Tea & Red Roses Part One
I kept hearing the entire time I was getting out and graduating that I shouldn’t go to Toronto.
It’s scummy and dirty and people are assholes.
Seriously that much I heard a lot. Like horror stories from people that moved from home and lived there and found out that life in a big city was a whole lot different than life in freaking Halifax.
But honestly I wanted to go.
And honestly, really honestly most of the people that were telling me things had this whole status of being special little snowflakes in high school and they moved out to go to university and in an actual real sized city and found out one amazing truth.
Nobody gave two shits that you were popular at home.
So when I kinda knew that the stories were coming from self-important assholes that didn’t like that no one cared that they were miss this or voted most popular of X brand high school they got very put out I’d imagine. And definitely like some of them it was a shock to the system when they pitched the usual attention fits that they did around here or around me like they did in high school that people just sort of socially wrote them off up there.
Up here, since I really, really didn’t follow their advice and moved up here to go to college at U of T.
And like I’ll let you in on a little secret.
I’m a lesbian, so that’s one reason to actually get the hell out of Halifax. It’s a small community really for gay girls down there. And some of them I really don’t like that much of those that I know now since I broke up with Emily.
Emily was my second girlfriend. She was that girl that you got wet for because she was everything you ever wanted and feared anyone to know about when you weren’t out. She was that wild step that you sometimes took past your first girlfriend.
She’s my regret story.
Hot and sexy and fun and very much into me and into partying and I will say honestly she fucked me better than anyone that I had ever been with before that including the few times I played around with other girls and then before her my first girlfriend Jill.
And then boom, Graduation year she up and bails on me and takes off at the start of the summer and moves in with this Korean girl that was in on exchange here for Dalhousie and I was dumped without warning.
And she took a lot of my favorite clothes and CD’s and DVD’s and other stuff and we had this huge fight that just sort of rolled right off her back like she really didn’t give a shit.
“You’re going to Toronto right well I’m not. So like done that.”
“So we’re done just like that!?”
“What you wanted me to like go with you? C’mon that’s not my scene and I think you like knew that and like new that this was like where it was going.”
“I loved you!”
She smiled like it was cute. “I loved you too but it wasn’t like I was in love with you Chris, like seriously grow up.”
I wanted to slug her or like rip her hair out but all I really could do was stand there and cry as she got back into her car and she took off with her new girlfriend inside. I feel sorry for her because she had likely no clue as to how Emily was likely going to play her.
That torpedoed me hard and I cried and bawled and raged about it all summer.
And I came out.
Well it was a serious surprise to my folks and dad sort of took it better than mom with a shrug and a beer and mom wasn’t even that bad with her just repeatedly asking me.
“Are you sure you’re gay?”
Or my favorite and one that still cracks me up. “Have you really seen a vagina? I mean they’re kind of freaky and I have one.”
“Yes Mom, I’m gay, I’m a lesbian and I’ve seen a vagina and I love them. I’ve seen lots of vaginas.”
It was cute in a way how that flustered her.
A little freaky in how unclued she was to her own parts though.
It had to be a generational thing.
And after a really heartbroken summer I moved up to Toronto getting a share house with some online friends and they’re all lesbians like me and no one is or was in a relationship with each other and we sort of made like a pact with that.
The last thing anyone of us wanted was to actually have shitty relationship drama at home especially when rent was involved.
Dad drove us up in a U-Haul truck which was hell really since he drives slow and the last time he was in Toronto was like twenty five years ago and while he’s not an old guy he was definitely a maritimer when it came to the traffic around here.
Though the girls thought the U-Haul was funny as shit and took pictures.
My folks so didn’t get the joke.
And that did save me lots of money getting moved in and I had lots of things for the house too with things my parents gave me and my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I swear I have every Starfrit thingy for the kitchen and As Seen on TV gadget too for the last like thirty years that still worked.
There were some cool things too like nice bedding and quilts and I had like a whole bunch of food like preserves and jams and stuff from my dad’s mom and even like six loaves of homemade bread.
Oh that so showed the differences between me and my friends. All of them from like the city or a city and they really never had homemade bread or like homemade strawberry jam or green tomato chow-chow.
And the fact that my folks brought a fifty pound bag of potatoes was just as amazing as the U-Haul.
The best thing though was Mom bought like take out Chinese for us all on her Visa and Dad spent the night not just setting up the furniture in that Dad styled OCD way but he actually fixed a whole bunch of things too in the share house that they hadn’t known how to and that the super didn’t get around to yet.
He even cleaned out the lint trap for the dryer and he left the tools that he brought with him for us to have and use.
So that actually helped get me into a good headspace in being here.
And we had a house party the night after they left and that was fun too.
Casual sex, like actually having a mutual hook up with this girl called Fiona who was cute and sexy and hot with lots of freckles.
And that got me out of my rut after Emily.
And I went full tilt out of my shell after that.
No not sex but I did go out with the girls and met a few other girls and had a good time.
Nope instead I cut my hair, long in the top with a blue-purple tinge that worked for me and an all-around side shave underneath that you could see when I pulled my hair up and I had the side shave dyed too a sort of fading grey up to the blue color and I got two upper lip black pips and two lower lip snake bites and I loved it, every minute of it.
Ooooh…okay not every minute, when Becks got me to get my muffin waxed it hurt like hell.
But it was still worth it.
Oh I know there’s all this stuff about body hair and feminism and like that’s cool if you don’t want to fine…don’t tell me what to do with my body. I like shaved, smooth, I like the way that I feel to my own touch and honestly I feel kind of sexy grrr with the smooth and bare pussy.
First time Mom and I talked on Skype she had to check twice if I was really me and not one of my roommates.
And gotta love her mum my Grammy because she took one look at me and clapped her hands. “You’re in a band!”
I told her I wasn’t and that I was just trying something new and she was okay with it all since she was like doing the same thing back in the sixties.
But it was really cool that she thought that I was cool enough to like be in a band.
Classes were going good and I’m taking stuff towards making my way to a degree in pharmacology. I was working two part time jobs one at the university library as a clerk and bookshelver and another working at The Great Canadian Dollar Store a few days a week to help pay for things and life was pretty awesome.
Classes and work but I wasn’t like killing myself with it, hanging with the roommates when we were around together which actually was fairly often with like dates included. We’d go out to a few clubs that were local and not too skeevy and full of guys that wouldn’t get the lesbian hints and we went out to a few lesbian places but those weren’t all that great sometimes.
It was a bit too Emily in some of those places for me.
Waaaaaay too many girls that looked like and thought that they were Shane from the L-word.
It was me actually bailing out of one of those trips and heading to look for someplace else to have a drink or something when I found this literal hole in the wall downstairs of a basement place sort of like Cheers had when I found Rusty’s.
It was a pub.
Sort of a pub, I mean it was but it was nice inside and they had a bar and the rest was all set up with booths and there was a couple of pool table in like one end of it and there was a small raised floor for maybe an act or dancing on the other end and a really nice bar with lots of taps and a huge expanse of bottles some of them were really fancy looking.
And there was a lot of people there drinking and standing and talking and just sort of hanging out and they had a three dollar G&T so I tried one for my first time and it wasn’t bad and I actually started to loosen up when I saw her.
She went up with guitar and an amp to the stage and the bartender got her a stool and a folding steel chair and she set up.
Tall with long legs and a really nice butt framed in faded jeans and like real jeans and not the stretch denim stuff either and she had a tattoo of musical notes in a circle of roses in the small of her back that I could see under her fuchsia and grey flannel shirt she was wearing over a midriff revealing simple red t-styled shirt and she had this amazing hair.
Red and it was definitely bottle-red hair far too dark to be like normal and at the same time is so suited her face and it was definitely done by someone who knew what they were doing and she’s got a lot of it but she wears in in that way that it really just sort of suits her.
She had a black lace choker style necklace on and a necklace with a cross and another with what looked like some kind of silver fox head on it and another that was a tiny little Tardis from Dr. Who.
Great make-up and eyeliner and lipstick and really nice lips and I’ll admit to it she was actually really nicely endowed with a great set of D-cups and from what I could tell a really nice bra.
And really nice eyes.
Those are what get me, these really nice eyes that were actually looking at people here like they were like…people?
Kind eyes.
It was the first really, really heavy Oh moment since Emily and at the same time it was so different.
She set up to play and people whistled and called out Rose and Rosie and she waved at some of them and another thing that like totally struck me was the guy behind the bar brought her a cup of tea in a tea cup on a saucer and she took a sip and smiled for having it before she started playing.
Oh it was a cover but still I’d never really paid attention to the words before as she played *What’s Going On!* By Four Non-Blondes
I have never heard anyone sing the song live before until now it but there were folks singing along. I got to admit I was too and I found myself dancing up close to the stage or rather sort of dance swaying along to it and drinking my G&T.
“Twenty-five years and my life is still…”
“Trying to get up that great big hill…”
“Of hope…for a destination.”
“I realized quickly when I knew I should.”
“That the world was made up of the brother-hood of man…”
“Or whatever that means.”
“And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed…”
“Just to get it all out, what’s in my head.”
“And I’m feeling…”
“A little peculiar.”
“And so I wake in the morning to step outside.”
“And I take a deep breath and I get real high…”
“And I shout at the top of my lungs…!”
“What’s going on!”
And she’s singing it and there’s like everyone else that’s singing along with her like they’re really into it and that they’re into her and it’s definitely like a thing here or something.
And she’s like captivating, and happy, and you can feel this whole full of life feeling just rolling off of her.
She’s really kind of beautiful.
*** Rose….
So I’m trans and I live now in Toronto.
I have an apartment out in Bellhaven out towards the cemetery it’s not a great place but it’s also far from the worst place that ever lived in. It’s out back of a three story house and was made I think for students or something with a wooden set of stairs that go up to my door and there’s a small deck or landing for my door that’s about the size of two wooden shipping palates and it’s pretty sturdy but it’s never been painted or anything so the wood is all greyed over.
It’s a pain in the winter since the plow service guys can’t get around to my area and there’s no snow removal in my rent so I have to do my landing and my steps and then shovel a little path to the actual driveway of the house.
And it’s well life in a basic apartment in Toronto, one bedroom and one bath with a dishwasher and electric heat but no laundry.
It’s fairly typical for most people these days actually, I’m just lucky that I do have parking and a car. It’s an older rusting out 2008 Nissan and I bought it as a beater but I treat her gently and she’s hung on for so long.
After Toronto metro trains and the busses and the assholes that you meet on both when you’re just trying to mind your own business. Well I lasted a year and a half before I bought the car. I have no TV just my wireless and that saves money really given that I’m not home so much plus it saves on room too.
I have a decent job doing medical records work at a clinic that I’m good at and I’m finally stable moneywise at least to do some of the things that I want to do, wanted to do for a while actually.
Learn to paint a little and do art and grow herbs in my windows and have all those things that you kind of think about when you don’t actually have anything.
Yeah it’s not always been good.
I grew up in New Brunswick in a place called Devon which is sort of part of Fredericton now. Well it’s been part of it for a long time even while I lived there but it was still more Devon then than amalgamated.
And it’s poor too, just the other side of the St. Mary’s band reservation in town and alongside the St. John River on the flood plain. Which was I guess back in the really old days okay for farming and things but in my days not so much. Devon was literally the wrong side of the river.
We were poor too but not like absolutely poor but it was still us being one of those families that lived and died per paycheck and you did odd jobs and things to get any free money that you could for yourself.
That wasn’t bad, it was my dad never being there since he left when I was seven and my mom had replaced him with alcohol and a steady stream of “Uncles” for most of my young years. Most were rough guys, tough guys and pretty much really assholes since mom was taking what most women wouldn’t.
What I wouldn’t take.
Before I really even got what trans was I was a “fag” and a “girly-boy.” and I was smacked around accordingly by those assholes with zero interference from my mother and when I was thirteen I ran away from home.
Go west young lady.
And seeing as there was a perfectly good CN rail yard just a few blocks away I got a ride with the guys on the train.
And had my first non-straight sexual encounters.
Oh yeah a little girly-boy like me was taken on as long as I sucked cock and let them fuck me and that was a really horrible time. Most of those guys were just as much the macho assholes as I had left but I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter if I wanted to get out west and have a bunk and something to eat.
I was really lucky that I wasn’t beaten up more than what had happened and even more lucky that I wasn’t killed knowing the shit that I know now about some of those people and it would have been really easy to get tossed off the train.
But as horrible as it was it left me with one concrete but mind boggling fact.
I didn’t like men.
And I really wasn’t one of them.
That really screwed me up too for some time as I was a boy but I really hated everything about it and all it took was me seeing some of the Davey street scene in Vancouver and I knew. Well it sort of synched and after a bad year of teen shelters and drugs and doing whatever I could for cash I found myself with some street friends that weren’t too bad.
And it was a girl named Krista that had sort of taught me about trans and knew a few people that were and I met them too and that’s when things started for me.
And by started it was sort of stop screwing around and try and be my real self.
Which actually took me until I was seventeen to get out from the parties and drugs and the sex…I know it’s bad, bad cliché to be in the sex trade but it was part of things in my life, it was easy money for a young trans person and it was easy money.
And yeah I said that twice.
And also with no birth certificate and no ID really to speak of and not really any education I was kind of screwed when it came to getting a regular job sort of thing.
It took me to seventeen to really get scared.
An angry Jon in February beat me really hard and then in May I had a blood clot from the illegal hormones I was using without any actual medical guidance from a professional and I ended up in the hospital with that which made the ID thing a hassle again and then in July I had an HIV scare.
That was like more than enough to get me scared into getting my act together.
I took my stash of cash and moved into a motel and then I got myself turned into child services and that took things into another sort of rough patch with them calling my mother who didn’t recognize me on the phone and things went even more sideways when she found out that I was trans and she said a lot of filthy things.
And the social worker got me into a group home for a year and got me seeing a doctor for my transition and I got on proper hormones after that…and went through detox.
That really sucked, that sucked enough that I’m not really too much a fan of drugs.
At eighteen I moved into a decent women’s trans inclusive halfway house and met a few nice girls that were just friends but they introduced me to other sides of things out here on the west coast.
Like jobs.
Seriously I ended up getting a real job waiting tables in a nice bar that ran its own microbrewery beers and had decent people going to it and went from doing that to going mushroom picking with some of the guys that went there and sold their mushrooms to the restaurant suppliers here in the city.
And no not the illegal mushrooms but things like morels and lobster mushrooms and bears paws and yellow trumpets all were really big sellers and it was really hard and yet fun stuff too. Out in the British Columbia foothills of the Rockies with like a dozen pickers living in tents and all of that stuff.
I really took off I think as a person that year, a whole summer of doing that and being out in those thick woods and these super steep hills and the flies and the heat and the bears.
I never had a bad encounter with one but I was within a hundred feet of one once and I have a few pictures of that one plus some others I seen and a few other really great shots too.
But that changed me.
Camping out and living rough only going into town to get a few things or to sell or pickings and showering and taking baths in a really cold brook that was mountain fed and cuddling around a fire with blankets to get warm.
Guitars and singing and falling in love with both and learning all of that too.
And the food…You can’t sell broken mushrooms so we kept those that we had like that and there was an old gal named Heidi who was this grey haired old hippy chick that made things like wild mushroom risotto with butter and cream over the campfire and we’d have fire roasted baked potatoes and just things I never had really before.
Including lots of fresh air and exercise and water.
And no drugs, and no sex which was cleansing in its own way too.
And heck as odd as it sounds for a trans woman I went full feminist hippy like a lot of the girls there and stopped shaving.
No, no beard I don’t have one. I was taking things early enough and I’m fair skinned naturally so that helped but when I was in the group home one of the things that I had done was electrolysis. One of the girls was learning it with her beauty course at the community college so I got that and haircuts too for like ten dollars.
Well thirty, since the girls there were just kind of like me and stuff more than like the whole average high school grad I’d give them like twenty bucks whenever I could.
Seriously, I know enough folks that do this that like ninety five percent of them are paid for crap money.
Getting my act together there got me to where I wanted to get my GED and then after getting that I had a friend tell me that her work was looking for a medical records clerk so I went actually to school at Compu-College and got my medical records clerk certificate and when I got that I was given some job listings for that since my friends job spot she told me about had been filled and I did some temp work here and there until I heard about where I’m at now.
It was full time right off the bat and I came out and stayed with a few of my trans friends here in Toronto while I had my interview and I got the job.
Then moved, it was kind of scary doing that and coming to Ontario which I didn’t know so well and starting over like again. But it was also a good scary too, that sort of Oh My god I’m actually adulting sort of scary and all that.
And the rest, this with me here was finding a nice little bar that’s friendly to all kinds of folk and had an easy atmosphere and after a little coaxing by some of my friends here we all sort of went from music played by the bar to having some karaoke to some open mic nights to me after a few weeks of that being up here.
It’s a great stress releaser and it’s fun once you get over some of the jitters and the crowd here at Rusty’s sure helps because there’s such a mix of people with the whole LGBTQAI+ crowd here that I don’t really get misgendered even if I like mostly pass.
And there’s all sorts of people here that come here just for that, shake your butt with other cute whoevers and no judgements.
It’s a good time, and I was having a really good time and then there she was. Skater front long bangs, side shave, piercings and all in that new and fun and shy just here to have a good time thing.
She smiled at me as she danced and sipped on her drink through her straw and I smiled back and we sort of kept that up as I played through what’s up and then did my own rendition of *Ironic* By Alanis Morrisette and a soul music styled rendition of *Moulin Rouge.*
Contrary to music videos that song has been sung solo before.
She came over to me with these wonderful green eyes that are set off with her blue hair and she is really pretty even if she looks a few years younger than me.
“Wow that was great.”
I blushed. So much heavy eye contact and dimpling.
She was really cute.
And then she asked me.
“You want a drink?”
I looked at my tea cup. “I could go with another cup of tea.”
She blinked in surprise. “You’re actually drinking tea?”
I smiled because I actually get this a lot. “I am, I’m not so much a fan of drinking for myself these days.”
“Oh, well I mean I didn’t…I oh is it okay that I asked you because I didn’t mean to like make you uncomfortable or anything.”
“No, it’s cool we are in a bar. It’s just I really, really don’t drink too much these days just a personal preference.”
“Oh okay cool, well can I buy you a cup of tea then?”
“I would love that.”
We headed to the bar together and she was definitely looking me over and she was checking me out and there’s still more eye contact and she did that little dimple smile that’s a little bit buzzed meets that whole definite girl meets girl thing.
And I really wanted to go there like everyone else does. I mean I’m a lesbian, I went through the whole thing where I thought that I had to be straight because I was a trans girl and that liking men and boys was something that I had to do. It was like if I didn’t then I wasn’t really trans I was just whatever the hater crowd is currently using.
I’m not up on all the hate either really, there’s this whole thing between all these horrible people like the so called Men’s Rights Activists and then there’s always the religious haters that see and call you an abomination or worse but there’s this like whole sort of sub section of feminists that have had a really huge hate on for trans people and especially trans women for like close to sixty years or seventy now.
And that’s the rub for me because there’s all their bullshit that has really sank into the lesbian and the whole community and there’s now a days a pretty good chance of catching as much if not more shit from a woman that you like and thing there was a connection with that fizzles when she finds out that you’re trans or can get downright rude and hostile.
It’s a good reason I stay away from a lot of trans stuff online with like Facebook and stuff.
Riley made me another cup of tea and she ordered a club soda I think because I wasn’t drinking and sometimes people will do that if I’m not.
I took a sip of my tea and I offered her my hand.
“I’m Rose.”
“I’m Christina but please call me Chris.”
She held her hand in my a little longer than what people just greeting each other do and there it was again that little bright look in her eyes and that cute smile that went along with it and we sort of almost have a moment.
I almost let myself forget all the complicated stuff.
But I just couldn’t and I took another sip of tea before I asked. “So I don’t mean to pry or anything but is this your first time at a trans heavy bar?”
She looked like it hadn’t quite occurred to her, then I could see her turn it over and over in her head and she looked at me again and the look was different. The bright sparkle was gone but there was a thoughtful look instead of anything that I’ve seen that might mean trouble.
But her hand slid from mine ending the extended handshake and she looked me over again and this is a look I know, it’s that just found out and seeing if I pass, if she can tell or if she can pick out my many faults and flaws.
“So you’re a trans woman?”
I nodded and took another sip of my tea.
Chris took a drink of her club soda and set it down and looked out to where others were dancing and then back at me.
“So do trans girls dance?”
She offered me her hand and took hers and she led me out to where everyone else was and we started to dance with the crowd.
Tea & Red Roses Part Two
*Before…
But I just couldn’t and I took another sip of tea before I asked. “So I don’t mean to pry or anything but is this your first time at a trans heavy bar?”
She looked like it hadn’t quite occurred to her, then I could see her turn it over and over in her head and she looked at me again and the look was different. The bright sparkle was gone but there was a thoughtful look instead of anything that I’ve seen that might mean trouble.
But her hand slid from mine ending the extended handshake and she looked me over again and this is a look I know, it’s that just found out and seeing if I pass, if she can tell or if she can pick out my many faults and flaws.
“So you’re a trans woman?”
I nodded and took another sip of my tea.
Chris took a drink of her club soda and set it down and looked out to where others were dancing and then back at me.
“So do trans girls dance?”
She offered me her hand and took hers and she led me out to where everyone else was and we started to dance with the crowd.
*And Now…
*** Chris…
I wasn’t expecting Rose at all.
I wasn’t expecting to be really self forward with the things that she had said.
I wasn’t really expecting her to be a trans woman.
I know it’s pretty crappy but I have this whole image in my head of just what a trans person means well what a trans woman means and is and it’s always kind of been the too burly dude looking people in dresses and horrible make-up.
Or like those she-males that you see online with the sex ads like those ladyboys and stuff.
I know it’s really not likely what all of them are like or even most of them are like but it’s the image that I had going on in my head when I met Rose.
Instead she was truthful and forward and artistic and fun and when I had asked her out to dance with the others she was shy too at first and she was fun too.
And that honestly was both sort of shocking and cool.
I don’t know I was expecting a whole lot of things I think but having her there dancing with me and she could definitely dance was a lot of fun and I wasn’t the only person that thought so either.
This was her spot, her place sort of and she knew people here and through the rest of the night as we danced she introduced me to people, lots of people and she danced with everyone that asked once she was actually up and dancing and it didn’t seem to matter if they were guys or girls or both and neither….and there was a lot of those folks there.
She was just Rose to them.
I had a lot of drinks or I think that I might have would have if Rose hadn’t had me have some club soda with lime a couple of times and she well, well she stuck to her tea and the bartender guy didn’t even seemed like it was a wacky request or something.
We even went to the bathroom together and that was well.
Actually it was a total non-issue.
I think back and I think I was waiting for the sound of her peeing like maybe I could hear the distance or the height or something and there was nothing. And after that she fixed her outfit and she checked herself out in the mirror and touched up her hair some but not even a whole lot of make-up was being done by her….just enough, heck she actually made looking that good pretty easy.
I had more going on than Rose did.
And more than once I was checking her out actually checking her out. She looked great, a nice butt and she had these really nice breasts and I’m not going to pretend that I don’t look or that I don’t like looking at girls I’m just well not like a guy and catcalling or leering.
But she just was sort of well pretty amazing.
And biggest and oddest thing that turned me on and actually made me self-conscious was that when she wiped off her mouth to do her lipstick she actually brushed her teeth with one of those purse kit toothbrushes. Then she put fresh lipstick on and there I was feeling like I’d definitely have bad breath or something.
And we closed Rusty’s down too and that was actually cool since I’d never actually closed down a bar until last call before and while we left as a group and everything and talked and waited for cabs and smoked or vaped I had lost track of rose for a few minutes and she came back with her car.
It wasn’t fancy or anything an old Nissan with lots of body work done to it and more in need of being done and yet it ran and she offered drives home.
The car had these really neat seat covers that looked like those wall hanging tapestries but not like the real ones or the expensive ones but like those ones that my grandmother had hanging that she bought at the same furniture place that sold her the plastic thing for the carpet with the barbs that were on the bottom of it.
We packed in with eight of us in the car and we were literally on top of each other and the car was sitting really low and yeah it sure was illegal too and rose might have gotten if trouble if we were stopped but we didn’t get stopped and we even ended up going through the drive through at Burger King and McDonalds after a shouting match between those of us that wanted McDonalds and those that wanted “Meat!” “Burger!” and one of the guys were like “Fire good!” and he did that Tim Taylor grunt thing from the show Home Improvement.
And Rose compromised by going to both places and driving us around until after we ate it all in the car and we listened to music.
Right down to the stereotype kind of fun of playing Bohemian Rhapsody while cruising around at night.
Honestly I’d barely ever done that before. I wasn’t really all that out in high school and I was sort of just skirting the fringes of like the people that had fun a lot even if some of them were friends.
Doing it drunk or well really buzzed with food and tunes in an overstuff car full of people in Toronto was really all kinds of awesome.
And I was the last person that Rose dropped off home and it was like after four in the morning and she got out of the car with me and she walked me to my door and used a flashlight on her car keys so I could find mine.
“Thanks.” I smiled at her.
“No problem, I do that all the time myself.”
“I had a really fun time.”
“So did I, it was really nice meeting you Chris.”
“Just nice?” and I remember thinking where the shit did that come from?
“More than nice, it was a really good night for me.”
She was sort of back to being shy again and I bit my lip and just could almost feel her holding back and not letting this be whatever it might be because of something…?
I took out my smokes and ripped off the top cardboard tab and I got a pen and I wrote down my number and my e-mail and my Facebook for her and Then I stepped over and I kissed her on the cheek as I slipped the notes into her hand and she smelled good.
She didn’t smell like a guy even under the make-up smells and deodorant and perfume she was wearing.
Our fingertips sort of fumbled and played sliding touching teasing tag with each other as I gave her my info and I stepped away blushing myself and opening the door and turning the outside light on for her.
“Call me or e-mail me or something maybe? I really wouldn’t mind doing this again.”
Rose nodded and she gave me this sort of shy smile but a really great smile at the same time. It was like one of those really genuine ones and she took my information and she put it in her bra which was like all so very…hooo….that’s not padding…and she did it while looking at me with some whisps of that really rawr-red dangling in her eyes and she sort of bit her lip a little with the end of that smile as she sort of walked backwards a little bit.
“I’ll do that, I really had a good time Chris.”
She went to her car and opened the door and she looked at me and I looked at her and she said loud enough for me to hear her from over there.
“Chris?”
“Yeah…?”
“Thanks…”
She got in the car and she drove off and I just sort of stood there with this sort of kind of ache going on because that thanks…it just sounded on the edge of stuff grateful.
God that feeling when you think you have a crush on someone maybe and they’re kind of maybe hurting and you don’t know them well enough that it just sucks.
Tea & Red Roses Part Three
*Before….
She went to her car and opened the door and she looked at me and I looked at her and she said loud enough for me to hear her from over there.
“Chris?”
“Yeah…?”
“Thanks…”
She got in the car and she drove off and I just sort of stood there with this sort of kind of ache going on because that thanks…it just sounded on the edge of stuff grateful.
God that feeling when you think you have a crush on someone maybe and they’re kind of maybe hurting and you don’t know them well enough that it just sucks.
*And Now… and in the present from now on….
I’m tired and sort of happy and yet melancholy as I go inside and close and lock the door.
I had a seriously good night, the best in a while and Rose seemed just so great.
Right up until the end.
Then she just seemed kinda sad.
I head to bed and crash after a shower and getting my make-up off and drift off thinking of Rose and who she is and what she is and dream of her a little I think.
Okay as much as I can think of what I might have dreamt of.
I wake up when I have my alarm go off and get ready for the day and classes and I’m pretty groggy but I can’t help but to smile as I look at my phone and see Rose’s friend request and she left me a PM.
[Thanks for last night. I had a good time and I had a lot of fun Chris.]
It was short and sweet and I accept her friend request and send her a message back.
[I had a good time too. and it’s been awhile since that’s been a thing I can say without actually thinking the night over.]
I plug my headphones in and get myself a coffee to go and a slice of raisin bread with cream cheese swirled with apple jelly on it and go out and deal with the city and the ever so awesome (Sarcasm) Toronto busses.
*** Rose…from now on in the present…
I went home and yeah there was a bit of funk that sort of happened with the end of me meeting Chris and I hate, hate, hate when I do that but it’s really hard sometimes to wear the whole I’m awesome face when you are actually pretty tired and lonely.
And pretty tired of being lonely.
I get home and get cleaned up and over think and replay the whole night and all the interactions with Chris and I and I’m trying so really hard to not read into things.
I learned a long fucking time in a lot of hard ways to not ship myself with someone else.
It’s a really damned painful thing to learn too.
It comes at a high cost in life lessons.
But…
And it’s a pretty significant but…
I am a romantic girl at heart really and after my hair is up and in a towel and I’m in my flannel pjammas and that when I screw my courage up and send Chris a friend request on Facebook and send her a PM.
Then I go to bed.
……… and I hate my dreams.
I slept but it wasn’t good sleep and it was dreams of what-might-maybe with Chris and I with my head going hey I’m going to screw with you I got to have like seventeen scenarios of her and I and us together and then it all bled into every relationship or near relationship and life-train wreck that I’ve ever like had.
It really sucks when you wake up and you are still fucking stuck being who you are and what you’re stuck as even if you’re trying to fix all of that and just…just…have it all slam home and I roll over and grab my pillows and cry.
And cry and I actually have one good thing that is going for me and that’s a low tolerance for myself when I’m like this.
I basically cry until I’m mad at myself for working myself up like this and I scream into my pillows and have enough anger energy to get out of bed and start to get ready for the my day.
Another shower because I’m paranoid about not being like clean.
Guys are so often not clean…and that’s always sort of stuck with me.
And as much as I really don’t like the lower parts of me there’s something that always helps me and that’s a shower.
And it’s not the water falling off my breasts or soaping them either it’s actually washing my hair.
It’s like I can wash the bullshit away and it’s purely in my head but it relaxes me a lot.
After that is getting breakfast and I’m actually pretty good at breakfast.
An egg but in a shallow coffee bowl mug and in that I put just a little bit of creamer for my tea and a cold slice off my butter and that’s the key I set it over the yolk and try not to break it. It all goes into the microwave for one minute and twenty eight seconds and I take out some of the pre-cooked bacon slices and make a single slice of toast that I cut into triangles after it’s toasted.
Orange juice and my meds and then my shot for my hormones since it’s due today and a woman’s multivitamin and a vitamin E and C and D over that and Selenium. Yes I’m one of those people mostly because I hate getting sick and I never had this stuff as a kid or when I was on the streets.
The egg gets done and I crumble the bacon over it and a little fresh pepper and I sit with my tea and my tablet and check my stuff online as I eat this creamy and buttery soft boiled egg and spooning it over my toast triangles with just hints of bacon and pepper.
Oh…oh yay!
Chris accepted my friend request and she messaged me back.
And right there and then my day went from Hurt by Nine Inch Nails to Pocket Full of Sunshine by Natasha Beddingfield.
I happy dance my butt to the bedroom and get my clothes ready and myself. And that’s lotion the things that usually need it and I like the smell of this really light tangerine cheap lotion I have and then it’s just plain old Soft and Dry spray on Deodorant and I do a little spritz of this ginger rose and I mean little perfume and I wear mine under my clothes.
Tuck and put on my little spandex thong buddy that keeps things in place and then some cute panties and I can’t help but smile because it’s gone.
Cue Oprah Winfrey like long happy note mental singing the word gooooonnne!
And I do some poses in front of my mirror that I’m honestly not to do in front of anyone else and then I get into one of my favorite braziers.
It’s a deep red lace number that has satin lining and lots of support but it’s smoking and sexy and it’s from La Senza.
And then I do my hair and my make-up and I’m good with my hair too, I condition well and I take good care of it even though it’s dyed. Actually I like that color…trans woman red.
No seriously there’s a whole lot of trans women as well as regular ones that play with colors and one of the go to colors for a lot of us is red.
And I use a not too jarring red since I need to look professional and all but at the same time it’s a smouldery color. I use a little of my steam curler and I have one of the nice ones with the outside sheaths that you take off and there’s smaller irons underneath so I actually start smaller with the main outer top layer of my hair pulled up and I do a few what I call lifting curls and then I use a bigger iron to set and pull the hair on top into larger curls that are more like waves and with the tighter ones under that there’s more volume and I have some bounce or at least I have some bounce for the first part of the day.
Very little concealer and I use my fingertip to put it on and then a cotton ball to wisp it off just a nano skiff and it looks like I’m not wearing any at all and then I go for a smokey eye and regular eye liner instead of the whole winged eyeliner look that is great sometimes going out but not for work.
Eyelash curler and mascara full and thick and my lipstick which today will be one of my max factors and a nice red that I contour with my pencil.
Then it’s getting dressed.
Stockings first, and stockings not leggings since I’m in an office and then it’s my top which is a nice blouse and I get mine larger than I need and I fix them home on my sewing machine. I’m really sort of paranoid about length and I like to have some actually that I can tuck into my pants or my skirt rather than let it be short and let it show.
I’m actually really serious about how I look at work.
So it’s stocking and not fishnets but dark stocking with the seams at the back of my legs and I slip into them carefully so as not to ladder them and then get my skirt on. I like a knee length skirt and with the whole ensemble I’m in a nice full charcoal grey skirt and an almost deep pewter blouse and I have a matching suit jacket with the skirt and I wear a nice pair of calf high boots with a good solid three inch heel to them.
A final check and then it’s my necklace that I have with a silver rose on a thin chain and my watch which is a Timex sort of nice rectangular one that’s a ladies watch but with a good strap and clean lines.
I get myself my lunch in my lunch box that’s like a faux leather sort of suitcase looking deal and that’s a salad that I had extra from last night and a small Tupperware dish of Ritz crackers and I leave.
I always try to get there early and that helps with my crappy car and traffic and I hate not being on time because…well I’m trans. And people know, well some of the people do at work and stuff since my hiring on was a big thing.
I don’t want the little nitpicks and letting them have excuses to start stuff.
And it’s actually a pretty decent sized office and there’s always a few that are super willing to scrutinize me and to tell the new ones and the casuals that I’m trans and outing me.
I could get really pissed and fight.
But in the end that gets you in trouble with all the others and eventually that will get you fired or they will make your life shitty in the extreme.
And it’s like now totally bad at all either. I mean its Canada and I’m in a good office and there are others that aren’t total shits to others and that makes the trouble makers just sort of do their looks and little digs and if they become a problem they report it.
Okay well anyways I was actually happy to go to work and actually was having a good day despite all of that stuff from above.
And it got even better at lunch when I was getting FB chat from Chris with her having lunch too. I would have headed over but we’d never had made the time with noonish traffic and the time we had.
But it was good, it was really good.
Talking and LOLing together about things.
How guys are pretty much asses, and the ones that aren’t are walnuts.
She doesn’t like walnuts and they’re shaped like little brains that are appropriately sized for some fellows.
And no.
I don’t defend men.
I don’t do the not all men.
Because the simple facts are that all of the bad stuff we complain about well…it because there’s enough men doing it and not enough men even caring or stopping it.
We both like Joan Jett, We both like The Lumberjanes comic and the fact that they have a button and saying that is… “What in Joan Jett?”
She likes soul and hip hops a lot and most female pop singers and Nikki Ménage and I like more female pop and rockers and I like to go see a lot of the local indie bands here when I can and I collect their band swag when I can get it and have it autographed.
Hey you never know when they’re going to be big. I have a pink tee-shirt with all the autographs of The Sheepdogs on it.
She likes science fiction and fantasy stuff and I like romantic fiction and I like reading the newspaper. The actual paper when I have the time to read what I like out of it. And yeah I could online it and tablet it but I like the whole thing from the pages to the paper to the smell.
We both like books over kindle or nooks.
I don’t own either so I have no clue as to what is better only that I don’t care what’s better.
Neither of us watches a lot of TV and when we do it’s online usually. I have DVD’s but no cable.
We both like Rookie Blue and we both like Vikings and I admit that I like some of the reality shows on Discovery network and she will binge watch The Walking Dead.
And she spends the rest of lunch and after we’re both home online trying to convince me to watch it.
I cave…I cave when she calls me. I stared a good twenty seconds before I answered the phone.
“Hello!”
“Hello!!!” She sort of warbles into the phone?
“Mrs. Doubtfire?”
“No Julia Child.”
I burst out laughing and I don’t know why.
And she’s laughing too.
“Why did you choose that voice to use over the phone?”
“My roomies are watching the Meryl Streep movie with her playing Julia.”
“Oh..Okay that makes sense.”
“I can come over sometime and we can watch it together online.”
“You want to come over now?”
“Well not tonight since it’s kinda late, but when are you off?”
“I work nine to fivers so I’m off on weekends.”
“Saturday?”
“Definitely.” Goddess my mouth is so dry.
“I’ll call you and you can pick me up.”
“Okay…and we’ll get some food.”
“Food would be soooo of the good, food keeps Chris from trying to eat brains.”
I laugh and she laughs and she is sending me all sorts of cute stickers in chat and I’m blushing and I’m sending some back.
And we do that for a while going from… “I’ll see you soon.”
To… “You hang up.”
“No you hang up.”
“No you hang up.”
And that went on until I hear her phone beep. “Oops gotta go, plus I really got to go pee.”
“Okay, this was fun Chris…I really had another good day.”
“Me too.”
“Thanks Chris… you made my night.”
We hang up and I let her go offline too and I put my laptop on my coffee table and pulled my knees up and hugged myself around the knees for a good minute before quietly raising my arms up over my head in a pronounced victory… “YES!!!”
Tea & Red Roses Part Four
*** Rose…
I don’t date a whole lot.
I really don’t I don’t like guys after loads of experiences with them.
I like girls, women and that’s where it gets crappy.
I’m trans and I’m pre-op trans but I’m still a woman.
And while there’s a lot of people in the LGBTQAI+ community in Toronto good with trans people there’s a lot that aren’t.
And then there’s a lot of people that are “Good” with trans people that would still never date us.
And then there’s some of the few that will.
And I’ve sort of found that those few can still end up leaving you high and dry and hurting once some of the angrier unfriendly towards T-folk types get yammering at them.
Especially in the lesbian community.
And I’m not being lesbophobic and actually it’s the other way around that some of these angry lesbian types…you know the ones that want the L way away from the LGBTQAI+ community. Well they are like this pretty shitty mob of folks that will bully and harass and blacklist other more open and tolerant women into not dating trans people. They will literally go through the local Lesbian community and say “So and so’s not a lesbian she’s dating a trans person, she’s dating a dude in a dress.” And they say and do a lot worse invoking the whole thing they have about gold star lesbians and all this other bullshit until they have a whole bunch of folks riled up and have those open girls way too freaked out and scared to date a trans woman.
I mean with those types pushing on people in their way there’s even these hardcore L-Terfs that have it out even for Bi women and shame them too and use that Bi hate and bias like a club towards more open Lesbians.
And I could go on and on but suffice it to say I’ve dated and had this happen a few times where second thoughts suddenly happen and other feelings spring up and once even a woman I know to be a pretty aggressive L-Terf was literally hanging out with a girl I had been starting to see me and actually physically put herself and two buddies between me and her but in a very passive aggressive “We’re just sitting” way.
I got the message so…while I haven’t stopped hanging around with people and being friends I’ve sort of been very skittish around relationships.
But I can’t help it.
I like Chris.
I like talking to her online or on the phone and sharing pictures.
I really am getting into me showing her around the city without being there with her because of our schedules.
I suggest stuff to see and she tries to go and see it or go to it.
I still sort of know people that are into the bar and club scene so I do manage to send her to a couple of Indie bands that are pretty new and it’s also fairly cheap with admission fees being like ten bucks or so.
I get pictures sent back too of her and her friends out having fun and doing things at the clubs and I send her back pics of me in varying stages of after work and homebodiness.
Sigh…I really wish I was brave enough to go out and to push it.
Work’s a good excuse but I’m kinda scared too.
Scared but I really kind of Saturday to get here quicker.
*** Chris….
Rose is freaking awesome and she’s cool as heck.
We text and we phone and we talk a bunch.
Way more than I’m used to with people that I’m interested in.
Seriously there’s a lot of hook up or there has been a lot of that in my life before and having someone that’s kind of taking their time and yet still like super engaged with me is….
Wow, it’s good.
Like I can feel my smile on my face when we talk or text good.
And she’s like super cute and she’s stylish like even when she’s chilling home and with her hair down.
Like she has actual pjammas and like some of these really cool and grown up looking ones. She does things at home with her hair; she does that really good make-up thing. And I mean that whole less is more deal.
And hey, I’m cool with make-up I’m not really a femme lesbian but I’m not a stone cold butch either. I guess I’m closer to like well skater? Maybe punk? I like make-up and colored hair and doing all of that while still kind of liking girl stuff and yet really kind of digging the butchie stuff too.
Seriously I have these great pair of army surplus cammo hiking boots that I wear all the time with these like hip hugger BDU pants.
But Rose she has that whole been there done that kind of found myself and look I’m an adult thing.
But not like my folks adult but like still in my age group thing but at the same time she’s…well she seems so together.
I mean despite the stuff I do pick up and stuff from like tone or just stuff she’s typed.
I’m seriously getting the hurt before but lonely vibe.
And I think I get it some.
And at the same time I really resoundingly don’t get it.
And by not getting it is this whole TERF hating on trans women thing.
Like I said I like Rose.
So I looked up trans stuff sort of like really seriously and asked questions.
I really shouldn’t have done that on Facebook.
There’s people on there that are really and truly horrible little potatoes.
One of my friends says that.
That whole eyes but can’t see thing.
I mean these Terfs make this whole thing just nuts and they actually think that trans people go through everything that they go through to do what?
Seriously they’re about as connected to reality as the whole right wing bathroom assholes.
And then there’s the fact that if you read some of their posts all trans women are either scary perverts that are big and gross and hairy like cave men in dresses and are doing it to hurt “Real women” or they think that they’re these sex addict things…Autogyno somethings or they think that all trans women are like the whole she male porn stars or something.
And like tons more and worse it’s just really bad and the thing is.
Not one of the things that they say is what I’m finding Rose to be like.
I mean we talked all week, during lunch breaks and after work when she’s doing stuff and when I’m doing stuff with work or classes and yeah I should be studying harder and stuff nut I’m not just all about college but I want to have a life too.
And she’s even cool that way with her being around so much and stuff she knows when there’s some pretty decent places to go and catch some new music at some of the bars and all and it’s like not the snobby like thirty buck cover plus it’s like ten bucks and both times were pretty good times.
But as the week winds down I’m like a mix of hopeful and excited and kinda scared nervous too.
I’m actually thinking about all the stuff that we might do and looking over my clothes and stuff when Becky comes in and she plops down on the bed.
“For your date with Rose?”
“Yeah we haven’t like made plans and it’s like got me wondering and stuff about what we’ll do.”
“Make out?”
“Uhm…”
“What she seems pretty cool with the low down on the shows she gave us and you think she’s hot right?”
I look at her. “Rose is definitely not that kind of girl.”
Amy stops at the doorway; she’s one of my other housemates. “Actually I heard stuff so you might want to be careful.”
I look at her. “Careful?”
“Yeah I was out the other night and I heard someone talking about rose and I like don’t know if it’s the same girl but I heard she was transgendered.”
“Okay and?”
Amy gives me this suspicious look. “What do you mean and?”
“I mean and what’s your point. I mean why would that matter?"
Amy stares at me. “Because all these supposed trans women into women aren’t lesbians, they aren’t even women for fucks sakes.”
I look at her. “Says you. I don’t happen to share that idea.”
Becky is looking between the two of us. “Whoa, Rose is trans?”
I look at both of them. “Why does it matter? I’m the one getting to know her and I’m the one that is going out with her.”
Amy snaps. “Because he’s a guy, and it matters because you said you are a lesbian I’m not cool with you faking it.”
I turn on her. “I’m not faking it.”
“You’re dating a fucking tranny.”
I glare at her. “I’m dating a woman that happens to be trans, but she’s still a woman.”
Amy glares back. “And he has a dick; he thinks that being a woman is all about putting on dresses and make-up and playing all girly for the guys…fucking tee-hee-hee and all that bullshit.”
Becky says. “Uhm Amy you wear dresses and make-up.”
She snarls. “That’s because I have to1 I’m an actual woman with like actual fucking consequences to not performing to the whole society standards of being a pretty woman. I’ve never had a choice in it; I’ve never had the silver fucking spoon of male privilege either all my life who thinks it’s a fucking game or a fucking turn on.”
I yell at her. “Get the fuck out of my room!”
She yells. “Get the fuck out of my house Dickrider!”
“My name’s on the lease too bitch I’m not going anywhere! And I’m not a Dickrider I’m a lesbian!”
“Not dating a trans woman you’re not!”
“You don’t fucking get to assign me MY fucking sexuality you gatekeeping douchecanoe!”
Amy turns and she looks at Becky. “C’mon let’s get out of here and talk to the others I don’t want this fucking liar here.”
Becky holds up her hands. “Sorry Aimes that’s a no go, look I don’t know where and what you’ve been into but one…you haven’t even met rose you just went off on this tirade because she might be trans.”
Amy starts but Becky cuts her off hard raising her voice. “Two you don’t get to call out Chris over her sexuality, it’s not yours.”
“This is a lesbian house! I want my fucking safe space!”
Becky keeps going. “Three it’s a shared house and I don’t for one like you misgendering a trans person no matter what kind.”
“What kind!? What kind it’s all fucking bullshit!” Amy rants. “Fine, fucking fine we’ll fucking see what the other think about this!”
She leaves and I’m just vibrating with rage.
I’ve done zero to her, Rose has done zero to her!
How fucking dare she!
And…. Like three hours later we’re in a whole house meeting and screaming match about Rose and about trans people and Amy ends up leaving and packing her things and cussing us out and she was going on us all being fakers and dickriding cunts ending off with her swearing.
“Bunch of Christopher Holbrook excusing bitches!”
Which led to a talk, a lot of talking about being lesbians and the whole LGBTQAI+ stuff and Radfems and Terfs.
It turns out most of us know trans people and most of us would rather not be assholes about it and that yeah trans women are women.
Or as like Nicole said. “Yeah…people don’t transition for kink and it’s just crappy to shame those that aren’t in transition ‘cause it’s like bitching about a gay or lesbian person not being gay or lesbian enough for like not being out.”
It turned out to be a whole long hard weird night and I ended up, we all ended up crashing late and not going out which is the usual plan we do for a Friday night and all.
It was just like really horrible and Twilight Zone.
Amy had just fucking went off the deep end with us and it was like she had zero brakes with here to try and shut the fuck up and just be a decent person. Like she was one of those religious crazy racist people that you see online from the states.
I mean I’ve had people be dicks about me being a lesbian but at the same time it’s kind of Canadian styled bigotry with like the quieter kind of backstabby stuff. I mean we totes got our share of bigots and stuff it’s just usually quieter.
Amy was like something out of the exorcist…possessed by the undead soul of Cathy Brennan.
Yeah I know she’s technically still “Alive” but have you heard of her? Like holy cheese what a horrible potato of a human being.
So I was like super worn out and had slept in really heavy when my phone rings.
“Mmm….mellow?”
“Morning, I thought it’s be safe to call you since it’s like tennish.”
“Hnnn…? Rose?” And part of my brain is slowly waking up.
“Yes Pearl it’s me.”
Okay I snerk at that, I’m surprised we haven’t gone there before with the whole SU thing.
I’m smiling and I roll over onto my back.
“Sorry I was up late, we had a big Terfenanny here at the house.”
And it just got quiet of the other end.
I wait a second before asking. “Rose?”
She says into the phone. “It was over me wasn’t it?”
God she sounds…well she sounds like she’s already expecting the worst.
She kinda sounds like she’s been like pre-gut punched.
I sigh… “Kinda…in truth she was waaaaaay out of line with a lot of us and she just had to invoke a whole shit show of drama.”
(Sniffle.) “Are you okay?”
Oh goddamn it she’s crying…and it’s just so frikking wrong that she is when today should have been a good time for us, it should be something cool.
I take a breath. “Hungry actually, I think I forgot to eat last night.”
(Sniffle.) “Brunch? I can cook for you.”
I smile. “I’d seriously like that; I’ve never had brunch before.”
I hear her voice get a little more cheer into it. “You like eggs?”
“I like eggs.” I roll over onto my side.
“You like mushrooms?”
“I do, I’m not fussy. The only thing that I’m not really crazy about are soybeans.”
I can literally feel her pulling a face and there’s this eww in her voice. “Uhm…no soybeans are not for brunch.”
I swing my legs out of the blankets. “Come and pick me up?”
“When?”
“Now, I should be ready by the time you get here.”
I can hear her smiling. “Okay, I need to get ready and to get a few things and I’ll be right over.”
I’m smiling because she seems happier and I actually feel better too. “I’ll be ready.”
Then we got through the you hang-ups for a few turns before I end up hanging up and I head off to get showered and changed.
I’m actually quick doing that and I finally speed settle on a cute underwear matched set and I actually go for a nice pair of dress pants that I have that have a really nice belt that goes with them and I settle with one of my nicer black tops that is a really good V-neck cut cleavage top that has a get cut as well for my breasts on the whole hey look level and I do my hair and make-up and wear a pair of good shoes with a nice heel.
Yeah I’m dressing up, not like wearing a dress and stuff but I want this to be a good date thing like I want it to be whatever it’s going to be and stuff but I really want to look good for it because well.
Rose is slower, but like not out of touch with stuff, and she’s nicer than some of the girls that I’ve dated.
I’m actually cleaning my room in a fast sort of haphazard way with me putting clothes away that can be like easily stuffed into where I hauled them out for the night before and the other stuff I hang as best I can over my chair and then it’s make the bed…sprinkle a little after bath body powder in the sheets before pulling the upper blankets over and then it’s settling the quilt and my pillows and laptop and things.
I’d have made my room up a bit better still like just in case but her car is pulling up and I head downstairs after a really fast check in the mirror one more time and I see Becky up and half-dressed drinking coffee and looking out the kitchen window and Nicole too who’s stopped eating her toast and is watching her too.
Nicole says. “Wow, like okay she’s pretty. I can sort of still see y’know but at the same time she’s pretty.”
Becky nods. “Yeah…and remember she was cool enough to like let us in on the cool shows.”
I’m not sure how to feel about the see y’know part and stuff because I didn’t and Niki might be seeing stuff because she already knows and stuff.
Rose rings the doorbell and I go and open the door and she’s…
Okay, pretty is kind of an understatement.
Her hair’s in loose pigtails in that kinda hot Harley Quinn way and she’s got a really nice job on her make-up too and she just can really carry off this perfect red lipstick and she has her choker on and her necklaces like last time and she…she has great breasts and she’s wearing this tee-shirt that’s from someplace called Inniskillin that really shows them off and she’s actually wearing these really hip hugging in a good way faded blue jeans that actually look like they’re faded from being old and not from like being bought that way….a nice shoulder bag and she’s wearing red and white sneakers, like the vintage cloth made ones.
And she has a large cup of coffee for me in one of those trendy place recycled brown cups which is really a plus for me instead of like Starsmucks but aside from it being someone really cute looking bringing me coffee she has a bunch of like really cute princess and skater girl dollar store stickers on it like you’d get at The Dollarstore.
Okay that’s really like super cute.
Tea & Red Roses Part Five
*Before….Chris.
I’d have made my room up a bit better still like just in case but her car is pulling up and I head downstairs after a really fast check in the mirror one more time and I see Becky up and half-dressed drinking coffee and looking out the kitchen window and Nicole too who’s stopped eating her toast and is watching her too.
Nicole says. “Wow, like okay she’s pretty. I can sort of still see y’know but at the same time she’s pretty.”
Becky nods. “Yeah…and remember she was cool enough to like let us in on the cool shows.”
I’m not sure how to feel about the see y’know part and stuff because I didn’t and Niki might be seeing stuff because she already knows and stuff.
Rose rings the doorbell and I go and open the door and she’s…
Okay, pretty is kind of an understatement.
Her hair’s in loose pigtails in that kinda hot Harley Quinn way and she’s got a really nice job on her make-up too and she just can really carry off this perfect red lipstick and she has her choker on and her necklaces like last time and she…she has great breasts and she’s wearing this tee-shirt that’s from someplace called Inniskillin that really shows them off and she’s actually wearing these really hip hugging in a good way faded blue jeans that actually look like they’re faded from being old and not from like being bought that way….a nice shoulder bag and she’s wearing red and white sneakers, like the vintage cloth made ones.
And she has a large cup of coffee for me in one of those trendy place recycled brown cups which is really a plus for me instead of like Starsmucks but aside from it being someone really cute looking bringing me coffee she has a bunch of like really cute princess and skater girl dollar store stickers on it like you’d get at The Dollarstore.
Okay that’s really like super cute.
*And Now…Chris.
Actually it’s more than just super cute it’s really sweet too and I have legit never ever had someone bring me a coffee to me at my house before let alone decorate it with cool skater girl stickers.
And contrary to last night’s bullshit rose has no bulge going on downstairs.
And contrary to last night’s bullshit I’ve met bigger, bulkier and waaaaaay more butch women.
So yeah like all that stuff that gets said about passing is a bunch of bullshit too.
I take my coffee and sip it and smile because well yay coffee and it’s actually my order, a skim milk latte with a shot of cinnamon.
And she remembered from like us talking.
Which is better than some folks, who didn’t get that Chris was Chris for me and not Christina and definitely not Chrissy.
“Thanks this is perfect.”
She smiles and there’s some cute dimpling going on. “I figured, you sounded like you needed coffee.”
I smiles around the lid as I sip it through the hole, spout thingy. “Mmm…coffee if of the good…” I look at Rose. “You promised me food right?”
She smiles and it’s nice. “Yes I did, I promised you brunch.”
I pull a Homer… “Mmmm…Brunch.”
She smiles and she goes and she opens the car door for me and I get in and wave to the girls and they wave back and she gets in and then we’re off.
I have no real idea where we’re going but we’re headed down towards the lake and then we’re parking and she’s getting out a picnic basket, like a real picnic basket with all the trimmings and a blanket and things and she offers her hand and she takes me through and out onto a ferry!
I mean I kinda sort of saw this flying in and I pretty much sort of forgot that it was even there at all and I really don’t know much about it but she’s taking me on a brunch date to Center island.
I’d like tear up and cry if I wasn’t so excited and hyper about it all.
We’re getting some looks but like nothing really bad and then there’s the whole this, it’s one hell of a cool place and it’s way bigger than I thought and I see signs for all this stuff to see and to do and I’m sort of staring at rose who is smiling and she offers me her hand and says. “The picnic area’s this way.”
I’ve done the holding hands in public thing before but that’s different…it was like clubs or places where I was sort of like pretty confident that being a lesbian wasn’t going to freak folks out.
I reach out and take her hand and there’s an immediate benefit as a couple of guys that were sort of close get this pissed and disappointed look.
Okay Rose has been here before I think and she seems to know her way around and we’re taking our time too which is really nice.
We’re definitely getting looks since we’re now holding hands and while there’s some folks that are definitely not wanting to see us doing this at all there’s enough folks here just like us that are doing this here and some that aren’t but there’s a sort of like thing that you can sort of like tell if someone’s gonna be cool with things or not these days with like there being a lot of folks my age and Rose’s age and a fairly good mix of LGBT+ folks.
All those conservative like family values folks can just sort of like kiss my butt.
And no we’re not like being offensive we’re just walking, walking and holding hands and then we get to the picnic area.
The last picnic I was actually on was with my Nan on my dad’s side like when I was seven or something.
Rose is setting out the blanket and then taking things out for us including these black bento boxes with roses on them but they’re covered in cherry blossom petals like there were roses planted in one of those sakura parks.
*And Now…Rose.
I’ll be honest that when I was talking to Chris and when I had heard about the falling out at her house that the bottom of my stomach dropped to the floor.
I really try to just be myself.
And in a world that has people oh so more than ready to not let you be yourself and you get placed under misconceptions of who you are and what the trans community is it’s hard.
And then add in those folks with vested interests in proving you’re not normal or like some kind of deviant it just adds more layers of like garbage tossed over you.
And honestly it’s like that garbage juice gets all over you like it gathers seeping into the bottom of the bag until you get stained with it eventually and you feel like garbage.
Then you get to meet someone like Chris.
Someone that gets that sexuality isn’t identity.
And that just because you’re trans that doesn’t mean that you have to be any sexuality.
You really just don’t.
And getting spoken up for…hearing her say that she’s not really one of those people heaping on the garbage.
And that they like you.
That she likes you.
It lifts you up really high.
Which is why when I said I was going to feed her that things changed from just sort of feeding her to me actually wanting to do something really nice and since Chris was new to the city I thought of Center island.
It’s actually one of my favorite places, it’s been one of my favorite places since my first year in the city and it just makes me happy.
And if you’ve never been, seriously…in the words of Ferris Beuller. “I highly recommend it, it’s so choice.”
So I was feeling actually inspired when I started to make brunch.
I love brunch from the few restaurant gigs I’ve done but I really like the idea of a picnic too so last year I bought all the cute picnic stuff.
So with a quick run to Wholefoods I came back and I started cooking.
Cornbread was first, and I love cornbread in most of its forms really.
But for this I use a madeline pan so it’s sort of cooked like a cookie but it’s not and I use melted real butter and some heavy cream in there I go pretty neutral on the salt and the sugar going more for somewhere in the middle of a sweet or savory cornbread.
To go with the cornbreads I make pate and while some don’t like it I have a sort of soft place in my heart for it and mine’s nothing fancy. Cooked chicken livers done in boxed chicken stock, some butter, and some dried herbs de province, pink peppercorns and bacon fat that I have from when I last cooked bacon and poured it off into a Tupperware dish. It gets blended up in the food processor and then I put it in a ramekin dish and chill it so all the fat hardens. The only really trick is that I let the boxed chicken stock cook the livers down until it’s a glaze before blending everything.
I make next some small omelettes like those fold over cute kind that are folded around some long slices of portabellas that I cut really thinly and fried in butter and herbs then placed them carefully into Tupperware containers.
I make cucumber and watercress sandwiches and I do have a trick for those and that’s actually to take some of the cucumber that isn’t going into the slices for the sandwiches and buzz it up minus the jelly stuff with the cream cheese and some pepper. Other than that it’s butter your bread. It keeps them from getting too soggy and when you have them all cut and done wrap them in paper towels first and then waxed paper. The moisture will actually sink into the paper towel before it does the bread…and please just a little salt, pepper and lemon juice on the watercress.
Radishes with the skins only partly peeled but the leaves on and I put them actually full on into this dip that’s literally melted butter and salt, pepper and sour cream and chilled to harden. No I’m not kidding this is an actual country sort of French thing, you chill it and the butter re-hardens and then the sour cream is just lightly there with the butter.
And then I made dessert which is in the small ramekin dishes and with that I make tiramisu with round shortbread cookies that I bought instead of ladyfingers and I use a custard that I made with eggs and cream and vanilla but folded some mascarpone cheese into it as well and then there’s the top layer that’s the coffee syrup.
It’s all in the basket and it’s all chilled with blue-packs and I have a decanter bottle of green tea that I added some lemon to as well as some honey as our picnic drink.
And actually I don’t make a lot of any of it, just one sandwich each and one pot of the pate each and well the full dozen madelines since the pan has a dozen molds but it’s small stuff, but more than a few things so it seems like more…. Like it’s a big thing.
After that I get dressed and went for a sort of mix between comfy and cute and maybe a little fun casual. I want something that will actually look okay and keep the bugs off of me.
I don’t know what it is but blackflies and mosquitoes really like me and it’s not bananas because I like really rarely eat them because well transition meds and high potassium stuff really doesn’t agree with me.
I love my wine tee, it’s not the color but from a winery it’s actually a semi-fade black shirt and I picked it up at a wine and food thing that they had in the city here a few years back and I have a few cool things from that.
Once that’s all done I gave the car a de-cluttering and a wipe down with some spray cleaner and paper towels and then not having any Febreeze stuff I rubbed down the seats with a dryer sheet.
Too much?
Well I was kind of nervous.
After that it was getting a coffee for her since she sounded like she needed one and I don’t know the stickers well that was just sort of a spur of the moment thing while I was waiting for the coffee.
We didn’t talk a lot on the drive either. I was nervous and she was nervous and all at the same time there was her getting the coffee into her system and we just sort of listened to tunes on the radio as I drove up to the parking area.
It was still good through…the drive just sort of chilling and listening to tunes and smiling at each other every now and then.
Chris even hummed along with a few bars of the songs on the radio.
I was actually kind of thrilled at the look on her face when she started to figure out where we were at and then seeing the picnic basket.
I love the ferry and Chris is really excited by it all too and she’s looking at me. “This is really cool, I haven’t been here yet and I love taking the ferry.”
“You’ve been on one before?”
“I’ve been on the Halifax ferry lots and been to Prince Edward Island on the ferry.”
I look at her. “I though they built that bridge?”
“Oh yeah but that’s up in New Brunswick, I’m from Nova Scotia so it’s a lot closer.” Chris is leaning on the rail and looking out over the water at Toronto. It’s a good way to really get a whole other view of the city than you usually every get.
Heck a lot of the time unless you’re up someplace high Toronto is this sort of middling high urban sprawl.
It’s got a lot of great parts to it but it’s still a sprawl city.
But from the view of the lake it just sort of rises and it actually looks amazing.
I smile at how much she’s enjoying the trip and we get a few looks from folks and of course we get a few looks from some guys too.
There’s always looks from guys and often it’s like trans or not.
And whether they’re wanted or not.
Chris has noticed and she’s sort of noticed the kinda vibe that they are giving off and we just sort of keep away from them until the ferry lands and I offer my hand to her and she takes it and there’s some more stares and some muttering I think from the couple of guys about lesbians.
And I’m sure we scandalized a few other folks but at the same time we’re in Toronto and there’s a whole lot more of us queer folk than bigots are accustomed to.
And we catch a few looks from a trio of girls that definitely are in that whole Chris’s vibe with the septum piercings and the tattoos and the colored hair with two of them having variations on that whole undercut sort of thing.
Not that I mind at all, it like takes all kinds and I actually think that some of those looks and haircuts are actually pretty cool. They’re definitely not for me but they are pretty cool as are some of the tattoos.
And as much as Toronto can really seem like it’s conservative and whitebread it’s really not. So the three girls gather close to Chris and I and we sort of group it up enough to walk out all together unharassed and make our way together for a while and we stop long enough in the park to exchange information and they head off to Pizza, Pizza while Chris and I make our way to one of the picnic areas near the Swan boats.
Her eyes get huge at looking at them.
It makes me smile and get a little wistful. “We could go on them if you want later.”
She looks at me. “Really?”
I nod. “I’d actually love it, they’re sort of a date thing, well a lot of things here are really good as date things so I’ve never really done a lot of things here.”
I love the look on her face that’s part getting to do something new and part her getting me to do something new too.
We settle in to eat and take in all of the sights around us. Centerville has a lot of cool stuff and yeah it’s great for kids but there’s just a lot to do here as adults too even if we’re not all that dignified and like all the stoic version of adults that seems to be the actual definition for some folks.
We take a spot on the lawn near some willows close to the picnic tables and I set out the blanket that I have and then use the table cloth that came with the basket too and start to set things out and Chris’s eyes keep getting huge.
“You really made all of this?”
I nod arranging this and then pouring us lemonade. “I did, when I was younger and out on my own before I had my ID’s after transition I worked a bunch of kitchens in some restaurants. A lot of folks don’t care past being able to cook in back of house.”
She laughs a little. “Anthony Bourdain says stuff like that a lot.”
I laugh. “You watch him?”
“My dad does and he got me into it plus one of the roommates is a foodie and watches the food network all the time.”
I fold my legs and pass her a small plate and cutlery. “Help yourself.”
She digs in getting some of everything but tucking into the pate and cornbread madelines first making that sound that I did right with the pate.
It’s nice to cook for someone; it’s nice to have this chance and company.
I get some food too and I eat with her and we talk about some of the things that I know that are here as things to do, that we want to do.
It gets better when Chris moves picking up her plate and she sits beside me close enough that our thighs are touching and we’re talking but there’s this really nice closeness, this smiling at each other and taking these little silent chewing breaks to just be…and well there’s the chewing smiles too and lots of eye contact.
I know I blushed a few times when Chris was honestly checking me out.
And there’s this certain kind of feeling of when you pass or it doesn’t matter if you pass and she’s still looking your way and smiling and still really close to you.
The little dishes were a good idea too as we’re not leaving really any leftovers and we pack everything away except the last of the lemonade and the blanket and we’re more than full and I have a happy sigh and Chris falls back onto her back and uses her free hand to pull me back too and we just lay there staring up at the sky.
Actually she’s still holding my hand.
She looks over at me and she smiles. “This is awesome Rose. It’s the stuff that I really never thought I’d get to do out here but it’s stuff that I never thought that I’d really get to do as a gay girl y’know.”
I look at her then up at the sky through the dancing willow fronds. “I get that. I keep looking at my life now and it’s so not perfect but it’s so much just more and different than the hell I was living through before transition.”
She’s looking up at the sky too now. “Halifax and Dartmouth are okay they really are but a whole lot of my life was school and work and then going to University down home would have been more of the same stuff and same crowds really in the lesbian community down there and the same drama or worse I’d have gone to small Podunk town university because it’s sort of got a good rep and be stuck in this little town for four years with a great chance of rednecks and phobic people and the same small as heck dating pool.”
I look at her and she’s looking at me. “Well I’m really super glad that you’re here and that we met.”
She says. “Me too Rose, nothing is like I ever thought that it was here.”
“I hope that’s a good thing?”
She rolls to face me and she’s really, really close to me and she’s actually sort of over top of me and she has this look in her eyes that makes me achy and makes me feel vulnerable all at the same time.
“Right now it’s kind of the best thing Rose.”
I was expecting it sort of…hoping…wanting but almost not daring to but it happens.
Really actually happens.
Chris leans down and she softly and sweetly kisses me.
Tea & Red Roses Part Six
*Before….Rose.
I look at her then up at the sky through the dancing willow fronds. “I get that. I keep looking at my life now and it’s so not perfect but it’s so much just more and different than the hell I was living through before transition.”
She’s looking up at the sky too now. “Halifax and Dartmouth are okay they really are but a whole lot of my life was school and work and then going to University down home would have been more of the same stuff and same crowds really in the lesbian community down there and the same drama or worse I’d have gone to small Podunk town university because it’s sort of got a good rep and be stuck in this little town for four years with a great chance of rednecks and phobic people and the same small as heck dating pool.”
I look at her and she’s looking at me. “Well I’m really super glad that you’re here and that we met.”
She says. “Me too Rose, nothing is like I ever thought that it was here.”
“I hope that’s a good thing?”
She rolls to face me and she’s really, really close to me and she’s actually sort of over top of me and she has this look in her eyes that makes me achy and makes me feel vulnerable all at the same time.
“Right now it’s kind of the best thing Rose.”
I was expecting it sort of…hoping…wanting but almost not daring to but it happens.
Really actually happens.
Chris leans down and she softly and sweetly kisses me.
*And Now….Chris.
It was building I think from the moment she showed up with the cute coffee and likely before that even.
I mean it’s like we had this really good connection online and it’s really only been better since.
And this…the park, the ferry, her making this whole picnic thing it was so much more than I really dared to dream that I’d get out of a date.
And I’m so, so sick of the whole hook up culture I got out of down home and all that drama with everyone knowing everyone.
That’s all really added up and it’s all like really important to me.
More important that what Rose started out as.
Or what’s in her pants.
So while we were just lying there under the tree and looking up at the sky through the willow branches it just sort of like gathered itself together as I was holding her hand.
I wanted to kiss her.
So my heart pounding like a drum I rolled over and ended up sort on top of her and there was this look of surprise and shyness they and even this really endearing bit of hope too.
I kissed her.
And I liked it.
I mean I liked it just like I like kissing any other girl.
The softness and the feeling of my lips on hers and that sexy glide of lipstick over lipstick as I softly kiss her and that oh so perfect and powerful little inhale of surprise and everything else.
She smells right, she feels right, she kisses right.
I’ll admit I’m actually really happy about that too.
There’s still those thoughts in my head about rose being trans and it’s so not anything like I’ve really read about.
She’s really pretty and she’s really vulnerable too.
And for me that’s part of it, always been part of that lesbian connection thing for me. That shared vulnerability thing.
Oh yeah there’s the actual sexuality stuff too and I like getting the thrill of kissing someone that I like just as much as the next girl and I still like that fevered thing too when things are red hot. I mean that’s all part of it but there’s this other part of me that really wants the relationship level kind of stuff.
Like no pun intended but I’ve sort of dicked around like long enough.
I think I want more.
And like lo and behold more came wrapped in a package, in a person that I was never expecting.
And then things change for even better.
Rose kisses me back.
She does this little half crunch sit up and she kisses me back and its soft and it’s sweet and she’s blinking some too in this shy yet going for it way and it sends this little zing of wow into my brain and then it does a lap or five around my heart before heading elsewhere.
We’re getting lots of stares too and there’s some folks with their kids that are doing the eating at the tables thing and even if we’re away from them all we’re getting that whole how dare you do that in public thing.
There’s this sense too you develop after a while that you can sort of feel the het-shock heading towards critical mass and about to go into like verbalized homophobia and we both feel it and we stop and break the kiss and I settle back holding myself up with one arm and look at her and we both are blushing.
Rose looks really pretty when she blushes.
Her name fits her.
I can feel heat in my face too and I look at her. “Sorry, I guess that was pretty forward of me wasn’t it?”
She smiles and it’s not that sexy little one she does like all the time this one’s this big full on smile that transforms her face and hits me hard. “I…well…I…I’m not going to complain.”
“Good, I was hoping that I wasn’t moving too fast.”
She shakes her head which is again a little cute and awesome thing with her hair the way it is. “No…I mean…I’m not really good at dating.”
I look at the stuff she brought and then back at her. “I dunno this is pretty awesome.”
She blushes and she looks down in this kind of quiet way. “No, it’s not that. It’s the whole thing when I meet someone, especially someone that I really like I go too fast Chris, and I usually fall really hard and it’s turned bad a whole bunch of times.”
Oh…
And I completely get that.
“I’m the same way, it’s like I’ve been waiting to be me and to be really like really seen as me for so long I drop everything for someone that I’m into and they don’t turn out to be the person I thought that they were or they’re just not interested as much in me as I was in them.”
Rose is starting at me and she nods shifting into this kind of rueful smile. “After we first met I was…have been trying to put the brakes on myself so hard. I was so terrified of this too even as I was making everything that it was way too much too fast.”
I shake my head. “No, I mean we’ve known each other like awhile now and this, this was pretty great.”
She does this little head tilt thing. “But it was like mostly on the phone or like online?”
“So, it’s still time spent. It’s still you still being you. Heck I know online can get skeevy but this isn’t that in fact it’s been pretty great.”
She blushes and she’s smiling that really bright smile again as she nods. “It has been pretty great. I haven’t felt like this in like…well really ever but…”
“But it’s really damn nice to see your name on my phone and it’s more than a bright part of my day to talk to you or like chat with you.” I say looking at her and she keeps it going too like we’re sharing thoughts or really sharing feelings.
“I like having you there to look forward to Chris. I haven’t had a real thing to look forward to in a long time really and this means like just so much.”
Oh god it sort of is fast and it’s not because like I said we’ve been connecting for a while now and what she’s saying is definitely like mirroring my own feelings.
It’s nice, more than nice to have someone there.
I rock backwards and stand smoothing things out and I reach down and pull rose up to her feet and we share a look and a smile.
“You promised me a swan ride.”
She’s grinning now. “Yes I did, shall we?”
I nod. “Let’s.”
We finish the lemonade and pack up the blanket and then after a quick trip to the washrooms we go and get on the swans. I was on these things once in Truro when I was a kid they had a small city park on the main drag up by the malls but they were a lot smaller than these.
They hold more than one person and we actually have a lot of fun pedalling it around and just enjoying that and being together and the nice day.
Even better we’re more secluded personally so holding hands is actually no problem.
And like even doing that’s a really big deal.
Out or not there’s a whole lot of places where two girls actually holding hands and like as a couple holding hands is like just something that doesn’t happen.
It’s just one of those things that you really don’t get to do.
And getting to just be…to like do this speaks volumes to both of us I think.
It’s like that contact that you really want; that you’ve always wanted starts to have a chance to slowly seep in.
It’s amazing really.
We head back after like maybe an hour because there’s like actual geese there in the water and I’m actually kinda scared of them and we’re laughing about it as we land back in but there was definitely one giving me the stink eye.
Then we leave and Rose and I head together to the main park part Centerville and I know it’s kind of kiddish but we actually go on the rides together.
Not like all of them but we do the teacups and we do the rocking boat and the timber-river flume ride thing too.
I liked that and there’s more time to hold hands and even a few moments that we are just floating down and around on this whole river part of it where we have space where there’s no one close enough to give us grief and while we don’t kiss we do actually snuggle up and lean on each other.
So much sigh factor just being able to do that.
And it’s like still fun too going up and down the actual ramp and slide thing which just adds a whole other dimension of fun because it’s fast and it’s wet and we scream when we’re coming down it and getting splashed and…and that’s when I kinda ended up kissing rose just before the ride was done because she had water splashed into her hair and it just sort of did this sparkly thing to her.
It was very much worth the looks we got and the few giggles from some of the folks there that were like okay with it.
It wasn’t a long kiss but it was really worth it.
Worth it enough I take her hand after we stop and I help her out of the raft and keep holding her hand as we go for a walk and end up getting one of those Archie-jalopy bicycle carts and we take it for a ride to other parts of the park.
*And Now…Rose.
This has become so much more than I really dared hope.
I mean we’re kissing and holding hands and we’re doing it in public which is a pretty big thing.
But that she’s doing that with me despite all of the other stuff about me…well honestly it’s pretty freaking miraculous.
Or it feels that way.
I know it’s a date, I know folks hold hands sometimes while dating.
I know it’s been a while now that Chris and I have been seeing each other sort of online and on the phone and like learning about each other and things.
But when good things actually really happen it’s…It’s like divine intervention, it feels that big that it’s almost not real.
And then we’re doing things that sort of break it up from the date happy fog and sort of grounds us like when we went down the flume slide and laughing and well getting wet.
Or being on the share-bikes and laughing as we’re really out of shape both in trying to get any kind of speed going and then all of the screw ups while trying to steer the thing.
And when we take a stop at a spot to get some ice cream and we’re getting out I can’t help but to like just close my eyes for a second and just sort of let it try and sink in.
Chris and the things she’s said, that we had this moment where we were finishing each other’s sentences, holding hands, the kisses…the happy oh my god yay kisses.
The oh my god someone’s kissing me kisses.
All those feelings that have literally hurt me for not being in my life settling in with this feeling of finally…
As cliché as heck it is with my name I’m just taking a moment to stop and smell the roses.
Chris does this little trace of her fingers in the small of my back across my tee and I open my eyes and she’s looking at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, more than. I’m just taking a minute.”
“A minute?”
I turn and look at her and lean on the frame of the car-bike thing. “Today’s been that good and I want to sort of soak it in.”
She smiles. “I think that’s pretty cool, honestly I should do that more.”
I shrug. “It’s something I had to actually learn to do. A whole lot of my life before that just sort of felt like I was going from like one life crisis to another and it had my brain mostly convinced that life was pretty sucky.”
She smiles and reaches and takes my hands and pulls me along towards the ice cream place. “Then I definitely need to do that because that’s been a whole lot of my feelings in life from like high school.”
We get ice cream and we both go for hard ice cream over soft serve. They have both and I get myself a medium cone of maple walnut and she looks thing over and she gets raspberry cheesecake and we both go for the waffle cones though.
She’s looking at me as we’re just eating it and walking. “Share?”
I can’t help the face I make. “I let you have some of mine but I’m really not that big on like cheesecake ice cream or a lot of the fancy, trendy flavors.”
She laughs. “And here I thought that your ice cream was like something new.”
“No….my grandparents used to order flavors like this. I like a lot of the old classics.”
Chris looks at me. “Classics?” she leans over and I give her some of my ice cream and she tries it and her eyes light up. “Mmmph iss good!”
I lick where she took a bite from and smooth it out. I sort of do that with my ice cream cones it has to get licked into a sort of smooth sort of dome and then I just sort of do like maintenance licks to keep it like that as it sort of melts.
It’s part just a thing of mine but it’s also a teeth thing. Before I got my life straightened out and before I had any sort of money really to do anything with I was broke and broke goes hand in hand with messed up teeth and things like glasses.
So while they’ve been fixed for a couple of years now and everything there’s habits that are still there.
“I know it’s good, and like the classics like butterscotch ripple or orange pineapple and cherry vanilla, grapenut.”
Chris looks at me. “Orange pineapple?”
I nod and then lick my cone. “It’s not around much anymore really but it was actually really good and even better with orange crush pop and made into a float.”
I adore this look that spreads across her face. “Oh floats, seriously it’s been ages since I’ve had one.”
“I’ll have to make you one; I’m good at making floats.”
Chris smiles. “You’re good at making anything I’ll bet.”
I laugh. “Nope not even close, I’m ill friends with bread baking and I’m horrible with things like puff pastry and things like making or using like curries. The float thing actually came out of working at a restaurant here in the city where we’d make like boozy floats and things.”
She lights up. “Oh really like what?”
“Chocolate ice cream with a shot of fireball over it and then some Dr. Pepper.”
She nods as she’s eating more ice cream. “Shounds good.”
“Then there’s French vanilla with a shot of vodka and some 7-Up.”
Chris looks at me. “You’d be wicked popular at barbeques.”
I shrug. “Not really folks would have to actually be good with me first.”
She takes another bite of her ice cream. “I dunno folks seem pretty okay with you at like that bar.”
I nod. “Yeah and that actually took years Chris both for me to be okay with them and them with me. Though it’s actually getting better than ever in the last couple of years.”
She nods. “It’s been doing that all around, even home.”
“It’s the internet. People are talking about stuff like this twenty-four, seven, three sixty-five and are seeing more and more folks just like them out and living and surviving.”
She’s eating her cone and I take a few licks on mine and then it’s in the right sort of place where I’m using my tongue to push the little bit that’s left deeper into the cone.
No, I have no idea why I just sort have like always done that since I was a kid.
We head back to our car-bike thing and drive it really carefully and slowly as we finish our ice cream with a lot of shared smiles until we get to where we’re going and that’s the umbrella chairs.
It’s a sort of ski-lift kinda ride and it’s pretty high but it also has some great views and it’s something that I’ve wanted to ride like everyone else and that’s with someone.
Plus it’s a slow ride and it has privacy too and a decent amount of space between the seats.
Chris gets that and she is grinning and she took my hand again and leads us both onto the ride and yeah again there’s some looks but it really doesn’t matter.
And the ride is better than good.
It’s not even like teenager make out central either it’s leaning together again and lacing our fingers together and talking.
About the park and the views and thing that are just neat here to me pointing out cool things about Toronto that we can see from up here every now and then.
Even seeing incoming planes fly pretty close by was cool, it’s not like super close but it’s close enough that you can see lots and I’ve actually always liked that about the city.
Like telling her about going out to Lester B. and getting close enough to watch the planes from the road with friends and burgers from Sonny’s because we went up through Brampton.
It’s like suddenly my head’s sort of filled with all the stuff that I kind of have grown to love here and want to show her like Sonny’s because it’s this really old school place that’s this sort of hidden legend for really great and yet greasy and kind of so bad they’re awesome burgers.
Or like going actually out to Woodbine raceway and actually seeing a race actually seeing horses.
It was actually something I had never done in my life until I moved to the city and went more to kill being alone and stuff but it was still pretty worth it.
Castle Loma…I know, I know it’s super like touristy and stuff but it’s a castle…a castle in Toronto and I’d never been to a more Disney Princess like place in my life.
Chris laughs at that. “You watch Disney Princess movies?”
I smile sort of wistfully. “Yeah, I do…It’s a lot of wishing and aching and stuff but I have always sort of felt like my life and being trans in like the whole cinders and Ella thing with me and that someday I’ll have something magical come along and just transform everything. It was pretty important to me as a kid.”
“How you where you when you knew?” Chris asks looking over at me from where her head’s resting.
“Young, pretty much when I started to get there were real serious difference between boys and girls. Then it was like…uhm…no…someone made a really big mistake.”
“Did you tell people?”
“No, I just sort of shoved it all down because I seen what not being a boy that people wanted was like. I did that until I couldn’t and it got too toxic for me to live.”
Chris looks at me and she presses, snuggles in closer and slips her arm in and around me in this cuddle hug.
“Sorry, that had to be hell.”
And then… then it all just sort of comes up, all the stuff I never get to tell other people…all the horrible painful stuff about being trans and I’m starting to cry.
And I’m. (Sniffle-sob.) “I’m…I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I’m wrecking this…I’m sorry.”
And Chris just sort of turns towards me more and she takes some tissues out of her purse and she starts to wipe and clean my face off.
“Shssh…It’s okay, I want to know Rose. I brought it up and I want to know.”
Her eyes are looking into mine with like zero bullshit and she’s even giving me this sweetest give a shit smile too as she’s wiping up my tears.
And no one’s ever done that for me in my entire life.