The Last Boy Scout
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Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 1
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There are some who say that I got what was coming to me, and hell, some of those people are me. But back then I sure didn’t think so, nor did I have any real expectation that it would all work out for the best. There was a time or three I even contemplated filling out my discharge papers with a 9mm. But smarter people than me restricted my access to firearms so I’m still alive to tell you my tale. A story of hubris and honor, duty and desire, true love and epic hate and this is the way it all started…
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman.
By The Last Boy Scout
The man I was about to kill wore the face I was born with.
He wore it well, all things considered. It was handsome, clean cut, with a jaw chiseled enough to crack nuts on. When I wore it, it was all I could do to keep acne from popping up like rebellious provinces and a razor was still mostly wishful thinking and not an actual necessity. The years had been kind to once me, and a military regimen along with the completion of adolescence had created a man any girl could swoon over and not feel the least self conscious.
Myself? I had a gun pointed at his head.
“Tommy, I…” he started to say from his prone position.
“Tommy was the name of a boy l I once knew,” I interrupted, using my left hand to move aside a strand of long blond hair that would otherwise spoil my aim. “And Jessica the name of the girl I once loved. She betrayed me, stole my body, exiled me from my family and was otherwise a total bitch… pardon me, bastard.” I said forcing a smile. “I go by Katherine now.”
“I hated that name,” he said arguing with me, which rather goes to show that moving his soul to my superior brain hadn’t improved his smarts any.
“I know, that’s one of the reason’s I am rather fond of it,” I commented with as wicked a grin as I could manage after advanced training by several of my friends on the cheer squad.
“We can’t trade back.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he gasped out. “I’m just so … sorry.”
“You may make it up to me by standing up. My old mother will have to bury her son next week it would be a great shame if she also had to bury a coward.”
He looked at me for a good 20 seconds. At me, at the gun, back at me, back at the gun, at its safety switch and hammer, which were unlocked and ready. I could see him weigh the options, precious few that they were. Little cogs and wheels spinning around in that head I once knew so well. How far away was help? How far away were witnesses? Did the madwoman in front of him even care that there were witnesses? I saw it all go through his head in those 20 seconds. And he finally made his decision and helped remind me of the girl I once loved. All grit and moxie, and terrible beauty.
“No man calls me a coward,” he said as he used his uninjured hand to prop himself up and got to his feet.
“How fortunate for me then, that I am a woman.”
I fired the gun, my aim was true.
***
How the hell this all happened is quite a tale, so I suppose you want some back story.
It began, as most tragedies do, with testosterone. Late summer eight or so years back I was unloading from the shuttle the last of the possessions that would need to keep me hale and hearty for a year when I saw her. Being all of 14, and having advanced to what Americans unintentionally ironically referred to as “high” school I felt it was time I went about a man’s duty of finding myself a girlfriend.
She was, like me, by herself. Most of the other kids had parents or the more common beloved family retainers to help them move into boarding school. Myself, while the family had enough money to be merely comfortable we didn’t run to the extravagance of butlers and footmen. Mother had accepted a teaching position at the American University of Paris while my father was deployed. Big sisters #2,3 and 4 were already safely tucked away in their own form of higher education scattered across the continent. Big sister #1 was supposed to escort me on the train but having just reached her own post college independence she was in a hurry to get started on a family of her own and saw a likely prospect in the cute guy who asked her to dinner at Union Station and hardly needed any convincing that I would be fine on my own. This girl’s story I didn’t know but I was in a real hurry to find out. She was tall for 14, colt thin but not to the point where she had read too many fashion magazines and thought eating a bagel was a high crime. Her blond hair was tucked back into a practical ponytail that rested on her back shoulder blades. Her breasts were perhaps not as large as they could be, but I had taken enough junior. high health classes to know that she still had some growing left to do and hell, all you needed was a handful.
A few trips up the stairs generating what I hoped was a manly musk of sweat and I was done with my own gear in time to see that she had most of her own small mountain of provisions still left to move. I didn’t understand how the female form could require so much equipment. I’d find out all about that later but I promised you some back-story. I was wearing a rather risqué t-shirt bearing the legend “MARINES DO IT ON THE BEACH.” As a conversation starter it rather worked as she soon looked me in the eye and pointed at the globe and anchor on my chest.
“Aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper,” she said with the subtlest of smirks.
Straight lines like that don’t come along every day so I had to complete it.
“I’m Tom Ryan and I’m here to rescue you.” I bowed as gracefully as I could manage. “Or rather, all your worldly positions from temperamental New Hampshire summer, the forecast is for rain on and off all day long and four hands are better than two. That is of course, if you will accept aid and comfort from a future member of the American equivalent of Palpatine’s finest.”
She pondered it for a moment; I could see eyes running side to side weighing the pros and cons of letting some strange boy carry her bags. In the end, common sense if not my inherent charm got the better of her and she gracefully allowed me to help her up the stairs into her own room. Unfortunately up the stairs into her room was also across the campus and up three flights of stairs. And while she of course helped move her own stuff, somehow or another I made three trips for every one of her own.
“So how come you don’t have someone to help you move in like all the other pampered princesses?” I asked once it was all done, trying to be suave and mostly failing.
“You mean you’re not working for the school? Good, that means I don’t have to tip you.”
“At least tell me the name of my fair lady?”
“Eliza Doolittle.” She countered with a grin.
“You are gonna get made fun of a lot,” I said as somber as I could manage. “Among all these Amy’s and Brittney’s
“He he”, she giggled and it only made her seem cuter. “Jessica Scott, if you must know. And my evil stepmother wouldn’t pay the freight so to speak.”
“$40,000 in tuition and she won’t pay for Two Men and a Truckâ„¢ That sort of Yankee stinginess I don’t understand.”
“Cornhusker stinginess, I’m from Nebraska, which is more than can be said of her. God help me. And my tuition was one of the rather more set in stone codicils in my father’s will that she could not get around breaking. Incidentals like moving expenses however…were.”
“I’m sorry,” I said having the good manners to look away.
“No reason for you to be sorry, he’s been dead six years and I rather doubt you had anything to do with it, which is also, more than can be said of her. And what’s your story, scholarship student?”
“Some,” I granted her with a bow. “But only because any family here making less than 250k is considered low class. Also I think they were throwing in a bit extra cus of daddy’s stars.”
“Your father is a general?”
“A MAJOR general, and thankfully a very modern one as these things go. He’s being groomed for a third star and we, being in one of those brief moments where it is fashionable to be patriotic, he figured is what gave me a leg up on all the other kids that also had straight A averages. Now tell me about wicked stepmother, does she have a hairy wart? Or is she one of those classic evil beauties that wants to offer you a poisoned apple...”
***
Dad was a marine, and his father before him and so on until back around the time Chesty Puller hiself was still fighting in the banana Republics and I don’t mean a store at the mall. Mother’s people were democrats…we don’t speak of them much. I had spent most of my young life being dragged from West Germany to East Bengal and back again. If I stayed in one place longer than 18 months it was because dad was deployed to a hellhole where even my fearless mother would not subject us to dependant housing and we gravitated back to Jacksonville, Florida close to his sister which was sort of the closest thing to a home I had.
James “Little Jimmy” Ryan’s most recent post was General Commanding 1st Marine Division, “The Old Breed,” which was sort of his dream assignment and even if he kissed enough ass and ended up Commandant it was all downhill from here according to him. Trouble was, while 1st Marines were normally garrisoned in Pendleton we were involved in a couple odd shooting wars and pieces of the division were almost always deployed to either the sandbox or the ashcan and my father, being my father, and having of course to prove to himself that he was just as marine as boots 35 years younger than him decided to make a point by more or less commanding 90% of the time in country rather than sunny Southern California
My father can be a stubborn man but I wouldn’t call him stupid, though others might, since I planned to do more or less the same thing when my own time came. At 14 I was pretty much just marking time till the Naval Academy and my own military career. It wasn’t going to be a cake walk; Annapolis wasn’t West Point! But I figured as long as I didn’t get hit on the head and start leaking brain cells I had what it took to get in. Not for nothing but Phillips Exeter Academy was somewhat harder to get accepted into and I had already done that. Those that didn’t have the funding had the smarts and something about volunteering to get shot at for years at a time while undergoing a demeaning hell just for the privilege of doing so, sort of turned off the big brainpan types from applying. Not to mention the not inconsiderable physical requirements that the wheezing asthmatics that usually populated the upper echelons of academia wouldn’t be able to surmount.
It sounded nice to me, but then, I was my father’s son.
Jessica and I bonded that first day, and we bonded all the rest of that first year, or as much as a boy and girl as heavily chaperoned as we were could. By the time we met again for the start of second year it was generally accepted that we were an item, indeed well on our way to being the school’s golden couple. I wasn’t really looking for anything long term and I don’t think she was either but it just sort of happened. We clicked, two halves to the same heart and all the other clichés you can think of… we liked the same jokes, which when you think about my sense of humor, has to be a sign from the heavens that we were meant for each other.
It also took most of the drama out of high school. The never ending mating dance that is adolescent life just sort of passed us by. We were already with each other so didn’t have to expend the energy trying to find someone and I remembered her birthday, and Valentine’s day and since she was so cute and cuddly I figure one of her ancestors MUST have made a better than average deal with the devil, my eyes never had to stray. And on her part she understood me better than anyone including myself did. We even shared the same goals.
She had a beloved uncle that was a Marine during the recent unpleasantness we had in Southeast Asia. He had always protected her from the predications of wicked stepmother while he lived and by third year she was going to apply for Annapolis too. Half in honor of him, the rest to follow her man which sort of tickled me in places even she couldn’t. The green machine was always trying to present itself as kinder and gentler and non-discriminatory and what with the advantage of being female I figure she had a better chance than me.
I don’t care what they teach you in man school, it HELPS having a smart girlfriend. When we studied together, we actually STUDIED together and whenever I got worried that she might overtake me I had enough machismo to kick it into gear and try to win back my inherent male superiority. I figured 40 years from now we would both retire as 4-stars. I would let her be the first female Commandant while I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs… you gotta have goals. We were at the tail end of the winter of our Senior year safely ensconced in the class of 1945 library and trying to find a piece of it that was actually heated when she decided it was time to have sex.
***
“Huh,” was my immediate reply, you could tell I was real sophisticated and experienced at this sort of thing.
“I’m still a virgin Tommy,” said Jessica as she gave me a not insignificant kiss on the lips. “And since I keep better track of your penis than you do I’m fairly certain that you are too.”
“Well yeah, and it’s a medical condition I hope to cure soon too.”
“Good, I’m glad we agree, take off your clothes,” she said, and she made to do the same.
“Jess! This is the library!” I shouted load enough to gain the attention of the sole librarian on duty downstairs who followed it with the perfunctory shhhhssshhhh.
“It is 7pm on a Saturday. Mrs. Springer gets up at 8PM to check the stacks for people writing in the books and then goes back to reading her magazines. It is also the baseball section of the collection which is hardly likely to be accessed by students at THIS school…care to try for a homerun.”
“Jess!”
“I am assured there is ample precedent,” she said neatly, as she inspected her fingernails haughtily.
“I’m sure there is, it’s just, this isn’t the time or place I pictured in my head.”
“Tom, the bookshelves aren’t exactly setting my heart all pitter patter I agree, but we are running out of time.”
“What are you talking about Jess there is plenty of time, were only just shy of 18 I’m not even sure its legal yet.” I whined reluctantly.
“The age of consent in New Hampshire is 16, I looked it up. And according to girls locker room gossip that 2 years later than most, 4 years in one case but she’s a slut and not exactly a role model I’m eager to embrace.”
“You looked it up?” I asked disbelievingly.
“We are in the library,” she answered primly.
“Where do you even look something like that up?”
“Not the point Tommy! Focus!” she yelled slapping me upside the head.
“ssssssshhhhhhhhhh,” came from downstairs.
“Look Tom,” she said finishing removing her blazer and displaying two prominent body parts I’d grown rather fond of. “In two months we graduate and matriculate to the academy. But before that we have a plebe summer, SEPARATE boot camp as you well know. And then the academy proper which is the closest thing to a modern cloistered nunnery that America produces. They are so worried about rape, or harassment or any sort of sexual misconduct that they have it locked down so hard SEAL Team Six couldn’t get in and out unseen and I’d bet good money several of them have tried when they were younger. It’s not just against regulations, it would be a CRIME for us to have sex while were both at the academy and the few breaks we get may not give us an opportunity either between midshipmen cruises and other assignments. I’ve been thinking about flight school you know. “
“I know, and I hope you get it too.” I answered her encouragingly.
“I am not going to be an on the shelf old maid well into my 20’s. If we’re both going to be abstaining while every other college coed is at it like bunny rabbits I’m gonna need a little something something to tide me over…why are you still wearing pants?”
“Um, do you have, um, you know…protection?” I stammered out as I began undressing.
“I’ve been on the pill for years it helps regulate my period, and since neither of us has been active we don’t have to worry about disease so there is no need for the condom in your wallet that has probably been worn away to uselessness anyway.”
“Less than useless,” I agreed nodding my head while I kept eye contact with her chest, “since I left my wallet in my room.”
“Oh? And how were you planning on buying me dinner afterwards?”
“I’ll think of something,” I reassured her as I moved in to lay a kiss. “You’re hot… I mean, I know you’re hot, hot. God I know that! But I mean temperature wise, are you feeling ok we can…”
“It’s just a little fever,” She answered my irritated. “And if I was going to spread it to you, you’ve already got it, as much kissing as we do, so you might as well get some fun out of it… I think it would be better if you were the one to undo my bra.”
Never let it be said I defied the will of my lady. I was soon to be an officer and by act of congress a gentlemen so I better start getting practice. My fingers gently stroked their way up her back and moved to the clasp of her white satin bra. It was one of those fancy French jobs people like me usually only hear about. She must have been planning this a while since I knew, generally speaking she was more likely to wear something practical and comfortable like Hanes-For-Her. She had also had the foresight to pack a small blanket in her book bag and as soon as her breasts were unbound she laid down upon it.
Not wanting to make her feel subconscious I quickly took off my own shirt and doubled down by removing my shoes and pants and underwear. I still had my socks on though it was a stone built library in March certain things are just not done! Jess was shivering herself, despite the warmth of her skin. I resolved to do my duty to heat her up as soon as possible. Her skirt and hose were simple enough to remove and I was rather shocked to discover she wasn’t wearing panties, but by that point I guess I shouldn’t have been.
It was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the holiest of holies. I had seen pictures of course. I had the internet, and the filters at PEA weren’t as good as they thought they were. But something about flesh and blood, and the smell of it, added something to the experience that photons could never produce. I must admit I was sort of frozen in awe of it for long enough for Jess to deliver another motivational slap upside the head. I quickly took the hint and went about the business at hand.
I sort of cheated a little bit. Having older sisters, four older sisters mind you! Much of the time who didn’t have any other English speaking girls to talk to about sex with. I overheard many late night girl talk sessions that my mother would much rather I hadn’t. So at a reasonably young age I had heard about some of the traps and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am pitfalls that had befallen my less fortunate brethren. If men had more older-sisters, womankind would be much happier. I started with my fingers exploring by touch my designated target. I HEARD about the magic button but never actually seen one and the lighting in the stacks was not exactly conducive to exploration. I found it soon enough and judging by the moan Jess was not entirely able to stifle, she agreed with me.
Once I was safe enough in my knowledge I moved in with my mouth. While my hands were busy upstairs I worked my tongue on the lower levels. Legend tells me it’s supposed to taste like fish but to my hormone ravaged mind it just tasted like…awesome. Jess was smart enough that she grabbed a Ty Cobb biography from the rack and shoved it spine first into her own mouth to bite down on. If she hadn’t I think Mrs. Springer would have come up to investigate the screams, magazine or not.
When I got the clear impression that Jess had at least one orgasm I started to think about my own needs. Little Tommy was not so little at the moment and at first I was rather worried that it wouldn’t fit. Nature I guess finds a way though, and while there was resistance at first, it was of the most pleasurable sort and a little more force carried the day and I was inside her. Jess left a few teeth marks in Mr. Cobb when I did; I think I will have to find a way to pay for that book when this is all over. Once inside I felt another barrier and another few up and down thrusts and I was through that one too. I didn’t need any proof that Jess was a virgin and we had given a precious gift to each other, but I had it now, and it was sort of nice.
The Marines had landed, and had the situation well in hand.
I gotta say, I wish I had lasted longer than I did, I had heard all sorts of bad stories about ‘pufft and gone’. Thinking about baseball wasn’t helping any. And since it would be forever linked with my first time and the love of my life, the most beautiful woman on Earth I don’t think it ever would. Three or so minutes in I felt a buildup much more powerful than when I had tried this by myself and I spent myself inside her. I manfully gave it a few more gyrations but I just didn’t have it in me and pulled out and collapsed on the carpet next to her.
I was gasping for breath just sort of looking off at the ceiling with a glaze over my eyes when Jess leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” was all she said.
“No need to thank me my dear, it was my pleasure.” I replied trying to be clever.
She made me pay for that later.
***
I did get her fever, a not so miner case of the crud came with it that we enjoyed together as a couple . Synchronized sniffing, hacking and coughing up phlegm will do wonders for a relationship; I recommend it to all my friends. We found three more occasions before spring finals to practice our new pastime, one of them was even in a proper bed. One week to the end of term and the last little bit of so called freedom before my military life and Jess came in to my common room to see me leaning back and just sort of taking it easy. She was looking a little harried but I didn’t pay it any great mind as most of us did at that point in the year. I would have too yesterday, but I had finished the last of my papers and projects and could just sort of coast for the rest of the year.
“Love of my life,” I said trying to cheer her up. “What say I take you out to dinner tonight? We can get 4 hour pass no problem and a bit of bad pizza and worse salad is just the sort of thing to turn that frown upside down, whatdayasay?”
“I do want to head to town,” Jess offered with a slight smile. “But right away. I got us both a day pass. Ms Priss was feeling magnanimous she got my test already graded and it was a 98.”
“Congratulations, but what are we going to do all day?”
“I… I need to see a doctor, I don’t have an appointment so I could be waiting a while and I need someone with a car in case it’s after the shuttle turns off.”
“Of course, but, cant student health fix you up.”
“It’s,” she hesitated looking down. “I was there this morning, student health are the ones referring me to town.”
“It’s not serious is it Jess? What did they say when they looked at you?” I asked concerned and all thoughts of easy coasting run clear out of my head.
“It’s not terminal if that’s what you mean, and probably nothing at all, at least I hope so. But I want to get it all checked out before plebe summer; I don’t want to get dinged for a medical before I even take the oath.”
“I’ll get the car and meet you by your rooms, ten minutes?”
“I’ll be ready in twenty,” she replied as she gave me a warm kiss.
***
The doctor’s office was small town New England standard. The waiting room had probably remained functionally the same since President Adams times, probably the first, but definitely the second. And while I had brought my own books to read and didn’t have to suffer through periodicals that had been outdated in my parent’s time I couldn’t help but worry that the doctor inside was using leaches and bloodletting to treat Jessica. My opinion my not significantly improved when several hours after arriving Jess was finally let out quite visibly shaken. I was up in a flash and had my arms around her offering what comfort I could.
“What’s wrong baby, what did they say? How serious is it?”
“Not too serious really, and only temporary it shouldn’t effect anything.” She said shaking her head. “Let’s do that Pizza you mentioned and we’ll talk about it...ok?”
“Ok,” I answered trying to be strong.
Any point in Exeter was no more than five minutes from any other point in Exeter so we were shortly sitting down and eating at the Supreme House of Pizza and Seafood before I had really wrapped my head around something was wrong. A few years in this town had gotten me used to the idea of two things that shouldn’t really go together somehow did. It was kind of like an allegory for Jessica and me. The princess and the pseudo pauper, the debutant and the jarhead, when we first tried it we christened it “our place” on the spot… The pizza still sucked but then all pizza did, north of Long Island.
“Now what’s all going on?” I asked trying to keep the worry out of my voice and mostly failing.
“I need a ride to the next doctor It’s probably too late to do it today? Can you get out early again tomorrow?”
“Yea, I’m all gravy in all the classes the only thing I have to be there for is bed check.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t last that long,” she answered resigned.
“Where is the appointment?”
“Massachusetts,” Jess replied succinctly as she took a sip from her ice water, which was a warning sign all by itself since she was a non-recovering Cokeâ„¢ fiend.
“Where in Massachusetts?” I asked confused.
“Anywhere in Massachusetts, I’ll look up viable candidates tonight when we get back.”
“What’s so special about Massachusetts Jess, I know sometimes New Hampshire doesn’t come off as a civilized state but they probably have one or two competent doctors somewhere, if not necessarily Exeter we could try Manchester or Hanover-”
“I also need $500,” she interrupted me tersely. “My birthday is still nine days away and I won’t have my inheritance until then and my usual allowance is tapped.”
“Well won’t your health insurance cover it? I mean,” I asked confused scratching my head. “I’ll give you the money of course, but I thought the school made us all prove insurance. Did you let it lapse and not re-up the week before plebe summer?”
“This…won’t be covered by insurance.” She said ashen faced.
“What the hell is going on Jess?!” I shouted finally fed up with all the running around.
“I’m pregnant,” she replied very quietly. “And I wish to obtain an abortion.”
I don’t think I helped improve the situation by fainting.
END PART ONE
Author's Note
Well, here I am again after many months away. Some of you have missed me, and some of you wish I had stayed away! I saw the post for the reconciliation contest and it sort of congealed into a story in my head and I ran with it… all day, and then the next day. And then I continued it at work when no one else was looking, and HEY! Don’t look at me like that I wasn’t shirking I just work in a government office and I do what took the old guy eight hours a day in only four. But back to the point I was trying to make, this story sort of chain reactioned into a full on novel. I’m looking at the word count now and it’s at 72,229 according to the fine people at Microsoft.
Now I know what you are thinking, Scout has started other stories before and not finished them. Much to your consternation and my own secret shame. THIS one though is different. I have been averaging about 4500 words a day and going strong for longer than I have ever done before and unlike the other stories this time I have a deadline. If I want to claim that awesome prize it has to be all finished by October 20th and I do tend to work better when there are actual goals to finish. If worse comes to worse and my muse decides to go roost on someone else’s shoulder than I have at least finished the first third of my outline and a good stopping point at the first reconciliation. I say first because, well, these two are in for some interesting times...
The plan is to post every few days the story in 5,000 word blocks. Which means I have a healthy reserve before I am out of fresh material. And the good lord willing, and the river don’t rise (and you will understand that reference later!) It should be actually COMPLETED.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 2
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There are some who say that I got what was coming to me, and hell, some of those people are me. But back then I sure didn’t think so, nor did I have any real expectation that it would all work out for the best. There was a time or three I even contemplated filling out my discharge papers with a 9mm. But smarter people than me restricted my access to firearms so I’m still alive to tell you my tale. A story of hubris and honor, duty and desire, true love and epic hate and this is the way it all started…
PART TWO
Her ice water was used a minute late to rouse me back to consciousness. I guess I should be thankful on my clothes behalf, that she wasn’t drinking her Coke after all.
“Wake up Tommy!” Jess yelled holding a second glass at the ready in case it was needed.
“Huh, I’m up, I’m up!” I said getting on my feet and back into the booth I had slipped out of while unconscious. “It’s the funniest thing but I thought you said that you were pregnant.”
“She did,” interjected an old man whom I assumed to be the Manager. He gave me a look that made me feel like I had too many legs and was crawling on the underside of his boot, while he handed me a white towel from the busboys cart. “You make sure to do the right thing boy, or you don’t ever come back here again. Do you hear me?”
“Everything will be quite all right sir, thank you for the towel.” said Jess trying to shoo him away.
“Jessica,” I said trying to collect my thoughts that were whirling about a mile a minute. “How did this happen, I mean I know about the principles involved but I thought you said you were on the pill?”
“I was… I am, but the doctor said its only 99% effective and that % is significantly reduced when a woman’s body undergoes a fever. I wish I had been taught that in health class. But then there was a quite a bit that mule faced Sister Serephina never talked about in my 8th grade health class.”
“I knew catholic school was dangerous”
“Now is not the time for jokes Tommy,” commented Jess pulling off a good impression of a nun herself.
“Who’s joking?”
“I know this is a shock,” she continued primly. “It’s not a pleasant experience for me either. I’m sure my father never thought he would make me an unwed teenage mother when he set aside all that money for a fancy boarding school but it is… what it is. And now it must be dealt with… now, tomorrow morning if you can be ready at 9-”
“Marry me,” I interrupted suddenly.
“What?”
“Jessica Katherine Scott, will you do me the great honor of being my wife?”
“I thought I said I wasn’t in the mood for jokes,” She stated with an irritated look like I had just asked her to wipe my runny nose and not make me the happiest man on the Earth.
“I’m not; we were always going to get married. Now we’ll just be doing it sooner than expected... You always were an overachiever. Had to finish everything early,” I said with a slight and what I hoped was a helpful smile.
“I can’t marry you.”
“Says who, I’m 18 and so will you be too in 9 days. At 18 we don’t have to ask anyone’s permission anywhere. We can marry here or back home with your family.”
“I have no family Tommy, you know that.”
“Well I know your mom and dad, but I figured you would want your cousins and aunts and uncles, grandparents...”
“We’re not close.”
“With my family then, soon as I figure out how to tell them.” I said rubbing my forehead with both hands.” Aunt Alane will probably let us use the house in Jacksonville. May in Florida is actually tolerable. We can get it all done before plebe summer if we hurry.”
“That’s just it, we don’t need our parent’s permission to marry but we damn sure need the Navy’s. They don’t accept married midshipmen if you remember.”
“They have already accepted us. And if they try to ding us for doing something perfectly lawful while we were civilians merely because it is against custom. My father and a couple of crack sea layers will make a fight of it!”
“A hell of a way to begin your military career!” she argued forcefully.
“Damn right, begin as you intend to continue, no other way to live. Besides remember they let that married mustang petty officer in from the enlisted commissioning program. So there is precedent.”
“He also had the Navy cross, if I remember correctly.”
“The details are vague...” I granted with a wave of my hand which somehow ended up rubbing my aching for head.
“Tommy, think it through, YOU may be able to get by just fine wearing a wedding band. But they are not exactly going to let me at the academy while I am waddling down hallways heavy as a beached whale. Pregnancy is a deal breaker, end stop, do not pass go and no pair of gold bars at the end. And there isn’t exactly dependent housing or a nursery or daycare at the academy. Could you imagine me trying to breast feed in the barracks? Even if they did let me in.”
“Well, yea... now that you put that picture in my head I can.”
“Tommy!” Jessica shouted at me.
“Ok, I’ll grant you that one was meant as a joke.” I said as I took her hand and tried to comfort her. “This isn’t the end of the whole damn world Jess, we can get through it. With your grades and a Phillips Exeter diploma you can get into any college in the country. Civilian universities are much more reasonable about these sorts of things. We’ll get you set up in Georgetown it’s not that far away we can see each other on weekends...”
“People who got into Georgetown applied for it last year, I can’t just get in like that!” she said snapping her fingers to add emphasis. “Every good college is full up at this point Harvard, Yale, Princeton. And I don’t care what you say they are not exactly gonna welcome a pregnant coed with open arms.”
“A state school then, the University of Maryland, or Bob and Slick Willy’s Polytechnic Institute and Trade School. It doesn’t really matter for the gen-ed requirements you can be all ready for the next years round of applications. Or you could take a year off. That’s what they do over in Europe after high school.”
“What about my career? It started out your dream but its mine now too! Maybe more! All you need to do to get a little respect is stick that chin of yours out. If I’m not going to be treated like a life-size empty headed blond Barbie doll all my life I have to fight for it. I have to fight for everything!”
“There is ROTC while you are going or OCS once the degree is done. Lots of fine Marines have gone to OCS and not the academy. Hell Chesty himself never went to either.”
“Chesty Puller also had FIVE navy crosses and a World War, and he was never a teen mom. Tom...things would just be so much easier if there, if there just wasn’t a baby,” said Jess looking down dejectedly upon her plate.
“But there is Jess, I know it’s not the...something we ever talked about, kids don’t talk about this sort of thing, but we stopped being kids when the doctor gave you the news... And I, I have an unreasonable objection to my child being killed... I’m sorry but that’s just the way it is.”
She started crying then, I felt like a son of a bitch and the manager seemed to agree with me because he gave me that too many legged stare again and I sort of felt like I deserved it. Jessica may have had a catholic school education but old General Ryan had given me mine and the girl saying she was on the pill and everything was fine was warning sign #3 on a very short list of things to remember. I should have worn a condom too and he was never going to let me forget it. I got up and moved to her side of the booth and gave her as big a hug as I could manage considering her delicate state.
“It’s no great tragedy to be a marine wife and mother Jess, mine managed five times and seemed pleased with the experience.” I said in as calm and soothing a voice as I could.
“Well mine died in childbirth!” She shouted back. “And everyone says I look just like her!” Jess shoved my hands away and bolted up from the booth and towards the exit.
I settled the bill and followed her out, the pizza was worse than usual.
***
Jessica was waiting by the car when I got outside. I half expected to have to chase her down but it appeared she wasn’t quite that unreasonable yet. I unlocked the car and we both got in without saying a word. We continued not saying a word all the way back to campus and the student parking lot. And all I was able to get out of her was a simple good night to my repeated questions. I didn’t press it, I figured she needed some time to think and hell, I needed even more. It’s not every day a boy is told he’s gonna be a father. Well, maybe it does happen every day as many kids that are born but it was the first time it had happened to me so I was kind of still a bit punch drunk.
I escorted her right to her bedroom door, despite the raised eyebrows of the house mother, and then walked back to my own room for a long hard think. Times like these I wished I wasn’t so virtuous as getting drunk off of illicit bootleg alcohol would probably have made me feel tons better. But it was almost certainly for the best anyway. The local gentry being what they were, the price of black-market hooch at Phillips Exeter was about 20 times what it would be in a local liquor store. And I was going to need every bit of my money if I was gonna do right by my girl.
The trouble was unless I took matters directly into hand I don’t think she would let me. Set in her ways is sort of an understatement. Once she had made up her mind not all the armies of hell or all the angels of heaven beside would change it. Trouble also was in The United States and other so called civilized countries a father didn’t have many rights when it came to abortion. It was times like this that made a man miss the 19th century. Sure you had to deal with typhoid and outdoor plumbing, and hostile natives, but a woman was the property of her father until she was the property of her husband. And problems like a father’s parental rights just didn’t come up.
I woke up the next morning, if by woke you mean stopped trying to sleep, and checked my texts to see that Jessica had written me a short message.
APT. IS THSDY AT 1:15PM. LOWELL MASS. MEET ME 9AM FRONT OF MY ROOMS BRING $$$. I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU TILL THEN. --- JESS
Dash dash dash was it? Usually she ended her messages with an XOXO. So I guess I was in the doghouse. She practically had to force me our first time and somehow this was all my fault? Women are put on this Earth to make New York Times crossword puzzles seem easy and uncomplicated. Thursday, she said. Today was Wednesday; I guess she couldn’t get an appointment right away. I’m not sure if that made me happy that I still had time, or sad that such things had waiting lists.
***
Mother’s cousin Festus was a slimy blue dog lawyer but he was still family. And what with being named Festus and all, had learned how to defend himself at a very early age and the dirty tricks he didn’t know was because he knew some even dirtier that worked better. From what I remember he usually rolled into work just in time to take a long lunch but I had his cell phone number so I broke one of my cardinal rules and asked for help. I wouldn’t do it for just anyone... but little whoever currently in residence inside Jessica, was family. And you do just about anything, for family.
My 70’s made in America car looked old, odd and out of place next to all the well waxed foreign cars people usually drove around here. But the only shame I felt over it was that I wasn’t in funds enough to give her a proper decal paint job of her own. I was ready in front of Jessica’s rooms at 8:55 and she came down promptly at 9:10. I could see that she wasn’t happy with what she was doing, but at least she was calmer than the last time I saw her. The unhappiness was, I hoped, a sign that she could be reasoned with. The calmness I knew wouldn’t last.
“Thank you for driving me,” she said benevolently as she buckled her seatbelt. “Did you bring the cash?”
“My credit card,” I quipped “I’ll get the points.”
“I only thought, “she said strangely, obviously confused on whether I was using my legendary bad sense of humor. “That you wouldn’t want a charge for planned parenthood showing up on your billing statement for your parents to find.”
“My parents stopped auditing my finances when I proved to them I could balance my checkbook during my first summer job at age 12.”
We got pulled out of the school parking lot and didn’t speak to each other again for about ten minutes. When we passed a major intersection though, Jess came out of her funk long enough to catch on what was happening.
“Tommy, Massachusetts is south of us,” said Jess hurriedly pointing to a road sign for Manchester.
“So I have been told.”
“We are heading north.”
“Looks like,” I agreed.
“Why are we heading north?” fiery steel slipping into her facial expression.
“Cus that’s where Brentwood is.”
“Brentwood?”
“The county seat.”
“Tommy, I can’t get an abortion in New Hampshire.”
“I know that, but Brentwood is where they keep the marriage licenses.”
“Tommy, what is going on? We TALKED about this.”
“So we did, but you obviously didn’t hear me or take me seriously. So I mean to force the issue. This is a reiving party, or rather the necessary paperwork prelude to a reiveing party which I guess takes some of the fun out of it but we live in fallen age. Back in the good old days when a young Celtic buck felt it was his time, he headed off into the night and stole himself a bride. I’m just following our heritage.”
“I’m an American citizen, and the last I checked so were you!”
“With a name like Scott there has got to be a sheep shagger somewhere in the woodpile.”
“Thomas Sullivan Ryan, you turn this car around or let me out right now!”
“No and no,” I said while she tried forcing the lock on her door. I had spent the morning cracking the panel and removing the locking mechanism from the inside. The only way out for her was to climb over me or wait until I got out and unlocked it from the outside. I did this because I didn’t want her making an escape from a moving car and accomplish her goal by accident. Jessica has sort of got a little spunk in her and I wouldn’t put it past her. “There is a folder on the back seat; I want you to take a look at it.”
She could tell from the tone of my voice that I meant it, and while anger was her primary emotion at the moment, and not likely to pass anytime soon this geologic era. Curiosity was also a big feature of her psyche. It’s what made her such a brilliant girl. She looked it over for minutes turning pages harshly at first and then so slowly it was like she was in shock. In the end she decided the most mature thing to do was tear them into little pieces and then throw the shards of what was left into the back seat again.
She wasn’t speaking, but she was crying enough that I rather knew what she was trying to communicate. It takes brave man to look into eyes like hers and tell her what she didn’t want to hear. But faint heart never won fair lady.
“You may rip them up, I don’t care, there are plenty of copies. I have taken out an injunction in Massachusetts, AND in New Hampshire, and New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, pretty much anywhere you could get to without a car of your own or the cash for a bus fair. I can’t stop you forever, but I can stop you for long enough. You’re still a minor, for the next week. And I know you didn’t get wicked stepmothers permission. You should also know, I’ve written a letter… Well, six letters to make sure the right person got the information. I’ve let the Navy know that you are pregnant. I included a copy of the student health exam you took on Monday. The schools server is not as secure as they think it is... I signed your name at the bottom.”
Hatred burned in her eyes; if she was from krypton I’m quite sure that her gaze would have incinerated me. I’m quite fortunate; I realized then, that she was a normal human girl.
“If you carry on and try to show up for plebe summer and pass the medical induction it will be because you violated a legal court order and they ding you. If you wait until after your birthday you won’t be able to have enough recovery time and they ding you. If you miss out on plebe summer it will delay your admission to the academy this term. And if you miss out on the academy you might as well go the whole way. I’ve known you for four years now Jessica, and I think you believe you have to do this but I know that you don’t WANT to. Well... I’m telling you that you don’t have to. I will be with you in every way that I can. I’ll even drop the academy myself and go the OCS route if that would make you accept this.”
We were now in the parking lot of the county courthouse. I pulled into a slot on the west side closest to the entrance turned off the engine and leaned over to embrace her. She fought me at first and then sort of went limp. I took that as a good sign.
I was willing to take anything I could get.
“I love you Jessica Scott,” I said. Taking her head and looking her right in the eyes. “Never doubt that. I would do anything for you, I would die for you, I would trade places with you if I could. But I also owe a duty to our unborn child. And I know deep down inside you think you do too. Marines were put on this earth to defend the helpless and it doesn’t get anymore helpless than that.
***
I did get those points on my credit card, but the woman behind the counter who handled the transaction kept giving us odd looks. I played the part of the eager young groom well enough but Jessica was like a puppet with the strings cut one moment and then all seething dragon rage the next. But she showed her ID when asked too and signed where she was told to well enough. And I was content.
She didn’t take me up on my offer to drop Annapolis too, and a piece of me deep down inside was ashamed to be grateful for that. We talked about what she would do while I was at plebe summer; or rather I tried talking about it. All she replied was that she had it covered and since I knew she was picking and punching away at her laptop well into the evenings of our last week at school I knew that she was hard charging on her future. That was my girl, and why I loved her.
We also decided not to tell our families we were getting married. Hers wouldn’t have cared anyway and mine were so scattered to hell an gone across this globe that there was no way we could get them all in one place for a ceremony in time. We would invite them all to Maryland maybe after the baby was born and have a second service then. My parents weren’t even coming to graduation. Dad was deployed again, and being the runt of the litter. My mother had sort of gotten over the whole mystic experience of a high school graduation after four separate occasions. We had spoken a few months ago and she offered me a deal. I could have my mommy with me when I became a man or I could have half the cost of the not insignificant transatlantic airfare and hotel accommodation. I took the cash and was grateful for it then. I’m even more grateful for it now.
Graduation was on Saturday and was the largest collection of the rich and famous, at least on the parents’ side of the aisle, and gaudy glitterati I never did see. The son of a software baron thought it would be a good idea to wear no clothes under his gown. He let us all know about that when a stiff north wind caught the fabric and gave us and the audience a good money shot of his groin. Breeding will out I guess, since he carried on like normal and gave us a sneer like it was our own bad manners for looking in the first place. He would one day be in charge of a multi-billion dollar company and that sort of frightened me.
We were invited to a few of the cool kids parties but I could tell that Jess wasn’t in the mood so we spent that evening in her common room eating takeout lobster and crabs and cookie dough Ice cream. I would have made a joke that the cravings were starting early but this was a semi-usual fare for us so it would not have been appropriate. Or something I could have survived, if I had been stupid enough to actually say it. Jess was cold to me all evening, every once in a while after I made a joke, or something on TV distracted her I thought I could see the vaguest hint of her defrosting but then she would freeze up again. I thought about blaming the pregnancy hormones but thought that would probably get me killed too. And I had a family to think of.
We had ten days before I had to leave, three days before we could have the wedding. Thankfully enough the school were tight asses about money and we were paid for the full month of May even though we were all done by the second week. So we had room and board for a while but despite this place being the sight of our meeting, courtship and several sexual romps it wasn’t exactly the stuff that little girls dreams are made of when plotting wedding nights.
“So,” I asked finally gathering my courage. “Is there any place special you would like to go for the honeymoon? I’ve got just under a thousand in the ‘pizza and parties’ budget. And I’m not going to be spending much of it once I put on the uniform.”
“I’m sure whatever you pick will be fine Thomas,” she said with a smile. I could tell the smile was forced, but since she was making the effort I was willing to take that as another good sign.
“There is a bed and breakfast upstate, overlooking what’s left of The Old Man Of The Mountain. It sits on an honest to goodness babbling brook and I am reliably informed by Harry Palmer the third year I played football with, that if you slip the manager a fifty he doesn’t look to carefully at the registration when you order a bottle of champagne for room service.”
“Won’t alcohol hurt the baby?” she asked snarkily.
“An alcohol OVERDOSE would sure, but a glass or two at this stage won’t hurt anything and might help. We’ll take breakfast in bed until mid-afternoon and read all those books we never had time to read because it wasn’t scholastically relevant. I’ve been hoarding a box of those tawdry fantasies you and I like so much. Come on… scantily clad princesses and the shirtless knights who rescue them. Evil Wizards, good witches, good wizards who fall for evil witches, you know you want too.”
“How tawdry?” she asked with a smile I knew was not forced.
“It will make you feel like a real New England puritan for not already knowing some of those things, I promise.”
“Well, you are a man of your word. It sounds lovely.”
***
I got married in the Brooks Brothers suit I graduated high school in. When I thought about my wedding, when I thought about it at all, I always thought I would be doing it in my dress blues. My bride’s wedding dress was, well, a dress. I couldn’t tell you the make and model on it other than it wasn’t white, instead, a subdued light pink. I suppose wearing white would not have been appropriate for a justice of the piece job, just shy of being a shotgun wedding. Shy of it of course, because the metaphorical shotgun was a not so metaphorical bit of blackmail and it was usually the groom being forced to marry and not the other way around. Still, I felt sorry that she wasn’t wearing white. And while she sure look pretty in her dress and plenty pretty enough for me, I knew it wasn’t enough for her and that made me sadder.
Our witnesses were the county clerk and his secretary. Who also happened to be man and wife. They gave us their best wishes and waived the fee by way of a wedding present which I thought was big of them and I just might have voted for him if I had been registered here in the next election. It was a two hour drive through windy mountain roads to our honeymoon spot. Rocinante my noble steed of a car huffed and puffed but it kept on running and I couldn’t have cared even if it did die. I was feeling so on top of the world wonderful I felt I could have lifted the car on my shoulders and carried it and my new wife the rest of the way just on the sheer power of my will.
I knew intellectually, things were going to be tough, tougher than I probably figured to be honest. Most marriages end in divorce, and military marriages even among those who are in the same service are harder than most. My own parents were two of the sanest most compassionate and in-love couples I had ever seen but even they had the occasional knock down drag out danger close fire support fights. But people had been having babies for quite some years now and the species hadn’t gone extinct yet. Love finds a way.
And I did love my Jessica, so very much.
The little bed and breakfast was even prettier than advertised. There was plenty of parking and I got a spot only ten feet from our suite. I signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Sullivan Ryan and couldn’t keep the grin off my face. I even remembered to add a fifty dollar bill on top of the paperwork and said I didn’t want to forget the room service fee. With a wink and a nod, the manager thanked me for my noticing his oversight and then stuffed the bill in his shirt.
I tried to carry my new bride over the threshold sedately, but hotel doors are designed to close and latch after they are opened and it slammed shut before I could get a good grip on Jess. So I handed her the key card and then lifted her up, one arm under her back one under her knees. Jess used the card and I kicked the door open and we entered like I was a conquering hero, and I felt every bit like one. I laid my queen down gently on our king sized marriage bed and I didn’t let the fact that I was then carrying in a metric shit ton of stuff inside our room spoil the mood any.
Girl still hadn’t learned how to pack.
We were finishing, an hour later, a four course meal with a nice bottle of iced bubbly when I reached over and took my wife’s hand.
“I know Jess, that this isn’t the way you wanted it to be. It’s not the way I wanted it to be either, we should have done this ten years from now but it is, what it is. And I also know that you are scared about the birth.”
“I’m terrified about it Tommy,” she corrected me yanking her hand away. “I could die.”
“You’re not gonna die baby,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Not for nothing but there has been two decades worth of medical advances since you were born. And that means you got twice the chance your mother did. And you know about the risks ahead of time and can take better care of yourself than she ever did so you got ten times the chance. And you got me pulling for you, which means you got a hundred times the chance.
“Think you’re that good are you?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I know I’m that good, and so are you. Better than even odds my sperm and your egg between us manufactures a baby fully up to milspec, he will burst forth a month early, already ready to spit napalm and piss concertina wire.”
“It’s the bursting forth part that bothers me Tommy, and how exactly am I to change such a creatures diaper.”
“You’ll improvise, overcome, adapt,” I said, leaning over to give her a kiss. “The marine way, I don’t want you to get soft without me there every day to keep you on your toes.”
She looked at me and her eyes lit up with an emotion I couldn’t quite figure out but assumed was love and said simply, “let’s go to bed, a marriage needs to be consummated to be legal.”
“I always was one to follow regulations.” I said grinning ear to ear.
I took off my suit and folded it carefully on the hanger, Jess was much more eager because by the time I was only down to my skivvies she was already totally naked and patting the bed suggestively. I hurried up my act somewhat after that. I chose not to dim the lights, we had never actually done this when I could see things fully and I wanted to admire every last bit of my wife.
“Like what you see?” she asked me sexily.
“Very much,” I nodded.
“Good, I would hate for you to have buyer’s remorse. These will you know, be the only pair of breasts you will ever have,” she said looking down and emphasizing with her hands.
“I’ll never regret this,” I commented confidently.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
I meant to do my husbandly duty like I had when I was a mere boyfriend. Slowly building up the crescendo of my girl’s orgasm, but she was having none of that. Once the minimum amount of lubrication was achieved she grabbed me by a piece of my anatomy that was rather precious to me and guided it directly in. I’m sad to say I didn’t put up much of a fight, and if that’s the way she wanted it I was happy to oblige. A couple of good thrusts and I could already feel my climax building and Jess was helping things out with her powerful pelvic movements. I didn’t think I had been at it long enough for her to come already but the last thing I can remember seeing was her beautiful face in exquisite anticipatory pleasure.
And then our well lit room went completely black, as I lost consciousness.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 3
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There are some who say that I got what was coming to me, and hell, some of those people are me. But back then I sure didn’t think so, nor did I have any real expectation that it would all work out for the best. There was a time or three I even contemplated filling out my discharge papers with a 9mm. But smarter people than me restricted my access to firearms so I’m still alive to tell you my tale. A story of hubris and honor, duty and desire, true love and epic hate and this is the way it all started…
PART THREE
I woke up to a strange man admiring himself in my honeymoon suite. He was tall and broad, with short dark hair and had just enough baby fat on his developing muscles that I knew he was still on the young side. But he was flexing his biceps while looking in the mirror and judging by the fact that he kept on doing it and then switching to the other arm he seemed well pleased with the show.
He was also totally naked.
“What the fuck are you doing!” I shouted and then coughed violently trying to clear my voice. “Get the hell out of here… what the fuck is wrong with my voice.”
“Do I really sound like that,” the man said as he turned around. “God, I know it sounds different from outside your own head, the vibrations and timber and what not, but jeeze I’m glad I got out when I did, no one is going to take that little girl voice seriously.”
I stared at him for a few moments trying to digest what he was saying, this was not helped any by him saying it from what used to be my mouth.
“You…” I stammered out hesitantly.
“Come on,” he said smiling and giving me a come to gesture with his hand.
“You…” I continued.
“You can make it!”
“You look like me!” I finished with a high pitched shrill that was already starting to bother me.
“No,” he argued turning back to look at himself in the mirror again. “I look like ME, Midshipman Thomas Sullivan Ryan, teen heartthrob. With a new and improved software package of course. Tom 2.0!”
If he was Tom Ryan who the hell wasI? It was at that point that I took the time to notice what was bothering me slightly about how I was feeling I looked down to the ominous weights I was feeling on my chest.
“B…bbbb bres,” I mumbled out.
“Breasts!” he completed for me enthusiastically. “Boobies, tits, titties, hooters, bazongas, ta-tas, Mother Maggie Moo’s. And they are only going to get bigger during your pregnancy.”
PREGNANT!
“Jess?” I asked him the fog starting to dim.
“No,” he corrected me. “I’m Tommy, YOU are now ,and forever more, world without end. Jessica Scott, pregnant marine wife... well, middie wife, in a few days anyway.”
“What did you do?” I asked her shocked to the core.
“Do you remember my girlfriend Heather Morris, left early this year…?”Jess asked me.
“Of course, I remember hubba Heather,” I said before I realized how I had put my foot in my mouth, by commenting on the attractiveness of my girlfriend’s friend.
“Most kids at school figure she transferred in her second year but she attended all four. It’s just that the first year she was short, mousy haired, flat-chested and acne ridden.”
“Heather?” I asked trying to visualize such an ugly duckling to graceful swan change and having a minor stoke at the conversion. Heather Morris was already making serious money as a New York model and was rumored to be involved with several of the up and coming Hollywood actors, not bad for a high school dropout. She was the sort of girl that you figured must have won all sorts of beauty contests prancing about in high heels at age five.
“Heather,” said jess agreeing. “Summer after her first year at a county fair she came across a tent with an actual bonifide genuine gypsy. Who while she wouldn’t sell her real magic to just about anyone, was willing to right wrongs and injustices and transform an ugly body to match the wonderful soul inside. She’s still a nice girl Heather, which rather proves the point. If I had been her, I probably would have acted the total bitch to all the catty girls who had mistreated me all year long. But she became my friend and was willing to hand me that gypsies business card. Ha! A gypsy business card, can you believe that Tommy?”
“Jessica, what have you done?” I asked her, my face going numb from blood rushing away from my brain in self defense.
“I told her the absolute truth, one always must with gypsies. I told her that you got me pregnant, that you refused to pay for an abortion. That you lied to me, and forged documents to ruin my college plans. That you were heading off to a wonderful future and that I was being left behind, alone, a PREGNANT penniless orphan, who most likely wouldn’t survive the experience.”
“That’s not the truth!” I argued vehemently.
“Isn’t it! You thought I would just take it,” she shouted at me in my deep resonating voice. “Didn’t you? You thought that a little quick maneuvering and I would just surrender to enemy action. What am I, the FRENCH! I’m more marine that that, I’m more marine than YOU! Now I get to go off to the Academy and be a hero. And you, little girl, will to have that baby you were so concerned about.”
“Jess,” I said still not believing this could be happening.
“My name is Tommy!” she shouted at me. “You’re Jessica.”
“This can’t be happening, magic just doesn’t… this can’t be happening…”
She walked over to the bed, and removed the sheet I was using to protect what was left of my dignity.
“Exhibit A,” she said grabbing my left breast and giving it a good squeeze. “And exhibit B.” she continued with the right.
I wasn’t going to slap my own face, and I had been heavily socialized against hitting a woman so it was tough going, even if she was the one currently wearing the penis I just couldn’t. So I figured I would get the point across to her that I was angry by extravagantly showing her my extended fist and then slamming it down hard on the face she used to take such pride in presenting blemish free.
It was sort of a bad idea, but I wasn’t exactly thinking logically if you get my meaning.
The pain shocked me to the core and I was stunned for a good few seconds when I came out of it I was still pissed off and I started freaking out all over the place I jumped from the bed started only momentarily by the reverberation of my new assets and started screaming and running around the room. Throwing things I could lift and hitting things I could not. Soon enough Jess caught up with me and she used her now much more superior strength to restrain me.
“Careful, “she said smirking. “Think of the baby.”
That sort of cut the wind out of my sails. I went limp like I had just been shot with a tranquilizer dart and she picked me up and carried me back to the bed. I must have zoned out or something because the next thing I realized was that she was putting the finishing touches on tying both my wrists to the backboard of the bed with several pairs of nylons. When I came too, I gave it a good tug, trying to escape. But it was already too late.
I started throwing out curses that a lady shouldn’t really repeat and I guess I won’t either. Jessica just sort of kept smiling and the grin was getting bigger with every insult I hurled. She started dressing with my clothes hesitating only slightly over some of the combinations but she kitted herself out convincingly enough and since I had only brought the one suitcase to her four she was packed and ready to go in moments.
“Where are you going?” I asked frightened.
“I’m leaving you my dear,” she said in as good a Rhett Butler impression as she could manage. “Just like you were going to do to me. I’ll lay low the next few days until I have to report to plebe summer. And then I head directly to the Academy, they have armed guards so don’t try to break in after me. And I hope you don’t have to be told that no one will believe you if you tell them your body has been stolen. I’m sure you would hate for the baby to be born in a mental hospital. My passwords and account information are all in the folder on the desk; I already know all yours, your signal security sucks. Heather will be here in the morning to cut you loose. I really don’t see a reason for us to ever see each other again… I’m told there is no way back.”
“How long were you planning this?” I asked as her news hit me like a load of bricks.
“Since about three minutes in to applying for that marriage license at the courthouse. I didn’t know exactly what I would do, but I knew through Heather’s gypsy, I had some options available.”
“Why even marry me then? If all you were going to do was leave me,” I asked her totally dumbfounded at the changed situation from my euphoria earlier that day.
“So that I could divorce you,” she said pleased with herself. “And at least get SOME of the money my father left me. And out of recognition of the years we spent together and how nice at least part of them were I thought I would do you the favor of not making your child a bastard. Unwed teenage mothers are so tacky.”
I started to scream then, or tried to anyway I thought maybe if I screamed loud enough the night manager might realize something was wrong come to the room to investigate. Jessica took preemptive action though and stuffed a sock into my mouth following suit by using my roll of duck tape out of my car to secure it into place. She then thought better of it, and used at least a further quarter roll of it taping the rest of me down, not trusting I guess the structural integrity of women’s unmentionables.
“You signed my name to that letter to the Navy,” she continued as she taped me up. “Telling them I was pregnant. Well now you can have the body that goes along with that name. I can’t ever explain how it felt to be betrayed like that. Maybe someday you’ll meet a nice boy, date him for a couple of years fall totally mad dog in love with him and have him rip your heart out. Just because he thought he was doing the right thing. When that happens give me a call, and we’ll catch up and compare notes over coffee.”
She grabbed my suitcase and lifted it up over her back like it was nothing. Opened the door and then stopped at the entrance to turn her head back and look at me with a crestfallen look. She was crying, and those tears on my face made it look oddly feminine and I could still see the girl I had loved inside.
“I’m sorry it came to this Jessica,” she called back to me over her shoulder. “But you said you would do anything for me, would trade places with me if you could… and I always took you as a man of your word.”
***
Something they never show on TV is what happens when a bound hostage has to use the bathroom. Usually the hero comes to save the girl at the end of the fourth act just before the commercial break and you never see her squirming about, trying to hold it in. the pressure was both familiar and unfamiliar and I held it as long as I could, I really did.
Well at least I was already sitting down, so to speak.
Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night and by the time Heather opened the door early at the crack of 11:30AM I was in no fit state for polite company. She took one quick look at me and dropped her purse on the floor in surprise.
“Oh my god Jessie, what did he do to you?”
She was halfway across the room before she stopped suddenly at the front of the bed and remembered why it was she was sent here.
“Oh,” Heather said hesitantly. “You’re him.”
There didn’t seem to be much point in denying it, There was no way I was going to be able to fake being Jessica to one of her own best friends who knew about it anyway. My only hope was that she wasn’t as vindictive as her friend and that not too many lies had been told about me. I looked her hard in the eyes and tried to keep the puppy dog look out of my own, and gave her a nod.
“Well then, you’re probably super pissed off, and pregnant pissed off is a special sort of super pissed off. I know what I went through when my mom was having little brother and she was this close to being taken out by a SWAT team. If I cut you loose are you going to misbehave?” She asked ending her babbling.
I shook my head emphatically. I would be a good little girl, at least as long as it took me to get the drop on her. She sat on the bed and started peeling off tape from my mouth which was all to the good as I was starting to have trouble breathing through my nose and the last hour or so was having waking nightmares of suffocating before someone found me. When the last strand of silvery tape was peeled off, along with what felt like half of my now more sensitive face I took a few deep breaths in gratitude.
“What’s that smell, did you wet the bed?” she asked me wrinkling her nose at me.
“I was,” I said still trying to catch my breath. “Tied up a long time Heather.”
“I guess,” she said squinting her eyes, as if not believing that I had been potty trained. She was having trouble working through the gooey mass that was congealed industrial tape and women’s nylons while at the same time trying not to do damage to my wrists.
“There is a knife on the table next to the room service tray,” I said. Indicating the direction with my head.
“Oh, sorry, blonde moment,” she said cheerfully as she got up to grab the knife from the table.
“But you have red hair?” I asked confused.
“It’s just a saying Jess, gosh have you been living in a cave in Afghanistan or something.”
“My name is Thomas Ryan,” I contradicted her firmly.
“Sister, looking like that I wouldn’t go around telling many people.” She grinned at me.
Her knife work was substandard it wasn’t very long before, while trying to get up between my wrist and the restraining material ,she nicked me a few times and drew blood.
“Ouch!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry Jessie, I just don’t have a good angle, wow, she really, I mean, HE really tied you up good huh?”
“Just cut the taught area between my hands and the bedpost we’ll worry about the delicate inside work once I get some blood moving in my extremities. If it’s not released soon it could turn gangrenous.”
“Oh my god, really?”
“Really, just give it some elbow grease think of sawing a tree, but NOT close to my wrists. And cut away from yourself not toward you.”
Eventually she managed to cut through without doing further harm to herself or me. My right arm fell limp to the mattress and after about ten seconds so did the left. I closed my eyes, just sort of grateful that this particular piece of my indignity was over with. To solve the other I tried grabbing the sheet to cover my nakedness but my hands were still too numb and after several attempts of ALMOST getting enough traction to lift it up with my forearms alone Heather grasped what I was trying to do and lifted the sheets and bedspread up for me. I totally laid down on the bed my head half on and half off the pillow and just sort of gave up for a few minutes. The events of the last day had been the most stressful of my life and I needed a bit of a rest.
The next thing I knew there was a cool glass pressed to my lips and Heather was holding a drink of water.
“You’re probably dehydrated,” she said tilting the glass back and letting the water cascade down my parched throat. “If you have been tied up since early last night.”
“Thank you,” I had the presence of mind to reply, once the glass was empty.
“You’re welcome,” she said setting it on the bed stand and getting up to cross her arms across her chest defiantly. “You mind telling me why you’re wearing a black eye that Jessica wasn’t wearing yesterday. I knew you were going to abandon her but I never figured you for that kind of bastard.”
“Heather you know me, think about everything Jess told you about me up until recently. Was I ever that much of a bastard.”
“All men are bastards deep down. You’ll be finding out about that soon enough.”
“I did this to myself, when I woke up…things were a bit… strange. I didn’t hit her. I could never hit her.”
“Oh ho,” she cackled with glee. “I just bet things were a bit strange, must have been quite a shock for Mr. Clean Marine. But that’s what you get for leaving my girl high and dry.”
“I would never leave her.”
“You have a funny way of showing it, refusing to even give her money for an abortion, on top of refusing to wear a condom in the first place. If only she could have gotten a hold of me in time, I would have sent her the money. Ten times the money! but I was in a shoot in the Caribbean all last week and only just got home to a frantic phone call that your hard core republican, woman hating family had SUED her and stopped her right to choose. And insult on top of injury breaking up with her and heading off to enjoy the dream you were supposed to share together.
“She told you we broke up?” I said starting to feel a little damp in my borrowed eyelid.
“Of COURSE, she told me, we tell each other everything. Including the plan to see how you like the abortion issue from the other side of the skirt.”
“Not everything,” I said in a soft voice.
“Oh yeah, like what?” she retorted defiantly.
“Heather, Jessica left behind her purse, it’s over there next to the TV. I want you to go get it.”
“Your purse,” she seemed pleased to correct me.
“Whosever purse,” I said angrily. “Just go get it and look inside.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” I answered calmly.
She got up and walked over to the entertainment center and harshly grabbed the brown leather purse which I guess belonged to me now. She un-ceremonially upended all the contents on the little desk set aside for business guests and started working through the detritus that seems to accumulate at the bottom of all women’s purses. Eventually she worked her way through the hairbrushes and sanitary supplies and came across an unsealed envelope. Opening it up she began reading and after half a minute or so turned around to stare at me with a furrowed brow.
“I don’t understand,” said Heather. “You were going to get married?”
“HAVE got married, I gave the paperwork to Jessica to put in her purse while I was going to get the car. It was raining outside and I didn’t want it to get wet. This,” I said raising an arm to indicate the room and my otherwise disheveled state. “This, was our wedding night… and now she’s… I was never going to leave her Heather, NEVER. And I was never going to abandon my baby. Even if that meant stopping her from, from… she’s gone. Oh, God she’s gone!”
I started crying then, normally men are only allowed to cry when watching “Old Yeller” or the Jim Brown scene at the end of “The Dirty Dozen”. And you can sometimes get a special permit if your team wins the World Series. But If I am ever audited it is my belief I could get a waiver for today.
“I just, didn’t want her to kill the baby, we could have given it up for adoption or my parents could have raised it or anything. I would even have accepted…eventually, swapping bodies so I could take the risks for her. That’s just like what I was going to do in the Marines, taking risks to defend the weak. We were STILL going to be in school in the same state, STILL be together. But she... She left ME!! She said she never wanted to see me again,” I gasped out, my voice shrill with pain.
I just sort of went Zen at that moment. Left all higher brain functions behind and began a crying jag of biblical proportions. I think I lost every bit of that moisture that was in the glass of water Heather gave me. I don’t know how long it lasted, Heather, by instinct I guess, just wrapped me in her arms and kept rocking me back and forth and stroking my long hair. If I had been any sort of aware I’m sure the sensation of my head being pressed firm against a super models more than amble bosom while being told that “baby it’s going to be all right.” Would have been the stuff adolescent fantasies are made of. As it was, it passed me all by and I only found out about it years later when Heather and I got together in Chicago one evening to reminisce.
Heather was a direct instrument of my destruction, and was the reason I was in my current reduced circumstances but I don’t hold it against her. She harmed me, but she also saved me. I don’t mind telling you I went a little bughouse nuts and I would probably still be there if it wasn’t for Heather dragging me kicking and screaming off the not so metaphorical edge. Eventually, well into afternoon judging by the height of the sun out the window, I was calm again. Or maybe I had just spent all the tears I had left in this world.
“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” Heather asked simply when she realized I was back and aware.
It was all I could do to nod meekly.
“What a bitch!” was all she said.
***
“Come on,” she said trying to get the sheet from my grasp. “Where both girls here.”
“Some of us more than others,” I said inclining my head toward her chest.
“Now now, you have nothing to be ashamed of, yours at least are all home grown and quite perky, I’ve seen them before.”
“Then you don’t need to see them now,” I argued.
“And I don’t want to, but you need a bath Jes… You need to wash your body Tommy. Aside from your general level of cleanliness, you were also sitting in a puddle of your own urine all night. You need to wash downstairs thoroughly, and keep doing so daily or you will get a UTI.”
“A what?”
“A urinary tract infection, girls fiddly bits are much more complicated if they didn’t teach you boys that in school. We can’t just give it a shake and call it done. If you don’t wipe carefully and keep it clean a UTI is almost guaranteed and they are no fun. I had two of them when I was younger.”
“All right, I’ll take a bath but I don’t need your help. I’ve been ok to bath unsupervised for a while now. The parts may be different but the principle is the same.”
“Just don’t be embarrassed to really get down in there. It’s important!”
“Ok,” I said as I turned the hot water on and gestured for her to leave the bathroom. “Now go.”
“And do you know about your hair? You always just had that buzz cut.”
“High and tight,” I informed her.
“Whatever, it didn’t look like you needed to do much to take care of it.” She said accusingly, as if it was some high misdemeanor to have manageable hair.
“That’s rather the point.”
“So you won’t know the first thing about taking care of women’s hair.” She countered triumphantly.
“Water, shampoo, and water again until there is no shampoo, see,” I said forcing a smile. “First thing.”
“You are just such a guy,” said Heather shaking her head as she moved to leave me the small bathroom alone.
“Thank you,” I replied, pleased at the compliment.
“If you think your tiny little mind can stretch to it, you might also try the bottle of conditioner. I’m going to order some room service for when you get out. It will be here in an hour but I want you to use every bit of it.”
***
I was alone with my mammaries, and it wasn’t as enjoyable an experience as I would have thought. Maybe if I hadn’t been emotionally wrecked and wearing the body of my principle wrecker I would have taken the time to enjoy myself. But the situation being what it was I just couldn’t get into it. I lay there in the tub with legs flat and my back resting upon the tiled wall I just let the hot water build up and flow over me.
Eventually I started staring at my hands. Jessica was never really a girly girl but for whatever reason likely to torture me since she knew I would be inhabiting the body next, she had left me painted fingernails behind. It was some shade of red, one of the some 10,000 shades of red according to my sisters.
My sisters? God! My whole family? The last few years we hardly spent time physically close but that didn’t mean we weren’t emotionally close. Scattered to the four winds as we were it was still a rare day when I wasn’t in contact with at least one of them. Email, Skype, texts, often times even actual mail cus we were old school like that. Many times the base exchange in whatever country we were in wouldn’t have this piece or that of what we missed about the good old USA and we would forever be having our extended clan send us what we craved. When we for the most part got back to the US and the girls went off to college we kept the habit up and little boxes of cookies and keepsakes would be delivered right to your door by the United States Postal Service.
How was I going to tell my family what happened? It was hard enough trying to figure out how to tell them Jess was pregnant and we were getting married, so I kept postponing it. And now? My girl is pregnant, and hey, we switched bodies can I borrow your bra? If I tried telling them about the swap the first thing they would do would be to call up Jessica and ask her what the hell was going on with your girlfriend. Jess would always have the upper hand, all she had to do was say “what the hell” and any credibility I had would be shot. And what exactly would I do if she confirmed what I was saying? Somehow that seemed even worse.
And the General?
Daughtered four times running and, a Lt. Colonel closer to the end than the beginning, if I had never shown up, or been another girl I believe he would have done his duty as he had always done, and loved his family. But his wife bore him a son, and I could always tell that while he loved all his children equally, I was just a little more equal than others. Do I tell him he now has five daughters and that the son he thinks he has is really a thief, a liar, and an oath breaker? Or do I let an honorable man keep his dignity.
I felt a tightness in my gut, whether it was just a cramp from sitting in an odd position all night, emotional turmoil, hunger pains from missing breakfast or an actual symptom of my pregnancy it served to illustrate that I was not, in fact, alone in here. I was carrying a precious cargo and if I didn’t get my act together little bundle of joy would be exiting an infected orifice.
So… right! Objective defined and understood, target acquired. I grabbed the washcloth and went to work. Soap to towel, towel to body, rinse and repeat, when I had reached every bit that was reachable and abraded off the top layer of my new skin I stood up and opened the stopcock to let the bathwater empty out. I switched the water over to the shower function and let it both rinse me off and wet my now suddenly more substantial hair down.
The hair all wet felt like about ten pounds pulling down my scalp, an entirely novel experience for me. I grabbed the shampoo bottle to spit out a handful of goop, underestimated the amount of goop I would actually need and spread it around liberally over my hair. The whole process along with the rinsing off that followed took about ten minutes which was about 40 times longer than the quick 15 second rubdown I was used too. And I was starting to understand why Jess was always late to everything.
I shut the water off, and grabbed one of the towels off the rack. I started working it around my waist like usual when I realized I now had more territory to protect. I tried getting it to cover everything but if it was high enough to protect my breasts it left about an inch on the hips and you could see some of the hairs of my bush hanging out and if I lowered it the tops of my nipples poked out. I was sure I had seen this done before? Hopefully with a bigger towel, unless there was some sort of secret cotton technology girls were briefed in on and guys weren’t, that let them stretch it out on their whim. I solved the problem by laying eyes on a bathrobe helpfully enough supplied by the bed and breakfast. I put it on, the first sort of clothes I had ever put on this body. And since it covered everything important with enough material left for my own semi-puritanical sense of dignity I called it good and opened the door to the main room of the suite.
***
Heather had the old room service removed and the waiter was placing dinner on the table when I got out. If the waiter thought it odd to have two women alone sharing a meal in the honeymoon suit paid for by a conspicuously absent young man he thought nothing of it. Or at least, nothing past the twenty that Heather slipped him as he rolled his cart away.
“Here,” she said grabbing the towel I was rubbing my head with in what I assume was an unfeminine manner. “You need to wrap your head like a turban while we eat so that your hair doesn’t get all frizzy. Later on, I’ll show you how to use a blow drier.”
We sat down to eat, and I was grateful for the food. It had been almost a full day since I had last eaten and Jessica’s metabolism was already getting into overdrive. Heather had ordered us pasta with shrimp and red sauce and I plowed through my plate like an experienced trencherman much to Heathers dismay and then when I looked up from my clean plate to see her staring at me I assumed it was because she was done and finished the rest of her plate too. Dinner conversation was stilted, understandably so. How do you make polite conversation in such a situation. So Heather, ruined any lives lately? No Tommy and how are you enjoying those ovaries of yours?
“We need to talk about Jessica,” Heather interjected as I was finishing off desert. I guess we were giving up on being polite.
“Yes we do, do you know where she is?” I asked looking her hard in the eye.
“What? No, she didn’t tell me. What I mean is we have to help her.”
“Help HER?”
“YES!,” she bellowed back at me. “She obviously… she wasn’t thinking right, the pregnancy, finals, going to the academy, it’s easy to see how it could all be too much for her. The Jessica Scott I know would never have done this to you. We need to find her, him, and get him help.”
“Finding HER is a secondary issue, though hopefully before she shitcans my military career while she is unstable like this or hell, just by looking at the wrong guys butt! First we have to find a way of switching us back.”
“Jess said it was one way?” Heather said with a confused look on her professionally beautiful face.
“Yesterday I would have said body theft was impossible, and now we live in a world where magic is real. If it can be done once it can be done again, I just have to charge hard and find a way and…”
“What?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said as I raced toward the toilet in the bathroom and gave my shellfish dinner a burial at sea.
“Are you ok, are you, I mean, is Jess allergic to shellfish? I thought I remember her eating shrimp kebabs before, like lots of times.”
“Jess loves shrimp, and so do I.”
“Oh…”
“What?” I asked angrily brushing the hair that had fallen out of my towel and tried keeping it from getting further wet or dirty as I gave another heave.
“I think you are having morning sickness.” She answered hesitantly.
It was another sign that I was having a stressful day that I did not at first understand what she was talking about. When I did it embarrassed the hell out of me, but it also pissed me off.
“How the hell can I be having morning sickness, it’s four in the afternoon?!”
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 4
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Well I hope you know me well enough by now that you have figured out I wasn’t going to take THAT without putting up a fight.
PART FOUR
“Her name is Madame Inger,” said Heather handing me a stiff formal business card. “She lives in New Jersey, a place called Jefferson Township. Jess got a FedEx package from her containing the spell after she called in the order in but I think you will want to speak to her personally.
“Telephone order magic, how modern,” I commented sarcastically. “Operators are standing by, And isn’t Inger a Swedish name?”
“I don’t know, I guess?” Heather answered twirling her finger in her hair.
“A Swedish Gypsy?” I asked mystified.
“So, there are Black Irish too, not… the... point,” she gasped out at me irritated at my male reasoning.
“Right,” I agreed just to move the conversation along. “I’ll just find a gas station and I’ll hit the road in the morning. I can be there in time for lunch. ”
“Um, it will already be gassed up.”
“No it won’t,” I countered, confused at her confidence. “It was on a quarter tank when I drove it up the mountain, I don’t get the best efficiency...”
“What are you talking about?” she asked me confused.
“What are YOU, talking about?”
“My car service, I’m having them drop off a sedan for you. You can keep it a week, if you need it longer just call me and let me know and I’ll get it extended.”
“Thank you, I do appreciate the offer Heather all things considered. But I’ll just drive my own car.”
“Um…” she hesitated ominously.
“My…,” I stuttered suddenly realizing the implications. “Car… oh shit.”
I dashed up out of my chair and toward the door before Heather knew what hit her. She followed me moments later to see me on my knees in front of an empty parking space.
So there I was, reposed on the cement, shirtless, shoeless, pretty much everythingless except for a skimpy borrowed bathrobe cursing up a storm while Mr. and Mrs. retired school teacher looked up from their tea and if they had a good angle, right at my bare backside.
I had saved up for years, I cut lawns on three continents to help pay for that car and its ruinous insurance. Including four summers fighting in the jungle in Southeast Florida, which had to count as hazardous duty in anyone’s book. My first taste of combat was dealing with a frisky caiman (the alligators less famous and more ugly cousin, who subsequently had a perpetual chip on his shoulder) who wouldn’t take no for an answer… don’t tell anyone. They are technically on the endangered species list.
I had found Rocinante, or most of her anyway, laying forgotten in my Uncle Dave’s back 40. He let me have her for salvage price. Her body was rusted but her bones were sound, and my eyes, burning with the fire of inner vision, could see the potential. The General and I worked on it whenever we could and we used to make weekend road trips all over hell and gone tracking down pieces from several different makes and models. We made a Frankenstein’s monster of a car, including a hemi from a barracuda which has to be some sort of sacrilege, but I didn’t care. When it was all said and done I owned 1975 Firebird Trans Am with a 455 up under the hood. It was my pride, it was my passion…
Jessica was never gonna make it as a guy, its man code #4 on a pretty damn short list. You don’t mess with a man’s ride! It was right after not dating a guy’s sister if you knew him for longer than 30 minutes. And right before a man should never help another man apply sun tan oil.
Of course I should have realized she would have taken my car with her. She wasn’t exactly going to walk to Maryland. And anyone who knew me would see the missing car as a red flag. If Jessica was going to pull of the charade she needed it like she needed my face. And there was nothing I could do about it. I could just see it, yes officer my car was stolen and the girl who took it looks just like the boy who owns it! I just hope she treats her right, finds a good garage, feeds her high test, pets her in the right place when she purrs just so… my car never hurt anyone, and she deserves the best.
“Come on inside,” said Heather picking me up off the ground. “We’ll get you something to drink and I’ll help lay out your clothes for the morning.”
***
Heather did her best by me, but she had her own life to live and a career that could not be put on hold. She emptied out all of Jessica’s suitcases and organized them into outfits and then took photos of each set with her phone and emailed them to mine. Which I guess was now Jessica’s former phone. It was one of the new iphones and it had a camouflage case, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the color scheme. Instead of the more usual tan, the maker of this camo pattern had decided on pink which I think wasn’t going to fool any insurgents unless they were from the valley.
I didn’t feel pleased on the whole picture menu method of ordering. It made me feel like an illiterate which I guess when it came to women’s clothes I was. But since I didn’t have anything else to wear I was treating it like it was an undercover mission behind enemy lines and thought of the skirts and blouses as a costume. A… DEEP undercover mission. Half the reason I think women fought so hard to get into the military was that subconsciously, they wanted to wear the uniform and have the tricky problem of what clothes to wear solved for them each morning.
Of course, I haven’t exactly TOLD that opinion to any women I knew.
I had, against all expectations got a good night’s sleep, though I had woken to use the bathroom under my new arrangement. I was grateful to have the benefit of a toilet this time but my gratitude lasted only long enough to feel the resentment over yet something else being taken away from me. I wasn’t one of those guys that was obsessed over his genitalia but I did have a reasonable fondness for it, we had been through quite a lot together over the years. And until recently, we were sort of attached to each other. And it was just so much more damn convenient when pregnancy made you piss like a racehorse. Why some geek girl hadn’t rigged up some sort of attachment I didn’t understand, maybe I could think one up and make my fortune?
I stared at myself in the room’s mirror that morning, long after my breakfast had gotten cold. With the full length mirror and the privacy accorded this was the first time I had seen it all at once. She was a looker my girl, and hopefully I could return her in the same condition I found her. I put my hands over my belly trying to feel something, anything. Though from what I remember from health class that was still some ways away. As near as I could figure it I was about two months gone and had another seven months till it would be over. Or rather I had seven months and eighteen years, or never over most likely, if my own parents were any indication.
I couldn’t really see any expansion of territory, though I tried moving and getting a couple of different angles. I was still taut and trim and could pull off a non gravid status at least for a while. I looked at the pile of clothes and started getting ready. The panties were not functionally any different than the briefs I had worn my first twelve odd years before I convinced my mom that only losers wore them and to buy me some boxers. The sensation when they were in place was almost-sort-of-familiar and since it completely covered THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED, and there was no telltale bulge like I was used to I could almost pretend it wasn’t there. Of course, something that wasn’t there was also a bit of an issue.
The bra was truly terra incognita. It didn’t come with an instruction manual, or if it did, Jessica was just like me and tossed it as soon as it was out of the box. According to the tag on the side though I now had custody of a model 34B, and for some reason I always thought Jess was bigger? I fervently hoped that it was too early to develop an inferiority complex, and moved on. The principle involved was obvious enough once I thought about it. The cups supported the breasts, the straps supported the cups and the, straps were tightened as needed around the shoulders. It rather reminded me of the times I had to sort out the horse tack at the farm, which gave new meaning I suppose to the phrase “in the harness.” I was amazed that I was able to stretch and bend behind myself like that, if I had tried to do the same thing before the swap I likely would have pulled something. Once done, it was oddly pleasant and even though it seemed like it should be the exact opposite, wearing the bra made me feel less like a girl. It secured the breasts and made them feel less obvious. I gave myself a couple of test jumps up and down and decided never to do that again. It seemed modern materials still had certain design limitations.
I’d held the line with Heather last night, and the first women’s clothes I would wear would not be a skirt or a dress. Jessica had packed a few pairs of jeans so that’s what I would start with. It was a snug fit, and I had to force them over the hips a bit which I hoped wasn’t an ominous sign of things to come. There were loops for a belt but I was told on pain of sarcasm that this particular pair should never be worn with one, though that logic escapes me. The top was a white and blue striped polo that could have passed for a guys shirt if their hadn’t of been the plunging neckline leading toward the forward protrusions. I pulled it over my head tucked it into my jeans and then rescued my hair that had got caught between the shirt and my shoulders, brushing it out with my fingers. Once done the clothes felt tight, emphasizing what there was to emphasize, which was also an off experience for me. I hadn’t exactly dressed like a slob before. The General wouldn’t have tolerated it, but guys clothes are just generally much more loose fitting. It’s probably the reason we slouched so much.
Heather recommended that I generally avoid makeup, and I was all for it and at the same time grateful my shiner had receded enough to be dealt with a small amount of a substance marked concealer. Make up was just too complicated for the time allotted. Jessica hardly ever used any anyway and didn’t really need it much. As long as I was careful to wash my new face and otherwise keep it clean of oils and other buildup I should be reasonably ok carrying off the “natural” look. Jewelry was also similarly on the sedate side. A pair of gold studs and a silver ladies wristwatch worked for almost everything. Jess also had one of those heart shaped lockets with a photo inside. It was a picture of my former self, I kept the photo where it was and put the necklace around my neck. I hoped this would all be over before I forgot what I looked like, but it pays to be prepared. The locket rested between my breasts and as a mixed metaphor I really didn’t want to dwell on it.
And then there was her wedding ring.
I remember buying it, everything that happened since made it feel like a year ago and not the four days it actually was. $289.99, gold, 14K but still gold, and cubic zirconium encrusted around the edges. It wasn’t worthy of her, I knew that then, but the next level up was out of my price range and I resolved to save as much of my Navy pay as I could to buy her something proper. I know it shouldn’t have surprised me, or hit me in the gut like it did, seeing that Jessica had left it behind when she left behind the body that went with it. But it did hit me in the gut, and then twirled the intestines around while it was at it. I first thought about tossing it, even if I still had the return receipt for it. I didn’t want to have to see it again. But then I thought about my oldest sister Anne who had purchased almost the same sort of thing for herself. Whenever she didn’t want to take part in the daily grind of the singles scene and just wanted to hang out with her friends she would slip the fake band on her ring finger and it was like a cloaking device against boozed up lotharios. And besides, soon enough if I didn’t find a way back I would start showing. And I didn’t want little old ladies hissing at me or wagging their fingers as they called me a hussy. Sure, I thought initially, that seemed like just the sort of justice Jessica was due but then thought better of it. As hard as I wanted to work against it I still had enough feeling for her that I didn’t want anyone saying that about my girl, particularly if she was me.
To hell with it! I thought as I slipped it onto my finger. The world would see before them a respectable married woman. And I’d kick anyone’s ass anywhere, who said otherwise.
I made sure the bill was settled with Jessica’s card which I hoped had enough room on it. I couldn’t even tell if it was debit or credit I just handed it over to the clerk and tried not to wince. The car left for me was a silver colored Nissan Altima, one of those Japanese rice machines that would run forever on a thimbleful of gas and never require you to spend half your Saturday with your hands in its guts. It was a car that didn’t NEED a master. And so I had decided to name it Bob, he didn’t deserve a girl’s name nor any real claim on my affections. It also didn’t have enough room in the trunk for all the cases and bags so I had to use the backseat to store the rest along with the laptop case and purse. I spent a good five minutes messing around with the seat and the seatbelt before I gave up and came to the realization that there just WASN’T a comfortable position where the strap wouldn’t pinch my boobs. Yet another woman’s engineering failure I thought that should have been rectified years ago.
New Hampshire to New Jersey, while still being in the same part of the country where almost every other place was called new something, was still a bit of a drive. Doing it in and strange foreign car without even enough room in the trunk for a respectable amount of bodies was disheartening. I decided to take the western approaches along I-84 and circle back. I didn’t want to have any part of New York City traffic. Somewhere past Hartford I felt that evil little, apparently walnut sized bladder of mine, betray me. It used to be I could make 8 hour road trips without stopping once, but I guess those days are behind me for now. I pulled off at the next exit and came to a reasonably prosperous looking BP station. Getting out, I made sure that Bob was still in racing form, which of course he was, the annoyingly reliable little prick that he was. And then headed toward the woman’s restroom.
I didn’t make the mistake of heading into the men’s room. I had been doing nothing the last twenty minutes BUT think about going potty in the ladies room so it was hard to unconsciously slip up. Matters were helped by the fact that there was a line to get in and I had to wait for several minutes before a slot freed up. When the door opened and it was my turn I was across the tile floor with jeans down before I even thought to worry of some sort of hall monitor like matron who would shout out ‘IT’S A BOY!’ Once the immediate bodily process was taken care of I looked down to the pair of satin panties, resting on top of the women’s jeans wrapped around a pair of soft and shaven legs and just sort of left higher brain functions behind.
Picture if you will, the mind of a teenage boy.
Hey look! Some girl left her panties here… oh shit they’re mine.
Hey baby, nice legs, how bout I?... Fuck.
I must have been in there a long time suffering that causality loop, because the usually staid New Englander’s revolted. I was brought back to earth with a sharp thud upon the door, “Hurry up in there!”I grabbed some toilet paper and dried up as best I could, yet ANOTHER damned design flaw. And pulling my pants up quickly and went to the sink to wash up. I didn’t feel too much guilt, I just did a quick wash of my hands and no primping at the mirror or fixing of makeup so time spent probably averaged out. I ignored the angry glare from a mousy looking woman in her thirties and headed back to Bob and the open road.
***
Jefferson Township is a little place nestled in the North Jersey hills located apparently, right next to the Picatinny Arsenal, which is where the Army field tests its chemical weapons. I resolved to get the hell out of Jersey as soon as I could and try not to take any deep breaths while I was doing it, borrowed lungs or not. The address on the business card for Madame Inger led me to a storage unit complex off the state highway. Gypsy work must not be full time and I inferred that she needed a steady passive income to make ends meet. There were three rows of numbered concrete pillboxes and at the end of the lane was an old three story aging farmhouse that must have been the original family seat before using the land to let other people store their junk. A big sign next to the garage said office and I confirmed that the address numbers were the same as on the card before I got out of the car and walked to the front door to ring the bell. It was a good two minutes before anyone could be bothered to answer.
“Yes?” asked the man, who unless she was sampling her own product, I assumed was not a Madame ANYthing. He was wearing a too tight T-shirt with “Lake Hapatcong Storage” stenciled on it and was about a foot taller than I used to be, and I was pretty damn tall. He was also about as wide shoulder to shoulder as an LAV.
“Um,” I hesitated still not used to the sound of my own voice and hating it in comparison to the troglodyte’s deep bass. “I’m here to speak to Madame Inger.”
The man gave a little wince so I could tell he wasn’t pleased either at me or his erstwhile mistress I couldn’t say.
“Yeah, look, did you make an appointment? Cus whoever did with you needs to learn better. Grandma doesn’t do any work after three, not since I got her that TiVo, gods help me.”
“Um,” I hesitated. Trying to think if it would be better to pray on his customer service skills and pretend I did have an appointment but then thought better of it. “No I’m sorry, I wasn’t told I needed one. Could you perhaps squeeze me in, it’s rather important. I’ll try to make it up to your grandmother.”
“They are all important, or at least think they are,” said the man with a weary sigh. “Look, are you dying?”
“Not at the moment,” I answered, though YOU’RE life expectancy is getting shorter by the minute.
“Someone you know dying?” he continued uninterested.
“No.”
“Then it ain’t that important and can wait till tomorrow,” he declared with a curt nod of his massive head.
“But this is an emergency!” I said, and stamped my foot in exasperation. I couldn’t help it and was embarrassed as hell when I realized what I had done but quickly passed it off as a normal bodily process and continued. “Please…you have to help me.”
“Are you pregnant?” he asked.
“…Yes,” annoyed at him for his sexism. Why must he think that a pretty girl in trouble who starts going into hysterics be pregnant? Even if it was in this particular case true.
“And you want a spell to wreck vengeance on the father, or something? Or perhaps just a plain old love potion to make him do the right thing?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing of the sort,” I answered disgusted.
“Oh really special snowflake? It’s always love or vengeance I’ve seen it a thousand times. Why else ask to speak to grandma?”
“Because … I’M the father” I stated forcefully.
“Oh,” he said, scratching his auburn head with a smile and then laughing. “One of THOSE, then she definitely doesn’t have time for you. There’s an “Army Wives” marathon on at the moment. The only way she misses an important TV show is if the house is on fire, I’ll make that appointment for you tomorrow at 10:00AM. Good bye.”
“Wait,” I shouted to a closed door. “You don’t even know my name!” not that I knew which one to tell him.
I spent about twenty seconds ignoring the bell and pounding on the door, but eventually got the message when the light to ‘come in, were open!’ sign was cut, and the blinds lowered. I sulked back across the driveway to Bob and kicked him in the tires for looking all smug and reasonably priced. I sat in the car and contemplated my options for a few minutes. I had no home, a borrowed car, borrowed BODY. All the friends I could turn too would see themselves as HIS friends. Double that for my family. I had introduced Jess around to them a few times, my mother rather liked her. But Jess’s relationship with them wasn’t anywhere near the ‘drop everything and come help without even checking with Tommy first’ stage. I had about $90 in cash in my purse and plastic that could be turned off at any moment. It was only a matter of time before I had to go pee again and trees had gotten so big around here that there wasn’t even a convenient bush to hide behind. And to top it all off, my bra strap was itching… I had just about had it up to here, playing the polite damsel in distress.
The hell with it, I thought finally, as I looked at a particularly prominent oak tree next to the house, which was just finishing its full spring growth. This is Jersey, who would notice?
***
Down the road about three miles was another gas station and I went in to get the several supplies I would need and paid for it with my dwindling supply of dollars since I remembered that these particular items flash up on several watch lists and if paid for with a card so would a name. And since I didn’t want Jess or myself to lose out on any time to the hospitality of Homeland Security, I paid cash. I was just about to shut the rear door and drive off when I thought better of it, and heading back into the station for preventative maintenance.
Damn bladder.
I drove back to the storage lot and parked far away from the house. Grabbing my recent purchases and heading toward the oak tree. It looked like it was upwind of the house and probably far enough away.
Probably far enough… but I wasn’t in any sort of mood to give them any breaks.
I started throwing toilet paper rolls up and catching as many branches as I could trying to hurry before granny or her bodybuilder butler looked out the wrong window. Then I grabbed the gas tank and upending it, I started making circles around the trunk of the tree letting the fuel soak into the ground below all that kindling and splashing as much of it as I could against the bark. When all five gallons were about to run empty I started walking the trail of gasoline away from the tree toward my car. When that finally ran out I tossed the can aside flippantly and pulled from my tight jeans a 79 cent Bic lighter to set fire to a hundred year old tree.
It went up quick all things considered, the fuel heating the leaves and branches, and then it started feeding itself. The nice thing about oaks is that they get so big and so dense that the shade kills off any lighter foliage for a good area around it. Its funeral pyre was accomplishing my goal of sending a billowing cloud of black smoke at the farmhouse but was otherwise safe from spreading. I was rather pleased with myself.
I walked back to Bob, and got up and sat on the hood. I crossed my legs in what I remembered was a feminine manner placed my hands on my knees and otherwise tried to affect the look of an innocent virgin. Which I guess, technically speaking in this body, I was. Tiny the doorman was the first out, and he quickly headed off toward an outbuilding likely to get something to put out the fire, and then followed several other men and woman all bearing a more or less familial resemblance. The last, almost being forced out the door by two of her progeny, was an old woman, wrinkled, blond hair turned almost white but she was still big and mean looking enough to be the ancestor of that Viking I met at the front door.
She shook off the offered arms and strode angrily toward my parked car. She made good time considering the distance….granny was spry.
“Madame Inger I presume?” I said with a sweet and angelic voice, bowing in her direction.
***
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 5
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Maybe that wasn't the best idea...
PART FIVE
I was being manhandled (or was the proper term woman-handled?) back into the farmhouse, a few minutes later. Two of them each grabbed one of my shoulders and lifted me up; my feet hardly touched the ground as I was directly toward the door. Inside was surprisingly tasteful. Old woodwork was in preponderance along with less than the usual amount of kitsch for a multigenerational household. I passed the massive kitchen where a dozen different pots and complicated mixtures were about, and also where a small television was displaying the Lifetime channel, before I was tossed into the wingback chair of a little office the next door down.
The computer monitor was one of those old school jobs with about five feet of bulky plastic behind the screen. The tower itself was an ACER relic that looked about one more crashed hard drive away from the junk heap. But ACER’s looked that way right out of the box. All things considered, I decided not to be snooty about their technology it was their magic I was here for after all. I was waiting inside that office for a good twenty minutes while Tiny’s slightly smaller cousin watched over me. Arms crossed like he was trying to stop himself from turning me over in the chair and giving me a good spanking. Soon enough Granny came into the small office shoving the giant aside when he wouldn’t get out of the way fast enough.
“Give me one good reason,” she said with an accent similar to what I had heard of farm kids from the deepest Minnesota. “Why I shouldn’t call the police and have you arrested?”
“Magic,” I replied with a smirk. “I doubt you want everyone to know what it is that you have going on here.”
“As if they would believe you,” she countered with a sour scold on her face.
“I don’t expect they would… at first. But if forced too I intend to raise a big stink around here. This body you put me in is a nice girl from a good family who never got in any sort of legal trouble. And If I keep proclaiming that something is going on here, and drop words like ‘strange chemicals’, and ‘lab’, and …’steroids’,” I said looking up at the guard with a speculative expression. “Then I think they will at least look long and hard at this operation. And who knows, this is Jersey, maybe they find a few dead bodies in one of those storage lockers you have out there. How would the local Italian benevolent society feel about you then?”
“Well then,” she answered sneering down at me. “I’ll just give you to them first wont I? Or has it occurred to you little girl that I could just turn you into a toad. Or perhaps a fat little pig and then roast and eat you! I’ve already got a crackling fire ready!”
I must admit, that HADN’T occurred to me. Though it probably should have as many fairy tales as I was raised up on, and the post graduate education I completed in trashy fantasy novels. My mind was whirling as I tried to think up a viable counter and latched on to the first thing I could think of.
“I plead my belly,” I said looking Madame Inger hard in the eye.
“Your what?” she barked back confused.
“I’m pregnant, as you well know. All those stories I’ve read, many of them talk about a magical consequence of killing the innocent. Some of them have to be true. You may be pissed enough to do something to me but are you prepared to harm my baby?”
“For a former boy, you latched on to THAT excuse right quick.” She gave me an evil grin.
“What can I say,” nodding my head in acknowledgment. “I was always quick on my feet.”
“What do you want? You’re body back I suppose,” she questioned me tersely. While looking my current form up and down.
“Justice.” I answered insolently.
“Justice is it? I already gave your girl that.”
“You’re wrong, and I’m going to explain to you why… TINY!” I shouted to the doorman as I saw him walk by the kitchen. “Go get my purse out of the car; there is something I need to show you.”
***
It took some doing, and I was growing rather tired of explaining to yet another woman why it was that I was not a complete bastard, with plans to abandon my pregnant girlfriend. What particularly irritated Inger was the fact that while Jessica didn’t have much cash she was not in fact the penniless orphan she portrayed herself to be. I’m not sure if she was more irritated at the lie or the lost money she could have charged for her services, and I wasn’t going to muddy the waters by asking.
Eventually our mutual interrogation of one another expanded into the kitchen where I was drafted to chopping vegetables while Inger supervised by switching the channel to “Grey’s Anatomy.” Since she seemed to be leaning toward believing me, and was otherwise answering my questions I wasn’t tempted to use my chopping knife to carve off a piece of witch…much tempted anyway.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” Inger continued during a commercial break. “Married her? I did a reading, a karmic audit if you will, I ran Thomas S. Ryan March 29th 1990 you came off as a complete evil asshole!”
“20th,” I corrected her while I concentrated on the delicate work with unfamiliar hands.
“What?” she asked squinting her eyes at me.
“March 20th is my birthday.” I clarified.
“This says 29th,” said Inger pulling out a piece of paper from a kitchen drawer with my name, the wrong birth date and half a recipe for apricot torte.
“That’s a 20, the loop doesn’t circle high enough for a nine,” I pointed out to her.
“Walter!” Madame Inger belted out at Tiny the doorman. It was good to finally have a name attached to all that muscle. “Did you take down this order?”
The big man lurched over to the kitchen table and looked down at the piece of paper. “Yup,” he answered when he got a good luck at it. “I also sent you an email about it but that presupposes that you turn on your computer.”
“I don’t believe in that heathen box,” she retorted trying to gather her dignity.
“Well the heathen box believes in you,” he continued. “I use it all the time for the records and the accounts payable and receivable I keep saying you need to drag yourself out of the 19th century and at least into the 20th.”
“Is this a nine or is this a zero?” She asked tapping her finger angrily on the paper.
“A zero,” he could see the answer did not please her any, and despite the contrasts in their age and size, thought he should probably be seeing to whatever it was that would take him out of the kitchen the fastest. “Can I go now?”
“Go!” she shouted furiously. “Before I put my mark on you.”
“This is how you do your business?” I said disbelievingly after he left the room. “How the hell have you not been SUED?”
“Says the ARSONIST!” she countered replacing the paper and slamming the drawer shut.
“At least I got the right target,” I replied waiving my cutting knife in the general direction of her heart.
“That oak was older than some countries, it was wanton VANDALISM!”
“It was a good idea! It got you speaking to me didn’t it?”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have argued with my sole possible form of reclamation, and I don’t mind telling you that I suddenly felt a lead weight in my stomach as she got up furiously from the table and headed down to the basement leaving me alone with vegetables steaming cauldrons and catty women on TV. A few minutes later she was back upstairs and laid down on the table a very large old fashioned leather book with a resounding thud. She began frantically turning pages. Finally slowing down as she got towards the last third of the book. Flipping back and forth until she found her destination. She spent a good two minutes on one page staring while I tried not to jog her elbows and continued to make the dinner preparations. Finally she looked up at me, and I knew I was in for it when I saw the harridans eye begin to water up some.
“I’m sorry,” she said in an honest tone. “There is nothing that I can do, about switching you back.”
“What do you mean there is nothing that you can do?!” I shouted irately.
“It was one way, if you can find a volunteer or someone who REALLY deserves it and I’ll CHECK mind you!” she shouted in a stern tone. “I can maybe bump you out into another male body but that’s the best that I can do. The magical pathways between you and that girl are burned out. You can’t take that road twice.”
“Not for nothing, but is there some sort of gypsy supervisor I can speak to, one that I don’t know, looks like a gypsy?”
“I was adopted, and my mother trained me to be the best,” she said haughtily as she puffed out her amble chest in outrage.
“I can’t believe there isn’t something out there, what about magic rings, or cursed statues or voodoo princesses. SOMETHING!”
“There are only so many ways of doing things, no matter your particular doctrine. Magic isn’t well… magic. There are costs to everything. It’s a lot like being a scientist, such and such materials combined in such and such a way yields the desired results and it has been tested and retested countless times over the generations. If there was a way of getting around the karmetic entropy the Chinese or someone would have figured it out by now.”
“Like I’m supposed to trust a gypsy who… BOUGHT THE FARM!”
“My wagon broke an axel in the sixties,” she answered, a little too defensibly for my tastes. “And I fell in love with a local boy, do you want my help or not?”
“I thought you said you couldn’t help me.” I stated crossly.
“I can’t put you back in your body. That route has been burned out. And if you don’t want to abandon your baby to some strangers care than… I can at least make it easier on you. I can make it that you think that you have always been a woman and have all the thoughts knowledge and experience that goes along with it. It will be like this never happened.”
“And what about Jessica?” I asked quietly as I pondered that.
“You’re Jessica,” she explained trying to be pacifying.
“Tommy then! She has to be going through all the same things I am, WORSE, because she dare not tell anyone. And I… If there is no way back, than I at least have to find a way back together. She’s the father of my child and while I may just kill her I’m still sort of in love with her.”
“Oh ho!” Tiny chuckled evilly as he came in to grab a beer from the refrigerator “So you want a love potion after all?”
“Go turn a wrench or something Walter,” said Madame Inger waving her hands in a go away gesture at him. “Adults are talking.”
“Fine, fine,” he granted us as he let the door slide shut.
“You can really forgive her,” she said and shaking her head and closing her eyes corrected herself. “Him?”
“Probably not,” I admitted thinking about that one great big bad time that capped all the preceding good times. “But for the baby’s sake I can sort of… if I try real hard and squint a little, see things from her point of view. And if he crawls on his belly for a year or three I might just let him back.
“You may not need that second spell after all, you already have gal code # 4 down pretty good.”
***
I stayed for dinner, I wasn’t getting any better offers and the state of the money in my borrowed purse dictated that I not turn down too many free meals freely offered. We sat down together at the same kitchen table I had done all the prep work on and it looked like Nazi propaganda poster, me looking right at place next to all the blond haired blue eyes gypsies. I had taken part in many a family dinner over the years. Both the awkwardness’ of dysfunctional gatherings like Jessica’s, and the abiding love of my own extended families events. I could tell just from the manner they passed each other bowls of heaping food that this was a family that loved and worked well with each other. It made me incredibly homesick. The idea that Madame Inger was lying to me, out of some inherent evil spite was losing traction by the second. These were good people.
We took desert to the garden, the Madame and I, and sat down with our apple pie on a pair of Adirondack chairs to watch the last little bit of my pyrotechnic show whittle down to its smoking embers.
“I won’t take that spell,” I said placing my fork on the little plate after every last bit of apple goodness had been consumed. “The girl-ing or whatever it’s called… Some things a man has to do on his own.”
“It won’t be easy,” she offered.
“Nothing worth doing is.” I allowed. “But with sufficient will and a reasonable amount of guts I might just be able to come through this merely miserable. Half the whole damn world figures out how to be female and I was always a quick study. You give me something that makes me forget and maybe I don’t remember something that should never be forgotten.”
She took my dainty had, and I was still royally pissed off that I even had dainty hands, and gave it a pat with her own epic paws. Inger then picked up my plate and her own and walked inside to clean up. I was left alone on that wooden deck watching the sunset and my own Civil War reenactment of Sherman’s march to the sea... Ol’ General Sherman was a hell of a fighter, even for an army puke. It was said by his captured enemies. “Sherman will never go to hell; he will flank the Devil and make heaven, DESPITE the guards!” I sure could have used a bit of that tactical wizardry now. Being that normal wizardry seems to have failed me. But as many ways as I figured it in my head, I couldn’t seem to find a way to flank fate herself.
Madame Inger came back outside holding a bottle, it was about the size of a Pepto-Bismol bottle and had about the same sickening color.
“This potion,” she said setting it by the railing next to me. “Will let you have an easy pregnancy, take a capful a day and it will cut down on the nausea, swelling, and all the rest. Not remove it entirely, even magic have limits, but It will help make you feel it is the joyful experience it should be.”
She looked back out toward the nearby lake and started up a corncob pipe with one of those noxious tobacco strains bred not for its value as a stimulant but for its properties in chemical warfare.
“In the coming days you may need something else from me and I want you to know you can ask for almost anything. I’m so sorry, I’ve never made an error like this before, when I crafted that spell, the powers… it just felt so RIGHT. Perhaps the fates have something in store for you, and you’re being a young lady will be all for the best.”
I looked at her face, and due to our respective heights now I looked UP at her face and after pondering that for a while said simply….“Go fuck yourself, you evil witch.” Then I gathered my purse and starting off for Bob, and an uncertain future. What can I say? I was raised by Marines, who were only distinguished from wolves by their worse table manners.
But I still took that preggo bottle as I walked away.
***
I got the hell out of Jersey as soon as I could, probably faster than was wise because I got a big scare when I thought I was being pulled over by a state trooper for speeding but my heart started beating again when the cruiser passed me by and raced away down the road probably responding to some Sopranos wannabe’s triple homicide. I had no long term plans at the moment. And was reduced to the classic survival properties list, food, shelter, fire… although perhaps I had done enough fire for one day. I still had a room at the school till the end of the month, even if it was in the women’s dorm. So I set a course north and headed back to the sight of my greatest triumphs and recent tragedies.
I was well past bed check, when I got to Exeter. And while they were looser with year round students coming and going after the school year was over they still put up a bit of a fuss when you came back after midnight. I put on a crestfallen look and did my best to look like I was about to cry to the rent a cop at the front gate and a few seconds later he passed me through, and I drove toward the residence halls…. Sucker.
My own room was empty of everything but the furnishings that came with it. I had boxed up everything I wouldn’t be needed for a long while and sent it into storage at Aunt Alane’s place. Jessica I knew still had most of her accouterments since the plan, back when we were planning things together and not against each other, was for her to come back for a few days when I went to plebe summer.
I got out of Bob, taking my laptop case and my new, never to be sufficiently damned purse, (there had to be some way of combining those two items in one unit) and left the luggage behind. I wasn’t in the mood to drag enough gear for a safari up three flights of stairs and I figured she had to leave some pajamas behind for me to change into. The trip up to her room was familiar enough, I had done it hundreds of times over the years. Once past the common room through the door into her bedroom proper things got a little weird. I had only actually been inside the room about half a dozen times. Usually while moving things that required a certain amount of testosterone powered muscle mass. I had NEVER been inside her room alone and always had the door jammed open so the house mother could check in from time to time and make sure none of her charges were not being ravaged.
I dropped my bags on the desk next to the bed. And turned toward Jessica’s closet, there was plenty there but nothing that I would care to spend the night in. Turning to the chest drawers, after several attempts I discovered the section she kept her night clothes in. I skipped past the nighties and the cutesy wootsey pajamas and locked in on a T-Shirt. It appeared Jessica’s larcenous tendencies towards me had been going on for some time. I uncovered in her possession my Flogging Molly t-shirt that I had assumed I had lost last year. I pulled it on over my head and it was considerably oversized on my new frame. The affect was more like a dress than the hard rocking Celtic punk look I was used to sporting when I wore it. The thin material also clearly showed the outlines of my bra which rather reminded me that it was irritating me. I pulled up the shirt and reached back to the clasp trying to undo the strap and quickly realized that I needed an advanced tutorial for that sort of things. Removing the shirt I then took care of what I needed to, and, breasts freshly unbound, put my t-shirt back on.
I decided to keep the panties on, I had never been comfortable sleeping naked and it appears that habit had carried over to my new body. Plus as much as it pained my delicate masculine ego to admit I just felt vulnerable to have my… thing, uncovered. I knew intellectually the best protection against something like rape was a distrustful disposition and a loaded gun. But there was something psychologically soothing about having something, however thin and dainty, between the cruel world and my holiest of holies. The earrings I remembered to remove in time.
The wedding ring, I decided to keep wearing.
Sleep did not come easy. The previous evening, I had been too bone weary both in body and soul to stay awake. Once my head hit the hotel bed’s pillow I was out of it for a solid 10 hours. Now my head hitting the pillow was rather the problem. I couldn’t seem to get the right angle where my head would be rested and it would not be snagging or yanking on the hair I had inherited. Surely, I thought, this problem had been solved before? And I turned the lights back on to scan around the room for a solution. Soon enough in the attached bathroom I saw a little basket full of the rubber banded things Jess called scrunchies and headed back to bed. The hair was tied off into a pony tail and I was able to rest it over my left shoulder and lay down reasonably comfortable for the moment.
Of course, I couldn’t just fall asleep directly on my back like that. So after a few minutes of trying I leaned over on my side, the position I usually fell asleep in, most often abetted by a handy pillow I would crush to my chest and pretend was Jessica. Now when I tried hugging a pillow I couldn’t get my accustomed angle as there were two not so little blockades in the way. And just when I thought I had the situation sorted I changed positions a little bit and pinched a tit. Irritated beyond belief I threw down the pillow I was hugging onto the carpeted floor and slammed on the lights again. If I wasn’t going to be able to sleep in this body I might as well try to use this time to find a way back out of it.
I powered up Jessica’s laptop and hooked into the school network. And I quickly accessed the remote server that Dan Gruenke had set up in second year so as to get around the firewall and filters. Son let me tell ya, when you are a guy trapped in your girl’s body and you try to do a Boolean search for ways out of it you come across some strange shit.
It seemed that, wonders never seizing, that there was not much serious scholarly work done on body theft. Soul transference, mind swaps or any other such combination I could think of. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t stuff there. But what I did find were psychic charlatans who would do and say just about anything for $9.95 a minute and an even larger selection of fiction and wish fulfillment fantasy. It seemed if ever I could bring myself to trust one of these mooks with the care and feeding of my son or daughter there was any number of people in the transgender community who would take me up on Madame Inger’s offer.
Something to ponder for later.
But as far as finding, reputable magical or mad scientist alternatives to the ‘burned magical pathways’ Inger was referring to, I could find none after hours of searching. Disgusted with myself and the people of the internet in general I powered down the laptop looked at the clock flashing 5:44 and thought I just might be tired enough for sleep. One last lurch toward the bed on rubber sleep deprived legs and I managed to make it without serious incident. Turning off the lights I was even able to nestle into a comfortable position with hair and boobs and back just so, in a perfect slumbering goldilocks moment. I was starting to feel a small measure of peace and was about to drift off finally into the warm embrace of the sandman when…
MY GODDAMNED PHONE STARTED RINGING!!
Angered beyond belief I threw the covers once more on the floor and walked over to the purse Jessica had left me and dug out her hello kitty monstrosity of a cammo phone. I had only received two calls since our transfer, both of them from Jessica’s girlfriends asking about plans for after graduation. And I was in no mood now to answer, and at oh freaking dark early, to say I wasn’t planning on heading off to the Caribbean with Joanie and the pussycats. I built up a steam of righteous rage and prepared to lay into the poor unsuspecting interloper when I recognized the phone number on the caller ID
It was my own.
Fumbling to unlock the phone before it finished ringing I nervously answered.
“He… hello?”
“Tommy!” my former voice shouted back at me frantically. “You have to help me! I think I broke your penis.”
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 6
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Some days it’s just not worth it to drag yourself out of bed.
Part Six
[***][***][***]
“What!” I shouted out in shock. “How the hell could you do that?"
“I wasn’t trying too, it just happened, I woke up and it was all stiff and hard, and I tried to roll over and get back to sleep and rolled over right on top of it! By the time I realized what had happened I had already put my whole body weight on top of it, it freaking HURTS!”
“Oh man,” I said winching as I visualized it. They say wounded vets or anybody really who had lost a limb could still feel it sometimes. I wondered if I could make the medical journals with phantom limb syndrome when the body part was still attached, just a thousand miles away.
“Yeah,” I agreed with her. “Sounds terrible, what do you want me to do about it.” I tried not to sound snarky, but could tell I was failing.
“It still hurts! And it’s not getting any better, I… I just, didn’t know who else to call.”
Oh… hell
“Where are you?” I asked reluctantly.
“I can’t… why do you need to know?” she replied cautiously while still sounding in pain.
“You don’t need to tell me EXACTLY where you are just generally,” I replied with as much goodwill as I could manage. “A hotel?”
“Um, yeah,” she replied unenthusiastically.
“Does it have an ice machine?”
“I think so.”
“Go outside and find the ice machine, DON’T FORGET to take your room key. Bring a bucket of Ice back to your room and then let me know when you have it.”
I waited for a minute or so, trying not to visualize the picture of my former manly visage walking around in the early morning hours in my underwear blurting out ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Every other step. Eventually I heard the rumble of heavy machinery followed by drops in the bucket and the sounds of a wounded man walking back.
“OK,” she said breathlessly. “Now what?”
“Contrary to popular belief, those things are hard to just rip right off. The erectile tissue is designed to expand and contract so you probably haven’t damaged it, just bruised it and you have to get the swelling down…. Both types of swelling down, which the ice should accomplish either way. Grab a pillowcase, or a shirt, or something, fill it up with ice and then apply the dressing to the affected area… so to speak.”
What followed was a low pitched shriek followed by what I knew was a sigh of content as the ice pack began to do its noble work. An awkward silence soon followed as we both realised the emergency situation was over with, and that we were now on the phone with each other after one of us in the relationship had vowed never to speak to the other again.
Plus the whole body theft thing.
So I broke the ice a bit… metaphorically speaking. “Sometimes it just sucks to be a dude, Jessica.”
“How do guys not do that all the time?” she eventually asked, totally inquisitive.
“I don’t know,” I said rubbing my forehead trying to think of an appropriate reply. “Instinct, I guess. You’ll get used to it… Where’s Roxy?”
“Who,” she asked uncertain.
“My car, Rocinante. My F-bird that you took away from me to have fun, fun, fun, with!”
“Oh, it’s is out back of the hotel, but it’s ok. I left it out of the sun under the shade of a maple tree.”
“You left my girl in a SURFACE lot, under a syrup tree, in SAP SEASON!!!”
“Calm down,” she answered and I could just hear her grinning, the beautiful evil bitch. “You seem more pissed off about me taking your car than your body.”
“New people are born every day, I’m not worth much, but you can’t just call up Pontiac and have em run off another 75 fire bird. For one thing, they are going out of business.”
“OK, jeez, I’ll take it to a drive thru car wash next time I fill up.”
“A DRIVE THRU !! You go out there and you wash it by HAND!” my voice going shrill and hysterical against all my best wishes. My mood must have gotten through to her though.
“Yes Thomas,” she said sounding suddenly serious and calm. “I promise… I will wash your car by hand.”
I was oddly comforted by her deep soothing voice. I hoped it wasn’t some sort of genetic predisposition on this body’s part. But hopefully, now that I could be on the lookout for it, I wouldn’t be taken in by just any boy’s sweet talking jive.
“So,” she said trying to end another of those awkward silences. “How ya been…considering, you know…”
“I set a tree on fire today…yesterday…” I answered her as I lay back down into bed, just too tired to even sit up anymore. “I don’t think that I’m coping well.”
“Did you make your usual clean get away?”
“It was another state, so I’m good.”
“Oh hell baby… what are we gonna do?” she wined out anxiously.
“I thought you had a cunning plan,” I retorted sarcastically
“I KNOW!” she shrieked at me. “It’s just, everything seemed to make so much sense at the time and I was SOOOO angry. I didn’t even think she would actually do something when I called. Or that it would work if she did.”
“Well it did,” I argued back. “So now what?”
“Plebe summer starts Monday and I HAVE to be there. Otherwise this was all for nothing and we will both be living in a world of 100% shit and not just the 90% we are now.”
“I agree,” I said after a significant pause. “At least one of us should.”
“But what about you?”
“I have about ten days left on the rent of your room at school. Then I guess I start living out of Heathers car, not sure what I’ll do about food. Find a job I guess.”
“WHAT! You can’t just… what about college?”
“I hate to break it to you sweetie, but you are technically speaking a deadbeat dad. I doubt I could stay in or even pay for school and still raise a kid all on my own.”
“You have to speak to my father’s lawyers, you need MONEY! You can’t just live on the street plotting your revenge against me. Think of the baby.”
“I am, and I can’t speak to the lawyers, that’s your money.”
“So think of it as child support,” she implored me over the phone. “Even when I was at my craziest I never thought that you would be alone, cut off, with nothing. Tommy, you can’t do this to me. You have to go to the lawyers and get the inheritance.”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about it. Pretending to be you with those people, who are gonna be wary about any sort of fraud.”
“Don’t worry about it; Mr. DeGeas has hardly seen me in a decade. He won’t know if you act any different, and if he does, who the hell cares! You ARE Martin Scott’s daughter right down to the fingerprints and DNA.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please Tommy!” she implored me and I could tell she was about try cry manly tears.
“OK, OK, I’ll talk to the guy, though how I’m getting to Nebraska I don’t know. Even if I liked the idea of driving that far, I’m not sure how to pay for gas.”
“You’ve still got my purse right,” she asked me concerned.
“Yes.”
“Then use the card!”
“Which one? And I had no idea of which ones were good and what the credit limits were. You were always talking about how little you had as an allowance.”
“That was an allowance! For junk food and trips to the movies. For necessary expenditures, like plane tickets HOME you moron, the auditors always approve it. Just use the green card from First National there is like… thousands on it.”
“All right, I’ll think about it… in the morning!” I said exasperated at the lack of sleep.
“Ha, you should probably thank me for taking your place,” she said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. “You would have to start waking up this early all the time anyway and that would have spoiled your legendary beauty sleep.”
“No Jessica,” I said coldly. “I don’t think I WILL thank you.”
I could tell that hit her hard, and what passed next was our longest awkward silence yet.
“Do you,” she asked hesitantly in a very soft voice. “Do you think that you can ever be able to forgive me?”
“I can’t just fall out of love with you,” I answered her truthfully. “Maybe if I worked hard at it, I could somehow manage… maybe with a team of scientists and generous federal grant... But forgive?” I said pondering the question and all its implications. I considered all that had been done to me in a fit of her half deserved rage. Everything that had been taken away from me and the long life that was ahead of me. As a woman.
“No,” I answered clearly. Then I turned off the phone, and removed the battery.
[***][***][***]
I slept, when I managed to sleep at all, until around noon,. When my body woke me to life’s little necessities. I made use of the toilet and sink that was built into the room, but one of the oddities of this particular residence hall was that the bathing facilities were communal, if I wanted to get clean, I would have to leave the relative safely of Jessica’s room and head off into the wilderness that was the women’s showers. I still didn’t understand it, if they had gone through the trouble of putting a toilet in each room how much extra square footage would it have cost to add a shower stall, too? I had a sneaking suspicion, deep down inside my reptile brain that the architects of this particular hall had all been men and they vented their own particular kink by forcing all these teenage heiresses to shower together. I resolved to look carefully for any hidden cameras built directly into the wall.
Thankfully, most of the other girls had left for the summer, and those few year round kids who were warehoused by their parents had their morning showers just a little earlier than the crack of noon. I set Jessica’s collection of paints and powders on the shelf inside the stall and hung up her bathrobe, (pink of course) and turned on the shower to as hot as an institutional sized water heater could provide. I didn’t know what I was going to do. When Jess delivered her knockout punch of telling me she was pregnant, I knew what to do. Marry her. When she performed her little switcheroo, I knew what to do. Find a way back. And now that there was no way back? It was at this moment more than any other I wish I could call my parents and ask them. But Jessica had even taken that away from me.
The General, he was an odd kind of father. The thing that you must understand is that he wasn’t a modern man. Oh, he uses email and Skype, he can even program a spreadsheet, but that’s all just technology. Morally, culturally, spiritually, he was not a man of the 21st century; he was a man of the 12th. He believed, and taught to all his children, old fashioned ideas. Things like honor, piety, justice.
And duty.
But what was my duty? I pondered as the hot water flowed over me. I’d sworn no oaths yet to the United States, beyond the daily pledge of allegiance in grade school. And I saw no reason to defy the flag or the republic for which it stands, even if I was now female, so I was good there. The Marines wouldn’t have me, for at least another seven months, and even then they had an unreasonable bias against single teenage mothers with infants enlisting. I HAD sworn on oath to abide with my wife, forsaking all others, till death parts us and all that. And if things turned out the way they looked to be turning out, I wasn’t gonna have any choice in the abiding with my wife part of it. And I certainly hadn’t sworn no oaths to love honor and obey any HUSBAND! No, I didn’t have any pressing duty toward Tommy née Jessica. The Navy would have the care and feeding of her for the next four years, and they don’t exactly appreciate housewives setting up shop in the barracks, anyway.
The baby?
There is the long and the short of it. I could stand clear of other responsibilities, and all honor to me. But the baby was still mine. Reader, for a minute there, just between you me and the shower walls. I considered doing what Jessica wanted all along. She was right; things would just be so much easier if there just wasn’t a kid on the way. But then I thought about what my father would have done in my place…. and smiled at the thought. He’d have spent two hours copping a free feel and when that was over he would have burned that gypsy’s entire farm to the ground not just one tree and then…
And then he would have done his duty, and been the best damned marine mama on this or any other Earth.
[***][***][***]
My girl had been born and raised in fly over country. If you haven’t heard that joke before, it’s the part of the United States that is between New York and Los Angeles. the implicit assumption being that those two cities were the only important parts of America. And Omaha was right smack in the middle of it. I’m sure it was a pleasant enough town as these little towns go, but having seen the wild world over it held little interest to a hard charging marine, even in my current, reduced circumstances. According to the emails on Jessica’s laptop, the main point of contact with her father’s estate was a Mr. Bernard DeGeas. And it was the matter of a few phone calls to arrange a meeting in two days. He had apparently been expecting my phone call for some time…
“Goodbye Bob,” I said to him patting his hood while the attendant looked at me oddly. “Try not to sneak attack any Buicks when my back is turned.”
The driver got in and pulled away toward the back of the lot. I started to feel a little tight in the chest when I saw Bob being taken away. But then I cursed the obvious effect of the female hormones coursing through my veins. How could I ever love that car? It had airbags!
Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Airport is one of those seventh circle of hell jobs you usually only hear about happening to other people and not yourself. I am quite convinced that there must be some sort of epic conspiracy among its victims to keep word of all its transgressions relatively quiet. It must be some sort of national schadenfreude, “If I had to go through it, so do you”. My other option of a flight to Omaha would mean leaving through Newark, but that would still require crossing New York City traffic and also, I had sort of made a promise to myself never to go back to Jersey. I’m not sure what the statue of limitations was on arboreal homicide, but I wasn’t taking any chances after I had toaken the gypsy’s offered hand and threw it back in her face.
There was an airline that Jess and I had used the last time we had flown to Omaha for Thanksgiving with evil stepmother during one of her domestic phases. It was called Midwest Express, and it was wonderful…. They always ran on time, never overbooked, every seat they had was either an isle or a window. And every flight, even if it lasted only an hour they would bake chocolate chip cookies while you were in the air and serve them free to the passengers. The smell would permeate the cabin and it was like what I imagined the fight to heaven would be like after long, happy and righteous life.
I booked with Delta and I plotted a mutiny while I was doing it.
The shuttle from the car agency dropped me off at my terminal, a weary feminine look and a ten dollar tip convinced the driver to go find a trolley and help me unload half the department store that I had been forced to pack from Jessica’s room. Fortunately enough, the mechanism was serviced recently and a minimum amount of force on my part. I, along with twice my body weight in luggage, was on the move. The Delta ticket counter had the longest line, of course. And it was a good thirty minutes before I even got my first sneer from the uniformed workers much less a helping hand. When it was my turn to unass my gear, the gaudily dressed female bridge and tunnel ticket agent gave off a larcenous look and smirked. Oh... So…Subtly.
“You understand Miss that there will be an additional baggage fee, you are only allowed two pieces of luggage under 50 pounds and a carry on.”
“Yea, I figured,” I said blowing away a rebellious strand of hair from my bangs away from my face while I leaned and put both elbows on the counter to get a better look at the agent’s assets. “How much?”
“Well, let’s just weigh them shall we?” she said giving me an odd look. I notice that she didn’t offer to help lift them for me while she did it though, the little hussy.
“Oh,” she said with a sorry expression that I could tell wasn’t. “That’s too bad, it’s quite a lot over. Have you been traveling abroad?”
“Boarding school,” I answered tersely as I awaited the bad news.
“Must be nice, OK, Honey, that will come to $488.23.”
“That’s more than I paid for my whole ticket!”
“I’m sorry, but with the overages, airline fees, and the local airport tax, that’s what it comes too.”
“I could FedEx it all to Nebraska for $40.”
“Honey, you maybe could, but then your bags wouldn’t arrive at the same time you do.”
“Is there a FedEx in the terminal?”
“Um,” she said obviously confused at my counter attack. “No, I don’t think so.”
“UPS, U.S. Mail?” I continued hopefully.
“We have a few mailboxes, if that’s what you mean?… look your holding up the line.”
“Right then, fine, forget it.”
“OK, then, Sweetie,” she said happily. “Will that be debit or credit.”
“What? No, I mean forget it; we’ll leave the bags behind. Well, I’ll take the two I’m allowed that one and that one.” I said pointing at the two smallest which I hoped were under 50 pounds.
“You can’t just leave your suitcases behind.”
“Sure I can, you say I can’t bring them on board so by your logic I can leave them behind.”
She looked at me for a few seconds totally confused. It was probably the first time her little game of extortion had failed when the family refused to pay the ransom. But I wasn’t going act the precious princess over someone else’s clothes.
“You can’t just leave them here.” said the girl forcefully. “The airport has a very strong policy on unattended luggage.”
“They are not unattended, they’re yours. My girlfri… The person who picked them out for me has very good taste and I’m sure you will enjoy some of the outfits inside more than I would. Though, they may need to be taken out a bit up top.” I said indicating what medical science had blessed her with. Damn, but I REALLY hoped it was too soon to be developing an inferiority complex.
“I don’t want your clothes!”
“Are you sure? Most of them have Italian names written on them I can’t pronounce,” I asked appealingly.
“Just pay the overages!” she screamed looking over my shoulder at the steadily growing, and growing grouchier, line.
“No,” I said simply crossing my hands under my breasts, and giving off a defiant stare.
“Uh,” She said sensing impending teenage rebellion. “Let me check with my supervisor.”
She did just that bringing back said notable to just close enough that she could point me out to the older woman, but still remain just out of earshot. But I could still hear the occasional word drift through the terminal like ‘bags’ and ‘little’ and ‘bitch‘. Its times like that I really hated air travel. But if I just gave in and paid the blackmail, even if it WAS with someone else’s money., the terrorists win.
Eventually, they gave up on how many different combinations of female dog they could call me and walked over to the counter. The older lady was the first to speak.
“Young lady,” she said giving me the benefit of the doubt. SHOWS HOW MUCH SHE KNOWS! “Jaime here tells me that you have quite a few bags and that you refused to pay the overages.”
“That is correct Madame. “ I said as primly as possible.
“Well, if you don’t want them to accompany you on this flight you can tag them for our freight service and they will get to Omaha as cargo space becomes available. It would mean that you would have to make a separate trip to the airport later, possibly a day or two.”
“How much is that?” I asked intrigued.
“75 dollars.”
“Flat?”
She hesitated only long enough for me to get the idea that this wasn’t the usual service and only existed for those select few customers who understood how to throw a tantrum. And while in my old body I could usually be seen as a pushover, this new body I knew appeared to the outside world like it had received advanced training on the issue.
“Yes,” she replied tersely
I considered the reduced price versus the pain in the ass costs of heading back for my bags later and made the deal. “Done,” I agreed holding out Jessica’s debit card.
Suckers.
[***][***][***]
I’m not going to dwell too long on the security gate process, because I hear high blood pressure is bad for the baby. I will just say that as a guy., once I hit that adolescent growth spurt and shot up past six feet and some odd, inches I never really had trouble with the TSA. ‘Yes sir, good afternoon sir, move along, move along’. As a girl, however, quite a few liberties were taken with my obviously dangerous form. It would be nice to say the woman who did it was a lesbian, but she just looked bored with the whole process.
There was a layover in Atlanta, it doesn’t matter if you were flying from Sacramento to San Diego, there was always a layover in Atlanta. And it would only last about 25 minutes with the arrival gate on one end of the terminal and the departure clear on the other. I knew I wouldn’t have enough time for any sort of lunch. So, if I wanted anything to eat for the next 8 hours, I would need to grab something before my flight, which brings us back to La Guardia.
There a quaint dish peculiar to the indigenous population. They grind wheat into a fine white powder, add salt, water and lard till it makes a nice flat bread, then top it with a tomato paste, pepper, garlic and several savory meats, enough mozzarella cheese to choke a donkey, then bake it. Legend has it that the water used, specific to the New York City water supply, is so unique after passing through hundreds of miles of aqueducts and aquifers that it cannot be duplicated anywhere else on Earth. And once added to those other mere mortal ingredients, makes a pizza that cannot be equaled anywhere.
I had for years been searching for the perfect slice, and in my travels had come damn close. Whenever occasion brought me to what the modest people who live there, refer to as the greatest city in the world, I try at least one different place and test the theory. I had no great hopes for the little place beyond the security gate, but it at least had the virtue of not being a chain and a large crowd to testify to its adequacy. And while it may not be the best, I had just exited the land of seafood on my way to the whatever it is that Nebraska could produce in abundance, and even bad New York City pizza is better than most. I was still feeling a touch of nausea and hadn’t quite decided to trust the gypsy’s preggo potion. But this was probably my last chance for a while for pizza that didn’t come out of a freezer, so screw my stomach, I am its master! …mistress.
I was seated reasonably fast and put my order in for two slices and coke. The waitress who took my order wasn’t more than a few years older than me, but judging by her belly and the two hands she was rubbing her back with when she thought the manager was not looking, she was about six months more pregnant. I couldn’t help but watch her, about ready to pop and still forced to sling pizzas hither and yon and serve traveling businessmen their three martini lunches even hear at the early hour of 10:45 A.M. I tried to imagine what I would be like at that point, how I would cope, if I even could? This woman obviously needed the money, otherwise, she would much rather have been at home, the pampered pregnant woman. I couldn’t help but notice that unlike myself, she wasn’t wearing a ring. And thought hateful thoughts at the bastard that left her in that state. I resolved to leave her a big tip, us single moms had to stick together.
[***][***][***]
I was still of two minds on heading to Omaha and taking Jessica’s inheritance. Hell, three or four minds if you wanted to get technical. I was still enough of a dude that living off my girls money sort of made me squirm. But on the other hand, I was in the body that it belonged too, and needed it to survive with. On the gripping hand, if waitresses can get by without inheritances, what self respecting Marine takes a handout? But then if I didn’t take it, what would happen, Jess/Tommy takes it in the divorce? To hell with that! I was sitting at the table alone with my thoughts playing with a strand of hair that had escaped my hap hazard ponytail this morning when the pizza arrived. Indications were good, the smell wafting up from the plate was invigorating and a well made pizza seemed to have recuperative powers of its own since all nausea just sort of drifted away. I was just about to bite into my slice, holding it with my hands, NEVER A FORK! When I noticed something odd.
There was a Marine waiting by the banks of payphones across the corridor from my table. Using the payphone was odd enough in this age of everyone and their six year old brother having their own cell phone. But what was also odd was the uniform itself. First off, it was a service uniform, the olive green equivalent to what a civilian wears a business suit for. It’s the sort of uniform a Marine wears for formal occasions like reporting for duty or serving on a court martial. I couldn’t off the top of my head tell you when I had last seen one since most Marines just went about in their digicam utility uniforms. Not for nothing, but all those buttons and ribbons were a pain to keep in order and the heavy material the uniform was made out of was, well, the design had not changed much since the 1930’s, and we’ll just leave it at that. I didn’t think he was on duty though, since he seemed to be taking care of a little girl whose hand he wouldn’t let go of.
And his ribbons were weird…
To a civilian, like I guess I must be myself, now that I thought about it; if they looked at the ribbons at all they just counted how many there were and judged the wearer by quantity not quality. But to someone who had been raised since birth to read their significance it could tell a story. This one said you had served in Afghanistan, that one said you had handed out beans and Band-Aids for the Humanitarian Service Medal. The dark purple one says you had been wounded and lived to tell about it. The awards were ranked, with the highest shown first either in its own row or at the top left of the first row. If you looked at a colonel and after a lifetime of service his highest award was a Joint Service Achievement Medal, then well... you knew he had led a virtuous life at the Pentagon, pushing file A to folder B and back again. And then if you ever saw a guy, usually an OLD guy at this point, with a sad look on his face and a little itty bitty baby blue ribbon with five white stars on it?... Then you snapped to attention, and gave him the sharpest salute you ever could. Better than the one you give the President. After all, the President was just the most powerful man on Earth. He had never been awarded the Medal of Honor.
Most people look at a man in uniform and expect to see a hero.
Which is what this mook was counting on I think, because while it’s conceivable a Marine might be so lost to good judgment that he mistakenly puts an Arctic Service Medal ahead of a Silver Star; no, only twenty something Marines had the right to wear the distinctive green yellow and red Vietnam Service Medal… not unless I was looking at a ghost. As I was pondering the supernatural, the man proved that he wasn’t mere ectoplasm by slamming the phone back in the cradle and giving the little girl a yank as he took off down the concourse. The girl had to fight him a little to head back for a little pink backpack but was soon captured again and man and child were on their way.
It was sufficiently disquieting that I got up from my uneaten pizza and followed them. The couple were easy to pursue, even in the cavalcade that was La Guardia. I tried keeping a safe distance, but had no real idea what a safe distance would be in this case. Was he some conman trying to get a free ride? Was he some nut job trying to play the hero? But by the way he kept tugging at the little dark haired girl to keep up, I was scared to death that it was a kidnapping. Who after all would suspect one of America’s finest? I resolved to record as much information that I could and then report it to airport security and made a grab for my cell phone when I realized I had left it, along with my purse and laptop behind at the pizzeria.
Yet another damned female setback! When I was a guy I traveled light, wallet in front pocket, cell phone on belt. Paperback book in the back pocket if I didn’t happen to be wearing cargo pants. But these never to be sufficiently damned WOMEN'S clothes didn’t believe in such useful things as pockets, and I hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that I needed to carry my purse with me. I was just so use to WEARING everything I needed. And when the moment came that I needed to investigate something highly suspicious, I just didn’t remember that anything had changed. I considered heading back to grab my bags, but by the time I got there and back again, the imposter might have slipped away. La Guardia was a labyrinth of twisting concourses and switchback hallways, I might never catch up again and I was getting more apprehensive with every tug he gave. I resolved to keep them in my sights.
Soon enough, the little girl started tugging back, but this time on the man’s jacket, it looked like she was pointing at the bathroom they were about to pass. Eventually, probably giving in to the assumption that it was this, or deal with wet pants he gave in. I could see the man was clearly conflicted. He wanted to take the girl into the men’s room, but she shook her head and he clearly wanted to follow her into the ladies, but etiquette got the best of him, so he decided to let her have her way and go by herself as the least embarrassing option for all concerned. He stood out front of the entrance and watched her disappear inside the restroom.
I, oh so casually, decided I needed to use the facilities myself, one of the few times when it wasn’t actually necessary, fate being what it was. I passed the man out front and tracked the little girl inside and scoped out the stall she went to use. I was incredibly nervous, it was still possible that this was all in my head and the only thing that was wrong was my steadily cooling pizza. My state of anxiety was not helped of course by where I was waiting. My only other experience in a public women’s room had been in the one stall gas station, where I was by design the only one there. Now, I was in a massive bastion of femininity in one of the busiest airports on the planet, which had to make this particular ladies room in the money for busiest in its own field. Everywhere I turned, there were women primping and scurrying about. One of them was very obviously even changing clothes behind a stall as I could see arms extended upward while a top was being removed. And on the wall was a pay dispenser for products that, while I didn’t need them now, very possibly could in the imminent future. All things considered, I was grateful when I could hear the toiled being flushed and the little girl exiting and walking hesitantly toward the adult sized sink.
“Hi,” I said trying to be ten times more cheerful than I had ever been in my life. “That’s a cute backpack you have. I had one just like it when I was a little girl.”
“It’s Dora the explorer!” she said proudly.
“I loved Rugrats more, but Dora is cool too. My name is T… Jessica what’s yours?”
“Kayleigh,” she answered me cheerfully.
“I saw you come in with a man, my daddy is in the Marines too, we’re almost the same!”
“Oh, he’s not my daddy,” she said shaking her head. “He’s Uncle Jack, he’s friends with my mommy and daddy, he’s a Marine too! He said he’s gonna take me on a plane trip to see my daddy. He’s been away fighting the tourists, and my daddy wants to see me!”
“Uh huh,” I asked reasonably sure this preschooler meant terrorists, at least I hoped. “That’s great! Did your daddy say he was sending your Uncle Jack?”
“Yeah, Uncle Jack said he said so,” she said happily smiling ear to ear. “When he came to Mrs. Franklin’s house to pick me up, right after mommy dropped me off, he said he had a surprise for me.”
“I love surprises!” I had just had a big one last week after all. “Have you ever seen your Uncle Jack before today?”
“No,” she replied confused at the question.
“Didn’t mommy or daddy tell you not to speak to strangers?”
“He’s not a stranger! He wears a coat just like daddy’s and mommy always said If I got lost just to find someone in uniform anyway!” she said proud of her accomplishment.
“Kayleigh,” I said resolved in what I hoped was the right decision. “I’m going to take you to some other people in uniform, now wash your hands like a good little girl. Do you need help reaching the sink?”
She nodded, and I lifted her up until her hands were within range of the sensor. Once she was lathered and rinsed down I held her up to the air drier. She couldn’t have been more than 40 pounds, but I was still struggling to hold her at arm level. Jessica was very fit for a girl, but there are still certain design limitations with my new body.
“Here,” I said peeling off my blue top to reveal the camisole underneath. “You look cold, you should wear this, you won’t want to catch a cold and give it to your daddy, would you?”
Once the girl was covered in what looked on her like a full sized dress, she gravely picked up her Dora the Explorer backpack from the floor, and I held her hand as we exited the ladies room. I lucked out at first, the imposter was looking the other direction when we walked out. My heart jumped in my chest as I noticed him out of the corner of my eye take a look at us, but my desperate gamble at camouflage as well as the fact that Kayleigh was with someone else must have caused him to look away. We were another 30 feet away from him when he looked back and must have spotted something.
“Hey!” He shouted across the concourse. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I grabbed Kayleigh up in a fireman’s carry, and started running.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 7
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Welcome home Jessica Scott…
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Woman: Part 7
[***][***][***]
Once before, when I was caught taking naked pictures of my sisters in the shower… let me rephrase that for clarity. Once, when I was caught SELLING naked pictures of my sisters in the shower, I had to run for my life. That time, it was just myself I was carrying and I was able to outrun my pursuers, though I definitely got what was coming to me when the General came home. This time, however, I was carrying a frightened and fighting preschooler while running away from a screaming man in uniform, all the while doing so in a foreign body with my boobs flying about.
It was a sight to see, I’m quite certain. I only hope no one was taking photographs.
After running down the terminal for about 30 seconds, I made a beeline for a group of three men and one woman wearing police uniforms who I hoped were actually entitled to wear them. They heard the shouting and saw me coming, and were no doubt thrown for a loop, New York City Police seldom saw people being chased heading TOWARD them.
“You have to help me, “I said as quickly as I could. “This girl is being kidnapped.”
That got their attention, the tall African American woman subtly unbuttoned the strap to her gun. The kidnapper behind me didn’t have a good angle and only had eyes for Kayleigh. By the time he saw what was waiting for him, it was too late and he tried to brazen it out.
“What’s all going on here?” said the grey haired police sergeant with a powerful, stern voice.
“Ah, Officer,” said the fake trying to catch his breath and steel his reserve, “I was just escorting this girl to her father, we stopped for her to go to the bathroom. When she came out, this crazy girl grabbed her and started running.”
“She said something about the little girl being kidnapped?” continued the sergeant giving the man an appraising look.
“Kidnapping? SHES the kidnapper! Look, I have orders right here for Fort Bliss,” said the phony digging into his jacket to fish out some official looking forms. “Permission from her father.”
“He’s lying!” I shouted and pointed at his chest. “Look, did any of you serve in the military? He’s wearing decorations from 40 years ago, Fort Bliss is an ARMY base, the Marines use camps.”
“Look, I don’t have to stand here and be called a liar by some crazy woman. Kayleigh knows me, I have the orders. If you just let me catch my plane, I won’t press charges. The girl is obviously disturbed.”
The sham Marine put on a good show of a concerned man just doing his duty, the officers seemed inclined to take his word for it. Why wouldn’t they? Appearances being what they were. A thousand thoughts went through my head including that I might be wrong, that Kayleigh’s father was just training in the desert at the Army’s tank school. Or maybe all the stress of the last few days HAD actually caused me to snap. But my heart started beating again when the wary black officer cleared her throat to speak up.
“I may not recognize the medals, but I recognize her,” the policewoman said, pointing to the crying little girl. “There was an amber alert put out on little Kayleigh not an hour ago.”
The fake marine started running away, but he didn’t get far.
[***][***][***]
“You’re quite the hero Miss Ryan,” said the T.S.A. suit in the interview room.
“Mrs. Ryan,” I corrected him waiving my ring finger at him. “Just, recently.”
“Ah, well, congratulations.”
“Thank you. Look, I’m going to miss my flight if this is going to take much longer.”
“I’m sorry Mis… Mrs. Ryan,” he said and actually looked apologetic. “Making you’re plane is just not going to be possible, we will be taking down interviews and doing paperwork for a while, yet.
“Joy.”
“How did you know the man in the uniform was a fake?”
“Because he was wearing a fake uniform, the decorations were in the wrong order and there was no way he could have been issued some of them. I got suspicious, so I followed them and started speaking to Kayleigh. I got even more suspicious. Look, we have already been over this.”
“Just following procedure, we keep asking the same questions in a slightly different manner to see if people slip up and tell a different story. You will be pleased to know that you passed. Not that I thought you had anything to do with this, of course.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, though, how does a young lady know so much about military awards? Enough to spot a fake from across a crowded airport?”
I could tell, all attempts aside to put me on my ease, that he WAS mildly suspicious of me. So, I decided to tell as much truth as I could get away with. I was careful to only let out what would be reasonable for JESS, not myself. It would be too hard to convince the fed that a trust fund babe would have picked up the fake vibe by instinct, rather than a man born and bred to it would have.
“For the last several years, it has been my goal to be accepted as a midshipman to the Naval Academy. I made the study of all things military, particularly Marine, my life’s passion.”
“Oh well, good luck to you, my nephew Teddy is trying to get into the Air Force Academy, wants to be a Top Gun.”
“Top Gun is Navy, not the zoomies, and I did get in.”
“Well, then double congratulations to you, I’m sure this will be a wonderful start to your military record. I’ll be sure to write up some sort of commendation for you. Never too early to be thinking about promotion.”
That wrenched my gut, with more powerful a force than any morning sickness could provide.
“Thank you,” I said trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. “But I had to decline…medical.”
“Oh,” he said with avuncular expression I wished I could wipe off his well maintained face. “Nothing too serious I hope?”
“Nothing that seven more months won’t cure.” I said dejectedly looking down at my midsection.
“I see,” The T.S.A. man grinned, “I suppose that explains the recently part… I just keep congratulating you, Mrs. Ryan. I’m sure you will make a wonderful mother.”
“All I want to do his get on a plane, or at the very least grab a book, if you are going to keep me here.”
“The book I can provide, the plane will have to wait a bit. Besides, we here in New York don’t just let our hero’s just slide off into the good night. There are already some news crews wanting to speak to you.”
“I didn’t want to be a hero, all I wanted was some pizza!”
[***][***][***]
I was five hours past my initial departure time, seven hours since being placed in the tiny windowless room when a uniformed man brought in what was left of my possessions.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but you know we have a very strict policy against unattended luggage,” he said regretfully as he laid down my bags. “TSA got called in, we irradiated them a little after you came in here. I couldn’t get to it in time. Everything electronic is basically gone, though you might get a bit off the hard drive if you hire a professional. Anything like a credit card the magnetic strip has been degaussed and it won’t work anymore. The cash is good still of course, thankfully no one made off with it.”
“All $34 of it?” I said raising an eyebrow. “How am I supposed to do anything…. Without a computer or a card, or …”
“We ARE sorry, Miss, you’re ID still works as an ID though the chip inside is toast, so if you ever get pulled over, let the cop know what happened. The credit card numbers themselves should work, just tell people to punch them in by hand until you can get a replacement. The computer…well I spoke to Agent White, he said you could submit a claim and TSA will cover it, least we could do, all things considered.”
“What about a flight to Omaha?”
“Last one there, for any airline I checked, left for the day; but there is direct flight at 7:10 A.M. We got you a room, and covered the cost at the Hampton Inn. I can get you a ride over there in a bit, and an agent will pick you up at 5: A.M. for your departure."
“Oh joy, a Hampton Inn, huh?” I asked wryly. “Not the Plaza, don’t I rate?”
“She was only one little girl, Miss, the Plaza is the Plaza.”
[***][***][***]
I was taken to the Hampton Inn, where room service was not available, the driver, however, took pity on me and stopped at a McDonald's on the way, he even paid for it, which was nice of him. Though I hoped he didn’t expect anything in return as he was over 40, and would never have been Jessica’s type, even if she had gone blind, at the same time as catching leprosy.
Or maybe he was just being a nice guy, all this female interaction stuff was taking a while to get used to.
My bags had caught the plane that I had missed, and Delta said they would be waiting for me when I arrived. But that didn’t help me out much for the moment. Thankfully enough, chain hotels are built for this sort of thing and most everything I needed to make myself fit for human company was already in my room, or made available when I asked at the front desk with only the very minimum of simpering. So that evening, I lay in bed, naked, since I was trying to keep my only clothes as clean as possible while I ate fries and spilled salt in places where it shouldn’t go. I seemed to be spending my whole life in hotel rooms of late, and was quite eager for some sort of home, even borrowed.
T.S.A. was as good as their word and a polite rapping on my door woke me up at oh dark early. After a quick shower, I donned my still not ripe clothes and grabbed my purse for the airport. The laptop was junk. After writing down the model number for my report, I upended it into the trash last night. Air travel is just a much more pleasant experience when you are a VIP, however temporary. Or maybe it was just easier to get through an airport before the sun had even risen.
Soon enough, I was safely on board the 737 and being offered complimentary coffee and orange juice that I calculated I had paid about $23 an ounce for. As the plane took off and left behind a chapter of my life, I raced the sun west toward a new life. I took some time to ponder some of the more ponderous and weighty issues of the last few days. Like the fact that I never did get that pizza.
[***][***][***]
The sight out the window as we descended down toward Eppley Airfield was disquieting. Miles and miles as far as the eye could see. No mountains, or hills or oceans or lakes. Just a thin strip of river winding north to south that I thought we were going to crash land into as close as it came to the airport. But the pilot knew his own business, and we touched down on solid concrete. It was a matter of minutes before we were docked up at the gate and letting people out. One nice thing to be said about smaller cities was that there wasn’t the legendary delays on the tarmac while you waited for the rest of western civilization to get done unloading.
Since I was unencumbered by any carry on, I was one of the first up and out the door toward my temporary refuge. I hardly thought I would stick around in a city that didn’t even have the self respect to host a professional sports team, but I guess it was mildly better living on the streets…. At least I hoped. Things were not starting out very well at the car rental agency.
“What do you mean I have to be 25 to rent a car?” I asked incredulously. “I was driving around in a rental all last week!”
“If you did,” the woman said refusing to even grant me that much. “It was not with Hertz.”
“No, it was some highbrow car agency my friend loaned to me. Both of whom I assure you have better standards than you people.”
I maybe should have been more diplomatic in my desperation. But that was never really a big part of who I was if you know what I mean.
“That may be, but we are unable to help you young lady.”
“Then I’ll go across the hall to people who will!”
“You’ll find they have the same policy we do, good day,” She wished me, though, I could tell she would rather a pit open up in the floor and swallow me and my attitude straight to hell.
Budget rental was the same way, Enterprise would give me a car, but only at such a ruinous rate that it would be cheaper for me to take three days worth of rental and make a full months payment on a car of my own. So admitting to defeat in the face of corporate America and its anti-teen bias, I left in a huff. Delta had been true to their word and the two bags that should have been going with me were waiting for me at the security office. The several, more bulky pieces were still waiting for the freight service and the clerks were not to promising on an estimated time, so I took what I could and got the hell out of there. I walked toward the front doors and the waiting taxi stand cautiously for a ride to my temporary refuge. I didn’t know the exact address, but Jess had it printed on her driver’s license since it was officially her home of record and the cabbie seemed to know where to head to.
[***][***][***]
It was a red brick house in the federalist style, though, Omaha being settled when it was, it couldn’t possibly be an original, so had to be a reasonably true copy. Big… bigger than anything I had ever lived in before, even the general officers quarters at Camp Pendleton. Three stories above ground it took up several lots of the size of the lesser houses about it. I remembered it even had a small pool and full sized tennis court in the back. Reader… it was as intimidating as all hell, particularly shut up and all dark like it was. I don’t mind telling you at first that I was eager to tell the cabbie to get me out of here. Even in the mid morning sun, it sent a shiver down my spine. But logic and eventually, self control got the better of me.
Jess only owned two keys, being without a car of her own or a job or anything else that required them. It was a simple enough matter to find out which opened the front door, but it did make me wonder what the second opened up. The front door gave way with an ominous creek, and I was inside the house. The furniture all had covers and drop cloths over them. The air inside was a bit stale with the dust that no one had been around in a while to clean. The power was still running though, so someone, likely the man I had a meeting with later today was still making sure the bills were being paid. Jessica, of course, had been away at boarding school and her evil stepmother, who I guess was now MY evil stepmother since we had functionally the same relationship, had been living in Europe for the last several years. Where In Europe, I didn’t remember and couldn’t be bothered to care.
I dragged my two suitcases up the stairs and hesitated at the foot of the stairs. My only previous time here, I had been sleeping in one of the guest rooms down the hall from the master bedroom. Stepmother being at least somewhat conscious of her duty, forbid me sharing the same bed with her charge. Jessica’s room was almost a guest room itself. It had enough pink and frill to remind one that it housed a girl, but all the personal touches and little knickknacks that are accumulated over a childhood were not present. The master bedroom was the most comfortable looking, but I didn’t know if I was indeed Mistress of this house or if W.S.M. would be arriving soon to set up shop again, or what I would tell her if she did? I plopped down the suitcases on Jessica’s bed and decided this was the easiest for the time being. If I couldn’t get used to the color pink in the comfort of ‘my own home’, how could I be expected to function in my perceived gender out in public? This would be a good self test. I thought and hoped it wouldn’t prove a costly failure.
I opened up both suitcases to unpack and stow my gear when I was confronted with an unwelcome shock. If I had spent a week trying, I couldn’t have done to myself by design what I had done by accident. The first case was stuffed to the brim with shoes. Shoes that I was fairly certain where not shoes at all, but rather some science experiment gone terribly wrong. As a guy, I had owned exactly three. One set of boots, one of running shoes, and one pair of black dress shoes. When holes started showing up, I bought a new pair and begrudged the expense while I was doing it. You could maybe fudge a little and say I had four, but only during winter would I have slippers and summer some sandals. But three was the usual number…three were all a guy really needed.
Jessica had about twenty, and I had brought them all with me across country.
The second suitcase wasn’t any better. It's contents wrapped inside a garbage bag so it wouldn’t spill all over the case, all the feminine battle rattle that I had collected from Jessica’s room back in Exeter. Perfumes, paints, makeup of all kind, jewelry, hairspray, hair gel, hair brushes, hair scrunchies and otherwise hair-Armageddon for me. There were lotions, creams, leg razors and even a half empty box of tampons that I wanted to throw away, but was too embarrassed to be caught with it in the garbage. But of actual clothes, even as much as a fresh pair of panties, I had none. Not until the rest of my baggage arrived by cheaper freight.My my own damn fault for being a tightwad with other people’s money. No change of clothes, and wearing some that I had spent 2 days in by this point, a rather full and sweaty two days at that. I had an important meeting with the lawyers in less than three hours.
I sort of lost the plot for a little bit and considered going to meeting with the conservative sounding Mr. DeGeas wearing nothing but makeup and high heels, but I had only just arrived in town, and decided to let the city catch its breath a little before it got used to my wicked ways. I closed my eyes, and sighed for a few seconds letting the self anger just flow out and over me, then went to work. I unloaded all the shoes, lined them up in two neat rows in the walk in closet, then set up all the other gear where it seemed most logical: on the vanity and the attached bathroom. Once done with the matter at hand, I stacked up the two cases in the back of the closet and gave myself another head shake,then went downstairs to the landline I had seen in the kitchen.
I made a call to information, which connected me to another cab company, it would be about 15 minutes. but they were willing to take my card over the phone. So, I didn’t grumble much. About five minutes into my wait, however, I looked up from the chair in the living room to see a police cruiser pull up into the large driveway. Two officers got out, and started walking toward the door with their guns drawn.
[***][***][***]
I considered making a run for it, but quickly discounted it, where, after all would I run too? I calmly went to the front door, being careful to do so as slowly as possible, I opened the front door shortly before the two male officers arrived at the entryway.
“I’m unarmed, I’m not trespassing, I had a key!” I said coming into view with both my hands raised.
The Omaha Police Department had obviously not got the memo about diversity. Both were white males sporting the pseudo military swagger that typified some of the scare stories you hear about rogue cops. Each had buzz cut hair with large sunglasses showing off my scared reflection. The only thing that distinguished one from the other is that one was taller and one looked meaner.
“Keep your hands where we can see them, and identify yourself.” said the nasty looking one.
“I’m T…” I started to say as I lifted my hands higher, and was glad that I caught myself in time.” “I’m Jessica Ryan. Jessica Scott until recently. I just got married.”
“And what are you doing here, Miss, we got a call about a break in.”
“I… uh, I live here. I don’t know anything about a break in.”
“You don’t seem too sure about the living here part?”
“It’s a recent move, my plane just landed this morning.”
“Uh huh,” said the officer as he holstered his weapon and approached me with his handcuffs out.
“Steve look,” said the taller one pointed toward the wall. It was a family photo gallery. The first was of a pretty blond girl and her father, right next to one of the young family a few years later with the addition of women quite a few years younger than the man was. Finally, there was a more recent photo of a stiff young woman and the new wife alone. Both of them had smiles on their face, but their eyes looked like they would rather be doing something else. All young girls in the photo bore a striking resemblance to the face I saw in the mirror this morning.
“Do you have any ID, Miss,” asked the angry looking one, sternly.
“Yes, of course, I do, it’s in my purse over their by the chair.”
“You can go get it,” he said calmly though he still rested his right hand on his pistol.
I slowly went to retrieve it, dearly hoped he didn’t call it a fake when chip inside didn’t transmit. He didn’t take it back to the cruiser, however, instead, gave it a hard look and turned it up and down while under the light to inspect the holographs.
“According to this,” he said indicating the ID in his hand. “You live here, mind telling me why the security alarm went off.”
“I’m sorry,” I said thinking quickly. “I’ve been away at boarding school for many years. I…I had forgotten the combination.” Or even the fact that there WAS one.
“I see, where are your parents at the moment, Jessica?”
He WOULD ask that. Somehow, I doubted he would accept Middle of Nowhere, Desert, Iraq as a forwarding address for ‘daddy’.
“My mother died, when I was born. My father eight years afterward, my stepmother had guardianship while I was away at school, but I graduated. My birthday was…last week. I’m 18, now.”
“And your stepmother?”
“I don’t know… abroad,” I said hesitantly. “We’re not close.”
“I see,” said the big and mean one. Tapping the ID with his index finger, giving it one last look before deciding to hand it back to me. “Best get that code sorted out before rearming it. The Omaha Police Department doesn’t enjoy these false alarms, Miss.”
“No, I mean… yes I’ll get the code, and no of course you don’t like it.”
Both of them seemed to relax a little bit, weapons and restrains were quickly stowed where they belonged as the taller one reached for his radio to call in the all clear. They both made for the door and left me alone with my shattered nerves. The mean one though, hesitated a bit at the door, he turned his head back and looked at me just as he was about to descend the steps to the driveway. He gave me a long penetrating look, and said simply. “It’s good to have a Scott back in Omaha, ma’am… we’ve missed you.”
And I didn’t know what to make of that.
[***][***][***]
The taxi arrived just as the police cruiser was rounding the corner to leave the street. It was maroon, and, having just left New York City with its distinctive checker caps, it caused me to blink a little bit. The driver, though, seemed to know his business since he got here right about when he said he would,and gave two sharp honks on the horn to let me know he was waiting. I grabbed my purse and used the key to lock the door to the mausoleum behind me. I only hoped that the alarm actually needed a live person to turn it on, not on some sort of remote or motion sensitive activation.
“Where too, Miss,” The African cabbie asked me. It seemed even here in the heartland, the cabs were being taken over by the Sudanese.
“A department store, the mall.” I said as I buckled my seat belt.
“Which one, Misses?”
I was still a bit rattled from my police presence and was no mood to be insulted by being called 'Miss'.
“PICK ONE!” I shouted in a huff as I stared out the window toward the other stately homes about.
“Nearest is Crossroads,” said the cabbie non-plused, I guess he must get screamed at a lot. “But nice girl like you don’t wanna go there. Better is Von Maur at Westroads.”
“Then by all means, nothing but the best,” I agreed.
[***][***][***]
It was about a ten minute drive to the large shopping mall. Omaha was a much bigger going concern than Exeter, or most towns of New England for that matter. I was unaccustomed to such a spread to a city. My usual towns were either small enough to see one end to the other, or was built up and dense, but still concentrated in area. All this suburban sprawl was starting to freak me out. Von Maur was an attached three level department store the likes of which Mother would usually frequent. It didn’t have a doorman, so it failed that snooty test, but the visage it presented was one of sufficient wealth and casual opulence. I asked the cabbie to wait in the parking lot. I had no idea how long I would be, and my plastic was apparently good for it as he turned off the engine and reached for his smart phone.
I had no real understanding of how to shop for women’s clothes, but if I have learned anything from Mother and her several shopping expeditions she had dragged me on, it’s that at a certain level., you don’t need to know how to shop. You just needed to know how to buy. The first floor was given over to cosmetics, jewelry and perfumes. I only just narrowly escaped a chemical warfare attack since I was probably smack dab in the middle of the target demographic, I tried not to hold it against the young women who assaulted me... much. The second floor yielded a women’s department. I was surrounded by skirts, dresses and other unfamiliar items in every direction. The western most section of the floor was given over to a small men’s department. I enviously looked at a man trying to decide between two different shades of white button down shirt, but sartorial envy wasn’t going to get this mission done, so, I headed toward the register.
“Good afternoon, Miss, how can I help you?” asked an older well turned out saleslady. She was, barring some extra pounds and a name badge that said ‘Deb,’ wearing what I imagined was appropriate for a meeting with lawyers, so, I felt safe in her care for the moment.
“Hello…um…Deb,” I said as I offered my hand for a shake. “Jessica Ryan.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Deb as she shook my hand hesitantly. I guess chicks didn’t go in for that much or something. Either that, or she was trying to keep a safe distance from my overripe clothes.
“I have a bit of a problem. I just got into town, and all my clothes are being delayed by the airline. I’m wearing everything I have at the moment. I’ve been wearing it for a few days now. I have an important meeting with my lawyers about an inheritance. Showing up in Jeans and stained top is probably not going to make them feel better about me.”
“Oh you poor dear,” she said sympathetically.
“Not so poor,” I countered with a grin. “Now that I’m 18, so I can afford to spend a bit, but hopefully, you won’t take too much advantage of me.”
“Oh we wouldn’t do that, Miss, we like repeat customers. Von Maur is a very personal store.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” and oddly enough, I was.
“What were you looking for exactly?”
“You know Deb, I really don’t have any idea.” I said throwing myself on her mercy. “I’ve been sort of a tomboy. my mother died when I was born. I’ve been away at boarding school, and we always just wore the uniform. This will really be the first formal women’s clothes I have ever bought. I was hoping you could suggest something?”
“Perhaps, which law firm is it? It matters, you wouldn’t want to dress up too much for some of the… less prestigious firms.”
“Um… Bernard DeGeas, “I said trying to dredge up the contact information that was given me. “From someplace called Baird Holm.”
“You’re having a meeting with 'The DeGeas',” she seemed startled and then gave me another quick once over. “It would be hard to be under dressed for that. When is it?”
“Ah,” I said looking at my watch. “90 minutes.”
“Well then, we haven’t much time at all do we. Follow me, young lady.”
And I did…guess being called a lady is starting to lose some of its sting.
[***][***][***]
I knew what was coming, so, I was mostly inured to it, mostly. Deb dressed me from the skin out. Including a fresh pair of dainty panties and a bra that I rather wished didn’t do what it did to my girls. But since I figured telling her this would be against some unwritten, for what I knew actually written, code of female conduct. I kept quiet. She then got me a black skirt suit, with a cream blouse and very slight heels. The black I thought appropriate since I was attending to the last will of my supposed late Father. The heels I could have done without. But after a few awkward steps, I got the basic premise down. While I would not be auditioning for the ballet any time soon, at least was not about to kill myself on them. Deb 'tsk tsked' me over the length of the hair on my legs. Since I had in fact never shaved them, I suppose she was right. The problem was solved with a pair of pantyhose that were oddly comfortable once I got them on. And of course, I needed an entirely new purse to go with the outfit…. For some reason known but to God.
She then took me downstairs and had me made over by one of the makeup girls. I wasn’t in any position to be lugging about an entire chemical factory with me, and I was reasonably sure Jess had most of it anyway. I didn’t buy anything and the girl was visibly disappointed. I cheered her up a little when I said I would be back to buy something once I had a car of my own to do shopping with, and asked for her card. She brightened up considerably. I always was a sucker for a pouting pretty girl.
Deb left me alone next to the full length mirror while she totaled up my purchases. I took a moment before grabbing the cab to admire the full effect. Jess has always been plenty pretty enough for me, but I had never seen her like this. Too much work, or too many dollars, or both, but however it was done, I rather liked how I looked… for a moment or two. Then reality crashed back down upon me. I remembered why I was where I was, and who I was.
“Well my child,” I said aloud unenthusiastically while patting my belly. “Let’s go claim our fortune.”
[***][***][***]
Authors note.
This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Sean Smith one of the Americans killed in the Embassy attacks in Libya a few days ago. I sort of knew him, in an internets sort of way. There is an MMORPG called EVE Online that I play it’s a good way to unwind from the real world while at the same time role play as a girl. Sean aka “Vile Rat” was one of the movers and shakers in that universe and I had interacted with him hundreds of times, indeed when he died he still owed me 300 million credits of game currency which now that I think about it is probably the way he wanted to go out…. leave a good looking corpse and have your last check bounce.
Most of you have probably never heard of EVE it’s not as big a deal as World of Warcraft but for those who play it, it becomes more than just a hobby. It’s a way for an everyday person to become a legend. And there are few more legendary than Vile Rat… Give a virtual hug to your internet friends today, you never know when they will be taken away from you.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 8
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mo' money mo' problems.
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 8
[***][***][***]
Bernard DeGeas was such a luminary at the Baird Holm law firm that I had only just finished mentioning his name when the receptionist was out of her chair, and in front of the desk to personally wish me well, then escort me to a well appointed waiting room. I was a little early, not being an expert on the intricacies of Omaha traffic, so I wasn’t affronted by the wait. However, it was still twenty minutes to my scheduled appointment when a short, round, older man with more hair growing out of his ears than on his head with a grey mustache and thick glasses came in and introduced himself as my lawyer. He walked me a few more doors down into his private office and sat me down in what was quite possible the most comfortable leather chair I had ever been in.
I remembered to smooth my skirt. But only because something felt odd after I had sat down the first time. Keeping my knees together I had sort of learned right away. I wasn’t even willing to admit even to myself I had those pieces let alone willing to show them off to other people.
“Well Jessica, let me have a look at you!” he said cheerfully giving off the look of a contented grandfather inspecting his growing clan. “It must have been five…six years since before you went off to that fancy high school, York something was it?”
“Phillips Exeter, as you well know judging by the diploma on the wall above you.”
“Is that what it is?” he looked over his shoulder and winked at me. “Bought it at a going out of business sale when I was first starting out, just good luck. I guess the man had the same name as me. The Harvard one, I won in a crap game, but…don’t tell the wife.”
“I’m glad for your good fortune,” I said smiling despite myself.
“Oh it’s good to see you smile again, too many years you spent with… that woman, and I never saw you smile. God! Look at you! You’re a woman!”
Gulp
“You… were expecting a man?” I asked oddly.
“I was expecting the little girl I used to bounce on my knee, but I suppose she had to grow up, like we all do,” he said with a sigh.
“Is that so?” I asked raising an eyebrow at some of the model planes and other toys in his office.
“Ha ha,” he chuckled grandly. “Some of us, more and much less than others, of course.”
He got up to the bar to fix himself a drink. He looked out the window to the city below. The law offices were located on the 26th floor of the Woodman Tower and being that Omaha only had one building that was taller, this corner office had quite a view of the city below.
“You want a soft drink? Can’t offer you something harder, we employ about 15 former judges of several different stripes, and they are always in here after me for something. Would hurt your reputation if they see you drinking.”
“I’m all right for now.” I assured him.
“Take something, we’ll be in here a while. The girl outside can get you one them fancy eye-talian coffees from that Starbucks across the street.”
“Perhaps some water,” I suggested trying to placate him.
“Here you go then,” he said handing me a bottle of the sort of mineral water people usually pay more for than they would the equivalent amount of cocktail. I guess I should have felt honored. DeGeas walked back over to his desk and rested comfortably in his own soft leather chair. He took a moment to savor his drink and seemed to gather strength from it. He turned to face me losing a great bit of his jovial air, “I suppose, you think that you’re a wealthy woman?” he asked me unsympathetically.
'I don’t think I’m a woman at all.' I thought. “I... don… you mean I’m not?” I stuttered out confused.
“Well, you are and you aren’t that’s the truth of it,” said DeGeas waving his glass for emphasis. “You’re a woman of property. No question of that, but actual hard cash money is… somewhat thin on the ground. I have it all there in the attache case next to you. There is also a flash drive in the inside pocket with all the digital copies. Both are yours to take when you leave. Pull out your stack of papers and we’ll just go over things one at a time.”
I reached over to the black briefcase on the table and flipped open both latches to inspect inside and remove the stack of files. Certainly it seemed rather extensive for poverty.
“We’ll do it in descending order of liquidity,” he continued setting his drink down. “Though towards the end, it gets a little fuzzy on how to order it. At the top is the residue of your father’s various money market and checking accounts. For bookkeeping reasons, I had them all merged into one account over at First National. $36,204.13 as of this morning is what’s left after paying for your care and feeding. You have full access to it now, no one looking over your shoulder. If you wanted to take it all up to the Indian casino and party, no one will stop you. I only hope you put a hundred on red for me while you there. I promise I’m good for it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said trying not to break out laughing.
“You’re educational trust is still solvent, and you can spend that on anything school related, from tuition itself to books to housing. I won’t raise too much of a fuss as long as I can at least smell some academia. If you don’t use it for school, you get what’s in the tax deferred savings plan when you turn 25, but only after the government takes it’s piece of the action.”
“This can’t be right,” I said confused looking at the amount in the college savings plan: $8,200.00 left.
“Your father planned for his demise, like any responsible parent should, but I think he counted on living longer than he did, like all of us do. I doubt he would have agreed to sending you away to a series of boarding schools, no matter how illustrious, so that trust presupposed that there would be years to gain interest before being used, and also that it would not have been depleted at this point by the $170,000 required to send you to Exeter. The $8,200 remaining is actually a testament to the prudent investments of your father. There was after all, a great stock market crash shortly after it was funded.”
“I understand, it’s just… that’s not even a full semester at Georgetown.”
“I thought I heard tell that you were accepted to the Naval Academy. Don’t they pay you while you’re going to a free school, like good communists?”
“I had to decline,” I said looking down embarrassed. “Medical.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Jessie. You’re Uncle Ben would have liked that. Are you going to be all right, is it serious or were the physical requirements to stringent?”
“It was… something we can discus later Mr. DeGeas.”
“Right,” he said hesitating only briefly. “Well let’s move down the list. You own five properties free and clear. The taxes are even paid up until the end of the year. The house in midtown Omaha has six beds, five baths on three acres. It's worth about a million and a half in a good market, which we don’t have. You WERE offered that once about three years ago, but I declined it on your behalf. Now, if you were desperate, you could maybe get $500,000. But your great-grandfather would probably jump out of the grave to give you a good spanking if you did. He was mighty fond of that house, what with having built it with his own two hands and all. There is the lake house on Lewis and Clark, the cabin in the Rockies near Estes Park, Colorado. They're worth about $260,000 and $175,000, respectively, though waiting for the rebound would probably double that. You have not received any unsolicited offers for the vacation properties, and … times being what they are, they may be hard to sell even at a deep discount.”
“You are also a miner, congratulations. I’ll see about getting you a union card!” he joked happily as he turned to the next pile. “There is the hole in the ground in Carbon County Wyoming, your daddy bought it with personal funds when the executives at his company balked, kept saying 'there was coal in them thar hills'.”
“Is there?” I asked incredulously.
“Oh, certainly there is, and copper and manganese several others, trouble is, you need to pay people to dig it out of the earth, and the not inconsiderable equipment to do it with. That is unless you were planning to do it all yourself by hand with old school pick and shovel. I’ve had the numbers run, it would cost about $3,000,000 to reopen the mine, bring it all up to code and hire a workforce, keep em fed and watered for the six months or so you would need before you could reasonably expect a return.”
“And I don’t have three million dollars?” I countered taking a sip of mineral water for the benefit of my suddenly dry throat.
“In a word, no.” he said obviously sad to give that news. “Possibly we can find a mining company that wants it, now that your 18, I can actually sell it. The terms of your fathers will prevented the sale of any real property which protected it from the predications of… that woman, but it also meant that now you’re sitting on intact assets that no one wants to buy instead of a pile of cash from the potential sales of a couple of years ago. The Wyoming mine paid out while it was in operation. Much of the hard work has been done, already. You won’t get what’s it’s worth, but you’ll get plenty… eventually. Some of these sales take years though, particularly of late. Now any time a mine changes hands the Federal Government sticks their beaks in and has to do an ‘environmental impact study’ or some such nonsense.”
“If it was paying out while it was in operation why is it not still in operation?”
“Well, that’s a good question, and the sad truth of it is you were betrayed.”
“Was I?” I asked bitterly.
“Must be a new experience for you, a pretty girl like you, men would be falling over themselves to smite any of your enemies, but it’s happened now.”
'Not so new.' I thought.
“There was a cabal, of mid level managers. A few years after his death, they were doing their work, periodically paying into your trust fund the steady profits from the mine. Then one of them came up with the idea to take a little something extra for himself. He was found out, offered to cut in the person who found him who, now that there were two mouths to feed upped the stakes and diverted even more profits. It sort of snowballed. You see, that mine was a personal project of your father. When he died, there was no one to oversee it but… that woman. She was content to just see the cash being deposited and nothing more. Too much money got diverted and what should have been making a profit was operating at a loss. When the current accounts started dipping too low, the payroll got missed, and miners, understandably stopped showing up to dig up more minerals just to line the pockets of chiselers. There was no one to bail them out, or kick them in the ass before it was too late and the mine was shut, and much of the equipment sold off to meet the creditors.”
DeGeas swirled his drink around in his glass a bit and gave me a sad look.
“I wish I could have stopped it,” he continued. “Like I wish I could have stopped a lot of things. But I had no authority on this issue. All I could do was watch it happen...” he took out his frustration by flicking his finger on the propeller of a model plane and just started moping a bit.
“Do I still owe anything on that mine,” I asked concerned, as I tried to bring him back to the conversation.
“No, that’s settled, though you owe a property tax in Wyoming and that can get pretty steep. But if need be, you can miss paying it for three years before they can begin the process of seizing it for back taxes. By then I think we can unload it.”
“And the fifth?” I asked.
“Fifth?” he asked confused as he looked toward the bar.
“You said I owned five properties,” I clarified.
“Oh, so I did. You must pardon my mind for drifting, this meeting has brought back quite a few memories. The good and the bad… The fifth is also a mine… sort of. It’s a claim on one, though a shaft has never been sunk. It’s up in the far north. In none of it.”
“None of it?” I asked startled at the term.
“Or Nunavut or however the Eskimos pronounce it. Beachfront property as far as that goes,
but on the Arctic Ocean. A thousand miles from the nearest road, more than that to the nearest railhead. There are a few airstrips they carve out of the ice in the winter time, but even they are hundreds of miles away. About 10,000 acres of nothing, so far north not even trees grow. The only good news I think is that the Canadians don’t tax it, I guess they figure there is nothing to tax, you only pay for some Nanook of the North type to head in and work the claim once a year and keep the title legal. Doesn’t amount to more than a few thousand in costs.”
“’None of it,’ seems appropriate,” I commented dryly.
“Well, perhaps, perhaps.” DeGeas allowed magnanimously with a wave of his hand. “But your Daddy had an eye for the long term. He was one of the best civil engineers and prospectors in the business. There WAS gold there, is there still I suppose since no one can really get to it. I remember at parties, after he got back from there he kept pulling out a nugget he found right on the shoreline. Use to embarrass the hell out of his wife, and later your stepmother, you remember that Christmas movie Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?”
“Yes, the claymation one?”
“Cartoon, whatever, he used to, whenever he was being ridden hard by doubters pull out that nugget and get back to em by singing that Burl Ives song ‘Silver and Gold’. You know how it goes, ‘silver and gold, silver and gold, everyone WISHES for silver and gold!” DeGeas sang it out in a reasonably good imitation.
“Whatever happened to the nugget,” I asked curious.
“Oh, I don’t know actually.” he said sounding surprised. “He carried it in his pocket like a lucky charm. After the accident, I don’t think anyone went looking for it. Perhaps the police gave the effects to your stepmother and she sold it. Or worse, threw it away since it wasn’t exactly jewelry quality, being raw ore and all. I can try to dig up the police report and see if it was listed.”
“Sure,” I said since that was what he seemed to expect. “And I suppose that mine would cost even more money to open up?”
“I’m not sure, there is enough money in the world. Some things can’t be bought! Like one day even in high summer where the temperature doesn’t get below freezing. Your father thought the technology would exist ‘someday’ for it to be exploited profitably. How far that some day is you’ll have to ask an engineer.”
“I’ve studied some engineering they are doing some impressive things with oil extraction on Alaska’s north shore. It can’t be too much harder to do it on Canada’s north shore.”
“Thinking of following in your father’s footsteps?” DeGeas asked with a wicked grin.
'If you only knew! “It just always been an interest of mine, I always enjoyed building things and figuring out how to make them work better even at the Academy I was plan…”
“Planning what?” He asked me intrigued.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I said as I closed my eyes and swallowed a scream. “What’s this next folder.”
“Ah,” he said pulling out his own copy and grimacing. “Your trust fund, and another... treachery.”
“What is this a Shakespeare tragedy?” I commented.
“Sometimes I wonder,” He grumbled picking up his own copy from the desk. “It was started even before you were born and your father kept adding to it. A bit more every time he had a good year and he had a lot of good years. When he died it was valued at about $35 million scattered across about three dozen different stocks, bonds, funds, and even some small businesses.”
“And how much is left.”
“$312,000 give or take… mostly they took.”
“Who is they?” I asked coldly, I never thought the expression could actually be true but it felt like my blood had turned to ice water.
“The terms of his will were overly trusting. Money was set aside for you and money set aside for… her. But of course you were too young to manage the trust yourself, so it had to be done for you. The terms of the will had three trustees: his brother, his accountant, and his wife. Well, his brother died before he did and that never got changed. The accountant was old when the provision was put in place. About a year into his tenure, he went into dementia and was unable to manage his own affairs let alone yours. That left your stepmother who appointed her own replacements.
He took out a multi-page document flipped through it to a marked page toward the back, then laid it in front of me.
“There is the damning provision,” He pointed at what I assumed was the will. “The trustees as a sort of motivation to be good guardians were allowed compensation in the amount of one quarter the income from the trust. The principle could not be touched, but they could receive a healthy payday from running things well… and the trust was… not managed well. She, for reasons you probably don’t need explained went for the investments with the greatest potential returns. The more money that was made the more money she got right?... Well the bonds with the biggest yields were junk bonds, called that for a good reason. The stocks that paid 17% dividends were often being run into the ground to generate quick profits and were worthless a few quarters later. Tech stocks she bought on the bubble were sold off on the crash. Every time there was a loss trying to get a greater income, the principle got chewed away, until… at last two years ago, she came to me and said, and I remember the phrase exactly… ‘see to this Mr. DeGeas won’t you?’ I didn’t think there were still people that actually talked that way.
He got up from his desk to poor himself another drink from the decanter, but he didn’t sit down again, just stared out of the window to the city below.
“Well I saw to it, as best I could. I sold off everything and started over again. Put it in stable companies and respected funds. It will yield about 6-8% in good markets, 2-3% in bad ones. I set it up to reinvest the profits, but you can pull out all the income now that you’re an adult. And you can now make all the decisions towards its allocation on your own, if you want to take over. The principle however, you cannot touch until you are 25. But then, it’s not much of a principle any more, having lost 99% of its value.”
“Was it criminally mismanaged?” I asked feeling affronted even if it wasn’t exactly my money.
“Possibly,” he admitted gruffly. “Almost certainly, but proving that case against your stepmother-”
“Wicked stepmother,” I interrupted harshly. “Or is that not a technical legal term?”
“I have heard it applied so,” he grinned at me from the window. “But the case law has never been tested.
“So I can’t sue her to recover the money.”
“You can sue anyone for anything, this is America! But it would be pretty pointless in this case.”
“Why?”
“The law technically does not recognize mere vengeance as a legitimate legal tactic. The purpose of most lawsuits is to recover damages and well, I don’t think there is anything left to get, so there would be no purpose. She has blown through what your father left her and what she could siphon off from your trust. Last I heard, she was over in Europe and had attached herself to some English Duke, or Earl, or Duke of Earl. Whoever he is, he’s smart enough not to marry her, just pays for her upkeep. You could file your case and pay us a thousand dollars an hour until you’re out of money to pursue it, but there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow… I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” I admitted absolutely truthfully. The woman hadn’t exactly taken from me, but she had taken from my girl and the patrimony of my own child.
“This would be a lot easier,” said Mr. DeGeas looking down at the bar. “If you were drinking too.”
“I’m afraid I can’t my ba…my body doesn’t tolerate it well.”
“Probably for the best… The last piece of your inheritance is 3,450,600 shares in the Scott Company. It is by far your largest asset. Dwarfing even the trust fund when it was fully funded.”
“How much is that worth?” I asked, finally some GOOD news.
“I don’t know,” He said regretfully. I could see that it was indeed true he regretted not knowing. “The thing that you must understand is that the Scott Company is private and not publicly traded. You can’t buy shares in it like you could Apple or GE. Which means there is no ready marketplace to value its shares. What’s worse, it is not a traditional corporation, but a partnership with your father and his father before him and so on as the principle owners and managing partners. Even further worse is that no one who is not a partner can buy in, so only other partners can buy you out. That’s one of the reason those shares were never in your trust. They were not saleable.”
“So what now?” I asked. “I took two sections of economics and business management at Exeter. All those future captains of industry, it was sort of expected. We covered partnerships a lot. Isn’t there a provision in place for a dead partner to be bought out automatically?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you. And lawyers or accountants would certainly have that in place. Engineers though, must have other necessities,” said DeGeas as he walked back to the desk and sat down. “Likely they thought about it and left it out. You’re fathers share so dwarfed all the other partners that none of them even combined could come up with the cash. So the shares have just sat there.”
“But don’t I own the company then, can’t I derive some money from its income.”
“You own it, but you do not control it. Think of it like Queen Elizabeth, she reigns but does not rule. I have the partnership agreement here, though I had to fight in court in order to get it. A partner who does not actually work, by that I mean brings business into the firm, bills hours, that sort of thing for one year, looses voting rights, though not equity. A partnership, at its core is about professionals together being stronger than apart. A partner is penalized for not pulling his own weight. But since you were all of eight years old at the time, don’t feel any shame in not putting on a hardhat and punching a time card. So your block of shares whenever they hold a vote on something always abstains and a man who holds 6%, votes like he holds 20%.”
“But don’t I at least get a share of the profits?”
“Sure you would, if there were any. But somehow the company went from a declared profit of %98 million the year your father died to a breakeven point or net loss in every year since. You get a tax return every year from the company they are required to send you one, and I go over it quite carefully.”
“A company operates at a loss for ten years and still remains in business?”
“It’s not as hard as you might think; most fortune 500 companies manage to do it all the time decade after decade. Though for them it’s about managing taxes. Here all the remaining voting partners had to do was vote themselves some bonuses or larger salaries or expensive corporate retreats until there was nothing left. With no board of directors above them, and no shareholder revolt possible bellow they had nothing stopping them.”
“So I get nothing.”
“For now… part of that partnership agreement was that no more that 5% of the total shares could be newly issued a year. They have been gradually giving themselves bigger pieces of the company. When they have dissolved away your majority they will feel comfortable enough cashing out, finding some big engineering company like Bechtel to let them enjoy their retirement. When that happens you’ll be paid for your portion of the company, probably a lot. They can’t get away with looting everything from you, not in Omaha, not to a Scott. Not Yet! ... But they can get away with everything they have gotten away with.”
“So,” I said calmly closing the files on the desk. “At the moment I have: $36,000, half a semester of tuition, three houses to sell at a loss which in the meantime I have to pay the upkeep for, two holes in the ground. A few thousand a year in dividends-”
“Which is just about enough to cover my retainer,” DeGeas interrupted. “Though not the property taxes.”
“And also shares in a company which cannot be sold, except to the people who don’t want to buy them, and why would they when they can just make more of their own and give it to themselves?” I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts and consider the implications. “If something cannot be sold Mr. DeGeas, can it be said to have any value at all? Other than on the county property tax rolls.”
“That’s a philosophical discussion, and I’m a lawyer. But I think you’ve summed up things nicely,” he said closing the folder and locking it up in his desk. He then turned to me. I realized this was almost as hard for him to tell me as it was to listen to, worse perhaps, since he appeared to feel he had let me, or rather Jessica down greatly.
“Your father…depended upon the honor of his partners and the fidelity of his wife. And he was… ill served by both. Certainly I advised him otherwise and he heeded some of it, but he also thought he had more time. We all think we have more time…”
I pondered that for some time, and a comfortable silence filled the room. I had only just met Mr. DeGeas, but he seemed to think of me like a favored relation, and it was nice to be treated so after the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks. He reminded me incredibly of the faithful steward from some historical fiction. Watching over the young Prince, or in this case Princess while the King was on a crusade. I could see that it physically as well as emotionally pained him to turn over an estate so depleted by other people's dishonor. Perhaps some good has come out of my stolen life. Jessica had no idea that things had got this bad. She knew W.S.M. was living high off her father’s money, but whenever we had talked about her inheritance, a subject that was never very comfortable for me since I didn’t want to be seen as a fortune hunter, she talked about it like it was a great sum in the many millions. And now… Now I had a baby and college to pay for and $36,000 to do it with.
That might seem a great deal of money to most, and even to me a short time ago, but it goes faster than most think. I needed a car, a place to live in Maryland, prenatal care… FAT CLOTHES. I had been balancing my own budget for years ever since my first summer job and now I saw a finite stack of money against steadily growing bills. I was thinking up new ones every second. If Martin Scott was looking down from heaven, well, I hoped he was pissed off at the behavior of his daughter in addition to the position she ( and her stand in) was placed in. He likely was feeling all sorts of ghostly guilt that he didn’t do things different while alive…. But we always think we have more time.
And this body I was in, her mother died in the childbirth that is ahead of me.
“It’s worse than you think Mr. DeGeas,” I said calmly as I took a sip from my mineral water.
“Oh, how can it be much worse than that?” He asked waiving his hand at the scattered folders in front of me.
“Do I have confidentiality or do your report things back to stepmother?”
“She was never my client, you are. Hell, you could tell me that you murdered the Pope and I would try to find a way to get you off.”
“Nothing so drastic, now I want you to not interrupt me, though I suspect you will want to. The simple reason that I am not at the Naval Academy is that I am pregnant.”
“PREGNANT!”
“No interruptions Mr. DeGeas!” I scolded.
“Oh, I’m sorry Jessie, it's just... Don’t do that to an old man’s heart!“
“As you know, my own mother died in childbirth. I recall your words earlier about my father planning for his demise like any responsible parent should. I wish you to draw up a will for me. Its provisions are simple, so it shouldn’t take you long. Are you ready?”
“Go ahead,” he sighed as he brought out a yellow legal pad to take notes on.
“The entire estate to go to my child under a trust and trustees to be chosen by you, if it lives. If not everything is given to … the local library. IF I should die and the baby live, custody is to be given to General and Mrs. James Ryan USMC of California and points abroad.”
“And who are they?”
“The child’s grandparents, other grandparents, since mine are dead.”
“And not the father? It’s not my business if you chose not to tell me, but I ask because there may be a custody disagreement, particularly over the guardianship of an heir or heiress.”
“I doubt he would put up much of a fight, and indeed he is in the Naval Academy for the next four years and won’t be able to care for the child. Please have that drawn up as soon as possible.”
“Very well,” he said tossing the pencil down on the desk hard. “But let a tired old man just say that it’s worse than YOU think too.”
“How so?” I asked heart beating hard.
“I was trying to do right by you, when you wrote and said you were admitted to the Academy and the Navy would be looking out for you. I sort of sang a halleluiah. By the time four more years rolled around, I could have sold a thing or three and handed you the actual millions you deserved. But that was in the future, for the time being, I had to conserve as much of your cash as possible. So I stopped the premiums on your health insurance. As of Monday when you were supposed to be in the Navy you have no coverage. And now, you have a baby on the way whose average cost in the United States is $20,000, which can balloon to $50,00 or $100,000 if there are complications, which you are genetically predisposed toward. You have this baby Jessie and you will be busted broke!”
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 9
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I’m not full grown yet, I’ll grant you that. And perhaps, technically speaking I am currently female. But why do people have to keep constantly insulting me by calling me a young lady… what did I ever do to them?
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 9
[***][***][***]
“That boy that did this to you?” asked an irritated Mr. DeGeas. “It’s that Tom Ryan you wrote about, isn’t it?”
‘That boy am I? I wonder how he would like it knowing that boy was now in a position to do any wicked thing he wanted to Jessica’s body.' “Yes, Thomas Ryan is the father, ” I confirmed for him.
“He always sounded like a little shit, those military brats are all like that, think the world owes them a living cuz their parents put on a uniform. And now he goes and does THIS to you,” he said furiously waiving at my midsection. “I suppose if you’re going through the effort to have me make a will for the bastard, you have considered the alternative and discounted it?”
I have never slapped another person. I guess I hadn’t been in this body long enough to develop the habit. Whenever I had decided, on those few occasions, mind you, that the situation had devolved into one where violence was the only answer, I hadn’t done anything as ineffective as slapping. I instead went in with both fists ready, assuming an actual weapon was not at hand. I looked around the office and could not find anything sufficiently lethal to demonstrate my displeasure at his words, so instead I stood up slowly and walked around the large wooden desk to stand in front of his chair. He looked up at me confused at my actions and he kept that look on the face right up until I broke his nose.
It hurt like hell, that’s also one of the things they don’t usually show on television. But it does, and I think I might have further dug myself in the health insurance hole by doing serious damage to my right hand, but that was for later and there was another matter to deal with. DeGeas brought both hands to his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding and started moaning a bit while I quietly and calmly walked back to my purse and retrieved the now battered document from a New Hampshire courthouse and set it on the desk in front of him. After coming back to my seat and returning his frightened look with a cold steely gaze I coolly spoke to him again.
“Mr. DeGeas, there is no other alternative, and I don’t wish to be rude, but the next time you insult my child or my husband in my presence, and particularly use the word bastard to do so…. Will be the last!”
He seemed startled at that, but he was an excellent judge of character, I could tell. I could tell he believed me, He slowly, I suppose as not to startle me, got up from his desk and walked away toward the bar again. This time taking out a handkerchief and filling it full of ice from the container on the side. He then wrapped it up, applied the dressing to his nose, then walked back to the desk and sat down, leaning back in his chair to slow the bleeding. He didn’t look at me, just leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
“For my earlier remarks…” He said eventually, his tone of voice and breathing strained by the injury. “I apologize; it was not my wish to dishonor you or your husband and child… I was just too shocked to think right. Whenever I thought about you, Jessie, it was that cute little girl in the Easter dress who was so excited to go searching for the eggs during the hunt at the Lauritzen Gardens. You found em too, twice as many as anyone else… it’s just. You were a little girl a second ago, and now you’re going to have a baby. It shocked me, and I’m very sorry.”
“Your apology… is accepted, with gratitude,” I had done what I felt was needed, but I had no great desire to permanently alienate the man who held my purse strings. I’m quite sure he could have gone in for quite of bit of nasty tricks if he had been inclined.
“Well,” he said sitting up and checking the blood flow. “Let us never speak of that again.”
“Done,” I said simply and meant it.
“Serves me right, for pricking the temper of a Scott,” he said while reaching for his desk’s phone and pressing a button, “Girl!... get in here!”
About 20 seconds later, a short well dressed Hispanic woman in her twenties came through the door visibly irritated, “I have a name Mr. DeGeas,” she said as she walked in. “It’s Victoria Hernandez, the sensitivity trainer has spoken to you about this.”
“And I mean to learn, it too, any day now. But by the time I do you’ll, be promoted away from me. I’ve gone through about 40 secretaries over the years, so it’s just easier to call them all girl. At least you are one and not a man like Judge Wasdin has in his front office.”
“I’m sure I’m grateful, what happened to you Mr. DeGeas? you’re bleeding!”
“I took a fall and tripped over my dragging knuckles, now go downstairs and get the eminent Michael Phipps M.D., J.D., and Ph.D. and ask him to stop playing whatever game is on his computer and come to my office. Tell him to bring his bag.”
“Yes sir, do you want an ambulance?”
“Just get the good doctor, when he tells you to go to hell, tell him he still owes me from that thing with the guy in the place and I’ll NEVER FORGET IT.”
“Yes sir,” she said and was gone quickly out the door.
“I’m glad you have medical attention so close at hand,” I said as he once again leaned back in his chair.
“So am I, though he will make me pay for it later, he started out a regular doctor, got wrongfully sued one too many times, So he had to 'unofficially' learn half a law degree to defend himself, once done, he decided to go all the way and get the official certification that went it. A few years back, he decided to take up philosophy, I guess because he didn’t have enough letters after his name… decided to marry you did he?” DeGeas asked after he opened the envelope I had given him, and had a chance to look inside.
“Yes.”
“I ask with all respect, and please remember that I am a wounded man!” he said raising an open palm as a sign of surrender. “I have to ask if you did anything incredibly unromantic like sign a prenuptial agreement?”
“Um… no, the subject never came up.”
“Do you trust him?” he asked plainly.
“That’s… a complicated question.”
“It usually is, it usually is,” he allowed as he closed his eyes and sighed.
“I don’t think he married me for my money,” though he may divorce me for it! “And Thomas Ryan doing the right thing is almost bred into his DNA,” 'And Jess had better remember that!'
“I’ll grant that you know the boy better than I do, but you’re father thought he married well too, and I’ll remind you how that turned out..."
[***][***][***]
Dr Phipps saw to the treatment of Mr. DeGeas, and no uncomfortable questions were asked while he did so. After he was done, before he left he was asked by DeGeas for a list of good OB/GYN in town who ‘owed us any favors'. Soon enough, I left the law firm with: a briefcase, a bruised hand and an appointment in three days with a lady parts doctor. The bill would be negotiated later, but I was not too, under pain of scolding, miss it.
We had decided that I would mortgage the two vacation properties to free up cash. We wouldn’t get what I should, both in amount and rate, but it would bring in enough, hopefully, to live on for a while. While also leaving enough money invested to cover the payments. It was hoped, with good luck and a fair market, that rising home prices and a rebounded stock exchange would by itself be enough to pay the way. But good luck hadn’t been something I could count on of late.
My first order of business was transportation. Depending upon a cab for the rest of my stay, or when I to Maryland, would quickly eat through even the great fortune that 'Jessica' was expecting. I had seen a string of car dealership at the Westroads mall when I had picked up my skirt suit. I felt like the cabs of this city were on a yo-yo for me today. Downtown, midtown, midtown downtown, and back, again. Despite not immediately burning up in a puff a of smoke by driving a imported car, I resolved to buy American, again.
I held out no great hope that a copy of Rocinante would be here for the taking. Even if a collector was willing to let one go, it would be out of my price range. With a large medical expense ahead of me, not to mention the not inconsiderable cost of raising a child while trying to get educated, I could not in good conscience spend the money, other peoples though it may be.
Reader, I shall let you in on a little secret. And if you repeat it to anyone, I may never speak to you, again. But deep down in the bottom of my heart where few men dare to dwell, I always felt quite envious of a pretty girl with long hair barreling town the highway with the top down. Men you see, couldn’t get away with it. Not in the Marine Corps, anyway. But the joyful looks on many a hotties face as the wind blew through her hair always filled me with a sense of awe. Those girls always looked like they were having a good time and hadn’t a care in the world. I could sort of use that, in the place that I was.
Nebraska isn’t really a convertible country. Probably something to do with the long winters that I hoped I wouldn’t be here to experience. There were a few on the lot, but nothing to stir any heart strings. And they were overpriced anyway for what was on offer. Put them on a lot in California and people wouldn’t look twice.
There was, however, exiled to the Siberia of the lot a 2000 Jeep Wrangler in cherry red. As a car, it was a sort of glass cannon. A very light frame wrapped around a too powerful engine sitting atop huge wheels that could take you over anything from desert sands to arctic tundra, and even the occasional suburban street. Because it was so light, it did so with an envious fuel efficiency. It didn’t have airbags... Don’t look at me like that, I remember reading that taking an airbag blast to the guts is not exactly good for a fetus anyway.
“Can I help you, Miss?” asked a kind voice as I was finishing one last circle of the Jeep. I must admit to being disappointed. I was quite looking forward to dealing with some receding hairline slick back cad of a used car salesman and showing him up with my mechanical aptitude and knowledge far beyond my apparent station. Instead, I was confronted with a plump 50ish woman who looked like a central casting stand in for the beloved aunt. She obviously worked here, however, as she was wearing the car lots symbol on her jacket as well as holding an official looking clipboard. Some opportunities just don’t come…
“Yes ma’am,” I replied with a smile and a nod of my head. “I need a car for college and this seems to meet my needs. I’ll make your work easy for the day. Give me a test drive and a mechanical inspection and you have a sale.”
“Certainly, young lady,” she said still a bit surprised by my confidence. “Just let me see your drivers license and I’ll go get the keys. My name is Barbara Robbins. ”
She was back within a few moments and had the car keys as well as the little book containing the owner’s manual and the vehicle history. I was pleased to see that it had never been in any accidents. While it wasn’t exactly the mythical ‘only driven by a little old lady to the market’ used car it had only 45,000 miles on it which it wore rather well. A fresh wax job and a good cleaning, the car looked about as fresh and frisky as its newer, much more expensive descendents.
We pulled out of the car lot, onto Dodge Street followed by Interstate 680. Midday on a weekday, while I didn’t exactly have the road all to myself, I had ample room to maneuver. I quickly had her up to the 75 M.P.H. speed limit and maybe a little bit extra…you know…for science.
My right hand still smarted a bit, but the power steering was light as a feather, and I didn’t need to use two hands, anyway. A fact that did not instill my passenger with much confidence.
“So, what are you looking for in a car,” she asked nervously as we zigged zagged in and out of the five lane highway. I was using my turn signal though, so it was all right. I noticed she didn’t get behind the whole wind in your hair thing and had both her hands over her head trying to keep it under control.
“Oh, a little of this, and a little of that… and a reasonable amount of guts,” I said as I swerved right to make the exit. “Can’t abide a car without some courage.”
“Oh,” she said, shocked as she fell a bit into my side.
“Lean into the turn, you have to account for the G-force…. So, anyway, how much a pain in the ass is it to register a car in Nebraska. I’m planning to take it out of state almost right away, and I don’t know what is ahead of me, paperwork wise.”
“Oh, it’s no pain at all,. It can be done all in one day, though you have to wait for the financing to clear and then we send the title to your bank…. Oh!”
“And what if I pay in cash? Or a bank transfer for the full amount, anyway.”
“Well then… WATCH OUT!”
“What? We had like a good five feet of clearance. You’re just use to having a lot more Detroit steel between you and the outside.” I pulled into the western part of the mall’s parking lot, short of Christmas season it looked like this section of it was never used, and it offered me ample area to put the car through the paces.
“And what about car insurance? I believe in being safe,” I stated as I performed an intricate series of figure eights followed by a 180 degree high speed turn.
“Ummmmmmmmmm,” She moaned as she followed my advice and leaned into the turn. “You can call in today for a temporary rider to cover you for a week until you sort out formal insurance for the car. Teen girls actually get a bit of a break on price over boys.”
“Really?”
“Yes, they are much safer drivers… usually.” she said, looking a bit pale.
“Well, I should get a good rate then. I have never been in an accident,” I said proudly as I rung her out a little more, just to show her I could. I mean the car, not dear old Babs. We then sedately pulled into the car lot, the brakes handled marvelously as demonstrated by the dust cloud I generated right in front of the finance office. I put her in idle, then leaned over to the saleslady's side and helped clean off her beige jacket from some of the detritus of the road.
“Well… let’s look up her skirt, shall we?” I said happily.
“What?” she asked confused.
“You have a garage attached to this place, right? We’ll hoist the Jeep up on a jack, and I’ll do the mechanical inspection. Indications are good, but I want to take a look at her innards.
“You mean you want to do the inspection yourself?”
“Yeah sure, why not? Unless there is some policy against it. In which case I can probably find someone else who will let me look under the hood.”
“Um no, no policy against it, it’s just that, do you intend to do so dressed like that?”
I looked down at what I was wearing and realized I was inside a rather nice suit with a flippy skirt, that along with the nylons and heels is not exactly the sort of thing grease monkeys wear.
“Well, I quite forgot what I was wearing, you know. I don’t usually dress like this… just between you and me,” I said winking at her. “So, If one of your mechanics has some coveralls I might borrow, I would appreciate it, and be sure to comment on the exceptional customer service to your manager."
“I’ll… see what I can find.”
[***][***][***]
She was gone for a few minutes while I looked at what could be looked at from this angle. I think she took longer than she had to finding a pair of dungarees and suspected she spent some time in the ladies room getting reacquainted with her lunch. But never let it be said she wasn’t a game day player, because she was outside within minutes, holding a set of protective clothing that was three sizes too big, but would get the job done. We drove over to the far end of the building, and I was directed to the center slot. I was pleased to see that this car lot's garage was modern enough to even have a ladies room. That’s not always a safe assumption to make, with these sorts of places. I had to totally undress down to my underwear. While these coveralls were designed to go over normal clothes, it presupposes that person is wearing pants, and the skirt I was currently in didn’t have enough give in it for me to slide the legs over it. I’m morally certain I was the first person to wear this set in nylons and heels. But then, knowing some of the stuff I had been reading on the internet, trying to find a way to swap back with Jess, maybe that wasn’t a safe bet to make…
It took me most of an hour, I took pity on Barbara about ten minutes into it and let her start the paperwork since about the only thing that would stop me from buying the Jeep now was maybe finding a severed head under the axle, perhaps not even that, depending on how fresh it was.
“We sell the jeep with an optional hardtop for the winter,” Barbara said as she came back to check on my progress. “It’s a pain to swap out, but if you are planning your own maintenance, it shouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, getting up off the concrete.
“The hardtop or the car?”
“Both,” I clarified. “Oh, and while I’m changing back, get me list of people in town who can upgrade the stereo. I have an overwhelming desire to play some tunes on the highway, so I need something with a little more emphasis.”
[***][***][***]
The paperwork took about ten minutes to finalize. It’s amazing what they can accomplish for people who know what they want and don’t need a bank to give them permission, first. They wouldn’t let me have her right away, though, so I cooled my high heels in the waiting room for a good half hour while the sales team worked her over and gave her that new(ish) car shine.
There was a terrible cult 80’s movie called 'Cherry 2000'. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/synopsis . It was zany and completely over the top as most 80’s action movies were. But it also had a very pretty star in Melanie Griffith before she got all old and fat and married to Antonio Banderas. The character she played drove around in a kick ass Mustang, it was a contributing factor in my decision to build my own 'pony car'. That and the 'Bandit', but he also got old and fat and…
not married to Antonio Banderas. So for my new cherry red colored 2000 model year Jeep Wrangler TJ(modified) I had decided to name her Melanie in her honor.
She was a good American girl from a fine family, and I think that we would be very happy together. She was no Roxy, it’s true what they say, you never forget your first love, but she was a more than adequate substitute for the time being.
And I was right about the wind in the hair thing.
[***][***][***]
My cell phone was dead. Requiem in terra pax and so forth. Or rather, not dead, but in someone else’s hand, the point is that I didn’t have one of my own, being off com was sufficiently off putting that I needed to solve it as soon as I could. I had no great desire to brave the Apple Store, I wasn’t trendy enough to justify paying an extra $200 just so my handheld electronic could look pretty. I was certain a perfectly fine alternative could be had at any big box electronics store, and at the same time, get me a replacement computer. I was going to buy a laptop, I didn’t want to be made fun of while I did it. Back at Exeter, I sort of had a hate on against all the kids who insisted their parents buy them one. A laptop is designed to be 'MOBILE', to move about hither and yon for on the move professionals.
Trying to stuff all that computer inside something that size in under 8 pounds means: 1, it gets expensive as all hell, and 2, it means the bastard will break down more often. It drove me nuts to see all those kids who had freaking 'DUST' collected on their laptops. If you are going to park your computer and never move it, that’s what DESKTOPS are built for, you mooks! Trying to force something designed for something else to do what another thing is perfectly designed for and can do so cheaper just offended my sense of engineering.
But anyway, here endeth the rant, and I went to buy a laptop. I figured I would be traveling light, so I don’t want you to give me any shit about it. Jeeze when did I become my sisters and whine so much while contradicting myself?
Oh God… is it too early to blame it on the hormones?
I was out in and out in thirty minutes, most of that time was spent trying to get the geek squad not to hit on me. My wedding ring was apparently not enough camouflage, or the Nebraska boys never looked down further than my chest, it was hard to tell. I drove back to Jessica’s house, and since I had a copy of the deed in my briefcase, I guess I could feel comfortable enough to crash there for the night. I still had no clothes past my fancy new duds which sort of needed a dry-cleaning, and my old jeans and top which probably needed a hazmat team. Once dropping off my electronics, and rearming the alarm with the code provided in the information packet from DeGeas, I drove down the street to the nearest Target.
[***][***][***]
I invaded that store like I was marching on Paris. I vowed to never give in to my new body and accompanying stereotypes, thus start an occupation. I purchased three outfits from the skin out, though I was a little ahead in the panties department since the plainest ones I could find only came in a six pack. I picked up two pairs of jeans and some Capri pants, then I gave into temptation and bought a comfortable pair of pajama bottoms since it looked like it had an expanding waist, though I was confused as all hell when I couldn’t find the top that went with it. Did woman really only wear half a set of pajamas? I had been through buying a bra at Von Maur, and hadn’t broken out in hives. I manfully carried on at Target as well. A couple of tops, a few comfy looking t-shirts, then a light jacket since May still got cold occasionally, and rain was always an issue. Taking it all to the dressing room, I kicked myself for letting things snowball.
OK, so it was more than three outfits. but I didn’t know how long the bags would be!
I suspected there wasn’t a thing to eat in the house, or if there was, it was long past fit for human consumption. I didn’t know how long I would be in town before I could head east and follow my body, either trying to get it back or keep it out of trouble was still to be determined. So I only bought a few days of food, mostly packaged items and some milk, bread, and fresh fruits. I considered giving in to the inevitable, just buying a couple gallon pails of ice-cream to live off of, but I figured the OB/GYN at my coming doctor’s appointment would probably scold me enough over my diet.
It was well into evening before I had brought it all home, stowed the food in the pantry the size of some counties and made myself some dinner. It had been something of a full and surprising day, but I had lived through bigger shocks. Still, I was bone tired and went to bed at 9:30 P.M. like an old person. It took some time to remove all the makeup Von Maur had slathered on with a trowel, but I took enough water and towel to the problem to eventually win through. I then bound my hair so it wouldn’t bother me dressed in my new pajamas and t-shirt, slipped into Jessica’s bed feeling rather like the metaphorical thief in the night. It was incredibly comfortable. I was just getting in the optimal position when I realized why it felt so right, the bed smelled like Jessica even though it was many months since she had last slept in it. Despite all that had gone on and gone wrong between us, my brain was wired to recognize that smell and love it. Well, I wasn’t going to fight biology. I slipped off into sleep, without comprehending that it was also now my smell.
It was some weeks later before I realized that.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 10
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All errors aside I thought I was handling my change rather well. But bravery is a funny thing; you never know when your courage will be spent…
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 10
[***][***][***]
I woke up to a Saturday morning with nothing to do. You must understand that this is a relatively unique experience for me. Before heading to boarding school that there was always some task to be performed to military standards. You have a working mother who was raised with hired help to do the housework, four sisters who are smarter and sneakier than you so that you end up doing more than your fair share. With the General as your father, you also learn to do it well enough to pass inspection. When I went to Exeter, we had staff to take care of most of the weekend chores, but I just used that time for what God intended, studying and making time with my girl. Well, my girl wasn’t here this weekend… exactly. And as an academic, I kicked that schools ass! but was currently between projects, so to speak. But that was a state of affairs I hoped to rectify soon.
There was no wireless signal within range, despite searching through every room of this mausoleum, I didn’t find an Ethernet port or signs of a cable modem. Likely with the house sitting idle for most of the year, DeGeas had never bothered paying the monthly rate for a hookup. After dressing myself in the Capri pants and a t-shirt for the local football team to easily blend in with the natives, of course, who the hell could support a team calling themselves the CORNHUSKERS? I had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and banana. I then grabbed my laptop case and consolidated all the items from my purse that I think I would use in the day. Since I only know about half of the items that I inherited actually did, this didn’t take long.
One of the nice things about this house that I could get used to was that it had three garage stalls. I had parked Melanie across two of them last night, I felt decadent and debouched while I did it. It was an automated garage to which I had found three remote openers on the shelf next to workbench. The first opened the one on the left, the second the one on the right, but the third one was juuuuuuuuuuuust right.
I dropped my bag on the passenger side and slid into my girl oh… so… smoothly, and was away into the brisk morning air. I remembered on my Thanksgiving visit, seeing a little bit to the east, one of those quaint market squares. Apparently it use to be its own town, but was gobbled up by the city that surrounded it, and now was a place for the local gentry to buy overpriced art, drink wine, eat cheese, and feel superior about themselves while they did it.
But it also had a coffee shop, which I remembered fondly, was a refuge for Jessica and me for the three days she was forced to pretend to like her stepmother. It was called the Blue Line Coffee. The inside looked like a hippie and a beatnik had a beat down, made up, fell in love and had a really screwed up baby who decided to open a coffee shop. He made a damn fine cup of coffee though, and that’s no lie. I decided on the mocha latte, this was the sort of place that actually carried it to your table when you were finished ordering, not force you to wait around like a sheep in the stockyards waiting to be sheered. I claimed a spot in the corner, next to an electrical outlet and the ladies room since I knew that I would be here for a while, since neither the laptops battery nor my bladder were built for endurance.
I decided to take a shotgun approach to college admissions. Fall term started most places in less than three months, it was rather late in the game to be starting all this. Jessica and I had applied to the Academy together, and she had followed my advice to store most of the relevant documents and essays on a remote server so all was not lost to the terrors of the T.S.A. Most colleges also required that the highs school send them an official transcript directly, not willing to take the word I suppose of some teenager when he is trying to get into the most important school in his life. It was in Exeter’s best interest to have their students admitted to the finest schools, so they made the process of sending out transcripts to colleges as streamlined as possible. Just log into your student account, select a destination, pay the small fee. I could even pay with PayPal. So...just to be a dick to the girl who had stole mine, I used Tom Ryan’s account to pay for it.
[***][***][***]
I had just finished with Georgetown, it’s amazing how little you need to change in an admissions essay, just replace ‘the navy’ with ‘society’ and its all good, when the website prompted me to ask if I wanted a printout for my own records. I didn’t have one of those mobile jobs with me, and couldn’t remember seeing one back at the house, either, so I took some initiative and saw if this cute little girl act could be put to work for me.
“Hello,” I said smiling to the owner who was wiping down a table near the front counter.
“Good morning,” he acknowledged back to me with a wave of his towel. “You need something else? I’ve got some fresh baked blueberry scones.”
“Um, yes. That sounds wonderful, but I was hoping I could bother you for something else. I saw that you have a little office back there, I’m doing some college admissions, there is no internet at my house, is there a way I could use your printer for a bit?”
“There is a library down the street,” he countered clearly annoyed at my question as he continued on the table.
“Yeah, but public servants won’t serve me this fantastic coffee. How about I slip you ten bucks to pay for the inconvenience,” I said as I upped the wattage on my smile. “I’ll save them all to a memory stick. When it’s time to print I’ll just make one trip… please… oh and I’ll buy a blueberry scone too.”
“Ha,” he chuckled defrosting a little bit. “OK, Miss, you got a deal.”
I went back to my table and went to work on the next school, I basically pulled up a map of Maryland and drew a mental line about 100 miles away from Annapolis. It covered a good portion Delaware, Northern Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania., not to mention our own nation’s capital treasured in song and legend. That range also stretched far enough to cover Atlantic City, but I quickly discounted it because, well… Jersey. I was very conflicted while I did this, I was doing it for two reasons, neither of which exactly filled me with joy. I was either applying to all these schools on behalf of the woman who scorned me, presupposing that I could find a steadily growing smaller chance of a way back. Or the second reason, I was heading to a school back east so I could be closer to my man.
Ugh
But I was comforted by the memory of the phone call she made a few days ago. When she was faced with a problem she turned to me, deep down inside she still wanted me. She had even apologized in away even if I had thrown it back in her face in my moment of justifiable anger. She wanted me, she was sorry… and deep down inside, I sort of still was crazy about her.
Love is like that. If it was easy everyone would do it.
I spent most of Saturday there, leaving only when it was time for dinner, something a bit more substantial than light pastries. But I was back there early Sunday morning, the owner gave me a nod and a smile when I sat down at the same table I had held court at yesterday. It was sort of nice going to these little independent shops. Two days running, and already I was a regular. This belief was solidified when he slipped me the wireless password for his printer and said I could ‘settle up at the end of the day.’ I resolved to try the oatmeal raisin cookies today, any man that sweet had to make some killer cookies. I took a sip from my Mocha and went to work on college #13 of the weekend. I was most of the way through it when I was rudely interrupted.
“Well, hello,” said a smarmy voice from over my shoulder. “Applying for colleges? I got in months ago, maybe I could give you a hand?”
The voice belonged to a well dressed punk kid, who looked about twenty two, so if he was telling the truth and not trying to lie in order to ingratiate himself into my panties, it was likely he was held back a grade or three. That or they just grow em big and dumb looking here in corn country.
“I’m quite all, right thank you,” I replied trying to brush him off and continue with my applications.
“Are you sure,” he said as he sat down at my table, THE PRESUMPTION! leaned over to take a look at my screen. “Some of those essay questions can be pretty though, what did you get on your A.C.T.?”
“Didn’t take one,” I said not bothering to look up from my work, and trying not to give him any encouragement.
“S.A.T.?”
“2350,” I said looking him hard in his steadily wider growing eyes. 2400 was perfect, I had taken the fucker five times trying to do it, and was morally certain they kept screwing me on an answer just so the statutory Asian kid could get it. That’s what America has come to, I guess. Always keeping the white man down. Jessica had gotten a 2200, and was quite content with her 99th percentile on the first try. Which just goes to show that I will never understand women.
“Um that’s a good score right, I only got a 20 on the A.C.T. I’m not sure how it compares.”
“Nor I,” I agreed unemotionally.
“Look,” he said scooting a little closer down the bench toward me. “You wanna go to a movie or something when you get done. They have this new one they built out at Westroads. It’s so cool! They have these little screens on the walls that they use in place of movie posters, and they play the trailers while you are walking to get your popcorn.”
“It sounds very nice,” I agreed.
“My name is Greg Rivas,” he said offering his hand. “What’s yours?”
“Married,” I said holding up my ring finger for his inspection.
“Well Mary,” he said smiling while trying to brazen it out. Not believing I guess that someone who looked as young as me could be in a state of wedded bliss. “I don’t see anyone else around here at the moment so how about I pick you up at six?”
“I am married,” I said rolling my eyes. “That wasn’t a joke, please leave me in peace.”
“So where is the guy who got in before me, I want to see if I can reason with him.”
GOOD LUCK! I thought to myself.
“He’s,” I hesitated because I did not in fact know where my spouse currently was. “He’s in the Navy, I’m looking for schools back east so I can be closer to where he will be posted.”
“Well, you know what they say, 'a sailor has a wife in every port', stands to reason that a wife should have a sailor in every port, too. Can I pick you up tonight if I promise to wear that cute little white hat?”
“Just get the hell out of here!” I shouted and was about three seconds from doing a lobotomy by removing his testicles with my bare hands when the owner stepped up next to my table.
“There a problem here, Miss?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I answered scowling at the jerk.
“No,” Greg countered still with that stupid grin on his face. “Mary and I were just getting to know each other, why don’t you go get me a frappuccino, or Al Pacino, or something.”
“Funny,” the white haired owner stated as he looked down at the interloper. “But Dennis Leary already made that joke. Him, I think is hilarious; you I think are out of here, come on get up!”
“Oh come on!” shouted Greg as he was being manhandled. “Be seeing you around Mary.”
The owner yanked him out of his seat, once he was standing, the punk didn’t put up any sort of fight, which sort of told me how I stood in his order of priorities, undying love it was not. He walked toward the front door in a huff, hit it hard enough to ring the bells on top for a good five seconds afterwards. The entire shop was watching him go at this point, then most of them turned to take a look at me and see what the cause of this drama was.
I sort of didn’t appreciate the looks.
Doing my best to ignore it, I went back into the application, and completed it shortly thereafter. I was steadily reaching the point of diminishing returns. Georgetown had a certain glory to it, but after that, all the schools I applied too were all pretty much the same, being defined by their one major feature i.e. not being the Naval Academy. Still a bit flustered, I gathered up all my equipment, retrieved my printout, and went to the counter to slip another ten on top of the register. I thanked the owner profusely for all his help., I think he was expecting a hug or something, because he leaned in suggestively, but I headed him off at the pass and raised my arm for a handshake instead. I wasn’t quite up to code on this girl stuff, and being reminded of my gender by the amorous attentions of farm boy over there hadn’t made me any happier with it. I mean, this sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen! I was supposed to be impervious to it, what the hell did I pay good money for a wedding ring FOR!!!
Oh…right
[***][***][***]
That evening after dinner, I decided to shave my legs for the first time. As emasculating as it was, particularly since it followed the incident at the coffee shop, it was also starting to offend my sense of aesthetics. Jessica’s legs should just LOOK better than that. Since she wasn’t around to give them the treatment they deserved, I guess it fell to me. Besides, there was probably some valid medical reason for doing it, wouldn’t want the doctor to tell me tomorrow to shave my legs otherwise the baby would come out with rug burn or something.
It wasn’t as complicated as I thought it might be, shaving my face was all: angles, curves, tough to reach nooks and crannies. By the time you got a nice run going, you had to stop and turn around. When doing my legs, I could do nice even length strokes, and it was oddly soothing. I took my time about it, I didn’t want the doctor to treat any lacerations when she was down there either. I probably used more foam than was strictly necessary as well. But my duty was done, all honor to me.
Monday morning arrives whether we want it to or not. The phone number I had given Delta way back when they were freighting my gear across the plains was no good anymore. So, I had to call in every day to find out if the Conestoga wagon had come in yet. Wonder of wonders, it had done so today. With the minimum of hassle, I should be able to run down to the airport and pick it up before my doctor’s appointment, with plenty of time to spare. Melanie was looking at me all flirty when I entered the garage, the lights winked off her coat very suggestively. I took my purse with me, this time. I wasn’t going to lug around a heavy laptop and case since I didn’t know how long I would be. Besides, I figured it was good camouflage. I didn’t want the lady parts doctor to smell a red herring while she was examining.
.Err.
My little Jeep ate up the miles as we headed down into the Missouri River Valley and the waiting airport. I was directed to the north end of the field where a couple of long squat windowless buildings stood a few hundred feet from the gated tarmac. I waited only a few short half hours to be served and I left with Jessica’s remaining suitcases, after paying the modest ransom that was tacked on as a ‘storage fee’ by Delta when I didn’t pick them up on Friday. Apparently, the person who got my call then, and also on Saturday was ‘new’, and didn’t know how to find my paperwork…. I still owed the fee though. I swear, mutiny would have worked too if only it wasn’t for that meddling kid!…
Anyway, I was out of there with Melanie loaded up with only the slightest groan from the weight. I was westward bound for the hospital and my appointment with Dr Helen Lyons of the Methodist Women’s Center. The waiting room was about what I would have expected, the pink was overpowering, but I think I was starting to get used to it. I had brought a book to read, one of the several I had identified from Jessica’s library that I had not read yet and had some sort of desire, too. I hadn’t read “Anne of Green Gables”, but that twilight zone episode where all the rest of the world’s paper was eaten away by microbes would have to be reenacted before I would consider it. Though, on second thought it, had to be better than ‘contemporary O.B.G. news’ and the article “Intravenous iron sucrose versus oral iron in treatment of iron deficiency anemia in pregnancy”.
But only just.
[***][***][***]
I was walked into the examination room right on time, which was sort of a first for me. The authority held by Mr. DeGeas as the éminence grise of this town must be wider than I thought. I was asked to undress by the nurse and don the gown provided. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of them before, so I’m not going to draw one for you in your mind of what I looked like in one. Let’s just put it at unbecoming and leave it at that. After taking my vitals and measurements, the nurse left me alone in the room to stare at the various medical posters that were on display throughout the room. I looked at a life-size cutaway showing what the baby looked like at several points through the process from just after conception all the way through nine months. I looked at the one that displayed where about I was, it measured about the size of my thumbnail, but apparently the elbows and toes have begun to form on it.
I looked forward along the wall to a poster of mother and child at nine months. The female figure was about as tall as me, I stood right next to it so I could get a good comparison of what was ahead of me and how big little miss or mister might be when he left the little hole that Jessica left me… That fucker looked HUGE!! I clenched my legs in instinct.
“Good morning, Jessica,” said a woman in a lab coat as she opened the door to see me comparing myself with paper products. “I’m Doctor Lyons.
“Oh,” I said surprised. “I’m sorry, doctor, good morning. I was just looking at the posters you have here, and thinking of THINGS TO COME, so to speak.”
“I understand, that’s what they are there for.” she said smiling as she set her clipboard down on the table and washed her hands in the sink next to it. I suppose I should be grateful for small dignities.
“I’m going to examine you while I ask some questions,” She continued “I don’t have any of your medical records, so we will need to start from scratch. It will be basically like any other gynecological exam you’ve had.”
'Shows what you know.' I thought.
“Now when was your last period?" she asked.
“Daaaaaaa, I’m not sure,” I said while trying to remember if Jess had been particularly cranky.
“Were they erratic? That’s a warning sign,” The doctor asked concerned.
“Oh no, at least I don’t think so, they came every month regular as far as I could tell. It’s just, there has been quite a bit going on since then. I was trying to think. March I think, early March. I know that I’ve only had sex a few times, and the culprit was probably when I was having a fever and my birth control pills were not as effective. That was March 18th, so, if I remember health class correctly, my last period should have been two weeks before that, so March 4th if you need to enter something in the records.”
“So, you were not very sexually active?” she asked writing down in her notes.
“No, at least not in comparison to everyone else, it seems like. Only four times, ever. All with the same boy.”
“All it takes is one. And you didn’t use a condom?”
“She said she, that is my girlfriend, one of my friends who is a girl, said all I needed was the pill, that, wearing a condom wasn’t necessary.”
“Most times it isn’t, but there is always the risk the he will give you a sexually transmitted disease or several,” she said as she looked down at the clipboard.
'Hey now!' “I was, that is, both of us were virgins when we had sex, we were never with anyone else," I argued in my own defense.
“Very well, just please remember the risks, forgoing a condom is usually only done with married or committed couples.“
“We were committed, and we did get married.”
“Oh?” she looked up surprised. “It’s not in the chart, but then the DeGeas didn’t give me much to go on… my congratulations to you. Will your husband be attending the prenatal appointments.”
“Ah, no,” I stated embarrassed. “He’s in military, in Maryland. I will be joining him there, soon.”
“Will you?” she said and sniffed. It might have been my imagination, but she gave off the impression of disapproving of me. Like I was some white trash stereotype who hooked herself a man with benefits and a pension, about to ride on the gravy train. “Well, then we will get you started today, you can contact me when I need to forward your charts to your next doctor. Please put your feet in the stirrups."
This was the part that I was dreading, rightfully so. Whenever my sisters would try to get to me, usually when I was trying to digest at the dinner table, they would start trading stories of their various experiences in this torture chair. Mother never stopped them, perhaps believing that I needed a bit of a taking down. They never did it when the General was home, probably because they knew better, and that he was just as likely to start relating stories of sucking chest wounds, it was even money which was more disgusting. Actually, it wasn’t quite that bad, yet. The instruments had been warmed in a dish of hot water, and while it was a little odd feeling, it wasn’t quite the violation my sisters had been happy enough to descri-----
Ooooooooooooooooooh boooooooyyyyyyyy!. I only just stopped myself from shouting.
“I know,” said Doctor Lyons giving me a warm encouraging smile from between my legs. “But its necessary, and I need to be able to examine some of the hard to see places.”
She spent more time down there than I thought she should, even from my limited understanding of how all the pieces fit together. I remember being told that when the OB/GYN was a man, there would always be a female nurse in the room for the examination. The assumption being that the patient would be more comfortable being examined by someone of the opposite gender if someone of the same gender was there to make sure nothing got out of hand. I wonder what the good Doctor Lyons would say if I asked her to stop and go and find some six foot six linebacker of a male nurse to watch her so she didn’t take any liberties with me.
That was a happy thought that kept me going all through the rest of the examination. And soon enough, she was done down there and began lifting up my gown to expose more of my belly, and began rubbing a clear jelly over it.
“It’s a bit early for an ultrasound,” the doctor continued as she rolled over a medial device to my table. “But since I don’t have any of your previous records, I want to get as good a picture of the situation as possible.”
“Don’t you need a microscope at this point?” I quipped remembering the posters.
“Oh I know what I’m looking for,” she said smiling ruefully, then after a few minutes, looked up. “Things look normal, we are quite a ways away from determining if everything is all systems go, but indications are good at this point.”
“Do you,” I said as dignified as I could from my recumbent position. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”
“Much too soon for that, the parts haven’t even started growing yet, though that is coming in about two weeks. Another two months or so and we will be able to tell definitively on the ultrasound. There are some blood tests and amniocentesis that can be done a bit earlier but it’s a bit invasive to settle mere curiosity.”
“I see,” I commented as she finished the scan and cleaned me up from the residue. She went back to the sink to wash her hands and then invited me to sit up on the table in a much more flattering position.
“Well, Jessica, things look good for a first time mother, I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I’m going to be sending you home with a list of reading materials and lists of things to eat and of things not to eat, what is safe to do, what not, You’re going to have a lot of homework ahead of you, young lady. I hope you are a good student. Now, I know this can be frightening, particularly for someone so young, so I would like to take this time to answer any questions you might have.”
“Um well, things really look good?”
“Quite good, you are in remarkable physical shape, you must be an athlete.”
“Well, I was… I was headed toward the Naval Academy when I found out I was pregnant. My husband is there right now. They have rather strenuous physical requirements, we did a lot of working out together.” 'In more ways than one!'
“Well, you certainly look like you've taken care of yourself. That’s a good portion of preparing for a healthy pregnancy and delivery. There is no reason you can’t, and many reasons you should maintain a good exercise regime all the way up to delivery, which by the way, if your recollection is correct and my examination concurs, should be on or about December 5th.”
“One of those Christmas birthdays kids, huh? I always felt sorry for them. Until I released everyone else did too and made sure they had twice the amount of presents they'd otherwise have gotten in a whole year.”
“Kids are sneaky that way, I have two myself.”
“What was it like,” I asked before I even realized I did.
“That’s a question that would take months to answer, Nine months actually,” she joked and smiled at her own humor. “I’ll only say that it was better than I was told by all my friends who had gone before and tried to scare me with horror stories. And the delivery was nothing to be afraid of at all.”
“I,” I said softly as I gathered my thoughts and courage. ”I’m not sure what was in the information DeGeas sent, I didn’t see a spot to fill out on the questionnaire before I came in from the waiting room. But my, my mother died in childbirth; does that mean I have a higher risk?”
“It doesn’t help certainly,” said Doctor Lyons as she took my hand. “But it’s not a death sentence for you, if that’s what you mean. Do you know what the cause was?”
“Eclampsia, I think, it’s not something that was talked about much.”
“It seldom is, but that something that can be managed, it’s usually a result of hypertension, you show no signs of that. Indeed, your blood pressure and cholesterol are better than mine are, it must be nice to be 18!” she smiled at me trying to get my spirits up. “How old was your mother.”
“Um” I said trying to remember the seldom spoken of vital statistics. Jess and I had traded family trees once in third year for a history project, but it’s not the sort of thing a guy expected to be quizzed on later. “36 or 37 or so, I’m sorry I don’t know exactly.”
“Well, you never knew her, of course,” said Doctor Lyons as she walked over to one of the posters. “Fertility actually peaks in your mid twenties, but as far as the actual child BEARING portion of pregnancy goes, 18 is almost perfect. Your body is physically mature enough, but still young enough to recover quickly and totally. You have no idea the horror stories I hear told to me by mothers in their 30’s or 40’s about the fight they have to give in order to get back in their bikinis after giving birth. But for you! I doubt you will need what the plastic surgeons are offering as a ‘mommy makeovers’.”
'Perish the thought.'
“Your own mother,” she said indicating a line on the chart. “Was technically speaking a geriatric pregnancy, though for obvious reasons, women never liked to be referred to as that! It just means that her body was a little on the old side to be having a baby, and the odds just caught up with her. The odds are in YOUR favor Jessica, there is very little for you to worry about. The simple fact is you were well designed as a baby making factory, right now you are in the optimal zone.”
While being referred to as that was a bit off-putting, I was oddly comforted by her well put together explanations. I was soon allowed to put on my own clothes, and after sorting out the paperwork at the front desk, left the hospital, having solved my reading list problem. If I did as the doctor ordered and read them all, I would be set for weeks. Melanie was waiting faithfully for me, and having seen a public library on my drive to the hospital, I decided to stop by and begin on my homework. The small branch only had a few of the titles, but after signing me up first for a library card, how had Jessica avoided that? they put them on request for me, and I could pick them up in a few days.
I was most of the way back to the house when I sort of had a mental breakdown.
It had slipped past me, as busy as I had made myself the last few days. I had been concentrating on fixing what needed to be done, planning for my future which since I now wore the body of Jessica Ryan née Scott, must perforce be her future, lock stock and gyno appointment. But as I braked just in time to avoid messing up Melanie’s pretty face on a park tree, I had just realized something. Right around the time I was having some strange woman’s finger up my kazoo. Thomas Sullivan Ryan was swearing his midshipman’s oath as he entered the United States Naval Academy.
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 11
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You can run far, and you can run fast. But you can't run away forever.
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 11
[***][***][***]
I needed, to get the HELL, out of THERE.
The nice thing about making a run for it after just stopping at the airport was that I was already packed. The effect was lost somewhat when I had to stop by the house for my computer as well as some shoes and toiletries, but I was in and out in about 90 seconds. Now that had to be some sort of feminine record. I’ll call Ripley’s when I get back!
I just needed to get away from people for a bit, all people. Boys, girls, pregnant boys and girls! I had the idea of heading off to the mountains to hide under a rock until it all went away. But I couldn’t become a mountain man and let the beard hang down to my belly. I couldn’t do a lot of things I used to be able to do. I had the idea of checking out the lake house up north. If it was boarded up and unlivable when I got there, at least I had given myself a good long ride with Melanie between my legs. She was a good girl and we both deserved a run, I had the canvas down, my hair bound, and the Stones were on the radio. Sometime soon, I would have to get myself a replacement ipod and try to rebuild my 64 days. DAYS mind you of music, or perhaps just convince Jessica to mail it back to me. I doubt she would approve of much of the stuff on there, anyway.
According to the packet DeGeas had given me, I possessed, me and the bank now, I guess A quaint little Canadian pine four bedroom “cabin” on the Nebraska side of Lewis and Clark Lake. The lake was an impoundment, which is a fancy way of saying they dammed it up. The actual dam mind you, not the smiting, though I have heard the Missouri has asked for that too on several occasions. 25 miles long and 7 odd wide, it was one of the largest pieces of water between the Great Salt Lake and the Great Lakes. And on this day of days, when I should have been entering the Naval Academy, I kind of wanted to look at water, if only to torture myself.
I didn’t know Nebraska geography from a hole in the ground, which is what I gather a lot of the state looked like once you got west. I, however, would be heading north. A quick stop off at a gas station to buy fuel, and a road map, and I was on my way. I would have preferred a G.P.S. unit, but didn’t want to spend the time tracking one down. The way I figured it, as long as I stayed on this side of the river I would be OK, and when the day comes that I can’t find a 25 mile long lake with my own two hands and a road map is when the Boy Scouts come to repossess my eagle badge.
WHICH they will get when they pry it from my cold dead hands!
[***][***][***]
It was a peaceful drive along state highways, and I needed every bit of it. Clouds formed about a hundred miles into it, and started to scatter little raindrops on me. I welcome each one that stung my face, reminded me that I was still alive. I took a hell of a chance with Melanie, all things considered. That little cloud looked to turn into a thunderstorm and rain down a full on shower to drench the uncovered inside of my Jeep. But fate smiled on me, this time at least. I drove on north. There was only one road around the lake, the numbers on the houses went higher as you went west, lower as you went east. Eventually, after about half an hour of hunting and pecking, I came upon the house on a hill. There was a locked gate over the private road leading to the top, but the key that DeGeas gave me, let me through.
There was a mere two stall garage at this property, so I had to be careful how I parked. The door stuck a little on the way up. It was clear the garage hadn’t been used in some time, but it opened, and I was able to get Melanie inside just in time since it started raining hard a few moments later. The garage was detached from the house. So I got a little wet as I carried things into the house proper, but my car was dry so that’s all that counts. The inside also had the drop cloths over the furniture just like the house in Omaha. The power was on, and I didn’t really care if I slept on dirty dusty sheets tonight, as long as I could use some time to clear my head.
The main entrance led into a family room which itself was led into a well appointed kitchen. The fridge and freezer were both turned off, but that was OK since nothing was inside them. The pantry had a few boxes of mac n cheese and other items, but they had expired when I was in grade school.
Clearly I hadn’t thought things through.
I was, however, saved by the decadence of western civilization. Lewis and Clark Lake was something of a regional resort destination, I knew no way was Joe six-pack going to be far away from pizza delivery. So, after checking my smart phone, since the phone book on top of the fridge was from 1998, I called in a massive order with sodas to accompany it, then switched on the fridge so that it would be ready for the inevitable leftovers. Carefully managed, I could live off pizza for a day or three, though I’m sure the good Dr. Lyons would scold me mercilessly.
It was a beautiful lake.
[***][***][***]
The house sat in the bluffs above it, and was about 70 feet in elevation and 200 yards walking distance to the actual shore. So I knew if I wanted to swim or fish or sit by the beach and read, I had a bit to go. But the inconvenience of that walk was more than made up for with that commanding view. I could see miles to the west and east and even across the whole width of the lake into South Dakota. The clouds were dancing across the water and as I watched a lightning bolt came down on the far side followed shortly thereafter by the loud report of its thunder.
Nature it seemed was tied to my mood today… thanks nature, I owe you one.
The wooden deck outside was built for people to enjoy that view, it had a large protecting awning overhead. So I dragged one of the deck chairs to an advantageous position left the door leading into the living room wide open so I could hear the front door for the pizza man and just watched God have a bad day.
It was only 5P.M. or so and closing in on the longest day of the year. That meant we should have had plenty of sun light left, but it was currently a cloud induced dusk with the black clouds blotting out the sun. The fat fast rain hit the ground thousands at a time, with their reports creating a symphony of sound. The wind caught the rain on occasion and would spray me a bit,and the splashes when it hit the ground would occasionally hit me in the legs which were closest to the edge of the awnings protection, but I didn’t mind.
I stayed there for about an hour, watching the storm blow itself out as it marched to the east. Soon enough, little rays of sunshine started poking through the cloud cover followed by more gaps in the coverage. The sun, this point was at a low enough angle to catch all the moisture that was still in the air head on, shone blood red as it began to set in the west.
The pizza boy rang the door bell, I thought seriously about waiting on that deck until he got too tired and left, but my stomach showed me who was in charge when it demanded something more than the oatmeal it had consumed nigh on nine hours earlier. The pizza boy was in fact a pizza girl, which was all to the good, I’m not sure how I would have dealt with a leering pimply boy starting at me in the t-shirt that had got a little wet in embarrassing places. I took the stacked boxes from the overloaded girl, and gave her $20 tip, to her visible amazement. If she asked, I was going to tell her it was for having a pair of ovaries.
But she didn’t ask.
There were no dishes in the cupboards, nor anything as low class as paper plates for the Scott's little weekend getaway. So I tore a few pages out of an outdated phone book, and used them, instead. I’m sure that Miss Manners would disapprove, but then she would have to devote a couple of fresh chapters to my sort of situation. Until she did, I was content to eat like a cavewoman and drink coke directly out of the two-liter bottle.
When I had sated my hunger and thirst, I put the boxes in the refrigerator, which was cooling down nicely, and went back outside to watch the sunset. I tried not to look at my new cell phone, and failed. You see reader; I had sort of made an oath, a holy oath before all gods and … some devils.
When you spend almost your entire life working toward one goal, then through an unlooked for miracle, find someone you love who, soon enough, ALSO shares that dream, you sort of make plans. Wild unspecific plans if I ruled the world, sure, but also more mundane ones like always staying together even when pulled apart. Back when we were both academy bound, we knew that plebe summer would basically be like Auschwitz. OK, OK! I know, but WORK with me here.
It would be a scientifically designed hell to break the rebelliousness out of terrible teens, but not, it was hoped, their spirit. It would be grueling, physically demanding, intellectually overwhelming, All the while, just like those concentration camps, the sexes would be separated. But at the same time, you would be able to see your loved one through the wire. Close, but never close enough. There, but apart.
We knew we would be at our emotional lowest during plebe summer, and if either of us was going to break and run, it would be during those few weeks before the academy proper began. Once you’re in the classroom, it was all skull sweat, and a small bit of keep your quarters clean, your bed made Mickey Mouse stuff. We could handle all that. But to get to that point, we needed to make it through plebe summer. We had sort of sworn a binding oath that we help each other through it.
They take away your cell phones just like you’re in prison. If they catch you with it, it’s not a ding, but they definitely make you pay for it. We had watched one too many prison movies, I guess, because one night after the New Year, we had designed a way to smuggle some in, and an intricate system that worked off of a complicated mathematical formula we had both memorized. At exactly a certain time, plus or minus midnight, depending on the date, we would turn on our phones and have a short talk with each other.
The rest of the times, the phones would be off both to prevent detection and conserve batteries, plugging it in to the barracks electrical outlet sort of being a dead giveaway. The forbidden calls purpose was raising spirits, buffering hopes, with sufficient will and a reasonable amount of guts, it would be enough to get us through. Tonight, the first night of the pact, it was to be at 11:47 P.M.
Four hours and three minutes from now, according to my phone, my new phone mind you, the old one having been destroyed in an act of terror performed by the federal government. The plan was that we would alternate who called who, to prevent patterns from developing, and cut down on the detection risks. Jessica drew the first slot, and we used to joke about how she would escape the clutches of the lesbian death squads to win free to the bathroom and privacy enough to make the whispered call. She wouldn’t have to deal with the lesbians at this point, perhaps, but there was no way she would be able to make the call. She didn’t know my number. So, If I was going to keep my promise, I was going to have to be the one to make the call.
You’ve been reading my story for a while, so you’re about as up to date as I am. What would you do?
With the benefit of some hindsight, I realize I was a complete prick when the pregnancy scare hit. I went from the surprise attack on her part of telling me she was pregnant and getting an abortion, to the counter attack on my part, a freaking KIDNAPPING her like she was some medieval peasant, without even trying to go to the peace tables. In a post Iraq world, I had acted unilaterally, and was standing on that aircraft carrier waving a big mission accomplished banner about when I got what was coming to me.
Maybe.
I’m not without sin, I’ll grant you that, but there was the whole stealing my body aspect of our personal dynamic to get over. I mean come on! But then…she had said she was sorry, and she had asked if I could forgive her. I had three hours and fifty eight minutes to decide… I sat there as the sunset and the cloud cover gave way to the stars above.
Thinking about what was done, and what must be done. About the good times,bad times and the friggin GREAT times. While forgiveness was still a ways away, if she was willing to give me a chance to evolve from a knuckle dragging chauvinistic pig, I would try to let her work her way out of being a literally ball breaking bitch.
[***][***][***]
I dialed the number by heart, I had after all been paying for it for the last several years… It went straight to voice mail. I got the time zones right didn’t I? I waited a few moments, checked the time function on my phone again and dialed a second time. This one actually started ringing. I hoped she was smart enough to have it on vibrate…
“T…” stuttered a very quiet voice that I once knew so well. “Tommy is that you, I don’t recognize the number?”
…
…
…
“So babe… how they hangin?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.
Pause
“You thought for hours on what to say first, didn’t you?” she responded eventually, once the shock had worn off.
“Kinda…” I admitted reluctantly.
“Tommy…” she said and I could hear her trying to physically force herself to keep from laughing. It might be funny. At least to us two, but I doubt any of the guards or on the prowl upperclassman would be interested in the joke.
“I didn’t think you would call,” she said once control had been regained.
“Well,” I said trying to act less nervous than I was. “I made a promise to a lady, and I sort of missed you a bit.”
“Then you only have to look in the mirror!” he whispered emphatically, perhaps too much so to avoid detection.
“Quiet, you don’t want to get found out on your first day, I plan on calling you for a while, so you have to keep that cell phone unfound.”
“You do, I mean, why… after everything that I did to you, Whenever I look at myself now and see you, I can’t help but think of what a total bitch I was to leave you like that tied up and pregnant, just because you were trying to do the right thing. If I didn’t think it would get me sent to hell for murder, I think I would probably kill myself. I’m just a worthless piece of shit.”
“Hey now, no one talks about my girl that way, not even me,” I said as forcefully as I could without giving away her position to anyone in the bathroom who might hear her. “And if you mention suicide again, I will personally drive down there, overrun your perimeter and kick your ASS!”
“Oh Tommy,” she said a moment later with a slight chuckle in her voice. “I’m just so sorry.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too, we can both be sorry together, but that’s for the far future and doesn’t get us through tonight. How is it?”
“Not as bad as it’s going to get, I’m sure, mostly paperwork and medical induction. The nasty stuff is yet to come.”
“Do you remember the schedule?”
“Yes.”
“Stick with it as long as you can so we alternate your times, though since there is only one of us now, you can go ahead and always make the calls when it’s safe for you. And if telecommunications break down there is always the mail. It’s not as fast, but if we write each day…”
“Does this mean you forgive me?” she asked hopefully.
“Leaning that way,” I reluctantly granted. “if there is no way back, then we have to go all the way forward. If you were up until recently willing to fall in love and live happily forever after with Thomas Ryan, then I guess I can force myself to do it too, me having such a large respect for him and all.”
“Tommy that’s great!” he almost shouted. “I mean-“
“And one more thing,” I interrupted him. “Since this looks to be permanent I can’t have you going around calling me Tommy particularly when that’s supposed to be the name you’re wearing. You volunteered for the Naval Academy, people are already looking at you funny, no reason to add fuel to the fire.”
“What then does that mean you want me to call you…”
“Jessica,” I answered her, “Was the name of the girl I loved. And it sort of freaks me out to be called that. So in a couple of days when I go in to change from Scott to Ryan on my ID I’m going to ask to drop the Jessica part of it and just go by Katherine. I can be a Kate or a Katie I think, maybe.”
“I hated that name, made me sound like some fat queen,” he answered me disgusted. “Or a fat starship captain.”
“And if you tried putting on some of your old wardrobe on that new body of yours that’s exactly what you would look like too. On me, however, I think that name sounds dignified. It will serve as a clean break. Jessica is a name that is recently full of bad memories and broken dreams, but Katherine has a future… if you will allow her.”
“I’d like that, but what about me, are you going to be fine calling me Tommy, I REALLY hate your middle name. I don’t think I could go around letting anyone call me Sullivan.”
“Nor would I let you, that name was to appease mother’s people, and it didn’t work anyway. But since we're adults now, I figured, that we could maybe do away with the kid's nicknames. I usually went by Tom, and you called me Tommy, but the birth certificate says Thomas. If you start insisting everyone call you Thomas, pretty soon Tommy will be a memory too.”
“Think it will work?”
“Could do, if we work hard at it, and it only needs to last long enough for you to gain rank. Soon enough, I might be referring to you as the general like my mother does to my father,” I said grinning fondly at the memory.
“They’ve called me you know, and you’re sisters too, I don’t know what to say to them. I never really had a family to care about me.”
“Well you do now, a whole clan of them… what do you, what do you tell them about me?”
“I said, that we were trying a long distance relationship for a while,” he answered hesitantly. “After you…failed the medical.”
“True enough, I guess… By the way you’re broke, or I, we are I guess.”
“What!” he said and this time it was an actually scream
“Short story even shorter, wicked stepmother lost whatever money of yours she didn’t just take.”
“That bitch!”
“Sort of my prognosis too, it’s not all doom and gloom, DeGeas is mortgaging a few properties that should be enough to last a while. I can send you all the copies of the paperwork to look over.”
“I won’t have the time, I don’t even have time for THIS! I should be getting some sleep. And anyway,” he said sighing and calming down. “I trust you.”
“Thank you,” I said oddly pleased.
“Do you need money? I can send everything I have left, I won’t be using it.”
“Thank you again, but use it yourself on Saturday liberty. You will probably need the R&R more than I will, and anyway, whatever is in your savings won’t make any difference. It was just a perspective thing. To drop from the many millions to the few hundred thousand sort of makes it look like we’re poor, but most people get by just fine on less, and you and I can too. There is enough there for me to go to college, I spent most of the weekend sending out late applications. One or three should find roost, and I’ll be out East in a bit to see you.”
“We can, we can maybe meet up when I get a Saturday off, it will be a few weeks though,” He offered hesitantly and rather more effectively than the coffee shop asshole did trying to get me to go to the movies.
But then, he WAS my husband.
“I’d like that, we’ll talk again at the next check in, for now, save your battery and get some sleep, it only gets worse from here.”
“Thanks for the pep talk baby,” he said happily.
“Anytime,” I offered as I ended the call and sat back down on the deckchair exhausted. I fell asleep there in that position. And I hadn’t had such a good night’s sleep in some time.
[***][***][***]
I woke to the early morning sunlight in my eyes. The angle of the sun and the awning over the house had prevented me from getting a money shot for some hours past dawn, but it had finally risen high enough to get me with its unwanted attention. I stretched out, got up from the deckchair and scratched myself in places a lady probably shouldn’t, and saw an interloper to my morning routine. There was in the little back bay the house was attached to, a lone fishing boat floating about 300 yards offshore. They were just floating, and the wind was drifting them steadily to the east across the lake.
Nothing too odd about a fishing boat, at least this one was an actual boat made for fishing, not one of those over powered jet boat monstrosities that can get you across the lake at 70 mph and scare away every fish in the process, too. This one had an older man and a young boy, or least from this distance, child, I suppose I can’t be one to judge the whole enforced gender roles thing, and it would be perfectly fine for a little girl to fish too. The child though, was banished to the front of the boat while the distant figure of the captain had the top of the motor off and was looking into it, like staring would somehow fix it.
Tourists…
I walked carefully down to the shoreline from my deck, the Scott’s had been thoughtful enough, to provide a concrete pathway so it was easy going,even had a built in a set of steps when the incline got to steep. I cupped my hands in my mouth and tried to make my new voice carry as far as it could.
“AAAHHHHHOOOOOYYYYY THHEEE BBOOOAATT,” I shouted. “DOO YOOUU REEQUIIRRREE ASSSSISSTTTANCE!!!”
“Mmmuuurrroh ….goorr….bbbooa…phnnnnnnn.” came back over the water.
“REAPEAT PLEASE!”
“aaannno…phhhhhhh..gggorrrrr.” was the much clearer response. However the adult was not quite lost to all reason as he started waiving a orange square boat cushion in an arc back and forth in an approved coast guard manner signaling boat in distress. My house was the only one in this bay, from what I could see the land east and west was natural resource and parkland. I had to wonder how the Scott's had got permission to build it in the first place.
But while I had an almost unspoiled view, and the privacy that I had been looking for, it also meant there was no one else to help out these mooks. Much as I might like to sit out on my porch eating pizza, and watching the show of this guy trying to paddle back to the docks 10 miles away, I was currently in an introspective moment in my life and was trying to be a better man…woman…person.
There was a boathouse attached to the property, but no boat inside it, probably had been sold off years ago with on one to use it. The interior, though, yielded a nice selection of tools and trinkets. Engineer Scott it would appear, liked his toys. Some of them had not been stored properly, and a decade of Nebraska weather had specked a few with rust.
However, after a few minutes of poking around, I found a small tool set which had been in a waterproof case. It was about ten pounds all together, and I yanked out some of the incredibly useless stuff, but it should probably be enough to at least diagnose what was going on. Grabbing some nylon rope that was hanging on a peg by the wall, I headed back into the house proper cursing all fishermen.
Jessica had three swimsuits among the cases I had brought. Two of them were skimpier than I approved of when I was looking at her, and not the one actually wearing it. The third, however, was her one piece suit from the Exeter swim team. It was modesty incarnate. I double wrapped my cell phone in a Ziploc, deposited it in the tool case, made sure that the damn fool thing was actually waterproof by testing it in the kitchen sink, then secured it to my body with a couple different knots. I would be embarrassing myself all to hell for these people, and didn’t want to compound said embarrassment by showing up with an end of rope tied to nothing.
The trip down to the shoreline was slightly different without shoes, the sun had been up only a few hours, but summer was upon us, and it had already heated the concrete to sole scalding conditions. So I had to walk down on the grass and gravel which was one more indignity I was suffering for these people. If they didn’t at least say 'thank you', I would probably…
The swim out to the stranded boat went smoothly enough, the tool box forced me into a modified doggy/freestyle, besides, I’m not sure what breast stroke would all involve in my new configuration. It took me longer than I thought it would, probably a result of lost strength and faulty technique, but also perhaps a result of this body being out of the training regime it was used to. I resolved once back in a stable situation, to restart the exercise program, even if I did have to put on one of those tacky leotards. After all, I didn’t want to be forced to get one of those mommy makeovers!!
“Permission to come aboard, Sir!” I said to the man and snapped off as sharp a salute as I could while trying to tread water, and holding a heavy weight.
“Granted,” said the man as he chuckled and held out a hand to me. He was slim man of about 55 or so with short brown and grey hair with the sort of haircut you usually get on high powered lawyers or Hollywood actors. However, since I couldn’t recall seeing him in any theaters recently, I pegged him as a shyster and hoped that I wouldn’t end up sued for my efforts. I was lifted into the boat, and I set my case down gently on the deck.
It wasn’t a big boat, as boats go, about 18 feet end to end, and the three of us along with all the fishing gear rather took up a lot of space. The small child though, I could sort of infer it was a boy now, from the length of the hair. He was annoyed with the situation and stayed up in the front, away from all the drama with his hands holding a little electronic device plugged into some earphones. Since he was not actively screaming at me or leaking bodily fluids, I was content to let him fry brain cells… I was going to make a great mom.
“Don’t mind Henry, he’s just disappointed.” said the man indicated the bow. “His grandfather promised him a fish this morning and it looks like I failed him.”
“How long were you stuck out here,” I asked looking around.
“About 90 minutes since the engine conked out. I cut the motor so we could drift in and not scare the fish away. When we were done, I tried starting up again, it was a no go. I tried signaling for help, but all the passing boats were too far and too fast to see me. I was considering jumping overboard and making a run for shore to get help… but the boy.”
“Couldn’t leave him behind, I quite agree. No phone?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No I… wanted to be unreachable for a bit,” he shook his head at his own foolishness.
“I quite understand, came out here to do something similar and woke up to see you here.”
“That’s the Scott place isn’t it?” asked the man gesturing toward my lake house.
The question sort of surprised me before I realized that he wasn’t being some sort of stalker, but that the prominent family was probably well known to a number of people.
“Yes it is,” I answered cautiously.
“You one of the cousins? My place up here is just four houses west. I remember attending a few parties there, but these days it’s hardly used.”
“I suppose I must be a cousin to someone somewhere, but my… my father left me that place.”
“Oh,” the man said giving me a hard once over and making me every bit self conscious of the fact that I was in a clinging swimsuit while he was in jeans and field jacket. “Your Martin’s girl, Jessica?”
“I don’t really like to be called that, I go by my middle name Katherine these days, and you are?”
“I’m sorry,” he said obviously chagrined.
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, ha, ha. Well I guess you HAVE been away,” he said grinning at situation “I’m Robert Pilsner… the Governor of Nebraska. We met when you were a little girl, though I was a Congressman, then.”
“Well your Excellency,” I said not entirely believing him. “Let’s get you back to your state, wouldn’t want South Dakota to see you vulnerable and attempt an invasion.”
“We could lick em,” he said with a smile on his face. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much use with that tool box, Miss Scott. I always had people to do my maintenance for me. Do you know which end of a wrench to hit the nail with?”
“Most times, your other option is my cell phone, if it survived the trip. So your Excellency, a call to shore for someone to rescue you, or being showed up mechanically by a girl?” I asked raising my eyebrow suggestively.
“Politically, both have advantages and disadvantages, and it’s just ‘The Honorable’ Robert Pilsner. However, I think I’ll let you try, first, if you fail, the rescue party is a good fall back. Though the state troopers may send out a search of their own if I‘m not back in an hour or so.”
“Fair enough,” I said as I went to work. I changed places in the boat with him as I went in the back to inspect the outboard motor. It was as I expected, he had made a mess of things as only politicians and petroleum can.
“I noticed, a lot of water had got in the oil line,” Pilsner said trying to be helpful, when he saw what it was I was inspecting.
“That’s because it’s not the oil line, that’s the water line.”
“Water line?” he asked confused.
“Yes, its water cooled, hadn’t you noticed when it takes a piss off the side?” I queried with a funny look at the supposed adult.
“Yes well I thought that was… oh, right, water cooled of course. Is that why it won’t start?”
“Well, the hose was not connected, but that wouldn’t stop it from starting, just burn it out in time. So I’m guessing that was you, when you were messing about?”
“Possibly,” he admitted to me reluctantly.
“Actually, everything looks in fine working order, you even have gas, it looks like,” I said dinging the red tank next to me with my knuckles. “Turn the ignition, I want to test something.”
Click. Click. Click.
“You’ve been running a lot of electronics haven’t you?” I said with a wry grin.
“Well, yeah. Henry wanted to watch some cartoons and it’s a lot easier to fish when he’s distracted. So I plugged in that portable DVD player into the ac adaptor.”
“And Also The G.P.S., the fish finder, radio, and the trolling motor," I continued amused. “When’s the last time you charged the battery on this here bucket.”
“Um, never, But I’ve had the engine running?”
“This motor doesn’t have an alternator; one's got nothing to do with the other.”
“Well, hell! I don’t think it is the battery, we still have juice enough for the toys.”
“They don’t draw much at the moment, but starting the motor takes a hell a bunch a power, there wasn’t enough left…. How long have you had this boat and you not realize that?”
“This boat, about three days for the long weekend I promised myself. It belongs to my brother in law, and he never informed me, My boat HAS an alternator, but my son Richard took it bass fishing down in Arkansas.”
“Those nasty brother in laws…” I grinned at him. It was sort of a power trip to see an adult, even crazy ones like Bob here taken down a peg by their own assumptions.
“Well, what now, call in the cavalry? That is unless you have a solar charger in that suit of yours.”
“Well, it just so happens that the fine people at Suzuki anticipate this sort of problem,” I said popping an internal bay in the top of the motor and revealing a handle and about five feet of chord. “Ever yank start a lawnmower?”
“Not for many years,” he said a bit wary.
“The principle is the same, though this one is even more of a bitch to get going,” I said as I unwrapped the chord. “I probably don’t have the upper body strength to get it done. Would you care to prove your masculine superiority to me?” I asked as demure as I could manage.
“You need to work on that expression,” said Pilsner as he grabbed the handle. “My wife can teach you lessons.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
He gave it a few tugs, then a few harder tugs, then after a full minute with face red and haircut mussed, he sat back down to catch his breath.
“Well aint that embarrassing.” he said trying not to look at me.
“No shame in it, that’s about 20 times the horsepower of your last lawnmower. Here, let’s try it together.” I said as I moved into position behind him, and we both had our hands on the chord. “On three, one, two, THREE!”
Cluglcuglug BRRRRBBBRRRRRRRR!!!
“We have lift off,” I said as I quickly moved the wheel to point us away from the approaching rocks and idle down. I replaced the cover on the motor and then repacked everything I had brought on board. “Now whatever you do, don’t cut the engine till you get back to the dock, and charge that battery as soon as you can.”
“I’ll do that,” he said offering his hand to me. “Thank you very much for your timely assistance."
“Had to do it, you were spoiling my view,” I said graciously as I shook his hand. “Can I trouble you for a ride the last little way to my dock?”
“Seems the least I can do,” he said as he sat down at the wheel and slow boated us in toward shore. When we got there, I didn’t bother tying off, just jumped from amidships to the dock and turned to face Pilsner.
“Miss Scott?” he said.
“Ryan,” I interrupted.
“Pardon me,” he raised an eyebrow confused.
“I married last week, I’m Mrs. Ryan now.”
“Congratulations, is your husband here? I’d like to offer you both dinner tonight with my family. Your father was a good friend and a major contributor. I’d like to get to know you better.”
“My Husband is back East at the Naval Academy,” I said not liking where the conversation was going. “Contributor… listen are you really the governor?”
“Last I checked, though the unicameral may impeach me when they hear about this great mechanical incompetence of mine, if that’s a smart phone you have, you could always look me up on Wikipedia if you don’t believe me.”
“I’ll take your word for it… look, I appreciate the offer, but I am not exactly full of social graces as you can tell, comes from being orphaned early I guess. It’s no good trying to butter me up for campaign contributions as I hardly have enough to go to college. Wicked stepmother and his partners took almost everything before I inherited.”
“Did they?” Pilsner asked with a squint, I thought I might have detected a little twitch of rage in those ice blue eyes. But then it was hidden quickly by a professional politicians smile. “Well, I’m set up for the next election, anyway. I would still be grateful for your presence at dinner, I’ll send a trooper and a car at 6: P.M. Dress is casual.”
“I… sure, has to be better than cold pizza.”
“Maybe not, it’s my turn to fix dinner, but we will send out for Chinese if things go south. See you at six!” he said as he pulled away from the dock.
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 12
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In honor of Nebraska's very slight victory over Idaho State 73-7 I present to you an extra chapter.
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 12
[***][***][***]
The governor’s summer cottage was about a half mile from mine, around the next bend west. HE for one, had neighbors in sight both to the left and right so it would appear if he was taking bribes, he wasn’t doing a good enough job of it to be in the same ranks as my adoptive family, fallen though they might be. I was picked up by a suited plain clothes state trooper in an intimidating Chevy Tahoe. I felt under dressed in the jeans and yellow v-neck top I was in until I saw what monstrosity Pilsner was wearing. I was willing to cut him some slack I guess, since he probably spent 18 hours a day 90% of the year in a three piece suit, he must institutionally want to rebel whenever the cameras weren’t around to see it by wearing a loud Magnum P.I. Hawaiian shirt.
His wife was a frumpy woman who I would have pegged as a rancher or farmer’s wife, instead of the spouse of the state’s chief executive. I took one look at her and suspected she was the more practical of the pair. She was dark haired abd without any grey. The eyes though were enough to tell me she was of an age with her husband, but I wasn’t going to be catty and comment on her dye job. She seemed a pleasant enough woman and solidified my impression of her when she embraced me long a long lost daughter.
“Jessica!” she said squeezing me in a hug, “or is it Katherine now, Bob mentioned something about you changing it?”
“Um… You’re sort of the first people I am trying it out on. I just needed a bit of a change, and I always liked my middle name.”
“Change is good every once in a while,” commented the governor as he walked us to the lakeside patio where a grill was set up.
“Well, my name is Sally if you dont remember. I thought about changing it several hundred times, but never had your courage. So is it Katherine, then? All formal and stuffy or can I squeeze in a Kate, and you married! I’m just sad that your father isn’t around to see it… and of course your mother, but I never knew her.”
“Nor I,” I responded trying to show the appropriate amount of reverence for this bodies mother. “Kate is fine I think, or Katie, it’s all new to me so let’s see where things end up. “
“It occurs to me,” said the governor trying to change the subject. “I might have made an error, are you a meat eater? Or one of those misguided vegans. We’re having burgers and I’m sorry to say there probably isn’t a tofu burger to be had for three counties in any direction.”
“Dead cow will be fine,” I replied smiling at him. “As ugly as they are, I figure they have it coming.”
“My grandson Henry,” said Sally mirthfully, “Missed his breakfast because of some damn fool and a boat, and said damn fool compounded his error by feeding him too much junk food and candy for lunch, so he now has an epic stomach ache. So it will just be the three of us.”
“Not his parents? Or your guards?”
“We try not to let the people with guns get in the way of family dinners, Brian our son, is taking a well deserved vacation. The mother is… out west someplace,” said Sally brushing off the woman’s absence with a wave of her hand like it was no issue.
Dinner was ready in a few minutes. I did justice to the Governors grill work. The burger was perhaps more well done than I generally preferred, but the quality of meat was such that it wasn’t dried out, and along with the spice rub used was quite tasty. I helped clean up the few dishes used, and we sat outside to enjoy the weather before the heat of the approaching summer made things unbearable.
The older couple enjoyed some cocktails and got around the social gaff of not offering a minor one by providing me with a truly massive root beer float that was so satisfying that I did not feel in the least slighted. It quite well managed to lull me into a false sense of security when they began applying pressure to the thumbscrews.
“You may not feel it’s my business Katherine,” said Pilsner as he set his glass down on the side table. “But I know that your family is sadly depleted in this generation. And I know your husband’s people not at all. So I feel I owe you a little looking after, particularly after the help you gave me this morning!”
“Don’t worry about that at all,” I said brushing it off. “Anyone could have done it.”
“Apparently not,” quipped Sally enthusiastically. “Otherwise HE would have done it.”
“Now, now,” he said sternly. “Less of that, I’m sure there is some sort of ‘lese majesty law’ I can unearth for this occasion.”
“If there was,” Sally said getting up and giving a kiss to her husband on the way out the door. “You would have used it on me long ago.”
He watched his wife leave the patio like he wanted to have HER for an after dinner treat. It was nice to see people still so in love even after years of marriage, it gave one hope for the future. He returned his gaze to me and suddenly seemed a little at loss for words, which, given his chosen profession must have taken some doing.
“Suppose you tell me you’re honorable,” I broke the silence. “What it is that your wife so pointedly left us alone for you to tell me?”
“It’s just the honorable, not you’re honorable, and really, just Bob, to most people.”
“May I call you Honest Bob?” I asked with a subtle smile.
“I would be honored,” he countered grinning. “So let me be truthful with you now, one of the reasons I was so surprised to realize who you were today, and I confirmed it with Lee this afternoon…”
“Lee?” I asked interrupting him.
“Your congressman,” he said with a nod and a puzzled expression. “He was under the same impression I was that he had used one of his appointments to get you a spot at the Naval Academy and also that said Academy began yesterday.”
“I must assume your information is correct.” I answered with a suddenly dry throat.
“I thought so.” He said looking down at the deck. “Of course, if you changed your mind about military service, that’s no great crime. It’s not desertion, you hadn’t sworn any oaths, yet. But it was in poor taste, and unworthy of your family. Another Nebraskan could have used that slot.”
“I AM, sorry to have let the state down governor, and will so inform Congressmen Lee when I see him next. But not going to the Academy was not my choice, it was for medical reasons.”
“Oh,” he said sounding surprised. “You look healthy enough, certainly you swam out to my boat carrying that heavy box well enough.”
“It’s not debilitating quite… yet, but they do have a strong policy against it.”
“Well, you don’t have to tell me specifics, if you’re uncomfortable speaking of it to a virtual stranger. But I hope you are getting the proper treatment?”
“Yes sir,” I replied like I was being debriefed by my father. “And it’s no great secret I won’t be able to hide it soon enough… I’m pregnant.”
“PREGNANT!” he shouted out while doing a spit take on his beverage.
“Why does every guy I tell react that way?” I asked Bob, but also the world in general.
“It just sort of surprises a man, a girl as young as you, at least I didn’t give in to the stereotype and faint.”
“Not that young, old enough at any rate. I’m only a few months gone, and found out a few weeks ago. The decision was to either get a quick abortion and carry on to the academy with my boyfriend who is also attending or not. We chose not. I did rather, and he eventually accepted it.”
“Well,” he said digesting the information. “As a red-stater in good standing, I disapprove of abortion, but that can’t have been an easy decision for you.”
“No,” I agreed simply.
“So what now for you?”
“School, I guess.” I replied reluctantly. “As much as I can get done before the baby is born, then charge hard as soon as I can afterwards. I have some applications out to colleges in Maryland so I can be closer to… Thomas… my husband.”
“Well, at least that boy that did this to you, did the right thing. But why not here, plenty of fine schools in Nebraska, we ought to know. It’s the single largest piece of my budget.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. You sound surprised,” he said to me harshly as he looked at me askance.
“It’s just that in California and other states, usually its entitlements… or prisons.”
“You’ll find that we run a much different state than California. I think you’ve been to long away, if you didn’t know that.”
“Probably true,” being that this is only my second visit!
“Bob!” came a slightly shrewish shout from the doorway. “I have fresh cherry pie and no ice cream to go with it, and don’t try to blame Henry! I know for a fact he doesn’t like plain vanilla but here it is a whole gallon gone, that scoop for the float was the last of it. And the one I keep in emergency reserve appears to have vanished.”
“Sally, I haven’t been at the ice cream at all today.”
“Today! he says with a straight face,” she said as she turned to me. “Notice he didn’t say anything about the last three days running. Have you sorted out what you needed too?”
“Yes we have,” Pilsner answered her. “Katherine has come home to have her baby.”
“A baby? well that’s wonderful! Or is it? You are rather young?”
“Old enough,” I answered her as I began getting up to leave. “Perhaps I should go.”
“It’s no great shame to have a baby Mrs. Ryan,” said Pilsner gesturing her to sit down. “I just worry that it’s too much on your own, particularly with your financial troubles.”
“What troubles?” asked Sally.
“I’m curious about that myself,” he continued turning to me with a hard look. “Suppose you tell me what mess you have been left with.”
[***][***][***]
“So I’ve only known him for like an hour of face time at this point, already I can tell he’s going to blow a gasket,” I tell Thomas during our late night phone call. I was back at the lake house, laying in the tub hoping that bath salts didn’t have a shelf life when the call came through. I of course had to grill him on the people I should know in my current body. “What’s with that guy, it’s like it was being done to him, or least someone in his own family. Is he a distant cousin or something?”
“Not that I know,” replied Thomas quietly so as to not wake any potential snitches. “Daddy just had a lot of good friends. I don’t really know him all that well. We met a few times, then of course at the funeral. They had to hold it at the cathedral since so many people wanted to come. But really W.S.M. sent me away as soon as she could, Switzerland, then Exeter. You won’t have much trouble with people who knew me then. Any way that you act odd will just be taken for growing up.”
“You mean like suddenly being able to field strip an engine?”
“I still can’t believe you let yourself be seen in public in that suit.”
“Why? It covers all the important bits?”
“It covers everything!” he replied exited.
“That’s what I like about it,” I smiled as I raised my leg out of the tub to examine it for foliage…good enough for now. Though I wondered if they made some sort of swim suit that covered legs?
“Your fath… the General called me today,” Thomas said after a short pause. “He knew exactly when I was having lunch and somehow had gunny pull me out of the chow line to have a quick five minutes.”
“How did you do?” I asked concerned.
“Well enough, I think. If he suspected anything, I think it was that I was too bone tired to hold up my end of the conversation, so any slips will be considered fatigue. But he did ask about you, I mean Jessica.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently,” he continued with a sweet tone of voice. “You had over the course of several years told him you loved me.”
“The details are vague,” I deflected valiantly.
“So, when your mother told him that I, that is, that YOU were not coming to the academy with me, he wanted to check in and ‘see how I was holding up’, but was really just an excuse I think to find out if ‘that girl’ was distracting me from my mission.”
“That girl am I?” I grumbled as I looked down at the view. “Technically accurate, I suppose.”
“Katie, we have to tell them.”
“About the switcheroo or their first grandchild?”
“About the baby, and the fact that we are MARRIED, I doubt anyone would believe us about the switch.”
“Aunt Alane would probably, but she also believes that Elvis is still alive and a vampire…. So dead… huh, I never really thought that one through.”
“Katie!”
“I think we should tell them, just not yet. We have plenty of time. And you shouldn’t feel so gung ho about it, YOU’RE the one who will have to take the brunt of their ire when they hear about. I’m just the impressionable young maiden you had your wicked way with ::sniff::”
“We can wait a little bit, but eventually it’s going to get out, in more ways than one if you remember what’s cooking inside you.”
“I remember…” I said in a serious tone. “There is time enough, but keep in mind I don’t even know where I’m going to be living for the next four years. When she hears about the expansion of her genetic empire, my lady mother is going to want to visit. It will be nice to be settled in one place before she moves in with me.”
“She’s not going to want to move in with you, she has her own house and career.”
“Grant me that I know my Mother better than you do, believe me, the first thing she is going to want to do when we tell her is to… mother... grandmother” I clarified.
“All right,” he sighed too tired to fight. “We can talk about it later… I should get to my rack anyway."
“Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, and dream sweet dreams of beautiful women. And they better all be me!”
“Orders received and understood,” he responded crisply as the phone call was ended.
[***][***][***]
All good things must end. I couldn’t stay a beach bunny forever, particularly since what passed for beach up here was black loam and gravel. Melanie was mounted, so we headed south again toward Omaha and an uncertain future. I didn’t want to just pull of stakes and head to just any town in Maryland, hoping it was the right one. My financial situation was going to be tight, I couldn’t pass up the free rent the Scott castle provided while I waited, so back to it I went and made myself at home, so to speak.
The very second thing I did after almost having an asthma attack from peeling off dustcovers was to call in a maid service to come in and give it a good going over. There were six bedrooms and 13 other rooms in the house, I didn’t want any piece of that action. For some things, like petrified dead rats in the basement, you spend the money and promise yourself that you will economize later.
I moved all of ‘my’ possessions into the master bedroom and claimed it as my own. I paid to have all the locks rekeyed and changed the combination to the alarm. If W.S.M. ever showed up again, I would set the dogs on her… right after I bought some dogs, of course. Having done all I could to get into a university short of offering bribes,aAnd I wasn’t discounting that mind you! I just need to see what was in the budget first. So for now, I decided that my new full time job would be to sit by the pool in the shade of the garden and gestate.
I still couldn’t tell any difference in my new waistline, though these things are so gradual, it would be hard enough to tell even with scientific instruments and not just the mark one eyeball. As I sat poolside, I read through the required reading on my new condition. Stacked end to end it amounted to about 2.5 feet of paper. I was pretty sure most expectant mothers gave up a book or two in and just tried to watch the DVD instead. I, however, had nothing better to do at the moment, so manfully worked my way through it. According to the relevant literature I could expect in my first trimester, bouts of nausea?
Check, I still hadn’t been able to go a whole day without some sort of queasiness.
Tender, and or swollen breasts? I inspected the merchandise and tried to see if I could mark that one off as well. The trouble was, I wasn’t used to these things hanging off my front side. Certainly they were sensitive, a misplaced shot of hot water this morning was a testament to that! But were they more tender than usual? And as for being swollen, they seemed to accept the bras that Jessica had left me, though none was a ‘perfect fit’, I had quickly assumed that there was no such mythical creature and was content to just suffer through the occasional pinch or scratchiness in exchange for the needed support they offered. So #2 was a certified maybe.
Increased urination? YES! Though how much of that was due to the inherent female form was to be determined. Food aversions or cravings? Well, I stayed away from some of the vegetables that mother said were good for me, but I secretly thought were being used to punish me for being a bad boy. But I couldn’t really say that I now had an aversion to food. Certainly nothing I had once liked as Tommy was disgusting to me as Katherine, though it WAS early days yet, and I hadn’t sampled the entire palate. I wondered if craving for good pizza could count for this symptom, but if true, it would mean I had been pregnant for years.
Dizziness? No, and no fainting spells since I traded up so to speak, so I hoped this one would pass me by as well. Heartburn and constipation? No. Fatigue? Well, I was getting tired from some of the simple physical acts I had been used to performing before. But again, I had chalked that up to the body swap. I also for the longest time was not getting the best sleep due to stress, but now that things had stabilized somewhat, I should be getting a better gauge.
Identifying pregnancy symptoms must be so much easier for women.
I had just decided to give myself a study break and maybe try some of the suggestions for light low fat meals when my cell phone started ringing, the number was a strange one from an eastern area code, so I excitedly picked up what I hoped was the first response to my college applications.
“Hello,” I answered courtesy.
“Good afternoon,” said a pleasing female voice. “I’m calling to speak to Jessica Scott, my name is Grace Ashford from the Georgetown University admissions office.
YES!!!
“Good afternoon Ms Ashford, I’m Jessica,” on all the official records anyway.
“Well Jessica, I thought I would give you a telephone call as a courtesy to let you know that we received your application over the weekend and processed it. I know that this process can be very stressful for young people. We also don’t get many students from the Phillips Exeter Academy here at Georgetown. When my staff saw your transcripts and your cover letter explaining your situation, congratulations by the way! They forwarded it to me for review.”
“Thank you ma’am,” I said graciously. “I do appreciate your attention.”
“Let me just say that it is one of the finest high school records that I have seen, and we see quite a few exceptional ones. This coupled with the highest standards of Exeter would usually be enough to grant you admission even at this late a date. We keep a few slots open in reserve for just such situations as your own, when plans fall through at a slightly more prestigious school. It has almost always been to our benefit.”
“Usually, you said?” I asked her cautiously.
“Yes,” she said and seemed honestly sad by the admission. “I can’t quite fathom how they haven’t been in contact with you, but it appears that you were some credits short of the necessary standards for graduation from a high school in New Hampshire. Until such requirements are met, I’m afraid we will have to put your application on hold.”
“WHAT!!” I shouted, all pretense to being graciously and gentile tossed out the window. “How the hell could I not have graduated?! I was almost valedictorian! I walked in my graduation ceremony! Cap and gown and some adolescent streaking and everything!”
“The ceremony is not the graduation,” said Ashford lecturing. “As they should have explained that to you, due to the nature of the school year final exams. Papers are often not graded until well after students head off for the summer, so it’s when the actual diplomas, not the diploma holders are handed out that one can be officially graduated.”
“Yes, but, there must be some mistake,” I countered hysterically. “I mean how I could have not graduated HIGH SCHOOL?”
“No doubt there was, if it can be all cleared up in a timely fashion, there may still be a place for you at Georgetown. But for the moment there is not… now I will send you an email with all my contact information, please keep me informed as to the results of your investigation. Goodbye Miss Scott.”
'MRS RYAN! You officious bitch!' I thought to myself
When the call was ended, I plopped down my book on the deck, went running into the house and up the stairs to change clothes. I still had no internet hooked up, and needed to get connected RIGHT THE HELL NOW. I threw random clothes directly over my still wet swimsuit, grabbed my laptop for the mad dash to Melanie and the closest Wi-Fi spot I could find. There was a bastion of the evil empire only a half mile away, I didn’t even bother going inside, just sat in the Starbucks parking lot, waiting for my PIECE OF SHIT LAPTOP to boot up.
I spent the longest seconds of my short life hunting and pecking on that tiny keyboard and referring to the wrinkled piece of paper Jessica had left me with passwords. Soon enough, I was inside her student email account, a place I had never, nor had any reason to visit, before. There it was, large as life and twice as ugly. Message after message from our bio teacher Miss Prissart. Marked, important please reply, then urgent, then urgent with explanations marks. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all…
“Miss Scott, this is my last and final time trying to reach you before I head to Brazil for my summer specimen survey. I have tried your phone numbers as well as that of your guardian and received no reply. You have not yet sent me your term project, as you will recall this encompasses 40% of your grade, which means with this incomplete. You will not have sufficient points remaining to pass my class. It is already severely overdue, but if you can turn it in immediately you will at least receive enough partial credit to pass this class. Please reply as soon as possible. This is your future young lady!”
The message was dated three days ago, Miss Priss was renowned for being completely incommunicado for her summer excursions. It was already too late, there was no way I would be able to get those points added even if I knew where to find the former Jessica’s term project. For a good hour I seethed with righteous rage. What god’s cheerios did I piss in? What bad karma did I incur in a former life to be treated so in this one?
The situation was not helped any by the string of 'pretty people' who were heading in and out of Starbucks. Successful older people who had obviously already finished college, and arrogant undergraduates full of promise and possibility. If I had possession of any sort of firearm, it would have been a close thing preventing me from becoming a spree killer, giving birth to little miss or mister behind death row. But soon enough, humor, if not logic or reason or sanity returned to me and I was able sum up the situation in the manner in which it deserved.
She failed biology huh?
…
…
…
Figures.
:(
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 13
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Lucky Number Thirteen...
PART THIRTEEN
“There must be something that can be done?” I asked DeGeas in his office two days later.
“Sure there is,” he replied with his feet up on the desk, his nose healing nicely. “At this point they want you to repeat the class.”
“I can’t go back to Exeter for just one class!” I said trying and sort of failing not to scream. “Or pay for it even if I could!”
“Nor do they really expect you to, but I asked a few friends that still have a finger in over there and apparently word got out about your… state, and they are being all New England about it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said DeGeas with anger in his voice at the situation. “They want to make an example out of you, to show other girls what the consequences of premarital sex entails. Teaching the lesson to guys I figure they think is a lost cause.”
“Can they do that?”
“They can’t fail you for being pregnant, but they can certainly fail you for not finishing the work which they have done. And they can also refuse to make some sort of special compromise for you. For a namby pampy elitist bastion of the upper classes they seem to make a point of showing to the world that they can’t be influenced by wealth or position. LaQuisha and Lupita drop out of high school because of pregnancy and are not given the help they need why should a rich white girl from a proud family get special treatment?”
“This is ridiculous! That they can hold my future ransom over one piece of paper. I can do the work, ten TIMES the work but I just need the chance. There has to be something they want? Are they trying to extort me for the cost of some donation?”
“Possibly, I’m checking but that takes time.”
“Which I don’t have!”
“It’s not the worst thing in the world Je… Katherine, to take some time off of school to have a baby.” He said trying to sooth me. “Which reminds me, about your health insurance situation, i’ve read the relevant laws and those people who attend the service academies are members of the military just like those that are in the warzones, which means their spouses can claim benefits as dependents. I took the liberty of gathering the paperwork and if you and your husband will just--”
“No,” I interrupted him harshly.
“Jessi… damnit, KATHERINE! Why not?”
“The navy frowns upon married midshipmen it would end Thomas’s career. We intend to keep it a secret for now.”
“And how do you intend to do that! Particularly when you start showing? This is the government we are talking about. There are public records you know.”
“There is no reason for the Navy to find out unless they are told; they have already investigated Thomas… and me… before we were admitted. And there is no reason to look again until Thomas applies for a security clearance and that is years away. Thomas MUST succeed at the Academy and be given every chance to do so otherwise… otherwise this was almost all for nothing. The mortgages will cover the health costs with enough left over for a while.”
“I’m going to say something Katherine, and I’m going to stand over here where there is plenty of desk between you and me while I say it, but that sounds like a complete scumbag move, how could he do that to you?”
“It was my decision,” I said sternly as I looked away from him just in time to prevent him from seeing my eyes.
DeGeas got up from his desk and gathered from his pocket a handkerchief handing it to me gently.
“If you wish to cry Mrs. Ryan,” he said softly. “I will not be offended.”
“Crying is for children Mr. DeGeas,” I said as I forcefully took the offered linen. “And I haven’t been one of those in some time.
“I have a suggestion if I may,” he continued as he went back to his desk to retrieve a file and hand it to me. “Which may be the solution to several of our problems… Nebraska is still your state of residence, we have a quaint little law on the books where students are offered coverage out of a state backed insurance pool even for preexisting conditions such as yours. It’s in the states best interest to prevent the spread of diseases and such, with all those young bodies pressed so closely together. You still have to pay a premium, and a high one at that, but coverage is extended, they cannot deny you and it will pay the way for your baby.”
“You want me to go back and finish high school here in Nebraska?”
“Not necessarily, we have different requirements than back east, could be all those extra honors classes you took has you well taken care of. But at any rate, the insurance pool is only available to students at the state universities. We get you into UNO this semester even if it’s just one class and you save yourself a fortune when the baby comes.”
“So what you are saying is,” I smiled wickedly. “It would be cheaper for me to pay for a college education than to be an unemployed, uninsured, high school dropout?”
“Yes,” he replied and couldn’t help grinning himself.
“That’s some state you have here councilor.”
“We try,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“A state school… in NEBRASKA!” I said chagrinned.
“It’s no great dishonor Katherine, you father went to UNL and both it and UNO have fine engineering programs, the rival of any expensive private school. You said you were interested in that?”
“I did, but all that presupposes that I can even get admitted minus my Phillips Exeter diploma, have you sorted THAT out lawyer DeGeas?”
“Happens,” he said smiling ear to ear. “I know a man.”
[***][***][***]
Dr. Nickolas Barelos was a slightly younger, haired version of my principle lawyer. They were not brothers, all appearances aside, but instead cousins a couple of different ways apparently. Barelos was the Dean of the College of Arts and Science. Which wasn’t the engineering school but he had plenty enough juice to get me in to the university proper.
“I can’t believe they turned you down,” said Barelos looking at my records. “Some universities just don’t deserve to live. About three different ways they could have given you a waiver and you wouldn’t have even had to pay them off. I mean have you looked at this thing.” He said indicating my, that is Jessica’s, transcript.
“Very briefly,” I replied. Which he took as a joke.
“Ha ha, yeah. We’ll get you in don’t worry. Easiest way is just have you take the GED which I’m sure you can pass no problem.”
“The GED?” I asked insulted.
“Yeah, we offer the test once a week but I can kick a few people in the butt and get them to proctor your exam this afternoon if you want. With no time for test prep it should cut down on any accusation of favoritism when you knock it out of the park. That is, unless you think you can’t hack it?”
“I can pass the GED!! It’s just, isn’t that the test they give, you know…”
“Happens I do know, the single largest category of people who take the GED are women who were not able to finish high school due to pregnancy. It’s not just for recovering drug addicts and convicted prisoners you know.” Barelos said scolding me with his gaze.
“Point taken.” I admitted reluctantly.
“It may not have much glory but it has even less shame. There have been plenty of fine scholars who came into college through the back door if you’re feeling snooty you can just show them up by making the dean’s list your first try. I won’t mind I assure you.” He smiled at me encouragingly.
“And the situation is better than you think,” he continued looking at the file. “All these advance placement classes and I see you took THOSE tests and passes as well. Do you realize that you are going to enter my school as a sophomore?”
“I am?” I asked surprised.
“It’s been a while since an old fuzzy studies professor took math but I think I have added this up right. 36 credit hours, which satisfy quite a bit of your general education requirements for any degree you eventually choose. AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Calc 1 and 2, AP Chemistry. AP Government, AP French, AP English, AP Lit, AP Art History, AP European History, and AP Music Theory. Haven’t you ever added them up?”
“Um no, it was never really that important, the Naval Academy makes everyone do four years, cow or countess. The AP courses were only just a way of taking the toughest classes for preparation. I likely would have skipped taking the placement tests but Exeter made us all go.”
“Hmm,” he said grunting at that information.
“So you will take all those hours? I remember when I was reading the Georgetown packet they allowed a maximum of six?”
“Well, never let it be said that I made disparaging remarks about my colleagues , so if you will shut that door behind you I will just say that it is in the best interests of a state school to produce as many educated and credentialed adults as possible, as QUICKLY as possible. The better to turn them into high taxpaying citizens so they can be out there ‘makin us our money!’” he said with a terrible slang accent and a snap of his fingers. “To use a phrase I heard some of my urban students use recently to describe a business relationship between a young lady and her employer.” He finished with a sinful expression and a lean toward me for emphasis. “It is however in the best interests of private universities to… well…charge tuition.”
“And the University of Nebraska at Omaha doesn’t?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh heavens no, all the market will bear! We’re not communists. But you’ll find us Nebraska peasants will revolt if it got much higher than $140 a credit hour which means you can have your degree for about 1/6th the price in maybe half the time.”
“Half? I asked astounded.
“As many and as quickly as possible remember that, students who are in school are eating tax money not generating it. And while I am quite proud of my position at this school, I will grant you that scholastically it will likely not prove as challenging as your other choices. But that just means that instead of taking the 15 hours your contemporaries take, some of them as low as 12 or even less! You can take an 18 credit hour semester. And also instead of taking the summers off like a hippie you can get another full semester in then as well. Why if you have a little fire in your belly we can even get you in a classroom in three days!”
I got SOMETHING in my belly, that’s for sure. But never let it be said a Ryan didn’t charge hard at her goal
“How can we do that?”
“Without much more than a half a page form we can let any old high school student take up to nine credit hours before being formally admitted. As long as you can pay the way we don’t mind you getting a little jump on things. You can knock those out no problem I think before fall semester even begins why… then you will have 45 credit hours completed and start out a SECOND semester sophomore!” he said enthusiastically while he fetched a piece of paper with a calendar on it.
“We have five summer sessions at UNO.” He continued. “Internet moderated which goes all summer long from mid May to mid August. You’re too late for that. First day session, which you are also too late for, but then there is first night session June 1th through July 8th second day July 2nd through August 10th and second night July 9th through August 16th Every class is two hours a day Monday through Friday but we squeeze an entire 16 week semester into about 5. It’s a wonderful way of getting rid of those Mickey Mouse classes that we insisted every well educated Nebraskan take and pass. We hurry, and assuming that you are even willing…”
I nodded since he seemed to be waiting for my agreement.
“Well then,” he carried on. “I see no reason why a smart girl like you can’t pass her GED and start then finish her undergraduate well ahead of most people.”
“I’ll take your word for it Dr. Barelos. It just seems odd.”
“You’ve heard stories about those kids who finish college in their teens, well this is how they do it. Skip grades young, test out of prereqs, and overload on classes. Though in your case you may have to taper off when the baby is born. When are you due?
“December 5th”
“Huh,” he grunted at me. “Well that’s bad luck on your part, that’s right in the middle of finals week. But you’ll find we are willing to make any reasonable accommodation as long as you plan ahead. Speak to your professors the first week of fall semester let them know the score. They will either let you take your finals early or a few weeks into spring semester with no penalty. But don’t wait too long! It’s a courtesy we offer not a requirement. So don’t mention it to your hapless teacher on the way to the delivery room and expect anything other than an incomplete.”
“I understand.” I said nodding my head abruptly.
“There is a nursery on campus as well. From 6AM to 9PM to cover the whole range of classes. It’s heavily subsidized by your student fees but not totally. So expect a substantial bill at the end of the semester depending upon how much you use it. They are good people over there; my own son was in their care when he was younger.”
“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.” I answered a bit taken aback.
“You need to, or were you planning on adoption?”
“NO!,” I shouted before I even realized I had.
“Well… that was rather emphatic, I apologize if I struck a nerve Bernie said you were a bit touchy on the subject.
“He would know,” I said remembering what my hormones had done to his nose.
“Keeping the baby is of course your right, and the university will help out as much as we can, but from one parent to another. The person who has to work the hardest raising the baby is not the day care worker, but the mother.”
“I do understand Dr. Barelos and I’m sure the day care situation would have been addressed eventually. It’s just I’m only a few weeks into finding out I’m pregnant I’ve been scrambling to sort things out and only recently started reading up and began my pre-natal care. POST natal care is still some months off.”
“That’s true enough, as these things go, I just wanted you to be made aware of things… so shall we give it a try?”
I thought about it for a few moments. It was far from my lifelong dream, it was even reasonably far from my latest back up plan. But If I planned it right, and didn’t lose my mind in the process I could finish and be granted my commission a year and change maybe even two full years ahead of Thomas. I finished before he does and I’d have rank and seniority on him forever, and that suited me just fine.
“Sign me up,” I said, damning me to incarceration in the Nebraska educational system.
“That’s great!” he said enthusiastically as he dug out some forms for me to sign.
“One more thing, does UNO have a NROTC program?”
“ROTC?” he asked suppressed at my question.
“Yes, before I found out about the baby and had to decline I was accepted as a midshipman at the Naval Academy. Or didn’t DeGeas tell you?”
“Well he mentioned something but I thought… what with the baby and all?” he finished as he gestured at my abdomen.
“The baby will be weaned by the time I finish, even at your advanced schedule. And plenty of parents… even mothers, serve in the military.” I said slightly scolding the man.
“That’s true enough, I just thought, a Scott… well, none of my business what I thought. YES! We have a well respected ROTC affiliated with Offutt Air Force Base. The officer in charge is Lt. Colonel Kaspar. I can have her speak to you if you like?”
THE AIR FARCE!
“I…wouldn’t care for the Air force, is there no other option?”
“Well we have a reciprocal agreement with Creighton University our students can attend their ROTC and vice versa.”
“And theirs is Navy?”
“No, Army.”
I think I feel that symptom #1 coming on!
“Isn’t there a Navy ROTC somewhere in this godforsaken state?!”
“Well… we are rather far from the ocean,” said Barelos slightly taken aback at my outburst. “There is one in Lincoln but it would be about a 75 minute commute each way from your home. And that… may be impractical. If you are adamant in your decision to join the Navy--”
“Marines!” I corrected him harshly.
“Marines,” he has bowing his head at me. “Then the most feasible option, particularly given your pregnancy, is to complete your undergraduate degree and apply for OCS afterwards. But that would be the business of your recruiter not your university.”
“Very well Dr. Barelos and thank you for all your help. And I am sorry for my poor behavior, the last few weeks have been very… troubling for me.”
“I understand completely, there is no need to apologize to me, I quite admire the way you are handling all this and the decisions that you have made.”
“Still… thank you.”
“Anything for a Scott,” he said warmly.
[***][***][***]
Thomas had the good grace to act meek and accommodating during our phone call. And he had better keep it that way if he ever wanted to use my penis again, in anything other than his hand. He had all but crawled on his belly though my cell phones speaker by way of apology when I had told him. But I wasn’t content to let him off this easy. After all, the previous girl in this relationship never would have and I have some high standards to measure up to. But it helped when he complimented me.
“I’m sorry about forgetting to turn in the project I really am, but there was just so much going on that week…You are going to kick that schools ass.” He then said by way of distracting encouragement.
“I kind of think so too,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “But it is going to throw our social life a little monkey wrench.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But we were never going to see that much of each other anyway. Between your school and mine, you taking care of the baby and me showing upperclassmen how well I can make a bed...”
“Who says I’m going to be the only one taking care of the baby, that’s sexist! You pig. I’m gonna sick the feminists on you. Stage a protest right on the drill field, girl POWER! girl POWER!” I cheered valiantly and made gestures with my arms.
“Quiet Katie,” He said while trying to keep his own self quiet from laughing.
“But seriously, when is your first Saturday liberty, I want to visit Roxy and if you show up too I guess I’d be ok with that.”
“I don’t know, probably weekend after next. I sort of got a slight ding when I couldn’t name all the aircraft carriers fast enough for my upperclassdemon.”
“Enterprise, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln,” I started rattling off quickly
“Those are the active ones, I know those, he meant the historic ones in order of commissioning.”
“Langley, Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise,---”
“Enough,” he tried interrupting me.
“Wasp, Hornet, Essex, Yorktown the second… or the fourth depending upon how you look at it.”
“Enough Katie! We all know you would have made a better midshipman.” And then he gasped when he realized what he had said.
“Yeah I know,” I said after only a slight hesitation “But I think you’ll do just fine, if the upperclassdemon asks you again just counter with asking him for a list of the amphibious landings in historical order. See how he likes being tripped up.”
“That’s, rather not how the situation here works Katie.”
“I know, but it kind of warms you heart to picture it doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he replied wistfully. “It kind of does… good night Katie.”
“You too.”
[***][***][***]
I had taken my GED but it would be sometime yet before the results were generated for me. Though why I didn’t understand since it must have been easy to grade, I guess the gods of paperwork must be served. I just hoped they didn’t require a maiden sacrifice since I probably didn’t qualify, and would have put up a fight even if they did. And now instead of relatively leisure filled summer that I had sort of secretly been hoping for since I would not get to participate in plebe summer I now had to report for duty at some shcmuck of a “World Civilizations 1” class in less than 18 hours. It would be every weekday from 6pm till 8pm but after five weeks of putting up with it I would have another 3 credits and be closer to that degree.
I was still not at all pleased with the situation as you could probably tell. But the choice was a state college or holding still toward my goal while standing on my dignity and holding my nose up in the air. And really, there were worse fates, I had spent the evening researching my new school’s credentials and they were far from humble. I had been toying with the idea of getting a degree in engineering. Military Science was all well and good but by order of the President and by act of congress, because I now was a member of the distaff American race I was now barred from the combat branches. I couldn’t be an infantry officer like my father before me. And it would most likely remain that way forever, unless they wanted Chesty to rise up from his grave in Virginia and lead a holy crusade against any damn fool general who was crazy enough to try it.
But they were talking about opening up the artillery, armor, and combat engineers to women. Well I liked listening to my music and many an artilleryman had to use hearing aids by the time they were thirty. Armor I could never stand, those tank drivers refer to honest infantry like my father as “crunchies” and didn’t get why no one else thought it was funny. But the combat engineers… well, you probably haven’t heard of them. A quiet, unassuming branch in the main, but they are right up out there in the sharp end of things usually following on the heels of the first wave. They are the ones blowing up bridges so the poor bloody infantryman doesn’t get flanked and overrun, or rebuilding the same bridge the next day so the tankers can go charging off to glory. Every bit of modern military infrastructure needed to take and also to save lives, they could do, and do it yesterday, while under the most adverse conditions. And not for nothing, but look up when you have the free time someday the list of awards, decorations even all the way up the Medal of Honor. Take that number and divide it by the amount awarded to the other branches, then compare it to the ratio of engineers to the whole rest of the Marine Corps. If you want me to do the math for you it’s about twice the rate, of course, many of those were posthumous. But most of the higher awards are.
So if I wanted to be anything more than politically correct window dressing. Something politicians could point at to show how liberal and progressive they were it was the engineers for me! And I had better have a degree in it, to put me one leg up on the other women with Native American Basket Weaving Studies degrees who would also try to get in. And UNO actually had a well respected school in the engineering field, the envy of the entire region. Which of course led me to the new shock of the day, once I got formally admitted, through the back door or not. I could now expect to take classes in the SCOTT School of Architecture Engineering and Construction.
It was not named after my new father but rather HIS father, who had left behind a significant bequest in the 80’s. Not enough I guess to get the entire university named after him but enough to get one of its largest pieces for his very own. I figured it would be weird going to classes in a building whose name I shared, even if I was covering it up with my… HUSBANDS name. And I’m sure there would be professors and lecturers who had known my new family members. It seemed everyone of the half a million people in the area had heard the name Scott, but I figured I could take it. I was, until recently, planning to attend the Naval Academy and living under the permanent shadow of Lieutenant General James Ryan. Even if I lived to be a hundred and slaughtered a hundred thousand ChiComs on my way to five stars of my own I would always have been known as little jimmy’s little boy. The general’s son.
Who was now the general’s daughter… in law.
I was going to have to break that news to him sometime, but I would burn that bridge when I came to it. For now I had my first day of college ahead of me, and since an entry level history course was not going to be much of a problem for someone who learned it with his mother milk, quite literally in my case from Atilla the professor aka mom. My newest concern was rectifying a large deficiency in my maintenance program. i.e. what the hell to do with all this hair!
If the CW network has taught me anything over the years it’s that teenage girls can be some catty bitches, if you don’t mind me mixing my animal metaphors. So I spent most of Monday morning in the library finding books on hair care. It’s a funny thing about the Dewey decimal system, it puts all the books in one subject right next to each other for ease of access but it also places books on a similar subject nearby as well. So while I was about to grab a couple of books and be done with it, my tendency for scholarship got the better of me and I picked up some titles on makeup and fashion as well. If I wanted to live long enough for Marine Corps to make my clothing decisions for me I would have to blend in with the natives and not get attacked.
I wasn’t exactly full of boundless enthusiasm on the subject of learning how to be a better girl, but I considered it my duty. Jessica was a goddess among women. And J. Katherine Scott Ryan according to the new drivers license DeGeas had helped me get, looked just like her, and she deserved to look her best. So that’s how it went my first few weeks of college. I would exercise in the morning, and then spend my days reading, a few hours of actual coursework, followed by the pregnancy books, and then my girl planning. And then class in the evening where I took as many notes as I could and tried not to correct the teacher too much.
After two weeks I was passing pretty well, both ways. It had the unintended consequence of increasing the number of boys hitting on me, but a withering glare and a wave of my ring finger sent most of them packing. I was now at the point that I could handle the simple stuff with only a few minutes effort, and the full on war paint only took a very short three hours…. I know, but DUDE, I’m a guy! My fashion sense wasn’t very original, I hadn’t deviated a bit from the pictures in the books and was miles away from discovering my own “style.” But it was pleasing to look at and I felt safe enough in my efforts to make a trip east to visit my husband over the weekend.
[***][***][***]
The Navy has made it easier on friends and family of students at Canoe U, or maybe just easier for themselves, freeing up the switchboard from all the calls of “did you get liberty yet!!!?” They published a list of those midshipmen who would be receiving a Saturday liberty from plebe summer and it was posted on the website for concerned parents to look at. And I guess now the occasional wife too. Thomas probably didn’t know himself that he had it, since it was a favored tactic of the instructors and upperclassmen to torture plebes with a pass’s likely appearance or disappearance. And it was by no means certain that it would be granted it in the end, since he could do something to cause it to be taken away but I knew my girl… guy, and he was do just about ANYTHING to excel at the academy.
Saturday liberty would only be for half a day. Noon to 12AM and they could and WOULD ding you if you were late reporting back. It wasn’t much time to get reacquainted with Thomas but we had a lot to talk about and much of it couldn’t be done over the phone so I when I saw his name was on the list for this Saturday I bought a plane ticket and didn’t even mutter a curse at the price. I flew into Regan Airport at 10AM and would fly out again on the redeye out at 9PM I wouldn’t even stay the day or get a hotel, with the accompanying bed that went with it. But if things turned out as planned and my surprise visit went well, old Rocinante’s backseat would get the workout it was intended for.
For now though, I was content with a Ford Focus rental, which I had paid out the nose for but being a represses minority, (teenager) I knew I could expect nothing better. The drive over the Potomac across DC and into Annapolis was eventful. Traffic was stopped on two occasions by motorcycle officers who were providing blocking cover for a motorcade of whatever dignitary rated such service. I tried not to let it get on my nerves too much and used the opportunity to reapply my cammo in all the strategic places.
My good looks and winning smile wasn’t going to get me past the gate without a pass. I likely could have gotten one but that would have risked Thomas being outed as a married American and also ruined my surprise visit. The nice thing about military bases is that there are a limited number of ways in and out and only one way out of the main parking lot. So I sat on a side street with a good view of the gate and got ready to surprise my husband when he left for his first day off work.
I did.
I saw Rocinante first of course, she was a bit distinctive my girl, and I had made her even more so with my modifications. Thomas was in uniform in the driver’s side and a smiled when I saw him. But then I saw also that he was not alone. There was a cute little brunette female midshipman in the passenger seat next to him…
Now I want it well understood! I did not freak out like a jealous wife at the merest hint of impropriety. I will admit that it sort of dazed me for a bit, but I quickly recovered. This was a surprise after all; he didn’t know I was coming. It was very likely he was just giving a classmate a ride into town, he was probably one of the very few midshipmen and the microscopically few underclassman that even had a car, or properly speaking, permission to park it on campus. I had to trade shamelessly on daddy’s stars to get it and most of Thomas’s classmates would not have been so fortunate in their choice of fathers. So I didn’t overreact and go into hysterics at the sight of another girl riding inside my girl next to my girl now guy.
I need more pronouns.
So I followed them, I was right too, they were heading into town. Thomas drove up to a shopping mall and didn’t even go to the lot just drove up the main entrance and pulled up next to the curb. They were only about twenty feet away from me, I had passed them and made a u-turn to illegally park in a handicap space so that I might get a good look at what was happening. And I did, much to my displeasure. I had looked up from my steering just in time to see the girl lean over and give Thomas a kiss.
Now I ALSO want it well understood. I didn’t immediately jump to conclusions; there could have been a number of harmless explanations for her doing that. Girls were after all much more affectionate than guys, and free to show their gratitude physically, what a guy might just give a grunt to, a girl would give a rib breaking hug for. I had read about it in several of my books in the last few weeks. Likely this girl was just thanking Thomas for the ride, it seemed chaste enough, certainly I didn’t see any tongue but at this distance it would be hard too. Any second the girl’s gratitude would be complete and she would get up and be on her way. I would go over and talk to Thomas and we would have a big laugh about it, likely with the girl herself when she came back out.
Any second now…
Or maybe she was putting the moves on Thomas, he was a catch and nice to look at if you went in for that sort of thing. It could be this harlot was trying to make time with the General’s son to get her foot in the door of all the opportunities netting such an obvious up and comer would bring. I guess I can’t blame her much; I used to be such a stud after all. But any second now Thomas would push her away, or maybe not push but gently remove her face from his and let her know he was married, or maybe not married but at least had a steady girl. Said girl who was watching this show with a sort of deer in the headlights look that I’m sure was a sight to see. Any second now.
ANY second now…
Ok
That was pushing it.
I had worn fucking MAKEUP for this!
Leaving the car running and the door wide open over two handicap spaces I walked over to the stopped Rocinante still with a frozen unemotional expression. I was straight in front of them and soon enough Thomas took a look through his peripheral vision at the young woman that was approaching his car and was able to identify her. He took both hands and removed the tarts face from his and fumbled with the old fashioned lock to exit the car. It took him some time, and he was able to get up out of his seat just in time for me to arrive next to him.
“Katie! It’s not what it loo- UGH!” he tried saying as kneed I him in the nuts.
I had worn those testicles for 18 years, I knew exactly where to target my knee and how devastating it would be once done. He could possibly still father children after this but he most certainly would not be doing so with me. He fell to the ground in pain and I followed it up with several kicks to the kidneys and head and I stopped only when the girl had gotten out of the car and looked to be about to interrupt.
“BACK off hussy!” I shouted at her forcefully. “This is between me and Mr. soon to be living the rest of his short life in agonizing pain ADULTERER here!”
“I’m,” she shuddered out hesitantly. “I’m calling the police!”
“Good!” I said giving another kick to Thomas by way of emphasis. “I think that’s still a crime in this state.”
“What are you talking about?” She asked me. “Who ARE you.”
Well that threw me for loop that question, because I didn’t have a good answer for her, or even myself. I had thought I had known, for 18 YEARS! I had thought I had known. And then after the recent change up I had thought I was just starting to adapt to who I was now going to be when the Earth opened up and swallowed me again. Who was I? That was a very good question and the only answer I could come up with was not Thomas’s girl, not anymore.
“When he wakes up,” I said holding out my wedding ring. “Give him this.”
“What,” she said confused as it dropped in her hand.
“He’ll understand believe me,” I said leaning over to whisper in my old car’s engine “I’m sorry Roxy, that you had to see mommy and daddy fighting, I love you baby I’ll see if I can get custody in the divorce.”
With that I got back into the Focus and drove west before the police came, it was Kentucky before I realized where I was.
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 14
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The History of Bad Break Ups: Page one, Chapter one.
“They loved each other too much.”
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 14
[***][***][***]
Did you know that in the great state of Kentucky you can’t buy a handgun until you are 21? Well, I didn’t until it was explained to me, I COULD buy a shotgun at age 18, but I needed to be a resident of the state for that, and I didn’t have any permits, anyway. It just sort of pissed me off to be denied this one last dignity.
I remembered reading in my psych class that women committed suicide by drowning, pills, or slitting their wrists. The underlying psychology being they didn’t want do so something that would harm their beauty. They wanted to leave a good looking corpse and all that. Men, however, when they decided to punch their own ticket, generally decided to jump off a tall buildings or blow their brains out.
I wanted to go out like a man.
The hill clans had been having a little war the last generation or three. It used to be over moonshine, now modernized by relating to the trade in drugs like Oxycontin. I thought about walking up to random hillbillies and asking to buy a gun. Eventually, they would either take me up on it or take me up to the hills with the promise of it, then rape and kill me. Either way, my end goal would be reached. But eventually, all of that just seemed like too much work, so I continued driving west. I remembered father Scott had a small collection of guns under lock and key in his library. So, I drove west to Indiana and home.
You would think that stopping to get gas several times, having to pee, buying a coke for the road and even thanking the clerk for my change would have brought me out of my state. That these simple acts would jar me back into reality, that all the necessities of moving a body over a thousand miles over the course of many hours would give me a chance to taper off, cool down and let logic and reason back in my head. But it didn’t, I was always kind of thickheaded about those sorts of things. But hopefully not enough for one last thing.
I wasn’t until I was back at the Scott house in Omaha with the gun in my mouth that I was made aware of what I was doing. I had decided not to be discourteous in my demise. It was always the cleanup crew that got the worst of this sort of deal. Blood all over the carpet and brain matter on the wall, those are tough things to get out. Then, of course, if the body is not found right away, like if you were a single person living by yourself. It might be weeks before the neighbors reported a smell. By that point, the odor has gotten into everything inside the house. The only real way to get rid of it is to raze it to the ground and start over. So, I had decided to eat my bullet out by the pool. The body would be found almost right away, a gunshot outside would certainly be reported in THIS neighborhood, and the pools drains were already right there…
I was about to do it, when I chanced to look down at the deckchair and spotted one of the books I had been reading over the last few weeks. Looking back up at me was the smiling face of a heavily pregnant woman gracing the cover of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”
Sweetie, I bet they never thought to expect what happened to ME!
[***][***][***]
I didn’t kill myself, for those of you who were in suspense. It was a damn near thing, but the visual on that cover was enough to bring me back to my senses and the duty I owed to my child. My life was saved by the Omaha Public Library. I resolved to thank the next librarian I saw, and pay all my late fines forever without a grumble.
I walked upstairs to my bedroom and started to cry, then slept, cried again, then slept again. Eventually, it was Monday afternoon, and I walked down to the kitchen table for the first food in days, and to disassemble my pistol. I removed the bullets, placed it in its case and locked it in the gun cabinet. I then took the only set of keys to the cabinet and tossed them outside in the bushes. I’d have thrown the guns in the bushes, too, but there were kids in this neighborhood, and it was every adult’s duty to look out for the safety of children…born and unborn.
Eventually, I called Enterprise and they came to pick up their car. They charged me out the ASS for it. I had only expected to use it for a day and a hundred miles, but had sort of gone over my limit. Class that night was sedate, and the instructor even took some time out afterwards to ask me if everything was all right. It must have been some appearance I might have had, that he had taken some time off from the assembly line education practices to actually have some one on one face time. No, I was a pretty damn sight far from all right. But I had my duty, my routine, and it was enough for now.
Thomas called me, of course, and kept calling me every night. I let it go to voice mail, even when it was at the totally unexpected time of 2: P.M. He must have been quite desperate to get in contact with me, if he was willing to do it in broad daylight. Eventually, he gave up or his battery died, one or the other. I deleted the messages without even listening to them. I considered going to DeGeas for the divorce paperwork, but the shame of it prevented me. I had been so brash, full of assurances, and to now go prove DeGeas right would probably have set me over the edge, again. So, I let it wait. Besides, my claim to my own name as well as that of my child was through my marriage to Thomas, and I would be DAMNED if he would take my name away from my child. Time enough to worry about divorce later, maybe after the baby was born.
Boys still hit on me, even after I stopped all but the most basic of maintenance. Including one objectionable young gentleman who felt being on the football team should have made him more sexy than it did. With my fatalistic sense of humor, I toyed with the idea of saying yes to his propositions, then in a few weeks accidentally leaving a positive pregnancy test kit on the toilet seat where he could find it. But in order for that joke to work it, presupposes that I sleep with him, and sex was sort of a deal breaker. I had quite made my mind up to be a lesbian to the end of my days. Besides, a girl who plays that kind of trick too often gets a reputation about her. Much as I might wish to wreck Jessica now Thomas, for as long as I wore her body, I had to look out for my own self interest.
[***][***][***]
I was brought out of my funk somewhat by the arrival of a uniformed man at my front door. He was in Marine utilities with a gold oak leaf on his collar, my heart started jumping out of my chest. Only a couple reasons unknown officers show up at your door and few of them are good. I thought at first it was a bereavement call, my father had inherited that farm he was always talking about. The seven feet long, three feet wide one at Arlington. But if it was that sort of call, he would be in a more formal uniform, and there would be several officers one of them a Chaplin. This guy was a pilot judging by the wings on his chest, probably cobra’s he had that sort of swagger about him.
Plus, if General Ryan had died, they would be speaking to his son…
“Hello,” I said opening the door warily. “How can I help you Major…”
“Burt, Ma’am Gerald Burt, are you Jessica Ryan?”
“Well…yes, but I like to go by my middle name of Katherine, now.”
“Katherine then, you won’t know me, but I’m Kayleigh’s father… the little girl you rescued at LaGuardia Airport.”
“Oh!” I said surprised at meeting him. I hadn’t thought about that a bit since it happened ,and here it was again. I wasn’t in the mood for a gratitude call, but couldn’t figure out a way to tell him to go to hell without appearing like a total bitch, and I was sort of trying not to give into the whole jilted stereotype. “How is she? And please come in. I’m sorry about the state of the house, I’m the only one living here, and I only use about three rooms.”
“It’s a lovely house, imposing as hell, if you’ll pardon my language, Mrs. Ryan.”
“I’ve heard naughtier words before Major, my father was a m-, an engineer… lets go into the kitchen. I have a few cokes or I can make some coffee, or if you’re a Mormon or something, I can offer you the finest tap water.”
We stepped into the kitchen and Burt chose one of my Cokes, I begrudge him it though. I was down to my last three and that meant a trip to the store, which meant talking with people. Maybe I can sign up for a grocery delivery service?
“I can’t stay long, I only have a three hour layover, I asked for a stop in Omaha on my way back to New York so that I could thank you.”
“Well your welcome. So how is Kayleigh?” I asked, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Has she recovered from the experience?”
“She doesn’t know anything had happened. Other than some strange girl grabbed her and gave her a piggyback ride. The abduction was totally nonviolent, and she was back with her mother even before her usual pickup time at day care. She trusts adults, and is a happy girl in general, so we decided to let her keep her innocence for a while longer.”
“So, I’m the villain of the piece, am I? Well, I’ve been that, before.”
“Ha,” he chuckled. “Far from it, we are all very grateful for what you did.”
“What was the back story there? You know nuclear launch codes or something?”
“Nothing so interesting, it was just for money… ransom, they wanted two million dollars. they were on their way to Mexico when you interupted them.”
“Are you a millionaire Marine?” I smiled at him trying to poke fun at his discomfort.
“Sort of,” he said looking down at his drink. “My wife has the money. I spend as little of it as I can. I’m a lawyer most of the year, but my reserve unit got called up. My partners don’t like it when it happens, but they are good enough lawyers to recognize the liability if they ever put up much of a fuss.”
“I bet,” I smiled feeling my sense of humor come back after a long stay in the country. “So… you’re a Major?”
“Yes,” he replied hesitantly not seeing where my question was going.
“And you’re Kayleigh’s father?”
“Uh yea…”
“And you’re name is Gerald?”
“Yes,” he said rolling his eyes when he realized where I was headed. “This joke has been made before you know. God! I can’t wait until they bump me up to light colonel… but go ahead, get it off your chest.”
“Major Dad!” I burst out not being able to keep it in any longer, and then started laughing.
“You have a wonderful laugh, Mrs. Ryan, I’m glad to hear it, when I first knocked on your door, you looked a little bit like death warmed over.”
“I’ve been…going through a rough patch,” I said lowering my smile a bit. “Marital troubles…”
“That’s no good, particularly this soon.”
“Well we married to soon,” I allowed. “The baby.”
“All the more reason to try and make it work out, Cynthia and I went through a rough patch or two, but we made it through and are stronger for it.”
“Did you ever make a surprise trip to visit your newlywed and find her with another woman... or man I guess in your case?”
“No,” he said coldly. “I haven’t… that’s… damn! What kind of a man cheats on a girl like you?”
'No kind of a man, obviously!' I thought to myself.
“I’m trying not to think about it, and your visit has worked at that wonderfully, helps remind me that I’m not a complete failure at life.”
“Damn site you’re not, what the kidnappers didn’t know was that we don’t have two million dollars liquid. There is no way we could have raised enough cash in time. Likely they would have just killed her, so I owe you my daughter’s life. I want you to know that if you ever need something that is within my power to grant, you only have to ask. Legal help, a place to crash when you are in the city, I may even be able to get you Yankees tickets.”
“I don’t care for baseball, I already have a competent lawyer of my own. Besides, the type of help I’m likely to ask for wont be legal” I said staring at my bare ring finger.
Major Burt looked at me with an evil grin.
“Mrs. Ryan I’m a lawyer, but I’m also one from the Bronx, you want I should have his legs broken?”
[***][***][***]
The month of June just sort of slipped me by, I had finished my first course and dutifully signed up for two more, this time, in the day session. The results of the G.E.D. came back, as expected. Barelos slipped me into the university, I was now officially a college student, a broke one at that. The mortgages had produced cash, but most of it was tied up in investments so that it could generate an income, both to cover the payments and for me to live on, but the monthly budget was tight. I would most likely have to dip into savings this month, and the way things were looking, most months thereafter. So all things considered, I was in something of a depressed mood when the answer to several of my problems literally fell into my lap.
I was sitting in my traditional corner of the Blue Line Coffeehouse. One of these days, I would have to get an internet hooked up, but even then, I doubt I could get the cable man to bring me espresso every morning. There was a girl, young woman, I guess, who was looking at the bulletin board next to the restrooms; she was red-haired, and pixy small, if she topped five feet in anything but the high heels she was currently wearing, I would be surprised. She reached up on her toes to get a better look at one of the notices at the top of the board when one of the passing customers tried to duck away from the busboy’s cart and happened to give her the slightest of bumps, which coupled with her precarious position caused her to lose her balance, and topple over right into my arms, which were only just fast enough to catch her before her head hit the side of my table. I was not fast enough, of course, to save my mocha from spilling all over said table, including a bit on my new laptop.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” said the older man who had caused the accident. “Are you all right ladies, I didn’t think I had hit you that hard.”
“I just lost my balance,” said the girl, brushing the hair out of her face as she got on her feet. “How about you?” she said glancing at me.
“You’re pretty light,” I assured her with as comforting a smile as I could manage. “It’s my computer that took the worse hit, it looks like."
“Damn!" said the silver haired man. “Let me get you a couple of towels,” he finished as he walked to the front counter.
“And some water!” I said after him. “I need to cut the sugar from my mocha before it dries into a gooey mass.”
“Right.”
“Well, it’s a hell of a way to be introduced,” said the girl with a smile as she sat down at the other chair of my table. “But my name is Karen Steiner.”
“Katherine Ryan,” I offered my hand to her, which after a moment she took.
“Here you go,” said the man, as he came back and started wiping things. He took the table while I took my computer. Much of the splash got done on the case with only a bit on the screen and the keyboard. I would likely have to pop up the keys to get down enough to dry things out, but the patient looked viable.
“Is it going to be OK?” he asked.
“So far so good. I’m going to have to go underneath the keys, but no apparent damage at the moment.”
“Well, that’s good,” he nodded at me. “Look, I have to get to a meeting, here’s my card and ten dollars for some new drinks for you ladies. I’m very sorry for the trouble. If your computer needs a professional cleaning or maintenance, please let me know and I’ll cover it.”
“Fair enough,” I said looking across the table at Karen for agreement.
“That’s fine, it was an accident,” she said to him. “Thank you for being so nice about it.”
“Anyone who is mean to you two needs to get their heads examined,” he said with a grin. Then he nodded to both of us as he walked toward the door.
“What would you like,” asked Karen as she picked up the bill. “I’ll go order while you keep working on your laptop.
“I suddenly feel the need for a Blue Line Special.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s… awesome,” I replied letting my eyes glaze over. “Just the sort of thing to pick you up on a down day, though I have probably been having too many of them lately. It’s some chocolate ice-cream, a banana, and two shots of espresso dumped in a blender, served cold.”
“Sounds great! I’ll get two.”
Karen went to the counter while I powered down my computer and cracked the case. The coffee hadn’t really got very far, some very light water and a thorough drying had it good as new in no time.
“You were right,” she said enthusiastically as she came back with our drinks, sipping hers. “This is great! I REALLY needed it.”
“Oh? What’s got you down?” I asked since it seemed to be what she expected.
“I’m looking for a place to live,” she said blowing a strand of red hair from out of her eyes, looking dejected. “I mean I have a place to live at, that’s, the problem. I go to U.N.O., and my parents live in Omaha. So I don’t qualify for the on campus housing, but I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THERE.”
“Parents beat you, do they?” I asked amused.
“What! No,” she said eventually assuming it was a joke. “I just need my independence, I’m almost 19! Don’t you want to get out of your parents house?”
“Not really, it’s my house now… both of them are dead.”
“Oh,” she said taking a sip of her drink while thinking of something to say. “I’m sorry.”
“No reason for you to be sorry, unless you somehow did them both in, which I doubt.”
“I might just kill my own parents, but never someone else’s. I’ve been looking all month long. There are a couple of apartments, but they all seemed pretty scary. I really need a roommate anyway to help split the rent. Daddy said he would send a few hundred. I have my part-time job at the daycare, but it’s not enough for a single, not and pay for everything else at the same time, anyway. I had a line on several houses that some girls are splitting, but both of them were just one step up from a crack den, and I enjoy all my organs on the inside, not out. I’ve been reduced to checking these little notice boards every time I can, but it’s been pretty pointless, so far.”
“Have you tried the internet, some of those roommate wanted websites?”
“I looked into it, but the internet can be even scarier. Most of the ‘women’ on those sites were really guys pretending to be girls! And that really skeeves me out, I’m sure you’re the same way.”
Err
“Yeah, that just sounds wrong.” I agreed with her.
She gave me an acquisitive look, then sucked her drink daintily threw her straw. She looked sexy as hell while she did it, and I was pleased that my primary method of arousal was no longer so embarrassingly evident for everyone to see. My sexual orientation hadn’t changed with my body, which I guess made me a lesbian, now. I had been rationalizing my previous feelings toward Thomas by saying he still had the soul of the girl that I loved, and we were meant for each other. But my theory had been untested until it was rendered irrelevant. I was now rather pleased that I had any sort of sexual feelings at all, at the moment. It had been some time since I had felt anything but: fear, hate, rage, shame, and despair. This little pixie girl brightened my spirits just be smiling at me.
It would appear that I was not yet dead.
“You said you have your own house?” she asked me subtly.
“Yeah,” I replied sensing where this was going.
“Do you have a spare bedroom?” she asked with a puppy dog look they must teach girls in preschool or something. All they ever taught ME was not to eat the glue.
“One or two,” I admitted.
“I know we just met, but do you need a roommate? I’m super clean, I don’t have a boyfriend or anything, and I don’t invite random people over for wild parties when the parents are away, or in this case, the landlady. Is you place close to campus? Oh! Are you going to U.N.O. too? I see you have some heavy books in your bag, but you could just be a brainy girl.”
“Something wrong with being a brainy girl?” I asked amused.
“No, I like them a lot,” she said, winking at me.
'What the hell!'
“Um, I…, I’m not sure,” I stuttered, trying to gather my thoughts. “I hadn’t really thought about renting out, though there is plenty of room. I guess it would be nice to have someone else in that big rambling house.”
“That great! When can I take a look at it?”
“Ah, well I have class in thirty minutes. How about 4: P.M. I should be back by then. Let me write down the address.”
“Sounds like a plan, I’ll meet you there, we’ll look around and go out to dinner afterwards. My treat!”
“You sound pretty sure it will work out. What if the house turns out to be another crack den or I’m really a dude in disguise?”
“At this point Katherine,” she said happily, giving me a searching look trying to find any seams. “I’d be willing to lower my standards. See you tonight!”
[***][***][***]
Class went well, and for the first time in a while, I was more than slightly more than an animated collection of skin, clothes, and hair care products. Best of all, the instructor noted my participation. I braved the unknown maw that is U.N.O. parking, back at the house in plenty of time to see Karen drive up, walk to the front door while she was periodically checking the paper in her hand, looking about with a dazed expression.
“I thought you said you had a house ‘lower my standards’ this is a freakin MANSION!” she belted out at me when I opened the front door.
“I don’t think it quite qualifies as a mansion,” I mumbled defensively.
“OK… CASTLE then, look at all the stonework. Does it have a moat, too?”
“No, but there is a pool out back. I should be able to design a trench system to set one up, if you’re interested.”
“This is the Scott place! I remember Daddy used to take us here every Christmas to see all the lights and decorations. Your Dad really went all out! It was the best house in the city. I remember he even rigged up a Santa Claus on your roof that actually looked like he was taking off! How did he manage that?"
“Don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Probably some sort of rail system and tricks lights.”
“Why did you guys stop doing it? I remember crying my eyes out the year it wasn’t there.”
“My father died.” I guessed for her.
“Oh… of course,” she said embarrassed. “I’m very sorry.”
“It was some time ago.”
“I thought you said your name was Ryan?”
“I got married,” I said simply.
“Oh, I thought you were a… does he live here too?” she asked uncertainly.
“No, he’s back east… he’s attending the Naval Academy for the next four years... you won’t be seeing him around, if that’s what you are worried about.” 'YOUR DAMN RIGHT YOU WONT!' I thought.
“Are you sure this is going to be all right? When I asked if you wanted a roommate, I thought I was asking a single girl with maybe a two bedroom bungalow.”
“There’s plenty of room, Karen, and to be honest, I could use the cash. The house itself is pretty much all that’s left. It takes up quite a bit of money in taxes and upkeep. I’m trying to go to school, too. So let’s take a look around,if it suits your needs, we can talk terms over that dinner you promised me.”
“Suits my needs? It’s a freakin palace!”
We toured the house from top to bottom, even came across some stuff that I didn’t even know was there. All through the inspection, Karen kept dropping hints that she probably was not going to be able to afford it. I countered with saying I was prepared to be reasonable. I could tell that she positively loved the house and all its features. She about had an instant orgasm when she saw the pool and the garden out back. The tennis court she was ambivalent about, but I could already see her plotting out sun tanning sessions in her head. When we were done looking around, she offered several restaurants that I knew were on the higher end of this town’s offering. But I took pity on a fellow starving college student, and we drove just down the street to the Olive Garden which while not the best Italian food in the world, was good enough, and at a reasonable price.
“So, what did you think of the old homestead,” I asked while eating my salad like a good little girl, and trying not to wince.
“It’s fantastic, I… well, I always dreamed about living in that house as a little girl when I saw it all lit up at Christmastime. But I’ll never be able to afford it…” said Karen as she lowered her head and pushed the salad back and forth on her plate.
“It’s cheaper than you might think. First, there is one big issue you don’t know about that may be a deal breaker for you.”
“I can imagine what that would be, are you a cannibal or a republican or something?”
"Hey!'
“Well, I haven’t eating anyone I liked recently, and I’m growing fond of you. The thing is though, I may not look it, but I’m over three months pregnant.”
“PREGNANT!” she said replying basically like everyone else did when I told them that.
“Yes,” I clarified.
“Oh so that’s why… that’s why you got married right out of high school?”
“Yes… though the, marriage may not work out.”
“Oh honey,” she said, grabbing my hand from across the table. “Not many of them do, I had a friend in my junior year who had a baby. The father tried staying around, but within six months, was out of the picture. Come to think of it, he joined the navy too! If your husband was any sort of man, he would be here with you, not all the way across the country… fuck him. Get on with your life.”
“I intend to,” I said, retrieving my hand from her grasp. “But having a baby isn’t easy, which comes to my proposal. I did a little market research on the going rate in town, a one bedroom place in a not so bad neighborhood would cost you $500 a month. That’s just starting price. A nice room like at my place with pool access, only ¾ a mile from campus is harder to price accurately, but I have to imagine would run even more.”
“I know, and I can’t pay it,” she replied dejectedly.
“Maybe not with money, but what I was thinking of was a sort of work study program. I need the money, but I also need the HELP! I’m on my own in this town with no husband or family to help me out. And all my friends are back in New Hampshire. So… what I was thinking of was you pay me $300 a month, that covers everything. Rent, utilities, internet once I get it hooked up, even a space in my garage. That’s a pretty nice deal all things considered, but the second part is you pledge to work at least 10 hours a week around the house. Cleaning, laundry … can you do any cooking?”
“My mom taught me a little, no Thanksgiving feasts, if that is what you mean, but I can boil water without burning it.”
“Good,” I smiled at her, since that was about my own level of competence. “And of course, when the baby comes, I’m going to need even more help. You said you worked in a day care?”
“Well, really an afternoon care is when I do it, but yeah. Though the ones I deal with are toddlers and above. I don’t really have any experience with newborns.”
“More than me, I’ve never so much as changed a diaper, or babysat ANY child.”
“What NEVER? what where you doing during your girlhood?”
“Boarding school,” I answered, thinking that was a reasonable answer and more believable than the truth.
“Oh… right.”
“I’m planning on taking classes right up until the birth and then afterwards, just as soon as I get out of the hospital. But If I’m going to stay in school full time and still be a mom, I will need the occasional hour or two baby free where I can read my coursework or finish a paper. So having a live in sort-of-nanny on call seems to be a good option. $300 a month, 10 hours a week of work. And if it turns out that I need more than 10 hours a week worth of help, I’ll knock $15 an hour off the rent. If I get too overwhelmed, there could be months where you live rent free, or even get a paycheck! So what do you think?”
She pondered it all for a moment, as she savored one of the Oliver Gardens legendary breadsticks. I could tell she wanted to jump all over the deal. But she also didn’t want to appear too eager and uncool. Eventually though, she gave in.
“I guess it could work, but just the two of us? Rattling around in that big house like pinball’s in a machine. Seems a bit odd somehow.”
“Well that’s the other thing,” I said with a sly grin. “Have you got any friends?...”
[***][***][***]
Turns out Karen did have a friend, Rachel Dale who she had gone to a high school with in West Omaha. Rachel didn’t quite have the same all powerful desire to get out from under the thumb of the parental units, but she jumped at the chance when offered. She in turn was a cheerleader camp friends with two cousins who were coming to Omaha for school, and had planned to share a one bedroom 4 miles from campus. But hadn’t signed any paperwork,yet, and were ecstatic at the chance offered. So, virtually overnight, I went from terribly lonely near poverty to bustling activity and a healthy rental income. We hadn’t found anyone yet for the 6th bedroom, but everyone was keeping their eyes open for viable candidates.
It didn’t happen overnight of course, Karen and Rachel were going to need a few days to pack and get things together. Laura and Jo Ann the two cousins, were not planning on moving to Omaha until the first week of August. When DeGeas heard, he had to stick his nose in and see that I wasn’t being taken advantage of. He ran a background check on all the girls and their families, when that came back clean, he grunted and produced a positively byzantine lease agreement and employment contract. I only bothered to read the first five pages of before I skipped and signed where indicated. Rachel I think didn’t even get that far, just put her name where she was told to and handed it back to me.
Mr. Steiner pulled a paterfamilias of his own and demanded to see the place that his girl would be living in. Karen gave him the address, keeping a straight face all the way to the front driveway until she burst out in giggles at his dumbfounded look. Steiner recovered nicely and tried to overcompensate by grilling me mercilessly. I think he had seen way too many soft-core boarding school movies on Cinemax or something. But soon enough, he was satisfied with the situation when I relayed that I was more looking for nanny than the rent. He was enough of a parent to know that the too good to be true situation had pulled a sharp u-turn into hard work territory when it was mentioned that I would be using his daughter to help care for my own child. He was pleased enough that I was a respected married woman as well as a woman of property, and was content to leave his daughter in my house.
I hadn’t thought about those keys in the garden for days, and I was quite pleased about that upon reflection.
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 15
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The chapter brought to you courtesy of the United States Postal Service.
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 15
[***][***][***]
Karen and Rachel decided to use the few days of the Fourth of July holiday to affect their move. Which meant, of course, that both their fathers did most of the heavy lifting while both of their mothers supervised, and the girls themselves ran about like exited kittens at the first sign of their new post parent independence. Daddy Dale ended the afternoon by trying to slip Rachel a fifty out of the sight of his wife and failed, he apparently could have gotten away with it, but Mommy Dale had already given her a hundred, and was feeling a bit put off by her daughters successful begging campaign. Which just goes to show you that independence had its place, but cash money was still king.
When it was discovered that I was an orphan and functionally abandoned by my husband half a continent away, I was virtually adopted on the spot by Mrs. Steiner. After the move was completed, we were all invited back to their house in West Omaha for a barbeque, and to watch the fireworks. The city of Omaha, in a brief fit of municipal responsibility, had outlawed fireworks within the city limits. So the best shows were always out west in that part of the county where the neighborhoods were unincorporated. It seemed to be a law that these normally sedate Cornhuskers were happy to disobey though, and I really didn’t think a good example was set by the boys at the fire station which seemed to have the biggest explosions of them all.
We stayed up until 11:P.M., watching my countrymen spend a couple billion dollars worth of Chinese trade goods in our annual anniversary celebration of the War of American Rebellion. Then stuffed to the point where I felt I was about to explode myself, I pled fatigue, quite truthfully as the pregnancy was starting to take it out of me. We three girls piled into Melanie for our ride back to the house. Karen had taken my “old” room and Rachel one of the others. I had sort of felt like an interloper these last few weeks, and it was nice to have someone else in the house with me now. Maybe I could now stop turning around corners late at night and expect to see ghosts lying in wait. The next morning we still had the day off, and Rachel has volunteered to make breakfast.
Results were mixed
“I’m soooo sorry!” she said close to tears.
“It’s all right,” I tried assuring her. “Scrambled eggs are probably better for you when they are cooked brown. Kills all that salmonella they keep talking about on the news.”
“The bacon shouldn’t be black though,” she countered.
“Well, bacon is bad for us anyway,” Karen interjected.
“Still, I’m so sorry. I wanted to make a good impression. I’m just not the domestic type of person. If this was chem lab, I could probably make an explosion out of household goods. Cooking was never my strong suite.”
Rachel Dale was one of those girls in high school that every guy SHOULD have been dating, but seldom did. She wasn’t ugly; there were no pustules on her face, buck teeth or bad breath. She had a pleasing enough face, even had a decent set of knockers. But she just wasn’t pretty enough for the impossible standards that the beautiful people set. And she was terribly self conscious about that. She must have joined the cheerleaders in an attempt to better her standing. I could tell she that would have felt more comfortable in the math club, she just needed someone to tell her that.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you,” I smiled at her while looking her directly in the eye. “I was sort of expecting Julia Child to move in with me and shower me with delicious dainties whenever the whim should call me. But unfortunately, someone told me she’s been dead for years. So I’ll just have to put up with you. This really isn’t bad for a first attempt, Rachel, At least you made mistakes in the right direction and overcooked instead of under. Pork and eggs both can get REALLY dangerous if you don’t cook it for long enough.”
“I remembered that!” she said to me. “I actually studied some of… never mind.” she said shaking her head.
“No never mind,” I argued with her. “You don’t have to hide your brain with me if you want to keep trying to cook. I think you can do it. Most of it is just following instructions. If you treat it like a chemical formula, I think you will do better. Such and such ingredients heated to this temperature for this amount of time. Cooking is more science than art, I don’t care what that prick Gordon Ramsey says.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes, really. I’ll pick up some cookbooks next time at the library. I’m sure there is something for people just starting out. In the meantime, as far as cooking instructions go, half a pint of milk added to one bowl of cereal will win the day. Theirs a box of Cheerios in the cabinet, next to the refrigerator.”
“Sure,” she said giving me a hug. It was still a pretty freaky experience for me to be hugged at the drop of a hat. Particularly the feeling of both our sets up boobs being crushes up against each other. One of the many things that I still had to get used to since it appeared I would be in this body for the long haul. Rachel got me my cereal, and I was contemplating soaking the bacon in the milk to see if it could be brought back to life. I was just about to try it when Karen came back into the kitchen with a stranger following her.
“Katie,” she said to me while laying The World Herald on the table. “I went outside to get the newspaper, and a car was just pulling up. She said she needed to speak to you.”
She, was an athletic young woman in Capri pants and a navy blue top which was appropriate I guess. Because she was the midshipman who I had last seen locking face with my husband.
“Karen…Rachel please leave us alone,” I said coldly while putting my spoon down and standing up to face the woman. “And whatever you do don’t let me in the garden until this person leaves.”
[***][***][***]
There was sort of an awkward silence.
Followed by even more.
The young woman, girl, really since she was about 18, had the good grace to look down at my kitchen floor. She didn’t seem interested in changing views anytime soon. It was obvious she was embarrassed to be here, but something had caused her to come all the way out to Omaha. I suppose I needed to find out. While I was still looking for one last roommate, I wasn’t going to cheat by letting a girl set up shop in my kitchen merely because she was too frightened to move.
Plus her being a walking homicide target.
“You obviously know who I am if you came all the way out here and directly to my house,” I said finally which caused her to jump up and look at me. “So, what’s your name, Sunshine?”
“I…ah,” she mumbled hesitantly.
“SNAP TO PLEBE!” I shouted in my best D.I. impression.
“Everhardt! Samantha D.” she stated forcefully out of instinct.
“Well Everhardt, Samantha D. Why are you here?”
“I…I had a three day leave for the holiday. I live in Missouri, so I decided to drive up and speak to you."
"Missouri?"
"Yes, I started off at 5: A.M. so I would have time enough to get back to my flight.”
“Since when do they let fourth class midshipmen go on leave after only a month of plebe summer?”
“My father… he asked for it.”
“Your father?” I questioned her closely.
“The Admiral,” she clarified for me. “I wanted to speak to you about… about your husband.”
“Do you? If you’re trying to blackmail me so that he won’t lose his place if you tell the academy we were married, you can forget it. I don’t really care at this point if he gets dinged.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Ma’am,” she said as she started to look down at the floor again. “I came here to explain to you what happened when he gave me that ride.”
“I could see what happened,” I replied frostily as I looked forlornly at the rack of kitchen knives by the sink.
“And it was exactly what it looked like, in every particular.”
Well fuck you too bitch!
“At least on my part,” she finished dejected.
“Oh?” I asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” she said as she looked me in the eye as a little fire started burning again. I was starting to worry that the admission standards had slipped. “Look, I put the moves on him, certainly. I’m sure you don’t need to be told how cute a guy Thomas is. Everyone noticed, and being a General’s son… there was a bet going on in women’s country. First to make time with him got almost 500 bucks and bragging rights, forever. I thought I had the inside track when I convinced him to give me a ride to pick up a few things in town. I moved in and gave him my full blast. I guess you saw that, he never knew you were coming to visit. But he also didn’t kiss back! I’m sure you know what it’s like when a guy gives you his full attention. But Thomas, it was like kissing a corpse! There was no give back. So, I went in even harder, and he sat there like it was a total surprise. like he didn’t know what to do when a girl kissed him. Right around then is when he saw you…”
“Which also must have been a surprise.”
“It was!” she shouted back excited, then wilted a bit. “You put him in sick bay you know. He was out of action for three days. He wouldn’t tell the police who did it to him, and I… I didn’t know your name either. But I had your ring, so I could have guessed. If I told them, they would have told the Navy and… The first few weeks Thomas was like a god, charging twice as hard as anyone, tops in everything. That bet was getting bigger every night! And when he came off the sick list, it was like he was a puppet with his strings cut off. Lagging behind, last in several things. He’s in real danger of… he’s in trouble.”
“Sounds like it,” I agreed unemotionally.
“I was able to get him alone one afternoon and talk to him about it all. That’s when I found out about you, and everything.”
“Everything?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“Everything important,” she replied waiving her hand. “That you thought he was cheating on his pregnant wife with a female midshipman, said female midshipman who you yourself should have been, if the situation was different. And that you refused to take his calls. You have to talk to him! It’s my fault he’s like this! He didn’t do anything wrong! He won’t look at another woman, now, and he never really did before. That’s one of the things that kept driving the betting! Some us thought he was gay! And that it would be a bigger challenge. Susan Rogers thought she saw him checking out another guys but.”
'Oh great!'
“But anyway,” said Samantha. “If you want to blame someone blame me, he didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong, either, at least I didn’t think so at the time. I didn’t know he was off limits, but then… he can’t exactly advertise that he’s married.”
“No,” I agreed with her.
“I have to go, I will have to break speed limits as it is to get back to K.C. in time. Please call him or write to him or something. It wasn’t his fault…"
[***][***][***]
Midshipman Everhardt left as quickly as dignity would allow. I picked up my spoon to finish my breakfast, but my heart wasn’t really in it, and the baby was making me nauseous again. Eventually, I sensed a presence in the entryway to the dining room and cleared my throat.
“How much of that did you girls hear?” I asked them.
“Most of it,” said Karen embarrassed. “I tried not listening, but, well, it was like one of those soaps my mom is addicted too.”
“Well, I’m happy to be entertaining!” I shouted out shrilly. “Let’s post this all to the internet so the whole world can know!”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Rachel asked as she moved in close for another hug sneak attack.
“Short story, even shorter,” I said briskly. “We were high school sweethearts who were going to conquer the world together. I 'got myself pregnant', got married, he went to the Academy while I came home to have the baby. A few weeks ago, I caught him lip locked with that… woman. We haven’t spoken since, and I guess you heard her explanation.”
“Do you believe her?” asked Karen.
“I… want to get drunk.” I sighed noisily while I cupped by belly with both hands.
“I have something even better,” offered Rachel. “Scientifically proven.”
“And what could that be?”
“Chocolate!”
Reader, as much as I hated to give into the stereotype it WAS better.!
[***][***][***]
The good doctor Lyons made no comment about me still being under her care the next week, and during my visit I had my first baby pictures. They were an amorphous blob. I could only sort of make out the baby’s head, that was it. It wasn’t exactly filling my heart with maternal joy… still, I had them make extra copies when asked. And made sure to put them in a safe place.
“You’re still on track for a healthy delivery Katie,” said Dr. Lyons happily. “Don’t you know we doctors have expensive second homes to make payments on? Can’t you manage even small infection? Or perhaps a suspicious rash?”
“I’ll do my best doctor,” I assured her.
“The only slightly worrisome thing is that you are a bit underweight for where you should be at this stage.”
“Are you telling me that I need to eat MORE? My roommates are already comparing me unfavorably to the linebackers of their acquaintance.”
“Just a bit more, the cliché of ‘eating for two’ is actually not true, but with the physical activity you do, and your teenage metabolism, you’re burning off more calories than most women in your situation. If you’re still underweight at your next checkup, I may prescribe a couple of gallons of ice cream. That’s a prescription I expect you to fill young lady!” she said as she shook her finger at me.
“Yes Ma’am,” I answered as subdued as I could while keeping a straight face.
“I had a good look while the camera was taking those pictures. Do you want to know your babies sex?”
“I… yes doctor I believe I would.”
“You’re having a girl!” she stated enthusiastically.
“A GIRL!” I said shocked. What the hell was I going to do with a girl?
“You seem surprised,” Lyons asked concerned. “Most mothers actually prefer a little girl.”
“It was, just a sort of a shock,” I said thinking on my feet. “When it was just ‘the baby’ it was mostly intellectual, but when you said I was having a girl, it sort of brought forth the idea that I would have to be the mother of one.”
'And what in God’s name did I know about how to raise a girl? The last princess tea party I had been too I had saturation bombed with water grenades.'
“I know, it was the same way with me,” Lyons said, trying to be comforting. “But you lucked out a bit. I have had similar situations where the father is in the military and away for much of a child’s developmental period. There have been numerous studies, and if you were having a boy who was lacking a strong father figure, things would have been much more difficult for you. But a mother raising a girl on her own is much easier, psychologically speaking.
Except on the mother!
“So, no warning signs of eclampsia?” I asked cautiously.
“None whatsoever, as long as you continue to take good care of yourself, you will be a mother by Christmas.”
I tried not to think of that as a prison sentence.
[***][***][***]
What I was also trying not to think about and failing was Thomas. ‘Everbitch’s’ visit had turned the world upside down for me, again. It seemed we two would be forever fated to hurting each other with our love. I felt that I had given and gotten many chances, and we had both blown them all. I’m not sure I had it in me for another go.
That night, after class, I returned home to a meal that was actually tolerable. Rachel was getting much better when she realized she didn’t need to be up to Food Network standards. She had taken one of my pregnancy cookbooks and went to town with it. I followed my doctor’s orders as best I could. Later that night, in Martin Scott’s former office, I hand wrote a letter to my husband on some the expensive stationary that my body’s father had left behind.
Thomas,
It has been sometime since we last spoke.
Ah, hell baby! That makes it sound more civilized than it was. It’s been a few weeks since I kicked the shit out of you. Though, hopefully not literally, as those white uniforms look to be a pain to clean. You know why of course. I came to surprise you on your first liberty and saw you with… that woman. Who I had better not see you with, AGAIN! She visited me a few days ago. Said there was a bet among the women midshipmen as to who could make time with you first. Well, she won and we both lost. I don’t really want to speak of that again.
We’re having a baby, but I guess you knew that. Today, though, I was told it’s going to be a girl, that kind of knocked me over. I had thought about the possibility, of course, but I was kind of hoping it was going to be a boy. I knew sort of, how to raise a boy. All you need is a couple pounds of mud and several hundred band-aids mixed together and you had happy boyhood. But a girl?
I’m still scared to death to enter a public ladies room, how am I going to raise a little girl alone? Well, the answer I came up with is I’m not. I was hoping you would be around to help me. We’ve hurt each other, A LOT! But before that we loved each other even more. I’m going to ask for one last chance for me, and offer once last chance for you. I’m going to take any phone calls you make, but in case you have stopped trying, I’m writing this letter. We may not make it, but we owe to ourselves to try.
XOXO
Your loving wife
Katherine
P.S. I am told you are wasting away for want of me. Kick it into gear Marine! My baby girl is not going to have a washout for a father!
I sealed it with a kiss and had even wore some lipstick for the occasion. Tomorrow morning, I would take it to the post office and send it to Annapolis by next day air with a signature confirmation. It would be waiting for him at the campus post office, and I would have proof that he received it in a few days. If I didn’t hear back from him in a week, I would speak to DeGeas and file for divorce. And probably die of a broken heart.
[***][***][***]
Today was Saturday, and the Post Office was still open in the morning, so I dropped of my letter and prayed that no one there was feeling grouchy today. Afterwards, I went shopping at Target, somehow or other, I had fallen into the role of providing all the food for the girls. I supposed I could force them to chip in, but thought better of it, and kept it in reserve in case I needed to guilt them into late night feedings somewhere down the line. I had to imagine the baby would be a fussier eater than a couple of teenage girls.
Probably…'
When I was shopping, I found this rig by Swiss Gear. It was a black and red full sized backpack. With rigging, waist support and everything, it had a little cushioned compartment for my laptop with all sorts of pockets for all its attachments, as well as ample cargo room forward to place an entire days textbooks. In addition, it had plenty of room left over for all the odds and sods that I had been forced to carry around since my conversion. With one purchase, I had filled the needs of book bag, laptop case and purse. Hey! I was getting better at this girl shit!
I pulled up to the house, and my usual slot in the garage was blocked in by a strange car. This was getting to be a more and more usual occurrence since I formed my own little sorority. The situation would only get worse when Jo Ann and Laura moved in from Grand Island. This car was teenage kid standard. The type of car Mommy and Daddy bought for being functionally indestructible, mostly because it was half wrecked already. When you first let my demographic out on the road, you don’t let them have nice things unless you have more money than sense.
Don’t look at me like that, I’m different, I can drive!
This car though, had a side panel that had come from a different colored car, and the wheelhouses were starting to rust pretty badly. There was also what appeared to be a little nest in the back seat made out of a few blankets, and several sets of women’s clothes. And I didn’t know what to make of that. I entered the kitchen through the garage door and sounded off to the first girl I saw.
“Karen!” I said handing her a shopping bag. “If you want to eat tonight, help me unload the jeep, please. And who owns that P.O.S. that’s blocking me out?”
“New girl, saw our posting for a room to rent,” she said taking the bag and beginning the process of storing the goods.
“Does this one look like she can pass the background check?” I asked ambivalently. “The last three couldn’t get past the DeGeas Gestapo.”
“Don’t know,” she said walking with me to Melanie for the rest of the bags. “She did ask about our L.G.B.T. policy.”
I had been raised among people where such things were not talked about, so it took me a minute to translate what all that acronym meant.
“Well,” I said indecisive as I looked at her. “What IS our L.G.B.T. policy?”
“Sort of up to the landlady isn’t it?” she hedged wonderfully while giving an Air Force salute by shrugging her shoulders.
“This place runs more like a hippie commune than a well brought up Marine should find comfortable. This affects you girls more than it does me. I’ve got the master bedroom and my own in suite bathroom. Plus, if I get too out of joint, I can always kick her out. You won’t have that option, and depending upon the room arraignments could well be leered at while you are in various stages of undress.”
“Just between you and me, Katie,” Karen said with a grin as we set the last bags on the counter. “It’s a bit late in the day to start worrying about that… like from day one at the coffee shop.”
“Oh…” I said having some of my suspicions confirmed.
“Don’t tell anyone, but Daddy would disapprove and Mother…heck, she would probably want to help me pick out an outfit for walking in the parade. I’m not sure which would be worse.”
“Well,” I said trying to gather my thoughts. “None of my business.”
“It could be,” she said smiling at me. “But anyway, about this one, as long as there are no unwanted advances, or at least she takes no for a no, I don’t anticipate there being any problems on that front. And besides, won’t you get in trouble for discrimination if you refuse on that basis?”
“No, DeGeas explained it to me, it’s why we can also refuse for several things we find on the background check that are not actually illegal. Because this is my primary residence, and not a for profit business like an apartment complex, the law recognizes that I can be discriminative in who I share my home with.”
“Whatever,” she said flicking her hair as she leaned over and gave me a good view while she loaded the refrigerator. “She is waiting in your office, I said you’d be back around this time and gave her a coke and let her watch TV while she waits.”
I left Karen to manage the rest of the groceries and walked down the hallway to “my” office. It had been one of the last rooms rendered fit for habitation, but was quickly becoming one of my favorites. The wood paneling, bookshelves and the functioning fireplace all reminded me of what I suspect the English landed gentry enjoyed as a den. I was sort of secretly looking forward to winter when I could get away with a crackling fire while I savored a snifter of the finest imported ice cream.
The young woman waiting was seated, but stood up immediately when I entered and presented herself.
“I’m..Ch…Caroline… Caroline Garner, Ma’am,” she mumbled out at me while presenting a hand to be shook. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“No need to thank me, I see a lot of things. I’m Katherine Ryan, if we get to know each other better, you can call me Katie. Please sit.” I said indicating one of the chairs across my desk.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” she said sitting down and carefully smoothing out her skirt.
She was of mixed ancestry, the jet black hair was much longer than most American girls preferred, but since she didn’t have an accent I took her for a native. Her features were generally Asiatic, but lacked the epicanthic fold and the blue eyes indicated at least one Caucasian ancestor. She was a big girl I saw, and soon enough, I began to suspect, and the subtle scarf over where her Adams apple would have been seemed to indicate as well, that she wasn’t a girl at all.
“You’re here, so I assume you have read the listing and agree to its terms?”
“Yes Ma’am… they are wonderful terms, Karen already showed me one of the empty rooms and around the house a bit. I couldn’t find better if I paid three times as much, and I don’t really mind helping out around the house. I’m a farm kid we always had chores to be done. At least around here, I won’t have to deal with ornery animals.”
“That depends upon how you view infants. I’m going to have a baby in December, and part of the 10 hours will no doubt be childcare.”
“A baby?” she asked excited. “Oh that won’t be any trouble. I always had cousins and neighbors kids to look after. It was one of the things I often got volunteered for, but I never minded.”
“Farm kid huh,” I said nodding at her. “Where from?”
“Scottsbluff, Nebraska.”
“SCOTTSbluff?” I asked confused. “Where’s that?”
“Yes Ma’am, it’s about 300 miles west of here. About as far away from Omaha as it’s possible to get and still be in Nebraska.”
“What made you come all the way out here?”
“It’s… about as far away from Scottsbluff as it’s possible to be and still be in Nebraska,” she explained to me firmly. “I wanted to go to college, but I can’t afford to pay for out of state tuition. I can’t really afford in state tuition either, but I got some student loans and I found a job at Wal-Mart.”
“Can’t your parents help you out?”
“I… no, the farm… the drought you know…”
“I see,” I said giving her a hard look which she was soon unable to meet and looked down at her shoes dejectedly.
“Have you still got your tallywacker?” I asked her flippantly
“WHAT!?” she shouted totally surprised. “I mean …what do you mean?”
“Karen mentioned you asked about our L.G.B.T. policy, which for your information I am sort of making up as I go along. And not for nothing, but I’m sort of pretty to look at, and you haven’t checked out my boobs once. Which if we eliminated the L and the B part of it just sort of leaves out the T. So… are you still intact?”
“I…” she said gathering her purse as she got up and started to cry. “I should leave…”
“Why?” I asked her sternly.
“Don’t you want me too?” She said in between tears.
“I’m not sure what I want, you haven’t answered all of my questions yet. So please sit down and we will get on with the interview. I ask to get it out in the open, but you certainly don’t have to show me, I’ve seen one before. Technically speaking, are you still a boy?”
“Yes,” she mumbled at me as she raised a hand to her head and pulled off her hair to reveal it as a wig. The hair underneath was the same color but buzz cut. The sort of thing you could expect the recruit depot at Paris Island to pump out. She set the hairpiece on top of her skirt and still wouldn’t look me in the eye. Even without the hair, she passed reasonably well to my masculine trained eye, though a girl from birth probably could have spotted something. Her breasts were well shaped and proportionate. If she bought her rack, off the rack, at least she had good taste.
“You can put the wig back on,” I said trying to comfort her and give her a supporting smile. “You look much better with it on.”
“Thank you,” she said as she tried fitting it back on as well as she could without the aid of a mirror.
“Who gave you the haircut?”
“My father, when he found out... He was in the Army for many years. He said he was ‘going to make a man out of me’. The buzz cut was the first step. Step two was driving me to the recruiting office, but I was able to make a run for it before that happened.”
“You’re living in your car aren’t you?”
“I go to a transgender support meeting; one of the girls there had it worse than me once, and told me about a shelter on Nicholas Street. I stay there sometimes, but they… a lot of times its easier to sleep in the car.”
“Your dad was in the Army, huh? Served in Vietnam? Is that where he found your mother?”
“Cambodia,” she said brushing some hair out of her eyes.
“Huh,” I grunted amused. “Tricky that, we were never officially there.”
“I know, Daddy used to scare us by saying that we were all military secrets and that one day he might have to slit all our throats to protect national security.”
“He sounds delightful,” I stated sarcastically.
“He was actually,…most of the time. Seven kids, I have three brothers and three sisters. I’m the youngest. The runt of the litter they all called me. I was never a really good boy, and I read as much about…people like me as I could on the internet. I had always planned to go to U.N.O. and start my transition when I got here. I could have been most of the way through it before anyone back home found out. Daddy never likes to go to the city, and I would have been ready for any planned visit days in advance… but he found some of my stock of clothes a week ago and I… had to head to college early.”
“So you mean to go the whole way, snip snip and all that?” I asked gesturing with my fingers in a scissoring motion.
“Yeah, when confronted I told my dad and he sort of freaked out. He just couldn’t understand it.”
“I have a hard time with it too, just seems to offend my sense of engineering throwing away a perfectly serviceable part.”
“Well if you want it,” she said brightening up for the first time and gave a half smile. “You can have it!”
*********
*********
*********
“Perhaps later, look… will you be able to pay $300?”
“My first paycheck is in three days I will be able to pay you then.” She answered proudly.
“And will you be able to buy food the week after?”
“I… I’ve asked for a lot of extra shifts before classes start.”
“Well, hard work is its own reward,” I said looking around at the opulence of my inherited wealth, and how I had once thought myself poor.
“All right, if we’re going to do this, you have to understand that I am uncouth wench. I say politically incorrect things like calling imported cars rice machines. And how you people are all good at math. I’m too set in my ways to change now. If I offend you, it’s not out of any sense of malice, but rather my inherent arrogance which has got me in trouble sometimes. I just hope you will give me a chance. I don’t really have much experience with minorities like Asiatics and particularly transgender people.”
Even though I am almost certainly the definition of one now.
“You probably know more about minorities than I do,” she said me hesitantly. “Western Nebraska isn’t exactly known for its diversity. My Mother and siblings were the only non-whites for fifty miles in any direction.”
“Well, my jeep has a sister who is a Cherokee, but I doubt that’s what you had in mind,” I said getting up from my chair and walking toward her. “You can move in what you have to move in right away. But I expect you to be paid up by the first of next month, or I’m throwing your tranny ass in the street. Understand?”
“You mean I can have the room?” she looked up excited.
“Didn’t I just say so?” And DeGeas will just have to live it.
“Oh thank you Ma’am," Caroline said as she got up to hug me. What was it with girls and hugs? Don’t they realize there are all sorts of diseases that are spread by touch?
“You can call me Katie, if you call me ma’am much more often, I will start calling you Dragon Lady.”
“For a great room like that, I would mind a bit… Katie,” she said as I could see the life return to her facial features.
“You’re a woman trapped in a man’s body huh?” I asked oddly intrigued by the symmetry to my own situation. “So when are these support meetings?
[***][***][***].
Sunday passed without a letter. But of course the post office was closed that day and I didn’t expect one anyway.
So did Monday, and no phone call, either. I tried not to worry.
Tuesday morning I began to worry.
By Wednesday, I was in such a funk that not even Mr. Cherry Garcia could fix it.
Thursday I came home to see a brown note stuck to my front door. Fucking post office had been here and LEFT! If I wanted my letter, I had to show up at the local branch in person to collect it.
Melanie sort of got parked illegally, and it sort of may have been on their front grass, but if they didn’t want that sort of thing to happen, they should try to be more accommodating! There was a bit of a snafu because the letter was still in the hands of the postal carrier who had attempted to make the delivery, they would not be back for another hour.
I went back outside, I meekly drove my jeep into one of the indicated parking slots, and since it was high summer on the high plains, I sweated profusely while I waited. I suppose I could have lingered inside and taken advantage of the federally mandated air conditioning, but I had sort of made a damn fool of myself and didn’t want the clerks at the counter staring at me while I waited. I had no books to read, nothing to distract me but the car stereo. So I pumped up the volume as high as I could get away with and curled up in the back seat letting the music roll over me.
Eventually, my time was up and I meekly walked inside and waited my turn at the counter. After only the very minimum of bureaucratic hassle, a nice heavyset girl behind the counter handed me my letter and I signed for it without even looking at the clipboard. I went back outside in a daze too frightened to open it, but too frightened not too, as well. Eventually, with sufficient will and a reasonable amount of guts, I was able to open the letter to read inside.
Katherine,
I was VERY happy to read your letter. I think you will understand what I was going through after you showed up, and I agree, let us never speak of that again. They found my phone, and I sort of have a minor ding over it, so I won’t be able to call you until classes formally begin. Hallowed naval custom however, forbids interference with the mail, so we can still correspond this way. Mid- August we can even I.M. or Skype each other when I get the computer in my quarters.
We have a lot to talk about, for some things, paper isn’t good enough. But for now, I want you to know that I would like that one last chance very much. I’m sort of OK with you getting one, too, if forced to admit it. Please keep writing, but put your return address as Katherine SCOTT. The Navy may not be actively looking, but that doesn’t mean they can ignore a violation of the regulations for midshipmen if proof is waived in front of their nose. For now, though, I want to finish this letter thus.
Your loving husband, Thomas.
P.S.
Suck my (your) dick! I was molested by a beautiful woman, and it took me a while to recover. Washing out is NOT going to happen… Thank you for the baby pics I’m hiding them in a safe place, the same place I put your ring until I can give it back to you in person.
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 16
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The everyday normal life of a college coed.
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 16
[***][***][***]
My household expanded, and so did my waistline. JoAnn and Laura Katz were two very athletic young woman that had the bad grace to arrive just when I was starting to notice the pounds, so I didn’t take to them at first, if you get my meaning. However, the cousins were such nice girls that it was hard for me to hold a grudge. After a day of moving, where yet more fathers were drafted to act as draft animals, us girls hit the town for a night out. We were all underage, so we couldn’t go to any of the ten thousand trendy bars that were downtown, but we had a hell of a time out west at Village Pointe Mall with its restaurants and accompanying Movie Theater. I can’t remember what we saw, some summer comic book popcorn feature that was interchangeable with any other. Think of the last superhero movie you saw and slot that in if it makes you feel better.
We hit the shops afterwards, and it was a tossup which of us was more uncomfortable, Caroline or me. The other girls had all been told, of course, and they were a bit wary, at first. But Caroline just worked so HARD at being a girl, so hard you had to work even harder to find anything masculine about her. So soon enough, no one paid it any mind. Which didn’t mean of course that Caroline herself was willing to brave the harem’s quarters that is the women’s changing room of at Francesca’s Collection. I begged off of swapping in and out of outfits by saying anything I bought wouldn’t fit me in about a minute anyway and Caroline decided to keep me company in the chairs outside the main room.
Periodically, the girls would exit with this bit or that bit of new wardrobe and asked our opinion. Caroline gave insightful and useful suggestions of what worked, what didn’t and where she had seen something just like it on sale at another store for half the price. Me, I judged the clothes by a complicated mathematical formula based upon how much skin was shown. But no one seemed to catch on. We got back home after 11: P.M. but stayed up until the wee hours of the morning watching bad movies on DVD and eating worse junk food. It was just so nice and comforting to be part of a band of brothers again even if we were all women.
[***][***][***]
Summer session had ended, and I had exactly one week worth of break until fall semester began. I also now had several strange women running around my home. But since they all basically had their own bathrooms, I never got to see them in a state of undress, and was not sure what I would have done if I had. I DID get to see them in swimsuits on a regular basis, that kept me going for a while, but it wasn’t quite the same. As a guy, I had sort of imagined girls living alone together always went around topless and practiced kissing each other all the time but it would appear some legends are not true, we live in a fallen age.
For myself, I didn’t look quite as good in a swimsuit as I used too. By early August, I was showing if you knew what to look for. The girls having convinced me to try one of my bikinis, you didn’t have to look very hard. My boobs had got bigger, while my bladder smaller, and my ankles were starting to get out of hand. I thought about changing footwear to surplus pair of combat boots just for the support offered, but the first time I appeared in public with them, I was scolded from five different directions and shoved back upstairs to change. I would have put up a fight, but they outnumbered me, and it didn’t matter much anyway since the boots disappeared the next day.
Somehow…
I sort of went a little crazy on classes for fall, I had seen several I needed to take all lined up in a row, back to back to back Monday — Thursday. I had signed up for all of them while there were still slots. It added up to 21 credit hours, the only way my adviser would geek to it was my promise to drop a class or two after the first week, once I got a good idea of how I would like each. Of course, if I liked them all, I was going to have to go back on that promise. From everything I had understood about college, the fates seldom aligned like that and I didn’t know how many classes I would be able to take once the baby was born.
Naturally, the downside to this was that I had to buy books for seven classes. It wasn’t the expense, though that was plenty, it was the weight that had almost caused me to cry. My previous trip to the U.N.O. bookstore had meant a total of 4 books easily carried in two bags. Now I had more bags than I had fingers, and I couldn’t say exactly how many were actually inside. I had just given my class list to one of the student workers, and had tried not to look too irritated when he smirked at me. U.N.O. parking is legendarily bad, I had only been able to find a slot half a mile away, had to pay $2 for the privilege. At certain points, it would be a shorter distance to just walk from my front yard, then drive and park on campus. But lugging this many books, I wanted as much vehicular transport as I could get. There was no way I was going to be able to make it all in one trip. I was gathering up my courage to ask one of the cashiers if she could watch my bags for a bit when a husky masculine voice cleared his throat behind me.
“You look like you’re a little overloaded, Miss,” he said with a gesture at my collection of bags.
“Um, yea,” I said trying not to sound like a ditz in front of a man whose build and manner I had once pulled of convincingly. “I’m taking 21 hours and the books… they just sort of got out of hand.”
“Could you use some help?” he asked me concerned. He was a tall Hispanic, but with enough blanco in him to have light brown hair and grey eyes. He was wearing one of the digicam backpacks the Army liked to give all their soldiers that, since they were personalized in fit and decoration to each individual, they didn’t have to give back when they left the service. He was likely here on the G.I. Bill after doing his hitch on active duty. Which meant he was probably at least 22, and a bit out of my demographic, even if I was looking for a man, which I most certainly wasn’t. He wasn’t a complete shlub, however. He had three school tabs sewed on the pack in what the Army was pleased to call “The Tower of Power.” Ranger, Airborne, and Special Forces. Which, if he didn’t just buy the badges in the PX on the way out the door, meant this guy was one seriously bad motherfucker.
“I… could,” I said admitting to needing help though still trying to understand the situation. “But I’m… I just want you to know I’m not looking for anything romantic.”
“Ha!,” he grunted out. “Don’t worry, Ma’am, I think pregnant woman are sexy, but I’m not interested in moving in on someone else’s action. And if the guy is out of the picture, damn fool though he would be, I’m not interested in any sort of instant family. This is just a soldier helping out the damsel in distress. Nothing more I promise,” he said winking at me rakishly.
“You can tell I’m pregnant? Not many can, or at least I thought they couldn’t. My friends helped me pick out some loose clothes specifically for it.”
“Not many maybe, but that’s my superior military training shining through.”
“Well,” I said, trying to prove to him that I wasn’t completely ignorant of the military. Even such things that an Army puke would hold sacred. Pointing to his badges on the rucksack I shouted. “Rangers lead the way!”
“Damn, Ma’am I’m kind of sad that I didn’t get here sooner. I would like to have met you before whoever he was got in before me. Not many girls would know what those mean, or know the motto.”
He then went about packing his rucksack with as many of my books that would fit, then hefted it onto his shoulders. He grabbed two plastic bags in each hand, leaving me only two of the lighter bags to carry for myself. I didn’t really care for my new gender role, having to require the help of some testosterone filled muscle bound megaman to carry my gear. But as long as my own musculature was underpowered, I guess it paid to have a pleasing female appearance.
“Ready to go?” he asked when he got the weight situated.
As much as I hated to actually say it, straight lines like this don’t come along every day, and in a fit of whimsy I decided to play it up a bit.
“I’ve,” I said holding my head in my hands with an affected southern accent. “Always depended, upon the kindness of Rangers.”
[***][***][***]
Going to school was a whole different proposition during the fall when the population expanded fivefold. It was a novel and unsettling experience for me, particularly when combined with my new shape and size in comparison to all the well fed Nebraskans passing around me. I also tried not getting all riled up about the large packs of Chinese exchange students walking about. Also tried not suspecting them of going to U.N.O., and not other, better known American universities, because of its proximity to the U.S. Strategic Command, but I resolved to keep my eyes on them regardless.
The West Dodge Campus of U.N.O. was about a mile long on a quarter mile strip facing the street, which meant of course that if I had a class at one end in the morning, fate had put my afternoon class on the furthest section away. U.N.O. parking was terrible, midtown. Manhattan terrible when you had all these commuter students and so few spaces available. Complicating matters was that campus security put some secret police forces to shame, and was able to zero in on an expired meter or out of zone permit with unerring accuracy. They even had an army of paid informants among the student body.
Dozens of seemingly normal looking kids who were on work study would be walking past cars apparently on their way to class and suddenly pull out a pad and write a ticket. It sort of screamed to me a system that was rife for scandal and abuse, but apparently it worked well enough that no one had abolished it, yet. I could have walked from my house to all my classes, a couple of months ago, I would have done just that, but I was five months gone now, and things were only going to get worse from here.
I sorted it out with the girls, and we rigged up a schedule that would count towards their rent hours. I would be picked up and chauffeured around campus by a changing series of my roommates, after a rocky start at first, where I had to send a couple of reminder phone calls, it smoothed out into a well running system. It put a lot of stop and go wear and tear on the cars, and Rachel, bless her little mercenary heart, slipped in compensation for the mileage. But I, and my swollen ankles were glad to pay it. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Melanie, Joann’s car being in the shop at that point, when I got a call from the Governor of Nebraska.
“Katie!” he said enthusiastically over my cell phone. “It’s Bob Pilsner. I hope you haven’t forgotten me over the summer.”
“No sir,” I said slightly started by the phone call. “I just wasn’t expecting your call, not many people have my number.”
“And you were wondering how I got it?” he chuckled at me. “Don’t worry, I didn’t send the CIA or FBI after you. I doubt they would do any favors for a Nebraskan, anyway. The DeGeas gave me your number.”
“I must remember to thank him next time I see him,” I said squinting my eyes at the implications.
“Oh, don’t take it out on him; I sort of had to call in a favor. By the way, I heard you are going to the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Congratulations! I know you had better offers available.I think it’s great that you are staying home for school. You’re father would have been pleased.”
“I’m not really sure what my father would have been pleased about… he died when I was very young.”
“Yes of course…it’s about him that I called you today, or rather about his legacy to you. One of the nice things about being a chief executive is that as many problems as you have. And we get more every day! When you get enough of them together, sooner or later they combine with each other and sort of solve themselves. You may not know this, but the Scott Company they are… well they are being unfriendly toward the state. Even talking about moving the headquarters down to Texas. May God have mercy on their souls.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that Governor, but I have no authority over them,” I said and I actually WAS sorry to tell him. Bob was a nice guy, and I wasn’t very fond of people that weren’t playing nice with him.
“Yes, you explained that over the summer, and DeGeas filled in between a couple of the lines. But it happens… I know a man. He’s trying to do business with the Scott Company as well, and they are being unfriendly toward him too. I thought that maybe the two of you together might just be able to be unfriendly toward them right back. I’ve spoken to him already presuming upon your support. He thinks there are possibilities there. Wants to meet you, 2:00P.M. tomorrow, if you need an excused absence note, I’m sure I can scare up a university chancellor or two to write one.”
“I would miss a class, yes, my intro to civil engineering. I like it a lot and would hate to miss out.”
“It’s important Mrs. Ryan, and if you tell him why, I’m sure your professor would understand. Half of them were put through school with money from the Scott foundation.”
“Just who is this man, who you have already presumed to make a meeting for me,” I asked angrily.
He told me.
“No shit?” was my entirely demure and virginal answer. And then I agreed to the meeting and ended the call.
“What was that all about,” asked Jo Ann, confused as she finally wound around a stopped car that was holding up traffic while the driver was on the hunt for an open parking spot.
“Were going to need to rearrange the schedule when we get home,” I said by way of answer, still a little bit dumfounded by the surprise phone call and all its implications. “I have been summoned to an audience tomorrow, with the Oracle of Omaha.”
[***][***][***]
The Oracle has offices in a few rooms leased to him by another company near the Mutual of Omaha Insurance headquarters. It was the corporate equivalent of crashing on your buddies couch, and typified the man. He only needed a secretary and a couple of phone lines to manage one of the largest going concerns in human history, so why go in for all the gaudy trappings of your own skyscraper? He wasn’t the richest man in the world, any more, partially because he didn’t take the large risks of the current one. But mostly because for the last several years, he had gifted away his fortune annually in five billion dollar blocks. But make no mistake, he still had enough power and influences that most mere presidents of countries and companies were envious of.
He wasn’t infallible, The Oracle was famous for missing out on the vast fortunes of the tech boom in the nineties. But if he didn’t go to the party, he didn’t get the hangover either and was still chugging along, gaining wealth while dotcom billionaires were now turned busboys. He was an old man… and looked it: Hair was thinning and totally white, skin sagging and glasses thick enough that the Coca Cola Company, which he owned a big piece of, could have used them for bottles. But if the eyes needed some heavy equipment to see, there was still a bit of fire in them. And even if he looked old, he had enough energy for two younger men. He was up out of his desk chair in a flash when I was let into his office and he crossed the floor quickly to offer his hand.
“Jessica!” he welcomed me enthusiastically. “No pardon me, Bob said you want to go by Katherine now. I knew your grandmother Katherine who you were named for. I’m sure she would have been pleased how you turned out.”
“You mean a pregnant high school dropout?” I asked dismissively to a man worth more than some nations.
“Huh,” he grunted smiling. “Well I did hear about that. But also that you somehow managed to do so and still be admitted as a second semester sophomore to my old Alma Mater. And you’re married too? Is he worthy of you?” he asked as he walked to the comfortable chairs facing his desk and indicated I should sit down.
“No one else seems to think so, but I do.”
“Well, you’re the only one that matters in that sort of thing. Don’t let anyone else push you around the subject. I let society dictate to me for almost twenty years before I married my Astrid, and I don’t regret a day since. Can I get you anything to drink? I don’t have any hard stuff, but plenty of the rest.”
“I would like a Coke if you have one,” I said keeping a straight face.
“I’m sure I can find one somewhere around here,” he said smiling broadly, as he brought one forth from a little micro-fridge next to his desk. “You’re no doubt curious as to why I asked to see you?”
“The Governor mentioned something about the Scott Company, but as to specifics yes I’m curious. DeGeas says there is very little I can do about over there.”
“Well that’s true enough… for now,” he agreed as he opened a can of his own and poured the dark liquid into a tall glass on his desk. “Did you happen to look up when you entered this building?”
“I did,” I said remembering the midsized skyscraper had a yellow logo and the words “Scott” up in big lighted letters on the top corner.
“What did you think of it?”
“It’s looks like a very… functional building,” I hedged magnificently.
“It’s an ugly damn building is what it is, and I’ve seen ugly buildings all over the world. It’s worse than Israeli architecture, but at least they have the excuse of needing their business district to be a fortress as well. I scolded your grandfather at the time, but it was the sixties, and everyone thought the future was now and went all post modernist crazy. But it’s an efficient building, done before time and under budget. You’re people were always fine engineers, so I was happy enough to take a few rooms for my own needs. Your grandfather and I made that deal, and neither of us ever regretted it.”
“Is that why I’m here?” I asked taking a sip from my can. “Are you in trouble with your landlord’s?”
“Ha!” he barked out defiantly. “They would like it if I was gone certainly, and could charge a higher rate, but I have 19 years left on my lease so they can lump it. And if the situation ever got to uncomfortable for me, I could be packed and out of here in under an hour. Plenty of office space to be had for me in THIS town.”
“No doubt,” I agreed grinning.
“No I’m afraid we're bumping heads over something else entirely. I’m not sure how much, if anything you know about what has been going on in your company.”
“I know they have been issuing shares so that they can take away my majority, one that I can’t even use,” I said trying not to let the anger in my voice.
“Yeah, they tried that for a while.” He said while scratching his chin ponderously. “But it was taking too long. The last few years when a partner was feeling antsy, he would find a nice little bit of the company: maybe a mine, maybe a construction unit, and exchange all or most of his shares back to company for it. Seldom to the companies benefit. The other partners let this happen because they expected to do more or less the same thing when it was their own time. Trouble is, soon enough all the really profitable or valuable pieces of it got ate away. And the younger generation of partners that got left holding the bag are starting to get desperate.”
“Are they,” I asked not at all feeling sympathy for them.
“Yup, one of the last of the crown jewels is your fiber-optic cable. It was too big for any partner to exchange for, except maybe you, but no one asked. Back in the nineties when the internet was the ‘next big thing’, telecommunications companies were laying out all sorts of wire anticipating the capacity would soon be needed. They went to your daddy to build a lot of it for them. He did a good job, better than most, HIS cable certainly didn’t need to be re-dug or checked for breaks every five feet. But people overbuilt like crazy, the market just wasn’t there at the time. Many of the companies that paid to put all that cable underground couldn’t actually afford it. After a few years of court cases, by this time your father had passed away, the Scott Company held the pink slips for a good portion of this nation’s bandwidth. They didn’t want it, didn’t know what to do with it, and no telecommunications company wanted to buy it from them… at the price it was worth anyway. So they leased out the capacity and were content with what little revenue it brought in.”
He got up and walked to the corner of the office to bring closer an old fashioned wooden easel with a map of the United States on it.
“I generally stay out of technology stocks, I don’t understand all this internet gobbledygook. But I understand supply and demand just fine. Bandwidth demand has increased exponentially, but because of all those people that went out of business laying cable, not many people are eager to do it again. We have been living off our savings, so to speak, the last few years, with very little capacity being added. Many of those people that first built these networks were not as capable as your father. They are more expensive to maintain, have less capacity for mile laid, or are generally unreliable. And look here, computers on the East coast have to talk to computers on the West coast and much of it needs to travel on cable laid here in the Midwest that you own. Or rather that the partners control.”
“It sounds like they should be making a lot of money then?” I asked uncertain.
“You would think so wouldn’t you, but remember all those profitable pieces being nibbled away. The cable is one of the only things left, and they tried to use it to pay the way for everything else. So they upped the rates… a lot. Those customers that could find alternatives left, there is still bandwidth to be had for now. It’s already in the ground, so they can’t run the cable division into it, but they certainly did their best. Sorry, I know that’s a bad joke, but it had to be made. So… they don’t derive much cash from it now, but it still holds value. As more and more Americans become wired and wireless it will only increase in value.”
“And you want it?” I said confidently.
“Indeed I do, their rates are holding several of my concerns hostage,” he replied easily with a tilt of his head. “And they’ll sell it to me too… for more than the whole company is worth combined.”
“Ouch,” I grimaced at him.
“Hmm,” he agreed. “I don’t mind overpaying for an asset if I can get control of something now that I think will be worth much more later, but I do have my pride! I looked at the numbers, all those aging partners who are getting older by the second. I intend to counter with an offer for the whole shooting match. I’ll probably get an answer back when they have argued it all out in a year or three… so if I want to get any sort of fast response, I need to force the issue, which is where you come in.”
“How?”
“My lawyers, who are better lawyers than most, think that partnership agreement can be fought in court, specifically the provision about voting rights. The ‘new’ one is after all 75 years old. They talked with your lawyer DeGeas, and he agrees. The trouble is it would be an expensive court case, costing you in the many millions which I gather you do not have?”
“No,” I answered coldly.
“So what I propose is very simple. I agree to totally fund your lawsuit against the other partners in exchange for your agreement to sell me your shares when I make my offer. With your majority there is no need to put it to a vote, offer and sale can be done in a day. When they realize that my money is behind the case they will most likely give in. Trying to keep a Scott from getting inside the Scott Company is a losing proposition in front of an Omaha jury. I guess I’ll get my own skyscraper after all…”
“How much?” I asked trying to appear calm and uninterested.
“A hundred million dollars,” he said like it was nothing.
JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST!!!!
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 17
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I don’t like Wisconsin today, because they almost gave me a couple of heart attacks last night… I’m looking at you John.
This week we meet Jessica’s family
Next week we meet Tommy’s…
Cometh the Hour Cometh the Woman: Part 17
[***][***][***]
“That’s,” I said taking a sip from my soda to moisten my suddenly dry throat. “That’s an awful lot of money.”
“I’m glad you agree!” said the Oracle, amused at my discomfort. “Too many heiresses in my opinion get too jaded about money. Seems sometimes to be a sort of intellectual inflation, the more money they have the less value it has to them.”
“Is that what I am now, an heiress?”
“A hundred million would certainly seem to qualify,” he said with a warm smile.
“It just, it doesn’t seem real somehow,” I said still in a bit of a daze.
“It’s real enough, and as the governor pointed out to me earlier this week, it is merely your birthright. I don’t generally believe in inherited wealth, certainly my own children will only be merely comfortable. I always called such people members of “The Lucky Sperm Club”, but the Scotts by and large… were different. I don’t know how, maybe you just had better sperm?”
“And eggs,” I interjected sternly.
“And eggs,” he agreed kindly with a nod of his head as he looked me over, I felt uncomfortable under his inspection.
“How?” I asked softly at him.
“How what?” he asked taken aback.
“How are Scott’s different?” I questioned earnestly as I leaned forward in my chair. “Earlier you said trying to keep a Scott out of the Scott Company would be a losing proposition in front of an Omaha jury. Ever since I’ve come back from Exeter, I’ve heard little snippets about my Father and family and how great they were, but no one wants to tell specifics. HOW are they different?”
“I suppose,” he said appearing still a bit confused. “That it never occurred to people that you wouldn’t know. But then you were very young when he died. And he was the last of his generation. You had your uncle Ben, but he was you’re mothers brother and probably didn’t tell you many stories either?”
“No,” I said quite truthfully.
The Oracle stood up, brushing a few crumbs from his dress shirt as he did it. He then walked over to the windows of his corner office and opened the blinds to reveal a view of the downtown to the east. He stood looking out the window at nothing in particular for a good thirty seconds, but I didn’t begrudge him the time. We both needed to sort some things out in our heads, it appeared.
“Your father,” He eventually said while still looking out the glass. “Was the Prince of the City… the newspaper was pleased to call him so anyway, and few really disagreed. My friend, your grandfather, died young and left him a boy in his twenties, educated certainly, but untried. But he proved worthy of his ancestors, indeed foremost among them. In the 23 years he had control, the Scott Company grew tenfold. That was during a minor depression we had in late seventies.”
“The Scotts have been engineers in Nebraska since Thomas Durant first carved a railroad into the prairie. Your family built this city, other families have made like claims on other cities, but in your case, it is the literal truth. Most of the skyscrapers, half of the roads, ALL of the sewers. Done well, done early, and without even the usual graft. And generous! You should ask for a list sometimes of the charities, schools, museums and what not that have your name on it. Pardon me, your maiden name. I got to reach the top of the scrapheap on that Forbes list because I generally didn’t give away any of my loot while I was making it. But every time they had a good year, and they had a lot of good years… they would endow some noble cause always to the cities benefit.”
“When he died,” The Oracle said turning around slowly to face me. “This city wept… maybe not as much as you, but just as strong. There was a funeral march down 14th street, the Mayor ordered flags flown at half mast. Though he technically didn’t have that authority, no one questioned it. When that bridge gave way…”
He paused for a bit and left the window to walk to the far corner of his office, he got down on his knees and opened up a drawer next to the wall, pulling out a half empty bottle caked with dust. He blew on it, scattering particles all over the polished wood, then walked over to his desk and poured the amber liquid into a fresh glass usually reserved for his sodas. When he had finished a large gulp, he looked back at me from his chair and continued.
“I amassed the world’s greatest fortune by knowing the value of things. I am also accounted by some, a frugal man. I live in the same house I paid $30,000 for back in 1957. I drive my own car to work, not some paid driver, and I am proud of that. My lawyers tell me I shouldn’t, that sooner or later someone is going to win the lottery when I bump into their fender, but I’m a good driver and I begrudge the expense of a chauffeur. When I married my second wife, I bought the ring at jewelry store I own so that I could get the employee discount. So when I spend money on something, girl, I want you to understand that I know what it’s worth!” he said forcefully.
It was all I could do to gulp as quietly as possible and nod at him.
“There is just no way that it was his mistake, certainly he was there because there were problems, but he was the sort of leader who would help fix them himself. After that bridge collapsed, before even the dust had settled, already there were vultures picking over the carcass of your company. I smelled something funny, and I have a good nose for these things. I spent two million dollars trying to figure out what happened. PERSONALLY! Not my company, private investigators and structural engineers, retired government experts. Those were the same people, in many cases that they would use later to piece together what happened to the twin towers on 9/11.”
“What did you find?” I asked cautiously.
“Nothing,” he answered shaking his head and looking away from me. “It would appear I made a bad investment… The city bound up its wounds, they rebuilt that bridge… under a different contractor, and you’re stepmother--”
“Wicked stepmother,” I interrupted.
“As you say,” he said gestured at me with his free hand. “Wicked stepmother sent you off to Switzerland and started working hard at spending his money.”
“She was very good at it.”
“So I gathered…” he said dejectedly. “And now… now there are no Princes left, and soon enough no Oracles either… but before that day comes, you’ll have your money to do with as you please. Maybe make something of yourself, like your father and his before you, though that may be an impossible standard to meet…. DeGeas has all the specifics of my proposal; you should speak to him, and then decide on the deal. I hope to hear back from you by next week.”
I realized it was a dismissal, despite how sudden it was. I stood up out of my chair, smoothing out my skirt and made to leave. He didn’t move to get up, or offer me his hand on the way out. The energy seemed to have drained out of him, and for the first time, he looked every bit of his almost eighty years. I was almost to the door when I turned around to face him. He saw the movement and looked up from his drink to stare at me.
“What kind of car?” I asked him suddenly curious.
“Sorry?” he asked confused.
“What kind of car are you proud to drive yourself?”
He looked at me for a moment, and I was pleased when he smiled and nodded his head. “It’s a Cadillac, don’t trust them foreign rice machines…”
[***][***][***]
“Have you ever actually LOOKED at this list,” I asked DeGeas later that day in his office. “The Scott Research Center, The Scott Performing Arts Center, The Scott Medical Center, The Scott School of Engineering, The Scott Foundation, The Scott Natural History Museum, Peter K. Scott Jr. Sr. High School…who was he by the way?”
“Great Grandfather,” DeGeas said searching his memory. “Or great great, hard to keep track every other boy it seemed was named Peter or Martin so it gets a bit fuzzy.”
“The Scott Library,” I continued reading the sheet in front of me. “The Scott Conference Center, The Scott Arena, the Scott… The Scott Memorial Bridge… why not just rename this town Scottland and be done with it?!”
“Some nonsense about a prior claim on the trademark, they might have tried it in the nineties, but your father also wouldn’t pay for the change in stationary,” said DeGeas with a pleased grin on his face.
“I’m glad that you find this all amusing, Lawyer DeGeas, but I won’t have it!”
“Won’t have what?” he asked warily.
“This!” I stated boldly waiving the sheet of paper in front of him before slamming it down on the desk. “I won’t have it, it’s too much. I’m not… I’m just not… I CAN’T!!”
I broke down a bit there. Later I blamed it on my pregnancy hormones of course. And it would please me greatly if you went along with that. It helps me to think that it was not my will or my courage that was spent, but rather some bodily function outside of my control. However it happened though, it happened for a good five minutes in that office at the top of Woodman Tower.
DeGeas hugged it out of me, it was new experience for him I could tell from the stiff manner that he started. It was a new experience for me too, being wrapped in all that flesh. I suppose my own father must have done so at some point, but if he did, it was so far in the past that I have forgotten the specifics. There wasn’t anything sexual about it at all, it was just so comforting to be held by a much larger man who I knew cared for me.
“When I came back to this shithole of a town,” I said looking into his eyes while my lawyer held me. “I set off the alarm in my own home. I didn’t know the code for it. The police were sent and after finally believing me when I said I lived there, they left. But before they did, one of them turned to me and said ‘It’s good to have a Scott back in Omaha, we’ve missed you’. Well I don’t WANT to be missed. I’m not good enough to be placed on some pedestal and worshiped because of who my father was!”
.‘And wasn’t!’ I thought angrily
“Do you remember his name?” DeGeas asked softly.
“Huh,” I said squinting at him.
“The policeman, do you remember his name?”
“No, I don’t think he ever said, and I never looked.”
“Probably not the same one anyway,” said DeGeas shaking his head. “He’d be retired by now, or promoted too high up to be on street patrol.”
“Who?”
“A Sergeant… Jones was his last name I remembered his first name at one point, but memory fades with age. When that bridge gave way and dumped your father into the Missouri, Jones dived in after him when he saw him floating downstream. He could see that your father wasn’t moving by himself. but he went in anyway. He swam after him, caught up, kept both their heads above water, and eventually after drifting two or three miles downriver, was able to win his way to the shore. Of course, it wasn’t in time. Autopsy said your father had hit his head and taken on too much water. By the time Jones was able to give him first aid, it was already too late. I’d heard afterwards that he had to take medical leave… a psychological one. I was just curious if it was the same man, and if he still blamed himself… but probably not. You’re father was beloved, and any officer who was an adult when he lived would likely have said what he said to you.”
I couldn’t help myself, my tears came back even stronger after that story.
“You could maybe use some good news now,” said DeGeas softly. “Though I’m not sure how I feel about it. That lawsuit I threatened Exeter with has borne fruit. They will let you do another project remotely and recover the points lost in your biology class, as well as grant you the degree you are due. With that piece of paper in hand, you can apply for colleges back east and be near your husband by spring semester.”
Well didn’t THAT just complicate things. Now I was faced with yet another choice! Omaha wasn’t exactly my dream city, but it was starting to become a comfortable home for me. I had set down roots and made friends. The academic plan at U.N.O. would see me finish much more quickly. And now it looked like I would be able to go to Georgetown after all?
Eventually, I was cried out, and my lawyer felt it was safe enough to release me. I was left with his monogrammed handkerchief, and a bottle of water to replenish lost moisture while he returned to his desk and dug out a series of files from the side drawer.
“If you’re feeling up to it?” he asked me softly. “We can go over the offer.”
I nodded at him wiped away at my eyes again.
“First off, you should tell him to go to hell. He’s an icon of capitalism, but that just means he’s a cheapskate. I would ask for 300 million, he’ll counter with 125...150 and eventually you will settle on the 200 it’s actually worth. If you ask for some of that in class A shares, it will make it easier for him to swallow. The tax implications of course---”
“You are presupposing DeGeas that I mean to sell,” I interrupted him.
“I… guess I was,” he answered totally flabbergasted. “But why wouldn’t you? Katherine, this is a dream come true for you. You’ll never have to work again. You or your baby, why wouldn’t you sell?”
‘Because it’s not mine to sell.‘
“I… just need some time to think. Please forward to my house the terms offered as well as every bit of intelligence you have been able to acquire on the Scott Company. It’s time I grew up and stopped letting other people tell me what is best and isn’t, and made my own informed decisions. I will look into things and… ask the advice of my husband. I will give you my answer in due course.”
“Certainly I will not advise against a full review. If you want to look things over, that is your right and perhaps even your duty. But Katie…. It’s a small mountain of paper. And at the end of it, besides dickering for price, I don’t see any other option for you. With this deal, your every need will be met, you could lead the life of a pampered princess forever.”
“I never asked to be a PRINCESS!!!!!” I shouted back at him. “All I ever wanted was to be a Marine.”
[***][***][***]
Ms. Hernandez took me to the partner’s washroom and helped me repair my makeup. I resolved then that if DeGeas wasn’t nicer to his assistant, his nose might start troubling him again. Eventually, I was fit to be seen and walked to the elevators that took me to the lobby. I called my driver of the day, Laura, feeling guilty while I did it. But reconciled it with my sore feet and the fact that all my girls needed the money. We came back home, and Caroline had made some pasta with meat sauce for dinner. JoAnn had quipped that she was expecting “Chinese food,” and narrowly ducked getting hit over the head with a ladle.
I was starting to like these girls.
I took more than my fair share, they were all smart enough not to comment on it. I escaped to my office with still edgy nerves and a face to face with my husband. He was now in the academy proper, firmly ensconced in Bancroft hall, the largest dormitory in the world. It housed the entire 4000 member brigade of midshipmen in one building, and was I always thought, supreme conditioning for the cramped quarters aboard ship. He had three other roommates, but with the promise of favors to be named later, was able to get them out of the room while he conducted his Skype call. The first time we connected with one another. It was awkward as all hell, looking at the computer screen at what used to be ourselves. After a few days now, it was merely weird.
Which was not of course helped by my selection of opening statements.
“I got offered a hundred million dollars today,” I said to his smiling, then suddenly not smiling face.
“Is this one of those indecent proposal situations? Am I going to have to punch out Robert Redford? I could never see what other girls saw in him, anyway, but then he was ancient by the time I started watching his movies.”
“The Oracle of Omaha wants to buy the Scott Company,” I said in a solemn tone. “DeGeas thinks we can get more… I… I thought I should ask you what you want to do. It was YOUR fathers company after all.”
“Not anymore, I think it’s safe to say that I gave up that claim along with my body.”
“Jess! Why did you never tell me about your father, about your whole freaking family! It’s like the people in this town expect me to be a scion of a noble fairytale dynasty! That I am here to save them at last from the degradations of the evil and cruel world!”
“I thought my name is Thomas now,” he asked peacefully.
“Is that why you did this?” I said waving down at my body for the camera. “So that you could escape this… this DESTINY?”
“No,” he said harshly. “Well… NO! I was sort of thinking about other things at the time Katie! But I will say that… whenever I think about the swap, in the back of my mind I’m sort of grateful to be out from under all that local history. It’s a bit stifling isn’t it?”
“More than somewhat,” I agreed folding my head in my arms on the desk and letting my hair hide me from view. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but, I want my Daddy.”
“Your…” he said confused. “You mean the General?”
“Yes!” I said looking up at the screen. “All of them, I miss my family Je… Thomas. I’ve gotten over losing my body, but I can’t and WON’T get over losing them too.”
“Then we tell them,” he said firmly. “About the baby and the marriage at least.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t imagine it’s going to be fun, but I’ll do it,” he said nodding his head stiffly. “Though I don’t know how.”
“We’ll do it together, and all at once, strength in numbers and all that. We’ll invite them all to Omaha for Thanksgiving. It’s the first leave where you will be able to get away, anyhow. And this is something that needs to be done, face to face.”
“That’s still three months out.”
“I know, and I’ll be about ready to pop, but that can work to our advantage. My father gets a bit old fashioned about pregnant woman. He’s less likely to cut your head off in front of me, if it would send me into early labor. And it gives the family enough time to gather from all over. I should have at least 4 bedrooms free, most of my roommates have families local. The rest we can put up in area hotels. When you invite them all say, that I’ll pay for it, it appears I can afford it now.”
“Just like that, invite them to Thanksgiving with my ‘girlfriend,’” he said with air quotes.
“Speak to Mother first, mention my desire to meet all of ‘your family’ play up the fact that we are getting serious and thinking about getting married.”
“THINKING!” he barked back at me amused.
“Well we are thinking about it aren’t we? I think about how our state of wedded fucking bliss happened all the time...” I paused to sigh and tried to calm myself. “Mother is old Virginia landed aristocracy. When she calls me, I’ll be all refined and gentile, pretend to be refined and gentile anyway. I’ll play up my poor waifish orphan angle, how I have all this room and how Omaha is conveniently located as a rendezvous point for all of ‘my beloved Tommy’s relatives.”
“Careful,” he said smiling. “You’ll give yourself diabetes.”
“I can sell it, is the point I’m trying to make. When they start arriving, we won’t be able to hide the whole pregnant thing, of course. But we’ll tell them the married part of it after dinner when they are safely digesting, and before serious alcohol has been imbibed.”
“Just like that?” he asked annoyed.
“No, not just like that! But we've got three months to figure out all the angles, and we have put this off long enough. We send out the invitations, it will force the issue and we won’t be able to run away from it. Much as both of us might wish… I’m just not a Scott. It’s time I started working on becoming a Ryan again.”
“I think you would have made a great Scott,” my husband said softly with a half smile. “Much better than I ever would have.”
“Jess, you’re not being fair,” I said trying to comfort him.
“No,” he said shaking his head. “I am being fair, I was never that strong. I can’t imagine Martin Scott or any of my honored ancestors doing what I did to you.”
“I thought we were past that?”
“And yet,” he said looking away from the camera. “We keeping coming back to it.”
“We’ll become reconciled to it someday, baby,” I said trying to present a comforting face to him. “If you… if you think you can go through it, I’d like to hear about him. Father Scott, and how he died. I’ve gotten by with ‘oh, but you were very young of course,’ but that is going to work for only so long. You never really talked about your childhood in Omaha. I think it would be good for both of us if you did.”
“All right,” he said pausing for a minute to rub his chin and then becoming annoyed. “You and your damn testosterone! You realize they make me shave twice a day, here. One of my roommates gets by with once every TWO days.”
“Thomas!” I warned him.
“Fine, OK then,” He said giving in. “My first memory as a little girl was being short.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the first thing I remember, OK? I understood it years later when I tried thinking about it. I remembered being short because for the first part of my life, I never went anywhere without my father carrying me. I would be in his arms, over his shoulders, in a little harness he had for his front. Carried everywhere and everywhere he went, even on worksites. There are pictures; they should be in the house somewhere, of me in front of rivers and mines, all over the world. So when I finally started walking on my own, I couldn’t understand why everything was now so low to the ground. I didn’t have a mother until I was six. She hardly ever qualified, anyway. So he was both parents at once, and he was great at it. I loved him… I’m sorry, but I loved him more than I ever loved you. I’m not saying that to hurt you, please believe that! But I wanted to tell you the truth.”
“Maybe if he hadn’t died when and how he did, I would have grown up to hate him or at least been able to let a little girls love for her daddy mature into what I should be. But he did die, and I never got over it. Could be that’s why I was… why I was so angry and scared with the idea of you going off the academy without me, it was like it was happening all over again… I was in 2nd grade when it happened. I knew something was wrong when the principle came into Mrs. Burgoyne’s room to speak to her. They both looked at me, and I thought I was in trouble! I hadn’t done anything, of course, but they were sort of good at making you feel like you had done SOMETHING wrong. Later that day, they sent the rest of the kids to lunch, I thought I was in for it. I thought I was REALLY in for it when the Archbishop came into the classroom.”
“There he was… tall, white haired, with the face of a vengeful god, and said face trying to put on a comfortable smile, and failing. The Mayor and the Police Chief were with him, but I didn’t know who they were at the time. The Archbishop though, HE I remembered being scared of at my first communion service. They let him take the lead, I guess the mere civil servants figured a priest should know how better to break the news to me, but I’m sure they could have done a better job. He didn’t have any kids of his own, of course, had never spent any time around them. He never worked in a school or anything like that, and it showed. It was shambling, ham handed and dragged on, I couldn’t understand what he was saying for the LONGEST time. Then he closed with, and I remember it exactly, ‘your Daddy is building a bridge to heaven now, and when it’s done we’ll all meet him on the other side’.”
I could see the utter sorrow on his face as he remembered the death of his, now my Father, and I began to feel it as well as my new body reacted in sympathy to the news. It was a bonding that let me mourn a Father that I never had as my own.
“I was in 2nd grade, but I wasn’t a baby, I knew what a euphemism was, even if I couldn’t precisely define it. I knew he was dead, and the last memory I had of him was some mumbling bumbling Vatican stooge telling me how he had gone on to better place. I knew my Daddy, if he was going to a better place, he would have taken me with him! So I kicked him in shins, I wasn’t tall enough to get much higher. The Mayor and the Cop didn’t do a thing while I kept working on him. It was Sister Joan who finally got me off him, though I think she took her time too. They didn’t do anything to me of course, I guess I could have gotten away with just about anything that day. Mrs. Burgoyne drove me home that afternoon and stayed with me the next two days. W.S.M. was out of the country at the time, and only arrived just in time for the funeral.”
“She tried being a mother for a bit, she just wasn’t very good at it, and I wasn’t in the mood at the time to make it any easier. So I was sent off to Saint Trinian's in Switzerland before the year was out… you can’t sell Tommy!”
“What,” I said surprised by the sudden change in conversation. “Why?”
“It’s the last piece of him that is still alive. The buildings will all fall apart eventually or get renamed when someone else donates money. All that he has left is that company and his daughter, who never amounted to much.”
“Jess that’s not true.”
“Call me Thomas!” he shouted at me. “Please,” he continued more softly. “I can’t be Jessica anymore. If you sell it now, they’ll strip it to pieces and sell it for parts. Even if someone else is in charge, as long as the company is still a going concern, a part of Daddy is still alive…. Please, we can get by fine on what’s left. I don’t mind getting by on just my officer’s pay if it comes down to that. Plenty of people get by on less.”
“Thomas think abou--”
“Hey RYAN!” came a loud voice over the computer speakers followed by some pounding. “Are you through sexing up your girl in there? Some of us have to study.”
“Just a minute,” he shouted back.
“No, now!” said the intruder as I heard the sound of a door opening and a positively HUGE black midshipmen come into view who I very much hoped had been put on the football team.
What… don’t look at me like that. BEAT ARMY!!!!
“Well, hellooooooooo nurse,” the linebacker said when he got a look at the screen, I quickly made sure that he only had a headshot of me and not a look at my midsection. “Mr. Ryan you have been holding back on me.”
“Stop drooling over my girl, Reeves,” demanded Thomas. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
“Well, you can finish it while I’m in here, some of us aren’t lucky enough to keep a girl who will tolerate four years of monastery life.”
“I should go anyway,” I said moving to disconnect the call.
“Not yet Katherine,” said my husband who was much more careful with names now that we had an audience. “I left you a set of keys before I went to the academy. Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” I said though they had been inside of what used to HER purse at the time.
“My Mom and Dad are waiting for you to visit. When you get to the OLD FAMILY HOME, there is a subbasement, it’s not hidden, just not very advertised. The second key on that chain opens it up. The entranceway is on the far west of the basement. That’s where all the family photo albums are, I think what you are looking for is there…when you go to visit… If you find any embarrassing baby pictures of me, please destroy them in the best interests of the service.”
“Hell no,” said Reeves interrupting. “Mail em to me girl, we can split the blackmail money.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” I said laughing, despite myself.
“Goodbye Katie,” said Thomas while trying to force him roommate out of the camera’s view. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
[***][***][***]
The door to the subbasement had a tricky lock, but I was able to force my way through. I had wondered about this door my few times in the basement, but thought it was just a linen closet, and I never had the time to find out what was past the lock. The light bulb was burnt out, but the Engineer Scott’s it would appear, liked to be prepared. There was a mechanically powered flashlight at the top of the stairs which gave off enough light for me not to kill myself or cause a miscarriage on the way down. There were rows and rows of shelves, unlike the library upstairs, these were in no way beautiful, merely functional. In addition, instead of being filled with books by the yard, there was a staggered madman like cataloging involved. There were little artifacts with handwritten cards attached to them as well as stacks and stacks of leather-bound journals.
I spent the whole weekend down there. Well… after the girls and I had replaced the lighting, and given the whole place the first proper seeing to that it had probably seen in a few generations. During that Saturday and Sunday, I got to know my new family, and if I didn’t come to love them like I did my original one. I had come to respect them. There were these little jars of dirt, souvenirs of past glories and personal accomplishments. There was “Boulder Dam, Frank Scott, 1933.” Boulder Dam I knew was the name Roosevelt had originally insisted the Hoover Dam be called, because he didn’t want to honor his disgraced predecessor. Then I found a bit of steel labeled “South Tower: The Golden Gate, Peter. M. Scott 1937." Hopefully it wasn’t an important piece! The oldest item I found was a tin dipper with little flakes of gold speckled about inside the dirt. It had a card that said simply “Snatched from the Witch’s Snatch. Hieronymus Scott, California 1849.” THAT was a story I would have paid good money to hear told.
Something that also struck my fancy was unopened fifty pound bag of government concrete in the corner with “Leslie Groves is a horse’s ass. Major Roger Scott U.S.A.C.E. 1942, Arlington Virginia”, written on it in a grease pen. These people had helped build the freaking PENTAGON! There were international jars too, from China and South America and even some places that didn’t even exist anymore. Like Ceylon and Siam.
And finally, in pride of place on the west wall there was a map of the United States with little pins in it, and EIGHTEEN separate jars of earth stacked on a table below. The map was headed “General Eisenhower Interstate System 1956.” and handwritten in the margin with an almost illegible scrawl was “FINISHED the fucker, Nebraska was the first! William Scott and son Martin I-80, October 17th, 1974.”
The contrast struck me as significant. My father was a Marine, and his father before him. They defended this country, and I was proud of that. And STILL AM! But when it came right down to it, my original family was in the hurting people and breaking things business. While they had been spending their lives, fortunes and sacred honor defending the republic, the Scott's had been quietly building and making it something WORTH defending.
I never found my new father’s journals. Perhaps they were still upstairs in the office and never made it down to the archives. Or maybe Wicked Stepmother had them destroyed? I did, however, find the newest ones present, including the last journal of my new grandfather which ended up being a last will and testament of sorts.
By the time you read this boy I’ll be dead, the big casino. The doctor’s tell me I’ll be in the ground by the time you get back from Persia. I haven’t told you sooner because there is nothing that you can do and I wanted your first independent project to be a success. And by the way I don’t want you going back there, if that drunk Emperor doesn’t get himself deposed the commies will invade more than they have already. When that happens American companies will be left holding the bag and I don’t see this Ford schmuck (how Liner Henry would HATE to share his name with him!) pulling our chestnuts out of the fire. I don’t see ANY American president sending out troops far foreign absent an actual invasion threat again, not after Vietnam.
Concentrate on American operations for the next few years, there is still plenty of pie to be had at home. Ewing down in Texas (he’s a prick I know, but can be worked with) has wildcatters all over his territory and he needs a steady man to sink oil wells. It’s not noble work, but it will pay the way while you get your feet under you. I’ve signed tentative contracts already, and I’m fairly sure he’ll honor them. He can at least be counted on to see to his own best interests.
I’m not going to tell you to trust no one, like my father did me. A man has to be able to trust someone. Me, I trusted your mother Katherine, and I think you need to marry and trust that girl you have on a string as soon as possible. Who knows, I may move in myself if you dawdle, and graft on another son and heir to cheat you out of some of your inheritance. The genealogists tell me one of her ancestors is Isambard Brunel. You can’t get any better than that! Trust your brother too. He doesn’t have the fire, but he has a good heart. Trust DeGeas, his father helped mine through the depression, and our family his through the First World War. Our families owe each other too much to turn our backs on each other now.
When I’m gone, the other partners will try to take the company away from you, they are not evil men it’s just their nature. They’ll be sly at first, say how young you are, how much better it would be for the company for you to gain some more experience before taking the top slot. And how one of them should be president for a while, first. Well tell em to go to hell!! Though Frank Winsor has already bought a summer cottage there, so for him, it’s superfluous. And that wife of his has to be some sort of lesser demon… but I ramble. I find I’ve been doing that a lot these last few days.
After my death, I leave into your keeping a great company, seldom the biggest, never the richest, but always the best. I had it from my father who had it from his, and one day you will hand it over to your son. And may god have mercy on you boy if it is not intact when you do so. This is the SCOTT Company, it doesn’t just hold our name, but our blood, our sweat and generations of our tears… wrote pretty for an Englishman, I hope he won’t mind I crimped his lines. I expect I’ll be meeting him soon, he had a reputation of knowing where the best booze was.
Burn it to the ground boy, before you let it be taken from you… this is the will of your father.
[***][***][***]
“I hope you will excuse me Mrs. Ryan,” said the Oracle as he welcomed me back in his office. “My display of emotion last week. I don’t usually get in a blue funk like that unless the Cornhuskers had totally botched a game.”
“That’s quite all right, sir. It’s been an emotional week for all of us,” I said to him kindly refusing his gesture for a chair. “I won’t be staying long, I’ve come to say I am refusing your offer. I thought you deserved the curtsey of a personal reply.”
“Are you,” he seemed totally surprised and then mildly annoyed. “May I ask why?”
“Well… partially because Mr. DeGeas said that I should counter with 300 and then settle for the 200 you would eventually pay.”
“The DeGeas… is very well informed," he grumbled at me. "Very well then 200 Million.”
“No,” I stated firmly.
“What do you mean no,” He said angrily. “You just said you would agree to 200?”
“I said DEGEAS, agreed 200 was fair. I won’t sell at that price.”
“What price then?”
“No price.”
“There had to be something Katherine, everyone has their price.”
“Some things cannot be had with money,” I said calmly, feeling at the moment like I was dealing with a spoiled child and not a multibillionaire.
“Well, what do you intend to do, then!”
“I have chosen to stay and fight,” I said coldly, my eyes narrowed at him. “I mean to take back my father’s kingdom.”
[***][***][***]
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 18
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Guess who's coming to dinner?
PART 18
“Oh yeah,” said Karen after I had related the contents of my meeting to her. “How do you figure on doing that?”
“Hell if I know?” I admitted sheepishly. “It just sounded like something cool to say.”
“I can’t believe you turned down that much money,” she continued, amused at my situation.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Well those boxes arrived from the law firm. I had the mover’s drop everything that would fit in your office and the rest of it is in the dining room. Which is not I guarantee not what your noble ancestors intended when they build the place.”
“Don’t be so sure.” I said, thinking about the last command of William Scott. A man who advised his son to burn buildings to the ground wasn’t going to get put out of joint by a couple of bankers' boxes of paper even if several of them were stacked so high that the chandelier was in danger of being hit when they inevitably tumbled to the ground.
So that was my life for the next few weeks. School in the morning, exercise and prenatal maintenance in the afternoon and my evenings as a hot coed were spent at home going over the books of a major company. The only way I was able to cope, particularly with my heavy schedule, was that I had such a large and caring support staff in my girls. Our little micro sorority had become so close knit in so short a time that Laura had only half jokingly begun looking through the Greek alphabet and trying to find out what it would take to get our own charter. I put my foot down as politely as I could but I think they only began to see reason when I pointed out they would inevitably have to share rooms with other girls if the sorority got off the ground. But they all chipped in, taking over all the fiddly bits of the household for me so that the only thing I had to worry about was showing up for dinner.
The Scott Company was in trouble. Those tax returns showing a net loss were not all fabrications for my benefit. America had sort of gotten out of the infrastructure business right around the same time as it had become unfashionable to be an American engineering company in those countries that were still building major dams, bridges and highway systems. Compounding my troubles, labor costs had skyrocketed as well as benefits costs like health care. And, just as a cherry on top of the dessert of my destruction, the bottom had dropped out of the minerals market as well when the economic downturn had drastically reduced the demand for raw materials
The company still owned assets, and many of them. The value was not significantly decreasing and could even be expected to gain over time. But it wasn’t drawing much income: the company seemed to be my own situation writ large. Wealthy in assets but not in cash. And those assets could be sold but only by selling them for much less than they were worth. Only the fiber optic cable business seemed to be on the auction block for a good price and they were insisting on so gargantuan a premium on it that it was unlikely anyone would take it off their hands. All that was merely academic, of course, since there was nothing I could do to force them to take my advice even if I knew what to tell them. But it did point out that, if something wasn’t done soon, there wouldn’t be a kingdom left to rescue.
So that’s all by way of prelude to explain why I was in no mood to put up with being blocked out of my own garage by one of my renters cars again one Friday night. I had taken the evening off as a sort of well needed treat. I drove Melanie myself instead of being chauffeured ,went to a movie and binged on theater popcorn and Cold Stone ice cream and otherwise did my best to prevent Dr Lyons from calling my pregnancy underweight! My blood pressure though, was starting get out of hand by the car lot my driveway had become
Way back when this house had first been built, three car garages were probably seen as unnecessarily decadent for a one family home. But now there were six of us girls and each of us, even the disowned Caroline, had her own car and things were starting to get out of hand. The girls tried parking in the street to prevent stalls from being blocked in but my tight ass neighbors went on a jihad and if a girl didn’t move the car after 24 hours they proceeded to have it towed by the city. I may not be able to solve the economic problems of the world's premier nation and the slightly less complicated issues of a multimillion dollar company, but a bigger garage? That I could build.
I found a contractor that would start right away and for an extra $500 I even found one with a cousin in city planning that could expedite the permits. I needed them for the literally heavy lifting in my current gravid state but, once the cement was poured and the foundation laid, I told them to take a hike and started doing a little home improvement as therapy. There was something viscerally pleasing about using a hammer on a reluctant and unwary nail. I hoped I wasn’t using it as a phallic substitute, but quickly shook my head and discounted it. What I couldn’t seem to shake off was my overprotecting roommates.
“Ah… Katie?” asked Karen who must have been elected to approach me since she had known me the longest. “What are you doing?”
“Framing,” I enunciated well as I could as I pulled another nail from my mouth and started hammering on the two by four beam.
“I mean, what are you building? When those men came here with the cement we all thought you were just making the driveway bigger so we could park off the street.”
“Winter is coming,” I said as ominously as I could manage. “The Starks are always right, eventually. When the snows fly I’m not going to be stepping onto an icy driveway, heavy with child or carrying a newborn. And not for nothing, but your cars are probably the most valuable things you own and they should be protected. So I am building an extension to the garage. If I can match the bricks right I may even be able to make it look like original construction… hand me that level would you?”
“The what?” she asked me, confused.
“That metallic bar next to the bucket with the little air bubbles in the middle. I need to make sure this is straight.”
“You’re building a garage?” she asked dumfounded.
“Ayup,” I acknowledged not seeing the big deal about it.
“You can’t.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” said Karen, crossing her arms under her breasts irately. “If it somehow passed your notice, you’re pregnant!”
“So?”
“Katie!”
“Look Karen, I appreciate your concern but pregnant woman were doing heavy manual labor for the first twenty odd thousand years of human history. It’s only the last few generations that people have started to worry about it.
“Think of the baby!”
“I am, and the fifty feet of icy driveway to my front door if I don’t do otherwise and besides I promised you a garage stall when we made that first contract. I left it out of the other girls' but you have one. And most of the time you have to park outside now.”
“I don’t mind,” she said waving her hands extravagantly.
“But I do Miss Steiner,” I said giving her a hard stare. “And I have an unreasonable objection to being forsworn. My doctor says I need to keep exercising anyway. And last and not least… it’s fun.”
“Really?” she asked, slightly cowed, and then inspiration struck her. “Then you should let me take a try at it!”
“Are you sure?” I asked her somberly. “Have you ever used a hammer before?”
“I helped daddy build our tree house. Or as much as he would let me anyway. Just show me what to do.”
So it wasn’t long at all before I was reposed on a deck chair that Karen had drug from by the now empty pool and “supervising” construction. Rachel showed up to see what had happened to Karen’s rescue mission and was drafted into duty holding beams in place. Eventually Joanne and Laura came home as well and parked well before the garage and all the debris we had stacked in front of it. To get into the open slot they had to use the two wheeler a bit and they finished just in time for my shipment of bricks to arrive from the Builder’s Supply Company. And since they had proven themselves crackerjack pack mules they were tasked with the unloading.
Before long, there was so much hither and yon noise and racket that one of my stalwart neighbors came over to tell us to settle down and being the only male in eyesight was guilted into lifting up one of the heavy beams for Karen by feminine wiles from five directions. He gave me a dejected look, like I was supposed to rescue him but I had some lemonade in my hand at the time and had just got in a comfortable position where my back wasn’t hurting me. Caroline was the only one to escape, and that had less to do with her offered excuse of making dinner than her obvious knowledge of what I was trying to pull over on these city kids.
Oh gee Aunt Polly! I sure did want to white wash that thar fence!
***
September came and went and I was now shopping exclusively in the maternity section. I had got by for as long as I could on what I had inherited from Jessica but at a certain point I reached the inherent design limitations of modern fabrics and had to give in to the inevitable. The girls used it as an excuse to go on a shopping expedition and I gave in thinking at least I could use them as native guides. I was eventually grateful because we came across an absolutely FABULOUS find. It was a pink pregnancy t-shirt that emphasized upstairs more than I liked but more than made up for it by what was written on the bottom. “This baby bump brought to you courtesy of a US Marine.” It wasn’t technically accurate since Thomas was in the Navy until he graduated and could accept a commission in the service of his choice. But for some reason they didn’t manufacture t-shirts proudly stating courtesy of a midshipman. The pink was still a bit hard for me to adjust to but the message fit my sense of humor perfectly and it quickly became my favorite garment.
So there I was… just short of seven months pregnant 11:39 AM, Sunday October 1st the year of our sometimes lord twenty hundred and eight. I answered the doorbell because I just happened to be the closest to the entryway at that time. I opened it to reveal a government car in the driveway with a red flag sticking out the window with three stars on it, and a man in uniform looking at me with a facial expression that…. Well… let’s just say I could count his fillings. Man needed to learn to take better care of his teeth. Must be all that time in the desert.
It wasn’t Lieutenant General James Ryan Jr. U.S.M.C.’s finest hour.
“Jes… Jessica.” he eventually gasped out.
“Yes General,” I said frozen in place since there didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. He had met this body last Christmas although it had been substantially thinner then. “Though I go by my middle name Katherine now, or Katie.”
“And Tom he’s…” he said indicating my belly with his shaking fingers.
“Yes,” I said very softly but he seemed to be able to hear because he jolted at the news.
“Right!” He said pulling down on his uniform jacket to smooth it out and brought himself to attention. “Well… Have a nice day.” He said nodding to me and about facing to march toward the sedan in the driveway.
“What?” I said totally surprised at his reaction. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“Maryland,” he said without stopping as I began to chase after him. “I only have three days in country to kill my son.”
“Dad wait you can’t,” I said before realizing what I had spoken.
THAT stopped him in his tracks
“DAD am I?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
THINK McFly think!
Ah I hell… I’m tired of lying. About some things anyway.
“Thomas and I, when we realized I was pregnant, we married. My own father has been dead a decade and I’ve just been thinking of you as Dad since May.”
“Married!” he gasped out as his legs gave out on him and he eased himself into the autumn leaves of my lawn. “Since May!?” he asked me still showing off his dentition.
The waiting car at this point let loose two men in Air force utilities one of whom was reaching for his sidearm. When the General saw the look on my face, he turned to see what was going on.
“It’s fine airmen. I just had a bit of shocking news,” he said to them with a wave of his hand.
“Sir, are you sure,” the nearer one said still advancing. “What did the girl do to---”
“Get back in the car you zoomie bastard!” my father shouted out in a command voice perfected in three wars and four decades of service. “If I ever need your help you will be able to tell by the bullet holes in my head!”
“Sir, yes sir!” he said as they both scrambled for the protection offered by the vehicle.
I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing, then I sat down next to him in the grass to prevent myself from falling down like he had. My giggle fit was helped in no way by his still confused look trying to be converted into a military scowl.
“What may I ask is so funny Jesi… Katherine?”
“It’s the U.S. chair force General,” I said still smiling but finally able to speak. “They don’t have the brain power to see past the obvious…. They got a good look at my favorite shirt and they probably figure YOU’RE the father,” and then I started giggling again when his deeply tanned face started going red.
“I’m not sure the Marine Corps would assume any better but you’re probably right. I’ll have to see if I can reason with them on the way back.”
“What are they, and YOU, even doing here General?”
“There was a seminar at STRATCOM this weekend, General Wainwright lent me his car and drivers when I said I had someone to visit in Omaha,” he said looking at me and still breathing a bit heavily. He was in good shape for sixty but he looked to be only one more shock away from a heart attack. “My lady wife accepted an invitation from you for Thanksgiving dinner in this town. Said you and Tom were ‘getting serious’… SERIOUS!… anyway, I thought I would drop in before flying to Washington and take my son’s girl out to lunch sort of get to know her better. I called the house this morning and one of the girls said you would be at home all day.”
“She probably left me a message or something but I just woke up, I’ve been catching as much extra sleep as I can, I’ve just been feeling so tired lately… the baby.”
“Maggie was the same way,” he said giving me a half smile. “My wi… your mother in law. Damn my son! doesn’t he know they can cashier him for this?”
“I thought it was,” I began saying and then realized who I was in his eyes. “That is to say, your son is as you made him, and he wanted to do the right thing.”
“And he could have done it without forswearing himself! He swore an OATH!”
“So he did,” I replied defiantly. “To his wife.”
“So he did,” my father agreed while he closed his eyes and tried to gather his scattered wits. “But that’s for later, I’ve been through five pregnancies… well, three and a half if you count time served. But I still know at this stage in the game you are almost constantly hungry?”
“I could eat,” I admitted glad we had moved on to a safer subject.
“Well then, daughter,” he said getting to his feet and offering me his hand. “Let’s at least solve THAT problem, it’s your town. I’ll treat if you pick.”
“Sounds like a deal,” I said as I was hoisted to my feet like a salvaged shipwreck. “Let me just change my clothes.”
“Good idea.”
***
My father was somewhat surprised when every last one of my roommates invited themselves along to lunch but in true Marine Corps fashion he looked on the bright side of a bad situation and decided to bask as the alpha male surrounded by pretty females. Even if one of us was fat , bloated and nervous as all hell. The Airmen were exiled to a corner of the restaurant but the general stood them both a cheeseburger if not one of the many beers that were on tap. My friends could tell that I was a bit on the skittish side and I suspected I would never find out which of them had taken that phone call this morning. But they made up for it by taking the lead in the conversation and saving me from having to think what to say to the man I had modeled my life after. Eventually after one too many questions like “what was it like to be in the ARMY” my father got tired and asked if he could be alone with me while the others got dessert. After waiting for my slightest nod, they smiled and left the table for the front end of the hamburger joint.
“You have some good friends,” he said while he was looking down at his plate and pushing around some garnishes with a French fry.
“The first one just sort of followed me home one day and well, once you start a collection...”
“Hmp,” he grunted by way of acknowledgment and then looked up and stared right at me. “I have to tell my wife, Katherine. Man and wife shouldn’t have any secrets and need to be able to trust one another.”
“Well… you’ve been married longer than I have,” I granted him.
“She’ll want to help out with the baby.”
“I would welcome the help of my mother-in-law,” I said with only the slightest hesitation on those final two words.
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to tell the Navy,” he continued despondently.
“Why would you need to tell them anything?” I asked, my cheeseburger turning to cold lead in my gut.
“He’s married and a midshipman and those are two things that are not allowed to go together.”
“There is precedent, a waiver could be gotten.”
“Maybe, if he had asked ahead of time. Or even shortly after but here we are months after the fact and every day he is there he is in violation of regulations he swore an oath to abide by… What the hell was he thinking?”
“I was… that is, we were thinking we loved each other and that the navy didn’t need to know until we were ready to tell them. It's not like I am applying for dependents benefits… You would turn in your own son?” I asked him, not really believing that even HE was such a hardass.
“I would,” he hesitated a bit trying to form the right words. “question his competence as an officer. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about honor.”
This is defeat
The Canadian’s have their own military. Most Americans wouldn’t think to credit it, but they do. Small, but still a first rate, first world, armed force, even if they commit the great sin of not having a Marine Corps. And of course, they have their own Academy with an accompanying staff college for post graduate education in military science. The man in front of me had taken me there once. I must have been all of 11 years old if I remember right. He had been invited to teach a three day class and I was taken along because we were going to use the other four days of his week's leave to do some father and son bonding fishing trip in the Ontario wilderness. I was kicking my feet around on day two when I slipped my minders to take a little look around the place and came across a painting that still sends shivers down my spine, and this while I was wearing one that hadn’t ever been near the damn thing.
It was a painting of a World War One battlefield. Which one I couldn’t say, the Canadians had plenty to choose from. It was about fifteen feet tall and thirty wide and intimidating as all hell to a boy just in size alone, never mind subject matter. But when you took a look at it, the painting sent you to a place deep in your soul that you didn’t know was there and never wanted to go back to. It was a village scene, dark and dreary; the church was caved in by artillery. Crops in the field were trampled and an ambulance was lying on its side with its contents spilled. There were dead horses, dead poppies, dead hopes, and dead men, and not a few women as well who, from the looks of their garments had not had an easy time of it before meeting their end. The rain had covered everything and turned the whole lot of it into mud and made little rivers on the ground but with a red tint to it that you knew had come from still fresh spilled blood. And there were rats… who the hell painted rats? And life-sized ones at that. The rodents were scurrying about in the ruble and several of them were grouped around a corpse in pride of place at the center, I suppose the artist was trying to say that they were the only ones that had a good time of it. The painting was untitled. But underneath was a simple brass plaque inscribed with these words.
“This is defeat… avoid it.”
I had been to other military academies. My father was magnanimous and made sure I had options; he didn’t want to be accused of cookie cutting my life out for me…much. I had been to West Point and VMI and had even held my nose and taken a tour of Colorado Springs.
They all had paintings of one kind or another, usually of some heroic figure in uniform as a shining example to the boys who followed him to live up to his standards. Sometimes there would be battle scenes as well. The ones at Annapolis were particularly telling. Magnificent portraits of naval combat, flags unfurled, all sails set as the noble American Navy charged off to smite the ungodly (mostly the British). It stirred your heart strings and made you feel like you had to be a better person to measure up to all that glory. When I took time to ponder the issue though, I have to wonder if that painting in Kingston, and others just like it, would be the better choice. That instead of the more common American approach of reveling in combat and hoping for a valorous death, the academies should be teaching their charges instead that war has a cost and, while it is a noble thing to defend ones nation, we should not be looking forward to dying for it.
Canadians, hell… it’s like they are a whole other country or something. This is defeat, avoid it.
“We’ll get an annulment,” I said firmly though the words were like a knife in my heart as soon as I said them. “That way the marriage never existed, and Thomas was never in violation of regulations. And has never broken an oath. An Annulment is like a legal time machine. It can be done. You and the navy will be happy and I…”
“What?” he asked me quietly.
“I’ll have to get used to not being called Mrs. Ryan. I’ve been correcting people all summer on it when they call me Miss, I was growing rather fond of the title.”
“You think that will fly?”
“Not many would question it, two kids, too young to make a decision. We can claim it was duress or even mental illness. Pre-partam depression wouldn’t be much of a stretch. I love my husband General and he needs to be protected, even if that means he has to be protected from me.” I lasted this long without crying, and was quite pleased with that. But there was only so long that could be kept up and I wasn’t ashamed of these tears at all and didn’t even blame them on the pregnancy.
“Ah, hell Katie,” he said moving in to give me a hug pre-empting my girlfriends who were about to move in from across the room. “You don’t have to do that, we’ll figure something out.”
“Yes I do!” I gasped out looking up at him as I wiped my eyes. “You’re right, they will find out eventually and will shit can him not just from the academy but all military service. And that’s very important to him, and ME! He would do just about anything for it. Besides it’s not like we could live as husband and wife for another four years anyway. We’ll get married, properly next time, once he’s graduated. Our daughter will be the flower girl.”
“You’re having a girl?” he asked brightening up significantly.
“Yes,” I answered. “Something about Ryan sperm I guess, shoots a female eight times out of ten.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret Katherine,” he winked at me. “Fathers, if he’s any sort of man at all, we don’t mind having daughters. When you first hold your child in your hands and count those ten toes and eleven fingers, you forget about everything else. I would have been just fine if Tom had been a girl too. Though if that had happened we of course wouldn't have met so I guess I’m pleased enough with the results so far… now dry your tears and we’ll head home. We’ll speak to our respective spouses tonight and see if we can figure out a way from under all this drama.”
“Yes General,” I said taking the offered napkin.
“Please Katie, call me dad.”
“I’ll… see if I can get used to it.”
***
Typos have been stolen by that dartardly Robyn Hoode
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 19
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I am afraid of no man...one woman... and here she comes.
******************
Part 19
I must say, that my very first instinct, once I was done waving my father away down the street was to rush inside the house, dig up a Western Union message boy out of archives and send a telegram to Thomas FLEE AT ONCE---ALL IS DISCOVERED! However, self control got the better of me.
Somehow.
I instead left a voice mail on his cell phone and sent an email off, one of which I hoped he checked before the General inevitably got his hands on him. I had a feeling we would be having quite a few late night talk sessions ahead of us trying to figure out what to do but that was for later. For now I had a siege to prepare for. My mother was coming to visit, though she didn’t know it yet.
It was said by some, and believed by many that my lady mother could hold a grudge until it died of old age, and then subsequently have it stuffed and mounted on her wall. Those that said it knew it for the truth and those that didn’t were too afraid to speak her name aloud lest the devil come knocking. And this was the woman who would very shortly be given a call that her only son and baby boy had been entrapped by a no good girl from Nebraska and oh by the way you’re going to be a grandmother. Strangers who met my parents always seemed to pigeonhole my mother as the submissive and weaker member of the couple. And really when you saw her standing next to the General in his uniform with all those pretty shinies on his chest it was hard to credit otherwise. But my father could at least be counted on to leave his enemies dead, my mother…had more permanent methods.
She gave me the courtesy of a month’s notice. I’m still not sure, even after all these years, if she meant it as a blessing or a curse, the waiting for the hangman’s noose and all that. Professor Ryan needed a few weeks to sort out her affairs, and then she would be coming to town for an extended visit. She was currently between universities and teaching positions. The gypsy life she had led from one end of the world to the other had precluded her from the tenure track anywhere and she was relegated to a sort of permanent visiting professor status. She used that time in-between gigs to write history books, several of which are used as textbooks at those same universities who wouldn’t let her in the front door because of her travels. And one of which you might even have seen at your local bookstore. Oprah made it a selection of her book club. “The Recent Unpleasantness,” it was a history of the American Civil War from the point of few of the wives and widows of Virginia’s finest who had to deal with the aftermath. The title comes from what those ladies and their daughters called the War Between the States, even over a hundred years after the last shot had been fired.
Southerners are very strange about that war…
I picked up my mother at the airport alone, well, Melanie and me anyway. I wore a blue floral maternity dress that was very conservative for someone in my demographic but would, I hope, put her mildly at ease. I stopped just short of the hat and white gloves; I didn’t want to be seen as pandering. When I waddled up to the waiting area just after the security gate for arriving passengers every seat was taken. However I noted that, as I started developing my own gravitational pull, true gentlemen would pop out from nowhere and I only had to look forlorn for less than ten seconds when before I was offered two different seats. Unfortunately for me they were separated by several chairs so I was only able to use one to park my fat ass on.
Margaret Ryan was 55, though the rest of us were polite enough not to discredit her in front of strangers when she implied she was in her mid-forties, even if this meant she would have given birth to my oldest sister Anne when she was a mere 13, something grandmother Sullivan would NEVER have allowed. She was able to get away with the untruth, never so common a thing as a lie, because she was, until I met my Jessica of course, the most beautiful woman I had ever known.
Now I know what you are thinking, and just don’t go there. I don’t have an oedipal complex. Even if I DID want to kill my father on occasion I would never be crazy enough to sleep with my mother. She was just the standard I judged all other girls against and most of them came up wanting. A few minutes after I had parked my mass in front of the gate she appeared at the head of the pack of unloading passengers. When she saw me she gave off a big smile and I didn’t even detect any hesitation. But of course, my mother was from the south, where they would smile at you and say “bless your heart” even if they hated your guts.
“Katherine!” she said as she held out both her arms for me, not seeing any way around refusing I gave in and let her wrap me in as feminine a bear hug as could be managed.
I was to put it simply, shocked.
Mother somehow sensed my discomfort and my attempt to rearrange the not so little blockade between us and let loose just enough so that we could look in each other’s eyes. “You’re not much of a hugging girl are you?”
“It’s not that,” I said hesitantly. “Well maybe a little, I just didn’t think YOU were the hugging sort. Or at any rate wanting to hug me.”
“I’ve been speaking to my son about you for years Katherine,” she said letting me go entirely. “Particularly when news of this all broke, he loves you a lot you know, even willing to risk his career it seems. And he has made it very clear that he considers you to be the wounded party in all this. There are times I was listening to him it was almost like it was HE, that was the one that was pregnant!”
“Yes well, it’s just, you were always very polite to me I just thought…”
“That I was some Jessica Tandy throw back to the era of mint juleps and beating on the darkies?”
“Something like that,” I muttered my face going red.
“Well I shall certainly keep that in reserve if you misbehave young lady! But for the nonce I am pleased enough to be welcomed in your home and to help you and my granddaughter through this difficult period. Now, let’s go collect my luggage. You won’t BELIEVE what those…people, at Delta wanted to charge me in overages.”
******************
The Katz cousins had flipped for who was going to lose out on their bedroom to the southern invasion. JoAnn lost and moved in with Laura but I made it up to them by buying a new bed and cutting both their rent in half for the duration. There were now two girls in one room but the accommodations were still better than any dorm in America so they didn’t grumble…much. Mother was able to tell she had dispossessed an occupant by the still fresh sticky tack on the walls that had previously been holding up some boy band posters. And when the subject came up at dinner that night she felt positively devastated at the inconvenience and vowed to make it up to the girls. A promise they were not above taking her up on as often as possible.
She tore me a new asshole on my pregnancy preps. Apparently all my book learnin' was entirely inadequate. You would think I was planning on carrying the baby around in a wicker basket and calling it done. The damn pregnancy shopping list was five pages long. We made THREE separate COSTCO runs and that was just for the consumables. Then we went in for the big ticket items like cribs and strollers and car seats. I tried paying for it, but she gave me such a withering stare that I wanted to see if I could photograph it for further study. That sort of weapon is something I would very much like in my own arsenal.
Baby would be taking over the music room on the ground floor. A forward thinking Scott had provided soundproofing in the room and that combined with its proximity to the laundry room and the industrial sink seemed to me an ideal place for a nursery. Mother looked at all the fancy woodwork and the gilded faux gaslights and raised an eyebrow but didn’t see a better place in the house for it and let it be, cautioning me of course, that I would be getting my exercise in by all the back and forth running to my bedroom upstairs.
Caroline was the strongest of all of us, for reasons that none of you need to dwell on. And she was drafted to help carry all the packages inside. We were running out of storage space until the new furniture arrived so I directed her to just store the leftovers in my bedroom for now since it was the largest empty space in the house, and I hardly spent any time there except to sleep and all I needed for that was a bed. She came back downstairs to see me sorting baby clothes with a confused look on her face.
“Katie what’s that plastic thing at the side of your bed,” asked Caroline as she walked inside.
“It’s my chamber pot,” I answered without stopping my folding.
“Your what?”
“My porta potty. A space aged high endurance portable toilet that set me back more than I feel comfortable talking about.”
“Eeeeeewww,” she squirmed out. “Right next to your bed?”
“Little Miss Piss I have on board wakes me up about four or five times a night to go to the bathroom. I need it.”
“But you have your own bathroom?” she continued still amazed at my urinary practices.
“Yeah but it’s like a thirty minute walk from my bed, and once I get there freaking COLD marble floors. This way I roll over on the toilet, do my business, roll off and if I’m quick about it I don’t even have to wake up for the process. My sleep has improved dramatically since I put that in.”
“You sleep next to your PEE all night?” she said making a disgusted face.
“Well, yeah, but I clean it out every morning. Usually I just upend the container into the bathtub and give it a good going over while I shower…saves time that way. “
“GROSS Katie!”
“What’s the big deal? I’m just using a little applied engineering to build a better pregnancy. I’m thinking of writing those dear Abby people and letting them in on my secret.”
“Are you sure that you are a girl?” Caroline asked me half seriously as she held her face in both her palms.
“There is a bit of supporting evidence,” I said looking down at my eight month baby bump. “But maybe I should be going to some of those meetings you go to, to find out.”
“What meetings,” asked my mother as she came in with some freshly laundered baby towels.
“Um,” Caroline hesitated lowering her face to look at the floor again.
“There are support groups at the college for just about everything these days,” I said trying to save my friend from an awkward conversation she was just not ready for. “Caroline was just here giving me some grief over the toilet arrangements next to my bed.”
“Oh that,” she said, waving her hand. “I wish I’d thought about something like that in my day, it would have saved a lot of aggravation. It would have disturbed the General of course. He can render his enemies into a fine meat paste but show him a perfectly normal bodily process and he probably would have lost his dinner. You’ll understand more when you get married and have children of your own dear.”
I could see that casual statement from my mother had kicked her in the guts and my friend started crying and ran quickly out of the room.
“What did I say,” my mother asked confused at the young girl’s reaction. “She’s not pregnant already is she? Of all your girls I thought she was the least promiscuous.”
“No she’s not pregnant,” I replied a bit sadly. “Which might be part of the problem, she won’t ever be pregnant.”
“Oh dear, well I walked into that land mine then didn’t I? Was she in an accident did she have to have a hysterectomy?”
“No mother, she’s… like Deirdre,” I said feeling a little embarrassed myself.
“Deir… Tommy told you about my cousin Deirdre?”
“We tell each other a lot. I bet you could ask me anything he would know and I would too,” I said sort of hoping she would take me up on it.
“Obviously, you love each other. It’s just I always thought my son was rather embarrassed about Deirdre.”
“Thomas just needs the occasional kick in the ass and he can usually be counted on to mind his manners.”
“Quite,” my mother said with only the slightest of smiles. “I’ll speak to Caroline tonight after dinner, I don’t want her to think I was being insensitive. I couldn’t tell at all, she hides it very well.”
“Part of the reason why I think is that she isn’t hiding anything but rather displaying to the world who she truly is.”
“Yes, I suppose you're right,” she said with a considering look on her face. “And you want to go to some of her meetings? Do you consider yourself transgendered then?”
Gulp
“It was joke, mostly a joke I guess if I’m being honest,” I said looking down. “I just sometimes think that it would be so much easier all things considered if I was a boy.”
“I think, all pregnant women think that at some point, particularly at the delivery. But you’ll get over it when the baby comes. And think… if you had been a boy we would never have met!”
******************
The leaves had mostly dropped, the first snow had fallen, and I was laying by the fire in my office when my mother saved the Scott Company.
I was sitting in my la-z-boy chair, and as always, enjoying the irony. I had asked to work ahead in all my classes and most of them being intro classes the professors agreed. So there I was, five weeks until the official end of the semester and I was done with everything but the paperwork. So I took a moment to lean back and enjoy myself for a few minutes and was quickly kicked in the kidney by my daughter when she sensed the opportunity.
I was going to have to keep my eyes on her.
As had become our tradition, a few hours after dinner and shortly before bed she brought to my office a hot chocolate and something light on my stomach and we talked about whatever needed talking about that day. At the moment she seemed to be to be more concerned that I was overloading myself too much, and quickly made to remove all the papers my lawyer had showered on me.
“Time enough to worry about this after the baby is born,” she said scowling as she lifted a stack of scattered papers from the floor and tossed them into a random box.
“That’s just it mother, my father’s company may not last another year. Not the way it’s being run anyway.”
“Well what can YOU do about that?”
“If I had control, lots, or at the very least fire the idiots responsible and start over again. But I don’t have control; the partnership agreement prevents it.”
“Well then, as the General would say, put them into tactical priorities. Your strategic plan is to save your father’s company but to do that you need control, how do you get that back in your hands, what is preventing you?”
“Like I said, the partnership agreement.”
“Very well, attack that. I can speak to my cousin Festus, perhaps it can be fought in court.”
“Sure it can be fought, but at the cost of millions of dollars I don’t have. The partners will leverage and borrow everything the company has left to keep me out.”
“It just seems silly, that you own but you cannot vote. Seems un-American somehow. How did such a communist thing come about anyway?”
“Capitalism,” I countered to her bark of a laugh. “They didn’t want to reward any freeloaders. A partner who does not contribute after one year loses the voting rights. The Scott heir, me, was too young at the time to put the hours in and others took control. When the agreement was written there were dozens of adult Scotts that could take over if something happened to the president. But after a few generations of only one or two babies they were just left with me.”
“Well then, why can’t you gain the rights back if you work now. If your partnership works like the others I’ve encountered such a measure is meant to be corrective not punitive. To encourage the partner back in the fold so to speak.”
“It will be years before I even get my undergrad, and more years of graduate study before I could get an engineering certificate and license by the state. If I even wanted to do that, which would cut into my plans to join the Marines after O.C.S.”
“Going into the service is something that we will discuss later, but, from what you said, the partnership agreement is almost a century old. Did they even HAVE licenses back then? Does it specifically say a partner must be certified in order to be a part of the company?”
“Um,” I said searching my mind for the answer and not coming up with a thing. I had read the agreement cover to wretched cover and it certainly hadn’t mentioned such a thing. “I guess not.”
“Well then, build something or break something, but either way make sure to bill for it. And voila you have your rights back.”
“Fuck!” I said as the realization came to me. “And the barrier of entry is ridiculously small post inflation. It’s only $10,000. Back then that was real money but these days… but still, who am I gonna get to hire me even for that amount?”
“Language Katherine,” she scolded me and took away my only half empty hot chocolate by way of punishment. “Children are walking tape recorders and will catch on to those naughty words right quick.”
“They have to learn it somewhere. It might as well be from their parents. Besides, the way… Thomas talks I’m sure you are not free of sin.”
“THAT, can be laid at his father’s doorstep, him and his cronies. It occurs to me though that you have some small skill in construction. Unbecoming though it may be. Rachel and Karen were speaking to me at breakfast, oh that reminds me, we need to go grocery shopping again.”
“AGAIN!”
“Growing girls,” she said and then stifled a smirk as she continued. “And girls of course who are GROWING girls. But back to my original point, they said that you designed, set up and did most of the work in building that garage expansion outside, even though Karen had to practically wrench the hammer from your hand to prevent you from doing damage to the baby.”
“At no point was I lifting anything more than like, ten pounds, maybe. I know how to take care of myself and practice good safety,” I said mildly insulted that they didn’t think me smarter than that.
“No doubt, people are just overprotective of pregnant women. Particularly ones they care for. Now the General will be retiring soon, he just doesn’t have the lips for four stars. We have purchased a house on sixty acres in Virginia for our golden years.”
I had made the tactical mistake of choosing that moment to take a sip from my drink and unfortunately did a minor spit take when I started laughing.
“What,” my mother asked haughtily. “Do you find so funny Katherine?”
“The General…he bought the farm, that’s a euphemism for--”
“I know what it’s used for Jessica Katherine and I’ll thank you not to infer it again, my husband is not dying!”
“Yes Ma’am,” I said suddenly serious. “I apologize for my disrespect.”
“Well,” she said her posture becoming a little less stiff. “Perhaps that came out stronger than I liked. At any rate the house is actually larger than this one but almost a hundred and fifty years old. Built during… ‘Reconstruction’. It needs a bit of work; the General is quite looking forward to it actually. Renovation costs will probably exceed what we paid for the whole thing combined and I see no reason why we can’t send $10,000 of it your way.”
“I don’t need your charity; you are already doing so much…”
“It’s not charity when it's family…which you are of course. Nor is it in this case, you are after all uncertified and rather young. So all things considered I expect to get $30,000 of work out of the $10,000 we pay you. The General likes to think he can build a civilization with his own hands, two sticks and a flashlight but his field of study has been rather specialized in the last 40 years and if he tries to do this all himself he will muck things up if he doesn’t do himself an actual injury. Tommy was always more mechanically inclined than his father but he probably won’t be able to lend more than a weekend or two’s worth of help in the next few years.”
Probably less than that, I thought. Since Jessica doesn’t know which end of wrench to hammer with!
“So please,” she continued with a warm smile at me. “I have most of the particulars in an electronic file and I’ll forward it to you. Take a look at the plans, research what we need and don’t. Pick out building materials…try to go green, and try not to let the General know that you did. And as the opportunity presents itself after the baby is born perhaps in the summer we can all go east and start on the work. For your partner's benefit though we can pay you the retainer now.”
“But that’s another thing,” I countered warily. “How do we get them to accept payment? A dozen different ways they could refuse to hire me.”
“That perhaps is a question better left to your attorney,” she said as she delicately pushed a telephone across the table to me.
******************
“Son of a bitch!” said DeGeas after we had told him what we had come up with. My lawyer had arrived at my home in his casual clothes which for him meant three piece suit with his tie slightly undone. A bottle of Napoleon brandy had been unearthed for him and either the shock or the booze had brought forth the expletive, and he was grateful for the chair he was sitting in.
“I thought about the possibility of your gaining back your voting rights by working of course but discounted it because you were so young and we needed action now not after you finish college. But you are right there is no rule in the agreement that you have to be a certified engineer! And 10,000 bucks! That’s nothing! I spent more than that when my wife wanted to change toilet seats in the bathroom. We spent so much time thinking of the Scott Company as building bridges or damming rivers or sinking mines halfway to China but meat and potatoes construction work is how they got started.”
“But how will I get them to hire me?” I asked looking down at my belly. “Particularly now?”
“You’re already hired, that’s how partnerships work. Ever since those shares were transferred to your ownership the bigger issue will be getting them to accept the billing. They don’t have to re-grant the rights if they can prove in court you never actually contributed to the partnership. But Ha! Those sloppy fuckers are going to pay for their own arrogance.”
“MR DEGEAS!” my mother scolded from her chair which rather had the effect of looking like a throne from this angle. “I will not have that language in this house.”
“Arrogance?” he asked chagrined. “Don’t worry I won’t use it again. Now…which of these damn dirty boxes are those statements in.” He then started moving heavy boxes of paper about in my office for about two minutes searching for the one he was after. Even so much as going down on his hands and knees to bring forth one that was under the table.
“Here we are,” he said slamming a box down on my cherry wood desk. “There are over 900 partners and three times that in associates and people who just do scut work. The bookkeeping is atrocious every partner has a billing code that they apply to the invoices they send out so accounting knows who to credit it to. But over the years as all these associates get pulled from this project to that and under and out of the supervision of one partner or another that they have work that slips between the cracks so to speak. But they are certainly not going to not get PAID! So when they don’t know what partner gets the credit they apply billing code 001 as a sort of cover all for the company as a whole. But that code is for the Scott himself! Has been since the beginning and that is now your billing code.”
“Well then can’t I just walk in tomorrow and demand my company back?” I asked confused.
“No, because they can fight it by saying, and entirely justified too, that it was not you that did the work. But this is where it gets perfect. You bill for the ten grand, we can create an invoice that looks just like the real thing and then we send payment to Scott headquarters. All they have to do is cash it and you’re back in. The accounting department may raise an eyebrow when they don’t see an original invoice generated on their end. But they see associate Katherine Ryan providing such and such services billing code 001. I bet some hardworking young pencil pusher cashes that check while they try to figure out what is going on and at that point you’re in like Flynn.”
“It can’t be that easy?”
“Maybe not, I’m going to go over all this again and find out. Most of this stuff I haven’t checked in years. MY BILL for this is probably going to be more than the one that gets you back in but we will worry about you paying it once you’re back where you belong. Just one catch though.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to let me be there to see the look on their faces when you tell them.”
******************
My mother had been in my house for three weeks when preparations for Thanksgiving began in earnest. The girls left the house Wednesday morning for their own family homes. All except Caroline of course, she made an attempt in vain to move out to a hotel for the long weekend but I put my pregnancy to work for me and threatened tears if she left me alone in a house with all these “strangers.” and she quickly caved in and threw herself into the preparations with a convert's zeal. It helped to have a country girl at work on the food. I could muddle through if I had to but really my expertise was on the consumption and not the production side of things.
I had four older sisters… god help me.
Anne was the oldest, and in a just world would have been the first to provide my mother and father with a grandchild but she didn’t have any desire to settle down just yet. At 26 she had several steady boyfriends and had threatened marriage several times but nothing came of it. The General didn’t even have to dust off his scowl and growl at them, none of them even made it that far. It would seem his mere existence was enough to send away most comers. None of the boys appeared to be up to Anne’s standards, set of course by being a real daddy’s girl.
Martha, named after our first, first lady. Was a slightly younger clone of our mother. Refined and educated she was in graduate school at UC Berkley and had a goal of finishing her PhD a decade before our mother did. I thought it was cheating a bit, since mother had married and had three children to interrupt her studies by that point but Martha wasn’t going to let a thing like that get in the way. She had some sort of affair with a young enlisted man when we were stationed in Okinawa but nothing came of it. And nothing since then, if she had a boyfriend in all her years of college I never heard her speak of it.
Connie, or Constance when she was being lectured to, was a stereotype of the middle child. She had just graduated from Brown and wasn’t going to let anyone forget it. She had brought her boyfriend Dan along and while she had a room in my house he most particularly didn’t. I wouldn’t have minded much but mother put her foot down and got him a rather nice hotel room a few miles away. No doubt they already knew each other in the biblical sense of the word but my parents could be slightly old fashioned about this sort of thing. And Dan took it all rather well and just smiled and kissed his girl on the way to check in to his room.
Abigail was only 11 months older than I and we were referred to as “Irish twins” growing up. I should feel offended at the racial slur but meh, I resemble that remark. Abby was the littlest Ryan, even after I had been demoted. Some combination of genes had produced a girl almost a foot and a half shorter than her father and significantly below her mother and siblings as well. She sort of over compensated for that and signed up for, and excelled at, every sport she could get away with. She had actually got a gymnastics scholarship to the University of Georgia and there was some speculation that she would be able to represent her country at the next Olympics.
I spent most of the morning ferrying relatives back and forth from the airport. Melanie was a good girl but she had a gymnasts build herself and had a hard time accommodating four people let alone any luggage. So mother had rented a Ford Expedition for the week and I gloried in the newest features Detroit had brought forth. I felt mildly traitorous when I discovered the heated seats option and how much I enjoyed it. And did a feasibility study in my head for how complicated it would be to retrofit my Jeep with one and didn’t like the answer. The General would be flying in via a military flight in the morning. So the only two people we had left to pick up on Wednesday night were Thomas and my grandfather.
Grandpa would have been traveling for most of the day at this point and would be extra crabby. When grandma died he had decided to retire in Belize. After the Chosin he never wanted to be near ice again and Nebraska in November was probably the coldest he had been in years. Belize is a nice little English speaking country near the tropics where the economy was such that a retired USMC Sergeant Major’s pension could be stretched to a sort of mild extravagance. But not so down in the dirt poor that a revolution was just around the bend. But even if there was, the local gun control laws were such that they didn’t mind that he had several of his own crew served weapons, something that south Florida just didn’t let you get away with for some reason.
He had first joined the Marine Corps in 1950 and he wasn’t part of the occupation in Japan for more than a week when he was thrown into a troopship and sent against the North Koreans. He first saw action in the fighting retreat that was the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. It was the toughest combat the Marine Corps had ever seen and that wasn’t just his opinion but the verdict of Marines that had also fought at Tarawa and Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. And even one crusty sergeant that had been a fresh faced devil dog at Belleau Wood. Afterwards he married, settled down and had children just in time for him to be sent off again to a different part of Southeast Asia. Where he subsequently had a bounty put on his head of $25,000 by the NVA.
Dead… for no one would try taking him alive.
His exact age was kind of fuzzy, legend has it toward the end of his career he leaned hard on clerks in the records office to every once in a while "edit" the year of his birth so that the inevitable mandatory retirement could be postponed. Eventually he was betrayed in the 90’s by the advent of a computer that couldn’t be intimidated. Despite that bounty, it was generally accepted that he would live forever. Heaven wouldn’t have him, and Hell wouldn’t take him back, he having made such a mess of things on his last tour of duty there.
Sgt. Major James “big Jimmy” Ryan Sr. was a man apart. And mildly embarrassed to have his son go for officer and advance to the academy when he was 20 and already in the Marine’s for three years. When he would get particularly irritated at his son he would call him “corporal”, the last rank he ever thought his son had “earned.” What he would think of his new granddaughter-in-law was yet to be determined. But I wasn’t going to let him push me around, he would probably hate that more. He exited the plane last and walked towards my mother and me with a powerful stride interrupted only slightly by the limp of his prosthetic left foot.
“Maggie!” he said smiling at my mother and then trying to appear somber. “Pardon me, Frau professor Margaret,” he finished in a pretty spry imitation, all things considered, of clicking his heels. “I’ll remember one of these days.”
“Maggie, is fine” Mother said, only slightly exasperated. “I’ve long since given up hope on decorum.”
“And this is Tommy’s girl Katherine?” he said turning to me. “Won’t be long before you’re called miss Kitty I promise. Knocked you up did he? I’m pretty proud actually. I was beginning to fear that this one over here,” he indicated my mother with his thumb. “Had bred the improper all out of my bloodline.”
“Little chance of that,” I said grinning.
“So where is the scoundrel? I have to see what sort of a pussy the Navy has made out of him when I wasn’t looking.”
Sort of the other way around I thought, but kept it to myself.
“Thomas has a flight from Reagan arriving few minutes after yours,” explained my mother while she tried and failed to pick up his carry on bag from him.” It’s on the other side of the terminal of course so by the time we get near the security gate he may already be waiting.”
“Lead on,” he said indicated the concourse.
We arrived after only a few minutes, Grandpa was stalled momentarily by a larcenous glance at the kiosk for Omaha Steaks but I got him moving again with a promise to send him a crate down south for Christmas. Post 9/11 you could no longer wait for arriving passengers directly at the arrival gate and had to huddle like sheep with the other friends and relations beyond the security gate so it was difficult to determine when one flight began and the other ended. And of course which group was which. We waited an hour, or two trips to the ladies room, whichever way you wanted to count it. Eventually irritated beyond belief I waddled down the escalator to the information desk and on one of the busiest travel days of the year eventually was able to win through and ask about the status of my husband's flight, though I wasn’t about to tell this stranger that we would probably be getting an annulment soon.
“I’m sorry miss,” the lady at the information desk offered.
“What, look at the flight information again,” I practically shouted at her. “That’s a precise printout of his e-ticket.”
“I see the ticket and his name on the original flight register. But, according to the information I have here, Thomas S. Ryan refunded his ticket two days ago. He never boarded this flight.”
******************
typos maid off by Robynn Hoode
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 20
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A calm and sedate Ryan family Thanksgiving.
***
PART 20
I sort of freaked the hell out.
The airport police were on me in less than a minute. I can’t really blame the young woman at the counter. When some stranger starts yelling about cutting off body parts and burning military installations to the ground while standing in a mid-sized airport certain things start happening. My mother was there to mostly explain away my actions and gramps had me… mostly restrained. I think they probably would have held me as a potential terrorist but they ran my ID and perhaps my good deeds in another airport were actually recorded. So with that, and given my obviously pregnant state the cops didn’t put up to much of a fuss when my family wanted to take me away. I heard one of them mutter something about a mental hospital but I let him live anyway.
Mother drove us home uttering reassuring words along the way. Obviously he had changed flights and not told us, perhaps something came up at the last minute at the academy, some paper left undone to the last minute. And damn that foolish boy for not calling! She tried to be soothing and compassionate and for the sake of the rest of them I let her calm me down. Obviously Thomas had lost his guts I thought to myself, been too afraid to face the music with his borrowed parents and decided to hobbit up for the holiday. Or worse, my first and fearful thought being, he had done a runner and abandoned me again.
There was after all, some precedent.
We had Italian take out for dinner and I tried to drown my sorrows in connolis. Aunt Alane had attempted to be helpful as well, in a new age sort of way and I almost took a bite out of her hand on the way to the bakery box by way of thanks. The rest of them soon got the message and left me to my just deserts.
I couldn’t sleep that night, a combination of too much sugar, too many worries and baby on the way. And was still tossing and turning and planning a jihad against all men when I heard a slight rumble down the street that was getting louder by the second. I turned to the clock at my nightstand and it showed. 2:15 AM. It sounded oddly familiar and I pegged it instantly as the overcharged engine of a muscle car. What kind of mook revved the engine on a residential street at two in the morning of a national holiday? That had to be some sort of treason right? I angrily got up out of bed sliding on my slippers as I walked to the windows facing the street where I saw a car pull up into the driveway. The darkness combined with the glare of the headlights preventing me from getting a good look at who or what had arrived, but, whoever it was, they hadn’t made a wrong turn because they cut the engine and a figure emerged from the driver’s side.
The fuck?
I ran down the stairs as fast as my load bearing hips would allow and opened the door just in time to prevent Thomas from ringing the doorbell. When he saw who it was the first thing he did was light up a smile that could have melted most wax candles. When he got a good look at the expression on my face the second thing he did was cover his nuts with both his hands.
There was after all, some precedent.
“Surprise Katie,” he said awkwardly. “I uh… decided to drive out.”
“You could have called!” I belted out eventually.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said a little less enthusiastically.
“I knew you were coming, you dingbat, how was it supposed to be a surprise?”
“Well… I brought you a present.” He said moving aside and indicating what was in the driveway.
I still couldn't get a good look. This far from the streetlights it was still an indistinct blob. I shoved him aside a bit and moved to the side panel and flipped on the floodlights to reveal Rocinante. My first true love.
“I thought it would be a nice gesture,” he said as I we walked onto the cold concrete my slippers not being enough insulation to totally protect my feet. “I know you love that car more than me sometimes.”
“That’s not true…not always true.”
“I know I can never make up for what I did, but I thought I might make it a bit easier on you.”
“But what about my family? They are going to look at you all sorts of funny if you leave me your car, and how are you going to get back?”
“They will think that I love this girl,” He said as he grabbed me with both arms and did his best to embrace me allowing for my forward protrusions. “And that while I may hesitate to come back for her, Thomas Ryan would certainly come back for his car. I’ll fly back to the Academy I’ve got no desire to make THAT trip again. I left at 0400 this morning, yesterday morning I guess. I thought I would pick up time by going above the speed limit but I lost most it when I got pulled over by highway patrol south of Chicago. I had planned to be here just in time for the plane to arrive but-”
“You’re a damned fool,” said my mother as she came down the stairs with her arms crossed. “WHY did you decide to drive, Thomas?”
“Hello mother,” he said letting me go and trying to determine how much she had heard before arriving. “Keeping the car at the Academy was too much drama. It bred a lot of resentment that I was able to park it on campus when almost none of the rest of the underclassmen could. And I certainly wasn’t going to park it on a SURFACE lot over winter. So I brought it up here. I know Katherine has the space and that she loves Roxy almost more than I do, I figured one of us should get some use out of her.”
“And why couldn’t you call!?”
“It was supposed to be a surprise for Katie, but you know traffic…”
“And an increase in insurance rates!”
“Um,” he looked down in shame. “That too.”
“Get inside and go to your room!” she said finger pointing menacingly at the front door.
“Um,” he said blinking a few times. “Ok”
“No wait,” she said thinking better of it. “Katherine needs her sleep, you drove her into a FIT this evening! Go to the couch in the living room and be damn grateful she doesn’t have one or I’d make you sleep in the dahgouse, wunter or not. Now get!” she said finishing, with her southern accent slipping in at the end against her will.
***
The baby kicked me in inappropriate places all night, the only clean bra I had left was for pre-pregnancy boobs and looked it (I knew sending the girls on vacation was a bad idea!) and, just to top it off, all these new guests in the house hadn’t been made aware of the intricacies of the water heater rotation system and when I finally gave up and gave in to not getting any sleep I had only cold water to greet me. It was so cold that I only washed the important places but still got enough water on my hair to mess things up and require a repair job that I gave up halfway through and just pulled it back into a pony tail. All that’s by way of saying I didn’t look my best that morning.
Thomas however, was welcomed to my home like a conquering hero. Only Caroline seemed to hold him at arm’s length and that probably had more to do with her own issues than his. My sisters all blockaded him and showered him with questions and follow up all the while ribbing him mercilessly over his relationship with me. That didn’t stop them however from filling him full of all sorts of dainties that a civilian kitchen and MY BANK ACCOUNT could provide.
For those of you fuzzy foreigners who have never experienced an American Thanksgiving holiday there’s really not much to it. You gather family and friends, some of whom you may not have seen since the last Thanksgiving, and you eat. End stop. Sure you could throw in a semi religious angle but that was rather forced for the secular holiday. And some people actually took the name seriously and gave thanks for all the good things in their life over the last year, specifically all those previously mentioned family and friends. The male members of the race also gathered around the television to watch football. (the one with helmets.) but really, you just ate. From the time you woke up in the morning till you fall asleep clutching the cold turkey leg leftovers you sneaked out of the fridge when you thought no one was looking.
From a pregnant woman’s perspective it sort of had Martin Luther King Day beat hands down.
Anne and Martha had collected the General and his aide who would be joining us for dinner. My mother was somewhat schizophrenic at the moment. She was certainly the matriarch of all assembled, even Caroline nodded at her commands respectfully but she was not, technically speaking, the hostess. She was a guest in my home, and I even had the deeds to prove it. So every time she went charging off to the pantry for another piece of provisions she would ask me if it was ok. When the nice silver was needed it was me she asked, when furniture needed to be moved it was me she asked for permission. It got to the point where I said everything she thought proper would be fine with me and waddled off as quickly as I could to a quiet spot of the estate where my frazzled nerves would not be picked at every three minutes. So bundled up in my too large coat which I very much hoped would never fit right, I escaped the kitchen for my back yard. Where it appeared my husband had the same idea.
It was the first time we had been alone together in almost six months and 25 pounds.
“Hello Katie,” he said as he set down a propane tank. “Our lady mother put me in charge of frying the second turkey. But…um, I was going to head off and find you anyway.”
“No idea how to do it?” I asked amused.
“I saw you do it once, but I didn’t know I should be taking notes.”
“The first thing you need is a flat surface. That much hot oil on the grass is a bad idea… a wooden deck is even worse,” I said interrupting him as he began lifting it toward the porch. “Let’s set it up on the concrete out front. You lift I’ll supervise.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said as he hefted the twenty pound tank as if it was nothing, and we started walking. “It’s good to see you in three dimensions again. Video phone is all well and good but it’s not always enough.”
“I quite agree. Did you get enough peanut oil?”
“Mother sent me to the store early this morning, I got two gallons?”
“Should be enough,” I said as he set the tank down on the cement. When I judged that the inflammable material was reasonably safe I looked him in the eyes and kicked him in the shins.
“Ow! Jesus Tommy,” he said backing away defensively.
“That was for not calling,” I said sternly.
“I’m sorry…Katie, I just,” he said as I stopped him with my kiss.
“And that,” I indicated with a follow up. “Was for bringing back Roxy.”
“I think I prefer the Austrian way better.”
“You’re welcome,” I smiled demurely.
“So…what next,” He said looking at me fondly.
“Well I don’t care what you have heard about horny pregnant women but it’s not true. Or at any rate, I don’t recognize the signs; it will be summer probably before we have any sex.”
“I meant… what’s next for the turkey fry.”
“Oh,” I blushed remarkably. “Put the pot on the burner and fill it full of oil until it’s about half full then we light the fire and set it on high for about an hour. It actually takes longer to heat the oil than it does to cook the turkey. “
“So we’ll have a while to talk?”
“I guess so.” I stamped my feet a little in an attempt to keep them warm. “I’ve spoken to DeGeas You’re covered twice as far as the Navy goes. I have the annulment paperwork upstairs You will be surprised to know that Jessica Scott was temporarily insane.”
“Ha!” he barked out laughing. “Had to be to marry Tommy Ryan.”
“But that’s all by way of backup, he had a private investigator out of Boston by the name of Spenser head up and appropriate the only other copy of our marriage certificate from the county courthouse. We never sent out any announcements and the records were never copied or accessed according to the log so it will be like it never happened, as far as the Navy is concerned. I’ve been telling a lot of people that I am Mrs. Ryan and even had my drivers license changed but if pressed I will let people know it was just a single mother trying to avoid scandal.”
“Katie you don’t have to do this, I can drop out and try one of the other commissioning sources.”
“It’s done already,” I said smiling at him softly. “I thought, back when our positions were reversed, that we could keep it a secret. That I could have my cake and eat it too, well the General pointed out that it was dishonorable of you to be in violations of regulations…but it wasn’t you that was dishonorable. It was me, so it’s only fair that I do this.”
“It just seems damned odd Katie, you were all fired up to get married and that caused all this drama and now you want to divorce me.”
“Annul.” I corrected him. “It will be like it never happened. “
“I like that even less!” he shouted out angrily. “I was growing rather fond of being your husband. Despite all our downs and ups…”
“Well then you’ll just have to propose to me proper, and I expect a big damn ring too! We’ll get married again once you get your commission.”
“It’s not worth it; I can come back to Omaha and be with you.”
“Now you listen to me Marine,” I said a bit of fire in my voice. “The Academy was both our dreams and I won’t have both of us wash out.”
“It should be me who’s having the baby and missing out on the Academy,” he said dejectedly.
“And I should have worn a condom, or maybe tried a different method of dealing with the pregnancy. There is plenty of blame to go around in the past, it’s time to embrace the future,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tight. “Besides, this way I will finish early and probably be a first lieutenant before you are even a second.”
“You always were an overachiever,” he said as he began kissing me. I still wasn’t quite used to the change in roles. Thomas had shaved this morning but the feel of rough stubble on my smooth cheek was taking some getting used to. As well as the large hands on my much larger ass, we were just starting to get to know one another again when the front door opened to reveal my mother with disheveled hair and a full on apron bearing the words “Professors pile it higher and deeper.”
“Thomas!” she said abruptly “Your father wishes to speak to you in the den…alone I’m afraid,” when she saw the look on his face. “You knew it was coming, best to get it over with and on with your life.”
“You think I’ll survive then?”
“Your father will not kill you before dinner is served. He knows better than to spoil my seating chart. You may not be able to chew solid food though but don’t worry I laid in a blender and a supply of straws before you came.”
“How thoughtful,” he said as the blood drained from his face.
“Katherine,” she said turning to me as Thomas walked toward the door. “Captain Roberts, the General’s aide, mentioned how he missed having pecan pie for Thanksgiving. It’s too late to make one and I don’t have the ingredients anyway. Can you head off to the store and pick one up? Store bought is better than nothing. And we could use some fresh cranberries if any can be found?”
“Sure,” I said happily. “It will give me a chance to drive Roxy again.”
“I don’t think that will be a good idea?” she countered me sympathetically.
“I know how to drive a Firebird!” I said, irritated at her presumption.
“I’m sure you do dear but have you forgotten those 70’s cars are not exactly built to accommodate your baby bump. I doubt you would be able to squeeze behind the wheel.”
I looked down at the offending body part and did my best not to cry, to have my car so close and be denied her pleasure was discouraging on a whole new level, finally I sighed and looked back at my mother. “I miss my toes…”
“You’ll see them again soon enough Katherine I promise, oh and, if there are some really FRESH rolls, pick some up too, in fact be sure to take your cell with you in case I need something else.”
***
An American supermarket midmorning on Thanksgiving Day was not an experience for the faint of heart OR for a fair lady. I had to elbow some dude in the kidneys to get him to release the last tub of whipped cream and after trading shamelessly on my current condition was able to brazen through to the register with only a fifteen minute wait. The drive back to the house was uneventful enough but truth be told Melanie was also having a hard time accommodating my girth as well. I only had another two weeks to go and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Of course the day that happened I could look forward to a whole NEW list of things to complain about…
When I got back to the house there was a strange truck parked on the street next to my driveway. I didn’t pay it much mind, the neighbors on both sides of me had invited extended family and cars had overflowed their driveway and it took a supreme act of will not to call them to be towed like they had done for my girls earlier this year. What DID bother me though was that there was no sign of Caroline watching the bubbling oil at the castle gates or anyone else either to prevent a fire from breaking out. I parked Melanie grabbed the groceries and walked toward the burner to make sure everything was ok for the moment before heading inside to deliver the goods. Just as I was getting a good look at the pot I heard a heavy thud followed by a low alto scream.
“I don’t care WHAT you say you are,” said a different much deeper voice. “You’re coming home with me NOW Christopher!”
“I won’t!” shouted Caroline as I came around the corner of the house and saw them. Caroline’s wig was torn off her head. Her own hair had grown a few inches but was still well short of the two and half feet the wig achieved. There was already a large bruise forming on her left eye and she was being dragged by tall grey haired man in a brown leather jacket. He had rather gone to seed, I could tell that he had once been heavily muscled but every one of those was now covered by a not so thin layer of fat. He was still strong enough though, to almost yank my friend out of her shoes.
“What the hell is going on here!?” I shouted out as I moved to stand in his way.
“Out of my way miss, you don’t know what you have living here,” he said to me as he tried sweeping me aside.
“I think I have a friend living here with me, which has always been plenty enough for me. Let her go!”
“I’m taking my son back home; He belongs with his family on Thanksgiving. I’m not going to hurt a pregnant woman but I’m not going to leave him here either.”
“Go get help Katie, please!” Caroline shouted as she tried fighting back and got smacked in the jaw for her trouble.
“Get out of my way!” The old man shouted as he shoved me into the house and almost caused me to see stars. He did cause me to drop the bag holding the jar of cranberry sauce and the plastic container of whipped cream which broke open on the cement.
This
Means
WAR!!
NO ONE gets between me and dessert!... plus I was sort of fond of my friend too.
Caroline was putting up a good fight and fatso wasn’t in enough of a condition to just lift her off the ground and carry her back to the car so I had a bit of time to come up with a plan. I headed back inside the house through the garage entrance and once in the media room spotted my father’s aide enjoying a beer that I hope he had bought himself.
“Captain Roberts,” I said commandingly as I tossed the last bag on his lap. “Here’s your pecan fucking pie now follow me.”
“What?” he asked me mildly shocked.
“Get up and follow me NOW MARINE! Hostiles have breached our perimeter,” had to give him some credit he got right the hell up and didn’t even stop to make sure the pie had landed in a safe place. It was only the matter of walking to the next rooms so my hips didn’t cause any minor earthquakes on the way, though if it had been any further that probably wouldn’t have been the case.
“Rip this door off,” I said indicating the ornate wooden gun cabinet.
“What?” he asked still confused.
“NOW!!” I shouted as I tried my own strength on the handles. Soon enough both of us combined were able to pry the board off the hinges. The NRA would no doubt disapprove of the safety flaw but the cabinet was built for show and to keep small children out not determined housebreakers. Once opened, I grabbed the side by side shotgun and a box of the 12 gauge shells. They probably had been manufactured before I was born but I couldn’t exactly be choosy at the moment.
“Call the police, my friend Caroline is being kidnapped.” And then I headed toward the front door and the still screaming roommate.
I slotted in two shells in the chambers and stepped outside just in time to see Caroline’s father toss the girl in the bed of the pickup. Judging by the twine on her arms and legs it appeared he had literally hogtied her before she was immobilized. It didn’t look like I had much time left, dearest daddy was walking around the truck to the driver’s side and I fired a shot into the lawn to get his attention.
And was subsequently knocked on my fat ass.
I realized almost immediately that I had screwed up on the trigger mechanism and both barrels had gone off instead of my intended one. I scuffed up my knee pretty bad trying to get back up and with a great deal of trouble was able to get back on my feet. Of course the box of shells had fallen out of my grasp when I fell and, despite how imposing it looked, the main disadvantage of a double barreled shotgun was that it had…well…only two shots.
“Let her go now!” I said as I drew a bead on the intruder. He was a good twenty feet away and didn’t look very spry and I thought I had a good chance of grabbing some more shells and loading them in time, but would much rather he not know I had an unloaded gun pointed at him.
“This gun,” I continued brazenly. “Was euphemistically called a ‘street sweeper’. I don’t think you want to find out why that is. Now the police are on their way and if you let my friend out of that truck and never bother us again I’ll tell them I had an accidental discharge… something I’m sure you're familiar with. But you only have a minute or so to make up your mind. It’s a holiday sure but they are certain to respond fast to THIS neighborhood.”
“It sounded, girly, like you fired both barrels,” he said lowering his raised hands. “And I know you didn’t have time to reload. What’s to stop me from just getting in my truck and leaving you behind?”
“Me,” said my father’s voice and the sound of a pump action being pulled back.
“And me,” said Thomas. “THIS one is loaded.”
“I’m not sure if this one has bullets in it,” said my grandfather. “But I could probably just beat you to death with it.”
My lady mother insisted the family dress up for formal dining occasions, which the Thanksgiving holiday most certainly qualified for. The womenfolk, who would be zipping in and out of the kitchen with preparations all day were waiting as long as they could before putting on their best frocks so as to avoid any embarrassing stains. The men folk though, their only strenuous duty was to be lectured to by angry parents in Thomas’s case, and watching Football for the rest of them. So they were mostly already dressed for dinner.
Thomas, somehow fittingly, was pointing the 9mm I had almost ended my life with back in the summer. If I had been thinking NOW I probably should have grabbed that one but I had instead instinctually gone for the one that was more substantial looking. He was wearing his midshipmen’s dress uniform and a feral grin on his face and both made him look quite dashing.
Grandpa it appeared had been interrupted in the middle of putting his clothes on. The only thing he was wearing were his blood stripes and, while he was rather old as these things went, he was still a fine figure of a man and looked even more imposing holding the three and a half feet of Garand rifle like it was a returned lover, which in his case, was possibly the literal truth.
The General was in full kit, medals, cover, sword and everything. He had chosen the other shotgun in the cabinet but this one was a much more efficient and modern Remington which had up to five shots in the magazine. The effect of the three generations of them together was somewhat substantial. I wasn’t even the one that had all that history and hardware pointed at me and I was about to piss my panties in fear.
“Fucking marines,” said Caroline’s father in disgust as he moved to the truck bed and grabbed her by her restrained feet and just dragged her out and onto the street several feet below. “You want the fag you can have him.”
He didn’t even look at his child as he got in the cab and drove away.
***
When the police finally arrived all of the weapons have been safely grounded and we all tried to appear as non life threatening as possible, which for some of the Ryan family was a stretch. The officers cautiously got out of the car and turned to the general since he was wearing the most shinies and asked politely if there was an ‘invasion going on and no one had told them’. Have to give credit to the dog robber, Captain Roberts hadn’t told the police there was a kidnapping in progress until he checked with the general and by then there was no point. So the police were only responding to the gunfire call.
Grandpa took one for the team, probably because he would be safely out of the country by the end of the week. He told the police it was his bad, that he was “messing around” with the shotgun and it accidentally went off. I’m quite sure that we could have solved the worlds energy problems by rigging up a turbine generator on all the marines spinning in their graves at that comment but it seemed to work. Or at any rate, the police were not going to force the issue against the glare of all of daddy’s stars. They gave him a citation for discharging a firearm in the city limits along with a not insubstantial fine and then were on their way. Grandpa looked at it like he wanted to wipe his ass with it but I quickly took it from his hands and promised to pay it on his behalf.
Caroline was somewhat the worse for wear. My mother wanted to take her to the hospital but the injuries appeared superficial and she didn’t want to answer any embarrassing questions and particularly didn’t want to be examined. Martha wanted us to call the police back so charges could be sworn out against Caroline’s attacker but she was quickly shot down not least by the primary victim. Eventually she settled on helping the T-girl get cleaned up and into her evening dress. Something she had been looking forward to all week and wasn’t going to let a little thing like an attempted kidnapping get in the way. My own attire was waiting for me laid out on the bed by my mother. The last few weeks she had taken pity on the “tomboy” who had grown up without a mother and had been trying with mild success to instill feminine virtues in me.
Judging by the display outside… I sort of had a ways to go.
The red gown waiting for me had taken over three hours getting it to fit my current dimensions. That the price tag was apparently a state secret and kept from me did not make me feel any better. Why we had spent all this time and money on a garment which would be worn only once didn’t make any sense to me but no doubt I would understand in time as my education progressed. I took my second shower of the day and luxuriated in it since I wasn’t competing against any of my sisters for hot water. My hair took the usual age to blow dry and I contemplated again getting it cut. Some sort of pixie bob perhaps? But I was fighting my culture a bit. Mother and all the women in the family had long hair and perhaps it made me a male chauvinist pig but the short hair sported by several of the young ladies I had seen in and about class just made them seem unnecessarily mannish. Having been a man until relatively recently I had no great desire to become an imitation one. Since I could not go back I would have to go forward.
Damn the Doc Martens, full speed ahead!!
I pulled my hair back into a elaborate bun, with a single strand on the right side askew suggestively just like my mamma taught me. And then went to work on my makeup. I was getting much better at it but was far from perfect and as a result I was the last one ready for dinner. Mother had strange notions of what was needed and necessary in a dinner party, so I was met at my bedroom door by a uniformed Thomas who would act as my escort. He offered his arm as we walked down the staircase and even though I was wearing flats I was sort of grateful for it. The dining room was all set and those of us who had men in our lives had our seats held for us. As the titular hostess I was seated at the head of the table and the General was opposite me. We all took part in the blessing and thus were given permission to eat, which we did at once.
And that was all we did for the first five minutes or so. All honor to the meal served but it wasn’t that good, even to a hormone drenched pregnant woman. Usually at a gathering of the clan table conversation would begin at once, continuing conversations which had gone on all through preparations but it seemed at the collected table of academics and warriors everyone was too afraid to speak. Caroline looked like a mouse in the corner even though no one looked to be ready to pounce on her. She wasn’t even eating just staring down at her plate and passing the serving dishes when called to. Once all the food had been distributed she seemed to gain a bit of courage but it wasn’t to speak, she was just about to pull out her chair and bolt from the dinner table when I cut her off.
“Well,” I said from my commanding position at the head of the table. “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room shall we?”
Everyone did their best not to look at my friend after that, which meant a generally scattered look on everyone’s faces as they tried to be polite and only served to drive the point further home to a terrified Caroline.
“I’m pregnant,” I continued not giving them time to readjust. “And Thomas is the father of course…originally we had decided to marry but it was explained to me that it would mean the end of his tenure at the Academy and that is…quite precious to me. In addition to his not inconsiderable self of course.”
“How not inconsiderable?” asked Connie with a raised eyebrow.
“Constance!” my mother scolded from across the table.
“Considerable enough to do the job in one shot at any rate,” I replied giving my sister a smile. “At any rate I have no others to compare against. But back to my original point, as far as the Navy and the world at large is concerned we are not married. But it would please me greatly if all here could presume a state of wedded bliss does exist and you treat me like family. My own being…somewhat thin on the ground so to speak.”
“That would please me as well,” interjected Thomas as he reached over and took my right hand in his.
“So what do you say?” I asked all assembled. “I promise to wash behind my ears , to brush my teeth and otherwise not prove to be much an embarrassment.”
“I think I can speak for all here when I say, Katherine,” said my father after only the slightest hesitation as he raised his wineglass. “Welcome to the family.”
“Thank you sir, before the year is out this family will welcome its first grandchild, a girl unless the doctors have screwed up more than usual,” I quipped to the subtle laughter of most of the table. “It is a tradition in the Scott family to name the first granddaughter after both grandmothers. My own mother is dead and I would like to give her pride of place, but with your permission Professor Ryan I would like to use yours for her middle name. Mary Margaret Scott and soon without too much of a delay Mary Margaret Scott Ryan USMC!”
“Hear, hear.”
***
The ice was broken somewhat, even though the table talk just devolved into several family members picking on the new parents to be. I got it coming and going since they hauled out of archives all sorts of embarrassing stories from my youth that Jessica had never known and I wished I could have forgot. And then of course, not wanting to leave the new me out, Aunt Alane and her husband Rick illustrated quite a few pregnancy and childbirth stories, one of which was demonstrated with a turkey drumstick
Don’t ask.
After dinner once most of the clean up was completed we debarked en-mass for the media room and worked our way through dessert and the five pies split between the twelve of us. Since obviously we hadn’t eaten enough for the day. The boys had been watching football all day, excepting their interruption for the rescue mission, so my mother put her foot down and said we would watch something together that we could all enjoy somewhat and eventually a DVD of “Princess Bride” was selected. I remember watching it before of course, but it was from a slightly different perspective this time. I was no longer a dashing dread pirate type but more resembling the eponymous princess bride . Even though I wasn’t a bride anymore, and was damned if I would be a princess.
Caroline, tried to get out of it, but she was physically restrained by my sisters and was sandwiched on the couch between Abigail and Constance and wasn’t even allowed to fetch her own slice of pie. The General was at a table in the corner with his aide going over some report or another as quietly as possible. He knew his wife wanted his attendance for this quality family time but some things couldn’t wait and he had seen this movie before. Grandpa was misusing his recliner by sitting in it ramrod straight, but was giving in to his retired status slightly by indulging in his third piece of pumpkin pie. A comestible, I guess, which was not available in abundance in Belize. Caroline was seated to his right and must have got a good look at his chest. Because out of the blue she spoke up and said the first words she had uttered all evening.
“That’s the Medal of Honor isn’t it?” she asked pointed at the ribbon on the top of his seven rows of awards.
“Yes it is,” he answered looking down as if he hadn’t even noticed he was wearing it, which after almost sixty years he probably had. “I’d tell you how I got it but I don’t remember, woke up in a hospital in Japan a month after the fact. Other people saw, a couple dozen of them, and their stories more or less agreed so I suppose I have to believe them. It’s more trouble than it’s worth most days. While I was active duty I kept leaving it off my uniform but somehow it would be sewed back on the next day when my back was turned. They also tried to stop me going with my regiment to Vietnam when our time came but I put a stop to THAT. Junior over there even used it to get a presidential appointment to the Academy and further my ruin.”
“A fact,” said my father looking up from his maps. “You haven’t let me forget in decades.”
“You could have gone far boy,” he countered turning his head to look at him as he set down his plate. “Why, with your smarts you might have ended up as Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, instead of washing out as a corporal.”
“My second career has been quite fulfilling I assure you,” father finished and then went back to looking at the papers on the desk.
“My father was in the Army in Vietnam,” said Caroline looking nowhere in particular. “And other places.”
“Was he?” Grandpa asked unemotionally.
“He was always very proud of that, and his twenty years of service. He was already retired by the time I was born but he always made sure us kids knew about thing like that… like the Medal. His highest was the bronze star but he had it framed and placed above the mantel. He would always tell stories of how he got it, sometimes they even matched.”
“Some folks are like that I guess,” said Grandpa as he tried to look back at the television screen.
“Proud of that, and ashamed of me,” she said mortified as she got up and made a run for the door only to be stopped by my grandfather's viselike grip on her arm.
“Now listen here… young lady. I won’t pretend to know what all is going on in that head of yours, but my son’s wife, whose opinion I trust, says you’re good people and I haven’t seen anything to indicate otherwise. Quite frankly… you disgust me, but that’s because I’m an old dinosaur who thinks that the only people that won that Vietnam War we talked about, were the hippies, and they have been running the show since. When I was your age, people didn’t even know people like you existed. But as far as shame goes, there are lesser and greater things to be ashamed of and beating your child for how they are is damn near the top. Probably it’s you that should be ashamed of him.”
“I just… I,” she stuttered.
“Are you a murderer?” he asked her harshly.
“What? No!” she answered surprised.
“I am,” he continued resolutely. “At least seven people I know of who were not legitimate targets. Found out after the fact but that doesn’t make it untrue. And I am generally counted a hero despite that. Ever raped someone?”
“N… no.”
“Not a fair question I guess since you probably don’t know how to use it.”
“Or want it,” she clarified.
“Probably takes you out of the running for pedophilia too. Theft? Arson? Violent overthrow of the government?”
“No, I, well, I took some gummy worms out of a gas station candy bin when I was ten. Mama slapped me silly when Johnny told her.”
“As is proper, can’t abide a thief and it's best you got sorted out while you were young. Well then, Caroline,” he said, releasing her arm. “All things being equal, you are an upstanding citizen of the Republic, can live anyway you damn well see fit and are entitled to the protection of the Marine Corps while you do it. Say thank you, if your mama brought you up proper, and let’s never speak of it again.”
“Thank you,” she said as if she meant it, and she walked out of the room in tears, but also with a slight smile on her face.
“Boy,” said grandpa, turning in his chair to face Thomas. “Honor your elders and bring me a piece of pecan pie.”
***
The first movie was done and halfway through the second one Thomas and I began yawning in synchronization. I gave him a looked and gestured upstairs with my head, along with a half smile. He got up first and then offered me his hand and superior strength to get up off the couch, which I needed every little bit of.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I said to the room in general. “I think I will turn in early.”
“Good night Katie,” said Abigail from the couch. Followed by Martha and Connie.
“Good night dear,” said my mother. “Try to get some rest.”
“Tom, where are you going,” said my father abruptly from the corner.
“Well I was, that is I thought…,” he tried to evade.
“You can sleep downstairs on the couch like you did last night,” he continued as he pushed up his reading glasses off his nose.
“Sir,” I said trying to sound reasonable while I held my belly. “The worst that can happen has happened. And I’m not really in the mood for any funny business anyway.”
“Good, then you won’t mind if my boy spends the night on the lumpy couch.”
“General Ryan,” my mother interjected stiffly. “Do YOU intend to sleep with your wife tonight?”
“I was planning on it,” he said looking at her a bit surprised. “Though, from the way you are staring at me, that assumption is in doubt.”
“They have been away from each other for many months and will be away for many more. They are starting a family together even if we can’t make it official because of your SILLY regulations. They will share a bed tonight as a man and wife and you are not going to stand in the way is that cleauhr!” she said, her southern slipping in again.
“Crystal,” he answered her simply and then, after a brief pause, nodded genially at the both of us.
Thomas stopped in the living room to collect his bags and then we both walked up the stairs to the master bedroom. He hesitated only a little bit at the door and then his courage won through as he walked inside after me, closing the door behind him. I walked over to the closet and began undressing, the gown didn’t slip off easily, I had too many impediments in the way, but I was able to win through eventually and hung it up in the closet so it wouldn’t wrinkle. Turning around in my bra, panties and pregnancy support hose I faced an edgy Thomas who still hadn’t moved past the entryway.
“Nervous?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “This was, after all, your body until relatively recently, though you may not recognize it.”
“It’s not that,” he said waving his hand dismissively. “And you look fine.”
“Just fine?” I said putting my hands on my hips and trying to look insulted.
“Great! You look beautiful. It’s just… that’s my father’s bed,” he said indicating with a curt nod of his head.
“No it’s not,” I said as I walked over and put both my hands on his shoulders. “I sort of had the same hang up when I first got here. It’s a new bed, frame, mattress and everything. Now don’t make a lady feel she’s underdressed. That’s an order, Marine.”
“Aye aye, sir,” he said with a sarcastic two fingered salute.
I helped Thomas out of his uniform jacket and he helped me into my nightwear. You can let your imagination run wild if you want but reality was much duller than fiction. The outside temperature was well below freezing and the furnace in this place was merely adequate, something I intended to upgrade as soon as possible. So it wasn’t really optimal conditions to be wearing something sexy from Victoria's Secret. I instead donned a dark flannel long sleeved v-neck pajama set that was INCREDIBLY comfortable. Thomas got by with boxer shorts and a white t-shirt, and I thought I could detect a little envious glance in my direction. But, if he wanted to wear these clothes, he had only himself to blame.
After I removed my makeup, we awkwardly got into bed and I flipped the switch by the side to kill the lights. He started to reach over to touch me and then quickly bolted back like I was on fire. I shuffled over on my side to face him and gave my once and future husband a weak smile.
“If you want to hold me Thomas, I won’t be too offended.”
“I do Katie, it’s just, I didn’t know if YOU wanted to.
“I’m not sure if WANT is the best word to describe it but I’m sort of interested in how it will actually work. This is the first time we will have actually SLEPT together, after all.”
“First time I'll have slept in the same bed with anyone actually.”
“What, never?” I asked disbelieving.
“No siblings remember, and then boarding school with private rooms and armed guards to prevent boyfriends from having their way with me.”
“Worked great didn’t it?”
“From the actually sleeping together part of it yeah, I guess I must have slept with daddy after a bad dream or something, but I can’t really remember specifics. So this will be the first night that counts.
“Well, I’ll try not to fart too much.”
“Ha ha,” he chuckled at me.
“You think I’m joking but I’m not, that particular symptom started in earnest a few weeks ago. But I’m mostly able to keep it inaudible, I’m trying to act more like a lady.”
“How very… considerate of you Katie,”
“Thank you.”
“God Tho… Katie, look at us!”
“I can’t, we turned off the lights, but I can feel just fine, now put your arms around me and get closer, I’m cold.”
He did as he was ordered and brought his front side up along mine. A few seconds later Mary Margaret welcomed her daddy by nudging me in the guts
“Hey,” he said happily surprised. “Did you feel that? I felt the baby kick!”
“It starts losing its shine after a few months, particularly now when I’m trying to get to sleep. I note that you are not reciprocating and poking me with little Tommy, you’re starting to make me feel fat and unwanted, Thomas.”
“You’re not fat, you’re pregnant. The only place you've gained weight is in all the strategic places. My ar… that is YOUR arms and face and legs, they all have exactly the layer of fat they should have. When the baby drops you will be back in fighting trim in no time. Trust me; I would be mocking you mercilessly for destroying my body if it were otherwise.”
“Ok, so I’m not currently unbecoming, you just don’t find me sexually attractive?”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot these last few months, and I’ve been field testing my orientation as much as I could get away with.”
“Hey!” I shouted shoving his arms away.
“I meant looking, just LOOKING!” he said trying to calm me down.
“It better just be looking,” I said with sniff.
“And YOU’RE not getting as much of an eyeful as often as you can? I saw the picture of your roommates even Caroline probably gets quite a bit of unwanted male attention.”
“That’s different.”
“Oh? How exactly?” he asked bemused.
“Because I’m the girl now and we get to have double standards, comes with the double X chromosome in case you forgot… so, what were the results of all your ‘field testing’?”
“I think I’m probably bi at this point, which works for our situation I guess, it’s hard to tell where culture, socialization, hormones, biology and reptile hindbrain all begin and end. If we ever let the head shrinkers get their hands on us they could write whole libraries full of psychology books.”
“I’d eat a bullet first,” I said taking his hand and wrapping it around me again.
“Don’t joke about something like that, Katie,” he said giving me a good squeeze. “Not even a little. And how have your tastes changed or stayed the same after the switch?”
“I still like girls, but I have been too afraid to do anything about it, that and I was married to you.”
“Even when we were fighting, or rather you fighting and me whimpering on the ground.”
“Particularly then!” I said nuzzling my nose with his. “I was too shell-shocked to think of any sort of romance, or even mere lust. As far as guys go… results are mixed. I’ve tried flirting a few times…”
“FLIRTING!” he shouted letting me out of his embrace.
“Just clearing the decks! Trying to figure out how I swing, nothing happened not even a kiss.”
“And what did your investigations determine?” he asked gritting his teeth a bit.
“A twinge or two… but how much of that was me acting, and getting into the role the whole world sees me in and how much of it was actually real I don’t know. Certainly never the sort of zing we used to have.”
“Well thank God for that!” he said stiffly and readjusting himself in bed as he resumed holding me.
And poking me with something stiff at the same time.
“Thomas?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes,” he answered curtly.
“Is that?”
“Yes,”
“Oh,”
“Yeah, all this talk about it I guess… hey!” he screamed as I grabbed his junk with both hands.
“I just want to hold it a bit, stop being a baby! I could probably charge by the hour for this service.”
“Maybe you could, but your hands are cold, Katie.”
“They’ll get warmer, I just want to see if I can hold it and not gag, it will be the first time I’ve done it from this direction. I’m not ready for anything more, and the logistics of it in my current state would be problematic anyway. But if we are going to have any sort of future together, particularly after the annulment, these are questions that need to be asked and answered.”
“I see your point Katie, would you just warn a guy, or at least warm your hands first?”
“Deal,” I said giggling a bit despite my best intentions, which did interesting things to the organ in my hands.
“Christ Katie,” he said taking in the entire situation and laughing a bit himself. “If we tried to sell this story to Hollywood no one would believe it.”
“What and rodents of unusual size are so realistic?”
“That’s an obvious fantasy,” he said trying to appear reasonable.
“You mean, like magical body swaps? Hello my name is Ingo Montoya, you stole my body prepare to die!!”
“You know what I mean, take this afternoon for instance. Instead of a normal shotgun wedding with the groom being held at gunpoint by the girl’s father. It was the knocked up teenager holding a double barrel on a different father while she agitated for a divorce!”
“Annulment,”
“Whatever, the point is we can’t seem to do anything the normal expected way. And by the way, you need to realize Katie that you are not Tommy anymore, as your own hands are proving to you. That was incredibly dangerous what you did today. I was proud of you, but I was also scared to death for you and the baby when I saw you on that lawn facing some madman alone. You’re not a great big hulking hero any more, princess,” he said as he moved in to give me a long deep kiss.
“I said I was TRYING to be more like a lady, obviously there is work still to be done.”
***
Bad writing covered up by the Robynn Hoode
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 21
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The Return of the Scott
PART 21
The whole family stayed all day Friday and we hit what sights Omaha had to offer, there is actually a world renowned Zoo in town and much of it is open in the winter. The musical “Man of La Mancha” was also in town and we caught an evening performance. I would have been fine with wearing the same gown I had worn the previous evening for the Orpheum Theater but it was some sort of feminine faux pas and my sisters took me out shopping for a last minute dress. On BLACK FRIDAY mind you! And since my mother wasn’t with us this time, I had to pay for this one. And Jesus freaking Christ don't women really get the short end of the stick when it comes to affordable clothes? Or, as Marilyn M might say, "The fuzzy end of the lollipop."
Saturday eventually came though, and the clan had to filter back to their normal lives. My sisters to their jobs and universities and my father to Offutt and his plane back to his command. Aunt Alane and her husband stayed until Sunday morning, and by Sunday evening all my roommates had returned and life began to become normal again. Thomas had stayed only long enough to meet half of them and they put him through a worse interrogation than the Naval Academy admissions board had. But he passed inspection, if only just barely.
Monday morning I retook the Scott Company.
I had worked over the plans to my parent’s new house and earned my fee almost right away in cost savings alone. The architect had been, as most professionals are in rural Virginia, a friend of a friend of a second cousin. Nepotism works on occasion and it had been a big part of my life for years but I always pushed myself to work harder and better to make up for it so that I wouldn’t be seen as standing on someone else’s shoulders. This mook however didn’t seem to have that drive and had left off several little things like, oh say the connection to the damn SEPTIC tank! He was fired almost immediately, of course, but I probably saved his life. First week of his well deserved retirement and my father can’t take a dump because of someone else’s incompetence…
Anyway, the advance was paid to me and I sent the check and the manufactured invoice to Scott headquarters. Two days before the holiday we received notification that it had been cashed. And DeGeas howled with glee when he told me. There was a monthly partners meeting, the next of which was scheduled for December 1st and we both made plans to attend. Though it appeared I needed to ask my mommy for permission first.
“I don’t like this at all Katherine,” she said as she helped roll up my nylons for me to put on. “You don’t need to put yourself through this stress. The baby is due any minute.”
“The due date is next week,” I countered as I began buttoning up my blouse. Damn it all, this had fit two weeks ago!
“Those are guidelines young lady, there is quite a bit of wiggle room each way. It’s not like the expiration date on a milk carton. Martha was two weeks overdue and Thomas was almost a month early. Never was one for waiting my boy.”
“That sounds about right,” I agreed with her and tried not to grin.
“You don’t have to do this now, Katherine. Is the point I’m trying to make. I know you wish to honor your father but it has waited ten years it can wait a few months more.”
“No it can’t mother,” I countered. “This is the partner's meeting where they decide on how many and how much of a yearend bonus to hand to each other. Potentially waiting a few weeks or months until after the baby is born and I recover, could cost me millions.”
“Still, can’t you send a proxy, your lawyer perhaps, he seems particularly competent?”
“I agree, and I intend to let him carry as much of the burden of the company as I can shove on his shoulders but I need to win it back first and for that my presence is very certainly required. I understand my limits, and my own situation. I don’t intend to put on a hard hat and go charging off to Outer Mongolia to build a bridge while I’m nine months pregnant. I’ll show up, assert my rights and hand over interim control to DeGeas right afterwards.”
“I’m going with you,” she said handing me my heels. “Just give me a few minutes to change.”
“Professor Ryan, that’s not necessary,” I said trying to sooth her. “One of the girls will drive me and DeGeas and about twenty of HIS partners will be there waiting for me. I’m sure you have things to do.”
“Yes Katherine, I do, and this is one of them,” she said resolutely.
“I need to leave in about twenty minutes,” I said trying to discourage her.
“I’ll be ready in ten,” she said to reassure me.
Damn me if she wasn’t
***
I had held the line at taking her rental to the Scott Headquarters. It has been almost seven months since I had been inside Rocinante and while a part of me hated to expose her to the salt and slush a previous snowstorm had made of Omaha’s streets, a bigger part of me needed my faithful steed as I went charging off to battle my enemies. So nostalgia won over paranoia, besides, there were several fine touchless car-washes on the way back. Mother was quite correct that I would not be able to fit behind the steering wheel, though I made the attempt so that I could be sure. With some time, a heated garage and a full tool set, I could probably re-rig it so that my girth could be accommodated. I only needed the wheel to adjust a few inches up as is standard practice on newer cars. But by the time I figured all that out the baby would be born anyway and render it moot. So I gritted my teeth and walked over to the passenger side to get in and my mother drove my muscle car.
The ignition, specifically the noise of the powerful engine startled her, but only momentarily. The seatbelt gave her more pause.
“It’s a racing harness,” I said answering her obvious unasked question. “It’s much safer than the regular three point seatbelt.”
“I’m sure it is, it looks just like the adult sized straps for a child’s safety seat, which by the way you are NEVER PUTTING in this car. How do you work it?”
“Here let me show you,” I said leaning over and adjusting her straps.
“Thomas and his toys,” she said annoyed as the last bit was fitted. “And why does he need such a dangerous sounding thing as a ‘racing harness'? Was he anticipating rolling his car as he raced for pink slips down some dark alley?”
“Um,” I said trying to come up with the best answer that wouldn’t make me sound like a maniac. “I don’t think Thomas would ever risk Rocinante on a bet.”
That he wasn’t sure he could win!
“Hmm,” she grumbled at me as we pulled out of the driveway and onto the street. “The General, when we were younger of course, once took me on a ride along in an Abrams Tank. They even let me drive it for a bit on the range, this is very similar.”
“This goes slightly faster than a main battle tank,” I said, slightly offended. “Though it probably uses approximately the same amount of steel... and fuel.”
We made small talk on the way to the office. We went over several of the checklists for the oncoming delivery, argued over the placement of the nursery again, and otherwise took my mind off the oncoming battle ahead. Even if it wouldn’t be fought with bullets and bayonets it would certainly be bloody, though hopefully, not literally. We pulled up to the curb of Scott Headquarters and mother got out and came over to my side to help me out. Afterwards she got back in and drove to the parking lot across the street. I waddled into the lobby and tried to look older than I was. The suit, the makeup and the baby bump I hoped all combined would present the appearance of a confident adult woman, and not let these strangers know about the scared little girl beneath the facade.
Courage is a funny thing. It comes in all forms, and goes whenever it pleases. I had contemplated it over many years, ever since I had made my decision to follow my father into military service. It’s not just about charging machine gun nests or covering a grenade blast with your body to protect your squad mates. The military expects, and generally receives, a large amount of physical courage. Despite all the glaring and public exceptions over the years, most do not run at the sound of battle or flee from the oncoming enemy. Fighting, when you got right down with it was easy enough.
But moral and spiritual courage? That was a much rarer commodity. I had an offer on the table of two hundred million dollars. I did not NEED to do what I was about to. No one was pointing guns at me one way or the other. When I got in that elevator with my team of lawyers all I had to do was press the button to 18 instead of to 20 and I could walk into the Oracle’s offices and get my money. He would be pleased enough, DeGeas would lose his opportunity to gloat but would understand in time, mother would certainly approve. With that much money I could rest by the beach on some private island forever, and insure that my daughter wanted for nothing for forever and a day.
Who was I to take up this burden? It was my birthright on one hand, but really someone else’s on the other. Even if I had a legal right to it as owner of this body, did I have a moral right to it? Even on my family’s behalf? Assuming today was successful I would find myself owner of a great company but what the hell did I know about that? I was just a kid! I was studying engineering sure and I knew how to knock a few boards together but even if all those people in the boardroom were lazy larcenous bastards they probably knew ten times what I knew. I looked around the lobby at all the people that were walking about, suited professionals scurrying to the next assignment and also blue-collar workers doing their menial duty. The three men and one woman at the security desk, what did they care about who was in charge upstairs and long as the paychecks kept coming.
And how the hell was I supposed to know how to do that!? DeGeas seemed confident enough that something could be salvaged but who is to say that my actions today wouldn’t see the total end of the company. These people, particularly in THIS economy, depended upon the paycheck to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table for their children. Who was I to put that at risk?
“Are you ready?” asked DeGeas as he waddled up himself followed by his team and my mother behind them. Side by side we looked like two beached whales but then, I would be losing a lot of weight soon.
“No,” I answered as my breathing became a little labored and my heart started beating a mile a minute.
“I understand, this is probably very stressful for you, particularly now,” said DeGeas as he rested an arm on my shoulder and smiled at me to give some avuncular comfort. “Take all the time you need…are you ready now?”
“Ha,” I gasped, laughing despite myself and then nodding. “Yes.”
“Well then,” he said indicating the bank of elevators. “Let’s go claim your fortune.”
***
When you are traveling in a group and your assembled clothes are worth more than some houses, security guards are wary to stop you and ask where you think you are going. We were able to get all the way to the doors of the main conference room before anyone thought to interrupt us.
“May I help you,” asked a young short haired female receptionist wearing a headset and a blouse two sizes too small.
“We’re here for the partners' meeting,” said DeGeas taking the lead for us. “I know we’re early but we wanted to get our seats first.”
“I’m sorry sir,” she said in that professionally pleasing voice held by all receptionists everywhere. “But the partners' meeting is restricted to senior partners only.”
“And their secretaries,” He said smiling at her. “Says so right in the agreement, of course that was written before all these little computers and personal data assistants got created.”
“All you,” she said with a wave of her hand. “And only ONE secretary?” she said nodding at me. “And besides as I said it is open to only SENIOR partners and I’ve never seen any of you before.”
“Young lady,” said DeGeas bringing out some papers from his case. “I think if you’ll look here and--”
“I am the partner,” I said interrupting him and ripping the pages from his hands. “And these are MY secretaries. My name is Jessica Scott,” I said plumping down the sheaf of paper on her desk and pulling out my passport to show her. “I own 51.4% of the shares of this company, and today I will assert my voting rights. If you have been here for any time at all no doubt you know about my ownership and won’t have to refer to the most recent copy of the ownership rolls in front of you. I may be young, and female, but I intend to get older, and am certainly SENIOR enough as far as you are concerned.”
“I… that is…” She said trying to find her words.
“I am not a vindictive woman by preference so I will not make an issue out of your treatment and assumptions about me thus far. But I would take it amiss… Miss Reed,” I said as I looked down at her imperiously. “If you ruin my little surprise for the other partners by letting them know what and who is lying in wait for them inside.
“Are…” she looked up at me hesitantly and then broke out in a small smile. “Are you going to fire them?”
“A distinct possibility,” I said losing some of my ire.
“Our phone system is very temperamental, pieces of it go down for … HOURS, at a time. I may have some difficulty contacting anyone in the immediate future, anyway” she replied.
I was almost sure she winked but it was probably a nervous twitch. She was, after all, under some stress.
***
I sat at the head of the table, and faced the door, with my mother and DeGeas on either side of me. We had brought five other lawyers to have as back up, two of whom had concealed carry firearms permits and had perhaps spent more time in the desert than they had in law school. The conference room could seat about 30 but I didn’t know how many of my partners would be arriving so just we three sat and the rest stood at our shoulders and tried to look imposing.
The walls on the left side of the room were filled with pictures of completed projects. Sanitized corporate displays that had none of the life or energy of the Scott family archives, the Scotts themselves were on the right wall. Starting at the door and every few feet afterwards there were oil paintings of the managing partner. Henry, Peter, Martin, Roger, Peter again, William…Martin again, and then followed a veritable catalogue of men, and no women, I noticed, who had been in charge the last decade. Seven in ten years, but they had all lasted long enough to have their faces immortalized. The furthest from the start, of course, must be the man in whose chair I was currently sitting.
The partners started arriving in ones and twos a few minutes before the official start. They all paused when they saw my party but few of them said anything. Every once in a while one of the braver ones would ask who we were and DeGeas would answer with a simple ‘the managing partner will explain everything soon’. The assembled engineers meekly checked their phones and their PDA’s trying to find out if they missed a memo but were content to take their chairs and wait to see what happened. There was only one other female on their end of the table, and she was what the business world referred to as a twofer. An African American women, she could count twice when the corporate officers wanted to appear liberal and accommodating to discrimination laws. Most of the men were white and old, graying if the hair wasn’t gone. And only one of them, a hawkish looking man in the corner appeared like he had done any real work in years. Eventually the man who thought he was king walked in last, as fitted his apparent station.
“Who the fuck are you,” he said harshly. “And what are you doing in my chair?” he was seventy if he was a day and was probably looking forward to the same golden parachute his six predecessors had enjoyed. He was tall and thin to the point of emaciation the skin hanged loose on his gaunt features and despite that, reminded me strongly of the villain Skeletor from the “Masters of the Universe.” DeGeas had given me all his personal information and I didn’t have any proof that he was an actual evil man. But certainly his opening statement did not endear him to me.
“Mr. Nelson,” I said calmly indicating with my hand. “Please take a seat.”
“I asked you a question girl,” he said defiantly staying standing.
“Who the hell I am,” I answered him briskly. “Is Jessica …Katherine… SCOTT. And I am the majority owner of this company.”
Pandemonium broke out at my statement, while all the assembled partners turned to each other and started talking at once. Nelson tried speaking up over the shouting but he did not have a young man’s lungs and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. After giving them a good ten seconds I put fingers to my mouth and gave off a sharp and surprisingly loud whistle.
“ wwwwwwwhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiipppee!!!!!!!!!!”
“There are several government identifications,” said DeGeas calmly, “and my associates will begin passing out copies for all of you. But that may be unnecessary. Age has not changed her that much. Many of you have been with the company for decades, surely some of you recognize her, she also looks very much like her late mother.”
“She could be anyone.”
“A fake.”
“What the hell are we going to do now?”
“I told you we should have punched out last year.”
‘HOW old is she?”
“It doesn’t mean shit who she is!”
“My resume is up to date, how about yours?”
“Like I ever looked at the old man’s wife, I was just out of grad school then.”
“His first wife.”
“I just put in a pool!”
“ wwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiipppeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!”
“And who are you,” asked Nelson looking at my lawyer after the others had calmed down.
“My name is Bernard DeGeas,” he said plainly.
“The DeGeas!” one of them shouted shocked.
“We’re fucked.”
“Game over man, game over.”
“I’ve only just HEARD about him, never laid eyes. He only leaves that office in Woodman once a geologic age.”
“Then how did WE get so lucky?”
“ENOUGH!!” I shouted out and would have stood to my feet aggressively if it wasn’t for the passenger I was carrying. Sometimes real life just won’t accommodate appropriately dramatic moments. So I settled for slamming my fist down on the polished marble table.
“Say I believe that you are who you say you are,” said Nelson as he approached me ponderously. “That doesn’t matter a bit, your voting rights have been revoked. Now get out of my chair before I have security remove you!”
“Security,” said one of my armed guards while he unbuttoned his suit jacket and showed his holster. “Would have a problem with that.”
“The police then,” Nelson continued as some spit escaped from his mouth in rage.
“The police,” DeGeas added. “Would have even greater a problem with that. Leaving aside their own feelings, we are here completely legally. Indeed the case could, and would be made sir, that YOU are trespassing.”
“I’ve worked here for forty years!” he tossed back angrily.
“The last two of which, Mr. Nelson, you have led this company to near ruin.”
“It’s the economy, things will pick up in a year or two. They always have.”
“I agree,” I said reentering the conversation. “But not for you.”
“You don’t WORK here, you can’t exercise your voting rights!”
I held his gaze steadily while DeGeas slid over a piece of paper with several relevant sections highlighted. Nelson blinked first then curiosity got the better of his rage and he looked at the proffered document.
“This says Katherine Ryan, not Jessica Scott!” he said tossing it back in our face.
“A legal pseudonym,” said DeGeas retrieving the paper and carefully arranging it back in his case. “I have all the relevant paperwork on that as well. As long as you do not intend fraud you can call yourself anything you want. Except, of course, president of this company.”
“It’s a fake,” he continued belligerently.
“The check has been cashed and the money is sitting in your… sadly depleted of late, accounts at First National. My friends over there have already confirmed it. Jessica Katherine has billed and brought in revenue to the company and, as such, the punitive actions taken against her 10 years ago no longer apply. She holds an absolute majority and you sir… are voted out of office.”
“And who’s in? Her?” he said pointing his finger at me like he wanted me to bite it off. “She doesn’t look old enough to be left on her own without a babysitter.”
“In the interregnum I will be in charge day to day with Miss Scott in overall command. I’ve run several of these little house cleanings before,” said DeGeas looking down at his manicured nails disdainfully.
“And what do you know about an engineering company you fat fuck?
“Very little,” my lawyer agreed. “But when was the last time you worked in the field? And at this level of corporate governance there isn’t much difference. I’ll have minions to help me out until Jessica Katherine is ready.”
“I won’t stand for it! I’ll sue!” said Nelson pounding his own fist on the table next to me and knocking over one of the glasses next to the water pitcher.
The hawk like man I had noticed earlier in the corner stood up at that. He was in his mid fifties but looked very fit except for a series of scars on the left side of his face. “’Lord’ Nelson,” he said disdainfully. “I’ll remind you of your oath. This is the Scott heir, and you owe her your duty.”
“That was years ago, Ross,” said Nelson turning around to face him. “It will never hold up in court."
“Maybe not,” the scarred man agreed. “But nothing else you have will either. Now take what’s left of your dignity back to your office and clean it out. I, for one, welcome our new teenage overlord… overlady. Has to be better than you’ve managed since you took the big chair.”
“You’re not even supposed to be here, Ross, your division head is--”
“Sleeping off his three martini breakfast,” he broke in. “As he has done for years, why don’t you go catch up?”
Nelson seemed to turn all his anger from me toward the new interloper and he rushed across the room and started, tried starting anyway, to land punches on the slightly younger man. Eventual this Ross got tired of the game and punched him back hard in the gut with Nelson collapsing soon afterwards. Ross then calmly took out his cell phone and dialed some numbers.
“I need an ambulance and paramedics in the conference room on the twentieth floor, Mr. Nelson has had an attack,” With that he slid the phone back into his jacket pocket and returned to his chair ignoring the moans of his previous boss. “You have the floor I believe Miss Scott.”
***
The medics took Mr. Nelson away. He was conscious and still muttering the occasional curse but the fight seemed to be taken out of him. The proposal was made for me to take over the position of president and managing partner and was seconded and carried almost unanimously. The only ones abstaining were already on their way out the door like heretics fleeing the vengeful wrath of the inquisition. The voting was a mere formality, and I was pleased to have so much support from my new subordinates. Even if it was only a result of their fear of being let go.
“Gentlemen, and lady,” I said nodding at the lone woman among them. “Some in my position would fire the lot of you, or at least remove you from any position of authority. I, however, do not have the luxury of doing so, coming to the company so early, in many respects, and so late, in so many others. But my inexperience is only temporary; soon enough if you shirk you will be found out and removed. For the time being, I leave you with these commands. Do not cheat, do not lie, do not steal... Obey my orders and those of my representatives. But also remember! I have no need of walking corpses in my board room. Do not be afraid to question my logic or bring to me concerns… as long as it is done with respect. Those of you who work hard and bring wealth into the company will be rewarded those of you who do not… will not. We will meet again in January. I hope you will still be here when we do.”
The meeting broke up and the remaining partners fled the scene as quickly as dignity would permit. Ross was one of the last out, when we made eye contact he gave me a curt nod and then gathering up his papers he slowly followed his coworkers out the door.
“Well,” said my mother taking my hand in hers. “That went well.”
“Hggg,” DeGeas grunted as he worked his way through the monthly reports the division heads left behind. “Were not alive yet, depending upon which valuation we use you’re underwater. The company is into First National for a quarter billion dollars. And that’s just the largest of the liabilities; I haven’t found a tithe of them yet. And the income is hardly enough to pay operating costs let alone service the bank loan. I’m going to have to do some juggling to make these bills work out.”
“You’ll find a way,” I smiled at him as I got up from my chair carefully and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Just make sure you pay yourself first. I never could have done this without you.”
“Oh, you’ll get my bill, don’t you worry about THAT!”
“One of these days Mr. DeGeas you will have to tell me the story of why these people are so frightened of you,” I asked jokingly.
“Someday my dear,” he answered me somberly, losing his smile as he went back to the pages. “But not today.”
Mother and I left the men to their work and returned to the reception area outside. I gave the young woman behind the desk a smile and she gave me a thumbs up which I took as a good sign. The walk to the elevators was punctuated by little bits of conversation that I couldn’t help but overhear. Things like ‘that’s her, and ‘the Scott’ and ‘kneed old man Nelson in the nuts!’ The last of which was untrue since it was Ross who had done the honors, and to his gut instead, but I knew trying to deny the office gossip would only add fuel to the fire. When we got to the ground floor mother went to get the car and I found a seat in the lobby. The people down here hadn’t got the word yet, I guessed, and were going about their business just like they had hours ago when I first arrived. Even though my own little world had just changed forever the quote unquote normal people were getting by just fine. I hoped I didn’t let them down.
I was helped into the car when Mother opened the door for me again. It’s sad, but I was sort of going to miss all this concierge service after I popped. I just hoped I hadn’t got TOO used to it. Boot camp after all was only a few years away.
“Since you’re a net debtor now,” said mother whimsically as she turned up the heater. “Let me treat you to lunch. The girls say there are some good places in something called the ‘old market’ down by the river.”
“I’ve already missed my morning classes,” I said reluctantly, as nice as a lunch in a fancy restaurant sounded. “I don’t want to miss afternoon too. Just stop by the Burger King drive through on the way to the house. On second thought, it’s probably a bad idea to eat in the car. I ju…I see Thomas just redid the leather. I’ll make a sandwich or something when we get home.”
“Are you sure?” she asked as we turned onto Dodge Street. “I could give you a note from your mother to give your teachers.”
“You’re not technically speaking my mother,” I said accompanied by a pain in my gut. “Not anymore.”
“Katherine, you have been calling me ‘mother’ for weeks, and that speech at Thanksgiving... Even after the annulment, I thought that that’s what you wanted.”
“I do! Very much so,” I answered her forlornly.
“Then let us never speak otherwise again. You are one of my daughters and I will treat you just like I would any of the rest of them,” she said as she made a turn to head downtown. “And if I want to spoil you on special ocas---”
CRASH!!
BOOM!!
CRCRICRI!!
BER BER BER!!
When the car stopped I realized I had hit my head pretty badly, and there was blood coming down and into my left eye. When I came a little bit out of my daze and tried to clear my vision I also realized my left arm had been broken, or at the very least severely injured. I didn’t see what had hit us, but whatever it was it had been large and with enough velocity to do serious damage to my baby.
My BABY!
I grabbed my belly with my uninjured hand and tried to do a self assessment. There were no apparent wounds though I was bruised up quite a bit, and for the first time in almost forever I didn’t feel the almost constant background movement I had gotten used to. Of all the times for her not to kick!
“Mom,” I said turning to my mother and trying to get her attention. “Mom!” I shouted again. “Wake up! You have to wake up.”
“Wa…what,” she moaned out “Jimmy?”
“Mom, please you have to get out and help me.”
“What?” she said as she turned to me her eyes coming a bit more in focus. “What happened?”
“Car accident…” I said as I winced in pain. “You have to get out.”
“I can’t seem to…the straps,” she said fumbling with her harness. I leaned over as best I could to help get her undone. And had to undo most of my own as well to get enough reach, which, what with being one handed and all, took some doing. Eventually she was free and she opened her door to get out of the car. She stumbled out, and fell on her knees in the cold wintery slush, stunned again.
“Mom!” I shouted once more. “You have to get up.”
“Right,” she said as she used both her hands to get to her feet and once standing instinctually slammed the door shut before she left.
Trouble was, and I guess I can’t really blame her even after all these years, what we both didn’t realize was that Roxy had ended up on the ledge of an overpass. And that motion, coupled with the lack of weight on her side was enough to tip the balance as my car fell twenty feet onto the street below and the oncoming traffic that went with it.
The car and I landed on our top and the drop slammed me into the roof of the car but I didn’t have to worry about that for long, since an oncoming sedan fishtailed into my rear when it didn’t have enough time to stop and sent me spinning like a child’s toy on the highway. Eventually, after an eternity, the motion slowed. And the metal screeching a death wail on the cement dropped in volume. I was in the back seat at this point, my harness having been undone beforehand, but the comfortable seat didn’t matter much since I was on the roof at the moment. I gave up a bit then. It was probably a minute or so before I even tried moving again. Every part of my body it seemed was either bleeding or screaming in pain or both together. Eventually a nauseous smell brought me back to my senses.
The smell of Gasoline.
The driver’s side was crushed up against the concrete medium and there was no way I would be able to get through that way. The front and rear windscreens had miraculously stood up intact. And I cursed my own mechanical ambition for using some left over Plexiglas I appropriated from a understanding sergeant in supply at Pendleton. It would have been handy to just exit out the back side... I knew it was futile, but I tried it anyway, crawling toward the passenger side and attempting to open the door from the inside. Even from this odd angle I was able to get to the handle but it was useless in my hands.
Some damn fool… who thought he was doing the right thing, had removed the unlocking mechanism.
It was at that point I recognized one pain, distinct from all the rest.
A contraction.
****************************
Authors note
To prove to you that I am not COMPLETELY evil I shall make a deal with you. The Nebraska Cornhuskers do battle tonight with the evil Ohio State Buckeyes; it is a contest we are expected to lose by nine and half points. If we somehow prove victorious I will post the next chapter tomorrow morning instead of the usual two day gap between. If we lose, well, I may be so despondent that I forget to post for …weeks.
If you wish to help the process along the game is at 7:00pm central time on ABC. The team colors are scarlet and cream though despite that our rally cry is “Go Big Red!”
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 22
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The Oracle looked down imperiously from his 18th floor corner office at the carnage in the street below.
“If only,” he said to the world at large. “If only people had donated to the kitty, we might have known what happened down there.”
Taking a last sip from his drink he crashed the glass up against the window shattering it into pieces across his desk.
“God damn all cheapskates!!”
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The hatbox is located ovah heauh---------------------------->
This is a perhaps tasteless publicity stunt. New chapter tommorow.
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 23
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For real this time.
***
Part 23
For those of you who have never been in the body and fender shop, it may be difficult to credit but for the longest time, you don’t know what the hell is going on. You “wake” up and it might be an hour before you have the energy to turn your head. Then, after that arduous effort, you go back to sleep. When you are woken again by a nurse, you might get up the will to ask a question but it’s pretty pointless since you won’t remember the answer and will just ask it again in an hour.
And you hurt, after the fact if you are trying to be witty, you will let people know at cocktail parties that you appreciated the pain since it let you know that you were alive. But while you were going through it, it’s another story entirely. The pain overrides everything, and you try to moan loud enough and long enough for the medical staff might take pity on you and up your dosage of pain killers. Which might dull out the pain at the cost of performing higher brain functions or just send you back to the blissful abandon of sleep.
It was a night, and a day, and most of another night before that pattern ended.
Modern doctors don’t wish to manufacture drug addicts, so while doping a patient into oblivion has a medical use to get them over the roughest patches of recovery soon enough they taper it off until it gets to a more manageable medium between pain, tolerance, and potential for addiction. The first thing I can remember remembering was Glenn Beck on my TV pontificating on some nameless issue that somehow required a large amount of vitriol and a chalkboard. I started pressing as many buttons as I could reach to make the bad man stop and one of them must have been a call button since a nurse appeared shortly afterwards.
“Miss Scott,” she said as she entered and unwrapped a stethoscope from her neck and approached me. “I see you’re awake, how are you feeling?”
“Teee…veee,” I managed to get out after some effort.
“You want to watch some TV,” she asked as she continued checking me about.
“Off…asshole.”
She looked over her shoulder at the screen and then reached for the remote and pressed some button that had obviously just appeared for her.
“I’m sorry, it’s a Republican hospital and that’s one of the default channels.”
“What happened to me?” I said after processing for a few seconds.
“You and another woman were in a car accident. You had the good fortune to do so only five blocks from U.N.M.C., the paramedics had you here and you were in an operating theater less than ten minutes after it happened.”
“Bad?”
“I’ve seen worse, but not many. If you take your rehab seriously you will probably make a full recovery but its best to let the doctors tell you that. Some of them should be in to speak with you soon, about your recovery and… your baby.”
“Baby?... BABY!!!!”
My left arm was resting in traction but my right seemed to be unrestrained. I immediately went to my midsection and felt my baby bump.
It was empty.
“Where?” I asked angrily confused. “What happened? Where is she?”
“The doctors will be in to speak with you shortly,” she said and tried to comfort me by putting a pleasing expression on her face.
“FUCK you and your stupid smile! Where is my baby?”
“Calm down Miss Scott, she is the neonatal intensive care unit.”
“Where, what floor?”
“East wing, on five, three above us, now…WAIT!!” she shouted out when she realized what I was doing.
I yanked my whole left arm out of the tray and pulled the blanket back with my right as I swung my legs drunkenly over the bed and tried to get up only to realize halfway through that one of my legs was encased in a cast and would never support my weight. Already committed I fell out of the bed dragging several of the plastic lines that were attached with me.
“Miss Scott please, you’ll hurt yourself,” she said while trying to help me back up in the bed.
“I have to see my baby,” I said shoving off her help, or trying to anyway. If I was able to go three rounds with an anemic mosquito I might be able to win by technical knockout but this nurse was well out of my bracket for the time being. “Please get me a wheelchair.”
“You need to get back in bed, the baby is being cared for and there is nothing you can do at the moment.”
“Wheelchair!” I shouted back and the sound of my own voice was enough to give me a tearing headache.
“I’m sorry Miss Scott, but I’m not going to get you a wheelchair and neither is any other nurse, now please back in bed.”
I breathed heavily a few times trying to catch my breath from all the exertion then looked dazed in her eyes and said simply, “Then I’ll crawl.”
And preceded to do that.
“Charlie!” the nurse shouted out the door. “Bring the sedative!”
***
I woke up in a different room and judging by the sky out the window it was now morning. The only thing that I was able to move unhindered was my head. Both legs and arms were in restraints, even the injured ones. But at least the Television was on CBS. It appeared to be a double room, and I looked over to the bed nearest the door and it held a woman reading a book who looked very much like my mother’s grandmother. But she had been dead for years.
“Mom?” I asked the other person in the room.
“Katie!” she answered, surprised, as she put down the book. It appeared that the world was nicer to her in general because she was unrestrained and able to get out of her bed. She had to bring an IV stand with her but within seconds she was in the chair by my side and holding my hand that was still tied down. “I’m here sweetie.”
“What happened?” I asked her as I tried to work my tongue around my cotton mouth.
“The was a car ac…well the police are not sure exactly. But we were hit by another car certainly. I’m afraid Tommy’s firebird has been completely totaled. “
“I don’t give a flying FUCK! about the car, where is Mary Margaret?”
“Alive, I was able to get that much out of these… people. But more than that they wouldn’t tell me, officially I am not next of kin. I had to call in your lawyer and from what I gather he traded shamelessly on your name. But he got us in the same room together. I thought it would be helpful for when you woke up. If you promise to behave and listen to your doctors and your mother! I think I can convince them to undo these restrains.”
“Yes Ma’am,” I said sheepishly. “I promise to be a good little girl.”
A few minutes later a nurse came in, a different one I was pleased to note, I’m not sure I could have dealt with the embarrassment otherwise. And soon enough I was able to use the controls to sit me up in bed and take a sip of water from the container left behind on the tray. Now that I had a higher angle I was able to get a better view of the large hospital room and in the corner was one of those industrial sized recliners for family members and a Marine uniform jacket was laying folded across the armrests. I indicated it with my head and looked at my mother questioningly.
“The General took emergency leave when he found out,” she explained. “He actually commandeered an F-18 to get here as quick as possible, when this is all over we shall have to remember to tease him mercilessly about it. The pilot that ferried him looked like he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week. He’s off to get something to drink now, but should be back soon.”
“Thomas?”
“Tom is… still in Maryland. He doesn’t know yet, the police and hospital of course didn’t know to call him. The General thought it would be pointless to worry him while he was sitting exams until we had definitive news to tell him. We’ll contact him together when we do have news… DeGeas has apparently had your health care proxy for years and he is in conference with your doctors now. Hopefully we will hear something soon about the baby.”
“Mary Margaret,” I said to her.
“Yes… of course,” she said as she leaned over and gave me as much of a hug as could be managed.
“Maggie,” said my father’s deep voice as he came in the room. “I found you your tea but it’s just hot water and a bag. I haven’t had to do my own dog robbing in years but I can head to the house if you tell me where you keep the leaves and… how to make tea.”
“This will be fine James,” she said smiling at him and taking the offered cup.
“How’s our girl?” he asked looking down at me.
“I feel like I could run a marathon,” I said closing my eyes and leaning back. “But that may be the drugs talking, judging by all the gear that is attached to me I think I should hold off on my sportswear sponsorship.”
“Have you been able to scare anything out of the doctors about the baby?” asked my mother.
“Nothing fresh, just that she’s alive for the time being… staying that way is to be determined.”
“Were you able to make any headway into getting us listed for medical power of attorney?”
“Some, but…Katie?” he asked suddenly concerned.
“Sleepy,” I replied and slowly phased out.
…
…
…
***
“… thirteen distinct lacerations and contusions. 121 separate stitches, not a record by the way. Left ulna fractured,” said my doctor as he continued reading off my chart mechanically. “Right tibia the same. Collar bone, and of course the incision from your C-Section...”
***
“…A piece of debris punctured your womb and struck your baby, . The heart and several other organs were wounded in the trauma. When you arrived in the OR our resident obstetrician detected that the baby was in distress and there was no time to deliver vaginaly…”
***
“… most of it of course will be covered by insurance,” said DeGeas as he gave me my briefing. “But that almost inevitably leaves SOME out and when we are talking major medical, the remainder will likely balloon to the five figures. The state insurance pool you have as a student has a cap on it so there will be some nasty stuff ahead. And while the plan that you have, covers YOU and your delivery, it does not extend to your dependants, and their subsequent care. I’m trying to get you slid into the plan the Scott Company has for its corporate officers and back dating it to the time it took effect but BlueCross BlueShield is being, well, an insurance company about it. It the meantime I’ve told them to do any procedure and run any test and have stood surety for the cost… yes doctor can I help you? I’m in conference with my client…what!...”
***
“…Your daughter took a turn for the worse in the last hour. Doctor Greene wants to go in again assisted by Doctor Gieger our pediatric cardiologist. The operation will likely take six to eight hours. One of the nurses can show you how to bring up the hospital’s intranet and check the status updates. It can be brought up on the television screen right in your room. For now though I need you to sign these consent forms so that we can begin…”
***
“…Mother,” I said turning over to her side of the room frozen. “Since you have both typing hands I would appreciate you doing a small service.”
“Katie,” she said her eyes tearing up. “You don’t have to do this now. You can--”
“Best we do it now, before I pass out again, just open your email and take this down.”
“All right,” she said wiping her eyes of the moisture as I dictated to her.
Dear Thomas,
Mother and I were in a car accident. Our daughter, Mary Margaret, is dead…
***
“We haven’t been able to apprehend or even identify the driver of the other car,” said Captain Mommart of the Omaha Police Departments Traffic division. “Which bothers me a lot, that along with the fact that the car used was stolen earlier that day makes me think this was more than just a hit and run.”
“A ‘hit’ you mean,” I said dispassionately. “And not a hit and run?”
“Possibly, and if I can’t get some forward progress soon I will be turning the case over to major crimes .They are better equipped to handle it. The only thing stopping me from doing it now is timing. From what your lawyer says, the retaking of the Scott Company was acrimonious enough but was done as a complete surprise. This David Nelson he mentioned would only have had about 45 minutes to call it in. It’s only possible if you presuppose a vast well organized criminal conspiracy in this town and we haven’t seen any evidence of that before. Is there anyone else that might want you dead?”
“I can’t think of anyone.”
“I was talking it over with one of the detectives and he brought up the possibility of Mrs. Scott. Your stepmother.”
“Wicked stepmother,” I clarified.
“Just so,” he nodded and tried to give a weak smile at me.
“There is no financial motivation to do so, she already has all the money she would ever get from the Scotts.”
“And who is your heir if something had happened to you?”
“Primarily?” I said to him forlornly. “The public library, though they had not been told beforehand.”
“Well…” he said picking up his uniform hat to leave. “I’ll put them at the bottom of the suspect list for now.”
***
“I have something to tell the both of you,” I said to my parents as we waited alone in our hospital room.
“All right,” my father agreed as he put down his cup of coffee and took my mother’s hand. They both looked somewhat the worse for wear. Mother, of course, from the car impact but my father looked little better. He was able to head out and purchase a few changes of civilian clothes but he didn’t look good in them, somehow he seemed to have lost a couple of inches in the transition. That and the fact that he hadn’t shaved in days made him look a bit like a bum and not a hard charging Marine.
“I don’t want to lose you, I’m not sure I have it in me for another loss,” I spoke to them carefully without even turning my head in their direction.
“Katie, were not going anywhere,” my mother said reassuringly.
“Now maybe, but I’m thinking long term. The baby was one of the only things tying us together, now.”
“Katherine, you--” My father tried saying.
“NO! listen, I know its going to sound crazy. But please do me the favor of checking with Thomas for his response first before you try sending me to the rubber room. Back in the summer…”
“Yes,” my mother prompted.
“Jessica and I… I’m really…”
‘Your son Tommy’ I wanted to say to them.
“I’m really glad you’re here for me, to help me get through this,” I said, chickening out.
“Why would we think you’re crazy for saying that?” my mother asked confused.
“No reason,” I said laying back in my bed, and pressing the button for another self administered dose of pain killer.
My father took pity on my mumbling bumbling attempts at explaining things and handing me a folded newspaper. “You made the front page today Katherine. If I had known I was going to be visiting Royalty's bedchamber I would have had my uniform cleaned and pressed.”
I took the offered paper cautiously and began reading from the 24 point headline.
THE RETURN OF THE SCOTT?
By William Kelley
Most of you are probably not used to reading my stuff on the front page. And you’re only doing it now because the events of the last few days have crossed so many genres of this paper's interest that a veritable fist fight was waged over who was going to do it. Business? Midlands? Crime? But I dusted off that old Pulitzer prize I won, damn thing has to be of some use, as a blunt instrument if nothing else, and so a has been old feature writer is now telling you this tale.
Earlier this year, our city welcomed back our wayward daughter, Jessica Scott, who sources at the University of Nebraska at Omaha say prefers to be called “Katherine”, her middle name. The name was bestowed upon her in honor of her Grandmother Katherine Anne Scott one of the last true great Dames of the previous age who died in 1996. Our newest Katie returns fresh from the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy of New Hampshire. The school proper doesn’t answer questions from a lowly Omaha newspaper but I was able to get in contact with several of her instructors and they all related that she was tops in all her classes. An honor to her ancestors.
Two of them were also pleased to relate, in the deliciously scandalous tones of those New England puritans. That she was forced to abandon her plans for military service and education at the United States Naval Academy because she had fallen pregnant and had returned to Omaha in disgrace. Well, their disgrace but our good fortune! The Scott has returned! Many of you will not understand the significance, perhaps being a new immigrant to our economically stable city or having grown to adulthood without a Scott in residence. Well young adults probably don’t read newspapers anyway, but you new people need to remedy a hole in your education.
The Scotts came to Omaha shortly after the Civil War and, with two picks and a shovel, built an empire, rivaling any other of our great families. The last time we had an accurate appraisal the Scott Company was valued at 3 billion dollars. But it could have been 300 billion or even more if the Scotts hadn’t engaged in an almost un-American activity of giving away vast swaths of their fortune, and locally, not scattered to the four winds like most philanthropists. If you’ve been sick in Omaha, you might have received treatment in a Scott hospital, seen a show? It might have been in a Scott theater. Katherine’s father, Martin was often referred to as “The Prince of the City,” and that is where our story turns into a sort dark fairy tale for our young princess.
Americans, being without an indigenous royalty are ridiculously eager to manufacture our own for a supposed republic. The Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the Hearsts. We simple Nebraskans though, never really went in for the gaudy, glamorous excesses of those east coast fortunes. Our royalty were not oilmen, or landed aristocracy, or even newspapermen! but simple engineers, down in the dirt and mud, and more likely to be digging out a humble sewer than building a glittering skyscraper.
And then the Scott fell, and orphaned his daughter, leaving her in the hands of her stepmother, which is almost a requirement in fairytales, who quickly lost or spent her ward's cash inheritance which also seems to be a requirement. The company remained intact, but out of her control. As the conditions of the company’s partnership agreement required the partner to be a working engineer something most eight year old girls have trouble with. Katherine was sent away into exile, those donations suddenly stopped and every year the number of people employed in the area by the Scott Company grew fewer and fewer...
And then on Monday, a now adult Katherine, and her team of lawyers stormed the gates of her father’s castle and retook the Scott Company. Reports are vague and contradictory and will be related in depth later in our business section. What is not in dispute however, is that Katherine has asserted her voting rights and resumed control as majority owner. The new Chief Operating Officer Bernard DeGeas was not available for comment but then DeGeas has had a busy week.
Because on the very day of her triumphant return, the very hour! She and her unnamed driver were struck down in a suspicious automobile accident. Both are listed in guarded condition at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where Katherine delivered the newest Scott by caesarian section. The child is in critical condition and the baby’s fate is still uncertain as the article goes to press. The OPD has released only a short official press release but this reporter's sources in the police department reveal that street conditions were adequate, visibility was clear, and the car that struck her was stolen, the driver of which has not been found…
It doesn’t take a Holmes or an Hercule Poirot to detect the skullduggery about, particularly coupled with the many still unanswered questions surrounding her father’s death. Many have benefited during Katherine’s minority, and would be wary to give up such riches. But regardless of who is ultimately responsible, be it a lone madman, a cabal of shady businessmen or fate herself, they have failed. Katherine lives, and is likely to keep doing so. And given the legendary temper her family is known to have vented when their ire is drawn, her enemies would be advised to change their status in her eyes as soon as possible.
It is unknown what lies in the future for Katherine, if she will resume her family’s philanthropic endeavors, or if she will rebuild her company. What is known is that she has been handed a cruel hand of cards of late and she and her child should be in all our thoughts and prayers.
The World Herald is minority owned by the Scott Company. Editorial control remains with the World Herald board.
Contact the writer at 402-555-2896 or [email protected]
“Ha,” I said tossing the paper back on the tray. “I was starting to get worried about that article until the last line. They are just trying to butter up the new boss!”
“Not entirely,” said the General smiling warmly. “You and your family seem to have built up quite a bit of goodwill in the city. It reminds me of how they used to write about the Marine Corps before things all started to go to shit in the Middle East.”
“Goodwill huh, that and five bucks will get me a cup of coffee.”
“Five bucks! Since when?” he asked offended.
“You need to get out more General,” I said chuckling a bit despite myself and my black mood.
“I’m going to make some arrangement to have guards put on you,” he said looking sad at the implications.
“How do you figure on doing that?” I asked tiredly. “The DoD is not going to give a tinker’s damn over what happens to me. I’m not technically a member of your family, remember, and the attack, if real, was not related to your position.”
“I’ll find a way Katie, don’t you worry about that.”
“James! Katie look,” said my mother pointing at the television monitor in our room.
SCOTT, M.M.----------------- OUT OF SURGERY/ IN RECOVERY
My father bolted out of his chair and strode out the door to shout at the nurses’ station.
“Get that damn doctor down here ASAP! And if he takes his time to check his stock portfolio on the way down I’m going to start his retirement early.”
　
***
　
They didn’t let me hold my baby, even if she was able to be disconnected from all her tubes and wires I was in no fit state to take her in my arms. A nurse pushed my wheelchair up against the incubator and I was able to stare at her. She looked like some mad science experiment gone wrong. More machine now than girl. Ugly as sin, only the occasional patch of skin was showing through all the attachments and bandages and that skin was a sickly red color. She was bald, and what little wisps of hair she had were actually falling out in front of me, a little blonde strand of it being blown away by the slight discharge from the respirator. Her legs were pointed at what seemed an impossibly odd angle, and the blue veins over her little body bulged out freakishly.
She was beautiful.
“Mother,” I said turning to her in her own wheelchair. “When we get back to the room I want you to delete that email we prepared for Thomas. I never want to see it again… it’s late enough now that he should be out of class and I can call him with the news.”
“Oh Katie, I never even wrote it. I was too nervous, I just made random typing noise on the keyboard while you dictated. It seemed too much like it was tempting the fates to write that letter ahead of time. And we didn’t need it after all…SHE’S GOING TO LIVE!!”
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 24
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Funeral services will be held at 6710 Burt St. officiated by Father John Dvorak at 4PM. The family requests no flowers but donations made for the benefit of the American Society of Civil Engineers will be gratefully accepted.
PART 24
“Are you planning on breastfeeding?” asked the lactation specialist the next day.
“I…well,” I hesitated while I pondered her question, not something I had ever expected to be asked my first 18 years. “I hadn’t thought about it much in the last few days.”
“As your body is starting to recover from the trauma it’s going to remember what it was supposed to be doing right now and, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re going to start leaking.”
“I’ve actually noticed a bit of that already,” I said looking down at the front of my hospital gown.
“That’s the colostrum, which is one of the most important things you can provide to help build up your babies immune system,” the large matronly woman continued in full lecture mode. “And she needs every little bit of help she can get.”
“I… what did you do mother,” I turned to the other hospital bed and asked.
“I breastfed all five the first few weeks, Anne and Martha I serviced the whole way through. Constance, Abigail and Tommy I took off the teat as soon as I could, it had sort of lost its mystique by that point. But she’s right, Katherine, breast milk is one of the best ways to kick start things in the right direction for little Mary.”
“But how would I even do it? They won’t even let me hold her,” I said trying to fight back another attack of tears.
“We’ll use a pump to express the breast milk,” the specialist nodded at me and smiled at my decision. “A nurse will help you with it and collect and store it for transport to the fifth floor.”
“I can help her too,” my mother chimed in. “The principle can’t have changed much.”
“The nurses in the N.I.C.U. will bottle feed the milk to her for you. But hopefully you will both be healthy enough soon where you can do things without all these officials in the way. And you have a good chance, all the nurses in that department have fallen in love a bit with your daughter. She’s a fighter.”
“She’s half Ryan, bound to be good at fighting,” I said smiling weakly at my mother.
“Half Scott too,” she replied warmly. “And they are no shirkers either!”
***
If this were bad fiction, the hero of the piece, or in this case heroine would be fully recovered from her life threatening wounds in time for next week’s exciting new episode. This is real life, however, and I would be incarcerated in the hospital for some time yet. My mother, who only had mostly superficial wounds and a concussion, was still only allowed out of jail after three days. Leaving aside my months of recovery ahead, I could expect to stay for perhaps two weeks before I even had that opportunity.
Mary might be here even longer.
After mother was discharged, I was upgraded to a private room on the top floor. What the bill would be like when I got home I didn’t want to think about, and resolved to get blind stinking drunk before I viewed it now that I could drink alcohol again. The girls visited me every day and brought little snippets of news and gossip from campus and the neighborhood to keep up my spirits. I didn’t have it in me to tell them I could care less who was dating who and which football player had got VD but meekly participated in the gab fest anyway. Karen showed a bit of natural leadership and organized a rotation watch list where at least one of them would be in or near my hospital room covering all of visiting hours, and I was grateful to have them on call to go after any and everything I might need.
I had other sorts of visitors too, official and otherwise. Police, hospital administrators, and several disreputable newshounds who didn’t seem to have the flowery Mr. Kelley’s decorum. There was a great deal of sudden journalistic interest in me it appeared, and my roommates all reported that they were being pestered with questions. Laura even said she thought she was being followed when she went out to pick up a box of doughnuts, though that might have been the police.
I had anticipated a medical leave from school of course, and had worked ahead in all my classes. So I was actually quite fortunate there. There was one test I had to sit sometime in January but I shouldn’t have any trouble with it. I had registered for 15 hours in the spring semester however and I didn’t know if I was going to be ambulatory by then. The university was wheelchair accessible but there is only so much that can be done retrofitting 80 year old buildings. And getting from one building on campus to another across a frozen Nebraska winter is not something easily undertaken. The governor though had been one of the first people to call once the switchboard turned on the phone in my room. I mentioned my concerns to him and he told me not to worry about it. The University was trying to squeeze another hundred million dollars out of the state for a cancer treatment center and he was pretty sure the chancellor would be accommodating if he asked nicely on my behalf for distance learning.
It’s good to have friends in high places.
On Saturday the 6th of December I woke up from my mid morning nap to see a uniformed Thomas sitting in the chair next to my bed.
“Please tell me you didn’t go AWOL?” I asked only sort of caring at the answer. It was good to see him again.
“Not really,” he leaned over and took my hand. “I’m on special liberty, though I have to be back at the airport at 16:30 in order to be back in Maryland on time.”
“Special… you didn’t TELL them did you?” I asked, surprised.
“Don’t worry about it. They gave the whole academy the day off. As long as there isn’t some last minute air traffic controller strike or EMP attack, I should be back in time no one the wiser. There is even a bit of fudge room if I’m late. The upperclassmen tell us they don’t check the sign in log too carefully tonight”
“Why? What’s so special about today?”
“Second Saturday after Thanksgiving remember? The Army-Navy game in Philadelphia. I’ll check the highlights on the internet before I head in and my buddies will cover for me. No reason for anyone to suspect that I wasn’t in the stands the whole time.”
“I’d completely forgotten about it,” I said a bit dumbstruck by the implications of not remembering.
“Well you have had other things on your mind Katie,” he said looking down at me sadly and wiping away a strand of my hair from my eyes. “I relieved one of your watchdogs, I think it was Laura, she said she was heading out to get us all some lunch, are you on solid foods now?”
“I am, but baby isn’t, I’m going to have to pump her some lunch and dinner in a few minutes,” I said indicating an apparatus on the table next to us.
“Oh,” he said going red-faced. “Do you, do you want me to step out of the room?”
“You’ve seen them before,” I said waving it off flippantly.
“Yea, but never while they were in use, so to speak.”
“Thomas Sullivan Ryan you are blushing,” I giggled not being able to control myself.
“Well mission accomplished I can go home now,” he said a bit defensively. “It looks like your spirits are high.”
“SOMETHING is high, they’ve tapered me off the big narcotics but I still have quite a bit running through me. I promised not to operate any heavy equipment while I’m in here.”
“Like 70’s muscle cars?” he asked me tersely.
“That… was actually mother driving. If it wasn’t so obviously the other persons fault I think she would never stop blaming herself.”
“I know it was her behind the wheel it’s just… when you called and told me, I,” he sighed heavily and stared up at the ceiling for a bit to gather his thoughts. “I went a little crazy angry at you. When you get out of here you are getting a minivan I swear to God. I don’t even want you driving around in that little jeep of yours with the baby. It doesn’t have airbags.”
“Oh, and how were you planning on forcing that?”
“I’ll buy it for you if I have to,” he smirked down at me. “Park it in your driveway with a big red bow. Farmers already cut my check. I had no idea what you had that rust bucket insured for. $25,000 is plenty to pick you up a mommy mobile.”
“You may have a point, but I hold the line at Minivan! We only have the one kid! A bigger SUV or truck will be safe enough for all concerned… we’ll talk about it later.”
“All right, is there any more information on who did this to you?”
“Nothing fresh, I do know th--”
KNOCK KNOCK
“Hello,” said my mother’s voice as she came in followed my father. “I know you’re getting tired of these visits but the General has to head back tonight so… Thomas!”
“Sir!” Thomas shouted out as he stood at attention to his superior since both of them were currently in uniform.
“Shall I be on the lookout for the shore patrol, midshipman?” he asked gruffly.
“Sir no sir, twelve hour liberty…for the game.”
“Played hookey did you?” he asked authoritatively as he squinted his eyes and began to circle around him.
“Sir! I , ah, no excuse sir!”
“And certainly you wouldn’t have… if you had done anything else,” he said resting his hands on his son’s shoulder. “You’ll be back in time, though?”
“I have a confirmed seat on a flight back to Regan in five hours… sir!”
“Let him at ease general,” I said amused at the scene. “All that starch is starting to give me a headache.”
“Stand easy,” he commanded to his son returning his attention to me. “And how are you, girl? your color is looking much better and you…” he said as his own face began to turn beet red.
“What?” I asked at his sudden hesitation.
“You ah, you’re ah…” he said mumbling a bit in obvious discomfort.
“You’re milk has come in dear,” my mother finished for him in a perfectly normal tone of voice.
I looked down and both of my girls had left some not so little dark patches on my hospital gown. I lifted it up to examine myself not caring who was in front of me. The cloth was a bit sticky and gave way only after a little effort both nipples appeared to have a bit of discharge and were more than ready for their intended purpose.
“Would you look at that,” I said my face completely hidden by my now damp gown as I got a better look. “I wonder what ice cream made out of it would taste like? Has to be some way to retrofit the little maker we have at home, though maybe I should buy a second one so they don’t get mixed up?”
“Uh, that sounds,…” said my father, still blushing furiously as I wound him up.
“You’re probably right,” I said nodding at him soberly. “First things first, ‘all hands to the pumps’. If you would bring me that apparatus over there please?”
“What!? I mean, I don’t know how to …”
“Katherine stop toying with your father,” interrupted my mother when she felt he had had enough. “He’s not a young man and his heart might give out. I’ll assist her James, why don’t you and Tommy wait outside.”
“Capital plan!” said the general following the orders of his superior officer. “Come on son, I think we might catch some of the game on the TV in the family waiting room.”
***
I visited Mary every day, and we both made forward progress. If the American government had been smart, they would have replaced the Marine guards at Gitmo with nurses and we would long since have won the war on terror. They made my stay in the hospital hell, but I got better and reasonably fast at that, so I can’t hate them forever, just probably for the rest of my life. I was discharged on the 14th and Karen and mother wheeled me out to the parking lot to an ACTUAL van, not a minivan, which had been retrofitted with a lift for the duration of my recovery. I don’t want to know what the daily rental was and clutched my purse and the prescription for drugs inside a bit tighter in self defense. We stopped by the store for a few things, and pulled up to the street I lived on to see a blockade.
Word had apparently gotten out, about my release from the hospital. And there were news vans from all over blocking the driveway. There were several area television stations and also a national cable news network, plus what I would also assume were several representatives from the more humble newspapers. When we pulled up on the block we probably didn’t look much different from the other news crews at first and one of the two police cars at the back started to wave us off, and didn’t seem to terribly pleased when we didn’t drive away and instead rolled down the passenger window.
“Officer,” mother said as haughtily as possible while still not being rude. A manner of speech created after generations of southern women have put it to the test. “My name is Margaret Ryan, I have Jessica Scott in her wheelchair in the back of this van and we would very much like to get home. However these… people are blocking us out. Is there not some city ordinance against such acts?”
“Yes ma’am there is, but every time I try and tell them that, they quote the first amendment at me. I’ve threatened a tow and indeed have called one in but they all know the city will take hours to get one sent out here.”
A man walked up behind the police officer at our window and tapped him on the shoulder.
“I heard a bit of that if I might interject,” he said as he leaned over to get a good look inside. “I’m Gunnery Sergeant Larry Hastings, USMC… retired. I own D.D. Security.”
“Double D?” I barked out laughing.
“Devil Dog,” he clarified for me, growing a bit stiffer in posture. “All the good names were taken. Is that you Miss Scott? May I open this door to speak to you?... the General sent me.”
“Oh,” I said losing some of my mirth. “Yes, you had better come back, please don’t let them see me.”
“Right,” he said as he opened the sliding door quickly got in followed by the officer and swiftly slammed it shut behind them. The gunny was in his forties judging by his face but had the body of a man in his twenties. If there was an ounce of extra fat on him it was probably the hot dog he had for lunch. He had dark hair going slightly grey but it was hard to tell since the high and tight haircut he had made anything but the stubble hard to identify. You can take the Marine out of the corps…
“So what are you doing here?” I asked as I rearranged my blouse to make sure nothing was showing.
“Little Jimmy contacted me after Big Jimmy vouched for me. I run a nice little mercenary company down in Central America but they waved enough cash in front of me that a tour back in CONUS seemed like a fine change of pace. I’m here to be your protection detail.”
“How much?” I asked not being able to help myself.
“Enough, but I have very specific orders that you are not to be troubled with it. Three months have been paid in advance and if you want to be obnoxious about it and kick me out I can go back to the beach and live it up for a little vacation on someone else’s dime… do you want that?”
“I’m not sure,” I said flippantly. “I haven’t exactly seen you in action yet.”
“Fair enough,” he said turning to the policeman. “Officer, am I fair in assuming ABC and NBC over there are parked illegally?”
“Damn right you are,” the black man said in a deep gravelly voice. “And I’ve issued five citations between the two of them but nothing doing until I can get a tow here. My captain is on the way to see if a little more brass will scare them away but some of these guys are national and don’t give a shit…pardon me ma’am,” he said dipping his hat at my mother at her disapproving look. “Don’t give a care for what the Omaha Police Department tells them.”
“Well I don’t have an actual tow truck. But my Ford Super Duty over there,” he said indicating a white truck parked down the street. “And its winch will probably get the job done. Assuming of course, I receive an official request for assistance from your department.”
“Mr. Hastings,” he said very somberly. “I must implore you to do your civic duty.”
“Always happy to be of service, officer, Miss Scott, Ma’am,” he said nodding at my mother.
They both got out and the policeman made one last attempt to get the reporters to move. Hastings strode powerfully over to his truck and got in the cab to drive it closer to the entrance to my house. He got out, attached the winch hook on the front to the back of the first news van. Gave it two tugs to make sure it was secure and then got back on his vehicle and put it in reverse gunning the engines. Because he couldn’t actually lift it up off the ground the van gave way very reluctantly the tires were locked in place as the they were dragged on the concrete and left a pair of rubber skid marks on the street as it was moved.
Eventually enough room was achieved so that Karen could get past and up the driveway to the house but that wasn’t good enough for the gunny I guess. He kept going even further as the fully extended satellite antenna of the news van caught a low handing branch of maple tree and was sheared off as it passed. A couple sparks of electricity were given off to much dramatic effect. At last he stopped after the van had been dragged across the street and into a little drainage ditch where it lay stopped at an odd angle. One of the inhabitants of the van opened the door and stumbled out when he took a bad step on the incline and fell flat on his ass. Hastings didn’t seem to mind the man’s berating though as he calmly retrieved the winch hook drove back to the second car and was halfway through hooking that one up too when the engine started and it drove away. With a visibly disappointed look he shook his head got in his truck to drive to the top of the hill next to the garage and exited again this time with a bullhorn.
“NOW HEAR THIS!!!” his amplified voice carried out down the hill and across the neighborhood. As every assembled microphone and camera was now directed toward him. “This property is under the protection of D.D. Security Unlimited of Panama. Any unauthorized persons remaining on this property will be fired upon. In accordance with federal and local statues I am required to give notice that deadly force will be used and fire a warning shot. This is your notice,” he said as he pulled out a Colt 1911 and let off two rounds into the turf between him and the news people. “That was your warning. You may remain on public streets and sidewalks to your heart’s content but be aware I have an accurate survey of the property. This house was built while this portion of the city was unincorporated. I know where that property line begins and ends. And I intend to prosecute that line…vigorously. That is all.”
***
“The rest of my team will be arriving over the next few days. I had to pull them off a couple of odd jobs but I decided to come on ahead and get the lay of the land,” said Hastings as he began briefing me in the kitchen later that day.
“How many?” I asked concerned.
“Six of us,” he explained as he handed me a stack of folders which once opened revealed to be their personal files. Including quite a bit that was redacted with black magic marker. “We’ll always have at least two with you at all times.”
“Even when I go to the little girl’s room?” I asked flippantly
“Even then,” Hastings nodded at me severely. “Casey and Watson are female… according to the genetic testing anyway. And one of them will usually be accompanying you when you leave this house. If you have to tinkle in public when neither one of them is there for some reason, you will just have to hold it or one of my guys will just take you into the men’s room. It’s not as bad as the stories make out.”
“I’ll… take your word for it.” I said trying not to smile. “Squeezing another six people in this house is going to take some doing.”
“We only need one room as a command center when your detail is here. I figured we could set up shop in that library you have on the first floor. The team will actually sleep in a house about a mile to the west of here.”
“That must have been some retainer you got,” I said trying not to grimace.
“We’re renting, and hot bunking. But any saving you get on that end will be more than offset I am afraid by the security system I will need to install on your grounds. The current one is incredibly out of date and inadequate.”
“I’m still not at all convinced this is all necessary, the police have still not gathered any evidence that it wasn’t some joy riding kid who got scared and made a run for it.”
“Certainly I would be more comfortable if I had some specific threats to guard against. But even if all that car accident business was some misunderstanding, your potential net worth makes you a significant kidnap and ransom target. The General wants you protected and your lawyer is willing to foot the bill, be a good little girl and don’t fight me on it. I’ve been authorized to take you over my knee and give you a good spanking if you give me too much trouble.”
“I won’t be an invalid forever Gunnery Sergeant,” I said boring into his eyes with my own stare. “And I’ll thank you to remember that.”
“Duly noted,” he granted me. “If a threat doesn’t materialize at the end of my three months we’ll scale things back a bit, leaving behind the security apparatus. Though I think you'll still need a permanent bodyguard or two. I’m not here to end your life as you know it Miss Scott… but to save it.”
“Duly noted,” I said to him and offered him my hand to shake.
***
“It’s amazing you're still alive” said the accident investigator as we took a look at the wreck in the county's impound lot. “That Ford Expedition was going over 60 mph when it clipped you. That big a vehicle going that fast would have totally crushed most modern cars.”
“There were no airbags,” I said sadly as I looked at the wreck of my car.
“Airbags are all well and good,” he said magnanimously. “You won’t hear me say a word against them. But they don’t help much when the engine block is shoved into your backseat which is what happens on a lot of the plastic toy cars that are built THESE days. No you’re quite lucky your boyfriend loaned you his car though he probably won’t thank you for it!”
“I think you’d be surprised at that.”
“Maybe so, maybe so, a girl as pretty as you… at any rate we have collected all the evidence there was to collect and are releasing it into your custody.”
“What am I going to do with her?” I asked looking up at him from my chair.
“I have a brother in law over in Sarpy County; he runs a wrecking business he would probably give you a good quote.”
“Sold for scrap?” I gasped, feeling light in the head.
“Well ah… not all of it, a car like this, with vintage parts. Some of them survived intact and can be sold off to collectors once properly harvested.”
“Rip her guts out!” I asked as I tried to stand up in protest and collapsed back down after a few moments effort.
“Some… look the catalytic converter alone, all that platinum. You’re probably looking at about a thousand bucks in that wreck and that’s after my mercenary brother in law takes his piece of the action.”
“Sergeant Hastings!” I shouted to my guard/driver.
“Yes Ma’am.” He replied as he walked up next to me.
“Call up a flatbed truck, there has to be some to be had in the phone book.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“A flatbed,” the investigator interjected warily. “Look Miss Scott if you don’t want to use my brother in law that’s fine, I know how it could look. But any company you sell the wreck to will just come and pick it up you don’t need to deliver it yourself.”
“I’m not scrapping her and please do not to utter such obscenities in my presence again,” I said coldly as I closed my mouth tightly against all the insults I wanted to hurl at him. He obviously picked up on my mood though.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he answered with a slight tremor in his voice.
***
It took me three attempts to reach a funeral home that didn’t think I was trying to prank call them. The last one I tried, I could actually hear him shake his head over the phone line and then he quoted me five thousand dollars for a headstone, and I quickly hung up on him.
What a racket.
I eventually found a metal shop that would do the job for me for much less. Once I explain what I wanted written and why, the owner didn’t even charge me for labor just the cost of materials. I decided to do it in steel, stone, after all, would wear away after a few hundred years and I wanted my monument to last forever. I had more trouble with the actual grave, the city didn’t care what I did to my own lawn as long as I didn’t go down far enough to hit the sewer lines. But digging the hole was tough going. Winter proper had only just begun but the ground was already frozen. Most crews who had earth moving equipment on hand had fled south for the season to work in better climates. It just so happened though… I owned a construction company. So one of the first official acts as president of the Scott Company was to have a bulldozer and a five man crew come to my mansion and dig a trench big enough for a Firebird.
I watched it all commandingly from my heavily blanketed wheelchair parked on the cement next to my now empty pool. The neighbors were staring across the tennis court at the show and were no doubt wondering what the madwoman next to them was up to now, but I had long since given up hope for their good opinion. My crew used a crane to lower my girl down into her slumber and I wiped away a tear with my scarf as I heard the thud of her hitting the dirt. It was another hour before all the dirt was repacked and they had to cart away a couple of tons of it afterwards but eventually the whole crew were done and I was left with the upturned earth and my parish priest.
Father John had been working this town a while, and he apparently knew Scott’s had a whim of iron. If he thought my request odd he had the good grace not to let it show on his face. He accepted my honorarium well enough and altered the funeral mass to accommodate metal and not human flesh. Hastings did the honors on the headstone and my whole ‘family’ was there when it was finally put in place.
Rocinante Ryan
A Firebird of some renown
Born June 5th 1975 Norwood, Ohio
Died December 1st 2008 Omaha, Nebraska
In defense of her family
We shall maybe know great cars
But we will never know better
“You want I should get the boys out here and we fire off a salute?” asked Hastings, not at all sarcastically.
“No, quite enough gunfire in this neighborhood of late,” I answered somberly. “Pretty soon the property values will begin dropping and I don’t need that.”
“Shall we play taps then,” asked Karen as she stamped her feet to keep them warm in the cold.
“I thought about playing ‘East bound and Down,’ over the patio speakers but that would probably get the police called on us faster than the gunshots would… no let's go inside and start the wake. There is a hot chocolate with all our names on it.”
***
We got word that on December 23rd they were finally going to let me take Mary Margaret home and I couldn’t think of a better Christmas present. She would be discharged in the afternoon but I would have to spend the morning in conference with DeGeas at Scott headquarters. The transition was going, forward or backward it was still hard to tell, but certainly there was a lot of action. The news people had been mostly sated with a couple of press conferences and some releases, what few were not satisfied couldn’t get past Hastings' perimeter. So we only had the usual last minute shopping traffic to fight as we headed east to my office. We passed the scene of the accident and I gave off an involuntary shiver even though there was no physical evidence remaining that anything had ever happened there.
DeGeas gave me my briefing. Those partners who could get away with dragging their feet were. Those that couldn’t get away with it, still tried, but didn’t mind any retaliation I could inflict because their dragging feet were headed for the door anyway.
In the last three weeks I had lost 60% of stockholding partners. Some were meekly retiring and they were harmless enough, content to collect with their shares fifty cents out of every dollar I could make. The remainder, however, were going to see to it that a profit would be hard to get. They had either jumped ship for the competition or set up their own shingle and moreover, not content with that, had taken a whole heap of their clients with them. They didn’t have to try very hard, I guess. Eighteen year old single moms probably don’t instill a lot of confidence.
We had contracts and prepayments and we intended to press hard for keeping both but as far as new business goes it was going to be hard to generate, and we needed to expand or die. First National, perhaps being pressed by those former partners, had refused to extend our credit line. The next fifty million dollar installment was due March 1st and we didn’t have it.
“There’s always the man downstairs,” said DeGeas as he sipped his coffee and tossed one more financial statement on the steadily growing pile.
“A deal with the devil?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not that far downstairs. Unless you are trying to be more insulting than he deserves. He still wants our fiber optic cable.”
“I sort of told him to go to hell,” I said meekly as I scratched as far as I could reach under my leg cast.
“Yeah, but that was just business, not personal. He doesn’t hold a grudge for that sort of thing.”
“You probably know him better than I do, but he only wants it because he thinks it will be worth a shit ton more down the line. If we sell now we could be kicking ourselves in a few years... once I can start kicking again that is.”
“That’s true enough but we have to live that long first, and this will get us enough cash to catch our breath.”
“If you think it’s wise…just try to get as much as you can.”
“Huhg,” he grunted at me in acknowledgement. “We also need to talk about my replacement as C.O.O.”
“Replacement? You only just got here!”
“And I’ll be here for months yet. I’ve only just gotten started, you’re right. But part of that process is finding an actual person with mud under their fingernails to tell all these engineers what to do until you can learn better yourself. I’m just a lawyer remember, and not a young one at that.”
“You’ll live forever,” I said smiling at him and trying to be comforting.
“If I thought that lawsuit would work I’d certainly try it but there are a couple of bad precedents… anyway I’ve been vetting a few candidates and we should set up some interviews after the first of the year.”
“All right, it just seems hard to swallow.”
“They weren’t all malicious malingerers, some of them are even fine engineers they just need a strong hand at the steering wheel which I hope you can provide.”
“I’ll provide it up their ass if they aren’t careful,” I said and didn’t even try to keep the evil grin off my face.
“Indeed, speaking of proctology and related fields I’ve sorted out yours and Mary’s coverage. Full ride, post dated to December 1st.”
“How did you manage that?”
“The contract with BlueCross BlueShield was up for renegotiation this year. The choice was they accept your not insignificant hospital bill or they lose out on three thousand employees and their families to Coventry.”
“It’s nice to have that sort of power, but it’s not a good way to make friends.”
“Katherine, you have enough friends,” he said to me as he grabbed the last file of the day. “And we’re all very happy that you and your family are going to be all right.”
***
I was glad to see the last of the place as I left the hospital. Aside from my own stay in residence I had made daily milk runs and visits to Mary Margaret and when they finally let me take her in a sort of NASA designed child’s stroller I was incredibly grateful to turn my back on that building forever… and then I chanced to turn and see the sign for the Scott Research Center and suspected this place wasn’t done with me yet.
Grace Watson was my primary today, and she and Tony Russell escorted Mary and I to the waiting van for our first ride home. If nothing else the addition of a security detail was freeing up my roommates from chauffeur services, but I wasn’t planning on using them much after the baby was born anyway. They had been sort of secretive of late, my good best friends. Giggling at the worst times and always hushing up when I rolled into view, carrying the conversations upstairs soon thereafter where they knew I couldn’t follow. I was sort of tempted to use Hastings and his team to apply a little extraordinary rendition on them to get to the bottom of it, but self control got the better of me.
Somehow.
Grace hadn’t studied the local maps as well as she should have, it looked like, because we took several wrong turns on the way home. We were even on the interstate and halfway to Iowa before I noticed and told her about it. She apologized profusely, updated Hastings over the radio and turned us around. I didn’t really mind, my mother was still at the house and I knew she would be smothering her namesake with all the love she had to give and I sort of wanted as much time alone with my daughter as I could before the onslaught. It was well after dark before we pulled onto our street and at first I didn’t notice a thing so engrossed was I in my progeny. It wasn’t until we stopped in the middle of the driveway to get the full effect that I was made aware of what had changed.
Person or persons unknown, who apparently loved me a lot, had decorated the large house top to bottom with Christmas decorations as a sort of early present… they sort of went over the top. Use that scene in “National Lampoons Christmas Vacation” except instead of monochrome white lights there was a rainbow of blues reds, greens and whites, still, blinking, zigging and zagging. Big damn sleigh, with twelve tiny reindeer side by side and a solitary one in front with a big red nose that must have been putting out a million candle power red light. What it would do to my electric bill I didn’t want to think about at the time, and for a good while afterwards. I didn’t care, so touched was I by the extravagance.
Not one bit.
“Surprise!” said my assembled household as the lift set down my wheelchair.
“It’s just like what I remember your dad used to do when we were kids,” said Karen as she moved in to hug me. “Rachel found it days ago in the storage shed you have and we all decided to set it up. We started right after you left this morning and everyone pitched in, even your mom and the guards.”
“Don’t pin this on me ma’am,” said Hastings brazenly. “It was obviously enemy action.”
“The first couple of tests actually failed and we had to track down what went bad,” added Karen still grinning ear to ear. “That’s why we had to send Grace around the block a couple times.”
“I KNEW something was wrong!” I said as I returned her hug.
“Oh my god is that Mary!” she asked me as the ramp lowered down my daughter in her carrier. Karen dashed to her side and started to go goo-goo ga-ga over the baby.
“Careful!” I warned her loudly. “She’s very fragile.”
“I will be careful Katie,” she said trying to reassure me. “And I’ll start by bringing her in from out of the cold. Let’s go inside, Caroline made dinner for the entire army its some sort of fried chicken that has been driving me nuts all day.”
We went inside where we all sat down in the formal dining room and preceded to desecrate it by eating all sorts of things without the benefit of utensils. Once we were done with big people food. JoAnne brought Mary Margaret into our converted nursery and I personally provided her own dinner. My friend stayed long enough to make sure that things were situated and then quickly abandoned the scene. I guess this sort of thing was not just a male hang up, or perhaps she just wanted to give me some quality time alone with my child.
I would be spending quite a bit more time than I thought with baby, I would be living in the next room over for the time being. As long as my leg was encased and I was in a wheelchair it would be too much drama and effort to get me up those massive flights of stairs to the master bedroom. So we had put in a little single bed in my office on the first floor and I was living out of a couple of suitcases for the duration. Bathing was a bit of an adventure, there were toilets on this level but no baths or showers. So I had supervised a rigging up of a little hose in the laundry room that… well you don’t need to be provided much description on that visual so let’s all just move on.
It worked out for the best maybe, I’m not sure I could have tolerated being separated by an entire floor for our first few nights together. I hadn’t really intended on being the maternal sort at all, the plan was to push out the kid make sure it was fed and watered and otherwise taken care of and then move on with my goals. But plans are all very well and good but they don’t mean jack when reality intrudes.
“Katie,” said Grace as she knocked on my door and came in.
“Yes,” I said looking up and covering my nursing baby with a blanket using my good hand.
“Hastings is at the main entryway and he would like you to come out. There is a visitor that needs to be cleared through.”
“Another well wisher?" I asked, annoyed. “Or some reporter that needs to be run off?”
“We’re getting pretty good at detecting the fourth estate in disguise. At any rate, she passed the first layer but needs your ok before she can be let in, and we can add her to the list.”
“Now?” I asked exasperated.
“Now is when they arrive, it’s a start up cost. Once people are cleared we won’t need you to do so much back and forth. I’ll take the baby and put her down in her crib,” she said as she extended her arms to accept my daughter.
“Um, I know you are a good guard and all…”
“I know how to care for a baby, which is one of the reasons I was picked for this job, I have two of my own you know.”
“You?” I asked disbelievingly
“Yes me!” she said, affronted. “And they weren’t turkey baster babies either but direct deposit. What, you don’t think a guy would have anything to do with me once, let alone twice?”
“It’s not that, it’s just…” I hesitated trying to come up with the right words.
“I’m a she man with big arms, large shoulders and no tits?”
I looked up at Grace, and even if I had been able to stand I would still be looking up at her. She was a big girl, just past thirty who had been in the military police for three enlistments before punching out for the more lucrative work as a private contractor. She wasn’t pretty, but had a sort of vicious beauty about her. The navy always called their ships ‘she’ and Grace was what I imagine one of those old school battleships would look like in human form. She looked tough and mean, and ready to start some trouble with anyone who got in her way. As a protective mamma bear for when I couldn’t be around I guess I could do worse.
A lot worse.
“I’m sorry if I offended you Miss Watson, I just got her back and I’m not used to giving her up yet. But if you promise to watch over her I’ll force myself to adjust,” I said as I moved to let her grab hold. She laid her down and helped me button up my maternity bra and blouse and then stayed behind after I rolled away, like a sentinel over the king’s treasury, which in a very real sense she was. With one hand still messed up a conventional wheel chair was out of the question so they had given me a battery powered electric one that had quite a bit more horsepower than was strictly necessary. I was still getting used to it. So I took a sharp turn around the corner of the entryway a little too fast and smacked right into several arguing people. Which didn’t help the situation any.
“Oww, watch it you little bitch…oh,” said a strange woman with a light airy voice.
“I’m sorry ma’am ,still haven’t gotten use to this thing. What’s going on Gunny?” I asked my principle guard. And then turned to the stranger.
She was in her late thirties, but it was hard to be precise these days with all the cosmetics and other goods generally available to the upper classes. Of which she was certainly one, judging by her jewelry and designer clothes which could probably had paid enough for some famines to end. She had long dark hair, ice blue eyes and looked like she hadn’t enjoyed her dinner since the late eighties. I pegged her for some sort of big stick in society. They had been coming out of the woodwork the last few days as word had got out of my return and my subsequent recapture of the Scott Company. I just hoped this one wasn’t looking for another charitable donation. The coffers weren’t exactly flush yet.
“I would usually have just turned her away Miss Scott,” Hastings said grimacing a little as he looked at her. “The standing orders are for anyone coming after 7pm that is not on the list to make an appointment for later. She however identified herself, and presented adequate identification, the barcodes all check out so I thought I would ask you first what you want to do?”
“Do about what?” I asked a bit confused.
“Well ah,” he said gesturing to the stranger a bit sheepishly.
“I’m sorry,” I said turning to her. “Who are you again?”
“Jessica,” she said a bit severely after only the merest hesitation. “I know it’s been a little while but don’t you recognize your own mother?”
***
Cometh The Hour Cometh The Woman: Part 25 Conclusion of Book 1
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The concluding chapter of Book 1
(Proofing done by Robynn Hoode. Who certainly deserves the credit for putting up with all my your you're's.)
Part 25
I miss my hair.
It’s kind of shallow I know, and I was blonde too! But it’s true. I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally when I… did what I did. But if I had thought about it beforehand I would have chosen something else for what I would miss most. My vagina was a bit hit or miss. It gave me pleasure a few times but pain quite a bit more. I was never really a girly girl so the clothes and makeup were no great loss. Though as SCRATCHY as boxers and t-shirts got I sometimes miss being able to get away with wearing silk. My breasts I don't miss at all, there was a brief period when I was younger when I couldn’t WAIT for them to arrive, but once they did they were more trouble than they were worth. They got in the way of almost everything and boys for some reason couldn’t stop staring at them, even Tommy.
Especially Tommy.
But my hair I do miss after the change. I understand, the irony of an eighteen year old man already worrying about his missing hair so let’s just take it as a given and move on. But I just always enjoyed all the options of long hair, I could wear it up or down. Slip it into a simple ponytail on days when I was feeling drab, or plait it into an intricate weave when I wanted to feel special. And if I ever felt that I needed a change in my life I could get it cut and styled and change my appearance to fit my whimsy. Now however my hair is a permanent quarter inch long and there was nothing that I could do with it.
And I had no one to blame but myself. I was just so damn incredibly ANGRY at the time. And scared, and tired, and weak, and hormonal… but that’s all in the past. Despite my sins I seem to have won all. A family I had never had, the career I always wanted, a wonderful and loving girl and a beautiful daughter. I didn’t deserve any of it, particularly the last, since I had conspired to kill her before she was even born. But I had them now, and was one of the happiest men in the world.
One of the reasons I was so happy was waiting for me at the end of the gate. My new mother and I dropped my bag to give her a careful hug, since she was still recovering from her accident.
“Hello Thomas,” she said a bit unenthusiastically as she returned my hug. “Are you ready for Christmas break?”
“End of semester break,” I corrected her, “You can’t get away with calling it Christmas anymore. It’s not PC.”
“Bah humbug,” she said forcing an affronted smile. “If I wish to call it Christmas I shall do so and no Yankee Admiral is going to tell me otherwise.”
“Yes mother, where’s Katie? Is she still in the car?”
“No she’s still at the house. Moving the wheelchair is a bit of a logistical exercise and she needed to stay home to… entertain her guest.”
“Oh, who’s visiting?” I asked mildly curious.
“Her mother,” she said after a brief hesitation.
The fuck?
“You’re her mother,” I said cold and unemotional, dreading her clarification.
“Her stepmother then. It was a total surprise. She had apparently tried calling and sending emails. But Katherine had changed her number and address and the first we heard of it was when the poor women showed up at our doorstep.”
“She’s hardly POOR!” I shouted at her a bit surprised at the volume that escaped.
“I gather she is actually Tom,” resting her hand on my shoulder as she indicated the exit with her other. “Her clothes are all last season or even earlier and the jewelry she wore, some of it was real but the gaudiest was a very clever fake. I would never have noticed accept Mrs. Gabriel was forced to buy one just like it when her husband died last year and I got a good look at it. I don’t think she has anywhere else to go for the holidays.”
“Then she has only herself to blame, she stole MILLIONS from my f…from Katie.”
“Katherine didn’t mention anything about that, she didn’t say anything, she just turned her wheelchair around went back to the nursery and locked herself in. It was rather rude actually.”
“RUDE!”
“Yes it was, whatever the history involved you don’t leave a visiting family member cold in the entryway without even the grace of a go to hell. I don’t think she’s emotionally recovered yet from the accident. I want you to tread very lightly with that girl when we get back to the house Thomas, is that understood.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed nodding my head at her. “I’ll help her through it, now that… that woman is gone I should be able to talk her down.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“I just assumed, she brought several pieces of luggage. She’s staying for the holidays, it’s only natural that she would want to meet her new granddaughter. When I left to pick you up the security team was to bring her items upstairs.”
“You left that woman in my house!” I grabbed her violently and turned her around to face me.
“Thomas, control yourself!” she scolded me as she shoved off my hands.
“You don’t understand what she has done; she deserves to be run out of town on the rails not welcomed home for a glass of eggnog and a full Christmas stocking!”
“Be that as it may. It was not my place or YOURS to make that decision. It is not your house Thomas, it is Katherine’s, and absent her instructions I had to act as any person of good manners would. It was too late to send her to a hotel, even if one could be found for the holiday.”
“You and your damn manners… where would she even sleep, that house is full to the bursting?”
“The master bedroom,” she said, though she had the good grace to look downward ashamed while she said it.
“Not… damn you, not there. How could you?”
“It was the only space available; Katherine can’t sleep upstairs in her condition. I set up a cot for you in her office where she is sleeping at the moment…. It’s almost ten PM Thomas; I’ll never understand these regional airports timetables. Let’s worry about it in the morning."
***
The door was locked of course when I came to the nursery. And it was one of those fancy jobs that locked and unlocked from the inside, which, when I thought about it, was probably a safety hazard that I would need to speak to Katie about afterwards. I had grown up in this house though and I knew all its tricks, so about a minute later I had returned with a wire hanger that I straightened out enough to jimmy the lock from this side. I slowly opened the door to step inside and greet my girl and my daughter one of whom had a gun pointed at my head. I’ll leave you to determine which.
“Jess!” said Katherine as she relaxed herself at the same time as my sphincter. “Oh god, SHE’S here.”
“I know,” I said as I walked up to her and got down on my knees to get the right angle to hug her. “Mother told me at the airport, our real mother I mean.”
“I just couldn’t,” she said as a few tears began to form and she tried to wipe them away with an uninjured hand. “I just couldn’t deal with it, not today, not on top of everything else.”
“I know. I would probably be in much worse shape if our roles were reversed.”
“Our roles SHOULD be reversed,” she shouted at me in such a manner that I was pleased the nursery and former music room was soundproofed.
“I know,” I repeated not able to look her in the eye. “Just… just don’t do anything rash for now. I don’t want you to get how you get.”
“What’s THAT supposed to mean?”
“It means, where did you get that gun?” I asked calmly. “and how about we put it back where you found it?”
“It was one of the relics in the gun cabinet that father Scott left behind. And I am not walking around unarmed while … that woman is in my city. There is a little holster on the inside of my chair and no one can see it if they don’t know to look for it.”
“It’s worse than you think Katie.”
“What,” she said confused as she checked the safety on her pistol and put it back at her side. “How could it be WORSE?”
“Mother went all southern when you abandoned the field of battle,” I said keeping an eye on her gun hand for when she inevitably went for it again. “Couldn’t say the inn was full on Christmas and all that. She's staying the night in the house… in the only room available.”
“You mean?” she started to say and then realized the implications. I had the use of both my hands, and I knew what reaction to expect. so her sudden desire to arm herself again was futile. After about 15 seconds and one attempt to bite me she eventually gave up and started crying again.
I almost preferred being shot instead.
“It will be all right baby, I swear,” I said trying to comfort her. “Katie don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying!” she shouted again wiping her yes with her sleeve. “It’s the damn hormones that are!”
“waa…waaaa aaaaaaaa!!!!” said a third voice entering the conversation. “wwwwaaaaaaaa!!”
“NOW look what you did!” said Katherine as she rolled over to the crib and carefully began picking up our daughter. The crib had had its legs removed so it was much closer to the floor than was usual, the better for mother to reach her daughter in her current injured state. It would give back problems to the rest of the household when they attempted to service the baby but from the look on her face I don’t think Katherine was worried about that problem. Since I doubted she would let anyone else touch Mary Margaret at the moment, not even her putative father. As she lifted up our baby, her hold on her looked a bit unsteady so I went in to offer assistance with both my good hands and almost had one of them bitten off for my efforts.
“I’m fine Thomas,” she said giving me a withering stare I had once seen on the face of Professor Ryan.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You want to help! Get that woman out of my house, OUT OF MY BED! If I leave this room and she is still here one of us is going to die and I already know where to get earth moving equipment for digging a grave.”
“… noted,” I said slightly concerned at the content of that statement and its truthful sounding tone.
***
“Really, I just don’t understand all that girls drama,” said my stepmother as she sipped her morning coffee the next day. “She has been the same way ever since her poor father died. Before that even. Always blowing things out of proportion and leaping without looking. Martin would be so disappointed.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said clinching my fingernails into my skin and embracing the pain as a more socially acceptable distraction than throttling the woman across the breakfast table from me.
“And what would you know about it young man?” she asked me glancing in my direction slowly as if she was doing me a favor by deigning to notice me.
“Katherine has told me a lot about her father as well as many of the old family friends who knew him,” I replied as a much more reasonable sounding answer than the truth.
“I believe I understand my husband better than any… stranger could. And Jessica was always--”
“KATHERINE,” I corrected her as I drew a bit of blood with my nails.
“As you say,” she nodded at me with a smile that somehow never reached her eyes. “Jessica Katherine always had an unhealthy fondness for her father. If he had been alive when she became a young woman people would have started to talk.”
“God DAMN you!” I shouted as I got up out of my chair and knocked the wooden implement to the kitchen floor.
“Thomas!” said Professor Ryan scolding as she dashed to my side and put a retraining hand on my right arm. “Control yourself; you were raised better than that.”
WAS I !?
“You should take your mother’s advice,” the harridan in front of me lectured. “If you keep that sort of behavior up I’ll be forced to leave you off the list when I go last minute shopping today.”
“Shopping?” I asked, not believing that even SHE would have the gall to come here and actually give us a Christmas present in the face of all this hostility.
“Yes, though in the afternoon, this morning I have a meeting with some old… friends.”
***
“In a just civilization,” said Uncle Bernie an hour later. “Lauren Ewing Scott would have been lined up against a wall and shot… we however live in the United States.”
“What have you been able to find out Mr. DeGeas?” I asked as I took off my overcoat and draped it over one of his chairs while I remained standing.
“Precious little, Midshipman Ryan, precious little,” he answered as he readjusted the flaps of one of his toy 'planes. “And I’m not sure what all I can actually tell you about your ex-wife’s affairs.”
“Fiancé,” I clarified for him stiffly.
“Congratulations when did you pop the question?”
“Shortly after I find a ring worthy of her. It's informal for the moment.”
“Yes, she explained all that. Seems like something badly in need of a lawsuit you ask me. Still I am tied by confidentiality.”
“Katherine is rather not up to the fight if you get my meaning. The baby and her injuries and all that. She asked that I try to sort things out while I am here. She gave me this proxy but you can call her and speak to her directly if you like,” I said as I gave over a piece of paper with Katie’s hastily handwritten scrawl on it.
Give him whatever he wants, tell him whatever he wants, I trust him DeGeas though not myself at the moment. That woman cannot be allowed to breath the same air as me and I would already have taken matters into my own hands if one of them wasn’t out of action at the moment. Please… we must stop her and I don’t have the strength to do it alone.
- Katherine Scott.
“Humph,” he grunted when he finished reading. “Since I got your call last night…early this morning anyway. I have been working the angles and not liking what I found. A few days ago the archives of the probate court were assessed by the Dewey-Chaetham-Howe law firm out of Chicago, they have a branch office here and two of their associates pulled Martin Scott's will. Furthermore, one of my contacts at the courthouse says that Judge Kottler has a motion before him to submit the original will to ‘testing’ . The implications of which I don’t like at all.”
“Testing?” I asked confused. “What could they be looking for?’
“Anything and everything they can find, they will use the merest hint of impropriety to contest the will.”
“What could she be after? She has already taken millions that were due her, and much more that wasn’t. She's grabbed everything there was to grab!”
“That was true enough, last month, THIS month however Katherine has control of the Scott company.”
“Not in a million years would the Scott Company be left to a wife! It’s handed down from father to son, down the generations. Father to daughter in this case, but always to whoever would keep it intact and operating. That’s the reason it was primogeniture and never broken up into little pieces for collateral heirs. The idea that it would be left to a wife who was never going to lead the company, or even produce any more Scotts is preposterous!”
“I know that,” said DeGeas warily. “Though I’m surprised you do.”
“Katherine and I talked about these things all the time,” I said trying to wave it away. “What are we going to do to stop her?”
“I’m a couple of days behind the decision curve Midshipman Ryan and trying to catch up before the world shuts down for the holidays. I’ll try to get more answers soon. For now, just head back to comfort your girl and keep a close eye on the good silver. And try to figure out where that woman is getting the funding for all this. Those shysters don’t come cheap.”
***
I told her what I had found out as soon as I got back, and it seemed like I cut the strings from a puppet. She just curled up in a ball on her little cot and wouldn’t even respond when Mary Margaret started crying again. Despite my original gender I was never really comfortable around babies and I brought mother and one of the guards in to help soothe the baby while I tried to take care of Katherine. I had never seen her like this before, or HIM for that matter, Tommy/Katie was just larger than life. If she hit a wall she set her charges and blew up the fucking wall and then insulted the damn fool who had put it up while she did it. Maybe it was post-partum depression like those Lifetime movies were always talking about? I was incredibly wary of trying to get her psychological help though, all she had to do was tell the TRUTH and whatever well meaning stooge that tried to examine her would lock her up for her own safety as an obvious lunatic. No, the only way I could help my once and future wife would be to remove the cause of all her recent distress. By any means necessary.
The building was just as I remembered it, squat and fat, and at about nine stories was dwarfed by the high rises surrounding it. The lower level had actually been converted to a series of small shops so it was no trouble at all to blend in with all the last minute shoppers. The main bank of elevators took me to the 3rd floor and I walked west past the first door, past the second, past the third, stop. Turn to your left, feel up and down the wooden panel bracketing the drywall. A little more, a little more, where is it? Click.
The wall slid back, if an enterprising maintenance person ever got this far they would see the brick wall behind and assume it had been hidden in the renovation and for whatever reason the panel had come loose. But it looks like no one had found it…
***
“Look at the little discoloration on this brick, Jessie,” said my father “Do you see it?”
“Yes, daddy,” I replied trying to please him.
“Three bricks up, two bricks right and push!” he said as he indicated it for me and then the wall opened up to reveal a door and what I thought was solid brick was just an inch thick and pasted onto the entrance to make it look real.
“Cool!” I said smiling ear to ear.
“Yeah it is pretty nice if I do say so myself,” said Martin Scott as he walked inside the room. “Come on Jessie it’s after bedtime, particularly for you! But I want you inside before anyone sees.”
“Ok,” I said exited as I rushed past him into the dark room. He pressed a switch by the door and the inside was illuminated then he pulled the drywall façade back into place and shut the faux brick door behind them. The inside was small and there were no windows at all. The ceiling was bare insulation and several different pipes. There was a bed, a desk and chair, and a toilet, and a little plastic shower that was just an oversized dish imbedded in the floor with some curtains as privacy. There was a little kitchen area on the far wall, and every other section of the walls was covered with heavily laden shelving full of all sorts of things I could only half identify at that age. It was one of the dingiest and most frightening rooms I had ever seen in my young life and I instinctually went over and embraced my father in self defense.
“Hey now, don’t be afraid princess,” he said to comfort me. “I won’t ever let anything happen to you.”
“What are we doing here, daddy? And why now? You always yell at me when I stay up this late reading.”
“And I’d scold you now Jessica, never so politically incorrect a thing as yelling at my child, if you were trying to pull one over me. But this is for a good reason. Here, sit on the bed and I’ll take the chair and I’ll try to explain what all is going on.”
“Okay,” I said as I sat on the bed and tried to get comfortable.
“This place,” he started to say, and then stopped hesitantly. “This place is like; well you know the tree house-clubhouse thing you have in the backyard.”
“Of course, I spent all summer there, with Roy and David across the street. They made fun of me about the ‘no girls allowed’ sign though.”
“Yeah, your Uncle Peter and I thought it was appropriate to put that up back when we built it in the sixties. If it’s causing you trouble a claw hammer will solve that problem. I can sort it out tomorrow?”
“Naw, it’s ok it keeps all the nasty girls out, it doesn’t apply to me cus it’s MY tree house.”
“Your logic is a bit specious,” he said smiling a bit at my comments.
“Huh?” I asked not knowing what that word meant.
“You need more female friends is my point, I guess. Your mother…she wouldn’t have liked you being such a tomboy, my own fault probably, taking you all over hell and gone without someone to teach you how to be a little girl. I thought Lauren might help but… well that doesn’t matter… the point I’m trying to get at, I guess, is that this is a sort of a grown up clubhouse. But instead of ‘no girls allowed.’ It’s 'no one who is not a Scott allowed'.”
“Is that why stepmother is not here?”
“That’s right. She doesn’t know this place is here or how to get it open, like I’ll keep showing you till you get it right. No one knows it’s here, not even really the people who built it. During the renovation, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn, I used non-union labor.” He said rubbing my head a little affectionately.
“What’s that mean daddy?”
“Well, it means… you’ll get the full meaning when you are older, for now, the guys that built this little hidey hole are back safe in Guatemala with enough money that they never have to come back here, and wouldn’t be able to answer any questions in English even if they could.”
“So it’s a secret?”
“Yes, it is, I own this building though no one knows it, not even the people that manage it. Their sole purpose is to make enough money to pay the electric bill and cover the maintenance. To keep this building a going concern so that people can be coming and going without being noticed, and of course, never be sold. It’s also on the National Historic Register… do you remember what that is?”
“It’s like a museum for buildings.”
“That’s right, it means even after I’m gone no one will be able to rip her guts out. Not for a hundred years. And this little area will stay hidden, known but to me… and you. There are others like it in New York, London, and Singapore, used to be one in Hong Kong but I shut it down last year, can’t trust the ChiComs to keep to their contract. When you get a little older, I’ll show you them too.”
“Are we going traveling again!” I asked exited.
“No Jessie, we talked about that. You need to get a little mud on your shoes from the same place two months running. Traveling as a gypsy band isn’t good for a growing girl.”
“And what about a growing boy!” I argued with him sure the answer would have been different.
“Him too,” my father laughed. “I mean look at how I turned out.
“I’m just so BORED here, daddy, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted turning to the desk and retrieving a set of papers from the drawer. “But I’m doing it for your own good. The way we have lived is no way to raise a child, you’ll find out about that when you get older too. I have stuff here to keep me busy, plenty of paperwork that was piling up when I wasn’t paying attention, then there’s the pedestrian bridge across the river to Council Bluffs.”
“A bridge daddy? For PEOPLE to walk across! We were going to build an airport!”
“I know, I know,” he said raising his hands in surrender. “But it lets me keep my hand in; when that’s done, First National is putting up a new tower across the street. I will be building the tallest structure in the state, and for a couple states in any direction. That’s plenty enough for me… for now. When you get older-”
“Never, you mean,” I said interrupted him annoyed at that constant phrase and so I pouted and crossed my arms over my chest.
“No, not never. There aren’t enough Scotts left to waste one. No matter how scrawny she is!” he said as he moved in and stared tickling me mercilessly. I laughed and giggled for a good half a minute because he knew all my vulnerable places after years of practice.
“Dad, stop! Hee, hee , STOP it Daddy, UNCLE!! I give up!”
“Ah, all right daughter of mine, it’s no fun when you don’t put up a fight,” he said as he lost some of his good humor when he saw the folder he had dropped on the bed in his tickle attack. “You’re probably wondering why I brought you here?”
“Kinda,” I admitted as I tried to brush my hair back into something manageable. “It’s cool and all but it’s so far from the house, I can’t really get here unless you drive me, not even if I take my bike. And besides you and Lauren get so mad whenever I go a block or two away from home anyway.”
“She wants you to call her mother,” he said shaking his head a bit.
“She can keep wanting. I know you think marrying would make me a better girl but I don’t like her and did you see that dress she put me in at Easter, it was like I was four years old.”
“I liked that dress.”
“Fine, then you can wear it next year!” I said and then started giggling again at the mental picture.
“My grandfather would turn in his grave at the disgrace to the family. Which rather brings us back to the subject at hand.”
“Grandpa in a dress?”
“The family… and our history.”
“Oh,” I said knowing enough, to know that the subject matter had got serious and it was time to stop giggling.
“It’s not just our name Jessica, but our heritage, The Scotts are Scots-Irish American.”
“How can we be three things at once?”
“History, and never letting any of it go when most people are content to forget it as soon as possible. You see Jessie, our people came west across the water in the Ulster plantation when Jimmy the first and sixth thought it would be a good idea to eliminate the local Hibernians. It wasn’t the first time we had migrated if you believe the geneticists, The Vikings had apparently settled in the lowlands when Scandinavia got too cold. And it wasn’t the last time we moved certainly. Soon enough famine, pestilence or war, or all three, drove us west again to the colonies and America. We probably weren’t called Scott then, just a name some English administrator hung on us because he couldn’t pronounce our proper one.”
“What was our name then?” I asked slightly curious.
“Known but to God,” my father said chagrined glancing skyward. “Our name is Scott now and forevermore and don’t let anyone take it away from you. I expect you to be a proper feminesta when you get married.”
“Huh”
“I’ll explain that one later too, so we landed from Ulster, just in time to join in the war of American Rebellion. Managed to choose the winning side, somehow, and came out of it rather rich. That state of affairs lasted a generation or two until Andy Jackson, that bank busting son of a bitch did us in the 1830’s. So what did we do then?”
“Rebuild?" I guessed, not knowing. “Kill Jackson?”
“Ha! Well both him and old Daniel Scott were dueling men, but they never met that way. Daniel chose the bottle instead and Harry Scott didn’t have anything left to rebuild when he came into adulthood. So he followed tradition and went west, California, the new territories. Managed to make himself a real Nob Hill fortune in the gold fields. The family probably would have stayed there too if the SECOND American revolution hadn’t occurred and brought us back east. I hope you never have to see a Civil War, princess. I've seen three peripherally, one in South America and two in Africa. It's the worst sort of a war.”
“Then what were we doing fighting one?”
“Well it was more or less expected. Back then, if you were a certain social class and a certain age, you joined up or were called a coward and shunned from society forever, hell, even past a certain age. Being 52 didn’t stop your great grandfather Roger from signing on after Pearl Harbor. When a nation gives so much to you, it’s only polite to give some back in her hour of peril. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, that was the old saying. And we came more often than we went, which possibly explains why there are so few of us left… And often there is a price, old Hieronymus he tried doubling his fortune by betting the wrong way on war production and lost everything. So what did his son William do?”
“West!” I answered sure of the answer.
“That’s right! Both sides had lost that war but we had won a country at the end of it, and there was a mostly empty continent to go along with it. William went west with the Union Pacific and tore a hole in the Earth across the Rocky Mountains a feat that had never before been accomplished and few times since. We settled in Omaha where U.P. made their headquarters and have been here since. Most of us anyway, Henry Scott had itchy feet and left his father’s house for Australia. But if was the salvation of us, in the Panic of 1893 it was the cadet branch of the family that saved us from ruin.”
“West again.”
“Yup, and now… now my dear girl there is now no more west.”
“Huh,” I commented not tracking his logic, I was still rather young for existential conversations. “How can you run out of a direction?”
“Technology, and the times we live in, you remember flying with Captain Jack?”
“Oooh, in his Gulfstream IV!?”
“My Gulfstream,” my father commented dryly. “Though he seldom admits to the ownership.”
“He let me fly a bit when we were going to Abu Dhabi!”
“He let you hold the wheel for a few seconds that's hardly flying.”
“More than you… I want to be a pilot when I grow up.”
“Last week it was a baseball player?”
“I can do both!” I got up and started jumping up and down on the bed while making engine noises with my mouth.
“Jessie, sit down please, we still have a lot to go… I knew that ice cream was a mistake. The point I’m trying to make is that a fast plane with enough refuels can circle the world in a day. We’ve covered every bit of this globe, left to right and top to bottom. There is no frontier, no great untapped wilderness to plant your flag and make a fortune. No place to run… if people are after you.
“Are people after us, daddy?” I asked getting a little scared.
“I think, that… its time you were shown this hiding place. This is an inventory,” he said handing me the papers. “It lists what is here, where it is, what it does, the amounts. Someday, and I pray that day never comes, I may be gone and you are on your own and will need what’s here.”
“Daddy, you’re scaring me.”
“Good, a little scared goes a long way. Now don’t cry, Jessie, I intend to go on living for quite a while yet. But it’s one of the first rules of engineering, hope for the best, but plan for the worst. This room is for the worst… there are enough dry foods and other provisions for a pair of people to last six months without leaving. There are copies of important documents and records from every part of our company, there are weapons enough to fight a minor world war and enough liquid money to keep you from ever having to rebuild from nothing like we have had to do several times before.”
“What is liquid money, do you have to carry it around in a bottle or something?”
“No liquid just means… look you know your bike?”
“Yeah,” I responded cautiously since he had threatened to take it away from me several times and I didn’t want to give him any reminders that I was actually overdue for one of his capture attempts.
“You paid $150 for it, had to save up for weeks to get it right?”
“Yes daddy, and is now a good time to ask for an increase in my allowance?”
“$20, a week is more than plenty. So let’s assume your bike is immune to depreciation and is still worth $150. A new toy comes along, maybe a model airplane. Its $100 but you don’t have any savings because you spent it all on soda and candy like you usually do, so can you walk into the toy store and trade your $150 bike for the $100 plane? It would seem to be a good deal.”
“Um…no?”
“That’s right, because the storekeeper needs to eat and the grocery store won’t accept a used bike in exchange for some meat and potatoes. So your bike is an asset but it is not easily liquidated, you can’t turn it into something else. Think of money like a coke in a two liter bottle. While it’s liquid if you want the Coke inside you just pour it into a waiting glass but if it’s frozen, how easy is it to drink then? Get it?”
“I guess,” I said twisting a bit on the bed uncomfortable.
“The whole point of this place is to serve as a refuge, a hiding place for when things are at their worst. Someone is… I’ve been hearing…,” he sighed noisily while he closed his eyes and let his head rest back in the chair. “There are some bad men out there and they are going after Scotts. Too many of us have died recently for it to be coincidence.”
“Like Uncle Peter?” I asked shivering a bit despite the warm spring evening.
“Yes,” was his simple single word response.
“Like mom?” I said softly, almost to afraid to say the words.
“Your mother was sick… no one was after her.” He said, but he also didn’t look me in the eye when he said it. “It’s getting late princess, WAAAY past your bedtime. We will come back here again later, for now I want you to repeat those names and numbers I had you memorize. Do you remember.”
“Max Thorson 402-555-8982,” I said proudly remembering the first name and number. We had been practicing at bedtime for weeks.
“That perfect! Now if the number doesn’t work there is this,” he said pulling out a device from the second desk drawer and handing it to me. “It’s sort of like a radio, but it only has one frequency right to Max, you must only use it as a last resort… he’s a bit quick to anger.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s, well he’s a bit like a soldier.”
“Like Uncle Ben?”
“Your uncle Ben is a Marine, and would not like to be insulted by being called a soldier. Max here, he’s good at fighting though, and very little else, but he owes me a favor and a decent stack of money. I’ll never see the money again, but he’s always good for a favor. Do you remember the bank?”
“Credit’ Imobilare , Zurich 215 Enurgine Strasse. 23149005759855 PIN 61658137 Passphrase. ‘I’m givin her all she’s got,’ what does that mean daddy?”
“Don’t you… you know that show we watch on Saturday nights?”
“DS9?”
“Yea, it’s a little joke, a phrase from the show that came before it.”
“The one with the bald guy?”
“No this one was, well, come to think of it I hear he uses a hair piece so maybe, I’ve got them on tape we’ll watch a few this weekend. Let’s get you back to bed. Now remember, always check the peephole before removing the drywall panel. Opening up a secret passageway in front of some shopping tourist will sort of give you a bad day.”
A month later he was dead.
***
It was where I remembered it, the bottom shelf on the south wall. A full sized army green footlocker that was at the moment unlocked. Inside were a dozen objects wrapped in oilcloth and a piece of paper stuck to the top of the hatch.
Marty,
Do us both a favor and burn this note when you get these. I know you people like to keep records of everything but if those federal finooks catch you with it, it’s both our asses. Well, me they would send up for a while, you they may just raise an eyebrow at now that I think about it…must be nice to OWN the country club not just be a member. These guns are colder than the last ice age, manufactured before serial numbers were required if you are pulled over you can tell the police it's one of those antiques you people are so well known for collecting. What won’t be easy to explain away will be the abrading on the grip and trigger mechanism, it will stop fingerprints from forming on the rough surface as long as you are careful how you hold it, and all that shouldn’t affect firing. The company that sold these was bought out by a company, which was bought out by another and sold to one that went out of business. They have been sitting in one of my capo’s basement since before you were born and have never been used. Bought em as surplus after the war. All that is by way of saying they can never be tracked back to you, and if the situation ever comes up you don’t need to be afraid to use it.
Marty I don’t like that you asked for these, even if you are paying me a fortune for em, I have enough money but not enough friends. You got some trouble that you can’t go to law for you should just come to me and not take matters in your own hand. Just give me a name and I’ll send a few boys over to straighten em out.
Marcone
My father didn’t have time to teach me how to shoot. I was after all only eight years old when he died. He did however know how curious his little girl was about everything and made sure that I knew enough not to do myself injury. Most of those tragic accidents involving firearms and children were a result of eager kids not fully understanding how dangerous the damn things were and he made sure I was aware, and after a few spankings the lesson even took. The teaching task fell to my uncle Ben, who among other things, used to take me out of boarding school periodically for a trip back to the real world and kept me sane for all those years between the death of my father and when I met Tommy. We would go camping out in the wilderness, far enough off the beaten path that no one minded if you let off a few rounds in practice. He taught me safety, and maintenance and marksmanship and I was already two or three steps above most of the plebes this summer when we did firearm training. The navy oddly enough had a somewhat different lesson number one than Major Benjamin Murphy.
Never point a gun at someone unless you mean to kill them.
***
I was driving west on Highway 92 when I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror and the jolting sound of a siren. I tried not to freak out when it happened and there was nothing that could be done even if I wanted to. I wasn’t exactly driving a getaway car. I had purchased this piece of shit off of some guy from Craig’s list paying with cash from the safe house. The guy seemed surprised as hell, when I just handed over the money and didn’t even try to dicker but I just needed something that would run, and a fast transaction. So all I did was make sure the ignition kicked over, counted out the money and was out of his driveway before the cab I had taken had even left the neighborhood. It wasn’t pretty to look at though and likely the cop behind me was pulling me over just for missing a proper taillight, or maybe a wheel…
“License and registration and proof of insurance please sir,” said the young female officer when she walked up to my window. She was pretty to look at if you went in for that sort of thing but still had her hand resting on her holster in anticipation of any trouble.
“Here is my ID ma’am,” I said handing over my cards. “I literally just bought this car a few hours ago so I haven’t had a chance to update the registration. I do have insurance… pretty good one actually, but I haven’t had a chance to update it for this car yet, again I just got it. Here’s the title, you can see the transfer was signed today…”
“Uh huh,” she said nodding at me as she squinted to take a look at the proffered document.
“What’s this all about officer?” I asked trying not to sound as scared as I was. “Did something fall off the back, I know I wasn’t speeding… my mother and fiancé were just involved in a bad car accident and I have been extra careful lately.”
“I’m sorry to hear about that, you in the service?” she asked indicating my U.S. Military ID.
“Yes ma’am, Navy, I’m on leave though?”
“I’m not looking for deserters Mr. Ryan this is a field sobriety checkpoint. Christmas Eve and all that. Please exit the vehicle.”
“Yes ma’am,” I answered as I complied with her order.
“Please walk in a straight line heels to your toes… … … ok blow into this,” she said handing me a plastic device that I quickly exhaled in. “Looks like you haven’t been drinking tonight.”
“I’m underage, still a few years yet to 21,” I said trying to smile and set her on her ease and otherwise come off as charming as possible.
“Doesn’t stop a lot of boys,” she answered gruffly totally immune to my wiles, damn it but this was a lot easier when I was a girl doing it to guys. “Make sure to get your registration up to date, you only have thirty days and you need to get your policy updated within the same time-frame.”
“Understood, yes ma’am,” I said as I bowed slightly to her and then walked back to my car door to get back inside. The officer went back to her cruiser and then killed the lights and drove back to her hiding spot ready to pounce on the next unsuspecting passerby on this lonely stretch of highway. I pitied the next boozed up sucker that tried to get past her.
I started the engine and drove further west. I was well past the city now, and had even left the county behind me 10 miles ago. I was in the lightly settled countryside near Wahoo, where the Eastern Nebraska farms were considered small if they were under a 1000 acres. My destination was one that had been on the realty websites for over two years and was certain to be unoccupied at this time of night, in this part of the season. The gate to the house was shut and locked but the nice thing about farm country and not ranch country is that the fields are flat and not wired so a little drive off the road and up the grass got me in the driveway and I parked the car at the front door and cut the lights. The house itself was also dark and we were far enough past the highway that any passing car would have to work hard to see something even if they knew to be looking.
The door was locked, but one of the advantages about my new body was its core strength and a few good kicks were enough to knock it off the hinges and gain me entrance. I unloaded the bags I had packed and brought them inside being careful to leave my gloves on the entire time. When I was done with all this I would have to remember to burn them along with the boots I was wearing with their distinctive tread marks. Once everything had been set up I went back to the trunk of my new beat up used car and opened it up to reveal the gagged, bound and struggling figure of my stepmother.
She had got some work done in the last year, I would almost have trouble recognizing her, almost. But that face was forever burned in my memory. I carried her inside like a hunk of Christmas meat and tossed her anorexic ass down on the bed in the first room I found. I used my knife to cut her gag but left her other restrains bound.
“You may scream all you like now,” I said coolly as I pulled my Browning Hi-Power out of the bag next to me. “But there is no one for miles and miles to hear you.”
“What the fuck!” she screamed at me while wiggling around to get a better angle. “What the hell did I ever do to you?!”
Oh let me count the ways…
“It’s not about what you did to me it’s what you are going to do…”
“Oh what is that?” she sneered at me, always did have a wonderful sneer my stepmother. She lost a good deal of it though when she got a good look at what was in my hand.
“You’re going to tell me… why you’re here.”
“I came here to visit my daughter, that’s all I swear. This is all a big mistake.”
“I believe part of that statement. So… you want me to believe you were so overcome with filial duty after all this time that you came back to visit family…grandma,” I finished knowing she would HATE to be called that.
“Don’t call me that!” she retorted angrily, forgetting her situation a bit, as the sneer returned.
“One goes with the other Lauren, if she is your daughter then HER daughter makes you a grandmother. But since you don’t seem to care for the new title, or even any sort of relationship with Katherine before I find your statement hard to believe. I didn’t want to actually bring it up, generally preferring subtlety, but this gun is loaded after all.” I said, lifting it a few times for emphasis.
“You’re not going to kill me, there is… what about witnesses?”
“You mean the mercenaries who will be out of the country soon? I wouldn’t worry about them.”
“I… I… that is to say, I was sent here. He found me in Cornwall and paid me $100,000 dollars to come back. And more if my name could be used as part of some legal engagement.”
“Which you gladly took. Run out so soon did you? Must have been around the time your looks started to fade?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said furiously as she clenched her jaw on the insult she wanted to hurl back at me.
“Fair enough, what is my business is the name of the man who sent you.”
“He’ll ... I would really prefer young man, not to anger him by telling you. Why don’t you just let me go and I’ll head back immediately and tell him I couldn’t go through with it.”
“What do you think I’m going to be if you don’t tell me,” I said getting closer and pressing the gun against her temple. “Worry about me.”
“Richard Scott!” she cried out as she tried moving her head out of the way of my gun barrel.
“Richard…” my blood went cold in my veins as I gritted my teeth. “His name is Richard Webster.”
“Not to hear him tell it,” she retorted whimsically.
“What does he want?”
“I gather he wants it all, and I was happy enough to take my own little piece of it on the way.”
“That’s all you ever cared about isn’t it? Money.”
“Not the money exactly, but the things that it could buy.”
I digested that news and wasn’t pleased with it. Bad enough that WSM had returned but if she had help she would be ten times as dangerous. And a HUNDRED times worse with… that man. I had only met him once, but once was enough to last a lifetime, even my borrowed one. If he was back and making a play in a big way he had to be fought. I didn’t really think something like vehicular manslaughter was something he was capable of but with this amount of money on the line it made people do all sorts of things they would not usually engage in. He must be stopped, and one good way to do that would be to take his game piece off the board… one way or another.
I pulled a heavy green plastic box out of my hard case and dropped it on the bed next to her. The weight was enough to send the springs of the mattress up and down for quite a while afterwards. An event reproduced by the second box dropped next to it.
“What’s that,” she asked frightened.
“A choice,” I said quietly as I opened the top of the box to reveal 25 plastic sleeves. I flipped the top open on one and I scattered the coins on top of her several of which went down her tasteful evening gowns front, lodging next to her silicone heart.
“Wa…what?”
“Those are American Golden Eagles. One ounce, 22 karat. The spot prices vary wildly it’s been from $900-1075 this last month. But generally speaking each one of those coins is a thousand dollars. There are twenty in a sleeve, 25 sleeves to a box and there are two boxes. That’s about a million dollars laying in this bed, which combined with the two cents your life is actually worth adds up to a pretty penny. You can take it, as long as you take it, and you, away forever. You are never allowed to see or speak to Katherine again, never allowed in the state of Nebraska again and of course, NEVER to help … that man again.”
“Where did you get this? Jessica sent you didn’t she? I KNEW that bastard was hiding money!”
I lost my temper a bit at that, and struck her with my closed fist right in the left eye. I know it was generally frowned upon for a man to hit a woman but then I wasn’t a very good man as these things go.
“Don’t worry about where I got it,” I continued with a tremble in my voice. “Spending it is your department. I’m sure you have that handled.”
“You are just going to give me a million dollars?” she asked a bit dumbstruck. Either by my love tap or the change in events it was difficult to tell.
“No,” I answered coldly with enough of a pause so she was able to digest the implications. “I’m not giving you anything. I am buying your life. I’m overpaying for it I know, but then I was never that good with business.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m a thief, stepmother. I’m a liar, a coward, an oath breaker. The case could even be made, with only the slightest of legal machinations , of rape.” I finished as she squirmed a little bit back at that statement and I was ashamed to be pleased at the reaction she had to my body. “What I am not though… yet… is a murderer. So that’s the choice you have to make, take the money and run, or … not. Refuse and I kill you, take the money and change your mind later and I kill you, try to get someone else to do your dirty work for you and I kill you. In fact you will have to work very hard for this money, to convince me to keep you alive. Jessica Katherine Scott is one of the most precious things in the world to me, and I know I am not worthy of her. And I will do just about anything and spend ANY price, to keep her alive. So… what’s it going to be?”
***
It was 0300 Christmas day before I got home. I very much hoped that I would be able to have a normal holiday experience with my family one of these days, but knowing them, and Katherine, as well as I did that probably wasn’t going to happen soon. Both baby and mother were sleeping when I got back, though Katherine was still armed I could see. I grabbed the baby’s portable crib and carried my daughter up the stairs to the master bedroom setting her up at the foot of the bed. Returning to the nursery I reached down into Katherine’s cot and putting one arm under her legs and one under her back lifted her up and began carrying her as well. She was light enough in my arms, with the baby born, and her illness, if she was over a hundred pounds now I would be surprised. It was also a testament to how ill and tired she must have been that she didn’t wake up until I accidentally hit her head on the railing on the way up stairs.
“Uhg,” she grunted out in pain the sound of which tore a hole out of my soul. “Wa, what the hell, who?”
“It’s all right Katie,” I whispered to her soothingly. “I’m sorry, I was just carrying you up to our bed when I took the turn to wide and hit your head. I’m sooo sorry!”
“What are we… where’s Mary Margaret!”
“She’s fine, and still sleeping so please lower your voice. She’s waiting for us in the master bedroom; we’ll be there in a second.”
“What? Where is she who shall not be named?”
“Gone,” I said somberly as we passed the entrance to the room and I used one of my feet to quietly shut the door. I paused at the foot of the bed long enough for Katherine to get a good look at our sleeping child and she extended her uninjured arm to brush her head a little bit. Once she seemed satisfied I carried her over to the bed and gently lowered her onto the mattress careful not to snag on any of her injuries. Once settled I pulled up the sheets and blankets over her and then walked over to my side of the bed to disrobe and get inside myself.
“Thank you for getting rid of her,” she said giving me her arm to hold, leaning over being somewhat difficult in her current state.
“No need to thank me. I wanted her gone more than you did.”
“What did you do?”
“What I had to do,” I answered simply closing my eyes on the world and what I had seen the last few days.
“Thomas what happened? You just disappeared this morning. We missed you at dinner. I got your voicemail but it was vague as all hell. Where were you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do! I need to know how you got her to leave, or if she is coming back.”
“She won’t be coming back, ever.” I said louder than I had intended which caused our daughter to wake up and start crying. I was up out of bed before Katie could even sit up and was by Mary’s side to see what was wrong. I had only the merest training on this issue, despite my original gender, but a quick sniff test reveled she had left me a new Christmas present so after I turned on the lights I went over to the dresser with the diaper bag and went to business.
“Does she have diaper rash?” asked Katie. “Grace said she thought she saw some developing.”
“I don’t know. What's diaper rash look like?”
“Rash like,” she said a bit uncertain. “I don’t know bring her over here for inspection. ONCE you have wiped her down”
“Aye, aye skipper,” I said saluting with my free hand. Once I was done I brought the baby over to Katie and held her under her arms while doing a complete 360 demonstration. “Pass inspection?”
“Barely,” she said readjusting herself. “Set her down in my good arm and be my spotter. I have been doing this pump to bottle to baby but I want to see if direct service is as magical as they all talk about.”
“You mean… right in front of me?”
“If I can’t do it with you, who can I do it with?”
“Point,” I agreed with her as I gently lowered my baby into her mother’s arms. As much as I wanted to look away I couldn’t stop staring. It was something that I would never experience first hand now and I was sort of saddened by the loss and even more saddened when I thought about the thousand things that could have happened to prevent me from seeing even this.
“It occurs to me Tommy,” I said taking the fingers that were sticking out of her cast while still being ready to catch Mary Margaret if something went wrong with the other arm. “It occurs to me that I never apologized. I never asked for reconciliation like a good Catholic.”
“What are you talking about? You have asked and been granted forgiveness for everything. Just like you did to me. We're past that.”
“I apologized for stealing your body, apologized for leaving you tied up in that hotel. And most of the rest… But I never did apologize for trying to kill our daughter.”
“Jess you don’t hav--”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted her as I began to cry; even if it was slightly quieter than the terrible din Mary Margaret was capable of producing. I took a moment to wipe away some tears with my arm and then had it back a few seconds later to catch her if she should happen to fall. “I’m so sorry.”
“Your apology is accepted, Thomas Ryan,” said Katie as she blinked away some moisture of her own. “On my behalf and hers, though I hope you won’t wait until she is talking herself to find out. I don’t ever want her to know about her parent's dirty little secrets.”
“Agreed.”
“Now suppose you tell me where you were today, and what you did to W.S.M. to make her go away?”
“I just,” I paused trying to decide what to tell her. “It seems odd to be asking for forgiveness while confessing another sin but I… I uh…. I blackmailed her. An affair I knew about that she didn’t know I knew. I had some evidence, it was stored on a skydrive and I printed it out for her. Explained to her that trying to contest the will under the status of poor bereaved widow wasn’t going to work. Once done I dropped her off at the airport and didn’t even let her back in the house to collect her bags.”
“And all that took you until 3AM?”
“I needed to do some thinking; time alone and all that I went for a little drive in the country. Time just got away from me.”
“And that’s it?” she asked sternly looking me hard in the eyes. “That’s all?”
“That’s all, she won’t be bothering us anymore. I doubt you will ever lay eyes on her for the rest of your life.”
“Well, I can’t say I will miss her, when she arrived I sort of went a bit off the deep end. Maybe now I can claw myself out of this funk.”
“I’ll be here to help you, for the next few days anyway.”
“Just promise me something,” she asked earnestly
“Anything,” I answered graciously while giving her a medium wattage smile.
“No more secrets between us. I sort of went a little bug house nuts when you disappeared today… nuttier anyway. I’m not sure I can handle any more drama.”
“No more secrets,” I said not allowing my smile to waver a single millimeter. “I promise.”
THE END OF BOOK ONE
Authors Note:
Well here is where I decided to end it for now. I moved on to another project a week ago so there are no new parts coming, and it will be up to you fine people to see if there will be. This is an entry into the reconciliation contest and doing well in that will be a contributing factor in my decision to continue. Remember, vote early, vote often.
A couple other things have got in my way of writing for BigCloset. I got a promotion at work, yeah me, but it means I have to learn a new post and… well, actually do work at work, not writing during downtimes. I will also be moving to be closer so that’s taking my time. The other bit of good news is that I had one of my mundane stories published and am $500 richer, they gave me a wink and a nod and said if I can put out another short in the next month or so I should be able to get a spot in an upcoming issue so I am trying to pump out one of those now as well. I’m not stopping writing TG all together, it’s good for my soul and keeps me sane but “stuff” will prevent me from the output of the last few weeks, I hope you haven’t been spoiled.
I first started writing this story on August 20th and was mostly finished with it by October 3rd 130K words in six weeks is pretty good if I do say so myself. And is about the size of 3 full on Tanya Allan novels so don’t feel let down if you don’t see a new post in a few days I need some time for other projects.
Speaking of, we will have a little vote, in keeping with the spirit of election season. Just make a comment to this story with your decision and we will see what we see.
1. Should I continue this series next?
2. Should I write another story with Max?
3. Should I finish the General’s daughter?
The General's Daughter
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The General’s Daughter Part 1
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Christopher Weaver was a young urban professional of the least professional sort. A consulting detective, what he didn’t know, he could find out. Now what he didn’t know was small secret his parents had neglected to inform him about his birth, the joys and hardships of leaving the city and how dangerous a cup of coffee could really be.
The General’s Daughter by The Last Boy Scout.
Chapter 1
He was a little fireplug of a man.
Back in the bad old days when every pound counted, the Air Force made sure that its brave pilots tear-assing though the heavens were under a certain height and weight limit. Despite what the recruiting poster would have you believe; in the beginning and the culture was maintained to this day, the best Air Force pilots were short, wiry, types who could be counted on to be worth their weight in jet fuel. His face was haggard and weather beaten, the result of too may hours spent in the high atmosphere, the sun attacking sensitive skin. He would never win any beauty pageants but I could tell from across the room that this was a man who had seen the elephant so to speak and probably had it stuffed and mounted on his wall.
He was also scared to bloody death, you could see it in his eyes.
Being as the man probably had the authority to release nuclear weapons I wasn’t at all comfortable with his facial expression. We were meeting at the Scooters coffee shop, the original if you must know. Most clandestine meeting prefacing epic acts of derring do are supposed to meet in dreary smoke filled bars but I never really cared for beer and since the cancer Nazi’s took power they had banned smoking in all public buildings and it really took the fun out of the ambiance. Besides, a man needs his espresso. There was blood in my caffeine stream.
“General Ryan,” I said as I nodded to the man and sat down.
“Mr. Weaver,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for coming.”
“It’s a lovely day and your nickel, you did bring it with you I hope?”
“$5,000 as requested,” he replied placing a think envelope upon the table. “Now the mission…”
“Find your daughter.”
“Yes… how did you?”
“It’s why I deserve my munificent fee. I find things out, An Air Force three star gets in contact with someone like me. He’s got a problem, a problem all the weight and force of the United States Military Industrial Complex cannot solve. Likely because it is not allowed to be brought forth, that means personal. You’ve got one of the most sensitive jobs there is so you had to pass a heapashitton of security clearances that means any skeletons would have been long since unearthed so the personal is yours personally but probably a family member. Your spouse is the very model of a modern general’s wife and judging by her spending habits is not participating in any extra-curricular activities though I would have a serious talk to her if I were you about her shoe addiction. Your parents are dead your siblings are all respectable middle class plebes and your son Jonathan is safely ensconced in the warm bosom of his family and shows none of the classic warning signs of teen distress. Your daughter Amanda however has maxed out her credit cards both the one you co-signed for her and the five she got in her own name. She has not been seen in any of her classes for five weeks, but has not formally dropped out of school. Her ATM records and credit card cash advances are at certain, ‘inner city’ locations that a nice co-ed should not be anywhere near, which leads me to suspect she is purchasing something she couldn’t get a prescription for. Which is a crime sufficiently embarrassing for man who is in contention for the joint chiefs but is nowhere near the crime of charging 45% interest on a cash advance. Her phone records stopped not long ago after she had forgotten to pay the bill for the third month in a row and you are no doubt worried about that she will show up in a ditch somewhere on CNN and ruin your chances.”
“You do love hearing yourself talk don’t you Mr. Weaver?” asked the General visibly angry.
“It’s a character flaw, I’m listening to some self help audio books in the car… so far not working.”
“Do you have children?”
“I have not yet been blessed, something about most women not ‘getting’ me.”
“Then all due respect, go fuck yourself your opinion this is about MY reputation. She’s my little girl, and she’s in trouble if I knew where she was I’d get her myself and screw my forth star I’ve got my pension. But I DON’T know where she is, can you find out? The police are no help, they say there is no sign of FOUL PLAY”
The man had a point, perhaps, I had lippy mouth and an ingrained hostility to Air Force brass so I knew I wasn’t giving him all due benefit of the doubt. I tried to imagine myself in his shoes but that would presuppose that I would have let my child get herself so messed up in the first place.
“I can find her, but then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose I find her, the bottom bitch of some Chicago wannabe gangsta. She’s nineteen years old, even in Nebraska that makes her an adult. I don’t do kidnapping for hire, no matter what Sgt. Grimes may have told you. If she doesn’t want to come back here I’m not dragging a young lady against her will across state lines, the FBI have got a thing about that.”
He looked at me while I sipped my drink as if the very possibility that she wouldn’t want to come back was something he had never considered. This was the guy who made sure our satellites didn’t crash into one another and he didn’t know that sometimes a teenage girl could have daddy issues.
“If you find her, and you can’t convince her to come back with you. Then call me, I’ll come right to you day or night. All I would ask is that you stay with her while you wait for me.”
“And if she doesn’t want to come back with you either?”
“Then that would be my problem, and not yours, your job would be done.”
“Fair enough… storm the castle, save the girl. I’m gonna need a reasonable amount of data to start off with not everything is available electronically. I’ll need as much dead tree info on Amanda that you can get me.”
“I anticipated your needs,” the general said indicating a banker’s box on the chair next to us. “This is Amanda’s box, her mother has been adding to it since we took her home from the hospital in Germany.”
I took the top off the box, and started glancing though the files it was about what could be expected from a military wife’s organizational skills, very meticulous and well ordered.
“I somewhat doubt her 5th grade report card will be the key to tracking her down but you never can tell.” I said as I placed the paper back in the box and sealed it shut. “I’ve got your contact information, I’ll let you know when I know.”
“Please be careful with the box, if my daughter is d…. If… it’s the only copies we have you see. Particularly the photos. It might be all we have left.”
I took a moment to digest that, much as I might have liked to I couldn’t make light of a man who said something like that. Said something like that AND meant it.
“I understand, I’ll be very careful… with both your treasures.”
“Before you go, after I got your name from my aide who knows someone who’s a friend of a friend I put it though our search engines. Military, FBI, CIA, local, state police you’d never been part of any of them. And I checked the places people don’t usually check. Where did you learn to do what you do?”
“Library school.”
“Really,” he replied clearly perplexed.
“Yup, what can I say, librarians. What we don’t know, we can find out.”
Chapter 2.
I called myself a consulting detective, or when I was being really snooty a private enquiry agent. Partially because it sounded cool and that’s what Sherlock Holmes called himself, but mostly because the regulation and licensing to become an actual private detective involved so much paperwork that I couldn’t be bothered with it.
You see boys and girls, I was, and still remain to this day a fundamentally curious person. It took me a considerable amount of time to finish college. I just couldn’t seem to stay focused when there was so many good books to read. Somewhere round year seven of my four year degree mommy and daddy pulled the plug and I had to finance my own life for a change. Having been a professional student for my whole life I turned my financial efforts naturally to that which came easily to me, research. There was a substantial number of young low forehead types who were more than willing to slip me $50 to do the heavy lifting on the research papers, and quite a few of the cute 4.0 muffins who found themselves over extended. I never went so far as to actually write the papers for them but I did leave much more time in their schedule for drinking and partying the activities college was truly meant for.
I summoned enough initiative to finish off and get my piece of parchment and when forced to actually go out in the world and get a real job I naturally did my best to avoid that and immediacy signed up for graduate school. My parents, being the sneaky sort that they were, began to wonder where I was getting my money from so I took a part time job at the Omaha Public Library. It provided enough of an income on a w-2 for my accountant father to see I wasn’t robbing banks to pay the rent and I made enough off the books to keep myself in the lifestyle I had become accustomed too and I banked the rest.
Somewhere down the line I gradually moved over from academic research to more colorful pursuits. Instead of asking me to dig up the particulars on a typical 3rd century Roman legionary camp I was being asked to find out where a football players girlfriend was spending her free time that should have been spent with said football player.
It kind of snowballed from there, soon enough I was getting referrals from people who had heard about me from people who had heard about me. The work was anything but steady, so I kept the part time gig at the Library but it was always interesting and occasionally like the case of the general’s daughter lucrative. Ten grand to find some coked up muffin who had no real training in disappearing was gonna be easy money. Or so I hoped anyway.
Amanda Ryan, had been a bit of a wild girl in the three High Schools she had served in. Her disciplinary record was almost as thick as some people’s medical history. It was probably a mistake for the General to allow his daughter to attend university so far away from home. On base she had always been the General’s daughter and a certain amount of watching over was done as a matter of course all her life. Living on a post 9/11 military base as a teenager was a protective bubble probably nowhere greater. And when the umbilical cord was cut Amanda’s natural tendencies went out of control.
On paper, and with the benefit of hindsight it was a sad thing to piece together. It has started off with missed classes on Monday. Probably a little bit too much partying on the weekend. A significant increase in withdrawals soon followed by several dubious student health visits painted a bleak picture. The Chicago police had arrested the girl on three separate occasion but her age race and gender and the not so subtle presence of dear old daddy got her off with minimal punishment. A good place to start would be to have a little talk to the people who shared the dubious honor of the same charge.
19 year old co-eds did not have known associates they had friends, God help me I was going back to campus.
Chapter 3
“Um…why?” asked the walking blonde stereotype behind the half open dorm room door.
“Because she hasn’t gone to classes or talked to her parents in five weeks,” I replied trying to be the picture of charm and patience.
“Yeah but, why should I care?”
“Because a young girl such as yourself could be in danger, and me and my friend Mr. Franklin are very concerned,” I replied slipping a hundred dollar bill though the crack in the door.
“Why didn’t you just say so in the first place, and what has that little bitch gone and done to herself now?”
“That was rather what I had hoped you could tell me about.”
“The last time I saw her she was balls deep into this black guy while some towny guys were taking bets on how long it would take her to pass out.”
“How becoming, did the black gentleman have a name?”
“Sam called him T-Bone but every other black guy in Chicago is called T-bone so that’s probably no help. I do know that he wasn’t a student because he had to pay full rate to get into the movie. And he had on more jewelry than three of my girlfriends combined.”
“Anything else?”
“Yea uh, he was wearing a hat for the evil empire.”
“He was a Star Wars fan?”
“What, huh, no it was a Starbucks hat. Do you think he might work there?”
***
There are almost a hundred Starbucks in the Chicagoland area quite a few of whom employ young gentlemen from a socioeconomic background that would produce a name like T-Bone. Filtering out by race and likely age and restricting the search to locations close enough to campus that the two could have met and employees with names beginning with T yielded only a dozen likely candidates. Two days of bad leads and broken promises brought me to one Tyler Donovan and his one bedroom apartment in the historic part of Chicago that did not burn down in the great fire and probably should have.
What I did next was not strictly legal and was a good reason I would never get an actual license to do this sort of thing or keep it long if I ever should. The apartment next door was vacant and a quick honorarium to the super’s retirement fund yielded the key. Judging by the bunk, unwashed bloody sheets and tell tale smell of illicit substances this wasn’t the first time said worthy had done a short term rental. The walls in these pre-fire building are hardly worthy of the name and it was the matter of a quick couple of holes drilled and some off the rack radio shack goodness and I knew basically everything that was going on next door.
I didn’t have one of those CIA telescoping video camera’s you see on TV but they were wired for sound. I heard two separate male voices and the occasional unrecognizable female moan from the far side. Several hours of conversation told me enough to risk further investigation. The two male voices referred to my possible target. Such conversational gems as, “wake the white bitch up,” “get that cunt over here and let her earn her keep.” Apparently said girl was taking a vacation day as should could not be woken. Eventually the gentlemen gave up and I heard the clear sound of both of them leaving the room for likelier pleasures.
Now I wish I could say that I picked that lock like a pro but the simple truth is that I have never had the patience to learn that particular skills. Fortunately my old friend the crowbar was good enough to get the job done and a quick application of brute force was enough to jam the door open. Not very subtle but if this wasn’t the right place I would not be around long enough for them to notice and when they did notice I just didn’t care.
She was a little firecracker of a redhead. Used hard and hung up wet she was asleep like a brick on the couch and was only a few scores short of a fatal overdose if she hadn’t got there already. The needle still sticking in her left arm was, I must admit, a bad sign. It was her lucky day however. She both still had a pulse and a father who cared enough to send a part time librarian looking for her.
I carefully removed the needle from her arm and released the tourniquet. I opened her eye lids and her irises were so dilated as to be almost totally black. Her breathing was not steady and I was not at all sure she would stay breathing at all.
“Well, shit.” I said to myself, as no one else was awake to hear me.
***
Twenty minutes later I was barreling west bound and down interstate 80 a still comatose girl in the backseat. I had taken just enough time to gather up the pitifully small positions I had taken to be hers, carefully making sure that all the drugs were removed and flushed down the toilet. The site of a man carrying a girl down three flights of stairs and down four blocks and into the backseat of a car might have been unusual but not enough for me to be stopped by any concerned citizens, probably because they are an endangered species.
It was eight hours to Offutt AFB and I was halfway there somewhere in Iowa when she woke. Not being a heartless bastard, at least on Tuesdays, I pulled off at the nearest gas station where she could start throwing up and reentering the human race. It was sometime before her third hurl and shortly after her first mug of coffee that she asked me who I was. I thought it was a pretty good sign that she did not ask me who SHE was.
“Christopher James Thomas Aloicius Weaver at your service Ma’am” I replied with as much of a bow I could manage while kneeling on concrete and holding her hair out of the toilet.
“And what is a Christopher James whatever whatever? And where is T-Bone?
“I… am knight errant saving the damsel in undress, though the less said about your maidenhood the better. T-Bone or whatever his mother actually named him is probably back in Chicago looking for a new fuck puppet.”
“Where am I?”
“Physically? The men’s room of a interstate truck stop which you may have seen before. Medically about 12-20 hours away from a REALLY bad case of detox. Spiritually I’m not equipped to say… your father sent me.”
“Daddy, my God wha…”
Amanda then began to retch again. I was always amazed in college when I saw girls do this. It just seemed anatomically and physically impossible for them vomit that much. If the CERN boys took a couple dozen hot co-ed’s and put them in a room with a some kegs and cases of vodka they would soon be able to disprove the law of the conservation of energy.
“Your father will know only what I tell him. And I intend to tell him as little as possible. There are some things that fathers with their finger on the button should never have to find out about one of our larger cities. He paid me a lot of money to find you and bring you back to the warm embrace of your family and no matter what you may believe it is a warm embrace. Three Star Generals don’t send people like me unless they care a whole hell of a lot.”
“Then why didn’t he come himself, or was he too BUSY?” she said with the deepest scorn in her voice.
“Save the daddy issues for the moment Amanda, he would have come if he knew where you were but he didn’t. You had after all not answered your phone or been to your dorm room in five weeks.”
“Five weeks, wha…what day is it?”
“Tuesday April 7th , do you need me to tell you the year?”
“April how can it be April, oh my head,” she said as she clutched her skull and likely would have screwed it off her body if she had been able. “T-bone…. He had my stuff, do you have my stuff?”
“If by stuff you mean, your empty purse and pink book bag then yes, if by ‘stuff’ you mean drugs than no, I flushed everything illegal I could find.”
“WHAT! How could you, do you have any idea what that stuff is worth, or what T-bone is gonna do to you when he finds out. And what am I gonna do for a fix?”
“In order, easy just press down the little metal thing, No, I could care less, and methadone at detox clinic in Omaha.”
“Home, I can’t go home.”
“Sure you can, now do you need to make anything come out the other end or are you good?”
“Huh,”
“Never mind, if you wet your panties I’ll just add the car detailing to your fathers bill. Come on we’re burning daylight.”
Chapter 4
We were somewhere past Des Moines on the edge of a cornfield when the drugs began to lose hold. She was in that fortunate if temporary green zone of lucidity between taking the drugs and before the withdrawal kicked in. She had been sleeping in fits and drabs for the last 50 miles or so and now was awake enough to be a pain in my ass.
“You can’t do this, this is kidnapping!”
“That’s a legitimate fear of mine, I won’t lie to you. I was half tempted to leave you in that place and if you had been awake enough at the time I would have and just called your father. But being unconscious and even now you are under what the legal scholars refer to as ‘reduced capacity.’ As your parents representative I could make a case that returning you to their care until you are able to care for yourself is my duty. Now quiet down we will be there in 90 minutes.”
‘Stop here please,” she said as a road sign came into view
“Whatever for?”
“I need to tinkle”
“Nineteen year old girls do not need to tinkle, they need to use the facilities and you had your chance at the last stop, where almost there.”
“I really REALLY need to go.”
“I have a bucket in the backseat.”
“Ewww gross!...pleasssssse”
There is something ingrained in the male mind; some leftover vestigial survival trait to insure the perpetuation of the species. When a female batts her eyes and puts that look on her face there is very little we can do to deny her. This was the reason cave men used to get eaten by the local wildlife and probably explained the whole 20th century. I put on my turn signal and eased on down the road.
“This is only because I need more coffee. Your feminine whiles need a shower.”
“Ewwww gross.”
“My point exactly.”
As I pulled up to the front door I made sure the door was locked, unbuckled my seatbelt and turned to face Amanda. “Look at me now, are you paying attention? So far you haven’t done anything to deny your right to basic human dignity I am willing to let you use a proper bathroom, I will even buy you a coffee and a danish if you’re a good little girl. But if you scream kidnap or rape or any other cry for help I will calmly handcuff you and show any concerned citizens a very real looking badge. As I am in a nice suit with a calm white bread manner and you are in next to nothing and obviously suffering the ill effects of several different pharmacopeia I don’t think too many people will take your side. If you try to run I will catch you. If you even could run more than ten steps without falling down and heaving your guts out. Heading back to mother, father and a first rate medical facility is not the worst of evils. Not all the world will weep for you. Do you understand me?”
She nodded.
***
Fortunately for her, it was a one room ladies with only one entrance and no convenient window to shimmy out of so I was able to allow her a little privacy while I filled up my travel mug. Gas station coffee is never good coffee, but it usually has a high enough level of caffeine and that’s all that matters 20 hours since the last bed time. Amanda finished her business and came to the coffee station to join me. I was pleasantly surprised when she asked me if I needed cream or sugar, but declined, as she added some into her own. We picked up a few donuts that may have been fresh at some point in recent memory but for now would be good enough to counter act the acid from the coffee and I paid for our purchases and we left the station. Opening the door with my car keys and my precious cargo was a bit cumbersome and Amanda extended her hand to take some of the load. After unlocked we both entered my old jeep and she handed me my coffee which I soon half emptied.
It was twenty miles and the rest of the mug later when she told me I had been poisoned.
“With what?” I asked incredulously her daddy may have been the type but I doubt she had access to some obscure esoteric poison at the drop of a hat in an Iowa gas station
“Ecstasy, you should be feeling the effects of it any minute now, you need to pull over and let me out and then get yourself to a hospital when I was in the bathroom I crushed like 30 of them up into powder and dropped it into your coffee. You’re a big guy but you need to get yourself to the hospital. Just let me off here I can walk to the nearest town. “
“Say I don’t believe you,”
“Then you go bat shit crazy and crash the car and I get out and walk to the nearest town. Either way works for me.”
“We’re going 75 miles an hour you crazy bitch if it gets that far we’d probably both die.”
“Then you had better slow down and let me out, you got a cell phone right, I promise to call an ambulance.”
“Where did you get the stuff?”
“The pill case in my book bag, you really didn’t search it very well.”
“Huh, I hope I don’t grow breasts,” I replied with a philosophical tone.
“Wait… what?”
“Give me some credit Amanda I know what ecstasy looks like even if you’re not quite dialed in enough to tell the difference. There was the slimmest chance that you were being supplied the drugs against your will. It’s a favorite for a certain breed of sexual predator. So I set a little trap for you, I replaced the ecstasy pills with some birth control pills I found in that shitholes bathroom. If you didn’t go for the trap I could tell the General that it wasn’t something you could help, being all drugged up in there. And if you did try for it, well…better safe than mommy.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“I am indeed, my mother is quite the thing, now birth control pills are nothing but glorified female hormones which may indeed start me PMSing in a big way thank you very much but won’t drive me any more crazy than the average women. Still and all, you had better buckle up. You know what they say about female drivers.”
“Fucker!” she screamed at me.
“Not until after the shower and some blood tests.”
“Fucker!”
Chapter 5
The general was kind enough to provide a drive on pass for the Base and with only the minimal amount of hassle at the gatehouse I was able to pull up to the white pillared Generals house that could have been a stand in from Gone With the Wind. It was about 2:pm. General Ryan had been called just after I crossed the river and he was still in his class two uniform when I knocked on the door. Mrs. Ryan didn’t even wait for a proper introduction before almost knocking me down in her rush to my car and her waiting child. A few minutes later I was sitting in the Generals study with a nice glass of scotch while mother and daughter were trying to put themselves back together in the upstairs bathroom.
I was feeling magnanimous, the General had brought out the good stuff. A certain type of Johnny Walker that was forbidden to be exported out of Scotland and had probably made the transatlantic passage in an F-16.
“There’s a few things you need to know,” I said after taking my second sip. “and I few things that you don’t ever want to know. For the time being trust my judgment if it turns out you need more you have my number ok?”
“OK,” Ryan replied visibly shaken.
“Point the first, she’s a pretty bad druggie. How it started I can’t say but at the end she was actively seeking it out. She needs to enter a detox clinic soonest.”
“I’ve got brochures on several of them, I’m taking some personal days and I’ll drive her to the best one.”
“Make sure it’s got a decent lab attached to it, threes no easy way to say this but she was used sexually, willingly or unwillingly by multiple men. She will need to be tested for the whole range of STD’s”
That last statement would have broken lesser men, it’s a testament to our nations screening process that he took it on the chin and kept going.
“I assumed as much Mr. Weaver, the Base clinic will begin the tests tonight and I’ll alert her doctors at the detox center. “
“You’re gonna need several kinds of doctors too, I don’t know if it was just the drugs or if the drugs just made it easier but your daughter displayed some sociopathic tendencies. While on the road she attempted to kill me, and likely herself. She thought she was spiking my coffee with an overdose of ecstasy which would have been an interesting experience full speed on the highway.”
“She thought she did, how did you trick her?”
“I switched her stash out with birth control pills.”
“I hope you don’t grow breasts.”
“That’s what I said,” and we both shared a smile at the gallows humor. “I believe it was her prescription that I switched out. If that’s the case…. Well you’ve seen those little pink circles of plastic I’m sure. This one was full, none had been taken yet. Which means if she was as gone for as long as we think she was the effects from her last dose would have been out of her system and she could have been fertile while she was…. Under someone else’s care.”
There was silence for about 30 seconds, I sipped the rest of my scotch as the General digested the last piece of information.
“Thank you Mr. Weaver, one would follow the other, I guessed as much. It will be one more test her doctor will perform tonight. Now I don’t mean to be rude, I’ll always be grateful for what you have done but I should really get upstairs.”
“I understand, good luck, all of you.”
“I’ll have the rest of the money wired to your bank in the morning. And someday, and that day may never come you’ll need a favor from an old Eagle driver. I want you to know that I will be there for you if you need me, as you have been for me.”
“Thank you General, I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
It was three months later, when my life changed forever. I kept plugging away at the Public Library, plugging away at my graduate degree, I did my occasional side jobs but none of them took me out of town and none were very interesting. The Generals wire transfer came in as promised and I dutifully transferred it to my Ameritrade brokerage account where it had been steadily losing value since. Fucking bankers.
I was three days into a stomach bug, but if I kept missing work for a little indigestion my boss would be less than friendly when it came time for me to take my little unplanned vacations. So I manned up and went in for the day and was regretting it heartily by 2 PM. Time was, I could have gotten away with slinking into the backroom for the rest of my shift, but we were 3 people under establishment for our branch, figures that were calculated when we were 20% less busy so every man or in the case of librarians, mostly women, down was not something easily overcome.
I’m not really a Librarian per se, it’s an actual rank, not a job description, the manager was a Librarian II, a department head Librarian III and so on. I was a modest P/T Library Specialist which put me a mere 2 promotions up from the very bottom of the rung. I wasn’t really worried about the bureaucracy of it, as I was making more on my sidelines than the director himself but the title would have been nice. Who after all in the general public had heard of a “library specialist?”
I had just finished dealing with a rather objectionable gentleman who seemed affronted that he would have to pay late fines when after all his tax dollars paid for the library already. If he had better taste in books I might have been willing to give him a waiver but keeping ANY Glen Beck book much less four of them for two months is two months too many. I staggered back into the break room and entered the staff toilet for what was sure to be round five of my daily dump.
I was not disappointed, I let loose with a very satisfying load and was in the process of wiping when the toilet paper came back positively drenched in blood. Which while not being an expert on the subject of gastrointestinal distress was I thought, not a good sign.
“Well… shit” I said to myself still holding the crimson paper.
***
With a face the color of a mime, and with a rather embarrassing…and still growing red stain on the back of my pants it was not difficult to convince my boss that I needed the rest of the day off. More difficult was convincing her I didn’t need an ambulance. I’m self insured, and while hardly cut rate it was not all inclusive, an ambulance ride half a mile to the Methodist Hospital would have cost me 500 bucks I would rather have spent on video games so under the rational that I hadn’t died yet I convinced her to hold off on the meat wagon but not from her driving me herself just to make sure I got their reasonably intact.
I’ve been sick all over the world, and however much you want to trash the American health care system in a genuine emergency they mostly due the right thing. I was admitted and most of the paperwork filled out just in time for me to pass out from the blood loss.
***
Man did that suuuuuuck.
Even now, years later, I remember barely remembering anything but pain. When the world focused back in on itself it was most of a week later and my mother was in the chair next to my hospital bed grading papers.
My mother, oh let me count the ways.
I may have mentioned earlier that I didn’t like Air Force brass. This was because dearest Sharon Weaver was a full bird Colonel when she retired and settled in to teach at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She was a good officer, all of her colleagues told her so, but she just didn’t have the lips to make General. Flag rank required a certain amount of ass kissing that members of my family seem physically incapable of. Growing up till age 16 I got my ass dragged from one end of this godforsaken world to the other. I can never be President, as she had the ill manners to give birth off base while posted to Lakenheath AFB in England. But hey I can’t be King either as the act of settlement bars it from Catholics so I guess I shouldn’t be to bitter.
I guess
It would have been so much easier if she had been a bad mother, an estrogen driven version of the Great Santini, but there was really no one great thing I could hold against her accept serving her country and denying me the whole all American dream picket fence yada-yada. In most every ways she was a kind and caring individual who kissed my scraped knees when I fell and made sure I never wanted for anything all the while keeping the world safe for democracy. If I hadn’t been so by the gods damned stubborn to back down from the after affects of all that teenage angst we would have had a fine relationship.
I guess
“Hey Chris,” she said with a slight smile when she noticed I was awake.
“Hey mom, … say, what are the chances of a mocha latte or something with enough caffeine to drown my sorrows. I feel like shit.”
“Language! Christopher.”
“Ma, I’m 24 years old, I’m allowed to say shit when I’ve got machines attached to me that I don’t even know what they do. It’s in the Constitution somewhere I promise.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I need a cup of coffee if I don’t get it soon I’m gonna start pressing charges for interfering with my civil rights.”
“I’ll get the doctor, doctors. They need to talk to you, and there are some things we need to discuss.”
“Allright, “I replied now getting slightly worried. The last time she had given me that look was when she thought I was gay, I wasn’t, I just was more interested in reading my books than getting involved in all the sexual drama. What can I say, librarians are born not made.
She returned about ten minutes later with a group of people in white coats. The oldest and most distinguished looking one was the first to speak.
“Well Chris, I’m Doctor Reed and first off I want to say that we have fixed the immediate problem and barring some unforeseen circumstance you will live a long and healthy life. When we were digging around inside however we found out that you are a very interesting young…person.”
The slight hesitation he put on the world I hoped he would say was man sounded ominous
I was right.
***
“It was quickly obvious that the discharge was a result of internal bleeding and the blood was flowing out the nearest convenient orifice. In a way you were lucky the pressure was enough to burst though to the intestinal tract and create bloody stool. Or else you likely would have died of blood poisoning before we knew any different. The first tear was easy enough to locate and repair the issue arose when we determined the source of the blood. Chris there may be easier ways to break this to a young man but in my thirty years practicing medicine I have never had to do it so I’m just going to lay it out on the line. We determined that the discharge was the used lining from your reproductive tract. It was menstrual blood,” finished Doctor Reed as if he was pronouncing a death sentence. Which in a very real sense he was.
“Menstrual blood? I may have not spent 8 years in medical school but in 6th grade they taught me that only girls menstruate.”
“That is correct, Chris, menstruation is the result of a healthy female reproductive system. “
“Has it failed to come to the attention of your medical minds that I have a penis doctor?”
“Yes Chris, we noticed, the fact of the matter is that you are what used to be called a hermaphrodite and what we now usually refer to as inter-sexed, an individual with both male and female characteristics. We had trouble finding your records until your mother was able to supply us with the original case notes from England. We have a different standard of care now than we did back in the 80’s at the time though you presented as mostly male so the decision was to raise you as a boy.”
He let that lie for a moment, and I let him. It’s not every day that you are told your whole life has been a lie.
“Mother,” I said my voice slightly raised. “You got some splainin to do!”
Chapter 6
“I’m sorry Chris, we only did what we and the doctors thought was best for you. When you were born you had a penis and a va…vagina. But they said that it was only partially formed and that it was much more likely for your healthy development that you were male. They sewed up the opening when you were 6 months old and we watched, when you got though puberty we thought we were proven right.
“I’m 24, puberty should have happened half my lifetime ago. Why the hell am I having my first period now?”
A large African American in a lab coat stepped forward. “Chris I’m doctor Niles an endocrinologist. Hormones and what not,” he explained with a smile. “As near as we can tell your testes and ovaries were both somewhat underdeveloped and in competition with one another. I’m quite at a loss as to how this has not been noticed before. Likely as a result of your constantly on the move as a child, no one pediatrician or general practitioner saw you for long enough to detect a trend. And we can’t seem to find any medical records for you at all over the last 8 years. “
“Probably because I don’t have any, anything that couldn’t be covered by student health I just went to a doc in the box for a shot of antibiotics. There wasn’t much opportunity for anyone to inspect my wedding tackle.”
“Yes, but surely you should have noticed your own development. Your penis is , um, rather small.”
“It may surprise you to know Doctor but I haven’t had much opportunity to inspect other men’s junk to compare sizes. I knew I wasn’t going to be a porn star but I didn’t think it was really that out of line, sex never held much interest for me anyway.”
“That’s likely a result of the hormones, or lack thereof, tell me when was the last time you had an erection?”
“Doctor,” I said with as much scolding in my voice as I could manage. “Doctor leaving aside that there are a bunch of strangers privy to this discussion I hope you will have noticed that my mother is in the room.”
“Yes of course, Doctor Reed, I think we can dispense with the gaggle of medical students for now.”
“I’d like to stay if I may Chris?” My mother asked with as much curtsey as she could manage. I gave her a nod and she resumed her seat at the side of my bed.
“To answer your question Doctor, I can’t really recall, I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. “ I answered.
“When was the last time you engaged in intercourse then?”
“Hmmm umm,” I grunted. “I’ll thank you sir not to spread this sort of thing around but I have not yet had the pleasure.”
“Chris was never very interested in girls…or boys for that matter.”
“Yes, thank you mother that will be enough.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Doctor Niles said with a soothing smile. “It’s nice to see a young person not risking their health willy nilly. Have you ever managed to ejaculate?”
“Of course!”
“When was the last time you masturbated then, and how often would you say you do?”
“I don’t know every once in a while, not like back when I was 14 though I used to do it once or twice a month then.”
“Chris, I know 14 year old boys who think that once or twice an HOUR is normal.”
“Look so I’m not a sexual stallion, thank you very much for the ego boost but what say we just cut though all the bullshit and get to the news you were really wanting to tell me.”
“Well,” said Doctor Reed. “I guess that’s where I renter the conversation. While your male organs are under developed and underutilized it would appear that your female ones are intact and something has caused them to mature. Though were still not sure what it was that has caused this.”
“A few months back, I was accidently dosed with about a months supply of birth control pills, a girl was trying to poison me. “
“A girl?” My mother asked. “What girl.”
“No one you would approve of, I’m quite sure.” I answered her.
“A full month you say, “Doctor Reed continued. “Yes that might do it, the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak that kick started the ovaries into maturity. I’m of the opinions that you have actually been going through a mild cycle for years and it was just reabsorbed into your body. But the most recent round what caused your bloody stool.”
“Well why not just yank em out, a hysterectomy or whatever you call removing the ovaries. Or have you done that already.”
“We have not, though that remains an option once you have made an informed decision. I never like making a patient sterile without giving them the option first.”
“Sterile?” I asked
“Yes Chris, we’ve been taking samples and poking around since you came in last week. And while you have stated that you can infrequently function sexually as a male. A sample of your seminal fluid did not yield any sperm whatsoever. Your testicles are functioning only intermittently at producing testosterone and not at all in its primary function. Indeed I’m worried that they have atrophied enough to become cancerous and we may need to operate to remove them. It’s not at all, unusual in intersexed individuals to be totally sterile. For you though that is not the case. Both ovaries are intact and we harvested about a dozen ovum for testing and they were viable. Under the emergency conditions we removed the obstruction that caused your rupture. In this case undoing the work done when you were a toddler. Once clear we found underneath a reasonably intact vaginal canal, a cervix, a womb and I believe that you could conceive and bear a child to term if you were so inclined. Though before that I would recommend corrective surgery similar to the sexual reassignment surgery Male to female transsexuals undergo.
“Doctor, are you saying you gave me a vagina? What about my penis and my balls?”
“Not exactly, you currently have an opening, a vaginal canal to provide an avenue for the womb lining to be removed during your cycle. You wouldn’t have a real vagina until we surgically create one. Manufacture a clitoris and labia and the rest; currently the hole, so to speak is just south of your scrotum which is still there. And your penis which is also present though I have to say is never likely to be more than convenient way to discharge urine.”
“So what you’re saying is I have to decide whether I want to go all the way and become a woman or stay half a real man?”
“Chris, this is obviously a complicated state of affairs, the emergent situation has passed and you will have some time and the help of psychologists to decide what your course of action should be. But medically you have it reversed. You have to decide whether to become a man or remain a woman. Your female system is intact and maturing, your male is not. And while the technology was not readily available back in the 80’s its somewhat simpler now. A chromosome scan was done a few days ago and came back with unambiguous results. Your 23rd chromosome is XX not XY. Medically and even legally speaking you are a female, and always have been.
***
Understandably, I wanted to be alone after that. I banished the doctors from my room and sent my lady mother on a quest to find some coffee that wouldn’t kill me. I had some thinking drinking to do and I needed to get my synapses firing. I didn’t have a convenient mirror to look at my appearance but I knew my body well enough to do a mental inventory. I was never the model of masculine virility. There were no hard edges, no bulging muscles. I had always assumed that was more a result of carrying thirty pounds more than I should be and never exercising longer than it took to walk from my car to my apartment. I never had much body hair, and it made a whole lot more sense now the reason why I never had to shave my face more than once a week or so.
I brought my hand to my neck and felt my windpipe but not anything that could really be called an Adams apple. My hair was short, the same style I had worn for almost 20m years. Short but thick. I had seven male cousins and I was the only one that still had a full head of hair, some of them had started loosing to their foreheads as early as 18 and I was always pleased that I was the only one never to succumb to male pattern baldness and now I knew why.
What the hell was I going to do, I had never been a great success as a man, but had no guarantee I would set the world on fire as a paid up member of the fairer sex. I tried to imagine what I would look like, if I went the whole way. Gradually my body would feminize but I had the sneaking suspicion that chromosome XX or no I would never look like anything else but a dude in a dress.
“I’m sorry Chris,” my mother said as she reentered the room baring a Scooters cup.
“You’ve said that before,” I answered deadpan.
“And I’ll say it again, we thought we were doing the right thing, your father and I. We already had a daughter and the doctors said you were more male than female. The only issue would be at puberty and while you were… androgynous, you seemed a healthy enough boy so we saw no reason to add to the usual teenage drama.”
“That may have been well enough a decade ago but I stopped being a child some time now, I’m sure there was a memo.”
“Look at it from our point of view Chris, please.”
“I know what it looked like from your point of view, still and all I would have liked to have known. It would have made high school a whole lot easier.”
“What do you intend to do Chris? The doctors say your producing a normal amount of female hormones now, without enough testosterone to counteract it. Unless you remove those organs you will gradually feminize. On the other hand, you can hardly function as a male… Chris, why did you never tell me, it wasn’t normal for young man to be a monk.”
“It’s not the sort of thing a young man speaks to his mother about, as long as I wasn’t knocking up some girl or getting AIDS I imagined you were happy.”
“Oh Chris, I wanted YOU to be happy.”
“Noted,” I replied bitterly.
***
I let the medicos poke and prod me for another two days, took a metric ton of paperwork and informational brochures and pulled the plug on my hospital stay. Things were still pretty rough and unready ‘down there’ but there was only so much that could done before I was ready to decide which way to go. And I was nowhere near ready enough to make that decision. I retreated to my apartment in midtown and hobbited up for the next 5 days. I did what I do best, research. Friend, let me tell you there is some sick and twisted stuff out there on this internet of ours. And even the more mundane and respected databases left me confused and alarmed. With the benefit of hindsight I know I went a little crazy. And I soon decided that I needed a little space between myself and all my worries.
My good, and pretty much only friend is Richard Caniglia, we had met freshman year in the dorms had some of the same classes and I had made the mistake of keeping a well stocked fridge and pantry and he never seemed to move out. He was a real moocher, but I was pleased enough to have at least some company that I didn’t mind. He’d moved on, got married, a house, a job with the public schools the whole deal but we still tended to hang out one or two times a week. I told him everything… sometimes he can be a real dick.
“Can I see it?” Rick asked curiously.
“Only if you buy me dinner first, “I replied with as much levity as I could manage. “And besides you bought the cow, you can see a real one any time you want to at home.”
“Yea but I’ve seen that one before; I mean, you’re really a girl?”
“Half a girl, maybe three quarters depending upon where you stand. Anyway that’s something I have to all sort out. I’m leaving town for a bit. Need to get some perspective on this whole thing.”
“I bet.”
“Here a thousand bucks,” I said handing over an envelope. “And my apartment key. I’m paid up till the 31st and I’ve stopped next month’s rent. Take anything you want to your house I know you been making eyes at my sound system. The rest, hire two men and a truck to move it out to a storage locker somewhere and if I’m not back before the money runs out send me an email and I’ll wire some more.”
“It sounds like you plan on being gone a while,” said Rick concern in his voice for one of the first times I had ever known him.
“And I may never come back, least not as you knew me. From all I’ve read this “transition” takes some time and I just can’t stand the idea of being some halfway between freak that people will point and stare at. Particularly around people that know me. If I decide to go all the way the process is gonna be done away from people that I need to respect me later in life.”
“Yeah, I can kind of see that… I’d still respect you Chris. You know that right, a man, er… a friend of mine shouldn’t have to go through something like this on their own. You want to pull a disappearing act until your finished cooking your more than welcome to do it at my place. We got two extra bedrooms youd have your own bathroom we could play X-Box to the wee hours of the morning, watch all the movies my wife never likes to watch. I know Annie would get a real kick out of teaching you how to be a girl.
“Thanks man, I mean that. But no I would feel just as embarrassed in front of you, you know me better than my own parents. And besides remember that last time that we lived together?”
“Oh come on Chris, I said I was sorry like ten times!”
“And yet, I still have not received your half of the damage deposit.”
***
I’ve got me an android, one of those five hundred dollar phones you can get for $29 as long as you sign a three year contract and your first born child away. I like it a lot, it’s got a qwerty keyboard and full internet access and is linked to my email. I prepared a short message and addressed it to everyone in my address book. Friends, family, coworkers people who I’d done the occasional job for. I laid everything out on the line, and finished with.
“Gone west, if I’m not back in two years it’s because I’m dead or not coming back.”
C.J.T.A. Weaver
Chapter 7
Go west young man, westward into the setting sun, the land of promise and possibility to make your fortune. Interstate 80 is like the main circuit cable of the State of Nebraska. About 90% of the population lives within 20 miles of that highway, from Omaha on one end to Ogallala on the other. Following the route of the Union Pacific Railroad which followed the route the old fur traders use to take on the Platte River. It’s just about the most uninteresting drive God has seen fit to place on his Earth. Before central pivot irrigation and the deep wells into the groundwater this had been called the Great American Desert now it was green crops for as far as the eye could see. I’d been born in England, lived there, Japan, Germany, Texas, California back to England, back to California and finally ending up in Nebraska where my Mother arraigned terminal leave so she could settle where her extended family was. Nebraska is a fine state; don’t let anyone tell you different. And if you see a Big 12 referee please shoot him for me and I’ll make sure you’re suitably rewarded, just as you will be in heaven.
A flat state though, can’t deny it, not very good terrain for introspection. I missed the mountains, and trees as far as the eye could see. Only trees in Nebraska were the ones the settlers planted themselves. We even made an entire holiday to celebrate it, Arbor Day. I had found a likely opportunity going through old real estate records. Farming has always been a boom or bust business often both at the same time. And there’s not one of them from the mythical family farmer all the way up to the agricultural giants that don’t live on loans until harvest comes. Sometimes harvests aren’t good, Sometimes harvests aren’t good and the banks aren’t giving free credit like they used too.
Fucking banks
Farmer Brown, No shit, of Lexington Nebraska was holding on, while several of his neighbors were not. But he had been trying to sell his hunting cabin for going on 4 years now and he had finally pulled the listing sometime after his real estate agent had sent him his last bill for her 30th “viewing” which again had not resulted in a sale. I’m worth about $70,000 on paper and half again that my uncle Samuel doesn’t know about. A fine meal, fifty grand in cash and a handshake later I held the deed to a nice little three room cabin in the mountains northeast of Steamboat Springs Colorado.
Steamboat springs was a resort town, if not quite as famous as Vail or Aspen. Off season population was less than 10,000. My place was three miles from the nearest paved road four thousand feet above the town and nowhere near a ski slope which probably explained why in a depressed real estate market it was not selling. It had a well, a pump, a septic system, gas and electricity. And dear farmer Brown had even built a small wind turbine and solar generator. Probably more for the tax write off than anything else. Farmers were more than pleased to take free federal money to go green.
I intended to winter there… It wasn’t a good idea.
I maybe didn’t care at that point.
The maintenance records were meticulous, and showed a constant battle every spring to make the place livable after the winter which no one had tried to live though since great grand farmer Brown had built the place in the 30’s. The cabin was connected to the power grid of the town by I kid you not, old school wire stapled to the pine trees heading down the mountain to the nearest switch. Every year like clockwork there would be at least one break in the wire and sometimes several. Digging and laying underground cable was never easy in this part of the world and doing so would have cost about what I paid for the whole place. A few trips into town and I was the proud owner of several more solar panels and two more twenty foot tall wind turbines. The screwball was I also had to rig up about 10 yacht batteries and a monster inverter to store the electricity when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing and to live off of when mother nature was not obliging. If my figures were correct I should be just fine running most everything electrical I had for up to 70 hours of no sun or wind. And if nature was so un-obliging it probably meant the world was about to end and I needn’t worry about it anyway.
What I was worried about was the water system. The pump was fine and had a good head of groundwater, certainly more than one man could ever exhaust and while I had heard stories about longer showers and such I was pretty sure it was good enough for one woman too. The trouble was the maintenance logs were very clear, the pipes had all been winterized before leaving for the season. They had always been emptied out while no one was there because if the water in the pipes would freeze, and it god damn cold in them thar hills, then the expanding ice would burst the pipes. A couple of pallets of bottled water and a rig to purify snowmelt would make sure I wouldn’t die of thirst till the thaw. But it would be a pain in the ass, particularly as it meant NO hot shower. I eventually rigged up an old mountain man expedient in that eventuality but it wasn’t going to win any awards from better homes and gardens.
The reason the western slope of the Rockies is where all the cherry ski resorts are is because the weather patterns of warm wet air dumped literally feet of snow on the ground when it hit those tall cold mountains. So much so, that the eastern slope of the Rockies is STILL a big damn Great American Desert. Most of the moisture is trapped before it can get over the hump. I had no illusions that after the first big storm I would be able to take my Jeep, four wheel drive though it is past the unpaved road and down the mountain to civilization. First snow, and that was IT for maybe five months.
I kind of liked the idea, idiot that I was.
The septic system I could probably be fine with, it was dug deep enough, and if it did foul up, pun intended, the old outhouse was still there and could fulfill its purpose the pit still had a good 10 feet before it would need to be re-dug. I didn’t relish the idea of freezing my new privates off if it should ever come to that so I purchased a chemical toilet and accessories from a camping store. It would be a hell of a trash run come spring if it came to that, but at least my ass was covered three ways from Sunday, pun also intended.
High speed internet would be presuming too much upon a merciful creator but a satellite hookup and a truly outrageous monthly subscription made sure I would not suffer too much web withdrawal. I wasn’t going to be downloading too many large files but I could still get streaming video with Netflix and Hulu so I knew I wouldn’t get too much cabin fever.
Cooking and hot water was a propane system with a big gotta love masculine overcompensation 1,000 gallon tank outside that I made sure was topped off. I had a wood burning fireplace as well as a Dutch oven and Franklin stove if temperatures ever got really nasty. What I didn’t have was a decent supply of firewood. The previous owners had never really bothered with it for several years and having been a Boy Scout, I believed in being prepared. Don’t laugh, I know it’s funny. Boy Scout.
So I began chopping firewood old school, axe, saw, axe, sharpening stone, repeat as needed. I started on my woodpile mid August, I was still working on it when the first snow hit sometime in October. I wasn’t quite sure of the date really, I’d kind of gone a little bughouse nuts at that point. It was just nice to not have to think. Swing, stack wood, carry wood, swing, stack and so on. My “first” period or at least the first I was awake for happened a week into it, and that just kind of reinforced my obsession with ignoring everything but the woodpile. I had laid in provisions since I knew it was coming and had inserted both a tampon and a maxi pad being a belt and suspenders man. But I soon had to rely only on the tampon though and live with the occasional spotting as the geography down there wasn’t really suited toward my bits surplus to requirements.
The flush of new hormones probably didn’t help my sanity, I’m sure if I had been back home and seeing the head shrinkers and actual doctors on a regular basis they could have helped me through it much better than my own pigheaded stubbornness. But that’s what a rational mind would say and I wasn’t really there if you get my meaning. The trees were there though, so I kept chopping, and stacking. When I was hungry I ate, when I was thirsty I drank. When I needed to go to the bathroom I would, and every time I did I was faced with my situation and would tear off back into the forest to forget.
I shed weight like it was water from a spring. I’d always been a bit padded, so I could stand to lose it. The combination of physical exercise and lack of appetite and access to fast foods was quite the diet regime. If I could convince California housewives to go off the deep end like I did and market it sufficiently I’m sure my fortune would have been made. I developed some muscles, more than I had ever really had, but despite that I wasn’t getting hard bodied. I was getting softer, day by day no matter how hard I fought it I was losing that last bit of manhood I could claim.
Chapter 8
First week of November I think is when I hung up the axe for good and started spending most of the waking hours indoors. It was getting cold, and my skin was thinner, I couldn’t take it as well as I used too. I started reading, back to my old friends books. A couple of stacks later it was around December 1st when I ran out of books I hadn’t read yet. I guess without anything else to distract me I had underestimated how fast I would go though them. I went back to the well, and started to reread some of my old favorites I’d dragged with me from the apartment book of Space Opera and High Fantasy. While I was doing it though, I began subconsciously thinking about the stories from the female protagonist’s point of view. It was as if my old friends had suddenly changed on me when I started looking at the distaff side of things. Quite frankly some of those Sci-Fi writers are hard core sexist bastards.
I used to like that about them.
Irony huh.
I’d had aches and pains on a more or less constant basis since this all began. I wasn’t really cut out for the frontiersman’s life when it started and the physical exertion paid its toll on my body. I welcomed it as it made the oblivion of sleep easier. My chest was particularly aching during all the chopping and lifting. It was a few weeks after the sedentary lifestyle began indoors and the aches had not gone away that I realized my breasts had started growing. It was difficult to tell really, being a bit overweight to start with I had been carrying around some slight “manboobs” for many years. As I lost weight however my belly got tighter but the excess fat of my chest didn’t go away with it.
They also began to itch like hell, particularly the nipples. One particularly painful day I even noticed that the left one had started bleeding, which I took as a bad sign. My first aide training came in a bit useful and I bandaged them both up and that seemed to help a bit, along with wearing only the softest of shirts. I should have purchased some training bra’s when I was getting ready for winter but I wouldn’t have known where to begin even if I had had the courage or foresight to do so. It’s not the sort of thing well brought up young men are taught by their mothers. It was at that point I kind of wished she was with me. I’d isolated myself just about as well as a fella could but it was still the 21t century. There was a major tourist trap only a few miles away and when I checked I had two bars on my cell phone and about 300 unheard messages.
I called my mommy.
***
“Hi mom, it’s Chris,” I said shocked at the sound of my own voice. It had been a very long time since I had heard that sound and it was probably my imagination but it seemed higher in tone that what I remembered. I’d never been a basso-profundo but it surely hadn’t been that squeaky.
“Hello Chris,” my mother answered after some hesitation. “Are you well?”
“Well enough,” I lied just to keep the conversation going. “I’ve been doing some thinking last little while.”
“I’m sure you have, where are you? You seem to have fallen completely off the grid, your father and I have been searching since you left and we couldn’t find a trace of you anywhere, we thought… we thought you might have gone and done something foolish.”
“I wasn’t about to go kill myself mother, then or now, there are still too many good books to read out there.”
“Well, thank the Lord for that.”
“I didn’t want to be found, I’ve been using cash and a few extra legal tricks I just needed some time alone.”
“Well, you’ve certainly had that,” my mother replied with the tone in her voice I have come to know and not love. “When are you coming home, our house is always your home you know, I found out that you gave up your apartment.”
“Not for a few months yet, I’m kind of cut off from civilization till the thaw.”
“I can send a helicopter for you anywhere in the world Chris, I still have friends in low places.”
“Ha!” I laughed much as I might have wished to stop myself. “I just bet you do. But I’m not ready to leave just yet.”
“When WILL you be ready?”
“When the time is right, when it’s all done, my…my breasts have begun to bud, I had to put bandages over my nipples to prevent them from being torn to shreds.”
“Oh Chris… please tell me where you are, If you won’t come home I’ll come to you. A mother should be with her daughter when this happens.”
“Is that what I am then? Your daughter?
“You’re my child, and I love you, no matter what you choose to be, but you shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”
“I’ve made my decision, I just, I was just hoping you had some advice… about the irritated nipples I mean.”
“Well, if you were anywhere near civilization I would recommend you buy some creams or ointments but something tells me that you are not.”
“No.”
“And you probably did some damn fool male thing like not buy a proper bra.”
“Yes,”
“Well, then until you can solve one or both those problems just make sure to wear the softest clothing you can and reduce as much as possible any friction. Take some Advil for the pain if needed and make sure that you keep everything clean. An infection could be very dangerous under the circumstances.”
“I’m aware, and I’m doing that.”
“I won’t repeat myself and ask questions you won’t answer, I will however reiterate that we love you and it’s safe to come home. Your father is not home at the moment but I’m sure he would like to speak to you as well. And you sister down in Texas is the same. Can you call their cell phones, do you know the numbers.”
“Yes, and yes.”
“I’m glad we’re talking again Chris, we’ll get though this I promise.”
“I know…one way or another. If it’s all right can I just, just listen to you for a while. It’s been a while since I’ve heard another human voice. Could you just… talk for a bit about how things of been. Carefully editing out my lack of maternal concern of course.”
“Of course Chris, Well,…”
Chapter 9
It was an incident a few days later that was the tipping point in my mental health. It was sometime round o’dark early when the pressure in my bladder had forced me awake and out of the comfortably warm cocoon of my bed to relieve myself. I staggered up to the toilet bowl and attempted to do what had been second nature for several decades and relieve myself standing up. The trouble was in my sleep addled brain I was having a hard time with fine motor control and before I knew exactly what was happening I was letting go without my hand being able to take proper “aim.” Once started, it was impossible to stop, and I ended up dripping and splashing all over my bathroom and soaked my sleep pants.
I fell down on the cold hard tile floor of that bathroom in a pool of my own urine and started to cry. To weep like I hadn’t done since I was five years old and my big sister had told me that Santa Claus wasn’t going to be able to find us in Okinawa as the Japanese didn’t believe in Christmas. Everything just came crashing down on me, and I cried so much that a few minutes later my top was so wet from my tear stains that it was rivaling my bottom in dampness.
My penis had never been large, even when erect and raring to go. It had been months since that had last happened and now it was mostly the head and less than in inch in length. So shrunken that when it came time for me to urinate it had got caught in the folds of useless erectile tissue and started spewing all over the place. It had been months since I had felt anything like pleasure from that part of my body right now All I wanted to do was have it over and done with. I had heard stories of the cathartic power of a good cry from several of my female acquaintances. And now I understood exactly what they meant.
I was never going to be a man.
I’d run and hid from my problems like a scared little kid. But even if I had stayed and fought all the research I had done was conclusive. There was very little that could be done to make me a “real” man. And while I was positively terrified of seeing thing to its proper conclusion and embracing my femininity it was fear of the unknown more than anything that was holding me back.
The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
I completely undressed from my soiled cloths, used a towel to clean up as much as possible bundled the whole lot up and dumped it in the cabins primitive washing machine with three times as much detergent as was strictly necessary just so that I could be sure the end result was clean. It was cold in this part of the cabin and as I walked back to the bathroom my nipples were extended as far as I had ever seen them. I could feel twin centers of stiffness and it was slightly pleasurable and I was oddly pleased with that.
I stepped into the shower and turned up the heat as much as I could tolerate. The hot water tank was only 50 gallons and before I was all done I had used all of it. When the water coming out was starting to chill rather than warm I turned off the tap and stepped out into the world again. The bathroom was like a Turkish bathhouse, the cold ambient temperature of the cabin combined with all the hot water had created a very thick atmosphere of steam. I placed my hand on the fogged over mirror and wiped clear and small section so that I could take a good look at myself. I looked at my face for a long while, from the neck up, taken objectively it could be a man or a woman, except for one or two things. I couldn’t remember when the last time I had shaved. It hadn’t really been necessary for some time but I could see that there was indeed a few hairs sprouting here and there.
I lathered up and dug my razorblade out of archives and I took my time about it, slow and steady and removed all the hairs from my face. It might have been my imagination, or simply that I was out of practice and causing more damage that in times past but my skin seemed unusually sensitive. When I was done I rubbed my hand over and was indeed smooth as a baby’s behind. I tried to imagine what that freshly shaved face would look like with some lipstick and makeup. And the mental image was not unflattering, but of course mental pictures always were.
I rubbed some more fog from the mirror and looked south. My breasts were not anything to write home about yet, while no expert on the subject of course, I doubted they were even an A cup and no doubt there were 12 year old girls who could look down their noses at me. The shape of things to come was clearly there though, marring the picture were the scattered chest hairs that I had somehow managed to grow. It would be one thing if I had a flat chest then they would look at home on my body but the dark hairs right next and even on my developing breasts seemed fundamentally wrong. I had used barely any of my six months supply of shaving cream at that point, but I put a dent into it that night.
I shaved my chest, when that was done I did my best on my back though I hardly found much back there to take care of. Once committed to dilapidation, I didn’t believe in half measures so I shaved my arms. I had no idea if real girls shaved their arms or if the body hair was fine enough not to be noticed but I did mine anyway. With slow steady motions I covered almost every square inch of my body in cream and went about removing hair until the first rays of sunlight were passing through the windows when I had just finished with my legs and feet,
At this point the heat from my scalding shower had long since worn off and I was freezing, it might have been my imagination but freshly shorn of what fur I had it seemed the effect of the cold air was amplified. I padded over to the fire dumped another few logs on the hot coals and started to dress in my now quite loose cloths. Even with sweats and underwear on I was stile freezing I jumped back into my bed under three layers of covers and sought the warm embrace of sleep.
***
I awoke around midday, in my tossing and turning my sweatpants had fallen and were bunched up halfway down my legs, my waist wasn’t what it once was and did not hold up very well any garment that did not have a belt I could tighten. I kicked the pants the rest of the way off and rubbed my now smooth legs together. It was novel and pleasurable experience and it made me feel the first stirrings of happiness I had felt for some time. I sat up in bed and in the full light of day inspected my handiwork. I had butchered myself a bit it must be admitted. There were several scratches and coagulated blood and razor burn over vast swaths of my body but the final objective was met. If I was going to make a habit of it I knew I would probably need to buy a woman’s razor along with the usual assortment of lotions and moisturizers.
I pulled on some jeans, and a fleece jacket and walked to the second bedroom/ office where my desktop computer was set up. I had barely turned it on since I came to the cabin, this despite that outrageous monthly fee for the internet hookup. It was primarily a window to the outside word and I had subconsciously avoided it for just that reason. I turned it on, and it may have been my imagination but I thought I heard a purr of gratitude when the Dell booted up. I dipped my toes in the water by getting a snapshot at my financial situation. I had few bills to pay, and most of those were automatically taken care of electronically. There were a few though that I was several months behind in and I sorted that out right away.
I was pleasantly surprised that my small portfolio had actually gone UP 11% since I last saw it. I wasn’t gonna be able to live without working ever again but my window of opportunity while I recovered was a little bigger now and that emboldened me to go forward. I had dropped out of my graduate classes before leaving town but it was coming up on spring semester starting second week in January. UNO had a great distance education plan and while I still had power and my little dish I would be able to attend classes online. I signed up for 4 classes in the Spring it would be nice to have a little distraction, from my distraction.
I got quite a surprise when I logged into my medical insurance website. My bill from my hospital stay in August had been vast, and I, not wanting to dilute my capital had arraigned a payment plan over the next 12 months. I checked to make sure that everything was running smoothing when I saw that I was at a zero balance. After some investigation I found out that the insurance company had been sending paper statements as well as email and one had been forwarded to my parent’s house when I had stopped the mail at my apartment. My father, violating several federal laws I’m sure had simply paid the full amount when he found out.
My father was a certified public accountant, or chartered accountant depending upon which continent he was on at the time. And was well respected as an adversary by both Inland Revenue and the IRS. He was VERY minor aristocracy the second son of a long line of second sons the original ancestor was a duke with a dreary county seat somewhere in the wilds of Devonshire. But half of Burke’s Peerage would have to be knocked off before I saw a title, more than that rather, as I now could no longer take advantage of male preference primogeniture. My grandparents had squeezed enough out of their own means to send him to Eton but I believe they were secretly pleased when he went on to Sandhurst and the remainder of his upkeep and education would be supplied by Her Majesties Government. My parents had both met when they were on staff to separate generals at NATO headquarters in Belgium.
They had courted, married and spent only the next six months of their first 4 years of married life on the same continent. Somewhere in their they managed to have my sister and acquire enough seniority to be posted to the same general area of East Anglia just in time for me to come round. My first five years were spent in England and I can still put on a very convincing accent when I have the mind. Then my mother was ordered by SAC to take charge of a K-135 Squadron in Okinawa where the British had no interests my father could pull strings to be posted too. The Cold War was winding down at the point and the Ministry of Defense was more than willing to accept his early retirement. He put in his papers signed up for several continuing education classes and was quite pleased by all appearances to be an Air force wife.
Having been an accountant for the Royal Army with millions of pounds under his care to keep out of the sticky fingers of soldiers who considered it a moral right to pilfer as much as possible, he was able to make use of his experience and transfer to the civilian side of things rather easily. He built up a substantial if somewhat scattered practice of clients all over the world, Air Force personnel and their families who may be posted in a dozen different countries and have official residence in any of the 50 states. I’ll never understand much more than the basics but he was and remains to this day a wizard with managing tax avoidance, not tax evasion, which every true American considered his god given right, military personnel or no. Since mom pulled the trigger on her own retirement and settled in Omaha he had got an office and staff and gradually expanded to cover a not insignificant market share while still servicing his long term clients all over the world via email and teleconference. It was almost all done electronically these days. Very little actually paperwork was involved and as long as William Weaver had a laptop and a net connection he was good to make money anytime anywhere.
Which didn’t mean that I was willing to take it.
I used one of my hidden accounts and transferred in the whole amount of my bill to his public one. I had the account and routing numbers memorized after long years of sending him monthly payments. A small matter of having to pay him back for a wrecked car, that was really NOT MY FAULT AT ALL. Now that were talking again on a regular basis I’m sure I would get an earful about this but he had no idea where he could send the money back to so he would have to lump it.
Next I took the big step.
After a quick phone call to Doctor Reed and some studious searching of medical articles I settled upon one Doctor Thomas Millard in Denver. After some haggling with his gatekeeper secretary I was finally able to get said worthy on the phone.
“Good afternoon Doctor Millard,” I said with as much false cheerfulness as I could manage. “I’m Chris Weaver, I’m so pleased to be able to finally talk to you.”
“Well Hello, Miss Weaver, or is it Miss Weaver my secretary neglected to inform me of the particulars and I’m sure you aware due to the nature of my practice that it’s never safe to assume. It’s one of the reasons I always like to do my first consultations in person rather than over the phone. I’m impressed you managed to convince that old dragon to put you through.”
“I have my little ways, and that’s rather what I was contacting you about. I was referred to you by Doctor Reed in Omaha. As far as a face to face consultation if you have a webcam on your end I can fire mine up for a nice chat?”
“I do have some such device; my son made sure that I had all the latest features when he came back from college it will be somewhat of a miracle though if I can remember how to turn it on.”
“I can walk you through it if you need help, really they make it as doctor proof as possible, do you have MSN on that box?”
“I think I do, let me poke around…” Dr Millard and I spent the next five minutes back and forth setting him up and when it was completed I felt we both gave a sigh of relief, and that my own good deed for the day was done.
“I promise Dr. It will be much easier the second time.”
“Most things are,” the distinguished Doctor said with a chuckle as he looked at his own screen. “Now young…Chris, suppose you tell me a bit about yourself and how you came to your situation.”
“Well, I’m a genetic female intersexed, with partially functioning male genitalia. The decision was made after I was born to raise me as a boy but things rather came out into the open so to speak when I began my period back in August. I wish to undertake corrective surgery to… make me more resemble a normal female.”
“You don’t sound so sure of that”
“Because I am not, but I’ve been thinking on it for almost half a year and it’s the decision I have come too. The alternatives are not really appealing; I’m told I can never really function as a man and certainly never father children whereas they seem to think I have a fair shot at conceiving.”
“If you are undergoing a cycle there’s a chance of that yes, though we’ll probably need to root around and create the necessary fixtures first.”
“Quite, I’m sending you a rather large file. I’ve digitized all of my medical records going back to the beginning. I’m sure it will make interesting reading. I am in a remote location currently which necessitated this video conference but I should be available for the operation sometime in April.”
“You may be available, Miss Weaver, but you won’t be ready. This is the rest of your life we are talking about after all. If I performed a major operation on you with nothing but some paperwork and seeing your face on the computer screen, pretty as it might be, my license would be revoked, shortly after the AMA had me shot.”
“Yes of course, I, that is…”
“I’m also going to be referring you to a psychologist that specializing in gender issues. Since all she needs is access to your head that can be done via webcam so I’m sure she can deal with your “remote location.”
“I’m not crazy; this is just about correcting a birth defect.”
“Miss, that’s exactly what transsexuals say almost word for word. The situation would be different if you were still a child but you have grown to adulthood as a member of the opposite gender, trust me you’ll have a lot of baggage about that even if you are not aware of it.”
“Oh I’m aware,” I said emphatically, thinking about the lengths that I had recently gone though.
“There you see, it never hurts to talk things out. At any rate, the standards of care require me to have a baseline before I undertake this type of surgery and if it’s done before you’re out of isolation then we can move from a quick series of physical exams to the main event.”
“Will it be difficult?”
“It will be both, more difficult and much easier. Which I’m sure males you feel all sorts of better. Most of the work I do on adults is correcting genetic males who have been raised as girls. Usually as a result of some damn sawbones screw-up mangling the penis at birth. So while I don’t have as much experience going the opposite way, it is actually much easier to dig a hole then build a pole if you’ll pardon the joke. My adult patients in general are also only a minority of my work. For obvious reasons much of the corrective surgery is done on children and even infants. Though there is considerable scandal at the moment as to a parent’s moral right to decide the gender of their child, as I’m sure you can relate to.”
“Indeed,” I grimaced delicately.
“It’s extremely delicate work detaching and attaching some of the most sensitive organs in the human body. And to be brutally honest most of the work I do is with those organs 1/8 the size to be found in a normal adult. So while I won’t have to be so magnifying class and tweezers about it will be an adjustment.”
“You’re filling me with all sorts of confidence doctor.”
“I’m trying to be honest with you, you strike me as the very capable type of young person who prefers the straight goods. It’s all a moot point until you are available for a physical exam anyway but I wanted you to be aware of the situation. Even in miniscule portion of the population that is intersexed you have beaten the odds significantly. For whatever boost that is to your ego. I also may be bringing in help. There’s a man down in the desert near Flagstaff who is doing some truly remarkable work on this side of things. I may bring him in on this depending on how things go. He is also one of the single most arrogant individuals god has seen fit to place on this Earth so I’ll do my best to see that you don’t interact too much but in his case I must admit the arrogance is justified. He’s one of the best.”
“He sounds expensive,” I replied sarcastically.
“He is that, as are we all in this field, specialists of the most special sort. I sometimes loath to ask this question of young people who don’t seem to take it seriously, but do you have adequate health insurance?”
“Coventry of Nebraska, their individual plan.”
“Yes, I’ve dealt with them before. You moved to them I suspect after leaving your parents coverage?”
“Yes.”
“Well it may all work out for the best, but this sort of thing is almost the definition of both “pre-existing condition” and “experimental surgery.” I’m sorry if I sound bitter but my opinion is justified I assure you.”
“If Coventry doesn’t come though, or doesn’t come through with it all, how much will it cost?”
“All in? depending upon how many tests we do, If I need that prick in Arizona and your own hospital recovery time it could be in the $40-50,000 range, but assuming you have anything near decent credit my office can arrange a payment plan.”
“And how would you “repossess” if I fall behind?”
“Oh we have our little ways,” Doctor Millard grinned.
“I can pay the amount up front, it will hurt but I can pay it. I’d much rather not have a debt hanging over my head,” or my father getting the bills.
“Prudent financial planning, I wish my own children were so wise. They’ve taken all these preapproved credit card offers and now they have racked up more than even my wife ever has. When they max out one they move on to another.”
“Fucking bankers.”
“My thoughts exactly, I’m pleased to see we share so many of the same viewpoints it always makes these things easier. Now I see that this file has finished downloading, and you weren’t lying about its size, I’m going to email you the contact information for the psychologist as well as several dozen superfluous consent forms and what not. Can you sign them and fax them back?”
“No, but I can scan them and email them back.”
“Ah, yes that will do too. I’ll look over these records and we should have another ‘face to face’ sometime next month. Call the dragon lady to make an appointment.”
“I’ll do that, and thank you Doctor, this has been much less fearsome than I thought it would be.”
“Just doing my job Ma’am” he answered tipping an imaginary ten gallon hat as he reached to turn off the webcam.
***
I re-entered the world. Cyber though it might have been. I started working on the truly gargantuan backlog in my inboxes. I started with business fist. I had alienated quite a few of my ‘regulars’ by dropping off the face of their earth. But there were still quite a few investigators, academics, both students and teachers as well as a small clan of fiction writers who wanted me back or couldn’t live with their replacement. I had too limit my cases to just cyber digging, I wasn’t going to be doing any fieldwork for the foreseeable future. But the small monthly retainers for answering some hack thriller writers questions on the makeup of the Israeli Air Force, which could easily have been found on Wikipedia, filtered into my PayPal account and should keep my in dresses and makeup when the time came. I rather missed some of the more esoteric stuff, and wondered what it would be like traipsing though North Omaha in a skirt and high heels. Well, hopefully I would have sense enough to do so armed.
My family correspondence was more difficult, and I never so had the desire to “right click delete all” than I did at that point. Particularly upsetting I thought would be my father’s parents, stiff upper lips and all that. I resolved to write something of a newsletter with a subscription to all my family and few friends. Rather than answer dozens of ‘yes I’m all right, I’m taking an extended vacation, I’ve decided to become a girl.” I just wrote one and sent it off like an artillery strike. I was obviously more popular than I thought I was as it almost immediately resulted in several responses asking for follow-up information. My little cousin Megan even wanted a current picture so that she could find “just the right cute top for me.” For Christmas
Ugg
The newsletter quickly became a weekly event every Friday and I quickly grew to rather look forward to it. I was thankful for that creative writing class in college though. There was only so many permutations of I sat around inside a snowbound cabin all day that I could make interesting. The great Weaver/Thornton collective feminine squeal event occurred however when one Fridays newsletter reveled that there was now a man in my life.
Chapter 10
Time didn’t mean a whole heck of a lot when your snowbound, and If you can do all your work from the comfort of home in your underwear at 3AM if you wanted their really was no reason not to sleep in. I was woken by the sound of knocking on my front door. It took several repeated attempts before I fully understood what was happening so novel was the experience. I was in my sleep pants but only had one of my soft T-shirts on to prevent chafing up top when I pulled back the blinds to look at who was out front.
It was a tall man of mixed race, dressed in what passed for around these parts and winter formalwear. A tight camo snowsuit with heavy gloves and a Nanuk of the North hat, he had obviously arrived on the device behind him some sort of snowmobile ATV that had both skis and tracks. I was staring at him for a good 10 seconds when he saw me at the window and greeted me with a “howdy”
I opened the door, hesitantly and greeted him. Something about the way he carried himself led me to believe he wasn’t the sort wishful thinking would make go away.
“Good Morning,” I said trying to keep my curiosity in check.
“Good afternoon Miss,” the man corrected me. “May I come in; I’d hate to let all your heat out.”
HE THOUGHT I WAS A GIRL, had I changed that much, a looked down to do a quick inventory and it was apparent that the cold was a legitimate concern, My nipples had extended out further than I had ever seen them nicely drawing attention to my budding breasts though the t-Shirts thin material. This coupled with my recent dilapidation and lack of a haircut for five months could well lead a man to suspect that I was female regardless of what was still in my pants. Well… he seemed well mannered enough so far that I could do him the kindness of inviting me in. After all If he was intent on rape he was in for a nasty surprise when he saw my gun…both of them.
“Yes, certainly Mr…” I prompted as I stepped aside to admit him to the warmth of my cabin.
“Ranger actually, Ranger Anthony Wiggins, United States Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Division.” He said as he removed his gloves and showed me an official looking badge from his parka.
“My that’s a mouthful,” I replied grinning wryly.
“Yes Indeed Ma’am. But if I say USFSLEID no one knows what I’m talking about.”
“Kind of like what those boys on NCIS have to put up with.”
“Only on the TV show, the real agents don’t have that problem since it came out on TV. It’s enough to make a man start drinking. They get the top rated show on TV we get Ranger Rick and that bumbling oaf on Yogi the Bear.”
I couldn’t help myself, I laughed a little bit at that. I hoped it didn’t sound too feminine but it was probably in vain.
“Well then I can probably do without this then, it would be downright inhospitable to shoot a man who make me laugh, it’s been months since that happened.” I said as I removed my pistol from my back waistband and placed it on the kitchen table. “Would you like some coffee Ranger Tony? The beans aren’t fresh but I can promise its hot?”
“I’ve never turned down free coffee yet miss…?”
“Oh, Weaver, how do you do?” I said extending my hand to shake his.
“Well enough, once I get something warm in me.” He smiled at me, but since I had unveiled my weapon his smile no longer reached his eyes as it had when he first walked through the door.
I spent some time knocking pots together while Wiggens took the opportunity to take off his coat and sit down. While I was feeling sufficiently domestic and since this was rather after a special occasion I dug out some of my carefully hoarded non dehydrated food and started in on lunch.
“Sugar? creamer?” I asked as the coffee maker was almost finished with two cups worth.
“Black is how I like it.”
“Me too, it’s a good thing too I’m not sure I could have found any for you anyway.”
“Lucky we both have good taste then… mighty fine.” He said after he took a sip.
“It’s nothing of the sort, the original blend is from Scooters, a local place I love back in Omaha but I’m afraid it’s suffered something from age up here on the mountain… I was just about to start on lunch if you’d like some I’m sure you must have worked up an appetite on your way up here.”
“I wouldn’t turn you down, but don’t go though any extra effort on my account.”
“Nothing extra, it’s easy enough to cook for two as for one. And I could use the company. I’m sorry to say I’ve been a great hermit the last few months. You’re the first human face I’ve seen that hasn’t come off a computer screen since October.”
“Well now that’s rather what I’m here all about. I’ve worked this area for a few years now and it was rather a surprise when I crested yonder hill and saw chimney smoke coming from the old Brown place. It’s never been used in the winter and I made a mental note to check the place out when I came back if the occupant was still there. This morning I saw that you were and decided to drop in and check in on things. You’ve got a rather isolated place out here miss and even a team of hardened mountain men could get themselves in trouble let alone a young lady on her own.”
“I’m well provisioned,” I replied slightly annoyed at his condescension.
“Yes I can see that,” grinning with a smile that DID reach his eyes pointing to the stacks of boxes piled floor to ceiling on the west wall. I was wondering what he found so funny about a few months of food when I saw that his eyes were on the Costco size CRATE of Tampons. I had bought in bulk and being something of a slob when there was no one around to clean up for there was still a few single tampons hanging slightly out of one of the open packages. I quickly jumped up from my chair stuffed them back in the box and used one of the dish towels to drape over large pile of embarrassment knowing full well it was of no practical use. When I returned to the table my face was blushing positively crimson I’m sure.
“No need to get upset, I’ve had girlfriends I’m familiar what all it’s for. I’ve just never seen so large a stack before is all.”
“Well I’m wintering up here and didn’t want to get caught out. Always be prepared, I learned that in the boy scouts. “
“I somehow suspect the BSA didn’t have that particular contingency in mind when they made the motto. And when was a nice girl like you in the boy scouts?”
“Um,” I hesitated trying to think on my feet. “I’m an Air Force brat, spent most of my developmental years overseas on base. There were never enough kids to form a real Girl Scout troop so any girls that were so inclined got lumped in with the boys. It was fun, and we always had parents with us.”
“Improvise, overcome, adapt, I learned that in the Marines. After Boy Scouts, there I made it to Eagle.”
“I would have made it to Eagle, cept for, um, you know.”
“I can guess.” He chuckled again.
“I really am fine, I’ve got power, propane and enough food to last till summer if need be. The well hasn’t frozen yet and if it does there all that snow and enough firewood to melt it till doomsday.”
“Yes, I saw the woodpile, rather large. Some young buck was overcompensating a bit.”
“Um,” I said face blushing again. “That was me, I needed the wood and the chopping was very calming and let me do some heavy thinking.”
“You must have needed to think pretty badly, that wood pile is almost bigger than your whole cabin and that’s after using some of it.”
“Rather a lot of thinking yes, I came up here to get away from it all.”
“Well you’ve succeeded in that, and you do seem to have things relatively under control. May I?” he asked indicating my gun.
“Sure, just be careful the safety is on but it’s loaded.”
“Wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t” said Wiggins appreciatively.
“It’s a Les Baer 1911 .45 caliber.”
“He custom makes them right, over in Iowa?”
“That’s right.”
“Rather an awful lot of gun for someone of your size. No offense.”
I know I should have taken offense but I didn’t, the thing was too big for me back when I was 40 pounds heavier. I had never used it in the field and only ever fired it on the range, even then it had left my wrist much the worse for wear.
“It gets the job done, my granddaddy always told me never depend upon a caliber starting with less than 4. Living out here one hears stories of Bears acclimated too much to humans. If push came to shove it’s not an elephant gun but 9 shots of hollow point and even a grizzly will know its been kissed.”
“Indeed it would, and I’ve heard some of the same stories, which is one of the reasons I go out on these show the flag missions. Your place hear abuts the national forest and we all like to make sure nothing hinky is going on.”
“Hinky, that’s not a word I have heard much before.”
“Its gets the point across though, not that I would ever think someone like you would do it, but we’ve had some nasty cases of bear baiting around these parts. Locals know better but some of these college kids up on break can cause some damage. It’s been a hard winter and a drought before that. In a few weeks some of the local wildlife is gonna be in a man eating mood, so you keep your powder dry and use that Boy Scout training to good use understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Now, official federal scolding having been issued it smells like lunch might be getting ready…”
***
“Did you have sexual thoughts about him?” My therapist asked looking up into her webcam.
“Doctor!” I gasped embarrassed all to hell. “The thought never even entered my mind.”
“After your transition then, do you intend to live as a lesbian?”
“You’re worse than my mother…and my grandmother, which takes some doing.”
“I’ve been accused of that before, and you’re still evading the question Chris.”
This was our fourth session; we had agreed to meet three times a week for an hour at a time. Cynthia O’Neill PH.D MD. Was a distinguished looking woman in her fifth decade. And the classic curve of her face let you know that she had been a great beauty in her day and that day was not long ago, but her smile also let you know she wasn’t too concerned at the passing.
“I was never sexually active before all this, once it’s done I honestly don’t know. Biologically I suppose I’ll be hardwired to want other men but I have spent two decades being cultured to see women as potential mates. So again, short answer, I’m not sure.” I finished waiving my arms up in a gesture of exasperation.
“That’s fair enough, and a healthy answer at this stage, I would be more concerned if you had tossed off those decades of socialization and been ready to jump his bones. Still two things that I would like to point out and have you go back too, you say he treated you like a women from the first and this would be the first time then that has happened to you. And second when you talked about your orientation you said ‘hardwired to want other men.’ Subconsciously I don’t think your stated objective of transitioning female and your own mind are reconciled quite yet.”
“It was a slip of the tongue, I’ve been male a long time now it’s going to take me a while to get used to the pronoun shift.”
“That may be true, and I’ll let it pass for now pending your own consideration. It’s my experience though that slips of the tough can be very revealing, now tell me how it felt to interact for the first time as a perceived female.”
“I don’t know, I… I felt embarrassed, particularly when he saw the tampons. I practically died of blood loss from the sudden shift to my cheeks.”
“Yes, you mentioned that several times, you really must learn to keep them under the bathroom sink dear. Men have such delicate sensibilities about such things. “
“My mother never taught me that growing up, and its not like I was expecting visitors.”
“Fair enough, how else did you feel?”
“What do you want me to say, he was the first real live person I’d seen in months I would have been edgy nervous and embarrassed even if I wasn’t going through my plumbing problems. Oh God, this is gonna take forever isn’t it? If you had a way to get to me I would be on the way to the rubber room wouldn’t I?”
“I actually don’t have the authority to have you committed any more dear, we need a court order for that.”
“Very comforting thank you.’
“Your self-imposed exile is not as troubling as you seem to think it is, medically speaking. It is actually a sign that you were thinking healthy thoughts. When literally your whole life was changed and the foundations of your individuality were shaken you didn’t go on a killing spree, a drinking binge or attempt some drastic self mutilation or suicide. You heading for a cabin in the woods for some quiet moments of introspection, very Thoroue on Walden Pond. You catalogued in our first session the preparations you made for the winter, the power plant, the provisioning, the planning. These are not the acts of a disordered mind Chris.”
“I spent three months doing nothing but chopping wood, how crazy is that!”
“My dear, I knit when I need to think for a while I know it is an unsuitably domestic activity for a liberated woman and urban professional, but it’s very soothing. We all have our little things to do when we need to zone out. At the end of all that you had a wood pile you get some used out of where as all of the nieces and nephews I’m knitting little booties for are now driving their own cars.”
“What do you do with them all then?’ I asked with a smile I couldn’t keep off my face.
“Oh, I wait until I have a box full and then give it to the local children’s hospital. They can tell I’ve had a bad year if I deliver my Christmas presents in July. Now back to the matter at hand. You say you made this handsome ranger coffee cooked him lunch, these are things woman do for their mates or potential mates. Are you saying the thought really never entered your mind that he was a man and you were a woman and what that might potentially lead too?”
“I also showed him my big damn hand cannon, if that wasn’t male preening what is? And I never said he was handsome!”
“He’s a tall ranger visiting a young lady in a snowbound mountain cabin at Christmastime That he was handsome is inferred, or else years of romance paperback covers have been lying to me.”
“Could you tilt the webcam to your wall I want to get a closer look at those diplomas.”
“You’re using your humor again to deflect the important questions Chris, I don’t mind too much as it is your money being wasted and it makes these sessions go by faster. It will not however improve you situation.”
Damn the woman, but she had no business being so smart, didn’t she know that therapists were supposed to be head in the sky ivory tower quacks.
“Yes, the thought did enter my mind, during and after,” I admitted sighing and closing my eyes.
“And?”
“And, I was terrified about it.”
“Why?”
“Why, because I’ve still got my boy bits and if he found out the hillbilly redneck mountain man would probably drag me behind his snowmobile.”
“Worrying about the discovery of your condition is a rational fear. But that’s not all is it.”
“No,”
“No what?”
“No Ma’am?”
“Chris!”
“The whole Idea skeeves me out ok doc, that some guy would stick his…thing, into my…thingy it’s just unsettling.”
“Is this an issue of dominance then, would the idea of sticking your thing into some girls “thingy,” make you feel more comfortable?’
“eww,”
“I thought as much, Chris this isn’t all in your head, it’s your hormones that are more screwed up than anything. You had two immature sets at war with another and despite those testosterone shots and HGH they gave you as a teen you never really got past the grade school level of girls have cooties did you.”
“I… guess, I mean I could make the right noises, and say what was expected of me, but I just didn’t FEEL it ya know.”
“I think I do, we’re entering some interesting ground here and I would write it up in the scholarly journals but I don’t think you would ever give me permission. “
“You got that right!”
“You’re an adult, independent on your own, all grown up intellectually, financially and what not. But your body is telling you that you are a pubescent girl. Chris, its ok for it to be confusing because it IS. I do think though you need to come out of your shell a bit, even before the snow melts. Invite that nice Ranger boy over for tea, get used to socializing and interacting with people as your perceived gender.”
“You want me to go on a DATE!”
“I want you to invite another human being over to talk, as you have gone to ground that human being will need a snowmobile and handily enough you have already met someone who has one. “
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do it.”
“I’m sure you will do fine dear, some things are genetic just use your instincts and maybe bat an eyelash or two just for show.”
“Oh look! Our times up.”
“Yes Chris, I expect to hear from you Thursday, have a good evening.”
“Happy knitting.”
Chapter 11
The Omaha Police Department was having a tough time of it back home. We’d had our 50th murder of the year and as a % of population our little city on the river was rivaling some of the most dangerous big cities in the country. Very few of those murder cases were being solved. Most were gang related and almost all of those had to do with the drug trade. At the beginning of the year I had ingratiated myself into a narcotics lieutenants heart by delivering him five marijuana grow houses. I’d cross referenced unusual power demands with tax records, criminal records and purchases at local home and garden stores. It added up to some interesting coincidences and since all but that last datum were public records, put all together it was enough to justify a warrant which yielded some healthy returns.
The same lieutenant was now a captain on one of the innumerable task forces the Mayor and Police Chief had set up to stem the tide of crime. He got the message of my being back in the information retrieval business and was happy to sic me on the gangs. You wouldn’t think they would have the inclination or even the balls to do so but Omaha gangs had gotten into the social network, YouTube and what not in a big way. They were posting all sorts of interesting and potentially incriminating information online but the OPD didn’t have anyone with the training or inclination to track it all. There are only so many Facebook status updates a 50 year old 300 pound veteran can be expected to read before he asks for a transfer to the impound lot.
I was commissioned to take all the data, do that voodoo I do, and write up an intelligence report. Narcotics and the gang task force have all sorts of asset seizure money they can spend off the books as long as it even showed the merest hint of credibility. And I meant to deliver. It was Christmas Eve and I was working at my desk on the report amid a never ending conference call with my scattered relations when I heard the sound of an approaching snowmobile. I got up, brushed lengthening hair from my forehead and looked out the front window. It was Ranger Tony on his ride, with another for some reason towed behind it. I opened the door just as he got off and welcomed him inside. He quickly made a beeline for my roaring fire.
“Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas and all that,” Wiggins shouted as he removed his gloves to warm his hands over the fire.
“Merry Christmas Tony, but don’t you have a family to bother of your own.”
“Chris…Chris who’s that,” My mother’s voice came from my cell’s speakerphone still active on my desk. “Do you have a man there; I thought you were on your own?”
“I have a visitor ma, I’ll call ya back.” I said as I quickly ended the call AND turned off the power knowing I would almost certainly get a call right back.
“I do have a family and they are all enjoying themselves with Christmas cheer back in Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn, “I said surprised. “I never figured you for a city boy.”
“It takes all kinds in his excellencies forestry service. I come bearing gifts” Tony said removing a small package from his parka’s pocket.
“Thanks Tony, I um…”
“Go ahead and open it.”
I did, and never in my life was I more prepared to “jump a man’s bones” than I was at that moment. It was a pound package of Kona coffee. For those of you who don’t know what Kona coffee is… it’s KONA coffee. The good stuff, the caffeine equivalent of a 300 year old Bordeaux. Grown only on certain mountain slopes in Hawaii it has a very short shelf life before it loses its famous flavor so its seldom seen out of the islands and when It is, its ridiculously expensive.
“Thanks, Tony,” I said as I smelled it. “It smells fresh how did you manage this?”
“I’ve got a buddy, works the forest on the big island. He put it in an interoffice mail envelope along with some reports I actually needed, so it wasn’t a complete waste of your tax money. I knew you were a coffee snob but I couldn’t find any of my myriad friends who lived near a “scooters” so this is what you get as a consolation prize.”
“Thank you again, Will you share a cup with me?”
“I certainly wouldn’t turn it down, I’ve never had any myself I want to see if it lives up to its reputation. “
“I feel bad though, I didn’t get anything for you.”
“Well, I didn’t think you got much shopping in, as it turns out I have the perfect return present you can give me.”
“What’s that then.”
“A check for $500.”
“Um,” I hesitated a bit put off by his boldness. “I know Kona coffee is worth a lot but I don’t think it’s that much and I never liked giving money as a present it always seemed like a bit of a cheat.”
“That’s too bad you would have been doing me a favor,” he frowned lowering his head in shame. “You see that second snowcat behind mine?”
“Yes,” I answered uncertainly.
“Well you see it used to be government property but it’s what the bookkeepers in Washington refer to as ‘surplus to requirements.’ my office should be six rangers larger than it is right now. Budget cutbacks don’t cha know. So we found ourselves with quite a bit of equipment we don’t ever have the manpower to use, even leaving some aside for spares. So that fine piece of American workmanship was sold at auction three days ago. And I was the winning bidder, knowing that both, you need to get the hell out of this cabin and you couldn’t be at the auction yourself I ah, took certain liberties. So really If you don’t buy it off me I’m out five hundred bucks and they don’t pay us Rangers for beans.”
“A rig like that has to be worth $10,000 even used, how did you get it for 500, does it have a hole in the gas tank about to cause an explosion.”
“Naw, I did a full check on it before and after, everything’s fine. Its more than adequate enough to get into town and back up the mountain. I wouldn’t go cross country with it but the gravel roads and even some of the game trails will be just fine, It’s even got a full tank of gas. And don’t worry about the poor taxpayers its government surplus and they were lucky to get a nickel on the dollar and they now it. So… what do you say?”
“Will you take cash?” I asked thinking about it for only a moment.
***
He got his cash, and I got a short check ride. Afterwards we went in for that coffee and I even offered to make him the finest Christmas dinner that was within my limited means. He countered with a suggestion that we go into town for some of the dainties a winter resort could offer. I hemmed and hawed and fell back upon the feminine bulwark of “but I have nothing to wear” which had the virtue of being true. Sensing perhaps that I was uncomfortable with the subject he let it drop and we went about preparing dinner together. It was a pleasant evening and he was even kind when I described my work as freelance cyberbum for hire. He knew I was hiding something, and was out here in the wilderness because I was running from probably the same thing but he was too much of a gentleman to insist. He left before the night got too cold and I was both relieved and sad to see him go.
I finished my gang report just before New Years, it ended up being just over 100,000 words and I was quite pleased with it. So was my friend the captain, and in addition to initial pay he wanted to put me on retainer to keep tabs on the bangers updates. I said yes, cus no work is more steady than government work, but my heart wasn’t really into it. My isolation was getting to me, It was one thing when I knew it was trapped but now that I had adequate transportation I was bouncing off the walls.
My new paycheck was burning a hole in my account I wanted to spend it before the tax man came around to take the lions share. Having your own corporation to funnel ‘legitimate business expenses’ through, was something everyone in their twenties should have. It’s not illegal, it’s not even immoral, if it’s good enough for presidents its good enough for me.
The snowcat had a closed cabin for which I was grateful, it even had a heating system, though I suspect the reason this one was sold as surplus was because it wasn’t quite up to standard. It was a good twenty minutes and most of the way down the mountain before it was a comfortable temperature inside. Once on the main highway it was a quick couple of minutes into the city center and the large parking area alongside where the out of towners were fleeced of their money by every type of shop that stood a decent chance of it. Once into the town proper The streets had been cleaned of snow and I was worried that the tracks would do some serious damage to the concrete. But since I noticed every other asshole and their brother had snow tires on I resolved not to worry about it.
What was worrisome was not being able to find a parking spot. The Snowcat was wide enough to take up two full parking spaces and finding even ONE empty one at the height of the ski season was proving a problem. So where does the three ton half track park in the middle of a crowded resort town?
Anywhere it wants too.
I drove to the edge of the lot next to a quant three story brownstone and then drove up the hill till I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle. The weight of my snowcat, and the traction provided by the industrial size steel tracks meant I didn’t even have to put the parking brake on. I made sure I grabbed all the essentials and carefully exited the vehicle via the rear hatch. When I hit the ground and left the snow bank for the terra firma of parking lot asphalt I noticed there were several tourists openly gaping at me. Not knowing anything better to say, I offered to a chagrined couple
“Fuel efficiency is a bitch, but it handles like a dream.”
***
I had no real plan of attack for my shopping expedition. Complicating matters of course was that this was a tofu eating clove smoking hippie town and the merest hint of something like a Wal-Mart brought out the torches and pitchforks. No way was I going to be able to get everything in one trip so I took the expedient of shopping in a clockwise rotation around the shopping center. Looking at myself in the glass window of the first store I knew clothing would need to be a priority. I would say with my general bedraggled appearance and the five month lack of haircut I looked like the wild woman of the west slope. But the truth was wearing the now quite baggy winter clothes of one gender and 44 pounds ago I was suitability ambiguous.
One way or another that was something I wanted to try to fix today. The first shop was a ski store, one of about a dozen ski shops per square mile the town could boast. All the hot preppy muffins about town seemed to be wearing these tall boots that rose a foot or so over their jeans which were handily tucked into them. If I was in England I would call them Wellingtons but I’m not sure what the proper name for them over here was. I also didn’t know what my shoe size was. Woman’s shoes were slightly different than men’s so even though my feet had not changed to any significant degree I had no idea where to start. I took upon the brilliant, if I say so myself, improvisation of putting on my semi-fake received pronunciation British accent and asking a helpful shop girl to help fit me as I was used to the “European sizing.” She looked down her nose at me but a sale was a sale and she went to work and was pleased when I paid cash for three pairs two of which had rather more fur than I was really comfortable with.
The other corners of the store were devoted to myriad forms of breaking limbs on mountains but also some decent jackets. I found one heavy coat. That was more suited to my new size in a unisex blue and black color and then I purchased two new fleeces, one of which was pink so help me God. It was an interesting experience wearing tight fitting jackets as a man particularly on the heavier side I had always gone for the baggier the better. I still didn’t have anything worth flaunting but the hint of things to come was there. I saw the snow pants, some of them I felt a playboy bunny wouldn’t be caught in and some of which I could tolerate if I gritted my teeth. I had picked the tops by the expedient of pulling off my old jacket and trying on the new one with my t-shirt underneath. I had no idea of what size my woman’s pants would be and shimmying in and out of them in the store would be putting on a show I was not ready for.
I grabbed five different sizes based on my best guess of two different styles that would match with my fleece’s and headed to the changing room. I had a moment’s hesitation when it came time to pick sides but showing no fear, I hope, I blazingly entered the woman’s changing room and found an empty stall as quick as possible. I hung my packages on the hanger attached to the door. Unlaced my boots and pulled down my men’s jeans. I had owned these jeans for many years; they were an old friend that I had been around the world twice in. I’d sowed several tears ignored several permanent stains and used a knife of late to cut fresh notches in my belt so that they would fit. With my boxers barely hanging on above my freshly shorn legs it was a rather comedic sight in the full length mirror.
I didn’t have an hourglass figure, but my hips had started to budge out. And while my waist had gotten smaller than I had seen it since I was 15 or so my ass was still as big if not bigger. It seemed while I was loosing fat, it was also redistributing itself. It was wise for me to select so many sized to try on, I won’t tell you the exact measurements, a lady must have her secrets but it was the 7th one I tried out of five samples. At this point I was neither fish nor fowl. I found one set that was fine on length and screwy on waist, and one that fit both waist and length but was way too large on my hips. Eventually after some compare and contrast I picked the best of a bad lot and hoped that I would “grow” into them.
Leaving the discards behind in the dressing room with a silent prayer I would be out of the building before the shop girls found out what they had to refold and restock I put my new outerwear carefully collecting the tags and went to the central bank of cashiers to pay for my clothing purchases. Leaving the ski store I had a decent collection of bags and boxes and I headed back to the snowcat with my first round of purchases, since it was just around the corner. Fortunately enough, my armored vehicle had a rear hatch so I didn’t half to climb up the hill to gain access. I sat down on the rear fender and took stock of myself and made comparisons to other women I saw walking around the town square. With my white snow pants tucked into my self-titled “cute boots” and my form fitting pink fleece I knew that people would spend considerably less time now wondering about my gender, though no doubt all these preppy bitches would consider me a butch lesbian from hell. I hadn’t a speck of makeup on and my hair while now just past my ears and what was considered longish for males was washed clean but nothing a fashion conscious girl would be caught dead sporting.
The city fathers of Steamboat Springs, or mothers too, I shouldn’t be prejudice, had been kind enough to provide free maps for prospective lambs to the slaughter that listed all the various shops and the easiest way to get to them. On the back side of the map was a chamber of commerce selection of advertisements for local businesses and I had to look twice when I saw that there was a listing for “Ice Cream Delivery.” Only in America could someone start a business and THRIVE delivering overpriced ice cream to punters just after a day of freezing their backsides off falling down snow covered mountains.
I found what I was looking for listed under “Beauty and Spa” I had never had a serious girlfriend, My sister would never have dreamed of dragging her looser brother to such a place and whenever it came time for my mother to get a haircut it was a quick in and out conforming to the Air Force grooming standards. I had seen such places on TV and had a vague idea what happened inside them but when I stepped inside the Beauty parlor it was truly “Terra Incognita.”
“Hello, welcome to Pam’s!” said a blonde teenage girl who must be on SOMETHING to be that chipper in the morning. “I’m Brittany, how can I help you.”
“Hello Brittany,” I said forcing a smile on my face. “I’m Chris…tine Weaver. I do not have an appointment.” I said holding out a hundred dollar bill with my raised right hand.
“Well! fortunately we’ve JUST had a cancelation.” She said as she slipped the bill into her right pocket. Tanya is free in about five minutes can I get you some tea, coffee, hot chocolate or cider?”
“Coffee please,” I answered as I took a seat. When I did so I noticed that I had instinctually folded my right leg at the knee and placed it atop my left leg at a 90 degree angle. A necessary anatomically feature to protect what was in a male’s nether regions. I noticed however that the other women were all either folding their legs in a feminine manner sidesaddle style or had both feet on the ground legs pressed firmly together. I didn’t have much to speak of downstairs anymore certainly nothing that was visible under the snow pants and as an experiment I tried folding my legs like the women next to me. It was an unusual posture for me, but not, quite, uncomfortable. I was a few minutes into inspecting the thousands of different shampoo’s body wash, and several other types of liquid I could not identify when the previously mentioned Tanya appeared.
“Hello Christine, I’m Tanya, wont you please come back.” Tanya was a woman in her forties but she took care of herself. I was no expert on the subject but I think she was a bottle blonde. The roots were only just beginning to show, but it could have been my imagination. She was poised, well made up and was about to be make a killing even if she didn’t know it.
“Tanya,” I said holding out a sheaf of five $100 bills. There are very few of life’s problems that can’t be solved with a sufficient influx of cash. I hope this isn’t one of them?”
“Honey, for that much money you can get me to striptease on top of a gondola.”
“Nothing quite so, extreme I assure you, May I have a private moment with you in that small room over there.”
“The tanning booth… sure, I guess.”
We both entered and it was quite obvious there was a substantial amount of curiosity and not a little concern on her face. To alleviate that I handed over the small stack of bills and she quickly made it disappear after shutting the door behind her I sat down on the side of the tanning bed and looked up directly in her eyes.
“I know your profession is not held, generally, in high esteem but is there any sort of doctor patient confidentiality when it comes to beauticians and their clients?”
“Honey, I wouldn’t stay employed long if I couldn’t keep a secret, the first old biddy knows I let slip she colors her hair and I couldn’t find work for three states in any direction. As long as you’re not planning on robbing any banks or kidnapping the president anything having to do with your body is between you and me.”
“Thank you, that’s what I had hoped for and I promise to not let slip anything about my criminal master plans, and ask that if you refuse to treat me you keep the money in exchange for your silence.”
“Honey, now you’re starting to worry me, have you got some sort of tattoo of Adolph Hitler on your left butt cheek or something.”
“No,” I answered smiling despite myself.
“I’m… a woman…”
“Well of course you are sweetie not many men have got those on their chests though they could do with some support, there nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m a woman… but I was raised for the first 24 years of my life as a boy.”
I had clearly shocked her and I allowed her a few moments to collect herself while her mouth hanged open.
“I’m sure you didn’t expect a Jerry Springer guest to walk into your Salon but the truth is that I am intersexed. I was born with both boy and girl bits. My parents made the decision to raise me a boy but my ovaries finally kicked in and I started my Menstrual cycle a few months ago and it rather set my world upside down. After a few months of soul searching I have made the decision to transition to female and will soon have corrective surgery to remove the useless organs. I have no experience being a girl, It’s not something mothers teach their sons you understand. I do however have several rather ugly pictures of my friend Benjamin Franklin and I was hoping you could give me “the works’ and a short girl 101 lesson. If you don’t want to of course I will understand.”
She gave me a long hard look, and I felt I was being examined right down to the molecular level. The inspection lasted just a moment too long and I was beggining to tear up when she finally spoke again. Damn hormones.
“Oh now, don’t cry sweetie, I was just trying to see it is all, I don’t often see ladies without any war paint on but If you hadn’t pointed it out I wouldn’t have been ever able to tell you were once a man. And hell, if you bleed like the rest of us your hardly one of them, poor fools. Of course I’ll help you. Your kind enough to take my own feelings into consideration and you know how to pay a worker her due,” said Tanya as she padded her pocket containing the $500. “Which in my book, puts you at ten times a real woman as some of the catty bitches I’ve had to grit my teeth and smile for.”
She held out her arms and was obviously offering to hug me, it was a new experience for me, men just weren’t as touchy feely but it was part and parcel of womanhood it seemed. I got up and returned her hug, particularly odd was the sense of BOTH our breasts being crushed into each other.
“Now put your fears at rest. I have two clients who are cross dressers and none of the other clients have ever twigged. I even helped a transgender lady a few years back and I get quite a nice Christmas card from her and her new husband. So I’ve had a bit of experience at this and you needn’t worry about a thing. Now first things first I need to know what I’m working with, can you please take off your clothes.
I hesitated for a moment, but if push came to shove I was bigger than she was and I could probably overpower her. I began by taking off my fleece and unbuckling my fanny pack.
“Honey, one of the first things you’re going to need is a purse, you’re gonna draw some looks carrying that thing.”
“Why, I’ve seen women wearing them?”
“On the ski slopes maybe or the hiking trails but on a shopping trip in town it looks damn odd. Go on, with the rest.” She prompted with a waive. “I’ve seen it all before, both sets.
My boots were off, and then my new snow pants and finally I was standing there in my t-shirt and boxer shorts.
“You really do need girl lessons; you look like you just stole your boyfriends clothes so you could do your walk of shame, take them off too.”
“Um,…”
“Strip, listen to your teacher girl.”
I complied and pulled my t-shirt off and only had to tug slightly and my boxers fell right off to collect at my legs I kicked them onto the pile with the rest of my clothes and stood in front of a total stranger totally naked. If I thought her first inspection was excruciating this one was worse she rubbed my skin felt my cheeks and even did a minor breast exam. She even stuck her head down south and looked long and hard at what I had, and didn’t have.
“Well, we’ve got some work to do girl, and that’s no lie. Since you’re hacking it off anyway I hope you won’t be offended when I say that’s the smallest I have ever seen which is pretty good news as it means that we won’t have to hide hardly anything. Up top you look a lot like my 13 year old. They’ve just started growing, haven’t they? I can tell by the nipples.”
I nodded that she was correct.
“Well good for you, quite a few women wish theirs were still growing. Imagine, having puberty when you have enough money to spend on yourself. Speaking of, you got any more of those bills with you. “
“Quite a few”
“Well then,” said Tanya as she opened the door a crack and shouted. “Britney, get me an intern And the measuring tape stat!” Then closed the door. “I figure we can get away with three bills.
I reached into my pack and pulled the necessary funds from my wallet and handed it over. There was a knock on the door, and Tanya cracked the door open again and was handed a long yellow measuring tape and she told the young girl to wait there. She then told me to stand up and preceded to measure me every way she could and several I didn’t think were possible all the while writing down numbers on her scratch pad and making as much small talk as possible. When she was done she took the $300 and the list and cracked the door again.
“Take this, head over to Cheryl’s and buy five of both In different colors, oh and get a basic leather purse, if your back in half an hour there’s a bonus in it for you. Save the receipts!” she said as she slammed the door closed again.
“What did I just buy?” I asked smiling as demurely as I could.
“Honey you’re out of the training bra stage you’re a full A cup now working your way to B. it may not feel like it, them being as fresh and perky as a teenagers but you’re going to need support. Gravity gets to us all. Those boxers are just…well, unbecoming. You have the hips to pull of the panties and hardly any budge to speak of. I’d buy more than five pairs but your still developing so your just gonna have to do your washing more often. You do know how to do washing don’t you, I won’t have to teach you EVERYTHING will I?”
“I live on my own I know how to wash… cook and clean even.”
“Good on you, your two steps ahead of my daughter. Now while we wait for new girl, I forget her name, to come back. put your cloths back on and we’ll start on your hair. There isn’t a whole lot to work with but there enough to create a decent female style.
***
Tanya almost killed me, and then she started to work on me. I was plucked, poked, prodded waxed and sandblasted and half an hour into it I decided the best course of action was just to lie back and think of England. I entered a sort of zen meditative state. I felt so relaxed and calm; I must have, because I found myself telling my hairstylist more than I had told my therapist so far. Every once and a while she would stop, to dig deeper usually accompanied by “Oh sweetie that’s so sad,” Man I tell ya, if the CIA cent beauticians out to infiltrate other countries we would be ruling the world right now. Somewhere between the haircut and highlighting and my wax the intern came back with a several discrete bags and one small black purse. I was offered one of the tanning booths again and Tanya gave me a short lesson on how to hook up my Bra.
The less said about that experience the better. So… moving right along.
The panties felt very very snug on me, and I was scared to death that my miniscule budge would be visible. Once I had my pants back on no one could tell a thing. Or so I was constantly told. Once my legs were done she started in on a pedicure, initially asking me how I wanted it done and what color, probably out of muscle memory before she remembered this was my first time and used her own judgment. The color was red, she had about 200 different kinds of red and if my life depended upon it I could not tell you what type, I just called it red.
There was quite a bit of tut tuting over my fingernails but Tanya had worked better miracles and after much shaping and only a little bit of blood all twenty digits matched. She then, committed what I’m sure is a beautician war crime on my behalf and destroyed her own work of art. Telling and showing me how to go about removing the polish and then we both began to reapply it. She wasn’t happy with my best efforts and we removed and reapplied several more times before she was reasonably happy I would be able to fend for myself in the wild.
Then she took me over to the makeup station.
Fellas, if there are any fellas still reading by now, at this point you may want to leave the room. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back I promise. It took over two hours and I was getting damn hungry before it was done but she showed me the rudiments of makeup and the proper care and feeding of the female face. At the end of the initial application she turned the chair to face the mirror and I got a good look at myself for the first time since I entered this den of iniquity.
I was beautiful.
My hair had been brown, nothing too becoming about it. But now somehow without using any dye It was now a stunning brunette with the auburn highlights curtsey of my Irish grandmother brought out to revel in its Celtic glory. My eyelashes were long and sultry, my cheeks delicately painted and the lipstick was a perfect match to my rather complex completion.
And then that bitch, hit me with a hot towel, told me to wipe it all off, and do it on my own.
Needless to say, this first time I did it on my own I looked like Ronald McDonald and a raccoon had a wild night in Vegas and I was their lovechild. We tried it again, and then we tried it again. Eventually, just like with my nails she acknowledged that I had the fundamentals down, and she returned me to my former glory.
It’s safe to return now boys, there’s some emergency testosterone pills in the medkit.
When it was all done, she made me swear to keep an appointment in two weeks and then uttered the most dangerous words a beautician can utter, just ask any husband going over the credit card bill.
“Can I offer you any product?” Asked Tanya with a cheerful tone.
“Um… I’ll take six months of everything.”
“Everything as in…’
“Everything as in everything, shampoo, conditioner, polish, makeup. Every bit of cosmetics or beauty product I own I’m currently wearing. So just pick out what you would need if you were trapped on a desert island with Fabio for six months.”
“Christine, you do know right that I get a commission on any product I sell you.”
“Is it enough, to take me to lunch? I’ve worked up quite an appetite and I don’t know any of the good local places.”
“It’s a date!”
***
In the end it took no less than Tanya and I and TWO interns to carry all my purchases to the Snowcat. The girls were suitably impressed with my ride and I promised the young one that I would take her for a spin some day. Once the packages were safely inside my tank we heading east towards a nice only sort of fake Italian restaurant. We talked some more and I learned about her husband who was the manager of one of the timeshare/condo units next to the ski lifts and her two children one boy and a teenage girl that would be lucky to make it to 20 alive. When we were done it was 3:15 and Tanya having made more today than she would normally make in a week felt comfortable taking the rest of the day off and she offered to help me expand my wardrobe.
She took me to all the places the locals use, and got me kitted out much cheaper than the tourists traps would offer. I now had about a dozen basic outfits and would be reasonable set until summer came. She even took me to get my ears pierced and pointed out several studs that would suit my new purchases. Around 6pm well after it had gotten dark and most of the shops were closing I locked up the last clothing purchase and looking into my new purse and gasped.
“What?” Tanya asked concerned.
“I took a full brick of hundred dollar bills with me this morning.” I said showing her the broken band with $100 written all over it. “This is all that’s left. I’ve just spent $10,000 getting girlified. I know countries that can fight a small war for less.”
“Honey, most women space out these purchases, it just seems like a bunch because it’s all at once. You’ve bought a whole lot, and aside from the absolutely terrible earmuffs you insisted on everything you got is worth the money I promise. Some things are worth it, look at yourself in the mirror and tell me it’s not.”
I did and I couldn’t
My last stop of the day was to the grocery store. I loaded up on fresh fruit and vegetables, and other perishables. I had vitamin supplements so I wasn’t really in danger of scurvy but so long without so much as an apple or an orange was not doing my mental health any good. I even bought half a gallon of Ice cream though I hated myself for it afterwards. I was on my way back fully laden to the almost empty parking lot when I saw a man try to break into my Snowcat.
I carefully and quietly set my packages down on the concrete and pulled my .45 out of my new purse. I’m sure Tanya would have been shocked at my accessorizing but sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do. The man had his face pressed against the glass of the rear hatch and he was scoping out all the bags of purchases.
“Freeze!” Trying to put as much authority into my voice as I could manage without going too low in pitch. “Hands behind your head….turn around slowly.”
He was well over six feet and 250 pounds very little of it was fat. I was prudent that I had him put his hands behind his head because when he turned around I saw that he had a holstered semi-automatic under his left jacket.
He also had a tin star on his right jacket breast that said “Sherriff.”
“Um,” I said, gun clearly hesitating. “I have a good explanation for pulling a gun on you Sherriff if you have a good explanation for trying to break into my car.”
“Fair enough,” he answered with a deep voice and an accent that could not be very long outside West Virginia. “I wasn’t breaking in; I was just about to write a citation ticket.”
“For what!” I said incredulously as I put the 45 back in my purse.
“Illegally parking, “he said without a trace of sarcasm.
Ok, he had me there.
Chapter 12
I have to hand it to him; he went on and wrote that ticket, without once losing his professionalism. I guess hillbillies must have guns pointed at them all the time back home. He hesitated for a bit looking in his book on what to finally charge me with, since while the snow cat was technically a motor vehicle it was more in the realm of ATV’s like four-wheelers and had a whole different set of rules. Particularly upsetting to him I think judging by his half raised eyebrow was that he could not in fact cite an ATV for parking on a hill. Eventually he dinged me for “unsafe driving” when I admitted I was the one who got it up the hill in the first place and he seemed reasonable happy to finally pigeon hole me. He was going to make an issue over my gun but I showed him my Nebraska concealed carry permit and he seemed satisfied I wasn’t a pistol wielding maniac. I thought there might be some issue when he looked at my Driver’s License, I felt certain he would see the big fat M next to gender but he didn’t seem to hesitate and only seemed concerned in writing down my number and then zapping the barcode with a handheld scanner. Once done, he gave a terse goodbye and tipped his hat to me in farewell.
I collected my last shopping, loaded it up on top of several layers of previous purchases and started my war machine up for the long climb back up my mountain. It was much harder driving in the dark and the damn heater of course was not working any better at night than it did in the morning. It was 11pm before I was back in my cabin and all the important stuff was cleared and stowed away. I tore off my boots set my Jacket on the office chair and jumped into my bed under the covers to sleep the sleep of the just.
***
I awoke to a strange woman sleeping in my bed.
To this day I’ll never know what possessed me to charge off into the unknown like that. A fit of temporary insanity perhaps, like the Viking berserkers who revved themselves so up on the battlefield they cut through whole armies without feeling a thing. What woke me was a slight discomfort in my neck that I was later to realize was the stud of one of my new earrings. I opened my eyes and in front of me was a female hand, nails shaped and painted red. Not ever having woken up with a woman in my bed I gave a slight gasp as I jumped up. The accompanying jiggle on my new chest safely contained by a constricting bra rather brought it all back to me and I calmed down.
I was then that I made the second discovery of the day. Women need to take off their makeup before going to bed. My pillowcase looked like a modern art masterpiece, caked with various powders and smears. My sheets were none the worse for wear but the pillowcase I immediately removed and dropped it into the washer along with several other dirty clothes that had been waiting and started the cycle. I went to my bathroom and did my best to remove what my tossing and turning had not. Since I wasn’t going anywhere today I elected not to go though the worry of reapplying the makeup but I did spend probably more time on my hair than I had done in the preceding two years combined.
I tried valiantly to reproduce what Tanya had the previous day but I eventually gave up. I was working against ingrained habit. My previous life I had always worn a short military style haircut that was all straight lines and even edges. This new “do” was supposed to be a sophisticated bit of organized chaos that I could not quite reconcile with myself. I decided I was going to need to hair and beauty tips to my next several days research.
I spent the rest of the morning getting sorted, cutting tags off clothes and stowing various product wherever I could squeeze it in. When my new tops were hanging up in the closet next to my old men’s clothes it just looks so out of place. I hadn’t really worn much of any of these for some time now and in a fit of domestic industry I went about cleaning out the old junk. If I hadn’t thought about it in three months I packed it away. Once committed, and much to my own mothers shock I’m quite sure, I went about cleaning the cabin. It had suffered something the worse for wear the last little while. I had done only the barest minimum of maintenance to prevent stuff growing on the kitchen floor. The browns had left behind a well stocked utility closet, most of which I knew, in theory at least, how to use, so I went about cleaning my little place from top to bottom.
Around 4PM I was thoroughly pooped, and smelling like a mix between a professional wrestler and a chemical factory. Having felt virtuous at a long days work I went to the bathroom for a long shower and field testing of some of my new acquisitions. Half of them seemed to be bath salts, which was a pity since I didn’t have a bath. The woman on the cover of one of the bath thingys looked to be rather enjoying herself, so I resolved to see what I could do to rectify that problem in my architecture come spring.
Apparently the female side of the species also didn’t believe in something as esoteric as bar soap. I had instead a tube of strawberry smelling body wash that I was to pour into a “luffah,” which was some sort of sponge like collection of folded cloth the size of a small basketball. Once wet I began washing and the effect was a bit disconcerting as it seemed like I was scraping off skin. I remember Tanya saying this was called “exfoliating” and the effect was not totally unpleasant.
I washed my hair, then conditioned, then washed again. I had heard what conditioner was of course but had never had cause to use it before. And even though the directions on my men’s shampoo bottles had said rinse and repeat for years I had been of the opinion that one and done was enough. I had no blow-dryer so vigorously towel dried my hair and then tugged and pulled it into a reasonable style. I still looked like a butch lesbian but I hoped at least now I wasn’t a butch lesbian from hell.
Putting on my new peach color panties and bra I was in a pair of female jeans and a black v-neck long-sleeved top just in time for my afternoon appointment with Cynthia. She noticed right way.
“You did your hair,” said Dr. O’Neill smiling graciously.
I couldn’t help myself and waged my fingers in front of the webcam by way of reinforcement.
“And you’re nails, my what brought this on, I wouldn’t even think you had fingernail polish in your cabin, or does Ranger rick have a secret?”
“No secret but he did arrange for me to buy a government surplus snowcat so I went into town yesterday and did my part to help bring the country out of recession. I’m now considerably poorer than I was yesterday so I hope your rates don’t go up.”
“What all did you buy?”
I couldn’t exactly show her everything but I thought the point was got across when I angled the webcam to look at the wall with a good sized mountain of empty shopping bags and boxes.
“Oh my,” Dr. O’Neill said trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. “But you did go to town, didn’t you.”
“I’ve got about two weeks worth of female clothes, winter clothes I should say, including my first bra. I’d show you but that would probably be violating some obscure FCC regulation. Also my weight in health and beauty supplies only 10% of which I can identify.”
“You did this all on your own?”
“I hired a friendly beautician to be my native guide. Her name was Tanya, she did me up and then took me shopping. She’s a nice woman in her 40’s I think she got a hell of a kick out of outfitting a young woman like her own daughter without actually having to pay for it. I’m going back in two weeks for another appointment and she’s going to teach me the basics of what I need to know.”
“Did, you have a good time?”
“I… did, I actually did. I was scared to death before during and after but it was …nice.”
“So, the hermit of the hill, left her splendid isolation and returned from the ball a Cinderella?”
“You’re mixing your metaphors there doc,” I said smiling a waving a scolding finger at the camera.
“Where there any problems with your condition?”
“No problems there, I really don’t have much there to bring to anyone’s attention anymore and as long as I don’t wear a skin tight cat suit or fuck me jeans I should be ok. I did have a problem when I left for the day the county sheriff almost arrested me for illegally parking. I almost pied my new panties when I had to show him my driver’s license. There I was all dolled up and my ID said MALE.
“I’m surprised you didn’t run into trouble with a first name like Christopher.”
“My ID just has my four initials and my last name. The curse of having two rather large extended families there were too many relatives for my parents to honor and there’s not enough room on the ID to write them unless I use initials.”
“Well that was fortunate. As we go forward Chris it will be necessary though to have your documents and legal identity amended. These circumstances are rather complex and I can put you in touch with some legal experts who specialize in this sort of thing if you would like.”
“I’ve my own workman’s-like understanding of what all it entails and a lawyer back in Omaha who owes me a favor or three. I can get it sorted out but I figure I’ll hold off until after the operation.”
“That’s your right of course, and I understand your reasons. But I would get in touch with Thomas. While you were in isolation it hardly mattered but if you are going to be out and about dressed as a woman you may be caught out. He can provide a standard letter explaining your medical condition and the fact that you are transitioning. We wouldn’t want you arrested for impersonation or driving on a fake ID. And Chris… you must be careful, a woman in this day and age can get away with dressing in male clothes but society does not accept it when I man dresses as a woman. And despite the medical evidence to the contrary the uninformed uniformed could misinterpret you and there would be consequences.”
“I know doc, I’m a freak, don’t let a man get a good look at what is in my knickers.”
“Chris you’re not a freak!” O’Neill said raising her voice for the first time in our acquaintance. “And I wont have anyone saying you are, certainly not yourself. Now I hadn’t anticipated going this far so soon, but you seem to be able to handle it. I’m going to email you some information on what we transgender specialists refer to as the real life test. Pay special attention to the safety tips. Are you still carrying that wrist breaker?”
“Yes, though fitting it into the purse is a bit of a chore.”
“You don’t have to overcompensate any more dear, find something smaller there are several .38’s that will get the job done I assure you. I have a lady colt myself though I’m told I should shelve it as a collector’s item. “
“Why Doctor O’Neill, you are a woman of many depths.”
“God created man, Thomas Jefferson said they were created equal and Sam Colt made it true. And PARTICULALRY true for women. Susan B. Anthony and Seneca Falls is all well and good but good old Sam did more for women’s rights than anyone else in my opinion. A 98 pound wilting wallflower no longer needs to be afraid of the 300 pound doped up linebacker.”
“You sound like your speaking from experience.”
“I keep in practice dear, and so must you.”
***
Winter…passed. I kept busy. Motivated to replenish my funds I worked my magic and gradually was back to where I started and even a bit ahead. I kept in touch with my doctors and family. Did my coursework, I went to town once a fortnight and Tony visited me on a more or less regular basis. The first time he came after my expedition I could see he was clearly shocked but pleasantly so. He made several comments about my appearance that if I had a touch more self confidence I might have preceded on. But he soon enough began to realize that I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing and we gradually fell into a quiet friendship with only the merest hint of sexual undertones. I was a convenient stop on his rounds, a place where he could be assured a hot cup of coffee and a friendly shoulder to cry on. It was in March just before my birthday and amid the thaw when the whole world turns to mud and he was telling me of his most recent issues.
“DC wants to grant mineral exploitation rights to the forest,” Tony said as he sipped my thankfully fresh coffee.
“I bet the greens are all sorts of happy about that.”
“Yes and no, these boys are being smarter than the average bear. They promised to section off 10% of the revenue into a trust fund to replenish the forest once they are done with it.”
“What did they find?”
“Oil, God help us, or rather not oil they discovered but oil shale, big damn rocks of it. You have to strip mine it, superheat it, boil it off, refine it, refine it again and then you get gasoline. Expensive as hell but with the price of oil what it is they think they make money at it. And of course it’s HERE and not going to some Arab fundamentalists or their 70,000 princes.”
“Strip mining? And ruin my view… I’m not sure I approve.”
“I know I don’t, but I wasn’t asked either. For my sins I have been assigned to ride herd on their geologists and tame environmental impact experts.”
“Don’t bring them around here; my coffee is only for human beings.”
“Noted… something else. The black Bears are coming out of hibernation, and they are going to have a tough time of it. Mama bears just gave birth to their cubs and are gonna be extra special nasty so I want you to be careful. You’re need to sort out that trash dump outside, it’s like holding out a welcome mat that says here I am eat me.”
“Understood, you be careful out there yourself.”
“I always am.”
***
The first time it rained instead of snowed, I knew I couldn’t put it off much longer, so I made preparations to head into Denver for my first physical examination with Dr. Millard. I packed a bag with three days of clothes and other essentials and when I was done the bag was the same size as what I used to carry for a full week. Starting the Jeep was a bit of a chore, the battery had to be reinstalled and charged. Being out in the snow all winter had not done the exterior any good but the engine was sound enough to get me where I needed to go. It wasn’t much of a car but I’d had it since I was 16. Bought and paid for out of my own funds when the birthday present my parents gave me met an early death my second day with a license. It was a 94 and looked like an 84. But I was never ashamed to drive it. I always wanted a bit of power under the hood and still did even if my hormones were changing.
I got mud positively EVERYWHERE driving down that mountain. When I reached the highway and got up to speed it started flaking off and I displeased quite a few of the drivers behind me. If you are driving into Denver from the west the city kind of jumps up out of nowhere. One minute your winding up and down a steep mountain track carved right out of the granite and then suddenly you’re in the valley and a major metropolitan area. Omaha wasn’t that much of a smaller city but it had been six months since I had done any real driving and it may have been my imagination but Denver drivers seemed crazier than they strictly speaking had to be. I felt like I was in some sort of Mad Max demolition derby. Turn signals were for the weak and the speed limit was only a suggestion and you got honked at if you followed it.
If it hadn’t been for my dashboard GPS I’m sure I would have turned around and lived to fight another day but that insistent pestering bitch’s voice kept giving me directions and course corrections when I made a slip or missed a turn. I had planned to be early but ended up pulling into the parking lot of my doctor’s office only just on time. I felt like I needed a stiff drink, but self control got the better of me. I wasn’t going to impress the man responsible for changing my life if I showed up tipsy.
The dragon lady only sounded like she was a 100 years old. In reality she looked a very well preserved 90. Probably she had been installed in the office when the miners struck silver and no one had been able to pry her out since. She seemed a little surprised when I told her who I was, no doubt she was expecting someone who looked like a Denver Bronco not a thin 5’10 girl in a respectable ensemble.
“You’re late!” she said, by way of greeting.
“By exactly two minutes, traffic you know…”
“That’s still late, take a seat and fill out these forms and I’ll find out if the doctor will still see you.”
The civilian medical profession in America ran on paperwork more than pharmaceuticals. It was, with some justification, scared to death of having their pants sued off them and wouldn’t so much as pass out an aspirin until it was covered legally. I had signed and sent most of these forms before but it seemed they wanted more. I was starting to get a real cramp in my writing hand before it was done. But was satisfied with the end result when dragon lady accepted them with a mild Hmph! And took me to the examination room and told me to undress.
Doctor Millard was a kind older man in person and I was only slightly embarrassed to be seen by him in my hospital gown. “Good day Miss Weaver, how are we feeling today?”
“Rather, what I was here to find out Doctor,” I replied a half smile.
“Well let’s be about it, I promise to be as gentle as possible. Would you like me to have a female nurse step in for you?”
“I think that would make me feel rather more uncomfortable than less actually.”
“Very well, but if you change your mind let me know.”
He took enough blood to make a vampire happy for a week. Then had me disrobe completely and after a lengthy breast exam I was asked to sit down in the most obscene instrument of torture I had ever seen. My feet were up high in stirrups and my legs wide open I felt more vulnerable than I had in my entire life. He stuck a positively freezing instrument into the hole they had made back in Omaha and then LEFT it there for minutes while he was down there with a headset merrily taking note the whole time. He spent an awfully long time on my scrotum too and my heart was about to rupture my chest when he came back with a needle that had to be big enough to put down a horse. It seemed he wanted to collect a sample. He took some time out to be concerned enough over my reaction that he offered me a sedative but I took several deep breaths and told him to proceed. This wasn’t going to be any better drugged up, better to have it done sooner than later.
After the sample was collected I put the gown back on and I was led to another room for an ultrasound and an MRI. If you have never been in an MRI you lie down in a tight metal coffin like tube and are slowly rolled back into a cave where you are told to STAY STILL for quite a long time. I don’t mind saying I was a twitching nervous wreck when I got out and that’s when Dr. Millard INSISTED on the sedative after he assured me I would be able to drive to my hotel while under its influence. I returned to my first exam room and collected my clothes once dressed I was led into his main office and we went over the initial results.
“I can see how they diagnosed you as inter-sexed of course but how they could ever have decided you were more male is beyond me. Ultra sounds were available back then they could have seen your internal plumbing.”
“It was Britain, my father is minor aristocracy wanting a son and heir is what’s expected, perhaps the Doctors were practicing wishful thinking.”
“Wishful drinking more like, it was monstrous if they were just terminal optimists, but one hears so many horror stories in my profession. You shouldn’t blame your father though Chris, there were things the doctors told your parents and things that their handwritten notes means they did NOT tell them. Who by the way is “Lord North,” he was mentioned several times in some of the oddest places.”
“My great grandfather, he died back in 02.”
“He apparently stuck his hand in where it didn’t belong. It sounds like a bad melodrama but reading between the lines your first doctors were paid off to come out with the results they did. Once you were started down that path your later doctors just followed in their footsteps.”
“He didn’t want a FREAK, in the family!”
“Chris we don’t know exactly what was said and done, it could just have been an honest medical mistake though the fact that this North showed up in the handwritten notes is damn odd. I found this all out shortly after you sent me the file, or rather my overworked interns did. When I did I sent off a nasty letter to the British national medical regulation agency but both men had retired and are no longer practicing so there is very little they can do. One has died and but the other is still alive. I would be willing to act as a witness in any malpractice suit you wish to proceed with, though I’m not sure what it would all involve in a different country. Particularly as I gather they worked for the Royal Air Force at the time. “
“Yes, we were stationed at Lakenheath, support personnel were provided by the RAF.”
“At any rate, this is the sort of thing I positively loath about fellow members of my profession. Moving on to happier news my initial medical opinion agrees with your Doctors back in Omaha and that you are a wonderful candidate for corrective surgery, pending Doctor O’Neill’s final check off and the results of today’s tests I see no reason why we cannot proceeded with the major body and fender work sometime next month.”
“That’s wonderful news Doctor, will you be needing the objectionable man down in Flagstaff?”
“I think we do without his presence at this time, good news for both of us,” he said letting out a hearty belly laugh. “Now I’ll see you in two days with your results, go to your hotel, order room service or better yet enjoy a night on the town, a face like yours, looks much better smiling than frowning and that is my considered medical opinion.”
Chapter 13
When I got to my hotel I checked in under my own name and it was necessary to provide my doctors note which was slightly embarrassing to say the least. Once safely ensconced in my room I pulled out my net book, and dug out the digital copy of my records. I found the damning handwritten notes in a PDF file Millard had indicated attached it along with a copy of Dr. Millard’s note to the British into an email to my father.
The text of the email’s message box was simply, “How do you wish to proceed?” And I sent it on its way.
At this point I figured it was 50/50 I would ever speak to him again.
***
I slept, but I did not rest, my dreams were plagued with shadows and phantoms. Every bully and mean spirit I had ever encountered in my life seemed to make a surprise appearance. I had nightmares of events that happened long ago and far away and nightmares about events that had never happened. I was beat up a lot in JR High, being a brainy bastard, heavy AND effeminate had not been conducive to a happy teen social life. The worst dream was an event I had suffered in San Antonio when John McCay son of a Major in B-52’s had gone all alpha male and beat me up for not showing due deference to his testosterone. In real life it had happened behind the gym within 200 yards of an SP security shack which probably explained why he was failing the 8th grade.
In my dream I was in a dress, and he was raping me, and there was no one there to save me.
I woke around 8:30pm, and it was dark outside, I knew that my little nap would interfere with my sleep patterns for some time so I ordered some overpriced Hilton room service and generally did a repeat of my hobbit hole act from last year. I had brought three days worth of female clothes with me including a VERY comfortable silk nightgown but none of them got worn. It was my time to go back to the Doctors office and I was still wearing the clothes, and underclothes I had worn driving down the mountain.
Needless to say a zombie showed up for her doctor’s visit that day. That’s when he told me I had probably had testicular cancer.
I hadn’t really noticed it before; I spent as little time down there as possible but in the last few months my “boys” had rather turned to mush. It was caught early, before it had even really started to grow but cancer is still the Big Casino and it got my full and rapt attention for the first time in days.
“We’ll need to operate right away, today if I can find an OR. An oncologist will do the heavy lifting and I’ll make things look presentable afterwards.”
“Why not just go all the way now then?”
“We’re not there Chris, this is just an emergency surgery the rest will have to wait. As far as the cancers to get though this one is the best kind. Its early days yet and you were going to remove it eventually anyway. It shouldn’t affect your later life in anyway. It was however very dangerous young lady to wait so long to come in. We could have seen this as much as three months ago if you had been under care instead of on that mountain.”
“Yes doctor, but what’s done is done, moving on please.”
“You can wait here will I call in favors for an operating room. I really think you should contact your family though. They would want to be here for you and you could use the support.”
“I’m not quite so sure of that myself Doctor.”
“If you were my daughter-“
“if I was your daughter,” I interrupted him suddenly. “You wouldn’t be operating on my TESTICLES!”
***
I went back to the Hilton and took a long shower, put on fresh clothes and packed my bag. I checked out of a fine hotel and checked in to a finer hospital. I somewhat doubted the food would be better though. I was prepped for surgery doped up and under the knife in less than three hours. The surgery was a success and the patient lived. I woke gradually in my bed and there was no pain, weather it was the result of a good job or fine drugs I couldn’t say. The scrotum is, sometimes incontinently, located outside the main body, something about regulating the temperature of the little soldiers. As far as its effect on my health it qualified as a minor surgery and my insurance company made sure I was turned out with only a days recovery time. I filled a prescription for several pain relievers anti-inflammatory, antibiotics and something I’m not quite sure what was for and retired from the field of battle.
I was in no shape to drive all the way back home so I tried to find a hotel for the night. The Hilton was booked as was the Embassy Suits and several other of the finer establishments. I settled on a Holiday Inn express near the airport that if not as swanky at least had the virtue of being clean and cheap and not asking any questions about my gender. They offered a free breakfast but nothing else, no restaurant or room service. I was not ready to go out in a strange city dressed “en femme” particularly walking as bowlegged as I was. I put in a call and had a pizza delivered to my room and sat back on top of the covers of my king sized bed watching television while I waited. The pizza never DID come, something about there being four Holiday Inns Express’s in the city and Pizza Hut’s new driver. What was delivered to my door with a hard knock an hour after I made the phone call was my mother and father.
She was wearing a sharp light blue colored skirt suit. You can take the woman out of the Air Force but…well. Laurence Weaver did not, nor has he ever, worn a bowler hat but take him across the water and he could gain entrance to any of London’s more exclusive clubs without so much as a raised eyebrow. He was the very picture of a modern silver haired city gent. I stood there at the door looking at them both for the first time in months. We had talked of course but I had insisted on audio only. They had never seen a picture of the new me. I was determined not to be seen as a freak in their eyes. I would be a man or a woman but not something in between. I stared at them silently for a good five seconds then instinct took over and I slammed the door shut and bolted the latch.
They knocked on the door patiently again.
And again.
And again.
Then they lost their patience.
“Christine Jane Theresa Anne WEAVER, you will open this door at once young lady!” my mother shouted in a tone that hardened fighter pilots had been known to duck and cover from.
It was spite more than anything that caused me to unlatch and open the door. “That’s not my NAME.” I shouted bitterly to the two of them standing in the hallway.
My father reached into his briefcase and handed me an official looking stack of papers with little sticky notes scattered about.
“Sign this luv,” my father said handing me his sterling silver pen. “And it will be…and initial, mustn’t forget the initials this bloody country would sink into the sea if you left the initials off.”
I stood there stunned holding the folder and pen and pushed the door open admitting them to my hotel room. I sat down back on the bed my back to the baseboard my father pulled up the chair from the little desk the Holiday Inn corporation provides it’s business guests and my mother got into bed with me… but not in a sexual way. God you people have dirty minds
It was from the Douglas County Courthouse and was an official request for a name change and a change so that my birth certificate and relevant documents would show female rather than Male. It seemed all I need do was scribble a few times and as far as the world at large would know my penis would never have existed. Doing all this without my knowledge or permission was probably illegal as hell. I felt the guiding hand of my father’s golfing buddy the County commissioner in all this… still, it looked real enough. Or perhaps the Nebraska supreme court judge, hell he had the commander of the 8th Air Force as a client. There was plenty of juice to go around.
I looked at my mother and father, and they looked at me, and I let them. What did they see I wondered. My hair was down almost to my shoulders, certainly longer than they had ever seen it. I didn’t have any makeup on but I still had my tasteful earrings in. I was expecting a stranger to see me and I still had my pride so I made sure I was respectably dressed for the pizza boy. I had on a red jacket with a white blouse and red skirt. Nylons encased my legs and I wore sensible black shoes with no heel since I wasn’t quite THAT crazy yet. The skirt was pretty tight but nothing illicit showed the bandages handled that nicely actually. And the blouse was thin enough that my bra was barely visible and said bra was not stuffed with socks. If actions spoke louder than words, I supposed what they were seeing was their daughter. Even If I didn’t see myself as that yet.
I signed the documents with my male name. Probably the last time I would do it.
I closed the folder after making sure to initial, and handed it over to my father.
“How did you find me?” I asked hormones about to induce tears.
“You’re not as smart as you think you are young lady, or maybe you are you’ve just had a lot your mind,” said my father taking the folder and returning it to his briefcase. “I got the email, nasty bugger, my grandfather was he not? And the accompanying scolding letter I’m sure my old friends will not be pleased to see. There are not so many Doctor Mallards after all, particular who specialize in your sort of thing. And doctors keep quite a bit less confidentially from their bookkeepers than they think they do. I found out about your operation. By the time we got to the hospital you were gone.”
“Why didn’t you tell us Chris?” my mother interrupted her hands embracing my and wrapping me in a cocoon of love.
“I hoped you wouldn’t be quite so bloody daft as to drive back to whatever undisclosed location you have been keeping yourself the same day you were kicked out of a hospital bed, and I’m going to be having words with your insurance company don’t you worry about THAT!” my father harrumphed in full pater familias mode. “Another day, we’ll talk about the dodgy shell corporation you founded and thought I didn’t know about. Your company credit card was used here to secure against incidental charges and since we had a location it was a simple enough matter to ask the rather bored night clerk downstairs what room you were in, and here we are.”
“Scotland Yard missed out when you emigrated.” I said, smiling despite myself.
“You’re not the only investigator in the family young lady.”
“Do you know everything?”
“Most everything, who do you think gave Sgt Grimes your name two years ago, deskbound policeman grandfathers don’t often hear about upstart college students with rather too much time on their hands.”
“I thought you would disapprove.”
“I do rather, but there was so very much more I could have disapproved of… and your rather good at it you see.”
“General Ryan at Offutt called me about you,” said my mother brushing my bangs out of my eyes. “He wanted to thank you again for helping Amanda. She is out of rehab and so far still clean. She gave birth to a boy with no damage thank the lord.”
“With all the right bits I hope?” I asked.
“With all the right bits,” my mother replied.
“Good for her, I’m glad. Is she keeping the baby?”
“The Ryan’s as a whole are keeping the baby. From what I hear the whole family is pitching in while Amanda gets well. She’s at UNO now, I saw her in the hall’s last week. She looked well considering…you look very nice too Chris.”
“Considering?” I replied looking up at her and then away.
“Yes,” she answered. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect when we opened that door but my beautiful daughter was what I was most hoping for, and I was right.”
“Ah, ma. Don’t get so sappy DoD hears about that there gonna pull your reserve commission… conduct unbecoming and all that. I don’t even have any make up on. I’ve been reading books about it and there is some in my case but I was just too tired.”
“Luv, if you had been worried about makeup hours after being discharged from a hospital I would be more worried about you than I am.” said my father with his formal crisp accent.
“And what are you worried about dearest father, the same thing your grandfather was?’
“Christine I do not deserve that, and if you continue on in that way 25 years old or not you’ll discover your not too old to be bend over my knee for a good going over.”
“For which I would deserve,” I admitted with a small smile.
“To answer your unstated question I’m bloody well pissed off at him, If the poxy sod wasn’t already dead I would shoot him myself. It’s not so terrible a thing to have daughters, HE had three. And for the other part, here.” He said as he handed me a second folder from his briefcase.
It was a lawsuit, drawn on my behalf by a firm of solicitors even I had heard of. It sought damages from the doctors, the doctor’s estate, the hospital the RAF and probably the Queen herself god help us.
“It hasn’t been filed yet, that would have been presuming too much on my part but the cannons have been primed and sighted in all you have to say is fire.”
“I may want to go back to old blighty one day, having my personal bossiness splashed hither and yon particularly on the front page of the Sun would not make it a pleasant visit.”
“You know your mind best of course, but your mother and I stand behind you completely. If you want this, that’s what we want too… now I haven’t eaten in 12 hours and 400 miles and you look like you could use a little bit of nosh yourself.”
“I ordered a pizza a few hours ago, but it must have got lost in the ether.”
“I have the rental, I’ll drive around and fine some monument to American ingenuity in clotting their arteries and call you on your mobile to tell you want I find and ask what you’d like to order. You’re mother will stay here with you and I’ll be back soon as I can for a delayed birthday party. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
***
My father is a great man, no greater testament was the fact that in less than 20 minutes he was back with dinner, a birthday cake AND candles. admittedly the birthday cake was a chocolate hostess cake from the local gas station but style points must be given. We talked the three of us, like we had never really done before. I said a little about how I had spent the last few months, how my treatment was progressing but they senesced my hesitation and had the good manners to change the subject. They instead did most of the talking, telling me all the trials and tribulations I had missed back home.
My sister had gotten married a few years back. To a Texan…
From a fine family.
As Texan’s count such things…
East Texas landed nobility from way back they were lawyers and doctors and sundry other professionals but the family seat was 3,000 acres of woodland they told the IRS was a pine tree farm for paper production but was really an excuse to write off a private hunting reserve and its sundry toys on their taxes. My brother-in-law had been experimenting with trying to get rid of his nasty wild boar problem by setting traps and had instead managed to get himself trapped in one for the whole night until he was found by his father the next morning. I tried not to laugh, I did not, I must admit, try very hard.
My little niece was walking and talking and dropping “y’all” in every other sentence. And my sister was now expecting again they have been told it’s a boy, I was pleased for her. And I knew he would be happy too, but I didn’t hold that against him. The due date was sometime in November if everything worked out all right he would never know that he had an uncle. We talked until everyone was very tired and my father slipped out to walk downstairs and get a room. The Holiday Inn Express being somewhat easier to get a booking that the Hilton he had no trouble and came back with the key to a room three doors down. He then carried both their suitcases up to the room and by the time he was back I had dressed in the nightgown I hadn’t the energy to wear before. I took a few seconds to stare but fair credit too him he didn’t flinch. My mother offered to share the bed with me, and I was sorely tempted which was one last crash of my masculine ego, but I declined. We would all sleep in and meet downstairs for breakfast at 9AM
***
My mother can be a pushy bitch.
I pushed right back. It’s helps to have a role model.
My parents flat out refused to leave me in my tender condition, and it was only with the greatest familial battles and only a slight overuse of newly acquired feminine whiles on my father that I convinced them I could not as yet return home. They said they supported me and that my fears were unfounded, but even at this extended point in my transition I was not ready to go back home and face friends and family. The idea of being seen in their eyes as some halfway in-between monster just out me off the whole idea completely. We spent another day in Denver and it was only with the faintest of twinges that I let my mother drive my jeep and we formed a small convoy toward my undisclosed mountain hideout.
The drive was as pleasant as April could be in this part of the world and we only had to threaten to kill two drivers on the way out of town. Several hours later when we pulled off the gravel road into my cabins dirt lot I felt a large innate sense of relief to be home. The cabin had been my sanctuary, my security blanket. And even if it was being invaded by parental units for a few days it was good to be back. My lady mother, being my mother, immediately scolded my on my housekeeping and after a quick inspection of my cabinets immediately requisitioned my jeep to go into down for what im sure would be military standard disinfectants.
My father, being a father, didn’t care quite so much about accumulated dust that REALLY WASN’T THAT MUCH AT ALL and once he was satisfied that my power would stay flowing and my propane tanks was not about to explode made sure I was safely ensconced at my desk with a recuperating cup of tea and then went to the small lake outside my front door to see if he could convince any rainbow trout that it would be a great idea to bite down on that fly lure. My mother came back several hours later and saw him lazed laid back the shore in my borrowed folding chair and then went and laid into him. Laurence Weaver answered by the simple expedient of giving his wife of thirty-three years a kiss and patting her on the backside. Lesser mortals would have burst into flames.
We had dinner that night slightly more civilized than the takeout boxes of the previous evening I didn’t exactly have exhibition quality flatware but no one commented on the Wal-mart special plates for which they, and my sanity should be grateful. We talked; we talked like we hadn’t talked in years. Ever in some cases. It was a very refreshing experience… after a week of it I was ready to slit their throats.
Fortunately enough for the both of us the go ahead was given by the several chief high medical mukety mucks and it was time for THE BIG ONE, the operation or rather operations for my outside to resemble my inside. To say that I was as nervous as a virgin in a brothel besieged by marines would be almost the literal truth. The hospital charged more than even the most high end cat house and it came up in conversation with my military parents that Dr Millard had started life a young member of the 1st Marine Division.
The less said about my sexual exploits the better, even if I was only going to be male for another minute I was still self-conscious of not having done it by the quarter century mark.
Chapter 14
Codeine is a hell of a drug.
In certain less developed parts of the United States where the criminal syndicates wouldn’t be caught dead away from a place that couldn’t dry-clean their 1,000 dollar suits it is referred to as “hillbilly heroin.” It was addicting as hell makes you feel great and all you needed was some just out of medical school child to scribble on a piece of paper and you could even get the government to buy it for you. Day three of the recovery I knew what all the fuss was about. There I was, a gaping hole in my private parts where there shouldn’t have been one. A rather unsightly nurse needed to every four hours stuff cotton up there to both stop the bleeding and prevent said hole from closing up again, a personal life that was, to say the least interesting, and I didn’t have a care in the world. I spent most of those first three days alternating between bouts of near comatose sleep and watching my hand move.
They eventually dropped the dosages a little bit and my limb movement became gradually less captivating. They rotorootered, pulled me inside out and then they started to work on me. I was only just beginning to recover from the main event when they started in on the extras. Much as I might have wished my life to become one of those fantasy stories I read there was no one magic wand that was going to go boom and make me a beautiful girl. Testosterone had had its way with me for much of my life and even though I had functioning ovaries now I had been under estrogenized… yea, I think that’s a word… for many years. They shaved some of my trachea to give me a more pleasant alto voice, then several facile feminizations. My hips and backside were starting to get reasonable padded but for my height I was pretty flat. Modern medical science had enabled that no young lady need go though life without the rack of her choice and I had decided on a rather benign C Cup. There was a probability that as the hormones kept working on me I would not need them and indeed require their removal but that process would take years and I was never good at waiting.
It was most of two weeks later when they wheeled me out of there. My father had settled the bill while I was still under the influence, which I considered to be cheating. But I got him back by buying first class tickets to Omaha. First class on an hour flight wasn’t exactly in the same ballpark but it was the principle of the thing. Denver traffic and mild aches in several sensitive places later and I was in no mood to drive up my mountain and see my trash scattered for hundreds of yards in every direction. The claw marks were evidence that large land mammal had been about in my absence and the wind had taken care of the rest. My trash dump was supposed to be bear proof in-between periodic removal but it appeared my antagonist was smarter than the average bear. Since some of that stuff had been festering for months I hope the silly bugger got food poisoning.
Less kind hearted individuals would call it OCD behavior after major surgery. I’m sure I was a sight. Limp, limp, lean over to pick up trash, wince at the pull on still healing muscles. Limp, limp, lean, and repeat ad nasusm. True it did spoil my view but it was pure self preservation. The tofu eating, clove smoking hippies that ran this part of Colorado had a real hard on against littering. And that’s not to factor in the stuff that blew into the national forest that I’m sure some pencil neck in DC would blame on me.
“Uh humph,” said a distinctly masculine voice behind me. “I uh, see you had some work done while you were away.”
I turned around to see, Tony sans winter uniform and looking far too pleased for a man stepping in what I hope he hadn’t noticed he was stepping in.
“Yes,” I said with a flick of my wrist in to emphasize the point. “Post modern sanitation chic is ALL the rage these days didn’t you know.”
“I was actually referring to your two new more personal acquisitions though now that the words are out of my mouth perhaps that wasn’t the most gentlemanly thing to say.”
He had the good grace to blush slightly but it didn’t hold a candle I’m sure to what my face must have shown. There are marked disadvantages to a mostly northern European heritage no matter what the NAACP tells you.
“Yes, well.” I stammered looking down. “I was getting tired for puberty to kick in. and it’s not like I really went overboard.”
“Indeed not, they quite become you if I might be so bold.”
“Thank you, I think, now my good man what do you federal fellows intend to do about this bear problem it’s got so that a woman isn’t safe alone in the deep forest at night anymore. Can’t you get your spokesman Smokey to tell his family that Montana is really the happing place for their kind?
“Smokey the bear only prevents wildfires not littering and I’m sure his relations think he been too citified. Now didn’t I tell you to sort out your dump?”
“You did, and I did, or at least I thought I did, I hired a guy to take care of it while I was away but obviously I shouldn’t of paid him in advance.”
“What guy?”
“A guy who had his ad in the paper for ‘rural trash removal’, right next to guy who said he could perform ice cream delivery within an hour anywhere in a 20 miles radius of town. I figure if modern science has progressed to that level it was possible to get a trash hauler up my road,” as I stabbed yet another cardboard box and shoved it into my sack.
“Possible yes, probable no, Tom Martin takes care of the big money snow bunnies and the old time locals first, getting around to carpetbaggers such as us only afterwards. You would have been better off ordering a couple dozen gallons of rocky road and telling the delivery boy to take a sack down the mountain each time on his way back.”
“I’ll note that for next time.”
“Want some help?”
“I’m thinking of taking off and nukeing the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”
“I believe the town passed an ordinance or some such against that. But I would have to check to be certain.”
“Curses, foiled again.”
***
If my life was a romance paperback, this is the part where the newly fully functional and sex starved heroine would be ravaged by the buff forest ranger. Well even if both us had been willing which I most certainly was not the plumbing wouldn’t be ready for servicing for another few months yet. Instead Tony unloaded to me his troubles over dinner followed shortly after a very much required and quite separate I assure you shower. It was easier I think talking to me, as a friend and fellow outsider and as someone not enmeshed in the bureaucracy.
The mineral survey was going well, too well. The damn Oil shale was everywhere, and worse, easier to get to than almost anywhere else on the continent. The geologists were hitting pay dirt, pun intended and the oversight couldn’t rubber stamp it fast enough. All the save the spotted owl and don’t murder the dolphin crowd developed a certain moral flexibility when gas broke $4.00 a gallon.
One of them a week after my return, had the ill grace to get himself lost in my woods and then DEMANDED that I give him a ride back into town. Didn’t I, after all, know who he was? Colorado is still the West, no matter that it had lately been overrun by economic refugees from the Peoples Republic of California. My mountain hideaway was still protected under old fashioned castle laws that basically let me use anything up to and including an Abrahams tank to defend my home. I looked at the man in my kitchen returned 30 seconds later from my office with a printout of the relevant section of state code and after a not so judicious flash of my little friend from Iowa on my hip I went back into my office. I didn’t hear him leave but he was kind enough to lock the door on his way out. Tony grinned from ear to ear when I told him, and we were both thankful the mook wasn’t able to retrace his steps when he went crying to the local sheriff who probably knew who I was anyway, but since I was still a free woman likely did not give much credence to the city slicker’s stories of the wild witch woman of the west.
Life carried on for the next few months, seldom with interruptions as interesting as that. Spring and Summer were the busy season for forest rangers. It’s when most of the unprepared folks from sheltered upbringings get in trouble. I saw less and less of Tony but it was probably for the best as he would have seen less and less of me. I still wasn’t ready to head back to Omaha but a girl needs to eat so I was wrapped up in project after project, not to mention my several classes through distance education. I was the last week in June when the snow was FINALY starting to leave the taller peaks when I got the phone call from my lord Father. It having been a few months since he and my mother had seen me and damn near a year since anyone else in the family had done so my glorious presence was requested and required for a long weekend at the lake house in celebration of the War of American Rebellion, his words. I packed my bags with everything I thought I needed for a Fourth of July weekend and headed down my mountain.
My Grandfather Jim had been a bit too young to participate in the Second War of European Aggression. But he had been in prime condition just in time for Jesus Christ in his second coming his Holiness MacAurthur to use him as a human popsicle stick at the Chosin Reservoir. He is one of the most gentle men I know if not precisely a gentleman. He never could stand anyone who let their prejudices get the better of them and was one of the first Nebraska ranchers to pay his migrant workers well and give them a fair shake instead of the more traditional shaft. Still and all, the smell of Chinese food makes him physically ill… some things you never forget or get over. I’m told he didn’t personally hold back the entire ChiCom army but he gave it his very best. And the only reason he had a Silver Star instead of the Congressional Medal of Honor was because there wasn’t a handy officer around to see him do it. They were all safe and warm in the rear area at the time.
Once back home, he married the first vertical female he saw that was of approximately the same age and not a close relation and proceeded to have himself eleven children of which my mother was third from the top. Well, grandma had the kids; I guess he just had most of the fun. That little sexual dynamic is something I will have to reassess now that I’m on the other side of the skirt. Cherry County Nebraska in the 1950’s wasn’t all that much better than Cherry County in the 1930’s or the 1850’s for that matter. The great Eisenhower Era of good feeling mostly pasted the rural areas by. He got home to a debt his own grandfather had racked up and 2000 acres of almost useless semiarid rangeland. I don’t know how much he’s worth now, you always get the feeling he would disinherit any of his descendents that gets too nosy but through fifty years of blood, sweat, but no tears because no true Nebraska would shed them in honest toil, he managed to hand over to my uncle a few years back when he was finally drug into retirement a working ranch of 26,000 acres. That’s bigger than some countries, micro nations on some Pacific atoll sure, but still… countries.
Take me home country roads.
Chapter 15
Most people, from a wetter climate, wouldn’t call it a proper lake, half a mile across at its widest north to south and 3/4th a mile east to west it didn’t even have a name except “the lake.” Its deepest part was only about 15 feet and in the dry years, and it had been dry a lot in the last few, a man could walk across it without getting his chest wet. Way back when it had just been a little depression in the prairie fed by a creek that was reliable enough to water cattle in the wet months, in the dry months we had to pound sand, literally. The rest of the state particularly the agricultural regions to the south were being damned and reservoirs being filled but while Cherry County was the biggest county in the entire state land wise, its entire population wouldn’t fill even a small town in the eastern portion. Even today it was less than 6,000 souls.
Grandpa, had one day in the 60’s after culling what could have been a fine cow looked up to see that his spread was going to get a reservoir someday after the 6th of never, and got a few of his friends together who just so happened to be in the engineer battalion of the national guard and built himself a dam. The Sandhills region didn’t exactly run to steep valley walls, and the soils didn’t help much a great heap of the water just melted into the ground to join the Ogallala aquifer, the largest collection of groundwater in the world, but deep down and expensive to get at. That didn’t stop him though. The ranchers and few farmers downstream put up a bit of a fight, one of them even went so far as to set charges to several of the earth moving machinery and threatened to blow. That delayed him to be sure, but didn’t stop him, not even when he had to go on trial for arson, something to do with a certain farmer’s barn. Technically speaking he needed permission from the government and he dutifully asked for it, but the lake had been 10 years built before they finally gave it.
He brought water to the desert. That’s the kind of man he was.
The long and winding road led me and my jeep three miles off the state highway. The very second thing the family had done after the shoreline was reasonably stable was to plant trees. It was a psychological thing. Miles and miles, of miles and miles needs to be interrupted, else a body would think he was about to fall off into the sky. The fruit orchards were enough to keep us in fresh pies and applejack but truth be told we let 90% of it fall to the ground. It provided enticement for the local dear and other wild game to come down with a terminal case of optimism. As I rolled up and parked on the gravel in front of the house I could see that several of my younger cousins and probably a few of the ones old enough to know better had already been hard at it increasing our trade deficit with China. The black scorch marks on the grass was a testament to some small amount of fireworks at play, the fact that the whole valley had not gone up proof of a kind and loving God.
I was a bit nervous as I grabbed my bag out of the trunk. This would be the first time my extended family had seen me and I wasn’t exactly dressed to the nines. The Fourth of July at the lake was not an occasion to slather on the war paint and slip into an evening gown. I debated wearing a skirt just to put the issue out front of people but it was impractical in the extreme so I settled on a pair of kaki shorts, with a baby blue polo shirt as my top. It was practical sure, but gender neutral. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of, my family seeing me as a girl for the first time or taking a look at me and not being able to tell the difference. I set my bag on the wooden deck just in front of the back door and prepared to entire the holiest of holies, my Grandmothers kitchen.
***
It was a trap.
There were two of them.
When my mother was 18 she had a knock down drag out, ‘this continent isn’t big enough for the both of us’ fight with her mother, subsequently joined the Air Force, and headed off into the wild and wide. Seeing the both of them together it was easy enough to see why, opposites attract and all that but two particles of the same charge respell and baby, I’m not kidding. I suppose I should be pleased that I stood a good chance to come out ahead in the genetic lottery.
My mother’s mother was just short of her 8th decade and looked good for half again more. I found them both holding court in the kitchen where I knew at least my Grandmother would be. The proper care and feeding of the small army that was her family would have driven lesser woman mad. Certainly at her age and economic status she didn’t NEED to do anything more strenuous than raising a pinky to the hired help but the day she let some stranger take charge of her kitchen was the day after her funeral. The day OF her funeral she probably would have the menu planned.
“Hello grandma,” I said hesitantly.
“Christine,” she replied without hesitation as she nodded at me while stirring what looked to be an absolutely scrumptious fruit salad. “You’re mother was just telling me that you have been seeing a forest ranger from Colorado,” she said ‘Colorado’, like it was some foreign country, which to her it probably was.
“When are you inviting him to dinner?”
“MOTHER!!” I screamed in exasperation.
***
The first day was tenuous, but I gradually remembered why it was a rather liked my family. My uncles and assorted male relations started off treating me like I was a defector, a traitor to the cause. My aunts and the distaff side were equally wary, like I was an enemy infiltrator, here to find out all their secrets and report back to the other side. Eventually though when the men realized I wasn’t going to perform a striptease in front of them and shock their delicate Nebraska sensibilities, and the woman understood that I wasn’t going or even able to switch sides again the situation normalized. Of course 8 year olds think just about anything is normal.
“So did you keep it after they cut it off, I’d keep mine,” my cousin Brian asked while tugging on my sleeve.
“Didn’t you hear Aunt Elaine, he never had one to begin with,” interrupted my other cousin Susan.
“SHE, never had,” added cousin Amy.
“I still want to know if you kept it?”
“I’m afraid not, Brian.” I replied trying not to break out into a grin. “It got tossed out with the medical waste by the time I thought to ask about it.”
“Couldn’t you have just, looked through the trash? I did that when mom threw out my favorite shirt.”
“No, medical waste is a biohazard it’s dangerous to go dumpster diving through that.”
“Your dingus was hazardous…cool.”
“Brian, here is my second favorite lighter, go blow up something expensive.” I said, handing over a Zippo which perhaps proves that I should think long and hard of having children of my own. I wasn’t totally without moral judgment as I knew that the fireworks were stockpiled in the barn under the eye of my youngest Uncle Bryon. Having only just left adolescence himself he was familiar enough with the theory not to get himself in trouble, and his wife’s tolerant presence had educated him enough not to do something stupid.
“You are going to have to learn some other method Chris, when they get older not every male can be distracted by explosions,” My sister said as she approached from the driveway.
“Julie!” I shouted as I stood up from the deck chair to give her a big huh. Our two sets of breasts pressing against each other was an odd, but not unpleasant experience. “When did you get in, sit down, sit down. And I happen to know that men never lose their interest in things that go boom. Why our own grandfather sterling citizen and hero that he is did not four hours ago steal across the border into South Dakota and bring back almost a thousand dollars of contraband.”
“Did you get your usual order in?”
“I’ll have you know I have grown past such childish things, such masculine endeavors and I still have half a gross of bottle rockets left over from last year in my part of the storage unit on the east bank.”
“That’s good to know, “Julie smiled as she gave me another hug before sitting down. “You look good Chris.”
“You look better,” I replied, meaning it my sister was a real beauty.
“Yes, well I’ve had more practice, and pregnancy bestows a certain glow on a woman, it ought too all the other things we have to deal with.”
“You’re hardly showing, are you sure it’s just not indigestion from all that spicy Texican food.”
“Fairly certain, my husband strutting around like a prime peacock is a better indication than any pregnancy test I know, there he is now. Bobby! Over here, come over here and say hello to your new sister-in-law.”
“Claudia is with your grandmother in the kitchen, “my brother in law reported, once he got closer. “I have to go finish unloading the car.”
“Oh, that can wait,” Julie insisted with a wave. “It’s not every day you get to meet a new relation for the second time.”
“Hello, Chris…um…Christine, um ma’am. “ He finally nodded in my general direction. “I have to go unload the car then I promised to talk to your grandfather about his Douglas firs. I’ll see yall tonight.” He finished beating an indecent retreat in the general direction of the driveway.
“He’s a little weirded out by me isn’t he sis?” I asked once he was safely out of earshot.
“He just needs a little time to adjust, Chris this isn’t the sort of thing good Methodists talk about.”
“Mom was saying you had to fight him tooth and nail to drag him up here this year. Being that he always seemed to enjoy himself and you went to his family last Fourth I suppose I wouldn’t be the major reason why would I?”
“I never lied to you Chris, well, never over anything important, yes he’s mentioned that you make him uncomfortable. We talked about almost nothing else for the last three days.”
“Maybe I should just leave now that I’ve made an appearance, people can get on talking about me behind my back.”
“Now Chris, don’t get all teenage hormonal on me,” Julie said with a giggle.
“If he says or does anything about it to me I’ll…”
“And don’t get all MALE on me either. He’s my husband and you’re my sister and I won’t choose between you. Even if I have to knock both of you unconscious to do it.”
“He and I never got on.”
“Oh Chrissie, I’m too old, too fat and not able to get drunk enough to put up with this sort of angst when it’s this hot out. Since we can solve only one of those problems I vote we get in our suits and hit the water.”
“Um…”
“You did bring a suit right?”
“Um…”
“One that’s designed for your current hardware I hope,” she said with a subtle wave in my chests general direction.
“Um…”
“Develop a vocabulary Christine, its unbecoming. “ Interrupted my mother as she walked around the corner of the deck. “Come up to my room you may borrow one of mine.”
“Ah…”
***
My Uncle Edward lived in Lincoln and worked as a middle manager in the Kawasaki Factory. He had procured for the family four Jet skis that had literally fallen off the back of a truck and the company had deemed too damaged to be sold to an unsuspecting public. He and his friends were able to rebuild them and while they seemed safe enough the memory of their origin as I was blasting past the shore at 50+ MPH added a little something more to the experience. For those of you unfortunate enough never to have experienced the joy of a jet ski I could only describe it as a motorcycle without the benefit of brakes, that requires no license to operate and the added bonus of not being able to see any of the obstructions that may been on the “road” in front of you.
The ranch hands had done their best over the years to mark any shallow areas where rock crops up or submerged trees might have been inundated. But the water level rose and sank so much and so often that it was difficult to stay on top of things. So I guess I shouldn’t be too terribly angry at them that as a result of my own hot-dogging to close to the dock I hit something and was ejected rather forcefully from my conveyance.
I guess.
Fortunately enough I had slowed down at that point and was only going about 10 MPH at the time so instead of a fiery ball of flame I was only sent, after a sharp impact on the jet ski’s console, barreling end over end into the water. There was a strap tied to me and to the watercrafts engine that when pulled off cut the forward momentum so my ride just meekly slowed and stopped while it was me that had all the work of swimming back to it. The wind had picked up a bit and proof that some higher being did in fact have it in for me it was blowing my ride further away from me.
I had been smart enough to wear my lifejacket. The whole family had their own, Grandmother insisted. Mine however, had been fitted to me when I was 50 pounds heavier and rather flatter up top if you understand my meaning. In my haste to get on the jet ski before my wayward relations bogarted it out from under me I had just thrown on the jacket without adjusting all the several dozen straps so while It had served it’s primary function in keeping me floating on the water after my crash the force of my insertion had also pulled it off of me and taking with it my never to be sufficiently damned mother induced bikini top with it.
So there I was.
Not so middle of the lake, jet ski in front of me, life jacket behind and what I assumed at this point my whole family watching me make a damned fool of myself, which, when I thought about it, wasn’t the first time but certainly the first time I had done so while violating public indecency laws. Laws, which are strictly enforced in this part of the state; a fact my Uncle the Sherriff was oh so happy to point out to me later that night at dinner. I did the only thing I could think of, I put my hands over my chest, treaded water with my feet and hoped the earth would fall into the sun before I had to show my face on shore again.
“Some things never change Chris!” shouted my Mom as she approached on her own jet ski. “I think you hit that very same rock the summer we came out here when you were 15.”
“Some things do change,” I shouted back. “I lost my top somewhere. I waved with my hand toward my floating lifejacket realized I had removed one of my hands from a strategic spot and quickly put it back.
“Well, it’s a small lake it can’t be that hard to find.”
“Mom!”
“You know I really should be getting back, a woman of my age… all this sun. I shouldn’t be riding a Jet ski at all really.”
“You were going faster than I was!”
“It will be dark in a few hours, you’ll be fine.”
“Mom!” I shouted at her, but she didn’t hear me over the hum of her Jet ski’s engine powering up as she charged away at high speed. I was only halfway through the list of curses I knew in several languages when I saw that she was turning around. In what I’m sure was a fit of maternal concern she slowed down enough to reach over and snag my jacket out of the water and bring it over to me. Once I had the important bits covered by a few inches of thick of flotation device I grabbed her aft section and she motored us toward my own ride.
You have to try real hard to flip the damn things, even harder to sink em. The SS idiotmobile was still floating and right side up but climbing on board without any convenient foothold or ladder is a bit of an endeavor. My mother had to hold both our vehicles steady while I climbed on board and I only sort of on purpose accidently knocked her off and into the lake herself. I was however a lady and waited for her to climb back on before tear assing off for home.
***
Most of you have probably never been fortunate enough to have seen a barbeque. Oh, you may have think you have, but unless you had the good sense to be born on a working ranch or get to one as soon as you could it’s probably not the real thing. Back in Omaha, I was invited to a cook out on the river by my manager and her husband. He was inordinately proud of the fact that he was, in his several thousand dollar, coal fired, imported from NEW YORK CITY smoker, cooking over a 35 pounds of meat in one go.
Later that night freshly showered and clothed, including a new bra that was probably latched to me a little too tight, I looked down by the shoreline to see a pig on a spit. Hung four feet above a six foot fire pit was roasting a prize hog that I think weighed in at 400 pounds. It had been going all day and parts of yesterday and I’m sure the smell would have caused the peasants to revolt if the hands were not already invited. One of my Uncle Ted’s boys, who I assume was responsible for the black scorch marks out front was turning the spit by hand. There was a motor to do it for us, we weren’t complete barbarians, but I could see that it had been at some point disconnected. Grandpa had sort of a rule, God invented children to help their parents with the chores. He had mellowed somewhat in his old age that we youngsters didn’t HAVE to milk the cows or catch the eggs at all hours of the day and left that up to the folks that were paid for it. But one of us stepped out of line and you could be sure he’d find something for us to do.
As I watched the boy stopped only long enough to sneak a hand into his pocket and attempt to pull out one of the electronic devices his age group is surgically attached too. He managed to get two whole fingers on the device before a strong stentorian voice shouted “Punishment detail has not finished Kevin.” And he yanked his hand out like it was on fire. The pig itself was looking pretty fine, the pork was about to fall off, which is just the right time to serve it, the juice dripping fatty goodness and slashing into the coals with little burst of flame as the heat set off the flammable drippings. By itself it would make a fine meal and anyone, barring religious objections, who turned it down had to be out of their mind nuts.
And this was just the appetizer.
The main event was two halves from a freshly slaughtered cow. You could barbeque a cow whole but it was usually more trouble than it was worth so here we had another two fire pits set up one with a wayward relation one on a regular mechanical turner. Bessie well, probably a steer, so bertie, was most likely a thousand pounds while he was eating grass a few days ago but after slaughter, dressing, cooking and carving we were probably looking at only 300 pounds of dinner. Which divided among 75 odd family and friends meant we all had a long hard night of work ahead of us and that’s no lie.
As I looked at my meal cooking I pondered, a steer for those of you who don’t know is a male that has been castrated for his own good. A cow is the female, a bull the male. Cows are where milk comes from, not your neighborhood grocery. A bull is what a cow needs to make more cows and bulls. But you only REALLY need about one bull for every 20 cows, the rest of them just get in the way their hormones causing them to but their heads into any and everything. Cattle have the same gender divide as humans do. A female can be put to work producing milk, and when she’s all dried up is then sent to slaughter. The Bull is a busy fellow servicing the needs of his harem until one thing or another gives out and then it’s off to the market. A steer now, has his balls off before he really knows what they are there for and spends the rest of his, in comparison to the cow or bull, short life, being fattened up on corn, feed lot version of junk food, before the former male is taken off to fill the bellies and or pocketbooks of his masters.
As a metaphor for my current situation I didn’t much care for it.
Wasn’t gonna stop me from enjoying dinner though. No indeed.
“Christine, stop raping that meat with your eyes and come over here and help me with the salad. You shouldn’t eat all that much beef anyway; you need to start watching your figure.”
“Ah, ma…”
***
The next day was the Fourth of July proper, and if people had thought they had heard fireworks so far they knew they had done so by the end of the day. The ranch’s fire truck was only needed once and little Kevin was going to be spending the rest up the trip putting an icepack on his burned hand and his tanned backside. I was on the deck overhanging the water playing with my little niece Claudia, we had only spent a few weeks in each other’s presence during her short life as she came north or I held my nose and went south. She was at that very adaptable age that meant the idea of her Uncle becoming her Aunt was not so hard to understand. And aside from asking for her present to somehow celebrate, even though it was to me it happened, it was firm in her two year old mind that she deserved a present. Once an ice cream was provided she never brought up the subject again. I was sitting lotus style facing her trying to teach her that the words you and all were in fact separate, when her father came into view.
“Claudia!” my brother-in-law Bobby shouted. “Get away from him.”
“I beg your pardon Bobby,” I said trying to maintain my calm as I stood up. “Have I somehow offended you?”
“I saw you looking straight up her dress!”
“I’m not a pedophile Mr. Blaine, incestuous or otherwise. And I’ll thank you not to insult me like that again.”
“I saw what I saw,” he said as he grabbed my niece and placed his body between us.
“Bobby,” my aunt Suzie said. “I was here the whole time, nothing happened they were just playing on the deck.”
“He was looking right at her panties!”
“She, Mr. Blain,” I retorted. “I have the medical records to prove it, that is assuming you would not insist upon a personal examination. And I wasn’t looking at anything of the sort, we were sitting without chairs, your daughter does not yet have a well developed sense of modesty and she was wearing a dress. Grown women have been known to forget to close their knees.”
“Just stay away from my daughter you little freak,” he shouted again with a push.
Now after the fact, once heads had cooled I have to say what happened next wasn’t 100% his fault. I was still new to this female gig and in an effort to establish my case had worn a somewhat impractical pair of sandals with a four inch heel. Still getting used to my set of stilts/ torture implements with that one little shove I lost my balance, tipped over and on my way down managed to hit my head on the side of the picnic table. There are a lot of major blood vessels up there. Head wounds are bloody, whether it’s a little cut or a gaping hole. I was just unlucky.
I couldn’t really even blame him much for the push. I don’t have children of my own of course but I can infer some of the thoughts of parenthood. One of their personal hells, particularly of late must be the idea that one of their children would be abused. I was technically a sexual deviant. If you, as many do, confuse sex with gender. If someone had done anything nasty with one of my kids they would have found pieces of the guy who did it in three counties. Human beings are not real rational when it comes to their offspring.
My Grandfather is slow to anger; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And he shows emotion maybe when Nebraska is in a bowl game and only if it’s one of the important ones. He rose up from his chair and began walking toward me. My Aunt and Grandmother were already at my side, screaming at Bobby while I held a dishrag to my bleeding head. Grandpa came over moved my hands out of the way so he could get a good look and when he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to bleed to death on the spot stood to face Bobby. Grandpa had lost an inch or two since his prime and he took slow and steady movements because a lifetime of abuse on his frame had caused everything he did to hurt him a bit somewhere.
Not a lot of fat on him though, even these many years since he put himself out to pasture. He was 82 years old, bald, rather ugly, about as far away from a Hollywood hero as it was possible to be. Without saying a word he grabbed my brother-in-law by the belt with his right hand, grabbed his shirt collar with his left and hoisted him in the air over his shoulder, over the railing of the deck and into the lake below. Bobby was splashing and cursing, I had met his mother once, and I think she would blush to learn what her son had to say for himself. Eventually Bobby walked himself over to the stair leading to the dock and grabbed hold of the top rail just in time to see my grandfathers boot step a few inches away from his fingers. Bobby stopped cold and looked up.
“Robert,” he said in a strong voice looking down. “I came close to killing a Texan once when I was younger. It pains me that I didn’t, but some opportunities you can’t get back.”
“Sir, I…” Bobby stuttered.
“Will apologize to my granddaughter,” he finished for him. “And let us never speak of this again.”
“Yes Sir.”
To be continued in part 2.
***
The General’s Daughter Part 2
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Part Two begins with our heroine leaving the gathering at the family farm after receiving a startling offer and returning to her mountain hideout to something even more startling. Due to that terrible and never to be sufficiently damned author and her penchant for reading stories instead of writing them, it has been a while between chapters so I would recommend a refresher but I swear the next ones will be coming on a more or less weekly basis going forward.
My sister’s husband had the good sense to mind his manners the next little while. And I went to bed the last night of my stay with the thought that the issue had been put safely to rest. I woke up the next morning, or rather, was woken up, to something else. God invented 5AM so that we could be grateful for the opportunity to sleep in till 8AM. I wasn’t going to have that opportunity this day though because grandpa knocked on my door with a pair of waders and his old side by side inviting me to a mornings duck hunting.
Now there are two things you need to understand here, one you don’t say no to a man with enough shotgun to put a hole in a decent sized armored truck, and two, July is NOT duck hunting season in Nebraska. September maybe, October, November sure sure, but July is when most civilized mallards are up in Canada where the temperature doesn’t reach 90 degrees before even the sun comes up. If there were 10 decent sized ducks between the Dakota’s and the Rio Grande this time of year it would be a miracle. So it didn’t take a superior intellect to figure out that some duck hunting was not the number one priority on my grandfather’s mind.
The duck blind was built on a midsized sandbank in the middle of the creek. Access to it was pretty much how you think; usually a person was grateful for wader, little half wetsuit things that kept you mostly dry. I probably should have done without though as all it did now was keep my sweat trapped in with me. Needless to say I was pleased that my Grandfather got quickly to the point once we were settled in.
“Christine,” he said without preamble. “Your grandmother asked me to have a little talk with you. She’s worried about you… and so am I.”
“So am I Grandpa,” I replied tersely. “It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses this last year.”
“I didn’t think it was, I can only imagine the things that you must have gone through. I’ll not bore you with long drawn out stories of ‘it wouldn’t happen in my day’ though from what you parents have been telling me it probably did happen in my day just no one talked about it. That you have come through this whole and reasonably sane is something that you should be proud of and I want you to know that I share that pride. It would have broken lesser men… lesser women.”
“Well thanks, message received, can we get the hell out of here before the sun REALLY starts cooking?”
“Not just yet, I still have some questions for you young lady and I want straight goods, understand?”
“Yes sir,”
“How long you figure on living among all those Buffaloes?”
“The University of Colorado is in Boulder, hell and gone the other side of the state from where I am.”
“It’s still too close for my comfort, I’ve been around the world twice one of them in a damn war and the only scar I have from another human being is a beer bottle I took to the face at an away game. And you still haven’t answered the question.”
“It’s peaceful on top of my mountain, hardly anyone bothers me, I can still get work done there. I’ll leave when I have reason enough too.”
“Well then, if all you need is peace and quiet and no one bothering you, I, and you grandmother, want you to move back here and live on the ranch. Your family misses you.”
“Thanks for the offer gramps, but I have a nice little setup and…”
“You’ve only heard half of it,” he interrupted. “I want you to live on the ranch because you need to.”
“Need to?”
“Yup, someday my girl, all this will be yours,” he said with a sweeping wave and a smile.
“Wait… what! You gotta be shitting me?”
“Mind your mouth missy, I don’t mind all that much but your grandmother still has a bar of soap she keeps special just for washing out children’s yaps.
“But why? I didn’t even think you liked me all that much. I know you still haven’t forgiven me for the summer I set the south barn on fire.”
“And I won’t neither, not even if I live to be a hundred, which ain’t all that far, now that I think about it.”
“What about Uncle Harry?”
“My eldest boy, your uncle, is dying.” My grandfather let that sit for a while. If I didn’t know any better I could have sworn I saw a tear. “No one knows, not even his wife. Cancer, the big casino. It’s in his blood, the doctors say that I’ll have to bury my son before he has to bury me. He and Susan never had any kids of their own, something wrong with her plumbing. Your mothers other elder brother Frank went into the priesthood. Bernie, you never knew him, he went to Vietnam and never came back. Teds a good boy, he looks after his family but he couldn’t keep anything I gave him, not for long anyway. Of my sons and daughters and their sons and daughters I’ve been measuring and finding wanting.”
“And I’ve been found worthy why.”
“First off, you already own 7% of my spread. In the late 80’s things were getting bad as I’d ever seen and I’d seen em pretty damn bad. Your father and mother sent me every cent they could spare when they were hardly spending any of it on themselves, the Air Force having taken care of most of their personal needs. They sent that money, including taking out a few personal loans when the rest of my children were doing their best to spend every last dollar I didn’t have. When things got better I made sure they were taken care of. Your parents signed everything over to you and Julie, something about tax avoidance, not tax evasion. Second you’re smart and you’ve got guts. I have other descendents who have one or the other but not both.”
“And my, my own PLUMBING problems don’t bother you. “
“It bothers me a little, but only because I don’t like the idea of any of my children or grandchildren suffering.”
“There will be some suffering hither and yon when word of this gets out. No one likes being cut out of the will.”
“My lands and my wealth are two separate things. I want you to take over because you have a good chance of keeping the ranch together as a business and three dozen families around these parts depend upon that ranch for their livelihoods. When I die, you get the land, and as of market closing Friday each family member gets $97,000 that’s about three times what the average American took home last year. There will be enough cash on the Ranch’s books to keep things going for a year and after that it will be up to you.”
“I’m not ready, I don’t want it.”
“I think you are, and well, I’m not in any all fired hurry to meet my just reward, but once I’m gone, if you don’t want it. And you can stomach putting good men and woman out of a job you can sell out. Conagra offered me a good price three years ago and they would likely offer you a better one. Christine, this is the best thing for you, givin your situation.”
“What does my situation have to do with this.”
“A fair amount, you stay in Colorado, or you head back to Omaha it doesn’t make any difference world will get out of what you are. Most folk are simple people, they like things black or white, right or wrong. Male of female and never the twain shall meet. Wasn’t that long ago gays were chained up and drug behind a pickup truck. Hell even a commie city like Omaha supported that defense of marriage bullshit.”
“And it’s supposed to be better out here in Cherry County?”
“Damn right! I’m the He-bull round these parts. And no one else forgets it. When I’m gone and you have control, people for a hundred miles in every direction may hate your guts and the slight differences in same, but they would be too damn scared to do anything about it.”
“It’s a lot to think about Grandpa, and that’s no lie, now that you have said what you needed to say lets head inside for Grandma’s breakfast. The only ducks were going to get today will be on Nintendo.”
I had a little on my mind that day. Despite what gramps might have said it wasn’t going to be easy being a new woman of property hereabouts. There were only four thousand people in the whole damn county and I knew almost every last one of them and they me. Hell I had swam shirtless with some of them in the local watering hole and wasn’t THAT embarrassing now that I thought about it. I wasn’t at all certain I could make people head me if they got a burr in their saddle to stand against the tranny. Range wars had gone out style a few years back, I couldn’t exactly rally the outriders and storm over to the neighboring spread for vengeance anymore.
Still
There is a story they tell in the borderlands, where Nebraska meets South Dakota and Indian country of the Res. Yes, my people were scoundrels, cutthroats and other assorted evil doers. And this is the way I use to hear it told when I was younger. My grandfathers, great-grandfather was a sailor, who ranged the world over from the Pillars of Heracles to beyond Worlds End. Round about the fifth time he got hiself shipwrecked he swore a holy oath before all gods and… some devils, that if his sorry soul could be saved one last time from a watery grave he would forever more lead a chaste and virtuous life. Thankfully enough for me and my other antecedents one or another of the deities granted his wish and he made port in New York, penniless but alive.
Penniless is no place to be for a young man with a bit of fire in his blood, and soon enough a fun time was had mostly at the expense of amateur gamblers optimism and young ladies virtue. A few weeks later, by and large sober, he was asked if he would ship out again on a steamer to the South Pacific he was all ready to board when a piece of unsecured cargo broke loose and set off a chain of explosions that sent the ship to the bottom of the Hudson river along with dozens of her crew.
My family can sometimes take a subtle hint. We just usually have to be hit over the head with it.
Nebraska was about as far as he could get from the ocean without heading to Siberia, which would have required him to cross the Atlantic anyway. This was the time when the federal government, having inherited, by fair means or foul a mostly empty continent, was giving away free land to everyone and their brother who was willing to homestead the wilderness. By the time he got his act together the best land had been taken, as well as most of even the mediocre stuff. All that was left on the high plains were the semi-arid sand hills that tolerated the cow but hated the plow. Most of his neighbors were other assorted riff raff which at this point in history were mostly new non-English speaking immigrants and a fair portion of freed slaves fleeing what was optimistically referred to as reconstruction.
Jim Crow hadn’t gotten started yet, and never really took off in that part of the country anyway. That didn’t mean though that it was all fellowship and goodwill for blacks then, and if you couldn’t even speak English, well, the local land agents had a nasty habit of saying your little claim was now suddenly part of Mr. Anglo-Saxon’s holdings. My honored elder carved himself a little empire by being the go between. Not having a lick of work in his bones, he was happy enough to live off the labor of others. But it served a useful enough purpose, people got a fair enough deal because he was looking out for them. Not out of any real sense of altruism you must understand, but because if anyone was gonna shear the sheep it was going to be him.
1919 or so, around when it was getting difficult to sneak out of second story windows ahead of unexpected husbands, the Ku Klux Klan in its second incarnation was starting to get uppity in the Midwest. They began burning out the children and grandchildren of the people he had helped carve civilization out of the wilderness. He had a sit down with the local Grand Wizard and ever so politely asked him to move a little further on down the road.
He was rebuffed.
Now what happened next, never got written down in any history books, but you ask anyone fifty miles in any direction from our place, and after a little hemming and hawing they will say how a man was found half dead on the outskirts of Valentine at night during the second worst winter ever, covered only in a black ink that forever gave a once milky white man a chocolate tint. I won’t say it was particularly subtle or elegant... But the Klan hasn’t been seen in Cherry County from that day to this.
I suppose if I was to stand up and be counted among the LGBT, people would remember what happened to the last intolerant sort that tried to fuck with us.
I drove west again, a slightly different person than I was a year ago when I made the last such journey. My grandparents were pleased enough that I hadn’t told them no right away and understood that I had affairs of my own to settle up. I still had commitments to my clients and decided it was time to end my exile. And if I was going to be responsible for keeping the ranch a going concern it was probably a good idea for me to sign up for some agribusiness classes in the fall.
Sigh… I am never going to finish school.
I got back to cabin well into evening, much later than I had originally planned. I hadn’t driven at night in the country in some time, too many years in the warm embrace of city lights had caused me to lose my confidence so I had to inch up the last two miles of my mountain road and it took me almost an hour and half to cover that distance. The summer rains had washed out some of my dirt road and my faithful jeep had received a few more scratches to the undercarriage which wasn’t going to be very helpful for its already threatened longevity.
I opened the door to the cabin and began dragging luggage inside, when I was a boy I could get along with a carryon and a wallet for a week’s journey. But since my promotion it seemed like I went through four or five times the amount of clothes. The worst part is I needed all of them! My Sherpa duties were not helped by my mother and sister depositing a metric ton of apparel that they both positively insisted I needed and I hadn’t the experience to refuse.
“Well shit,” I said as I saw the state of my kitchen.
That never to be sufficiently damned bear! My front door was still sturdy and fine but my back door leading toward the woodpile was hanging on its hinges. I had thought I’d been a smart little homesteader and dealt with my trash pile, but bereft of his usual dinner and not having an indigenous human to scare him away for the last week, the bear had smashed into where he could smell some food and had his way with my storage larder.
Bears are messy eaters it appeared and he hadn’t cared about cleaning up after himself. It was all more than I was emotionally ready to handle after a long day and a hard day’s night driving so after nailing the door back on to its hinges and barricading it as best I could I dug out my phone and called my friendly neighborhood Forest Ranger, but of course it went straight to voicemail.
“Tony,” I said doing my best to use modern cellular technology to force my hand through the phone and strangle him. “The local wildlife broke into my cabin while I was away. I need to file that report thingy you talked about a couple weeks ago and this is starting to get excessive, If you don’t tell me how to stop that Yogi wannabee I’m gonna agent orange the whole forest just so he knows who is boss on my mountain. I’m going to kick his ass so hard when he wakes up from his Christina enforced hibernation there is going to be another president, in 2020!... call me, thanks sweetie.”
Sweetie, ugh I’m such a girl.
The next morning I contemplated my options. In Nebraska, and other civilized states, you don’t need a special license to hunt a dangerous predator and there is no “season” for nuisance animals. Colorado however had been brainwashed by too many Discovery Channel shows and to be fair the little bear cubs sure were cute when they were looking out at you from your living room TV. But sister, let me tell you the cute little bears grow up into not so cute and not so little walking wrecking crews, with an appetite for all the things we humans say we should stop eating but never do. If I went out and shot the villain in July and was found out I would be in violation of several laws and covenants. If I waited till September however it would be all hunky dory. I somehow suspected that by the time black bear season rolled around in this particular jurisdiction my nemesis would be safely ensconced in his lair dreaming about what he would steal from me in the spring.
There was however a loophole, I could hunt it, but let it live. Hidden among the copious gear my Boy Scout tendencies required I stock for my sojourn up this mountain was a high power tranquilizer with enough bite to knock down an elephant. Assuming elephants were part of the local fauna which I wasn’t about to presume against. Why I had it is not something you really want to ask but I will say it involved sex, drugs, money and very…VERY large man named Tiny. Once dropped I could secure my miscreant and the rangers would transport him deep into the forest far enough away from his feeding habits that he might remember he’s a wild animal again and not pester humans for his sustenance. It was one of those green hug the world initiatives that made me so glad I hardly paid any taxes but I was willing to take advantage of any card I could.
Just to be safe, I brought along my wrist breaker and loaded it with the armor piercing bullets I’m fairly certain were illegal round here. My civil obedience only went so far you understand.
“Tony,” I said to my cell phone as I finished packing my gear. “I’m heading out to track and trap my bear, out amongst the lions and tigers oh my. If you get this message sometime in the next few hours I could use your help I’m not 100% sure five hundred feet of rope is enough to restrain him.”
What does the well dressed young lady chose to wear out in the wild and wide? Well don’t laugh…much, but pink. I’m sure you have seen hunters on television. Well fed unshaven WASP types carrying fully automatic battle rifles in camouflage and bright orange all over. The point of the orange, aside from making the hunter look like an idiot, is to stand out, since orange seldom occurs in nature particularly in a deciduous forest. By standing out it helps point out to the other well lubricated unshaven WASP types that HERE I AM! DON’T SHOOT ME!
The orange became popular about thirty years ago after too many hunters were falling to friendly fire. I could firmly get behind the whole not dying part, but even when I was technically speaking a male I could never understand wearing the camouflage with it. It just seemed to be mildly schizophrenic, HERE I AM! And YOU CAN’T SEE ME.
Bears see mostly with their nose, so after taking a very long shower with no soap, no shampoo, no conditioner, no lotion or perfume afterward, no, well, anything I was as fragrant free as could be and felt no shame what so ever in sallying forth into battle with my second worse pair of designer blue jeans and a bright pink top with “trust me I’m a girl” written on it. I didn’t own much orange, one fuzzy sweater that was counter-indicated in July and If I had worn it anyway would have probably led to me turning the tranq on myself.
My nemesis was helpful enough to leave paw prints in the ground leading away from my cabin. The rain the last few days had helped keep the ground wet enough for the trail to be marked, and the dense foliage was disturbed on a regular basis in a northwest direction. His helpfulness ended there however, instead of a nice leisurely stroll down the mountain I had a long trudge up a steep incline.
The scenery was beautiful though, it reminded me why I chose this location for my exile. Every once in a while as the game trail passed too close to the ridge I peeked out of the trees and saw the green valley below and it was breathtaking. It has a special place in a flatlander’s heart to look out lady and mistress of all she surveys. Well, not really, it was national forest land, but there was currently no one there to tell me otherwise so a girl can dream cant she. And I was a taxpayer right, so this was technically part mine right?
Half the morning later I finally came to my target, I wished the bear had taken as much care with his grooming as I had, frankly he stank. Not having opposable thumbs must suck particularly when it comes time to brush your teeth. He was facing in the opposite direction so I had a good look at his haunch, I wasn’t going to get a better shot than that. My tranquilizer rifle was a one shot, reloading took about ten seconds which meant if the first shot missed and the second didn’t drop him in time I could look forward to a short career in studying wildlife up close. I lined up for my shot, holding the rifle iron steady to my right shoulder. I was about to fire when I saw something horrible.
I blame television
I never really got into the whole violent video game thing. So it must have been televisions fault. Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan had hardened me to the scene before me. I didn’t lose my mind, or my breakfast, much as I might have wanted too. I instead calmly lowered my rifle and drew my 1911 pistol from the holster on my side and chambered a round.
Bears are messy eaters I remember saying, the carnivore was still working on the majority of its kill. But a booted foot attached to a leg severed above the knee several feet away was testament to what he was enjoying.
My .45 has eight bullets in the clip, you can stretch your ammo by caring around a ninth already loaded in the chamber but that’s a good way of shooting yourself in sensitive areas. I didn’t really even think about it, afterwards I’d have said it was like it was someone else was in charge of my body at that moment. I emptied all eight into the back of the bear, ejected the empty clip and quickly replaced it with a fresh one in seconds with another eight bullets. When those were done, I grabbed my third clip and felt confident enough to approach within ten feet of the animal, close enough to fire the last set directly into its head.
When I was done, shortly after my ears stopped ringing I chided myself for not keeping a few shots in reserve in case he had friends. But was comforted by remembering that I still had the loaded tranq rifle with several extra shots, the chances of two man-eaters on my mountain was very small. I would have bet good money I didn’t even have one, but it appears I would have lost that bet. The bear had gone to town on this guy, there wasn’t much of a head left, let alone a face, he was well tanned though and the tattered but sturdy clothing was testament to a man who spent his time outdoors.
I also realized the smell I had previously attributed to the bear itself was not entirely accurate. The human remains were not fresh, it had already started to decompose, I guess that just meant it added flavor to the meal. And with that thought I was almost ill again. I started looking around the part of the body that contained the pants and was about to search for the victim’s wallet when I noticed two holes in the chest. Now my killer bear had some big monster teeth on him, and someday I hope to live long enough to forget how they looked covered in human blood. But the two holes in the chest of exactly the same circumference positioned right over the man’s heart were too precise to be found in nature.
They were bullet holes.
I spent a few guilt ridden moments fearing that I had desecrated this poor man’s remains before I realized that my hand cannon made much bigger holes than that. As evidenced by the several dozen craters that were present on the bears bullet ridden corpse. These were much smaller than a .45 caliber more like a .22 Long Rifle, the little bullet one step up from a BB gun that all farm boys start off with before moving on to the heaver stuff. And anyway, there was crusted blood around the wounds, any holes I mistakenly put in him would be long past the point of being able to bleed.
I think I already said we were not in hunting season in this part of the world. And at any rate a .22 is just strong enough to take out rabbits and squirrels but wouldn’t be enough to hunt even the smallest of trophy animals. My phone had service this far into the woods, modern technology is wonderful. Even out here I still had two bars and the computers that ran the world were smart enough to route my call into Steamboat Springs when I dialed 911.
“This is Christina Weaver, I own the old Brown cabin at 401 Rural Route 3. I’m about a mile northwest of my place approximately 1200 yards from the summit and I wish to report a murder. I will leave my phones GPS turned on so that you can home in on my signal…”
The Red Wizard
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