Why well lots of reasons but I’m a child of The Human Immunity Immunization Vaccine. Like this drug a long time ago in the past called Thalidomide the HIIV compound got rid of HIV and Aids but there were side effects, birth defects and chromosome mutations.

Like me.

“Come on Steve stop being a wuss, just hit him!”

I’m Steve if you didn’t get that already and I’m in a fight. It’s supposed to be a boxing match but the one calling me a wuss. That’s Carl my older brother. See I’m different, really different and he hates me because of that. I’m intergendered, See when I was born I was a boy child just like everyone wanted. I was a boy until they took a second look.

I was a girl too.

“Do something! Fix it, sew it up!” yeah Dad’s reaction was right along those lines and mom was not having any of it thankfully. I say thankfully because no matter what’s happened this is me and I haven’t really known anything else and the though of being shoved into a box just because my biology is a little different just scares me. So thankfully Mom thought I was perfect just as God intended and she stood up for me.

But.

Instant divorce.

While there was shared custody I only got to see my dad and my brothers like once every two weeks and it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t fun because I was the freak child, the little it. My brothers actually called me that “This is Stevie our little it.”

They loved the words bitch, cunt, pussy, wuss…loved to lord the fact that I was different over me. And my Dad wasn’t any different. As much as I was the boy that I am sort of I was the girl in the family. My Dad was disgusted and repulsed by me and made me really feel like shit. Still sort of feel like shit really.

I’m not all that feminine. I’m six foot two and I weigh in at about a hundred and sixty pounds and while slender I have muscle too. But along with my girlhood I’ve got my mom’s bone structure in part, sort of smaller than a big strapping lads hands and feet and her face or her chine and cheekbones.

Some of the girls that I’ve known just say all the time that “Stevie you’re just too pretty to be a guy.”

Some of the guys home didn’t like me because of how I looked and while they didn’t know about my secret they still thought I was still too girly looking for my own good and tried to bash me a lot, like it was a sport or something.

I tried to have a normal life you know. I tried going out with girls and well once some of them found out about my plumbing it was I wasn’t a guy or that they wanted to do things…which I was not ready for…and y’know there’s some girls that won’t take no for and answer either. Kate Johnston was like that when we were thirteen and tried to force me with her own vibe and when she couldn’t she threatened to say all kinds of stuff and I let her… Kate wasn’t nice about it either all dominant and aggressive and said “see what it’s like, see? You like it don’t you?” And she called me names in the whole sex talk thing too. She honestly killed part of me doing that and she told people anyway. Told them about me and I had to move.

At the next place I hooked up with a gay/bi guy and we were both in the closet until after about two months he just broke it off and left me with a real guy. Apparently my vagina freaked him out. I was pissed and we had a fight and he outed me…getting outed by a gay guy in the closet…yeah apparently since I don’t fit in with the gay crowd so there was like no need for Mark to treat me like a human being.

Another move another part of town it’s a good thing Chicago is a big city but still soon I’d be running out of places to go and more and more the hermit’s life was becoming more of a good choice.

Mon had me in therapy and to see all these so called professionals and that always seemed to lead to them wanting me to make a choice so “it’d be easier on me.” I was getting harassed a lot.

I could so see why kids go “postal” as it were. No offence to letter carriers.

So Mom put me into boxing, so I could learn self defence. I’m good at it too, the instructor for the gym seen that and I’ve been doing these matches since and Dad was suddenly taking an interest in me once I was winning.

But it’s a fleeting sort of pride, as long as I keep winning. I lose a match and the names start the looking at me like I’m a freak starts back up and this pushes me because I didn’t do anything but be born different to earn his dislike. I really just want him to be proud of me and to love me.

And that tonight along with my asshole brother yelling at me gave the guy I’m fighting the one good opening to hit me and take me totally off stride. The world and my match turn into a blur of blows and pain as he gets me to the ropes and I can’t shake him or fight my way out of the hole I’m in and then like thunder in slow motion the uppercut hits me and everything blurs into darkness.

There’s an ice pack on my face when I wake up and I hear mom and dad screaming at each other in the hall.

“It’s your fucking fault Rachel! If you’d let the doctors fix them instead of keeping what should’ve been my son instead of this fucking useless twisted freak the I might actually have a child I could be proud of!”

His words hurt more that the beating ever could.

“Robbie you misogynistic son of a bitch! That’s you child in there and their gender and their biology shouldn’t matter! But no you just can’t show love to you own child unless they’re making you look good!”

It goes on and on and back and forth until my coach gets me out of there. He knows and he’s pretty decent and he leaves mom an e-mail since her and dad will likely be screaming until the arena security hauls them away or calls the cops. He takes me home to his place and Sharon his wife gives me a hug and runs me a long hot bath. The coach isn’t with my school so the other kids he works with are all over the place but he treats us all like family. I weakly wave to Nate Hunter one of the other fighters and up to a year ago a homeless kid who’s laying on the couch watching Bonnie Foster playing Dragon Age on the 360. She’s one of the coach’s girl fighters.

I sink into the bath and try to relax and not cry.

I kind of fail at that part.

The rest of the week is just kind of like the boxing match and after that. I stayed the night at coach’s place and while the others don’t give me crap they aren’t overly friendly to me it’s more like acquaintances…friendly nods and waves.

But I got outed again.

Nasty names.

Getting hate notes.

Getting into three fights in one day where there’s no camera’s and I get into shit because I box and that’s seen as me not fighting fair.

It’s been a real shitty day, week, …life.

Some day’s I just really want it to be over.

I get home and toss my books down on the couch and slip back out to the lobby of the apartment building and get the mail and head back upstairs to our place looking at stuff, flyers, bills, bills, bills, what?

Janus Private Academy?

Mars Colony?

WTF?

Okay, we’ve branched out and it wasn’t really the governments doing it until the corporate sector did it first and then China went full gear as well as Japan back in the 2050’s and then the USA went all “Oh hell no.” And we got into things really big time and with resources like oil and stuff getting harder to get and more expensive the global governments needed the space race to keep people’s minds off of how bad they sucked in other areas.

But Mars? I didn’t know that they were letting civilians there at all.

I look at the logo and there’s an old coin look with a slit face between one side being male and the other female. I open it up. There’s a line at the top of the first page saying.

“Freedom and Education from X to Y and all points in between and beyond.”

Okay…

I start reading…apparently Mom had sent in stuff for this as a grant application for me. It’s so weird, like not weird bad but weird good. They were recruiting people and first as students but then as their future citizens.

But also this Academy was founded by this huge endowment or something from the Summers-Howe foundation and was actually offering a place…a real place for people like me.

And they wanted good grades which I’ve got since I don’t have a life.

I was still reading the entry package and materials when Mom came home. She made supper and she let me be and it was only when she set down a bowl of chocolate ice cream in front of me that I snapped out of it.

“Mom? Is this real?”

“Yes it is Stevie, are you interested?”

“Uhm well sure…it sounds great but I’d be so far away from you.”

“Honey, it’s getting worse not better down here. The economy is getting worse things are getting so expensive and the people that say that they’re normal are finding whole new ways to be bigots…here you’re going to go through a lot of the same stuff you have all your life unless you find some very open minded people. These are open minded people.”

“But Mars?”

“It’ll be a chance for you to get way ahead of the curve honey, you’ll be trained for some job that most people here on Earth won’t be able too for a lot of years afterwards, you can get in on property or something and be something there that you wouldn’t be allowed to here.”

“Mom…”

“It’s a free ride scholarship honey, a new life…I’ve talked to them and there’s over a thousand people like you or just as different there you’ll have a community…support.”

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

“Yes Mom, I’m going to hate this and miss you like crazy but…I honestly think that you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right I’m your mom.”

*…………………………………………………………… “Sammi?”

I hear someone calling my name well sort of my name. My birth name was/is Samuel but that fits me about as much as the pope being a black man.

“Yeah?” I yell down from my room.

“Don’t do that saying yeah makes you sound common!”

“We are common!”

“We don’t have to act it come on down here the shuttle’s here.”

“The shuttle can’t be here Ma, the streets aren’t near big enough to land one?”

“The bus you nitwit the one to take us to the space center.”

“Alright, Alright I’ll be down post-haste.”

“Post what?”

“I’m not being common now am I?”

“Bloody cheek get down here.”

I take a final look in the mirror. I’m different, I’ve always been different with a really sort of girl brain that’s sort of been comfortable in this body of mine.

Body of mine?

Well I’m a child of the HIIV treatments and like some of the kids we came out a little different. Now I’m all messed up with my body according to the normals. I’ve got some mixed up genes but not the mixed chromosomes or not enough of a mix that I’m a girl in my body hells I’m not sure that I one in my head but I’m skinny, thin fine bone structure and no real body hair to speak of. Oh I had some but I went on a waxing experiment two years ago and it really hasn’t come back at all.

I’ve no female sexy bits and just kind of skinny but wiry in a good way but really…girly but I know I can pass if I wanted too but I don’t right now…even though most of my clothes are girls stuff by choice.

I’m male but a girl.

I cross dress but I’m a tomboy.

I’m me and I’m just unique, strange, different a completely limited edition.

Too bad the people that I’ve grown up with most of my teenaged live don’t agree. I’m straight or not. I like girls but some guys too but if my brain works way more female than male is that gay or just bi?

I prefer it to as I really appreciate the girl’s side of things enough to be attracted to them as well as to really identify with the gender. I’m not sure it’s like the whole solely Brit-USA type of appreciation for all things like that and femme and butch stuff doesn’t apply either.

Like today.

I’m wearing this great little cotton camisole shirt that got a cute lace edging but it’s also has this shiny red threads and stuff sewn into it so it sort of shimmers but not too much the lace is black so I kind of fits as I’m feeling kind of amped up today. And I want to make an impression.

I stand out in life anytime I’m out of the house anyway so I might as well own it and control it than have it just one more thing the effing normal people get to lord over people like me.

The rest of the outfit is a sexy short black skirt. I like skirts because their girly and I’m dressing up still my usual half the time is capris when home, yoga pants when I’m lounging and a very large selection of military surplus pants. I love them, they show my butt off, have room in the front and I love the pockets. But I want to show myself off and who I really am so It’s my cool top and no bra not that I need one, I don’t have boobs, won’t likely will have them grow in if they haven’t yet but I sot of have the girly nipple bit…tiny but oh so sensitive. But my cami shows off my flatness on purpose, and the skirt hides my stuff and oh yes…I’m wearing black legging too mostly because I’m not wearing pants and I’m skinny and therefore chilly.

I could wear some of my fancy shoes and stuff but it’s going to be a long day and honestly like I said girly but a tomboy. So it’s my red denim running shoes. I check my make up. Yeah I wear a little because I like the look just some eyeliner, some mascara, and a bit of gloss for my lips.

I look good.

I head down stairs with Mum and My Step-Dad, he’s a pretty good guy and really I just call him Dad or Da even depending on my mood and he’s always seemed okay with my differences. He’s been my Dad since I was six and my own dad had just picked up stakes and left us. Naw, it wasn’t about me actually he was just seeing some other woman over Mum and left us for her. Anyway he’s bril and Mum’s always been good with how I am just always telling me “It takes all kinds love.”

The hardest part about going is leaving them but honestly things are getting worse here and not better over time. All those finite resources are running damned low and the prices are getting high for lots of stuff, there’s more and more people than ever, less jobs and people turn mean a lot of the time when things are bad.

My family’s well off with da being a plumber and all there’s always a call for that work and Mum cuts hair. If you’re not going in for fancy education then go for a job that life can’t do without.

But like I was saying. I’m well off, and I’m different so there no shortage of people who’ve hated me for it all of my life and tried to shove me in one box or another.

I’m not a bloody pair of socks. I’m a pair of camouflage army panties with a hello kitty logo on the right cheek.

The second hardest thing is the space limit. See I’m going into space actually to join this special on the job school set up by this foundation for people like me. It’s all kind of hush hush really like we’re being spirited away. But there’s only so much cargo room so I’ve had to pack everything I’ll want from my life and from home into two crates one meter by one meter, by one meter…it sounds like a lot but it’s really not when you’re packing up for your entire life. Da was the smart one and bought a vacuum sealer thing to shrink my clothes down and even then we pressed them with this other thing to bale everything tight. All my pictures, and things are out of frames or on flash drives as is a lot of my books and posters and music anything I could think of that we could reduce to information got put onto drives and the rest is my Extravagances.

Who knows when we’ll see stuff like crisps, or chewing gum or other sweets again? I’ve even cigarettes though I don’t smoke because they might be useful to trade once I’m there. Things like that, One crates my things and ones my special things. Kind of like I’m setting up for a shop in prison in a way. Who knows how long it’ll be between supplies we’ll be the furthest people out there really so who know how much a 350ml bottle of Harvey’s Bristol will be worth right? I’ve even a compressed block or two of yeast and hops as well as seeds for more. Maybe I’ll start the first pub in space.

Actually there’s several on the lunar base I’m told.

It’s a quiet drive through London, well as quiet as it gets and we head to the piers and from there we’re escorted through a gate. There’s protestors? There with signs.

“Go to hell.”
“Freaks”
“God hates Hivers.”
“Get off my planet.”

There’s people that are there with signs and there’s people there throwing trash at us as we’re going through. It sounds pretty bad and it is, I see a few other families like mine there and a there’s a lot of us…people like me there alone without no family there and some look.

Hurt, scared, screwed up, different. Some are like me, some are just different but in the same ways as the rest of us.

There’s a lot of languages spoken here from all over the E.U. It’s interesting and I had no idea that as small a percentage as us HIIV touched children that there was out there than when you really boiled it down or rather gathered us up there’s a lot of us. A few hundred are here actually. It’s exciting and scary as we’re escorted to this cruise ship and we leave headed to the Ares platform.

I stay on deck with my folks watching London…watching England slowly vanish with a few others on the deck too doing the same thing. There’s not a lot of talking but there’s a common feeling there with us watching it all fade into the distance. I’m not patriotic but when some Alto femme voice off in the crowd starts singing “God Save the King” (Harry) there’s a bunch of us joining in.

That leads to a bunch of us gathering together in the ships food hall for a chat and a cup or two of something hot.

It’s a long two days on the ship until we get to the Ares Platform. Most Space stuff is under a U.N. mandate now after several corporations tried to own and divy up the Moon. There was an armed conflict there. The moon colonists got a lot of support from the everyday folks and the whole thing got involved with several governments until it got to the point that the U.N.

Anyway…

The whole thing is a really huge thing sort of like those old styled ocean based oil rigs and we get off loaded to the platform where we get a tour with our folks as a courtesy and to spend the rest of the day with them.

It’s actually pretty fascinating stuff even if I’m not all that super technical but I’m more concerned with just spending time with Mum and Dad. It’s a tear filled goodbye as they had to leave.

I was upset, scared and hurting a lot when I saw it happening and it flipped my bitch-switch.

*Stevie…..

“It’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair that you and the rest of these fucking freaks get to go off into flipping space and be astronaughts.”

My brother Carl’s pissed he’s been getting more and more so as we got here. And it’s been coming out in him bitching and nitpicking.

“I’m leaving earth…home…it’s not some game Carl.”

He pushes me into the wall while dad’s still in it with mom fighting over something else, money I think.

“Ow, asshole!”

Then I’m on the ground because he hit me and I’ve got or had my hands full.

“Don’t you ever call me an asshole Stevie! The only reason you’re fucking here is we’re shipping you fucking freaks away! You fucking don’t deserve it either!”

He hit’s me again as I was trying to get up.

“You should all just be fucking kille…Argh fuck!”

He yells as this other person gets involved.

Five seven, long brown hair but with those colored strands in it and cut in a girls long style. They stalked right up and he was going to hit me a third time and this person actually hissed? At Carl and raked him across the face and that’s when he yelled.

Then they did a move I’ve never seen.

One hand the one they raked him with lashes out with a right hook into his nose and the other grabbed his balls. Carl fell over backwards from his nose going crunch and exploding as it was broken splendidly and he howls as well they ever let go of his boys and is being held up by them.

They’re not a girl but dressed like one but almost to show off they aren’t but they are. From being on the ground I can see their “stuff” under the tights and the skirt and their male bits are definitely very male.

No one’s ever came to my rescue before.

“You fucking arserag!, you come all the way here to do what wish you sibling bad luck!, to threaten them all because you’re oh so fucking stupid and normal and boring! If I ever see you crossing their path while you’re still here I cut you’re fucking GPS band and I’ll flush you out into the drink like the bloody turd you are.”

“Fu….ck you you freak…”

“What?! Huh, what was that?” They shake the fist with Carl’s nuts in it. He howls and whines.

“Okay…okaaaaaaay…please stop….!”

“Fine, now get out of here you dirty little toe-rag.”

Carl’s two hundred and twenty plus pounds and they just man? handled him out of just sheer ferocity?

Carl crawls away pretty quickly then they turn to me.

I’ve never felt meeting anyone like this in my life. I’m rock hard and wet at the same time.

They offer me a hand up.

“Hi I’m Sammi.”

Sammi…sigh.

*Sammi…

I’ve never done that before.

I was just so fed up and then seeing this jerk.

I got all feral and mad and then I turn to help their brother?

And…

Wow.

He’s lovely.

More than that.

He’s Barbie if Barbie was a boy but still Barbie.

Tall, blonde, big huge blue eyes, nice built like a swimmer but at the same time pretty. His hair’s in his eyes and he’s looking at me and my heart skips several beats and I’m straining against my underwear and tights.

I offer him a hand up. “Hi, I’m Sammi.”

“I’m Steven, uhm Steve…or uhm Stevie.”

“I like Stevie, it suits you. Handsome and lovely.”

Oh…that blush, him biting his lower lip.

I want him.

I really want to just say… can I have you?

Instead.

“Here let me help you with your things.”

We gather together out things and I notice his hardness but then I also notice his tampons. I have a package in my hand and raise an eyebrow.

He blushes again. “Those are mine.”

“You’re fully functional?”

“Yes…”

“Cool.”

He looks surprised but to me it is…more than because I’ve never really gotten that whole getting attracted over someone before and this time I am. More than anyone, ever.

I’m right about to do the craziest thing and kiss him when Stevie beats me too it…

Oh…

Up against the wall even with his things in his arms and I kinda thumped into it…like those up against the wall sex scenes in the movies. He kisses me a long time and my little nipples are screaming in awakeness and ….I’m new to this, like being sexual well with anyone but myself but I’m so hard it hurts…I’m tenting my tights and skirt…it hurts like it might break.

I liked being pinned like this…and he’s so…we kiss maybe two or three minutes but it’s got that hormones running through our bodies so much I swear our pupils are dilated. Then we’re interrupted by people headed out way and the return of his family.

He looks ay me as he backs off, there’s that shy beautiful look and I look at Stevie. “I’ll see you later?”

“I…I…Hope so Sammi.”

He hopes so…I actually step up and kiss him this time right in front of everyone including his family…father’s frowning, frowning and staring at my crotch, the mother is standing apart from the father and is giving me this smile and her who body posture is a mature-squee. I do a little wave to her and brazenly give her the thumbs up. I break the kiss and walk away backwards at first. “I hope so too Stevie, I hope so too.”

I’m doing that arms clasped behind my back thing before turning and heading off.

*Stevie…

Dad was pissed and Carl was livid but keeping his distance the rest of the day that they were there. Mom had several questions about who Sammi was and was very lecturing about STD’s and reputation and that under no circumstances was I to turn into the “Ship’s or the Colonial tramp.”

As soon as there was any indication the conversation would be heading to me getting something stiff in me Dad and Carl left.

Mom stayed as long as she could then I was gathered with the rest of the students and put into dorms as we were waiting for the others to show from around the world so while we were there we trained, and tested. Ship things, zero gravity stuff underwater, languages, we were getting a good number of Africans and orientals too so there were basic classes and everyone took French it was voted on as the language that we’d most commonly want to learn to speak and it’d be a bonding experience.

I tested with high scores in physicality but also mathematics and spatial reasoning so I’m going to be it the fields of security and piloting.

It’s a good thing I’ll be learning a lot of physical stuff as there’s way more math in piloting especially for space. By the time I’ll be doing anything g it’ll be serious degree level stuff.

The food’s good here and there’s odd jobs you can take to earn credits and after about two weeks here we’re starting to settle into being used to one and other. There’s a lot of us that were isolated in life before here and then there’s the ones from various hell holes around the planet that being like we are is an affront to god or whatever they believe in.

There’s not a lot of “normals” here even with the staff and faculty, even with the space program part of things. There’s a lot of us but there’s a lot of the LGBT contingent too especially the T of things. It’s actually lgbT really.

Sammi and I have also started dating.

Honestly it’s just we went from that first day where she stood up, he stood up for me to eating lunch and hanging out and stuff to spending off duty hours together. Sammi’s going to be a pipe fitter/plumber but also their studying or will be studying hydroponics and aeroponics because. “Hey, we are all going to need to eat, poo and breathe. I want to be essential and well paid.”

They’re so smart too and funny. I still don’t get that UK humor all the time but Sammi has the sweetest accent. They sound very girl like but with just a bit of depth to their voice. Add it that accent and lilt and I’m turned on a lot.

We’ve been dating too like I said.

I think we’re one of the first sort of new couples here and we’re at the entertainment complex a lot. Playing pool which I’m better at, video games where we draw even, but foosball, air hockey and ping pong they kick my butt at.

In the gym Sammi’s really good at tennis, squash and badminton, and fair at basketball even if they only have played it here.

We got to the movies a lot.

I can’t actually remember the last dozen or so movies though. All we do is usually make out. I think we’re both aching by the time we see each other to our dorms.

*Sammi….

Three months we train to be up and ready for space and it goes by so fast. Between classes and seeing Stevie I’m busier than I ever had been in my life. Happier too. We’re both the longest best relationship either of us has ever had.

We’re leaving the day after tomorrow and I’ve a surprise for Stevie. I sold a square foot of my cargo space to one of the dorm corporals’ in exchange for her private quarters for the night.

We come back from seeing a movie and I’m aching and blue as usual and instead of going through to where my bunk is I lead Stevie to the room we have for the night. There’s even some candles going and some classical on when I lead us inside.

“Sammi? What’s all this?”

“We’re leaving soon and we’ll be on ship heading to Mars love, I can’t wait that long…I just…I want you…”

“Oh…god Sammi…” I’m stroking his hard on through his slacks.

“You say that now.” I push Stevie up against the wall and kiss them then kiss my way down removing clothes until he’s naked. I stroke his hard on and then kiss it. I can smell both scents and it makes my brain a little crazy. I look up at Stevie. “I want this…I think I love you.”

“God Sammi…sexy…strong…slinky…Sammi I…I.. I think I’ve been yours since we first met.”

“Good.” I know it sounds petty and wrongish but part of me is thrilled ay Stevie being mine. Though I intend on returning the favor. I take his head into my mouth and start giving him head.

Scents become stronger and I feel his balls, full but in a taut sack then just in between actually is Stevie’s other sex. Yes his boys are separate on either side of his girlness and kind of like two swollen folds…booby folds.

I start to rub Stevie’s slit and his knees give out and I lead him to the bunk. I keep it up rubbing him off, giving him a blowjob, taking his girly juices and covering his cock for kink and flavor…fingering him, swallowing his cum, then sliding down and eating his pussy until he cums hard that way and gets hard.

I almost cum myself when Stevie cries out. “Oh god! Sammi! Fuck me…please, please fuck me, take me…make me yours….”

I’m shaking when I line myself to his pussy and we kiss and I stroke him as I ease in and out and building…pleasure…Stevie is so tight…like female athlete tight with all the working out he does but there’s this…

My male, sweet sexy Barbie boy writhing on the sheets like a girl lost in lust and me part way in his girlhood but holding onto his hard cock jerking him while I stroking in and out of him.

I get it to where I know he’s going to cock-cum and then I push all the way through…It take my Stevie’s cherry and it hurts and he’s cumming at the same time…I sink in until my pubic bone is flush and the sensation of that hot depths, the way he’s spasming around me and in my hand sends me into my first consensual orgasm in my life.

We…toss and turn and roll over and it’s feral sex, it’s Me being aggressive and taking Stevie over and over, and then he gets…pulling my head back by my hair a bit to kiss me…biting and nibbling my nipples until I’m crying and spurting in his hand as he strokes me then…

Then…He has lube and fingers and honestly I’ve thought about sex that way but I’ve never really tried it and he doesn’t ask as the first finger goes in. I gasp, whine but still kiss with him, still stroke Stevie’s hardness and touch him…he’s still a guy in that way sort of he’s bigger than me, stronger, with close to fifty ponds on me and yet at barely one seventy there’s this sleek, slinky, sexy, look to him as you wrapped a guy around a female frame…He’s so beautiful…and when he’s being this dominant there’s something also lion like about him.

I’m spellbound by those huge perfect eyes of his and the way his cascading blonde hair falls over me right up until…He sinks his cock into me.

“OH!!! God!, Jesus!…Fuck Stevie!” It’s like with every inch nasty sex talk gets shoved out of my mouth.

He keeps going and I’m screaming like he’s trying to kill me and then he pulls out and my body shakes…Then he sinks back into me…no…shoves into me…

It took forever and no time at all for me to go from screaming. “Oh God!…..Fuck!”
To screaming “Oh Fuck Yes!, Yes!, Yes!”

My legs cinch around Stevie, we kiss, I scratch his back in pain and pleasure and can’t help myself no more than when he hits my boy-spot and fucks me so hard the only way I can stop screaming in pleasure then…temporary insanity as I cum and my body seizes around his cock I feel like I’m bruising my insides but that aches getting bathed in Stevie’s hot juices.

To keep from screaming I bit onto his collar bone until I broke the skin.

It woke things in me our first night.

Even before sleeping I rolled Stevie over and sucked and licked the blood from his scratches before softly and gently making love to him from behind sinking slowly into his girlhood as I reached around.

Sweat, blood, and the twin tasted of my Stevie…aggressive sex, passive sex…feral and gentle…

When the rush wore off we laid there side by side and instead of sleeping we just stared at each other…crying occasionally because…for the first time in our lives we just got to be us…our real selves and nobody was judging us.

*Stevie……………..

Time flew with Sammi and me and we got quartered together…I’m not sure exactly that came about but a few of us that were hooked up were in shared bunks.

Going from the surface to space was anti-climatic, we took these shuttles that were part scramjet and went from there, to a low orbit shuttle transfer station where they had shuttles just for use in space.

From there to the moon.

And on the way to the moon was where things were looking off…odd. There was a lot more ships well shuttles going there and we didn’t find out why until we got to the moon.

Those of us that were like me. Like Sammi and even the gay, lesbian and trans crowd were being hunted down.

The so called nations of the developed world so resource desperate had made a pact with the muslim extremists so that both them and the radical western right-wing that in order to have peace and to save the world from our filth they had to rid the world of us. That it would make all right with God once the Earth had been purged for the faithful.

They had planned it in one fell swoop. Because of course us deviants angered god/allah and the world would suffer until we were all killed but how dare we have a chance to escape or fight back.

But almost twelve years ago…

Someone had found out about this genocidal collaboration and through different agencies and foundations got as many of us out as they could. They made up these grants and schools and we were being gathered then sent, we were going to escape from this.

Yes more of our benefactors are with us.

And it’ll be awhile before they can follow us. All the platforms and space capable centers were being used by us or sabotaged.

Those who don’t want to go to mars can stay on the lunar colony and pray for sanity.

We’re there a week…on the lunar base getting our tiny fleet ready and we see the killings of those we couldn’t get out on TV. We see fire and brimstone preaching, and it goes too fast. The genocide of those that didn’t get away then nations not part of this getting involved. They turn on each other too quickly, Nation against nation then to race fighting, then faith fighting faith as earth descends into WW3.

Sammi’s sitting on my lap as we’re on the observation deck of the Aurora. We’re both crying because you can see the oilfields burning and the large red spreading flare circles as nuclear weapons go off in Canada, the United States, Israel, Palestine, China and North Korea.

The only thing keeping me from losing it and breaking down is holding Sammi and Sammi stroking my abdomen lightly as we had just found out from my pre-transfer physical that I’m pregnant. No. it wasn’t from our first time…we’ve been too active for that.

But we’re going to be parents…I just pray we get it right this time and get to our new home safely as Earth fade into the distance as it’s burning itself alive makes a new red planet.

Chamomile Stars

Author:

Bailey Summers

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Publication:

500 < Short Story < 7500 words

Genre:

Science Fiction

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

Other Keywords:

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Posted by author(s)

Chamomile Stars.

My name is Steven or was but it’s now officially Stevie Hyatt…not my last name either and I’m married.

The thing here in fleet it’s not husband or wife not legally instead it’s just spouse or as my wedding bracelet says. “Loving spouse.”

Sammi…My sweet Barbie boy Sammi had made them for us. She went into Hydrotech and she despite the way she seems. (Funny, girly, dippy sometimes.) She’s sharp as a tack. And she’s really driven to get all her dreams for us to come true.

She made them though from gold foil layered and raised? Reverse engraved with “Sammi & Stevie, Hir loving spouse…and the reverse on mine. All somehow sealed seamlessly in the same superglass the ship windows are made from…and a beacon chip in there too.

It was so sweet…Sammi’s HIIV altered like I am and she’s technically intersexed too…she is a girl that came out with male gear but one look and you see and feel girl. She’s lithe and femme but without curves and she’s good with it.

But…I’m the “Guy”… I’m intersexed too but to a different degree and with different parts. I look really femmy as a boy and a jock…I love sports and stuff or did.

Yeah did…

Sometimes being preggers sucks.

Yeah I’m born with both a stick and a goal…and I kind of look like a long haired FTM now with the pregnancy really causing stuff to go haywire in my body with hormones and stuff.

Emotional, uncomfortable…I swear the baby has a jump seat near my lower back and a death grip on my kidneys sometimes. Hard to sleep, I need to pee a lot and at the same time I love it.

Yes as much as it’s strange and people on earth…I miss home.

Dammit I wipe tears from my eyes and pull myself up from the bed and look at Sammi who’s still sleeping.

Even with me preggers our sex is…

I still blush sometimes.

I mean we were intense before and always making out and we still do that but even as I’ve gotten bigger we just adjust to things.

But along with being pregnant so has come the breasts. They’re small sort of a b-cup that looks like it’s less on my frame but at first they hurt coming in and now they are so sensitive.

I’m not sure who likes it more hir or me?

From behind is both of our favorite right now. The way it feels with hir sliding in and out of my vee is awesome but her feeling my pregger boobs and my belly too as she makes love to me…it’s one of my more tender ways we’re together.

But Sammi…I rub at a few bruises. They don’t hurt they itch though.

No she doesn’t beat me but she bites…and…and I like it…it’s never in bad places but they’re love bits…and hickies….yeah I’ve had looks but it’s really obvious that we’re together…that we’ve been together awhile now.

I watch her sleep and smile and try not to get all emotional at watching hir. She has braids now like some of the African and Caribbean people do. Most of us either have our hair really short for convenience or long to conserve body heat. There’s also a sort of trending thing to about body hair these days too. It’s space and even with all our tech and stuff and recycling energy and everything else the ships are usually between nine and fifteen degree centigrade depending on where you are and what you’re doing.

So there are some people like me who can’t do with having body hair…I grow it but I just can’t have it really…I’m like a really…I look like a pretty guy with small boobs and a baby belly…but since I have a vee I’ve never been comfortable with having body hair.

Now some women or more female types have actually embraced not shaving and welcome the excuse not to. Me it’s just this whole thing I’ve always had that I don’t like it on myself. I know it’s something in my head that says no body hair if you have a vagina and I’ve had “discussions” with friends over it but to me it’s just kinda ick.

Sammi is a waxer and she keeps pretty bare except for her braids though when she’s working she ties them up out of the way actually using the braids to do it.

I reach out and grab the netting over our bed and pull myself clear of the bed…we have really minimal gravity in most of the ship when you sit you can sit or lie down but it takes nothing to pull yourself into floating we’re at about one thirtieth of earth’s gravity out here where we’re at and it’s about lunar gravity in the core section of the ship do to the gravity simulators.

I’m not all that versed in the idea but there’s sections and stuff in the core that spin making some kind of pull?

Oh and floating doesn’t last either you can float to the ceiling and you will fall to the decking in a few seconds or more depending on the height.

Doesn’t sound like a lot but actually count out a couple of seconds and really think about how long that is compared to falling in earth gravity.

I keep calling Sammi a she but really Sammi’s male. Like fully functioning and stuff just like the rest of us kinda different.

Well very different actually.

She is male but uses she and in like just the whole everyday kind of stuff she’s really girly and stuff. She likes most of the clothes even though usually she goes with a fleet jumpsuit and these slinky lycra black bike shorts.

I mean well we’re all usually on duty doing stuff so it’s practical but Sammi will wear a skirt and stuff too and when she dresses femme it’s really kind of street culture Asian femme.

And Sammi’s smaller than me, slender and actually kind of lithe too.

So she sort of works but she’s definitely much more the guy in our relationship.

Very take charge, very sexual.

But I actually like them taking charge of things in the relationship. I’ve always been in the whole body image thing because I’m the way that I am shy, shy and more than a little freaked out by it all and even though I did stuff like boxing and weights to “Man up” to myself but my dad and my brother…it never clicked on the inside.

And the first time I met Sammi she was defending me.

Like some boi-girl-knight.

Though she prefers ronin.

No like seriously.

And that so works for me…Sammi is the prettiest guy that I’ve ever seen.

Okay they’re my spouse, father of our child and I might be a bit biased.

Okay…and I’m more than tempted to call in sick for my duty shift and slip into bed and give Sammi a pretty slutty waking up.

I head off to the washroom and use the bathroom since being up seems to either wake the baby sort of or shift them so that there’s pressure on my bladder and I use the bathroom and then I undress and slip into the mister.

No not that.

A mister is a ship shower, it’s a tall closet like shower stall that is part IR sauna and part shower sort of. It gets you to where you’re sweating and then it sprays you with a mist of hot water making steam and then you use the foli which is short for the exfoliator and it uses a mixture of water and a cleansing agent on you as you use it and you sort of let in scrub the bad stuff away like a hand sander but it sucks off the water from you too.

The wash comes out the top end on the bristle pad and the bottom has the vacuum part. There’s still a drain and stuff in the floor but it’s all set up for minimal water use and recycling of things.

Heck on ship you recycle everything pretty much.

I get dressed and that’s a body stocking and then I wear my pregnancy modified cargo pants over it and a hooded ship logo zip front sweat shirt and then my socks and sneakers and I get my knives and I head off to work.

Yep knives.

I’m a cook, actually a chef in training but most of us chefs have our own knives and a kit too with our favored tools and spices and stuff.

In space, space itself is a premium so no one has private cooking quarters and each ship has a mess and before I was into a whole lot of things that I might do but I settled on cooking since well people have to eat and it actually just spoke volumes to me as my pregnancy started kicking my body and my hormones and my feelings into a whole other range.

Cooking helps me do the whole nesting thing.

Breakfast…I go and I take a cube of coffee out from the chiller and I put it into the machine. Coffee is here pretty much instant but we have a machine that uses high pressure water and a sort of heated centrifuge kind of device and it makes a really super blended pot of coffee from the instant coffee.

It’s in cube form too so it’s super densely compressed and needs a machine to sort of render it to where we have a mixture that we can all drink.

But even though I’m not a coffee drinker or ever was I still miss my perk coffee with the beans and all.

I take the tofu out of the tubs and the texture veggie protein and the saitan and start to cook. The saitan is a meat substitute made with wheat gluten and I load it into the hopper for it along with some tofu and the TVP and I start going through the computer with the ratios and stuff that and selecting the grain of the design and I add in a cube of the compressed stock a lot like the coffee cubes and I start printing off ham steaks on the 3-D food printer.

Okay well yes and no…first I add my own bit of code and my own secret mixture. Coconut oil and gelatin and some simple protein beads and a smoke pellet.

I had gotten special permission to try and make smoke…in a lab but I made smoke from some bits of fruitwood that I had bought before leaving the moon. I was hoping that we could replicate the wood itself someday and still do since I still have some of the samples and stuff but I made some very concentrated pellets of pear and apple wood smoke.

Combined with the mini-print program and formula I invented I’m printing out ham steaks complete with a light smoke and synth fat that when I cook it on the flat top actually crisps up like really close to the real thing.

Invention meeting pregnancy cravings is what that was.

I actually enjoy my job and I get along well with the others here as they show up to help feed people though I’m going to admit my food is more popular and I’m secure enough to admit it.

There’s another thing…secure…before something like man enough or woman enough would have been like the common language but here with the mixes of all of us here we’re usually more gender neutral or we’re using other pronouns like Zir, Zan for leaning towards masc/fem and hir/sh’ir is becoming popularized too.

But he, she, they, them are all still used.

It takes a lot of time to pass before we get away of things like that full scale.

Anyways it’s just nice to get to be liked and popular for stuff I’m doing and everything. It’s actually pretty much an amazing feeling when no one treats you like you’re a freak. Though it’s still taking some getting used to having people be all inquiring about my pregnancy.

Asking if they can see…touch my belly…all like natural social stuff but still really strange as we were raised for most of us back on earth.

I head out once I’m done cooking and the clean-up and then the prep for the next meal and I’m doing up soy/coconut/almond cream for the chowder and then I get my jacket and head out while it’s processing.

Okay this part I never get used to and I hope that I never do.

I hit the halls and kick off the floor with more of a flick of my feet than my legs and it takes me over a dozen feet before my next touch and jump. We have lower gravity here and stuff so I get to do stuff like this.

It’s seriously amazing stuff to actually be an astronaut.

Yeah, really. It is what we are actually and a lot of us have sort of forgotten that with the day to day but I haven’t.

The world’s so wonderful really…even though Earth wasn’t and in the end it consumed itself in hatred and bigotry and paranoia.

I stop and look out the window.

Earth…Earth and even the moon is so far off from us right now and it’s such a strange feeling seeing that and knowing that we’re travelling so fast from the acceleration we’ve built up that it would take more than my lifetime in a shuttle or a smaller ship that these fusion ram things we’re in to get back even close to home.

Sigh…

I push off and I keep going and take a pipe down to the deck I need which is the aquiculture level and I enjoy the fall down it’s a drifty sort of thing and it’s highly enjoyable…fun even actually and I pass through the airlocks and I’m hit with the smell.

Aquiculture is a huge level and it’s part of the Aeroponics process but it’s also where we grow our other food sources and staples and that’s fish, shellfish, plankton, and various kelps and other sea life and fresh water life in what we call reef tanks that are really sort of like that and…they smell… fish tanks smell and algae and plankton smells and all of that stuff it’s all icky to me and stuff but it’s really essential and it’s huge, these are huge ships and meant to be that so we colonize Mars as best as we are able to.

Like the plankton tanks alone are the size of an American football field and they are a dozen high and each is a foot deep and they are constantly being grown and fed and harvested.

Actually combined with hydroponic rice and made into rice crisps with then making up the bulk of them you have the most common meal/snack in the fleet.

And I head past then to the chumming engines these are part of the organic matter recyclers that grind/blend things to this soup and stuff and that is passed though the tubes that hold the mollusk chains. We clone shellfish until they are to that point where they connect to something on their own and then we let them grow and feed on their own with like every so many tanks for straight on breeding.

It takes only a few weeks for them to get to edible states and we also breed some for longer times for bigger foods and that’s not counting the other tanks with things like shrimp and prawns and lobster etc. Also since they’ve been growing in low gravity they seem to grow faster too actually that seems to have an effect of a lot of things like plants too…it’s all biology and bio-engineering and over my head I’m just a cook or chef whichever way you want to look at it.

I get to the produce lines and that’s sort of our fish market with all the shellfish for market use or rather shop use and all the fish too with a lot of very small easy to grow fish too like sardine and grunion and smelt and smaller and I start to shop.

I have credits for the kitchen I’m in and some personal ones too and I get mussels and snails and periwinkles and they’re the cheapest and then I get some cherry stone clams and some scallops and a two claws off of a stone crab…they actually re-grow claws so you only ever take one and then you have a steady food source…they even did that in the old days and I’m looking at the prawns when I feel arms circle around me.

I jump and look and it’s Sammi and she grins at me and hugs me a little tighter and her hands stroke my bump.

“I love it when you cook me prawns.”

“You like anything, I didn’t eat as much as you do and I’m the one that’s preggers.”

“I know…” Hir teeth sort of scrape my neck before she kisses there. “You’re so damned beautiful d’ya know that?”

I lean into it and then hir and hir bulge and shiver in a good way. I love hir accent. I mean I’m as plain old American as it gets but my Sammi she’s from England and she talks with that accent which is just plainly sexy and she’s actually from a fairly upper-middle family so she doesn’t come off with all the coarse slangy stuff…Well she can I’ve seen her do it with her people from England and such too and but actually she just usually has that UK gentlewomanly soft and yet clear sexy thing going on.

Things waken and stiffen or start to and at the same time my hearts doing the roll over in my chest because of just all this sort of thinking of hir and how just really lucky I am.

“What are you doing down here aren’t you supposed to be up a couple of levels?”

She nuzzles me. “Yes but everything’s pretty well in hand the water’s clean and flowing and the plants aren’t actually going anywhere you know.”

“So…you decided to wander?”

“Well I saw you pass by the hatch on your drift down here and I just had to see you since I missed you and everything this morning.”

“I appreciate it.”

I reach with my arms and pull hers tighter around me and lean back into hir. I really do mean… “I really mean it Sam.”

I’m biting my lip and she actually turns me around and she looks at me. “Sam?”

(Sniffle.) “Yeah…” I reach out and stroke hir hair and hir face some…looks so much like a girl yet she’s so much more a boy that me like when and where…girly and fun and bouncy but not like femmy and girl and all the stereotypes like that. “Yeah…right now yeah…”

She kisses me long and sweetly and presses together with me but in this sort of dancing sort of way. That’s Sammi…girly and bouncy and femmy so much and yet she’s so honorable and brave and kind and sweet…and I was so much a freak all of my life that I never thought I was dateable much less married to hir.

She smiles and I love hir smile. “Hormones love?” she’s asking softly and that is just.

I nod and she uses her thumbs to wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes. Hir hand s smell amazing like clean fresh dirt overlaid with the smell of fresh green pea shoots. Hir hands smell of the earth and of growing things and of life and I look around the area and bite my lower lip when she does that.

“I love you, you know that?”

“I know, and it’s still amazing to me that you do Stevie.”

“You? You’re the one that defended me and are the one that makes me feel like I’m really someone and not just what I was told all my life.”

“Old life love, our old life and it wasn’t exactly roses for most of us.”

“I know it’s just all of this I never thought that I’d have all of this.”

She kisses me again and this time it’s long and slow and sweet and there’s smiles from some of the others and some of them sort of are doing the same sort of things, kisses and holding hands and stuff.

We’re really focused on doing things that we need to do here in the fleet but the whole old way of not having public displays of affection that’s pretty much gone out the window.

You’d be amazed at just how much a lot of the day to day bullshit about life just sort of gets really small when you have love and that it’s open and you’re not judged or bashed for it.

There’s a whole lot more of because we want to or because we like to in our way of life than because we have too.

Sammi takes my arm and smiles. “Let’s walk and you can tell me what you’re planning on cooking for the menu today up in your caf and what you might want to make at our place too.”

“Okay…that sounds like a plan.” Sammi is not a cook, not really but she’s really supportive and she does have some good ideas sometimes based on what she likes to eat.

And we kind of do that go arm in arm as I get the things for the meals I’m planning out and I head up with them in the lift to hir level and she takes me through the Aeroponics which are part of our gardening section and lets me get some veggies.

Okay I get a few extras and stuff and we stop and we have some lunch that I cook for both of us at one of the work benches…yes hir prawns and I cook them over a torch but I use a catch tray as a shallow walled grill and some vice grips as a handle and some coconut oil to fry them in and I add some hot chili paste to it and some curry and just a squeeze of lemon over it and then I break up some salad veggies and greens and toss them in the tray with the juices and oil and stuff from the spices as the dressing and we feed each other with our fingers.

I’m still getting used to spices and curries the way that she is and other people here so I sweat a little while eating still but it’s still really romantic and fun and sucking the juices off of each other’s fingers and sucking the stuff from the heads and everything and I swear Sammi loves playing all flirty and intimate all the time.

We were both those very not the norm where we lived, we’ve never really had something like this or this powerful emotionally in our lives.

She is a huge factor in me liking me.

I never ever actually liked myself before.

I head back to work taking the smells and the lemon and the leftovers with me and those I’ll use for supper tonight with my grinder and my pressure pot and a few other things and I’ll make a bisque or something and have like rice with it.

But I head back with my shellfish and I start to prep cook with coconut oil for the chowder and then the onions…the peels go into my freezer bin for leftover parts for chicken.

You boil out the yellow paper skin of an onion and it will add color to the broth, that soft and odd textured bit of first layer of the onion boils out flavor and nutrients…heck I even save the shell skin off of garlic cloves because there is flavor…use everything, recycle everything as far as you can before it gets passed onto reclamation services.

The chowder turned out good…onion and all the creamy milk things and me steaming the shellfish and incorporating it into the broth and I have roe from the scallops and that gets sprayed with some liquid smoke and dried and then ground into a seasoning along with lemon pepper seasoned crackers and fried potato skins from the potatoes that go into the chowder and the other shellfish the only ones that don’t get cooked in the broth were the scallops and every bowl got three small ones fried just so.

And yes I too the stuff from our lunch and I ground the bodies and shells into powder and added some more spices and some tomato paste and made a prawn soup with some dehydrated tiny shrimp as a garnish and scooped some rice into our bowls before pouring it over it.

It was a good night too…we went through a course change and there were these very, very large asteroids that we got really close to but not close enough to that we were in danger and we spent the night cuddled together and looking out the window at the salvage/exploring ships that we were sending over and stuff while listening to the coms.

We’ll be keeping pace for a while or more if we find more than what the initial findings were.

Use/re-use everything.

We spend the rest of our semi-awake time making love…I don’t think I could ever go back to the way that I was supposed to be according to my dad and my brother…I like sex…I like being made love to and not having to be the only strong one in our relationship…I love Sammi’s taut lithe, smooth and hard sexy body pressed to me, holding me as hir organ sinks into me and it’s sooo right…so actually natural for me…and then there’s my turn with hir.

Sinking into her depths and making her whine and sexy hiss and yes it took me awhile to get past being preggers and being intimate to Sammi when she needs it. And yes she is on top a lot with that too…but it’s still good, it’s still amazing.

The best thing though is our after time…and hir telling me that she loves it when I hold hir.

*** We’re busy… like the last two months kind of busy with the shifts going to the asteroids and stuff we’ve been super busy. They found elements for steel and there’s a huge vein of copper in another and salt in a smaller one and then two further out that I never seen are dragged right to us because they were dust and dirt covered ice chunks.

No…no alien microbes or viruses and stuff…we checked but it is space water…the particulates like super old and the elements once we’re deeper into the tests and the drilling were so much purer than anything that earth had when we lived there from all the pollution.

It’s distilled and added to our reserves and stuff and I got to hear all about it from Sammi who is so into all of this and everything since it’s hir thing.

So with more people getting to do so much more work in like this huge burst as we space harvest the asteroids I’m busier than ever with feeding people.

And me with my ideas and my 3-d meat synthing and printing my place is pretty popular. It’s nothing like the things we used to have and still do have but the livestock animals on the arks are not for eating…though we are harvesting milk and eggs sometimes but that stuff’s rationed off quite a bit.

But there’s some things that I fake really, really well…TVP and soy used for the base of the print and with it I have dried smoked and salted pork and it’s as tough as a brick and it’s compressed…someone had thought it the best way to sort of still put it away as rations…one of the Russian contingent actually I think but I shave some off and it’s ground and I add it into the mix…salt, actual pork dust but still real pork and the smoke for flavor mostly I think and by the time my mixers in the machine are done I have printed off some really close to real tasting bacon.

The part that nails it home? The smell…with an oiled grill and it getting crispy it smells like bacon.

I’ve had people come and say they’re smelling it two ships away.

And I invented this idea of making the food so it’s kind of cool that people are copying me even and I’m even listed as the person that established 3-d cooking.

I mean it’s not like I’m famous but at the same time…I never really though in my life that recognition would come like in like sort of a professional way.

I’m also writing a blog and a book on on-ship-cooking and stuff.

***….We’re here…Mars orbit.

Two months later than we had scheduled but a lot richer for raw materials we are here and we’re in orbit and to say that there was a party was really understating things. It looks so much different up close and in orbit than it does on the screens.

Actually kind of beautiful and with that and all of the excitement and all of the adrenaline and the fun and celebration…

My water broke…

No amount of tests or reading or even watching birthing videos had me ready for this!

I’m screaming my lungs out and I’m crying and panting and I’m scared and I’m crying.

Yeah crying a lot of crying as it feels like I’m being turned inside out.

Sammi is there and she looks ready to cry as much as I am and she also looks ready to stab someone as well.

This is all so new to all of us and with our strange physiologies and stuff we’re…the medics are all sort of winging it. I have all the parts like biologically speaking and stuff and the medics are talking about my scans and my hips and stuff and we’re waiting…waiting for me to dilate.

I do…I mean it’s happening and it was extremely slow and to not push before I’m ready…it was hard…my body wanted to and my mind was right on board with the doctors and I’m so not ready until it was happening.

And then it was happening!

Sammi holds my hand and she smiles but she cries along with me…screams with me and it’s not because she getting hir hand crushed by me squeezing it so hard my knuckles go white and hir hand reddens ups.

She screaming with me because she loves me…like you do when you’re with someone on a scary carnival ride and you’re being sort of altogether about it.

And in between the pain and the crying from the pain I’m crying because that’s my Sammi…so together and with it even when it’s the last thing that you’d even really expect from hir with how off the wall she is so much of the time.

The pain is unbelievable and it seems to last forever and I’m soaked in sweat from the pain and the effort and Sammi kisses me between it all and stares at me saying.

“You can do this love; you’re so amazing Stevie you can do this…”

Softly and loving.

Feeding me ice chips.

Wiping my face off.

Taking an ice chip and running it over my eyebrows…she doesn’t falter one bit and it’s five hours of all of this and some change…and I feel the baby get free…that ripping my apart and inside out pressure…just suddenly gone.

Then…

Time passes…

And then the sound of a baby crying and I let out this pent up energy and angst that had built up inside in those few seconds like a tsunami…I’m crying and laughing and I do manage to hear.

“Breath sounds are good! heart sounds are good and strong congratulations, you have a healthy baby.”

Yeah until we know, until maybe if they know we’re not really defining the sex and gender stuff yet.

“Dael….Dee aye eee elle…for the spelling please…”

“Dael…nice it has a good ring to it.”

Dael’s crying really loudly and they pass me my child and Sammi’s crying and sniffling and wiping at hir face…she’s actually an ugly crier…just one more thing I love about her.

I’m smiling and watching hir and snuggle Dael close to my chest and not even really checking things out yet…they’re healthy and that’s the biggy…it takes a few moments before they start doing the other stuff…the cleaning up after preggy stuff that’s…well kind of eww but I’m too exhausted to get too freaked out and the medics pass Dael to Sammi and she’s smiling and cooing and I grin and giggle-snicker at hir.

“What’s so funny mommy?”

Mommy…me…I guess so really.

“You.”

“I’m allowed to be a goofy daddy.” She nuzzles Dael. “Yes…yes I ams.”

“Well sure you are given I was just thinking we can double breast feed.”

“Huh?”

I point at her top, and her thins late tee-shirt is wet with her leaking through it.

She looks down and stares and she even olds Dael with one arm as she takes a seat and pokes at a nipple. “Well I’ll be…that’s kind of cool.”

Another reason I love hir so much.

I drift of watching hir and the baby and honestly nothing in the world could be better.

I’m woken up by one of the medics with some tea and some biscuit crackers with some peanut butter. I eat and look at the clock and it’s morning…I try moving and while it hurts I guess things have sort of slid and tightened more or less into the same places.

But it still hurts…But I get up and see Sammi in a porta-hammock in front of the window ad they must have moved us while I was out of it. There’s a little mini-crib baby unit thing beside Sammi and her hand is holding onto it in hir sleep still.

I sip my tea and look out the window at Mars and the stars beyond…the constellations the same but completely different from this perspective.

We’ll be headed down soon to join the other colonists and the people that had arrived before us.

Well be headed down soon to start our lives and a whole new chapter in humanity.

I look at my loves, I’ll have enough strength. More than enough strength.