…”

I bite my lip and try not to cry but they come anyway and he comes over and takes my hand. “I am scared, God Adam I’m f..ffucking terrified, I’ve got more to lose now than I…I..ever had….God…fuck!…I’ve never had anything to lose before.”

“You’re not going to lose anything Hunter.”

“But…But…”

“No…no butts, I’m not ready to hear about my son’s sex life.”

I laugh… “Ow……..”

“Take it easy.”

“Why are you being so good to me?”

“I’ve seen some of those scars…I have some of those scars.”

“You do?”

“Irish Cop’s kid and the smallest and the mouthiest too…lots of drinking and fighting…my Dad was one of those guys who didn’t turn it off when he got home…I…(rough cough.) lets just say I get it.”

I reach out to him and take his hand and we look at each other a lot as I go through the stuff they want me to do and it’s all good except for when they isolate my head and do a very close up series of my head. It’s not scary but who’s comfortable with x-ray machines right?

I hear I mean we hear. “Jesus Christ, who the hell did this.”……Several times. And I hear “Call the police.”

“Oh fuck.”

Adam squeezes my hand. “You need to tell them what happened Hunter.”

“No, no I don’t.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Billy…”

“……………………….” Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck….. “Don’t call me that…please…Will died when the left him for dead….”

“Hunter….then, that’s fine okay?”

The E.R. Doc and another one is there too after awhile and there’s more x-rays, a break, then the actual Lab tech comes in and draws more blood as if I haven’t lost enough of it and then lots and lots of water and some more drugs.

No peeing, more water…then an ultrasound then another ride but this time to a hospital room. Adam’s talking with the Doctors then goes to tell the others.

I hate this, I hate the waiting.

It was a lot better after they let me pee.

And the real bed, well real sorta bed compared to the slabs I’ve been on. I sink into it with a sigh and wait.

Then I see the others with Adam, April, Alex…(happy sigh)…Alex…and he’s cleaned up but you can tell he’s been through thing rough..ha..ha..oh yeah that’s me.

Cindy and Jennifer are there too, Jen won’t even look me in the eyes…every time she gets that close she starts having to wipe tears away.

April’s the first one in and she hugs me. “I’m so glad you’re okay honey!” I get another hug and she holds me a bit only moving for Alex who sits on the bed and kisses me. Long sweet deep over and over kisses until there’s some coughing from Adam.

“The doctors are here.”

Alex looks at me. “We’ll leave if you want us too hon…”

“No…” I look to the doctors. “Is it okay that they stay?”

“If it’s fine with you Miss it’s fine with us.”

They do something with this laptop on a portable wheeled stand and there’s my x-rays on the screen.

The E.R. Doc starts in. “We’ve taken several close looks and the primary problem we’ve found is there’s several pieces of glass that have somehow been lodged in the sinus area given the uhm…well miss frankly given the abuse you’ve survived this could have killed you pretty easily.”

“Okay….so I’m lucky…?”

“Very, a blow with just the right force could have the glass sever several blood vessels that you would have bled to death from. As it is the way that you body tenses and responds to stress has been occasionally sawing on those blood vessels, along with you blood pressure has been causing these nosebleeds.”

“So….can it be fixed?” April asks.

“Actually yes Dr. Hill here is the Plastic surgeon on call and…” He nods to the other doctor. She nods too. “Oh yes, we can go in and get all of this removed, you shouldn’t have any more effects afterwards than a rhinoplasty patient.”

“Oh…cool…When?”

“As soon as possible but we’d also like to address the secondary issue as well.”

Adam asks. “Secondary issue? There’s another problem?”

They both look uncomfortable ad Dr. Hill looks at me. “This is rather delicate, are you sure you want everyone here to hear this?”

“Yeah…It’s okay, we might as well. I don’t have anymore secrets anymore.”

Adam looks at me with this…oh really…look on his face. I look down and blush a bit.

She asks again. “Are you sure Miss Williams?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

She types and other x-rays come up on the screen. “When we were looking for other damage and while we did find things that as doctors just…(She looks pissed.)…well we saw some masses that we wanted to check over again just to rule out things.”

“Like…?” I ask.

“Well like cancer or anything else.”

“Cancer…” My mouth’s gone dry and April hugs me. “We’ll get through it Hunter…”

Dr. Hill looks at us. “It’s not cancer.”

“Then what is it?” Adam asks.

“See here, this space, this, and this and this?”

We all kind of nod on the edge of our seats.

“This is your uterus, and cervix and vaginal canal.”

“Huh! What the fuck?” I sit up further staring at the screen.

“Miss Williams you are not a regular male, you’re what we call intersexed you present as a male for the most basic part but you’re in fact female from your bone structure to the actual formation of your sex organs.”

“But…but I’ve never had a period.”

“You don’t have any ovaries we’re afraid and you’re really deficient in both hormones and suffering long term damage from malnutrition.”

“But my guy stuff.”

“Semi functional but if you were functioning properly there you’d be far more developed as a male.”

“So I’m a girl?”

“Yes with some extra bits and some missing bits but yes, you’ve always beef a girl.”

………………………..

………………………..

I can’t help it but start to laugh and laugh and laugh.

Fuck you Cliff…I’m so not a fag.

Oh god just picturing….I can’t stop laughing.

It’s a little crazy sounding too and Jen starts too join me with this also little bit out there giggle then we’re both laughing. We’re the only ones laughing but we just can’t stop. I hit her arm.

“Bitch.”

She hits me back. “Cunt.”

“Douche.” I hit her again.

She giggles out. “Twat.”

We laugh and giggle and then we’re holding each other. Then we’re crying and holding each other.

Sweet Dreams-31 The First Cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 31

I think there’s something psychosomatic about losing it when people tell you that you’re not the freaky person you think you are but the socially acceptable version of it.

I was always the skinny punk guy that dressed like he was this throwback to Boy George or David Bowie or more to date Adam Lambert. It was a good defense even in my neighborhood. Dress like that, get seen either as a gothy punker freak or being gay or even gayer than most and people just leave you alone. Except for the die hard haters and in my neighborhood the predator kids. You learned either to fight, or really how to run.

And I was sort of good with being Billy Hunter the freak. Then Hunter Williams…who was still sort of a freak but more of there’s a reason why I’m such a freak and that’s because I’m transgendered.

Then this, finding out like just ten minutes ago that I’ve actually always been a girl, well technically intersexed but in a lot of the most important ways. I’ve always been a girl.

And like I said there’s something psychosomatic about the whole thing because I’m hanging onto Jennifer and I’m bawling like they told me that I’ve got cancer instead of that I’m no where near the freak I thought that I was.

Because I’m okay.

Okay…not okay but there’s that whole what the fuck is wrong with me answered and that’s a big thing.

And my friends haven’t abandoned me, and my family, my new…no…my real family hasn’t freaked out and left me to twist in the wind.

My real family and I look up at then for a minute from Jen’s shoulder and I’m full on girly crying my eyes out and I’m sort of reaching for them and April’s there in a flash hugging me and actually doing that croon/coo thing that real moms do with their kids.

“Oh…Oh…It’s okay Hunter we’re here, it’s going to be alright we’ve got you…”

“Y..y..you’re not leavin…”

“Of course we’re not, we love you honey.”

“Y’lubb me?”

“Of course we do. All of us right?”

There’s nods and Alex rubs my back smiling his Alex smile and saying. “In Love with you.”

Then there’s Adam. He looks at me, hands in his pockets. “Yes well…I guess you’ll do, I mean if I’m putting up with all this and sending you to law school then well…I’ll be watching your marks you know.”

He tenses and stares at me. “I’m going for coffees.”

I…He…

(Sniffle.) “I could go for a coffee.”

He looks at me and there’s that just Adam look and he nods to all of us before walking out. Alex is still rubbing my back but I felt his fingers curl there like he was going to make a fist. “I swear…can’t he just…”

I reach back to his arm and pull it to me. “Alex he just did, I get what he means it’s different that what he said.”

“You got to say it sometime though Hunter…sometimes you have to tell people that you love them.”

“I know…since you I know…but it takes time Alex, it’ll take him time.”

Alex gives me this stormy frowny skeptical look of his that just says “Yeah sure.” If he was a cat his ears’d be flat.

I lean over and back and kiss him and it’s the same but different? Better? I’m kissing my Boyfriend and that’s actually the way it’s supposed to be. Like I said psychosomatic right, just knowing the truth about myself at least medically is changing the way that I feel.

It’s not really a bad change though. I swear there’s this chunk of me still letting out this sigh of relief.

I break the kiss and try and get more comfortable and notice Cindy still sort of looking at Jen. Then Cindy sort of notices me noticing and she slips her hands into her back pockets and sort of shifts so she’s not anymore. She does look at me and I sort of give her a questioning head tilt. She sort of looks at Jen her shoulders hunch and she bites her lips when she’s looking at me.

Translation…God yes I want to but I’m scared and I haven’t yet.

I look at April. “So….”

“So?”

“So how’d you guys know?”

“Oh, well Adam had some of his people check in with the school and got your transcripts and then he had them traced back to your old school. No one really knew who you where over the phone so he sent people to ask around directly and we found out about William.”

“But you didn’t turn me in?”

“As far as we knew you were a boy, you were posing as a girl and you were doing it really well but we’d thought that you and Alex were in the closet with the whole gay relationship the two of you were having.”

“Oh…” Damn I thought that I had covered my tracks better.

“We were keeping quiet because if Alex was going to be in the closet with you then Adam didn’t want to “out” the both of you because it’d mess up Alex’s image and people don’t give football scholarships to gay players.”

“Well there’s gay athlete’s in college.”

“But they don’t get football scholarships.”

Alex huff’s. “Sounds like dad.”

I ease into him but pull his arms around me. “Scholarships are big deals Alex, your dad was right to be worried.” I hold on to his arms but look at him over my shoulder. I could’ve cost him his scholarship…

He looks at me. “Don’t care, I don’t care if I’m bagging groceries and living in a trailer Hunter, just as long as I’ve got you.”

I really don’t want anything resembling my life the way it was overlapping into his. I spent enough years of my life living in hell. I never want that for him. I wouldn’t wish what my life was on my worst enemy.

“I know you would Alex but I really, really don’t want to go there.”

He looks at me in my eyes and there’s that thing that’s us there. I don’t know how he gets it, gets me without living it but he does in his own way.

That, that’s an ow…my heart thing.

When you meet someone, that someone the best part of it isn’t the yay happy shiny stuff, it’s not the racing rush of being together intimacy. It’s to be able to look into the eyes of the person that gives you all of the above but is also to just be able to look you in the eyes and stare down all your inner demons and then see you…see you scars and all and not love you in spite of them but loves you because of them.

Alex does this for me.

I can look into those soulful dark brown eyes of his and there’s a lifetime of us there waiting, there’s a thousands words we never need to say and…

I fall in love just a tiny bit more each time…

That look just leads to him and I just pressing our foreheads together and staying like that just staring for a few minutes and then kissing until I hear coughing and smell coffee.

I look at Adam who’s passing out coffees and talking to April. “So we’re past who figured what out then?”

“Yeah, I thought I did a better job.”

He frowns a bit. “You did, I had to send people to actually go around to your old school and dig around until we got to someone that’s be able to tell us something. You never took any photos in any of the yearbook things or the student papers events. People didn’t really even know you that well Hunter you were like a ghost.”

“I was…I was sort of a part time student between moving around or recovering.”

“Recovering?” Jen and April ask. I notice this look in Adams eyes that says he knows and Alex tenses up.

“The Step-shit or my Mom…either one…I got to be the excuse for everything wrong in the universe and the punching bag…when they were drying out.”

I can’t help the shivers that come up with just the thoughts of all of it. I hold my coffee with both hands to keep my hands from shaking and Alex… (Choke…yay…) wraps his arms around me from behind and he gives me this so tender make it better kiss on the back of my neck and…

He’s my armor…He’s holding me and keeping those bad flashbacks from grabbing me…and that getting really protected…just…Ow…ow…ow…god I don’t deserve him my heart.

He whispers into my neck and my hair…. “I’ve got you…never again…you’re safe Hunter.”

Does he have any idea what safe means to people like me? Abused, hurt, beaten…the raped or molested… (Yay-choke-sob.)

To be held like I have value. His arms tighten around me. Alex could squeeze me to bruising and it’d still never be wrong…I’ll never say let me go.

To have someone just actually stop that pain before it jumps you.

It’s only a minute this funk, like he caught me before I went there. But the others noticed, the girls are upset but Adam…he has this look like he gets it too.

He takes a drink and sits. “I’m serious about the marks Hunter.”

“You are?”

“Yes. I had figured since word about Alex was going to get out that he’d not be getting a football scholarship into law school but you, you have excellent marks. And you’re smart and can think on the go. I want to see how far you can go.”

“I don’t know what to say?”

“Oh that’ll come out in our contract.”

“Contract?”

Alex lifts his head. “Dad…” kind of defensive and warningly.

“Yes, I’ll pay for your college not counting any scholarships and such you earn and in return you’ll work for my law firm.”

“Dad!” Alex stares at him. “You can’t pressure Hunter like that, just back off.”

“Well son since you’re not going or interested in law school then I want at least one of the family practicing.”

“I don’t want to be a lawyer, I never wanted to be a lawyer, hell I never wanted to play football.”

“Football will lead you into more than the scholarships Alex, people remember games for a long time especially when you do good in it, it opens doors. But you won’t need that if all you want to do is brood and doodle.”

“Fuck you!”

“Oh nice response maybe you’ll find that the kind of arguing that they do in skid row then.”

“I don ’t care.”

“Obviously, you take off the and see where that leaves you and her.”

The threat is there right under the surface. My well being is still pretty dependent on Alex being something Adam approves of. April stands up looking scared but passed. “Adam!”

Alex looks like he’s going to punch his dad.

And I sit up onto my knees in bed between the three of them. “Enough! Just enough! Fuck!”

I look at the three of them.

“Look Adam, I’m more than happy to take you up on your offer but after I look at our contract. Alex, it’s headhunting and your father is just getting ahead of the game. He also wants to keep his part of what he’s worked for in the family…” I kiss Alex and stoke his face.

I move back to look at Adam. “Your son is a talented artist, he’s damned good at it and instead of you two fighting about it you two should come to something that’s both but you’re both too busy defending your side from the same damned foxhole.”

Adam looks at me eyebrow raised. Alex is frowny and pouts/broods… “I don’t want to be a lawyer…I’m an artist…”

Adam looks like he’s going to ay something and Alex fight and I point at both of them with that frustrated shake-waving hand. “Shuush!”

April nearly laughs.

I take a breath. “Alex have you ever thought about being an architect? It’s art based and you could take that and take all the art classes that you want to go with it.”

He looks like he never remotely thought of that.

Of course not he’s been too busy fighting over everything.

“Adam…is that a serious enough degree, a respectable enough career…it’s being an artist?”

He stared at me. That flat Adam stare. “I should have thought of that, I should…I…should have taken Alex’s talents a lot more instead of just making the assumptions…if he wants to try that I won’t stand in his way.”

He looks like he was chewing glass the whole time and Alex looks stunned at the kind of sort of apology.

I look around. “Settled?”

They look at each other, then at me and all this must have shot up my pressure ad everything because the headache is back and I can feel blood starting to drip from my nose.

I still stare both of them down as April heads off to get someone. “I asked if this is settled.”

They both nod.

“Say it and shake hands.”

There’s a bit of hesitation but they do.

“Good, I swear you two are going to fucking kill me….”

And that’s when the room sort of went grey and slid sideways.

Sweet Dreams-32 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 32

……………It was cold and I could see my breath. Everything was just freezing in the place. There were drafts through the whole place because we lived in an old building that was in a bad place that no building checker from the city would like to go and we were too far out of the way for them to really care.

Someone paid someone to keep it from being condemned and people like me and Momma and the stepshit got to live here. Him and her got a warmer room because they got like blankets and stuff that they stuck up over the drafty places and if I even asked for more I’d get a slap from either of them.

It never mattered what I ever wanted.

All I was to Cliff was a stupid little cunt.

I didn’t matter only Cliff mattered then his booze and drugs and Momma somewhere and there was a whole list of things that he’d likely have ahead of me.

There was cracks in the bricks that the place was made of, there was holes in the plaster and one of my windows was cracked enough that cold air kept getting inside…not that it made much of a difference because the windows were like ancient and single pane stuff so…in Detroit in February there is this moisture and chill that comes in off the lakes that sinks right into your bones when it mixed with that deep cold that blows in from the northern mid-west.

Everything hurts…I try to keep moving under my crappy blankets but it only sort of helps. I’m sleeping in a mattress on the floor so it’s damp too. I’m nine, nine and I shouldn’t be so cold that it feels like my fingers and toes are going to like freeze and crack or something…even in my lower back there’s this ache and because I’m that cold.

Every time that happens I get sick afterwards.

Momma’s out dancing she’s got a job at the Croft which is this bar out further from us nestled out where some of the old smelter factories were making steel and stuff.

So it’s just me and him.

And after awhile I’m so cold I’m crying.

“Hey…what are you crying about?”

“Nothin…” (Sniffle.)

“Don’t fucking lie to me, what are you crying about?”

(Sniffle.) “I’m c..cold…”

“Alright come on I’ll warm you up.”

I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t because my brain’s yellin Danger! Danger! But I’m so cold it hurts.

And I’m so tired of hurting ‘cause of all the other stuff.

(Sniffle.) “’Kay..”

Cliff helps me up and he has my hand and takes me to his and Momma’s room. It smells like sex, old sex and cigarettes and cigarette butts which are kinda worse especially since he’s been rolling his smokes lately from smoke butts. There’s that menthol-rubber-burned sugar smell of meth lingering and body odour only masked in the slightest way by the cheap port he’s been drinking…not like cooking wine but like that cheap in a plastic bottle whino stuff.

He lifts me and sort of pushes me up onto the bed and its warm and I can’t help but to snuggle into the foulness just for the heat, I need the heat and I can’t help but to cry as his hand just reaches out and he pulls my panties off.

“No…Cliff…no…” I sob.

SLAPP!

“Don’t you ever tell me No!”

He’s on me then, over me and I’m too small and he’s holding me down by his body weight and he kisses me with that meth-smoke-wine mouth and pipe rotting teeth…I gag but he slaps me out of gagging.

“Shut up, shut up you little slut…I’ll give you something to really cry about instead of what you really want…”

“No..”

SLAPP!

My head hits the head board and I see stars and everything is dimming in and out until I feel Cliff stick his hand between my legs and inside of me…I sort of just go limp and mewl from the hit and the helplessness…

“There we are…tight…so…tight, you’ve got a tight little pussy like your Momma used to…yeah…yeah…yeah…”

He move and shucks his clothes and he’s back on my again and he’s pushing my legs open and I squirm or try to but every time I do it makes my head swim and he puts the head of his guy thing into me and I scream…he shoves his underwear into my mouth and all I can tasted and smell is leftover sex stain, pee and skidmark…then he shoves into me…

“Oh yeah momma’s little girl…”

…………………………………… I wake screaming and I’m trying to breathe but there’s something on my face and on me and I don’t know where I am and I thrash wildly trying to get free.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!.....Fucking LET ME GO!”

Someone grabs me and I lash out fists and feet and I’m being held down and I’m fighting that and I can’t breathe right and I swear, I fucking swear I can still taste his underwear…and I gag…and gag and then whatever is in my stomach comes up in a rush and I’m hurling my guts up and it hurts…of god it hurts.

There’s two nurses there holding me and Adam’s there with a couple of cuts to his face and a welt on his cheek. He’s got this wild look like all this happened really suddenly and it’s dark in the room and night time I think…he’s holding the trash can that I’m barfing into.

I’m panting and it’s still hard to breathe and I realize that there’s a plastic thingy and bandages on my face over my nose.

I …I’m okay…I’m safe…

“Nightmare?” He asks.

(Spit.) “Yeah…I was home…and I was nine…And I was a girl this time…”

“Fuck.” There that sort of flat dark tone like he just gets it. But the nurses still sort of looked at him.

“Yeah…” It’s kind of hollow and really tired…God my heart is so tired sometimes.

“You going to be okay?”

“Dunno…sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be okay.”

“Yeah…” he get’s up. And looks at the nurses. “Can you go to the family room and go get my son.”

“She really needs to rest sir.”

“She just had a fucking PTSD rape dream okay…you think you’d be ready to sleep after that?....................go get Alex…please.” He was right on the edge of that vengeful angry Adam but he toned it down but that “please” came through clenched teeth.

Both the nurses leave pretty fast and he sit’s on the edge of my bed and reaches over and gives me his coffee. “It’s cold and it’s black…”

“And it’ll work to get the taste out of my mouth.”

“Bad…”

“Just like real life…actually it had a lot of my real life in it.”

“Last I heard they left the state.”

“Had investigators hired to look for them?”

“Of course…they should pay for what they did to you.”

“Not everyone gets justice Adam you know that.”

“I know that’s why I’m a lawyer.”

“But that’s not the kind of law that you practice.”

“I did.”

“What happened?”

“Long story, besides I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad I need the distraction.”

“Fuck… (Sigh)…” he looks at me and Alex comes in. “Dad…what happened to you?”

“Hunter’s got a good right and don’t let her hit you while she’s got her rings on.” He get’s up but I hold onto a couple of fingers. “What?”

“We finish my bedtime story later?”

“Alex take care of your girlfriend I need a smoke.”

I watch him go with that sort of saved by the bell kind of thing going on. I really wanted to hear more about this and get a better handle on the man but I’m really glad that Alex is here. I make room for him on the bed.

“So…the nurse said you had a nightmare?”

“Yeah I was little and I was me without my extra bits…and well Cliff was Cliff.”

“I ever meet him I’m going to kill him.”

“No…no you’re not…”

“Why…after what he put you through why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I want you to be a better man than that.”

“Okay…”

“Besides…”

“Besides?”

“He’s already got two strikes and he’s both skipped out on his parole officer and he’s likely done something by now that when they catch him he’s gone for good this time…Your Dad’s pretty sure him and Mom are out of the state which isn’t a surprise I’m just hoping their in a state where they still have the death penalty.”

“There’s a cheery thought.”

“Not really but holding me would go a long way towards that.”

“You’re still shaking…gimme a sec?”

“Okay…”

I’m sitting there alone and it’s…it’s bad…just now being alone…after all of this…it’s stupid, I mean there’s people around the place and he’ll be right back but it’s just like…you know when I talk about when those feelings jump you and drag you down?

It’s like they’re lurking in the shadows.

I’ve got tears starting to run down my face when Alex comes back and he wasn’t that long. He’s go my book bag and his and a blanket shoved under one arm and a Styrofoam cup in the other and he looks at me.

“Hey…whoa…it’s okay…I’m right here.”

“It’s not okay…ow… (Tried to sniffle, can’t.)…I feel so broken Alex…”

He set the drink down on the tray stand thing and the bags on the foot of the bed and he get’s up beside me on the bed and wraps me up in fresh heated clean hospital linen and pulls me into his arms.

“Oh…fu..Alex…” I sob it but it’s a mix of pain and a good sob because he got it. He really got it and he knows the things that are…him, his hugs…that way he just seems to make himself into my armor against those black dogs chasing me down. The clean sheet…the heat…

He just nods and he holds me and rocks me gently and it’s a few long minutes maybe more before I shake and cry these things out of myself and I look at him and I must be a total mess with the stuff on my face, post puking, sweaty and all that stuff and he stares back at me and he actually gives me one of his melt me smiles…not the Alex kind of sort of smirk smile like his smiles had made a mad dash to the surface of his personality but the other one…that only for you, you’re amazing and you’re special smile that is still a small smile but that’s because it’s shy.

It’s that amazing cute little boy before the stuff that happened looking at you from around the corner and smiling at you.

I feel changed by that you know…I feel like that little girl liking that little boy with a flower in her hand.

And looking like this, after that nightmare….

He kisses me really carefully and really gently and I feel safe… yeah that safe all over again and I feel treasured and I feel loved…god I feel love in that just for me, it could only be for me loved kind of way and it’s like the best feeling and the best medication in the world knowing that there’s someone there with that love that we’re all wanting…

Aching for and scared to believe in.

Then he smiles that smile again and it just sinks into my heart and he reaches for our bags and takes out his laptop and set’s it up.

“I figured sleep was going to be a no go so I thought we could watch a movie?”

“Okay…it’s not like I’ve seen many yet.”

“Yeah I love that about you actually.”

“I love that you can find things to love about me…”

“Of course I can….” He passes me the Styrofoam cup and its hot chocolate and it’s the powdered stuff but it’s still hot chocolate he knows me that well…. “Hunter…the best stuff comes from the broken things…mosaics, collages, the prize in the bottom of the cereal boxes…there’s such thing as treasure without the sunken ship…there’s not chocolate happening to peanut butter…You are exactly who you are as you are no matter what…You’re the girl I fell in love with right there in the afternoon sunshine on that back of that bus.”

“But that was the day that we met.” I’m smiling and my heart is doing these great big huge aching love thumps.

“Yeah, it was love at first sight.”

“Love at first sight?”

“Yeah…we’re here aren’t we.?”

I look at him and it’s just true…here in the hospital room I can sort of see him when we met too just as clear as can be in my mind and even if I had no idea…it’s true…I fell for him then…honestly I really do.

I kiss his gently, softly but a little harder than he kissed me.

“I’m so glad that your chocolate crashed into my peanut butter.”

God I love making him smile.

Sweet Dreams-33 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 33

Okay…I guess to fill things in I had passed out because I had pushed things too hard and it sent my pressure into the danger zone and they had to get things under control and since the right doctors where there and stuff they said that they might as well go ahead and operate. Right after they had got me stable. I guess my nightmare had them worried about my pressure too.

Alex was just…he held me and he kept me safe after the freak out that I had and we stayed up and we watched movies for the rest of the night or until about five AM when I finally drifted off in his arms.

Oh I finally got to watch Lilo and Stitch…meh. The best thing about it was the fact that they weren’t white kids. And I watched Shrek for the first time and I laughed and I cried and I had Smashmouth playing in my head the whole day.

I wasn’t in serious danger it’s just they thought it was best.

I was humming All-Star all the way to the OR.

It was kind of funny.

And the stuff they konk you out with makes you a little bit happy before they do the thing with the valve and send you off to dreamland.

No nightmares in surgery.

And I’m even out of the hospital right now and feeling like garbage more or less after the surgery and they even fixed a lot of the damage to my nose with the various breaks that I’ve had over the years.

Still I feel like someone has hit me in the face with a tennis racket.

And yet I’m still here helping Jennifer move into her place.

Why?

………………………….and action!

Jen stops holding the box she was carrying inside at she stares at me. “So…what? You’re going to wait until all the tests come back right?”

I adjust the garbage bag I’m carrying. “Yes but I’m not just going to wait because of that I’m going to wait until I’m sure that I want to have the surgery in the first place.”

“What!?”

“I’m going to wait until I’m sure that it’s right for me.”

“Are you insane? You’re a girl, that whole double x thing. I mean you should be all excited and stuff.”

“Okay part of me is happy yeah there’s this part of me that really knew I was off and different and I didn’t know why, now I know why.”

“So…go and get fixed.”

“Who says I’m broken?” Okay, okay even I know that’s a loaded statement. I know I’m broken it’s just not what I meant.

“But…Hunter? Dammit that doesn’t make sense?”

I move around her and go inside because her stuff is heavy I set it down and she follows me in and stares at me like I’m losing it.

“Hunter, you’re a girl.”

“Jen-nifer…I know but I’m also intersexed and that means something to me too.”

“But…”

“If the doctors are right Jen then I don’t have the baby making stuff at all or if I do it’s messed up. They’re already pretty sure that my chicken and my McNuggets are all fine and in working order if not a bit on the smallish average size.”

“How big?”

“None, of your business.”

She pouts as we head back outside and Alex and some of the guys from the team pass us with her sofa. I head back to the moving truck and she and I and Cindy pass things out of the back of it to the guys.

“So you’re keeping it?”

“I said I’m going to think about it. I mean its part of me and…”

“And…?”

“And it works.”

“So…”

“Yeah when Alex and I make love it works…I get off and it works…I really don’t have any guarantees that that’s going to happen if I get the surgery done.”

“But that’s like you and Alex kind of being gay?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay Jen…or lesbian.”

“No…that’s not what I meant, hell honestly since we’re talking that I’m bi so it’s like no big deal.”

I look at Cindy who looks like someone gave her a thousand dollars then slapped her in the head with a fish. Yeah Jen it’s a big deal.

“Okay then what do you mean?”

“Adam, does he know that you’re going with the factory originals?”

“He does and I haven’t decided…but I’m not sure that he’s really happy about that either. Or the fact that I’m not going to let him pressure me.”

“So he’s stewing over you stewing over it and he’s not liking that his boy’s sleeping with a still kinda-sorta- boy.”

“And that’s why we’ve been hanging around and helping you the last couple of days.”

“Unpleasant?” Cindy asks.

I grin and take out some nicorette gum and chew, chew hold. I got some finally because honestly quitting smoking is hard…especially since I was one of those people that lived on coffee and smokes. But Alex was tired of kissing an ashtray so I quit. I sigh as it starts to take the edge off.

“You ever heard them say that silence speaks volumes?”

“Yes?”

“Uh-huh, well metallic’s been playing over at our place the last three days.”

“Threats?” Jen asked.

“Lots most of them from April for him to stay out of it.”

“So honestly do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”

“Wait think, try to weigh it out.”

“It’s the sex thing…you’re scared that it’s going to be messed up?”

“Hell yes and this works! I honestly don’t mind having Alex fuck me into bliss with him in my ass.”

And the guys and Alex are there for another load and they are staring at me and at him and Alex just takes my knit hat he always wears and pulls it down over his face completely and takes a box and heads back to apartment.

It takes a few more minutes to have the other guy’s clue in or to snap out of…

Oh Jesus they were just fantasizing about me…like that…it’s not an eeew thing it’s more of a dammit thing.

Cindy actually makes me laugh and my face hurt when she breaks the tension with this Homer Simpson like. “D’oh!”

The guys quickly retreat to do the whole why we brought the guys in the first place heavy lifting thing and we grab some bottle waters and sit on the back of the truck.

I sigh. “Yeah I’m really worried about the sex thing, what if it doesn’t work right?”

Cindy nods. “And what you have works.”

“Yeah…”

“I think you should go for it. I mean really hunter before you found all of this out you thought you were transgendered which pretty much meant you were going to head down this road anyway and I’ve heard that’s got no promises either.”

“Good point but still it’s a lot to think about.”

“I suppose…”

“Would you cut your breasts off?”

“No…beside’s I’ve not interest in going all Chaz.”

“Yeah well I had these parts as Billy and well…my real Dad he wasn’t a saint or anything but this is a real final way to cut that tie with him.”

“He’s dead…I don’t think he’ll mind Hunter.”

“I know it’s just getting the operation isn’t what I think that some people think it’s going to be and that’s Ooooh! You’re XX and a real girl! Your problems are over!”

Cindy nods. “That’s actually pretty true and a lot of people have no idea that it’s a big deal.”

“Yeah it is.” (Sniffle…ow…)

Jen hugs me and smiles. “C’mon you and Cindy can help me tell the guys where to put everything then we can move it around some more and see just how nuts we can drive them.”

“Huh so you do, do that on purpose.”

“Yes WE do, besides if we don’t then they get all over manly and pumped up by helping us do all the heaving lifting, we have to make it more of a chore to keep them from getting all “me-strong-look-me-lift-me-strong.” Thing they’ll get into.”

“C’mon that’s an unfair stereotype.”

Cindy snorts. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true Hunter have you ever been in a weight room?”

I have, and images come to mind and the fact that those muscle ripper guys aren’t allowed in most gyms. “Okay fair enough, I see your point.”

I know it’s not nice or fair to make fun of guys like that but I…we end up laughing as the guys are moving things and grunting and then they’re doing the head scratch trying to figure out a way to put things where they’d go best.

Okay.

Yeah, I’m such a girl really that it’s obvious even to me.

Still, scared shitless? Oh yeah.

……………………………………………I takes awhile but it get things done and I see Cindy head to Jen’s room and she stops by me first. “Can you just give me like a half an hour?”

“Sure…so this it?”

“Yeah…It’s like the best time to do this.”

She opens the bags she’s carrying and I have to put my hand over my mouth from the whole involuntary near squee that came out of me. “Go; go I’ll take care of Jen.”

Cindy takes off down the hall and I go over to Jennifer. “We gotta go get some stuff for the guys.”

“Huh?”

“Jen, when non rich folks have people over to help out it’s kind of the tradition to feed them and sort of throw a little something.”

“But…my check…I’m not like rolling in it Hunter.”

“You’re getting twelve hundred a month Jen, I think you’ll manage.”

“Yeah but that’s rent and heat and stuff plus my phone and my car and…”

“Not optional rich girl.”

She hangs her head and pouts. “Y’know Hunter being poor kinda sucks.”

“Yeah, yeah you’re suffering less whiney more walkie.”

It was interesting to see and show Jennifer how to actually look for and buy things on sale, and what generic meant and even getting just some cheap pop, chips and stuff to make hot dogs with it was still close to forty dollars.

She looked appalled at that like money has taken on a new reality for her. I’d almost revel in the whole thing but Jen’s my friend and this is really a shock to her system and it’s going to take baby steps.

We actually start to have a pretty good time and I see Cindy come over to Jen.

“Hey…can we go to your room?”

“Okay…sure…?”

I see her lead Jen away and I lean on Alex and smile.

“You seem happy.”

“Yeah Cindy’s going to tell Jen.”

“Tell her what?”

“Wait for it.”

Sweet Dreams 34…The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 34

*Jennifer…

I finally got out from under the drama and stuff with Alex and Hunter and stuff with home and my mom and my dad and I might not show it but I’m tired.

Yeah it’s the sleep tired but it’s a lot more than that. I’m just tired of being…me.

Of being mom’s little miss perfect and doing stuff so that mom had the perfect daughter and that she would look like the amazing parent when she’s been making mu life suck in her own special ways for years.

I had honestly for a long while seen Alex as my way out.

My dad had left my mom for this young thing but it had been like this almost as long as I can really remember.

It…I don’t know. I think dad messed me up just as much as mom did if not more. I mean the experts say that a little girl bases her whole dialog with men based on the relationship that she had with her dad. I know it’s kind of bullshit but at the same time…I think I’d be a different person if I hadn’t seen my dad screwing every young twat he could flash his wallet to.

And there was never a shortage.

And there was always lots of “Here sweetheart go buy something you want, you never saw a thing…”

So I guess if I really looked at myself then I’d see where I got to be me from.

And when dad split with the new toy he kept spoiling me and I honestly think I was partly used to being spoiled and partly punishing him but it wasn’t really worth it because mom would get so pissed when I’d come back from being with dad shopping bags in tow.

Mostly at him but mad at me too. Mad because she wasn’t getting this stuff anymore. Mad because she was the cliché. Divorced and not really getting chased by anyone with money for her tastes.

You know I sort of hated cheerleading at one point. It was something she’d picked out for me to do. Then it clicked, cheer camps, meets and away games I could get away from her and her bullshit.

I met Cindy in cheer, she’s really good but then again her mom was a cheerleader and her aunts and sisters it’s like the family thing for the girls in her family. Cheer get a scholarship and go to school on it.

She’s actually a better friend than I deserve.

Her life’s pretty drama free and stable mom and dad, lots of siblings and relatives and their house while like my mom’s place on the outside has this run through it look like people actually live there.

When we were first friends I hated it and didn’t really want to be there unless we hung out in her room.

I was an only child and she had two big sisters and two big brothers and parents who actually interacted with each other and the kids.

Real family scared the crap out of me.

But somehow that place gave me my best friend. The one who went with me to every sleepover and every cheer camp and cheered me on when I was feeling like a failure and stuff.

She was the one who pulled me in with a quiet “Don’t be her.”

That was don’t be like my mom.

Even now she’s right there helping me again.

Finding a place, doing all the footwork with me. Helping me survive Adam.

That’s one thing I might not be able to beat Hunter in…and that’s handling Adam. He scares the hell out of me because he looked at me for the longest time like I was my mother and only put up with me being with Alex because we looked good together and I could see the pre-nup in my future.

Mom thought we could get around it and was talking to lawyers about how to do that. Alex might go pro we thought. If not he’d be into Adams practice and she saw the dollar signs.

Me he was my ticket out of my life. I thought that we’d start over maybe far the hell away from both of them like Florida State or something.

When Hunter showed up before we started to become friends Cindy kept me in check so many times as I felt the walls of hell closing in on me because Alex was slipping away.

It took Cindy to tell me one night that Alex loved Hunter because Hunter was real.

And that I was getting to be her.

That was right after I had jumped Hunter at the mall and we never talked to each other for three days after that.

I hated that and lately…I don’t know, shit’s been wrong with her. She’s a quiet girl. Cindy is this smoking hot wall flower….yeah I’m bi…or a little bi…I mean to the point of when I was younger and stuff I kissed a few girls to like teach ourselves how to kiss boys and I ended up kissing two girls past that at cheer camp and I even got some over the bra action.

That’s it but as it sort of come up when we were talking about Hunter being freaked out about getting fixed…yeah I’m pretty sure I’m bi. I can see where other girls can be attractive and stuff.

Cindy like I said a smoking hot wall flower. Classic cheer goddess to sunshine blonde hair, blue eyes and a smoking body. With it being in her family she’s trained like forever and she’s kind of got that fitness model thing going on too. Big firm C-cups and long legs and that’s Cindy but toss is the fact she reads and stuff and she plays guitar too but she’s really shy with new people and especially guys and you got the whole wall flower thing.

But like I said she’s been quiet lately.

She’s even been talking and texting and stuff with Hunter. And that’s odd given Hunter’s still sort of new in our lives.

No I’m not worried about losing my best friend but something’s been going on and with the band aids on her hands and stuff and Hunter’s freaky life before us I’m kind of been dreading what it might be. She hasn’t been herself she’s been on edge a lot and I’m hoping it’s not drugs.

If anyone should be the fuck up on drugs it’s me. I mean look at my life right?

But Hunter hauled me off and we got stuff to eat and I still can’t get over how much things cost and how really little my stipend will go after everything. Coming back it just has this feeling of something…there’s something going on and Hunter said that Cindy needed to talk to me in my new bedroom.

I head down the hall to my room and the curtains are drawn and the lights are off and it’s dim in there despite it being still daylight.

I reach to turn on the lights and Cindy’s sitting in the middle of my queen sized bed and she’s crying a bit but…all around her all are my childhood friends…my stuffies…the family I had made up in my head when my real family was a complete malfunction.

I’ve instantly got tears going because my lovely sweet mother chopped the up with shears and destroyed them. I…I never even realized that the remains got packed up with the rest of my stuff that she had tossed out.

I thought that they were gone forever.

“How…how…?”

“You love them Jen it broke your heart when you lost them.”

“But…Cindy?”

“I had to…It hurt you so bad…I had too…”

“Your hands…?”

“When did we ever take home ec right Jen?”

“But why…that…that was so much work…”

“I had to Jenny…”

She hasn’t called me Jenny since we were like thirteen. She’s crying and I go over to her and sit on the bed in front of her and wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Had to?”

“Jenny…I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“No…Jen…I’m in love with you.”

Wha…

“Jen I’ve always been in love with you. I have loved you ever since I first met you…I’ve loved you before I even had a clue that I wanted you….wanted you just for me…I fell head over heels for you and ever since that time we were practice kissing at cheer camp I knew inside that there was no one else….”

She’s looking at me scared and breathless and I’m looking at her…then the bed and the stuffies and…

No one has EVER done something like this for me. Some thing straight from the heart and I’m crying at just really how huge a thing this is and that she’s here putting everything out there telling me that she loves me.

That she wants me.

I look at her again and my silence must be killing her and I look her in those eyes of hers. Those teary blue eyes of hers and I see something that honestly I never thought I’d see…not for me…never for me.

I see the way her parents look at each other, the way that Hunter looks at Alex and the way that Alex looks at Hunter and Cindy’s there in front of me her soul bared and crying, wishing, wanting, hoping and needing and…

It’s real…so real and for me…someone that really loves me and I see it…me…her…us…like some kind of veil got lifted and I see us…

Oh….ow…my heart.

“Kiss me…”

I barely registered that the words came out of me but Cindy sits up on her knees and she takes my face in her hands and she kisses me and it’s.

Kissing girls has never been like this…softer that soft and yet she knows exactly how to do it, how to hold my face in her hands how to kiss me so that every particle of me sings in this way that I never have felt in my life.

And she does it over and over…until those vibrations just have me gasping for air, panting and unable to think ….just feel and our hands move and we make each other shiver and tremble. I’m aching and aroused in ways I never knew were possible.

I’m not even sure when we lost our shirts then the rest of our clothing…

“I love you Cindy…I love you, I love you…of dammit I…I’m scared…I so…don’t deserve this…deserve you…please…please be real…please…”

“I’m real Jenny, I’m real…I promise…This is real…I...will love you forever...I promise.”

Her touches, her perfect touches so gentle yer firm, knowing me better than I know myself.

I cry out like a whore, I call out gods name over and over like a Madonna…I cry in her embrace like a baby.

I have never fallen in love before…never before not really not with the real thing.

I could go on forever about our first time making love…our first time…because I hadn’t ever been in love before…not like this…nothing’s like this…

And Cindy…it was her first time too…she told me how to touch her, what was good, what felt right and how to reach inside of her and touch her even deeper…my fingers touched something and she begged me for more and she begged me for deeper…and I didn’t know…it never even clicked until I was staring in her eyes and seen this look of pain flicker over her face there and…and…

“You…Cindy…you….?”

“I wanted it to be you Jennifer…just you…my heart…I was saving myself for you…”

My Cindy…the girl that was so nice, so sweet and so beautiful she could have anyone she wanted really…she saved herself just for me…me of all people and I stare in wonder at those eyes and I see something stunning…

I see my future there in her eyes…and there’s not a bit of fear in me about this, there’s no regrets and there’s just the most certain feeling I have ever had.

Love…

Sweet Dreams-35 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 35

It doesn’t take that long before there’s moans coming from the bedroom at Jen’s. The look on Alex’s face is.

Confused…
Listening…
Then shock or surprise…
Then Oh…..

There’s this loud cry of girly pleasure and I start rounding everyone up. “Okay…okay come on let’s give the lovebirds privacy to coo.”

I have to push some of the guys out. I’m oddly amused at the boners all around. Todd looks like he might pop a nut right away. I laugh at them and they get to moving but it’s still funny.

Todd and the other guys take the moving truck back while Alex and I follow to play chauffer. I’m glad I asked Todd to come and help along with some of the football players. He’s the guy who gave me my school tour and a dyed in the wool full on geek. He’s also like part of the schools score keeping staff and on the media club for like school sports and stuff. He was really quiet and shy here but slowly started to be less nervous. Him helping out gave him exposure as a decent guy for the popular crowd.

And maybe, just maybe that’ll help his school year to suck less. He might not have to like be a jock or fit in totally but he’s out of the grey social area at least now. Hey it can help, and sometimes when you don’t fit in and you’re too scared and too shy to put yourself out there a little help…can be a big thing.

I get the lonely misfit thing.

But I’m still that way in my head a lot. Hell I’m still shaking my head ay being part of the popular crowd.

Tony actually has Todd with him and Skip…yeah I know there’s a guy actually called Skip. He’s a nice guy for a tool. I know that sounds confusing but it’s true. He’s this kinda dumb well off preppy jock. Tell me again how I ended up being friends? With these people?

Maybe Todd’s new entry into this peer group will get him a girl.

Anyway…

We’re done here.

“C’mon Alex let’s let the girls have their time together we’ll catch them at school. Let’s go home.”

I lean up against Alex and he looks at me then smiles a little. “Home…?”

“Yeah home…bed…”

He kisses me still smiling and wraps his arms around me. You know this intersexed girl thing does have it’s great points. Like me being totally allowed to love the raw power of his awesome body, to just feel encased in his arms and safe. I’m allowed to love this completely guilt free.

Alex picks me up while still hugging me making me laugh all the way to the car.

It’s a fun drive home with us kissing at every light and stop sign getting honked at but I’m feeling him up through the jeans he’s got on.

We’re making out through the garage and up the stairs and into the bedroom. I break the kissing. “Get things ready here and I’ll get pretty…”

“You’re already beautiful Hunter….but sure.” He smiles all the way into his eyes while kissing me….to the dresser…and the vanity…then to the door of the bathroom…I’m getting hot and turned on by all the kissing. Oh and somehow in the process I got his shirt off.

I get into the bathroom and get cleaned up and ready for us to be intimate. It’s funny the things you get used to. And then there’s the thing that if I get the surgery and everything works out that I won’t have to do this.

I carefully pull the brace and bandages off my nose and I’m plenty bruised front the surgery and yet It’s far from the worst that I’ve had. I take my make-up and go over the worst of it. It doesn’t hurt that bad or maybe my pain tolerance is just too high? I cover up my black eyes with the whole smoky eye treatment then shimmy into a nylon teddy that looks like satin and some matching panties and stockings.

I “feel” my nipples awake as the fabric slides over them. I really didn’t know what I’d been feeling especially when Alex had been sucking on them and I take a minute and massage them and feel them more…I don’t know if it’s in my head but I am feeling them and even though I’m flat they seem a little puffy?

I wonder how I’ll feel on the hormones. I mean I sort of got them both but both are in low levels and balancing out or something. I guess from what they said my girl stuff is messed up and my guys stuff works enough to mostly offset it. It’s why I’m a girly guy or thought that I was.

I slip out into our bedroom and it’s still late afternoon and Alex has the lights off letting just the natural light in and he’s got the window open enough that…oh…okay he put up these light colored curtains and changed the sheets to match.

It’s like the whole world is painted by tones of blues and whites and grays with the way he has everything it’s so amazing…I really love this artistic side of him. And Alex…he’s like a god…I mean it I look over to him and he’s turning on the stereo and soft music starts to play from our stereo.

Tall, so tall and darkly tanned with that dark hair hanging loosely and his body just rippling with muscle and the scars that he has. I walk to him and touch those scars and run my hands over his scars and then the muscles…It’s amazing at hot much heat another person seems to give off.

Alex turns and kisses my by taking my chin into his hand and then his hands slide down and over my body and he pulls me close and into a dance, it’s a nice surprise dancing and him touching me and me touching him and stroking him to hardness before we end up on the bed together.

It hurts at first, not as bad as when we first were together but unless we’ve been together a lot and well we haven’t with me being in the hospital…so it’s a little bit of pain as I’m being stretched out…taken to my limit and filled until I “aah” then breath-catch and then moan. But it’s different this time, just the knowledge that I’m more or female than I had imagined beyond being.

I feel the thick head opening me up and then every hot searing blissful inch of him sinking into me. And like I said this is a huge difference in my head. It’s me being made love to letting this guy I’m in love with sinking himself into me and taking us away from everything that isn’t us.

It’s not really gay sex even if it’s kind of still gay sex. Cliff can’t touch this, this is just ours it’s outside of my past and I get to look up into the eyes of my future.

I call Alex’s name softly at first, then more louder reverently feverently insistently and Alex takes me there into that unknown fantasy island inside my soul I’d never been able to find on my own.

“Hunter, Hunter, god sweet Hunter…I love you…”

“Alex..god…ugh…Alex…more…deeper…take me….love me….please…don’t stop..Please!”

He takes more, get’s into that rhythm and place where he’s over me and kissing me sweet sweat falls between us and it’s love making and fucking both…he makes me cum hard and fast twice and he does too…the final time is my last time…and it’s that other one…the female one or close to it…that one that’s from Alex’s cock rubbing my girl stuff…from the other side through that wall…I think…I’ve been sort of reading up on it…It’s a different orgasm…not as strong really…but like a bloom of pleasure and heat…

I wonder it it’ll be different.

I snuggle into Alex and sleep I smile as he wraps me in his arms and rolls me over to the other side letting me be warm and dry as he takes the wet spot. It feels so good to be held as he pulls me close.

“I love you Hunter.”

“I love you too Alex.”

“It doesn’t matter you know.”

“What?”

“If you get that operation or not.”

“It does but I don’t know how much.”

“I’ll love you Hunter no matter what, this…after even if you shaved your head and painted yourself purple.”

(Snort.) “I’m not a fan of purple.”

“Good neither am I.”

I settle into sleep and feel myself relax and slip away with Alex holding back the black dogs that chase me down sometimes. It’s a great time and way to fall asleep too in his arms but with everything looking like this it’s like one of those French film spots with the pale light and flowing curtains where the girl is more beautiful than beautiful but snuggled sensually into the sheets sleeping.

Aside from the beautiful part that’s my right now.

Sometimes you think a lot into dreams.

Intergender?

Intersexed?

But aside from biology am I and have been raised as a boy. If you never looked under my skin you’d see a skinny femmy guy. I thought I was a guy. I was different and sort of a punky freak a “Manson” but still a guy.

So finding out that I’m intersexed when I had come to think of myself as being transgendered what does that make me?

Actually sort of like what Jennifer said.

I was always planning on being a girl. I needed to be a girl or as close to one as I can get. Yeah I mean all the platitudes about T-girls still being women my insides are still as messed up as theirs. Maybe more? That scares me, what might be screwed up inside.

I wake up and slip out of bed and I feel good, his deep ache inside of having Alex inside of me and it feels right as I get into Alex’s t-shirt and go to the fridge for a glass of juice….no…coffee. I relax against the counter and I smell the scent of Adam outside having his cigarette and I look out and watch him.

I make two coffee’s and pad barefoot down to meet him. I get the Adam look as I pass him a cup. “Thank You.” Another look, this one up and down. His eyes get tight.

“Hmmm?” I question as I sip my own.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“I only had notice that you and my son had an encounter.”

“We love each other and live together Adam, sex is kind of implied.”

“Mmm-hm, of course.”

“This is about me coming home and not staying in the hospital to get fixed.”

“Not at all.”

“Bullshit Adam you just don’t want Alex to be gay.”

“Is he? Do you?”

“No…we don’t do that, he’s never went for it and I’ve never wanted to either.”

“So you’re the bottom.”

“Only when I’m not on top.”

“TMI Hunter.”

“Sorry, wait I’m not.”

“Funny…so…you’re not then you’re going to stay like this?”

“Everything works, it’s not medically necessary.”

“I though when you found out that you’d be wanting to get fixed?”

“So I’m broken?”

Adam looks at me and he takes another drink of his coffee and lights up another smoke. I was expecting him to be getting madder but he doesn’t look it, just contemplative and a lot like his son right then. They both smoulder sexily when they are in heavy thought…it’s there in the eyes.

“No.”

“So then what?”

“Hunter…you were heading that way anyway.”

“Maybe but this changes things.” Goddamn it I really want a smoke too.

“Hunter.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to.”

“I’m not going to what?”

“You’re not going to be like her.”

I hug myself and pace and try not to get teary…fuck, fuck, fuck…he had to go there and augh! He had to be right too. You think your trans and then fond of that you’re not but you’re supposed to be a girl, that you’re XX and a little more and you’d think that It’d be great news…like someone just said ‘here…this is the why of most of your life.’ but for me…for me it’s been.

Am I my Mother’s daughter?

Will I start being like her?

Will I turn out like her in time?

“I don’t want that…god I don’t want that Adam…I don’t want to be like her…but it’s that and my dad…my real dad…if I do this then what he’s passed on’s gone…”

“Bullshit…”

“Huh?”

“Bullshit…if he’s a good father he’d have gotten it. He’d be okay with it, with you starting over. You’re not going to be her Hunter, you’re too smart for that. You’re too strong for that. If you were going to fall into that you’d have already have.”

“Think so?”

“Yeah I do. And don’t worry about being broken. I like that you’re broken.”

“You do?”

“Yeah I do, Broken means you’ve been there, you’ve been tested hard.”

“Broken means I didn’t do so hot in those tests Adam.”

“So what, it means you’ve been tested…it means that you’ve also learned to pick yourself up and put things back together again.”

“Yeah and?”

“Yeah and It’s a huge thing. It means that you don’t give up. No ones so strong they won’t bend, or they won’t break Hunter it’d the ones in life that keep getting up that I trust, that I’ll cheer for…that I want in my corner, in my sons corner…in my family.”

I look at him and he looks at me and there’s just this no bullshit thing between us. We get each other in our own messed up ways.

“Tell April to make the call okay….”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes but that don’t mean I’m not scared to death y’know.”

“We’ll all be here Hunter.”

“Good you better…” I look him in the eyes. “Because I’m saying this right now…I’m not perfect, I’m not a strong as I think I am so…I need help…she might not have been able to ask you Adam but I’m asking now because I might need it…I might need all of you…”

He looks like I did when he brought up me and me being like mom…He looks like he needed me to say that and that he might cry…or lose it angry…oh fuck…he looks so much like Alex it hurts…that he hurts and he has no idea what to do with it or where to put that hurt.

I’m crying just seeing how much it’s hurting him and I step up and I pull him into a hug. He shakes, like a tremor through a high strung horse… “Alex…he…I…”

“I know…I’m not leaving either of you…I promise…I love you both too much for that.”

He doesn’t break down and bawl…he shakes and he holds me it should hurt…it would have hurt but well y’know….But it’s something…it’s him admitting to that hurt…and.

It’s Alex seeing it too…because he’s watching us together sitting in the open apartment door coffee between his feet and smiling as he’s wiping at his eyes.

I look at them both and Adam sort of stiffens up noticing his son watching.

“It’s going to be okay guys….I promise.”

Sweet Dreams …36 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 36

*Jennifer…………..

I wake feeling that wonderful spacey feeling that I get from having afterglow and really great sex. The lights are still on and I’m cuddled up…I’m cuddled up naked with my best friend Cindy who I just had sex with.

I smell the scent of her sweat which I’ve sort of always known. I smell her favorite powder and deodorant, her perfume…all so much different. I smell her skin…and its slips into my brain in this funny little way that it never has before and it makes me smile…god I honestly don’t know why it’s making me smile but it is.

I mean I’ve always “Said.” that I was bisexual. I’ve kissed a girl a time or two and some quite a bit when we were all learning how to kiss at camp. But it was mostly me talking and bullshit. I never daydreamed about girl on girl or me doing stuff like that. It’s never bugged me and I’ll even admit that it can look damned fine two girls together but it was never….this.

My head is resting on the naked breast of my best friend.

That I had sex with, that I…me…I…made love to.

Oh…

Oh Cindy….Oh fuck my heart…

She has been my best friend since we were like eleven and twelve…five years we’ve been best friends and she’s always been there to rein me in and trying to keep me from being my own worst enemy. She was the shoulder I’ve always had to cry on and closer than a sister really.

She has been in love with me since we were really just doing that learning how to kiss at cheer camp and when I was going through my hormonal stuff and falling in love with the thought of boys…she was falling in love with me.

Me?

And as much as this scares the shit out of me, it’s something that’s the most powerful and loving thing that I have ever had…

I think “Miracle” is the right word really…

Cindy loves me. Someone actually loves me. And not this teen bullshit I love you love…no! She is this drop dead gorgeous blonde bombshell with a body that would make any guy drool over and every lesbian. Cindy has had lots of chances to be with guys and way more than likely the same for girls.

But she loved me…and she saved herself for me.

Me.

And she gave herself to me.

And then there was the thing that she did with my stuffies…my only friends when I was little, the only things that loved me unconditionally and didn’t use me in some tug of war, or hold me hostage or yell at me and hate me.

I wipe my eyes carefully to get rid of the new tears careful not to wake her. My hand smells like pussy and for the first time in my life it’s not mine. I know there’s this simple goofy smile on my face as that registers and I sort of just lay there feeling her breathe, breathing her smell in and staring at her other breast…really up close and getting to star at it and kind of taking in the beauty of it.

Sort of letting my newfound lesbian appreciation settle it self in. and I let myself daydream about back in camp. When we were first kissing and closing my eyes and trying to remember and getting these sort of different memories of the whole time…like the first times were okay and stuff and clumsy but as the summer passed she got very, very good at kissing because she was kissing me for real.

I can sort of remember widened eyes…and poky nipples.

And it wasn’t the usual tweeny sort of pokey nipplage stuff. Guys get wood and teen girls might get wet and turned on but it takes us a bit more sometimes but breasts…as soon as they’re not aching from growing in then their already aching from stimulation…I’ve gotten nipple-stiffly from a good strong breeze.

Cindy was definitely in that oh my god I’m a little tweeny lezzy zone…

As cool as it is too finally key in on some of the moments we’ve had that completely blew past me.

God....that just had to be so freaky and scary as hell and really had to suck. So how much hell have I put her through by watching and waiting by the side for me to just somehow notice her?

To love her back?

That’s it I’ve got to move…to make up for the time that I’ve lost between us. I lift myself up like a push up and I move up over her face and…

I kiss her eyelids.

“I love you.” I say to her, not whispered I just come out with it and tell her.

Her eyes snap open and they focus in on me and when they do they soften into that…this look that.

“I have wanted someone to look at me Cindy like that all of my life….thank you…thank you …oh thank god for you.”

I kiss her deeply and I almost sort of full body slink-slide into the kiss as I don’t hold anything back.

I can’t…I can’t because she’s my best friend in the entire world and I’m falling headlong and madly in love with her.

We kiss and kiss and kiss and Cindy’s hands come up to hold my breasts and lift them…then touch me…the tippy pads of her fingertips just whispering under the curve of my breasts…I…I mini-cum…I…it…I never felt anyone touch my titties…like that so delicate so knowing and I got so wet…so fast it felt like..like I came a little?

Even possible?

Aaaahh…Cindy’s fingers find their way to my nipples and they touch me in that save sweet sexual grace I’ve never had…only around my aureloa…tiny little multiple stroking touches over the nipple tip sending jolts.

Then cups them and takes my nipples between her thumb ad forefinger in each hand and…and…gently…tugs…gently, gently over ad over kind of like she milking…me…no…no…god…she jerking my titties off…off…

I can’t help it I break the kiss to close my eyes and tilt my head back and have the very first orgasm from someone making love to my breasts in my life…

I have a second right after that as they are so…sensitive from the attention and she replaces her fingers and thumb with soft lips and a eager hot wet mouth. It is just so hot and so wet that when she touched them suckle kissed them.

“Aaaaahh…Cindeeee…”

By the time I open my eyes that look it there again…still…always… I kiss her again…and hold her hands pinned to the bed.

“No…please…let me…”

I try and return the favor, try to show her the same gentle love she’s teaching me. It’s the most amazing thing the way I swear I get these shadow feelings of what I’m doing to her…because I know them so well myself.

I…

I love the sounds she makes.

The Mmmm’s.
The breathy gasps.
The Uh--oooh’s.
The deeper unnn’s.
The Jeni, Jeni, Jen, Jen, Jen’s.

I love that I’m making her say these things…Alex, some of the other guys where semi-vocal…but this is more…so much more and…..The way my girl looks when she’s cumming…the ways she flushes then blooms.

Dammit Hunter…dammit I get it now.

Ow…my heart.

I slowly make my way down to her pussy and smell and nuzzle and I even like the way my nose grazing over things makes her giggle and squirm and laugh. No one I’ve even been with ever laughed really in bed.

Funny how big a thing that seems to be right now.

Taste…

Well she tastes like pussy, not like mine…yes I’ve tried what I taste like…but different yet the same too. There’s this complex taste about her, so different then a guys taste…she has this taste that to me is some kind of mixture…almond milk…citrus but what?…honey…but not the table kind but like a hint of this darker more feral stuff like buckwheat honey…not bitter but the hint of musky sweet? Salt…and something else that even guys have the human essence factor like that Asian fifth taste thing…that can’t literally put a word to it except….

More…

I get her opened up and try different things, different touches…the trick to really eating pussy seems to one use your fingers…get in there and two eat her like dessert. I’m getting a lot of sex mileage out of licking and slipping my tongue into places that are kind of served by the way you’d use your tongue to lick at the corners of your mouth.

I get into this really, really effective place with the first two fingers of each hand slipped into her and sort of rubbing the sides of her clitty as I suckle on it and also rubbing at the mounding tissues on either side in a double finger pad massage.

She writhes and she bucks, rolls her hips cries out and I eat chase her all the way up the bed until she’s got nowhere to squirm and she’s hanging onto my bed posts for dear life as she shivers and shakes and sweats…oh…sweat soaked blonde hair hanging down ferally over her shining glowing skin and her heaving firm DD’s.

I know the signs of cumming now, my own and now hers and I bring her to her peak three times before I keep going and take her over the edge…God she was vocal…god the feeling of her heels in my back as I suckled away…the thump, thump…whine as she was hitting the back of her head on the wall in frustration.

I get rewarded but a hard spasm and an unexpected facefull of girly-goo…and a long sweet torture scream. I made her squirt? Girls can squirt…just tasting that it is what it is and she has another one…and another scream…the creak of her pulling on the bed posts.

I’m so turned on…so…of god…goddess?…I’m so enthralled and empowered and so tuned into her I whine cry into her pussy… “Oh…ff..fuck…Cindy…” As I get swept into my own good little cum right along with her.

I never even touched myself….I feel like…

Panting…I move and just lovingly tenderly kiss both of her thighs…then I reach up and wrap my arms around that perfect waist over those hips and I rest my head on her pubic mound…not for sex but like the ways you snuggle into your favorite pillow and hug and hold your lover at the same time.

And I stay there… “I love you Cindy, I love you, I love you, I love you.” I sort of sigh, sort of sing? Before I close my eyes…

Sex, lovemaking’s never been this…I’ve never woken up to have sex like this at two something in the morning.

………………………………................Waking in the morning. No a quick look at the clock and it’s just past noon. Well it’s still…the same as last night. She’s so beautiful, and there’s not a breath in me that’s unsure about this. She’s watching me smiling and I smell coffee…latte. I have one of those coffee makers that you just insert the little jello-pudding cuppy thing into.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

I’m smiling and sitting up and I take my coffee and take that first heavenly sip and sigh. I look at her drinking hers and how many times have we done this thing…even me naked in the sheets before?

“Well we’re out.”

“What?!” I nearly choke on my coffee.

“It’s the talk of our social networking circle. I think someone talked from yesterday.”

“Oh…oh god…they were still in the apartment when we were?”

“Judging from the way some stuff just was left unpacked and that Hunter left us some leftovers I’d have to say yeah and she got them out of there pretty quickly.”

I try to be calm and drink my coffee but after so much indoctrination of teenaged prom queen like I’m freaking out. Cindy leans over and kisses me sweetly. “Here…” She passes me my laptop and I start looking through it.

There’s some hateful nasty anti-gay crap being said but the squad…the team…other than surprised and some not so surprised comments our friends were and are pretty good about it. There’s no one really ragging on Cindy too hard either…other than the anti-LGBT stuff she’s got friendly comments even.

There’s even some you can do betters from some of the schools outgirls. I’m not that popular with the alternative culture crowds. I’ve been a stuck up social climbing bitc…

I see Cindy typing her response.

[Thanks but no thanks, I’m with the girl that has been my best friend half my life and that I’ve been in love with forever. Jen’s a whole lot more different and loving and soulful than even she’d ever admit to…just please be happy for us and we’ll be happy for all of you.]

I…she…just like that. Just like breathing.

She really loves me.

Then she reaches over to my face and wipes the tears away. “Yeah…yeah I really, really do.”

(Sniffle.) “How…?”

“Jeni…I love you, I know your soul.”

You ever been lovingly kissed better than sex? I just did. I just found my…I actually see us, I see us in that happily ever after spot…that little girls secret dreams spot and we’re there…

I AM going to Marry this girl someday.

………………………………...............It’s two days later and I haven’t been back to school yet and I’m getting out of the car to see Dad. I head up his walk and go to open the door and his new wife plastic surgery Barbie flings the door open.

“Oh if it’s not the little fucking dyke. Get the fuck out of here freak before I call the neighborhood security guys.”

“I’m here to talk to dad.”

“I don’t fucking care, I’m not having some dyk…”

I punch her in the face ad bust the hell out of her nose job and she fall off her hooker heels.

Yeah I know…but remember…I’m the same girl that started the fight between me and Hunter.

I walk into the house.

“He’s in the den right? I’ll find him.” I lean down at her sobbing and throwing a fit. “Next time…watch what you say to people. See I’ve got a very good lawyer and you being a homophobic cunt made me afraid for my life so this was self defense…get in my way again and I’ll fuck you with a tire iron…I’m a lesbian now, I’m allowed to do that.”

She stares at me like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.

I stand up straight and proper-prom-queen-mega-bitch sway and heel click my way into dad’s den.

Oh yeah my bitch-fu is strong.

Dad’s drinking scotch and playing pool while he’s got some golf game up on the big plasma on the wall. He looks up and I close the door. “So you heard?”

“Yeah…your step…well she was only too happy to share the news. Your mother called…a lot and apparently since you never had a strong role model for a man that you being gay is my fault.”

“I broke her nose job out there.”

He closes his eyes…sighs. “Why?”

“She was being a homophobic cunt and wasn’t going to let me come see you.”

“She’s not your mother, she…not even your mother can keep me from seeing you…gay or whatever.”

“I’m really not gay dad I’m bi it’s just I fell in love with a girl.”

“That Hunter chick?”

“No dad, with Cindy.”

His eyes actually looked surprised at that. Then thoughtful, then that two and two together look. He nods and he passes me his scotch. “Congratulations, you’ve got better taste in women than your dad.”

I smile and drink….oh…god…strong…

He pours himself another and say’s. “Grab a stick, and rack up the table.”

“I don’t know how?”

“I’ll teach you.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this me being with a girl like you’re trying to see me like your son or something?”

He stops and frowns not hurt or mad he just does that sometimes when he’s thinking. He takes a drink.

“Yeah, a bit…you’ve always seemed like your mom’s kid, the right out of the princess catalog girly girl. You scared the crap out of me because I didn’t and I don’t get that world. You never really had a tomboy phase and stuff. This, this is the first major thing between you and me that we have in common.”

It’s a dodge, hell it’s a cop out and it’s a kind of a douchy thing to say. But it’s the first real olive branch that he’s ever given me. I could be all sensitive and freak out and stuff but we’re…well we’re not like that. My family, my usual crowd growing up. You learn to look past the douchebaggery and sometimes see the stuff hiding there.

He’s using this to kind of say he’s sorry.

It’s a rich-asshole kind of language.

I’ll take it.

“So you’re going to show me how to play pool for real?”

He sort of smiles. “Yeah, yeah I can do that. You want to talk about it?”

“Yeah dad…actually yeah. I’d like some fatherly advice if that’s okay.”

It’s sort of really cool and mixed with really sad that he’s happy and shocked by it.

“Alright…then.”

Okay, not perfect, and he’s kind of a shitty dad but he’s here, he’s trying and actually talking to me. Mom set me a restraining order yesterday.

I hope things will go better with Cindy and her parents.

My phone buzzes. It’s my girl.

“Hey you…” I answer.

“Hey too…” She says back sweetly.

“How’d it go?”

“Good. They kinda knew and were giving me space.”

“Oh…cool, Dad’s been awesome actually.” He looks surprised at me saying that and happy.

“Good baby…Mom and the girls and I are shopping now.”

“Cool new clothes always rock.”

She giggles and says. “Bye baby see you later.” She hangs up and then sends me some photos…oh…Victoria secrets…pose…pose…pose…drool…then I burst out laughing as the last one is her and her mom and the girls in the family heading into one of those “Adult” stores.

I actually show that one to my dad.

He pours me another drink.

I think I’m starting to like scotch.

This is so not the picture I had ever as my life.

I think I like it better though.

Sweet Dreams-37 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 37

I look at Alex and Adam and sort of smile at both of them wiping at my own eyes. I’m feeling better even with all of this out sort of in the open now but the boys of course are still being the boys.

I’m still sort of being hugged by Adam and I use the position to sort of drag him over to Alex and we all sort of end up sitting on the stairs. Me actually in between both of them.

“I need you guys to really try and do the make peace thing. I know that there’s stuff that’s gone wrong and hurt you both but honestly I need you both.”

Alex nods slowly but there’s caring in his eyes. “I’ll try it’s just that he’s got to realize that I’m my own man and I lead my own life.”

Adam stares that well…Adam stare. “Sure under my roof spending my money and eating my food.”

“That can change.”

“Guys…enough just fucking stop it. Alex you know that your dad would say that stop poking the bear. Adam, Alex is about as much like you and has about as much in common with the things that you want as you did with your father.”

“And I left.”

“Okay do you want Alex to leave?”

“No but…”

“No buts. Just answer the question yes or no.”

“No your honor.”

I grin at him and he’s sort of kind of almost doing the same back. I swear these two are scared their face will crack or something…either that or somehow Botox got chemically bonded to their testosterone.

“I’m scared as shit guys and the surgery is scary and it’s going to get even more scary because they’re going to start me on HRT because my own system is messed up so I might just end up losing my mind…add it the shit I’ve been through nightmare city…and I’m scared at the thought of going to a shrink for this stuff.”

“We’ll be there.” Alex say’s hugging me.

“That’s the thing guys this is the only fucking stable thing that I have ever had in my life since my dad was killed. You guys just keep going at it and I care about all of you so much and the thought of you guys doing that is right up there in my whole nightmare top five.”

Adam looks at me. “You should see someone about the stuff you’ve been through.”

“Yeah the same thing with you and with Alex.”

He gets all screw that frowny faced. “Not likely, I have better things to do that whine to a stranger then have the ass judge me.”

“Me too.”

Both me and Alex said it at the same time.

Then Adam asks me a question that I wasn’t really ready for.

“You said that you seen your father killed…Hunter?”

“Y..Yeah I was little…” I’m already starting to choke up…god I haven’t thought of Dad not really thought of Dad in so long…

Alex kisses my shoulder and then picks me up into his arms. “C’mon not here let’s go upstairs.”

“Okay…”

Alex looks down at Adam. “Coming?.....Dad…”

Adam blinks then he nods and then follows us up to our apartment and it’s a surprise Alex asked and it’s a surprise that Adam’s coming too maybe just maybe I’m getting through? I meant every word of what I said…I can’t do this alone.

I…I mean I thought I could before and sort of thought I was tougher than what I am. But I don’t want to do this alone anymore…I want them to be there.

Alex set’s me on the couch and Adam’s looking around while Alex goes into the kitchen and he starts to make coffee. Alex making coffee’s like watching a bartender, he’s not the fancy barista stuff but it’s our blend that he made with like mostly Kona coffee and some Jamaican Blue Mountain in there and other stuff it’s really good and watching him make it is soothing plus while not really a barista the coffee shop is full of all that high end high octane stuff.

It doesn’t even go into a perk machine but the espresso styled pot perk thing that goes on top of the stove. He steams or scalds the milk in a little pot and I guess if the liquid is shallow enough in the pan you can do the foaming thing with a stick blender.

I’m watching him and gathering my thoughts and Adam’s getting comfortable while still sort of looking around. He’s taking in the differences and the personal stuff that I’ve brought to the living situation.

“I know not much of a woman’s touch huh.”

“You haven’t been here that long. It’s clean and smells good.”

“Well I have the things to clean with here and just having them I have to clean things up.”

“Have too?”

“Adam, I spent most of my life with things crawling around in the places that I was living and in with me where I’d sleep.”

“That’s not good.”

“That’s nothing…I’ve moved a lot and some of the places that I got to call home used to be places that you could tell they cooked meth in they had that burnt cough syrup smell mixed with ammonia and other stuff. Or there’s be black mold in places where I’d be moving into and some of them had toilets stained just…black from whatever the hell the last people living there were doing…”

I sort of shiver at those things. Pull my feet up and tuck them under my legs.

Alex comes over with the coffees and sit’s behind me and slips an arm around my waist.

“She still has these nightmares about these things; I see her looking around sometimes at night when she turns the light on to use the bathroom.”

I nod as I sip…oooh heaven…strong enough that you can walk on it to most people…but I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs and I quit smoking…Strong coffee I’m keeping. “It’s force of habit to look for rats and roaches.”

“She dreams of them sometimes.”

“Sorry…”

“Hey I’d kick in my sleep too if I was dreaming about roaches and stuff skittering between my toes or worse….there was one place…Earwigs…”

I shudder, hell even Alex shudders and Adam covers whatever he’s feeling about it by drinking his coffee.

He does look at me. “Well that’s over, no how and no way that you’re ever going back to that life…those places.”

I stare right at his asking the thing that scares me just with a look. Yeah I’m not going to say even if Alex and I don’t work out…it’s a huge fear inside of me sometimes that there’ll be something that’ll happen, that I’ll say or do that’ll wreck this.

He get’s it, he just does. And I don’t know but it’s like we can just read each other or something.

We’re quiet for a bit before he looks at me. “You were going to tell us about your dad?”

“Okay…”

I take a few more bracing sips to get me going and I really lean into Alex.

“I guess what I remember was all before I was even five. I think I was three or four when he was still alive. We lived out and around in Warren I think then and there was this little hole in the wall bar that dad used to work in as a bartender. I think it was run by EWP I seen that a lot then…that’s East Warren Posse.”

“I sort of knew we were gang blood people and stuff and stuff but I never really got it though. Mom was sleeping all the time because she would dance all night at the clubs she worked at and back then it was just dancing I’m pretty sure of.”

“Well she’d be asleep and there’s not a lot of drinker traffic in a dive bar during the day so Dad’d take me with him to work.”

“I mean he was a pretty good Dad I think. I mean he kept me safe and he made sure I had stuff to eat and not just bar food….. (Sniffle.) I…I kind of remember him taking stuff from home to feed up both with…Alphaghetti with hot dogs…mostly canned stuff but hey…miles more that what Mom had done.”

“His name was Will Hunter too…so I guess I’m sort of junior.”

I set down my coffee and rub at my eyes because just talking about him hurts, I really don’t remember Dad that much at all really except in those fantasies I had when he’d show up somehow to save me like he was wearing a bullet proof vest or something and that he’d find me and get me out of there….those changed as I got older and was sort of kind of hoping there was like heaven or something…and I’d just end up dying and getting out of it all and he’d be there waiting for me…

It’s a dull ache…instead of the sharp pain.

“You said you were there when he was killed?”

I look at Adam… yeah he’s going to look all of this up….i really don’t care as long as he doesn’t throw dirt on Dad’s memory…

“I was on my big wheel driving it out there on the sidewalk. I think I remember Dad had this fight with a bunch of bad guys before that in the alley by the bar that morning…I never saw the guys who shot Dad…shot at use because dad was shot covering me up…I remember seeing the shotgun sticking out from the tinted window then….”

(Sniffle-sob.) “Then dad was there looming over me and then he covered me…and then…” (Sniffle-sob.)

“Then he was gone…”

“I don’t remember too much after that though with the shock and all…Mom took me and ran a beeline right for Cliff who’d she’d been seeing behind dad’s back I think and took off with me out to his shithole in Lynnwood.”

I’m sniffling and rubbing at my eyes and Alexis holding me really closely almost too tight for some people but sometimes I like being held too tight…

Hey…it’s me y’know…pain grounds me, makes me feel real.

Adam get’s up and kisses my cheek and gives me this warm look and one of those half smiles that him and his son can barely manage. “I’m glad you’re here…I’m glad that you made it through all that Hunter…I’ll tell April that you’re ready and she can make all the calls and stuff.”

He looks at Alex. “Thank’s for the coffee son…best one I had this week.” He moves off to leave and I wipe my eyes again. (Sniffle.) “Adam?”

He stops. “Yes Hunter?”

“When you look all this up and stuff can you find out where he’s buried? I want to go see him.”

“Sure, I’ll make it a priority….sometimes a little girl just really needs her Daddy.”

He leaves and he meant well but I’m bawling into Alex’s chest.

Sweet Dreams-38 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 38

You know there are times when you know without a shadow of a doubt when someone’s in love with you. I wake up in bed with Alex and I know it so deep I’m having one of my Ow my heart moments right off the bat.

I cried, I cried all the little kid tears that we hide away in real life. I lost my Dad and my life became this goddamned horror show. But really…mostly because I was really scared to death to…I never got to mourn him.

He was my Daddy…Boy/Girl when you’re little he was that Daddy we all should have had…not perfect but perfect all the same…the guy that made you toast in the mornings and pulled you through the store on your wagon while you got to be a big kid helping him by holding the bags of stuff so they didn’t spill.

The guy that sat on the sidewalk with you and taught you how to eat your iced cream cone. Taught you to ride your big wheel. Gave you rides up on his shoulders and pushed you on the swings in the park.

It all bubbled out of me in this crying fit that hurt.

It felt like I was losing him worse than before this time. Because I was having things about him coming out, coming up to the surface and as you get older…

You actually understand in a much deeper, much more painful way the things that you’ve lost.

I cried, I cried and I screamed and pushed and even hit and punched Alex because it just was too much and I had to get it out or that much stuff in me might tear me apart from the inside out.

I so didn’t like hitting him while I was freaking out, it made me get reminded of all the shitty stuff that might be ingrained inside of me and that made me bawl all the harder despite the talk that Adam and I had.

But Alex held onto me and never let me go no matter how bad I got.

And another bonus I totally freaked and the only thing that had happened with my nose was it getting all puffy and stuffed up…no nosebleed.

I’m trying to blink myself awake and I feel loopy in that drained kind of way but I think it’s a good drained kind of way. I feel Alex’s breath in my hair and his muscled arms around me holding me tight and keeping as many of the monsters away from me as he could.

He’s actually spooning with me and curling around me like he was covering me up and protecting me with his own body.

You know I don’t think I could’ve come up with a love existing in the ways that he shows that he loves me. It’d be fiction or it would have been. I didn’t even know that someone would do the things that he’s done, that he does for me and there is what I’m going to say this naturally girly feeling there now of what it feels like and how big a thing it feels to a girl to feel protected and to feel safe.

I’d walk through the sun naked for Alex.

I sigh and his posture changes like he’s awake, like he’s just been there waiting and holding me and watching over me on guard.

“Morning.” He says kissing my neck.

“Morning? How long was I out?”

“All day really.”

“I slept all day yesterday?”

“Well sleep was part of it.”

“I cried all day?”

“No, you detoxed all day.”

“Detoxed?”

“It’s what Jen had said when her and Cindy had come over.”

“They were over?”

“They’re still over.”

“Still?”

“Yeah, still they crashed on the couch about tenish.”

I look at the clock it’s reading 3:44 in the AM.

“I’m sorry?”

“No, never be sorry for doing stuff like that Hunter, you needed it.”

“Yeah I guess I might have.”

I get up and head off to the bathroom and I take a shower a fairly long one getting myself together and just sort of washing it all off of me. It’s sort of like I can almost feel the funky residue of my melt down on me. Kind of I guess in the same way that animals get a slick coat when their upset or in distress I’m washing off the residue of that.

I still love with a passion the feeling of being clean. Not that I’m scared of dirt but there is just something that soothes me about being able to take the shower puff and covering every inch of myself with a nice scented lather and wash the bullshit away.

I more than likely shower a little longer and more often then some people and I’m pretty sure that I wash my hair too much in the process mostly because I’m not girly enough that I cover my hair in the shower. I just don’t see then point of it. Well I kind of know the point but I’m not that attached to the way that my hair looks.

I climb out of the shower and I towel up and head into the bedroom to get dress and I’m met by a bleary eyed Cindy who sort of gives me a disheveled smile with only her panties on. “Uhm…Cin? Why are you nearly naked?”

“Uh?...oh Jen feels so good like that me and her’s touching together when we’re all snuggled?”

“Uhm okay but hello…Alex is here.”

“Mmm…nope you were showering and he decided to go of on his morning run so just us girls.”

“Oh…okay.”

She gives me a thumbs up and heads to the bathroom and I kind of turn and watch her and I really must be a girl and a straight one at that because I’m not really getting the guy seeing a sleepy hot blonde girl in her panties going around topless. I’m actually kind of wondering if I’ll get anywhere like that kind of shape by the time all the hormones and all the other stuff catches up with me.

I’m kind of wondering about stuff like that while I’m getting dressed just my sort of layabout clothes since I’m not going to school today. I’m likely going to have my mothers body type and while she’s that whole Nordic looking girl she’s on that skinny waif side of the whole thing and not the blonde tall voluptuous type of girl that Cindy and Jennifer are.

I slip out trying to be quiet into the kitchen to start on coffee and breakfast and not to wake Jennifer up either but she’s not there either. I get my coffee and I’m that girl that takes her mug and puts it under the flow from the coffee perk replacing the pot with my mug. Cindy comes out drying off and I take a few sips of coffee and take a clove out of the spice drawer and pop it in my mouth. She looks at me questioningly.

“Oh, I’m still quitting smoking and sucking on a clove helps with the cravings and I always get a craving right as I’m having the first cup of coffee in the morning. Where’s Jennifer?”

“Out jogging with Alex, she’s a runner I’m not.”

“Still you’re in great shape.”

“Weights and aerobics.”

“Oh, I’m not a big exercise girl.”

“Nope saw that but you have to feel like it, you just can’t really get into it if you’re not motivated. Oh there’s leftover Chinese in the fridge.”

“Okay.”

I dig out the Chinese food and I’m actually interested and nervous at the same time because I’m never really had Chinese food before and honestly I like all of it even the wong tong soup and the little bit of hot and sour soup we reheated. Chicke balls are awesome especially with cherry sauce and I think I’m tied between the beef low mien, the chow mien veggies and the pork fried rice we actually eat most of it cold and I’ll be a long way to go with using chopsticks but I’ve got pigging out down to a fine art this morning.

I’m really feeling pretty much not eating most of yesterday. Huh, it’s weird to actually be used to having stuff to eat now. Real food too, and as much as I’m eating if it’s new I’m taking my time with the first few bites of it and savoring the taste, so far there’s been nothing I don’t like.

April comes up the stairs knocking to come in which is nice. “Morning you feeling better kiddo?”

“Yeah I’m almost feeling human about now you want a coffee?”

“Love one, just…Alex doesn’t have any soy milk does he?”

“Yeah we use it in smoothies and stuff, so white with soymilk then?”

“Please.”

I make all of us coffee’s and I’m a lots of cream and lots of sugar or give me the whole shebanging works if I’m in a store.

We settle and she’s looking at me and smiling. “I talked to my doctors and the specialists and if you’re sure and you’re ready we can get everything done and ready and you’ll be hopefully post op after a week.”

“Hopefully?”

“They do want to do a bunch of tests and things to see what’s really going on inside and the kind of damage that you’ve taken over the years and what they have to expect and what the other specialists will have to do.”

“Other specialists?”

“Well we’re not sure about everything but they want you to be seeing and endocrinologist.”

“Huh?”

“Hormone doctor.”

“Okay…yeah I’d imagine with me not having the right deep down plumbing I’m all out of whack.”

“We think so.”

“So when do we get all started?”

“Today, it’ll be mostly tests really so you won’t have to stay the night.”

“That soon?”

“Well I was talking to them yesterday and they do want to go over things as much as possible.”

“What time?”

“Nine as soon as the departments are open.”

“I should get dressed, I ate and had coffee will that be a problem?”

“They didn’t mention it really so not likely and we can tell them what you had just in case anyway.”

“Okay, what should I wear?”

“What you have on is fine Hunter you’re going to want to be comfortable.”
“Okay…then.”

We wait around for Jennifer and Alex and while their out we sort of grill Cindy for a play by play about what had happened between her and Jennifer and with her parents and I’m glad that they didn’t freak out but had pretty much knew all along and were just waiting for her to come out in her own time.

School might be a bit harder though we go to a pretty whitebread school and you never know what’s going to happen. I try to reassure Cindy that it’d be a bigger deal in my old school than hers because and this isn’t something some people admit to but in my neighborhood there’s a lot of blacks and there’s a lot of hispanos and hindu’s and stuff and they are a lot more uncool about people being gay or lesbian and stuff. I’m not sure how true it is in those communities but at school it’s really rough with being gay especially is like a serious thing amongst the blacks and hispanos. Lesbians might get a little slack but the gay guys where very stealth and closeted in my school.

Our school has all the LGBT stuff and all the white people pc life accessories so that they are fair and perfect y’know.

But I don’t know that many of those kids, but then again I haven’t been there long enough to really know who’s who and in the crowd I’m running with now.

It’s pretty much just Jen and Cindy.

Alex offers to stay with me while I’m getting the tests done. I kiss with him and lean him against his car. “No it’s okay honey I’m just going to be poked and prodded and filled full of radioactive stuff most likely.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah I’m sure and barring any serious misfortunate…” He puts his finger over my lips.

“Don’t borrow trouble.”

“Okay…as far as I know I’ll be home tonight and more than likely put through the ringer so you can take care of me tonight?”

“Deal.”

We kiss again and he get’s into his car with the girls and I get my purse and jacket and get into the car with April.

I could really use a cigarette. I pop a spice clove into my mouth to suck on it as we’re going.

Oh dammit I’m nervous.

Sweet Dreams-39 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 39

I’m nervous as heck as April and I go into the hospital. I’m also a little impressed April has pull or maybe her money does as we’re semi ushered into the area for my tests and honestly I never thought that they had places where they took you aside and get you ready.

And not one but two nurses hanging around for stuff. I don’t even get the paper dress thing but patient scrubs?

“I guess it’s different with money right?” I’m not being snitty about it I’m too out of my element for that.

“I won’t say that it’s not Hunter but this is more of a personal thing dealing with your gender and sexual issues. I’m paying a bit more for the special services but there’s other factors.”

“Like?”

“Well, there was a lot of interest with the specialists and you being intersexed but also there’s the things that they’ve seen you been through Hunter so there’s a bit of a personal stake in this for some of the staff.”

“There is?”

“I’ve worked with a lot of health care workers honey, the hospitals might want to make money but the people that work here still want to help people at the end of the day. They’ve seen abuse before honey, and besides if you were into this you think you’d be a nurse or doctor?”

“Maybe, why?”

“Then it’s not too far fetched that there’s people here that grew up going through abuse too.”

I know it’s lame. But I think there was part of me that sort of divided the haves and the have nots into the people that grew up in shitty lives like me. I know other people have had it hard but…

“Yeah that makes sense, just getting caught up in my head.”

“They’re you feeling Hunter, you’re allowed. You’ve kept too much in for too long.”

“I can’t help it, it’s sort of a conditioned response.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was a boy, or supposed to be. The steps hit made sure that if I was going to cry then I’d have something to cry about.”

“Jesus…”

“Wasn’t present in that household trust me.”

“What happened?”

“Too much April, literally too much to get into.”

“You can tell me Hunter, it’s okay.”

“Does Adam tell you about his homelife being utter shit too?”

“No…it was?”

“Yeah, poor neighborhood, cops kid, big family…trust me I’ve seen it and worse. Cop can’t take it out on the job so he drinks, and once he’s boozed up it’s open season on the family.”

“How’d you know that was what happened to Adam?”

“His eyes, he survived, got out and it cost him. Alex let a few things passed too but he doesn’t know much. But yeah…you can tell.”

“I never, I thought it was with his wife…”

“That too, just she was his childhood girlfriend, she likely pushed him to do all the stuff to get out but she didn’t know how to live in your world any more than he did and she slipped back into who she might have been back there only here it was a bigger failure than there and it killed her and she nearly took them all with her.”

“He never said.”

“He never will, you don’t talk about stuff like that April you just deal.”

“Like you do.”

“It’s just the way we’ve been built, you can’t take a beat up Firebird and expect it to be a Honda, you can fit it up and trick it out but it’s still a Firebird. Getting stuff out can be good sometimes but it’s always better to use what you’ve got the best you can. Life’s built Adam and I differently than you and yours April no offence.”

“No, none taken it’s just given me a lot to think about with Adam. I want to be there for him and show him it’s okay, that he’s okay.”

“Good…he needs that he hasn’t had that in a long time.”

“I’m glad that we can talk like this.”

“Me too, it’s really helping take my mind off things.”

It really isn’t that long before we start and we go for the lab stuff first. And it’s not just a few vials drawn it’s like a dozen or a dozen and a half. I’m not squeamish but it’s still a combination of ow and eww. I didn’t get why they took them from different spots either I thought they sort of stuck you and kept swapping out vials.

Then X-rays, and MRI’s and CAT-Scans drinking that bad Tang kind of crap before going into the doughnut. “It’s a good thing I don’t have ovaries and stuff with all these scans and radiation and stuff.”

April blinks and helps me off the sliding table thingy. “Why honey, this stuff’s safe?”

“Yeah, sure…but as many rads as I’ve had today I’d be giving birth to The Hulk.”

Okay….there’s a lot of blank stares. The orderly grinned though.

There’s a lot of looking and talking and more looking and talking and I’m trying to follow what they’re saying as their talking about what they’re going to do about me and my condition.

My condition.

Kind of sounds like I’m a pregnant teen.

Congratulations! It’s a penis!

Okay seriously from what I get the idea is to remove the tissue and then to close off the blood vessels and hopefully after they open me up there’ll be some plastic surgery stuff done with making labia and in theory I guess the sealed off blood vessels once my body gets the idea of hey there’s nothing here will send the blood slowly elsewhere hopefully guided by the hormones that I’ll be on.

It’s actually a long day really and there’s a fasting involved as well as more post fast blood work then a thing called a stress test with me in a mask and treadmill and stuff. And they even test out the anesthesia on my just to be sure I’m not going to have a bad reaction to that and how I’ll respond after having it.

I’m really starved, semi sick from the glow juice and the anesthesia tests and actually curl up into the back seat on the way home.

April wakes me up and I rub my eyes and get out and hug her. Alex isn’t home yet so I actually head upstairs and take a shower to sort of wash the hands that’ve been all over me all day and just sort of fall into bed. It takes effort to make myself move enough to set the clock alarm for an hour from now.

But between the nap on the way home and the shower and an hour of dead solid sleep I feel actually human by the time I’m done washing my face. That and I’m hungry too. I’m figuring Alex has practice and the girls might be over. I’ll be ambitious and I’ll make a lasagna.

I look through stuff and I don’t really have the stuff I think for lasagna so I look around and decide to try my hand at making meatballs. We have hamburger and I know we have sausage so I put both in a bowl and take the sausage out of the skins or whatever. The rest is garlic, eggs, chili flakes…just a bit of those and fennel seeds because that goes in Italian sausage oh yeah bread crumbs.

No bread crumbs. I use cornflakes tossed in the food processor. I mix them up and I put them it a frying pan or two to brown off while I make the sauce. This I know…canned tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, food processed onions, and some dried oregano. I think I just let it cook down and I get the stuff for the spaghetti ready.

Once the meatballs are really browned all over and good and dark I settle them in the sauce and put everything on simmer.

I take out my phone and call Jennifer.

“Hey.”

“Hey…(pant)…how’d it go?”

“Pin-cushiony which sucked really bad and then blood loss and poisoned and irradiated the super powers should kick in any day now.”

“Huh?”

“It was a seriously long shitty, stressful dad Jen.”

“Shit, I knew I should’ve gone with.”

“No, it’s cool. I had April there.”

“Yeah but friends y’know?”

“Yeah I know.”

“So you called me wadda ya need?”

“I was just wondering it you and Cindy wee going to show for supper?”

“I wasn’t planning on it but you want us too?”

“Uhm actually I was just trying to figure how much to make for the pasta and salad.”

“Well…I kind of had plans with Cindy.”

“That’s cool, how’s that working out?”

“Iffy, apparently we’re too hot to be lezzies and we’re too cheer for most of the L crowd.”

“Well I’m not sure if lesbian is supposed to come with a pre-setting I meant you’re cheer girls, lesbian cheer girls that’s a whole genre of porn right there.”

She laughs. “No, it hasn’t been bad just a bunch of disbelief and some more intense PDA watching from some of the staff. It’ll be really fun in about fifteen minutes.”

“Why?”

“Cheer practice will be over with and we’ll be hitting the showers.”

“Oh…wait…are you jogging while talking to me?”

“Yeah, why?”

“And you’re not panting like crazy?”

“No?”

“Bitch…the damned stress test nearly killed me.”

And of course that leads to her cracking up over the phone. “I gotta go Hunter, I’ll call you later.”

We hang up and I’m smiling because as much as I like the girls and it’s really a big deal to me the way that they’ve stood by me like they have this means that I get Alex to myself tonight. And the thought of that is a real pick me up. I cook a whole bag of spaghetti, Alex will destroy most of it actually and there’ll be plenty for me. I get the blankets set out on the couch for later and I set the TV and stuff up for us to cuddle after we find something on Netflix. I think he likes watching movies with me because I’ve actually missed out on that kind of stuff.

Stir the meatballs and the sauce. I’ve eaten way too much burnt crap from Mom being too stoned to care.

I look at the clock. He should be out of the showers and stuff by now.

“Hey…”

“Hey beautiful, how was everything at the hospital?”

“Scary, sucky, different.”

“Oh?”

“Needles, way to many needles. I’m honestly surprised that I hadn’t freaked out.”

“Why?”

“Stepshit had a thing for safety pins.”

“What….”

“The whole you wanna cry, I’ll give you something to cry about stuff.”

“……..fucking asshole…I ever fucking find him…”

“Alex, Alex chill it’s okay…I’ve got you…It’s better.”

“Better yes, okay never….I meet Clifford they’ll never find the body Hunter.”

“No…you see him ever just call the cops.”

“I can handle him.”

“Yeah, you can but you’ve never been in a street fight, or a knife fight and there’s a good chance he’d have a gun.”

“Still…”

“No…..no buts, no stills. He’s got three strikes plus going on that means they’ll send his ass away likely for good. You don’t need to get Cliff staining your life.”

“Fine…”

You know how girls say “fine.” and it’s not really fine this was one of those. I let it go…hopefully if it ever happens I’ll be with Alex. I still remember him punching and denting the fire door at the back of the school bus. He’s really strong and Alex has a dark side in him, that broody rage from life’s steel toe boots. If I’m not there he’d likely try to beat the hell out of Cliff or worse.

He doesn’t need that or jail. And like I said, Alex has no idea what Cliff is. I mean yeah he’s a piece of shit but he’s been in gangs, been in the joint and he carries knives and guns.

Deep breath. “Anyway, can you pick up some sub buns and some provolone cheese on the way home?”

“Sure what are you making?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs, but I was thinking we’d take meatball subs to school tomorrow.”

“You’re coming back to classes tomorrow?”

“Yeah they just did the tests they haven’t given me a date yet to come in so back to lie as usual. But if I roll over tonight and crush you it’s because of all the rads I had and I hulked out on you.”

“Hulked out?”

“Yeah Hulk big green guy, stuff like that.”

“Well that wouldn’t be that bad there’s a girl hulk right?”

“Hey…yeah and at that size I’d have boobs.”

“Breasts are that important Hunter.”

“Say’s you I want mine, I’m over due.”

He laughs that little half laugh of his. I like making him laugh. “Maybe we’ll go for implants like as big as you want.”

“No…no implants, just because I’m going through this doesn’t mean I’m going through any other kind of surgery.”

“Okay, okay anything else I need to pick up?”

I check the fridge. “We’re low on eggs and we better get more milk too.” Seriously we usually have three half gallon containers in the house and Alex really kills them….I’m so not used to that but he’s like a growing boy and shit.

“We need more cow goo too. (Cottage cheese.) and maybe something for dessert?”

“Like what?”

“Something we’ve never had before, surprise me.”

“Okay…Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“I Love You.”

I’m blushing on the phone and cradling it. “I love you too, I’ll see you soon.”

My god I’m smiling and happy and holding the phone even after he’s hung up and stuff. I’m right on the edge of girly happy crying and stuff and I’m not even on hormones yet. And in away that actually scares me almost more than the surgery. I’ve a pretty tight handle on me and the stuff I’ve been through and the idea of what I’ve read hormones can do to you. Okay some’s fiction and overblown but still.

But I’m still kind of enjoying the girly moment.

I recover enough to actually slip into the bedroom and make our bed and turn down the sheets then a bit of perfume, bra with my inserts and matching nice panties and I slip into one of his dress shirts that actually almost fits like a mini dress.

It was so worth it as I was getting the plates out and set on the island/counter/bar thing we have that separates the kitchen from the living room. Alex comes in his arms with the groceries and he take me in staring at me.

“What……?” I ask.

He just drops the bags on the floor, well set them down but it was fast and he walks right over and he takes my head…my face into his hands and holds me there/pulls me into this amazing kiss.

That amazing I did that girl thing, leg raising off the floor thing, skin tingling brain on fire, ow my heart kind of kiss. You know that scene in TV or the movies when he hasn’t seen you forever and the only…and the first thing he wants to do is to kiss you…

Oh my that boy can kiss.

We kissed that way for several long minutes but how long? Well the milk was getting warm and the spaghetti was overcooked. I was going to drain it but well we got busy.

It was still good though. I know there’s pasta and food snobs out there but it was still loose, it strained okay and it tasted okay. Honestly I only know it was over done by common sense. I’ve never really had good pasta so it was a lot, a lot better than canned spaghetti.

Alex ate three plates of it and apparently he loves pasta and not just for training but apparently he likes it even with just some butter, and some salt lots of fresh pepper and some grated parmesan. Heck I can make that. I’m a bit more dubious about the left over pasta chopped and dumped into scrambled eggs as being as good as he says it is but I’d still eat it.

I’ve eaten worse, but also I’ve never tried so many things either that I want to. Honestly, there are tons of kids in this country, hell this city that eating like a normal family is as foreign to as much as if we were from a third world country.

I’m an inner city immigrant.

Dessert was Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls…Oh…Alex put them in a buttered balking dish, put some more butter on them and he added some more sugar and cinnamon. I was still kind of full until the smell of them baking hit me and I nearly drooled. He took some cream and icing sugar and cream cheese and made icing and drowned them in it as made us coffee.

I got to feed him and he fed me them cuddled up on the couch, mostly making out as we watched The 300...that whole we are Sparta thing. I liked it, from what we seen of it and Alex geeks out a little bit telling me it’s based off a graphic novel more than history. I like it because it was like watching a Greek myth story.

But the action on the couch was still better than the movie was. Then he hit’s the books lying on the floor and I sit on his back and massage him while he’s studying. I more that love doing this and it’s fascinating. I mean the whole intersexed thing explains a lot of stuff like the differences between us and the fact he really is like some other species. I love the way his body feels, under me, under my hands and with him just done practice there’s a few times I hit just the right spot and he’ll winch groan. I even went and got some of that gel stuff he uses on his aches and gently rub it into his bruises.

It’s a great way to spend an hour really and after we clean up the kitchen and stuff we head off to bed…I’m more than ready and eager for bed and so it Alex. And yes it’s pretty early so we have time to make love and to really sleep because our days start pretty early.

And still no, I don’t go jogging with Alex.

I enjoy the sleep and the time to shower and do our wash and make our lunches. I might not know good Italian food but I’ve eaten my share of subs and I like a meatball sub as much as the next girl.

I’m a cheese-steak girl if given a choice with lots of onions and green peppers but Meatball is a serious second choice for me.

Where I come from coffee with cream and sugar is a breakfast and ketchup and tomato sauce counts as a vegetable.

I hear Alex coming up and inside. “Okay, I’ll try your spaghetti and eggs.”

“I haven’t made that in years.”

Not Alex but Adam.

“Oh….” I kind of jumped. “Coffee?”

“Always.”

I pour him some of Alex’s blend. “Cinnamon bun?”

“Yes please.” He takes both and hands me a folder he was carrying.

I open it slowly not really knowing what to expect but inside is some newsprint and a printed off city map with a graveyard…circled on it.

“He’s there in a city plot.”

“Oh…”

Dad….

Memories that were those cloudy sort of bits all are being pushed clear into reality now. It’s like that way things get when something bad happens but you mind or your memories make it fuzzy and detached…his picture is in the obituary and it just drives it all home.

I can help but to stroke the newsprint as tears are starting to fall. Daddy…

My Daddy…

My Daddy’s dead….. (Choking Sobs.)

Sweet Dreams-40

Chapter 40

I didn’t expect seeing my dad’s picture like that to have that hit me in the gut impact that it did. I’m crying pretty hard and Adam actually gets up to help but I wave him off and I’m all sobby and stuff but I go to the kitchen sink and splash some cold water on my face and grab some paper towel.

“Thanks Adam.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know, just seeing Dad’s picture took me from just having him in my head sort of fuzzy to remembering.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes and know, stuff like this messes a kid up Adam.” I look at him and yes I’m not just meaning me but Alex too. He looks at me a sigh’s and just nods.

“I’ll leave you to your breakfast and stuff.”

“If we go will you come with us?”

“It’s your family Hunter, private stuff.”

“You’re family too; you guys are my real family.”

Adam sighs. “Fine if you want to go then when do you want to go?”

“Sunday? Alex has a game on Saturday.”

“Okay…”

He leaves and I’m not really sure how he’s taking coming with us and all of that, plus me mentioning how this stuff screws a kid up might have hit a nerve. I need to talk to April later. There some stuff that needs to be hammered out…stuff after looking at this I can’t leave alone.

I stroke dad’s obit picture and smile and read the stuff in the sheets. Three different papers carried him obit. He must have been pretty well liked. The only one I recognize is the one from the bar he worked at they paid for one of them.

It turns out that I might have family cousins or something out in Maryland. Dad’s obit says he was a single child of Arthur and Shelly Hunter of Baltimore. It says they’re deceased but you never know, either one might have had siblings with families. Maybe one of these days I’ll look and see. I want to look though at where dad came from. I’m going to take the time and find that stuff out if I can and maybe over summer vacation next year we can go and see the house and neighborhood he grew up in.

I’m still lost in my musings over the stuff in the folder when Alex is there and he’s reaching out to touch my face tenderly. I sort of startle-flinch. “Sorry honey…I’m still not used to that.”

He shrugs. “It’s okay, you were crying?”

“Yeah…” I push the folder his way and he looks at it.

“Oh babe…” He steps around the corner into the kitchen and he gives me a hug. He’s sweaty and sticky from his run and his work out but I don’t care…its Alex sweat and I’m okay with it. I like his smell.

Sort of the guy scent that maleness but it’s mixed with his deodorants and stud plus he shaved this morning so there’s the hint of his shaving cream and there’s the whiff of our fabric softener there too.

I have no problem burying my face into his big broad chest. “I’m okay…it just all came back a lot harder than I though it would.”

“Still wanna hold you.” He mumbles into the top of my head as he kisses me there.

“I got no problem with that.” I mumble smile into his chest.

“Take a shower with me?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

We walk like that still clinging to each other as we head to the bathroom and get the shower going and I squeak and squeal as Alex takes us into the warm shower water clothes and all.

I get to just stop like this and it’s sappy and it’s messy and it’s really kind of romantic as we peel each other out of the soaked clothes and toss them out on the bathroom floor.

This is that stupid in love stuff that you’re supposed to do right?

I really like this. We actually don’t shower together that much ever and I like no I love the feel of his skin of his body under my fingers and I wash him. Even before I knew about being really what I am it was just so fascinating to touch him.

He’s so big and his flesh is so tough, sturdy and hard…I mean he works out all the time and he’s just huge…tall and strong…and I don’t know it’s not like I haven’t had my attractions to people before but Alex is something different. I mean touching him get’s me going but it’s more than that it sort of feels deeper?

And I find washing his body all clean and soapy is really to me as hot as any guy watching a hot girl washing a car. And that I can’t help but to kiss him and Alex kisses me and I reach down to hold “Him” and That leads to…

We make love and not getting too graphic about it I was bent over and ready but instead he turned me around and scooped me up.

“Put you legs around me…wrap those arms around my neck…”

It was face to face him holding me my legs around him and my back to the wall…and it hurt a bit because Alex always hurts at first but the sheer power and the way things just were…god they were perfect. It was so loving and yet it was so hot and erotic like out of a good novel.

We went from there to our bed and we had gotten so into it that we finished our second soaking wet and soapy on our bed. It was hard and hot and deep and drove me to screaming as I get my two for one. It’s not gay sex, and really even if I was a genetic guy it wouldn’t have mattered.

The rest of the morning was fun. Rushed but fun getting our lunches made and then heading to school so we wouldn’t be late. I mean we get there usually early any way so we can all gather together and stuff but today we’re a bit rushed and I’m actually curious about just what we’re going to see when we get there.

I can’t keep from smiling even after the stuff with dad and it’s even better with my big double caramel mocha coffee with a shot of espresso and whipped cream. I’m a coffee addict but I’m also a sucker for those froufrou coffee drinks.

Feeling Alex’s attention still deep inside me, getting driven in Alex’s car to a school I like and a great coffee and a brownie from the coffee place everything’s just good…better than good like karma’s giving me a break for all the stuff with the surgery.

I grin like an idiot when we pull into the parking lot and see Jennifer and Cindy kissing with Cindy sort of having Jen pressed right to her body and they’re kissing up against a new looking car and one of Cindy’s hands is slipped up and under the back of the plaid naughty school girl skirt and was rubbing and squeezing her tush.

I’m into Alex totally but this is way up there on the hotness meter.

And apparently I’m not the only one that thinks this is really cool. I mean we have LGBT kids though I’m likely the only trans kid. (Yes I identify as being trans, I had really made that leap before I knew I was intersexed.) Anyway the lesbian crowd here is a lot less open about showing PDA’s and stuff. And like I told Jen, two hot blonde cheerleaders doing the lesbian thing is almost and entire genre of porn right there. I get that this is like hot but it’s more like me admitting it as a girl? It’s what it is and I’ll give it a hell yes and a thumbs up but not really into joining in.

There’s a lot of talking about them in the halls and stuff too. It’s kind of funny and there’s not a whole lot of people being all hate filled and bent out of shape about it. Some but not a lot and the worst things are actually being said about Jen.

The hater’s say that she’s just too stuck up for any guy. Some of the hater girls are pitching a fit that they weren’t warned about them and they feel violated at being ogled without notice.

And some of the lesbians think that Cindy is too good for Jennifer.

We get our second or in my case third coffees and hang out in the quad before things start for the day. Jennifer gives me a big smile and a hug, I hug her back.

“You two looked cozy this morning.”

She nods taking a sip. “Oh fuck yeah; I never thought that it’d be this good y’know?”

I look over to Alex who’s talking and chatting things up with the guys. “Yeah I know…”

“Oh, I though there was a sway to the hips this morning.”

“Yeah it was a weird morning and I kind had a moment and Alex he made it all better.”

“Yeah I can see that showing up to school all afterglowy.”

I blush. “Yeah that part of the morning was just…”

“Awesome…” She says with a sigh.

“You too?”

“She stayed over again and she woke me up….Honestly Hunter I’ve never been this happy and there’s also this thing where I’m satisfied too…more than ever and I’m really, really getting hooked on making Cindy cum too…I just can’t get enough of the sounds she makes or the rush as she calls my name or just the way that she glows during and after.”

“You’re glowing too.”

“I know…I never thought that I’d feel my heart feel this full Hunter, Cindy does the nicest and the sweetest stuff…I melt, me…I don’t melt…but she just…”

“She knows your heart, she get’s it like no one else can.”

“Yeah…”

“Alex does that for me…he’s my rock in so many more ways than us just being together in bed.”

“Yeah…”

We both smile and we sigh and by that time some of the girls have joined us and Cindy. She smiles and hugs me too and asks.

“So hows things going with the whole surgery stuff?”

A couple of the girls ask. “Surgery?”

I stop and look at Jen and Cindy and they look at me. “Uhm…yeah I need to go into surgery to get things taken care of down south.”

“Oh…like serious?”

“Yeah like life changing.”

“Life threatening?”

“No but I really just want to get on with my life after it like everyone else does.”

“So what’s wrong if we can ask?”

“Vaginal obstruction.”

“Ooooh that sounds painful.”

“Yeah not so much but I’m really looking forward to post op and post healing.”

“Oh…wait…You and Alex have had and you can’t…so how are you two doing it?”

I just look at her and raise my eyebrow.

“Oh….oh..oh ow…eew…you let him stick it up there!?”

“It’s not as bad as you think, some girls happen to like sex like that y’know.”

“No…..ow…just…no…” They kind of look mortified except Karla Barnes who’s blushing really red.

Jen smiles and raises her hand. “Me too…who do you think broke Alex into doing it that way?”

“But…but...it’s butt-sex!” That was Chloe Simon.

Jen grins. “And guys like that stuff, why do you think that they’re really so into watching our asses?”

“Oh…eww..” Chloe’s looking kinda freaked.

Jen keeps it up. “It feels really good too…”

“It does?”

I nod. “It might sound freaky but there’s a lot of nerves up there that get like all massaged but not just that there’s your clit.”

She looks at me. “Nooo hunter that the other place.”

I shake my head. “No listen there’s the clitoral area and that’s a big zone, bigger than just the clit itself and there are all these nerves running through that area and those nerves can get really stimulated by having sex there.”

I’m getting all these OH! Looks.

Jen nods taking over. “Who’s gotten off by her guy sinking a finger up her butt while doing stuff? It’s not for everyone really and there’s an art to it but…getting double stimulation can just tip you over into the deep cummy end of things.”

I add in. “And…that tipping over the edge can be that extra bit of sensation some girls need if they have trouble having an orgasm.”

Jen jumps back in. “Plus you get like tighter, when he’s inside you sort of self kagel from like using different muscles and stuff. And you get a way better butt sway.”

Another girl asks. “Really?”

“Heck yeah, you start enjoying things like that and you get like more aware of that being a big part of your sexuality and you can’t help but to move differently.”

I’d hate to have seen where the conversation would’ve really gone if we had kept it up. But the bell rang and we headed off to class and I’m not going to out myself about my sex and the state of things. I mean what I said when I told them just like a MTF going in for her bottom surgery. It’s getting rid of a Vaginal Obstruction.

Personally I think that’s a great way to see the whole situation. T-girls are getting that fixed…but really it’s always been there.

Yeah I should write that into someplace maybe someone could get some use out of the concept.

It makes me wonder though if there’s such a thing for the pre-op girls that’d be like having phantom vag sensations where they can actually sometimes feel that they really do have one it’s just…Obstructed by that?

Yeah I know sometimes I think of some really weird things.

I’m actually glad to get back to class and to get back to work and get caught up on things. I like going to school even back when my school was a dive and a gang spot and really underfunded. It got me away from Cliff and Mom.

Here I like being here.

Mid-morning break was fun with us just hanging out and stuff and Jen and Cindy tell Alex about the conversation we had with the girls this morning and Cindy’s openly wondering just how many girls will be walking funny and stuff tomorrow.

Alex just stares at us and he looks at the girls who are sort of still talking about themselves and texting or maybe looking thinks up with their smart phones and stuff.

Then this light gets in his eyes and he slowly cracks a smile, one of those big unguarded smiles and he starts to laugh, and laugh and laugh…

We’re all staring because none of us have ever seen him laugh like this. It kind of catches with the three of us getting the joke and at the same time…I want to cry…

Alex is laughing, really laughing.

And he is so beautiful when he’s doing that.

Ow…my heart.

Sweet Dreams-41

Chapter 41

It’s been pretty much business as usual for the last couple of days since I found out about my dad and where he was buried and stuff and it’s been going to school and classes and Alex and I getting back to work too and him with his football stuff and it’s funny the whole thing about anal sex that Jen and I were talking about did end up with some very happy looking boyfriends and several girls that had ended up walking like they wiped their butts with a cactus.

And then there were a couple of the girls that…well I’d have to say out of the seven or eight that tried it two seemed to like it.

But it was enough of a whole no way and WTF thing that Jen and Cindi were suddenly old news and the school is having upperclassmen assemble talk or “Jam” session about safe sex.

That’s actually kind of funny.

I’m actually into it because one right now that’s Alex and I’s only really steady means of intercourse but we use lots of lube…I’m paranoid clean before that and after…and we use condoms too.

Honestly all sex is kind of messy really and everything but Alex and I are pretty safe and pretty clean.

But enough about sex really the time I really will want to gush about sex is when I’m fixed and things are right where they should be. Honestly the more that I think about it now that I decided to get it done the more that I want to get it done so I can get the hell on with my life.

There might have been only three days since the whole thing with Dad’s file and stuff but there’s been some cool things happening besides the stuff with the whole but sex thing.

I found and sold nine vintage dresses at Hali’s place and I’m getting commission. These were like really nice stuff and worth a bunch of cash.

I’m working on a web page now for Hali’s place and anything she gets in really vintage like that we’re going to set a base price and open a live e-bay style auction.

My computer sciences and applications teacher is helping me do all of this and it’ll be my big make up project for the semester and it’ll bring me up with the rest of the class.

I got an eighty seven out of a hundred on my last math test and I’m pulling my grade up there.

And I’ve gotten several bonus marks in English for actually talking about my in an essay and sort of what had happened and I wrote his obituary…eulogy in my own words.

“I Love you Daddy.”
“Daddy I remember you more and more in my heart than in my head.”
“It’s scary since I don’t really remember your face the way that I want too.”
“I’m lucky that I have pictures.”
“But there are things that I do remember that I’ll never forget.”
“Your Hugs…”
“I swear that even as big as I’ve gotten I still remember the hugs you gave me when I was little.”
“Those important hugs…telling me something, teaching me a lesson…”
“Chasing away the nightmares and then making me feel safe.”
“I’ll never forget that you made a very scary and unsafe world safe for me.”
“I Love you Daddy.”
“My heart remembers all these little things.”
“I still tie my shoes the way you showed me. I’ll always tie my shoes the way that you taught me.”
“I still love those vending machines with the twist thing and the quarters.”
“Yes Daddy it’s the best gum out of those things.”
“I’ll always remember being up on your shoulders…and how you made that flying.”
“I believe in heroes because of you Daddy.”
“I Love You so Much Daddy.”
“I Will Always Love You.”

(Sniffle…) Dammit…

Yeah I cried when I wrote it and I still cry when I read it and my English teacher cried when she read it and she hugged me pretty tightly. It’s the first hundred I’ve ever gotten on anything.

I’m going to have this made into a card at a print shop and get it laminated for when I end up going to see him. I want him to know that I really do mean all of those things.

Oh and I signed up for Driver’s Ed.

Things are going good too with Alex, I mean there’s our usual great stuff going on and everything but there’s also the fact that he’s bought some books and stuff on art and art history and other books from these famous artists. I knew that they studied like the older artists and stuff but I never knew that they actively bough boos of art and stuff about modern day artists and stuff.

I kind of like that he’s got his sketch pads out now and this big one that looks like it’s like a sketch poster pad on one of those things you do paintings on. I think I sort of like the smell of paints in our place.

I’m not sure what Adam’s really making of all of this except we occasionally cross paths commenting on Facebook about the sort of semi-political stuff on there.

So it’s been pretty good and yet and now I’m with Jen on a city bus heading back to my old neighborhood. Why? I left and I still have cash in my safety deposit box and I’m going to go and clean that out and use that to pay for Dad’s card.

I sort of want the money for that to go for that since in a way that’s something that’s sort of something that’s left of the pre-transition me. Jen’s actually pretty calm but as we get into worse and worse areas and transferring to different busses and the people start to change into people she’s not used to being around.

She’s really not used to this many black people.

Honestly it’s sort of funny to me. At least she’s not freaking out or anything but she’s tense and at the same time she’s interested and it’s a serious shock to her this is life? Stuff again.

“Hey you okay?”

“Yeah but this is all kind of just surreal?”

“Oh?”

“I’ve never been her like in these places and it’s all…its stuff I’d see in movies and stuff.”

“Yeah I get that I used to and still have that feeling now where I’m at. Nice neighbourhoods, lawns, nice homes, a school without metal detectors and armed guards and stuff. It was all the whole other side of the TV for me.”

“That’s a good way to put how I’m feeling right now.”

“Welcome to Detroit Jen, it’s actually like this more than it’s not.”

“I thought things were getting better?”

“Things are getting better for the people that have can get out of places like this. A lot of these people lost homes and the places that they worked at too were all beholden to the banks or the buildings were in that property hell that the housing market bank stuff went through.”

“But there were bailouts?”

“And some places got bailed out but the banks here didn’t forgive the money they were owed…they got bailed out but they never stopped calling in their so called debts on middle and low income places…the interest rates killed mortgages by driving the adjusted price out of peoples reaches…even in small commercial properties since the owners jacked the rents to try to stay afloat and everything went belly up.”

“Huh?”

“Instead of sharing the wealth when they got bailed out and them in turn bailing out the middle class and little guys they were being douches and still wanted the money that they say is owed them.”

“But if they owe it they owe it right?”

“Legally, ethically when they were bailed out they should have brought the rates down to where they were and people could afford it since they were given a break.”

“Oh…so that’s why everything’s all messed up?”

“In a really flimsy nutshell yeah…it doesn’t take much Jen, most families and people are two to three pay checks sometimes less from being homeless.”

“Unless they have a lot of money to begin with.”

“Yep and the one’s with a lot of cash well…money looks out for money.”

“Hunter?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s some stuff seriously wrong with this country then.”

“Jen, there’s stuff seriously wrong with a lot of countries…see the greed spread it seemed like a great way of making money but you can only live on credit for so long in any way before life’ll collect.”

“Wow you know a lot about this stuff.”

“Not really I mean it’s just mostly stuff I’ve seen on TV or read or talked about online but it’s my sort of grasp on what happened.”

“You still sound pretty crusadery about it.”

I shrug getting up because we’re getting to our stop. “I can’t help not to be. I moved around a lot of places growing Jen and while things in these neighborhoods were bad they’ve never been this bad.”

“My dad likely wouldn’t agree with you, he’s pretty firmly in the old boys club.”

“Yeah and that’s something that’ll happen sometime too. Our politicians are supposed to work for us, for the best interests of the public not themselves or the special interest groups and that’s on both sides of the fence in my opinion. The system is broken and falling apart and sooner or later it’ll all explode on us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s happened all over the world and it’ll happen here again. People say it won’t but America’s still a really young country when you look at history and other countries.”

“So what’ll we do?”

“Hang on and try to do as much good as we can, that’s my plan. I’ll take care of those around me and do my best from there.”

“So you’re not voting democrat?”

“If I could vote then right now yes…am I satisfied even with them no but given my situation and you and Cindi I’d vote there and hope.”

“Hope for?”

“Just hope, we need a better country but there’s people that don’t want one or their better country doesn’t include me or you or the people we know and love.”

I get out and I head to the safety deposit box rental place with Jen and she’s really looking around. She’s shaking her head a lot too and there’s a lot to shake your head at. Places closed and some boarded up, graffiti here and there lots of garbage in the alleys and people literally just hanging out in front of buildings or on the steps or the corners because there’s nothing to do…nothing for them here except wait…when I was little it had been the same thing but the hoodlum crowds, the ones that were going to do this anyway.

Now there’s a lot of folks in the area that should be working just now trying to find work, but it’s really hard to find work when there’s none to be had.

Lose you job and lose your house, lose your car…and if the work that you need is now only hiring like thirty miles or more away…it’s really expensive to try and make the commute…it’s all of these things and more and misery piling on misery and add it booze, drugs anything to cope, doing stuff like selling them to make ends meet.

It’s heartbreraking when you really look hard around. I’m used to this though I grew up here in these times with a whore and a skinhead stepfather living in cockroach infested places and being treated like shit.

It’s not even been that long really since I was still living here. I t really does feel like it’s been a lot longer though.

And being here, being home really has me thinking about just how I’m going to try to do what I said to give back.

I’m going to law school…if Adam’s going to pay for it like he said then yes and I’m going to try and make a difference.

I get a few looks from some people on the street that recognize me sort of. I’ve changed a lot since when I was living here…food, no more abuse, heat, clean clothes. I might dress still like I used to sort of but yeah I’ve landed somewhere good and safe.

Jen, Jen sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. And her rubbernecking like she’s lost would’ve gotten her into trouble before now if she wasn’t with me. There were a couple of black girls about our age that we’re streetwalking that looked at her and maybe us like they wanted to start something with the white girls.

Me greeting one of the locals was enough to stop them into trying to figure out who I am.

Jen is thankfully smart enough to keep her mouth shut while we’re here.

I get my cash and I close out the box account and turn in the key and we head back the long way back to the bus stop It’s actually a little safer because it’s the long way and we avoid two corners that I think might have wanted to stop the pretty white girls on our way back. They had the look on their faces like they were kind of thinking about it.

No thanks…I’ll pass on the mugging, the beat down and possible rape of my friend…me..with the way I am now? That’d be a beat down and worse maybe.

We pass my old place and I stop and I stare at it for awhile.

“What?”

“My old place.”

“Where?”

“There.” I point to the building.

“That shithole?”

“Yeah…”

“You going in?”

“No…there’s nothing in there that I want…just nightmares.”

“You okay?”

“No, not really…just being here hurts, stuff with my dad hurts…getting dragged through these places…I’m not going to say it’s not fair Jen because life isn’t fair…it just hurts.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come?”

“No…I had to, I’m not leaving this behind and I need to come back here despite the hurt.”

“Why?”

“We are where we come from Jen. We might not be a hooker or a ganger or a dealer or a debutante…” I grin at her but we should keep our roots because even if things sucked here or wherever it’s part of what makes us…us… I don’t want to forget these places or the people or the things I’ve been through I want to use them to make me stay real but keep my fight alive too.”

“I can sort of see that but what about me…I don’t really have that kind of stuff.”

“Sure you do you grew up in elite-ville, peer pressure, the white rich regime all that kind of prejudices…Jen you’ve been through your own bit of hell too and who better than you to see and get these kids that can’t fit into that kind of world.”

There’s this look there in her eyes and she nods. “Honestly maybe when stuff was going on with me when I was younger and had someone to show me that life could be different than what I was being told it’d be like I might be different now.”

“Exactly.”

It’s a kind of different lighter more focussed mood when we get back on the bus to head out of my old neighbourhood.

I take out my eulogy to my dad and read it again to myself as we’re going.

Tomorrow Daddy…Tomorrow… I Love You Daddy.

I hold the paper over my heart for awhile just to have him close.

I Love you Daddy.”
“Daddy I remember you more and more in my heart than in my head.”
“It’s scary since I don’t really remember your face the way that I want too.”
“I’m lucky that I have pictures.”
“But there are things that I do remember that I’ll never forget.”
“Your Hugs…”
“I swear that even as big as I’ve gotten I still remember the hugs you gave me when I was little.”
“Those important hugs…telling me something, teaching me a lesson…”
“Chasing away the nightmares and then making me feel safe.”
“I’ll never forget that you made a very scary and unsafe world safe for me.”
“I Love you Daddy.”
“My heart remembers all these little things.”
“I still tie my shoes the way you showed me. I’ll always tie my shoes the way that you taught me.”
“I still love those vending machines with the twist thing and the quarters.”
“Yes Daddy it’s the best gum out of those things.”
“I’ll always remember being up on your shoulders…and how you made that flying.”
“I believe in heroes because of you Daddy.”
“I Love You so Much Daddy.”
“I Will Always Love You.”

Dammit…I’m crying again…

I miss him so much…

Sweet Dreams-42

Chapter 42

I’d like to say that the next few days were just run of the mill stuff but it’s not. Or it’s not for me. There’s school and classes which is starting to feel normal and I’m catching up with things but what’s not and what’s new for me besides my impending surgery and going to see my father’s grave on Sunday is the fact there’s a home game here Friday afternoon and later after that a dance.

It’ll be my very first high school dance.

And I’m actually pretty nerved up about it. I’ve always wanted to sort of go to one and while my dances at my old school are likely a lot different that this one will be it’s still something that was kind of alien to me.

But now.

I like dancing, I found that out at the whole bowling alley night that we had and this is really different since it’s a dance here at this school and hearing the other girls talking about all those things like what they’re going to be wearing and how it will work with the theme and stuff and make up and so much stuff I don’t really know it’s really scary.

Actually the only thing I do have down is the dancing and that I have a date.

I’m so glad I don’t have to stress about getting a date or wanting a specific someone to ask me out on a date or the stuff that seems to have this hidden meaning of who’s talking to who and who’s wearing what and what the people that get together mean in the whole context of the school.

But even with all the pluses it’s still…

Clothes…make-up…finding a look?

Alex is lucky guys just have to dress at least sort of clean and neat and stuff and they’re sort of good to go.

Us girls we don’t really just dress for our guys or even just for ourselves really we dress for other girls too apparently and this reflects our status and stuff in school.

I know honestly I should be a person that doesn’t give a shit about that stuff but the thing is. I’m tired of the popular non-cheer girls running their attitudes with me and looking at me like I’m trash. There’s this clique that date the varsity guys and the money guys and they’re not the cheerleaders but the cheerleaders get a pass socially when dating the popular guys because of some unwritten teen law.

I’m with Alex and I’m skinny, poor, kind of a semi-goth-punk-loli girl and not just dating Alex but living with him and fucking him. So…apparently I broke their rules about people staying in their place and they hate me for it on general principle.

I’m apparently Alex’s little hooker.

Which bothers me but not the way that they think it might but more like they’re those silly cuntwuffles from the restaurant. It don’t really hurt but it does make me want to have them eating crow in the same way.

Besides dances are school activities and I need to be able to show on my college applications that I have the ability to be social and play well with others. I need maybe some extracurriculars too.

But right now I’m over at Jen’s place while Alex has practice until late with the game coming up and I came over on the bus after work. Jen’s surfing the internet drinking a coffee while I’m at the kitchen near the sink with Cindy looking through magazines for maybe a new look for my hair while she’s unpacking a couple of boxes that are sort of like tool boxes except they’re full of cosmetics and they have a whole bunch of hair tools too pretty much the whole shebang when it comes to the whole idea of a mobile salon.

“So you know a lot about this stuff huh?”

Cindy nods smiling as she sets up. “Mom put herself through college as a stylist and there’s a lot of us at home so we saved a lot of money doing it ourselves and she taught most of us even my cousin Mark.”

“Mark so no wonder your folks are good with you being gay?”

“No….Mark’s straight but he wanted to save money too so she showed him a few things and now he’s a barber in the army.”

“Really? I thought the barbers in the forces would be the semi-retired guys?”

“No, it’s no different than Army cooks, it’s a job that needs doing and he’s actually pretty good.”

“Not a fighter?”

“No he went in to Iraq but took a couple of rounds that luckily didn’t kill him and instead of getting his discharge he appealed it and applied for the barber post and he got it.”

“Oh why?”

“Work, if they just cut him loose he’s been headed back to Lansing and there’s really only so much work to go around still. There he’s getting paid, has base housing for himself and his wife and they’ve a kid on the way.”

“I didn’t know you could fight a discharge?”

“Well it was an appeal more than a fight and he still was lucky that he wasn’t disabled from the attack and they take stuff into account and a soldier having other skills sometimes.”

“Good, I’m glad that works out there’s a lot of military vets on the streets…used to see then a lot in the places that I’ve lived.”

Actually it’s one of the weirdest things that this country has to offer is our sense of duty and patriotism. I’m not a USA chanter type or a flag-waver type but it’s so messed up that when it comes to something like the way we treat our veterans in this country it was actually something, maybe the only thing that I ever agreed with the step-shit on.

Really, messed up right?

And No…not enough to cut Cliff any slack for the things that he’s done to me.

I sigh and look through some more of the magazines. “I don’t know girls a lot of these just seem so…permanent looking and I just want something for the dance.”

Cindy’s like. “Okay we can try some things we can really do a lot with rollers and irons and crimpers to get a look going with a bit of help from some product.”

Okay I’ll admit this is fun but it’s also work. Between trying out hair and looks for make-up and some outfits it’s all this really girly kind of thing I mean it’s this girly show thing and it’s off the charts a femi-girly thing really and I’m so not familiar with things and I’m learning but at the same time it’s a lot to take in.

Then thing is that when something we do just clicks and it looks right we get so excited that it really does spur you on. I’m laughing along with the girls and we’re even giggling and there’s the odd Squee or two when we really hit on a look and okay so we haven’t hit on a look for the dance yet but we’ve found out all of these other ways for me to look for all sorts of different times and that’s kind of cook too.

And part of that allure to it, the draw for us. I’ve figured it partway out. We get to reinvent ourselves just a little with each look. And that’s important because so many of us as just people live in these boxed in little lives and to do this is a way of release. So that outfit your girlfriend bought what you think is too expensive it’s not…as passports and tickets go it’s pretty cheap usually.

Alex might get where I’m coming from or maybe not he’s a bit out there compared to most guys that are grounded in their version of reality but still while he might get this idea. The whole scene would be way too girly for him to take I think.

Cindy is really good at both the hair and the make-up stuff too that honestly if she went to school for this I think she’d ace it.

“You should really do this professionally.”

“Maybe it’d be a good stepping stone to make money I guess.”

“Stepping stone?’

“I want to get into government.”

“Oh like?”

“Congress or better?”

“Why?”

“We need more women in those seats, we need to show people that it’s okay for you to be a girl and be taken seriously.”

“I can see that. I’d likely vote for you.”

“Likely!? I thought we’re friends?”

“We are but I’d never vote for any candidate unless they run a well thought out platform.”

“Honey…Hunter’s really political.” Jen calls out from where she’s at behind her computer.

“I see that.”

“So Jen what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take over dad’s business.”

“What does he do?”

“It’s Detroit he sells cars.”

“Oh so he’s not doing good then.”

“He sell’s Cadillac’s as you’d put it Dad’s in the top ten percent selling to the top two percent.”

“That’s a very male-centric industry Jen.”

“I know, but it’s what makes me want this all the more. Dad doesn’t have a son, just me and I want to prove to him that I can be that kid. That I’ll be the one to take over the business.”

“Okay then I’m glad that I’m going to be a lawyer then I can represent you both.”

We’re laughing but things actually turn semi serious as we talk about stuff like college and the future and how Cindy want’s to be part of things that make things better for women and better for everyone in the whole LGBTQ in this state and in this country.

Me I want to make a difference right here at home. Make my old neighborhoods a bit better somehow and stick up for the little guys when they can’t afford legal council and maybe work a few cases to make some keep it together money.

Jen want’s to take over her dad’s business and she’s got a real good bunch of ideas. One’s like asking for a higher price for a car that has a certified made in America sticker on it. So that those that can afford a caddy can show that maybe they’ll pay the extra to show that they’re against sending jobs offshore to other countries.

And she’s got some of her other ideas that could work too.

Detroit has a car culture and a very strong street car culture it’s not quite like the stuff in the movies but there’s enough of it that specialty car part places are big money in this city and in this state.

But we even come up with something that will be good for student council and just plain good for the students and other people. I take a drink of my coffee while checking out my latest look in the full length mirror Jen has.

“Interschool adoptions…a school can choose to adopt an even more cash strapped school or schools and help everyone along. I know some of the money that just gets wasted at our school at lunchtimes and break times and stuff there’s a couple of hundred that goes to waste every week. So you take my old school another three hundred dollars for say the cafeteria budget would make a huge difference.”

Jen looks at me. “You should run.”

“Run?”

“Student council, it’ll look good on your college apps, you and Cindy and I can rally support for the two of you.”

“Really?”

“Really, you’re really smart Hunter and you’re still new which we can play up as you not taking sides and we can start things rolling now for you guys to get elected.”

“But we’ve already got a student council.”

“That’s last years, they keep on and then the have the stuff starting in the fall and the election is the week before thanksgiving.”

“Oh…”

I’m thinking about it and it’d be a drain on my time but…really, really…I could do a lot of stuff this way to help a lot of other kids out if I can get people to go along with this. With my ideas.

I look at Cindy.

“Hey we are you willing to get into this now?”

“Yeah, there’s no point in hiding and maybe we can actually do something positive.”

“I’m all for that and the first step will be getting the student council stuff online and we can get things going and moving a whole lot faster.”

“Oh, that’s good…that’s really good.”

“Make the school board required to post their public meetings online.”

“Why?”

“Its way more public and we can effect changes to district policies by Tweeting and other stuff and use it to fight back against stuff that’s not in the interests of the students or even some of the teachers.”

“Teachers?”

I cough. “Student council is the elected official representatives of the student body and as there would be no faculty of any sort required without students we are as much part of the employment equation as the municipality or the state”

“Ohhh lawyerese….” Jen grins.

“We should really be able to effect policy and have a say in what goes on with our teachers.”

“But what about people that won’t want that?”

“Let them defend their attitude online, or go to the press…the problem isn’t that we don’t have the power it’s the fact they don’t want us to realize that we do.”

“Hunter that’s…”

“One of the big gaps for us today as kids. We feel that we don’t have a say, a say in anything so we make it so we can as students and that we can help each other out and even kids that need help in other schools.”

Jen’s nodding. “We can at least try, we can try and even if the school doesn’t back us we can do some of this stuff with social networking sites and do it ourselves if we have to.”

Cindy’s. “Right and if we get enough positive stuff going then when we keep trotting it out they’ll want to get involved at least then to make themselves look good.”

I’m smiling. “You do realize that no one will believe that there’s three blonde girls thinking all of this stuff up right.”

We all start laughing and we get back to choosing our looks and stuff for the Friday night dance.

I’ve flown under the radar for so much of my life just hiding and trying to survive but what if I can start to give back to other people now. Earn some good karma or something, give back because trust me I know, I really know just how lucky I’ve got it.

It’s kind of scary but kind of exciting too.

Sweet Dreams-43

Chapter 43

It’s the first time that I’ve been to a home game and I’ll have to say that it’s exciting. I’d never had pegged myself for a football fan but here I am sitting in the seats set aside for the players family and the players girlfriends.

Despite how I’ll be going to the dance after this well its two hours after this I’m dressed like a fan or my version of a fan.

My new do is messy manageable so it’s under a turned backwards team ball cap and I’m wearing my inserts and a push up bra that gives me some girl bounce for when I’m up and yelling my head off.

I’ve got one of Alex’s jerseys on over my goth styled black glove ended sweater and matching leggings but I’m got one of the team cheer skorts on and a plastic megaphone cone, and a set of thunder sticks that I got from the garage from apparently the last time Alex’s team had made a run at taking state. Heck I’ve even got some pom-poms.

And in between cheering along for the team and loosing my shit and screaming everytime that Alex has the ball or makes a good pass or play I’m cheering on our cheerleaders. Actually I managed to talk a few people to get in on doing that with me. I never thought that I’d be ever pro-cheerleader either but these girls are dumb like the stereotype they have to keep a B average grade to even stay in the squad and there’s a lot of hard training to do what they do.

I know that some of them in some places deserve the stereotype and out of the entire squad there’s like six here that don’t really socialize with the others except for when they have too and are part of the whole better than clique…

Yeah the ones that looks down on me…that bunch.

Oh and during our little make over session we came up with calling them the Chanelles…because their hoity-toity and they think their shit smells like Chanel No5.

But otherwise the cheerleaders are a pretty good bunch of girls doing this because of stuff I never figured. Like if you get too “Big” for some of the dance classes they’ll cut you, the same for figure skating and gymnastics…so if you loved that kind of stuff and don’t fit the social model for those things then you can always try out for cheerleading.

And then there the fact that it looks really good on a college application too. The community activities and fundraising and all of that…

Oh a good idea just hit me and I file that away into my phone. [Why don’t all the teams and clubs raise the money for each other as a whole?]

I didn’t want to forget that and with the different interests going on here we could do something new. When was the last time that you seen any of the sports teams raising money for the other stuff like the debate team?

Oh Alex has the ball again!

It was one of those interception things too…sometimes they get Alex and two other guys to play both offense and defence and I think the coach did that with them because Alex at least has anger energy…he’s not a violent guy but I think being able to tackle someone every once and awhile helps him.

But the other team did a thing called a buttonhook? It was some thing like that and when the other teams quarter back went to make the throw Alex never went for the QB or the receiver but he ran at one of the other guys and shoved him…pushed him I don’t know the technical differences but as the guy went off balance used him like a set of stairs to get enough air and to catch the ball in mid pass.

But he landed cleanly and he was open and that’s when he ran the ball!

I mean this is a great thing anytime it happens but it gets better and better as he keeps getting more yards and…and…

“Touchdown!!!”

“Ohmigawd!” I’m jumping up and down and hanging on April’s arms and she’s holding mine and we’re screaming and jumping up and down enough for Adam to winch and cover his ears.

I…I don’t get to be this happy, or I never used to ever get to be this happy and I’m just being the girl I should be a little bit. I’m wanting it more and more because I’m tired of hurting and feeling guilty when I’m not and I’m so sick of just hiding.

I…

Oh screw it.

I kiss April and Adam on their cheeks and I run through the seats and down the stairs to get as close as I can but it’s not close enough…I hop up onto the concrete wall and take my flats off and walk barefooted down the edge of it beside the players tunnel. I’m getting yelled at to get down, be careful and one of the Chanelles throws some popcorn at me…skank… but I keep going until I’m at the corner.

I put two fingers to my lips and I whistle long a sharp at the guys and some of the ones from the bench run over and I just jump and let them catch me. “Thanks guys!” I yell and I’m running as they stand me up all the way over to Alex…

He calls a time out despite what anyone might have to say about it he calls a time out when he see’s me and he jogs over to me tearing off his helmet and I jump up into his arms and we’re kissing…we’re kissing and I’m running my fingers through his sweaty hair and it’s good…damned good.

Then we’re forehead to forehead him holding me still in his arms bare feet and all and me with my shoes in hand.

“You’re crazy Hunter…”

“I’m in love Alex…”

“So am I…”

“You’re amazing Hunter…no other girl would do that…”

“Good…” and he kisses me again and there’s cheering being whipped up by our side and Todd who’s up in the announcement booth plays a bit of the course for Queen’s *Somebody to love.* and the other team is bitching and the other crowd in booing and I push off.

“You gotta get back to work mister…”

“Yeah…” He does that bite/taste thing like some people do after kissing like he’s savoring my taste and I’m backpedalling to the benches…

“Go kick some ass’s honey.”

“I love you Hunter!” He shouts it because he’s jogging backwards to his guys. But he shouted it and everyone heard it…

Called a team’s time out for this…and they might need it…the coach won’t be happy…but he did that for me…said…declared that for me in public!

Ow…my heart…if it was swelled any more from being in love then it’d likely explode.

I yell it out before he turns around… “I Love You Too Alex!!!”

I’m blushing because of the cheer from our side turned into a mass “Awwww…”

I get back to the benches and the coach is glaring at me. “You know we only get so many time outs in a game Ms. Williams? I hope this was worth it.”

I’m happy and buzzing from the love inside but I still look him right in the eyes. “Yessir I do…and Alex makes me feel like I’m actually worth something for the first time in my entire life…” I smile at Alex out there on the field and wipe some happy tears away.

Then I look him in the eyes and we stare at each other a bit and he’s pretty intense. “Linwood huh…”

“Yessir…”

He turns away. “It was worth the moral boost, besides you get me a water and the other team will think that I’m okay with you and Alex burning off a timeout.”

“Hey, anything for the team.” I get up and give him his bottle of water and he takes it from me with a big obvious smile and he let’s me stay on the bench.

I still cheer and scream my butt off as skinny as it is.

*** Alex……………………………………..

I knew she was coming and doing something nuts when I heard the crowd from just after my touchdown…I was actually helping the guy up that I used as a ramp to get at the ball. Not that I hurt him bad, I used his padding when I did it.

“Who’s that?”

I looked up and there Hunter was over to the edge of the seats up in the stands and then she’s getting up on the side of the wall beside the tunnel that leads back to the lockers…it must be a thirty foot fall and she just jumps up there without a care in the world shoes in her hands and walks herself all the way down to the corner.

What guy has ever, ever had a girl that’d be crazy and brave enough to do that for him?

“That’s my girlfriend…that there’s my heart…” I clapped him on the shoulder and I ran over and yeah I called a timeout to take just a moment to hold her…and kiss her and…

Part of me is just….burning…shining…I don’t have the words…but who has a girl that’d do that and not just the dangerous stuff but come to me…be in my corner cheering me and kissing me like that in public…

Ow…..My Heart.

And the way that she just openly screamed that she loves me too…

I get my helmet on and strapped and we take up positions and there’s this…there’s nothing more empowering that having someone behind you that believes in you that way.
I smile as I’m puffing out steamy breath and trebling for the start of our next play like a fired up race horse…

Hunter…..

Hell yeah…

***Hunter………..

The game ended really well and we kicked some serious butt and even the crowd was really into the whole celebratory deal too as we went through the post game stuff and there was a tail-gate party for our suppers in the school’s parking lot and most of use were staying right there at the school instead of trying to travel back and forth with the traffic and stuff for the dance.

I like the whole tailgating thing and even though we…well April just bought stuff it’s still a good time. I have a bit of everything actually starved since it’s late and this is the first thing since lunch and some popcorn from the game.

Hmm I don’t care for some stuff but out of all the stuff I tried I like the sausage dog thingy…it’s a Italian brat kind of sausage with all that fennel stuff and spices in it and they slit the sausage open when they give it to me and they put all these peppers that have been like cooked or fried with the skins off and they added in marinara to the peppers and use that as a topping with some diced fresh tomatoes and some shredded cheese and it’s that hot the cheese in melty by the time I eat it.

Turns out I think that I like Italian food.

The wife of the guy that made the hot pepper sandwich she made canolis. Oh fried pastry shells with a filling that has whipped cream and something called ricotta and mascarpone and crushed pistachios and grated chocolate in it…

I appal the Chanelles who are staring at me eating with die bitch die looks as I eat two and share my third by feeding Alex…funny how one’s middle finger sort of sticks up while holding a canolis for your boyfriend to eat.

Oops…

We kiss to and Jen and Cindy are creating a scandal and minor stink with then feeding each other and kissing too. Mostly it’s the conservative kids in the school and some of the parents but it’s mostly just dirty looks and quiet bitching.

The best thing about a public school especially one this fancy is the fact they are very PC…oh political correctness in the main watch word in places like this and honestly the haters in school might be like in the whole fifiteen percent so they’re very in the minority.

Most of the kids are actually of the type that really don’t care. Actually aside from some eagerly watching guys and the social types still hung up on two of the cheerleaders are lesbians most people are treating it like it’s not a big deal. I mean it isn’t seeing as we do have some gay and lesbian students anyways.

I catch a glimpse of Todd with a girl I don’t know but she’s the pretty side of high average and they’re eating and looking at his laptop. I give him a thumbs up before heading off to the girls locker rooms and start getting ready for the dance.

It’s chaos in there as every girl that’s sticking around and stuff to get showered and changed is here rather than go home and I hit the showers getting cleaned up and Cindy and Jen are actually my shields to keep from being found out.

They do this by necking for the most part and while not a lot of people having problems with that once the touches and petting starts most of the girls are either staring, or trying to look anywhere else.

And it’s official…

Jen and Cindy are my BFF’s

If there was ever a time that they could choose to betray and obliterate me for the way that I am it’s here and now. But it’s not even remotely in their heads…other than each other I can see…got your back there in their eyes.

I still get changed pretty quick and I’m okay once I’m in my underwear…it’s not that big that it’ll bulge out a tight pair of lycra panties…well a thong and I slip a pair of matching black lace panties over them.

Lotion with Skin So Soft, and use Secret Baby powder deodorant and just a small spritz of Juicy perfume.

I’m not going to be really over the top fancy.

I’m getting some looks though as I’m lotioning and starting to get dressed…stares… One of the girls on the squad points at me. “Hunter…Jesus Christ what happened?”

I’m looking around and Jen’s turned and she’s looking at me with a cloth in her hand. “Another nosebleed….oh holy fuck….”

It’s the first time I’ve really shown anyone that much skin before and my scars are there out in the open for the world to see.

I blush a bit and just look at them all…I look at Jen. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that I went through hell before coming here.”

We all loose ten minutes or so in a cryey-massive-gloomp-fest. And I’m pretty sure that most of my deal with liking women might have been thinking I was always a guy psychosomatic thing because even with the pressure from the tight lycra I would’ve felt the stirrings of a boner if I was attracted.

With the sweet soft skin and the amount of full contact boobage in and out of bra all I got was…envious.

Every girl here or most of them is doing a mini skirt or hooker slacks or the little black dress. I go with a nice skirt mid thigh length and faded blue denim and black knit styled stay-up stockings and I have a nice pale blue t-shirt styled top that is cute but dressed down and plain with the nice bonus of showing off my black lace bra.

Hot undies, comfy yet nice clothes…I’m even wearing nice soft and comfortable ballet flats instead of heels.

I get my hair in order and it’s not colored, and my hair is almost always colored but I’m going for simple natural blonde but there’s a few other blonde highlights there now to give more depth to my Scandinavian pale blonde hair. I keep kept two long bits/bangs down to frame my face but the rest goes into a pony-tail. My make up is light just enough around my eyes to highlight them and stuff and some very light frosted pink lipstick and some clear lip loss to add some shine and protection.

The last thing is actually my black stretchy cotton gloves…like I said I have serious scars…but people have seen them and I have to live with them and I take the gloves and stow them in my bags.

I look in the mirror and other than I have to use falsies…I like who’s looking back at me.

I wait for the girls and we head out together and through the halls to the gym where our dates are waiting for us and I see Alex…

Freshly showered and shaved…his hair neatly rumpled…yeah it’s the style but he gets this little bit of curl there once his hair dries that’s really sexy…he’s just in dress shoes and really nice slacks and this fine clinging dark grey cotton sweater. That’s it…he’s a guy and sometimes simple and handsome just works really well with guys.

I smile and we walk up together and we Kiss….

Yeah Kiss with Caps…long and sweet and over and over again.

God he smells so good too…like guy mixed with hazelnut but little teases of wood and leather in his cologne…and Alex knows just the right amount too…enough to still smell him and the lingering smell of the soap that was on his skin and his shampoo….

Oh…shit…I actually feel my nipples get hard from it…

And the way that he looks at me…

“God I love your eyes Alex…”

He actually gives me a real smile and one of those Kisses again. “Well they’re your fault.”

“What…?” As in huh…what?

“I look in the mirror and I don’t see it but if you’re seeing it….it’s got to be because I’m looking at you…”

I’m just about doing the swoony melty thing when he leans in and he rubs noses with me in this sweet and cute Eskimo kiss before pulling me into one of those kisses that makes you lift a leg and the rest of the world get up on its tippy toes.

Sigh….My Heart.

Sweet Dreams-44

Chapter 44

There are things that I’m discovering out of life that I never thought that I’d discover or that would even matter to me and they’re little things but they’re so huge too. Oh this is going to sound so girly but they feel like they’re huge things inside for me. Like in my heart.

This dance, being with Alex. Him saying stuff like that to me. All these little PDA’s between us and being out on something date like with my boyfriend. Yeah boy friend…I’m not even sure that we should even use that. He’s my partner, my significant other he’s the guy that I love.

You know that love’s pretty serious with someone when the thoughts of a future together and getting married sort of just seem like its natural? I mean we’re not even planning it or talked about it but I guess it just feels like this is it.

I mean we already are lovers and we already live together.

And apart from the sex thoughts that are building as we dance…or it’s just that dancing seems to light something up inside me…I love to dance and I think I did get that from mom and I’m actually not a bad dancer. Some of its street and some’s actually from watching her but I’ve always picked up things in dancing pretty quickly.

But yeah the together thoughts mix in with the sex thoughts when you’re guy is dancing with you really close and there’s skin on skin contact and a bit of bump and grind and his hands sliding over me.

Oh yeah…biting my bottom lip yeah sometimes…

There is nothing like feeling the really big and strong fingers of a man’s hands running over parts of your body. Alex makes like three of me and he’s built and muscular and I’m well even when I thought that I was a guy I wasn’t and just so differently built I might as well have need another gender or species even.

I love the raw feeling of his strength being so carefully restrained by him when he’s with me but not?

Sexually it’s like standing close to a bonfire…you get all toasty and warm and hot even but too much and you could get hurt…or he could hurt you if he didn’t know his own strength but he does…and I get to feel that raw male power trembling or just coiled in him as he’s being gentle with me…as he’s dancing with me.

I’m so straight…

I thought I was a guy, I thought I was gay and I was coming to grips with that through this whole mental battle and then I thought that I was transgendered and now it’s the fact I’m an intersexed girl.

Though I still consider myself male raised and emotionally male from my starting points maybe. It’s really complicated when I really get into cause and effect but I do consider myself transgendered.

I have the working guy parts, I need hormones to get myself right and I’ll be taking them likely at least as a supplement all of my life and I need surgery to fix my “Vaginal obstruction.”

But like I said…I’m really, really so into Alex that I’m definitely straight.

And honestly I’m so seriously girl enough that the dancing really gets me going. I get why too. When a girl dances to have fun and not for money or for art it’s a release of all the sexuality that they keep bottled up. The sad fact is that for way too many women they can’t be really who they are or as sexual as the feel or sensual as they feel because even in today’s society and even here in America it’s seen as almost a commentary on who they are as a person.

Too sexual or sensual they get labelled and worse the predatory assholes out there see that as an open invitation to “Take” what they want.

But in a club or a safe place on the dance floor we get to have this socially acceptable place where we can cut loose and groove and shake and shimmy and be the girl that we bury.

Sexuality aside we get to get back to being the seven year old that danced in circles spinning until we fell down giggling just because we can.

I honestly think that might be more of the best part of dancing to all of us then the restrained sensuality.

And I’m making up for lost time.

And Alex, Alex can actually dance pretty well too. I think partly it’s because he’s in a sport where footwork seems to be drilled on but I look over at Jen and Cindy and Jen can really dance too so I guess she danced a lot and her and Alex used to be together so I think I have to thank her for training him and what not.

Still I never thought that I of all people would be dancing along to this teen pop music stuff or that I’m actually enjoying it.

Not that I owned anything to really play music on at home but at my old school it was Rap and gangster and hip hop mixed in with some rock and metal with those crowds and the girls were mostly into R&B.

But I’m singing along with the other girls to “Call Me Maybe.” And I have my hands up and dancing to “Party in the USA.” And all the other catchy Taylor Swifty stuff that’s being played.

It’s actually fun to dance to and I’m allowed to like that stuff too. I’m a real girl and I can be as girly as I need or want to be.

But I can feel the whole Hunter punky-gothy-street-girl face palming at me inside my head.

It’s still all new to me. Heck with it right this is my spinning around in circles time now.

It’s funny because we dance right up until the D.J. is taking a break and I’m still feeling the glow and we get a table to sit at with some of the others and the guys take off to get us our drinks.

I’m pinching my shirt doing the whole pull it up and down to cool off and I get to talking about how the other girls should’ve worn something easier on their feet than the heels that they were wearing.

We talk about the game and our guy’s classes and school and our jobs. I’m getting told I’m so lucky that I’m working in a used clothing store or… “It’s not a used clothin store luv, we’re a bleedin Retro-classic-boutique.” I say it in my best attempt at Hali’s accent.

And I think that I’m pretty glad to be at the shop too since it’s a great job with a great boss and I’m not flipping burgers or slinging coffee like a lot of the other kids are doing. I’m actually kind of surprised that so many of the kids have jobs and not just the summer ones though some of those sound interesting.

Alex got me a Mountain Dew and a water and he’s drinking a Coke while we just sort of talk and stuff. There’s no stress or bullshit and we’re just being a bunch of teenagers just kicking back and having fun and talking and getting to know each other.

Yeah they ask me about my scars and other than going into how I was as William I’m pretty candid about everything else. Jennifer also chimes in about her trip with me to my old stomping grounds the other day too.

It’s kind of good to get it out there actually and there’s a lot of shaking heads but there’s a lot of other stories that come out from them too. It seems that everyone has someone that was into drugs or alcohol and fucked up their lives in their family and with other stuff.

Turns out some of these rich kids as I seen them have yeah pretty good lives but at the same time there is a whole well covered up bunch of fuckeduppedness in their lives too.

I see a lot of stories there in the eyes of some of the kids there that aren’t getting talked about too.

A lot.

“Gah…jeeze guys yeah I had it really bad and stuff but that was then and tonight I just want to dance! School and college and the real world is coming up on us way too soon so let’s actually have some fun before we’re too busy to think about it?”

We head back out on the dance floor and we start dancing again and the music is switching to some more up beat stuff that’s mostly like this dance club mixes and stuff that I can really get into.

I just relax and get into this head space where the beat just pulses through me and moves me and I’m moving against Alex and kissing and touching and he’s back to touching me and the others are getting into it too.

And I’m grinning because we’re getting a lot of attention and there’s part of me that likes that and that while I’m really unathletic when it comes to sports and stuff I can dance and those snobby girls they can’t keep up to me and I smile at them and I really get this hip and belly rolling dancing stripper thing going on…and yeah kinda stealing some from stuff my mother used to do but I’m really in the groove as that song. “Hips don’t lie.” Starts playing and I might not be all curvy yet but I’m more than making up for it.

And Alex…oh hell his hands are all over me and at some point my hairs get loose and when I’m hip-popping he’s behind me hip popping and.

Oh Grrr my heart.

And other things.

God my nipples are aching…I never knew why they’d get like this but now that I do know…hormones or no hormones they might be seriously under developed but they’re definitely one of my girl parts.

Then I’m in his arms and he’s holding me tight squeezing me actually and I am so into that and we’re kissing, we’re kissing really deeply and his hot tongue is inside me and dancing with mine in this hot, hot, hot tango and my mind is taking the slippery sexy way that feels and I’m so picturing when I’m better what that will feel like inside me…

One of the teachers has to cough, cough, cough… “Hey you two knock it off!” to get us to stop.

I’m breathing hard and he’s just so damned hard. I look at him. “Let’s go home.”

“Home?”

“Home and bed.”

“Hell yes!”

Okay there is part of me that is all delighted that he’s just that eager and excited to take me home to make love.

Oh yeah, I’m so wanting Alex tonight.

We say a few goodbye’s and tell Jen and Cindy that we’re going home and they get a ride with us to Jen’s place and it don’t kill what I’m feeling one bit because they’re kissing deeply and passionately and there’s dress straps half off and hands touching breasts and moans and it’s even working for me a little.

Hey, I was raised as a guy, I thought I was a guy and until I fell for Alex I was pretty sure I was into girls. And there’s just something about a live show less that two feet away.

It’s definitely working for Alex.

He doesn’t speed or anything he’s a super careful driver but for Alex we’re dropping them off really fast and we’re home really fast too.

The car’s parked and he came right over the middle console and stick-shift and is kissing me. More passion and more tongue and his hands roaming and touching and we actually leave the car out through my door backwards and on the concrete floor and just long boilingly passionate minutes of us making out before he kicks the door closed and picks me up into his arms and carries me up the stairs.

I wrap my legs around him and we’re at it just so deeply into it with that passion that you really only get when you’ve been together for awhile. It’s that point where we’re still knew to being together that it’s still hot and passionate and exciting but also we’ve been together long enough that we’re past that awkward groping thing too.

Something in my brain goes yay in that me twisted way when we hit the door a little harder than we planned but just hard enough and it felt like a long time making out and kissing, nuzzling and even, even…oh I scratch a little, smell him a lot. He smells so good and it’s more than before the heat of him dancing cooked that cologne into this mix with Alex’s perspiration.

Yeah it’s definitely a pheromonal thing but I don’t care only that I bury my face in him at times. And even bite him a little trying to and wanting to taste his skin so badly.

Then we’re through the door.

He turns and thud I’m up against it. (Yay again…) I’m fumbling madly for the lock.

Click.

Whoosh, I’m yanked away from the door and we’re going straight for the bed room.

There’s times that when you’re making love that a guy can make you feel wanted, lusted over and the slow stripping you and kissing is one of them and then there’s that other bit when he’s getting you out of your clothes as fast as he can because he needs to touch you.

I’m doing the same and we’re leaving a trail of clothes all the way to our bedroom. It’s not long before we’re naked and I think we made a record for lubing up and putting on a condom. Alex works me with his fingers and gets me all ready as he’s kissing me and I’m kissing him and then he sinks into me.

It hurts but in a good way, and yes it’s pretty evident what we’re doing but it’s our only sort of means to have sex and a hand in just really not the same. I’ll spare the gory details but it’s us going at it pretty hard and fast and we’re missionary or face to face because it’s better for me.

See when we’ve been doing it this always felt better more pleasurable to me and I finally know why. Alex is massaging my clitoris.

Uh-huh…from there. See there’s not much between there and my vaginal canal and the female sex organs which I do have is a whole lot bigger and more spread out than everyone usually thinks. Well some of those yay nerves are pretty close to back there and with repeated “massaging” they start to feel things sexually.

It’s that whole second orgasm that I have. The doctors though have explained that I don’t get all female gooey inside because the tubes for that are blocked by my “vaginal obstruction.” So I get the yay and no goo.

I want my goo.

And that’s where my mind goes while we’re making love…raw, hot mad love and that’s after me popping my cork which is okay…I’m not freaked out or complaining about that part. I don’t hate that part I just want the me that’s been the real me to finally get put to rights.

But after my boygasm it’s just all me being able to feel and concentrate on that and even fantasize about how this is going to feel. Pretend that this is what we’re doing now. I know it’s not but it really doesn’t matter it’s still really powerful and tuning out some of it is pretty easy and it’s just my Alex making hot hard love to me and my legs are wrapped around his waist and my arms around his neck and he’s kissing me or he’s cupping my chest and sort of pushing the flesh into these pretty mounds of breasts as he hungrily sucks on my nipples.

I’m his girlfriend like this and all the other stuff that’s there right now is just not.

It doesn’t even factor in with the way that we feel or make love really even when I get hard again and react that way it doesn’t matter a bit to Alex and that’s really awesome. He does slow down after his second orgasm of his own and I give him a kinda sorta blowjob.

He’s a big boy so I can only handle him while he’s relaxed and then have to resort to licking and stuff once he’s hot and hard again. I can’t handle it when it’s hard, I’m not a snake and my jaw does not unhinge.

The rest of the love making is just that this long slow session of long loving kisses and togetherness. I know some people think that I should want to be fixed more than ever during these times but these times like this where we just transcend the small stuff are the building blocks for me and where Alex and I will go post-op together.

I mean after what I’ve been through I’m loved, loved right here and right now and it’s that important and special that these will always be good memories for me and not something that I’m going to cheapen with wishing things were different.

We actually end it all with shared slow sweet sex in the tub and a shared bubble bath with me on top as we get each other cleaned up. And Alex uses his hand on my boy and…he’s gentle, and knowing and more than that…he timed it until I was getting to my girlgasm and while not exactly at the same time they overlapped and…

Wow…

I’m hugging him and holding onto him and breathing…it was like. I think that point of cross over pleasure might be what I’ll feel when I’m post op and have a real full on release female orgasm.

I’m all loopy and fuzzy in a sexy good way as we gently and softly kiss and get dried off and ready for bed. I remake the bed and change our sheets and toss them in the washer and turn it on and Alex comes in with a big coffee house mug of hot chocolate for use to share and plugs his i-pod into the stereo jack and gently pulls me into a slow dance with him as this song I’ve never heard before starts to play and he’s…he’s actually trying to sing along with it in my ear.

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
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/eric+clapton/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.

…………………………..Yeah, is there really any way that I’m not in love with this guy? Even if I was just naturally Will and not anything else I’d still be in love with Alex.

He’s my Deeply, Madly, Truly….

Sweet Dreams-45

Chapter 45

I wake up with Alex kissing the back of my neck and the side of my neck and I’m spooned close to him and there’s the delicious feel of his body heat against me along with his muscles. I smile and snuggle a bit more.

“I really love this so much Alex. It’s perfect y’know.”

“It’s so worth the price Hunter.”

“Price?”

“Mmm…the guy price. Scratchy toenails, hair in my face and an arm that’s totally asleep.”

I laugh out loud at that. I honestly never thought about the holder side of the spooning snuggle. He pulls my over from my side to my stomach and kisses me morning breath and all.

There’s a relationship gauge. After the stuff we both ate last night well you can just imagine the morning breath and if it doesn’t matter. We spend a good half and hour just kissing and touching each other and before long Alex is hard and ready and I want him. Yes we’re making love again and part is because I want him and part is because we’re both young and horny but it’s also that when I have the surgery who knows how long it will be before I get the okay from the doctors for us to be together.

I won’t get into the specifics but it was a very, very good morning. I’m lying in bed satisfied and sort of spent while Alex gives me a really long kiss and he heads off to shower.

I roll out of the wet spot and into his place and stay face down in his pillow breathing him in. it’s not that he just smells good usually but he smells like Alex, My Alex and for someone who’s never really had anything or anyone that is a precious thing to me.

Having a life that I could never ever dream of it all mixed up in that scent of his. Alex smells like dreams to me. As much as I’d just like to lay here in my post sex glow being all good emotional and happy I do have to go to work today and there’s some other things that I need to do too.

So I get up and I wrap the linen top sheet around me. And I stop to give myself a tiny little shot on my perfume in the small of my back. Why? Because I feel girly right now with the sheet tied around my crest and hair loose and that whole post sex feeling and everything I actually despite my physical bits and everything I feel sexy.

And I guess it just felt right.

I pad out to the kitchen and I make some coffee Alex doesn’t like those cartridge cup coffee machines but I do April’s rocks. He works in a coffee house and we have the best beans and we have these really expensive coffee filters from like hemp or something and I put a pot of coffee on.

Hmm…next I dig out the juicer. I dig out some stuff that we put through the thing and honestly I’m getting used to the whole deal with eating healthy and stuff so first I run a half dozen carrots through and a couple of apples and then some pineapple. Okay the pine apple is peeled and cored just because of us taking the pulp like I’m doing now and dumping it into a mixing bowl. I juice some celery and a red pepper after that then mix the juice I made with some frozen orange juice and put it in the fridge.

I get Alex’s water bottle out and he comes out and Kisses me then has a small cup of black coffee really quickly and he then takes his water bottle and goes for his run.

Me I take the pulp in the bowl and add some baking spices and the stuff for pancake batter and I start making more or less a kind of carrot cake, pineapple styled kind of waffle.

Hey why toss the stuff out? I know you can composte it but it’s really good like this too.

I make myself a coffee and dig out a thing of the Jimmy Dean sausage rounds and fry them up and make stuff for scrambled eggs.

By the time I’m done that Alex is back and we eat our breakfast well I eat and he manhales his food and gives me the heebie jeebies as he slops cottage cheese ontop of his waffles. Me I put lots of powdered sugar on mine and just a little of that Greek yogurt stuff and the combination is sorta close to the cream cheese icing for carrot cake.

I do actually drink some of the juice too a whole great big glass of it and have some milk that Alex pours for me.

Yeah, yeah I know I need it.

We do the dishes and I put the wash on and instead of leaving it I take it outside to April and Adam’s back yard and use the clothesline. I break about half of the clothespins though that were there in the bucket. I don’t think it’s ever really been used and I slip back up and into the shower with Alex and then we do the couple sharing a bathroom thing while we get ready for work.

Work at Halli’s was actually pretty busy. It’s a Saturday and there’s a fair number of people that come in and do the whole brose and look around bit and she always gets a good number of the Indian and Middle Eastern people in here to shop and a lot of them are girls my age or college aged with the odd smattering of some of the older customers too. It’s actually good to be busy and I’m actually having fun while I’m putting out and pricing stock, cherry picking a few things for myself and learning not just that kind of stuff but also a bit of Hindi words from Halli and some UK English or as Halli calls it English because we don’t speak English here we speak American. But I’m also getting taught a little Tatlog and Farsi too, nothing big but…Hello…Thank you…Please come again…Have a nice day…enough that it seems to make some of the ladies smile.

Oh and Halli has me making tea and setting out biscuits. If there’s several ladies or a mother shopping with her daughters and they might be there awhile I’m making tea for them. I’m not really confident of making a proper cuppa as she’d say but it’s another thing I’m getting the hang of.

But the whole tea and a cookie thing works. These women sit, take their time and buy more. If a daughter is trying to decide between outfits they’ll often buy both if having been plied with tea.

There’s a whole other way of doing things and some of these women mostly the older ones will dicker with Halli to get a deal.

One of the best things honestly about working here is the fact it’s so multicultural and Halli is very trendy too in that great London-exotic chic way. It sort of feels like I’m getting some of the skinhead exposure stains from the steps hit finally off of me.

Alex brings lunch down from Wired with Halli’s order of things for the shop. Good teas and stuff. We all eat together with Alex having brought down these little pots of Beriberi? Spiced beef stew. It’s this African thing and the lunch special and spicy…really spicy but I still enjoy it. I want to try all sorts of new stuff. I might pay for it later since I’m not used to this kind of food but I was wiping out my bowl with this weird pancake bread call injera? Its like made from buckwheat and it’s apparently Ethiopian food.

Hey maybe the trendy African food will burn some of the redneck racist biker crap out too. I honestly don’t mind having some street still in me. I’m not going to really ever forget or deny where I’m from. But I got out, I’m out and I really do want to learn and be just more than a hooker-addicts kid.

No, that was Will Hunter….I’m Hunter Williams, I’m my fathers daughter.

The rest of the day at work is good and since I get off before Alex does. I do a little shopping in some of the shops in the building. Well it’s mostly window shopping really I can’t afford that awesome purple mauve Daisy-Rock guitar at the music shop. No I can’t play but I want to learn. I price some tablets and stuff at Radio-Shack and even go into Griffin-Games and check out the stuff in there.

Okay that’s funny because I do get the whole cliché girl in the comic shop there and I really don’t know comics for shit really I enjoy looking at them and stuff and there seems to be a lot of stuff here that’s not mainstream. I kind of like that. I do get some of the comic fliers and the free ample stuff for Alex. I mean he’s into art and stuff and comic book artist is a job.

And wow…asking the guys…geeks at the store…Wow, that Todd McFarlane guy has done pretty well for himself.

What was really cool? I was given two comic tee-shirts for free. Apparently they sent a few girls’ sizes free with some orders and they didn’t sell so I have a white super girl tee-shirt and a female green lantern shirt. I might just wear these to school sometime. I do spend twenty two bucks and get Alex this black with red Superboy t-shirt? I can’t follow the convoluted explanation of this Conner guy but the shirt will look awesome on Alex’s built chest ad arms.

I’ll say this, people whine and bitch and moan about comic book women being objectified…well looking at the pictures of these comic book men and guys well honestly they’re eye candy too.

I think I’m learning a bit of geek too, and that might come in handy with student council when I decide to run. Heh I should read some Poppy Z. in English and get the goth-emo kids on my side more.

I do get a coffee and use one of the computers once I’m at Wired waiting for Alex. It took me a bit to find them but I’m making some last minute plans for tomorrow.

See this thing with going to see my Dad’s grave had me thinking of Alex’s mom’s grave and her family. Facebook makes finding them easier and I’m making plans and talking to Alex’s grandparents on his mother’s side. Adam and him haven’t seem them in…well they pretty much cut all ties to her family after the accident and the funeral.

Hell they didn’t even know where they were living at. It’s been almost fourteen years….It has Adam written all over it. Not the control but the control…there’s a lot of pain there on both sides I think but Adam took Alex and pretty much turtled themselves away from their old life.

I know I’m pushing and I know I really could get on the shitlist from both of them but they’re family, and they seem really decent people. I’ve been looking and creeping their internet accounts and stuff. If they were assholes like Cliff and his extended Nazi-party…I mean family…I wouldn’t be talking to is grandmother in chat right now.

She’s actually a really nice lady. Alex has been missing from their life pretty much since they lost their daughter. Amanda what is it with this family and the whole A names? Actually I think I get it, it was a high school sweetheart thing. Only from what I’m getting they went from High school to Adam going to college and it was in law school when she got pregnant with Alex.

I get the impression it wasn’t something that Adam had planned on and but maybe she had. Her mother said they were having relationship problems since law school right up until they found out that she was going to have a baby. Then everything seemed fine until the accident.

I look over at Alex and watch him doing his thing behind the counter and even smile a little bit at the number of girls that are coming up and flirting with him. Yeah I’m smiling because usually when they’re asking him out for something like a date and stuff he actually tells them to ask me and points me out. I get to be bad and smile and wave at him.

He’s doing it again with a girl and I smile. How is he going to take this? He hasn’t seen them in so long…sigh…I guess I’ll just have to play this straight up. I mean it’s not like I’d spring this on him like a bad surprise.

Sigh.

The girl at the counter’s about twenty I’d say and she’s giving me this look. Some of them are embarrassed when he does that well most of them actually but some like her are looking at me and the way I’m dressed and the skinny uncurvy girl that I am and there’s that just barely there sneer and that stare….and…

She looking at him again, then me and then him as she pays for her order changing it to go then me as he’s getting it ready. Yeah, yeah I know you don’t get it. You’re beautiful and all of that. Problem is that you know it too.

He’s with me over girls like Jen. Jen’s changed and all but this girl’s one of those types so I’m not jealous or upset or anything like that because I actually know that if Alex didn’t want to be with me he just wouldn’t be with me.

And I’m not going to disrespect what we have with some of that insecure stuff some girls pull with that whole what if he changes his mind?

He comes over after she leaves and brings me another coffee. Yeah I drink a lot of it but I always have and thankfully he brought something to nibble too some kind of sandwich cookie. I’m starting to like to eat and I’m still in that whole trying to put weight on thing too. But I almost need something else to go with my coffee if I can’t have a smoke.

I sip my coffee and sigh in a little pleasure at my vice. “Thank baby.” I say and give him a kiss.

“You looked pretty into it over here and stuff anything interesting?”

“I was talking with your grandmother.” I say it straight out instead of waiting for it to get harder and where I might chicken out.

“My…grandmother…?” He’s blinking a bit looking between shocked and upset.

“Yeah, she’s your Mom’s mom.”

“Why?”

“I was thinking about her since the stuff with my dad came up and you never talk about it.”

“That’s because I don’t want to talk about it.” He’s getting bristly, tense and angry looking I can see the storm there in him.

“I’m not asking you too but I figured since I’m facing up to the shit from my past and going to see my dad and likely walking right into a PTSD freak out I figured that it’s be healthy if we both did.”

“Healthy…” He glares at me.

“Misery enjoys company?” I shrug and try for cute.

“Hunter…”

“Alex…enough bullshit, you haven’t been there, and you’re not a kid. You need to go and you need to fix the rift in your family.”

“Hunter you don’t get it.”

“Okay you’re right I don’t at least when your grandparents are concerned.”

“They tried to take me from dad; they blamed us for what happened.” He’s looking down but still brooding and there’s a shiver through his muscles at likely some bad memories.

“They were assholes then.” He looks at me surprised. I think he thinks that I was going to defend them. “What they did likely sucked, and they were likely really shitty about it but they’d lost their only daughter out of the blue too. Amanda never said how bad shit was with Adam or their relationship was in the gutter and sure as hell she didn’t bring up her drinking or her addiction.”

“So you’re sort of saying it wasn’t their fault?” His voice got quiet.

“No…Alex I’m saying that they fucked up, they were hurting and grieving and they wanted to keep what was left of her for themselves and hurt Adam at the same time. It was a shitty thing to do. But…”

“But….”

“Time goes by Alex people change, and wounds heal over and most importantly we get perspective right?”

He nods quietly.

I take a deep breath. “And this is on you and Adam too.” Alex looks at me again. I stare back into his eyes and lean over and very gently kiss him.

“Yes, you too. Adam shouldn’t have kept you apart for so long and he did it for his own reasons but none of them really justified keeping a family apart when you guys could be together. And you you’re scared to reach out and I can get that but you’re not a kid Alex and haven’t been for a long time you have a computer they weren’t that hard to find.” I say softly to him still kiss close holding his face.

“So…you’re saying?” there’s the start of tears there in his eyes and I wipe them away with my thumb and he shivers some more.

“I’m saying everyone fucked up in this, everyone and it’s more than time that we just get over ourselves and all of the crap from this. Let’s just go there tomorrow and just talk to them. You’re going to college soon, then life and if you don’t stop this then one day they’re not going to be there anymore and you’ll have missed out like I have…”

He looks me in the eyes and I can see him hurting and there a lot of it there mixed in with some fear and yet there’s something there. I gently kiss him again and press my forehead to his and a couple of tears spill out of the corners of both of our eyes. He gently nods against me while we’re like that.

(Male-Sniffle-cough.) “You’ll be there right?”

“Alex I love you I’ll be there, I’ve got your back always…”

(Male-Sniffle-small-laugh.) “Yeah…even when I don’t know that I need something huh?”

I smile I can’t help it because I love him so much and I kiss him a lot deeper and hungrier too. “We love each other Alex; it’s why people do…nobody’s perfect but two people loving and caring for each other in all the good and bad stuff it’s as close as I think we get to have.”

He smiles, he smiles one of those hidden little Alex smiles he keeps like treasure for me and kisses me deeply. “I don’t know how close to perfect it is with us Hunter but there’s nothing more that I want than a hundred years with you to make it the rest of the way there.”

Oh yeah I leak out a few more tears and kiss him back. My god I’m going to be a blubbering wreck once the girl hormones start to kick in. I don’t care though, right now there’s nothing that can really put a damper on this for us.

Well except maybe as we kiss the other staff and some of the regulars start to jeer and whistle at us until we’re blushing too much to keep it up. We break the kiss and he looks at me.

“Another half hour okay?”

“Yeah I’m in no rush.”

I do a little quiet happy sigh as he heads back to work to do clean up and I bite into the cookie sandwich…mmmm…date filling in the middle really thick on one side and a cookie thick slice of cheese cake filling on the other cookie pushed together.

And my coffee.

I spend the rest of that time actually putting my things away and getting cleaned up a bit in the ladies room and by the time I’m ready he’s ready.

We head out and we get a few groceries at Cost Co. mainly because they have a flower shop inside their store and I get some stuff for dad’s grave and flowers for his mothers too.

And once we’re done shopping we head home and I put the flowers and the plants in a plastic bucket from the garage and lots of cool water to keep them fresh until tomorrow. Then I go upstairs to where Alex is getting supper together for us. Tonight we’re cheating and we’re having just hot dogs and French fries. Usually we eat pretty healthy but with the day that we had today and tomorrow looming ahead we’re taking it easy.

Junky food for supper and cuddling up together on the couch and watching a bit of TV until it’s to the point we’re sort of both falling asleep and we head off to bed together.

There’s some kissing and some snuggling and stuff but nothing in that whole realm of sex intimacy tonight. It’s just not the right night for it, not tonight.

But after awhile I say… “Alex?”

“Mmm..?”

“Roll over….”

He rolls over his back to me and mumbles. “M’kay….”

I roll over to my side and snuggle up to him pressing against his back and slip one arm under him and the other around him so I’m the one holding him this time. He lets out this shiver and this sigh that is just so….deep even in his sleep at being held…if anyone hasn’t been held nearly enough it’s Alex. I smile and I kiss his back a few times and settle my head against him smelling his skin and listening to his heartbeat and because he’s so heavy I know the arm that’s under him is going to be really dead asleep by morning.

And he’s right.

He’s worth it.

Sweet Dreams-46...Tears of My Childhood

Chapter 46

I wake up with the dead arm feeling and a smile. I can’t help the smile even with everything that Alex and I talked about and stuff. I’m happy and it’s hard to mess with that but I’m going to.

I slip out of bed and I go and I make a coffee and it’s pretty early but I’m up for a reason. I make a strong pot of coffee and I hold my mug under the perk until it’s full them slip the pot in. Lots of sugar and some creamer and I wait sitting on the steps in the garage just outside my door waiting for.

Adam….

He’s in boxers and that’s about it and he’s got his own coffee and his smokes and he heads outside and he goes and gets the newspaper. Adam’s a creature of control and habits. Have a smoke and a coffee and read some of the paper before he get’s ready for the office or heads off to the golf course.

I cough on purpose.

He looks up and I take a two fisted sip of my coffee and look down at him.

“Morning Hunter…? You’re up early?”

“Couldn’t sleep, we need to really talk.”

“Why is that never something a man want’s to hear from a woman?”

“You’ll fucking hate this.” I’m not going to lie; I’m not beating around the bush either.

He has a big frown on his face now.

“What did you do…?”

“I…” He holds up his hand. “Wait let’s go outside.”

“Okay…”

He heads outside and he gets the paper and I’m following him and he heads out back of the house. Oh…oh shit…nerves are jumping now. No I don’t think he’d get violent with me but out back’s fenced off and it’s a lot less likely to cause a scene.

I take another double fisted drink of my coffee to fight the nervous dry mouth. Adam leads us to the patio furniture and even pulls out my chair for me there.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He gets an ashtray and sets the paper aside and takes a sip of his coffee and lights a smoke.

“So…” he stares at me and gives me that lawyer cross examination stare.

“I’ve been talking to your mother in law.”

“Moira?”

“Uhm no, the other one.”

“………………………..”

Oh fuck.

He takes another drag and a sip of his coffee before he exhales but when he does he does that guy mad lean forward in the chair and stare while resting his arm on the patio table.

“Why?”

“My family, my dad.”

He purses his lips…a fine white pressure line forms. I want to fucking cry right now. I bear down on the emotions getting to a boil inside and shove them down for now. I’ve done it all my life and I can loose my shit later right? Like at the bus shelter when he kicks me out.

“What about him.”

“Going to see him…it got me thinking about families, and that Alex is missing out maybe, that maybe this is something that needs to be fixed?”

“Maybe it was never your fucking business Hunter.” Yeah…yeah he’s pissed.

“No…maybe it’s not but maybe it is because I love your son. I love him Adam and even after all the shit that I’ve been through and I could still actually fall in love with someone…it makes me want to do this Adam.”

“You have any idea, any fucking idea what they tried to do?”

“Yes actually, all of it. What she didn’t tell me was available by looking at the public court records.”

“And you expect me to go and make peace with these people after they tried to take Alex from me? After the dug and dug and picked and picked and made my life a living hell?”

“No…honestly I don’t expect you to. I wouldn’t.”

Okay he looks like that wasn’t what he was expecting from my argument. He actually leans back and he drinks some more coffee and takes a drag from his smoke. I can’t stand it anymore and gesture at the pack. He stares mouth pursed but nods. I take a smoke and his lighter and spark up.

I know, I know same me the lectures…quitting smoking’s hard and right now I can only be strong in so many ways.

“Better?”

“No…I had quit remember?”

“Sorry.” Yeah he sounds like it.

“Yeah well Alex will be pissed.”

“Does he know?”

“Yeah I told him.”

“And…”

“He wasn’t really good with it at first.”

Adam looks not pleased by it but maybe a bit vindicated? “At first?”

“I talked him around.”

“Hunter…”

“Adam….”

“Why, why even put him or us through this? Okay you love my son fine but there’s a limit to what’s your business.”

“Alex is my business.”

“But this isn’t.”

I look at Adam. He’s mad, he’s good and mad and if he wasn’t the way that he is he’d likely have freaked out on me by now but he’s calm for being angry…when Adam’s mad it’s not like a fire like most people no…he’s way to much like the hot sharp knife that’s been left in the fire. He doesn’t burn and rage he glows.

“This is my business Adam. They did a really shitty thing but you know what it’s allowed, it’s allowed because you really got to give them at least a little slack on this after nearly fourteen years. They lost their daughter and they were afraid of losing Alex and they really hated you and where your marriage went. Of course most people would flip out and do something stupid and they did.”

“Which is why they aren’t part of our lives.”

“But they should be. Time changes people, heals things or at least make people see that they were dumbshits before. Alex is going off to school, they might not have that many years left Adam and if he doesn’t get to spend time with them and get to know them then he’s not just missing out on family but he won’t ever get that time back that he could have had.”

“So you’re going to do this no matter how I feel about it.” He says it like it’s something I planned. Like to hurt him or something.

“Adam, Alex’s is almost eighteen. He’s going to be doing stuff that he wants to do no matter what any of us say about it. I’m not here to wreck things but he has a right to see them and make his own decision about this.”

He works his jaw and we both are drinking coffee and smoking and looking at each other.

“You said he wasn’t enthused about it?”

“No, he’s not. He still wants to talk to them even after what they pulled.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re his grandparents, his mom’s parents and he might just need to know more about her.”

“He knows about her, he lived it.”

I look at him and scowl. “You’re better than that.”

He just stares at me. I stare right back at him. “You are, you’re damned well better than that Adam you know that he’s had questions. He lived through his mom taking a fucking depressive spiral and taking herself out and nearly him with her.”

“Exactly my point he knows all of this.”

“And my point is Amanda was always this way was she? She was a person before she fell apart for whatever reason and he had the right to know that version of his mother just as much as he has been only allowed the memories that STILL have him waking up after having a flashback or a nightmare.”

“Just like you and your mother Hunter?”

“Yes! I’ve see my mother at her worst but I can actually remember her from when I was little before the heavy drugs and before Cliff. I don’t remember much but I do have that much. Alex deserves more.”

“He does, and he doesn’t need this Hunter.”

…………………………………… “Actually Dad I do.”

I look up and he’s there looking at both of us and he’s well…he’s Alex so the serious look’s built in.

“Alex….”

“Dad…no…I need to know her, and I need to know things about her. About that side of the family.”

“But why, they might just hurt you all over again. I don’t trust them.”

“Dad…I need to know if what happened to mom might happen to me.”

“You’re not on drugs Alex.” Oh…oh he just shot me this look.

“Fuck you Adam, you know me better than that.” I tell him.

He glares and Alex sits and grabs his dad’s shoulder to get his attention. “Dad! Mom was depressed…or something else. Honestly I think that’s what led to her using. She was self medicating.”

They’re looking at each other.

“Dad…I don’t what to lose it and go off the deep end like her and do something to hurt you or April and especially Hunter….I need to do this.”

Adam looks at him and then me and then Alex again. He closes his eyes and pinches at the bridge of his nose.

“Fine…but I’m not going with you to deal with them.”

“Fair enough Dad, I can deal.”

“Yeah…” He gets up and looks at me. Squares his jaw as he butts out his smoke.

“Dad…she came and told you…she came and told you first flat out with no bullshit.”

Adam looks at me again but the expression is less pissed and more thoughtful, still pissed but not like it was.

“Alright, I’m going to take a shower and will be ready to go about nine okay?”

I blink surprised. “You’re still coming with me to Dad’s grave?”

“Well you don’t exactly know how to get there right?” He leaves heading off into the house before we can answer.

I sit back almost sliding down in the chair in relief. “Wow…shit…”

Alex nods. “Yeah, deep shit he was getting on his high horse there.” He leans over as he gets up and kisses me then makes a face.

“Bleech…ashtray mouth.”

I blush. “Sorry it’s just…”

“Yeah, well we’ll just have to get you some of the nicorette stuff. No more cold turkey.”

“Okay…” I smile at him.

“I’m going for a jog before we have to get ready to go okay?”

“You go right ahead, have fun.”

He rolls his eyes and he heads off already running by the time he slips around front and I just sit there for awhile trying to get a handle on my emotions and the shakes.

I almost lost everything….maybe.

I hug myself and just stare for awhile at my cold coffee until I feel warm arms wrap around me in a hug. I look up and see April who’s smiling at me and she wipes tears off my cheeks that I hadn’t noticed crying.

“Proud of you kiddo.”

I have never really heard that said to me, not in a real way and not often and after everything I just sob and bury my face in her stomach and start to cry.

And the fact she’s running her hands through my hair and doing that whole mom cooing thing saying that. “It’s okay, it’s okay you did the right thing sweetie, I’m so proud of you.”

It makes me cry more and cry hard too but it’s really not bad tears it’s just…when you’ve never had it it’s a shock really.

She takes me upstairs to our place once I stop and she helps me get ready. I don’t really need the help but I need the help and it sure does mean a lot to me just having April there.

I get changed into a dress, I don’t know why but it just seems like maybe the best way to show dad who I really am? It’s just a grey blue scoop necked number with full sleeves sort of one of those ones that reminds you of a tee-shirt sort of and I go without the make up because my eyes are seriously red right now as it is and they’ll likely get more so.

Alex is back and ready and even waiting for me and we get into his car and we end up following Adam to sort of close to my old, old part of town and into an old cemetery. It sort of looks nice here, there’s a lot of old trees here and stuff but lots and lots of graves.

Graveyards in this part of town are usually pretty full.

We stop and I take a few deep breaths and get out of the car while Alex get’s the flowers that we got out and we start to head?

Adam comes over to me to lead the way and I was not, was not expecting it when he slips his arm around my shoulder in a hug.

“Here Hunter this way….”

I sob at the hug.

Dammit part of me was so fucking scared that he hated me for this morning.

He leads me past a whole bunch of spots to this sad little rectangular marker…one of the ones that the city uses when they know who you are and there’s no one to bury you.

I just stare down at his name…my old name and I stare at it until I can’t see it anymore for the tears that just won’t stop. I’m ugly cry wiping at the tears with my fingers and the back of my hands until I can see again and I put my hand on the cold stone that seems warmer than it should be y’know because of the sun being on it…

“Hi Daddy…I…I really, really miss you….”