Open Your Heart
by Abigail Drew

Chapter One

“Open your heart!” Rang out from a tenor voice that was well off-key but enthusiastic just as lightning flashed nearby. “Open your heart!” it rang again as the peal of thunder roared loud enough as to, almost, drown out the singers voice. “Open your heart! To eternal dimension!” It sang again, and then grunted as, synchronously, the soft metallic thud of a shovel hitting dirt could be heard. “Open your heart! For love and affection,” the distinctive sound of dirt being thrown into a trash can. “Open your heart! Your every emotion,” and a flash of lightning. “Open your heart! For tears and rejection!” Thunder crashed as the “n” could be heard.

Despite the storm, Drew was out working, which was the norm. Sometimes, if the lightning was close enough, or the wind strong enough, his boss would call him back to the shop and office area and make him sit the storm out for a bit. The only other times he ever took off work, were when the day’s high was projected to be over a hundred degrees. Around here, that wasn’t often, instead, it’d tease along the edges in the low to mid nineties.

This time, the storm was a welcome relief, just before it broke the temperature had been almost ninety-five in the shade and discounting the humidity, which was of course a hundred percent. Such was the typical summer day in Northwest Ohio: Insanely muggy one minute, and pouring down rain the next. About ten minutes after the weather broke; it had already dropped a full five degrees. Then, half an hour later, and it was still storming, the temperature had dropped a respectable fifteen degrees. While eighty degrees Fahrenheit wouldn’t ordinarily be all that comfortable, when soaked to your bones with a chill rain it becomes quite a relief compared to the heat that always precedes such storms.

Drew worked as a groundskeeper for a rather large sprawling apartment complex, the sort typical of the area: a large number of two-story buildings interspersed with acres of “open” field. Open being loosely defined as only if you fail to notice that there are trees growing from trees. Occasionally he’d help the indoor maintenance guys with installing an air conditioner, trashing out an evicts apartment, or making an apartment ready for a new move-in. Generally, however, Drew’s job consisted of tearing out dead veg, weeding gardens, trimming bushes, and keeping the pavement, blacktop and fields clear of any trash just strewn about by lazy residents, and the deadfall left by the over bounteous, in his opinion at least, trees and bushes.

Though there may be people who liked such work, Drew just did it because it was stable, his employer was decent enough to work for, and he hadn’t a remotest chance at all for doing what he’d like. He was a washed out computer geek. Started school as a business major with CS minor, changed to Computer Science completely in a misplaced hope that he might possibly be permitted some sleep when he discovered that the business professors believed in keeping insanely early hours and inflicting them on their students, only to discover in a perverse twist of fate that the CS professors were only better by a mere hour. And that was if you didn’t need to talk to them before class. It didn’t take too much longer for the strain of the insane hours without even a weekend’s break to place him into a depressive state which inevitably led to becoming a college drop-out.

Well… That wouldn’t quite be fair, the schedule was only partly to blame, the other, perhaps just as large problem, was his social life. Drew had always been a bit of a social outcast and had spent his life before college pretty well avoiding social situations outside his own family, and even those, to some degree. In college, he tried the same, but his room-mates consistently pushed him into more and more social activity. Their very presence in the same apartment made a certain amount of social interaction inevitable, and then they would latch onto some social thing he wasn’t doing or another and nag at him until he’d do it. He didn’t really make friends with any of his past room-mates, so almost every semester he’d wind up with new ones and he’d go through the same list all over.

His last batch had just gotten to dating at around the same time that Drew was getting particularly crabby from the early morning schedule he’d been on. The previous batch that had gotten around to that point was put off simply by attempting to date a girl once, and when she’d stood him up, they never bugged him about dating a girl again. This batch, on the other hand, had been being persistent. They were constantly trying to hook him up with girls from his classes or theirs that held almost to no interest to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls, but he didn’t particularly feel any sexual drive around them either. He wasn’t gay either — guys likewise did nothing for him.

Anyways, between the pressures to get up well earlier than his peak performance hours and still concentrate on his classes, the pressure from his room-mates to remain civil with them despite his rising impatience, and the pressure they were putting on him to go out with girls, it all got to be too much and blam: instant mashed depression. By the time anyone noticed his downward spiral, it was too late to save his academic career, and he was sent home.

Drew was nothing if not quick to recover, however, and before too long back home, after a time of having absolutely no schedule at all, he was able to establish a comfortable sleeping pattern that had him up past eleven and going to bed about two. He wasted his time reading and playing video games during this time, not even touching anything related to programming. Eventually he started to tinker with small scripts to make his video games easier, and everything had returned to like it was before trying to go to college.

Then the pressure started from the parents. He either had to get a job or get back to school. He knew there was no way he’d be able to cope with the school environment again, so a job it was. Eventually, he landed himself right where he was, an entirely thankless position that took up entirely too much time, didn’t feel like really getting anything accomplished, and left little time for wasting on his games or books.

Drew was so embroiled in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice the strange looks he was getting from his boss while he was putting things away and preparing to clock out for the day. He was, of course, thoroughly soaked through, the t-shirt with the complex’s name, address, and number plastered to his torso like a layer of skin about to be molted off. Drew had reason to be reclusive, and NEVER went anywhere without a baggy t-shirt and too-tight bandeau bra — man-boobs. They were actually rather well-formed and pert compared to most guys with gynaecomastia that he’d heard of. But he was a guy. He wasn’t supposed to have them, and generally, on a rainy day like this, he’d have taken a rain-jacket or poncho out with him to prevent the wet t-shirt effect. This storm had come unexpectedly, however, and there was nothing for it.

When he first noticed his developing breasts he’d just started working with the previous groundskeeper of the complex as an assistant — the old man had gotten injured in a car accident and was unable to perform certain tasks involving lifting anything over a certain weight limit at all, or lifting over shoulder-height. He also had trouble with crouching or stooping and making it back up. Drew got invited to become his assistant because the guy, named John, was his brother — big family, Drew being second youngest, John, the eldest, out of eleven — and was trying to help him get on his own and help his parents get rid of him.

At the time, Drew had been moderately obese, and as he lost belly fat, man-boobs started to appear from within. At first, he just assumed it was fatty tissue that was taking longer to burn off. However, as he continued to work, he thought he noticed them getting larger. So he started to measure below, at, and above his developing bust, like he’d heard that women were supposed to do to determine their bra size. A few months later he came to an undeniable conclusion: he was growing breasts. Not fat deposits in his breast tissue. Real, honest to life, pert, feminine, boobs. By that time he would have fit into a thirty-eight B cup bra, if barely, had he chosen to wear something like that, instead, he bought several bandeau bras intended for a thirty-six bust and began wearing those under his t-shirts, and he bought baggier t-shirts. The combination of the two allowed for his still developing breasts to be hidden in most situations. Luckily, they stopped when reaching a full B cup, before reaching a C.

Even before reaching the above conclusion, he’d begun to research reasons something like this might happen. He couldn’t have gone to a doctor about it, he had no insurance and there was no way he’d ever be able to afford the doctors fees. So he googled gynaecomastia, found the Wikipedia entry, and read it. He noticed something peculiar, apparently, pure gynaecomastia, what he appeared to be suffering from, occurred most commonly among steroid users as a result of excess testosterone being converted into seriously high amounts of estrogen. Sufferers were also prone to early male-pattern baldness, hirsutism, and prostate cancer. Drew found the similarities to his own situation quite concerning: He also was beginning to suffer male-pattern baldness, and had been extremely hirsute ever since starting puberty. He hadn’t yet had any signs of prostate cancer, but then, he hadn’t been to a GP ever since leaving the care of his pediatric. He hadn’t ever used steroids, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be an exception.

A polite cough brought him back to the present. “Ah, good, you seem to be back with us now,” said his boss, Jack Thompson, the manager of Stonevale Apartments and Townhomes.

Drew was suddenly acutely aware of where Jacks eyes were glued. “Uhm. I guess you’ve noticed my little secret,” he replied, blushing a rather deep shade of red.

“Uh… yeah…” Jack answered. “Look, it’s not really my business until you’re ready but… Are you… you know…?”

“Am I a transgender taking illegal hormones to transition without involving the medical authorities?” Drew asked him, and then grinned at the uncomfortable squirming of his boss. “No. I’m a gynaecomastia sufferer who simply can’t afford a mastectomy and to be quite honest, I’m not certain I’d want one even if I could… never know what additional problems I’ll have if I let them remove my breasts. This whole problem is because of a hormonal imbalance in the first place, I wouldn’t want to invite further imbalances. I am taking an herbal supplement to try to arrest what I believe to be the underlying cause of that and other problems, and it seems to be effective.”

“Oh. This puts us into a bit of a situation then.”

“Not really. Have you noticed anything before now? I’ve been wearing too-tight bandeaus under extra-baggy t-shirts for a reason. And let me tell you now, it’s definitely not for comfort. You only noticed them now because I got surprised by the storm today, otherwise I’d’ve been wearing a rain coat.”

“Actually, that’s not what I was saying at all. No one else knows this yet, and you aren’t to leak this at all, but we’re about to be acquired by new owners. And they’re a bunch of feminists.”

“And we haven’t got a single female employee outside of the housekeeping and clerical positions, which would be looked at badly. So when you noticed my breasts you thought you’d try to convince me to pretend to be a girl for a little bit so you can keep your job and keep the rest of us here as well right?”

Jack actually blushed. “Uh… Well, yes…” He answered. “Look, I know about your hirsutism and that you use hair removal treatments to control it, but come on, don’t you think you take it a little far? Other than on your head there’s not a single hair left on your body. Er. Well, at least that I can see…” And his flush turned even more crimson. “Then there’re your breasts. Further, your waist is a little narrower than normal, your hips wider, you’ve got thighs that any natural woman would kill for…”

“STOP!” Drew yelled, perhaps a little too loudly. “I know I’m not much of a man, you think I don’t know that? But pretending to be a woman, even just temporarily to try to placate a bunch of feminists… I don’t know that I’d be comfortable doing that.” Luckily no one else was around anymore while this conversation was taking place, as Drew’s voice was quite raised by this time. Drew often started later and stopped later than the other employees. He had special circumstances, and was employed on a salaried position instead of hourly like everyone else at the complex besides the manager. Drew’s hours were required to be kept only for performance review purposes, and the manager, just to have official record of when he was actually in the office or on property.

Originally, Drew had been employed hourly, same as the previous groundskeeper and the maintenance guys, however, when Drew’s brother John recovered from his accident they let Drew go until John finally left completely a year later. The complex had gone through a number of attempts at hiring a new groundskeeper without bringing Drew back on, because they felt Drew was too slow. What they found though, was that every guy they hired was extremely lazy and performed quick, but shoddy work. While Drew may have been somewhat slower than they liked, he did the job right.

So, come a further half year after John moved, they called Drew up, asked him if he wanted to come back to work for them, and offered him a special salaried position with a salary equal to if he were working eight hour shifts 5 days a week at a pay rate of ten dollars an hour — or sixteen-hundred a month. He’d also be able to have a special discount on a 2-bed, 1-bath small apartment on property. He’d be expected to keep the place up to a certain minimum standard and be required to work as many hours as it took to accomplish that without any additional pay or benefits. Having absolutely nothing else at the time — even fast-food wouldn’t hire him, Drew accepted.

His first day back on property since his brother moved out, Drew noticed how horribly everything had been left to rot, and walked into the manager’s office with a list of everything that would be needed to tame the wilds that the complex had become. It was, needless to say, an expensive list, and the manager boggled and tried to convince Drew to find a cheaper way to accomplish what was needed. Drew insisted, however, and informed the then manager that they were welcome to take it up with the owners. A week later and the old manager was gone, replaced by Jack, who after looking at Drew’s list, asked to walk the property with him and for Drew to point out to him all the where’s and why’s of everything on the list. Jack was appalled by what he saw and impressed with Drew’s no-nonsense attitude about what it’d take to do what needed to be done.

Jack put the orders in to the owners for review that same day and was surprised to find them already approved when he came in the following day. A month later and the last of the temporary work crews were packing up having accomplished everything under Drew’s supervision, with Jack observing stupefied by the cool efficiency with which Drew had ordered everything done. The complex grounds were in better shape than they had ever been in before and would prove easy to maintain, the enormous cost of the overhaul being made back in dividends before the end of the year. Drew and Jack became fast friends, or at least, as much so as anyone was ever friends with Drew. He didn’t exactly make it easy.

“Anyways… What do you say?” Jack finished speaking and Drew only then realized that he’d been being spoken to while he was dazed out again.

“What do I say to what?”

“Were you even listening to a word I said?” He asked. Then answered for him, “No… Of course you weren’t. You always seem to space off when someone’s saying something important. Usually right around when you start feeling the least comfortable.” His tone softened. “Look, buddy, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, just forget I said anything.”

Drew then thought about what was happening in this situation again, the complex was being sold to new owners, and these owners were known feminists. He was aware of the group that this could only be, they’d been buying up every male-ran rental housing complex in the area at a rapid pace, and then quickly replacing all the most highly positioned male staff with women. As the only groundskeeper at this complex, and a salaried one at that, he was consequently also the head groundskeeper, which made him highly positioned in their books and prime for replacement. He also had no delusions about being a generally desirable employee and therefore at all likely to be left alone after the acquisition was finalized. “Okay, I’ll do it.” He finally said.

“Y-You what?!” Jack exclaimed incredulously. “You sure about this? You might have to keep the show up for quite a while, you know, and my wife…”

“Wait, what does your wife have to do with any of this?” Drew asked sharply.

“You really weren’t listening were you?” Jack replied exasperatedly. “Part of what I was saying when you dazed out earlier was about how my wife has volunteered to help you become convincing. She has a tendency to get a little carried away…”

Drew hadn’t even thought of that, the possibility that someone might need to help him with the masquerade, or even would be willing. Now that the idea was posed for him, it did make sense, and made him ever so slightly more comfortable with the decision to give it a try. “Yeah, Jack. I’m positive. But don’t you go thinking it’s your neck I’m trying to save here. Remember, I’m the ONLY groundskeeper at this property, and I’m salaried, I’ve got as much to lose from this as you do, if not more. You’re a proven manager; someone else’ll pick you up quick enough. Me, I’m just a college drop-out, too smart for fast-food, too dumb for anything meaningful. If I lose this job, it's back to the parents for me.”

Open Your Heart
by Abigail Drew

Chapter Two

“Bicycle bicycle bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle!” Drew sang as he rode along, taking his daily ten. “Bicycle —” just then the singing was interrupted — though the music he was singing to could still be faintly heard from the multimedia phone clipped inside his shirt to his bra — by the screech of tires as a car rapidly slowed, and then honked at him. The passenger window rolled down, and the universal signal of disrespect appeared before Drew’s face. “Get over yourself! I’m right where I’m supposed to be, you gotta problem, take it up with the government!” Drew yelled back as the car squealed its tires when it accelerated too fast whilst departing. “Friggen morons,” he muttered as he cranked his small gears up another sprocket.

The road had evened out a bit, so with fewer cracks and potholes to worry about, Drew was now keeping his same steady rhythm at third and five that he’d been holding at third and four. A moment later and with another click as a car whooshed past, he was now at third and six. He was getting close to one of his sprints.

Coming around a bend, Drew cranked his bike up the final sprocket, hit the catch free on his specially designed handlebars, and laid it all out. It was sprint time. From the bend until the next traffic light was about five hundred meters and the light had just turned green. There were vehicles parked back about a hundred meters from the light. His goal was to make it through the light before the last car parked up at the light made it through, though it’d be extra fun to make it before the one ahead of that one — the bastards who flipped him off.

Ordinarily, when riding, Drew spread his senses very wide and instead of really concentrating on the ride itself, he instead concentrated on the traffic around him. This was a must in Northwest Ohio — where bicyclists who failed to hear, see, smell, taste, and feel every nuance of the road usually ended up dead, or worse.

Problem was, when sprinting, you just couldn’t do those things and really perform. Therefore, Drew chose his sprints based not just on distance, but also road condition and timing. This 500 meter stretch was some of the smoothest blacktop in town, and had he rounded that bend and the light was fully green, or still red, or anything other than what it was, he’d have left off this sprint, and, depending, perhaps started a rapid lowering of gears to third and two, his personal “neutral” gear, the gear that proved easiest to begin accelerating from a full stop while on mostly flat terrain.

At this exact timing, he could get away with pulling alongside the parked cars without any nearby cop bothering him, and, at the same time, any approaching vehicles should be slowing, not accelerating, and therefore shouldn’t bother him. Of course… with the way ol’ Murphy loved him…

Moments after “zoning in” on his sprint, there was the familiar whoosh of displaced air as Drew was literally pushed towards the curb whilst a semi approached the light faster than it should’ve, then came the sharp squeal as it laid on its air breaks.

“H-ho-holy…” Drew stuttered, then, “Bastard, y’tryin’ to give me a heart attack!?” he yelled at the semi driver as he passed on its right side. He didn’t know or care if the driver was able to hear him as he pulled back the handlebars, locked them in place and geared back down to settle into his regular cadence. The sprint was already ruined. A minute later and the semi passed him again, though not quite so aggressively. He thought he actually saw the driver mouthing sorry, what a bum.

The storm had passed about an hour after it started, the sun came back out, and most of the water had evaporated back into the air, of course, it really didn’t mean much to Drew. Even if there was a severe thunderstorm moving through the area with a tornado watch and golf ball hail, he’d still be out riding. There really was only one way he’d skip a daily ten, and that only applied in the winter: snow. Not already settled snow. Not a light snow. But if it was honestly coming down something fierce he’d rather stay in than risk a ride. Rain didn’t really mean much, but snow… it deadened the senses. Sounds became softer, smells as if more distant, all you could feel or taste was cold — a bone-deep cold, and as for seeing anything… Drew may have been a little bit crazy, but he was hardly on suicide watch.

Come to mention insanity, just what has he agreed to this for? He’s a man; he’s not transsexual, transvestite, gay, or anything of the like. So what if he’s got breasts and a slightly less-than-manly physique? He can’t help that he has a hormonal imbalance. So what if he likes keeping most of his body smooth and hairless? A lot of male athletes tend to do the same, and it helps him survive the hot muggy summer days out working a little more easily. Speaking of working, it’s also not his fault he has to wear women’s size small gloves. He’d always had small hands and feet, but his feet were wide and his fingers thick — until the breasts started growing.

Although, oddly, before he went to replace his worn out work gloves one day back when this began, he’d never really understood the common saying “fits like a glove.” Men’s small gloves fitted wide as the butt of an axe handle at the wrist, long enough in the finger to fit wood dowels to his tips, and had enough room in the palm to slip a folded up trash bag, though the fingers were a bit tight. Gloves never fit right. However, he wore them anyways. That day, though, he couldn’t find men’s smalls at all, and on a whim decided to give women’s a try. The fit was perfect. Though the fingers were still tight, the palm was taut as a bungee, the fingers length as exact as the voltage tolerance on a CPU, and the wrist… the wrist was as if it were a perfect mirrored powder coating.

Anyways, back to the problem at hand. What possessed him to agree to this sham? He was currently inactive, but he still generally believed in what his parents raised him to. “Gender is an essential characteristic of … identity and purpose.” And Drew was male. If nothing else, there was something that rather insistently reminded him of this fact every time he woke up in the morning. Although certainly not an authority on medical knowledge, his symptoms were those of a genetic male. He responded well to herbal remedies intended for males with excess testosterone. That wouldn’t be true if he were in fact intersexed, would it? In fact, if he were intersexed, wouldn’t the symptoms have started during puberty? He was a little late to that party, but he definitely joined that one as a full-blooded male.

It probably didn’t help his case for masculinity that he’d never been much into contact sport. And definitely never understood the point of being a sports spectator. The only sport he really liked watching other people do was figure skating, and that was more for the art of it all. To participate in, volleyball of all varieties, skating — though he couldn’t do any fancy moves if he tried, and of course bicycling.

Perhaps the bicycling could be at least a little less of a point against him since he preferred to ride, and at speed, rugged dirt trails where roots, stumps, rocks and sand pits lurk around every corner. He just didn’t get much of a chance to make it out to any… Especially since all the Toledo metroparks were removing bike access from the dirt trails and forcing cyclists onto paved nonsense. Were he caught on a dirt trail by a park ranger; he’d land himself a very stiff fine. If he had to ride a paved trail, why not ride on the road where at least the motorists and occasional jay-walkers could keep him on his toes?

Speak of the devil and it shall appear, Drew snicked down a gear to be safe, double checked behind him, and then swerved around a gang of stupid kids walking in the middle of a busy road. He never understood why so many kids felt a need to spread out wide instead of walking in an orderly fashion. Sidewalks had plenty of space for one “passing” lane and one “slow” lane. But entire gangs of kids seemed to think that it’d be absolutely awesome to all walk the same crawling speed, and spread out as wide as they had the people to do it with.

As it had already been late in the day when he started out, it was getting on towards dusk and Drew reached up to his embedded computer attached to the head of his frame and turned on his lights. His bike was truly one of a kind, the frame made custom from a mould with 7075-T651 aluminum with a mostly hollowed center containing millions of little triangles for reinforcement — literally the toughest frame shy of titanium. He’d had it powder-coated with a mirrored sky blue coat and his name — Andrew Lee Pattengale — etched with silver into the sides of his top tube.

He had power disc brakes, a power gearshift, built-in lights, an electric horn, and a fancy alarm he programmed himself, that when engaged, if anyone touched any part of his bike except the computer that controlled everything the lights started flashing and horn blaring like a police siren. Within moments, it would also phone a digital voice message to 911 using parts taken from an old cell phone and a dumbed down line on his plan with his provider. The computer itself, if they touched that, would wake up and prompt them for his password, they had only one chance to get it right, and they had to get it within one minute of wakeup, or it was back to the flashing and blaring and phoning in a report to the cops. The computer also had a built-in speedometer, pedometer, and thermometer display. All the gadgetry was powered by a long, thin NiMH battery installed inside the down tube and the cabling was routed inside the hollowed out frame. There was a charge plug where the down tube met the head, on the plastic casing for the embedded computer.

Drew loved his bike, almost as much as his desktop computer which he also designed and built himself. Each had cost more than most people spend on a car — individually. Incidentally, Drew drove a clunky old Dodge Ram kept just shy of a trip to the junk yard, and only when he had to.

He was now only about a minute from his apartment building and by some brilliant luck in timing Noizy Tribe had just started on his phone as he slowed and started gearing down while turning into Stonevale Apartments and Townhomes. Drew got a lot of bemused expressions from the other residents as he rode through the complex yelling “Yo yo yo yo yo, Now listen yo! What you waitin’ for is, the Noizy Tribe, we’re back!” This was a near daily occurrence. Even if the timing was off, Drew would usually steady his bike with his legs, take out his phone, and start the song manually.

When he got back in his apartment he put his bike in the walk-in closet by the entrance that he used exclusively for this purpose, engaged the alarm system just in case, and walked over to his sound system and turned it on, turning his phone’s music off in the process. His living room sound system was wirelessly connected to his desktop in his spare room that he used as an office where he had a program streaming stereo music upmixed to fill his custom 7.1 surround system. The stream was just beginning Cynical World and as Drew sat in his plastic cool-down chair, his apartment filled with music.

Here we stand in ravishing rain
Joy is like pain
It feels like a miracle
You can't turn back, you're in chains
Never again
Return from a cynical world
If you feel you've loved me in vain
Why not re-live your guilty love affairs
In the warm breeze you will cry
Again and again
That's fate for a criminal

Good intentions lost in thin air
You were craving for affection
And a certain invitation
Led you here to me in the cynical world

No one but me, in this cold place
I will love and serve you, criminal
That's your final consolation
Now hang on to me, in the cynical world

As the song faded and a rock ballad started, Drew was lost in thought once more. His situation struck a certain chord with the song. He felt chained to participation in the upcoming ruse, it was warm out, and he certainly felt ready to cry, though somehow he couldn’t. He also felt like a criminal. Pretending to be a woman for the next heaven only knows how long? He’d have to use women’s toilets when in public. He’d heard of a news story once where a man was caught dressed as a female mannequin in a women’s restroom at some major mall somewhere in England. Would he be arrested too one day? What would his parents make of that? He’d definitely be in a cold place then, with what, the Thompson’s to console him? Nothing against the man or his wife, but he’s not so sure he’d appreciate that as his “final consolation.”

The music changed again to a synth-pop as someone buzzed his apartment. Damn. He’d forgotten all about it. Janet was supposed to stop by for his first “session.” He went over to the intercom and buzzed her in. A moment later she breezed in dragging some sort of large case behind her. He had a suspicion he was going to find out quite quickly what it contained.

When Janet raised an eyebrow at him he remembered that he’d only just come in from his bike ride, was drenched in sweat, and probably smelled like something that crawled up from the sewers, or out of one of the dumpsters in the complex. “I was just about to start my bathing routine when you buzzed.” He answered the eyebrow.

“Riiight.” Janet replied. “You forgot I was coming, right?”

Drew shrugged. “I really was just about to start though.”

“Then I came at the perfect time. Lessee what you use. Go ahead and strip.”

Drew blushed. “Uh.”

“Don’t worry about it; you ain’t got anything I’ve never seen before. Either on my husband or myself.”

Drew’s flush deepened, but he made no move to comply.

“Oh for Chrissake’s man, that modesty does you no good, I’m going to be needing to see it all later anyways when I make the moulds for your prosthetics.”

“M…M…My…” Drew stuttered.

Janet rolled her eyes heavenward as she continued. “Yes, YOUR prosthetics. I do stage costumes for a living; did you really think I was going to let you walk around dressed as a woman with Junior hanging about?”

Drew turned such a delightful color of red that Johnny Appleseed would’ve sworn he saw an apple tree growing from the spot, but he finally complied as he followed Janet into his own restroom in a daze.

When he got in there she was already rifling around in his shower stall. “A real sponge, wow!” She announced as she tossed the said item out behind her. “But this shampoo, body wash and … what’re you even doing with bubble bath?” She continued.

“I” Drew started, but couldn’t continue as Janet rode over him.

“What do you do, just buy the cheapest stuff you can find? Seriously, ‘VO5 Repair & Protect Strengthening Shampoo’, ‘Suave Naturals Ocean Breeze Body Wash’, ‘Kroger Mango Mandarin Bubble Bath’, and ‘Kroger Selenium Sulfide Dandruff Shampoo’… What the hell even is that last one?”

“Off-brand Selsun Blue.” Drew answered.

“And that is? Oh never mind, obviously it’s some kind of dandruff shampoo. Why don’t you use Head & Shoulders?”

“There’re two major kinds of dandruff, Head & Shoulders only treats the dry scalp variety, and I have the oily scalp variety.”

“Oily scalp dandruff? What the hell kind of oxymoron is that?”

“Instead of your scalp being dry and flaking off directly, it’s so extremely oily that it just kind of sheds itself into the hair where it dries and leaves a thick clotted itchy mess.” Drew answered, trying to remain patient.

“Hm. I’ll just have to take your word for it since they seem to have a shampoo for it. You don’t have any bar soap, what do you do for your face?” She continued, then pulled her head out of the shower stall.

“I”…

“Nevermind that. What the hell is up with you?” She said getting her first good look at Drew in the buff. He was completely hairless except on his head, where he didn’t even have beard stubble.

“I had serious hirsutism, I mean; I looked like an ape kind of hirsutism. When I started using depilatory creams and an epilator selectively, I realized I really kinda liked the feel of smooth hairless skin, so I bought a home electrolysis machine.” Drew answered honestly.

“Hm. And Junior, why ain’t he happy to see me at all?” Janet was wearing skin-tight short-shorts and a midriff-baring tank. Even though she was getting towards her forties she was athletic and still looked quite fit, and she knew it.

Drew shrugged. “Never really been interested in anyone sexually.”

“Anyone?” She prompted. “You sure you’re not a closet gay?”

“Anyone.” Drew confirmed emphatically. “I have been attracted to people, but it’s different for me.”

“How?” Janet asked.

“It’s difficult to describe… Here, let me read you a poem I scribbled down as another kid in my old Humanities class did a reading of his own poems for a class project:

“Month in a Moment” by Drew Patridge

I was going along one day,
minding only myself.
You came that day,
to help those that let.
We met, we talked...
seemed we knew each other,
yet never before we met.

One day some time ago,
a day past yet still here...
We met, we talked...
though different in many ways,
something just clicked.

The universal law,
nature of the universe.
Opposite-equal...
opposites attract.
The timeless love,
some people are destined.

You were Nipponjin,
me English to the core.
You a kind, soft heart...
mine hardened with bad past.
Yet when we met that day,
a balance shifted,
time froze yet went on.

An interminable instant,
the month in a moment...
I can keep no secret...
when it comes down to it...
I'm hopelessly infatuated.

The universal law,
nature of the universe.
Opposite-equal...
opposites attract.
The timeless love,
some people are destined.

An interminable instant,
the month in a moment...
I can keep no secret...
when it comes down to it...
I'm hopelessly infatuated.

“He liked a girl that was way different from him. So?”

Drew sighed. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t understand. No one else in the class understood either. I did. I saw it in his eyes as he read the poem. There’s times when you meet someone you’ve never known before, but somehow it’s as though you’ve always known each other… It’s like a strong spiritual bond. Most people, for some reason, never seem to really experience it. I’ve felt it more than once.”

“Hm.” She responded dully, and then perked back up. “So you’ve experienced something then, how many times? Who for?”

Drew blushed very deeply once again. “Twice…” he answered softly, barely audible. “Once for a geeky girl in my youth group, and then…” his voice got even softer… “the boy who wrote that poem.”

Janet’s face went very wide. “You’re bi!” She exclaimed, and then clamped her mouth shut and walked back into the living room, coming back a short time later with a bunch of soaps and cleansers. Drew was sobbing softly as she returned.

Musical accompaniment for this chapter brought to you by:

Queen - Bicycle Race
M.O.V.E. - Noizy Tribe
Yuki Kajiura - Cynical World

Poem near the end really is by me, no, I didn't write it special for this story, I wrote it years ago, thought it'd be cute to have had my character meet me once ;)

Please, by all means, tell me how horrible it is that essentially nothing happened at all in the 3k+ words in this chapter.

Open Your Heart
by Abigail Drew

Chapter Three

Janet set her burden down on the floor next to the tub and walked back out of the bathroom to the sounds of a rap remix of Canon in D using a keyboard and percussion. “We’re lookin’ on the sunny side,” incongruously sang the female vocalist doing melodic counterpoint. The song couldn’t be more inappropriate.

There wasn’t much she could think of to do. She had to figure it was something she’d said, but she didn’t know squat about psychology. She also couldn’t really understand where Drew was coming from. She asked all those questions and things because she was honestly curious about him. All she ever knew about him was that he worked as the groundskeeper at the same apartment complex that her husband managed and that her husband seemed to think quite well of him. She didn’t really understand why.

She’ll never forget the first time she met him. Her husband had just come home from the apartment complex when he announced they were to have a dinner companion. At the time, they had only just sent their daughter off to college at the end of the summer, and it was just the two of them, so having someone else over was a little bit of relief — for the moment, at least, she wouldn’t need to figure out how to cook for only two!

She had cleaned the place up a bit, even though her husband told her she probably wouldn’t need to, the young man he’d invited was only twenty-four and was a groundskeeper. She definitely wasn’t prepared for the individual who walked in her front door exactly at six, wearing a baggy flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off just shy of the elbow and tan cargo shorts. It was late October and it had to be at most sixty degrees out! He also had cycling gloves on his hands and was holding a bicycle helmet. No jacket, closely buzzed head, hairless skin anywhere else, and with beads of sweat rolling down his face. Sweat, wearing those clothes, at this temperature.

“Hey Jack,” he said as her husband let him in. “Mind if I use your restroom real quick before dinner?”

During the meal, she tried to engage him in conversation, but he only responded to her direct questions and offered nothing. “So you like riding then?” She asked him at one point during the meal, in reference to the way he’d come in.

“Yes.” He answered simply.

“What do you ride?” She continued.

“Just a cheap Trek 820 for now, with some small inexpensive modifications to make city riding easier that I take off out on trails.” That was a little more, still like trying to pull teeth.

“For now?” She prompted, and got no response. “You said for now, is there something better?”

“There’re lots better, the 820’s about as cheap a bike as you can get and still have a decent bike.” He replied, entirely missing the point.

“Are you looking to get something better?” She asked, trying to keep her exasperation out of her voice.

“Yeah. I’ve been saving up and having custom parts made for me to build my own.”

The stilted conversation continued with her asking questions and him answering until he left.

“Did he pass interrogation?” Jack asked her after Drew had left. There was a challenge in his voice that wasn’t there unless she’d done something he didn’t like.

“Interrogation?” Janet responded defensively. “I was simply trying to get a conversation going.”

“Couldn’t you tell he was uncomfortable?”

“Well…”

“My dear wife… You need to understand that not everyone likes to talk the way you do.” She didn’t argue with Jack at the time, but she felt there was just something more to it than that.

The next time Jack invited Drew to dinner with them was on Thanksgiving. This time, Christina was also home on break from college. It was one of those odd Thanksgivings you seem to experience every few years in the Midwest, give or take, during which it’s snowing so hard it’s like walking through a down blanket, and the wind so strong that it’s blowing it on a trajectory which aims most generally horizontally rather than vertically. Janet was becoming quite concerned for Drew’s safety, figuring he’d probably ride there again.

“Don’t worry,” Jack insisted, “he has a truck and I doubt even he would ride in this weather.” However, the look on Jack’s face told a different story. He was worried too.

A few minutes later they heard a distant rumble as of thunder. As the noise continued to get closer it became apparent that it was the rattling of the body of a vehicle so rusted out it’s a surprise it wasn’t spread across the highway, combined with the engine noise of an old truck whose muffler was shot over a decade ago.

“Who is that driving that awful deathtrap through here?” Janet asked.

“That would be Drew…” Jack answered, trailing off at the end.

“Y-You asked him to Thanksgiving dinner with us when you knew it was going to be like this and that he’d either be riding on t-th-that b-bike, or driving t-th-this deathtrap!?”

“They do both seem to get him where he needs to go…” Jack said, a little hesitantly as the engine noise outside spluttered off.

Just then Christina came downstairs from where she’d been doing schoolwork in her room with an odd look on her face. “Is that?” She began, as the doorbell rang. Janet started to get up to answer it, “Just stay there Mom, I’ll get it. I’m closer, and besides, already standing.”

Christina opened the door to the sight of a young androgynous person in loose cargo pants, a baggy flannel, and even baggier heavy hooded jacket with a three-size too large windbreaker covering the entire ensemble. Only its face and hands were visible. The hands looked almost feminine except for the cuts and calluses. The face was indeterminate, there was no sign of beard shadow, but neither were the eyebrows neatly kept. In fact, the eyebrows were oddly sparse and thin out towards the side of the face and dense and course in near the bridge of the nose. There was no widow’s peak, the throat was narrow and lacked an Adam’s apple, and the skin appeared soft.

Only when the apparition spoke did it become apparent its gender was male. And that, not so much because of pitch, but because of timbre. “Uh… Hi. You must be Christina?” He asked, then put out his hand as to shake, adding, “Drew.”

Mesmerized, Christina tripped on her own foot as she went to return the gesture, falling forward face first onto his chest. Then she discovered something that almost made her wet herself with sexual excitement. His chest wasn’t rock-hard like a lean muscular man, but neither was it springy and flabby like an obese man. It was simply soft and pillowy, with two soft, barely discernable, breasts. It was obvious that they were being held tightly in some thin material and that he was trying to hide them.

“You ok?” Drew asked, his hands on her shoulders as Christina regained her composure.

“Y-yh-yeah.” She replied, slightly breathless. “I honestly don’t know what came over me.” She lied in complete dead-pan as though she really didn’t.

“You looked a little dazed out for a minute there. You sure you don’t need to sit down for a while?” Drew asked with a hint of concern.

“Uh. Maybe.” Christina said, as Drew led her to the couch opposite the love-seat that Jack and Janet occupied. There she sat down and waited as Drew went to hang up his jackets, when he returned and sat as well, she cuddled against him. Drew stiffened a little at first, but then relaxed.

The entire rest of that afternoon and during dinner Christina had practically glued herself to Drew’s side, talking animatedly with him, or just cuddling against him. Incredibly, Drew seemed to weaken his defenses to her and actually talked with her, and only seemed to relax increasingly easily when she cuddled against him as the evening wore on. Oddly, at the same time, Drew seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that Christina was flirting with him.

Once Drew had left and Christina returned to her room, Janet decided to have a talk with her daughter about Drew. As she was going on and on about responsibility and not pushing too hard and so forth, Christina appeared distracted. Finally, Christina interrupted her mid-word and blurted out, “Mom! He’s got boobs!”

Janet was interrupted in her reverie by the sound of the shower starting. Hopefully he’s using the new stuff I gave him… She considered going in and making sure herself, but thought wiser and called Christina.

“Hey hun, you outside already?” She asked when her daughter picked up the phone. She’d set it up with her daughter ahead of time that if she were to have any problems, she’d let Christina in to help. “Yeah? OK, let me buzz you in.”

---

Drew faintly heard the sound of someone buzzing the intercom to come in, and the answering buzz as Janet permitted them entry while he just stood under the hot water, not yet actually actively showering. ‘Great. Party at Drew’s!’ He thought darkly, ‘Why not invite the whole freaking town to watch me get turned into a gay girl. Must be good sport!’

Janet was wrong. She had to be. He’s never had any real sexual drive around anyone. He once experimented with dating a known slut, just to see if he could even get it going if someone actively tried seducing him… And of course nothing happened and she practically chased him off and refused to ever talk to him again.

In the privacy of his own bedroom, the only thing that ever turned him on was… no, no way he’s going to actively admit to those fantasies. It was bad enough having them. If he had been willing to admit to them, he might have been able to do something with that slut, but she’d probably have reacted even worse than she did to his complete lack of natural libido. It wasn’t natural. It couldn’t be natural. He couldn’t be natural. He wasn’t natural. No one could care about such an unnatural creature as him. He was asexual, he insisted. He had to be. If he was otherwise, it’d be much much worse.

His thoughts were interrupted by the gentle opening and closing of the door as someone tried to remain undetected entering, followed by the soft sounds of clothing being carefully removed as silently as possible. ‘Great. Whoever it is plans on joining me in the shower.’ He darkly thought as he turned to see if he could tell who it was through the glass doors of his shower and bathtub stall. The glass doors had a bumped texture, which fuzzed anything you tried to see through it in either direction. ‘If this sort of thing were to ever become too common,’ thought Drew, ‘maybe I should see about replacing these with mirrored glass instead, so I can see out, but no one can see in.’

All he could really tell through the doors of his shower… was that the individual who would be soon joining him was clearly female: having all the right curves in all the right places and lacking any dangly bits between the legs. She was about his size, maybe slightly shorter. Which was actually fairly unusual, he being only five-five… and a half, he insisted on counting that half inch. Most people assumed he was just being funny when he told them his height was five-five-five, but the truth was he was very self-conscious about being so short, so he attempted to make light of it to hide his real insecurity towards his size.

Now completely naked, the figure came up to the tub, picked up the stuff Janet had left there that he’d ignored, slid the stall door further from the shower head open, and joined him. Now up close, she was plainly about an inch shorter than he was, built a little slimmer than himself but with much wider hips, had perhaps C-cup breasts, seeming to be larger than his own B-cups, reddish-brown hair, and a deep tan.

“Christina!?” Drew exclaimed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised…” he almost muttered. “How long have YOU known then?”

Christina blushed slightly. “Since that first thanksgiving you spent at our place… remember I tripped over my own foot and fell onto your chest?”

“So you’ve known I was a freak since the first moment you met me…” Drew began, trailing off, before his voice sharpened. “Why then did you spend so much time with me? Acted like you really cared? Am I some sort of joke to you?” He accused.

“No… I really do care.” She answered softly.

“Hrm.” Drew grunted. It was neither agreement nor denial, he was simply still upset that it seemed what he’d thought was a secret was no secret at all. He still doubted Christina’s sincerity. How could anyone care about him? A loser. Asexual. College drop-out. Man-boobs. He wasn’t worth anything to anyone. He couldn’t even get up enough courage to face any of it. Or to simply end it.

Christina apparently either took the grunt as accession, or just didn’t care, as she began arranging the things Janet had brought over about the currently empty shower shelves, and reaching around Drew and turning the water off. There were what appeared to be two different shampoos — upon closer examination he realized she’d brought his Selenium Sulfide back in, and an expensive looking daily shampoo, two conditioners — one claiming to be a “deep” conditioner, some sort of exfoliating facial cleanser and toner, a facial moisturizer, an exfoliating body wash, and a different, probably far more expensive, bubble bath. She also returned his sponge, as well as bringing some strange looking gloves, a pumice stone, and some sort of poofy lacy looking thing.

“These are what my mother brought you for lathering,” she began, indicating the poofy thing, “and exfoliating,” indicating the gloves and the stone. “Since you have this,” she said, and indicated his sponge, “You won’t be needing these,” and she tossed the poofy thing and gloves out of the shower. “My mother probably figured you’d be like most guys and just lather and wash bare-hand and not care about exfoliation at all… Why do you have a sponge anyways?”

Drew rolled his eyes. “And why wouldn’t I have a sponge? I don’t know why, I just like to use it.”

“I wasn’t trying to say anything about it, it’s just that real sponges aren’t cheap, and especially of this size and quality, with a removable handle and the sewn-on wood back. You could have gotten a loofah made of other natural fibers for much cheaper, which would have done the same job, if not quite as well.”

“When I lived with my parents, my mother had a real sponge much like this one, though it was glued cheaply to plastic backing, I got to using it when I started working, it felt good over the sores and irritated skin. So when I moved out, I searched long and hard for my own, finally found that one on ebay for more money than I want to admit spending.”

“That’s cool!” She exclaimed. “So… I’ve never had dandruff of any sort before, what do you usually do for your hair?” Christina asked.

“Well, I only use the Selenium Sulfide once a week and that’s on Sundays… But when I do use it, regular shampoo first, then dandruff shampoo, leave it in for a couple minutes while I wash my face, which I just use some body wash for, then rinse the dandruff shampoo and body wash off together.” Drew explained. “Daily, I just wash my hair with the regular shampoo, leave it in while washing my face, and rinse together.”

“Well, you can basically just stick to that same routine, though now you’ll be using a different shampoo and some proper facial products… by the way, why did you start letting your hair grow out?”

Drew groaned. He always used to keep his hair buzzed extremely short, no longer than an inch in the winter, half in the summer. Just this past winter he decided it wasn’t worth the twelve bucks every two weeks to keep it buzzed, and he let it grow all winter. By the time warm weather hit, he’d just simply gotten out of the habit of going to a barber. His hair was now almost to his shoulders, though it definitely needed some trimming to make it look neat. At least he’d finally lost the thick curl he always had growing up that made anything longer than an inch poof out into a completely natural afro, it had calmed down to just a gentle wave. This was the direct opposite of his younger brother who grew up with razor straight hair that eventually developed the same gentle wave that Drew’s own hair now sported. “Pure laziness.” He responded in a deliberate monotone. The kind that said just shut up. Drew never had really worried too much about his appearance, aside from trying to hide his breasts.

“We’re going to have to take you to the salon to get that tidied up.” She apparently didn’t get the hint. “Anyways, you’ll use this shampoo and 3-in-one exfoliating facial cleanser and toner, rinse them off after waiting the appropriate time for the facial cleanser, then this conditioner,” she held up the conditioner that didn’t have anything about “deep” on its label as well as the facial moisturizer, “and facial moisturizer, and rinse, then you’ll use the exfoliating body wash for the rest of your body using that sponge of yours, rinse, and use the pumice stone on your feet.”

“That sounds like it’ll take forever.” Drew complained.

“Not really. At least you won’t have to shave thanks to you solving that problem with electrolysis. How long do you usually take in the shower?”

“About twenty to twenty-five minutes… depending.”

“This’ll take you to about fourty, tops, if you dawdle.”

“On Sunday’s, you’re going to use the deep conditioner instead of the regular conditioner, and hold off on the facial moisturizer until after you get out of the shower. Add another 5 minutes.”

“And why do I have to do all this? What was wrong with my old shower routine?” Drew asked.

“What wasn’t wrong with it would be easier to answer… At least you cleaned yourself thoroughly.”

Drew could tell it’d be pointless to argue with either Christina or Janet, unless he wanted to back out completely, which he couldn’t do. Not after he’d said he’d do it. His word bound him more tightly than a noose.

“OK. Now you wash me while I wash you, we’ll get done faster that way.” Christina said, and Drew went beet red as he complied, turning even more violently red when Christina started washing him and moaning in pleasure.

---

Janet had finally figured out how to turn Drew’s music off and get his TV on and was looking for something half interesting to watch when she heard soft moaning coming from the bathroom. She was going to have to talk to Christina about Drew again… and soon.

Musical accompaniment for this chapter brought to you by:

M.O.V.E. - Lookin' On The Sunny Side

I figured out a way to arrange the information I needed to present without going to chapter-and-half length, nor with making it a half-chapter with only Janet's romp down memory lane. Hope it came out at least tolerably well.

Comments are, as always, welcome, read, and usually appreciated ;P