It started…I guess it really started when I was twelve and I found and stole some tranny porn magazines from a neighbors garage. I had first thought “Oh boobs!” With that fever that pre-teens starting to touch themselves feel.

No it didn’t change me because I was already different. I had a tingle I never got then for girls clothes. Girls looked good, their clothes made them look good and my mom and my two older sisters seemed to put great stock I their clothes.

I had a pair of my oldest sister’s satin panties and had soon used them to stroke with. The magazines were pretty bad, really tawdry stuff but them made one thing clear in my mind like nothing ever had.

Boys could be girls.

And that seemed to just stick right in my head.

Boys could be pretty girls.

I wanted to be a pretty girl too.

I had no idea what transgendered or transsexual meant. All I knew that this was me. Hell I didn’t even know it; it was just this super powerful trigger to who I was, to who I really was inside.

By the time I was thirteen I was cross-dressing, badly and in stole and recovered clothes but I was cross-dressing. I’d even gotten away with it until Billy Martin and his three friends caught me in the old mini-barn just out back of our place in the woods.

They were fifteen and I was dressed and just finished smoking a joint when they found me. They didn’t beat me up. They were more interested in my bag of shake I think. I was scared but I offered it up and we got pretty baked. My little camp was a pretty safe place to smoke up so they stayed.

Billy saw my magazines and looked through them and it didn’t take long before I was on my knees sucking or trying to suck my first guys off. They didn’t force me either but between the porn, being teenagers and having those images of those women being me burned into my brain. I was scared and shy about it but I still wanted to do it.

And honestly I loved sucking them too. It made me feel like I was going to be okay? Like I could be those pretty lady boys in my magazines. I was hating more and more to live like a boy, dress like a boy, I wasn’t one. And while I’d heard of sex changed people and stuff I’d never seen she-males until then. I thought it could happen, they could be me.

Tommy, John, and Steven got too freaked out by our third week or so with them. And with the whole gay thing looming in their heads they never showed back up. Billy, Billy on the other hand became my first boyfriend. He brought me more clothes; a decent mirror and he even bought or got me my first cheap make up kit.

He was also the first guy to use Vaseline and take my cherry. Billy was a novice lover really but we really didn’t know what we were doing. My fantasy side of the sex was fantastic enough though and just the act of getting fucked was enough to send my dreams into reality as I’d cum feeling him doing the same inside of me.

It was good, we were in young love or I thought we were and I even started making friends which had been hard for me since I was a shrimp. Instead even if I and Billy were the only ones that knew. I was one of the girls and made friends or started to with them.

Mary Jane Brighton was my best friend in a really short time. I think it was because she was an outcast too. Her folks were poor and most of her family had or where in jail. Home done hair cuts and hand me down clothes never stopped her from being smart or funny or willing to be someone’s friend.

Whitney Stonewell didn’t like me too much. She was going out with Steve and she made sure everyone knew it. Even at the difference in their ages her being in my class they were skirting the legal edge with them both being underage him if barely at fifteen and her at thirteen.

I think she didn’t like me because she didn’t impress me and Steve wouldn’t lay a finger on me. After all before he got scared I had sucked on his cock too.

But someone told someone… and after Billy and I had been together for about four months my dad kicked in the doors of my camp one night and the place still had weed smoke inside and cigarette smoke too and Billy had been fucking me.

The first swing of the baseball bat set Billy out of my in a hurry. The second swing hit me across my butt. I was shocked and freaked and in pain and watched my dad kick the crap out of Billy pretty bad before Billy ran away.

Gallant huh. So much for him loving me.

I was next and I don’t remember all the horrible shit he said but. Tranny, Freak, Faggot were all used multiple times as he beat me. Not with the bat anymore than the hard thump across me ass but hard damned slaps. He tore all my clothes off me and slapped and shoved me back to the house through the bushes and thorns and the ditches and it never matter to him that I was getting hurt.

He even shoved me into the house through the back porch door still screaming at me. Every time I’d curl up to defend myself he’d grab me by a fistful of hair and lift me off the ground until the pain made me stand.

Mom flipped…some of the things were hers, and I smelled like cum and anal sex and cigarettes and dope. I had so fucked up worse than my sisters had ever done and dad literally dragged me by my hair to my bedroom and threw me inside.

There was a screaming match between them right after that.

Dad left and Mom came in with a garbage bag and went through my stuff. Anything, I mean anything remotely femme in my room was tossed into the garbage. Books, music, CD’s anything that I had hid they took from me ripping away at my identity.

“Mom?”

“Mommy?”

“Shane for the love of god just…just be quiet…I can’t even talk to you right now.”

“Mom…”

She slapped me for the first time in my memory of her ever hitting one of us kids.

“Don’t just don’t say a goddamned word! Please!”

She broke into tears looking at me and left.

They locked my door too.

From my bed I could see my camp, my safe place where I was really me being torched. All my stuff, all of me was in there. I bawled like a girl I was…am. I was still bawling when dad came back home and with my two older brothers holding me down he shaved off the one treasure of the real me I had left and that was my long hair.

“Steve, Shawn hold him…you’re going to be a man dammit not some little faggot, I’ll….I’ll get that out of you…No more Shane, no more!”

He shaved me bald. Took that last shred of the real me and killed it.

He got up. “Bring the little fairy.”

They dragged me up and they both looked at my like I wasn’t even human. They even were holding me like I was covered in shit.

Then they made me get a bath in water and Clorox…it smelled and made me sick and burned my cuts and scrapes. Dad poured some in the cold bath water and some over me right from the jug.

They watched to make sure I did get cleaned up. My brothers both slapped me hard enough it bloodied my mouth whenever I stopped. Dad was in and out yelling and fighting with mom. Every slap from them came with a faggot, or pervert or freak from them.

That was the first night of hell.

I lasted about a month; my two brothers treated me like I was dogshit. My sisters pretty much ignored me to the point of me being shunned. My father too called me names when he drank which got to be more often than before. Sober he called me “You.” actually he’s never called me Shane ever since. And it was every day, in and out and they never let up…If I cried and they found out it was “Be a man.” and they’d hit me. If it was dad he’d smack me one.

If he was drinking it was his belt.

“I’ll give you something to cry about! You dirty faggot I’ll beat your ass so bad you’ll never do something so dirty…disgusting…ever again.”

He never did that cliché sex abuse stuff….no the rest of the abuse was more than enough.

Some times he’d miss my butt if he was drunk enough…I’ve got some scars too. Leather even if it’s a wide belt can cut skin. I was lucky though…he never got bad enough to use the belt buckle.

They pulled me from school after I’d been beaten badly by a literal mob of kids. And a lot where my closest friends all turning on the tranny fag. Proof they weren’t. The three guys that I had been with other than Billy, they started it I think. Oh and Billy, I never saw Billy again. I Googled him once and never found anything really except a missing persons report. He bailed and ran away from all of us.

Worst part of that M.J. got beaten up too and pulled out of school. I wasn’t there but I heard someone hit her in the face with a brick.

Like I said I lasted a month before it all became too much and I stole money from the kitchen, clothes from my sisters and I ran away from home.

I haven’t been home since………

I ran down the tracks until I got to a trucker’s rest stop and hid in a rigs bed box. The guy never even knew I was there and I don’t know who he was but I stole some cash in rolled change he had. Likely his wash money, took his smokes and leather jacket when he stopped making a delivery. That guy never caught me.

I made my way to the highway after getting directions and started hitchhiking out to California. Just off the truck stop a guy called Tony picked me up in his rig and he knew what age or so that I was. And he drove me to an overpass that was where I was heading and he raped me. “Cash, grass or ass, no one rides for free.” I let him, I wasn’t really into it or really liked him but at my age and my size. So yes I’m still calling it rape.

Then dumped me out of his rig. Literally shoved me out. I was lucky enough that one of the things I was trying to hold onto was my pack. Still…raped, fucked and tossed aside….

I spent the very worst fall of my life getting to Los Angeles. I was beaten twice by truckers for stealing rides, sold myself for money and food or rides a dozen times. And was attacked by hookers at the truck stops twice once getting cut badly on my arm from a black bitch with a knife. I ate from the garbage more than once and slept huddled outside under the overpasses a few times too. I was skin and bones and worn through sneakers by the time I got to L.A.

I missed Thanksgiving altogether and spent my first Christmas ever in a seedy homeless shelter. I was there three days before I got tired of the abuse from the others on the street or rather the shelter and I took off.

I lived on the beaches for about a week and with my broken middle school Spanish I got a job in a sweatshop sewing for the first time in my life. They do hire street kids and runaways like me as much as they do illegals. People like me, no place to live, nothing at all we’re in pretty much the same boat.

I got a room with two other girls from Mexico about my age and still sort of living on their goodwill slept on the floor. I saved every bit of cash I could get my hands on and bought clothes, my first real girl’s clothes and a wig since my hair hadn’t really grown out that much. And for a bunch of people that are supposed to be all macho and catholic they were really kind and tolerant of me. That and I spoke broken if decent Spanish and as a white kid I was a decent translator and able to read stuff too.

They even eventually stopped treating me different than the other girls except to get called Maricon every once in awhile. A lot of then went with the whole love the sinner hate the sin a whole lot better than my family ever did.

I actually learned a lot there. Like really, how to sew. I know knock offs really easy and I even learned how to make my own clothes. Actually a lot of the clothes the girls and first had were ones we made for ourselves. I still do but not as much now.

And I learned to like and eat and even cook a lot of Mexican food. It wasn’t anything like the way I thought it was. It’s so not so much about spicy as it is about flavors and making the best from next to nothing. I survived though, they really taught me that. The second big thing I got and took me the rest of the year to get was my Id’s.

The girls knew a guy that knew a guy and after some talking I went from being fourteen to being eighteen with a fake birth certificate, a passable social security number. And with that I got a job. Two actually at first the day shift at El Burro Taco’s and a night job at Trader Joes as a cashier. I think I spend most of my time sleeping on the bus that first year. Eck I even spent my weekends going out with some of the girls and their families to the farms on the weekends and picked everything from lettuces to oranges and it all helped.

I was doing everything I could to stay off the radar of people in general and out of the sex trade.

But I had bills. My hormones that came in from across the border weren’t cheap and it wasn’t like I could just go out and get insurance that’d cover it. So I went to a “Pharmacy Bus” and got my meds like a whole lot of folks bought their regular meds at when they can’t afford regular prices. My hormones were a sought after commodity actually as there is a large tranny market here on the streets of L.A. in both the sex trade and porn industries.

But by the time I turned fifteen, twenty on my fake ID’s I’d “Blossomed” into myself my breasts came in nicely and my butt was pretty rocking too and yeah Mr. Happy shrank a lot and I never really hit male puberty just sort of skimmed it’s edges I was looking like the real me or getting there.

And that was the year Michelle the head girl at Cecilia’s recruited me into stripping and dancing. That was almost three years ago. I’m not quite eighteen really and almost twenty here according to my Id’s.

My name is Shayne just added the y in there because it looks girly. Shayne Starr just like my stage name having got it changed and when I’m not stripping I still work at Trader Joes. I’m five seven, and I’m a hundred and thirty pounds and I have 36 D’s thanks to some implants. Blue eyes and bleached out blonde hair. Really I’m one twenty since I believe a woman’s breasts and brain shouldn’t count against her.

I do a sexy she-male cowgirl act on stage and stuff with rope and leather and lace and even whips. And the whip and my cowgirl boots with spurs have come in handy with the grabby ones. But yeah I’m a stripper.

But I don’t do the sex stuff. Not for money, if I’m interested yes but not for cash. I just strip and I dance.

Why?

I want to, this is me I guess plus I need the cash to pay off my plastic surgery, nose, lips, chin and my apartment and my car. Plus there’s all my normal living expenses. Utilities, gas, clothes…okay I’ll admit to being a clothing addict at least a little. I think it’s still a hold over from when the old man burned all my stuff.

So, that’s me in a nutshell right up until now.

And why do I need to sit down?

I’ve a letter from home.

** Shayne…

I guess that’s still your name even though you changed it. I’m not to sure about how to feel that your last name is Starr ad that you work in one of those places, or even look the way that you do in these pictures.
I still don’t get it, but you’re still beautiful to me.
I guess you’re wondering how I know so much but truthfully I didn’t your father did. He hired a private detective to try and find you. Several in fact I think but this last one had found you about a month ago.
I never knew anything until.
Shayne your father passed away, he was cutting wood in the back yard when he took a massive heart attack. I only found out about you from his papers in the safe he had in the den.
I’m sending this by the UPS man to get it to you as fast as we can since I don’t have your phone number.
The funeral is this Sunday.
I think he wanted to bring you home honey, I really do.
Please come home, I miss you.
I love you and miss you a lot.

Love Mom.**

There’s a phone number there too well two of them.

I sit there until the mix of it getting cool enough to be chilly and tired and hungry gets to me and I wipe my face free of the tears that are there running down my cheeks.

Dad was looking for me. He knew and said squat to anyone. I really doubt that he wanted me back. He really wasn’t the type. He was a rough guy. Drove a dump truck and he was one of those be a man men. No he wasn’t looking for me to bring me home.

But Mom…maybe, maybe she has gotten past it. She said she doesn’t get it and I believe that but I do believe that she loves me and wants me back. I’m nowhere near as mad at her as I was. I know the kind of asshole dad was and I hated him. Hated him….I guess now. Still I didn’t have to live with him like she did so…

Yeah I’m cutting her some slack now.

Perspective I guess. I’ve been in a few relationships that sucked or started to suck and because of dad and the asshole he was…if I thought that the guy was going to become anything close to him. I pulled the plug on it.

Yeah guys, I like men. Girls and T-Girls too but mostly I’m attracted to men. But trying to find a decent guy’s. Well finding anyone really isn’t as easy as they make in look in the movies. I just want to find someone really that likes me for me. I’m Pansexual I think, I don’t know really sometimes. Sometimes it really depends on the person.

But really other than a few flings that haven’t turned out to be much. I’m practically a nun.

I dig out my keys and unlock my apartment. Hands shaking trying to get the keys into the lock and eyes blurry with tears.

“Goddamn it, fuck!” I put my head against the door and close my eyes. Why now? Why the hell now?

I was just getting used to my life, my life! And now this?

It’s curling or curdling inside of me twisting my guts up already the hurt and the thoughts of going home.

And dad being dead.

I finally get the key in and head inside to my apartment. I’ve got really a half a house it’s one of those side by sides in an iffy neighborhood but that’s okay. It really only iffy to some kinds of people. I don’t mind all the different ethnic groups and we kinda only sorta have the gang thing here. Not really but there’s families of them here. It’s mostly blacks and Latinos around here but more the old school blacks not the bangers and a lot of the Latinos here are actually Cubanos.

I slip out of my shoes and take off my skimpy dress. Yeah no cashier work today I was at my night job today. I head right for my room and the shower stopping only to get undressed and to toss my things in the hampers. I have four…yeah, a bit OCD of me but it’s just easier to put stuff in where stuff goes then it’s already separated when I go o do the laundry.

I get in the shower and let it blast me with the cold water first to…I don’t know shock me from breaking down. It helps and it doesn’t. I’m too skinny really to keep it on cold and I’m shivering when I turn the hot water into the mix. I wash with my puff and get about halfway through scrubbing the day off when my shivers turn to shakes and my shakes into sobs and I end up sliding down o sit in the tub and crying.

I hated him.

I hated him and yet I’m bawling like a baby because there’s part of me still that hurts so badly for failing him.

I know that’s just about the opposite of everything I feel day to day or even try to live my life by. But really it never goes completely away. The want for the love, the approval and wanting to just be take as is and accepted. Even if we know that will or would never happen.

It’s a hard, hard damned cry but I not let it or let him rip me apart. I’ve survived him before and survived some shit since. It sucks but I pick myself up and finish my shower and get out and go through my normal routine.

I don’t know why either but maybe it’s just me being all emotionally fuck you to him but I get dressed up in my better undies. Satin and lace bra and panties blue trimmed with navy lace and a spaghetti strap silk cami to match. Even though I wear slinky sexy stuff at work my stuff’s a far cry from the stuff you wear at the club.

I look at myself in the mirror. “Uh-huh, great idea Shayne. Just the thing to cook supper in.” I leave them on but get into my… I’m at home I don’t have to be pretty sweats.

I put the laundry on doing my work clothes first then head into the kitchen. Normally when I’m upset I don’t eat but kind of get that upset nausea thing but I haven’t really eaten since breakfast since I was called to a rush of customers while on my break and by the time I got back to my sandwich it wasn’t that appetizing.

My stomach is growling at me now pretty badly.

I get out some dark rye bread and one of my big tomatoes. That’s it really I toast the bread and use real butter and add tomato slices. Just a bit of salt and pepper and that’s it. One of my favorite comfort foods beside soup a toast and tomato sandwich. I make one and eat at it while I make a can of red bean soup. It’s a Japanese thing but I kind of like it really just some miso in chicken stock some red bean paste and whish it while it heats.

I dip my second sandwich and take my mug-bowl of the soup with me to the couch and instead of dwelling on stuff I try to turn my brain off and watch some TV. I flick through until I find a movie to watch on my Netflicks and I end up ordering “The Lucky One.” I’ve seen it when it came out on DVD and liked it and really my kind of movie for the mood I’m in. I pull my comforter over my feet and sip my soup and get all weepy and angsty because I want someone like that and I’m crying and that’s taking the tears away from being just solely about dad.

I look at the clock and it’s nearly ten here so home that’s Midwest/Central time it’d be nearly midnight. (Sniffle.) “I’ll call in the morning.” I get up and put stuff in the dryer and take out some stuff for tomorrow and use the bathroom before going to bed. I really wanted to avoid going to bed tonight. But I have to work so….I need to sleep. Though I use some lotion on my face and another kind as I rub my feet. I’m not sure what’s harder on the feet dancing in four inch heels or standing behind a cash of concrete floors.

I crawl into bed with a grateful sigh. I honestly love my bed. It’s a queen sized one with two mattresses on a box spring and a sort of fancy brass and white enamel frame that I actually rescued from the trash near UCLA. Yeah I pick through stuff on the curbs sometimes. Especially at the start and end of the year at campuses around. Hey I’m not the only one either the things that some of the better off kids just toss out.

But the mattress and the rest came from Goodwill and after a couple of afghans and a few quilts on it to sort of pad things out and I actually sleep with a nice set of nylon sheets that seem like satin and my big fluffy comforter on top. I love the femmy sort of smoothness and the cuddly warmth.

And usually I sleep naked or in just panties but tonight I’m feeling chilled and vulnerable so I crawl into bed as is.

Sleep takes awhile after crying yet again over the letter and partly of the thoughts of calling home.

Crying and at the first few hours I guess sleep but nightmares too. Then my alarm goes off way too early. I get up and drag my butt to the kitchen and fill the top of my coffee maker and set it on the stove to perk. I love the old stove top perk pots and I watch the weather while I hop on my exercise bike (another by the curb freebie.) and I pedal myself into a sweat pushing the resistance and stopping when the coffee is done. I have my first cup black and really hot as I head to the bathroom and get showered and ready for work.

I don’t even bother with much make up a bit of foundation and concealer really blended in and pony tail my hair and get my clothes on. I iron my smock and the pants but I just take them with me after I iron everything and eat breakfast which is a glass of orange carrot juice and a bowl of Total Cereal with a bit of banana on it and soy milk. And a soft boiled egg. Yeah it’s a lot but it’s a long day. I make my final coffee for the day from the rest of the pot with a bit of whipping cream I nuke to get hot with some milk added and whip with my stick blender adding coffee at the end and a shake of cinnamon.

It’s my skid-row-cappuccino. I put it in my travel mug after dumping the hot water out of it and grab my purse ad things and head out to my car and get in and turn it over and drive to work. I head out pretty early but I stay off the freeway as much as I can. I’ve just got really used Toyota Camry and while s good little car it’s seen its better days and I’d rather not break down on the freeway not in this town.
I stop in at Cantina Gas a decent little family owned gas station and put ten bucks in the tank. I stare at my phone. I take a sip of my coffee and take a deep breath and dial the number for the house.

It rings a few times and someone picks up. “Hello?” It’s a man’s voice.

“Hello…Is Stephanie there?” That’s mom’s name.

“This isn’t a good time miss can I ask whose calling?” I think I recognize his voice.

“It’s Shayne, Steven.”

“Shayne?….Shane…you…you sound like a girl talk right mom doesn’t need this.”

“I’m talking the way I always do Steve, I’m your sister.”

“No, you’re not and don’t call here again.”

“Steven…” He slammed the phone down on me.

For a minute there’s just nothing, not even the hurt then there’s the memory of one of the last times I seen Steven he was helping to hold me down while dad shaved off all my long hair.

I’ve been gone how long and this is what happens?

I don’t cry but just pay for my gas, clean off my windshield and drive to work. It feels like though it’s hard to breathe right and that my whole heart’s been bruised. I knew I shouldn’t have expected anyone to change, I never should have believed mom’s letter.

I’m kind of a zombie at work, not zoned out of it but there’s that feeling like the world’s just grey all around me and I just really can’t feel the point of anything. It was this feeling like someone dropped this lead blanket over my soul.

It kind of hurt just seeing all those regular everyday people having their everyday lives that I’ll never have.

By lunch Gary my shift boss takes some pity on me I guess and tells me to take some cool off time to stock the coolers. It’s kind of code at the store and it’s where we can go to be upset. See there’s a refrigerated storeroom in behind all the coolers with doors to each cooler and really with all the stock in that room there’s only room for one person in there.

It helps just getting out of there even if I’m freezing my buns off. I’m not good with the cold. Aside from my breasts and my butt I’m kind of skinny and it’s my own fault too; not really enough eating sometimes like skipping lunch today and then there’s the dancing but that whole being a girl thing too. It’s hard enough being me as is…anyway it helps. The cold and the alone time and even the aches in my fingers….I can’t find my gloves I use in here.

“Seriously, it’s like the pens around here.”

No really it’s like that. Well I guess everywhere is really, I’m always having one of the girls at work “Borrowing” some of my stuff there too. I don’t mean here but at the club. I hate it when someone leaves or gets fired sometimes because they’ll steal your stuff if you’re not there before they go.

I head back out front feeling a little better and stop at the break room and make myself a coffee before heading back out to the lines and re-open my cash. The afternoons is light at first then it gets a bit busier around the time that school lets out with parents stopping in here for stuff for supper. We do good business really the prices here are pretty good as a rule and well it’s Trader Joes we carry a lot of really different stuff so that draws people in.

I see him come in.

Yeah him.

I think his name is Chris. I watch him come in from his truck limping a little and he holds the door open for a few people before coming in himself. He’s one of these rare nice guys even though he looks like well. He’s in his twenties I think and he usually like today has work jeans on and work boots both looking like he just came here from work and he’s got a decent build too six feet tall with dirty blonde hair that’s kind of that surfer/don’t get my hair cut guy thing that goes with his three or four day beard. I think he only shaves like once a week and I’ve never seen him clean shaven before and he’s about two hundred pounds or so with really built arms. Add in a simple white t-shirt and a plaid work shirt over that and you have Chris.

Well I think I forgot to mention his eyes.

He has eyes that are this Pacific Ocean blue grey.

Okay that sounds really bad like I’m crushing and maybe I am a little. He’s good looking in that really rough sort of way and he’s nice to people and if it sounds odd…the stuff he buys.

I lose sight of him for a time and catch him again coming to my cash with his basket. I start ringing things through musing at what he might do with the stuff he has. The good canned tomatoes from Spain, three different kinds of bread all of them multigrain types, a bag of avocados, mushrooms, shallots, peppers, hominy, milk and butter and some different cheeses.

I’m smiling but trying to avoid eye contact with him while not looking like I’m being coy and flirting or trying to avoid looking at him. My phone buzzes in my smock pocket and…god…I don’t know why reflex…bad habit but I slipped it out for a quick peek at who it is and…

Mom…

Or it was the number for the house.

Either way…

Oh…Oh…was this a call back to say what? To yell at me? To make me feel even more like a freak or like, like I’m not good enough to be family. It hurts, it hurts and it’s so hard to breathe.

I was shaking and I jump. “Aaaah!” scream/shout in surprise when Chris is touching me. I’m still shaking and he’s looking at me with those eyes. I know I’ve been treated okay some decent people but there’s this look in his eyes that softens the blue grey and he says.

“Breathe, breathe Shayne it’s going to be alright. Just breathe through it…”

I try, it hurts that first breath that ragged shaky inhale. I’m getting looks from some of the customers. The boss comes over looking at us. “Shayne are you alright?”

I try nodding and Chris says. “No, she’s not she’s having a PTSD attack.”

“PTSD? She wasn’t in the military?”

“You don’t have to be, trauma’s trauma.”

There’s that look again? Empathy?

“Shayne, go home. I’ll cash you up and do your till.”

“Gary, I…I’m okay…I can finish the shift.”

Gary looks at me. “No, you’re pale and shaking go, that’s an order. I’ll punch you out for your full hours.”

“Y..you don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah I know but you always come in when I call you, you never call in sick and you’re too good an employee to lose if you’re going through some stuff.”

I blush, I’m not used to heavy open praise. Not without the come on’s. Dad…dad…I think if he hadn’t hated me so much he might’ve been proud….

I try to be a hard worker…

I don’t want to but the tears start to spill out and I’m crying again. I hold onto Chris which is really pathetic because I’m a complete stranger to him and bawl. Actually my reality pretty much dissolves into tears and wracking sobs.

I don’t think I fainted but I do think that I cried myself to sleep. I wake up and It’s dark but it’s November so I’m really not sure what time it is. I’m in a truck, and I’ve a jacket wrapped around me and an arm…Chris?

My eyes feel really gritty and sandy.

I look around not really moving yet, he’s asleep. I can tell by his breathing but the radio’s on playing some oldies and Chris’s truck is a lot cleaner inside than I thought. But there’s this smell on him and his clothes like metal and something else. It’s not a bad smell but he has this hint of it on him mixed in with his own scent.

Oh…that’s that earthy man scent, not funky or musky but just…I don’t know, some guys smell funky but Chris has that clean guy scent like hints of dirt ad old wood if it was flesh? I can barely pick up the hint of Irish spring on him too.

That’s good, I like that smell on a guy it’s better than the overpowering crap they try to sell guys these days. Me? I’m a Dove girl, it really helps with my getting dry skin sometimes.

God, where’s my head at?

Well actually it’s resting on Chris’s shoulder. I’m really dry and lick my lips and work my mouth trying to get my tongue unglued. I really hate that feeling.

“Don’t you just hate that feeling?”

Eep! I thought he was asleep? I jolted a bit with the unexpected voice.

“Easy, you’re safe.”

“Sorry, I thought you were still sleeping.” I move to sit up and look at him. He’ looking back at me thoughtfully.

“You feel better?” God he’s got a nice soft voice.

“Yeah…sorry, god I must have looked like a freak in there.”

He shook his head. “No, just shared and going through a shitload of stuff.”

“I just found out my dad died.” I look down at the floor of the truck. Huh, surprisingly free of garbage unlike my Camry.

“Sorry, for what it’s worth.”

I look at him. “For what it’s worth?”

“For all I know there could be good and bad reasons why you were crying over him that hard.”

I look at him. “Are you psychic?”

He shrugs. “Likely no, just been through my own stuff…It’s kind of made me try to just…at least put myself in other peoples shoes.”

“Yeah, you….you were right on the money with that though.” I unwrap myself from his jacket. “Thanks Chris, I…I should get going.”

He looks at me. “You think you should really be alone tonight?”

“I’m usually alone.” It just came out…shit. He’s really easy to talk to and he’s, he’s being so calm and stuff he still hasn’t moved from the corner of where the truck seat meets the door. He just gives off that he’s safe, or that I’m safe.

“Me too.”

“I noticed you never show with an S.O.”

“S.O.?”

“Significant other, I didn’t want to uhm…I didn’t know if you had a girlfriend or boyfriend.” I blush at that part and tense…some guys can be hyper anti-gay and freak at the slightest mention of it.

He smiles a bit sadly. “No, no S.O.”

“Oh…sorry?”

He shrugs. “So we’re both alone right now….” He pauses a minute like he’s making a decision. “Have supper with me, I’m tired of cooking for one.”

I look at him trying to see why? I mean it, there’s a lot of bullshit with being trans and trust, trust and just plain decency is hard to come by. He’s meeting my eyes and he’s not staring m down or looking away just looking at me. Like maybe…maybe he’s looking for something in me too?

I want to trust him.

God I want just something, something fucking normal, sane and safe. I can’t handle being hurt right now…I feel like I just got glued together and that the glue’s still wet.

“Chris…I’m not what I look like.”

“No one is Shayne.”

“No, I’m not a real girl.”

He looks at me, tilts his head. “Transgendered?”

“You…you’re not freaking out?”

“Nope, I know a few.”

“You’re not a chaser are you?” I give him a leery look.

He smiles. “Likely not since I don’t know what that is.”

“Tranny-chaser….you know having a fetish for girls like me?”

“Uhm…no.”

“But you’re okay with me being trans?”

He looks at me still a bit of a smile on. “I was in the Army, and one of the “guys” (He actually does the air quotes thing.) I went through basic with ended up transitioning when she got out.”

“Oh…and you’re okay with that?”

“Sure, Kelly’s a great person and she’s saved a lot of lives over there, still does.”

“Still?”

“She’s a paramedic now.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, so we’re still friends even if we don’t see each other much. But I’ve learned a lot about the entire situation.”

“Situation?”

“Sounds better than decision or lifestyle right? It’s not like you get to choose who you really are inside.”

“Thanks Chris…yeah, lots of people think that it’s a choice.”

“DADT was in place while I was serving, and take it from me there’s no difference. Black, White, Brown, Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Trans…no difference.”

“Not a lot of people’d say that Chris.”

He’s looking down but rubbing the leg with a limp. “Trust me Shayne an IED doesn’t care what you are or what you look like.”

Oh…. “IED?”

“Improvised explosive device.”

“Oh….shit Chris….I’m sorry.”

“Thanks…..” Another pause. “So…supper?”

I look at him and there’s just something inside that just seems honest there. I don’t know if it’s the acceptance or the fact I’m pretty sure that he’s messed up too in his own ways….but I kind of feel okay with him.

“Do you live far away?”

“Not really just the other side of Silver lake.”

“Can I follow you in my car?”

“Sure….where is it?”

“Oh, the staff park in back.”

He starts the truck and he drives out back and I point out my Camry. He asks. “You have your keys I’ll get it started for you.”

I shake my head. “Uhm No way am I going to let you see the mess my car is in but thanks.”

“Okay, here keep the jacket on and I’ll stay here so you can hop back in until it’s warmed up.”

I can’t help but smile. “Thanks Chris…for all of this.”

He smiles and there’s a hint of a blush there. “You shouldn’t…I’m just…”

“You treating me better than anyone has in a long time.”

I slip out of the truck and get in my car. I’m covering my own blush, I never really meant to say that too, or have it come out like that but it’s true. It’s been a log time since, I met someone like Chris that’s been this decent and understanding.

Dammit it’s really chilly after being in the nice warm truck too. Don’t let people tell you that California’s not cold. It can be pretty cold at nights here and especially in winter. Okay November’s not technically winter but it’s still pretty chilly here. But then again tired and upset and everything piled on me today isn’t helping things either. I get tired and I get chilled.

“Wow, my car’s a mess.” I know, girls are neater…yeah, right. Okay my house is okay but really you should see my closets and my purse oh and my car…that’s pretty much my purse on wheels.

I get out though while the heater’s going and get back into Chris’s truck. I’m so not used to getting into a truck either. I lean ahead in the seat closer to the heater. He’s smiling at me a bit.

“So….is there anything you don’t like since I’m having you over?”

I shake my head. “No, really I’m no fussy, I’ve learned to eat pretty much anything. Though I’m not a big fan of liver and all those bits.”

“No, no liver not tonight.”

“Good, thank you.”

He nods. “I do a pretty good soup and a sandwich though.”

“Me too, I pretty much live on both and salads.”

“I eat salad all the time too.”

“Well duh, we’re in California that’s like all we eat out here.” I laugh a bit with that.

He looks at me. “You don’t have an accent are you from California?”

“No but I’ve been out here for a few years. I’m actually from Minnesota.”

“Never been there.”

“You’re not missing much, so are you local?”

“I’m from Maine actually.”

“Maine, you don’t have that New England accent.”

“Well most of us don’t, everyone thinks we do because somehow the Massachusetts accent got all famous. Where I’m from there’s only one a in the way we say stuff.”

I laugh a little. “I get that too, I’ve met people who think I should talk like I’m from the movie Fargo.”

“Wasn’t that North Dakota?”

I shrug. “I don’t know but I keep getting this whole mid-west accent thing when people find out.”

He’s nodding. “If there was an accent I’ve lost it or picked up the local one. I’ve been out since…” He gestured at his leg.

I nod and my stomach chimes in. I duck my head and blush. “Sorry…I kind of skipped lunch.”

He nods and smiles. “We should get you fed then.”

“Yeah the car should be warm enough. Just lead the way.”

I slip out and get in my Camry and follow him to his place. It’s not that far but it’s still out of the way. Silver lake is kid of hilly but along with the classic California palms there’s lots of other trees and spots of green space. Not like the parks though there are a few nice ones out here but actual trees and bushes. While not the woods by far it’s greener than most of the suburbs.

His house is down one of those sort of single streets that ends in a cul-de-sac with lots of big older trees and things. The houses here are pretty much the older kind with two stories and a driveway with a shed or something instead of the attached garages that’s all part of the modern houses.

Chris’s place is sort of it the right hand corner if you will…yeah I know cul-de-sac’s are round but he’s in that sort of spot. It’s an older house, two and a half stories with the peaked roof and that window turrets design that used to be popular. I like them too some of those houses used the for window seating and though I’ve never sat in a window seat before I’ve always liked the look.

Wooden boards on the outside not siding gives it a nice touch and it’s painted a nice soft brown color with darker brown on the edgings. He’s got a small front yard with hedge styled rose bushes and a decent little front deck with the roof and pillars thing going on.

Brick drive way that goes all the way to the back of the house with a mini courtyard feel to it between his house and a decent sized garage. The garage looks refurbished and part storefront or shop? The rest is a nice big back yard with a tall wooden fence ad some ivy growing over it. There’s a porch on the backside of the house that matches the front but a bit bigger.

We stop and get out. I’m looking around. “Wow, this is a nice place.”

“Yeah, It needed a lot of work, well still needs a lot of work really.”

I look at the garage. “You work from home?”

“Yeah, It’s easier.”

“So what do you do?”

“I’m an artist sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“People hear artist and I’m suddenly a hippy, or lazy or some other stereotype. You want to see?”

“Sure?”

Actually I’m interested. I get what he means because I’ve known a few “Artists” and they don’t have their own shops. Maybe a place they make the art but not to sell…

Oh…

It’s small and very well set up and it’s full of glass. I mean it’s the bulk of what’s there. He blows and pulls glass. I love some of the things here from actual dishes and vases to little statues and figures as well as ornaments. There half the shop that’s that and the other half is pottery and porcelain?

I see a computer and a camera and a spot set up with packing stuff and courier boxes. It’s actually very real and impressive more than the whole gallery stuff either he’s definitely an artist but he’s a craftsman too.

I kind of really respect that.

I get shown the store side and then the shop. That’s the scent, the metal smell the kiln and the furnaces he’s got here plus all the coloring agents and stuff for both. It’s very fascinating to just be in here. It’s warm too the glass furnace isn’t going but the kiln is and has things inside.

I smile at the pottery wheel room. “So have you played Ghost in there yet?”

“No, I haven’t had someone in my life long enough to get that far. It’s kind of cliché too right?”

“That’s actually why I’d do it…there’s some cliché’s that are part of the stuff we want to have in our lives. Like feeding each other when you’re in a relationship’s cliché but we still like doing it. The whole ghost thing…it’d be one of those clichés that no one ever does…I’d love to have that moment with someone I’m in love with.”

He nods and escorts me from the garage to the house. “Okay actually that makes sense. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone that’s done that in real life before.”

We get inside and the place is nice but it’s pretty bare too. The back porch leads to an inside porch area and then his kitchen. It’s semi new looking with the new appliances or they were new and are just well kept up. But it’s the stained wood cupboards and cabinets that make the kitchen along with all the wrought iron hinges and the racks and shelves for stuff.

And in the turret window here on the back part of the house did have a window seat built into it and was sort of set up like a breakfast/dining nook. I bite my lip and go over and sit in it and it’s nice, like a sort of love seat actually and I turn sideways and look outside at the back yard.

“This is nice, I could see sitting here with a coffee in the fall with a good book and watching the leaves.”

“The newspaper for me, so what are you reading?”

I blink and look around. “Uhm…nothing?”

“No, you mentioned a good book so what are you reading now at home?”

I blush. “I’m not, it’s just something that I though people say…Well I’m reading some manga though.”

“Manga?”

“Japanese graphic novels.”

“Like a comic?”

“Yes it’s drawn but no…..not a comic.”

“Oh….I’ve never really heard of them before.”

“Sorry, It’s one of the things I’m into that sometimes touches on my situation without getting all hardcore or eww about it.”

“I can see that. Disney doesn’t have the prince needing to be a princess thing or the reverse.”

He’s putting things away and taking things out and I hear and feel the furnace kick in Chris is opening canned tomatoes and putting oil and butter in a saucepan and blending the canned tomatoes. I see some paprika and a few dashes of this and that and then he’s making a cream sauce by adding cream to the cooked flour and oil. He then adds the tomatoes and has a strainer with some cloth to catch the seeds and the skins then he stirs it all together until the two are really well mixed and sets in on a simmer.

Then sandwiches…He makes grilled cheeses but a sort of a Cuban. Walnut whole wheat cranberry bread with pepper jack cheese and swiss then some back forest ham and a bit of mayo with stone ground mustard and pickles then buttered on the outside and grilled.

Grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade tomato soup. The soup is really good too just thick enough to dip in and hot and creamy but not really spiced up or too acidic either. But way better than canned tomato soup….and I actually love canned tomato soup.

And it’s kind of nice to get waited on and cooked for too. Chris sits and eats with me and we eat quietly for a few minutes well he does. Me I’m rolling my eyes at how good everything is.

“I’m glad that you like it.” He says between sips of the soup.

“You’re a good cook, kitchen duty in the Army?”

“No, just a latch-key kid and then a bachelor. The soup though my Gran taught us how to make.”

“Us?”

“Most everyone in the family, She said if you can make soup then you could feed yourself pretty well.”

“Smart lady.”

“She was, she passed away while I was gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay she had just turned ninety so.”

“Not your great grandmother?”

“No, I’m the youngest in my family…well not counting my nieces and nephews now.”

“Oh big family?”

“Yeah lots of side relatives and all that. You?”

I sigh.

“I’m the youngest too, I ran away after my dad found out that I was cross dressing and in a relationship with a boy.”

He looks at me. “I take it there was fallout?”

“Shunning, buzz cut, getting washed in Javex…emotional abuse. It was a Shawshank thing for me…either get out or likely kill myself.”

He just nods and breaks one of his sandwiches up and dips a chunk. “And you just found out that your father passed away.”

“Yeah, my mother sent me a letter having found me because dad found me through a PI and she wants me to come home for his funeral. I called and the reception I got well…was…”

“Oh…yeah that had to suck.”

I nod but wipe at some new tears. “Suck isn’t the word…it was, it was like it all brought back the shit they said and did all over again.”

“And that’s who called in the store?”

“Yeah, it was the old number to the house.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know If I want to call and talk to them again. It hurt enough the first time around I’m still recovering from the hell they put me through.”

“And they might not stop calling.”

“Yeah….part of me wants that and part of me hates that too.”

“Hates it?”

“Right now there’s at least one of them crowing and spouting off about the way I am and the way that I’m living just to be all holier that thou about it. I know that he’d just add me not going or showing up to the long list of my failures and wrongs as a human being.”

“So go?”

“I’m scared, I promised that I’d never go back there.”

“Then don’t.”

“Mom, said se loved me in the letter she sent me. She even knows about me being like this and even my other job.”

“Other job?”

I blush. “I strip at Cecilia’s.”

He nods like I just aid Burger King. He finishes a bite he was working on. “No wonder you’re getting hit with everything working two jobs.”

“Okay…yeah but I really need the money….me stripping isn’t a big thing to you?”

He chuckles. “Shayne, I was in the army for six years. I’ve known a stripper or two.”

“Isn’t that a cliché too?”

“Nope it’s just the perpetuation of an occupational stereotype.”

I laugh at that and he takes the dishes. “Dessert?”

“Sure, I never say no to dessert.”

He smiles and he has a really nice smile now that it’s opening up. There’s just something there…I think I get why the dark broody guys are so popular. When they shine, they really shine and it’s kinda all just yours.

He makes us two bowls of vanilla ice cream with hot dolche de leche drizzled over it. God the only thing better would be a churro to have with it. But he does have coffee and he makes us some to go with it.

“I’ll go with you.” Chris says looking at me as we takes our bowls and starts getting the water in the sink ready for the dishes.

“What?” I’m staring at him kind of in shock.

“I’ll go home with you.” He says again.

Wow, or I mean Whoa….

“Chris we barely know each other.”

“Well I figured I’d offer since we’ve already slept together and you’re wearing my clothes.”

I smile, I completely forgot about still being in his coat, and the joke was cute.

“Well, yeah but that’s too much to ask.”

“You didn’t ask I offered.”

I step in and hip shove him from the sink. “Your place you dry, I don’t know where things go.”

I bite my lip because one the offer is really sweet and two just pushing him like that was so…I want those moments in my life and I really think that I’m never going to have them. I mean…guys that don’t mind being with a trans-girl are usually after one thing.

But I’ve never done dishes with a guy before.

We don’t really say anything either as I was and he wipes and puts them away. I think he made most of his own dishes and I go for a towel to dry my hands off and he takes the cup towel he has and dries them for me.

That’s really…I’m looking up at him and he’s looking at me.

I could really, really sleep with him right now. My nipples are hard and I’ve got the ache for someone hard and hot inside me.

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure.” Goddamn he’s got beautiful eyes this close.

I take my hands away through a supreme force of will and look at him. “I…I should get going I’ve got my other job to get to.”

“Okay, can I get your number?”

“Sure, can I get yours too.”

We trade numbers and he walks me to my Camry and I go to take off his coat again. He stops me. “You can give it back later it’s still cool out.”

I blush, just because it’s nice and him being this nice to me feels good. “Thank you.” I tippy toes and kiss him lightly.

He kisses me back. Not a hot and heavy kiss but still a nice one. Not a bit put off by who or what I am. The urge for more is strong. I break the kiss first and realize he was holding me in his hands during it and that feels.

It feels good.

I open the car door and am about to get in when he says. “Hey Shayne?”

“Yeah?” I turn to look at him and he steps in and he wraps his arms around me and he gives me this really big and gentle hug.

I just about lose it right then. I haven’t been hugged, not really hugged by somebody since before I ran from home. I’m drowning in how much my body is telling my heart that I missed this, that I needed this.

“Chris….Chris…I…I can’t…I have to go, if I don’t I won’t want to go.”

“Then stay.”

Oh god…

“I can’t we, we don’t know each other…”

“Shayne right now you know me more than anyone else in my life.”

I look into those eyes and…

“You just found out your dad died, call in sick tonight.”

“I can’t, I need the money.”

“Okay…”

“God, Chris….if I stayed right now I’d sleep with you and I don’t just mean sleep okay…I…I don’t want to be that girl, not with you.”

“Okay…” He smiles that little great smile from earlier. And he tightens his hug a bit more. “Thanks Shayne.”

“Th..thank?”

“Yeah, it’s been….actually…I think you’re the first person in my life who said they thought I was worth something like that.”

I’m seriously blushing now. “Well yo..you are.” God he makes me stammer just by being him. I move his arms though, I have too. I mean it, it’s have too or else I’d never leave.

He lets me and I get in my car and pull out of the driveway and he walked to the end of the driveway and he watches me go. It’s just such I think a Chris thing, doing that instead of just going back into the house.

I’m good until I get to the stop sign and tears slip out.

I’m not really crying over dad this time but over Chris. I bet he really doesn’t get how good this was for me. Being treated like I’m just Shayne and not Shayne Starr. Like I’m actually a person and something more than just some tranny girl.

I really needed this.

Antifreeze...Part 2.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Caution:

CAUTION: Language

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transgender

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

CAUTION

Other Keywords:

Anger check and tissue alert.

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Part 2

I’m good after a couple of blocks and kind of drifting in and out of my more intimate thoughts all the way to Cecilia’s and I can’t but to think about what might have been if I had stayed. I get to work and head inside to get showered and changed. I’m actually in a good mood while getting into my gear for my dance sets. A couple of the girl’s look at me and smile.

Ally grins. “Your in a good mood.” nodding at my crotch while getting into her angel wings. I blush because I actually have a semi.

“I…I met a guy.”

“Really and he’s got Janey all worked up?”

“He’s got me worked up…God Ally he got under my skin.”

“That’s the best way honey.”

“No…not that way he was just an actually decent guy. I felt like I was me and not you know this.” I gesture around the room.

There’s a bunch of nods from most of us except for Katie and Tara who roll their eyes. By and large even the girls that dance like we do aren’t in it for the sex and stuff. But there are some that are all about the party life. I’m not judging, both of them despite their shit aren’t bad girls.

I dance and yeah with my little girl or Janey, as we call them as a sort of parody of the whole John-Thomas thing. I’m getting extra tips. It’s a tranny bar, me getting a stiffy is a whole money shot to these guys and some girls.

Though it’s still really look but don’t touch as a general rule. It’s my rule, I don’t do tricks and I don’t lap dance either. I did laps for a few months when I first started but just…it got too skeevy and the guys were too grabby.

It’s a good shift too really; some clean dancing and in between sets Ally and I and the other girls are talking about guys, and I might be pushing things and stuff but I actually gush with them about Chris and everything that happened. Most of us get it, get each other even the trans-lez girls get that need for something real and clean.

We’re still all girls here inside; we still treasure the same things.

I’m having a drink, yes technically I’m underage but that’s in this country. I just have one and it’s a grapefruit juice with club soda and a half shot of tequila. I only ever just have one, unless I’m at something special like a bbq or a party with friends. I’m so not the party girl. Oh and I don’t touch the drugs anymore.

I’m there from seven thirty until nine and I dance eight times before I’m done for the night. Most of them are short just the length of a song so about four minutes I keep with my cowboy/girl act usually changing things up in my costumes and stuff but the boots are great, the tippers put the money in my boots rather than in my thong.

I have my regulars who are okay I guess but too tranny-chaser for me and I think two are there just for the boots. One guy takes his time and feels the leather each time and its good money. I get ten bucks each time I dance from the house and then there’s the tips too.

We get to keep all of it because it takes a lot to actually pole dance and strip and shake and move and flow and still be erotic and still be hot. You’d be amazed at the number of girls that can’t pull off a dance set. Plus they’re there, right there beside you and tipping requires getting close and even having a rapport with the guys or the girls.

Yeah there’s some sort of lesbian girls that do like girls like me. And while I’ve been with a couple of them in the early days and sort of not really my thing as customers they’re actually cheaper with us stage girls than the guys are but I’ve heard they’re more generous with the girls that do the lap dances.

I count up my tips and go and pay the boss. Fifty percent always goes to her to pay off the loans she gave me for the plastics I’ve had done. No, not loan-sharking or stuff like that but just paying her back at the total plus twenty percent. One she needs to make cash out of the loans and two she’s tying up her money in loaning it to us. I came up with the fifty percent of my pay and I’m nearly done paying her off. My take home tonight though is just around a hundred and twenty dollars. That’s close to two shifts at TJ’s with deductions and everything and this is all tax free under the table money.

I go home stopping to gas up and pull into one of those bigger gas stations with the self car wash and I gas up the Camry and then pull it over and buy some things in the store part of the place and clear it up.

Garbage bags and paper towels and some Spray-9 cleanser and some Armor-all and some Febreeze and I clean out the car and vacuum it out and wipe it clean with the Spray nine and the Armor-all I even clean the windows.

Okay…eew…my car was all kinds of filthy. I mean you really don’t notice the dirt and dust inside while doing the everyday and going to work but it really was kind of grotty and dusty. I run it through the car wash and even get it clean on the outside.

I feel better now; I really didn’t want Chris to see my car in the shape I had it in. Feeling better about that I drive home and it’s not too long before I’m headed to bed after a nice hot bath and my evening ritual.

Meh…Bleh…

Why do mornings come way too early?

I’m up and get my coffee going, do my exercises, have a shower and get ready for work the same old thing I do pretty much all week long. I’m having a poached egg on an English muffin and some cereal for breakfast when my phone rings.

I look at the number.

Mom’s number.

I sigh…take a big gulp of coffee and answer the phone.

“Shayne Starr speaking.”

“Shayne?” It’s mom.

I sort of feel a bit less tense. “Hi, good morning mom.”

“Uhm…good morning, did I wake you or were you still up?”

“No I’m awake I’m just getting breakfast before work.”

“Breakfast before work? The strip place is open all day?”

“No Mom, I only dance a couple of hours a night. This is my real job.”

“Oh…well, I didn’t know you have a real job.”

I hear her whispering something over and over like she’s praying it’s not something….oh…

“No, Mom I don’t do porn.”

“I never…”

“I heard you on the other end mom.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah oh, if you really want to know I’m a cashier at a grocery store I’ve been there for almost three years actually.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, oh…”

“I’m sorry for what your brother said honey.”

“Okay, fine why isn’t he calling then?”

“He won’t.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“I still want you to come home, please….”

“I don’t want to be treated like shit mom. I had enough of that from all of you the last time I was there.”

“I’m sorry…” She’s crying now.

Fuck, fuck, fuck…I’m a girl but I still hate it when women cry. I can feel my own tears trying to come out. No, dammit I want to be mad about this.

“It hurt mom, you were supposed to be there for me. You were supposed to stand up for me. Hell if all of you acted the way that people that love each other are supposed to act are then…..”

Great I am crying now.

“God Shayne, please, please I’m sorry. I can’t take what happened back all I can do is…is try to make up for it and get to know my…my…my daughter.”

(Sniffle) “And Steven and Shawn and Sarah and Stacy? How are they going to react?”

“I don’t know, Steven found your dad’s papers too and he called everyone and spent all day on the war path ranting about you. But I haven’t talked to Shawn and the girls yet about you.”

“He has dad’s papers?”

“Your uncle got them back.”

“Which Uncle?”

“Roth.” That’s her brother and I’ve never met him.

“Uncle Roth’s there.”

“Yeah….” She not going there…I think, think mind you I don’t have any proof but I don’t think he liked my dad.

“So Steven’s running around saying what then?” God it’s sick wanting to know but I do…eve though it hurts.

“He’s talking about you being a whore and a stripper and everything.”

“Everything?”

“It’s his grief talking Shayne…give him some time.”

“Bullshit Mom, he fucking enjoyed torturing me back then!”

“Shayne, Steven was the oldest him and your father had a complex relationship.”

“Great….he’s a chip off the old bastard isn’t he?”

“Shayne! Don’t..don’t talk about you father that way!”

I bite my tongue…it’s really hard not cutting loose on her about him and things but I just…breathe…hard deep breaths and keep the though in my head she lost her husband…I keep trying to think of it that way.

“Sorry…look Mom, I have to go, you find out how they’re going to be and I’ll let you know after you tell me.”

(Sniffle-sob.) “’Kay…Shayne…I’m soooo sorry…”

(Sniffle-sob.) “I know Mum, Love you…we’ll talk later okay?”

(Sniffle-sob.) “’Kay I love you too baby.”

I hang up and scream…pain and hurt and frustration….My god what the fuck did I do to him!? What!? I don’t fit in his narrow fucking world view so I’m fucking public enemy number one?

I’m pissed, pissed enough I dump my breakfast in the trash and grab my stuff and head off to work.

I’m that mad I’m there first and I open up the store punch in my alarm code then lock the door with the dead bolt and go through the stuff…that’s printing out the price change sheets for the stock boys and then the lists for the deliveries we do. And I open the door for Gary who looks at me. “You okay?”

“No, family crap.”

“Oh, bad?”

“Oh yeah, bad I’m supposed to go home because of my dad dying only I’ve never been back since I got the hell out of there. And my dad had hired a PI to track me down and now they know where I live and stuff and when I try to reach out to them my homophobic asshole bigot of a brother goes on a holier than thou tears telling me not to show my face and he then spends all day outing me to the rest of the family and likely my whole fucking town!”

Gary’s blinking, and then he walks me to a chair. “Sit…breathe….”

I’m breathing but angry breathing and I close my eyes and take a few deliberate deep breaths. “Sorry…it’s just I got wind of all of this from my mom first thing this morning.”

“Yeah….that’d ruin your day.”

“Y’think?……Sorry Gary.”

He smiles. “I actually forget sometimes y’know.”

Okay that makes me smile despite being mad and hurt. “Thanks Gary.”

He knows, I had to tell him about it when I applied for the job. Gary’s always been decent about it too. He doesn’t care as long as you try to do a good job.

I might have rigged ID but in order to make it not fake looking it has the stupid M on it and I have all the stuff front my legal change of name stuff and a carry letter from the gender specialist doctor who works with my plastics guy that did my implants. Everything but my original ID is all legal and above board.

Oh I imagine if they looked hard at my ID and stuff there might be shit but I pay taxes and stuff on this job and the IRS hasn’t come after me. I have I guess a very real and normal paper trail.

Shit…

I hope dad’s PI just found out about me stripping thinking I’m as bad as he imagined and didn’t start looking back on my new name. Steven might try to completely fuck with my life if he gets a hold of something like that.

Shit, shit, shit…

I have to go home now.

Gary looks at me. “Better? I like it better when you’re smiling Shayne.”

“Crushing on me?” I tease him.

“If I was a younger guy Shayne and not happily married yeah…really likely. Who you are far outshines the little stuff.”

Okay…that, that was worth me hugging him and kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks Gary, really thank you it helps a lot y’know especially with everything going on.”

He hugs me back.

Gary’s one of the reasons I stay here. He’s a good guy. How good? Old stock, stuff we can’t sell he lets us take stuff home. He’ll deliver stuff by e-mail or phone and he doesn’t charge delivery if they’re seniors. He gives a gift card for twenty dollars on your birthday and he gives a fifty dollar one for a Christmas one and a box of candy too. The company doesn’t Gary does.

The pay’s not super great but the place is more than just a paycheck to me. It’s why I only dance part time. The way he treats me and others I’ve been able to keep my self respect and not fall into some of the stuff that I might have.

Yeah…This really helped me feel better.

We open up for the rest of the crew and I’m chatting actually with everyone like usual and counting my float and having a coffee. I get some breakfast now that I’m feeling better from the store getting a yogurt and a pear and a few fresh figs. I love figs, I never had them before I moved out here and even picked them when I was doing the farm hand thing with my Mexican friends. I actually liked everything I picked except the olives. I’m not a fan of olives. Tomatoes and peppers and avocados I like a lot. I can make a sandwich just of peppers with the skins blanched off and either roasted or even sautéed a little…some Hellman’s and some good bread and that’s a great thing.

I’m a simple girl really or I try to be.

It’s actually a pretty good morning and it’s busy, when I’m not doing the cashier thing I’m helping to restock stuff and putting things back. There’s always a few things some people can’t afford. And I save the food stamps I have for the few people that are regulars and are short or their broke.

One of the regulars at the club actually gives all us stage girl’s books of them. I’m not sure where from but they’re not fake. Two of the girls refuse to take theirs and I drop theirs off to Elena and Sophia the two girls I used to room with because they have big families and every little bit helps. But mine…I’ll break them out and use them to treat a regular or someone that I know needs it.

Some people struggle and have it harder than me. So if a girl I sort of know from here’s trying to do her best with her kids…and she has to choose between a prescription for her kid and some of the basics….like milk for her and them.

Yeah…I’ll get the milk myself with the stamps.

I try; I really try to be a good person.

It’s also maybe because dad hated stuff like that…he was one of those help those hat helps themselves types. He must have lost his shit over the Affordable Healthcare Act. I really hope that Obama wins. I don’t really dare vote but I really am a supporter of just the way he is. But after next or rather this February I’m going to look at getting my ID fixed.

I want my rights once I’m legally eighteen. I want to set stuff up right, maybe even go back to school or try to get my GED.

It really sucks being a drop out sometimes.

I get through to lunch and I head out back seeing Gary. “Hey can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure, what?” I like that about him he’ll say sure instead of maybe or that depends like some people.

“I need the long weekend off; I need to go home for my dad’s funeral.”

His expression softens even more and he nods. “Sure I can spare you for the long weekend and I’ll put in the tenth for your compassionate care day.”

“Okay, what’s that?”

“Oh company policy if there’s a death in the immediate family then they’ll give you a day of mourning with pay. I know a single day’s not much but…” He shrugged.

“Hey it’s better than nothing.” It’s one of the things I do like about it here that they are actually pretty good as far as a chain store goes for stuff. They’re so much better than working for slum lord employers like Wall-Mart.

Actually that’s pretty good that he’ll do that so that means that I’ll get paid for both Saturday and Sunday where veteran’s day is a stat holiday.

“I might not be back though until Tuesday though I’ll have to play it by ear but I’ll call and let you know.”

“Hey, even if things weren’t good he’s still your father.”

“Yeah…they weren’t good Gary…I’m still not really sure why I’m going.”

And I’m not in a way. Well I need to see the stuff dad’s PI had dug up on me and get all of that information back. I think though I need some closure for me and something for mom…she does seem like she’s actually trying.

I get in my car and head down the street to the Dunkin Doughnuts and I head into there for lunch. I know not the greatest stuff for anybody but I’m craving sweet right now. It’s kind of a girl thing. I know kind of a crock but kind of not. I’ve found that ever since that I’ve started being on my hormones that when I’m I get emotional I want sweets.

So it’s a bowl of corn chowder with some bacon in it and a tea biscuit to go with it and chocolate milk and after that I get a Bear claw and a coffee and I dial mom’s number on the phone. I tense up waiting for the phone to pick up it takes about five rings before it does.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice tired sounding but not moms. I look at the clock it should be close to two there.

“Uhm hello…who’s this?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that miss?”

“Is Mom there?”

“Mom?”

“Tell her it’s Shayne.”

……………………………….......There’s a long chunk of silence on the other end. It’s not really that long but it feels that long. I’m getting more and more unnerved by the silence. Unnerved and hurt. (Sniffle-sob.) “Okay…okay sorry for bothering to call…”

(Desperate sob.) “No! Shayne wait! Please?”

(Sniffle.) “Okay….” People are looking at me crying on the phone at my table.

(Wet-Snuffles.) “I’m sorry…”

I blow my nose and get a bit of hold over things. “You are?”

“Yes…I’m sorry…I…I was just, I was such a spoiled dumb little cunt then.”

(Sobby-laugh.) “God Sarah?”

(Sobby-laugh-squeal.) “Ohmigawd Noooo, wait you heard cunt and you said Sarah? I can’t wait to tell her that!”

I’m actually smiling and there’s some fresh tears….but kind of happy ones…we’re laughing… “Hey Stacy…”

“Hey…..” This time her voice is warm, it’s that hey that says so many things just by the tone of it…I can hear the heart in it.

“Hi sis.” I say it my heart in my throat.

“Hey little sister…”

Oh I’m so…I have to get up and out of there with my phone and sit in my car with the door open and I hear her ask. “Shayne, Shayne are you still there?”

(Big-happy-sobs.) “Y..Yes….” I’m full on crying now just happy bawling as this feeling of my heart untying itself is happening.

“Oh good I was worried…are you sure? You’re crying.”

(Sniffle-sob.) “Yeah…I was…at lunch and you…you called me your little sister and…” I’m crying some more.

“So you had to get out of there before the called the nice men with the nets?”

(Cry-laugh.) “Yeah, Dunkin Doughnuts is so not the place for an emotional breakdown.”

“Eew Dunkins, please you’re in LA I thought you’d be in like a Starbucks or something.”

“Ugh…no I don’t like them. Dunkin’s is just down the road from work and I needed a sugar fix.”

“Oh, what’s your poison?”

“Bear claw, I like cinnamon and apples.”

“I like chocolate, anything chocolate.”

“Me too…I’m just really picky with it.”

“See you are all big city spoiled.”

“Maybe but if you’re going to go through all the exercise and stuff with having dessert or a treat you might as well eat decent chocolate.”

“Bring me some?”

What?... “Uhm…”

“You’re coming home right?”

“……………………”

“Shayne?”

“Stacey….”

“Please…I want to see you; I want to get to know you.”

God that feels so good to hear, even if the rest of it sucks ass there’s at least one person there, one person who still has my back, who see’s me as family.

“Okay, I’ll come.”

“Good…” There a sigh in there she still sounds…tired.

“Hey Stace?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“No, no I’m not….”

“What’s wrong?”

“Jeff…Jeff left me and the kids…”

“Jeff’s?”

“My husband or what passes for one…he…I started getting sick and when we finally found out what was wrong he said that he couldn’t deal with me and my drama…that I was making a bigger deal of being sick than I should be…”

“You’re sick, how bad is it?” Please don’t be fatal…I want her to stick around; I want to get to know her.

“Bad but not as bad as things could be, Fibro.”

“Fibro?”

“Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid arthritis…which means I hurt basically most of the time well except for the time when I really hurt…”

And he left her…with kids? That fucking sonofabitch!”

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know, he just left six months ago and he’s never written or called since.”

“No word?”

“No, even his family has been avoiding us sort of…his folks are okay they’re a mix of pissed and mortified so it’s hard on them seeing the way things are…”

“How bad are things?”

“We’re living in a trailer dad bought and moved into the back lot.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah….A whole lot of I told you so’s.”

“Sorry sis.”

“Hey, it’s not on you.”

“I know, but I’ll be there. I’m not, not coming home for him but mom asked and I want to see you too.”

“Good…I need the fancy chocolate.”

I laugh. “I’ll be there okay? Now fill me in.”

I get into the car and I drive yeah I shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive and I agree but I’m not perfect. I spend the rest of my lunch break talking to Stacy on the phone getting a friendly lay of the land.

Mom… Mom’s in a mess but apparently when the whole market crash happened dad got laid off from the plant. He worked for Goodyear and they closed the doors to the plant and moved stuff to somewhere I guess out east. She had gone back to work as a teller at the town credit union part time to pay the bills.

And dad got meaner and drunker without his job to keep him the macho bread winner. I think they owned the house and our land because if I remember right my dad’s parents had given it to them so they were lucky that way.

Steven is like a mini-me version of dad only he was this whole hockey hero in town in high school his graduating year and he went to college and came back and he had married Janice, Janice was from someplace in North Dakota and from a pretty religious family and apparently some of those views along with dad’s have taken root in his macho little brain. They own and run a convenience store.

Shawn left town after graduating and he’d apparently gotten into MIT and is manager of one of those Apple stores and him and his girlfriend live in Cleveland all the way over in Ohio. They’ve apparently come home to visit. She didn’t know what Shawn’s reaction to everything was but Stacy did tell me that he was sorry for doing those things that he did to me then and when he left home like me he never looked back.

It’s a bit hard to swallow the hurt from that but if he did change…then maybe…maybe I’d have to see though.

Sarah well apparently Sarah’s still Sarah I guess though I’m not really sure what that means since we never got close really, I never really got close to either of my sisters and out of the two of them Sarah was the one that treated me the worst because I had been stealing her things to wear back then. But apparently she’s already divorced twice and she’s pretty demanding and high maintenance too.

Stacy said in a word…Cougar.

We both kind of laughed at that.

Uncle Roth being home is really weirding her out too he’s seems like a nice guy though and she like me thinks he really had no use for our dad. He’s been helping out too and he took time to come here from his place in Montana.

The Montana part makes me a little nervous though just because of the whole reputation of the whole cowboy macho attitudes and stuff. He might not take kindly to me being me. But Stacy says he knows and hasn’t said anything bad that she knows of.

Still I’m plenty nervous.

But I’m still very happy and feeling a lot better in a way too. It’s amazing to just have that one person there that is okay with you being you.

I get through work okay and head home and I hop in the shower and get cleaned up and I start getting my things ready for my night job and after thinking and thinking and more thinking plus some pacing while chewing my thumbnail I bring Chris’s number up on the phone and I dial.

It rings and rings and it rings and then about the fifth ring I hear a click? And then there’s this whole second or two lapse them more ringing. He picks up on the second ring.

“Good afternoon, Wheel of Dreams this is Chris speaking.”

“Wheel of Dreams, I like that is that the name of the shop?”

“Hey (A sweet happy drawn out hey.) Shayne, finally returning my message?”

“Message?”

“Uh then that’s a no then…”

“Sorry?”

“It’s okay I just wanted to call you to let you know that last night was nice, I needed the company.”

I blush…wow…okay one he called that a miracle in itself and he had a good time, a good time with me and there wasn’t sex involved.

“Okay…wow, uhm yeah I see it here on my home machine…sorry.”

“Hey it’s okay, so what’s…how’s things today.”

“Good, bad…both I guess.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I would but I have to go to my other job.”

“Oh, after then?”

“Uhm okay…”

“I’ll be here just drive on over and we’ll go see a movie and get something to eat.”

“Chris it’ll be pretty late.”

“I don’t sleep much Shayne just too much stuff sometimes, I know a lot of late night places.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

“Good I’m looking forward to it.”

“Really?” Dammit! Foot in mouth.

He laughs softly. It’s a really nice laugh. “Yes really, Shayne you’re nice and you’re sweet and you’re honest what’s not to like?”

“Uhm…I’m not a biological girl?”

“You have a female mind right?”

“Yeah?” I have no idea where this is going.

“So that means you have a female brain.”

“I guess, I mean I kind of read there’s not much difference between our brains and the brains of like genetic women.”

“Then that’s both natural and it’s genetic, so you’re a girl.”

“With stuff that upsets people.”

“I’m not one of those people.”

“Okay…are you sure?”

“Yes.” There’s more humor in his voice again. “Yes I’m sure Shayne. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay…”

I’m smiling; I can’t help but to smile at all of that. I know he’s not perfect he’s pretty much been hinting at it but he’s a nice guys and that right there is points in his favor. Oh trust me…the bad boy thing only is a turn on to a certain point and when you know too many of them and finally get that they are who they are and that you can’t save them or change them and they for the most part, the most part are actually replaying their bad boy moments or using it to hide some other shit…

Yeah a nice guy is a treasure really.

And he’s not a chaser…that’s a plus.

And he never asked if I wanted him to come over to the club or something like that. Hey that’s a big one. Most guys I’ve been with when they’ve found out that I dance they want to see me dance.

Chris never so…yeah.

I go in early and I head to the office to talk to Michelle and to have a drink with her and tell her about stuff back home and if I can get some more time tonight and tomorrow night since I’ll be leaving for a few days to go home and do the family thing. She’s actually pretty good about it and says sure but the only thing she has open are laps and the basement boxes.

I opt for the basement boxes.

Okay for those of you that don’t already know there’s a set of rooms in some clubs and ours is in the basement where it’s one on one and the client is in a darkened room and we’re behind Plexiglas and it’s a lot more raunchy but it’s still safe. It’s also a good way to earn cash…I’m…well I need the cash to go home and I want as much as I can get.

It’s fifty dollars for us and that’s ten minutes and another twenty to have us take off out thongs and another fifty to watch us jerk off. Some of us can’t do that or not that often so we tell that to the customers up front.

I get changed and in the basement boxed I go with the LBD and the wetted back hair look red, red lipstick and these four inch spiked fuck me pumps that aren’t practical at all. Other than here at work I almost never wear heels unless I’m going out somewhere. But never these S&M pumps.

I pop a little blue buddy and dance, and the dress comes up most times and the panties come down. And yes there’s stroking but I never get to the point where I’m “Painting the glass.” I just can’t do it it’s as sort of creepy enough as it is doing this. It’s also pretty skeevy feeling too knowing what they’re doing on their side of the glass in the dark. I just concentrate on my own little fantasy…

No not Chris…I actually try not to think about guys I actually like in real life doing this instead I have this whole James Bond thing with Daniel Craig…sorry all the other fans of the other guys but him coming out of the water…with those trunks…and new dancing for him…but with him out there as James…in the tuxedo…imagining the only thing I can see is the martini glass and those one of those deadly hands coming into the light to sip at it…and me…you ever see True Lies? I’m this own version of Jamie Lee Curtis’s character.

With my little blue buddy I’m able to keep a stiffy on my little four inch Janey and that fantasy.

I dance a few hours there coming in early helped then I do twelve dances up on stage again because I started early and Ally gives me two of her spots and does the basement herself.

It’s ten when I’m out of there and even Michelle tells me to hold onto the cash because of the way that I pay her usually I’m good in her books compared to the other girls. She does however change the money I made into bigger bills and asks one of the big guy bouncers there Ronny to walk me to my car.

Ronny gets the bartender to make me a coffee and he even goes and get’s the car for me and pulls it out front and gets it warmed up for me. I love the bouncers we have here most of them see us as just the girls that we are and that we need the say if not more care and protection sometimes.

I wonder about some of them though…I’ve seen a few that seem to look at us and ache…like it’s not that they want us, but…yeah want to be like us. Which is hard for a six three and three hundred plus type of guy to be or ever admit to.

Mind you that’s just my feelings telling me that. So I treat them as good as they treat us. And yes, despite the early start, the hell I’ve been through and the surgeries and the hormones I am lucky.

I drive to Chris’s place only stopping to put my money into my bank account at one of my bank branches I know one that’s not too far out of the way and it’s well lit in a busy four way stop with other things there. I’ve been mugged before and robbed when I first gotten out here and first was doing my night deposits. I learned the rules of being a girl and being an easy mark.

From there I drive out to Chris’s house and I’m a little nervous because this is way out of the box for me and it’s not like I’m really dressed to go out. I’m in my clothes that I wore from home to the club and that’s a comfy pair of old jeans and sneakers with a light blue scoop necked tee and my nice warm fleece zip front hoody. I did re-do my make up before I left work though.

I put the car in park and grab my purse and head to the back door. I have the feeling that’s the door that is actually the main door for the house. I knock and he comes to the door. He’s still Chris and that sort of surfer hair long and not cut for too long and the scruff that’s not quite a bead there and he’s in an army tank top and blue sweat pants and he give me this melt my butter smile.

“Hey, good shift?”

“Yeah sorta, it is what it is right?”

He gives me this look. “Okay…” and he pulls me into a hug right off the bat…. “Better?”

I can’t help it but I lean into it. “Yeah better.”

He smiles and moves and get’s his jacket and he slips bare feet into old sneakers and looks at me. “Ready?”

“Okay…so where are we going at this hour?”

“The Avocado theatre.”

“Never heard of it.”

He smiles and it’s almost this excited guy boy I want to show you smile. “You’ll see”

“Okay…” I…I reach out and take his hand. “Surprise me.”

He heads across the back yard and out his back gate to a path between all the houses and even through some of the woodsy bits and even over a stream with this cute little foot bridge that someone made just because that even had a little peaked roof on it and it’s a twenty minute or so walk and it’s not like my last trek through woods with dad shoving me.

Chris holds my hand and we take it slow and he helps me over some of the bigger places that I need to step and all the way to this other fence that’s a dull green I think. He knocks and someone opens the gate and there’s people there.

A fair number of people some of them are older than I’m used to and there’s some couples of all sorts of combinations and there’s there big plastic water jugs with Habitat for Humanity, Green peace, 7th street Mission, and some other charities and at the back of the yard are a bunch of grills with people there that kind look like the whole hippy types from the old days running the show and Chris leads me over and we get a couple of plates of food.

I’m sort of laughing but not it’s just happy and it’s kind of cool. “Chris what is this place?”

“It’s the avocado. It’s a sort of goodwill community theater.”

“Okay…so how’s this work?”

“Come in and get some food and a drink and grab a lawn chair then pay what you can or what you feel like.”

“And if you’re broke?”

He points at some people and they kind of looked like they’ve been on the street or are on the street. “You still pay what you can.”

“Oh…”

I can’t help but to smile because there’s a kind of warm fuzzy lump there. This is really cool. I get some really good looking tacos and a bratwurst dog and a lemonade that’s actually really, really good and we get two lawn chairs and these two old hippy guys set up this big screen with sewn together sheets and a clothesline and weighted down with cinder blocks and they actually project the movie onto that and it’s the very first reel to reel film I’ve ever seen in my life.

I have never seen a Humphrey Bogart movie before and I’m sitting chair to chair with Chris watching African Queen? There’s something just so really nice about this and watching this in black and white outside with just this kind of atmosphere. It’s not the food that makes me sigh as part of me just unwinds.

I end up leaning up against Chris who asked some guy something and the guy hands him a grey blanket like you see in those car kits and he wraps it around us and soon it’s more than perfect with both of us snuggled sort of into it and there’s even free fire popped popcorn being passed out by the old guys running the place. I’ve never had open fire popped popcorn either I can sort of taste bits of smoke and char but in a good way and there’s just a bit of salt I think.

It’s a good movie really. I kind of notice a lot of dialog and wow, I kind of sort of get a bit why, like why some trans-people and even some gays are all into the ladies from back then. These were some sexy, and strong very cool female characters but so femmy too in a way. It’s not really me but I can get it a bit more and enjoy it. Heck many even fun for a costume party sometime.

I’m actually pretty happy that I didn’t fall asleep on Chris this time but really there’s this point when his and reaches over to mine like at the movie theater and where the arms of our lawn chair meet he takes my hand and slips his fingers into mine.

That got my heart beating.

I look at him when they’re switching the reels. “Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this a date?”

“I’d like that if it was?”

“Really?”

“Yes really, is that okay?”

I nod staring at him. “Why?” God it kind of sucks really to ask that but…

He sort of shrugs? Shrugs?

“I don’t really know Shayne. I mean we kind of sort of know each other from the store so we have some of that ice breaker stuff out of the way but I guess it’s just that you’re real?”

“Real…Chris I’ve a y’know, and implants and plastic surgery to look like this…I’m not real.”

“Yeah, you are because you’ve taken life by your terms Shayne. That stuff’s no different than having tattoo’s or a lot of piercing to me….actually it’s the same really you’re expressing who you really are and you went through a lot of hell over it.”

“Kiss me.”

He blinks at me. “Huh?”

“You say stuff like that and here and make my poor busted up heart feel all scared and wobbly you’d better Ki….”

He leans over and kisses me really deeply and cuts me off.

Okay, shutting up now.

Honestly, it might be the emotional content and stuff but it’s easily the best kiss that I have ever had in my entire life. I the backyard of some hippies wrapped in a scratchy blanket and sitting in a lawn chair and I’m having the best kiss ever.

God it’s that good and that long I’m leaning over the side of my chair into it for more and we only stop when people notice and there’s some clapping and some applause and I’m blushing like crazy and he is too but not as much.

It’s not teasing either from these people but that just hippy trippy cheering it on because it is what it is thing.

It’s a vibe I’ve seen in movies and on TV but I had really no idea that these people still existed. I smile a bit and snuggle even closer as the second half of the movie starts up.

“Thanks Chris…” I slip my fingers out of his but slide my arm in under his then hold his hand again and lay my head onto his shoulder. “It feels really nice to be human.”

He kisses the top of my head. “Yeah…yeah…you do that for me too…”

I’m smiling but a little happy teary through the rest of the movie.

I’m almost a little disappointed when it comes to the end of the movie and it’s time to leave and the place starts clearing out slowly with people still talking and some are hugging but there’s some of the guys running the place doing up brown paper bags for some of the people that look like they need it and Chris gets us something to drink called mulled non wine. It’s pretty much heated up fruit punch with grape juice and some spices. It’s actually kind of close really to the real thing I think the secret is cooking it awhile.

He talks to one of the guys too while putting some bills in the donation bottles and then comes over to me and offers his hand. I go to take the blanket off but he shakes his head no. “It’s okay I’ll drop it off next time.” Then he offers me his hand again as we walk back to his place taking our time.

It’s so nice when he’ll help me over some of those big steps, or a steep bit of trail I’m also getting used to blushing too I think because it’s happening so much. I’ve never really had that nice guy gentleman thing happen before me and honestly it’s really nice.

We get back to his place and I look over at him and he looks at me and we’re just kid of doing that until we both smile and laugh a little at ourselves. I hug the blanket around me a bit. “Wow, I hate this awkwardness.”

“Me too, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date.”

“Yeah…this was nice Chris…”

“So have you though about going back for the funeral?”

“Yeah, I want to go, I mean I have to go. There’s all the family stuff and dad went with the PI and I have to go and get those papers. (Sigh.) My eldest brother might do god knows what with them. But I want to really see my sister Stacy.”

“You want company?”

“Chris…this, it’s too much to ask.”

“Not really, Look you never know when you’re going to need back up.”

“I know but, we’ve just met.”

“We’re just getting close but we have known each other awhile.”

I look at him and he’s just kind of looking at me but there’s this open quality to it. I really don’t want to do this alone. Heck I want to do a lot more after tonight but no…I can’t go that far that fast. I’ve done the hook up thing and it’s a really bad thing…I want to…but…I don’t want that. I look down and then look at him and dammit he just takes that step and hugs me again.

(Sigh.) “Dammit Chris you’re too nice a guy.”

“Sometimes, I…I have done some very un-nice nice things Shayne.”

I can hear the hurt there in his voice. I’m leaning on him when it kind of sinks in or maybe I just had a smart moment or maybe even women’s intuition but veteran’s day is coming up.

And maybe this offer isn’t just for me? Maybe he needs to get away. Be away from things or maybe just not be alone during this time.

“So…You want to get out of here this weekend ?” I ask as I hug him back. There’s this tightening of his muscles as he hugs me a bit tighter but a second later there’s this sort of body sigh that happens. He nods not saying anything.

We sit like that for awhile, well a few minutes actually and the longer he holds me the better it feels and…I really don’t want to go. I want to stay and I want more of this.

(Sigh.) “I should go, it’s late Chris.”

“You should stay, It’s late Shayne.”

I lean back and stare at him, he looks back at me. “I don’t want one of those relationships Chris…god I like you so much.”

Jesus he gives me that sweet smile of his and a bit of hair falls in his eyes as he sort of tilted his head. “I have pajamas.”

Oh…

I bite my lip and nod. “Okay…”

I get more of that smile, when Chris smiles it’s…It’s smile-porn. And with that thought I’m blushing again and he says. “Good, it’s too late for you to be driving home.”

“Okay…” I’m still a little smile-porned.

“I’ll show you where things are.”

“Uhm, yeah okay….” I’m really feeling…shy?, nervous, but happy-buzzy nervous. I’ve never actually felt this way before but it’s that feeling you read about in all those young romance books when you’re with this person and they’re giving you the pure happy girl butterflies inside. It’s such a heady, wonderful feeling and it’s like when I was very first feeling like I was way back when I was discovering myself but unlike then when it was the sex and clumsily being treated like a girl this, this feels so much more intense and the only organ working hard right now is my heart.

Chris’s place is still a work in progress actually. I see a lot of drywall done in a few rooms and he’s got some seriously nicely done rooms too. A modest living room with the original hardwood floors and wood paneling in there a nice T.V. and some leather chairs and a couch too.

I’m not sure what the other rooms will be but heading upstairs there’s a finished library? With lots of shelves and books and pictures but also a nice set of love seats and the window seat too. It’s really nice and I see some instruments in there too, guitars…I don’t care if it’s a bad cliché I love a guy that can play.

He takes me to the bedroom and it’s really nice. Big, very big like half the upstairs sort of like a loft room. Hardwood floors and this big closet and a modern styled bed like the ones without the frame and bed posts like you sort of see in those Japanese hotels and along the hallway wall some very big but nice dressers and stuff. He has one of the window turrets in there and it’s like little mini atrium thing with some plants there and it adds a peaceful scent to the place.

I like it it’s very neat and clean though I was expecting more of a mess but this, this looks like a maybe military kind of way to do things?

He opens a drawer and he takes out a set of flannel plaid blue pajamas and passes them to me. “Will these do?”

I take them. “Sure, I like flannel….uhm can I use the bathroom?”

“Sure right through there.” He points and I step though and it’s really nice all these old fixtures and there’s a dais set to the other window turret on this side of the house and a old styled claw footed deep tub. You could soak here and look out over the area from the tub safe in the second story window. It’s be really nice I think…or open the windows in a cool bath in the summertime.

There’s a separate shower stall and everything was just…so nice, it’s not all like I was expecting. It’s really masculine but in a decent way. It says things about him that fits. His house fits what he does for a living now. Potter…Glassblower, Artist…a guy looking maybe for something to balm the inside wounds.

I get changed and I normally would just use the top but given my circumstances right now I wear the whole set and I roll up the pant legs and use some bobby pins from my purse to clip them in place.

I’m nervous when I head out and I’m not sure what I was expecting but he’s in another pair of sweat pants but no shirt or shoes. I’m not sure what to feel at the sight. Scruffy but very guy, and tanned all over as far as I can see but he’s lean…lean and ripped like six pack make me want to reach out ab’s but scars…lines like cuts? Knives? Surgery? Other scars like tears healed in his skin on the side where he limps. A couple of strange starburst like ones too…those I know, where I live and have lived I know gunshot scars when I see them.

I don’t know how I feel seeing them now…I’m not turned off or up more by it but it’s like…It’s horrible and beautiful….moving in a way I honestly don’t get. I…It’s like seeing the price he paid, paid for us really up close and personal. God it’s so different when it’s someone you know.

I meet him at the bed and we shyly smile and roll back the sheets and slip into the sheets together. I’m just kind of looking at him and he looks back and slides over to me and I hug him.

“Thanks Chris, I know I keep saying this but thanks…”

He smiles at me but it’s kind of shy and nervous. “Okay…I…I really want you here…uhm, should we set the alarm?”

“I use my phone it’ll wake me up.”

“Okay…”

We sort of smile again at the silly way we’re fumbling around at this and he turns the lights off from a dial at the head of the bed and we move around a bit and we actually end up spooning to start with and he’s holding me and I’m snuggled up to Chris and honestly I feel safer here right now than even with some of my ex’s.

It’s different…It’s scary, but it’s so much more real?

I drift into sleep like I don’t think I ever have and I think I felt him kiss the back of my head.

Antifreeze...Part 3.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Caution:

CAUTION: Sex / Sexual Scenes

Audience Rating:

Restricted Audience (r)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transgender

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

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Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Part 3.

It’s so warm when I wake up. I can hear the phone playing my audio-coffee. I like *Don’t Worry Be Happy* it’s just one of those songs that makes me smile or steers me that way even on bad days.

I’ve got these big strong arms around me and this really nice furnace of Chris’s body pressed to me and I can feel him semi hard pressed against me. I’m relieved that I’m not doing the morning hokey-pokey with my own bit. It’s not that I hate that part of me I kind of don’t. But this soon it might be a problem where Chris isn’t chasing me because I’m like this.

And the fact he’s not chasing me is really different and it’s really nice. I close my eyes again and inhale and enjoy the smell. I like the way that he smells. Not all men remotely smell like that and honestly I do compare them to cigars. Yeah, yeah smoking’s bad and I agree but every once in awhile I’ll get a whiff in the club of a good cigar compared to other smells and I don’t mind it. It’s like a completely different animal. Guys are like that too.

I know its hormones and pheromones and girl brained reactions but still it’s a sexually nummy smell. Earth tones and soap, clean skin and yes sex…Chris has this sort of clean sexual smell about him.

If it wouldn’t be awkward I might have just rolled over and put my face in his chest.
Oh…

Dammit that thought’s waking me up in places I’m not ready for.

I need to get up anyway.

I carefully slide out of his arms with a pang. I don’t want to…I want to stay here and leaving his bed is just about as hard as driving away the last night. I get up and turn to look at him.

Something in me does this little clench.

He looks so good like this, relaxed and there’s that thing inside him that he’s got clenched up inside well he’s not doing that right now and he looks. I think I get how a guy can be beautiful in a strictly masculine way. And that’s almost contrasted with all those scars too.

I kind of get art right about now. Not that I have any artistic ability whatsoever but while I can’t draw or paint I do have a camera in my purse and I can’t help it but to take a few pictures of him sleeping. I want to keep these, their special.

I quietly get my purse and head to the bathroom and I stop in the doorway just…I just looked back and his arm sort of sleep slid where I was and then he slips over himself to where I was sleeping feeling, searching for me and still in that sleep zone too he…moved his head to my pillow and inhaled…I see this smile there before his eyes do the slow waking opening.

Best goddamn compliment in my life.

And it kind of rocks me hard when it mixes with the feelings of him waking up. I get almost teary when his eyes open and focus in on me and he’s so got with the scruff and the hair this whole sleepy cat thing going on.

And he smiles. “Hey.”

Oh the good butterflies just woke up. “Hey, morning.” I get out after swallowing the lump in my throat.

“You sleep okay?”

“Too good, I didn’t want to get up.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“Chris you’re sill in bed.”

“No, I didn’t want you to get out of bed.”

“I have to go to work; Harlequin books hasn’t offer to re-write my life yet.”

He smiles and nods. “I’ll get the coffee on, you want breakfast?”

“Please, and that you Chris food always seems to taste better when someone else makes it.”

“What if they’re a bad cook?”

“I’ve had your food you’re a great cook.”

“I took classes.”

“Really?”

He slips to the side of the bed and nods as he massages his bad leg wincing a bit. “I don’t sleep good Shayne, it’s better and stuff but for awhile it was hard to deal so a guy I was in the service with told me about taking night classes. It’s actually how I got into the glass blowing and the pottery.”

Oh….so that’s how.

“I’ve thought about doing that. I really want to get my GED maybe go to vocational school or a community college.”

“You should.”

“Thanks, can I use your shower?”

“Sure go ahead I’ll be down stairs.” He gets up and limps out of the room but he stops and her turns the thermostat up for me. I hear the furnace kick in and smile and go take a shower.

I’m like a lot of girls, well like the everyday ones and not the ones that walk around with one of those clutch purses. I have a real girl’s purse. It’s a mess but there’s stuff in here for just in case. Toothpaste and a toothbrush, a little bottle of mouth wash and some other odds and ends from those little travel sized bottles and cans you get at the drugstore.

I even have a spare pair of panties. Rolled up in a zip-lock baggy and a dryer sheet with an elastic I have three pairs of cheap no frills comfy cotton panties just in case. As a girl just in case happens more than you think.

I shower and use the little bottle of Pert and borrow his hair dryer and then scrunchie it back and use some deodorant spray and get dressed in my clothes. It’s really odd putting the same clothes back on without the whole walk of shame.

I can smell the coffee from up here and it pulls me down to the kitchen. He looks good wearing a bandana on his head. I can smell bacon cooking and he’s making pancakes and I know where the cups are and look for the coffee maker. I spot the French press there on the table and I make myself a small sip first. Black just to know what I want and how much to put into he coffee.

I actually just go with a little cream because he’s making pancakes and I like darker stronger coffee when I have something sweet. Good black coffee and a small slice of pecan pie is just heaven. And I tend to black coffee with chocolate too.

But spotting the little tin of real maple syrup on the table having a bit of cream in my coffee would go with it great. “This is great Chris. I haven’t had real maple syrup in ages.”

He nods. “I grew up on it, I don’t like the fake stuff.” He gestures at the tin and I see Brentwood Farms, Bridgetown, Maine. As part of the labeling.

“Is this where you’re from?”

“No, but it’s like ten minutes away by car my dad and grand dad used to take us over there.”

“They send this out to you?”

He nods. “Yeah…I don’t get home that much….” Oh…that was quiet.

“What happened?”

“I came back, and I was hurt and I got hooked on pain pills which pushed my PTSD over the edge and I was drinking a lot then…I took it out on people, I hurt friends and family and when It came to ahead I went a little John-J. on people.”

“John J….?”

“Rambo…”

“Oh…” I don’t get it. It must’ve showed too. He leans on the counter after flipping things.

“I hit the wall hard. I couldn’t work then because my leg was a lot worse then and I wasn’t sleeping unless pain pills and booze knocked me out and then there was the way people treated me. It was either pity for being wounded or scared of what I was through and awkward and then there’s some that were all anti war about it and didn’t get when you swear that oath that you don’t run away…then it got worse and worse and the nightmares wouldn’t stop and I got into speed…and that pushed me to the point of after a week without sleeping I locked myself in dad’s hunting camp with my guns.”

“You tried to kill yourself?”

“Yeah, no…me and others I was just this still throbbing wound then. I got talked down and did some time in psyche and when I got out…home wasn’t really home anymore and I packed my duffle and started hitching.”

“Out here?”

He nods smiling. “Yeah, best therapy ever actually and the best physio too.”

“You know you just pull the whole thing from the move The Lucky One right?”

He grins. “Yeah and not really that uncommon. There’s a lot of us out there just…just looking for something.”

“You found that here?”

“Maybe…” He looks at me smiling that. I blush a bit.

“No seriously, I want to know?”

“It just happened…I was crashing at a friends and they were good people and they were trying to get a contracting company up and going and by the time he got it going I been long since tired on sleeping in tents or on couches and bought this place. Somewhere in all of that it became home out here.”

I look at him and nod at the refill of my coffee. “Aside from how we left and stuff we’ve got a lot in common. Hitchhiking isn’t fun stuff when you’re a runaway.” I look at him. “Or a refugee from your old life.”

He gives me that sweet look again as he sets down the pancakes and the bacon. He’s got real butter and I load it on with five pancakes. He does them thick but saucer sized some five’s just right and some bacon and oh…oh…it’s really, really good.

Foodgasmy good.

“Women must love you’re cooking for them like this.”

He nods. “It’s the stuff in the bad nights that kills it though.”

He’s looking at me pretty seriously and I look back.

“I’ve nightmares too…not so much anymore but getting raped messes you up for life…for life. You never get over it just through it and I still have nightmare of that night when dad found everything out. And on really, really bad nights…sometimes it all jumbles together. I’m still pretty screwed up if you ask me.”

And we’re looking at each other like, well like he dared to tell me about stuff that honestly I think people have walked away from something really great because of…and me…I’m warning him too….I might not be screwed up from being in war but I’m no saint and I’m no prize either.

But maybe because of that I both of us we just sort of go from staring to sipping coffee and staring at each other over our cups to smiling again.

It’s really, really nice to have a guy tell you stuff…it’s like Chris is saying…I like you, and I’m broken here and here and here and I wanted you to know before we both get hurt, because I like you.

And it’s nice too to be with someone and actually tell them…see I’m broke here and here and here and I want you to know so we both don’t get hurt and you’ll get why I’m a crazy emotional bitch at times.

It’s so odd too, to have just opened up with someone like this.

I’ve really hit something completely uncharted here. Scary, and wonderful and straightforward…and amazing. And…my phone gives me a warning chime of *Highway to hell’s* opening. It’s my reminder so when I’m busy that I have to…

Okay Chris has this amusing look on his face. “It’s my work alarm.”

“Work alarm?”

“Yeah sometimes I get busy doing stuff and this goes off after my waking me up alarm to let me know that I better get motoring and take off to work.”

He laughs.

“What?”

“One that’s all kinds of cool and two you really are a mid-west girl because I haven’t heard “Motoring” used as a verb since I knew guys from there in the army.”

I blush again but it’s a kind of happy blush. It’s been….actually I’m not sure that any guy has thought that something that I do is cool. Usually all my other relationships are/were kind of settling for someone that was a douche instead of being alone then getting hurt when it falls to shit.

I really didn’t want to be the not be alone type of girl but sometimes the lonely times just get bad enough that you do settle.

Did settle, thankfully I’ve wised up and it’s been over a year almost two since I’ve been with anyone….okay last new years I went out with the girls from work and we had a drunken thing in the bathroom at a club but I’m pretty sure that a drunken BJ doesn’t count.

Being called or something that I did getting called cool is a really nice lift. God he’s really good at making me feel good about being me while just being himself.

Chris smiles at me. “I have to get a start early too, I want to finish up an order I have for a client’s pub. I’ll walk you to the car?”

“Sure.” I smile and he walks me to my car only stopping to get me another cup of coffee to take with me in one of his thermos mugs. “Thanks, I’ll bring it back.”

“No rush I have a lot of them from doing that whole contracting thing.”

“Oh, okay…”

I get the car started and get the heater going and was going to turn around and tell him to have a good day and to thank him for coming with me but when I turn around he’s right there. Like not just right there but I could almost grave my breasts across his chest close to me.

“Thanks for staying Shayne.”

“Uhm…yeah thanks for having me…”

“I mean it…I’ve…it’s been a long time since I slept like that.”

“Me too actually. Honestly Chris I’m not even sure if I’ve ever slept like that.”

“Good.”

“Yeah me too, it was good.”

“Shayne…”

“Yeah…?”

“I want to kiss you now.”

“Uhm…ok…”

Again it’s all I can get out and Chris kisses me and it’s this duck in head tilted enough direct kiss on my lips and it’s warm and it’s soft but at the same time it’s got this demanding warmth there like…and he does it again and again and softer sometimes and slower others and deeper on a few of them and he’s not just kissing me because kissing me is something that you do when you like someone this, this is I like you and I’m kissing you because I like kissing you kissing.

So totally different.

There’s just something in being kissed like that that spreads so much warmth through me because honestly the guys I’ve been with didn’t know the difference or didn’t care.

Chris is not a guy…he’s a man.

So totally different.

A guy can make you ache for him because he’s hot.

A man can make you ache for him because he’s him.

Chris is both.

I’m aching, my nipples are so hard the feel like they’re drilling holes through my bra and my top and I swear my breasts are swelled and heavy with want and I feel that empty ache of wanting a man…Yeah, some people might be all grossed out by that and stuff but it’s me…I’m pre-op and likely always will be…I’m just me and I’m not gay, or I don’t see myself as gay…maybe bi since I have been with a few girls but I like guys and I like me…I mean usually…it’s just sexually who I am.

And I’m really feeling that need and attraction right now.

I break the kiss because I really need to go to work and I…dammit I always have to leave him when I really don’t want to.

Though if I was really falling and really deeply in love with a guy like Chris having the surgery might be totally worth it.

I’m actually panting a little well breathing fast at least and he hugs me again nice and tight. “Have a good day at work.” I love the soft gentle caring way he says it into my ear.

“You too… I…I’m not working tomorrow though I’m getting ready and stuff so call me? We need to figure things out if you still feel like getting away from everything for the long weekend.”

“I still feel like it. What vehicle are we taking?”

“Would it be bad it we took your truck? I have things to take, my sister Stacy’s in a bad way.”

“Sure, I’ll put the truck liner in and get the box out too.”

“Really? You don’t mind?”

Chris opens my door for me and I get in and he leans down and gives me this really sweet kiss. “No I don’t mind at all.” We share another little sweet kiss and he smiles that smile-porn smile at me and says softly as he’s pulling from my lips. “Drive safe.”

Oh god that man could make a mannequin wet.

And once again I’m all stirred up driving away from Chris seeing him watch me go in my rearview mirror.

Is this really happening to me? Am I actually falling for this guy?

I drive to work instead of home and I get into the spare work clothes I have there. It’s always a good idea when you work at a grocery store to keep spares or at least one set there because you never know what’s going to spill on you or whatever. I actually keep two sets after getting blasted by soda when a pallet of cans fell off a forklift and a whole lot of the cans busted and sprayed a bunch of us out back and had a baby puke on me all on one shift.

And it still wasn’t as gross and dirty as doing lap-dances.

It’s a pretty good day and aside from being really aroused at the start and pretty much whenever I think of Chris things go pretty smoothly and I go to see Gary at lunch knocking at the office door.

“Hey, you busy?”

He shakes his head mouth full of pastrami on rye. He mumbles around the mouthful. “What’s up?”

“Is there any chance that I can get some deals on some stuff?”

“Like?”

“Anything…I was talking to one of my sisters yesterday and she’s really hurting. He husband took off on her and the kids because she was sick and the bastard couldn’t handle her being sick.”

“Sounds like a complete asshat. If I can ask what’s wrong with her?”

“Fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, and she has two kids.”

Gary winces. “Fibro sucks really bad.”

“Yeah, from what she said yeah. The fucker left the impression that he was “fed-up” because apparently she doesn’t look sick and he went all super dick about it.”

“Sure, there some stuff in the back bin from some of the damaged palates and you see anything you think she’ll need from the store room you get it and I’ll sell that to you at cost.”

“Cost…really?”

“Sure, this way we don’t lose any cash not really and it won’t even hit the floor.”

“Thanks Gary.”

“No, no need she sounds like she’s in a bad way and things got to be tight since she likely can’t work. This is just a little thing really; you’re the one spending the money.”

“She’s my sister and she’s giving me a chance again, she knows about me and to her it’s not a big deal.”

“But to you it’s a really big deal.”

“Yeah it is, thanks.” I give him a big hug and he blushes nice and red.

I head out to start looking at the stuff that she’s likely going to need. The stuff in the back bin isn’t expired or even dented but if the box it’s in is damaged we usually have to send it back to the company if it’s like a whole pallet or to the shipping office. But… if it’s not worth shipping back because one box out of the shipment was damaged we’ll take it home since it just gets marked off as damaged and is covered.

It’s a good thing that we’ll be taking Chris’s truck then.

I do ask some of the others if I mind getting this or that and it’s stuff like canned goods, soup and canned tomatoes, beans, and canned pasta…which is ick by the way but I’m sure that the kids will like it and I’m hoping no one had peanut allergies since I have five good sized jars that were misprints and didn’t have the labels on them. Smuckers jam with the wrong lids on them glitches really in shipping and even in packaging stuff happens a lot actually.

I fill the trunk and the backseat of the car. Yeah there’s a lot of stuff there mostly because it pretty much happens in every shipment with some thing and we’re actually a pretty big store. Mind you there’s not a lot of room in my car either when you’re putting in lots of stuff like that. The toilet paper took up a lot of room. The packages we have here came in the other day and they didn’t wrap right. So they’re seamed with packing tape. I don’t take all of them but I take three packs of sixteen rolls.

Hey women use twice as much TP as guys and she has kids.

I’ll stop in and get the rest of the stuff tomorrow with Chris. I drive home and unload it all before getting some supper and then getting changed for my shift tonight at the club. Its Thursday day night so some of the guys will be getting paid as Thursday day and Friday are popular paydays for people maybe the tips will be a little better.

If I didn’t need the money and stuff I’d really like to quit dancing and try a normal life.

………………………………............It’s off to the club again and again I head in really early so I can get some more time and some more dances in and some time down in the boxes. I pop a little blue helper at home from my stash and some chewable vitamins and make a quick milkshake with some instant breakfast powder I drink it on my way to the club and stop at the drive through at Dunkin’s for a coffee.

Yeah, I kind of live on coffee but the rest of the stuff’s for dancing, like I said it really burns off a lot of calories and you can get pretty dehydrated under those lights as easily as bad as any rave.

I chat with Michelle whose back in the back stairs having a cigar. Yeah a cigar or that’s what I call them they’re cigarette slim and long but dark black and have this heady sweet odor that I associate with cigars.

She might be the boss but as women go she’s still red hot for being close to fifty. Dark red hair and a nice face but without Botox of plastics just really taken care of and proud of her age. Nice lady on her good side….she’s connected and dangerous herself….but safe for us t-girls…word was she had a kid like us that was living a second life afraid of coming out and she was killed by a John…so the club she built up as a safe haven.

She says I can get the stages and the basement boxes like yesterday after I sit with her and explain things…she really doesn’t like my sister’s ex either. You don’t just leave someone that you’ve married or been with that long and had kids with.

Well people do but they’re not effing supposed to.

I head inside and I get my outfits together I’m going for slutty, leather bitch and dominatrix stuff or sweet and smutty with pig tails, plaid skirted school girl, cheerleader and the ever popular nurse get up and well of course my cowgirl stuff.

I start in the basement first and make my way through the dances grinding and dancing and touching myself and stroking and slipping off to my imaginary sexy time with men that are my movie star, rock star fantasies harmless fantasies. I really try and not to think about what they’re doing in the dark and the lewd shit their thinking.

But…there’s some that make noises…and more than one of them jerks his slime onto the window. Yeah….bile in my throat I’ll lick the clean side of the glass just across from their dripping goo….for forty bucks in the sliding draw of course.

Bastards…every one that gave it the Windex-spunk formula paid for that.

I need the money…I need the money…and Thank god I’m not touching them.

I’m down there a good two hours before heading upstairs close to seven o’clock to start my dances up on the stage. A Thursday night and some guys are paid tonight and it’s busy as there’s a deal on beers and wings too and actually that brings in a few others.

I hit the stage and do my things and I’ve kind of going a bit more out there tonight, some more hip and some more shimmy and way more boob action going and pole action too. And some whip both in my Dom outfit and my usual Shayne Starr deal and the cowgirl thing I do with a little tying my self up as I’m getting tipped….that’s taking my whip while I’m on my knees and hooking my spurs and sort of pulling my heels up.

That get’s some attention.

Ally helps out too after a break we come up with this Dom and slave thing and feel up lez scene stuff and sucking face and breasts and fondle and stroke while we’re dancing and even this other black hat and white hat thing where we’re both dancing and I’m trying to catch her and pin her to the pole…tie her up with the whips sort of and she’s dance wriggling to escape and I’m seducing her to give up and it’s the first time anyone’s ever done an “act” thing with two girls on the stage before here and it’s not really cabaret or anything like that but we get some attention.

Michelle stayed even to watch the entire deal and she even applauded which was oddly nice because some of the others were doing it too and we pretty much never get applause really.

The tips from those two parts were wicked good too even with splitting them with Ally they really are excellent. I guess I should mention Ally is likely my closest friend here at work and she’s like me but she’s actually twenty two in real life and she’s part Russian and part Cuban meaning she got the legs and that tall almost Nordic genes and she got those Hispanic curves especially since she when on her hormones, she’s had work done too and stuff like the rest of us but I’ve seen pictures of her before and even her as a boy.

She really never was a boy, you can see her there as Andre just there waiting to grow up and put her big girl panties on. Ally is sexy and smoky and sultry with these generous curves and really big breasts and stunning smile and long jet black cascading hair.

And like me this is not her day job this is her making money for her SRS and she’s not bad as me either in being inhibited but she hadn’t been through the things I have. She’s from Miami originally and while like me she burned bridges getting here to who she really is she had a lot less trauma.

But she’s also still in my opinion working her way through grief too. When she came out here she had a girlfriend a girl she had loved all of her life and when she had started to transition she never batted an eye about Andre becoming Ally and loved her anyway. That she died from cervical cancer two years ago.

There’s times that I’m sure Ally’s at the club not just for the money but so she doesn’t have to be home too much on those nights when the empty house and the empty bed are too much.

We’re all fighting something right?

Me right now I’m fighting for…myself and to be me. To get out from my debts and to help my sister at the very least and to maybe, maybe be able to claim part of my family and my own life back. Some of that life that I could’ve had maybe?

Not likely but everytime I see T-girl story in the news or online I can’t help but to think what if? What if that was me?

It kind of hurts too.

But sometimes getting hurt makes you want to fight harder.

Oh…

I get Ally to tape my hands up for one of my last dances and I get in a halter top and satin boxers and come out and do a sort of fake dance and shadow boxing routine all to *Fighter* by Christina Aguilera…I like that music for dancing to…Dirty is another good tune and Britney’s Slave is great for my Dom act. I work up a sweat and lean on the pole and sweat…and pant and breathe and pull off the halter like it’s too hot…feel my boobs like their aching fake gasp…squeeze them. Roll them in my hands…reach down into the boxers…stroke…moan…then snap my eyes open and spin around the pole sexy thrash like I’m hurting and letting shit out and it’s not a far stretch for that really and then walk back at the end of the song.

I blush when some of the girls applaud back stage and stuff.

It’s a really hard night and getting more intense sort of kind of brought out some of the artistic side in me? It was weird just not going out with a simple act and dance and wriggle and shake but actually doing something else.

I’m actually having a dish of wings they’re actually really good for a she-male strip bar Annie who’s another T-girl but not a dancer is the cook and she flours them then deep fries then but they’re like a buffalo wing and tossed in roasted garlic that is blended with melted butter that she roasted the garlic in and some agave nectar and Franks Red-Hot sauce. It’s really hot and garlicky and just a bit of sweet but not brown sugar or honey so it’s just really different and at eleven at night it really hits the spot. Add in some carrot and celery sticks and a serious dip made of blue cheese and chives and sour cream and it really kicks ass.

Michelle comes back drink in hand and smiles at me. “You were on fire tonight.”

“Uhm thanks honestly I was trying anything and everything for the tips.”

“Well not everything but I can’t blame you there, it’s why the lap dancing’s by choice but seriously good hustle out there.”

“Thanks, I need the cash I got my sister to think of and family and honestly I have no idea if I’ll ever get back there. It might turn out that I’m seriously not welcome despite what I’m being told.”

“You have a place here Shayne and friends as bad as it gets don’t forget that.”

I hug her. “I won’t, I’ve been out there Michelle and trust me I’m really, really grateful for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“Good, maybe I’m not too late to help some of you girls.”

“You’re both looking after us.”

“Both?”

“Your club right? But you named it after your daughter?”

“Yeah, most people thing of the song.”

“Well both of you look after us, and we really appreciate it.”

She smiles and wipes at her eyes with her baby finger all too cool to cry and stuff. I smile and hug her anyways some more. “Drive safe Shayne okay? I want you back.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Good.”

She kisses my cheek and goes off looking for Ally and I get changed and get back to dancing and it’s more of the regular stuff as the night wears down and it’s only the serious regulars that are here until last call at two in the morning.

The tips were worth it but I’m hurting. I danced on stage for close to forty five times and that’s about five minutes each time per song plus the boxes below and getting changed, and being in I got here at seven and I’m done at two tonight. It’s all broken up sure but its hours on my feet all the time in four inch heels or boots and shaking it.

Yeah shaking it. My legs hurt but really the inside of my thighs the most because of the hip swaying side to side moves, my hips hurt from those too…my breasts hurt from the shimmy shaking…yeah bra’s we wear to keep them from hurting…from bouncing and all of that. Doing it as a job? Even my neck from doing hair whip tosses is sore. Add in the blisters from those damned shoes and the fact I did a shift at my day job. I’m beat. I stop only long enough to deposit the cash in my banks ATM in the safe place I use and I drive the rest of the way home with my windows down.

I’m a tired little girl hauling my ass up the steps to my place.

I beeline it for some instant coffee. No, as coffee addicted as I am it won’t keep me up. But it’s got just enough power in it to let me have a long hot soak in the tub and its like close to four in the morning by the time I’m falling asleep.

Thank god I’m not working at all tomorrow…I don’t set my phone. I just get into a pair of sweats and a hoody and crawl into my bed with almost a whimpery sigh and pull the blankets over me.

……………………………….......My alarm goes off. Waaaay too early. I wake with a serious case of the pasties. No not the nipple covers but that dry mouth you’ve been snoring thing. Ugh…complete with mouth crud and eye gunk. I’m not as sore but it’s gone down to that stropy ache thing.

I get up and wince at death feet. You know when you’ve been on your feet so much that even after you’ve rested your feet hurt at first when you get up. I grab a pair of big fluffy socks and roll them on. It softens the floor. I’d have carpet if it wasn’t so much work to clean. That’s why rich people have great carpets because they don’t clean them.

I use the bathroom and stumble to the kitchen and get my coffee pot on the stove and then drink the rest of my orange juice out of the fridge right from the jug and then do and wash my face and brush my teeth and use some mouthwash and rinse with hot water. I’m so hate trying to have coffee with mint mouth.

I start packing or going through things to take with me and I do have a couple of funeral outfits. You go to a few of these in my community, violence…overdoses…suicide…and AIDS…just to name the most common things I’ve go to funerals for. I pack actually most of those. I have a nice dress that’s black with a bit of lace and white flowers that I had made myself when living with the girls and needed a dress for a funeral of one of their grandmothers. I pack the black yarn knit shawl to go with that and I need a separate bag for my shoes and boots.

I go and coffee up and I’m not going to be here for awhile so I go through my fridge and cook my eggs boiling them and taking out stuff that might go bad. The eggs I soft boil two and hard boil the other three. I take the rest of my scallions and really finely chop them and some dill pickle chopped and a couple of gherkins and some sweet chili sauce and some salt just a pinch and just a bit of mayo and make egg salad sandwiches. I wrap then in paper towel then waxed paper and put then in some Tupperware when my phone rings. I check it and its Chris.

“Ola, good morning.”

“Morning how was work?”

“Rough, I pulled seven hours.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I’m still feeling it.”

“Advil?”

“No, I’m good it’s just exercise ows.”

“Ah…so when should I come over?”

“I’ve some running around to do and stuff before we head out.”

“I can handle that I ca drive you around to do it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I want to spend time with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes really, it felt weird not talking to you or seeing you after the last two days.”

I smile. “Well, we have been sleeping together.”

“Yeah, I really missed that.”

“Chris…”

“One hotel room?”

“I’d like that honestly Shayne.”

I bite down on asking for what I really want…it’s…that’s too much too soon. “Okay but bring my jammies with you.”

“I’d rather see you in something you’ve chosen.”

“Okay…”

“Shayne?”

“Yeah…?”

“God this is crazy but….”

I finish for him. “It is, dammit it is Chris but I want more.”

“Tell me how to get to you.”

I give him my address and he says. “I be there soon…”

He hangs up and I’m holding the phone to my chest and I swear I can feel my heart thumping against my fingers and…oh god, what did I do!? Why? This is too fast…I…I wanted this to be different, slower some how be real.

But…dammit, dammit…

He’s…He’s Chris and already he’s…

I hear his truck pull in… That was fast….I head to my door and glance at my phone. Shit I’ve been standing there freaked out for the last half hour…I see him out of the truck and come up the walk just jeans, and a muscle shirt on and that bandana there from him being in the shop and I open the door for him.

And he sweeps me right into his arms and right off my feet!

I wrap my legs around him and he…one arms holds me while he slams shut my door…still kissing me and I’m kissing him and the strength and the power that raw male sensuality hitting my blood like a virus…god I’m burning up.

And the kissing is fantastic. He manages to get out “Bedroom?” between kisses.

“Down…last left…” I wave down the hall before my fingers are pushing the bandanna off and running my fingers through his hair. And we keep kissing down the hallway up against the walls. Hard fast desperate…up against my doorway…slow, slow sweet deep and desperate still…kissing never’s been like this, my body aches, not just my breasts or my deep sweet place but everything, I’m on fire and I want him to touch me…touch me everywhere.

I can’ help it and pull of my hoody and I’m not wearing a bra, underwear either for that matter just from the bath to these and right to bed. I cry out a silent Oh! As Chris’s hands cup my big breasts and I feel so dainty...small as… as big as my breasts are he’s able to totally cup me in his big strong hands.

Never…and their so hot and it’s like they’re scarred from everything but buffed smooth from his potters wheel at the same time and I swear his touch has some of that heat, that he’s got some of the heat from the kiln in him.

We hit the bed and the luggage gets pushed off to the floor and just the kissing, and his touch, the way he’s touching my breasts, tracing his fingers over the skin, and my nipples and when he takes them into his mouth.

Breasts are so sensitive, mine are…with the nerves woken up by the hormones they’re way more sensitive where I’m aroused than my Janey ever is….Nipples that feel so good that my eyes roll back… “Chris…Chris…”

He looks at me…no…he stops what he’s doing and looks really at me with those eyes and takes that time…be’s that man and connects with me. Touches my face with that hand that touch that say… “God you’re beautiful Shayne…”

The thumb that delicately brushes away these tears that have never been shed for anyone, that have been waiting just for him.

Then he kisses me… and kisses me and I’m falling into just that, that way he makes me feel like I’m real, that I’m Shayne first, he’s lover and his friend and more…more inside to him than just the rest.

I hit a boiling point and I can’t get his jeans undone fast enough.

I use my feet to pull them and his boxers off hip hips and off of him. Multi-talented I reach to my night stand for the condoms and the lube. Chris is making that hard with his mouth making me arc my chest up into his mouth and cry out in pleasure as there’s this grazing suck of teeth soothed instantly by lips.

Fumble, and swoon, gasp and roll into him and he kisses down.

Then he sucks my Janey my achy little hard usually and purposely ignored Janey into his hot wet mouth. I’m really not much of a mouthful.

“Ugnh! Chris!…God…you…You don’t have to.”

He pulls off and kisses my pelvis. “I want to Shayne.”

“But…”

“That too you have a nice butt.”

“Chris!” I shout-laugh.

“No, Shayne…I want you…just you…the, this doesn’t matter…you do…”

More tears spill out happy ones and I nod sniffling and I pass him the condoms. “Safe…please…”

“Okay…but we’re getting tested.”

I nod.

He tears one open with his teeth and slips it over me…It’s…His hot mouth returns to making love to me and I hunch my hips up and shiver as he lubes me up… “Iip!…cold!” He laughs taking his mouth away and tears off another condom for his fingers.

“Gawd…Chris…I’m sorry I wasn’t ready…It might be messy I didn’t know this was going to happen….Oh!”

He sinks a condomed pair of fingers inside me slowly. I actually don’t own a sex toy…so it’s been awhile…a long while….he’s really gentle…slow…just...just to his second knuckles and I can’t help but to wriggle…as his fingers sink in, and warm me and stretch me…I squeal… “Oh god, oh god fff…Chriiiis…” As he suckles the longest sweetest burst of my girlmone altered juices through me.

I pant; I see spots….holy god.

“I’ve been in Iraq…this isn’t messy…This is me making love to you…” Chris slips up my body and he kisses me deeply and over and over as he uses his fingers to work my open.

The kisses are as good as his touch…I’ve never been touch like this.

I feel him against me and he’s perfect…big but not too big eight inches I’d say and straight and thick too but not too thick and very, very hot. I can feel the heat of it pressed into my hip.

“Now, Chris please now…”

“Are you sure…are you okay, like ready…”

I shiver as his fingers hit my inside B or I guess G-spot and I hump his hand… “Yesss” I hiss getting these little inside tremors through me as he seems to understand what he’s touched and to tips of his fingers are making sweet slow circles inside of me over that and very gently.

He pulls out of me just as I was heading to someplace wonderful. I whimper a little bit with want and he discards the “safe” on his fingers for one on his more prominent appendage. Actually two.

“Two..?” I gasp.

“I want to last longer…it’s been too long Shayne...”

He kisses me as soon as he’s finished and both of his hands slide up my body like I’m some delicate vase and holds me with his thumbs tracing along the very neglected underside of my breasts…right along that spot closest to the inside of my arms. Mmmm that so sensitive there…

Chris pushes into me and it hurts…god it hurts some good and I let out a gaspy squeal. Hot and thick and he’s opening me up and I can feel him slowly siding over these nerves inside of me so untouched and so needy and heat, heat and that soft flesh coating that iron rod sinking into me until he hits bottom.

I’m gasping for air in between fevered kisses and he’s treating me to these caresses that I’ve never had from any man before. Slowly letting my insides adjust and the muscles to stop fluttering wildly and for awhile he’s just with me more than he’s inside of me.

I mean again those kisses and the way he’s so close and so right there face to face when he’s not suckling and making oral love to my breasts…but he always comes back and after such a beautiful time of just this I nod at him and move my hips.

And he makes love to me.

Here’s one of the huge, huge differences between a guy that what’s to have sex and a man that’s making love to you and this is true for girls like me as well as any other person. A guy that wants to fuck you likes, loves even to watch his cock sinking into you he’s right into the fucking and all of that. Chris isn’t looking at that he’s not watching him sinking into me deeply over and over. Instead he’s watching me.

He looks me in the eyes.

Smiles back when I smile.

Kisses me when I need it.

Never stops the foreplay, the kisses on my lips, my breasts, touching me and not just those places but my skin, my side, hips…Me.

All these things that I’ve never had with someone before and…and to be honest he’s fucking my brains out. I come twice more just little burst of girl fluids but the feelings…oh the feelings and the pulsing goes on…and the way he fills me like nothing else as my insides clench doing that and seizing around him.

That last orgasm was way more girl than boy ever could be and I cry and shake almost bouncing myself up and down him like I was stroking him off with the firmness of my body.

Chris cries out. “Shayne…!” and followed by thins sexy as hell grunt…that powerful male ugh…that comes with hard work…or just intensity…like this…and as I feel almost his whole body clench up in those shooting off male orgasm spasms…I’m sure I feel it inside even with the condom on…I feel it swelling but filling with Chris’s hot seed.

And he doesn’t bite my collar bone but he almost did…he did gnaw on it a little.

He collapses ontop of my shaking and breathy and sweating and his weight feels good…he feels so real like this and his arms sink under me and slowly wrap around me and he hugs me…he hugs me and I’ve never been hugged in sex before…never.

And he buried his face in my shoulder and he cries.

I wrap my legs around his waist not for sex but to hold him too and pull the comforter over us. (Good thing I never made the bed.) and I hold him…I don’t really say anything but hold him with my body, inside my body and wrap my arms to hold him tight to me and let him just let this out.

I slide one of my arms under his and up to his head and run my fingers through his hair and just stay like that, only kissing the top of his head.

No prying, no questions…all that stuff can wait…if Chris has been as messed up and alone as I can imagine he’s fighting his way through the shock of being with someone.

It’s actually a timeless thing…a man finding something with a woman, a woman finding the strength she needs with that man…Killer and a Whore by most standards. And even that’s part of the whole thing too….because there’s another story as old as time too.

He wipes his eyes on me and looks at me and he’s a wreck, it’s so oddly good to see really that he’s this red eyed, scruffy long hard wreck. Chris isn’t just a man like I’ve been saying but he’s actually likely the most human being I’ve ever been with really.

I push him up from me just enough so I have room to kiss him this time, long and slow and sweetly too. “Yeah…see Chris…you’re still human.”

He looks at me and his eyes went wide a bit and he closes them and he has some fresh tears running down his face and I roll us over to our sides and yeah this was unbelievable but sex wise it’s done. Did I like it?

Hell yes but right now I want Chris more than the sex.

So I spend the next hour just cuddled and touching him and kissing him and looking him in his eyes and just connecting. He does the same for me…touching me, kissing me his fingertips sliding over parts of my like they’re fascinating…I mean like my shoulder even…and me his scars…touching them…slowly…and kissing them not…not to be all like one of those girls that is into scars because they make the guy a guy and hot…no…I’m kissing his scars and those battle wounds and slowly sucking on them.

“Shayne? What are you doing?”

“Kissing you.”

“Yeah…but…”

“They’re part of you Chris…I just want to love that part of you as much and suck out the pain.”

“They don’t hurt…most of them.”

“You got then in war Chris…they’re soul deep…I just want to get some of that out finally…”

“Shayne…”

“Mmmmm?” I mumble smile suck kiss looking at him from one of the gunshot wounds.

“Thank you…just…just thank you…you get it.”

“No…no I don’t Chris but pain, being hurt and fucked up I do get.”

“She…she didn’t…”

Oh…yeah…That, that actually I figured on…and it’s not an uncommon story at all either. He had someone and she got back someone that wasn’t the same guy that left. She wouldn’t or couldn’t deal…when he needed her the most.

It’s shitty for her to do but not just her fault too…people with S.O.’s in this stuff should be taken aside and really sat down and told, even if you have to shake the shit out of them. This, this is what might happen; this is what you might have coming home to.

But…still he’s hurting so much now…what was he like when he first got home? And how can you just up and leave someone that way?

I don’t fucking get it and I never will.

I look at Chris and I kiss him again giving him all the soft and gentle love that I can offer up. Honestly I can say as lonely and wanting just someone in my life for real that I know I have a lot of it to give.

I kiss until we’re both doing that thing and smiling at each other looking deep into each others eyes and really not needing words right now.

He slowly blinks. “We should…”

I nod. “Yeah we should, there’s a lot I still need to do.”

We get up sand we shower and I put the garbage from my room in the other garbage and he takes it out while I wash my sheets. I’m not leaving that mess there…god I’m actually smiling and I feel well I feel awesome…there’s really nothing like the way that you feel after you make love.

Well I’d have said after good sex because really I think that Chris is the first time for me that I’ve had someone make love to me.

We clean the place up together before we go. All the perishables are packed as lunch or tossed out and I scrub and freshen things up and even out a new box of baking soda in my fridge. It’s just a really good idea if you can to get all the housework done so when you come home all you have to do is unpack.

Chris carries my things out to his truck and sets my fiver big suitcases with his one and a garment bag for like a suit or something. Yes, hey I need clothes for like four days and I need funeral clothes and after funeral clothes plus street clothes and shoes and well then here’s my make up and toiletries and my hair dryer…I actually need these things really.

From there we head to my bank and I get some money out and buy a pre-paid Visa card there because hotels and stuff require credit cards and a pre-paid Visa doesn’t get looked at ID wise past the stuff the teller asks me for. Then it’s off to work and we go out back once Gary has few minutes and I start getting stuff from him at cost. Several big bags of potatoes, and a case of frozen pizzas along with a couple of coolers that he lets me have from the summer leftovers and I fill those with meat. I get stuff kids will eat like hamburger and hot dogs and a whole roll of bologna and chicken breasts, I get a couple of frozen hams that Gary is willing to part with and two frozen turkey’s and a few roasts.

We pack it all up and get it all under ice and Chris…smart sexy guy that he is he gets some packing tape and once we have each styrofoam cooler paced and full of ice he takes the tape and uses a lot of it but he seals it all air tight. He loads everything up actually I help and the last thing/good idea we do is open the little vent windows for the truck cap.

From there we head out and I head to a Mexican market that I go to and since we are in California I hit the produce stand outside and I buy a lot of stuff there. Three big boxes of oranges and one of lemons and several bags of other stuff that she and the kids might like and I get a three pound box of real Mexican chocolate. It’s really different stuff than most people think, but I’ve learned to like it a lot. There’s a lot of people around that still use it in the mornings instead of coffee.

For me I get Chris and I a few bags of nice dark figs just right too and some in market fresh roasted almonds and a small bag of cherries to have up in the front with us.

Our last stop is purely for Stacy…well I’m Buying for the house too and some for Sarah even though I have no idea the reception I’ll get from her and we stop at L’artisan du Chocolat out in Silver lake and I get a big sampler for the house but I get some really good ones too like Aztec Chili, Bacon, Matcha green tea… (Which is nummy)…Passion Fruit, Pomegranate, Sea Salt Caramel… (My fave of all of them) Some classic truffles and Lavender and lastly some Earl grey ones.

I get the 144 piece one for the house and the 36 piece one’s in the lacquered boxes for my sisters and Chris gets us a box too for the trip. I smile at him and he smiles back. “With what might be going on with your family you’re going to need your own stash.”

I kiss him sweetly right there in the store in front of people and I blush afterwards. “Thank you.”

He smiles that smile-porn smile of his and licks his lips… “Oh pure self interest…kissing a beautiful woman that tastes like good chocolate and bacon…” he kisses me back and he’s got the bag in one hand and holding mine in the other and I’m getting some looks from the women behind the cash like wistful jealousy.

Yeah…I’d been right there with them a couple of days ago.

We leave and head out of town on the highway eventually getting on the I-70 E and settle into the flow of traffic I put in some music from his CD’s and I slide next to him on the seat of the truck and just relax against him and we drive.

I of course fall asleep and wake up somewhere in the middle of Utah and we make a pit stop for lunch and for me to use the little girls room at the rest stop we end up at. It’s very sort of surreal being here with the whole different scenery than I’m used to seeing and being here with Chris and while the rest stops are usually pretty safe places I’m remembering them from my time on the road and seeing some of the people that are sort of wandering around the rigs and the truckers.

It’s really just…

I get us two coffees and an outside picnic table and Chris brings the truck over and parks it to block the wind after getting some gas. He looks at me tilting his head.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, just memories.”

“Been here before?”

“No, not here…but southern Utah when I came out here.”

“Oh…so…?”

“Rest stops and truck stops were sort of the places to catch a ride…”

“Okay…”

“Nobody rides for free Chris.” I nod toward this teenaged girl slipping into the cab of some guy’s truck.

“He’s going to make her…?”

“No she just had a small purse she’s a working girl.”

“Oh…you?”

I nod taking out the sandwiches I made and the mixed leftover salad and some of the stuff from the truck. “A few times.”

I give him the look like I’m just being honest, but maybe I’m pushing him too. Hell I’m definitely girl enough to pick at my old wounds in hopes of scaring him off or seeing that he’s not going to be like the others. I’m not playing games either…part of this is really just yeah being a girl and we just do shit like that and part of me is testing him because I have been hurt.

But it’s not a game.

Chris just nods, he just looks me in the eyes and there’s no judging there just…he gets it as much as he can. He’ll likely never get the really horrible side of getting used like I have or that girl is but I’ll never get what the war was like but again it’s that bearing our ugly sides to maybe see who might blink first and neither one of us is.

We eat and just relax despite the stuff going on here.

Help? No…you learn pretty quickly that most of these girls are here for their own reasons and while my heart goes out to them they could keep moving on. I did…besides I can see a meth head from a mile away and there’s a shit ton of that stuff at these places too. Most whitebread everyday folks never even see this stuff going on under their noses or they just turn a blind eye to it. The locals…more than likely they let some of this slide because the cops could bust someone or several someone’s for hooking and drugs everyday here and they don’t because of they just don’t have the space in the jails and they do show up, take dope, cockblock Johns but they really only take the worst ones away.

Yeah the world can really suck…

I look though at Chris…and sometimes it’s not a half bad place.

We eat and head out back on the road and we talk about our times on the road. It’s a totally different experience for him as a guy. Me I was used and abused and treated like a whore and there were times that I was made totally aware that me being found in a ditch could happen pretty easily.

Chris…a vet in army stuff you got those who were really decent and friendly and then you have those that still see another victim. He hitched his way from one side of the country to the other and he was shot at twice once was just a hillbilly drive by just because he was there and they thought they were all big and bad.

He’d been denied services or being allowed in diners or gas stations just as much as he was treated well for being a vet. As a guy he’d been fooled and robbed by more than one girl on the streets, help up three or four times and while vet’s were respected by some people others saw a homeless guy.

It wasn’t easy for him either.

But the times he talks about just out here in the wilderness and camping going all Jeremiah Johnson? I have no idea who that is. It’s not that Chris is that much older than me he’s just a man…and I really don’t get or really know a whole lot of guy-culture stuff. That sounded like guy culture stuff.

It’s really easy to talk to him and it’s really easy to listen to him too and we talk actually through the rest of Utah and into Colorado and…okay we slow down at a few place to look at stuff. My God Colorado is a pretty state and even if I’ve lived in California I’m an L.A. girl and I know the beaches and the street I’ve never really been in the mountains. I’ve seen them while I worked the farms and been up in the foothills different times doing that but…

This is being in the mountains.

I’m still a city girl really and likely always will be but at the same time it’s just…We stop for gas and coffee at one place just this small diner and gas station and we get some pretty decent homemade fried chicken and some of the best onion rings that I ever had and we sat out of the lights on the tailgate of the truck with that scratchy blanket from The Avocado around us and we stared out at the night sky and likely took an hour to eat our supper and just.

It was such a beautiful sight really and to have someone to share it with, and have that warm blanket and body to lean against and just be with.

I think he was feeling it too that awake, wide awake with love for a few more hours at least as we hit the road again and we drive all the way until morning where we finally stop for a place to sleep at a decent hotel with parking security well they said online they have a company that does rounds and close to a pharmacy….there was a few things that I desperately need to have.

Halfway there or a little more about ten or twelve hours Chris says to get home…well not home really but Apple Valley Minnesota…I’m really trying not to think about it right now. We take time showering and I asked the front desk girl to get use some fresh sheets.

No…no way am I sleeping on what’s on there no knowing what’s on them or when they’ve been changed last. I use several of the Wet wipes that Chris has in this canister in his truck and just to be sure I wiped down the mattress before putting on the clean sheets.

He’s watching towel around himself and drying his hair and laughing at me a little.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

“Who knows when this really was last cleaned? At least the plastic’s still on the mattress.”

“It should be okay Shayne.”

“Uh-huh now it is.”

He comes over and he passes me something. I take it and he takes over making the bed with the fresh sheets.

It’s his Pajamas.

I hug them to me and I tippy toe kiss him.

“Better?”

“Much, thank you.”

We kiss for awhile and he watches me get into his Pj’s and he has this smile on the whole time. Oh yeah definitely one of those boyfriend looking wistfully at you kind of smiles.

Definitely smile-porn.

I walk over to him once I’m dressed and the legs are rolled up and bobby pinned and kiss him and he kisses me and we slip into bed together and I snuggle into him and slip my arms around him and he does the same for me and the best part of it really was when Chris tightens his arms around me with him being the one that gives me this happy sigh.

I lay my head over his chest smiling and happy…just really happy for a change and safe and warm and…yeah I totally agree…

Happy sigh.

I fall asleep and maybe in love with the sound of his heartbeat.

Antifreeze...Part 4.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Caution:

CAUTION

Audience Rating:

Mature Subjects (pg15)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transgender

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Antifreeze…Part 4.

I was really, really out of it asleep when it first happened. I think it was the garbage truck making the banging. You know when the forks do the thing with the dumpster and everything bangs?

Chris twitched with a mini spasm at the first bang.

He rolled hard over me with the second one. That woke me up and he’s over me…actually covering me with himself from whatever was there in his eyes.

For a moment he wasn’t with me there. Everything on him went steel tight with nerves and I could feel it too…Chris was permanently injured but he's still so strong that if he lost it…

But he covered me protected me…Instinct? Do they teach you to cover your “man” I mean as in fellow soldier not gender. I really don’t know much about the forces except I love the look of naval ships. I’ve never been a military buff but my first real experience was seeing the ships now and then when I came out to Cali.

I took a breath and calmed down and he’d stared at me like he didn’t get who I was for a second or likely where he was and then he blinked and was back.

“Shayne…?”

“Yeah….”

He closed his eyes and I could feel his muscles do that shaky nerves bit and I push myself up enough to kiss him gently. I can feel the surprise there in his body. He looks at me and he’s hurting. “Sorry….it’s just…”

I ease down and pull him down with me and turn so we’re on our sides facing each other. “No, you don’t have to be okay? I get it, like I said I have my nightmares too.”

“I could’ve hurt you.”

“No, I don’t think so…you were protecting me.”

“It’s just…home, she…”

I kiss him again and touch his face the heavy stubble is strange to touch. “Maybe…but maybe if coming home had felt more like home you’d not have felt that way. And there’s a lot more time between then and now Chris…it’s okay.”

He kisses me and as romantic as it was I yawned right after that. “C’mon soldier I need more sack time.” I snuggled in and tucked my head under his and held him with a sort of snuggle hug before sleep took over for us again.

I wake up quite awhile later in m usual dry mouth and crusty eyed way but warm, so nice and toasty warm and not quite wanting to move. I’m still mostly on top of Chris and he’s still out like a light with what happened earlier this morning having popped his non-sleep bubble. He’s not snoring but just the way he’s breathing he’s in deep.

I wipe at my eyes getting the gunk out and run my tongue over the top of my mouth a few times to get some moisture going but I just lay there in bed with him awakish minus my coffee but really savoring the moment.

No, no morning blow job or anything like that. Why do people always think that mornings after sex are about more sex?

I do like sex, but I like lying right here more. Maybe even the idea that I’m actually helping Chris sleep a little. It’s…I don’t know, a fantasy really. I mean the fact is he’s likely exhausted and his PTSD thing before was like a pressure valve going off. Not that I’m making a difference like that. It’d be cool but I’m me…and I’m really not one of those special people.

I stay there as long as I can but once awake I last about thirty or forty minutes before I have to pee. And yes, sitting down and wiping I’m a girl like any other. I wash up and start my morning rituals of face scrubbing and doing my hair from the morning mess to presentable and brushing my teeth and I’m doing that when Chris comes in and there’s that moment where you’re in that relationship moment where you’re crossing the bathroom line.

It’s the fastest it’s ever occurred really. It’s kind of nice that we sort of smile around it though. It’s a big thing really in a relationship the bathroom thing, it’s getting to see some of the all too human parts of the person you’re with.

It’s also the easiest time too, I don’t know what but things aren’t as big a deal when I’m with Chris.

That’s really nice; I can feel like I can breathe.

We head out from the hotel and it’s in the middle of the day. That means it’ll be close to midnight or after when we hit home. Okay not home but Apple Valley. I’m really not sure home is home anymore.

Chris does stop for breakfast at a trendy looking spot that’s kind of an indie coffee place mostly because I said. “I need an Espresso.” No I’m not that fancy a girl but I try to go for the most charge for the least liquid. It was nice I had an Espresso shot and we had some pretty good croissants. Not the classic ones but kind of turnover like ones filled with chocolate and others filled with apricot jam. I’ve never had apricots before and not bad really kind of a strong flavor though.

Chris is limping a little more. “You okay?” I ask.

“Mmm…yeah just a lot of driving and sitting I stiffen up.”

“Would a massage help?”

“It’d be nice but it wouldn’t really help though.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing I just need to walk it out more.”

“We’ll take some more breaks.”

“Procrastinating?”

“No, we’ll be getting in late anyways so we might as well take out time and try to get into town in the morning instead.”

“Makes sense it’ll make things easier.”

“Especially getting a room.”

“We’re not staying at the house?”

“Hell no, I’m not getting cornered there. I’m going but it’s going to be on my terms. Steve’s going to be a total fucker I’m sure and I don’t know about Sarah or Shawn.”

“Good idea.”

I get a latte for the road after using the little girl’s room and we had off again on the interstate.

We fall back into talking and stuff and I tell him about my days first getting to L.A. when I worked with the illegals and the different jobs I did. And he talks about the jobs he worked making his way out too. He didn’t know just how much stuff gets made in the shops and how much the Californian economy relies on migrant workers. Me I learn a lot more about Midwest farming. I might have been raised in Minnesota but we didn’t farm or even live close to them. Heck until I left all the fruits and veg I’d seen came from the grocery stores and the roadside stands.

We should’ve had a garden at least we had the property really. Our house was on a really big lot like a couple of city blocks really but so did everyone else. We lived kind of outside of town but not too far because we were still in the city limits but just.

Chris talks a bit about the business he’s got going or rather some of the things he’s working on. His main thing lately is actually brown beer bottle glass. He melts it down and he’s pulling dishes out of that for some bars that are interested. It actually sounds cool that you can get a big beer mug or a glass from the same colored glass as the bottles serving dishes too.

He’s also making or trying to make etched dishes that are kind of like a reverse of Dutch Royal Blue China but from Bristol blue glass and the etchings will be filled in with white in a kind of glass homage kind of thing. But right now his biggest thing is pulled ornaments and hand blown ones for Christmas.

I’m kind of picturing him doing that stuff and it’s kind of a romantic image really. I can see the concentration on his face almost in my mind. And well just thinking about that leads me to thinking about how good; really good Chris is with his hands.

He looks over at me smiling at him. “What?”

“I was just remembering how good you are with your hands.”

Chris blushes and it’s cute, it makes me feel like there’s more in the world. Things to enjoy. That feels nice too. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, it was different with you.”

“Different?”

“Yes, it was wonderful.”

“Shayne…” He’s blushing again.

I slide up against him with a yawn and a snuggle. “It was wonderful Chris, and I’ve never had wonderful before.”

“Really…”

“Mmm…no, never felt like that before…”

I really did try to stay awake but he’s just so warm, he smells good and the sunshine coming through the windows just lulls me into sleeping.

I’m not sure when he stopped but we’re at a garage getting gas and I think it was the lack of motion that woke me up. I don’t drift off while driving but when I practically lived on the bus I’d fall asleep sometimes. I get out of the truck and stretch and smile at Chris as he’s leaning on the truck.

Damn he looks good.

I smile at Chris and try to get the sleep gunk out of my eyes without looking too gross doing it. “Sorry I guess I completely bombed out on you there.”

“It’s okay Shayne I can imagine that you need the extra sleep since you work the two jobs and everything.”

“Yeah, I really just sort of hibernate on the weekends.”

“You don’t work the weekends?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m full time at the store and the people that come to the club on the weekends are kind of extra skeevy so I really try to keep out of there for my sanity.”

He nods. “So you feel like some supper?”

“Okay.” I look around and it’s dark and I have no idea where we’re at. We’re in a city but that’s just from what I can tell. “Where are we?”

“Des Moines.”

“Iowa?”

He nods.

“Wow we covered a lot of ground.”

“Not a lot of traffic tonight we made good time.”

“Uh-huh…so we’ll be home pretty soon then.”

“We could but we can take our time and stuff and get there in the morning.”

“That’s a much better idea.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

Chris goes inside and pays for the gas and I take the squeegee and I do the windows and the headlights and the tail lights and the mirrors. It’s some thing I do with my car and even if it’s a mess on the inside half the time I like seeing where I’m going and the tail lights is a good thing for insurance. On of the girls at work got rear ended and her insurance refused to pay up because the adjuster took pictures of her dirty tail lights and it found her in fault because the guy “Couldn’t see her.”

We get into the truck and we go looking for someplace to eat which ends up being either all night pizza or drive through which ends up being a debate over which is the best burger joint for the whole thing which we both agree isn’t McDonald’s…I have had a few too many bad meals there and getting really sick twice.

We actually settle on Burger King, not because they’re any better by that much from the evil clown burger but because they have flame broiled and some decent burgers with all the cheese and bacon and all the things that I really should avoid but I really was in the mood for a burger with lots of beef.

Well that and KFC and Taco Bell were closed at this hour and there wasn’t a Sonics’ anywhere that I could see.

Three patties and bacon and cheese and grease later along with some fries and I’m a happy girl. Happy and full. You want to know Chris’s big reason why he doesn’t like McDonalds? The fruit pies…they changed the crust into this thick baked thing and they don’t fry the pies any more.

We had a good time though and it’s amazing the stuff that you learn about someone just driving around and talking about what’s better and why. No, seriously because usually if someone really likes or hates something there’s a pretty good reason for it and usually a story behind it.

And you know that you’re getting tight with someone and they’re stealing you fries while you’re talking about the worst thing that you’ve ever eaten.

Oh yeah Chris has me beat by a mile.

When he was over there they tried a lot of the stuff they eat over there and there’s this dish the locals eat that’s broiled goat that’s chopped up and left to ferment and gain flavor in a pile of it’s own congealed fat and apparently you eat it for breakfast with eggs and reeking cheese.

Eeew…just the description of how from one chew to the next you went from rancid fatty grease to ammoniated dried funky meat with hints of old hay and the perfume of goat manure …and squishy funky cheese and runny yolked eggs.

I think I impressed him though by not gagging and still eating my burger. But then again I’ve had to live on the Quarter McMaggot and cheese.

This whole thing was actually kind of fun in this getting to know you and we’re both weird and twisted kind of way.

We even kept this up in the truck and went through our last meals. Mine was actually good BBQ ribs with lots of sauce, chicharonnes and root beer. Chris’s last meal he said would be Steak really well aged and grilled rare on a mushroom and onion and black pepper gravy with southern comfort blended butter on it and brussle sprouts and a really good baked potato.

“That sounds amazing except for the brussle sprouts.”

“I like Brussle sprouts.”

“Ick, little green brains ick.”

“They are not ick, not the way that I make them.”

“I dunno, I was told that a bunch of times too. Here Shayne put this in your mouth it doesn’t taste bad…” I do the, my imitation dozy-guy voice and I make a face my funny ick face and fake a shudder.

Chris chokes on his coffee and I have to reach over and off hand passenger steer the truck while he’s choking. I’m laughing because I love getting people with the spit take. I pull us over to the side of the road so he can breathe and yes I’m steering from the passenger’s side and with my left hand. I’ve actually done this before more than a few times with friends.

Funny the stuff that you pick up when a friend tells you to take the wheel while she rolls a spliff.

It takes Chris a few minutes to get to breathing right and another bit to wipe the dash and window clean of the coffee. I can’t help but to smile through the whole thing. He looks at me smiling while he cleans it up too and it’s a big happy that was funny smile.

I never get to be the cute and funny girl. God I really like being with him and I’m smiling back and he leans over and he kisses me. It’s that really great kissing too with the deep and wanting to kiss me and the over and over bits too that just make me want to either just sigh or jump his bones.

Chris starts the truck back up so I guess it’s sigh but I’m good with sigh…I still am very sigh-kiss deficient. Mmmm…yeah oral meds, vitamin Chris.

We drive and we still just talk my favorite color is nothing, I don’t really have one and neither does he it just depends on what something is more than the color. My least favorite colors are purples except for when they come in things like flowers or grapes or the color of geode crystals. I’m not a fan of orange either but again it depends on what it’s used for. I’m like that with most things I guess.

We both like fish, and shell fish, I like Mexican and he like oriental food more than I do. We’ve never been out to Sonoma but I’ve been to Napa twice as a hired picker we both want to see the San Diego Zoo and to see the redwood forest we’ve never been on the Hollywood tours neither of us really cares for country music as a whole and he likes classical and I have heard it only in movies but I like and know more metal than he does as well as club music and hip hop and he knows like all these old rock songs and artists and the guitarists and other members of those bands and he can sing…apparently he sang in choir as a little kid and had a garage band when he was around his early teens.

“Sing for me?”

“Okay if you’re that brave to listen to me.”

Chris starts to sing and he sounds like that blind jazz guy that passed away a while ago...uhm…Jeff Healy I think his name was.

“When the night has come…”
“And the land is dark…”
“And the moon is the only light we'll see.”

“No I won't be afraid… no I won't be afraid”
“Just as long as you stand, stand by me”

“And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now, now stand by me.”
“Stand by me, stand by me”

“If the sky that we look upon….”
“Should tumble and fall…”
“And the mountains should crumble to the sea…”

“I won't cry, I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear.”
“Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”

“And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh stand by me”
“Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me-e, yeah”

“Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me, oh now now stand by me…”
“Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me…”

“Darlin', darlin', stand by me-e, stand by me…”
“Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me…”

There’s no background music, no band just him lit up by the dash lights and singing that to me as we’re driving and I can feel my heart beating I swear along with the drum’s or the bass’s bum, bum, bum…of the song.

Just wow, just melt my heart and make me…hell I am crying and wiping away happy tears. It’s a song I have always loved and the movie too. But it’s so much more than that too because this is my very first time that anyone has ever sung anything to me.

By the time we’re done and I’ve gotten a hold of my glomphy happiness I’m seeing familiar signs on the highway and we’re getting close to home.

And that wakes me up and sobers me up as the close we get the more things that I’m seeing that I know.

“Oh…we’re here…” I can’t help it, it just came out.

“We’ll be okay.”

“Yeah…”

We pull off the connection from the interstate into town and there’s some traffic. It’s about quarter past six and we drive around I’m actually sort of just staring at things and rubbernecking too. There’s so much that has changed and so much that hasn’t too. There’s some places that are gone and new stuff built in its place.

“This is so stranger in a strange land mixed with déjá vu right now.”

Chris nods and takes another one of the main streets just driving. “It’d be the same thing for me it’s been about ten years since I’ve been home.”

I nod back. And I see a Howard Johnston’s that wasn’t there before. “Pull in here; I think that this’ll do.”

Chris nods. “You want clean sheets again?”

“Yes….god of course, it’s a hotel who knows who did what in those things.”

He grins at me. “You’re really a squeamish kind of girl aren’t you?”

“Uhm…yes, I work in a place where I get to see all sorts of sordid stuff and we don’t have beds. I have no illusions about these things.”

“Should I stop somewhere and get a UV lamp?”

“Uhg…god no, there’s being careful then there’s just TMI.”

He laughs and we pull up to the front and park and head inside and they have rooms and a couple of decent ones actually since it’s a newer hotel in the chain so things are pretty modern so we actually get one of those traveling business rooms with the mini living room lounge thing and the bedroom and a nice bed too actually and they even send the housekeeping girl with us to make the bed for us with new sheets.

Okay this is really nice and very clean and we book the place until Tuesday morning and get our bags moved in. They even have a loaner board and iron that I can use since it’s a business class room. It’s kind of nice that they have that but it makes sense too I guess if you need to look pressed and stuff for a meeting.

Chris is getting things and I’m unpacking and ironing stuff out and hanging it in the closet. I’m being a bit anal I know but I want things to be as good as they can be when I show up. I’m doing that and I call Gary and Ally and Michelle and leave them messages saying that we arrived here alright. Then with a lump in my stomach I dial the house. It rings a few times and I’m still nervous calling home.

“Hello?” It’s mom’s voice.

“Hi…”

“Shayne?”

“Yeah, hi mom. We’re here.”

“You are?” Followed by movement sounds. “Where?”

“I’m at the hotel unpacking and getting things ready.”

“Oh…wait…We?”

“Yes I brought some one.”

“Someone that you’re….?”

“Someone that I started seeing yes, he’s nice.”

“He?”

“Yes, he.”

“As in a guy.”

“No as in a man. He’s a good man mom and I like him a lot.”

“But…”

“Yes, we’ve been together. I’m a girl I prefer men.”

“Okay…Steven won’t like this.”

“I really don’t care mom, he’s not the one seeing him and he don’t know either of us.”

“Okay…are you coming to church?”

“Is it going to be the funeral service?”

“No that’s this afternoon.”

“Are all of you going?”

“No, just me and your uncle, Steven doesn’t go to our church.”

“Stacy, Sarah, Shaun?”

“Stacy isn’t ready to go back to church right now she’s having a time out in her relationship with God. Sarah won’t be in any shape to…and Shaun isn’t because…”

“Because?”

“His wife’s an Atheist.” Wow…she made that sound like a dirty word. Personally I don’t have too strong a faith really despite her and the old man making us go as kids. I’m not one for the free will excuse, he punished a lot of people for doing things in the past and he did miracles too…and what’s his excuse now? Free will?

I’m not saying that something out there isn’t out there but honestly I don’t really think about that stuff. Surviving is the bigger part of my life. But I’m not going to freak out and go all anti god either. I think there’s a lot of Christ bashing that’s just as bad as the fundies.

If I end up meeting god one of these days I’ll give him a hug if he gives me a hug and if not then? I’m not going to worry about it.

“I’ll ask Chris actually, I don’t know if it’d be something he’d want to do.”

“Oh…okay…maybe not then maybe you can get reconnected with your siblings.”

“Sure and I have some stuff to drop off at the house anyways.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, Stace’s in a bad way so I tried to bring some stuff that’d help.”

“You did!?” She sounds surprised, happy but surprised.

Okay…I’m choosing not to get all butt-hurt about that. Honestly they have no idea what kind of person I am and it’s the same way with me about them. It’s only going to make things a whole lot worse if I let myself go to the place where I take every little thing that they do or say or even screw up saying as a blow against me.

I really hate people like that. Wah, wah, wah…the world is against me, you aren’t paying attention to me…wah, wah, wah…see how screwed up I am. Pity me…There’s a couple of those girls at the club and I really try to avoid them because they’re all about the drama. Of course this feeds their insecurities and stuff more.

So…I’m letting the surprised sound just go.

“I work at a big grocery store mom and they let me get a bunch of things at cost so I thought that I’d help out.”

(Happy sniffle.) “That’s amazing honey.”

“No…it’s what a good sister should do.”

“Hmmm…you want to tell Sarah that?”

“Mom?”

“She…she was staggering in this morning carrying her shoes…and her stockings were torn.”

Oh…well okay I know that kind of morning…I’m sort of smiling, good thing I’m over the phone. “Mom…people handle death differently.”

“Shayne I know you live a life style that I can’t say that I understand and I certainly don’t approve of you doing that stuff you do while you’re dancing but you have a day job and you’re trying.”

“Sarah’s not?”

“……………………., …………………., ……………You and your older sister are two very different people.”

Wow that was a lot of diplomatic pauses. Well Sarah…no I’m going to wait and see. I finish some of the ironing and I set aside the clothes for the funeral all folded and stuff and I start looking through my other things to wear over to the house for after the funeral.

Chris comes in and looks at me and smiles. He starts to unpack and he brought very little with him. I get back on the phone. “We’ll be over soon okay?”

“Okay honey I’ll be here services don’t start until nine.”

“Okay twenty minutes?”

“Okay, love you honey.”

“I love you too mom.”

I hang up and look at Chris. “Mom invited us to church if we want to go.”

He shrugs. “It’s up to you I’m not particularly religious.”

“The war?”

“No, we just really never was one of those church families, though technically I think my family is prodestent or something.”

“Heathen.”

“My parents said if god gave us the life he did then he’d perfectly understand their need to sleep in.”

I laugh and I get the things I need my clothes, and shoes and flats for inside the house and we head out for my house. I stop into the local 24/7 grocery place quickly and I get some flowers. They have one of those in most places these days and there’s not a lot there but I get a wrapped bunch of yellow and white roses and I put them in the truck.

I’ve seen both at funerals so I hope they’re okay….and yeah I’m bringing them so I don’t look like I’m being crass or something by not showing up with anything.

I lead us into two wrong turns because they moved some of the streets around on me and finally we’re heading down my road. I call it a road. We’re still in town but there’s no sidewalks there just the road and people have big lots of property and there’s lot’s of trees and stuff too. Still in town and we still have streetlights but our own sewer and water.

The house hasn’t changed. Redwood colored siding from god knows when, kind of this big two story with a basement and an attic with black shingles and shutters and a brick chimney. It’s seen better days too, it needs paint and the roof looks….well everything looks the same as when I ran away.

It’s a big long dirt drive way with an older mini home on it and hooked to it I can see a big three-quarter ton truck with a fifth wheel camper on it. There’s a little shit box of a Ford Escort in front of the trailer. I’m guessing that that’s Stacey’s place. It looks recently moved too from the back lot of the place to here. We have a big dirt square for parking and stuff there’s a small tin covered garage. Off to the far back side of the yard is a large pile of hardwood logs that looks like the pile that ended up killing dad.

I see a two rental cars and there’s dad’s pick up a 92 Dodge Ram and there’s this cute little red Saturn that looks pretty new parked haphazardly.

We get out and Chris opens my door and helps me out of the truck and with my bags. I see Stacey? Looking out from the mini-home window and the door opens to the house; it’s the side door and mom? Yeah its mom is standing there watching us.

I’m a little concerned at how I look. I’m still dressed down from the trip and stuff. It’s stiff girl’s clothes but it’s just sneakers and fuzzy socks and boot cut jeans with a scoop necked tee-shirt and my lather jacket. My leather jacket is super girly though being a present from Ally and has the logos on it for Revlon, her sister was a rep for the company but it was too small for Ally so she gave it to me.

Mom’s taking all of it in and especially my breasts. Not in that sexual way but I think she’s a little bit in shock. I’m pretty sure she was blocking out the fact I’m a D-cup. I think she’s sort of shocked in general too.

I kind of am too. When you’re away from home or from things that you’ve known for a long time people tend to stop aging in your head. I’m definitely seeing mom but she’s older. Older than she should look. She has a lot more grey and she’s thinner, she’s lost weight and not in a good way and even with make up she looks tired.

“Hi mom.”

“Shayne…?”

“Yeah…”

It doesn’t take long before she’s trying to run down the steps in her shoes and over to me and wraps me in a hug. And she starts bawling and crying and squeezing me. Of course that sets me totally off too because this part at least is matching all of the stories of coming home that I’ve made up in my head.

We recover just long enough to see Stacey standing a few feet away hugging herself except for her hand over her mouth and tears streaming down her face like she was crying just watching us and I look at her and she does the whole girly arms shaky waving glomphy thing and whine cries as she joins us in hugging and she’s bawling too actually we all are.

Chris takes my things and some older guy takes mom’s purse and I look at him through teary eyes. He sort of looks like mom a bit and he smiles at me and kisses my forehead then moms. “No church today.”

Mom looks at him. “But the funeral’s today…people will talk…”

He rolls his eyes. “You lost daughter comes home and it’s your husband’s funeral today I think you can be excused. And if they’re going to talk about you with all of that going on with you not there then they’ll just do it when you’re there anyway just behind your back.”

Okay…I think I like this guy, he must be my uncle Roth. I mean it just makes sense but I haven’t seen him in like forever so it’s no wonder that I don’t recognize him.

I sniffle and nod then rub at my eyes. “He’s right mom, there’s enough going on today that you might as well stay.”

She sniffles. “Ok’nay…” into my shoulder. Still hugging me really tight and she’s still shaking.

I look at Stacey and give her a smile, we actually look like sisters she’s older of course but there’s a definite resemblance and she too looks tired and that she’s been through a whole bunch of stuff herself.

“So sis, you have a deepfreezer?”

“Uhm yes why?”

“I picked up some stuff to help out.”

“Shayne! You didn’t have to…”

“Yes I did, we’re sisters.”

Mom snuffles and nods. “That’s right, Shayne’s right.”

We head to the trailer and Chris goes and he brings the truck over and Stacey invites us inside and it’s a nice place. It’s an older trailer but she’s taken good care of it but its definitely late 80’s I think. There’s the sound of little feet and then there’s two little kids peeking at us from the corner. One’s a little boy about four and the other one is a little girl maybe two or three.

Stacey looks at them and gestures them over. “Ben, Molly this is your Aunt Shayne.”

They stare at me and blink a few times and Molly has a little care bear doll that she sort of hides behind and stuffs the ear into her mouth. She’s really adorable. I’m almost buzzing at being called Aunt Shayne. I had on purposely kind of put the kids bit out of my head really. Not that I’m yearning to be a mom but that was just another potential stresser when I was trying to keep the courage to come here.

I smile and wave at them, they look like they’re just getting up and are sleepy. “Hi…guys it’s nice to meet you.”

Ben grins at me and he’s got a great little smile and Molly goes and she leg hugs mom. Still mouthing her bear. I get it, she’s shy, I’m new and they’ve been through stuff with their dad just up and leaving.

Stacey gives me a sheepish look and she actually looks a lot like her daughter just then. “Sorry, they’re a bit shy around new people.”

“Good, strangers can be bad people sometimes.” I smile at the kids and Ben’s nodding sagely like he knows this already.

Chris comes in with the first cooler and Uncle Roth’s with him carrying one as well. “Uff…you guys really brought a lot of stuff Shayne.”

I blush as they set the stuff on her little kitchen table. “Well there’s a lot of ice in these too.”

He looks at me. “Good girl.” And pecks my cheek making me blush and smile and part of me is going and doing happy cartwheels. We start opening the coolers and that requires a paring knife since Chris put the packing tape to them really, really well.

We unload and put things in her deepfreeze in her master bedroom and the freezer of her fridge. There’s not that much there. There’s some stuff that she has for the kids but I see baloney, several cartons of eggs, canned milk, a few odds and ends and some leftovers but yeah she’s been struggling and mom’s looking too and looking at Stacey.

I didn’t think she really let on how much she has been struggling.

With our father…god he’d hold this over her head so much like a huge fucking I told you so just with the trailer…I can almost feel it in the air here. No…Stacey would’ve likely chewed broken glass before admitting to how bad things were here. And while there’s food and she has things for her kids she’s been shorting herself for them.

I hug her and whisper in her ear. “No more, I’ve been here too…no more Stace.”

“Shayne…I can’t…”

“Bullshit, you owe me…”

“Shayne…” We’re sort of leaning on each other and she’s looking at me and she’s crying. I keep my voice low but I look her in the eyes.

“Let me okay…please…let me be your sister…”

We cry a bit more and weh hug tighter and she’s actually shaking….mom’s crying again too but she actually has some of the sausages out and in the frying pan on Stacey’s stove and starts to cook breakfast.

……………..I relish the look on Stace’s face as she sips her coffee, I brought some perk coffee I think she’s been drinking non-brand instant for awhile now. The kids are stuffed and the deepfreezer is full and most of her cupboards too.

I’m getting myself one and smiling as I pass Stacy her box of chocolates.

“Hey? What’s this?”

“The fancy California chocolates you wanted.”

“What! Really!” She opens the box and she get’s this dreamy look on her face and she leans over the box of them and just smells them.

I take one out and feed it to her, one of those yummy ones with the semi dark outside and the center in this milk chocolate ganache chai truffle.

Oh my I giggle when she’s tasting it and it’s going all melty and her eyelids are actually fluttering.

“Oh shit that looks good….” I look up and see….well I see Sarah and she’s got heavy sunglasses on and a travel mug of coffee and she looks like Stacey but better. Well their twins and Sarah looks just like Stace only Sarah looks like she doesn’t have kids and she has money.

I look at her and she looks at me and she pulls her sunglasses down some to stare at me. “Shayne?”

I nod and cover my nervousness with a sip of my coffee.

“Okay, I heard you were coming home and that you were still doing this stuff but…wow…you look real.”

I look at her, it hurt but I let it be…It’s Sarah…she’s always been kind of bitchy. Stacey looks at her though and she’s on simmer mad. “That’s because she is Sare.”

Sarah looks at her and then at me and nods. “Hey I’m not Steve, I’m not judging Shayne…okay I’m sorry I’m not functioning at a hundred percent right now okay?”

Stacey just looks at her. I think she was going to say something more but I slip and arm around her waist and hip hug her and smile at Sarah. “No big, I’ve done the same thing myself more than once.”

I get her box of chocolates out. “Here, since these looked so good I bought you some too.”

“Really?” She looks surprised at that.

“Yeah…I’m not going to not get something for you either…what kind of sister would I be if I did that?” I smile but I can see her mulling stuff over. Honestly…I can see her looking like she’s thinking things over and not like she’s trying to be good with me just because it’s the right thing but because it might suit Sarah.

I could be wrong but she has that feeling about her.

She smiles and it’s a little plastic but I’m letting it go. She’s not harassing me and while it’s not the way that Stacy has treated me I’ll take it and I’ll work on it. She comes over and we hug and she does a shocked inhale of breath.

“Those…those knockers are real?”

I nod and smile. “Well hormones and implants but yeah they’re mine.”

“Jesus they’re nice.” She’s feeling my breasts like she’s judging them. Mom yells. “Sarah language!” And she’s pointedly staring at Sarah and her hands. There’s a frown…oh…oh…yep my lez-sonar is picking up a girl diver for sure. There’s just a way she’s holding my breasts that’s not a woman just checking another one out or even the sister common body stuff that girls can sometimes have when you’re comfortable with other women around you to the point of touching, even like intimate stuff.

Ally for example.

Sarah’s not touching my boobs like that but like she likes touching boobs. I pull her arms away from my chest but smile and raise my eyebrow.

She pales a second and she knows that I know and I’m pretty sure that mom and Stacey have no clue either. Sarah blushes and she ducks her head. “Sorry Mom…”

I grin. I can’t help it she’s single…no kids and dressed like this and oh my god…that’s just so…actually I get it. It’s home, it’s home ad there’s not like that could come out to the family not when dad was alive or Steven for that matter either.

She takes a seat and her box of chocolates and she eats one of the sea salted caramel drizzle ones. Yeah in the reaction that Stacey had Sarah’s her twin.

I’m nodding and smiling at both of them and I’m letting most of the stuff go. It feels good actually to do that but it also feels good to know that things are different now. I can get why Sarah was such a bitch to me when we were kids if she was dealing with her sexuality. Stacey wasn’t as bad really she just kept quiet about what Dad did and I really have my own ideas starting to form about stuff at home that I never seen when I was younger.

I honestly think given the way that he treated me I think that he used to treat mom just not like shit but his personal ego boosting punching bag.

And if he did that to her then what did he do to them?

I look up when this woman come’s in with long red hair put into a ponytail and a nice blouse and dress pants. Smart looking too with those stylish dark framed rectangular glasses and she’s looking at everyone and me several times. “Good morning.”

We all say good morning back and she smiles at me. “You must be Shayne right?”

I nod slowly. “Yes……..”

“Can you come outside where the men are at? Your brother’s afraid to come in and see you.”

“Oh…okay…you must be Shawn’s wife?”

“Girlfriend we’re not married, I’m Tina.” She offers her hand and we shake and we hug and I did notice that mom got a bit chillier though. “Breakfast?”

“No thanks I’m not much of a breakfast person.”

She does take a coffee from mom and there’s definite tension there and I can only guess why. Mom’s religious and while not a bible thumper she’s…mid-west old fashioned in a lot of stuff. Tina’s from what she said an atheist and she’s living and sleeping with my brother outside of wedlock.

Yep, I can see them getting along really well.

I smile at Tina. “Well there’s chocolate too.”

“Oooh Chocolate!” She perks up kind of funnily and Sarah’s holding her box out with another chocolate in her mouth. I laugh as Tina and Sarah and Stacy are having their chocolategasms and take a caramel drizzled sea salt covered one and head out to the yard where Chris is at talking to Uncle Roth and Shawn.

He’s definitely standing out here. He’d fit in home but in the suburbs khaki pants, dress shoes, polo shirt…nice watch and clean shaven and good hair cut. He doesn’t fit in here for sure. I’m not saying Apple Valley’s redneck or anything but it’s just Shawn looks like he’s a nice suburbs quarter million dollar home kind of guy. He really doesn’t fit in around this neighborhood.

Y’know what? Good, I’m seeing more and more that we all got out of here.

He looks at me and stops talking to the guys and he just stares at me…that’s really uncomfortable and It slows me down from walking over and I even stop and just stare back.

It was going so well…I swear…I swear I can….

Then.

“I…I…Shayne…Fuck…I…I can still smell the bleach.” Shawn barely gets it choked out and he’s nearly crying. I know Chris doesn’t know what he’s talking about but Uncle Roth looks angry.

I’m shocked.

I mean, them holding me down and shaving my hair off and then making me wash in the bleach…it’s the stuff I still get nightmares of sometimes, it’s the time that….but to hear my big brother say that?

“Shawn?”

“I tried y‘know…god Shaney, I tried…I…I…I saw you leave, you ran away and I don’t bl..blame you…I saw the bruises and the cuts Shaney…I saw what we did! I…I was such a coward…”

He’s crying…I’m crying…

“Shawn…it’s okay Shawn…”

“No, no it’s not Shayne…I let it happen!” He’s shaking and pacing, he’s got that look. You know the one where you just can’t shake something. I bite my lower lip and make myself go over to him.

I know he’s sorry, that he’s hurting too but it’s still like trying to get close to a pacing angry dog to me.

“Shawn we were kids.”

“No! Dammit Shayne you were my little sister!”

He looks so hurt, so mad like he wants to lash out and do something. I take his hand and he almost pulls away…there’s scars there under the tan and arm hairs…like he…I’m glad he didn’t succeed.

He’s shaking and he looks at me then at where I’m looking and his hand jerks like he wants to pull away. I look him in the eyes again and we’re still crying. I…. (Sniffle.) “I tried pills…”

He closes his eyes and there’s this small whine this hurt cry coming out of him and I pull him into a hug and he’s crying on me pretty hard.

“God Shaney…what did he do to us?”

I hold him as he cries and I’m crying too and slowly, slowly the others are coming out from Stacey’s trailer.

Tina takes over with Shawn and even mom can’t fault her for the way she’s holding him, kissing him and doing that close forehead to forehead and quietly talking him down.

Chris comes over and he holds me and we’re sort of just milled and kind of recovering as a large black Ford truck pulls in and …..

Yeah it’s Steven…he looks fairly well off too with the new looking truck and he’s in a decent looking suit too when he gets out of the truck. He looks a bit like Uncle Roth but with light brown hair instead of Uncle Roth’s black, well salt and pepper hair. The look, that cold angry…doesn’t like any of us look…that’s dad.

Like the bastard’s come back from the dead.

He looks around until his eyes settle on me.

How the hell can one person just look at you and make you feel so small?

Antifreeze...Part 5.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Caution:

CAUTION: Sex / Sexual Scenes

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transitioning

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Part 5.

“Shane.” I could feel the refusal in the way he said my name. The way that he is refusing everything I am.

“Steven….” I shiver but I feel Chris tighten his hold around me. God that helps so much.

“Why are you here? You think you’re welcome here?”

“Shut the hell up Steven.” Shawn says sort of snarling at him.

“Fuck you nerd, keep hiding behind you woman’s skirts. The little faggot shouldn’t be here.”

“Steven….” Uncle Roth says warningly.

“What? What you’re just here for what you can get Rothman. You never bothered with us before and now when things are all up in the air you’re here? The faggot’s here and….” He gestures at Chris. “And who the fuck is this?”

Chris just looked at him. “I’m your sister Shayne’s boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a sister named Shayne, I have a tranny little sodomite that says it’s family. People know Shane, they know all about you. I told everyone.”

Chris moved a little. “Maybe you should leave; it’s pretty obvious you’re not wanted here.”

“Go fuck yourself hippy faggot I have business here.”

Uncle Roth looks at Steven. “You don’t have business here.”

“Dad’s papers, I want them.”

“They’re not yours.”

He starts walking towards the house and Uncle Roth gets in the way. “Those papers don’t belong to you.”

“I’m his executor, they’re mine.”

“Things for the will yes, everything else no.”

“Bullshit All of dad’s papers are my business.”

“The estate papers are at the lawyers Steven, that’s it…that’s all you get to see.”

Steven snarled and punched Uncle Roth and bloodied his nose and Uncle Rothman too a couple of steps back and wiped away the blood and spit and looked Steven in the eyes. “Boy, that was your free one.”

That just pissed my brother off even more and he swung again. Blocked, again…blocked…again and Uncle Rothman popped him in the face hard enough to send him on his ass in that old John Wayne cowboy way.

Shawn went to move and Steven scrambles to his feet and punches Shawn down before Uncle Roth can get between them and he scrambles back to his truck and this woman that was inside opens his door for him from the inside and I can see she’s on her cell phone.

Steve pulls out of the yard turning really fast and tearing up the yard but he doesn’t go far. He just goes down the street and he turns the truck around and is just sitting there with the engine going.

I’m shaking and Tina’s kneeling by Shawn and mom’s hugging Uncle Roth and Chris leans down to my ear. “You got to see those paper’s you need to see them before he does something stupid.”

I nod and look over to mom. “I need to see those papers Mom.”

She sniffles and nods and she looks pale like, like she just ran into dad all over again. We head into the house and I can’t help but to look back a couple of times at Steven’s truck he’s just sitting there the engine running and…

Dammit…Just Dammit.

We go inside the house and its like time stopped in here. There’s a few changed but little things like pictures, new carpet…well different carpet. It’s ugly as sin and reeks of dad and his “Bargains.” Other than that there’s nothing too different. Same furniture even, we go to the dining room and Mom comes out of her room with a safe box and it’s opened. There’s papers inside and photos of me…at my place and in the car and at the club. Sarah and Stacy are looking those over but not saying much.

I look at the other stuff and Dad had hired this PI guy to find me and he’d paid extra for stuff too. I’m not getting why until Chris who was looking through dads other papers with Uncle Roth passes me some other papers….

“He was trying to get me declared legally dead?”

“Looks like?”

“Why? He knew I was alive then why?”

Shawn’s looking at the girls and Stacy looks sick. “No, he wouldn’t”

“Like fuck he wouldn’t” Shawn said.

“What?”

“Your inheritance.” Shawn said.

“My what?”

“Grand father Leon had apparently left us some money; we got it when we turned eighteen. We didn’t even know about it until then.”

“Oh…okay…but he left me money too?” I’m surprised, I mean with me being like this and everything.

Mom’s says quietly. “You ran away and your father forbade anyone to talk about it…His father never knew that you changed ad he died before it was found out…..”

Chris nods. “So it’s still legally Shayne’s.”

Shawn frowns. “And with Shayne declared legally dead he’d be still grandpa’s executor and he’d end up with the money?”

Tina nods. “It was left to Shayne; he wouldn’t have to tell anyone else about it even existing after this long.”

I’m reading it still and there was a letter there from the PI that said that he had conducted an exhaustive search and he couldn’t find me….He was lying…and Steven…his signature was beside dads on the legal thing to have me declared dead…it looked newer though like he’d signed it after he figured things out too.

I’m crying on the papers and shaking. They hated me that much that they’d do this…that they’d do this over effing money!

(Sniffle-sob.) “How much?”

Mom reaches out to rub my back. “Shayne…”

I‘m shaking really bad now but I‘m mad too…mad and hurt…I scream. “No! How much am I fucking worth that he’d want me dead! That Steven would want me dead!”

She starts crying and runs away down the hall. They girls and Shawn look like they have no idea what to do with me and are crying too just…

Aargh! He keeps fucking doing this from beyond the fucking grave!

Tina’s looking at the papers frowning. “If it’s the same as what Shawn and his sisters got it was fourteen thousand.”

I’m up and from the table and running outside before anyone can sop me and all the way out to the road heading for Steven.

I’ve got my arms straight and my fingers clenched into fists and I’m screaming at him.

“Fourteen grand! You fucking hate me that much that you’re doing this bullshit over fourteen fucking thousand dollars!”

I pick up rocks and start throwing them at his truck. “You asshole! You fucking greedy red necked asshole!”

He guns the truck heading right at me stopping only a few feet from me and he jumps out. And he yells at me. “It’s more than that you little freak!”

“How much then!? How much does it take for you to sell me out and treat me this way!?”

“Nothing! It costs nothing because you’re a whore! You a fucking freak and a sodomite and a whore!”

“You know nothing about me!”

“You’re a man and you sleep with men, you’re an abomination! You’re damned under gods eyes!”

“You don’t get to speak for god’s asshole!”

He goes to backhand me and Chris catches his wrist….

Steven’s actually a pretty big guy like dad only he looks like he still works out. He gets red faced trying to yank his wrist from Chris though. Chris works specifically with his hands all day…Steven from the shiny truck and the nice clothes seems he works in maybe an office.

“Let me go fag or I’m calling the cops.”

“They’re already called Steve…and I can imagine what they’ll say since you’re recorded on camera phone trying to run your sister down…with all these witnesses.”

“Fuck you gay boy, they’ll be on my side a freak’s a freak and I know the cops in town.”

“Yeah I imagine they know you too, and have a perfect idea of the kind of asshole you are.”

They stare each other down and I’m pretty sure that Steve’s never been to war.

“This isn’t fucking over.”

Chris bends Steve’s wrist until he turns another three shades or red. I’m almost scared and half hoping he’ll keel over like dad did. Steve starts to gasp and sweat and when he tugs hard the last time Chris just lets him go and he falls back into the front of his truck he grabs at it to keep from falling down. Then he gets in his truck, I see his wife again in the passenger’s seat staring at us and Steven guns the truck pulling out of the yard and something flies out the passenger window.

Chris covers me getting hit with one of those super huge sized soda’s from a take out and we’re both splashed with half melted slushy.

“Asshole! Bastard! Cunt!” I’m swearing like I haven’t in a long time at them and he keeps driving this time even gunning it some more and peeling his tires as he rounds the corner. I’m shaking practically vibrating when it’s over and he’s gone.

I turn and look at Chris covered in slushy and a mess and he’s so damned perfect right now…beautiful really…no one, no one has really seen me angry, like nuts angry and no one’s ever defended me like this. Absolutely no one and that’s seeping in as the rush of anger is leeching out and the shakes become nerves and he shoots me on of those head just tilted right smile-porn smiles…

I break and I start bawling rushing and planting my face in his chest and one of the best things in the world happens.

Bum leg and all he wraps these big strong arms around me and he holds me so tight it’s almost hard to breathe. So tight and safe though it’s just right.

“It’s okay…It’s okay Shayne I’m here, you’re safe.”

I break down and bawl, not just bawl but screamy-crying-full-on-ugly bawling.

And when my legs give, his arms don’t.

It felt honest to god…like someone caught my soul when I was spiraling back into my darkness.

Then he carries me back into the house.

We go past everyone to the “Guest room.” It used to be my old bedroom and there’s even a bathroom there. I’m crying and crying until he starts the shower and takes us into it clothes and all.

That…just everything he is and what he’s done. I’m sniffling and looking at him with the slushy crap running off of us and then we’re kissing. Deep long hot passionate over and over kisses and we’re peeling each other out of our clothes and touching, kissing…getting hotter and hotter and Chris picks me up and I wrap my legs around him. He’s hard and hot against me and I need him…fuck I know this isn’t the best time to be doing this or so, so much the best place for this but I need him.

“Make love to me Chris, please…I need this…I need you inside me…under my skin.”

“Are you sure?”

“Make love to me, push the hurt and the sick feeling out of me…I need your love.”

He carries me out to the bed and we somehow manage to find the bag with the safes and the gel without getting out of the mood, the need.

I cry out with that need and that relief as he sinks into me.

It’s so not about the sex.

It’s me desperately needing him, inside me the feeling of connection just feels so real…I need that more than any orgasm. But he takes me there too….and I cry, I cry happy safe tears and I cry out sad, hurt, painful tears and instead of getting swamped by the darkness I hang onto Chris, onto us and he’s my lifeline.

And while before I was falling for him.

I know that I’m in love with him right now.

I’ll always be in love with him.

……………………………….......... Well, apparently no one actually called the police. I’m not sure how long that lasted but somewhere we went from the morning to the early afternoon and there’s a knock on my door. “We need to leave in a couple of hours you two.” Uncle Rothman said quietly after knocking. I kiss Chris long and deeply. “We’ll be ready.” I call out loud enough. Chris stirs and smiles at me making me melt a little and I slip into the bathroom with my things and get ready after taking our wet things out of the shower.

Tina takes them from me smiling. “Hell of a guy you have there.”

I shyly smile. “Yeah, he’s the best. He’s changed everything.”

“We know, we heard…thin walls sister.”

I blush and we share a hug. I really like Tina, she’s done wonders I think with Shawn and she just seems to take me as I am. That’s a really nice feeling.

I get into a really hot shower and scrub the day off and soak in the heat. I’m still chilly, it’s November up here and I’m not really big to hold a lot of body heat and I’m so not used to the cold anymore.

I’m thinking as I’m drying and doing my hair.

I’m going to go all the way. I’m going to get the operation and go all the way. Yes it’s because of Chris. It’s not for him though…but it’s for me. I’ve always flirted with the idea. But honestly I’ve been scared and it’s not the same as day surgery plastics or even a boob job and the way things were with me and my ID it was a risk too.

But I’m actually of age now and there’s that fucking money…that’ll help some but I’ll use it to pay Michelle off first.

No, I want to be able to be with my lover…just like other girls, just like everyone else and if that’s me and Chris then that’s perfect, it’s better than perfect.

I come out of the bathroom and kiss him. “I’m getting my lower done.”

He looks at me, smiles and shrugs. “Do I still get to kiss you?”

I smile. “Yes, of course.”

“Good, what’s never mattered Shayne…just you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure. Besides when you do get it done I get to take care of you.”

“You do? You’re looking forward to that?”

“Yeah…” He blinks and rubs his eyes a little. “You’re everything I want Shayne…need…you…you know me better than ANYONE else does. You let me be me…even when being me is still all kind of fucked up and broken.”

“Chris, you’re not broken…not to me.”

“That’s exactly why I love you Shayne.”

He…

I mean I felt it, I knew it was happening to me…but…

“You…?”

He nods and gives me some smiley-porn.

“You Love me?”

“Yes.”

“Me…”

He takes both of my hands and he kisses each one of them so tenderly and gently is makes my heart beat so fast…but time seem like it’s slowing down. Then he kisses me…that taking my face in his hands a treating me like I’m the most delicate thing he’s ever held and he kisses me.

It’s just…

I guess the very best way to put it was like Chris kissing me like this felt just like god reached down and touched my life…or what was my life and there was this jolt to my whole being like he said. “Clear!”

The moment I think I actually really started to live.

Chris breaks the kiss and says to my heart. “Yes, You…I Love You…”

We just stand there and look deeply into each other and there’s just something inside that feels like something painful and wounded just got washed away.

“I Love You Too Chris.” I try and say it as special as he has to me and there’s this sparkle there in his eyes.

He kisses me again. “I should get ready too.”

“Oops sorry I’m not even done yet either.”

He takes his stuff and heads to the bathroom while I get ready. I’m dressing for dad’s funeral and I should be a wreck, hell I…I don’t know how I’d have made it without Chris here with me.

I lotion up and powder and start getting dressed. I’m not dressing slutty of anything like they’d think. They meaning Steven and the others like him.

I put on dark charcoal panty hose. Yes they’re a pain compare to stockings when going to the bathroom but I think I’ll be able to manage until after the whole deal. Black bra and panties and yes they’re nice. I want them not to be sexy for being sexy but a boost for my confidence. My dress, it’s a nice black dress with a small white dot print to it and black lace trimming it and it’s my funeral dress. I touch it off with black sensible shoes with no heel because we’ll be going to the cemetery and that’ll be grass.

I add my watch and check over my nails and put on a pair of simple stud earrings and my nicest necklace with a cross on it. I’m not big on the religion thing, like I said I don’t really think about it but I liked it when I bought it and it’s a sign of respect. A bit of perfume and the black lace knit shawl I got from my early days in LA.

It says stuff doesn’t it that I have a funeral outfit, outfits. I head out to see if I can do anything to help out with getting the house ready for the people that’ll be coming over. The house has been cleaned up and it smells good like lemons and some of the furniture’s been moved so there’s room for people to move around.

I get things ready in the kitchen, with my sisters setting out the things for tea and coffee and there are things that people have brought over since. I take some of the casseroles out and plate them up. Paper saucers with a little bit of mixed salad greens under them and just small slices of the casserole to make them look pretty.

Sarah smiles at me. “You look amazing Shayne.”

“Thanks, I try.”

Stacy smiles. “I think that Chris has a lot to do with that.” She sighs. “You’re lucky you know?”

“Yeah, I know and I still feel like I’m dreaming some of it.”

They both pinch me. I yelp and swat at them with a towel. We laugh a bit and Mom comes in to see and there’s a bit of a smile there. I get warmed a bit by that and a bit more when she says. “There’s My Girls.”

We go over and we hug her and just sort of stay there like that. It’s been too long…actually it’s been never. I don’t ever remember us or ever just them doing this before. It’s amazing and really…Never can be too long right?

I hear the soft click of men’s dress shoes and I look up to see Chris.

Hair cut nice and trim, not army regs but very neat and old school and he shaved. He has a really amazing face. Handsome…really handsome actually. Jake Gyllenhaal but with light brown almost blonde hair and actually a better build muscle wise….but you get the idea right?

Now add in the fact he’s wearing his uniform.

I think Stacy say’s it best. “Whoa…”

I have never really had the man in uniform thing, not until I had a man in uniform. And knowing what he’s gone through, what he’s seen and lived through…it means more to me now than it ever did.

It’s not about why they went, we asked them to go and they did.

It’s more than enough and more than we can repay.

My heart is just beating….well…I’ve never felt like this. I can’t help myself when I walk over to him and touch him…just maybe be sure this is all real, that he’s real, that I’m real…I tippy toe and I kiss him and make sure it’s strong and sweet and long and deep and he kisses me back over and over again.

I’m flushed and breathless when we break the kiss and I blush looking at my siblings. Stacy has a bittersweet look, Sarah’s smiling and Shawn too but looking shyly uncomfortable at the same time. I get it all, I do and it’s all good…we’re sort of starting over here right?

We get our things and Chris takes the papers all bound together by elastics and puts them in his inside jacket pocket. I get my clutch and transfer a few things...including things I should’ve had the first time I ran into Steven.

I’m nerved up all over again heading into the truck as we drive to the church where we’re having dad’s service. I guess the viewing was last night at the funeral home. We pull into the church parking lot and there’s quite a few vehicles there and people. I see Stephen there at the head of the walkway up to the church with who looks like his wife and close to a dozen people there.

We’re getting evil nasty looks as we’re gathering and heading to the church. I take the flowers with me and Chris’s arm when he offers it. There’s a look of confusion as Steven sees Chris all clean shaven and clean cut with is uniform and his medals on. He looks like he wants to start something so bad that it’s killing him and the others are doing the same thing like they’re trying to come up with something.

Steven is staring at me then at Chris and then at Chris’s service pistol. Oh it’s holstered and snapped and everything but he’s still looking at it.

We go past and I hear them talking and whispering.

“Which one’s the fag?” Some woman.

“The one in the dress with the shawl.” Another woman.

“Are you sure she’s beautiful?” First woman.

“I was there this is that freak, it’s disgusting the way he simpers and sways…and has everyone fooled.” The second woman.

I nearly turn…I want to scream at them and do things and….grrr.

“Why aren’t we telling him to leave it’s a fucking disgrace.” Some guy.

“We are not pulling a Westborough.” Some different guy.

“Steven?” The second woman, that must be his wife.

“Not here, God will judge him here.” Steven says his voice full of anger and hate I can almost feel the hate like some real tangible thing like the way that you can feel heat.

Then we’re inside the church and it’s been a long time since I’ve been in here and I’m getting looks and Chris is getting looks. The place is buzzing with the whispers too and there’s a lot of them about me.

There’s a lot of Him’s and he’s, a few her’s and she’s and a good number of it’s as they have definitely been told about me. I catch a glance of Steven and he looks proud of himself sitting there sneering at me like I’m something that he scraped off his shoe.

And yeah it hurts, it hurts like hell and I want to scream and rail or just run and hide from these hypocrites. Just how is people in a church saying things like fag and freak and worse even okay? I don’t care if they’re whispering.

The thing is they’re just talking and that’s all I’m pretty sure they’re going to do. Most of the ones bitching and whining about me are either these people like Steven scared of actually doing something physical that they might get caught doing.

I’ve been through more than what they can dish out. Ooooh scary you hate me and think I’m a freak. Well I’m not all that fond of you too.

But I don’t do anything, in fact I hold onto Chris’s arm and I act like it doesn’t bother me like a lady. I’ve very mannerly to the people that do talk to me and I’m soft spoken and I shake hands and I do hug a few of the non haters and kiss a few cheeks too.

The few that it doesn’t seem to matter seem to enjoy my company and the fact that I’m not living down to Steven’s expectations seems to just get his crowd all the more riled up. Again not violent but…

Tina leans over to me. “Janice looks really pissed at you. I think she’s mad that you look better than her and seem nicer than her.”

I look over at Steven’s wife and she stares at me with a sour look on her face. “Gee, she looks like she sucked on a lemon.”

Tina snerks. “More like Steven hasn’t been washing his boy and she’s got a mouthful of smeg.”

“Eew..Tina!” Okay That’s just gross, I’ve seen and heard of some gross stuff but my mental imaging is just too acute for that little bit of Ick.

Sarah chimes in too. “Yeah Tina that’s a little gross, but definitely a lemon…though she wasn’t sucking on it with that expression more like she peeled it and shoved it where she’d be lemony fresh.”

I have to stifle a laugh under my hand and she glares at the three of us and we look at each other and we give her a cutesy little finger wave.

She looks really pissed off and she elbows Steven and whispers something nasty to him that we can’t hear because to church organ starts up.

The service is nice, it’s not what I’m used to but it’s nice and there’s some people up speaking that sort of knew dad. Mostly those who worked with him and a lot of the stories are cleaned up good old boy stuff. And there a few passages read and a few hymns sung by members of the church.

Then it’s time to pay our last respects and I take my time and wait until most of the people that came have gone up to see dad one last time before I go up myself.

Wow…

He’s dead so there’s not that much good to say really about how he looks but he really looks bad. He went really heavy grey haired and has a beard that is likely better trimmed now that it was when he was alive and he put on a lot of weight and he looks old. I’ve see a lot of stuff so he doesn’t just look old but he looks alcoholic old.

And I was so damned prepared to hate him when I saw him but I’m not full of hate. I’m not. (Sniffle.)

I actually am sorry he’s gone. (Sniffle.)

I mean I’m looking at him and you know I should be flashbacking through the shit that he did and hating him and spitting on him or something but instead of that… (Sob!)

Instead… (Sob!)

Instead I see the guy that taught me to make snowballs and snow forts after the big snow storms in the winters here.

The guy who got out of his truck to sit in the dirt with me while I played with my toy dump trucks and stuff.

(Sob….) The guy that taught me how to make a fire and put a worm on a hook and ride my bike.

(Sob!) I loved that guy, I loved him so much!

I’m standing there crying and there’s all these things that I’m remembering pouring out of me seeing him here and it’s hitting me that he’s really gone. That no matter what he’d become it wasn’t just all of who he was.

I set my flowers in his arms and I look at him for the longest time before leaning down and kissing him on the forehead. I say it just between us… “I don’t get it, I don’t get the hate and I don’t get what happened to the guy that you were when I was little…but it’s okay…it’s okay daddy because I still love you…I still love you and I always will.”

(Sobby achy heart smiles.) I sit up and I wipe at my eyes until Chris passes me a handkerchief I smile. “Thanks…” I dry at my eyes and look back at my dad…and I’m choosing this…I’m choosing this for me and what’s coming in life.

I smile and (Sad-Sobby-Smile.) “It’s okay Daddy, I forgive you…” I start crying and Chris wraps me up again in those arms and gets me back to the pews and I start crying on his shoulder.

Good or bad…that was my Daddy, and he’s dead.

So I’m crying pretty hard right up until Steven passes by on his way to the casket. He stares at me as he passes by. “You’re such a liar…”

Chris tenses up like he’s going to…

“No, Chris no…not here, he’s not worth it…” (Sniffle.)

“This isn’t over Shane; you’re not part of this family.”

(Sniffle…) “I am Steve; I am no matter how much you hate it. I have the papers and I have the number for the PI and you keep it up and you’ll regret it.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, I’m telling you. I’ll take this to the police; I’ll tell them that you and dad were trying to commit fraud.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

(Sniffle-laugh.) “Oh yes I would.”

“You’ve been dancing under a fake ID, doing all sorts of things Shane I could get you tossed in prison for fraud too.”

“Maybe but I ran away from an abusive household a young transgendered girl…”

“A freak and a sin against god.” He cut’s in.

I sniffle and rub at my eyes. “Point is Steven all the things I did were in California, and the club I work at has some very, very good legal council. I’m sure they could rule me as being an emancipated minor at the time.”

“You don’t deserve the money…you left and made everything worse.”

“I know that and I’m sorry for that but I was your little sister not your little brother.”

“No, god made you the way that you’re supposed to be.”

I stand up a bit shaky but I stand up and look him in the face with tears running down my cheeks.

“Steve…I wasn’t a boy, I wasn’t, I was me a girl trapped in a boy’s body.”

“No, dammit Shane that’s not how it works! God doesn’t make mistakes!”

“No God doesn’t but nature does all the time and I was supposed to be a girl, I was a girl even back then and instead of seeing that you let dad do those things Steve.”

“I…you don’t know what he’s like….”

“I don’t? I still have the scars Steve, the smell of bleach can still freak me out…I was your little sister Steve, your little sister…just like Stacy and just like Sarah…you should have been there defending us.”

“I…” he’s looking at me and maybe for once actually looking at me…then at Stacy and then at Sarah and we’re all looking back at him too but all three are hugging ourselves as he’s looking at us…maybe he see’s just how messed up we are because of all of this?

“Steven don’t listen to this whore!” His wife pulls him away from me and she slaps me hard….

Ow…

“You stop spreading your filth and your lies and stop trying to twist things you twisted freak. Steven’s a good man, and he’s suffered too much at the hands of you and your family…You’re a disease Shane a filthy dirty disease and you’re going to take everyone you say you love straight to hell with you.”

“Janice….I…” she slaps me again and Chris blocks between us and turns and glares at her.

Janice juts her chin up and glares at him. “Do it, do it…you gays are good with hitting women so do it…”

Steven grabs her arm and he pulls her away with her squawking under protest. He leaves fast literally hauling her with him and she’s pissed and he looks back at me before he pulls her out the door with him.

I wobble once he’s gone my knees getting weak from doing that. Chris catches me and sits as he pulls me into his lap.

“You okay?”

“Yeah…” (Sniffle.)

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah…” (Sniffle.)

He takes the handkerchief and wipes away my tears and holds it to my face. “Blow.”

“Ick…No, I’m not snotting up a nice cloth handkerchief.”

He looks at me and he laughs a little and he kisses me.

You know a guy is really into you when you’ve got crying nose and he still smiles at you and still kisses you.

I kiss him back and Sarah passes me some real tissues and after I break the kiss I turn and blow to degunk myself.

He takes my hand and we get up and we go outside and stand there as a family well minus Steven who’s down by his truck with that bunch and the people there that are snubbing us but going to see him and his wife is hanging right onto him like a effing leach saying who knows what but he’s looking at us angry again and at me really angry again.

It’s really awkward I think for everyone that came and there are people definitely not happy at all with me being here and some are okay like before but there is a definite divide there and I almost feel sorry for mom’s pastor as he seems to be caught in the middle of two ideologies.

I think he doesn’t feel comfortable with me there but at the same time he’s not being an ass about it. But he’s not shutting people up when they’re complaining about me. Oh I don’t hear them saying things but you just know when they start looking your way and they start to try and not look like they’re looking your way after that. He doesn’t use “he” and he doesn’t use “it” to talk about me but I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t use “she” but tries his best to use the “them” and “their/they’re” terms to describe me.

Chris though in his uniform and his medals and the limp…and this being Memorial Day weekend has a lot of people being pretty decent to us even if it’s just for that. I get introduced to people we both don’t know that are here from the service or were in the service and Chris treats me no different…he treats me like a lady and not just a lady but his lady.

And some of these guys in the service or that were in the service do to. It’s a nice change from some of the others and there’s almost a body guard thing going on too as we’re getting into our vehicles to follow the hearse.

It’s not really like that but they did just sort of talk and mill around and have a few smokes and staying between me and the family and Steven and Janice and their friends. We still get all the dirty looks from them but we get in the truck without another fight or screaming match.

I get into the truck with Chris doing the gentlemanly thing and getting my door and helping me into it and we head with the little convoy to the cemetery. “Is it a little strange that some of the military guys were okay with this I thought that DADT was a big thing?”

“It is and it isn’t, Shayne you pass, heck you more than pass you’re beautiful.”

I blush. “Thanks but I had work done and I’ve been really through a female puberty more than a male one I started taking hormones when I was thirteen.”

“Exactly…well sort of. There’s a lot of asses in the forces like anywhere else but there’s a lot of treat a lady like a lady old school too.”

“That’s actually nice to hear.”

“Well like I said there’s a whole mixed bag to the whole thing, the forces still has huge problems with transitioning people in the ranks and personally women still have a long way to go before they get equal respect too.”

“You sound like a feminist Chris.” I smile at him.

“Sort of more like a realist. There were two very capable girls in the medical crew that were very serious in the fire fight to get us out of there and medivaced out.”

“You know their names?”

“Not yet I’m still waiting to hear from a friend who can let me know who they are. They deserve a serious thank you.”

I nod. “I’d like to thank them too they didn’t just save your life.”

He looks at me. “Shayne?”

“No. no don’t worry I didn’t mean anything stupid like that. I just mean it really feels that we were really meant to meet…and I owe them for having you in my life.”

He smiles and we pull into the cemetery and we join the family all except for Steven who is with Janice and those others and here’s a minister with them now and a couple of other people who are looking severe and grim and when Janice points me out they look angry and honestly, they look like they want to hurt me right there and then.

The pastor is not happy to see the minister fellow and there’s words exchanged before the ceremony.

Ceremonies…..apparently Steven’s Minister had to put his two cents in.

“Scott was a troubled man. He had seen the price of hard times when the good people of this country had wrought on themselves when they turned to wickedness and evil. Greed had taken his job and his health as he struggled with his own demons and these demons were all too real as they had destroyed! Broken! This man by taking his beloved son and turning HIM! down the path of evil and perversion. God please take Scott into your JUST and loving embrace and please LORD! Look after those who have failed him and left a good man to rot and wither on the vine of life. Use your INFINITE wisdom to show these base defilers of your word and of Scott’s broken family the error of their ways and that they may find SALVATION and REPENT their perversions and their sins and come to you oh lord and be cleansed and made whole again.”

…………………

I…

There was no mistaking who most of that was aimed at.

I’m shaking with hurt and anger…I could deal with this shit from the peanut gallery but to upstage dad’s funeral and to make such a….I feel like I just had been assaulted.

Chris is glaring at them and they’re glaring at us and Janice looks like she just came in her panties or something and she’s holding Steven’s arm and has her fingers laced into his really tightly.

They do the ashes to ashes and dust to dust bit and I had thought that I’d have cried at that part but honestly I’m just too hurt and pissed off and angry at what just happened and we stay just long enough to see the dirt getting shovel onto dad’s casket and Chris starts to lead me away to the truck.

The minister calls out. “Shane, son it’s not too late, you can repent this sin and perversion in you. We can teach you the faith that you need to cast out this demon of homosexuality and cure you of the devil living in your heart.”

My mom says. “Sir! I’ll ask you to leave my daughter alone!”

He turns to her. “Be Silent Woman! You’re ordered to your place by the scriptures and your unfaithfulness to them has led your family to thi…”

Limp or no limp I never seen Chris move that fast and two of the men with the pastor that looked like they were there to bully were down by him and Chris’s hand lashed out and he slapped the man right off of his feet…not a punch but a slap that was loud enough that everyone stopped.

Chris grabbed the minister by his collar and picked him up and was saying something to him up close, face to face and the only thing I heard was… “Look really close at my eyes…” and whatever else was said made the man run a heavy yellow stream down his legs in front of everyone.

Steven and some of the others moved like they were going to get involved and there were some of the other guys that had come from mom’s church and just some of those that came to the funeral and they had this look like a fight might happen and mom’s pastor looked at them all.

“Enough! This is American not the Middle East we don’t fight over faith in this country! We discus it! We do not ambush a grieving family with dogma and rhetoric. Minister you should know better, we all have been taught better and while the faith of others if a concern for many of us this is the United States of America sir and we do not browbeat widows and children. I hold the freedom of religion as sacred to those who have not chosen to embrace their faith as much as I do my right to teach my own to those who would listen. I think that you should take your flock and do what Jesus had commanded and seek answers in private prayers”

The minister was helped to his feet by his bunch and he was red faced enough to explode, he spat at the pastor almost saying. “I speak of god’s holy word, the sheep need a shepherd.”

“Sheep do tend to need one sir; humans are not sheep despite how some of them seem to act.”

“You’d follow that fascist drivel about the separation of church and state!? That you’d have perverts and heathens and the gays wrecking this country by taking away our rights, our Christian rights!?”

“Minister I will always maintain that it is because of the freedom to choose ones faith to have it or not makes those that make the choice to believe stronger in their belief than those who seem to need to make faith fact and law.”

The minister purples again and points at Chris. “I want him arrested! He assaulted me and he threatened my life and the lives of my flock!”

Uncle Rothman looks at him. “Son, let it be. We were all here we all heard the bullshit you were spreadin. Now kindly get the hell out of here before you find cheques your ass can’t cash in the collection plate.”

There’s a pause and he spins and storms off very, very angry and even shoves through his flock to get to his shiny nice Lincoln.

Steven and them leave in a group and there’s some murmurs and mutters of shock from the crowd and Chris comes over to me and he kisses me holding my face in front of everyone.

I kiss him back and it’s so…so…messed up but there were some people clapping at us kissing and…and mom was the first one to start it.

It takes awhile before I’m done shaking and mom and the others stayed, everyone stayed and I offer up a shy smile to them all before we get into the vehicles and we head to the house for the whole post funeral thing…wake…thing.

There’s two police cars there waiting for us when we get there.

Antifreeze...Part 6.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transitioning

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

Other Keywords:

Tissue alert.

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Part 6.

I really didn’t want to see the police here.

My stomach is in knots just from all the bullshit form earlier and this; this is really the last thing that we need. That I need and I’m really hoping that they’re not going to try and come after Chris given what’s already happened.

We all get out of our vehicles and the police get out of theirs. Well they’re not coming with weapons drawn at least. Honestly I was expecting something bad like that.

Mom and Uncle Rothman walk over to meet them and they’re talking and the cops are looking at me and Uncle Roth motions me over to them. Chris and I come over I’m feeling shaky again but he’s holding my hand.

“Ms. Starr?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve gotten some serious calls over the course of the funeral from Steven Jameson? He’s filed a series of complaints ranging from identity fraud to disturbing the peace to utterance of death threats. Do you mind if we ask you some questions.”

“No officer I don’t have anything to hide anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“I used to be Shane Jameson.”

“Oh, so what…we need to talk about this more is there a place we can talk?”

Stacy steps up. “We can use my place it’s not set up for the wake.”

She leads up to her trailer and she starts some coffee and I sit and Chris sits with me on the couch still holding my hand. Only two of the officers came in with us the other two are staying outside near their cruiser.

Coffees in front of us the officer that was talking takes a sip. “I think there’s a lot more to this than what we’ve been told Ms. Starr. For one Shane Jameson was a boy.”

“I’m in transition I’m transgendered.”

“I gathered you pass amazingly well.” He’s pretty frank about it but the other cop looks nervous.

“Thank you, I’ve been on hormones for a long time now and had some work done.”

“It explains things.”

“Oh?”

“There were people, some of the women more than willing to interject their opinions of you when we were called about this by your brother and his wife along with Minister Bradford.”

“That makes some sense there’s a lot of GG that somehow get threatened by us. Especially if we pass well.”

The older officer is nodding but the other fellow looks confused.

“But perhaps we should stick to the events at hand Miss Starr?”

“Okay…I was in a teenage relationship when my father found out and my home situation became abusive. I ran away from home ending up in California and had desired to remain so until my mother called me about returning home for his funeral.”

“I see…so your mother called you first.”

“Yes I never sought them out.”

“Can I ask why?’

“I didn’t want to have anything to do with any of them.” I just sort of stare into my coffee cup and Mom and Stacy and the others are quiet.

He looks at my mother. “So you called Shayne about returning home and you hadn’t had any previous contact with her before this?”

She shakes her head. “No…I didn’t even know that she was still alive. After a few years there was no progress in finding her and everything had ground to a halt. It was Scott that had found her by hiring a private investigator. He had found her and…”

“And?”

“There was this money from a relative that had been left to the family and it had been split up between the children. Scott…”

Mom stops and she’s crying. I look at the police officer. “My father found out about me and my life and he was trying to finally have me declared legally dead so that he could claim the money for himself. Since I’d changed my name and my identity I think he might’ve been close to doing it.”

“I see why is that?”

“Because Steven wanted the papers my father had. Enough to come earlier and cause trouble himself.”

“Can I see those papers?”

I look to Chris and he takes out the bundle of papers that were the things about me. I lay stuff out and go through it with them but I’m not giving it over to them. They can look and I’m sure I can find a place to make copies but I’m not leaving the originals with them.

But the doesn’t really want them and he takes notes but he takes screen shots with his phone of things too like the bills from the PI and stuff and the legal papers to have me declared dead and stuff.

“You might have to stick around a while Shayne, but I can see the uproar that has been sparked up by all of this.”

“You can?”

“Oh we’re more than passingly familiar with Minister Bradford and the kinds of complaints that we seem to get from them about people. It’s not the first time that they’ve been involved in something like this either.”

“It isn’t?”

He nods. “But the law is the law and we do have to investigate these matters. Now if you wanted to talk to someone about Steven attempting to commit fraud then I’m sure we can arrange that.”

“I don’t know, fraud?”

“Well it might not be my place to say Miss but since your brother here sent us with a bunch false allegations and he was very adamant that we do something to and I quote... “Get that Starr person away from my family.”

“It’s what he’s been saying since I showed up he’s even been trying to get people up in arms about me being back and being trans.”

“Well I can recommend that you file charges yourself over this. Please don’t leave town until we get things cleared up.”

“I have work back in LA that I’ve taken time off from to be here.”

“You also are living and working under a set of false identification.”

“I needed to live.”

“I understand that but a lot of people won’t. Get a lawyer as well and get things settled with your identity as soon as possible.”

He gets up to leave. “I hope that you have a less stressful day folks, we really wish that we hadn’t had to come out here with this especially during this time.”

I get up and I shake his hand and that of his partners as I walk them to the car. “You both are welcome to come over to the main house we have way more things there made for us than we know what to do with.”

“I’m afraid we can’t we have to be going but the other fellows in the car over there are going to stay for awhile.”

“To make sure nothing happens?”

“Actually yes.”

“Because of that Minister?”

“Yes and no. I really don’t think HE’d do anything but they’re part of one of those really right wing fundamentalist kind of churches and you never know.”

Chris looks over at him. “Just how fundy are we talking?”

“Huckabee stopped here and they put his rally on for him there. Steven was part of that too I think.”

I shake my head. I’m a Dem if I’m allowed to be anything in my current legal state but even then I don’t hate all the Repubs either but some of them are just kind of nuts like Huckabee or worse Santorum.

But I get why he’s being careful. Honestly these people that are that fundy and judgy and stuff can be pretty unhinged. I lean on Chris and we thank them again before heading to Stacy’s trailer again and getting our things and heading to the house.

It’s pretty packed and I’m sticking close to Chris but I’m helping out in the kitchen a lot. I barely know the people coming to the house and stuff so I make coffees for people get cups of tea and cut up some of the sweets that people bought and set them out on plates.

I’m actually good at plating stuff from working at Trader Joes. I actually do things some times in other departments sometimes to cover a shift or something and I’ve done the deli trays that we sell for like flash catering styled stuff. I do my best and while the food seems to go pretty quickly it’s getting smiles from mom and my sisters that makes this worth some of the bullshit of the day and while I look the part and they’ve been treating me the part well there’s just certain things like the whole Molly homemaker stuff that kind of really shows them that Yes…I am a Woman.

I even almost enjoy some of the attention. In a non sexual way. There’s some people that really don’t know me checking me out but the better attention is from a few of the relatives there that I know and that aren’t too phased by me being in transition.

It’s nice actually being seen the way I am by a few of them as something that’s just okay. I actually get a lot of “As long as you’re happy’s” and a few comments like. “No one that makes this good a girl would ever make it as a boy.”

That well those I smile at well the being happy ones but I kind of shrug at the other ones and say. “I know lots of different kinds, boys and girls and everything in between and even outside of it. It’s all good really. I just know that I’m not a boy, never was.”

“How’d you know? I heard some people always knew.”

“I think I knew I was off and didn’t get why and never really thought about it until I found some porn with girls like me in it.”

“So…it was a porn thing….?” One of them asks looking kind of squeamish now about it like aha! I knew this was perverted or something.

“Nope, the very first thing that hit me was…these are boys, and they’re pretty and beautiful and they’re boys too so I can be too.”

“But we heard you were caught….”

“I was a teenager, full of hormones and being curious and without anyone that I knew that I could turn to I started experimenting.”

“There was drugs.” I hear one of them say.

“There was some pot and most of that was shake.”

“Shake? Like shake and bake?”

I laugh. “No, it’s the leaf and not the bud from the weed it’s something that dealers sell to dumb little kids like me.”

“You still doing drugs then?”

“Nope, got into it for awhile but getting messed up’s not a good idea if you’re looking to stay safe. There’s way too many people out there just waiting to hurt anyone hey can especially if you’re vulnerable.”

I’m getting some looks. I look back. Then a few hugs. It’s mostly from other women. Other women get it. I mean if they can get past my being transgendered they get it because all too many women at some point get abused.

Some of us too much caught in the trap of trying to be the women that we are inside so much that we get into places and situations that shred us up inside even more.

I’m actually a little surprised at the few hugs from those that get what I was saying and that really helps through the rest of the afternoon. Chris being there helps most of all. He’s there just not as my knight in shining armor but way more than that. It’s the little touches as he helps me in the kitchen, the way he looks and smiles at me across the room. The way he slides up behind me when somehow we get talking about my daddy, the guy he was when I was little and was this guy I so wish stayed as my father.

There’s nothing like having that person who honestly loves and cares about you pull you back against them and hold you warm and tight and just letting parts of you inside left go…that it’s okay and that you don’t have to hold it together because they’re holding you together.

There’s nothing like those parts of you getting that kind of a breather.

I’ve learned to be strong, been put on my guard for so long part of me expects pain and having to fight back inside and I’m still stunned at the way Chris can make me feel.

Like he’s takes my arms and clenched fists on that hurt scared abused girl inside and instead of fighting he’s pulled me out to dance.

It’s still a long day and it’d after seven before we get everyone out of the house and the dishes cleaner up and Mom’s plugging the phone back in.

“Mom?”

“Oh, it’s okay honey I just didn’t want us disturbed.”

“They were calling weren’t they?”

She just gives me a sad smile. “Oh honey it’s alright they we’re saying much of anything but garbage.”

“I’m sorry Mom.”

“No, Shayne you don’t be sorry, you’re the last person that should be sorry in this house.”

“I’m bringing you trouble.”

“No honey you brought my baby girl home.” She smiles and wipes tears away.

“Mooommm….” I’m crying again as I go over to her and we hug each other. We hold each other and Chris comes in to the living room changed and smiling. I lean up as he leans down and kisses me, I kiss him and it’s really nice.

“Call home Shayne.”

“Hmmm…” Between the kisses and being tired I’m a little spacey.

“We’re going to be here a bit longer settling things right?”

“Yeah, good idea it’s not as late there.” I hug Mom again and kiss him and head to my room to use the cell phone and I call Gary and he’s okay with it but he sounds concerned. I’ll admit I vented and cried to him over the phone. He’s a good man and a friend and I cry about Steven and the money and everything…especially the situation with my ID’s.

He’s really good about everything actually telling me no matter what my job will be waiting there for me. It’s a huge relief actually. And it was way more that Gary got it and was still good with me.

Michelle was next and she said that I needed to do whatever I needed to do. She even offered to put a few calls into “good friends.” that could stop by and make things easier. I’ll admit that I was tempted. But I said no because in the end really I’m just not that kind of girl. I’m not really into violence or hate and that’d just escalate things I think.

I hear chainsaws going after I hang up and see Chris and Shawn out there with Uncle Roth cutting up the rest of the wood that dad never finished. I change back into the clothes I can in and go outside to help.

Shawn’s looking at me when I’m tugging out the wood splitter from the garage. I’m kind of in a tug of war with the thing getting it there but I do. I’m filling the gas up from a jerry-can when he asks.

“I thought you were a girl?”

“Oh I am, what you’ve never seen a girl do this?”

“No, it’s not that it’s just you’re so girly Shayne…and you dance for money.”

“Hey, I also work five days a week at a Trader Joes and I’ll have you know that dancing is hard work.”

“Okay, okay…it’s just.”

“Shawn I am girly, I love that too…I love being pretty and nice things and stuff it just also doesn’t mean I don’t like to work my best or that I’m squeamish about getting something done that needs to be done.”

“Yeah…” Tina says giving him a slap to is stomach as she joins me and soon we’re all out here.

Stacy has the hardest time so she’s on the lever for the wood splitter. While Mom watches the kids and the logs are good and dry so the wood’s pretty decently dry even after it’s split. Sarah’s cleaning out the basement area where the wood got piled for the furnace and we break after it’s all chain sawed and split and have coffee and some more of the chocolates I brought before we all get together and load the wood into the basement.

We talk and laugh together, old stories about things that had happened before I left and stuff like that as well as stories from where we work.

I giggle at the stares from them when I’m describing some of the acts I put on. I don’t go into lurid details but enough. Sarah sounds fascinated and she asks lots about backstage life and the other girls and stuff while trying to sound more interested in my life that the fact she’s interested in the girls I work with maybe. Stacy and Tina both don’t get how I can dance in four and five inch heels. And there’s a lot of questions about Los Angeles and living out in California more than anything else. Chris and I both tell them things that we‘ve done and that we’ve seen mostly as we were doing odd jobs and getting settled but now we’re as guilty as everyone else and it’s work, home, work and then catching up on all the stuff you never got done because you were working.

“I never even got to the beach last year.” I admit.

Sarah stares at me. “California…I’d live at the beach.”

I laugh. “I did when I first got there, trust me Serr you don’t want to live at the beach.”

“So I guess bathing suits are a problem?”

“Why?”

Sarah grabs at her crotch in this imitation of a guy grabbing his unit. I bust out laughing because it’s just sooo not the way I’d ever pictured talking to my sisters.

“No, I’m pretty good.”

“Huh?”

I undo my pants and pull them down.

Shawn recoils. “Shayne jeeze!”

Stacy and Sarah are leaning in to look more. “Tucked?” Stacy asks.

“Nope I’m just really small from the hormones and stuff and when I’m not aroused I’m small enough that It doesn’t really look any different in tight panties of a bikini bottom.”

“Oh…but you have such a great tan?” Sarah asks.

I do up my pants and grin at Shawn who was staring in the end with a guy’s reaction about my stuff. He looks freaked that I’d do that or go that far. Tina’s soothing him with kisses but she’s kind of chuckling too.

“We have tanning beds at the club.”

“Oh, I though you like all tanned out there.”

“Some do but I don’t have the time usually but I do love the sun. I hate being cold.”

She pouts and gets poutier when we talk about some of the bad beaches. There are good ones too and most are actually businesses so they’re pretty clean but the beach stereotype is just that a stereotype.

I do talk about Moho beach one of my faves and it’s just a little cove strip but it’s one of those locals only places with a strong latino, cubano presence and how a locals beach is different and better than the ones that people here about all the time.

And once we’re done I find myself with Chris heading to the 24/7 grocery store.

I get tilapia for the fish and some skin on pork fat and all the fixings for a few more dishes and it’s one in the morning and we’re eating Mexican street foods to show them some L.A. and even some fusion stuff.

Chicharonnes…the pork fat and skin boiled first to get them soft and then into a hot deep fryer. I take them out and toss them in dried ground ancho chili and a bit of cumin and salt and pepper.

Fish tacos…I’m lazy and bought the hard corn shells but it’d just good deep fried fish in strips the way that I do it. Mayo with lime and chopped jalapenos in it avocado and some coleslaw and they’re really good.

Fusion I do with some Kimchi mixed with the regular slaw from my fish tacos but I cooked teriyaki ground beef and toss in some of the chopped jalapenos into the slaw kimchi mixture.

Asian-Mexican is really big with the food trucks down home right now.

We pig out and we all sit together watching movies. There’s me and my sisters all together on the couch all under the blankets watching The Notebook and Forty Days and Forty nights going through all the sighs, grabs for each other and girly crying.

I wake up briefly around four and we’re all on the floor together with pillows added at some point and a few quilts and sleeping bags.

My very first sleepover. I mist up a little and snuggle in and go back to sleep.

Tomorrow’s likely going to be challenging at the very least and the so will the rest of my time home.

I just want this, right here right now for as long as I can have it.

Antifreeze...Part 7.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transitioning

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

CAUTION

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Part 7.

It’s the sound of the sizzle that wakes me up and the chatter of little voices and hearing Grams and Grammy being said from the kitchen. I open an eye to see Stacy looking at me still under the covers. I think she was watching me while I was sleeping.

“Yhgnn…Morning sis.” I yawn and oh…I’m feeling all of yesterday adding up on me still and the very unused to feeling of crashing in a pile on the floor.

“Morning….you look just so amazing when you sleep Shayne.”

Huh?

“Huh? I need coffee you want to try that again?”

Stacy blushes. “No…not that I’m not Serr, but you look so….”

“Girly?”

“Yeah….”

“I am a girl Stace.”

“I know and after seeing or rather not seeing that last night I get it but there’s part of me still hearing Shayne and my little brother is what I’m still getting….sorry?”

“Nah, its okay…we really still don’t know each other yet sis and I might have changed but your guy’s memories haven’t.”

“So we’re good?”

“Yeah we’re good.”

My eyes go big and feel two hands squeezing my breasts from behind. “Mmmm…I wanna get to know you better too…” I squeal and bat her hands away rolling over to stare at my snickering sister Sarah.

“Oh…Perv!”

She starts snickering and I grab and tickle her and she screams then I’m screaming as Stacy starts in on me and then someone grabs a pillow and the it’s two on one as they double team me and I squawk for help and get reinforced by my niece and nephew. We’re all breathless and laughing by the time we’re done and there was a pillow casualty and there’s foam all over the floor.

I look up to see mom in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room leaning against the doorframe almost hugging it. She’s smiling and there’s tears in her eyes.

“Mom?”

“I’m okay…I’m more than okay girls…it’s…it’s just been a long time since there’s been laughter in the house.”

I’m the first one but we all jump up and go over to hug her and even Stacy’s kids wriggle through to get a hold of a leg each. She’s crying and laughing as we all hug and tickle her too and Shawn comes over and hugs us all tightly in that guy way and we finally break for breakfast.

Chris and Uncle Roth are cooking together.

Okay I love doing girly things and doing things with a bunch of other girls in the kitchen is always a good time for me. It’s something I picked up from being with the Mexican girls and loved the way you kind of bind together as you do things together.

But wow….the sight of two tough strapping guys in the kitchen together making breakfast is really kind of hot. Yeah one’s my Uncle but the others my boyfriend…

Muscles and t-shirts and denim and just manliness but in that we’ll protect you, we’ll love you and we’ll provide…apparently provide includes them cooking breakfasts.

There’s stuff there I’ve never had but heard of. Pancakes and buckwheat pancakes, bacon but also chopped steak? Pan gravy made off the steak and dark with little bits of good things in it like pepper and fried onion, Grits…I like grits especially in the cold months and Uncle Roth finishes with a cast iron pan out of the oven with homemade biscuits inside.

Chris smiles at me and he pulls out my chair and he leans down and kisses me deeply as he sets down my coffee.

“I can so get used to this.” I say quietly to him despite us not being alone and stretch up in my seat to kiss him back and to reach up and run my fingers through his shorter hair.

“Good.” he simply says and kisses me some more until we get some pointed coughing from the others and both Mom and Stacy are looking at us mom’s sort of happy tearful and Stacy let’s out this big sigh…

We break the kiss and I blush looking at them. “Sorry you guys.”

Mom waves it off. “No, no honey it’s alright it’s nice to see two young people in love.”

Stacy sighs again. “Yeah what mom said only it’s good to see one of us girls get it right.”

“Stacy…” I reach over and take her hand.

She holds mine and she gives me a sort of happy-sad smile. “I’m okay Shayne it’s just fresh is all. Hey, it’s not like I’m the only woman that this has happened to.”

“Still it’s not right and you’re…ow!” Sarah gives me one of those older sibling swats in the back of my head. “What was that for?”

She grins and gets a coffee. “Being a dumbass.”

“Being a dumbass…?”

“Yeah you were going to say something completely guilt ridden and retarded like how you’re sorry for rubbing your happy in our faces.”

“I…I uhm…” I’m turning red because yeah…I kind of do feel guilty. I’m in this really good place with Chris and they’re…

Stacy looks at me. “Shayne…Is this the best relationship you’ve ever had?”

“Yes, oh god yes…” I look at Chris and blush and Sarah does the twin bit finishing with.

“Then you’re due, hence the smack stop being a ‘tard.”

Chris is chuckling and we sit together to eat and he looks at me and I look at him and we’re doing that sort of stare odd so connected we have telepathy thing going on as we eat breakfast together smiling and sort of leaning on each other our chairs are that close together.

We are trying to sort of tone it down though when really as good as he’s been and the way that he’s been treating me I just want to take him back to our hotel room and make mad passion…

“Chris…?” Wow…it just came up like a wave on me.

He’s staring at me...Blink, blink, blink… “Yes?”

I raise an eyebrow and softly smile.

He raises an eyebrow and he smiles…oh hell…him and that smile-porn smile.

“Maybe we should go back to our hotel and check on things?”

“Good idea.”

“Just in case.” I bite my lip.

They’re chuckling at us as we leave taking our things and heading out in a hurry. We’re not long getting into the hotel and to our room and we start to passionately kiss. And then we’re stripping off each others clothes and dammit I love that.

There’s nothing quite like having a man that you really care about and that cares for you gently taking your bra off for you. It’s only really beat by the feelings of his large strong hot hands running over your breasts and making and soothing that ache all at the same time and after sleeping in my clothes and my bra it feels extra nice.

My brain does a little girly squeal-sigh as he bends down and he sucks a nipple into his hot wet mouth. “Oh…oh yes Chris…”

He takes his time with me too, alternating between each one and his hands reaching up to cup and caress and when his mouth leaves he’ll replace it with his thumb and forefinger and gently rub them back and forth while they’re still wet. He stops only to not pinch then with those digits, oh those fine happy digits he holds my popped out fully aroused nipples like that and he does these sweet little tugs on them.

He’s gentle and he’s soft and YES I realize it’s like he’s milking me but I don’t care! Oh this is one of those feelings that curls my toes into the carpet and makes me moan as my eyes roll back into my head.

A little more…a little more and with a little whimper squeal of happiness I make a sweet mess out of my panties.

Then he keeps that up but with both hands on both of my breasts as he’s kissing me. I’m panting and achy inside and out in all the right ways when he breaks the kiss.

I walk Chris back to the bed but once we’re there I turn him around. “Here…sit.”

“Okay…?”

I’ve never done this with him yet but I sink down to my knees and guide him to my hungriness. He tastes amazing…yes he does and while I’m sure that being head over heels in love with Chris has so much to do with it…I like doing this kind of thing with a guy that I honestly care about. Yeah I’m actually not bad in bed but the fact that I like oral and that I’m actually pretty good at it is sort of the equalized between me and a lot of GG’s.

They’re always about the eww factor but so often not when it comes to themselves on the receiving end.

But this is different, this is oral love making and not sex and this is about me bringing him pleasure and drawing it out and making his fingers slip through my hair as I make him feel so good…and it’s not just the oral. I’m right there level with his leg and it’s my first really good look at it.

He flinches when I touch it at first and I pull off. “Did that hurt?”

“No, it’s just been…you’re the first person since to touch it other than me.”

“Oh…” I turn my head and I make love to his leg.

No, not dry humping dog stuff…

I touch it, feel it scars and all then I kiss some of the places there that look like messy gunshot scars and then the gashed scars and the surgical scars…I run my lips over those places, brush the raised bits of white scar tissue with my nose…find another spot with a heavy scar and kiss…and suck on that scar….or another one…You can make love real love to someone’s hurts to their scars and see that kind of beauty that they have there just for going on, just for surviving.

I do go back to my original intent and I make it long and drawn out and just when I think he’s getting close I switch to his leg, or another scar that I can reach while still kneeling.

When Chris does cum its hard and it’s long and thick…I taste and savor it and I like it. I really do it’s more to me than just his man stuff since it’s Chris it’s essence, it’s part of him and yeah he makes all the difference. I do something I haven’t done in years and that’s made oral love to a man without a safe on him and swallow.

No none of that other stuff that I said about that really fits either as he cries out. “Oh Shayne….Shayne, Shayne, Shayne…” I look up at him meeting his eyes and it’s as simple as I’m swallowing because I love him.

And I really try to let him see that in my eyes.

And I see in his eyes that…

That he loves me back…and there’s tears there in his eyes and he strokes my face with his thumbs. “God you’re beautiful…just so beautiful…”

It real doesn’t take too much for me to be on my feet and then on him and taking top and kissing him and straddling him and then we’re pretty quickly getting into it and he rolls me over onto my back and before long we’re making love.

And it’s face to face, eyes meeting and each other just falling into the eyes of the other and there’s contact there…real contact and emotion. It’s more than I ever had in any relationship of any kind really.

Picture looking into the eyes of that person that’s just changed everything…so much it’s as deep and personal and sexy and erotic too as any French kissing or any kind of kissing could be.

And there’s smiles, and pleasure sounds and loving expressions there too. I’ve my legs up and around his waist and his hands run over my legs and my hips and under to cup and hold my bottom ….god that…he’s holding me right off the bed like that and my butt cheeks are firmly in his strong hands as Chris moves in and out of me.

It’s amazing and we change places and positions and the entire thing is just beautiful enough to send us both to tears several times as we get so, so intimate…we get intense a few times and there’s a couple of times where I’m crying out in glory and I’m face down in the sheets and my hands are fisting into the sheets as Chris doesn’t make love to me, or fuck me but he for really lack of better words…fucking makes love to me.

And through most of it I’m getting a deeper and deeper grip on the fact that I want more. I want more for him and more for us and I want to go all the way and transition fully. It’s not the I’m broken with “It” kind of knowing but this deep solidly growing need that I want to be as complete a woman as I can be.

Honestly, really... really honestly Chris is that guy that makes even T-girls like me feel my ovaries.

And not in that sexual way but in another sexual way and I would be very happy to have his babies if I could.

Yeah…

Oh God yes…

It’s that time you get in your life again when things become all crystal clear again and you know exactly what it is that you want…need out of life and I want to be a woman…a fully transitioned woman and I wan to be married, I want a home and a family…I want…

“Chris…Chris….?” I’m panting and I’m a little not frantic but…excited…terrified.

“Yeah…are you okay…?” He…He’s worried, cared that he hurt me.

“I okay…I’m okay…Chris…?”

“Yes?”

“I want it all…”

I don’t have to even say what I mean and he pick me up from the bed and slips an arm around me to hold me up and kisses me his other hand touching my face… “Everything?”

“Yes, everything I can have.”

“Kids?” He asks looking at me.

Oh sweet heaven help me there’s this spark there and look of hope in those eyes of his that hurts, hurts so pure and so good that these big fat tears spill out over my eyes and down my cheeks… “Y..yes…?”

“Even if we adopt?”

More tears…sobby happy huge tears. “Yes!”

“Good…”

And it’s Chris so it’s good.

Did you know that when you’re not actually having sex…when you’re just stopped and holding each other like this you’re still making love? I didn’t. I couldn’t even really wrap my head around what love’s actually like.

It’s why we write and talk about it so much.

I think we’re still just trying to describe it.

********************

We don’t do anything the rest of the day. It’s Memorial Day and while we could be there for the services and the parade downtown but after the last few days, and yesterday it’s just exactly what we both needed I think to stay together just the two of us together in bed.

I enjoy it so much when Chris is holding me but I get a lot out of the other way around too. There’s something inside of me that enjoys snuggling up to him and the way his strong back feels pressed into my breasts and I get to hold him. And it’s also easy for me to reach down and rub my hands over his bad leg like that.

Okay I’m going to sound all new age and like I’m the stereotypical Californian but I’ve been to a few massage places, tried even working at a few of the more dubious ones and I really do think that there’s something deeply healing in a way about touch.

I mean just human contact is really important when you think about it. I mean there’s hospitals that ask for volunteers to come and sit and hold and rock at risk babies and it helps and then there’s that whole therapeutic massage and acupressure and that reiki stuff.

Chris is like an old content cat too. I massage and rub the right spots there on that leg and he does this male kind of grumble-purr-groan and sort of melts into the bed a bit more. I love the feeling that I get by invoking those kinds of feelings and sounds from him in a non-sexual way.

And we just hold each other and we talk. We talk about the stuff I’m going to need to do to get my ID’s settled and we even look things up like who to see and where to go online.

It turns out that I’m protected under the Minnesota Human Rights Act as to my current status and to get my ID changed I need my birth certificate and letters stating since I’m pre-op that I have GID and I am in the process of transition. That’s easy enough to get since we all have that information at the club and confirmation from the doctors that we use as to our desire to change our genders.

I make the call to Michelle to get said papers faxed up here to the hotel’s front desk. Which gives us and excuse to get out of our room while it’s being cleaned and we get the number and have it all set up for them to come for us at the pool when the papers get faxed to us.

I see a couple of guys in a car watching the lobby from the parking lot and just the way they look and the way that the car looks I think it’s members of Steven’s church here spying on us.

I can see them staring right at me because I’m wearing a short robe but it’s open, just more or less to have something on my shoulders and I’m in a bikini. And they’re looking; I do notice that I’m getting a bunch of stares from some of the staff too.

Chris and I head to the pool. “I guess I really am out.”

“Definitely looks like hon.”

Hon…I love that he’s calling me that, I really do. Chris stops and gets us two sodas from one of the vending machines and still sort of in the lobby he leans me against the machine and he kisses me in front of everyone.

I’m hitting mega blush time because PDA’s of any kind are still really new to me. And Chris doesn’t seem to be worried at all about being seen in public with me or that I’m pretty much been outed.

I also notice that Chris and the fact he’s semi hard hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of the women here in the hotel both in the staff and some of the others staying here. Hey that’s right that’s for or about me ladies.

I take his had and we head to the swimming pool and spend the afternoon swimming and having just some relaxed fun even just lying in the sun. No we’re not outside they have an indoor pool here and there’s some astro-turf on one side with deck-chaises out so you can sort of pretend you’re some place beach like.

We even fell asleep until the girl at the front desk shows up with my faxes. I thank her and we head to our room to get changed and we’re partway up the hall when we see two men, the ones from the car that was in the parking lot there between us and our room.

They actually look like clean cut guys, dress pants and polo shirts but the look in their eyes though is that same look that some of the scum bags that show up at the club have. The bad assholes that like to hurt women.

“Look it’s the fag and the tranny.”

I look at them. “I don’t know you guys; I don’t have any quarrel with you.”

“Yeah y’do hand over the papers.”

“No. They’re mine and the money’s mine.”

“That money’s Steven’s and he’s already promised that to help the church.”

“You’re a church don’t you have enough money?” Chris says.

“Shut the fuck up fag.” He starts toward us and so does the other guy. “Those papers are the property of the church y’know. It’s going to be used for a lot better things that you fudgepacking freaks.”

He swings on Chris and the other one goes for me. I’m not a fighter, just not really in me. I’ve been hit more than a few times and I am good at ducking punches and stuff so that’s what I’m trying to do while trying to get to our room.

I get socked hard in the eye after about swing seven at me and I wobble and my ears are ringing and I feel sick. He grabs me and I…I…surge forehand to him and I lick him on his face.

Yep, I licked him.

Yes I’m trying not to vomit.

“Aaah! What the fuck you freak! You licked me!?” He belts me with a back hand I see stars and hit the floor and feel my nose bleeding.

I stay down but look at him and laugh. “Enjoy it.”

“Enjoy what?”

“Being such a macho asshole fucker I just gave you AIDS.”

“What!?”

His friend jumps back really far from all of us the one that attacked me looks shocked. “What do you mean I got AIDS!?”

“I licked you so it’s going to happen…It’s a gay disease y’know? First it doesn’t attack your immune system it attacks your blood and the hormone making stuff in your body…you’ll just stop being all fucking macho like you are right now. And then you’ll change…you’ll change. And the stuff in you that makes you a real man will start dying and leaving the other stuff.”

“Ot…other stuff…”

“Girly stuff even if you’re not a girl it’ll hit…how do you think there are so many of us? The government don’t want people to know but it’s a plague…a plague and you have it…you’ll be sucking cock and loving it in days…”

I smile at him and his friend. “Both of you…”

They both freak out and run off screaming, literally screaming and trying to get out of there…and as far away from us as they can. “Don’t crowd me!”… “You either!”… “No!”… “We gotta get to the hospital!”… “I don’t want a dick in my butt!”

I sit up more and look at Chris. “I can’t believe that worked…?”

Chris is right over to me limping hard. “Shit, shit Shayne! Baby are you okay?” he’s going to kneel down and I think he took a hit to his leg. I push myself up and he hugs me tight. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

I hold him back and I kiss him and he’s shaking…there’s some of the look there in his eyes though from the other morning there. “I’m okay…I’ve had worse I’m okay…”

“You shouldn’t have been hurt! I shouldn’t have…”

“Chris…”……………. “Chris look at me…”

He looks at me. “I’m okay, I know, I know you were holding back, that you were trying not to kill him.”

He stares at me and I kiss him deeply, and sort of guide and set him to sit on one of the end table things in the hallway. I kiss him hard again and again until he blinks and he’s back to normal Chris.

He hugs me right after that and let’s out a big deep sigh.

“Did I hear you say that you just gave him AIDS and that AIDS was going to make him gay?”

I giggle and regret it with my sore nose. “Yes…ow…”

“And that worked?”

“I was kind of betting on these guys not having a real idea of what’s really what from their whole church thing.”

He’s smiling a little bit at least as he’s shaking his head and we hear the “Bree-oop!” of a police siren. We head to the one of the windows and look out and the police are here and they’ve cut their car from pulling out and two police people are arresting them.

They’re screaming. “You’re arresting us?!”…………. “We’re on the lord’s work!”…… “That faggot and the tranny gave us AIDS!”…….. “Unhand me whore, know your place!”……… Oh, oh that last remark was made to one of the police there which is a woman and she almost get’s elbowed in the face and the guy actually tried to take something off of her belt.

Out comes the baton and she smacks his hands and he yowls and she shouts out RED! And then she takes a step away and her partner does too covering as she pepper spays both of them.

I’ve never actually seen that happen before and they’re screaming in pain and holding their faces and gagging…the vomit comes next and the police snag them and get their arms down and behind them and then cuff them keeping clear of the vomit.

The other two officers are coming inside. I look at Chris. “Come on lets get a bag and a change of clothes.” He nods. “Yeah…we’re going to need them huh?”

“Definitely.”

We get to our room and I’m just grabbing some clothes to take with us when there’s a knock at our room door. I left it open. I knew that they’d be headed here.

“Excuse us the hotel staff reported the sounds of a fight here and they were sure that the two of you were involved.”

I look at them. One’s the younger officer from yesterday. “We were assaulted over the papers officer.”

He looks at me. “Will you be willing to come downtown and make a statement?”

“Yes officer of course and I want to press charges too.”

“They started this?”

I gesture to my face. “I never hit him officer and I’m willing to bet he’s wearing some of my blood.”

“Alright then we’ll get this sorted downtown?”

“Please, and sorry for this disturbing your holiday officer.”

“Not a problem Miss, there’s usually something.”

We get down to the station and Chris was allowed to take his truck and we drove between the two police cars and went inside. We went over everything that happen twice as an EMT had me checked out and a woman from the Sheriffs department and county coroner took evidence. The one I licked wouldn’t shut up about me licking him and giving him AIDS and he wanted me charged…and he didn’t want to become a faggot.

And the fact they were rude and abusively dismissive didn’t help them one bit. Not even when the Minister showed up and the church’s lawyer I suppose.

That’s when it got real.

He looks at me like he wants to punch me too. But Chris stands up when he does and he takes steps back behind his lawyer. The lawyer is going on about how Steven is the executor of dad’s estate and that all dad’s papers belong to him and that I could be any scam artist from anywhere trying to swindle my family.

The police chief looks at the younger officer from yesterday. “You were there yesterday Sam? You want to tell me what’s going on?”

We go over the whole thing again and include the papers and the pictures and the paperwork to have me legally declared dead.

The church’s lawyer is trying to object to this all coming out like we’re actually in court and that there’s no proof that I’m who the Private investigators says that I am. The fact they can check my cellphone pretty easily and my home phone and seee that Mom was calling me and that she had initiated contact first and had even told the young officer that herself yesterday was enough to convince him to arrest the two that assaulted us and tells the Minister and the church layer to defend their cases in court when the time comes.

They then say I licked one of them in the fighting and threatened to infect the guy with AIDS. Despite that not really how it spreads or very low chances like kissing is I’m ordered to get escorted to the hospital and tested since my blood may or may not be infected and I was bleeding.

Mom and the others meet us at the hospital and after some long hours of waiting we get the test results back for both Chris and I both saying that we’re both clean. I was pretty sure he was and I know that I was. I get tested once a year for the club and it’s been longer than a year between Terry my ex and Chris.

Oh Terry…he wasn’t really something I wanted to think about, just another liar that said he had feelings for me but just really wanted a “Hot She-male.” Yeah we lasted about three weeks before instead of us getting closer I was seeing just more and more chaser douche bag out of him.

But it’s really good to know we’re clean.

They let us go and we head back to the house after packing up and paying at the hotel. We have a police escort to make sure we don’t skip town until more of this is settled. We tell them that’s fine, that we’re going to be staying at Mom’s for the rest of our time here.

Steven’s there waiting for us with Janice and he’s out of his truck and he’s pacing and angry. As soon as we’ve parked he storms over and hammers on my window with his fist.
“What did you do!?”…. “What did you do you little bastard!?”

The cops are out of the car in a hurry. “Back away from the truck sir now!”

Steven gives them a look that just screams fuck off and die at them but he backs off. He paces some more and he’s got papers in his hands the whole white and blue of legal documents.

“Steve? What are you pissed off about now? What else did you dream up?”

“What else? What fucking else…what did you do? What the fuck did you say to her to get her to betray dad and me like this!?”

“I honestly don’t know what you’re ranting about.”

Janice sneers. “Likely story you freak.”

I’m honestly confused. “Sorry but I haven’t a fucking clue.”

“THIS!!!” He rages getting in my face and waving the papers in my face.

“Sir! Back away!” The cops yell at him and he stares at them like he forgot they were there.

I reach out and take the papers from him and he spins on me and goes to hit me and I stand there and jut my face out at him. “Go ahead Steve, go ahead it’s not the first time I’ve been smacked around today.”

The cops run over and get between us and walk him back. “Last warning sir.”

He stares at me…..several minutes pass and he blinks a few times. “How’d that happen.”

“Two fellows called Jarid and Nathan decided they wanted to get you my papers.”

“Bullshit they’re good men they’d never hit a woman.”

Janice pulls him back from me and the police. “They were defending you Steven, That’s NOT a woman, it’ll never ever be a woman so it’s alright.”

He turns and stares at her. “Alright?”

She points at the legal stuff in my hand. “They did that, things were nice, they were normal until somehow they slithered back here just like the serpent did Steven…they poisoned you own mother to turn on you and dishonor you.”

Mom steps over with Uncle Rothman. “No, Shayne had no idea that I filed those papers.”

Steven gets mad looking again and glares at mom. “You’re nothing but a cheap whore you know that? Dad knew it, you trapped him into marrying you…he fucking told me that you did…and now? Now you turn on him and his memory and his wishes and me?”

She’s crying, there’s tears running down her cheeks. “Yes, yes I did because I can’t trust you! I can trust you like I couldn’t trust him!”

I’m staring because the last time I really seen her mad was that effed up night that I was outed. I start looking through the papers and Mom’s fighting the appointment and handling of dad’s estate by Steven, it’s a motion to have him pulled and to openly go over everything in the will and the assets and things. She’s getting dad’s will declared void.

Janice hisses at us all catty and bitchy. “You’re just rotten to the core aren’t you…you betray the best son you have, embrace the lies and perversion of this thing!…See Steven! See? They were worried for your immortal soul and soldier for you as god commands we do.”

He steps further back from us anger melting into hurt and pain. “We’ll fight this, we’ll fight this and I’ll win, this was all dad’s dying declaration.”

Mom’s crying and she stares at him no matter how hard it is. “He’s dead Steven, he’s dead and I’m not going to let him beat me or any of you kids anymore. He’s not going to steal any more of our lives.”

“No!, No you’re fucking lying! Dad was a man with a strong faith! He believed, and it was you! You the one that kept hurting him! You kept Pushing him and Pushing him until he had to do what god commands and strike the evil out of you! You were the one that tainted us!”

He’s screaming at her and at us and he looks like he just might stoke out too he’s screaming that much.

Mom looks at him and she’s crying but she’s standing her ground. “Until everything’s decided this is my land and my yard and my house. I want you and your wife to leave.”

“I’m not…!”

The police get closer. “Sir, you’ve been requested to leave the property, you have to leave or we’ll be forced to charge you with trespassing!”

Steven backs off but Janice stalks over and snatches the papers from me. She’s close enough in that moment she glares at me.

“You should have died, I’ll make you wish that you had whore.”

One of police pulls her back and turns her so she can follow Steven.

I’m watching them pull out squealing tires and spraying dirt and stuff everywhere.

Antifreeze...Finale.

Author:

Bailey Summers

Audience Rating:

Adult Oriented (r21/a)

Contests:

December 2012 One Winter's Eve Story Contest

Publication:

Novel Chapter

Genre:

Transitioning

TG Themes:

TG Elements:

Childhood

Other Keywords:

Permission:

Posted by author(s)

Antifreeze…Finale.

The rest of the day was spent setting into mom’s at the guest room and us getting to take some time to rest before we all head out for the few things going on at evening and night here in town at memorial day.

Chris wears his uniform and so does Uncle Rothman who was in Vietnam. It’s interesting they’re both doing things together getting ready, watching the sort of regimined way they do everything is just. Well it’s really defining them in a good way for me. And Ben…I’m sitting on the couch hugging Stacy while we have some more chocolate and coffee and Uncle Roth and Chris are both answering his questions…they’re not graphic but they’re still honest and he’s got such a little-man look there.

We both kind of melt when they’re showing him how to shine his shoes. Oh my god he’s such an adorable little guy. He has this little boy look of concentration when they're doing the spit and polish thing.

We didn’t leave Molly out ourselves. We all got done up including her and making her all pretty and as girly as the rest of us with the hair and our make up. We all sort of pulled out the stops for this because of Uncle Roth and Chris were looking just so good. Even Shawn was wearing a nice suit. I think we needed just to do something else and we went out to the graveyard where they’ve set up a place for a speech at we listen to the eulogy and then they play Taps and seeing all the retired out soldiers there young and old male and female all saluting some proudly crying has me crying too.

Ben tugged at my dress. “You sad?”

I crouch down. “Yes but in a really good way.”

“Good way?”

“You know these people are heroes’ right honey?”

“Uh-huh like GI-Joe.”

“Well honey, sometimes the fight is just that hard that some of them died doing their job. So we’re sad they’re gone but we’re proud to remember them because they’re heroes.”

He gives me a little big man hug and I’m crying all the more for it.

Mom and Stacy’s a mess too even Tina and Sarah have been crying. I’m blushing at the looks that Chris and Uncle Roth are giving me. We stay to talk to a few people and accept their condolences and I’ve never been so ma’am’d in my life.

We join the bulk of them too even afterwards with a BBQ that’s being held outside the local VA Hospital on the little park by the end of the parking lot. Even here in my little town there’s guys that are still in rehab and recovery, that just got back from over there the hard way.

I’m choked up a lot here, I’m very emotional but in a good way. It helps with the shit going on with Steven and all of this. Hot dogs and burgers, sodas and just….doing this even just going to an even like this will change you.

I saw a semi circle of vets in wheelchairs talking and there were some there from Korea and Vietnam, some were there from age or something that happened and then there were the others from other places and ages right down to a couple of guys my age all talking…all in the same place but just watching them you get catch by that look in their eyes on their faces and the chairs were the last thing I noticed.

I actually really need this time to see things bigger than me and to be able to step out of the petty bullshit.

I get introduced a lot, service people and their spouses.

A few times there where looks when they get my name and stuff like they’ve heard and once things go on awhile they soon go back to normal. I actually have a good time and learn things as us women talk about being with military guys active or not.

I get cards and e-mails and there’s several service chat sites too where we can go now and talk and just deal that way.

It was a better way to end the day.

************ Tuesday we end up going with Mom to court over the stuff with Steven and He’s there and Janice is there and I’ve signed the paper’s mom’s lawyer had drafted up that say’s Me and Stacy and Sarah and Shawn all support the estate to be passed to Mom’s hands instead of dad’s last wishes.

The Minister in there as is Steven’s/the Church’s lawyer who is trying everything. From my legal status and challenging my status as a family member and as far as to say that dad was a member of the church and since his will was witnessed by the Minister that the will should stand as it is a church matter and not a matter for the courts.

Mom’s lawyer comes back with if the matters of church and state are being brought up then why is the church so concerned over my legal status when it’s a protected state matter and I’m not a member of their church.

Then my papers come out.

Then they argue my identity issue.

Our lawyer agues the case that Steven and my father were committing inheritance fraud and that with my consent we can do a DNA sample to prove who I am and compare it to the DNA evidence they have on file for me from when I ran away and they ran a missing persons case.

They even try the tactic saying because I left the family I had no expectations of inheritance.

It doesn’t fly with the judge and we get all the way into all of us talking about dad…and home…and the abuse we all shared there under him including mom.

I think when I looked at the judge and asked. “Your honor can I say something?”

“Yes Young lady.”

The Church’s lawyer tried even objecting to that. He squashed it right there.

“You’ve seen abuse cases? The bad stuff, the long term stuff right?”

“Yes Miss unfortunately so.”

“Then order x-rays, order them on all of us and get a doctor to testify about what they find.”

The Church lawyer objected.

They tried to get Steven on the stand. I watched him have such a hard time putting his hand to the bible to get sworn in. I think they really tried to get him to lie but he pled the fifth…it really pissed the Minister and Janice off at him too. I’ll say this he must have had enough personal faith that he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

He looked sad and hurt and tired getting off the stand.

It went through the whole day with three recess’s and coming back for lunch and the judge ruled for a complete audit of dad’s estate and ALL documents pertaining to it and the Church’s lawyer refused citing the separation of church and state exempts them from this unconstitutional demand by the court to look at The Church’s finances.

With the judge not allowing the case to continue he makes a ruling.

“Seeing as the Church will not abide to provide all documentation to the estates finances I am ruling at the majority’s family decision be granted and all matters of the estate be turned over to the wife.”

They said they’d appeal.

The judge said in response. “You are entitled to that appeal but I in good conscience will have to see that a continuance of this case would see the legal costs applied to the estate and all its adjoined bodies. And that with something so close being too complex for just this court the IRS would likely be brought in to investigate the entire case and estate…Along with its adjoined bodies.”

The Church’s lawyer protested. “Your honor bringing the IRS into this matter is hardly keeping with the separation of church and state.”

“No, but it does speak to the protection of those here involved in this case that they be equally protected under the law and perhaps the IRS will be interested in why the church is so involved in a matter as a legal will?”

There was some hushed talking.

They ended up conceding the case and leaving mom with the dealings of dad’s estate.

We were happy and The Church contingent left pulling Steven along in their wake or rather Janice did. If looks could kill then she’d have taken us all out.

I wondered just what exactly they didn’t want people to know?

I was pretty sure that even the judge had smelled something fishy.

************* Wednesday is quiet with the bulk of the day with me going to the government offices in town with my papers and Mom and getting my birth certificate re-issued with my female status on it.

I get a picture ID too while I’m there and yes I’m still using Shane Starr. I know that things are getting better with my family but I have so much stuff going on home.

That afternoon we’re gathered at the courthouse for the reading of the will and dad’s assets. We’re using one of the offices they have for doing arbitration. It’s safer that way with all the stuff involved plus Steven and Janice is there and their lawyer plus of course the Minister is there as their. “Spiritual advisor.” We even have someone there to be the arbitrator.

There was fighting…well arguing and it all boils down to this. Dad had gotten more money than we did from the aunt in her will he had gotten close to a half a million dollars in her old property and he had leveraged that property to get Steven set up in his own shipping company. Mom wasn’t told about any of this and as his spouse she should have been legally at least informed about the money and had a say in where that money was to go.

Steven looked shamefaced and he was quiet as it had come out and then there was the fact that dad owned fifty percent of Steven’s trucking company and that the Church had owned to rest in combination with Janice’s family and that with him as executor of the estate there was literally nothing to give out to the rest of us or to mom other than what were the property and the house. All he had to do was state that the estate was facing financial trouble from a bad investment from dad investing in Steven’s company and that what life insurance he had would be used to pay that debt.

It was true to a point. Steven had taken some losses when the economy had tanked and they were as a company in debt. The bulk of the money from dad’s insurance would have bailed him out of the financial hole that he was in.

But once he was out of that hole and the debt paid as dad’s business partner and not his family he would retain dad’s half of the company and he would only have to tell us that it was used to cover dad’s debt with the company through the bank.

Plus he’d be entitled to twenty percent of whatever insurance money was left after that.

And me and my fourteen thousand? Why dad had wanted to have me declared legally dead? I honestly don’t know. I think, think that it had something to do though with Janice.

Oh she was mad as hell even if she wasn’t threatening me this time. And she kept staring at me through all of this like it was my fault. The Minister first tried to bluster his way through.

“Scott was a member of the church and any investments he had made with the church are church business.”

Tina answered back with. “We can sue the church and get you all arrested for fraud.”

Shawn stared at Steven hard. “Why? Why the hell did you and dad not tell mom or the rest of us any of this?”

“Steven is a man Shawn he isn’t required nor was Scott to tell any of this to him wife who was supposed to be loyal and silent.”

It went back and forth like that.

Long-story-short…

Mom owns dad’s half of Steven’s trucking company and she has broken up those shares of it five ways one for her and the other four between the other four of us kids.

Of course this hasn’t set well with Steven or the church he’s in and especially Janice. We were leaving the court house with just more paper work ahead of us and the church promising to fight all of this and get what was rightfully theirs.

Rightfully theirs?

Oh apparently they require a tithing of twenty percent of the income of the members of their flock. And once paid off that would have been a hundred thousand dollars…or my share or what will be my share of the company….or Stacy’s or Sarah’s or Shawn’s.

Or Mom’s.

And with me not included that would have been a hundred and twenty five thousand even if the others had found out about this and not me.

I thought that it’d hurt less if the amount was more than just the fourteen thousand but it still hurts that they wanted me completely out of the family.

Chris and Uncle Roth are sure that Janice knew and was part of the whole thing and if I had found out about the fourteen thousand I would have been so greedy and so against my family that I’d have hired some heathen ambulance chasing lawyer to see what else I would be able to squeeze out of the family and I would have stumbled onto their little game.

In the end I’m just shaking my head. “So just because they thought because I’m this thing in their image of what I might be like they tried to take me out of the family and that’s why mom ended up finding me in the first place?”

Chris nods. “Sounds like karma to me.”

I just sigh. “I’m glad that’s settled but I’m not staying here until we’re done all the stuff for court who knows how long that this will take.”

Chris smiles. “Yes, I think that it’s time that we went home.”

First things were first and we clear that with the police and we get my inheritance money from the bank account where it was held in trust and the first thing I do is take a thousand and give it to mom.

“Shayne…? What’s this for?”

“It’s some mad money.”

“Shayne I don’t need mad money.” She’s smiling though and tries to pass it back. I put my hand over hers. “Mom, when was the last time that you spent anything just on you, on just something that you wanted for you?”

She’s blinking.

“See you can’t remember. Take it it’ll make me feel better.”

“Okay…okay…”

I have two savings accounts set up one for Molly and one for Ben and there’s a thousand that I put into each. It’s not much it’s just a start but I’ll leave it there and maybe add to it here and there bit by bit until there’s something there. Heck if they get into university that can be a whole lot of stuff they might need even if it’s not tuition.

I have that and a thousand for Stacy.

“Shayne…no you’ve already spent too much with the groceries and everything.”

“Yes and you got shafted by that ex of yours when he left. I love you, this is something I really want to do Stace please…I just got all of you back. And I’m all the way out in Los Angels and you’re here…just let me do what I can.”

“But…”

“No, no buts okay?”

She’s crying and nodding that its okay and we have a really big cry together.

Sarah and Shawn I don’t get anything for. Sarah seems alright moneywise even if she sort of seemed quietly put out that I didn’t give her money too. And Shawn wasn’t fazed at all since he is making good money.

Actually he and I have lunch just the two of us at a place the kids used to go and shoot stick at and we have some subs and share a bowl of Fritos covered in chili. We just sort of hang and he and I agree to at least together pay into a family health insurance policy and to cover mom and Stacy and the kids. We’ll figure it all out but it’ll give him and I stuff to talk about.

We love each other but other than playing pool and eating and just little bits of stuff our small talk is trash. We both need practice doing that and getting to know each other.

Shawn is being a darling though and he’s getting us all Skype since he can get it dirt cheap.

That was one of the last things that I ended up doing before we leave for home. Honestly I cried happy but sad tears too for the first hour or so of the drive. The trip back is another two days longer than the trip up and we just take our time and there’s so much less stress this time because so much has been faced and so much has happened and we’re a lot more intimately connected.

But honestly I was happy to see my Los Angeles again…the sun and the smog and my palm trees and just everything…just everything.

*************************** I quit no I retire from working at the club. I took three grand and paid Michelle off all that I owed her and we have a going away party for me and it was nice. I got to take some of the stuff from work home as keepsakes and the girls got me several nice things and even the other staff too.

Hey, free stuff especially gifts cards for places where I can buy clothes is always a plus.

I don’t really do a whole lot for the first three days home from the trip and it’s really just me getting used to being home at nights. Chris is really busy too with a bunch of back orders that had came in that he didn’t want to turn away because they were regulars and they’re his bread and butter.

But after those first three days I start getting back into the swing of things and I get my California ID’s fixed and it was less of a hassle than I thought with them just changing things on my drivers license…there was a point where I was scared about lying about my age and stuff but the clerk at the DMV just took my saying that I had to get my ID fixed since I had things changed with my new birth certificate back home and my ID card and he really didn’t want to know anything more than that he just kind of took it as a clerical error from my change of gender and corrected the age and DOB with the update. I took my new picture for my license and that was that.

I could have said more but I’m not about to borrow trouble when I didn’t really need to. My car insurance pretty much went the same way. I’d never been in an accident or had a bad driving record so they didn’t really look that hard either. In fact even changing my work file at Trader Joes wasn’t a hassle. Well Gary handled most of that and when I was telling him about how things had gone and how things with my ID’s have gone he smiled and shrugged.

“You’re transgendered Shayne, people see that and they really don’t want to get into a fight with you over something that’s an easy fit. There’d be a lot more hassle if they did and you came at them with something like the ACLU.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“It does or it’s a good reason not to and if main office ever comes to me about this I’ll say that’s exactly why I just fixed it.”

“You think that they will?”

“No, not really to them you’re just another employee and honestly having a good worker like you is more important than someone making a fuss over nothing.”

And nothing did come of it. I was still nervous all the way to my first paycheck back and when nothing happened it was still a huge relief. I think maybe part of me was waiting for Janice or Steven to maybe cause trouble. But it was just me…it was just me going with my habit of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

********************* Well it did and that other shoe?
Chris asking me if I would go home with him to Maine for Thanksgiving. It was quite the time and I’ll have to tell that story later….promise. I will say one thing. I’m more than sick of airports for quite awhile thanks very much.

**********************Every thing had just started to settle into normal. Well more normal that I’d really known. Chris and I have started dating and not just the stuff we had been doing and the whole good for each other hooking up stuff but actual real dates. We’re still taking our time though and we still have our own places but it’s still good. Hell it’s better than good it’s real.

I’ve started talking an online GED course at home at nights. I had the Skype stuff sent and set up for me through Shawn or rather he footed the bill for it and we all tend to talk after supper sometimes which in itself is weird and a really good thing.

We also have been talking about Steven and our shares and stuff with mom too. We came to a decision and we’re going to be having a family meeting over it at Christmas.

We take both vehicles and we head out foe home on the twentieth to give us lots of time to get there and I’ve lots of stuff with me for everyone and I’ll admit that most of it’s touristy kind of swag and all that stuff that just screams California and Los Angeles.

You know I had fun actually getting some of this stuff. I got to go to places that I had never been to my entire time that I was out here. It’s even some of the places that Chris and I got to go to on dates.

Is it weird that I liked going to the LeBrea tar pits? Benny’s going to love the dinosaur swag I got him.

It’s a long drive and we’re hitting some pretty iffy weather and I’m being really careful I’ve never actually driven in snow before and the roads near home are getting pretty bad and the storm gets pretty bad and Chris and I stop into a rest stop with a diner just outside of home to wait out the worst of the snow storm and to wait for the snowplows to be out on the roads.

Steven’s there having pie and coffee and…and Janice is there working in a waitress get up a far cry from the high end clothes that we had always seen her in.

The look she gave up would kill.

We sit in her section because…well would it have been rude if we hadn’t and we also get something to eat. I’m a little leery but I go with the chicken pot pie and coffee but I take a long look at the food when I get it.

Steven comes over and he quietly takes a seat close to ours. “Something wrong with the food Shayne?”

“Honestly?”

He nods.

“I’m looking for the loogey.”

He almost, almost smiled a little. “I’m sure she didn’t do that.”

“Oh she hates me pretty much that much I think Steve.”

“Yes, she pretty much does.”

“And you?”

He just sips his coffee and he looks at me. “You…you messed everything up Shayne, why couldn’t you just stay away?” he’s not mad or shouting he’s just tired.

I look at him. “Steven…I had no idea that anything was going on until dad looked me up, and when he died mom called me…so I came. I was scared as shit to come home but I came.”

“Why? You should hate all of us for what we did or what we didn’t do to keep you safe.”

I shrug. “I had too, just had to just to see even if it broke my heart doing it Steve. And I don’t hate any of you even you despite you being a huge fucking horse’s ass.”

He looks at me. “You don’t? Why?”

“Because dumbass you’re my big brother and as much as you’ve just sucked I can’t really hate you. You’re the oldest…which means that dad had hated on you a whole lot more than the rest of us…and if what we think was true with how he was…he took out having to marry mom on you and mom…”

He just stares at me…and he’s red in the face and his bottom lip is shaking… “Shayne…”

“I can’t even guess what happened Steve, I can’t you’re two years older that Shawn, that’s two more years in dad’s hell.”

“But, but how can you just…”

“Because you’re my family, you’re my big brother and I want to choose to love you rather than hate you….and….and…all this revolves around dad and his abuse. I don’t think anyone of us wasn’t messed up around him and what he did even now.”

I look at Chris and he nods. “We’re a family with PTSD…”

Steven nods and he wipes at his eyes with some napkins and Janice takes notice and she comes storming over to where we’re at. “Get out, get out haven’t you done enough already…you’ve wrecked our lives.”

Steven sniffles. “Jan…no it’s mot like that…”

“Bullshit Steven, he blows back into town and just like we thought he did nothing but flaunt all that perverted gay stuff in our faces and…”

“Enough Janice! Shayne’s not like that, she’s actually a decent woman.”

“She’s not…”

“Don’t finish that sentence…”

She glares at me. “See you’re doing it again…mu family barely talks to me, our church barely speaks to us are you happy?”

I look at Steven then her then Steven. “They’re not talking to you?”

He frowns. “No, we…Minister Bradshaw has stopped talking to us…we weren’t strong enough to face you down he said and that its gods will that we be punished for our sins.”

“Your sins?” I’m not going to list off the list of the things he’s done to me…besides I have a feeling that the church was okay with the way that they were treating me.

Steve stares at me hard and so does Janice. “When you settle up and take your shares my company is wrecked…we won’t be able to pay you all back and still have enough trucks on the road to keep afloat. It’s tight as it is.”

I smile at him. “Then don’t.”

“Huh?...no Shayne seem if we pay off the money from the investment dad put in and we gave you the money we owe you we’ll be shutting the doors.”

Janice hisses. “That’s why we’re working here because we’re not taking a salary.”

“I said then don’t.” I smile at them both. Yeah, even Janice.

They look confused.

“Look Steven we’ve been talking about stuff and we’ve decided that instead of taking our shares that we’re going to be leaving things as is only with our names on the dotted lines too.”

They look really confused.

Chris and I explain that we did a lot of talking and a lot of soul searching and that we decided that it wasn’t worth losing him over money. We talked online and on Skype about it until we decided that we’d be family partners and that we’d only take and split our profits after he was paid a decent wage that we could all agree on.

Even Janice looks stunned enough to shut the hell up. Okay I don’t really mention how hard it was to get Sarah to agree to it…I love my sister but she has some real it’s mine issues.

“But…but Shayne…”

“Why?” Janice asks looking like she can’t get it at all but there’s tears in her eyes.

“Because he’s our brother, we’re family and that means a lot to me, to all of us…Steven We love you.”

“Even after…?”

“Yes dammit even after!” I laugh then I squeak in surprise when he grabs me and he yanks me into this hug…huge hard to breathe hug…but he’s crying, he’s crying and he’s shaking and mumble-sniffling into my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Shayne…I’m sorry…”

“Its okay, its okay but it was supposed to be your Christmas surprise.”

God he shakes some more but he does this little laugh-cry thing…just about breaks my heart.

I rock him back and forth and Janice dries her eyes and stares at me before getting up and heading back to work…she shot me a glance but it wasn’t hate…it was confusion mixed with a little kindness? Honestly I think I freak her out on some level she was schooled to hate and fear and that’s clashing now with exposure to real life.

Hey I’ll take it it’s a start.

We stay and we wait for the roads to open back up and it’s nearly morning by the time that happens and the next shift had come in with the plows when they went by or enough of them that Steven and Janice are getting ready to come home with us.

It’s colder than hell out and I really should have left the car running and I get in and we wait until we can follow the snowplow into town and we’re going really slow and it’s Steve and Janice in the car ahead of me and Chris in his truck behind me and we’re all following the plow like a little family caravan.

I’d just turned the radio onto the local station and Jingle bell rock starts playing over the speakers and I’m trying to sing along with the words when I see Steve’s car slip side ways and I slow down and we’d have been okay if someone in a four by four truck with a plow blade hits the nose of Steve’s car spinning it around.

Of course like an idiot I hit the brakes and start going out of control.

I remember hitting something broadside and the next thing I know I’m rolling.

I’m pretty sure it’s a downward roll…the definitely sure and I hear this sick cracking and smashing through sound and it’s not the window? I’m upside down and stunned and still trying to get what happened straight in my head when I hear the sounds of water trickling in…

Crack…!

Then I drop again just a few feet but these a sloshing sound and all I see through the windows is dark black water and it’s coming in!

I’m fighting and trying to get out of my seatbelt and there’s water coming in and it’s cold!

So fucking cold!

I hear this bumping an scraping sound and I can just sort of tell…my car…it’s moving…it’s moving and I’m trapped under all that ice…

I try…I try to fight it and try to jam anything into the places I thing that the water is coming in by…

Until I’m so cold my fingers get numb…the I get sort of cold but warm and really sleepy.

******************** I wake up with pain like fiery pins and needle all over my body and Chris’s face hovering over mine. He literally tears up and shouts. “She’s alive! Here! here!”

I hear Steven too taking up the yelling for help and see him completely soaked too just like me and Chris.

Chris…Oh Chris…I just about lost this didn’t I? I sit up coughing a little bit trying to get the water out of my lungs. I look at him and I’m…god actually I’m so glad that I didn’t lose this…didn’t lose this chance.

He looks at me and he reaches up and holds my face in his hands cupping me like no one else has in my entire life. My hair’s getting frozen by the wind and I’m freezing but I’m not feeling it. Chris is looking at me like…even drenched and the water on us freezing to ice I can tell he’s crying.

“Shayne…god Shayne you had me so scared.”

“Chris…?”

“I’m dreaming right?”

“No…”

“I’m not dead?”

“No…”

“You found me…”

“Yeah…”

“How…all that ice…all that water…?”

“Love…Shayne, it was love…God girl you’re like some kind of magical anti-freeze, you came into my life and it was like everything that wasn’t working suddenly did…I could move again…live…I love you so much Shayne, I kept feeling your love and it kept me warm.”

“Yo…you’re delusional…” I say shivering with my teeth chattering, almost laughing…I’m that sort of nearly hysterical.

“No…I’m not…Marry me.”

“What?”

He pulls me to him by my face…pulls me right in and kisses me with that kind of passion and need and fire like that kiss from every movie that made and that made you ache for someone to kiss you like that…

Chris is kissing me like that and…I feel it.

Love, touching my heart, getting pumped through my veins and filling me up until I’m not feeling the wet freezing cold and all I’m feeling is love.

Sometimes love can move mountains.

And sometimes love can keep you alive.

Sometimes love is just…

Antifreeze.

I see flashing lights a red and blues and the police and the snowplow’s stopped there too and they’re coming down the bank for us.

I put my head on Chris’s chest.

“Yes.”